half-remembered dreams of the graceless and the frightened
hera understands more than she lets on. a child of two worlds will unite them all. battlestar galactica. hera agathon. mild spoilers up to daybreak. 380 words. pg. yeah, i don't even know. unbeta-d.
half-remembered dreams of the graceless and the frightened
Hera understands more than she lets on, more than she should at her age.
She knows her parents have been through a lot just for her (they think it was for her, but she knows better, it's for all of them, both her peoples). But like the scared little girl she sometimes is, she puts her fingers in her ears when they start fighting and pretends she is someplace else.
The memories of New Caprica and her stay aboard the Cylon basestar won't ever go away, and she can still feel the fresh air and the pulsing red around her. She doodles the images on paper, but her parents just don't understand. (It frustrates her more than should be possible.)
She sees a woman with red curls that are there one day and gone the next. (She looks weak.) But even without the hair she remembers the face, the smile, the kind eyes. She remembers being taken care of, being loved, by people other than her parents. She went by a different name back then, too. (A name that sounded different, but meant the same.)
They're all looking for something, the entire fleet. The sick woman is, and the man everybody looks up to. Her parents are, too, just like their blonde friend who she feels is neither Cylon nor human, but something (someone) else altogether.
Hera does not like change (a planet which isn't more than fleeting images, a black-and-red basestar that she has pushed into the far corners of her memory, and finally an aging ship-a constantly moving home, but a family at last), but she goes along with it, does what she knows she has to do, with a wisdom and a patience beyond her years (beyond her race). She intuitively senses what is right and what is wrong and which path will lead them to salvation. (She draws the map, coordinates as tiny splashes of colour.) There is only one, after all, one they all refuse to see.
Hera is a child of two species, but she knows that inside, they are all the same, for when she dreams, she sees the same things everyone else does. When she dreams, it's of lush green fields and the deep blue sea. Of Earth.
fin.