fic: Firefly; Zoe
Title: under billowing sky
Fandom: Firefly. Zoe.
Spoilers: Through Serenity. The movie, not the episode.
Word count: 371
Notes: Written for prlrocks for the whedonland fic fest; inspired by her prompts "need to rest" and "the ocean". Title from Laura Marling's song "The Captain and the Hourglass".
There are times they look at Zoe and she isn’t there, and they wonder (have wondered, will wonder), all of them, if maybe they’ve lost her, too.
They don’t know: she is learning things, and her studies are rigorous.
(Every day a lesson, three, five; every second a readjustment, new angles, new words; new words like widow like childless like buried; bodies in the earth and not in the air; take a preacher and a pilot and what do you get, and what is grief to the power of x when x is the number of minutes she’s managed not to shatter?)
She cannot explain it, cannot articulate a thing, but Mal has staked more lives than his on understanding her, and he understands this: that Wash belonged, belongs, in the sky and that now, the sky will always be empty; that Wash is cradled in the earth, and that she will feel his bones crumbling beneath her feet whenever she walks it; that Serenity, for all its fiery speed and power, can never outrace that which follows her, haunting her gently.
Mal understands, and he takes her to the water.
It stretches on and on and on, and for a shimmering instant she wants nothing more than to follow it to its end. But she isn’t one for such thoughts, and she banishes it. Just another lesson.
And she wades, and every lap of the surf around her ankles tugs softly, and the wet sand weighs her down. Her stillness presses in on her, unfamiliar; she is walking towards instead of running from for the first time. It hurts.
She hurts, and she wades until she is up to her waist, and she whispers to him.
Zoe doesn’t cry, but here, the briny surf does the crying for her. Every splash against her stomach is a sob she will never heave, and as she whispers, and the sea cries, she closes her eyes and she feels him.
When the water releases her, drawing back and bearing her to the shore, she senses that she has left something behind, and is lighter for the leaving.
Pain has a way of replenishing itself, but so does she. She walks to her captain.
Fandom: Firefly. Zoe.
Spoilers: Through Serenity. The movie, not the episode.
Word count: 371
Notes: Written for prlrocks for the whedonland fic fest; inspired by her prompts "need to rest" and "the ocean". Title from Laura Marling's song "The Captain and the Hourglass".
There are times they look at Zoe and she isn’t there, and they wonder (have wondered, will wonder), all of them, if maybe they’ve lost her, too.
They don’t know: she is learning things, and her studies are rigorous.
(Every day a lesson, three, five; every second a readjustment, new angles, new words; new words like widow like childless like buried; bodies in the earth and not in the air; take a preacher and a pilot and what do you get, and what is grief to the power of x when x is the number of minutes she’s managed not to shatter?)
She cannot explain it, cannot articulate a thing, but Mal has staked more lives than his on understanding her, and he understands this: that Wash belonged, belongs, in the sky and that now, the sky will always be empty; that Wash is cradled in the earth, and that she will feel his bones crumbling beneath her feet whenever she walks it; that Serenity, for all its fiery speed and power, can never outrace that which follows her, haunting her gently.
Mal understands, and he takes her to the water.
It stretches on and on and on, and for a shimmering instant she wants nothing more than to follow it to its end. But she isn’t one for such thoughts, and she banishes it. Just another lesson.
And she wades, and every lap of the surf around her ankles tugs softly, and the wet sand weighs her down. Her stillness presses in on her, unfamiliar; she is walking towards instead of running from for the first time. It hurts.
She hurts, and she wades until she is up to her waist, and she whispers to him.
Zoe doesn’t cry, but here, the briny surf does the crying for her. Every splash against her stomach is a sob she will never heave, and as she whispers, and the sea cries, she closes her eyes and she feels him.
When the water releases her, drawing back and bearing her to the shore, she senses that she has left something behind, and is lighter for the leaving.
Pain has a way of replenishing itself, but so does she. She walks to her captain.