Ficlet: Legacy
For last week's b7friday topic of Cally, 550 words.
Legacy
Cally sat in her cabin, sketching, her pencil recreating the delicate tracery of branches trailing onto the surface of a bright river bubbling over stones. She drew long stems of grass by the bank, smiling as the monochrome picture brought back the sparking scene to her mind.
Remember, Zelda?
Oh, yes. And you falling in, leaning out to far to get that dragonfly.
Cally laughed, and beside her--she thought of Zelda as beside her--Zelda smiled.
The others thought she had shut herself in here to mourn. They didn't know. They had no idea that the telepaths among the Auronar could give a piece of themselves to those they loved, imprinting their pattern on a small part of the vast untouched and unused reaches of the mind so that something of them remained. It was real. The Liberator's crew would never understand, even though Cally had used that old curse when she had first met Blake--may you die alone and silent. Alone with no one to give yourself to. Silent, for you would never speak again.
Zelda spoke. Cally was closer to Zelda than she had been for years.
***
Cally blinked her eyes open in the dusty darkness. Something vast and immovable lay across her, crushing her, and a numbness that spoke of pain too great to feel filled her body.
This was it? This was the moment? Zelda... Zelda, I'm sorry. For now Zelda would truly die.
Your memories of me will go with you.
Go where? Cally reached out, her consciousness expanding, made more powerful by the release of death.
Vila was the first one she found, the easiest to locate, bright and fuzzy to this strange new perception. He had always been the only human she had ever received anything from. He was calling her. Too late, Vila.
Vila.
He stilled, and she slipped in, leaving a portion of herself, then passed on to Tarrant, unconscious on the ground. So easy to slide into his slow dreams and leave a part of herself there. Then on to Dayna and Avon. Dayna's mind was open; young, clear, certain; easy to leave her mark. Avon though... Avon's mind was hidden behind high walls of adamantine and ice. Oh, Avon, you cannot protect yourself from hurt that way. She was too weak now to beat at the walls. She turned away.
She was fading now. Would one of them hear her? Or would she truly be alone and silent?
There was one more, the only one who had shared her dream of justice and freedom. She drove herself across the dark light years in one last desperate attempt to reach him.
BLAKE!
***
Vila often dreamed of Cally. She was right there beside him, smiling and talking, and he talked back. However the dreams, like all dreams, floated away like smoke when he woke. He kept it to himself, but at least he remembered her. No one else even mentioned poor Cally.
Dayna and Tarrant still found Vila exasperating, but for some reason they also felt an odd sort of affection for him, and for Avon, even at his worst.
And Avon withdraw even more. If you did not care, you could not be hurt, could you? Why then did he feel as though he had lost something very important?