Fic: The Sky I Choose Is Blue (B7/S&S)
Title: The Sky I Choose Is Blue
Author: lost_spook
Rating: All ages
Word Count: 1870
Characters/Pairings: Cally/Sapphire (B7/S&S), Steel, Kerr Avon.
Notes/Warnings: Vague spoiler for B7 S4 (ep1). Telepathy.
Summary: Sapphire is assigned to retrieve a moment of stolen time - a moment that contains Cally. (Blake's 7/Sapphire & Steel).
I wrote this for halfamoon last year, but didn't manage to type it up in time. I thought I'd try again this year. (So it's actually one of my earliest S&S fics. Just because someone had to write it.)
o0o
Cally finds herself in darkness, and stares into it, waiting for her vision to adjust, but even after a few minutes she is still unable to make out anything. She tries contacting the Liberator to find out what has gone wrong this time. There is no answer.
“Hello?” she calls, and her voice echoes in the darkness. Telepathically, she adds: Is anyone there?
There is still no answer.
Cally returns to trying to work out where she is. She is used to being alone. She is the last of her kind, or very nearly, and the only telepath among her friends. She knows how it feels to lack the companionship that comes with communication from mind to mind. This, however, is another category of alone - the most literal kind. She is alone here because there is no one else present. She can see nothing and hear nothing. She is standing on something, but the surface is smooth and even - not the rough terrain of the planet where she is supposed to be. She is not anywhere she recognises.
She pulls out her weapon and moves forward, but cautiously, holding her other hand outwards to feel for any walls or obstacles ahead.
There must be some explanation or at least a way out and the only thing to do is for her to try and find it.
o0o
Sapphire is inside what could be called a box, though she feels that would be an overly simplistic term. Someone has removed a specific moment of time and space, infinitesimal in the scheme of things, but enough to cause a break if it is not returned to its correct place.
Steel. Can you still hear me?
Only just. What can you see? His voice in her mind is already growing fainter. She knows that she won’t be able to keep the connection in here, but she ignores the edge of fear that brings into her thoughts.
Nothing. It’s very dark. And she smiles to herself, anticipating his impatient response.
Sapphire. You can do better than that.
She concentrates again and becomes more serious. There’s someone else here, Steel.
Careful, Sapphire. They may have caused this.
Sapphire moves forward. Or he or she is what it wanted and now they’re trapped here.
o0o
Cally finds an edge to her surroundings, possibly a wall, although it is completely smooth and does not feel exactly real under her fingers as she runs her hand down it. Still, it’s something, so she sits down against it and holds her weapon; ready and alert.
This time when she listens, she can hear something. It’s only a very faint movement - a sound of rustling and then measured footsteps. There is something else, too, like a whisper. It’s someone talking too quietly for her to hear the words. It takes her a long moment before she realises, that it is something she is hearing within her mind.
“Who’s there?” she calls out, and straightens up, though she carefully keeps her back against the wall.
o0o
Sapphire senses the human, the mortal, with her mind. It’s still too dark to see anything but the woman’s thoughts are surprisingly strong.
“I’m Sapphire,” she says.
“Why did you bring me here? What do you want?”
Sapphire moves nearer. Light would be useful, but she has none. The human is fearful without it. Sapphire can feel her thoughts again. “I didn’t. You want to get out, don’t you? I’m here to help you do that.”
Mentally, Sapphire directs her thoughts back at Steel: There’s someone here. A woman. A prisoner, I think.
There’s no reply. She’s cut off from him now.
You are a telepath?
Sapphire turns in surprise. The woman’s voice is clear in her mind. Whoever she is, she’s used to this manner of speaking. Sapphire’s eyes glow briefly blue, and then she puts her hand out to grip the human’s arm. Yes, I suppose you could say that.
Sapphire’s taking readings. The woman is not human, although the difference is negligible and unimportant to Sapphire. But she sees her now: Cally. Auron. There has been loss. Loss and silence and exile. Sapphire lets go and steps back swiftly, as she sees more. Cally’s time of existence left is short, only months now, not years.
Cally’s mind, though, is unusual, perhaps even unique. Sapphire touches her arm again, fascinated. Her mind is trained, not silent, like that of most humans. There is strength in it that has attracted and repulsed creatures from outside time and space before, those nameless things that Sapphire knows - ghosts and gods and monsters.
“If you didn’t bring me here, then who did, and why?” asks Cally, breaking into Sapphire’s mental explorations with a purely practical question.
Sapphire gives a small smile. Something, she says. Something malevolent.
“I suppose it would be,” Cally says, with dry humour. “It usually is.”
It wants to use you.
Cally raises her head. “That, too.”
o0o
Maybe Cally should feel flattered by the attention, but she doesn’t. This isn’t the first time this has happened and it’s only tiresome and dangerous.
Cally looks over at the woman again. She can’t see her, strictly speaking, of course, but she knows exactly where she is. She can see her mind. There’s something cold about her, but clear and cold, like a sharp blue-skied winter’s morning. Cally knows about possession, but Sapphire is telling the truth - she’s not here for that. Sapphire has no wish or need to possess. To explore, to know, even to admire, perhaps, but not to take or own. There’s power in her, in a way that leaves Cally breathless at her touch and brings a flush to her cheeks.
So Cally does not see any use in remaining suspicious, though she allows herself the amusement of wondering what her crewmates would do - what Avon would say.
“If you got in,” Cally says, putting away her thoughts and reverting to pragmatism, “surely we can get out the same way?”
I don’t think it would work for you. Then Sapphire stands absolutely still for minute or two as her eyes glow bright blue. Then she grips Cally’s arm. It’s here! The creature.
Cally turns around, but she can’t hear anything and the only thing she senses is Sapphire’s alarm - and something in the other’s mind about darkness sliding towards them.
CALLY.
Now she feels it, and she moves nearer to Sapphire. I can fight it, Cally says. She’s not boasting; it’s a quiet statement of fact. She can. She’s had practice. She once turned a similar creature away with only the aid of a Moondisc and here, here she has Sapphire.
Yes, you can, Sapphire agrees. You can make it release you; drive it away. And I can help.
o0o
Sapphire takes Cally’s hands, first one and then the other, intertwining their fingers and lets their thoughts merge in a way she has never done with any human. Under the excuse of necessity, she’s alive with curiosity as to what will result from this connection.
Cally is a warrior and knows how to use their minds to fight. Sapphire knows the creature they face, but that instinct for fighting, of needing to survive, the desire for another’s death - that is a human urge she does not own. She merely executes at need. Cally, calm and trained, non-hostile as she is, knows it and - more than most - knows how to take it, control it and channel it.
Sapphire can see the crack in reality where it slips through and she can see how wrong this place is. Cally can push the creature back. Together, they can seal the break behind it and then escape this moment-in-a-box.
Sapphire gasps out as they complete this. She can shatter the enemy if she wants now, she and Cally together; she can stretch out her mind - their entwined minds - beyond this place, see into anything or anyone she chooses.
Cally sees stars and planets, the unexpected history of the fabrics she wears, as Sapphire does, but she responds with emotion, to which Sapphire is a fascinated follower within. Sapphire understands why the awe, or the sadness, but she does not feel it in the same way, except perhaps in this now.
Cally is cool-headed for a mortal, but to Sapphire her emotions blaze and burn like a fire to which she cannot help but be drawn. She’s never found a human mind so compatible with her own. Humans are frequently so easily dismissed; she anticipates their predictable reactions, knows how they move at the dictates of chemistry and physics. She sees their worst sides over and over. Now, from inside, each thought and reaction has a weight of emotion and connotations that enthral her. Sapphire sees a universe open up in a place that had seemed too small even to visit.
They could stay here in this frozen fraction of time, in an eternity of each other and this new world they make between them. They could, but they won’t. Both are rooted in pragmatism, in what must be done, even Cally, though she loves and grieves and knows all the distractions of humanity (the Auronar? Sapphire does not register a sufficient difference to chase the idea of the distinction).
Sapphire slides one hand free as Cally removes the other; moving together. It’s done, and they’ll disappear from here soon, or here will return itself to where it belongs and Cally with it.
Sapphire breathes out and opens her eyes. Whether there’s light somewhere, or they are now unable not to see each other, Cally is visible to her. Sapphire leans forward, against her, putting a hand to Cally’s cheek, and then she kisses her on the mouth. Sapphire’s touch is cold, but Cally doesn’t move away. There’s only a sharp sorrow in her at losing the other. Resigned, but there in her mind and in her eyes.
I will see you again, Sapphire says in her mind, in unemotional certainty. Cally. The last is almost a caress - she wants to try out the name and the echoes of emotion it leaves in her.
Cally closes her eyes.
o0o
It’s a shock that the voice she hears next is Avon, speaking aloud - sounding impatient and harsh in her ears. She’s too late to say anything else to Sapphire, she realises, and experiences a pang of loss.
“Well?” said Avon. “Did something happen? There was a five minute delay between you leaving Liberator and arriving here. That’s not usual. If something’s gone wrong again, I want to know. Cally?”
She shakes her head and draws herself up, becoming aloof, as she surveys the dusty, rocky surface of the planet. “No. Nothing is wrong. Everything is exactly as it should be.”
“I’d say that’s unusual enough to make me worry,” said Avon.
She only shrugs, and won’t say anything more.
o0o
You’ve finished?
Yes, Sapphire says. There’s an unspoken query in his mind as Steel takes her hand but she won’t answer it, not yet. She will when she can, of course, but not yet.
o0o
And later, much later, back on board Liberator, in her dreams, Cally is not alone as before: she is forever lost in Sapphire.
o0o
Crossposted from Dreamwidth -- Comments there:
Author: lost_spook
Rating: All ages
Word Count: 1870
Characters/Pairings: Cally/Sapphire (B7/S&S), Steel, Kerr Avon.
Notes/Warnings: Vague spoiler for B7 S4 (ep1). Telepathy.
Summary: Sapphire is assigned to retrieve a moment of stolen time - a moment that contains Cally. (Blake's 7/Sapphire & Steel).
I wrote this for halfamoon last year, but didn't manage to type it up in time. I thought I'd try again this year. (So it's actually one of my earliest S&S fics. Just because someone had to write it.)
o0o
Cally finds herself in darkness, and stares into it, waiting for her vision to adjust, but even after a few minutes she is still unable to make out anything. She tries contacting the Liberator to find out what has gone wrong this time. There is no answer.
“Hello?” she calls, and her voice echoes in the darkness. Telepathically, she adds: Is anyone there?
There is still no answer.
Cally returns to trying to work out where she is. She is used to being alone. She is the last of her kind, or very nearly, and the only telepath among her friends. She knows how it feels to lack the companionship that comes with communication from mind to mind. This, however, is another category of alone - the most literal kind. She is alone here because there is no one else present. She can see nothing and hear nothing. She is standing on something, but the surface is smooth and even - not the rough terrain of the planet where she is supposed to be. She is not anywhere she recognises.
She pulls out her weapon and moves forward, but cautiously, holding her other hand outwards to feel for any walls or obstacles ahead.
There must be some explanation or at least a way out and the only thing to do is for her to try and find it.
o0o
Sapphire is inside what could be called a box, though she feels that would be an overly simplistic term. Someone has removed a specific moment of time and space, infinitesimal in the scheme of things, but enough to cause a break if it is not returned to its correct place.
Steel. Can you still hear me?
Only just. What can you see? His voice in her mind is already growing fainter. She knows that she won’t be able to keep the connection in here, but she ignores the edge of fear that brings into her thoughts.
Nothing. It’s very dark. And she smiles to herself, anticipating his impatient response.
Sapphire. You can do better than that.
She concentrates again and becomes more serious. There’s someone else here, Steel.
Careful, Sapphire. They may have caused this.
Sapphire moves forward. Or he or she is what it wanted and now they’re trapped here.
o0o
Cally finds an edge to her surroundings, possibly a wall, although it is completely smooth and does not feel exactly real under her fingers as she runs her hand down it. Still, it’s something, so she sits down against it and holds her weapon; ready and alert.
This time when she listens, she can hear something. It’s only a very faint movement - a sound of rustling and then measured footsteps. There is something else, too, like a whisper. It’s someone talking too quietly for her to hear the words. It takes her a long moment before she realises, that it is something she is hearing within her mind.
“Who’s there?” she calls out, and straightens up, though she carefully keeps her back against the wall.
o0o
Sapphire senses the human, the mortal, with her mind. It’s still too dark to see anything but the woman’s thoughts are surprisingly strong.
“I’m Sapphire,” she says.
“Why did you bring me here? What do you want?”
Sapphire moves nearer. Light would be useful, but she has none. The human is fearful without it. Sapphire can feel her thoughts again. “I didn’t. You want to get out, don’t you? I’m here to help you do that.”
Mentally, Sapphire directs her thoughts back at Steel: There’s someone here. A woman. A prisoner, I think.
There’s no reply. She’s cut off from him now.
You are a telepath?
Sapphire turns in surprise. The woman’s voice is clear in her mind. Whoever she is, she’s used to this manner of speaking. Sapphire’s eyes glow briefly blue, and then she puts her hand out to grip the human’s arm. Yes, I suppose you could say that.
Sapphire’s taking readings. The woman is not human, although the difference is negligible and unimportant to Sapphire. But she sees her now: Cally. Auron. There has been loss. Loss and silence and exile. Sapphire lets go and steps back swiftly, as she sees more. Cally’s time of existence left is short, only months now, not years.
Cally’s mind, though, is unusual, perhaps even unique. Sapphire touches her arm again, fascinated. Her mind is trained, not silent, like that of most humans. There is strength in it that has attracted and repulsed creatures from outside time and space before, those nameless things that Sapphire knows - ghosts and gods and monsters.
“If you didn’t bring me here, then who did, and why?” asks Cally, breaking into Sapphire’s mental explorations with a purely practical question.
Sapphire gives a small smile. Something, she says. Something malevolent.
“I suppose it would be,” Cally says, with dry humour. “It usually is.”
It wants to use you.
Cally raises her head. “That, too.”
o0o
Maybe Cally should feel flattered by the attention, but she doesn’t. This isn’t the first time this has happened and it’s only tiresome and dangerous.
Cally looks over at the woman again. She can’t see her, strictly speaking, of course, but she knows exactly where she is. She can see her mind. There’s something cold about her, but clear and cold, like a sharp blue-skied winter’s morning. Cally knows about possession, but Sapphire is telling the truth - she’s not here for that. Sapphire has no wish or need to possess. To explore, to know, even to admire, perhaps, but not to take or own. There’s power in her, in a way that leaves Cally breathless at her touch and brings a flush to her cheeks.
So Cally does not see any use in remaining suspicious, though she allows herself the amusement of wondering what her crewmates would do - what Avon would say.
“If you got in,” Cally says, putting away her thoughts and reverting to pragmatism, “surely we can get out the same way?”
I don’t think it would work for you. Then Sapphire stands absolutely still for minute or two as her eyes glow bright blue. Then she grips Cally’s arm. It’s here! The creature.
Cally turns around, but she can’t hear anything and the only thing she senses is Sapphire’s alarm - and something in the other’s mind about darkness sliding towards them.
CALLY.
Now she feels it, and she moves nearer to Sapphire. I can fight it, Cally says. She’s not boasting; it’s a quiet statement of fact. She can. She’s had practice. She once turned a similar creature away with only the aid of a Moondisc and here, here she has Sapphire.
Yes, you can, Sapphire agrees. You can make it release you; drive it away. And I can help.
o0o
Sapphire takes Cally’s hands, first one and then the other, intertwining their fingers and lets their thoughts merge in a way she has never done with any human. Under the excuse of necessity, she’s alive with curiosity as to what will result from this connection.
Cally is a warrior and knows how to use their minds to fight. Sapphire knows the creature they face, but that instinct for fighting, of needing to survive, the desire for another’s death - that is a human urge she does not own. She merely executes at need. Cally, calm and trained, non-hostile as she is, knows it and - more than most - knows how to take it, control it and channel it.
Sapphire can see the crack in reality where it slips through and she can see how wrong this place is. Cally can push the creature back. Together, they can seal the break behind it and then escape this moment-in-a-box.
Sapphire gasps out as they complete this. She can shatter the enemy if she wants now, she and Cally together; she can stretch out her mind - their entwined minds - beyond this place, see into anything or anyone she chooses.
Cally sees stars and planets, the unexpected history of the fabrics she wears, as Sapphire does, but she responds with emotion, to which Sapphire is a fascinated follower within. Sapphire understands why the awe, or the sadness, but she does not feel it in the same way, except perhaps in this now.
Cally is cool-headed for a mortal, but to Sapphire her emotions blaze and burn like a fire to which she cannot help but be drawn. She’s never found a human mind so compatible with her own. Humans are frequently so easily dismissed; she anticipates their predictable reactions, knows how they move at the dictates of chemistry and physics. She sees their worst sides over and over. Now, from inside, each thought and reaction has a weight of emotion and connotations that enthral her. Sapphire sees a universe open up in a place that had seemed too small even to visit.
They could stay here in this frozen fraction of time, in an eternity of each other and this new world they make between them. They could, but they won’t. Both are rooted in pragmatism, in what must be done, even Cally, though she loves and grieves and knows all the distractions of humanity (the Auronar? Sapphire does not register a sufficient difference to chase the idea of the distinction).
Sapphire slides one hand free as Cally removes the other; moving together. It’s done, and they’ll disappear from here soon, or here will return itself to where it belongs and Cally with it.
Sapphire breathes out and opens her eyes. Whether there’s light somewhere, or they are now unable not to see each other, Cally is visible to her. Sapphire leans forward, against her, putting a hand to Cally’s cheek, and then she kisses her on the mouth. Sapphire’s touch is cold, but Cally doesn’t move away. There’s only a sharp sorrow in her at losing the other. Resigned, but there in her mind and in her eyes.
I will see you again, Sapphire says in her mind, in unemotional certainty. Cally. The last is almost a caress - she wants to try out the name and the echoes of emotion it leaves in her.
Cally closes her eyes.
o0o
It’s a shock that the voice she hears next is Avon, speaking aloud - sounding impatient and harsh in her ears. She’s too late to say anything else to Sapphire, she realises, and experiences a pang of loss.
“Well?” said Avon. “Did something happen? There was a five minute delay between you leaving Liberator and arriving here. That’s not usual. If something’s gone wrong again, I want to know. Cally?”
She shakes her head and draws herself up, becoming aloof, as she surveys the dusty, rocky surface of the planet. “No. Nothing is wrong. Everything is exactly as it should be.”
“I’d say that’s unusual enough to make me worry,” said Avon.
She only shrugs, and won’t say anything more.
o0o
You’ve finished?
Yes, Sapphire says. There’s an unspoken query in his mind as Steel takes her hand but she won’t answer it, not yet. She will when she can, of course, but not yet.
o0o
And later, much later, back on board Liberator, in her dreams, Cally is not alone as before: she is forever lost in Sapphire.
o0o
Crossposted from Dreamwidth -- Comments there: