Rage (B5, Na'Toth, PG)

[vjs2259]

Rage

B5, S3 thru S5, Na'Toth, rated PG
beta'd by kungfuwaynewho  and R
icon byruuger

Note: posted for day 1, year 7 ofbabylon5_love. This is my sixth year posting!

Na'Toth's imprisonment changed her, and not for the better.

The first year she spent most of her time sharpening her teeth and nails. She wanted to be ready when the opportunity came to slit the throat of her guard. At least

Comments

[alexcat]

You captured utter hopelessness quite well. It has a chilling effect.

[vjs2259]

Thank you. I wish we knew what happened to her.

[nenya_kanadka]

My very first introduction to Na'Toth was natoth_muse, a roleplayed Na'Toth for theatrical_muse, set after B5 S5, in which Na'Toth is putting her life back together and trying to help Narn recover from the latest round of destruction. So I have always thought of her as having a future. (And I always knew, from the first time I met her on the show, that she'd ended up in Centauri prison for a long time, though not how bad that was.) I wish there had been more canon on Na'Toth, though!

(Tangentially, it was really interesting playing a human alongside a Narn character, while I was a native English-speaker and she wasn't (Russian). It added a bit of verisimilitude to the cultural differences!)

[vjs2259]

I always pictured her giving up on politics and the Kha'ri (sp?) and joining a Narn back to nature effort; sort of a kibbutz like group trying to make the deserts bloom. I'd want to be outside and around other people all day long after that ordeal.

[lilyoftheval5]

Oh wow, that was powerful.
The progression of her deterioration is heartbreaking.

[vjs2259]

I researched the effects of starvation, light and water deprivation, and solitary confinement once for a story and the results haunted me. Thanks, and nice to hear from you.

[nenya_kanadka]

Oh, wow. Short and terrifying. Very well done.

[vjs2259]

Thanks very much. I like short pieces to have a punch.

[vjs2259]

Thanks so much! I hated that they just left Na'Toth there for so long. And although they used her plight to underscore a point about senseless tradition, I never liked that they made a bit of comedy out of her tragedy.

[kungfuwaynewho]

I always love revisiting a fanfic after some time. I think it was more powerful reading it now. The cadence of "the first year," "the second year," "the third year," opening each paragraph gives the piece a lovely rhythm, something vaguely akin to poetry.

[vjs2259]

Thank you for reading it in the first place. I never posted it at the time, but since I had to come up with something for this celebration, I dusted it off a little and voila.

I like short pieces, conclusions, and conversation to flow like poetry. I hear them with a cadence in my head. And I have an insane fondness for writing things in threes; triptychs come naturally to me.