vail-kagami: Cassandra, Lost in Fornax (Jack/Ten) [G]
Title: Cassandra, Lost in Fornax
Author:
vail_kagami
Challenge: Life and Death
Rating: G
Spoilers: None
Warnings: None
Summary: She sees them in the passing crowd.
She sees them in the passing crowd, wearing their destinies like cloaks that envelope them and spread out to cover the people around them, the world. Both of them glow with life (so much more life than she has ever seen before), and both of them carry the shadow of death - but the balance isn’t right. One of them carries all his life on the inside, radiating it, passing it on, and only in that process it mingles with death. The shadow doesn’t get a hold of him, eternally dancing around him instead, like shifting water, like a butterfly looking for the gab in the glass.
The other sees her first. She doesn’t think he caught her staring, but suddenly he turns and looks at her, through eyes that are large, curious, strikingly dark. Death is a part of him, death has eaten a part of him. She can see the consequences of all his actions past and future trailing behind him, and the shadow is too overwhelming to frighten her. He brings death more than the other, and yet it’s life he glows with, sending it out to jump from person to person and dance through the universe. He lives. He loves life and loves the living, and she’d smile at him if she couldn’t see that it’s still death that’s leading his way. All his life is worn on the outside.
Life is represented by the other one. Blue eyes follow dark ones and see her, and the glowing life is almost blinding when he smiles at her, not in the way he would smile at someone older than she looks. He longs for death, but not the way he used to. He wanted to die, once, and for a long time he wanted the shadow man and all he represented, but now he thinks he’s grown up. (He hasn’t.)
He doesn’t want to die anymore. His friend is death, is shadow, but his life is infecting. It’s good that the bright one gave up on dying (for good) now, she thinks, because he won’t.
He’s incomplete. She can see it, and also that for his incompleteness he believes himself healed, and the shadow man can see her, and sees what she sees and he knows. It’s all around him, the knowledge, and he cannot change it. It’s not in his nature.
The life that washes over her as the bright one crouches to look into her eyes with his blue ones doesn’t touch her. He brings death, everywhere, but it’s not what he’s meant for. He saves. He preserves.
And he fails. It’s not enough. In his past she sees the exact moment when he missed the turn and walked into the wrong direction.
She tells him, Life has no meaning without death. In return, he smiles at her, and crooks his head, indulging, faking interest. He doesn’t understand. Of course not. He doesn’t understand, because he’s listening to the child he believes her to be, not her.
The other understands. He doesn’t smile at her, and in his eyes she recognizes sadness and resentment. Wanting to reach for him she looks away, knowing she cannot touch them. (They can’t be touched by anyone but each other.)
When she looks up they both are gone, but she can still see their traces in the passing crowd.
April 9, 2009
Author:
vail_kagami
Challenge: Life and Death
Rating: G
Spoilers: None
Warnings: None
Summary: She sees them in the passing crowd.
She sees them in the passing crowd, wearing their destinies like cloaks that envelope them and spread out to cover the people around them, the world. Both of them glow with life (so much more life than she has ever seen before), and both of them carry the shadow of death - but the balance isn’t right. One of them carries all his life on the inside, radiating it, passing it on, and only in that process it mingles with death. The shadow doesn’t get a hold of him, eternally dancing around him instead, like shifting water, like a butterfly looking for the gab in the glass.
The other sees her first. She doesn’t think he caught her staring, but suddenly he turns and looks at her, through eyes that are large, curious, strikingly dark. Death is a part of him, death has eaten a part of him. She can see the consequences of all his actions past and future trailing behind him, and the shadow is too overwhelming to frighten her. He brings death more than the other, and yet it’s life he glows with, sending it out to jump from person to person and dance through the universe. He lives. He loves life and loves the living, and she’d smile at him if she couldn’t see that it’s still death that’s leading his way. All his life is worn on the outside.
Life is represented by the other one. Blue eyes follow dark ones and see her, and the glowing life is almost blinding when he smiles at her, not in the way he would smile at someone older than she looks. He longs for death, but not the way he used to. He wanted to die, once, and for a long time he wanted the shadow man and all he represented, but now he thinks he’s grown up. (He hasn’t.)
He doesn’t want to die anymore. His friend is death, is shadow, but his life is infecting. It’s good that the bright one gave up on dying (for good) now, she thinks, because he won’t.
He’s incomplete. She can see it, and also that for his incompleteness he believes himself healed, and the shadow man can see her, and sees what she sees and he knows. It’s all around him, the knowledge, and he cannot change it. It’s not in his nature.
The life that washes over her as the bright one crouches to look into her eyes with his blue ones doesn’t touch her. He brings death, everywhere, but it’s not what he’s meant for. He saves. He preserves.
And he fails. It’s not enough. In his past she sees the exact moment when he missed the turn and walked into the wrong direction.
She tells him, Life has no meaning without death. In return, he smiles at her, and crooks his head, indulging, faking interest. He doesn’t understand. Of course not. He doesn’t understand, because he’s listening to the child he believes her to be, not her.
The other understands. He doesn’t smile at her, and in his eyes she recognizes sadness and resentment. Wanting to reach for him she looks away, knowing she cannot touch them. (They can’t be touched by anyone but each other.)
When she looks up they both are gone, but she can still see their traces in the passing crowd.
April 9, 2009