Author: Apathy
Disclaimer: They're not mine, I'm sorry to say.
Rating: PG-13
Recipient: Andraste
Fandom: Farscape/Babylon 5
Pairing: Zhaan/G'Kar
Spoilers: None, really; pre-series for both fandoms.
Notes: Enormous thanks to AstroGirl and Sab for the betas (and for dealing with my last-minute freak-outs), and to Andraste, for being so patient. *g*
Summary: A meeting, a chip, and a raslak.
The night air is cool and dank, and smells almost overwhelmingly of rotting flesh.
She ignores the stench, keeps her bearing correct and her eyes ahead, her strides even and sure. Darra'la's less reputable citizens, obviously well-versed in the art of avoiding danger they cannot handle, part before her as she makes her way down the alley. For, while her modest clothing and covered head may say 'devout student of holy orders', her attitude, when need be, screams 'frell off'.
She turns her head towards a man who lingers too close, and he scurries off with almost unnatural speed.
As it should be.
She locates the establishment easily, having memorised its precise location weekens before, and enters without hesitation. Taking a seat at the bar, she orders a large raslak with jsela berries and vrern, making sure that her voice is loud enough to carry a fair distance. The bartender gives her a look of pure disbelief, but she just stares him out until he gives up.
A large form slips onto the seat next to her, and she dares the quickest of glances while the bartender searches for the vrern.
Not a species she recognises. This is no surprise, of course. She catalogues as much as she can within the half-microt or so she looks at him.
Obviously well-built; his strange leather coat hangs from his shoulders in the most appealing of ways. Another time and place, and she could happily spend quite a few arns carrying out a detailed exploration of what lies beneath. She moves onto his face: hard, alien, and expressionless.
His eyes, though -- they startle her. Deep red, and she's seen that colour many a time before. She wonders if he's as mad as she sometimes suspects she herself is. It would make sense, as much as anything makes sense anymore.
He doesn't look back at her, instead appearing to study the mouldy drinks list on the wall. She returns her own gaze to nothing in particular, doing her best to radiate an air of disinterest.
The bartender slaps a glass down in front of her nose, and she smiles, handing over fifty-two darra'len credits. She takes a long swallow of the hideous concoction, preventing her face from screwing up through sheer force of will. Her mental training can come in handy at the most unlikely of times.
Her companion orders a raslak. Just the single word, and it comes from his mouth with difficulty, his accent rich and unfamiliar.
She tries to comprehend what it must be like to live life without translator microbes. The concept of such a thing is as foreign to her as anything has ever been.
While the bartender's back is once again turned, this man's hand moves slightly over the sticky bar top. She moves her own hand surreptitiously in response, and the corrugated surface of a data chip slides beneath her fingertips. With a minimum of motion, she hides her hand within the folds of her robe, tucking the chip in securely next to her pulse pistol.
Such precious information. A slow, lingering death for thousands, should she successfully make use of it.
She forces herself to swallow another mouthful of her drink. Refrains from tilting her head to the left, from looking at this man who is both stranger and ally.
There's nothing to do but pass the time, to hang around long enough to avoid raising any suspicions. Conversation is out of the question, for multiple reasons, but she's curious. She wants to meet the man who has, it is said, achieved so much -- who has done battle with a race allegedly every bit as nasty as the Peacekeepers, and kept himself alive throughout.
There is only so much she can tell from sitting next to the man with her eyes averted, from the coded and translated messages she and her comrades receive from him on a regular basis.
Arrogance, yes. Pride-ridden fool, puffed up like a lahalon -- men are the same everywhere. And a quiet, unshakeable dignity.
Qualities she can appreciate, even if she won't admit it. Some days, they're the only things that keep her going.
All in all, it's not much. She can't exchange a word with him. She doesn't even know his name.
Bitaal has always warned her against the dangers of practicing Unity before she is completely ready. That it's barely possible at her level, and certainly not safe; but then again, Bitaal has always been conservative.
The darker impulses are so difficult to resist, and she has no desire to do so. So intoxicating. Addictive.
She slides her mind into his, and at first, she is like a small child, reaching out in wonder and confusion. It quickly moves on, and now it is like the first tentative adolescent interaction, awkward and uncertain. Pleasurable, but also infuriating, and she curses her inability to perform the act without flaw.
Her worldly body trembles from the strain of keeping itself in an innocuous-looking position. Not full Unity -- the orientation is wrong, they're not touching, and she lacks sufficient training. Just a moderate bond, enough to allow them to communicate.
She ignores the sensation of vertigo as best she can, the distortions that come with a poorly-undertaken Union. Sends waves of gentle calm into her -- him -- them, doing her best to keep her anger safely locked away.
Hello?
He is not -- afraid, as such. Yet. Merely cautious, and she radiates reassurance.
Greetings. I am Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan.
And he knows this, of course, because -- at least on some level -- he is her. And he introduces himself in kind.
How -- ?
And she lets him know how, shows him images of her training, of her people. What they are capable of. What they will be denied if Bitaal and his cronies succeed in bringing about Peacekeeper control. And, by the Goddess, she hates Bitaal so much, can see herself bringing about his death in a thousand different ways. Strangulation is one attractive option. Or maybe by knife; she sends the image with a particularly vehement stab, lets him feel the cooling sap dribble over his fingers.
Or perhaps she'll just tear out his mind and feast on his soul. It would be more fitting.
G'Kar seems to approve.
He asks her about Bitaal. Whether she really hates him as much as she says. There's a knowing smugness to his tone, and she wonders if it's possible to hit someone within Unity.
Of course. Of course I hate him.
Uncertainty there, and she loathes herself for it.
You do not. It is understandable. But the man is a traitor, Zhaan. He would see your people beaten down into the dust, would ally himself with those who wish to join forces with my own enemy. There is a race that has a saying: 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'. I consider you my friend, Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan. We understand each other, understand the drive for freedom. And you know as well as I do that freedom does not come without a price.
She lets herself drink from his simmering anger, and it is slow, heavy, and sweet.
And she takes in the rest of him, too, explores all aspects of his life even as she gives hers to him. Examines his family, his work, his spirituality. A faith written in the blood of a million lost souls.
Seeing this, seeing how things could end for Delvia, she thinks that she's more than happy to play her part. More than happy to have a little guilty blood on her hands, if it will spare millions more of the righteous from mindless destruction. More than happy to succumb to a little madness, if that's what's necessary, because sanity is not an option when dealing with those who conquer and annihilate simply because they can.
She imagines Peacekeeper blood flowing through the streets, thin and red. Imagines their twisted corpses -- and for a moment, they have the strangest hair, and a word flits through her mind, Centauri -- sees them decomposing, vermin swarming over bloated flesh. Sees herself carried on the shoulders of her kinsfolk, her own dead body wrapped in sacred Delvian shrouds, a martyr to her people.
Death has never looked quite so beautiful.
Their connection burns like preonor votive flame, just as brilliant, and just as quick. There is nothing comfortable or familiar between the two of them -- merely a coming together of ideologies, an attraction of beliefs and potentials. A common fury, and each feeds the other's fire.
It is not sexual. Not really. But, by the Goddess, she feels good.
And she feels a wicked satisfaction, because she could not betray Bitaal more if she and G'Kar found a seedy room somewhere and frelled like crazed flibisks. She savours the rush, the pleasure, the pureness of her rage -- while she still can. Because she may well be bound, soon: shackled to a cell wall, or to a social order she will not be able to tolerate, or to a faith that she does not really believe in. The universe is not a kind place to those who pursue freedom.
She lingers one last moment, then breaks off Unity with a combination of regret and excitement. She knows now for certain that she's doing the right thing.
G'Kar slumps a little in his chair at the loss of sensation, and she steadies him, cracking a joke to a nosy fellow patron about how his species can't hold their liquor.
Downing the last of her sad excuse for a drink -- if there's ever a next time, she'll make sure they agree on a less revolting way of identifying one another -- she stands, and smooths out her robe. Favours him with a sharp, secret smile from beneath her shawl, and leaves without looking back.