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31_days2008-09-24 08:37 pm
bane-6.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2008-09-24 08:37 pm
[Sept 24] [Dark Crystal] New Again
Title: New Again
Day/Theme: 24. death is another country
Series:Dark Crystal
Character/Pairing: Jen/Kira
Rating: PG
She might never be quite the same again, Jen sometimes worried. Then again, he had only known her a short time. The dreamfasting didn’t really count, and he didn’t speak Podling well enough to ask her family if she seemed very different to them. She seemed different to him. There was a shadow there that he hadn’t noticed before. It occurred to him that maybe it had been there, and he had been too preoccupied with the thrill of finding another gelfling and the fate of the world and crystal shards to see it.
Now that the quest was finished, he could devote his full attention to his companion and now that he had, he couldn’t help but sense that she was not as she had been. His master had never taught him the word for trauma, but Jen knew that since he had met Kira, she had suffered, and that all the pains hadn’t left her yet.
He didn’t know how much of the blame was his. She had seen her family kidnapped since she met him, sent the Landsliders to their deaths in battle, been hunted and harried through the ruins of their murdered kin, been tortured by the Skeksis scientist, and finally been killed by the Garthim-Master before her resurrection at the hands of the urSkeks. She’d lived a whole life (and death) of pain and fear in only a few days.
She had spoken haltingly of SkekTek and what he had done to her. She didn’t try to describe having her life essence drained. She had only squeezed her deer-like eyes shut and curled her hands into little fists as if to keep him from trying to dreamfast the memory from her. At first, he had wondered if she would ever want to dreamfast again and felt a selfish pang of loss for that contact. Kira was all he had. He would’ve let the Skeksis have the world if it meant he wouldn’t lose her.
Then, she had told him about her death. She hadn’t held that back. It had hurt, she told him. The knife had burned, and her life had fled out along its edge faster than it had at the scientist’s hands. Then it had faded, she said. Everything had just faded into a glorious blaze.
“What was it like?” he had asked. She had finally smiled.
“Like this,” she said, waving a hand at their remade world. “When I woke up, it was as if I had turned around and found you there. When I remembered that I had died, I thought maybe you were dead too, because the light was all around and the pain was gone, and the world was new again.”
“Maybe we are dead,” Jen had said after a moment. “Maybe I was killed when the power flung me from the crystal.”
Kira’s eyes crinkled in amusement. They were the color of leaves again. She ran a hand over the swell of her belly.
“No,“ she said gently, and without any sadness at all. “This is life.”
Day/Theme: 24. death is another country
Series:Dark Crystal
Character/Pairing: Jen/Kira
Rating: PG
She might never be quite the same again, Jen sometimes worried. Then again, he had only known her a short time. The dreamfasting didn’t really count, and he didn’t speak Podling well enough to ask her family if she seemed very different to them. She seemed different to him. There was a shadow there that he hadn’t noticed before. It occurred to him that maybe it had been there, and he had been too preoccupied with the thrill of finding another gelfling and the fate of the world and crystal shards to see it.
Now that the quest was finished, he could devote his full attention to his companion and now that he had, he couldn’t help but sense that she was not as she had been. His master had never taught him the word for trauma, but Jen knew that since he had met Kira, she had suffered, and that all the pains hadn’t left her yet.
He didn’t know how much of the blame was his. She had seen her family kidnapped since she met him, sent the Landsliders to their deaths in battle, been hunted and harried through the ruins of their murdered kin, been tortured by the Skeksis scientist, and finally been killed by the Garthim-Master before her resurrection at the hands of the urSkeks. She’d lived a whole life (and death) of pain and fear in only a few days.
She had spoken haltingly of SkekTek and what he had done to her. She didn’t try to describe having her life essence drained. She had only squeezed her deer-like eyes shut and curled her hands into little fists as if to keep him from trying to dreamfast the memory from her. At first, he had wondered if she would ever want to dreamfast again and felt a selfish pang of loss for that contact. Kira was all he had. He would’ve let the Skeksis have the world if it meant he wouldn’t lose her.
Then, she had told him about her death. She hadn’t held that back. It had hurt, she told him. The knife had burned, and her life had fled out along its edge faster than it had at the scientist’s hands. Then it had faded, she said. Everything had just faded into a glorious blaze.
“What was it like?” he had asked. She had finally smiled.
“Like this,” she said, waving a hand at their remade world. “When I woke up, it was as if I had turned around and found you there. When I remembered that I had died, I thought maybe you were dead too, because the light was all around and the pain was gone, and the world was new again.”
“Maybe we are dead,” Jen had said after a moment. “Maybe I was killed when the power flung me from the crystal.”
Kira’s eyes crinkled in amusement. They were the color of leaves again. She ran a hand over the swell of her belly.
“No,“ she said gently, and without any sadness at all. “This is life.”