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crack_van2010-06-14 08:26 pm
beatrice_otter) wrote in crack_van2010-06-14 08:26 pm
Entry tags:
Eschatos by Pellucid (PG)
Fandom: BATTLESTAR GALACTICA
Pairing: Roslin/Adama
Author on LJ:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pellucid
Author Website: fic tag
Why this must be read:
This is about Laura Roslin, and dying. This is about the fourth season, and everything falling apart. This is about life, and faith, and revelation. It's lyrically written and makes Roslin's canon characterization towards the end of the show's run make sense. (Also, though it was written before the destruction of the Resurrection Hub, it makes sense of that, too.)
Dying is more difficult this time. Or rather, she thinks as the day's endless meetings blur together in her mind, living with the knowledge of death has become more difficult. Before, death had given her purpose, even vitality: she had a finite amount of time and so much to accomplish. Now, the way has become less clear, life harder to hold onto.
She likes to sleep on the inside of the rack, wedged between Bill and the wall. She splays one palm over his chest to feel his heart beat while Galactica herself pulses against Laura's back.
"Cottle had to sedate Kara today." Bill's voice is strained. "She's giving herself fits about what direction we're going. I don't know how she has any idea, locked in the brig, where we are."
"Mmm," Laura murmurs, relaxing into the rhythm of the ship, the propulsion through vacuum, the spinning of concentric chess boards. "She can feel it. She knows."
Kara knows. Kara the Cylon, though she insists she is not. Lee saw her Viper explode, yet here she is.
"She was dead. Who other than a Cylon could resurrect like that?" Laura had asked Bill the first time they argued about Kara's return. He had quirked an eyebrow and looked at her pointedly but did not reply.
Kara is a Cylon, must be a Cylon, and because she knows the way to go, the fleet jumps in the opposite direction. The map to Earth dissolved in the nebula—too many possibilities, impossible to plot, Lieutenant Gaeta tells her, and they lost their bearings when they jumped away from the basestars.
Together, she and Bill approve jump coordinates daily, but she no longer knows where they're going. For so much of this journey she's been so certain of the way. Now she's lost, and her time is running out.
"Maybe we should listen to her," Bill says softly.
The argument is familiar. He's always too willing to trust the people he cares about, and Laura fights him partly to temper that weakness.
"She's a Cylon, Bill," she replies. "Since when did we start taking navigational advice from Cylons?"
"Since when did you start ignoring information that would lead us to Earth?"
"Might lead us to Earth," she corrects. "More likely might lead us into an ambush."
She rehearses the arguments because she needs to say something to stall. She's been stalling for three weeks as she tries to gather her thoughts, tries to remember the way to lead; she's sure Bill knows she's doing it, and he doesn't push too hard as he fights her. Kara's advice is tempting: Kara offers a path, a direction, while Laura grasps at disappearing wisps of prophecies.
Laura closes her eyes and remembers the certitude that led her to split the fleet and go to Kobol, to attempt to steal an election, to use a loophole to reassume the presidency unelected after New Caprica. She had a destiny; she believed. She's less certain now, afraid in these quiet moments that she's leading all these people nowhere at all, that her death will accomplish nothing. She struggles with faith and doubt, tries to understand what the dreams and the scriptures are telling her. She's so very tired.
Eschatos
Pairing: Roslin/Adama
Author on LJ:
pellucid Author Website: fic tag
Why this must be read:
This is about Laura Roslin, and dying. This is about the fourth season, and everything falling apart. This is about life, and faith, and revelation. It's lyrically written and makes Roslin's canon characterization towards the end of the show's run make sense. (Also, though it was written before the destruction of the Resurrection Hub, it makes sense of that, too.)
Dying is more difficult this time. Or rather, she thinks as the day's endless meetings blur together in her mind, living with the knowledge of death has become more difficult. Before, death had given her purpose, even vitality: she had a finite amount of time and so much to accomplish. Now, the way has become less clear, life harder to hold onto.
She likes to sleep on the inside of the rack, wedged between Bill and the wall. She splays one palm over his chest to feel his heart beat while Galactica herself pulses against Laura's back.
"Cottle had to sedate Kara today." Bill's voice is strained. "She's giving herself fits about what direction we're going. I don't know how she has any idea, locked in the brig, where we are."
"Mmm," Laura murmurs, relaxing into the rhythm of the ship, the propulsion through vacuum, the spinning of concentric chess boards. "She can feel it. She knows."
Kara knows. Kara the Cylon, though she insists she is not. Lee saw her Viper explode, yet here she is.
"She was dead. Who other than a Cylon could resurrect like that?" Laura had asked Bill the first time they argued about Kara's return. He had quirked an eyebrow and looked at her pointedly but did not reply.
Kara is a Cylon, must be a Cylon, and because she knows the way to go, the fleet jumps in the opposite direction. The map to Earth dissolved in the nebula—too many possibilities, impossible to plot, Lieutenant Gaeta tells her, and they lost their bearings when they jumped away from the basestars.
Together, she and Bill approve jump coordinates daily, but she no longer knows where they're going. For so much of this journey she's been so certain of the way. Now she's lost, and her time is running out.
"Maybe we should listen to her," Bill says softly.
The argument is familiar. He's always too willing to trust the people he cares about, and Laura fights him partly to temper that weakness.
"She's a Cylon, Bill," she replies. "Since when did we start taking navigational advice from Cylons?"
"Since when did you start ignoring information that would lead us to Earth?"
"Might lead us to Earth," she corrects. "More likely might lead us into an ambush."
She rehearses the arguments because she needs to say something to stall. She's been stalling for three weeks as she tries to gather her thoughts, tries to remember the way to lead; she's sure Bill knows she's doing it, and he doesn't push too hard as he fights her. Kara's advice is tempting: Kara offers a path, a direction, while Laura grasps at disappearing wisps of prophecies.
Laura closes her eyes and remembers the certitude that led her to split the fleet and go to Kobol, to attempt to steal an election, to use a loophole to reassume the presidency unelected after New Caprica. She had a destiny; she believed. She's less certain now, afraid in these quiet moments that she's leading all these people nowhere at all, that her death will accomplish nothing. She struggles with faith and doubt, tries to understand what the dreams and the scriptures are telling her. She's so very tired.
Eschatos