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eve11.
Resurgam
By Eve11
Summary: Salvaging Stark
Spoilers up to the "We're so Screwed" trilogy
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Petals. The smallest of footholds, but something coaxed them forward.
Here. Hold on to these. They are yours.
He didn’t understand the words. Not yet. But he knew what to do. He held on.
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Every day Stark went to work with his family in the lemnat fields. He didn't know why Baniks had to pick the flowers, just that they traded petals for food, and the commune suffered when they failed to fill the day's quota. Baniks did not much care for the why of things. Outsiders would say they cared for little beyond work and death.
Stark was seven cycles old. He knew how to count to seven, seven petals meant you could pick the flower. Less and it wasn't ready. He was seven cycles old, one for each petal on a lemnat flower, and when the petals ran out he found another flower and started again.
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Shapes. Soft. Thin.
Hold on to these.
Pain. Breath.
Hold on. Don’t let go.
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When he was seven cycles old the world started to fade away. Color abandoned him first; vibrant red faded to rust, blue sunk in to black, violet and white merged together into gray. The sky was permanently cloudy, the sun went from orange to a gray ghost at his back. In the fields, the flowers dimmed.
It wasn't his place to wonder at the color of the flowers. And so when the colors started fading he blinked a bit more in the morning and then went out into the fields. Every day he went to work with his family in the lemnat fields, every day the lemnat flowers grew paler and paler at his fingertips. And when finally the shapes began to blur, when the petals became ashen smudges he kept track with his fingers alone, meticulously counting each fold up to seven.
His cousins clicked their tongues when he tripped over lemnat roots in the fields. His aunts and uncles shook his basket as they walked by, stems rustling against braided vine.
"Too slow," they said.
His rations diminished and he felt colder and colder, gray fog surrounding him until not even the sun at his back could keep him warm.
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"Stark."
He hadn’t realized there was silence until she spoke. Silence. Voice. Words.
"Where--?"
"Shh. You’ve done well."
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One day in the field he saw a light, a bright orange splash burning amid the haze. It was safe, nourishing, and he left his basket in the field to follow it. Others that day saw a pale, thin Banik abandon the parallel planting rows and march out of the field on a straight course for the camps, trailing a rain of lemnat petals behind him.
He followed the light into his sister-clan's camp, to the mouth of a scratchy tent. He grasped the doorway, rough edges defining tent folds in his palms, orange sun smearing streaks and color through his vision for the first time in seven on seven days or more.
"What is it?" he asked. "It's beautiful."
Others moved in the tent, a shifting fog all around him. He was picked up and hurried through a whirl of gray haze, calloused hands and cautious voices.
"Stykera . . .?"
"It's in the eyes . . ."
"What do you see?"
" . . . mercy take him, it's in the eyes."
"Help her, Stykera."
He felt a straw pallet, felt a weathered wrinkled face in the middle of the orange glow, heard murmuring voices from the gray around him. "Help her, Stykera, it's her time."
The room grew intensely bright. Stark tried to close his eyes and found he could not, and suddenly . . .
. . . flowers, sweat and sun and her name was Vesh and she had three generations of sons -- hard workers, so proud! Slaves, so shamed! -- and she had never seen a day of freedom in her life, not one until now!
Vesh passed through him in an explosion of ecstasy, fleeing to a place he knew had been with him always, her energy stretching the limits of his flesh until he shuddered, then screamed.
In him, she left a lifetime of lemnat petals behind.
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"Can you see?"
"No."
"Here." Red and green. Colors swam in front of him. Long, thin green stalks. Red petals, sharp-angled but soft against a backdrop of gray.
"You will have to keep this place in your mind, Stark."
"Stark?" He looked up. The colors shifted and coalesced around a girl. A Banik girl. Banik. She sat cross-legged, a smudge of brown hair and brown shift amid the tall green grass.
She smiled. "Yes, Stark. That is you. My name is Maurin."
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The affliction was through his eyes and difficult to manage. Such a far-reaching sense. Vesh had unsealed both his eyes and there were no Stykera among the camp to teach him control. Stykera were precious few and valuable; no matter how hard the Baniks tried, they were never allowed to keep them.
They hid him from the overseers for as long as they could. They wrapped his energy-ravaged face in strips of tattered blankets. They resorted to old hymns and chants for guidance. Stark was seven cycles old, and every day he lived in a black world made bright only with the death of his kin. Each death he saw burned through him like a flame. Each left something behind. He filled himself with cycles of others’ pain and pleasure. His brothers had to hold him down during the day, pin him writhing on the floor when the light beckoned him. They moved him only under cover of night, only when the sharp eyes of the overseers were trained elsewhere.
It didn’t last. Baniks do not worry about the why of things, and they have no gift for obscuring the truth. When an overseer stormed into his family tent one day, Stark’s relatives skittered away from the entrance and said he had been badly burned. He would most likely die in the next seven days, they said, not realizing they had said the same thing seven on seven days before. There was a telling silence, then movement, a shriek, and the tent exploded into white-orange light around him. Stark couldn’t remember crossing the room, but when the trance left him one of his cousins was dead at his side, leaving seven bitter, bitter morning frosts behind.
He never returned to his family. The overseer snatched him away and that same day sold him -- blind, bound and wretched -- to Kalish traders.
Then there was nothing but the pull of orange tides, orange waves that crashed over him, buffeted him in a spray of sight, sound and the memories of others. No sensations but abject pain or ecstasy. No body-sense. No body memory except, at times, the phantom feeling of lemnat petals under his fingertips.
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"Maurin. Where are we?"
"This is a secret place. They don’t know I’ve been here. You know flowers from before, I know them from here, so we meet. Can you feel the petals?"
"Yes." He looked down; the hands he saw were empty. "But--"
"The feeling is your physical body. The sight is still your inner eye. We may never be able to heal that damage."
Heal. Body. He couldn’t see it, but he finally recognized this limit of flesh and bone.
"You pulled me back," he said, amazed.
"You found yourself, Stark. For a long time I did not think you could."
Time? A long time? "But you’ve just brought me here. We’ve only just met."
She held out her arm, taking in everything -- garden, walls, flowers, voice, words, sight, sound.
"We made this place together. It has taken us over a cycle."
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Petals. The smallest of footholds, but something coaxed them forward.
He bit. He kicked and clawed, he tore at his own skin. Thoughts spilled from his mind; he could not control what he saw or what he showed. All of it -- horror, pain, death, release –- he lived all of it over and over again.
But when the Scarrans returned him each night, writhing with the dying thoughts of their tortured prisoners, someone put petals in his hands. When night after night he shivered and screamed adrift, strong arms held him close. A soothing voice whispered in his ear, a warm hand wrapped around his fist and didn’t let go.
"Hold on," she said.
He couldn’t see, couldn’t speak or hear. But night after night a disciplined mind merged with his, bridging calm over chaos, teaching, healing what she could.
"Just hold on."
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"I remember," he said. "You. I remember you!"
"Yes. We are almost finished." Maurin let out a breath and sank back against the grass, suddenly small. The garden dimmed around her form.
With a thought he was at her side. "What’s wrong?" he asked, but his chest ached. He recognized this; he knew it intimately.
"I’m old, Stark."
"No," he pleaded. "You’re just a child."
"I was when I came to this place. It was a long time ago. Stark, it’s my time."
"It’s not! It’s not, you’re fine."
She gave him a sad smile. "You know better than that."
The garden wavered and he bit back a wail. "Don’t go. I don’t know what I am without you."
"Shh. You do know."
His hands fluttered over her form. Afraid to touch. Afraid that she would give and break like lemnat petals in a clumsy grasp.
"What do you see?" she asked. "When you look at our people, what do you see?"
"Emptiness." A thousand voices were behind the word. "Despair disguised as indifference."
"You see the truth. Keep it with you. When the time comes, remind our people what they have lost."
Around them, red and green sank into gray.
"Please—"
They were losing words; soon everything would be gone. Maurin struggled to speak. "You have power. Stark. You must understand."
"No! No, you understand!" Hands balled into fists, he wanted to scream and kick and cry. "I can’t—"
She silenced him with a gesture, raising a pale thin arm in the dissipating light. "You . . ."
He couldn’t stop her. The garden pulsed like a living thing as she touched his forehead. He felt . . . he saw . . . all of her energy channeled through stone walls, whispering grass, red flowers. Into him. Through him. Brilliant, aching, reverberating. Fading, everything fading around the echo of words.
You are the prison your enemy creates and inhabits.
You take what he gives and give nothing back.
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The dim cell held a body and a child. The body was an old Banik woman, Stykera, its hand brushing the child’s brow. With a sigh it settled into stillness. The Kalish would remove it within the day.
The child was a ragged tangle of scrap, skin and bone, alone in the heartland of his enemy. Half-hidden beneath the remains of a bandage, his new eye itched and watered. He clutched a withered red petal in his hand.
"I understand. This is mine. Mine. I understand . . . "
He hugged his knees and rocked in a corner, prying strength from the words, the cold, the movement, and above all, the memory of a place.
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Thanks
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astrogirl2 and erpjirl for the beta. In other news, the paper has been officially sent out for review (yay!), and we're making progress on getting a theater-room in October, just in time to show the end of season 3 on a big screen for the SF club. And if anyone has questions along the lines of "what the frell is going on?" I can point them to
shaye's brilliant and hilarious Farscape recap (though beware... it is spoilerific for all of the big plot points in the whole run of the show). Yipes! It's noon and I have yet to be productive. (edited to add: it's not my fault. The thesis I'm reading is so boring that even other statisticians cringe when I tell them the subject.)
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Date: 2003-09-26 09:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-26 04:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-26 05:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-26 09:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-26 11:51 pm (UTC)Wonderfully poignant. Just... wonderful.
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Date: 2003-09-28 09:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-06 11:14 pm (UTC)My god, my god, I can't express how beautiful this peice is. Everything in it has influenced my view of Banik spirituality, culture, and life that it's indistinguisable from canon for me.
You actually made that Katratzi garbage WORK, and all Stark fandom is in your debt.
This fic has been put on every Stark fic rec list I've ever written or seen, and it deserves it.
Over and above the characterization and canon-fixing, it's one of the most lyrical, poetic and beautiful stories I've ever read.
Thank you for writing this. Thank you. Bless you.
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Date: 2006-04-07 02:34 am (UTC)You actually made that Katratzi garbage WORK, and all Stark fandom is in your debt.
That was the impetus for this story. When I saw HTK I thought it was the worst retcon to take Stark's memory and make it that concrete. This was the place he showed Gilina as she lay dying? This was the place he chose that represented everything that wasn't Scorpius' to take? Yeah, right.
What I know deep inside, Peacekeepers will never see. In Nerve, you had Stark as a test subject, subject to Scorpius' whim. He was holding on to that memory, that place, and it had everything to do with Stark and nothing to do with Scorpius. One could say he was doing it out of principle -- that it wasn't the place that mattered so much but the fact that he was hiding something, anything at all (obviously in this story I assumed he would choose something sacred to him). But even that is better than, it's just a place Scorpy wants.
To take it and say, "Oh, Scorpius wanted it because it was where the Scarrans grew their flowers", bah. Cheapened the whole thing. Why would Stark care about hiding this memory? He can't care about Scarrans any more than he cares for Peacekeepers. He's got no political motivation or loyalty to one side or the other. And so, the only thing that would matter to him, and the memory he would guard and treasure, is a memory that is precious to him.
So that was how this story started. If the garden on Katratzi is precious to Stark, then it is more than a garden, it's the seat of how he comes back to himself. It's the embodiment of his link to the Stykera. It's a beautiful place not for the scenery but for what is wrapped into it -- people, determination, will, hope.
Ah, I can see that HTK and the retcon still pushes my buttons, because I still seem to be ranting 2.5 years later. I'll admit, when I summarized the story with "Salvaging Stark" I meant it as much from the meta as from the story content.
I had more of a backstory on Maurin too -- there was this whole idea about the death sense overtaking one of the five senses in Stykera, and sight was the worst because it was the most far-reaching. Maurin's sense wasn't sight at all but was actually touch -- that's how she communicates with him at the beginning, with the petals, and touching his face at the end.
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Date: 2006-04-07 05:09 am (UTC)Well, Astro scaped me, and I met Astro through crack_van, so I wouldn't say "different circles" hee. Though I'm very "under the rader" with the LJ "Big names" - Astro and Kaz know me, and I think Stars, Cofax and Kerne know I exsist in a vauge way, but... *shrugs* I'm better known on Terra Firma, as BlueBanikBaby, designated Stark Fan, but I'm not sure that's an endorsement - LJ people tend to have a low opinion of TF, though I fight tooth and nail to keep it inclusive, and I seem to be appreciated for it. Whoo. Whatever.
When I saw HTK I thought it was the worst retcon to take Stark's memory and make it that concrete. This was the place he showed Gilina as she lay dying? This was the place he chose that represented everything that wasn't Scorpius' to take? Yeah, right. [sniped for space] ...It's a beautiful place not for the scenery but for what is wrapped into it -- people, determination, will, hope.
I can only say WORD! to all of that, and again express my joy at how beautifully those ideas were expressed.
Ah, I can see that HTK and the retcon still pushes my buttons, because I still seem to be ranting 2.5 years later. I'll admit, when I summarized the story with "Salvaging Stark" I meant it as much from the meta as from the story content.
You and all the Stark fans. In fact, my freind Mandy, the DAY before you rec'd this to me, was ranting about that retcon because she'd just rewatched LG&M, when Scorpius asks for another Stykera, and I cited this fic as an example of how I'd seen that retcon salvaged - and I used that term very deliberately. :D Then you rec'd it, and the day after that she asked me for the link. Provedance. Sheer provedance. ^_^
I had more of a backstory on Maurin too -- there was this whole idea about the death sense overtaking one of the five senses in Stykera, and sight was the worst because it was the most far-reaching. Maurin's sense wasn't sight at all but was actually touch -- that's how she communicates with him at the beginning, with the petals, and touching his face at the end.
I love that, and it's a nuance of the story I didn't catch before, but I love it now. This story is so beautiful, and has such depth, it's up there in my top TEN stories period, never mind for this fandom. Thank you again for this work of art.
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Date: 2006-04-09 01:19 am (UTC)Aha! I do recognize that name! You do indeed have many names, lizamanynames... ;)
I love that, and it's a nuance of the story I didn't catch before, but I love it now.
Thanks. Like I said, it didn't quite make it into the story -- there wasn't enough space to tell that part, so I'm not surprised you missed it. Maybe one of these days I'll write more about Maurin, but I don't know.
This story is so beautiful, and has such depth, it's up there in my top TEN stories period, never mind for this fandom. Thank you again for this work of art.
*blushes* Thanks again. This is a story I'm very proud of, and I'm thrilled to see it resonating with others :)
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Date: 2006-04-09 01:40 am (UTC)I'm just going to have to accept the fact that I kinda *AM* semi-scaper-famous, at least on TF. Hee. Mostly I get flustered because EVERYBODY and thier Brindzt Hound comes to me for Stark advice and characterization, and I feel like a fraud, an expert by Default because Astro isn't around to ask.
You do indeed have many names, lizamanynames... ;)
I say so on my uiserinfo, where I list all of them ^_^ I didn't pick this thing for nothing... :D
Like I said, it didn't quite make it into the story -- there wasn't enough space to tell that part, so I'm not surprised you missed it.
There's enough THERE, though, that if you know what you're looking for, you catch it.
Maybe one of these days I'll write more about Maurin, but I don't know
That would be AWESOME. I really like what I see of her as a character - I think my "matronly aunt" OC guardian for Stark that has popped up here and there in my work was subconciously based of Maurin. Whoops. :)
This is a story I'm very proud of, and I'm thrilled to see it resonating with others :)
There's a lot there to resonate - it's very deep, and very - hee, not sure there's another word that covers this, but... uhm, resonant? Hee.
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Date: 2006-04-09 04:21 am (UTC)And she was right, it's lovely and it WORKS to explain the whole Katratzi thing. So yay for that and well done!
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Date: 2006-04-09 04:47 am (UTC)