Jool Ficathon Entry
Dec. 6th, 2004 01:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
itsallovernowFirst of all, apologies to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
reblog who ran the Jool Ficathon and to astrogirl2 who I was writing for. A wretched cold kicked me to the bench, and I couldn't get this in on time. Feeling much better, so here you go:)
Title: Between the Devil and the Sea
Author: Thea
Rating: PG
Written for:astrogirl2, who had requested Jool between DWTB and WWL.
Notes: Thanks so much tokernezelda for beta and for crankygrrl for support and telling me what just wasn't working. Not sure I fixed the problems, but it's indubitably better than it was thanks to your input.
***
She didn't remember much of the first day. Didn't try to.
There had been a wormhole, she knew, and pain, fear. Dizzying, disorienting terror, screams and harsh questions and noise. Then they'd been left here, on cliffs at the edge of a sea, hungry and weak and lost. Alone.
The old woman wore a smile, dazed and coy, and Jool held onto her knees, rocking against the inevitable tears.
"We're going to die," she said, over and over, into her knees, until she shook from the cold.
"Yes," the old woman said happily, not the least perturbed. "Yes, I suppose we will."
"That's not helping," Jool yelled, choking on her fear, wiping her face on the smooth leather covering her knees. She stayed there, clutched and sullen, until hunger got the better of her, and then trailed after the old woman to the top of the cliffs.
They could see ruins in the valley, couched by foliage and chalky ridges, but it was too dark to attempt the tricky descent. All that night on the heights, they pressed together for warmth. The old woman hummed something tuneless, holding Jool's hand, and Jool fought against the gagging, cloying smell of the aged, wrinkled body.
On the second day, the archaeologists appeared.
"Thank Blesma you found us!" Jool felt like she could breathe again as the two figures approached warily. "If I had to spend another night out here, I'd die."
The Interons looked Jool up and down, glancing from her to the old woman, faces disdainful.
"Unlikely," said the woman, dirty yellow hair pulled back harshly, a perpetual frown line creasing her high forehead. "Arnessk isn't that cold." The man just stood there, grim and glaring.
Neither asked where they came from. Mention of their location shuttled all of the excitement of seeing fellow Interons to the back of Jool's mind. She sucked in her breath, turning to the old woman and grabbing her hands. "Did you hear that? Arnessk? We made it. We're here! We're here!"
The old woman’s third eye glowed merrily as she grinned. "Priests," she said, sage and canny. "And lakka."
Jool shook her head, matted, filthy curls bouncing, and turned back to their saviors. "Are you part of the dig?" She could feel remnants of the old excitement start to flare. "Have you uncovered anything new? How are you controlling the magnetics? How long will the excavation be open?"
"Vella will want to see you," the woman said, ignoring Jool's questions, her mouth flattening as she said the name. "You can come back to the excavation."
Still dazed and excited, Jool clutched the old woman's hand, not caring that the palm was powdery, fingers sticky with substances better left unexplored.
The old woman mumbled about peace as they walked, eyes vacant and starry, feet somehow managing to avoid the rocks and cracks covering the hillside. Jool watched where she was going and allowed herself just a touch of the old daydreams, the ones shot through with lecture tours and appointments to much-coveted university posts, the ones that held shades of personal glory and the unearthing of history. It was suddenly so easy, here in the bright sun of an ancient world, to turn her back on the criminals, on the madness and violence. She could turn forward to knowledge and the new, to change. It could be a fresh start.
Even meeting Instructor Vella couldn't completely dampen her spirits. Vella glared down her stern nose at Jool and asked about her training.
"I earned "T" ratings in Genetics, Neuroscience, and Xenobiology., I also have “M” ratings in Xenohistory, Ancient Cultures and Political Linguistics."
"Have you ever been a part of a dig?"
"Yes."
That wasn't a lie, exactly. They had been part of the dig, or at least they had been at the dig before her cousins had gotten sick.
"Fine. You can start in the morning assisting Aza."
Jool barked a laugh of outrage. "Aren't you even going to ask me if I want to help?"
Vella's glare was withering. "No. If you can't help us, we can't help you."
"Then it's a good thing I want to help, isn't it." Jool was arch, but Vella had already moved onto other things.
"You can't wear that outfit. You look like a Brazantian tralk," Vella hissed, "Not a scholar."
Jool’s mouth opened with shock. Hot tears pricked at her eyes, but she tilted her chin, having weathered far worse insults from Chiana.
"It's all I have," she retorted. Vella raised an eyebrow.
When Jool woke the next morning to the sound of the old woman snoring like mad, she spotted a tan overall folded on a chair near the flap of cloth that served as a door. She sponged off her body with water from the basin, letting it slide over her skin like ceremony, while she considered her options. Perhaps it wasn't worth it to antagonize Vella, and this was a choice, a small one, but still a choice to be part of this place, the work here.
She took a deep breath and donned the overall. Renewal, she decided trying desperately not to keep her body tensed, far away from the scratchy material of the covering. This was rebirth, another chance to be the person that she wanted to be. She could wear hideous clothes if she had to.
She wouldn't give in to base temptation, wouldn't try to make her name immediately, gain her position through falsities and thievery. Jool could prove her worth, was ready to do so.
She met Vella in the cool morning air and went to work.
On the tenth day, her knees like lead from the hard ground, blisters on her fingers leaking foul-smelling fluid, she set down the carver and went outside to look up at the sky. Darkness had crept into the hollow space around the edges of the ruins, and with the pale lights strung throughout the dig, it was often hard to tell whether it was day or night. It took her eyes a few microts to adjust, and when she breathed in deep, the sea air clean on her face, the night still and quiet, she couldn't do anything beyond looking up at the stars.
They were out there, and her breath hitched, her stomach clenched. They'd treated her abominably, ignored her, insulted her, chastised her. She had no reason to feel loss, or loyalty, or any of the things churning through her as she stared into the night sky. But a niggling feeling told her a richer truth. They had also protected her, taught her how to survive, how to live with pain, disappointment.
Someone cleared his throat behind her, and she turned.
"What do you want?"
"One of the other guards is sick," he said, shuffling uncomfortably. "Vella's personal guard. We thought, well, maybe you could help."
"I can't help anyone," she bit out, thinking of Naj-gil, of Moya, of Aeryn Sun's grief, and turned her mouth down, full of pity, most of it for herself.
"He's too hot, and his skin is dry, cracking." The guard was younger than Jool, and scared of something.
"Give him waterand saline," she said, rolling her eyes. "Cover him with a blanket and get him to sweat."
"We've done those things." He was upset, disappointed at her response, his voice cracked with the anger.
She shrugged. "I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do."
The guard turned away, and Jool looked back up at the stars.
Half an arn later, she went in search of the ailing guard. The man died early in the morning, brain fried from the heat radiating off of him, unconscious at the end.
No one else exhibited the same symptoms as the guard and he was buried in the heat of the day. The old woman was around somewhere, happy enough maybe, secure at least. She'd come to the small burial and sprinkled dirt on the grave. After that, she stopped sleeping in the room with Jool, only showing up at mealtimes, often bearing fruit or game which was accepted gingerly and cooked to near charcoal.
Jool found that she didn't exactly miss the odd presence, the woman's tendency to fall into a stupor, to spout confusion, to grow frustrated with the limits of their eyes and minds. She missed the familiarity though, the fact that she'd been someone else on Moya, someone else dubiously saved by criminals.
Ultimately, though, it was easier to concentrate on the work, having a steady hand with the carver, an efficient way with the artifacts. She ignored the loneliness, the sense of isolation from the other Interons.
As her skill grew, so did her responsibilities, and for now that was enough. She knew how to weather being ignored, knew how to earn her keep. She was good at the work, better than many of the other assistants. She focused on that, sometimes singing cradle songs or snatches of Crichton's odd tunes to fill the void of silence.
On the 15th day, Vella found a second Darnaz probe and everything changed.
Jool had uncovered a wall frieze, faces looking down on her in raw stone, chipped-away paint, leaving their eyes hollow. She was certain that this frieze represented a new element, something previously unseen, unstudied. This could help her make her mark. In her excitement, she burst into Instructor Vella's office, bypassing the guard, and pushing aside the heavy plasticine sheeting before he could stop her.
Vella stood up, eyes wild, hands shielding the object in front of her. "What the frell do you think you're doing?" she barked.
Jool froze in the doorway, startled and thrown. "I found something, a new frieze. I think it’s a picture of a religious process…"
"Shut up," Vella growled, and it was too much for Jool.
"Don't tell me to shut up," she squeaked, voice rising indignantly. "You've no right to tell me to shut up when I just came here to share something that will make your work here even more important!"
Vella stalked around the desk, slapping her hand over Jool's mouth. She squealed, struggled in the woman's grip.
"Shut. Up." Vella's bright gaze was glassy with something like excitement.
Her eyes darted around. "Is there anyone else with you?" She sounded so fierce, so compelled that Jool wriggled her head, looked around as best she could, hair whipping back and forth in a frenzy.
"Mmm mm," she shook her head, and Vella took her hand away from Jool's mouth.
"No, no one," she reiterated. "I've been working alone, I found…"
Vella interrupted. "Whatever you've found is meaningless in comparison." Her gaze drifted over her shoulder down to the object covered on her desk.
Curiosity, a need to know more, understand more had driven Jool off her home world, out into the universe with her cousins. Vella's contempt, her obvious secrets, only drove that curiosity harder and Jool steeled herself, remembered facing down Aeryn in the midst of a monument to death, and asked, "What did you find, then?" as if she had a perfect right to know.
Jool held her breath as Vella's eyes narrowed, and then the older woman smiled. It was a small gesture, and mean, filled with bright menace, but it was a smile nonetheless.
"The key to this past," she said. "A part of history, a part of the peace that existed here."
"A Darnaz probe," Jool breathed out, then realized her mistake. She had revealed herself, her interest and prior knowledge.
"Well, well," said Vella, moving away from the desk and stalking towards her. "So you aren't just a little Brazantian tralk."
Jool glared. "No," she said. "I'm not."
"You've been doing good work here," Vella's voice dropped unexpectedly, the struggle for sincerity clear. "You could easily take on more assignments, learn more. Perhaps work with me directly."
She didn't much like Vella, but the craving for advancement, for understanding flashed hot and bright in her belly and she listened to prudence. "I'd like that," Jool said carefully. And meant it.
"Can I trust you?"
"Yes."
On the 20th day, Vella's assistant drowned in the sea. The old woman poured powdery herbs over the boy's wet, damaged body and chanted something meaningless. Jool wept in spite of herself while the other archaeologists stayed far back from the spectacle.
"That's enough," Vella said, voice flat and uncaring, and the others returned to their work, leaving the old woman behind with the body.
Jool filled the place of Vella's personal assistant without being asked, finding the work stimulating, extraordinary. Peace had existed here, had been brokered by the inhabitants before they disappeared. The hints were everywhere, clues to how it had been accomplished. It was her job to unearth them, collect them for further study. The inherent potential was heady, exhilarating.
On the 25th day, three of the historians fell violently ill, repulsively so, vomiting and sweating, limbs shivering from disease and the loss of muscle control. They were isolated in tents by the sea, and when the oldest died, a man whose work Jool remembered reading as a student, no one was surprised.
No one asked for her expertise or her help and she worked late into the night, talking softly to the ghosts in the walls, to the figures who watched her covertly with their ancient gazes.
On the 30th day, all but three of the other scholars left the dig. They took along their assistants, their cooks and servants, and their equipment.
"It's not safe," the leader of the mutiny said. "Something terrible is going to happen here."
Vella sneered and waved them off. "We don't need you getting in the way," she snarled, but she didn't look as upset as Jool had expected. She looked almost gleeful at the impending exodus.
"You should come with us," a young Interon told Jool, pulling her aside as the party made its way to the ships. The girl hadn't spoken to Jool or the old woman since they'd arrived.
"No," Jool said kindly. "I can't."
"You'll die here," the girl protested, but she was already looking off to the side, nervous that the others would leave her behind.
"I don’t think so," Jool answered, and then in a moment of compassion, in case the girl really was worried for her safety, put a hand on her arm. "I have friends out there who might need to find me. I can't simply be gone when they arrive." It was the first time she'd said that aloud, and she found that it sounded right, sounded plausible. "How can you stand to leave?" she countered.
The girl shook her head, jerked away from Jool's touch and left, not looking back.
The only other people remaining were the guards, who kept their weapons close and their expressions tight, wary of Vella, of the old woman and each other. It was quiet during the day, the sounds of water and wind broken only by the occasional whir of the carvers, the clink of chemistry as each scholar focused on the work.
Jool went three days without speaking to anyone, entranced and entrenched, voice thickening with the dust from the excavation, with misuse. When she needed a break, she'd wander along the paths, trying to plot out where the probes may have fallen, what the priests would have been like, what they would do if the magnetics grew heavy and deadly, how it would feel to die like that.
She didn't feel alone so much as buoyant, open and disconnected, her body flattish and porous, things stealing into her, mind a canvas primed and ready, inner life and outer vision blending. She washed the coverall every three days and kept a blanket over her other clothes. She tied back her hair in a neat knot, and tried, tried to pretend that she knew nothing of fear, of wormholes and tragedy and destruction, that she'd never been part of such things.
She was here now, a scholar again, and a good one.
On the 45th day, a ship set down on a rocky outcropping. The haloos and shouts from the guards barely nudged at her attention, and it wasn't until Vella's sharp voice pulled at her awareness that she looked up from the tile she was carefully cleaning.
"Someone's here," Vella hissed. "He says he knows you."
Jool put down the tile regretfully, loosing its secrets back to the world of small hands and long dead children. Ideas had been circling and swirling, teasing her at the edges of her understanding, but with the interruption they drifted back, ebbed. She followed Vella out into the sunlight.
D'Argo had his arms crossed when she walked into the tiny clearing where they were keeping him. His expression was one of amused tolerance as the three Interons leveled their weapons at his broad frame. She didn't even know how wide her smile was until he returned the grin, opening up his arms to her.
"You look very, uh, serious," he said, grunting as she threw herself at him.
"D'Argo!" She shrieked and wrapped her arms around his solid frame, pressed her face to his chest, breathed in his rich, spicy scent. He clutched her to him, and then as a noise burst unexpectedly from her throat, he grabbed her chin, tilted it up gentlyand wiped the tears away from her cheek.
"Is there someone that I need to kill?" he asked, and each of the guards took a tiny step back.
"No," she said, shaking her head, tears and snot wiped on his tunic. "No, I'm just really happy to see you."
"I see your people have learned to carry guns," he said, voice shrewd, ironic.
"They…" she let the words drop, looking at the ground, face clouding and he took her hand, squeezed her fingers and she smiled, jubilance returning, simply tempered.
The guards hel their weapons close and Vella kept her expression hard, but Jool found she no longer cared quite so much. She hadn't realized until she saw D'Argo how much she missed having someone else around, even someone who treated her with a dubious sort of joy, accepting of her presence and her flaws.
"Let's get you settled," she breathed, clutching at his arm and he shook his head. "If you're going to stay for awhile."
He raised an eyebrow at Vella and the guards, but Jool tugged at him, ignoring the obvious displeasure, and he followed her lead.
It was night before she could bring herself to ask him anything relevant. She couldn't stop talking - about the dig, Vella, the things she was discovering. They walked along the cliff, and she explained the rules. Don't eat anything provided by Vella or her servants. Eat only the processed food available, or what you could hunt or kill. The old woman had a way with fish, but don't think too much about how she was getting them. The old woman didn't bathe, don't stand downwind of her.
D'Argo laughed, and leaned his bulk carefully against her frame, and her eye caught sight of his collarbone, of the small scar there. "I will be sure to stand far, far away from the old woman."
She was still transfixed and she reached forward, tentatively towards the pale mark. "D'argo, did you…Oh, frell." He flinched slightly, and she swallowed it back, the question having arisen unexpectedly in the midst of this reunion. She wasn't ready for an answer, wanted to hold on to the relief at having him here, solid and steady and warm beside her.
"Did I what?" he probed, sounding like he knew. She bit her lip, not wanting to look at her friend as a murderer. So far, she had avoided thoughts of death, thoughts of misery, of Sebaceans dying in space, of people lost and desperate. Despite the tragedies that had befallen this group of academics, she had remained insulated from thoughts of the cause and she had no desire to further explore the suspicions beginning to fill her mind.
"Nothing." She shook her head.
"I did not kill Macton," he said softly, and she breathed out, nodding.
"Good," she said. "Good."
"Can I ask you a question?" She looked up at him, cognizant of the kindness he'd shown her, often when no one else would. His voice was soft, sincere.
"Yes, of course."
"Are you happy here?"
"What?"
She was taken aback and started to reply in the affirmative, then stopped herself.
"You seem happy," he said slowly, "Different somehow, less… frantic, maybe. More thoughtful. Certainly less…reactionary." He smiled slightly, softening the potential insult.
"I…" Was she happy? She thought about it, thought hard. There was so much to learn, to discover. Vella was annoying, arrogant and possibly dangerous, but she was brilliant, ambitious. She trusted Jool, now, and that meant something. So much else, as well, the Darnaz probes, the disappearances of the priests and the temple, things she'd carried with her since she was a young girl in a class full of older students, soaking in knowledge as they wrote things down.
"I think so," she said slowly. "Yes. I don't know why, but I think I am happy. Perhaps just not in the way I thought I would be."
He chuckled at that. "Nobody is. You adapt quickly," he added, voice a low rumble, and slung an arm around her, pulling her close. "When you choose to."
"They found a way to make peace," she said, feeling girlish, shy as he looked down at her in the moonlight. "To sustain it for thousands of cycles. If we could figure out how they did it, imagine what we could do with that knowledge. It's priceless."
D'Argo's mouth straightened. "It's dangerous, Jool. Not everyone wants peace."
"Of course they do," she admonished, dismissive. "No one wants their children to die, or to be enslaved."
"Peace is only useful for as long as the participants are willing to maintain it," D'Argo replied sourly, and she huffed in frustration.
"I don't want to argue about this," she said, loud and pleading. "Please, just let me show you a little of the site, some of what we've found. Once you see how amazing it is, how much we've discovered, you'll never want to leave."
"Jool," he was back to being amused now. "I'll have to leave sometime." He stroked his hand down her arm, filling her with warmth, and leaned in closer. "But not for awhile."
She could feel the blush staining her cheeks.
"And," he continued, breath warm and moist near her ear, "I can think of better things to do tonight than wander around some dusty ancient ruins. I have been alone in that ship for much of the past monen and would be very, very grateful for some company this evening."
"They aren't dusty," she protested as his tankas brushed her neck and she shivered, "they're…"
His mouth covered hers and she swallowed the rest of the sentence, reveling in the delicacy belied by his large frame.
"Oh," she said, pulling back briefly. "Oh!"
D'Argo cleared his throat. "That is… I mean you do…"
She pulled his head down, kissing him hard, answering his question. His hands spanned her waist and he lifted her towards his body so that she was practically balanced on her toes, strong hands sliding down to cup her eema through the coverall.
She groaned low in her throat, stroked his tongue with hers and then he pulled away for a microt, whispering in her ear. "You are a beautiful woman, but that may well be the ugliest garment I've ever seen."
She giggled, unable to help herself and then sucked in her breath as his fingers squeezed.
"It was Vella's idea. She thought I looked like a Brazantian tralk."
"Hah," D'Argo said, "No wonder. You just looked like a very smart, very spoiled Interon who may have lost her way on a bondage colony."
"Do you even know what that means," she snorted, palm slapping against the flesh of his collarbones, "or did you just hear that from Crichton?"
He kissed her neck, fingers grasping the zipper of the overall and sliding it down smoothly, going back to trail over the skin exposed in the moonlight.
"I know what it means," he said, and she could hear the smirk. "But you just looked like Jool. Nothing else."
She stilled in his arms, palms flat on his chest, thinking on this. "You’re right," she agreed finally, and reached for him again. "I just looked like me."
reblog who ran the Jool Ficathon and to astrogirl2 who I was writing for. A wretched cold kicked me to the bench, and I couldn't get this in on time. Feeling much better, so here you go:)Title: Between the Devil and the Sea
Author: Thea
Rating: PG
Written for:
astrogirl2, who had requested Jool between DWTB and WWL. Notes: Thanks so much to
kernezelda for beta and for crankygrrl for support and telling me what just wasn't working. Not sure I fixed the problems, but it's indubitably better than it was thanks to your input.***
She didn't remember much of the first day. Didn't try to.
There had been a wormhole, she knew, and pain, fear. Dizzying, disorienting terror, screams and harsh questions and noise. Then they'd been left here, on cliffs at the edge of a sea, hungry and weak and lost. Alone.
The old woman wore a smile, dazed and coy, and Jool held onto her knees, rocking against the inevitable tears.
"We're going to die," she said, over and over, into her knees, until she shook from the cold.
"Yes," the old woman said happily, not the least perturbed. "Yes, I suppose we will."
"That's not helping," Jool yelled, choking on her fear, wiping her face on the smooth leather covering her knees. She stayed there, clutched and sullen, until hunger got the better of her, and then trailed after the old woman to the top of the cliffs.
They could see ruins in the valley, couched by foliage and chalky ridges, but it was too dark to attempt the tricky descent. All that night on the heights, they pressed together for warmth. The old woman hummed something tuneless, holding Jool's hand, and Jool fought against the gagging, cloying smell of the aged, wrinkled body.
On the second day, the archaeologists appeared.
"Thank Blesma you found us!" Jool felt like she could breathe again as the two figures approached warily. "If I had to spend another night out here, I'd die."
The Interons looked Jool up and down, glancing from her to the old woman, faces disdainful.
"Unlikely," said the woman, dirty yellow hair pulled back harshly, a perpetual frown line creasing her high forehead. "Arnessk isn't that cold." The man just stood there, grim and glaring.
Neither asked where they came from. Mention of their location shuttled all of the excitement of seeing fellow Interons to the back of Jool's mind. She sucked in her breath, turning to the old woman and grabbing her hands. "Did you hear that? Arnessk? We made it. We're here! We're here!"
The old woman’s third eye glowed merrily as she grinned. "Priests," she said, sage and canny. "And lakka."
Jool shook her head, matted, filthy curls bouncing, and turned back to their saviors. "Are you part of the dig?" She could feel remnants of the old excitement start to flare. "Have you uncovered anything new? How are you controlling the magnetics? How long will the excavation be open?"
"Vella will want to see you," the woman said, ignoring Jool's questions, her mouth flattening as she said the name. "You can come back to the excavation."
Still dazed and excited, Jool clutched the old woman's hand, not caring that the palm was powdery, fingers sticky with substances better left unexplored.
The old woman mumbled about peace as they walked, eyes vacant and starry, feet somehow managing to avoid the rocks and cracks covering the hillside. Jool watched where she was going and allowed herself just a touch of the old daydreams, the ones shot through with lecture tours and appointments to much-coveted university posts, the ones that held shades of personal glory and the unearthing of history. It was suddenly so easy, here in the bright sun of an ancient world, to turn her back on the criminals, on the madness and violence. She could turn forward to knowledge and the new, to change. It could be a fresh start.
Even meeting Instructor Vella couldn't completely dampen her spirits. Vella glared down her stern nose at Jool and asked about her training.
"I earned "T" ratings in Genetics, Neuroscience, and Xenobiology., I also have “M” ratings in Xenohistory, Ancient Cultures and Political Linguistics."
"Have you ever been a part of a dig?"
"Yes."
That wasn't a lie, exactly. They had been part of the dig, or at least they had been at the dig before her cousins had gotten sick.
"Fine. You can start in the morning assisting Aza."
Jool barked a laugh of outrage. "Aren't you even going to ask me if I want to help?"
Vella's glare was withering. "No. If you can't help us, we can't help you."
"Then it's a good thing I want to help, isn't it." Jool was arch, but Vella had already moved onto other things.
"You can't wear that outfit. You look like a Brazantian tralk," Vella hissed, "Not a scholar."
Jool’s mouth opened with shock. Hot tears pricked at her eyes, but she tilted her chin, having weathered far worse insults from Chiana.
"It's all I have," she retorted. Vella raised an eyebrow.
When Jool woke the next morning to the sound of the old woman snoring like mad, she spotted a tan overall folded on a chair near the flap of cloth that served as a door. She sponged off her body with water from the basin, letting it slide over her skin like ceremony, while she considered her options. Perhaps it wasn't worth it to antagonize Vella, and this was a choice, a small one, but still a choice to be part of this place, the work here.
She took a deep breath and donned the overall. Renewal, she decided trying desperately not to keep her body tensed, far away from the scratchy material of the covering. This was rebirth, another chance to be the person that she wanted to be. She could wear hideous clothes if she had to.
She wouldn't give in to base temptation, wouldn't try to make her name immediately, gain her position through falsities and thievery. Jool could prove her worth, was ready to do so.
She met Vella in the cool morning air and went to work.
On the tenth day, her knees like lead from the hard ground, blisters on her fingers leaking foul-smelling fluid, she set down the carver and went outside to look up at the sky. Darkness had crept into the hollow space around the edges of the ruins, and with the pale lights strung throughout the dig, it was often hard to tell whether it was day or night. It took her eyes a few microts to adjust, and when she breathed in deep, the sea air clean on her face, the night still and quiet, she couldn't do anything beyond looking up at the stars.
They were out there, and her breath hitched, her stomach clenched. They'd treated her abominably, ignored her, insulted her, chastised her. She had no reason to feel loss, or loyalty, or any of the things churning through her as she stared into the night sky. But a niggling feeling told her a richer truth. They had also protected her, taught her how to survive, how to live with pain, disappointment.
Someone cleared his throat behind her, and she turned.
"What do you want?"
"One of the other guards is sick," he said, shuffling uncomfortably. "Vella's personal guard. We thought, well, maybe you could help."
"I can't help anyone," she bit out, thinking of Naj-gil, of Moya, of Aeryn Sun's grief, and turned her mouth down, full of pity, most of it for herself.
"He's too hot, and his skin is dry, cracking." The guard was younger than Jool, and scared of something.
"Give him waterand saline," she said, rolling her eyes. "Cover him with a blanket and get him to sweat."
"We've done those things." He was upset, disappointed at her response, his voice cracked with the anger.
She shrugged. "I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do."
The guard turned away, and Jool looked back up at the stars.
Half an arn later, she went in search of the ailing guard. The man died early in the morning, brain fried from the heat radiating off of him, unconscious at the end.
No one else exhibited the same symptoms as the guard and he was buried in the heat of the day. The old woman was around somewhere, happy enough maybe, secure at least. She'd come to the small burial and sprinkled dirt on the grave. After that, she stopped sleeping in the room with Jool, only showing up at mealtimes, often bearing fruit or game which was accepted gingerly and cooked to near charcoal.
Jool found that she didn't exactly miss the odd presence, the woman's tendency to fall into a stupor, to spout confusion, to grow frustrated with the limits of their eyes and minds. She missed the familiarity though, the fact that she'd been someone else on Moya, someone else dubiously saved by criminals.
Ultimately, though, it was easier to concentrate on the work, having a steady hand with the carver, an efficient way with the artifacts. She ignored the loneliness, the sense of isolation from the other Interons.
As her skill grew, so did her responsibilities, and for now that was enough. She knew how to weather being ignored, knew how to earn her keep. She was good at the work, better than many of the other assistants. She focused on that, sometimes singing cradle songs or snatches of Crichton's odd tunes to fill the void of silence.
On the 15th day, Vella found a second Darnaz probe and everything changed.
Jool had uncovered a wall frieze, faces looking down on her in raw stone, chipped-away paint, leaving their eyes hollow. She was certain that this frieze represented a new element, something previously unseen, unstudied. This could help her make her mark. In her excitement, she burst into Instructor Vella's office, bypassing the guard, and pushing aside the heavy plasticine sheeting before he could stop her.
Vella stood up, eyes wild, hands shielding the object in front of her. "What the frell do you think you're doing?" she barked.
Jool froze in the doorway, startled and thrown. "I found something, a new frieze. I think it’s a picture of a religious process…"
"Shut up," Vella growled, and it was too much for Jool.
"Don't tell me to shut up," she squeaked, voice rising indignantly. "You've no right to tell me to shut up when I just came here to share something that will make your work here even more important!"
Vella stalked around the desk, slapping her hand over Jool's mouth. She squealed, struggled in the woman's grip.
"Shut. Up." Vella's bright gaze was glassy with something like excitement.
Her eyes darted around. "Is there anyone else with you?" She sounded so fierce, so compelled that Jool wriggled her head, looked around as best she could, hair whipping back and forth in a frenzy.
"Mmm mm," she shook her head, and Vella took her hand away from Jool's mouth.
"No, no one," she reiterated. "I've been working alone, I found…"
Vella interrupted. "Whatever you've found is meaningless in comparison." Her gaze drifted over her shoulder down to the object covered on her desk.
Curiosity, a need to know more, understand more had driven Jool off her home world, out into the universe with her cousins. Vella's contempt, her obvious secrets, only drove that curiosity harder and Jool steeled herself, remembered facing down Aeryn in the midst of a monument to death, and asked, "What did you find, then?" as if she had a perfect right to know.
Jool held her breath as Vella's eyes narrowed, and then the older woman smiled. It was a small gesture, and mean, filled with bright menace, but it was a smile nonetheless.
"The key to this past," she said. "A part of history, a part of the peace that existed here."
"A Darnaz probe," Jool breathed out, then realized her mistake. She had revealed herself, her interest and prior knowledge.
"Well, well," said Vella, moving away from the desk and stalking towards her. "So you aren't just a little Brazantian tralk."
Jool glared. "No," she said. "I'm not."
"You've been doing good work here," Vella's voice dropped unexpectedly, the struggle for sincerity clear. "You could easily take on more assignments, learn more. Perhaps work with me directly."
She didn't much like Vella, but the craving for advancement, for understanding flashed hot and bright in her belly and she listened to prudence. "I'd like that," Jool said carefully. And meant it.
"Can I trust you?"
"Yes."
On the 20th day, Vella's assistant drowned in the sea. The old woman poured powdery herbs over the boy's wet, damaged body and chanted something meaningless. Jool wept in spite of herself while the other archaeologists stayed far back from the spectacle.
"That's enough," Vella said, voice flat and uncaring, and the others returned to their work, leaving the old woman behind with the body.
Jool filled the place of Vella's personal assistant without being asked, finding the work stimulating, extraordinary. Peace had existed here, had been brokered by the inhabitants before they disappeared. The hints were everywhere, clues to how it had been accomplished. It was her job to unearth them, collect them for further study. The inherent potential was heady, exhilarating.
On the 25th day, three of the historians fell violently ill, repulsively so, vomiting and sweating, limbs shivering from disease and the loss of muscle control. They were isolated in tents by the sea, and when the oldest died, a man whose work Jool remembered reading as a student, no one was surprised.
No one asked for her expertise or her help and she worked late into the night, talking softly to the ghosts in the walls, to the figures who watched her covertly with their ancient gazes.
On the 30th day, all but three of the other scholars left the dig. They took along their assistants, their cooks and servants, and their equipment.
"It's not safe," the leader of the mutiny said. "Something terrible is going to happen here."
Vella sneered and waved them off. "We don't need you getting in the way," she snarled, but she didn't look as upset as Jool had expected. She looked almost gleeful at the impending exodus.
"You should come with us," a young Interon told Jool, pulling her aside as the party made its way to the ships. The girl hadn't spoken to Jool or the old woman since they'd arrived.
"No," Jool said kindly. "I can't."
"You'll die here," the girl protested, but she was already looking off to the side, nervous that the others would leave her behind.
"I don’t think so," Jool answered, and then in a moment of compassion, in case the girl really was worried for her safety, put a hand on her arm. "I have friends out there who might need to find me. I can't simply be gone when they arrive." It was the first time she'd said that aloud, and she found that it sounded right, sounded plausible. "How can you stand to leave?" she countered.
The girl shook her head, jerked away from Jool's touch and left, not looking back.
The only other people remaining were the guards, who kept their weapons close and their expressions tight, wary of Vella, of the old woman and each other. It was quiet during the day, the sounds of water and wind broken only by the occasional whir of the carvers, the clink of chemistry as each scholar focused on the work.
Jool went three days without speaking to anyone, entranced and entrenched, voice thickening with the dust from the excavation, with misuse. When she needed a break, she'd wander along the paths, trying to plot out where the probes may have fallen, what the priests would have been like, what they would do if the magnetics grew heavy and deadly, how it would feel to die like that.
She didn't feel alone so much as buoyant, open and disconnected, her body flattish and porous, things stealing into her, mind a canvas primed and ready, inner life and outer vision blending. She washed the coverall every three days and kept a blanket over her other clothes. She tied back her hair in a neat knot, and tried, tried to pretend that she knew nothing of fear, of wormholes and tragedy and destruction, that she'd never been part of such things.
She was here now, a scholar again, and a good one.
On the 45th day, a ship set down on a rocky outcropping. The haloos and shouts from the guards barely nudged at her attention, and it wasn't until Vella's sharp voice pulled at her awareness that she looked up from the tile she was carefully cleaning.
"Someone's here," Vella hissed. "He says he knows you."
Jool put down the tile regretfully, loosing its secrets back to the world of small hands and long dead children. Ideas had been circling and swirling, teasing her at the edges of her understanding, but with the interruption they drifted back, ebbed. She followed Vella out into the sunlight.
D'Argo had his arms crossed when she walked into the tiny clearing where they were keeping him. His expression was one of amused tolerance as the three Interons leveled their weapons at his broad frame. She didn't even know how wide her smile was until he returned the grin, opening up his arms to her.
"You look very, uh, serious," he said, grunting as she threw herself at him.
"D'Argo!" She shrieked and wrapped her arms around his solid frame, pressed her face to his chest, breathed in his rich, spicy scent. He clutched her to him, and then as a noise burst unexpectedly from her throat, he grabbed her chin, tilted it up gentlyand wiped the tears away from her cheek.
"Is there someone that I need to kill?" he asked, and each of the guards took a tiny step back.
"No," she said, shaking her head, tears and snot wiped on his tunic. "No, I'm just really happy to see you."
"I see your people have learned to carry guns," he said, voice shrewd, ironic.
"They…" she let the words drop, looking at the ground, face clouding and he took her hand, squeezed her fingers and she smiled, jubilance returning, simply tempered.
The guards hel their weapons close and Vella kept her expression hard, but Jool found she no longer cared quite so much. She hadn't realized until she saw D'Argo how much she missed having someone else around, even someone who treated her with a dubious sort of joy, accepting of her presence and her flaws.
"Let's get you settled," she breathed, clutching at his arm and he shook his head. "If you're going to stay for awhile."
He raised an eyebrow at Vella and the guards, but Jool tugged at him, ignoring the obvious displeasure, and he followed her lead.
It was night before she could bring herself to ask him anything relevant. She couldn't stop talking - about the dig, Vella, the things she was discovering. They walked along the cliff, and she explained the rules. Don't eat anything provided by Vella or her servants. Eat only the processed food available, or what you could hunt or kill. The old woman had a way with fish, but don't think too much about how she was getting them. The old woman didn't bathe, don't stand downwind of her.
D'Argo laughed, and leaned his bulk carefully against her frame, and her eye caught sight of his collarbone, of the small scar there. "I will be sure to stand far, far away from the old woman."
She was still transfixed and she reached forward, tentatively towards the pale mark. "D'argo, did you…Oh, frell." He flinched slightly, and she swallowed it back, the question having arisen unexpectedly in the midst of this reunion. She wasn't ready for an answer, wanted to hold on to the relief at having him here, solid and steady and warm beside her.
"Did I what?" he probed, sounding like he knew. She bit her lip, not wanting to look at her friend as a murderer. So far, she had avoided thoughts of death, thoughts of misery, of Sebaceans dying in space, of people lost and desperate. Despite the tragedies that had befallen this group of academics, she had remained insulated from thoughts of the cause and she had no desire to further explore the suspicions beginning to fill her mind.
"Nothing." She shook her head.
"I did not kill Macton," he said softly, and she breathed out, nodding.
"Good," she said. "Good."
"Can I ask you a question?" She looked up at him, cognizant of the kindness he'd shown her, often when no one else would. His voice was soft, sincere.
"Yes, of course."
"Are you happy here?"
"What?"
She was taken aback and started to reply in the affirmative, then stopped herself.
"You seem happy," he said slowly, "Different somehow, less… frantic, maybe. More thoughtful. Certainly less…reactionary." He smiled slightly, softening the potential insult.
"I…" Was she happy? She thought about it, thought hard. There was so much to learn, to discover. Vella was annoying, arrogant and possibly dangerous, but she was brilliant, ambitious. She trusted Jool, now, and that meant something. So much else, as well, the Darnaz probes, the disappearances of the priests and the temple, things she'd carried with her since she was a young girl in a class full of older students, soaking in knowledge as they wrote things down.
"I think so," she said slowly. "Yes. I don't know why, but I think I am happy. Perhaps just not in the way I thought I would be."
He chuckled at that. "Nobody is. You adapt quickly," he added, voice a low rumble, and slung an arm around her, pulling her close. "When you choose to."
"They found a way to make peace," she said, feeling girlish, shy as he looked down at her in the moonlight. "To sustain it for thousands of cycles. If we could figure out how they did it, imagine what we could do with that knowledge. It's priceless."
D'Argo's mouth straightened. "It's dangerous, Jool. Not everyone wants peace."
"Of course they do," she admonished, dismissive. "No one wants their children to die, or to be enslaved."
"Peace is only useful for as long as the participants are willing to maintain it," D'Argo replied sourly, and she huffed in frustration.
"I don't want to argue about this," she said, loud and pleading. "Please, just let me show you a little of the site, some of what we've found. Once you see how amazing it is, how much we've discovered, you'll never want to leave."
"Jool," he was back to being amused now. "I'll have to leave sometime." He stroked his hand down her arm, filling her with warmth, and leaned in closer. "But not for awhile."
She could feel the blush staining her cheeks.
"And," he continued, breath warm and moist near her ear, "I can think of better things to do tonight than wander around some dusty ancient ruins. I have been alone in that ship for much of the past monen and would be very, very grateful for some company this evening."
"They aren't dusty," she protested as his tankas brushed her neck and she shivered, "they're…"
His mouth covered hers and she swallowed the rest of the sentence, reveling in the delicacy belied by his large frame.
"Oh," she said, pulling back briefly. "Oh!"
D'Argo cleared his throat. "That is… I mean you do…"
She pulled his head down, kissing him hard, answering his question. His hands spanned her waist and he lifted her towards his body so that she was practically balanced on her toes, strong hands sliding down to cup her eema through the coverall.
She groaned low in her throat, stroked his tongue with hers and then he pulled away for a microt, whispering in her ear. "You are a beautiful woman, but that may well be the ugliest garment I've ever seen."
She giggled, unable to help herself and then sucked in her breath as his fingers squeezed.
"It was Vella's idea. She thought I looked like a Brazantian tralk."
"Hah," D'Argo said, "No wonder. You just looked like a very smart, very spoiled Interon who may have lost her way on a bondage colony."
"Do you even know what that means," she snorted, palm slapping against the flesh of his collarbones, "or did you just hear that from Crichton?"
He kissed her neck, fingers grasping the zipper of the overall and sliding it down smoothly, going back to trail over the skin exposed in the moonlight.
"I know what it means," he said, and she could hear the smirk. "But you just looked like Jool. Nothing else."
She stilled in his arms, palms flat on his chest, thinking on this. "You’re right," she agreed finally, and reached for him again. "I just looked like me."
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no subject
Date: 2004-12-06 10:19 pm (UTC)And I'm very pleased with this. You filled it the gap between seasons pretty well, you worked in both some D'Argo/Jool and a bit of Noranti, and, most importantly of all, IMHO you got the Jool characterization spot-on perfect.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-06 10:27 pm (UTC)I realized, after I started writing it, that it was going to be a much bigger story than I was prepared to tell, so I needed to reign it in so I could finish it. I'd like to go back later and flesh out the story that got hinted at.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-06 10:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-06 11:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-07 12:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-07 12:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-07 12:49 am (UTC)Good stuff. :)
no subject
Date: 2004-12-07 12:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-07 04:53 am (UTC)As a side note, I've never been particularly enamoured of Jool, but you made her as engaging and enjoyable as I could have hoped for. Very nice work indeed.
Overall, I like what you've done here. Glad it worked out. And if you ever do come back to this piece, I think I can safely say I'll be looking forward to the results.
L o L,
suitably impressed
no subject
Date: 2004-12-07 06:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-08 04:23 am (UTC)And of course, it's nice to have a look in on Jool's relationship with D'Argo hotting up a bit. But that's icing.
As I said, I enjoyed this piece. I wouldn't mind if you returned to it at some point, though there really is only so much more you can do with this sequence. Crichton should be around any time now. But thanks for sharing this glimpse. It feels entirely valid and well considered. That's the mark of my favourite fanfic.
L o L,
shutting up now
no subject
Date: 2004-12-08 05:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-10 03:30 am (UTC)i love the interactions with vella and the other newcomers, but i also love the personal journey - both the one she's on at the moment, and the backstory that's being shown in the way you tell it.
if you do revisit this again, be sure to let me know. i'd love to see more. this is very, very good.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-10 06:49 pm (UTC)