We know I'm a sheep, right?
Jan. 26th, 2004 11:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
itsallovernowWeekend was. That's about it. Auditioned on Sunday, and will dance Thursday. The audition was more or less awful, me being more nervous than I have ever been and three people staring back at me blankly. I didn't shine, but I smiled, and smiled, and smiled (and shook, voluntarily and involuntarily:)
Then I went to Target and managed to lose my keys. Not the place you wanna lose something, Target. Found them eventually, when I retraced my steps and my patterns. Freaked a little, came home and told M., garnering no sympathy so I stomped off to have a bath. He must have felt bad, though, because he encouraged me to watch Constellation of Doubt at 11:00. Apparently, he's also been staying up until 7:00 a.m. watching the Farscape repeats in the wee small hours. I wanted to laugh at him, but mostly, I want him to go to bed and not sleep on our couch.
A big shout out to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
riarambles who read through Blue Eyes and sent me comments. Thank you so much!! The epilogue is becoming problematic and if anyone would like to help me hash out some plot points, I'd be ever so grateful.
And to all of you hit by the wretched weather, stay safe, stay off the roads, and stay inside!!
Finally,shaye formally requested commentary on Mare Tranquilis. So here it is. All of the other commentaries I've read were so clever and insightful, but I found that mostly I'm pleased with the story, and don't have much to say:)
Title: Mare Tranquilis
On maps, old maps, the Sea of Tranquility is always in Latin. But it's not actually a sea, so the language metaphor starts in the title. A Latin name for something theoretical, something based on imagery and vague understanding, another name for something foreign.
Summary: It's just an oxygen atmosphere planet and its satellites.
Rating: PG
Author Notes: Thanks to everyone who's already given me feedback on this. It was much appreciated, and especially thanks to Cranky for beta. She made me cut away some of my babies, but she was right every time.
Story Notes: A little, a very little, science with the science fiction. Spoilers, mild ones, for Terra Firma. This was inspired largely by watching Failure is Not an Option on the history channel and feeling proud of the space program, and the what if took off from there.
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The whole story started out as an image after I watched Failure is Not an Option, John apologizing to the his Flight Director for getting lost, for putting everyone through the hell of not knowing. It built from there into something that looked at the dislocation of being on Earth. Most of my stories start out as images, then have to be translated. Sometimes that's more successful than others.
Water streaked down the glass window and beat a tattoo against the house. Aeryn watched the rivulets of rain, fingertips pressed against the glass as she sat in the window seat, her back pressed against the wall, knees drawn up at an angle.
Earth, minus the sunshine.
Obvious reference here, but I wanted the parallel. And it was just a really good line in the original source:)
Clothes flew into the air beside her as Chiana rifled through the stacks of garments that had been purchased by them or for them or thrust upon them by enthusiastic humans eager to bring gifts to the aliens. She held up a sweater, furry and yellow, and giggled.
"Maybe they skinned that giant bird on Sesame Street," she said tossing it aside.
I wanted to play with light and atmosphere and color here, as well as the friendship that seems to be developing between Aeryn and Chiana. Rain, which played a role in Aeryn's first visit to Earth, but no longer an issue, just weather. The elements play a crucial role, rain providing the background, water and things that are very much planetary, a different environment, unfamiliar and yet navigatable, with the responses to the weather proving characteristic of each alien.
Aeryn raised an eyebrow in response, but didn't turn her head. Chiana fished the bikini from the bottom of the pile and sighed melodramatically.
"Frelling rain," she complained, but her heart wasn't in it. She considered the bathing suit for a moment, then shrugged and began to strip, "It's not like I tan anyway."
Aeryn turned her head, letting amusement at her companion wash over her. That was easy, laughter and clothing and absurd Earth pastimes. Chiana's skin, chalky gray and velvety, was little altered by her arns spent lounging in the Earth's sun. She pulled the bikini on and tied it with nimble fingers, pivoting in front of the mirror, pleased at her reflection.
"I'm going swimming," she said. "You wanna come?"
Aeryn shook her head, " No, thank you. But Rygel might go with you if you can tear him away from his feasting."
Chiana grinned at that, "He's going to be too fat to fit on his thronesled soon."
She came over to stand close to Aeryn, stroking a slim hand over the other woman's black hair. "You just gonna stay in here and read?"
Aeryn shrugged, her eyes distant.
"I'd like to fly," she said softly, "but John didn't think it was a good idea to visit the base on my own."
Her eyes narrowed. "Not that he's here to offer up a better idea."
Aeryn swung her legs down. "I want to fly." she announced, "and I'm going to fly."
Chiana smiled again, brushing a kiss over the Sebacean's pale cheek. "Just be back in time for dinner," she giggled softly, mimicking the soft slurry drawl of Crichton's family.
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John looked at the man in front of him, fighting back the urge to tug at his collar, pull at his tie. Hadn't missed ties out there, hadn't missed suits or uncomfortable shoes or ass-kissing. Not that kissing ass was what he was doing, but maybe it should be. James Amundson. Jim to his friends, Colonel to his men -a man he'd known for most of his life, a man like his dad, whom he'd admired, respected, and belittled to DK when the colonel was reluctant to risk his program on their mission, a man for whom his disappearance had hit as heavily as it had John's own family.
Cranky helped me shape the parallel structure on this, and this is a man John respects without the burden of family obligation. I wanted to show a sense of that, a sense of who else was left behind.
"Sir," he said He stretched out his hand, and hoped the older man would take it.
This is John's penance, the damage he did - inadvertantly - to the space program. This is someone that he can talk to, apologize to, straightforwardly. There aren't layers of love and family and secrets, just acknowledgement.
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The young pilot clutched the back of her seat as the Prowler screamed through the sky and broke atmosphere. His breath caught as she rolled the ship, banking to the right and streaking straight to the moon. He was breathing too heavily, close to cutting off his airway and hyperventilating.
"Breath slowly and deeply," she advised, and when he didn't respond, just made a wordless noise of fear, she realized she'd spoken in Sebacean, the giddiness of freedom, of flight distracting her. She slowed herself, slowed the Prowler, and repeated the order in clear English.
The language thing- ignoring the inexplicably quick learning of English and the nonsensical way the translator microbes seem to work - is important. Translation, misunderstanding, Aeryn coopting John's language in an effort to understand him when he's been trying to withdraw from his language all season, the miscommunication is literal as well as figurative. It was a great theme, and one I'd like to play with more.
He followed her orders, and then asked, "Shouldn't I have a spacesuit?" his voice quavering.
"No," she said. "There's no need."
She circled the moon, dancing near its surface, the gravity pull minimal on her ship.
Aeryn's showing off here, and yet, she's not. This isn't a novelty to her, it's release, like going to the gym or lounging on the couch, or sex. But it also brings home the fundamental differences between Earth and the rest of the universe. The moon landing was a huge cultural mark to us, but it signals Earth as primitive, so again, the dislocation and seperation. I also wanted to play with the language of flight from Aeryn's perspective - the push and pull, the playfulness of it and the mundanity of it for her. There was more in this part, but Cranky axed it, to greater effect.
"Tranquility Base," the young pilot breathed, awestruck. "It's real."
She looked down, saw a striped flag, remembered John's own reverence for the spot that she was seeing now for the first time.
"Thank you," he said, his voice choked. "This is amazing."
No, she thought. It's just an oxygen atmosphere planet and its satellites. It's not amazing. But she kept that to herself. Somehow she'd expected the world that produced John to be, well, more.
(I love this paragraph. I think it's a little excessive, but I still love it.)
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John rolled the Scotch around in his mouth, the musky peaty flavor a warm burn. Jim Amundson looked at him shrewdly, taking in the shave and the tie and the jacket and the cut on his neck where his hand had slipped this morning. Probably taking in the constant watchfulness, the downward drift of his hand as he sought the comfort of Winona, and found it lacking. She didn't match his suit.
"We're glad you're alive, son," said the colonel, swallowing his drink, signaling to the bartender in this elegant old boys club that they wanted more.
"Sir," John hesitated.
Colonel Amundson had been the Flight Director. The voice of God at Mission Control, the last voice you hear, the only person you listen to in space, and even though it had been DK and his dad calling him back, John knew that this man, as much as anyone, had taken his loss personally. It had ended his career, held back space exploration indefinitely, until now.
John looked into his glass, saw the whirl of the drink, and as always, the whirlpool of wormholes. They wrapped around everything, giving his view of the world a bright blue glow.
This is what John's holding onto, and it chases him. I wanted the burn of the Scotch to keep him in place, to remind him of what he left Earth with and what he brought back. And truthfully, the imagery of wormholes is just far too easy to write. I'm very good at getting carried away with it and overusing it.
"I'm sorry, sir." He was a grown man, had destroyed command carriers, killed a woman, died himself, seen his shadow, seen his fate, danced with his enemy every morning over his Wheaties. An apology shouldn't be this frelling hard.
"Fuck," he whispered aloud, wanting a human syllable to replace the alien curse.
Again, back to the langauge issue.
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The rain beat on, and the day darkened as the Earth rotated on its axis. Aeryn was always polite to the guards. No one else on Moya had ever had to endure the agonizing boredom of watching someone else exist for hours on end.
"May I walk back to the house?" she asked.
She was taller than one of them, and though slim, she could snap their necks, break their backs before they could prevent her from doing what she wanted. But it didn't hurt to be polite.
"It's a long way, ma'am," the younger one said. She wanted to suggest that he take the protective eyewear off, but perhaps that was part of the uniform.
"I don't mind."
They glanced at each other, faces not changing expression and she wondered what subtle signals they were sending each other, signals only their kind were trained to receive.
Aeryn has probably been in a similar position. I wanted her to relate to the people that everyone else either ignores, or looks at nervously.
"It might be dangerous," the other one said. "There've been protestors, crazy people who have threatened you."
Aeryn shrugged. That was hardly much of a threat. She thought for a moment.
"Perhaps a compromise," she offered.
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"What do you mean she went flying," John shouted at Chiana, who sat curled up on the couch next to D'Argo. He blinked against the scene. Earth and a white couch and a big screen TV, and two aliens flipping channels as if they had nothing better in the world to do.
Chiana ignored him, the false antics on the screen more amusing than he was at the moment.
"I thought you were still fishing," D'Argo said, landing on a soccer match.
He smiled and settled more firmly into the couch. "I would like to learn this sport," he added, thoughtfully. "The spectators get very enthusiastic on the players' behalf."
Again, imagery. The house, family flopped on the sofas, despite the odd coloring and tentacles, it's still a big, messy family taking up too much room and bitching at each other. And I wanted the aliens relaxed and John flipping out. I also thought soccer would appeal to D'Argo (and I'm sure it would appeal to Chiana, for different reasons:)
"Let's focus here folks," John said.
"Focus on what?" Chiana asked finally. "It's not a crisis. Aeryn went flying. She's fine."
Seeing no support from that corner, John stormed out of the room heading for the door, and was stopped by the sight of Aeryn in the doorway, hair streaming with water, face clean and pale, clothes soaked and looking happier than he'd seen her since they arrived on Earth.
"Where the hell have you been!" he barked.
"Out," she answered shortly. "Why are you back early?"
"Rain. Hard to fish in the rain," he grumbled, caught off guard.
She raised an eyebrow, and then entered the house, closing the door behind her and stripping off her damp leather coat while he stood watching her, the anger still burning in his eyes.
"You can't just go off like that," he muttered.
She raised her head, tilting it to the side and wringing the water from her heavy mass of hair. "Yes," she said, "I can."
"Aeryn," Chiana squealed, "You're getting water everywhere."
Aeryn rolled her eyes, collected her coat and headed for the stairway and her quarters.
John struggled for control, struggled not to follow her, glancing back and forth between the couch of aliens and the Sebacean walking away from him. He dug into the pocket of his suit jacket, groping and coming up empty. He grimaced, and headed for the stairs.
Cranky culled this into subtlety. The first draft talked about the lakka directly. She's far better at subtlety than I am.
He didn't bother to knock, just opened the door to see her pulling her shirt off over her head. He paused in the doorway, embarrassed finally by his behavior and the surge of fear that was slowly rescinding as he realized she hadn't gone anywhere. Well she had, but she'd come back.
She turned at his entrance, dropping the shirt on top of the pile of clothing covering the ground, and looked at him, annoyed. She wore a bra, lacy, feminine, definitely not-PK standard issue, but neither were the jeans molded to her body by the rain. She looked human, if chilled, the blush of her pulse beating under her skin. But she wasn't. Alien eyes, an alien consciousness, an alien child hidden in her flat, smooth belly. He choked a little, wished she had some human discretion, but she just kicked at the pile of clothing, muttering Chiana's name in disgust, and grabbed something soft and white and dry.
John's caught here on so many levels, and she's not doing anything to help him. I also wanted this to be figurative, Aeryn stripping things away, unashamed, and John's struggle to know what to do with that. The language isn't as clean as i'd like it to be, here, but again, my prose tends towards excess.
She slid the shirt over her head and grimaced at the feeling of her wet hair. She curled it around her hand, searched for something to secure it and pulled it up. Water dripped onto her shirt, making the material see-through in spots.
The rain, soaked into her hair, soaking in Earth, clean from the rain.
"What do you want, John?" she asked, sounding resigned.
She wrinkled her nose, and then sat down on the bed with a sigh to try and remove her boots. She struggled with the clasps, her fingers cold from the rain, and winced as they clung to her feet.
He set his mouth, determined not to betray himself, even without the lakka. It kept back lust, kept back fear, and shoved forward Scorpy's whispering voice, fueling his paranoia. But he'd left it in his other pants. He snorted at that, and moved to help her.
She tried to slap his hands away, but he grabbed her heel and tugged, succeeding in moving the boot forward. She pulled and it popped, and John looked at his hands, covered in water and mud and whatever else was on the boots, and then looked down at his suit.
Again, metaphor. John barging in to force his help on someone, wanted or not, and now, trying to be contained, reserved, covering himself in water and mud.
"Frell," he muttered, trying to find a place to drop the boot that wasn't on a pile of clothing.
"Chiana," Aeryn bellowed suddenly, "Get up here and clean up this mess."
And the Bizarro world was complete. Rain, T.V. and girls yelling at each other, his family life, to a T and he wanted to laugh, but Aeryn stuck her other foot out, indicating that he should help and while he tugged and grunted, she nodded at his clothing.
"Why are you wearing that. I thought you'd gone on vacation?"
She didn't sound bitter exactly, just very, very controlled. That wasn't his favorite tone of voice, but it wasn't crying and it wasn't yelling and it wasn't "I'm going to snap all the bones in your hand until you answer me" either.
"Came home early," he said, giving a final tug and managing to smear mud all over the front of his pants.
"Crap," he muttered and dropped the boot to the floor.
"Chiana," Aeryn hollered again, startling him.
"Christ, Aeryn, do you have to keep doing that?"
"It's not enough that she messes up her quarters, she has to bring everything in here and mess up mine."
He wanted to grin, say that Livvy used to do the same thing, so desperate to find out what was wrong with her older siblings, or so intent on being near them that her entire room seemed to follow her from place to place. But he wasn't quite sure how to bring up something so mild and familiar.
Probably the whole theme of this piece is reexamining the familiar - whether it be expectation, understanding, relationships,awareness. Things change when we're not looking, and yet often, we react as if they haven't. John's seeing the familiar in this encounter, family and bickering and rain, and yet he's also reacting to the familiarity of Aeryn and of Chiana and this other family, and he's not quite right on either count. The moon landing, Tranquility Base, is like that. It's so familiar that we take it for granted, and yet, we don't even go to the moon anymore. It's become a symbol that we don't know what to do with.
"So why are you wearing that," she repeated, standing again, and peeling the wet denim off. John choked again, as she slid the fabric down her legs, having forgotten to pray that the lingerie wasn't a matched set. The material clung, she wiggled, and the gods were clearly not on his side today-game, set and match.
"Um, maybe I should go." The denim dropped to her feet, and she stepped out of the jeans.
She stood there, watching him, waiting, and another piece clicked into place. Modesty or not, Aeryn knew him. He could be dead, and that much of her damp, naked flesh was gonna do something to him.
She looked at him, as unfathomable as ever and shook her head. "Go then."
He turned to leave, saw Chiana coming up the stairs. "I came home early," he offered softly. "I had something I needed to do."
Okay, not exactly subtle:) This is exactly what happened. John came back to Earth too early.
Chiana came into the room, and he ruffled her hair, taking in the mismash of clothing she was wearing. "Wow, you really made a mess, Aeryn."
John looked back, but Aeryn didn't look angry, she just kept searching for something to wear.
"Maybe I'll go downstairs," he said, "hang out a little, have a beer."
Neither woman responded, too busy bickering, but they didn't say no either.
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The government house was massive, and when she came downstairs, she saw only D'Argo sprawled on the couch, arguing with Rygel about the human game on the television. Rygel had food spread out everywhere, and reached randomly for things, sighing contentedly as he gorged.
"Where's Crichton," she asked. "Did he leave?"
D'Argo waved the TV controller towards the kitchen. "He's trying to find out if Rygel has consumed the entire stock of food they brought us today," he said, and then broke off to howl at Manchester United. Rygel cackled gleefully, having bet money on the other teams to spite D'Argo.
Aeryn entered the kitchen to see John draped over the cooling unit, half leaning on and half leaning in, searching for something.
Again, the familiar. John staring into the refrigerator, waiting for whatever he's looking for to suddenly appear. The context is wrong but the action is something she's proabably seen a million times in her life with him. And also, the continuation of playing with light. Darkness of the kitchen, small illumination, the full moon and sitting at the table in the dim light, i.e. reconnection, understanding, etc.
"Every frigging condiment in the world," he muttered, "There's gotta be beer in here somewhere."
"In the drawer," she said.
He looked up, gave her a half-hearted smile.
"Rygel wanted to make room for all of the mustard. Apparently, there are over 100 different kinds. But I wouldn't recommend them all. It wasn't necessarily a successful experiment." John laughed at that, and she felt the solid weight in her stomach lift a little. It had been weekens since she'd heard him laugh.
"It's a full moon, tonight," he said, softly, rifling through the vegetable drawer and coming up with two beers. (Circling back to the theme:) He offered her one, extending his arm around the door. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, and the golden hairs on his arms caught the light from the cooling unit. Refrigerator, she reminder herself, rolling her tongue around the ungainly word. It translated.
He closed the refrigerator door, and sat down at the table in the kitchen. The lights were off, but the moon shone down into the garden, no longer obscured by the rain, and it lit the area. She took her beer, went to sit at the table. "You walk home?" he asked.
"I like the rain."
He nodded. "Sorry about earlier. They said you went flying. I thought, maybe, you'd gone back to Moya."
She didn't know what to say to that, so she said nothing.
"Boys from the base called, asked if maybe next time you could leave their pilots alone." He smiled at her, his face gentle in the light, the harsh planes faded.
"You blew their minds," he said, "You blow everyone's mind. You look human and you're not, and you just took a man to the moon today, like it was nothing. And he never even put on a space suit."
She shrugged. "I needed to fly."
It comes down to this, difference between human and alien, between Earth's awe and fear and Aeryn's ordinary existence and John's filtering it all, mixing it up in his head where it rests with everything else. But this, taking a man to the moon, there's enough of him left that he can understand Earth's perspective, without condescension or unhappiness, just totally get the awe.
They sat in silence for a few moments, interrupted only by D'Argo's warcries, and Rygel's chortling response. John glanced at the living room, raised an eyebrow.
"That can't be a good combination," he said.
He still had on the suit pants and shirt, but the jacket and tie were nowhere to be seen. He looked more relaxed, if tired. Stripping things away again.
"Why did you come home early?" she asked, wanting to keep the conversation going.
"Needed to see someone," he said finally, taking a long swallow of the beer, closing his eyes in pleasure at the taste.
She waited.
"Space travel, it's still new to us," he said at last and she nodded. "In my lifetime, hell, in the lifetime of the space program, there've been accidents, deaths. Fires and faulty wiring, and mistakes. We're human. We make mistakes." He drained the rest of the bottle and set it down.
"In 1969, I saw the earth from outer space. On TV, but it was the Earth. And then we put a man on the moon. Hell, my dad walked in those footprints, touched the flag at Tranquility Base. He was a hero, a man who'd walked in the stars." He looked at her, quirked up his mouth.
"I know you think all of this is ridiculous, and yeah, we're backwards and primitive, and yeah, I know it's true, but I remember every mission my dad went on, every launch, every moment that I was involved in the space program," he paused, then continued. "But now I've seen things, flown things that we can't even conceive of. For us, for humanity, the things we did were miraculous, wondrous."
Her hands rested on the table, one of them curled around the bottle, and he reached over, skimmed the back of her hand with his fingertips, sending shivers through her.
"I've never walked on the moon," he said softly, "but I've kissed an alien."
She pursed her lips, again at a loss.
"I've existed in a living ship, seen the birth of a star, traveled faster than light and gone EVA without a suit, and I've never been to Tranquility Base."
She turned her hand over, clasped his to stop the maddening tease of his hand on her skin.
"I had to apologize to someone," he said finally. "'Cause I screwed up, and I got lost."
This is my favorite line. Probably my favorite line ever just for placement and accuracy:)
"It happens," she said. She curled her hand around his fingers, and reveled in the answering squeeze.
So, there wasn't as much to say about this as I expected. The language wasn't particularly complex because I wanted to keep it clean and simple. It's metaphorical, but it's also really just an encounter, a momentary understanding between these two characters who are very far apart right now. I didn't want Earth to seem all that alien to the aliens, more so to John, I guess. I wanted it to be about interpreation and choices and how we understand what goes on around us. I also didn't want to mess with the established canon and create a reconciliation. It brings the story back to the reality for both of these characters, the parallels between their initial choices, each refusing/unable to follow an order to abort, to retreat and having to deal with the consequences from that point forward. I wanted to put them back on an equal footing without making either of them at fault because they both are.
And, truthfully, it was about our own odd relationship with progress, with exploration and the unknown and pushing past the boundaries of our planet and going into space. We went into space out of a sense of competition, and sometimes, despite the tragedies we've seen unfold, we still don't always have the sense of wonder and beauty that maybe it should invoke.
Then I went to Target and managed to lose my keys. Not the place you wanna lose something, Target. Found them eventually, when I retraced my steps and my patterns. Freaked a little, came home and told M., garnering no sympathy so I stomped off to have a bath. He must have felt bad, though, because he encouraged me to watch Constellation of Doubt at 11:00. Apparently, he's also been staying up until 7:00 a.m. watching the Farscape repeats in the wee small hours. I wanted to laugh at him, but mostly, I want him to go to bed and not sleep on our couch.
A big shout out to
riarambles who read through Blue Eyes and sent me comments. Thank you so much!! The epilogue is becoming problematic and if anyone would like to help me hash out some plot points, I'd be ever so grateful.And to all of you hit by the wretched weather, stay safe, stay off the roads, and stay inside!!
Finally,
shaye formally requested commentary on Mare Tranquilis. So here it is. All of the other commentaries I've read were so clever and insightful, but I found that mostly I'm pleased with the story, and don't have much to say:)Title: Mare Tranquilis
On maps, old maps, the Sea of Tranquility is always in Latin. But it's not actually a sea, so the language metaphor starts in the title. A Latin name for something theoretical, something based on imagery and vague understanding, another name for something foreign.
Summary: It's just an oxygen atmosphere planet and its satellites.
Rating: PG
Author Notes: Thanks to everyone who's already given me feedback on this. It was much appreciated, and especially thanks to Cranky for beta. She made me cut away some of my babies, but she was right every time.
Story Notes: A little, a very little, science with the science fiction. Spoilers, mild ones, for Terra Firma. This was inspired largely by watching Failure is Not an Option on the history channel and feeling proud of the space program, and the what if took off from there.
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The whole story started out as an image after I watched Failure is Not an Option, John apologizing to the his Flight Director for getting lost, for putting everyone through the hell of not knowing. It built from there into something that looked at the dislocation of being on Earth. Most of my stories start out as images, then have to be translated. Sometimes that's more successful than others.
Water streaked down the glass window and beat a tattoo against the house. Aeryn watched the rivulets of rain, fingertips pressed against the glass as she sat in the window seat, her back pressed against the wall, knees drawn up at an angle.
Earth, minus the sunshine.
Obvious reference here, but I wanted the parallel. And it was just a really good line in the original source:)
Clothes flew into the air beside her as Chiana rifled through the stacks of garments that had been purchased by them or for them or thrust upon them by enthusiastic humans eager to bring gifts to the aliens. She held up a sweater, furry and yellow, and giggled.
"Maybe they skinned that giant bird on Sesame Street," she said tossing it aside.
I wanted to play with light and atmosphere and color here, as well as the friendship that seems to be developing between Aeryn and Chiana. Rain, which played a role in Aeryn's first visit to Earth, but no longer an issue, just weather. The elements play a crucial role, rain providing the background, water and things that are very much planetary, a different environment, unfamiliar and yet navigatable, with the responses to the weather proving characteristic of each alien.
Aeryn raised an eyebrow in response, but didn't turn her head. Chiana fished the bikini from the bottom of the pile and sighed melodramatically.
"Frelling rain," she complained, but her heart wasn't in it. She considered the bathing suit for a moment, then shrugged and began to strip, "It's not like I tan anyway."
Aeryn turned her head, letting amusement at her companion wash over her. That was easy, laughter and clothing and absurd Earth pastimes. Chiana's skin, chalky gray and velvety, was little altered by her arns spent lounging in the Earth's sun. She pulled the bikini on and tied it with nimble fingers, pivoting in front of the mirror, pleased at her reflection.
"I'm going swimming," she said. "You wanna come?"
Aeryn shook her head, " No, thank you. But Rygel might go with you if you can tear him away from his feasting."
Chiana grinned at that, "He's going to be too fat to fit on his thronesled soon."
She came over to stand close to Aeryn, stroking a slim hand over the other woman's black hair. "You just gonna stay in here and read?"
Aeryn shrugged, her eyes distant.
"I'd like to fly," she said softly, "but John didn't think it was a good idea to visit the base on my own."
Her eyes narrowed. "Not that he's here to offer up a better idea."
Aeryn swung her legs down. "I want to fly." she announced, "and I'm going to fly."
Chiana smiled again, brushing a kiss over the Sebacean's pale cheek. "Just be back in time for dinner," she giggled softly, mimicking the soft slurry drawl of Crichton's family.
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John looked at the man in front of him, fighting back the urge to tug at his collar, pull at his tie. Hadn't missed ties out there, hadn't missed suits or uncomfortable shoes or ass-kissing. Not that kissing ass was what he was doing, but maybe it should be. James Amundson. Jim to his friends, Colonel to his men -a man he'd known for most of his life, a man like his dad, whom he'd admired, respected, and belittled to DK when the colonel was reluctant to risk his program on their mission, a man for whom his disappearance had hit as heavily as it had John's own family.
Cranky helped me shape the parallel structure on this, and this is a man John respects without the burden of family obligation. I wanted to show a sense of that, a sense of who else was left behind.
"Sir," he said He stretched out his hand, and hoped the older man would take it.
This is John's penance, the damage he did - inadvertantly - to the space program. This is someone that he can talk to, apologize to, straightforwardly. There aren't layers of love and family and secrets, just acknowledgement.
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The young pilot clutched the back of her seat as the Prowler screamed through the sky and broke atmosphere. His breath caught as she rolled the ship, banking to the right and streaking straight to the moon. He was breathing too heavily, close to cutting off his airway and hyperventilating.
"Breath slowly and deeply," she advised, and when he didn't respond, just made a wordless noise of fear, she realized she'd spoken in Sebacean, the giddiness of freedom, of flight distracting her. She slowed herself, slowed the Prowler, and repeated the order in clear English.
The language thing- ignoring the inexplicably quick learning of English and the nonsensical way the translator microbes seem to work - is important. Translation, misunderstanding, Aeryn coopting John's language in an effort to understand him when he's been trying to withdraw from his language all season, the miscommunication is literal as well as figurative. It was a great theme, and one I'd like to play with more.
He followed her orders, and then asked, "Shouldn't I have a spacesuit?" his voice quavering.
"No," she said. "There's no need."
She circled the moon, dancing near its surface, the gravity pull minimal on her ship.
Aeryn's showing off here, and yet, she's not. This isn't a novelty to her, it's release, like going to the gym or lounging on the couch, or sex. But it also brings home the fundamental differences between Earth and the rest of the universe. The moon landing was a huge cultural mark to us, but it signals Earth as primitive, so again, the dislocation and seperation. I also wanted to play with the language of flight from Aeryn's perspective - the push and pull, the playfulness of it and the mundanity of it for her. There was more in this part, but Cranky axed it, to greater effect.
"Tranquility Base," the young pilot breathed, awestruck. "It's real."
She looked down, saw a striped flag, remembered John's own reverence for the spot that she was seeing now for the first time.
"Thank you," he said, his voice choked. "This is amazing."
No, she thought. It's just an oxygen atmosphere planet and its satellites. It's not amazing. But she kept that to herself. Somehow she'd expected the world that produced John to be, well, more.
(I love this paragraph. I think it's a little excessive, but I still love it.)
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John rolled the Scotch around in his mouth, the musky peaty flavor a warm burn. Jim Amundson looked at him shrewdly, taking in the shave and the tie and the jacket and the cut on his neck where his hand had slipped this morning. Probably taking in the constant watchfulness, the downward drift of his hand as he sought the comfort of Winona, and found it lacking. She didn't match his suit.
"We're glad you're alive, son," said the colonel, swallowing his drink, signaling to the bartender in this elegant old boys club that they wanted more.
"Sir," John hesitated.
Colonel Amundson had been the Flight Director. The voice of God at Mission Control, the last voice you hear, the only person you listen to in space, and even though it had been DK and his dad calling him back, John knew that this man, as much as anyone, had taken his loss personally. It had ended his career, held back space exploration indefinitely, until now.
John looked into his glass, saw the whirl of the drink, and as always, the whirlpool of wormholes. They wrapped around everything, giving his view of the world a bright blue glow.
This is what John's holding onto, and it chases him. I wanted the burn of the Scotch to keep him in place, to remind him of what he left Earth with and what he brought back. And truthfully, the imagery of wormholes is just far too easy to write. I'm very good at getting carried away with it and overusing it.
"I'm sorry, sir." He was a grown man, had destroyed command carriers, killed a woman, died himself, seen his shadow, seen his fate, danced with his enemy every morning over his Wheaties. An apology shouldn't be this frelling hard.
"Fuck," he whispered aloud, wanting a human syllable to replace the alien curse.
Again, back to the langauge issue.
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The rain beat on, and the day darkened as the Earth rotated on its axis. Aeryn was always polite to the guards. No one else on Moya had ever had to endure the agonizing boredom of watching someone else exist for hours on end.
"May I walk back to the house?" she asked.
She was taller than one of them, and though slim, she could snap their necks, break their backs before they could prevent her from doing what she wanted. But it didn't hurt to be polite.
"It's a long way, ma'am," the younger one said. She wanted to suggest that he take the protective eyewear off, but perhaps that was part of the uniform.
"I don't mind."
They glanced at each other, faces not changing expression and she wondered what subtle signals they were sending each other, signals only their kind were trained to receive.
Aeryn has probably been in a similar position. I wanted her to relate to the people that everyone else either ignores, or looks at nervously.
"It might be dangerous," the other one said. "There've been protestors, crazy people who have threatened you."
Aeryn shrugged. That was hardly much of a threat. She thought for a moment.
"Perhaps a compromise," she offered.
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"What do you mean she went flying," John shouted at Chiana, who sat curled up on the couch next to D'Argo. He blinked against the scene. Earth and a white couch and a big screen TV, and two aliens flipping channels as if they had nothing better in the world to do.
Chiana ignored him, the false antics on the screen more amusing than he was at the moment.
"I thought you were still fishing," D'Argo said, landing on a soccer match.
He smiled and settled more firmly into the couch. "I would like to learn this sport," he added, thoughtfully. "The spectators get very enthusiastic on the players' behalf."
Again, imagery. The house, family flopped on the sofas, despite the odd coloring and tentacles, it's still a big, messy family taking up too much room and bitching at each other. And I wanted the aliens relaxed and John flipping out. I also thought soccer would appeal to D'Argo (and I'm sure it would appeal to Chiana, for different reasons:)
"Let's focus here folks," John said.
"Focus on what?" Chiana asked finally. "It's not a crisis. Aeryn went flying. She's fine."
Seeing no support from that corner, John stormed out of the room heading for the door, and was stopped by the sight of Aeryn in the doorway, hair streaming with water, face clean and pale, clothes soaked and looking happier than he'd seen her since they arrived on Earth.
"Where the hell have you been!" he barked.
"Out," she answered shortly. "Why are you back early?"
"Rain. Hard to fish in the rain," he grumbled, caught off guard.
She raised an eyebrow, and then entered the house, closing the door behind her and stripping off her damp leather coat while he stood watching her, the anger still burning in his eyes.
"You can't just go off like that," he muttered.
She raised her head, tilting it to the side and wringing the water from her heavy mass of hair. "Yes," she said, "I can."
"Aeryn," Chiana squealed, "You're getting water everywhere."
Aeryn rolled her eyes, collected her coat and headed for the stairway and her quarters.
John struggled for control, struggled not to follow her, glancing back and forth between the couch of aliens and the Sebacean walking away from him. He dug into the pocket of his suit jacket, groping and coming up empty. He grimaced, and headed for the stairs.
Cranky culled this into subtlety. The first draft talked about the lakka directly. She's far better at subtlety than I am.
He didn't bother to knock, just opened the door to see her pulling her shirt off over her head. He paused in the doorway, embarrassed finally by his behavior and the surge of fear that was slowly rescinding as he realized she hadn't gone anywhere. Well she had, but she'd come back.
She turned at his entrance, dropping the shirt on top of the pile of clothing covering the ground, and looked at him, annoyed. She wore a bra, lacy, feminine, definitely not-PK standard issue, but neither were the jeans molded to her body by the rain. She looked human, if chilled, the blush of her pulse beating under her skin. But she wasn't. Alien eyes, an alien consciousness, an alien child hidden in her flat, smooth belly. He choked a little, wished she had some human discretion, but she just kicked at the pile of clothing, muttering Chiana's name in disgust, and grabbed something soft and white and dry.
John's caught here on so many levels, and she's not doing anything to help him. I also wanted this to be figurative, Aeryn stripping things away, unashamed, and John's struggle to know what to do with that. The language isn't as clean as i'd like it to be, here, but again, my prose tends towards excess.
She slid the shirt over her head and grimaced at the feeling of her wet hair. She curled it around her hand, searched for something to secure it and pulled it up. Water dripped onto her shirt, making the material see-through in spots.
The rain, soaked into her hair, soaking in Earth, clean from the rain.
"What do you want, John?" she asked, sounding resigned.
She wrinkled her nose, and then sat down on the bed with a sigh to try and remove her boots. She struggled with the clasps, her fingers cold from the rain, and winced as they clung to her feet.
He set his mouth, determined not to betray himself, even without the lakka. It kept back lust, kept back fear, and shoved forward Scorpy's whispering voice, fueling his paranoia. But he'd left it in his other pants. He snorted at that, and moved to help her.
She tried to slap his hands away, but he grabbed her heel and tugged, succeeding in moving the boot forward. She pulled and it popped, and John looked at his hands, covered in water and mud and whatever else was on the boots, and then looked down at his suit.
Again, metaphor. John barging in to force his help on someone, wanted or not, and now, trying to be contained, reserved, covering himself in water and mud.
"Frell," he muttered, trying to find a place to drop the boot that wasn't on a pile of clothing.
"Chiana," Aeryn bellowed suddenly, "Get up here and clean up this mess."
And the Bizarro world was complete. Rain, T.V. and girls yelling at each other, his family life, to a T and he wanted to laugh, but Aeryn stuck her other foot out, indicating that he should help and while he tugged and grunted, she nodded at his clothing.
"Why are you wearing that. I thought you'd gone on vacation?"
She didn't sound bitter exactly, just very, very controlled. That wasn't his favorite tone of voice, but it wasn't crying and it wasn't yelling and it wasn't "I'm going to snap all the bones in your hand until you answer me" either.
"Came home early," he said, giving a final tug and managing to smear mud all over the front of his pants.
"Crap," he muttered and dropped the boot to the floor.
"Chiana," Aeryn hollered again, startling him.
"Christ, Aeryn, do you have to keep doing that?"
"It's not enough that she messes up her quarters, she has to bring everything in here and mess up mine."
He wanted to grin, say that Livvy used to do the same thing, so desperate to find out what was wrong with her older siblings, or so intent on being near them that her entire room seemed to follow her from place to place. But he wasn't quite sure how to bring up something so mild and familiar.
Probably the whole theme of this piece is reexamining the familiar - whether it be expectation, understanding, relationships,awareness. Things change when we're not looking, and yet often, we react as if they haven't. John's seeing the familiar in this encounter, family and bickering and rain, and yet he's also reacting to the familiarity of Aeryn and of Chiana and this other family, and he's not quite right on either count. The moon landing, Tranquility Base, is like that. It's so familiar that we take it for granted, and yet, we don't even go to the moon anymore. It's become a symbol that we don't know what to do with.
"So why are you wearing that," she repeated, standing again, and peeling the wet denim off. John choked again, as she slid the fabric down her legs, having forgotten to pray that the lingerie wasn't a matched set. The material clung, she wiggled, and the gods were clearly not on his side today-game, set and match.
"Um, maybe I should go." The denim dropped to her feet, and she stepped out of the jeans.
She stood there, watching him, waiting, and another piece clicked into place. Modesty or not, Aeryn knew him. He could be dead, and that much of her damp, naked flesh was gonna do something to him.
She looked at him, as unfathomable as ever and shook her head. "Go then."
He turned to leave, saw Chiana coming up the stairs. "I came home early," he offered softly. "I had something I needed to do."
Okay, not exactly subtle:) This is exactly what happened. John came back to Earth too early.
Chiana came into the room, and he ruffled her hair, taking in the mismash of clothing she was wearing. "Wow, you really made a mess, Aeryn."
John looked back, but Aeryn didn't look angry, she just kept searching for something to wear.
"Maybe I'll go downstairs," he said, "hang out a little, have a beer."
Neither woman responded, too busy bickering, but they didn't say no either.
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The government house was massive, and when she came downstairs, she saw only D'Argo sprawled on the couch, arguing with Rygel about the human game on the television. Rygel had food spread out everywhere, and reached randomly for things, sighing contentedly as he gorged.
"Where's Crichton," she asked. "Did he leave?"
D'Argo waved the TV controller towards the kitchen. "He's trying to find out if Rygel has consumed the entire stock of food they brought us today," he said, and then broke off to howl at Manchester United. Rygel cackled gleefully, having bet money on the other teams to spite D'Argo.
Aeryn entered the kitchen to see John draped over the cooling unit, half leaning on and half leaning in, searching for something.
Again, the familiar. John staring into the refrigerator, waiting for whatever he's looking for to suddenly appear. The context is wrong but the action is something she's proabably seen a million times in her life with him. And also, the continuation of playing with light. Darkness of the kitchen, small illumination, the full moon and sitting at the table in the dim light, i.e. reconnection, understanding, etc.
"Every frigging condiment in the world," he muttered, "There's gotta be beer in here somewhere."
"In the drawer," she said.
He looked up, gave her a half-hearted smile.
"Rygel wanted to make room for all of the mustard. Apparently, there are over 100 different kinds. But I wouldn't recommend them all. It wasn't necessarily a successful experiment." John laughed at that, and she felt the solid weight in her stomach lift a little. It had been weekens since she'd heard him laugh.
"It's a full moon, tonight," he said, softly, rifling through the vegetable drawer and coming up with two beers. (Circling back to the theme:) He offered her one, extending his arm around the door. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, and the golden hairs on his arms caught the light from the cooling unit. Refrigerator, she reminder herself, rolling her tongue around the ungainly word. It translated.
He closed the refrigerator door, and sat down at the table in the kitchen. The lights were off, but the moon shone down into the garden, no longer obscured by the rain, and it lit the area. She took her beer, went to sit at the table. "You walk home?" he asked.
"I like the rain."
He nodded. "Sorry about earlier. They said you went flying. I thought, maybe, you'd gone back to Moya."
She didn't know what to say to that, so she said nothing.
"Boys from the base called, asked if maybe next time you could leave their pilots alone." He smiled at her, his face gentle in the light, the harsh planes faded.
"You blew their minds," he said, "You blow everyone's mind. You look human and you're not, and you just took a man to the moon today, like it was nothing. And he never even put on a space suit."
She shrugged. "I needed to fly."
It comes down to this, difference between human and alien, between Earth's awe and fear and Aeryn's ordinary existence and John's filtering it all, mixing it up in his head where it rests with everything else. But this, taking a man to the moon, there's enough of him left that he can understand Earth's perspective, without condescension or unhappiness, just totally get the awe.
They sat in silence for a few moments, interrupted only by D'Argo's warcries, and Rygel's chortling response. John glanced at the living room, raised an eyebrow.
"That can't be a good combination," he said.
He still had on the suit pants and shirt, but the jacket and tie were nowhere to be seen. He looked more relaxed, if tired. Stripping things away again.
"Why did you come home early?" she asked, wanting to keep the conversation going.
"Needed to see someone," he said finally, taking a long swallow of the beer, closing his eyes in pleasure at the taste.
She waited.
"Space travel, it's still new to us," he said at last and she nodded. "In my lifetime, hell, in the lifetime of the space program, there've been accidents, deaths. Fires and faulty wiring, and mistakes. We're human. We make mistakes." He drained the rest of the bottle and set it down.
"In 1969, I saw the earth from outer space. On TV, but it was the Earth. And then we put a man on the moon. Hell, my dad walked in those footprints, touched the flag at Tranquility Base. He was a hero, a man who'd walked in the stars." He looked at her, quirked up his mouth.
"I know you think all of this is ridiculous, and yeah, we're backwards and primitive, and yeah, I know it's true, but I remember every mission my dad went on, every launch, every moment that I was involved in the space program," he paused, then continued. "But now I've seen things, flown things that we can't even conceive of. For us, for humanity, the things we did were miraculous, wondrous."
Her hands rested on the table, one of them curled around the bottle, and he reached over, skimmed the back of her hand with his fingertips, sending shivers through her.
"I've never walked on the moon," he said softly, "but I've kissed an alien."
She pursed her lips, again at a loss.
"I've existed in a living ship, seen the birth of a star, traveled faster than light and gone EVA without a suit, and I've never been to Tranquility Base."
She turned her hand over, clasped his to stop the maddening tease of his hand on her skin.
"I had to apologize to someone," he said finally. "'Cause I screwed up, and I got lost."
This is my favorite line. Probably my favorite line ever just for placement and accuracy:)
"It happens," she said. She curled her hand around his fingers, and reveled in the answering squeeze.
So, there wasn't as much to say about this as I expected. The language wasn't particularly complex because I wanted to keep it clean and simple. It's metaphorical, but it's also really just an encounter, a momentary understanding between these two characters who are very far apart right now. I didn't want Earth to seem all that alien to the aliens, more so to John, I guess. I wanted it to be about interpreation and choices and how we understand what goes on around us. I also didn't want to mess with the established canon and create a reconciliation. It brings the story back to the reality for both of these characters, the parallels between their initial choices, each refusing/unable to follow an order to abort, to retreat and having to deal with the consequences from that point forward. I wanted to put them back on an equal footing without making either of them at fault because they both are.
And, truthfully, it was about our own odd relationship with progress, with exploration and the unknown and pushing past the boundaries of our planet and going into space. We went into space out of a sense of competition, and sometimes, despite the tragedies we've seen unfold, we still don't always have the sense of wonder and beauty that maybe it should invoke.
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Date: 2004-01-26 08:37 pm (UTC)And y'know, the better the material, the better the editor. ;]
(And editors are NOT frustrated writers. Well, not all of us.)
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Date: 2004-01-26 08:45 pm (UTC)You are a dear, and a hell of an editor. And you're not a frustrated writer, not for that reason, you're just a semi-stalled writer:)
I'm inordinately fond of this piece. I think because it's the most succesful thing I've done start to finish, and doing the commentary helped me see why. I should do it for everything - although not for publication - just to analyze why things worked or didn't.
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Date: 2004-01-26 08:45 pm (UTC)Thea, I'm up to Chapt 7, I think, on the beta. You're getting meta-comments and line edits, but not too much of the line edits except where something's wrong or there are too many adverbs. We hates adverbses, we does, my precioussss... Lots of meta-comments, though, particularly about politics (just as a heads-up). I'll do some more tonight.
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Date: 2004-01-26 08:59 pm (UTC)Can't wait to see the comments:) Hope work's going well:)
And as always, thanks!!!
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Date: 2004-01-26 09:00 pm (UTC)The annotation is lovely.
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Date: 2004-01-26 09:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 09:08 pm (UTC)This is still one of my ABSOLUTE favorites of your stories. Metaphor or no, the imagery is so sharp in this story. I am in love with the line "And Bizarro World was complete." It explains so much about John's thoughts about being on Earth and still being so John POVish. The voice of the story is a calm, calculated mix of both John and Aeryn, with John taking out his erpisms for a spin in his sections and Aeryn using John's language in her head in her sections.
Love love LOVE this story.
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Date: 2004-01-26 09:21 pm (UTC)calm, calculated mix of both John and Aeryn, with John taking out his erpisms for a spin in his sections and Aeryn using John's language in her head in her sections. Yeah, I'd been aware of the language theme when I wrote it, but doing the commentary really brought it home for me. As I said to Kath, it's what made it successful for me, that the product was the intention:)
And it reminds me that we need to get back to the crossover when you have time!!
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Date: 2004-01-27 12:01 am (UTC)when I'm in the proper frame of mind.. I'm in the 'drink myself to oblivion' frame of mind right now. :D
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Date: 2004-01-27 12:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 11:58 pm (UTC)She pursed her lips, again at a loss.
"I've existed in a living ship, seen the birth of a star, traveled faster than light and gone EVA without a suit, and I've never been to Tranquility Base."
I just love this part...John trying to explain.
Every time I read this story again I am struck by such a sense of awe for the feelings it evokes. You did such a lovely job with it. All the imagery is wonderful. And the commentary is very interesting to read. Thanks for sharing!
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Date: 2004-01-27 12:21 am (UTC)