Title: Fallen
Author: Opalsmith
Rating: T
Disclaimer: I own nothing
Time frame for the poem: Season 1 – Helo and Sharon on Caprica: episodes up to and including Kobol's last gleaming - Part 1.
Author's notes: Poem written in blank verse. Thanks to my lovely husband for being a very helpful beta.
Fallen
First
The clouds are laden with tainted water that scalds the earth;
After piercing through the golden haze that heralds dusk.
They hide, shielded by the petrified forest of decaying greenery
That encircles what was a jewel at the centre of this world.
One is a soldier abandoned in the hell of his own making,
The other plays a part which now she wishes is not false.
And they both know they have reached the end of one journey;
For the familiar vista before them holds the promise of flight.
The rays of a waning sun cast shadows that flit over their haven,
And gives the illusion people are darting between the stone facades.
Yet, this broken city has fallen to the enemy and all is still and silent;
Metal coated machines stand upright to claim this domain!
Second
He still feels pain from where a sliver of metal sliced through him,
When their wounded bird was brought down on that terrible day,
And they became unwilling witnesses to the end of their world.
In fields of mushroom clouds which brought death to the earth,
He gave up his seat to one he deemed more worthy of survival,
And they were forced to part, in the maelstrom of this unequal war.
As he watched her go, he decided he would meet his end fighting.
So it surprised him that he survived the first day and the ones after,
Even though he made his presence felt, hitting out at his foes.
He risked all, to fell as many as he could, before they took him down,
Then with head bowed he waited for the promised release of death.
Only to receive a far greater gift: she had returned for him.
Third
She knows that mechanical is not only made hard and cold;
Swarms of silver shelled soldiers that trample on, and snuff out life.
For she is from the same factory, only fashioned in a softer form,
With the power to interact, feel and experience every sensation.
Yet, she was not designed to be so easily beaten by one emotion,
So powerful it swayed her loyalty from her kind to a simple man;
The one she was meant to feign love for, as part of the great plan.
Now it is as if a wire snare is tightening on her as he circles the truth;
That those of his skin also follow the path of the steel warrior!
To fight his disgust at these turncoats, she uses desperate reason:
As one so called, she sows a seed that she is more than a reflection.
Though her soul is wounded by the blind certainty he has of his view.
Fourth
They steal into the most sacred citadel, where once revered prophets
Read the words of the Gods, in clouds of vapour that drifted up from earth.
The two, like spectres, skim past grand temples given up to learning;
Once sanctuaries of peace, now pit marked with the scars of conflict;
Not that they can afford to remember past glories, when the victors
Move freely all around them, in the deep velvet of a starless night.
Held in dark shadows she seizes a chance to avow her love;
And is rewarded with a tender kiss, to spite the danger ahead!
A fearsome predator swoops down shattering the heavy silence,
And as it returns to the hunt, they take the chance to break cover.
He takes the lead in their mazy dance along the narrow stone ledges
Until stopped in his tracks, the way barred by identical fair demons!
Fifth
The quietness deafens him as he stares at the one who is risen again.
As if brand new, her brilliant shimmering coat of white untouched,
By the most vivid crimson red that trickled from her mouth: still warm
From capturing, a brief instant of living breath! The first time they met,
With his own eyes he had followed the journey of her body to its rest.
Felled by his saviour; who returned when his will to fight had left him!
Now he wonders if he can trust what is laid out before him, as he sees
Double, as if death split a single atom and made two more: the same.
The one he knew walks away her firefly coat illuminating her route
Then another moves across his view and she is also familiar to him!
He knows her shape so well that even cloaked in midnight hues,
He can have no doubt that he is walking alongside his enemy.
Sixth
Still he moves forward to stare in a desperate hope that it is a trick
Of the dark; a ghostly mirage conjured up to cast him into madness.
But this spirit turns her face towards him, recognises he is a foe,
And reaches for a weapon to dispatch him, as his mind tries to wrestle
With the unpalatable truth that she was never the person he thought.
Devastated by her deceit he willingly surrenders to his inevitable end,
For now he knows he was alone: his life only ever on borrowed time.
Then the crack, crack, of fired metal breaks the stillness; and he tastes
Acrid sulphur in the air from the after burn, as the copy of his love
Lies fatally wounded on a sacrificial slab: her slayer, also a false twin.
He knows a hero of ancient lore would face his nemesis and not flinch
But he cannot deliver the fatal blow such terrible treachery merits.
Seventh
He flees as if driven on by winged spurs: away from bitter truth.
She shouts out his name but that no longer catches or holds him,
Not when all he can think, is that the clues were always there;
Only he never wanted to face that she was his own cruel fantasy.
He is now the fool, recalling how easily she managed to keep going
While his strength diminished, under the strain of their long march.
And though she religiously used the antidote to a poison that kills
So very slowly; she never seemed to crave its protective power,
With the hunger he felt as the remedy's potency faded.
Then they evaded capture even though vastly outnumbered,
By the conquerors of a land which is no longer a paradise of plenty.
He sees that he is just a marionette and they hold his strings.
Eighth
She watches him retreat, then coldness descends and she is lost.
A single line of sorrow marks her pain at the searing loneliness,
Of being abandoned by the man she never wanted to hurt.
All is exposed, and there is no longer a path for her to take.
No way back to a safe existence as one of many numbered cogs,
In a precisely formulated system, not when her body is so altered!
She cradles the tiny living miracle, the fusion of manufacture
And creation: to be the first mother of the future, a special prize!
Though to her it means nothing without him to offer balance;
To protect and teach their offspring that there is still worth,
In the part shared with those who lie vanquished in the blown dust.
She resolves that their child will not live to know only her side.
Ninth
With the welcome heat of a new sun on his back, he has returned
To joyful days, when laughter sprang from terraces around him;
This is the very road he walked along as a boy, noisy and busy.
With stalls open to the street, enticing travellers with their wares.
Then fragrant smells of hot, spicy delicacies filled his keen senses,
Urging him to stop and taste even though he felt no real hunger.
As the memories fade he sees only the gaping empty holes
That seem to mock his aching need for succour and sustenance.
Yet, the bitter tang of emptiness forces him to end his futile journey,
So he turns, determined that he will go back to the original plan.
He allows himself one entreaty to the deities that once held sway;
That if he fails, it will not be his fate to roam this world without hope.
Tenth
Once the silence of an empty city could not affect this machine,
Now she is startled by the slightest noise or smallest movement.
Tension keeps her senses on alert, as she waits to be discovered.
Her only certainty is the frantic beat of a pump that keeps on working.
They call it a heart: an organ which continues to pulse after it breaks.
And even if they never accept a machine can be so finely tuned,
That it can feel the burning agony of loss in every single filament;
She can say that she understands this very human riddle.
If only she too could face the final release, that is their death,
And not be reborn, to mourn the loss of her chance to touch true life.
Sounds of an irregular beat rouse her: a being half running, half limping
Towards her lair, so she prepares herself, not for flight, but to fight.
Eleventh
His instinct warns him, as if he can see the very air displaced,
So even before the hider is revealed, he is armed and ready.
Though he did not expect that she would be his adversary!
He looks through her, to see a monster like the rest of her kind:
Beneath the cruel disguise that is the lure of the sugared trap.
He tries to make her keep her distance, through his urgent fear
Of the potent magic which once brought them together.
Even her show of submission to his will, feels like trickery;
For when he stares at her, he sees only the frightened novice
He took under his wing and taught to soar high with the flock.
She must be able to read the terrible conflict etched on his face
Because she challenges him not to show her any mercy!
Twelfth
The blast lifts her off her feet and takes her body tumbling:
Though for her, each spiralling fall is in a dance in slow time,
As the agony of every jarring knock she suffers, drags her down.
Then she lies bloodied and broken on the lowest steps: closed in.
He stands above her conscious that he is too close to danger
Yet, all he sees is a wounded creature, gasping for breath.
There is no tangle of circuit wires, no glint of steel beneath skin,
Just the gurgling trickle of red springing through ripped muscle
As with each spasm of pain, her chest rises, and then falls back.
His hatred is strong, but echoes of love can still hold his hand,
So in the end, it is her desperate battle for life which moves him.
He finds he cannot kill his dream, not when that is all there is left.