Ed. Note: Before we begin, I must set the stage. First, you must know my academic background is in Anthropology and Christian Theology, which lend themselves to the cadence and structure of this story. Secondly, you must know the idea for this story was first proposed on the Major Crimes board, where it was suggested by one poster (my apologies, I can't remember who) that there must be an historic connection between Laura Roslin and Sharon Raydor, but they didn't know how it would work. And finally, you must know that while this story follows the literary structure of the Genealogies in the Hebrew Scriptures, it is by no means a religious piece of writing. I set the task before me of creating a reasonable link between these wonderful characters, and now it is up to you as readers, to tell me whether or not I have succeeded. So without further ado, I give you the Generations...
SHALARA
She watched from a distance, always from a distance, as the woman she would never meet and could never know, sat under a blanket in a grove of trees. She wanted so much to go to her, announce herself, acknowledge her existence to the one person who had always mattered in her life - and the one person who did not know she existed. What would it hurt now to say "I am your daughter"? And yet it would hurt both beyond measure. And so she watched from a distance...
How long she stood, she didn't know. She stood long after the woman was carried away, long after the Raptor flew off into the sky, long after she knew she had lost her last chance. A touch of her elbow was the only thing to bring her focus back to her own surroundings.
"Mama, it's time to go."
Nodding, she picked up her bag and turned to follow her own daughter.
"Where are we going, Mama?" the teen asked.
"I'm not really sure, Laurel. I told them I wanted to be in a larger group and that it didn't matter how far we needed to walk. I don't think it really matters at this point where we end up, just as long as we have the sky above us and fresh food to eat.
"So say we all", Laurel replied.
"Yes, so say we all."
Together they found their fellow travelers and headed out towards the great unknown. All through the day they walked, stopping only for the briefest of breaks, always pressing forward. Along the way she picked some flowers complete with their roots, so that she could study them and see if anything seemed familiar.
"What is your mother doing?" one of the younger men in the group asked Laurel.
"My mother is a Healer and a Priestess" Laurel replied proudly, "she is picking the plants to see what medicines they can make."
"Really?" the man replied, seeming quite interested. "What kinds of healing does she do?"
"What do you mean?" Laurel asked in return.
"I was just wondering... you see, one of the guys up ahead... see that man with the kid on his back? Anyway, that kid is really sick. I know my buddy doesn't want to admit it, but giving up all the technology on our ships means his son is going to die."
Laurel was horrified to hear that a child was dying. "Why would he agree to give it up, then?"
"I don't know. I think he's crazy, myself, but it's not my choice. I was wondering if your mother might be able to help him."
"I'm not sure" Laurel replied, "what's wrong with him?"
"The little boy has kidney failure. They had to clean his blood a few times on Galactica, but now I don't know what they are going to do. He's not even strong enough to walk very far on his own. I think his dad just wants him to see as much of life on a planet as he can, and then... I dunno... it's going to be rough."
Laurel nodded her understanding. "Let me talk to Mama and see what she can do. I can't promise anything, you know. If the gods want that little boy, they are going to take him and there's nothing we can do about it."
"I know..." the young man said in defeat. "It's probably already too late."
With that he fell back and left Laurel on her own to catch up to her mother. Throughout the rest of the afternoon's walk and into the evening, Laurel and her mother discussed the young boy and his illness. As the group settled for the night, the two women approached the boy and his father, needing to ask questions and offer their assistance.
"Excuse me" Laurel said quietly.
The man known to his friends as "Hotdog" looked up at the two women in front of him. He had never met them before and was wondering who they were and why they were looking for him. Both had shining red hair, curling gently around their shoulders, and the greenest eyes he had ever seen. They reminded him of someone, but he couldn't quite remember who it was. It was obvious from the lines on the older woman's face, that she had seen her share of difficulties, but hadn't they all? The younger woman, a teenager really, was by far the more earnest looking of the two, and was the one who spoke to him.
"Yes?" he asked.
"I... um..." she began chewing her lip, and looked to the older woman for support.
"I'm sorry to interrupt. My name is Shalara, and this is my daughter Laurel. I was a Priestess in the Temple of Asclepius in Delphi. During our walk today, one of the men mentioned that your son was quite ill and asked if I could do anything to heal him. I wanted to offer my services."
Hotdog looked at the woman for a long time, wondering if he should expose his son to a quack or just leave him alone. Nicky was already tired from the long walk and had been sleeping for some time.
"I don't have much use for the gods, to tell you the truth," he said eventually, trying to be polite.
Shalara smiled. "You are not alone in that opinion. I have questioned their existence quite often myself. Rest assured, I'm not here to convert you, I am just here to offer some herbs that might make him more comfortable."
Hotdog looked over at his son. Sleep was the only time Nicky's face wasn't screwed up in some kind of pain. He knew he shouldn't be moving the boy, but Nicky kept telling him to go further because he wanted to see it all. It killed Hotdog to know his son was dying and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. All he had left was trying to give Nicky what he wanted, and Nicky wanted to see what lay over the next mountain and around the next bend. Anything that could make things better for Nicky was worth trying.
"You think you have something to take the pain away?" Hotdog asked tentatively.
Shalara nodded and moved quietly to Nicky's side. "I found some Adolpha in the fields today. The roots were quite large and can be stewed for a rich tea. It will help clean his blood and reduce the inflammation around his kidneys. It won't be a cure, but it should make the journey more bearable."
"This ain't Caprica, though. How do you know it's Adolpha and not some poisonous look-alike plant?"
"That's a fair question, and I wish I could give you a scientific answer, but some things we know because of science while others we know in spite of science. I have held Adolpha in my hands many time and felt the power it holds in it's cells. I felt that same power holding the same plants today. It will make a difference. You might not believe in the faith, but even a non-believer has to acknowledge that many things in our recent journey didn't make sense, and yet here we are. We were brought to this planet to make a life. It defies logic that everything we need to survive would be missing."
As she spoke, Shalara's cheeks grew warmer and a breeze blew up from nowhere, causing her hair to flow around her face. Hotdog noticed the same thing happening to Laurel and he was amazed. He didn't consider himself a smart man, but he certainly wasn't a stupid one. Even as his jaw hung open in the face of a power he couldn't understand, he felt himself nodding and giving permission to this Healer to do anything she wanted.
Every evening Nicky was fed the tea, and every day he seemed to withstand the journey just a little bit better. Others were noticing the change in the boy as well, and came to Shalara with their own requests. One night while they were all sitting around the campfire, Hotdog finally got the courage to ask the question everyone wanted to ask, but were too afraid to utter.
"Priestess Shalara, where do you come from?"
"I come from the stars, as do all of you," she answered coyly.
Some chuckled at the response, but Hotdog was not put off. "No, really, where do you come from? You remind me of someone but I can't think who it is, and it's been bothering me ever since we met. How do I know you?"
Shalara looked at Hotdog, then to Laurel, and finally to the rest of the group. How to answer them without really answering them at all.
"Tell us, Shalara, please?" Nicky finally cut through the silence.
Smiling at the boy, she started, "I was born on the homeworld of Gemenon, as all priests and priestesses are. There was a temple there, dedicated to wisdom and learning. People of great faith gave their oldest children into the care of those who ran the temple, and in return those children were taught everything they could possibly need to know in life. On other worlds, it was said those children were sent off-world to private schools, and when they returned they became teachers and doctors and politicians. The selected Children of the Faithful were encouraged to live life freely and experience anything and everything. Occasionally babies would be born to the Children of the Faithful, and I was one of those. Because I was a child of the temple, I remained at the temple long after the woman who bore me left to return to her family."
"You mean your mother left you behind?" Nicky asked.
Smiling sadly, Shalara nodded. "Yes Nicky, she left me behind, but you see, she forgot I had been born so she really didn't do it on purpose or to hurt me. She was too young to be a mother, so she returned to her home world where she could made a real difference in the lives of others, and I was left to be raised and taught the same way she had been."
"How did she forget you?" Nicky wondered, consternation clouding his brow.
"She was led through a ritual that lasted many months" Shalara explained. "In the end, she didn't know me, so she was free to be the person the Gods had created her to be. She became a great leader."
"She didn't know you, but did you know her?" Nicky asked innocently.
"I knew of her" Shalara confirmed.
"Did she have any more children?" Nicky asked again.
"She had more than you can imagine."
Nicky seemed satisfied with Shalara's answers while the adults around them remained lost in thought. Laurel had known some of the story before, but hearing it surrounded by people who were not of the Priestly class, brought a new poignancy to the tale. For the first time she heard the words that her mother had not said... she heard that pain of someone abandoned by her own mother, and Laurel realized the pain for Shalara was so deep that when it came time to forget her own child, Shalara had refused.
While Laurel reflected on this new revelation, Nicky again approached Shalara with questions.
"Shalara, do all mothers go through this ritual when they don't want to be mothers anymore?"
For the first time, Shalara became wary and looked at the boy. "What is your real question, Nicky?"
"Did my mother forget me?" he asked quietly.
Hotdog was about to answer when Shalara raised her hand to silence him. "When you think of your mother, Nicky, what do you see?"
"Sometimes when I'm dreaming, I think I see her. She's floating on a cloud of stars and her eyes look as blue as the sky, and she looks right at me but doesn't seem to notice me. Is she forgetting me?"
"Come here, little one," Shalara reached out her arms and Nicky immediately scampered onto her lap. "Your mother has not forgotten you, she is with you all the time. She is in the stars, waiting for you to join her when you are ready. But she also sees your future, and knows you have had to travel without her. When the time is right, she will look at you again and see only your face."
"When, Shalara?"
"Don't ask those questions, Nicky. No one has the answers. We live in this world until it's time to move to the next one."
Silence remained around the campfire for a long time. Eventually people started to move away as the logs became ash. Hotdog lifted a sleeping Nicky from Shalara's arms and took him over to lie in the blankets they had been sharing. Nicky stirred just once, and hugged his father tightly. "Thank you for being my Dad," he said.
The next morning a new kind of silence descended on the travelers. Although it had been expected for some time, they were still taken aback when the news circulated that Nicky Constanza had died through the night. They buried his frail body on top of a hill, surrounded by the Adolpha flowers that had made his last weeks so bearable. The only marker on the grave was a piece of wood carved with the words 'You will never be forgotten'.
Hotdog found comfort that first night after his son's death, in the arms of Laurel. And for many nights afterwards they continued to bring comfort until that comfort became more. Eventually a new life was created. When Hotdog held his daughter for the first time, he raised her up to the night sky as far as he could. "See Nicky, you have a sister."
"What should me name her?" Laurel asked from her birthing bed.
"I don't know. I was so worried about you I didn't even think about this baby as a real person until now."
Laurel smiled. "I do have one idea. How about Nico'La?"
"Nico'La? I think that's perfect," Hotdog replied, cradling the baby in his arms. "We will tell her all about her brother when she gets bigger, and how she's named in his memory."
"Nicky's memory and that of her grandmother. 'Nic' is for Nicky, and O'La is for the women who came before her."
"What does O'La mean?"
"O'La means Of the Lineage of Laura. My name, 'Laurel', means Small Laura, and my mother's name 'Shalara', means She born of Laura."
Hotdog was stunned. Suddenly the mystery surrounding these women he had come to love had been answered. "Your grandmother's name was Laura?"
Laurel nodded, knowing he had finally discovered their secret.
And these are the Generations of Laura, mother of Shalara...
Shalara gave birth to Laurel.
Laurel gave birth to Nico'La.
Nico'La gave birth to Vash.
Vash gave birth to Anya.
Anya gave birth to Zarah.
Zarah gave birth to Wilma.
Wilma gave birth to Tarin...
