Willow
A/N: This from Lyta's perspective after the end of 'Phoenix Rising' in season five. I felt that something had to be written for this tragic little love affair as I haven't found much else for these two. Seriously, first Ivanova loses Marcus and then Lyta loses Byron? Come on!
Disclaimer: I do not own Babylon 5; I only own the medium for the freefall that my words are suspended in.
She thinks that no amount of water or wishing will remove the blood from her hands. She ponders dousing her hands in red wine, attempting to blend in what is already there with something similar. But she knows that it would only be temporary, and even then red is far too bright a colour.
She doesn't hide that there's a bit of conceit in her step, pulsing with rabid anger. She scans the room, her eyes drifting over the faces mingling in the crowds. There's a peculiar similarity to all of them, as if each of them is tainted a mute gray and she a blazing orange.
They are mundanes.
In the second that it takes them to blink she could uproot their entire existence from its perch of stability, and that notion in itself fuels her; it drives her forward.
They are but a fog for her to pass through.
She wonders if they know it, if they've already sprouted an inferiority complex. She can't imagine that it'll be too long before they all start growing them, an infestation of weeds in reality's garden.
She smiles, only because she won't be the one who will have to pull them out.
Soon she leaves the crowded area, dipping under an arch the colour of beach rocks, the ones that sprout in a jagged manner along a cliff face. The crowds dwindle like the ends of tree branches, withering to wisps of conversation.
She heads for the gardens on the station, a massive congregation of colours in a plethora of vibrant plants; it is a gargantuan maze of rainbows both common and exotic.
She appreciates it not only for the colour but also for the opportunity of solitude, as she finds more than one pair of eyes lurking over the crest of her shoulder anywhere else. Here she has the option of elusiveness, disappearing into the green curves of the garden.
She's learnt to become an illusionist in nature's company.
The path she follows is just a touch familiar, as it is new to her but known enough for her not to pause her footing. She bends around a corner and walks beneath a high arch the colour of polished jade before she enters an open area, a flower garden sprawling onto the grass at the far end.
She's discovered how easy it is to lose oneself to the complexities swirled in nature's palace.
The first time she came to this place was on the advice of Ambassador Delenn, who she'd run into only by chance in a corridor one afternoon.
She'd told her. "Often the answers we seek the most are in the simplest of places, where the universe is free to reign as it wills."
Lyta could think of no other place than the gardens of Babylon 5, where nature's reign had no borders. She'd gone there on only one previous occasion, after Byron's death.
She admits nothing and pretends everything; her life is a canvas that has been stained black, ever blank edge filled in with the sticky ink. Malice lingers at the edges of her considerations, but morality has not abandoned her yet.
She reaches her nimble fingers out to a particular lily, stained a loud shade of orange and curls the petals against her hand. It's speckled with red and yellow, a biological kaleidoscope of colour.
It's beautiful.
Her mind is reminded of many things of beauty, but she turns to something not known but simply imagined; words from lips that move no more. She imagines the words of Byron, kind yet philosophical.
"Beauty is a fleeting thing, like that of a falling star. So we must catch it; savour it for a moment and then let it go."
She doesn't move her hand from the flower. She cherishes her time with Byron, but she had never had the choice of letting go; she was merely forced to.
Byron had once called her his willow, for him to take shelter under, his strength. She remains a willow, but there's something else in her company on the field where red blood flows.
There's a pestilence chewing at her leaves and gnawing at her bark, threatening her core. Her leaves are wilting, shrivelling into wrinkly, crunchy prunes on her branches. There is nothing seeking shelter beneath her boughs, and thus she sees no point in maintaining said shelter. Her protection is a limited time offer, and death only accelerates the degradation.
She now looks to the blood spilled on the field of her existence, and how there is so much of it that she's sure she can never clear all of it away. But still, attempts at success are a better score than failure or ignorance. There are names mixed into the blood, jumbles of letters and syllables mixed into a thick potion of disdain, and it has flowed right to her doorstep.
She will not forget those names, and she will not forget Byron.
She will also never forget the words that he once spoke to her, when his eyes were still bright with hope.
"There will come a time Lyta," he'd said to her, "Where you will have to leave me behind."
She looks back to the lily and notices a single drop of water roll over the petals, clear and crystal like a tear.
And so she lets her own tears join the fall.
She doesn't count how many seconds pass, but when she looks back up at the lily there's something new in her veins. Something in her body burns, as if acid has just been poured into her system. There's something too bright about that flower, too free.
She clamps her hand around the flower and crunches it between the folds of her hand before throwing it against the ground, her chest heaving slightly afterwards. Molten fury ploughs through her veins with the same ferocity as lava.
The flower lies crippled and smashed against the grass, petals bent at awkward angles like shattered bones. It is not even close to what Byron suffered, incineration for the sake of peace.
Peace... what does the word mean anymore? Lyta thinks it has been reduced to nothing but a fraudulent excuse for violence and murder. If a hundred people died and someone said it was for the sake of peace no one would blink; they're all too focused on their precious dream of utopia.
They only think about the goal, not the gritty task that accompanies it.
She's learned in the hardest way that nothing is free anymore.
So she walks away, the crushed lily left at her feet.
Byron is gone, but his message is still there, lashed into the contours of her hand with the whip of destiny's intentions. There will never be any scars, only wounds the colour of raspberries, dark and plump like beating hearts.
She's gotten her call, and it isn't to clear away the blood in the field.
In the days to come, she only expects more.
Fin
I really do have a thing for Babylon 5 angst it would seem :P
Please review, reviews are always appreciated :)