Title: Of Sunsets and Tears
Author: Larq a'Guairen do Ahvriny (AsianScaper) and her kith, al'Laine Aranielle id Larq
Disclaimer: Farscape and its characters are owned by Jim Henson, The Hallmark Network, and the Sci-Fi Channel. The poem and Opaldoran text are mine. No infringement is intended.
Rating: G
Category: Drama/Romance
Feedback: Send your criticism, comments, or insights to larq003@hotmail.com or to allaine003@hotmail.com.
Summary: On a planet far from his own galaxy, Crichton finds a small piece of home and silently reminisces with Aeryn beside him. This story explores John and Aeryn's relationship to the extent of imagery from my own wishful imagination.
Spoilers: None
Archiving: I'd be honored to have this posted wherever you fellow Scapers wish. Though, I'd appreciate it very much if you could drop me a line and tell me where it's at.
Dedication: This is dedicated to the whole Farscape community. Peace and prosperity to you all. Also, without forgetting the people who made all this possible, this is for the cast and crew of Farscape. Their dedication and hard work have created a world of seeming endless possibilities. Godspeed in your journey to excellence.
Author's Note: This is the best of narrative prose that I can write. It isn't perfect, nor would I say that it is. I can only hope that I may reach a semblance of excellence with the help of my fellow writers. Your praise and criticism have been invaluable beyond belief. I thank you with all sincerity and I wish you the best of luck. As for this story: love knows no boundaries, not in writing, not in words. Take this as it is, for love, when it IS love, wears no masks and tells no lies. Cheers!

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Iftalia moch carniae laftal Creidan fianneara id sydfae cal reinn luminati loti syd mae divaea winchent, eryanne falia cul alchenti meia...
Love breaks beneath Cruelty's hand yet sheds its cloak to cast the light within and like loaves of bread, is consumed by the hearts of many...

***

It was the vermilion color of newly drawn blood that lit this world's sun as it traveled across obstacles of cloud and rain. The rain split across the haze, like transparent blades from the northern peaks, and wrought havoc on the soil, filling its very firmament with liquid that pulpous mud churned against the ripples of their passing.

The sun peeked; its last cerise eye strewed brilliant rays against the saturated earth and happened to glance at the tall, rather despondent creature at the top of a rise. The light played its polish upon his skin, making a soft symphony rise with the orchestra of the wind. Strings of it fondled the tufts of blond hair and caressed the cheeks that served as relief for his cool, blue eyes. Eyes with the brilliance of the sun, the color of the tide against beaches of white, unadulterated sand; sapphire once the sky turned its head to show the darker, more abstruse veil that served as raiment for the blight of night.

Those eyes watched the transit of the sun god's flaxen chariot wrought from the fiery rays of a primeval morn and its pithy conflict with the menace of twilight. Those eyes watched like the beholder of an unlit candle whose wick was now blackened by the disappearance of its fire; ash which stared with its gloomy eye at the flame whose fierce aura would not touch this braided rope of infinitesimal quality.

The light died, taking with it the dagger of its birth, as it must once more be reborn when poor twilight rips its ebony cloak and grants daybreak its back for the transient renewal. For light is light and must once more commit that legitimate homicide which rips the shelter of the stars and slips the glittering blade into Night's chipping aegis. So must light be, and so must darkness die within the impassioned onset of flaming clouds, of skies set afire by the matches of dawn.

Then, the sky roared and the passing of a huge vessel of midnight cast shadows that moved and shackled the very pebbles that trembled against its power.

"Aeryn's back," Crichton muttered softly.

The vessel settled like an unhindered bird of prey and perched a few meters beside him, craning its raven head to acknowledge his insignificance. The cockpit burst open and revealed a slender woman, firm in build, and looking at the scene around her with the indifference of a soldier.

Her smile was brief like the ephemeral note of a great opus and it unwittingly withered against the greater harmony of dusk. Dark eyes flashed their muted hues as she turned from the light. Those lashes of somber quality provided momentary shade to her observant stare. Black like midnight's equine creatures galloping amongst the shadows and shades of a forest lanced with the moon's light, moving with the fluidity of an exuberant existence, resplendent with the cast of a realm filled with dragons from the pages of a storybook. She was a woman of extreme and callous feelings that faded with the turn of every imbued page…pages that spoke of an outstanding human uttering chests of gold from the depths of her brilliant heart, the keys of which were hidden below in the abyss. One must plunge, hold his breath, and be starved of every man's necessity, for the greater reward.

John Crichton had taken that plunge, had found the keys, and had uncovered the golden chest with the gentle, eloquent fingers of a man tending the locket of his fervor.

"Welcome to paradise," John said, welcoming her with a soft greeting that told of memories relived.

Aeryn walked to his side, stirring the ground beneath her that dust, like phantoms, enveloped her feet and plagued the material of her shoes. She ignored the grains that clung, that so insistently turned to layers on her feet while they clasped rigid fingers upon the wind and filled it with the fog of soot.

She conquered the space beside him, watching as the sun slipped down the peaks of distant mountains and bid its last farewell with shafts of crimson gold that waved their shimmering petals against the bud of their dawn. As a conqueror would, she stood silent as if Death had stolen the breath from her and had somehow kissed her lips with his secret. She offered the scene a bouquet of roses with the curve of her smile, with the touch of her hand upon passing breezes, with the strands of hair that wove their own tapestry against the fading light. Light which bathed both of them with the vivacity of a murmuring brook.

When at last, Aurora's steward had decided that both were unsullied from the ventures of the day, the sun hid against the mighty shoulders of the crested mount and vanished, leaving the starry welkin to hurl its vestments at the naked gloom of twilight, its throat of unlimited thirst sweltering with the brilliance of a last kiss upon the clouds. The sun accepted Aurora's chalice of wine mixed with gall, that mitigated poison of godly quality that made Helios' head lie upon the upturned sheets of his mountainous niche.

Aeryn released her strain of unuttered affections by carefully taking John's hand in hers and squeezing it tightly, reassuring herself that this man, an image of a struggling Apollo, would never in his lifetime let go of his beliefs. That he would never let go of the hope he seemed to hearten with this fine memory performing before his very eyes. His hand returned her fervor yet it was worn with epochs upon epochs of abuse from the thundering waterfall that lashed its anger at immovable, antiquated rocks. She felt the longing in it, the pain; the ballad that told of home, of the delicious smells of cinnamon, rosemary, and thyme. She felt the dance of eddies upon floors of marble and of pine, of the rough attribute of the most delicate pastries.

Home. All of it. Home…

The same memory which reminded his moaning phantasms of Earth.

From the breath of a passing breeze, there was one sound that Aeryn plundered from the air and burnt the very boundary of amenities for.

"I will never leave you Aeryn…I don't think I can."

"You're just saying that John," she told him bluntly, her ruby lips scintillating the weaning bud of a rose during a laconic torrent in a rainforest.

Those eyes possessed of Poseidon's trident split the fibers of her disbelief as they turned from the semblance of home and drank the light of her own stare with the potent intensity of the dying star, of the swirling black hole that told of death and of the unknown. With the nimble feet of a deer, his fingers traced the fine silhouette of her arms and carefully made it to her lips, like velvet and silk riding across blades of grass, glistening from laced gems of morning dew.

It was forbidding for her to simply look him in the eye and force answers that were not there for him to keep or say. The stream of her once bridled anxiety began flooding its banks and her black eyes glistened, marking Neptune's territory like the pearl beneath the river of the blind man, now ebon from the childhood of an altered past. Now dreary and wet from the sighs and groans of a rising tide.

She blinked and a tear fell from her cheek, a hesitant downpour of a sweet summer sky that came after the long drought of spring. The deserts that were flushed with buds from a consistent doleful cloud now bloomed as those liquid baubles streamed past the innocence of her pale stage. John's compassionate hand imposed the unfaltering breezes to sweep those abject clouds from her horizon.

"No…I wouldn't leave you, Aeryn. Never."

Sweet, unwavering words of valor!

"That's so hard to believe, Crichton." With the language that flowed not from lips or tongue, John gently swept a wandering strand of hair from the side of her face and placed it behind her ear, tenderly tracing the line of her cheek as he did so.

"Believe it. There isn't a reason why you shouldn't."

Oh! That Cupid may arm his bow and ravage the battlefield with his arrows! To shoot past the whirling mist whose very abject base would be severed by the fires of truth! That those shafts may rip the shroud of scruples, weave past the armor of fear, and abhor the blunted swords of lies! Sweet words that nectar would envy every bee of its attendance!

The battlements of a tyrant would stand not one day against a deluge of ardor, of love, of complete selflessness. No, not even walls wrought of adamantine steel, for all else would melt and make way. 'Tis the vines of love that wrap all else in an embrace; flowers bloom upon every emerald stage of these vines' leaves. The escarpment would rot with age against the strangulation of this verdant enemy.

Yet, what words! What wishes! What great, constant star that leaves every wandering ship with its definite course!

And more words escaped from their prison, "I would rather stay by your side and live the life you have given me," he said, words that knew no age, no time, no place yet they trembled in petty fear. John closed his eyes, even as his hand stayed by her cheek and halted the flow of her insistent misery. "Aeryn," he said. It was a chant from the altar of the goddess; saccharine from fervor and more yet, soft with the tone of a disciple, of a priest.

The song of tides bent their fluid fingers and composed the plaint upon sand, tracing the notes as a god would sketch the branches upon a tree and gasp to see if it bore fruit. "You know I love you…"

The spring of her woe tapered from the fragile arch of her cheek which by now had reddened somewhat, pattered with the brush from nature's palette of rubies. The bent figure of her smile was wealth beyond relief and she had her comfort in the aura of delight that embraced her.

"I love you too."

Those words never failed to bind both of them in tremendous force.

With lips of the apple's brilliant hue at harvest, John kissed her tender cheek and planted warmth beyond all warmth at the plateau of the withering embers of winter.

Aeryn Sun delicately pulled away and whispered, "We have to get back. The sun has set. The tears have been shed."

John smiled. Of course, my love…of course…

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Thaeryn syd Solvaris
Earth and Heaven

Complete version from the Macadoric

Translated by the Doubling Kin of primeval House Elidann lach Lilienne:
Larq a'Guairen do Ahvriny, Broken Lineage
al'Laine Aranielle id Larq, Broken Lineage


To sit upon fields wrought from gold
To bide by the brook of Poseidon's mold
To grasp the dawn's two-sided fold
To touch silken threads of the spider bold

Yet ere we stand beneath the tree
Bound to the emerald grass of the lea
Bound with a galling mortal fee
Like the giant whose fist is over me

'Tis the rainbow that stirs the sky
When light rouses fields of barley and rye
Whose sundry hues doth call the eye
When musical notes by wind ne'er die

The white tendrils that climb the height,
The depth and breadth of yonder sapphire site
Whose firmament is godly light;
'Tis ephemeral to the earthly kite

And we whose blood doth spill by blade
That red, ruby fountain known quick to fade
Cry woe unknown to heaven's shade
Which is why through love is true joyance made

***

-The End-