March 7, 3262
The kingdom of fools. That's what the holy books called this place. It always struck Brother Michael how anyone could possibly fall at the word of people who called the world "the Kingdom of Fools". No he shouldn't think things like that. At least not with such little daylight left. Why couldn't these thoughts ever stop?
He lifted his roughly whittled wood pen, the tip filled with embossing gold ink. It was a beautiful book. People always said that his was the best work in the Monastery. Sometimes he wondered whether that was the only reason they kept him around. He didn't listen well, he seemed to be perpetually nervous, when taken on excavating expeditions he constantly pelted Brother Alwyn with questions, which was considered highly improper. At least that's what everyone said.
The sun was slowly dieing beneath the mountains, bathing the east facing room in orange light. This was Brother Michael's favorite time of day. The ever burning candles melted perfectly into the color of the sun, so that no shadows fell, even in the darkest of corners. The hard wood floors, the only wood floors for miles in any direction, seemed to breathe once again with life.
The Monastery Del La Rosa had been blessed with one of the most beautiful illuminating rooms. Fogged glass windows so that the monks didn't have to watch the chocked sky as they worked, but could get the most of what was left of sunlight. Three of the four walls housed the three long wood tables kept deliriously clean. They all were mounted into the concrete walls, not an easy feet. Candelabras of different shapes and sizes scattered around the room, giving needed heat as well as light. There was one book shelf to the right of the wall behind him and a door to the left. Most of the books were in a separate library, almost all of them had been recovered and some were so deteriorated that they couldn't be picked up without crumbling. They had every holy book they could get their hands on, The Bible, The Reckoning, The Koran, even a collection of Ancient Greek myths to name but a few.
The whole room was simple, peaceful, the kind of place one could loose their thoughts in. Aside from the garden, this was Brother Michael's favorite place, and he was often to be found working late into the night. No one ever disturbed him. At least, not usually.
He turned in his seat, highly confused. He heard hurried footsteps coming toward the door, then, seconds later the door sprang open as though it were spring loaded. His mouth slid down without him noticing as he saw the last person he thought he'd see. It was Brother Forest, a relatively new member that, as far as Brother Michael knew, was so green he'd only been assigned to scrubbing the floors and toilets. What on earth could he possibly have to say that was so important?
"Brother Michael!" he gasped between mouth fools of air.
"Yes. Yes what is it?"
"Brother Alwyn has been waiting for you for a half hour already."
"Wa-Waiting. Why? Why-why is he waiting?" he asked nervously.
"The Sister of Victoria," he replied as if this were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Sisters?" Brother Michael took a step back from himself and thought. "Sisters."
"Yes, from Victoria."
"Sisters of-oh nuts."
Brother Michael bolted from the room with poor Brother Forest still talking to him. How could he have been so stupid? Within five minutes, less then a quarter the time it would have taken other wise, he was skidding to a halt in the main hall. Brother Alwyn, of course, was already there looking quite scandalized. "Brother Michel it's good of you to join me finally."
"I am so terribly sorry, Brother Alwyn. I didn't know the day was Thursday. It was a grievous mistake."
"Yes well, no harm done I suppose." He took one last quizzical look at Brother Michael's slight disheveled ness and added in an undertone, "Yet."
The Sisters of Victoria were a parish of nuns that resided just south of the Coventina Village. Only two weeks ago they came across something quite extraordinary.
Three times every week a pair of sisters travel the distance to the river at the outskirts of the village. The terrain on the north side, where the village lies, is quite smooth and manageable for the people who live in Coventina. The church on the other hand had been built in the center of thick and sometimes jagged rocks to stay as close to what was left of nature as they could. At the same time a road was to be carved out of the rock to lead directly into the village. Money, unfortunately, ran out and the road was left to be finished by the church itself.
While out gathering water, the two sisters decided to try and find an easier path starting at the end of the half finished road. They got no more then fifteen minutes ahead when one of them fell straight through the rock. She would have died there had it not been for the most magnificent artifact ever recovered. It stretched up out of the earth in the center of an underground cave and she landed dead center on it.
The parish had never encountered such a thing. The largest Pre-Burn artifact ever recovered prier to that had been a pick up truck with the tires and seats melted clean off. It had served as a template for the extraordinary seven minute successful run time. That reconstruction had been preformed by non other then the Monastery Del La Rosa. For this reason the parish had found themselves sending their brightest to the monastery in hopes that they could help decipher exactly what they had found.
The tall thin metal doors started to open slowly inward. Both Michael and Alwyn straitened up a bit, their backs toward a larger then life statue of their savior-to-be Sheridan. Two women emerged out of the slight fog the night brings fallowed by three young handmaid like recruits, all dressed in long brown and flesh colored robs and under dresses, the three younger women with an added sheath of cloth covering their hair. Brother Alwyn was slightly surprised. Though the parish had specifically requested an informal greeting, he'd assumed that an event such as this would have warranted a larger group then the standard visiting party. Michael on the other hand was too preoccupied with not making a fool of himself to consider such obvious points.
Brother Alwyn stepped forward and smiled. "Lady Ann," she took his outstretched hand and stared kindly into his face, "It's been far too long."
She was much older then the others. The wrinkles around her eyes and mouth gave off inherent warmth; a comfort and calm. "Brother Alwyn. It's good to see you again." She stepped back and gestured a hand at the woman closest to her. She gave her head the merest of nods. "This is Sister Alanis Hardwick. She was the first to come across the artifact."
Brother Michael thought Sister Alanis seemed to be almost as uncomfortable as he did. She held her hands tightly to herself and kept everything but her eyes, which darted over every surface of the stone passage, ridged. She had the look of someone that never let down, and he wondered whether she'd ever relaxed.
"I must first apologize for Sister Claire's absence. She unfortunately broke her leg in the fall and an infection had started to spread."
"Is she going to make it?" Brother Alwyn asked with genuine concern.
"We honestly don't know. She's in quite a state."
"Is there anything we can do?"
Her eyes momentarily darted to the statue of Sheridan above and said, "Pray." She sighed heavily, ridding herself of negative thoughts. "I know its late Brother Alwyn, but if you don't mind to much I'd like to talk with you about some of the more pressing issues before the official meeting tomorrow afternoon."
"Of course. Brother Michael, would you give Sister Alanis a quick look around and show her to her chambers?"
"Oh yeah." Alanis looked sharply, as though scorning him for such an informal answer. He stared quickly at the ground and mumbled, "Yes sir," to Alwyn's retreating back.
He allowed her to go ahead of him and mentally kicked himself in the ass for finding yet another way to make a fool of himself. This was going to be a long night.
March 7, 2376
Twenty seconds left. Delenn's hands flew over the computer panels in the cargo bay without her even having to think about it. She'd managed to disable the primary and secondary security systems with a few handy tricks she kept up her sleeve. And now she was bypassing the last door that stood between herself and that ship.
The image of Lor finding what she'd done when morning came swam into her mind, an irritating fly of the conscience. Fast as she could she shook it, forced it out of her mind. She'd spent the entire time between her quarters and the cargo bay looking over her shoulder, certain that at any moment someone would find and stop her. She couldn't allow that, the mere thought of it made the hairs on her neck stand strait up. And that was saying something considering she didn't have much hair. But no one at all had seen. The halls had been free of people at this retched hour. Still she couldn't help but feel that someone was watching.
Ten seconds. The blood in her veins swam with adrenalin, moving her mind and her body faster then she could ever hope to move on her own. Five seconds. Was that someone moving she heard? No it couldn't be. She cross connected the last of the operating monitors. 'Faster, Delenn.' The lock clicked. She'd done it! An insane amount of glee came over her so that she had to hold her breath to keep from laughing out loud. The doors slid open with two seconds to spare… and her heart froze.
Barbra stood no more then three inches in front of her. It took Delenn all of five seconds to move, but in that moment it seemed to take forever for Delenn to get her numb mind to work. The look on her dear friends face was that of the cruelest aggression and disappointment. It cut to her like a dagger. She had to think of something to say, some way to reason with Lor. But nothing in her mind worked. In the end it was instinct that won out.
Before she knew what she was doing she plowed passed her, threw her across the room. To the women, to the only person she'd never lay a finger on, she'd just pushed to the ground. Lor grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her into the now locked doors with such a force that it knocked the air out of her. Her body seemed to be beyond her control. She forced her off her by jabbing her hard in the stomach with her knee. Lor sputtered and Delenn made a run for it. If she could go fast enough she could make it to the ship. But no sooner had the thought crossed her mind then she felt Lor knock her off her feet. She struggled against her vainly, but Lor's knee cut so deeply into her chest it made it impossible for her to breath. "Delenn, stop!" Lor pleaded.
Her body went limp beneath the pressure and she cried, "No!" in a terrible cracked voice. The fight was over. She'd lost. Involuntarily she shouted low and incoherent, sounding very similar to a trapped squirrel.
Slowly Barbra got up off her and crawled a few inches backward. Hand clasped to her mouth she watched as Delenn struggled to catch her breath, and struggled harder still to keep from losing control of her self.
"Why?" Barbra asked desperately. "Why would you risk your life for this of all things?"
Delenn had stopped breathing hard. She lied on the ground like an exposed infant, cold, and naked. Her sweating face was pressed against the metal, half to cool her burning skin, and half to hide the growing shame from Barbra. She didn't speak. She couldn't speak.
"I don't understand you, Delenn. Every time I think I get you you do something stooped or irrational that doesn't fit. I don't know why I stay with you any longer. I don't know why I let you talk me into this and I'm about ready to give up. So if you have an idea in that fucked up head of yours about why I put up with you by all means let me know."
She just lied there, part of her hoping beyond hope that she'd walk threw those doors and she'd never have to see her again. And the other half wanted nothing more then to rush to her, cling to her until all thought of leaving her ceased. At that moment she truly couldn't tell which was stronger.
Barbra stood up holding her breath for an answer, any answer. One word from her and she'd stay, she'd listen, she'd care for her the way that Barbra owed and the way that Delenn needed. But no such word came. "Fine." She walked off to the door.
Her footsteps echoed off the walls and just as she reached the panel that accepted the security codes one side willed out. "It's because… It's because you want to make up for what you were."
Barbra's hand stayed suspended in midair. It hurt her to hear those words, as true as they were. She didn't know what to say or do next, the air was so thick she could taste the energy upon it, so she said nothing.
"You are my best friend, Lor."
"Then why were you trying to steel my brother's ship?"
"I have to get to Vartok."
"WHY?" Delenn jumped as though Lor had just smacked her across the face. "Why is this so damn important to you?"
"Just let me go." Delenn whispered.
"Not a chance in hell. I have granted you a lot of leeway, Delenn, and it ends here. You are not boarding that ship and you are going no where near Vartok."
No one would ever know how hard it was for her to say the words on her lips, but she couldn't stay, not when she was so close. She lifted herself off the floor. Her mouth opened and closed several times before she found a place to start. "You told me that you used to be one of the 'scheming double crossers' that reside in this universe. What happened to change that?"
Barbra let out a swift half sigh, half giggle. It struck her suddenly that they'd never talked directly about that moment. She seemed to inherently know why and when already. "It… when I was twenty eight I think-yes fourteen years ago by now, I was a scholar. I was commenting on Delenn, the first Delenn, and her husband. Well, commenting it was more like bashing. I was so convinced of my own damn superiority."
"And? What happened?"
"We, myself and two other scholars, had just started to comment on the fact that the Alliance was perpetuating lies that she was still alive. At that time she hadn't been seen in years, everyone thought she was dead. But then we heard something. Bells, and then an alarm. No it was the alarm then the bells, yes that was it. Anyways… she'd gotten passed the security and she stood there and said, 'John Sheridan was a good man.' That doesn't sound like much except that we had said some pretty horrible things about him. We all were so bloated with are pieced together knowledge. We wouldn't hear any of it. She saw right threw us, pegged us down flat without even trying. After all that time that was all she had to say. So much power radiating off her and that was all she had to say, that her husband was a good, kind, and descent man. And she went to leave and one of us said, 'Of course, we'd expect you to say that.'
"She looked at each of us in turn and… I couldn't look at her. I couldn't hold her gaze, none of us could. Never in my life had I felt that I'd wronged someone. Not with any amount of rebuttal could my confidence be swayed. In the brief moment before I looked away, she tore me into pieces. And I knew exactly how horrible I was; how detrimental the lies I was spreading were. From that moment on I couldn't… I couldn't-"
"Stay the way you were?"
"Yes." Barbra tried to say more but she couldn't. She stood in aw of her power and presence as though she were standing right there in front of her again.
Delenn got slowly up off the floor, her legs week beneath her, but steady. She was about to tell Lor that which she had never told anyone before. "With one brief look, Nana changed you," she began coming just that much closer to her with each word. "Just a look is all it took and you felt so connected that you've spent the rest of your life since trying to do right by her."
She was now face to face with Lor, their noses no more then an inch apart. Delenn could feel Lor's breath on her skin. She took her friends hands in hers and continued, "You know that from the age of two to the age of eight I was raised by her. But with that you don't know the half of it. Far few people do.
"When I was eight I came into Nana's room. She lied there surrounded by her friends and aids and prepared to leave this life. She held me as though I were her only link left to life, and the moment that she let go, she'd die. She had only one thing left to do. You know full well that the degradation of the history that they built together was well underway. She knew that if she didn't do something to stop it everything that she'd worked for would die along with her.
"It wasn't her decision. If it weren't for her closest aids she'd have never considered such a thing. Especially for someone so young. But it was the only way."
"What? What decision?"
"She gave me the only thing she had left to give. She gave me her memories. All of them." A silence so deep it could have swallowed a rocket engine roar filled the air in the room. Delenn couldn't quite dissect the look on Lor's face. Shock, disbelief, horror, almost everything you could feel encapsulated in one sweet face. "You were permanently changed and connected to her by one look. Can you imagine what a lifetime can do?"
"Why you? Surely someone like her could have found anyone to take on her memories."
"She could have," Delenn agreed. "Except that she couldn't have. The transfer had to be with a blood relative. And also someone, if only mildly, telepathic. My mother was a telepath. And as I have come to find, I think she was eager to give me the strength I would need to live without her. I must see this done. For me as much as for her. Dose that answer your question? Dose that give you insight into me?"
For what ever reason, perhaps the knowledge that she was so close to the one they called a living legend, she found she couldn't look up into Delenn's eyes. She tried so desperately to find another question a reason for her to say no, to tell her off like a child. But nothing came. To her relief it was Delenn that began to speak again.
"Even before the transfer, Nana and I shared one fatal flaw. We cannot simply stand by and watch as innocent things are destroyed. Even if it has nothing to do with me, even if I'm in no position to help I will force myself into a position to help. I cannot ideally watch as my family's name and honor are slaughtered. I think perhaps she counted on that. Don't make me fail her now."
Lor found that she'd been holding her breath for a while now. She exhaled purposefully and wondered as she made her decision, whether she would ever see Delenn alive again. Before her face a long thin gray rod appeared and she handed it to Delenn.
"What is this?" she asked lightly as she took it.
"A communicator. It's linked directly to the ship. Just in case you get into trouble."
"What ever makes you think I'd get into trouble?" she said, and threw herself against Lor's chest in a tight hug. She tried to absorb all Lor's emotions, to spare her having to feel them, just as Delenn had done on her death bed with a frightened little girl. Again, it didn't work. She held her tighter still, and then without the slightest inclination to look back Delenn let go heading for the ship.
March 7, 3262
He never would have believed it but he'd actually found a way to make walking around his beloved monastery the duty from Hell! His initial impression of Sister Alanis was of a quiet, nervous, shy individual. At first that seemed almost correct. She was deathly polite and seemed to think over every word before she said it. But very quickly he found that she was the sternest, most unyielding religious fanatic he'd ever met. He'd managed to stick his foot in his mouth almost immediately by commenting on a relief depicting Ivanova the Strong. He said that it was unusually convenient that she, as the only prominent female figure in the Reckoning, aside form Delenn the Wise, was almost always depicted with Anla'shok Cole. And almost as soon as Cole's death she disappears from the pages of the Reckoning. As though her importance was being deliberately down played.
She immediately asked him harshly if he was a conspiracy monger, and went on to say that people who insisted on questioning the word of the people that rebuilt their world shouldn't be allowed into religious service and waste the governments time and money.
But there was only one place left, the garden. And as he never missed an opportunity to visit he almost gleefully opened the greenhouse door.
The smell of damp earth filled him with a sense of well being. Nothing edible grew anymore except in a carefully tended greenhouse. The sky was simply too cold, the dirt too dead. Rows and rows of raised beds filled with green stood before them. Brother Michael navigated threw the plants with the expression of a proud father.
"I did most of this myself."
"Impressive," she said, the first complement that had come out of her mouth since they started their tore. She eyed the common legumes and roots one by one, lentils, pintos, kidney, and black beans, carrots, potatoes, then, "Wait a minute. Are those-"
"-tomatoes. Yeah." He ran his fingers over the slightly spiny leafs.
She stared covetously at it, showing for once something other then pompousness. "I haven't seen a tomato in years. Alive or otherwise."
"Go ahead. Take one."
"Oh I couldn't possibly. That belongs to you and the members of this monastery. How could I live with myself knowing I'd stolen from the mouth of my companions?"
There it goes again. He tried to ignore the spearhead of annoyance that was growing inside him and tried to move on with his first opportunity for reasonable conversation. "If you think that's something wait 'till you see this."
He wound her threw the maze of beds to the very back corner of the greenhouse, were no one looked. He stopped and presented her with his most prized plant. A curious sent filled the air, sweet and yet, what was it, bitter? No. The plant had dark green leafs and long thick steams with thorns on them. At the very top of almost all the steams were brilliantly red flowers. She'd never seen anything like it.
"What is it?" she asked in aw.
"It's a rose," he said in barley more then a whisper.
"Rose." She studied the plant carefully, took in every thorn, every petal. Then she asked, "What sort of fruit dose it grow?"
"No fruit. It's a plant of pure beauty. One of the last known to exist. There used to be billions of them all over the world, fields where they grew them to be purchased. People used to give them to one and other to make them feel special. Now their almost gone."
Sister Alanis' expression had turned from shock to dismay with every word Brother Michael said. "That is against policy. No plant is to be grown in the greenhouses but those that bare food. Dose Brother Alwyn know about this?"
"Um… um," 'Lie,' he thought to himself, 'Lie damn you, lie. For once in your life grow balls and lie!' "No. I-I mean yes. I mean-this is a part of history. This is a piece of the world the holy books talk about. It is… proof that we… we're still alive."
"It is a waste of agricultural space." She crossed her arms and bore into him. "You really are a piece of work aren't you? You obviously question the basic principals of the very system you serve. You disregard the rules for your own personal gains. And what's worse, you're disrespecting the very government that keeps you alive."
That one slapped him just hard enough to step out and stand up for himself. "Rome has refused to recognize us. They support nothing."
"Oh," she said lightly and apologetically. "Then how my I ask dose the Del La Rosa get its money? This is the most lavish monastery I've seen; tomatoes, a library with books no one has heard of, wood even. I refuse to believe that Rome isn't supporting you. Your logic is flawed. Is there anything you do properly?"
Brother Michael managed to mumble something that sounded like, "Ahhblummum."
"Ah, stumble, got it. Now if you please I'd like to be shown to my room so I can wash my hands of this nonsense." And she took off without another word.
Brother Michael stood in her wake, something very disturbing in his mind. How did the monastery get its money?