itle: Exodus
Author: M.
Author's Contact Info: or
Rating: PG-13
Genre: alternate universe, challenge response
Pairings (if any): nothing canon
Characters: OCs
Summary: It is the end of the frakking worlds...
Author's Note: For the Common People Challenge. Thank you minisinoo for your help too. Invaluable both of you! I should mention, I keep picturing Lena Olin when I think of Delia.
"Exodus"
by M.
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Themiscrya is burning.
The capital city of the mighty Amazon nation is burning. There are no flames, no smoke, no fire but still, the city burns. Warriors, their husbands and children rush through the streets mutely. All clutching whatever precious belongings they can carry. The Cylons have attacked, the colonies are falling into shambles, their citizens fleeing in whatever they can find, it is the end of the fraking worlds.
"Delia," the raspy voice from the bed behind her brings the Queen's attention away from the window and her maudlin thoughts. Holding her turmoil in, the Amazon moves to her husband's bedside to smile at him. Taking his hand in hers, she kneels beside him without thought to appearance. Amazon queens do not kneel before a man, any man, but she does not care. Instead, she holds his hand to her breast and waits for him to speak even though she knows already what he will say. He's said it before.
"You need to leave," he entreats in a hoarse whisper. It's all he can manage in these latter days. The illness that plagues him has long since stolen his strength from him and left a hollowed out husk where the love of her life had once been. She hates to see him this way... yet she cannot imagine losing him either. Even though, she knows, the moment is at hand, chosen for them by the Cylon invasion. "You can't wait, Delia. They...need you."
He is right, they both know, the transports were leaving as fast as they could and the Cylons knew nothing of mercy. Equality between the Amazon nation and the Colonies has finally been achieved, if only in the mutual slaughter of their peoples. They flee side by side but unlike the Colonials, the Amazons are long used to such. Their conflict-filled history with the Colonials has taught them nowhere is home. Not truly. Home is land and cities that can be, and have been, ripped away in a matter of seconds.
It was strange that it was the Cylons now. Delia has always dreamt the cities would be stolen from her people not by attack but by the slow, cold encroaching of the Colonial democracy. This bloody rain of death from the sky...
It's almost too much to bear.
Though they have lived in relative peace in cities like Themiscrya for centuries, scattered amongst the twelve colonies in such a fashion the Quorum has deemed them 'harmless', the Nation knows only too well the hostility and mistrust which still lurks. They know the diaspora of the Amazons is meant to keep them from regrouping, united under their Queen, and returning to the battles of old when the Colonies were young and still fragmented. They had always known they would some day have to fight for their homes once more. They have always prepared for the eventuality of fighting, or fleeing...
Still, in times past when Delia had permitted herself the thought of leaving her beloved city, of an Amazonian exodus, she never for a moment pictured all of humanity joining her people in their flight. And yet, they are. More by the minute. She has received reports of Colonial citizens fleeing to the supposed safety of Themiscrya's fortified walls, hoping the Amazons would offer them shelter for which they have no right to ask.
She has given permission to save those that they can but she knows for as much as they can do, it will never be enough.
"The last transport hasn't left yet, husband," she assures quietly, a detached part of herself observing how formal her tone has become. It's a defense she often uses when her emotions are at a breaking point. It amuses her in an obscene fashion. She had thought herself long past that point. "We'll be leaving with it, I promise."
"No." Tyron argues as much as he can, shaking his head in a slow, agonizing motion which is a sick parody of disagreement, "I'm not going with you, Delia and you know that." He swallows, a dry and pointless exercise and she reaches for the ever present cup of water. Helping him to drink, she brushes a hand over his hair, noticing how thin and sparse it has become. Wasting away like the rest of him. She is careful to make sure he drinks slow. It is both an act of mercy and calculation. She needs the precious few moments to think, to marshal her thoughts and arguments into what she already knows is a pointless case. He will stay. He will die. He is days, hours, away from death. Every moment takes him a step closer to the Veil of Tears and, she hopes, the Elysian Fields which lie beyond. There is no changing his fate. Even if the Cylons had not attacked, her husband would be dying still and she cannot justify taking a place on a transport for him and denying a healthy, living person their life. The young and the healthy are the priority now if they have any hope of survival. She knows she must think of the survival of the Nation and she has made decisions accordingly.
Even now, in the streets below and on all the Colonies, the elders of the Nation are helping their younger sisters and their families flee. It is their sacrifice to make and Delia had no need of making it a command or royal decree. She knows her sisters well, they would do this no matter what she said. It is the sacrifice they must all choose and even the Queen of the Amazons must fall under its weight.
Though it means leaving her dying husband behind. It is her only choice but she rebels from it still. The woman behind the Queen is balking at the suggestion. They have had a good life. He has raised her eldest daughter well despite her parentage, he has given her three more strong and healthy daughters and he left his beloved city behind to live at her side. She knows only too well that for men to leave the Colonial life behind is not an easy choice. Not for any man. Not even a poet like her beloved Tyron. She has personally witnessed the rejection of his family, seen the pain it has caused him. She swore an oath upon her very life that she would never do so to him and part of her hopes, even now, that they die in this attack. It is a thought she keeps secret for it shames her... but still she cannot erase it. Even as she commits the very sin she hates them for.
Lowering her head, she presses a kiss to his forehead, crying out to her goddess in a plea. Without Artemis' strength, she cannot imagine finding the strength to move from this place. To walk away from him.
"Delia..." Voice stronger, Tyron tries again. His hand grasps hers as tightly as he can manage. It is a frail and brittle grip but it still conjures up images and memories of a thousand touches and embraces. She looks down and she doesn't see his hand as it is, wrinkled and gnarled with disease, instead she sees it as it was when she met him. Strong and capable. How she longs for those days and with the same breath curses the Cylons. He will die alone and they are to blame. They and the Colonials. She knows it is a bitter thought but she sees the Colonies' weakness, the lowering of their guard, as the true deathblow. The Cylon attack is merely the inevitable result and she cannot escape the angry thought.
"Delia, you need to go." Her husband's quiet plea draws her from her rage and she is surprised to see him smiling at her. Amusement lurks in the smile and it is something she has not seen in him in months. "If Galactica is all that is left... Adama will need the Nation." He smiles just a little more and it's almost his old smile, not a ghost of what once was. "The Nation needs its Queen."
She holds in a snort of disdain at the mention of the old Battlestar. She will not defame Adama. Of all the Colonials she has had the duty to study, he has never been one worthy of her scorn. Many of them are. But her usual biting comments are kept from him. If she could choose one of them to face down in battle it would be him. Of all of them, she considers him a worthy adversary but, alas, it seems they are condemned to be allies. Or, in truth, she is condemned to be in his debt.
It's that moment that makes her think she died in the Cylon attack. For this must be Tartarus and Hades is torturing her with such a fate. She needs the Colonials more than they need her and the thought burns like the fire consuming their worlds. White hot and as strong as a thousand suns. The gods, it seems, enjoy mocking her.
"Highness." A young voice interrupts their final moments and she knows that those moments are at an end. No one would dare disturb her, not even this young daughter of one of her ministers, for anything less. They respect their Queen but they fear her anger nonetheless and when it falls to her husband, Delia's anger is fierce and easily provoked. "Your transport...it's ready."
She is dismissed with a curt nod and all but runs from the room, Delia suspects she'd be a thousand times more willing to face down every Cylon in existence than look her queen in the eye again. If she could summon a care, the thought would trouble her. Instead, she looks at her husband's face for the last time. "I don't want to go."
"I don't want you to." He responds, touching one lock of her hair.
It is with reluctance that she stands, drawing a slow and steadying breath, and pushes a weapon into his hand. "If one of those..." Words fail her and she falls silent.
Tyron grips the weapon with the scant strength remaining to him and smiles, this time it is a ghastly echo of his true smile, it is a smile which will haunt her. "Go."
She summons the strength for one last kiss then she is gone to the waiting Amazons at the door and pretends not to hear the shot.
Finis