rose_griffes (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rose_griffes) wrote2007-02-27 05:39 pm
rose_griffes) wrote2007-02-27 05:39 pm
BSG fics: lots o' mythology
Four mythology ficlets
Boomer, Lee, Leoben, Kara
rated PG (because the Greeks had a bloody group of gods)
740 words
I read way too much mythology as a kid. It still shows.
spoilers through 3.13 "Taking A Break..."
thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jashyr for listening to me whine about this & giving encouragement and the green light
Boomer
Once you prayed to the gods, then you woke up as one. You're immortal, powerful and dangerous. You don't revel in it; desperate to be the girl again, the girl who smiled and lost at cards, who messed up her landings, who made a good man break his promise just to be with you... You cling to the last shreds of that girl and try to remember how it felt.
Craving to be human, to hurt and love and laugh and frak and die with someone you love crying nearby; you want to be with the humans but they look at you as a god now. Their eyes are fearful and downcast and they whisper prayers when you walk by.
You take that child, child of your sister; she could be your baby. Child will save you, but it doesn't. The god-shell swallows you; you lose your humanity in your power. You swallow the child, you're Cronus who swallowed his own children and they slice you open to save the child, words cutting (neck broken), you lie there bleeding, childless, a god dying... but you can't die.
Lee
How long had this gold-tipped arrow been lodged in him? She was beautiful when she hunted. Maybe that was her true calling. She stalked her prey and he couldn't look away but unlike Apollo of old he hadn't chased her (until he did), hadn't gone after her until he thought she would escape to another. For a brief moment he was Apollo chasing his Daphne; she ran and peeked back at him, her hair flowing loose over her shoulders. He caught her and reveled in the victory. It was only after that she turned away, took root elsewhere. Arrow to the heart, he can't remove it or he'll die. She was forever out of reach.
Then the huntress comes back to life, taunting him; he's the hunted now. He runs slowly, a stitch in his side from the arrow wound. She entwines around him, offers to catch him and he finds he's been rooted, bound in place, arms have become branches. They're both rooted, across a river of salt, of tears and he yearns to touch her but the salt river is poison and he can never have her because to have her is death to him where he's planted now.
Leoben
I see the images that flow past her of her false gods; I know more of them than she does. The stories of their counterfeit gods are lies. (I know lies.) These stories contain more than is seen, they show the patterns of humanity's flaws. Their first gods were the Titans. Gaea, Uranus, Cronus; mother, son become lover and child become destroyer. Humans are like the Titans; then the pattern is remade.
Zeus, child of Cronus, leader of the Olympians; he saves his siblings and overthrows his father. We're children of humanity as those Olympians were the children of the Titans, children who overthrew the parents. We're made in their image but we're stronger. We know our true God and He is without flaws.
She prays to the daughters of Zeus, Artemis and Aphrodite. She doesn't know she prays to us. Unknowing, she seeks that perfect image, in all of her flawed beauty.
Kara*
Four months in the underworld. She can't remember if Persephone stayed longer. They both came back but Kara didn't come back alone. He's a shade whom no one else acknowledges but she hears him, she sees him. Lord of the dead.
She had swallowed the pomegranate seeds and would have to return to the underworld. How many seeds, how long in the underworld? She swallowed the lie--this is your daughter.
Or maybe she had fed him seeds--two kisses and two times a lie that he willingly believed. But it's not a lie now because all the other loves in her life had burned into ash even before she went into the underworld with him.
When Sam kisses her she feels his warm skin and wonders how long before he becomes a statue to grace the tomb of their marriage.
Hades came up from the underworld, following her now because of the seeds he swallowed, the seeds she gave him. He's always there and Demeter doesn't care; mother pushes her toward him and it's all she deserves, all she can be is a consort to death.
Drown or burn she's still in the underworld.
* I posted the Kara piece by itself last week. Then it kept going. The idea of head!Leoben owes a lot tonatalexx.
eta: head!Leoben wasn't established in show canon when I wrote this.
Boomer, Lee, Leoben, Kara
rated PG (because the Greeks had a bloody group of gods)
740 words
I read way too much mythology as a kid. It still shows.
spoilers through 3.13 "Taking A Break..."
thanks to
jashyr for listening to me whine about this & giving encouragement and the green lightBoomer
Once you prayed to the gods, then you woke up as one. You're immortal, powerful and dangerous. You don't revel in it; desperate to be the girl again, the girl who smiled and lost at cards, who messed up her landings, who made a good man break his promise just to be with you... You cling to the last shreds of that girl and try to remember how it felt.
Craving to be human, to hurt and love and laugh and frak and die with someone you love crying nearby; you want to be with the humans but they look at you as a god now. Their eyes are fearful and downcast and they whisper prayers when you walk by.
You take that child, child of your sister; she could be your baby. Child will save you, but it doesn't. The god-shell swallows you; you lose your humanity in your power. You swallow the child, you're Cronus who swallowed his own children and they slice you open to save the child, words cutting (neck broken), you lie there bleeding, childless, a god dying... but you can't die.
Lee
How long had this gold-tipped arrow been lodged in him? She was beautiful when she hunted. Maybe that was her true calling. She stalked her prey and he couldn't look away but unlike Apollo of old he hadn't chased her (until he did), hadn't gone after her until he thought she would escape to another. For a brief moment he was Apollo chasing his Daphne; she ran and peeked back at him, her hair flowing loose over her shoulders. He caught her and reveled in the victory. It was only after that she turned away, took root elsewhere. Arrow to the heart, he can't remove it or he'll die. She was forever out of reach.
Then the huntress comes back to life, taunting him; he's the hunted now. He runs slowly, a stitch in his side from the arrow wound. She entwines around him, offers to catch him and he finds he's been rooted, bound in place, arms have become branches. They're both rooted, across a river of salt, of tears and he yearns to touch her but the salt river is poison and he can never have her because to have her is death to him where he's planted now.
Leoben
I see the images that flow past her of her false gods; I know more of them than she does. The stories of their counterfeit gods are lies. (I know lies.) These stories contain more than is seen, they show the patterns of humanity's flaws. Their first gods were the Titans. Gaea, Uranus, Cronus; mother, son become lover and child become destroyer. Humans are like the Titans; then the pattern is remade.
Zeus, child of Cronus, leader of the Olympians; he saves his siblings and overthrows his father. We're children of humanity as those Olympians were the children of the Titans, children who overthrew the parents. We're made in their image but we're stronger. We know our true God and He is without flaws.
She prays to the daughters of Zeus, Artemis and Aphrodite. She doesn't know she prays to us. Unknowing, she seeks that perfect image, in all of her flawed beauty.
Kara*
Four months in the underworld. She can't remember if Persephone stayed longer. They both came back but Kara didn't come back alone. He's a shade whom no one else acknowledges but she hears him, she sees him. Lord of the dead.
She had swallowed the pomegranate seeds and would have to return to the underworld. How many seeds, how long in the underworld? She swallowed the lie--this is your daughter.
Or maybe she had fed him seeds--two kisses and two times a lie that he willingly believed. But it's not a lie now because all the other loves in her life had burned into ash even before she went into the underworld with him.
When Sam kisses her she feels his warm skin and wonders how long before he becomes a statue to grace the tomb of their marriage.
Hades came up from the underworld, following her now because of the seeds he swallowed, the seeds she gave him. He's always there and Demeter doesn't care; mother pushes her toward him and it's all she deserves, all she can be is a consort to death.
Drown or burn she's still in the underworld.
* I posted the Kara piece by itself last week. Then it kept going. The idea of head!Leoben owes a lot to
natalexx.eta: head!Leoben wasn't established in show canon when I wrote this.
no subject
This was beautiful. I don't think I could pick a favorite part; it was all so good.
no subject
I am such a mythology geek, and I love love when it shows up in Battlestar, both in canon and otherwise.
I would love it if the show had even more myth references. I think it's a big reason I got hooked on the show in the first place.
(I have to confess as a fellow mythology geek that I've been writing an essay about Leoben. Writing an essay for *fun*. I think I moved up from mythology geek to mythology über-geek.)
no subject
Heh. Don't feel too bad...I could easily see myself doing that too. I have this tendency to try and work mythology into everything and anything sometimes, really.
no subject
These are beautifully written, very deep.
^_^
no subject
no subject
no subject
I, too, love the mythology influences in the show, though the religion stuff (which is woven into a lot of the mythology stuff, of course, too) is what *really* seems to show up in my stories. The Leoben/Kara fic from Leoben's POV I was writing on a couple months ago (and have neglected since--it's kind of on hold until we get some canon relating to Leoben, I guess) was SO religion-heavy I was getting a little nervous, actually. Heh.
no subject
The Leoben/Kara fic from Leoben's POV I was writing on a couple months ago (and have neglected since--it's kind of on hold until we get some canon relating to Leoben, I guess) was SO religion-heavy I was getting a little nervous, actually. Heh.
I really get that. That little Leoben section was a lot longer originally--he kept lecturing me about the gods (and talking about Kara, of course). I had to cut quite a bit. I'll be curious to see what else I might learn about Leoben in "Maelstrom." It's finally downloading right now. I hate waiting.