the sky stirred (star trek ds9 | adami, ben, nerys)

[fiachairecht]

the sky stirred. star trek: deep space 9, winn, ben, nerys. the fires took many but she they gave back, and she is still kai. 597w, rated t.

Dukat does not rise when the fires take him.

He is a gift, after all, and though there was a time they would have considered themselves above this, those who stayed in the sky are not the only ones who have learned these past seven years. He is a gift given freely, and as his skin blisters and cracks and tendrils of flame lap greedily at his spilt blood the walls shiver in triumph enough to drown his screams.

(It is a pity, she will think later, she wanted to hear his death-cries, his invader's pagh finally wrenched from his foreign bones and made to be devoured. No matter, she thinks in the moment, as warmth like she never knew could exist tumbles over her skin.)

The fires take her too. They rise from the caverns, rise in coloured ribbons streaking across her vision and pouring into her anywhere they can reach: open chest, open mouth, open eyes.

And she is —

— she is —

— and she is more than she has ever been, more than the Prophets had ever allowed Bajor to be. The world swells inside her and when she whispers mine the fire agrees, yours, a hundred million voices reaching out from her, for her.

When the false Emissary comes, he says, I should have known the demon would be you, and she just smiles, smiles too widely with a mouth that is hers-not-hers and will always be.

Child, she says, because that is all he will ever be.

He burns too, but his is a stolen fire, one that he stumbled into and ripped away and made his, because his Federation does not know what it means to belong, they only know what it is to take.

He is a man possessed, but she, oh, she is, and the very earth trembles with it, voices that had been raised to the false Temple when all along those who truly cared abided below the soil (we are of Bajor and will never leave Her for the void where starfire plays at being warmth) gone quiet as she flings him to the sky.

(They will be shown their errors. They will be shown love. They will not burn.)

(Unless they refuse to understand.)

Nerys does not bow. Nerys comes to her open-handed and cold with the tang of a Cardassian station in her pagh.

My child, Adami says, and caresses her free ear, and dares her to deny the claim. Nerys, too, fought for Bajor. There is still soil in her blood and sky in her eyes.

Nerys shivers and shuts her eyes and in the deep Caves that are now too silent she asks, Will Bajor remain?

Yes, Adami says, and still she smiles. Oh, yes, my child, she will ever remain.

It is easier, after that.

Cardassia bows first, because she has precious little to pay with and she knows, and she is so very tired. She is too much dust to burn, but she shivers and shuts her eyes and behind curtains of fire Bajor turns her over and over thinks about the shape of galaxies to come.

The Federation takes longer to bow. She picks it apart slowly, listens to those who worked with it in those bleak days when it spun through Bajor's skies on a stolen station. Some she lets run. Some learn how to join her. Some she lets the fires take.

The fires took many, but she they gave back.

And still Adami is Kai.

And still Bajor murmurs softly to its people.

And still She holds Her children.

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