Five things meme response the first
Feb. 26th, 2010 09:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakFive people Gaius loved
1.) Hippocrates of Kos. For founding medicine as a science, for those sixty one books analyzing illnesses and prescribing remedies, for the mind tracking down cause and effect, for the oath giving one an ideal to cling to. Even before the Purge, Gaius saw magic as merely an aide, and one that should be used sparingly because it was not nearly as reliable as scientific means. Medicine, by contrast, was a calling and his life’s purpose. Hippocrates has never led him down. He has given Gaius’ life meaning even in the darkest times, reaching across centuries, providing method and logic when Gaius felt himself despairing. It’s not too much to say he loves Hippocrates for this.
2.) Hunith. She always was his favourite cousin, and one of the strongest people he knows; as well as one of the wisest. After they had both escaped certain death and before she returned to Ealdor, he asked her, when they were alone, why she had sent Merlin to Camelot. Not that he was not glad she did, every day, and happy to provide what guidance he could give. Still, sending your child to the one place in all of Albion where all magic was forbidden and magic users were not simply distrusted but threatened when that child exudes magic with every step he takes was, on the face of it, a sense-defying action.
“Because magic is forbidden here,” she replied. “If he had gone to a place where he could have done whatever he liked, I might have lost my son for good, Gaius, for there is nothing he cannot do. No man should have such power without restraint. It would have eaten my boy away until there was nothing left but the magic.”
Gaius nodded, and loved her in the knowledge their kinship went beyond blood lines.
3.) Uther. It would simplify his life a great deal if he could say he had loved the young man, the king Uther used to be, and now felt nothing but obedience, fear, and the bitterness of shared guilt, but that wasn’t true. Loving Uther was too deeply rooted a habit in him, or rather, a scar that faded but could never completely vanish. Gaius had a very good reason to for this diagnosis. If he had ever managed to completely cure himself of loving Uther, being handed over to Aredian would not have hurt the way it had done. And when Uther did not even have to decency to stay and witness Gaius die but left his son to do it, it would not have hollowed him inside out so that he barely noticed his reprieve when Arthur stopped the Witchfinder.
4.) Merlin. As far as he knew, Gaius had never sired a child. But what made him love Merlin was not merely some belated longing for a son. He had been careful, very careful, not to love either Arthur or Morgana, whom he saw growing up. Partly because of Uther, and partly because giving your heart to a child not your own meant you would never get it back. At least that was what Gaius had always told himself. Hunith’s son, when he arrived, broke that rule along with many others. It was impossible not to love him, for a lot of reasons, but the one Gaius was least able to admit to himself was this: when Merlin looked at him, he saw the man Gaius had always wanted to be, but had not managed to, not until now. Gaius would have done anything to keep it this way.
5.) A girl whose name he never learned, and whom he saw but once, as a young boy on the verge to manhood. He had just successfully performed his first operation, on the leg of Hunith’s kitten which was broken, thus saving the kitten from being drowned as his uncle, Hunith’s father, suggested. Young Gaius, saviour of kittens and cousins in distress, felt happy enough to fulfill himself a dream of visiting the next bigger town, and managed to persuade some traders to let him travel with them on their boat. While they were on their way, a boat came down the river, and passed theirs, and on that boat stood a girl who was the most beautiful creature Gaius had ever seen, holding an instrument which he later found out was an astrolabe, to measure the stars. In broad daylight. An impossible sight, embodying mystery and wonder, forever out of his reach, and therefore devoutly to be loved.
Five times Londo Mollari was lost for words.
1.) When his father told him “My shoes are too tight, and I have forgotten how to dance.” Londo was still young enough at that point that the idea that his father - who always harped on tradition, duty, and the injustice of House Mollari falling into decline, and seemed to have been born middle-aged, full of rules – had regrets stupefied him. In his own middle age, he thought he should have told his father that day that youth was always wasted on the young, though that would have been a lie. As it was, he said nothing.
2.) The morning after his wedding night with Timov, who had made it clear in no uncertain terms that it would stay ceremonial. Back then, Londo had of course not been bereft of words but had several sarcastic replies at his disposal, and the whole thing had quickly become a duel with words. But the next morning, when he had expected Timov to flount the fact they hadn’t even gotten to stage one and shame him in front of his and her family, she asked for a double breakfast instead, declaring the night’s exertions had made her hungry. Which led to both sets of parents beaming in approval and Londo being lost for words.
Until they had finished the breakfast, that is.
3.) Londo had expected the Minbari ceremony to be boring, but it was at least marginally entertaining because G’Kar kept fidgeting though it, obviously very anxious about something. This, naturally, made Londo smile sweetly at him while they were given red fruit to eat, putting on a great show of enjoying himself, and gratifyingly, G’Kar appeared even more irritated, and glared at him while eating his own red fruit. Afterwards, the Narn couldn’t wait to get away. “You must write the details of this ceremony down for me,” Londo said to Delenn. “If it always has such wonderful results with G’Kar, I must repeat it.”
“I have a feeling that you will, Ambassador,” she returned with her most serene smile. “It is, after all, a wedding ceremony. I’m sure you will be very happy together.”
Londo was at a loss of words.
4.) When G’Kar invited him to that drink. Even saying “to the Emperor” felt as if someone else was speaking, using Londo’s voice. There were few scenes he replayed more often in his mind, but he never found something better to say. “I just started a war between our people,” would have been impossible. And he knew he’d never have said “excuse me, before you speak further, I must get in contact with Mr. Morden again, and Lord Refa, and ask them to cancel the whole affair”. There simply was no appropriate reply, and so even in his dreams, he never gave one.
Later, when he had managed to end up with a fragment of G’Kar in his head, that fragment told him he could have said “I’m sorrry”, but that was G’Kar for you.
5.) When they first found Na’Toth in that cell. It was different from the sight of G’Kar there, a year earlier. He had never had any strong feelings about Na’Toth; she had been G’Kar’s pesky aide, no more, no less, another annoying Narn. Somehow, that made finding her in this state infinitely worse. G’Kar had simply been G’Kar, utterly his own category in Londo’s life. Na’Toth somehow was her planet, that planet he had watched while mass drivers were used, and Londo had known then that the blood was on his hands still, and always would be.
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Date: 2010-02-26 09:18 pm (UTC)I should also give some belated praise of your Gaius' story "Introspectus" since I think it is exactly how Gaius would think, and the dictates of class make so much sense in that world. Reading all your Merlin fic is a real pleasure and gives great satisfaction.
I liked Babylon 5 but never followed it closely. Still I love no 3 and find everyone in character there, and the others seem to capture the many elements of the show well.
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Date: 2010-02-27 05:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-27 03:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-27 05:08 am (UTC)