Erasure: Evidence of Things Not Seen
Title: Evidence of Things Not Seen
Original text(s) erased: Posse Comitatus
Erased by: vialethe
Original text by: flyakate
Fandom (of original text): Firefly
Fandom (of erasure): Firefly
Notes: Modified and added punctuation and removed italics. Fic title, following the theme of the original piece, is from a West Wing episode title.
So, I took a fun and lengthy caper-fic about vengeance and working as a team and turned it into...well, there's several interpretations, but they're pretty much all on the dark and disturbing side. Sorry about that, flyakate.
Evidence of Things Not Seen
Gaze unblinkingly on the black.
"Mythology's faulty."
His attention on her fingers, a minute correction humming and pushing.
"Story's old, circumstance expired."
Mal, not bothering with hiding.
River, making fragments without context.
Like crossed wires, Mal thought; too apt, still can't be fixed.
Raise the curtain, she offered. Your cue skews the narrative.
What of her mouth?
She looked to where Mal sat staring,
a long moment thinking.
For anyone else he'd stare down the empty or silent.
How many of them had tried, on the way out.
Something is wrong, maybe his want to know.
Again, River spoke,
the end coming, barely enough left,
torn apart in Mal's head, and her smile grew brittle, too sharp to hope.
"Can't you offer, whether we're taking it or not?"
Mal breathed in, out.
Quiet, blinking at the emptiness of stars and the vacant voice.
Wishing he could be wordless,
hating the things the silence told him more.
She caught his fingers; secrets were out,
a chance they could still remember
how long was close enough to the truth, far enough away from an answer.
"We'll fall out of the sky, either way."
No mistake, all the women he'd led to hurt clutched at his shoulders.
His breath stopped, a quick glance silhouetted by the stars.
"Close," she said. "Not yet."
Finally, Mal looked at River.
Biblical. The snake in the grass a metaphor, familiar.
The hard stone now sat balanced on the back of her hand.
Muscles moved under it, blood flowed.
With hardly a blink, she could put what was left of them down.
Mal reasoned against it. "I got scars older than you."
Some other emotion, deeper and more secret.
That was the real reason they were here; he meant to make it even, in blood.
She had been one of his, and ultimately he could understand River,
her hand falling to wait him out, idly,
the silence broken by flesh and the weight of relief cut short.
He'd known she could feel it.
"Yes," she said. "We couldn't go quiet. Slower than others, not poisonous."
Killed means letting it be up to River.
Bracing his hands against her, the urge mending,
her muscles shift, her eyes hard, satisfied.
"I'm glad it hurt."
In silence he flexed a hand, almost proud and maybe impressed.
Mal was lucky. He could picture River,
always River, never cryptic, half crumbled to dust - see her wave of tangled curls.
She didn't need him; Serenity would keep pushing them past the black.
Original text(s) erased: Posse Comitatus
Erased by: vialethe
Original text by: flyakate
Fandom (of original text): Firefly
Fandom (of erasure): Firefly
Notes: Modified and added punctuation and removed italics. Fic title, following the theme of the original piece, is from a West Wing episode title.
So, I took a fun and lengthy caper-fic about vengeance and working as a team and turned it into...well, there's several interpretations, but they're pretty much all on the dark and disturbing side. Sorry about that, flyakate.
Evidence of Things Not Seen
Gaze unblinkingly on the black.
"Mythology's faulty."
His attention on her fingers, a minute correction humming and pushing.
"Story's old, circumstance expired."
Mal, not bothering with hiding.
River, making fragments without context.
Like crossed wires, Mal thought; too apt, still can't be fixed.
Raise the curtain, she offered. Your cue skews the narrative.
What of her mouth?
She looked to where Mal sat staring,
a long moment thinking.
For anyone else he'd stare down the empty or silent.
How many of them had tried, on the way out.
Something is wrong, maybe his want to know.
Again, River spoke,
the end coming, barely enough left,
torn apart in Mal's head, and her smile grew brittle, too sharp to hope.
"Can't you offer, whether we're taking it or not?"
Mal breathed in, out.
Quiet, blinking at the emptiness of stars and the vacant voice.
Wishing he could be wordless,
hating the things the silence told him more.
She caught his fingers; secrets were out,
a chance they could still remember
how long was close enough to the truth, far enough away from an answer.
"We'll fall out of the sky, either way."
No mistake, all the women he'd led to hurt clutched at his shoulders.
His breath stopped, a quick glance silhouetted by the stars.
"Close," she said. "Not yet."
Finally, Mal looked at River.
Biblical. The snake in the grass a metaphor, familiar.
The hard stone now sat balanced on the back of her hand.
Muscles moved under it, blood flowed.
With hardly a blink, she could put what was left of them down.
Mal reasoned against it. "I got scars older than you."
Some other emotion, deeper and more secret.
That was the real reason they were here; he meant to make it even, in blood.
She had been one of his, and ultimately he could understand River,
her hand falling to wait him out, idly,
the silence broken by flesh and the weight of relief cut short.
He'd known she could feel it.
"Yes," she said. "We couldn't go quiet. Slower than others, not poisonous."
Killed means letting it be up to River.
Bracing his hands against her, the urge mending,
her muscles shift, her eyes hard, satisfied.
"I'm glad it hurt."
In silence he flexed a hand, almost proud and maybe impressed.
Mal was lucky. He could picture River,
always River, never cryptic, half crumbled to dust - see her wave of tangled curls.
She didn't need him; Serenity would keep pushing them past the black.