Chapter Text
Originally Published February 2, 2010
Nara removed the mask - shaking then coughing as cold, bitter air invaded her lungs. Amid the tumult, that reawakening, the mask slipped and hit the floor with a thud. Everything went unnoticed as the war echoed throughout the vessel.
The universe was a blur inside that whirl of chaos. She forgot where she was, what she was, even who she was. And, oddly, that loss of identity did not frighten the girl.
It came as a relief.
Was a dream? Or was it that she had been overlooked as the machine of war passed? Left behind, alone, to stagger home. Hope - illusionary as it was foolish, deadly.
Peace was shattered by the fragments of memory that returned.
"Marsala!" she uttered involuntarily as if trapped by the explosion - the shock of it, relived as it was, overpowered any kind of control.
Marsala - the last face she saw after the Pirate's attack. As vision faded, as awareness ebbed, she feared she voiced that confession - that she was safe with Marsala. Gods, if she said it aloud!
Where that came from she could not say but that it was true.
"Nara ... Nara, terrans are not ... unfragile," he said trying to re-mask the girl.
"It's you," she said, weak yet determined, to stop the neosapien.
The impasse was reached as hand met hand with mask between fingers.
She sighed.
The room was dim. Its window shut. Its doorway gaped. Both were pitch. Except at the rim of the glass where slivers of yellow laser weaponry shined through.
"I heard you call."
A hand clutched a shoulder with the gentility of a feather.
A face smiled.
He heard.... She called. He heard....
She blushed - caught again revealing too much.
She clutched his arm, completing the circle, then raised her hand to his cheek.