Comfort From Above by akimi_hime
Dec. 28th, 2005 06:45 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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sga_flashficTitle: Comfort from Above
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
akimi_hime
Challenge: Amnesty/Darkness
Characters: Carson
Rating: G
Summary: Carson had been afraid of the dark.
Notes: Another little snippet of mine...one day, I *will* write an actual, full-fledged fic. Just...not today.
Wordcount:518
When he was very small, just three or four years old, Carson had been afraid of the dark. He made his mother leave the lamp on every night, and check under the bed and in the closets, because monsters were tricky creatures and could change their hiding place just to trip you up.
One night there was a power outage and Carson woke up screaming. His mother very deftly scooped him from his bed and took him outside, where the whole world was dark and cold and full of unseen dangers. They stood there in the front yard, wrapped in blackness, Carson’s face buried in his mother’s shoulder. “Look up,” she whispered, and Carson refused. “Come now, Carson, it’s really much brighter out here than curled up against me with your eyes shut. Look up.” And again he refused, because his mother didn’t understand, this was a safe dark, warm and protected, not like the cold dark that pressed in all around them and threatened to soak right through his pajamas and into his gut. Grownups never understood anything.
With a little sigh, his mother set him down, the ground cold under his feet, and again told him to look up. He scrabbled to grab her neck, but she was so much bigger than him and finally he just stood there, eyes squeezed shut and fists clenched. He stayed that way forever, until his mother’s hand rested very gently on his shoulder and he felt her kneeling behind her and again she whispered, “Look up, Carson.” Finally, he did.
He opened his eyes and looked up and gasped, because the with the lights out and the clouds gone the sky was full of diamonds, little pinpricks of light that stretched across his house and past it, straight into the forest. Turning in a slow circle, he watched them dance above him, and reached out with a tiny hand to touch one. He gathered a handful of them but when he opened his fingers they were gone, like melted snowflakes. “They have to stay where they are,” his mother told him, “so we can find them again. Look, see? There’s the North Star. And the Big Dipper. Look, Carson, see the pictures?” And together their fingers traced the designs into the sky until Carson yawned hugely and his mother took him back inside. He left the light off, and fell asleep staring out his window at the stars.
The stars are different here, but the awe is the same. Carson’s different too, knows too much about stars for the same magic to really be there, but they’re still beautiful, like diamonds over the seemingly endless ocean. Smiling gently, he reaches out to pluck one from the sky, then lets his hand drop away.
They have to stay where they are, so he can find comfort in them again later.
fin
Author:
akimi_himeChallenge: Amnesty/Darkness
Characters: Carson
Rating: G
Summary: Carson had been afraid of the dark.
Notes: Another little snippet of mine...one day, I *will* write an actual, full-fledged fic. Just...not today.
Wordcount:518
When he was very small, just three or four years old, Carson had been afraid of the dark. He made his mother leave the lamp on every night, and check under the bed and in the closets, because monsters were tricky creatures and could change their hiding place just to trip you up.
One night there was a power outage and Carson woke up screaming. His mother very deftly scooped him from his bed and took him outside, where the whole world was dark and cold and full of unseen dangers. They stood there in the front yard, wrapped in blackness, Carson’s face buried in his mother’s shoulder. “Look up,” she whispered, and Carson refused. “Come now, Carson, it’s really much brighter out here than curled up against me with your eyes shut. Look up.” And again he refused, because his mother didn’t understand, this was a safe dark, warm and protected, not like the cold dark that pressed in all around them and threatened to soak right through his pajamas and into his gut. Grownups never understood anything.
With a little sigh, his mother set him down, the ground cold under his feet, and again told him to look up. He scrabbled to grab her neck, but she was so much bigger than him and finally he just stood there, eyes squeezed shut and fists clenched. He stayed that way forever, until his mother’s hand rested very gently on his shoulder and he felt her kneeling behind her and again she whispered, “Look up, Carson.” Finally, he did.
He opened his eyes and looked up and gasped, because the with the lights out and the clouds gone the sky was full of diamonds, little pinpricks of light that stretched across his house and past it, straight into the forest. Turning in a slow circle, he watched them dance above him, and reached out with a tiny hand to touch one. He gathered a handful of them but when he opened his fingers they were gone, like melted snowflakes. “They have to stay where they are,” his mother told him, “so we can find them again. Look, see? There’s the North Star. And the Big Dipper. Look, Carson, see the pictures?” And together their fingers traced the designs into the sky until Carson yawned hugely and his mother took him back inside. He left the light off, and fell asleep staring out his window at the stars.
The stars are different here, but the awe is the same. Carson’s different too, knows too much about stars for the same magic to really be there, but they’re still beautiful, like diamonds over the seemingly endless ocean. Smiling gently, he reaches out to pluck one from the sky, then lets his hand drop away.
They have to stay where they are, so he can find comfort in them again later.
fin
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-29 12:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-29 12:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-29 12:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2005-12-29 02:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-29 02:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-29 02:19 am (UTC)For someone who always seems like he didn't intend to be out there, in a different galaxy, fighting the good fight (even if he was chosen, he's more an EMT than geneticist, as lots of fans and writers have noted), he does keep a sense of wonder that makes the character plausibly child-like (not childish).
This comes through for me in this snippet. Thank you!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-29 03:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-29 03:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2005-12-29 12:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-30 03:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-26 04:15 am (UTC)Most of it would stand perfectly happily without the SGA tag, just as a lovely childhood story.
A nice take on the darkness theme.