The Passage of Shadows (PG) by Miriel

[mardahin.livejournal.com]

Title: The Passage of Shadows
Author: miriel
Quick-Beta: scififreak (Thanks to wychwood for title help)
Rating: PG.
Warnings: Um, apparently I'm on an infanticide spree, but nothing graphic.
Author's Note: This is a glimpse into the future hinted at in The Enemy You Know that I've been wanting to write for a while; the sga_flashfic Sickness prompt gave me the impetus to do so.

---

Life on a farming world is, for the most part, monotonous. For those who grew up on Chinaan during the period of respite following the last great culling, it was even more so. It is this blandness that makes the notable events of Emma Kenmore's childhood all the more vivid in her memory.

* * *

When Emma was six years old, the skies turned black.

Not the black of a rare double-new moon, but black like soot - no stars, no sun, no rain.

Emma's mother made them stay inside for a week, despite the fact that it was summer and the house was stifling. She told them that the air was bad, that somewhere far away the ground had cracked open and sent smoke into the air.

Years later, Emma would remember the taste of the sky as it fell, bitter and filled with anger. She would also remember what it had been like when the summers were full of heat and sunshine.

Her younger sister Olga would not.

* * *

The year that Emma was seven, it rained for eight weeks straight.

It was cold, and the water got into everything, and the women in town all shook their heads sadly when Emma got a new brother. Emma knew, because that was the year she was old enough to be sent into town on errands for her mother; her father never went unless it was really important (he wasn't like other fathers, and even at seven Emma knew that much. Other fathers weren't scarred as her father was, and they didn't touch their children with gloved hands).

The women would pat her head and fuss over her fair hair, and they always had a cup of hot sweet tea ready for her when she stopped in to deliver or pick up items. But when they went back to their spinning or their weaving or their cooking, they whispered. As if by lowering their tones they could keep her from hearing them. They spoke of Kinta's daughter, two years earlier, who had died during a rainy spell. They spoke of Denar's father, who had been taken with a cough and died within a week. Always, they spoke of death, until Emma wanted to scream that her family had nothing to do with death - they lived, and they would always live.

Four weeks later, the baby died.

It wasn't a cough; it wasn't a chill; and it wasn't the Reave, the god who took unfit children in the night. Emma didn't know what it was, only that it had been quiet.

Following the funeral, her mother never cried. Instead, she grew silent, barely speaking for weeks at a time. Her father grew angry in fits and starts, and raged in the barn where he thought they couldn't hear him - cursing the gods of the Wraith and the Chinaa and a people he called Lanteans.

There were no more babies.

* * *

When Emma was twelve, the sun shone for the first time since the week of darkness, and her mother wept.

~ Finis ~

Comments

[druidspell.livejournal.com]

*hurts* Oh, Emma.

[mardahin.livejournal.com]

Well, I've wanted to address the death of the fifth child for a while. There were three children between Emma and the baby - two boys and a girl. Four or five children in an agrarian community, especially one recovering from massive population loss, isn't at all uncommon (especially in a family more on the outskirts) - the kids are relatively cheap farm labor.

Even if Ana wouldn't have wanted as many in other circumstances, it's a matter of practicality - they need the people, and I'm sure the community encouraged them as well. And it gives Michael, in time, people to interact with - he can't go into town, certainly not regularly. He'd want a larger "hive", I think - once he acclimated to dealing with children, and really, it's easier to have them in a bunch and deal with the drawbacks all in a five or six year period than spread the sleepless nights through fifteen years.

[mymatedave.livejournal.com]

Nice fic, but I *love* your icon. So very, very true.

[mardahin.livejournal.com]

*G* I made this when I hit the point of - "I need a writing icon. Seriously. Something about being an OCD world-builder would be nice." and, also, needing to take a half-hour breather from my Valentines nightmare.

Glad you enjoyed all around. I'm still waiting for rokeon to make me the "Miko=Love. Ninja!Miko = Scary Love" icon she promised me ^_^

[ladyholder.livejournal.com]

OOhhhh.... I like that. Good fic!

Ladyholder

[mardahin.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

I just felt like I had to address the death of the baby at some point. And I think that if they lost a child to hybrid complications, that would be it. No more kids. No discussion, no debate.

[fred-god-of.livejournal.com]

Very good, I like the glismp into Michael's life (gloves). I suppose it would be rude to ask for mor?

[mardahin.livejournal.com]

*G* Actually, there will be at least one more snapshot into this future, although I can't promise when. Possibly more than one. I definitely want to do the piece about how Ana's bedtime stories were just like other Pegasus kids, well, almost. Her dad told her stories about his once-great people and how they became sickened and twisted and corrupt from the inside. Except that unlike other Pegasus children, her father's people were the Wraith.

*G*

[fred-god-of.livejournal.com]

I want those bedtime stories, I've always loved fairy tales of the twisted variety :-& (twisted smiley)

[mardahin.livejournal.com]

*Hugs* I'm sorry for the tears, but I'm glad that the story spoke to you. I have a happier Emma story in the near future, don't worry.

[mardahin.livejournal.com]

Hee! I shall keep that in mind ^_~

Lumped together story praise (not very good at coherant praise, fyi)

[mariko-neko.livejournal.com]

I first read "The Enemy You Know" last night and was truly and honestly moved by it. I've cried while reading a very few things, and this was one of them. The entire narrative is beautifully sparse, elegant and a million other things I can't describe as anything other than perfect. The rest of my praise is all incoherant flailings of fangirlish awe.

Re: Lumped together story praise (not very good at coherant praise, fyi)

[mardahin.livejournal.com]

*Blushes madly*

Bah! You are perfectly good at coherent praise! That is one of the nicest things anyone has ever said about my fic ^_^

There should be at least one more snapshot of this universe coming along, if not a few more - I'm definitely doing a short piece about Emma's bedtime stories as a child, and how they differed from everyone else's, but not in the way you'd think.

I'm actually debating revising and expanding "The Enemy You Know", filing off the serial numbers, and submitting it to see if I could get it published as a novel.

*Shrugs* It's a thought.

Thanks again for the wonderful feedback.

Re: Lumped together story praise (not very good at coherant praise, fyi)

[mariko-neko.livejournal.com]

Lengthen the main story, collate the shorter ones into an anthology, file off the serials and I'd so buy it. I'd definitely re-read the series at long intervals, because of how emotional it is, but I'd re-read it and pimp it out, yey, verily. You're one of the best writers in this fandom, for I have read your angsty stuff and would so read it again because it's that good. While I'm here and extolling your writerly virtues, I love the Ripples universe so a ridiculously squeeful amount, and I really like the two bits of Memoirs I've read, being Life in the Day of LTC Sheppard and Meet The Novaks, pt.1. Where you to ever manage to some sort of unoffical publishing of the Enemy and Ripples series, I'd so, so buy copies.

Re: Lumped together story praise (not very good at coherant praise, fyi)

[mardahin.livejournal.com]

Well, for the filing of the serials, I'm talking about actually submitting to a publisher - Tor or something similar. Re-casting Michael as a Scandinavian elf, and setting it on Earth.

In terms of fannish-style publication, Cafepress actually will publish books for you. I'd have to transfer it to PDF, but it's perfectly doable. It's on my list of things "to do" - review and revise Ripples once the Intersections are done, and pull it together into a bound volume for my own shelf, if nothing else. Could do the same with Enemy You Know - do a comprehensive overhaul and final revision, and publish it with the attached collection of short stories.

*Blushes* I'm honored that you think I'm such a good author. I'm still learning, and I think I've come a long way in the last year, but I'm glad to know that my characters are believable.

Re: Lumped together story praise (not very good at coherant praise, fyi)

[mardahin.livejournal.com]

Oh, if you liked the Memoirs stuff, you might want to check out the rest of the stories in that universe : Memoirs Chronology (http://www.mardahin.net/sga/memoirs.html).

Hm, not sure if you'd like Bridges (http://www.mardahin.net/sga/Bridges/bridges_chrono.html) or not - it's currently mostly gen, with a side specialty of Elizabeth Weir & Ladon Radim romance (I know; I have no idea where it came from either. And now Miko's demanding more screen time as her relationship with Captain Cushman keeps adjusting itself), but you're welcome to poke around.

Again, thanks for reading ^_^