The Wine Dark Sea by fallenkalina
Feb. 3rd, 2008 04:28 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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sga_flashficTitle: The Wine Dark Sea
Author: fallenkalina
Category: Gen, set somepoint after Grace Under Pressure
Characters: Sheppard
Word Count: 620
Summary: Achilles had looked out to the ocean to grieve for Patroclus -- how many did he have to mourn? And how many more tomorrow?
Notes: I seem to have committed flashfic within a day of joining. This is also my first fic in about 5 years, and the image of the wine-dark sea has been in my head since I started watching Atlantis. Unbetaed, read at your own risk.
The last mission had not been a terribly trying one. However, when your point of reference includes space vampires, mosquitoes the size of small dogs sucking your neck, Amish with nukes, teenaged Wraith and an assortment of scenarios that the vast population of Earth would call, at the very least strange, trying was a word difficult to quantify. Combat pay, Sheppard reasoned, needed to be renamed "what the hell?" pay. He leaned onto the balcony rail and murmured out over the ocean, "or perhaps still-haven’t-died pay."
He stared out over the endless ocean, and wondered absently just who coined the phrase wine-dark sea. He remembered a half-formed memory of high school English, and thought it applied aptly to the view. The ocean around the city churned an array of deep, saturated blues and purples. The class came back to him, the teacher asking what they thought the phrase meant. The students, he included, had stared at their desks; with a few nervous answers of it was the color of wine. The teacher, so unlike many of the scientists he now knew, had been so patient and pressed the conversation out of the unwilling class. She asked, what do you think of when you hear the word wine, knowing full well that her students knew only one secret of wine. It got you drunk.
This ocean really was intoxicating, how it moved against the piers and how it stretched to the horizon and farther. Atlantis was the outsider on this planet, and the sea really belonged here. The city was just a blip, even after sinking and rising, it was just a stop from one end of the encompassing ocean to the mainland. She made minute adjustments beneath him just to stay afloat, stay where she wanted to, and he felt each one.
You could get drunk on that feeling, knowing at once how small you really were, and yet, how much you have done. The effect is so dizzying and liminal, and you ran out of air to breathe. He had walked in that ocean, saving Mckay, because that’s what he did. You did so much, and meant still so little. The ocean thinks nothing of swallowing you whole, and yet he waded into it. Granted, with a shield over his head, but the water was above and around him, a stray thought away from collapsing.
He was still a little drunk on that feeling.
The teacher, who he could now recognize as an academic mind not only willing but able to bear the variances of high school students, had then talked about wine-dark meaning bloody, and the aftermath of sea battles. John had perked up at that point, as had every boy in the class, enough to pay attention. How much had been spilled in the defense of the city? How much Homer had spoke of? Too much, all of it blood, ancient Greek, Ancient and modern and mythical. Achilles had looked out to the ocean to grieve for Patroclus -- how many did he had to mourn? And how many more tomorrow?
Homer must have gotten it from some Ancient descendant. Or even someone maybe, who remembered looking out across this same ocean who whispered the story to the blind poet, who sang of the anger of Achilles, who would destroy Troy.
Somewhere between Homer and Plato, the Greeks got it right. A great city, laid unto siege, and the survivors escaping and fading into only memory and song. Unlike Troy, not destroyed, but submerged.
John hit his hand against the rail twice, stepped back on his foot, looking from sea to sky and farther beyond and muttered, “Right,” and turned to go back inside.
Author: fallenkalina
Category: Gen, set somepoint after Grace Under Pressure
Characters: Sheppard
Word Count: 620
Summary: Achilles had looked out to the ocean to grieve for Patroclus -- how many did he have to mourn? And how many more tomorrow?
Notes: I seem to have committed flashfic within a day of joining. This is also my first fic in about 5 years, and the image of the wine-dark sea has been in my head since I started watching Atlantis. Unbetaed, read at your own risk.
The last mission had not been a terribly trying one. However, when your point of reference includes space vampires, mosquitoes the size of small dogs sucking your neck, Amish with nukes, teenaged Wraith and an assortment of scenarios that the vast population of Earth would call, at the very least strange, trying was a word difficult to quantify. Combat pay, Sheppard reasoned, needed to be renamed "what the hell?" pay. He leaned onto the balcony rail and murmured out over the ocean, "or perhaps still-haven’t-died pay."
He stared out over the endless ocean, and wondered absently just who coined the phrase wine-dark sea. He remembered a half-formed memory of high school English, and thought it applied aptly to the view. The ocean around the city churned an array of deep, saturated blues and purples. The class came back to him, the teacher asking what they thought the phrase meant. The students, he included, had stared at their desks; with a few nervous answers of it was the color of wine. The teacher, so unlike many of the scientists he now knew, had been so patient and pressed the conversation out of the unwilling class. She asked, what do you think of when you hear the word wine, knowing full well that her students knew only one secret of wine. It got you drunk.
This ocean really was intoxicating, how it moved against the piers and how it stretched to the horizon and farther. Atlantis was the outsider on this planet, and the sea really belonged here. The city was just a blip, even after sinking and rising, it was just a stop from one end of the encompassing ocean to the mainland. She made minute adjustments beneath him just to stay afloat, stay where she wanted to, and he felt each one.
You could get drunk on that feeling, knowing at once how small you really were, and yet, how much you have done. The effect is so dizzying and liminal, and you ran out of air to breathe. He had walked in that ocean, saving Mckay, because that’s what he did. You did so much, and meant still so little. The ocean thinks nothing of swallowing you whole, and yet he waded into it. Granted, with a shield over his head, but the water was above and around him, a stray thought away from collapsing.
He was still a little drunk on that feeling.
The teacher, who he could now recognize as an academic mind not only willing but able to bear the variances of high school students, had then talked about wine-dark meaning bloody, and the aftermath of sea battles. John had perked up at that point, as had every boy in the class, enough to pay attention. How much had been spilled in the defense of the city? How much Homer had spoke of? Too much, all of it blood, ancient Greek, Ancient and modern and mythical. Achilles had looked out to the ocean to grieve for Patroclus -- how many did he had to mourn? And how many more tomorrow?
Homer must have gotten it from some Ancient descendant. Or even someone maybe, who remembered looking out across this same ocean who whispered the story to the blind poet, who sang of the anger of Achilles, who would destroy Troy.
Somewhere between Homer and Plato, the Greeks got it right. A great city, laid unto siege, and the survivors escaping and fading into only memory and song. Unlike Troy, not destroyed, but submerged.
John hit his hand against the rail twice, stepped back on his foot, looking from sea to sky and farther beyond and muttered, “Right,” and turned to go back inside.
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-03 11:30 pm (UTC)True, so very true!
I like the way you interweave the wine-dark sea image into the story. I also like the Greek references. Very nicely done.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-04 01:17 pm (UTC)The Wine Dark Sea - story
Date: 2008-02-04 06:48 am (UTC)Secondly, this is a lovely piece. We rarely see - in SGA fanfic - a thoughtful John, an intelligent, educated John. Often, all we're given is his less-than-facile ability to express himself in interpersonal ways. But fact is, John *is* intelligent, thoughtful and educated. And Atlantis is surely the place to intensify his introspective, poetic musings, cut off as it makes him from the past and from people he knew, from ways of *being* he once lived. You capture that brilliantly in this well-explored story.
I'd also like to suggest that you post "The Wine Dark Sea" to sga-episodefics community, as well. The theme is directly related to "Grace Under Pressure," I believe, conjured by that episode. Your story would be a welcome addition on that LJ community fiction archive.
Thank you for sharing your work, and congratulations again, on writing after so many years!
Love, max
Re: The Wine Dark Sea - story
Date: 2008-02-04 01:36 pm (UTC)I love this side of John. I don't think he really plays dumb, but rather his intelligence isn't as brash or boisterous as the scientists he's around. He doesn't feel the need to display it, it's just part of who he is and what he does.
You don't get to be a pilot by being stupid, and you don't fly without understanding poetry at a personal level.
Thank you again.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-05 06:29 am (UTC)When Sheppard was remembering saving McKay, the imagery reminded me of a line in the Dar Williams' song "The Ocean": I am the one, who lives with the ocean.../ it's where we came from, you know/ and sometimes I just want to go back/ after the day, we'll drink 'til we're drowning/ walk to the ocean, wade in with our work boots/ wade in our work boots, try to finish the job. I love that song. Good fic!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-05 12:23 pm (UTC)