Work Text:
It was quite horrifying to discover that our shared belief in reincarnation is not only something to hold onto when the thought of death becomes too difficult. Memories from several lives hit me while I am out on the field. I tell you, and you laugh at my wild imagination. You have spots instead of the freckles you had last time. You are pregnant with twins, and focusing on that helps me from going insane with what I now know.
The second time, I am at a dinner, holding a goblet filled with brivari to my lips. I am sitting across from you, noticing how you are trying your best not to stare at me. It will be hard not to when the shock of having been in alien bodies, and in a few male ones leads me to put down my wine goblet so hard that the wine spills over my fingers and dress. You bring me out to the balcony and while you help me regain your breath, you say that you think I am beautiful. Looking up and into your eyes will bring forth pleasant memories of what you have been for me in our past lives.
Somehow, I find myself becoming comfortable with going back and forth between genders and races, just like I become comfortable with seeing the clever glint in those eyes that always is there the first time we meet. I become good at recognizing them.
Whether it is on the dance floor, in the middle of harvest, or somewhere in between, I always find you. We grow old together, you die from me, or I from you. I whisper into their ear that you will meet again, and sometimes you believe me.
When we find each other late in life, we have to consider our families first, and consider our desire second. When we meet as children, we swear to always be together, even if the promise is futile.
For a long time, I am happy. Poor or rich, sick or healthy, I use my experiences and gather new ones with you by my side. I wait patiently for you to get the same realization I had, believing that I have all the time in the world.
I am Narn when everything goes wrong.
For the first time, we are on each our side. You are older than me, scarred from battles and proud from many victories. You stand next to the emperor when your holograms fill our sky and he explains that you come in peace.
We try to warn our leaders. We have no mindwalkers, but we know that there is something wrong. Our leaders let you conquer us with promises of education, technology and prosperity. You kill or chase them like you do our royal families. You take away everything that is green and fresh. You kill our animals. We become your slaves. I become yours.
I have to watch you get drunk and reminisce about the battles you have partaken in, crying for comrades and laughing about details I don’t find amusing.
You are drunk when we end up in bed together, but those are the only times you dare to touch me. I am still a barbarian. A beast. But I tell myself that I am training you, because you are always a bottle away from begging me to join you under the covers. I keep telling myself that the sweet words and kisses one day will be earnest.
In the next, I weep in relief when I awaken. You are a noble woman and I am still a slave, but in an age and a house that are overflowing with money and promises of better times for both people. Relations like ours are known and glorified, because of how exotic it is. Fashion is what they call it, but we know better.
We are young, content and optimistic. But the universe laughs at optimists, because you give birth to our child when the money vanishes and the promises are shattered. We weep for the baby and ourselves, because they will come after us soon.
Interspecies-breeding will bring nothing good with it. The Narns have an agenda to wipe out the Centauri through inter-breeding. That is at least what they say to everyone who will listen; those who are in power and can stop it. They say it is because the Narn gene is stronger. The spots will be weak, but they will be there. Should our imaginary goal be reached, Centauri Prime’s population will be nothing but pale Narns. It is what they think when they break into our home some years later and kill us all in our sleep.
What is this big controversy a few years later? The notes and records about the child murderers, the purifiers, are burnt or hidden. The rest are a few half-truths about Narn slaves sleeping with their masters to protect themselves and their families, even though the same page dons pictures of paintings and obscene sculptures of loving couples with different skins.
When I come to in my new life, I remember reading that book only a few years ago. I start weeping for our nameless daughter, and for you, whoever you are this time. I start to wonder what you will look like, if you will be the same race as me again.
G’Kar’s hatred towards the Centauri is understandable. He is bitter after the death of his parents and something not fit to call a childhood consisting of little food and much fear. After the things I have faced, it becomes even uglier.
So when you stumble towards me, drunk and angry and Centauri, accusing me of taking this post just to kill you prematurely, I project all my resentment towards the universes’ cruelty. Why else would it do this to me?
I do not have much hope left, but it’s enough to wait for you to prove to be something other than an arrogant fool with a drinking problem. But every single time I think that we are reaching an understanding, you turn on me, and we are back to where we were last month.
In the elevator, I hope you will die. Anything is better than seeing you like this, having to hate you for what you are becoming. I want to wake up to find that we have escaped politics, and that you are my mate again. I want to stop the vicious circle of finding you on what always seems to be the wrong side.
I start telling myself that it’s all a mistake. You cannot be the same soul that has followed me through every single lifetime. But I have recognized you, and no one else has as clear eyes as you.
Then you kill my people, and I want to grab you and force you to lower whatever shields are keeping your past lives from you.
Don’t you remember, Mollari? Don’t you remember having dirt under your fingernails and constant pains in your legs or back? Don’t you remember giving birth to our children, or holding my hand while I did the same? Don’t you remember thinking that sitting outside our house with the sun shining on your face brought you all the joy in the world?
You have been a Narn peasant, Londo Mollari, many more times than you have been Centauri royalty. But you won’t remember, I finally realize, because you have never really considered anything else than the details. The little things keep you from remembering that you once have been both Y’Fren and Fovin Girell. They keep all the people you have been away from all those I have been.
That does not stop us from reaching an understanding, of course. When it is all over and we have joined forces again and again, we end up in bed together.
For a few months, no one can defeat us. We walk through the court like rebellious teenagers. You enjoy being able to create a scandal, while I enjoy receiving admiring looks instead of hateful ones.
I am not surprised when it all ends. You give yourself away to a fate that you easily could have avoided. I give myself to the stars and try to forget you. But I return and find you to be even more broken than I left you.
You thank me for killing you, and you make sure to return the favor before the light disappears from your eyes again.
My last thought is more a prayer that I will find you early in my next life. That whoever we are, I will not have to hate you, and that even if you cannot remember anything about yourself, the person I will become won’t care about it.