Footfalls echo in the memory of the passage which we did not take...

inaqui @ 2007-06-27T21:39:00

2007-06-27T14:10:47Z

Linear series of drabbles based on prompts from challenge_the 's Table A, each one of the seven deadly sins, prompts 114-120.

Spoilers for all seasons. Kara-centric, but sort of K/L. Vaguely.

X-posted to challenge_the , bsg_creative , inaqui

Title: Sins
Word count: 2364
Rating: T for lil itty bitty implied knowing in the Biblical sense.
Spoilers: All aired episodes.
Summary: She was never perfect, and maybe that was just as well.
Starts during the mini and goes from there.

---Intemperance

Kara is quite aware that she’s not a particularly patient person. She never has been, and it’s very likely that she never will be. She’s also not forgiving. It’s an accepted fact that for all the flaws she freely admits in herself, she suffers imperfections far less gracefully in other people.

Colonel Tigh is no exception. In fact, she thinks that he might have his very own Starbuck rule all to himself. It involves him being the person she despises most in the universe, and vice versa if his petty treatment of her was any indication.

So today she’s engaging in her favourite sport of Tigh baiting. It’s like bear baiting, only more dangerous. For an old guy, he can be a vicious beast when cornered, but Kara has always lived for danger and biting off more than she can chew.

The players at the triad table are filled with a strange combination of nonchalance and tension. Kara and Tigh glare at each other, barbs flying and mentally circling the other like fighters in a ring. Helo notices but tries to laugh it off, and Boomer is as clueless as ever.

Starbuck leans back in her chair, cocky grin plastered from ear to ear in a way engineered precisely to piss Tigh off. Her comment about his wife is only part of the process, she knows. It’s her posture, that just screams insolence and insubordination, that’s the clincher in situations like this.

When she rakes in her winnings and crows over the rest of the triad players, she thinks he’s calm enough. Pissed, but not raging.

She knows she’s wrong when he throws the table over. He’s snapped. Part of her wants to leap around in victory, but her fist hits his jaw before she even realises she’s moving. The ache in her knuckles and Tigh’s sprawled form is the first clue that things might have gone a little awry.

“You have finally gone too far.”

He says the words with relish, rolling them around his mouth like a fine wine he’s bee saving for that special occasion, and Kara has to grudgingly admit he’s won this round.

But he doesn’t have to know that. She picks up her cigar, affects her mocking grin once more with a casual, “Gentlemen,” and saunters off to the brig.

She makes sure Tigh sees just how she dawdles, but inside she’s swearing. Damn her frakking temper, anyway. She’d nearly had him.

Maybe she should work on the patience thing.

---Wrath

She can feel the trigger under her finger no matter where she is; she thinks it’s burned into her. Shower. Eat. Nap. Brief. Launch.

Launch 278. Maybe, she can’t quite be sure. Three days. 72 straight hours. The seconds tick by, and the cylons come. The hum of her ship around her keeps her awake, that and the stims.

There’s no chatter; everyone else just gets down to business, flying, firing, and waiting for the Fleet to get out of here, just for them to do it all again thirty three and a half minutes later.

The cylons swarm around her, scything through space to reap the latest harvest of lives. A scream, abruptly cut off, from a pilot somewhere on Starbuck’s six is the latest catch.

On a whim, she switches her helmet mike off. A war-cry bursts from her, primal and raw and liberating, and she can feel her bullets as they rip through metal and false flesh. She’s a demon, something sent from Hades to drag these toasters back where they belong.

She doesn’t think she’s ever been this angry.

The bullets spray, she screams long and loud, and the cylons feel how great is the wrath of Starbuck.

She counts her kills in her head, sadistic glee running through her at the way she imagines each of them spiralling into flame and oblivion.

Five. Seven. Twelve. Fourteen. Eighteen. Twenty one. Twenty five.

“All vipers, report back to Galactica.” Dee’s voice cuts through the fury. There’s a pull to keep going, to ignore the call to retreat and just fly on, visiting destruction on all in her path, but Lee’s voice returns a confirmation and he forms up on her wing.

She gives him a sideways glance at him through their canopies. He smiles, gives a thumbs-up, and she knows she can’t. Wrath or no wrath, she has someone to keep safe.

She turns her bird around and heads for the coop.

---Pride

The way Adama stares at her, eyes filled with contempt, is nearly enough to make Kara go to pieces. Nearly, but not quite.

“Do your job.” His voice could slice granite, and it does a pretty good job on her. She gives up explaining herself and lifts her chin ever so slightly. She’ll see this through. It’s her mess. One of the many.

“Yes sir.”

“And walk out of this cabin… while you still can,” he orders, so abrupt and cruel that Kara can’t help but feel tears sting her nose.

She walks out of there, her back bent and soul bruised, but she swallows her emotions. She has a job. Once, she failed at it, and it cost a life that was worth so, so much more than her own. She won’t do that again.

Adama might hate her, and that might kill her, but it damn sure won’t be anyone else who suffers her incompetence.

Her back straightens, she shakes her head a little, and takes a deep breath. She has a job, and she’ll do it.

---Lust

She knows he watches her, even if he thinks he’s subtle about it. He doesn’t seem to know that his gaze has always scorched her skin, and it’s no different now he’s a husband and she’s a wife, both to different people.

Though now she thinks about it, it’s never really mattered what was going on in the world around them. There was always something between them, and that scared the crap out of her enough to send her running full tilt. Across a whole galaxy to a man she barely knows.

Now they’re both married. To other people. Yet it seems so natural, one day when she feels his gaze blaze over her naked back in the head, to turn and meet his with one just as heated of her own.

The bruises he left on her skin in the boxing ring are faded, but still visible, and his pupils dilate to see his marks on her skin.

Possession is nine-tenths of the law, after all, and there’s nothing quite like branding flesh to scream possession to the world. That was her plan with the tattoos she and Sam shared.

Strange, she thinks. Here she is, staring at a man with naked desire writ all over her, and thinking of her husband seems natural. Shouldn’t she feel guilty, or ashamed?

But then Lee moves towards her. Stalks her, body coiled and quivering with energy just begging to be released. He touches the skin on her upper arm, above her wing tattoo, and tingles race over her body.

Slowly, almost painfully, she lifts a hand to his cheek. His skin is warm and rough with stubble, and it’s the most erotic thing she’s ever felt in her life. He presses his face into her palm, and she is lost.

Lee clasps her to him like he’ll never let her go again. He fills his hands with her and if she thought his gaze was fire, she was wrong. Her breath is heavy on his skin, buried in his neck and she thinks that guilt and anger and shame can come later. For now, there is only this.

---Greed

Kara has never been one for possessions. Petty trinkets she wouldn’t care about in a week. She thinks it might have stemmed from her mother’s tendency to buy her things she wanted just to destroy them in front of her.

But there have always been some things she wanted sp badly it hurt.

Right now she just wants it over. Here and now.

The colours swirl in and out of each other and her Viper rattles ominously.

Lee yells into her ear, desperation tinging his tone and she wonders what he’d say if she asked her to leave Dee now…

No. He’s greedy and wants what he can’t have: easy happiness. Dee is easier than her, as harsh as it sounds. Kara knows what she is. She’s messy and confusing and moody and painful, and Lee wants more than that.

She shouldn’t judge. She was the coward that night on New Caprica, but it doesn’t really matter now, does it?

She hits the hard deck, light explodes around her and she thinks maybe this wasn’t quite what she wanted, after all.

---Envy

Chief Tyrol helps her out of her shiny new plane, smile almost but not quite genuine. He’s not sure about her yet, and he’s always hated cylons worse than most, with the exception of his wife. She wonders what Cally will say when she finds out.

Tigh glares at her as she’s marched past, her marine guard on high alert. They think she’s a cylon and she wants to burst out laughing. If they only knew, but Tigh isn’t going to let them find out. He’s like a dog when he’s cornered, and she knows he’s never felt more exposed. As much as they never got along, she won’t do that to him.

Sam can’t quite look her in the eye, even as he holds her close, pretending not to notice that she doesn’t hold him back. He whispers things into her ear, not sweet nothings but rather things that don’t mean anything at all. “I’m glad you’re home” and other nonsense. He’s preoccupied with his own problems, and she can’t quite blame him.

She doesn’t even remember what the Tory woman was like before, but she reminds Kara now of a bird. Flitting, not quite sure and hopping from place to place, angle to angle. Uncertain and uncomfortable in her new role as undercover cylon.

She ignores them and some part of her is jealous. At least they know what they are. She still has no idea.

---Sloth

Waves crash and seagulls shriek in the background as she breathes in the warm salty air. Kara is lying on a towel on a beach with a bathing suit, sunglasses and wide-brimmed hat. The sun is beating down on her and she thinks that she could be quite happy to stay like this for the rest of time. When was the last time she sunbathed? Had she ever?

A child giggles somewhere to her left and Kara wonders how Kacey is. She would have loved this place. Kara and Julia could have made a sandcastle with her, and buried her in the sand, and taught her to swim.

She can’t say she misses the fighting, the constant death, the nearly dying, but she misses people. The Fleet is scattered across the new world, a people adrift and anchorless. It’s not that she doesn’t know where they are, but it’s different. On Galactica, it was a safe bet that she would run into certain people on a daily basis, and then there was the gossip hotline, with in-depth information on every person one could hope for. But now, here on Earth, they are disconnected. She knows the Chief and his family are scarcely 300 clicks from her, hardly a distance to someone billions of light years away from her home, but she hasn’t seen them in a year. She vaguely remembers something about Hot Dog and an Earth girl, and she thinks Tory is in politics again, and similar insignificant tidbits of lives, but the other thousands of people she’d lived with on Galactica and across the Fleet are mysteries.

“Kara,” a voice calls, and she amends that thought. Most people were mysteries. Lee might have been once, but now there was nothing he could hide from her, even if he tried.

“What?” she replies, not even opening her eyes. He sighs exasperatedly and suddenly her hat is whisked away.

“Hey!” she whines half-heartedly, too lazy to move but finally opening her eyes. The glare is almost painful, but she can see his maddening smirk perfectly.

Lee twirls the hat around his finger, lopsided smile not budging an inch at her glare. “You’ve been out here since morning. Are you ever going to come home?”

She grins and shakes her head. “Not if I can help it. Bring me food.”

“Tut tut, Starbuck. You’ll get fat.”

“Maybe I will. Would you like that, Lee?”

He snorts. “Since when are you so lazy, anyway? I thought you would have been climbing the walls by now, looking for something to kill.”

She sits up, wrapping her arms around her legs and fixing him with a challenging look. “You volunteering?”

He laughs the free, booming laugh that he could never quite let out before, and she thinks that there’s something about this planet that has been good for both of them.

“Are you coming home for dinner, at least? Dad’s cooking, and Sharon and Helo are coming. You want to see the kids, don’t you?”

“Maybe,” she replies lazily, lying back down and closing her eyes again, stretching out luxuriously on the sand. “If I can actually move by then.”

There is silence for a moment and she nearly jumps out of her skin when a hand snakes around her waist beneath the sand and pulls her against a firm body.

“I’ll lie here, too, then,” Lee explains, smile wide and relaxed, and her heart aches just a little. In a good way.

“You’ll get fat, too, Lee.”

He rolls his eyes. “Done that already. You’re behind me on that one, Kara.”

Giving him a playful poke she rests her head on his chest. “You wish. I think I was a tubby kid once.”

He just sighs and rubs her arm with his thumb. “I think I could get used to being lazy.”

She grins and shuts her eyes, listening to the waves, the birds and Lee’s heartbeat under her ears. “Me, too.”

inaqui @ 2007-06-25T20:37:00

2007-06-25T13:27:05Z

*thud*

*is ded*

New job in addition to existing one = le tired. On the upside, it also means MORE MONEY! WOOT!

6 Days till Melbourne. yay!

01. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
02. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
03. You will post the answers to the questions (and the questions themselves) on your blog or journal.
04. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
05. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. And thus the endless cycle of the meme goes on and on and on and on...

Tomoeish's questions:

1. What is the most embarrassing thing to happen to you?
2. Do you think you will ever get married and/or have kids?
3. What is your favorite anime/manga character?
4. Pepsi or Coke? Or what?
5. Most disgusting food ever?

Mah answers:

1. Well that would be telling, wouldn't it? :P
2. Dear god no, at least to the kids thing. I don't think they'd survive me as a mother...
3. Kagero from Ninja Scroll. No idea why, just always thought she was awesome.
4. Nooooo cola; Sprite.
5. Raw octopus. Blech

Now, sleeeeeeep...

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

2007-06-21T14:22:33Z

*hophophophophophop*

I HAVE ADOBE ELEMENTS! HAPPYHAPPYHAPPY!!! NO MORE CRAPPY GRAPHICS FOR MEEEEEE!

*hugs shiny new computer*

What can I icon?!?!?! *hophophophophop*

inaqui @ 2007-06-21T13:37:00

2007-06-21T06:28:49Z

Well, a week or so ago my horse spooked on the way to a paddock, the laneway, being up in the hills of Perth, has many little stones for which the suburb "Roleystone" was named, and I stacked it. Landed square on my wrist, which hurt like a biatch and I couldn't move it, and had to wait four days for X-ray. Whereupon they spirited me off to get a lovely purple fibreglass cast, and me cursing that it wasn't the other hand so I wouldn't have to do my exams. But on another note, yay! I can type at a semi-normal pace again!

I go to Melbourne in about two weeks to see my brother and his wife, and my various little cousins. Apparently also Sydney in a month due to mother's most recent rush-of-blood-to-the-head ideas that we need a weekend of "bonding" whatever she means by that...

One exam left: Japanese. With NO DICTIONARY! WOE! Put in application to drop the Econs degree and just stay witht he Asian Studies half. Should be approved I hope.

We have a German student staying with us atm. Still not clear on why... she just kind of pitched, and is staying. We found her a job, and she's really sweet. Still, I'm kind of sick of visitors. When will the house be ours again? When she leaves my friend's little brother moves in while his mum's in Croatia, because apparently his sister and brother can't be trusted to look after him well enough. THe kid's 16 for god's sake, he'd be fine. Along with him come two bewildered 15 year old Japanese schoolgirls. I'll say again: Japanese schoolgirls. They're like.... I don't have any comparison. We've had them before, many times, and arg. You have to give them permission to shower, or eat, or go to bed, or do ANYTHING! Have independent thoughts, girls! Gah.

I start my shiny new job on Saturday, and my new boss seems to actually not be a heinous cow. What an improvement on the last one.

inaqui @ 2007-06-07T22:37:00

2007-06-07T15:00:16Z

Exams. Need I say more?

Economics blows, and I'm dropping it. I still think it will be useful for the edge I'll need over the other graduate traineeship candidates, but I really, really hate it. It's not hard, but it is the most mindnumbingly boring unit I have ever taken. Half the people in my tute don't show up, and I haven't been to a lecture since week 2 because I fall asleep, so I watch them on Lectopia so at least I can pause when my brain is going to start dribbling out my ears. Plus, I've been incredibly lazy this year, and that doesn't look like changing this year, so I'll pick it up again in a couple of years, or even when I'm doing the law degree. When there's actual work ethic and motivation. SO that's getting canned. In it's place is political science and some random history unit, and next year, German. In addition to Advanced Jap, Chinese and Spanish. Whew. That's gonna be fun.... at least German and Spanish have roman script, with the addition of squiggly things and oddly placed punctuation. So many new languages, so excited. Plus mum is teaching me Afrikaanse at home, the world's ugliest and most useless language YAY.

But for now, I have to at least try and pass econs. Which doesn't look likely, but fuck it. Pass or fail, it's gone.

After Saturday's exam, anyway. Till then, I get to just stew about it.

Exams, how I hate you.

....

Starting my share portfolio next week, and my goal is set. $1000 initial investment, ROI goal at minimum 100 %. Property investment by the time I'm 25, and 3 properties by 30. At least.

So excited about that, too. I've completely overhauled the computers at my internship, made them buy all new software, and now it's just matter of teaching old dogs new tricks, which in Lance's case is kinda hard. But it's going well, I'm learning a bunch and I'll qualify as an accountant without ever doing Commerce at Uni, which although I'd die before actually practicing as an accountant, is useful. I can manage my own money and all my tax, and it will be alllll good.

....

So we've got another dog. Sigh. Up to 4. Dres is good, though, and sooo cute. He's a male staffy, who has more muscle on his skull than I do on my body, and he is the friendliest, most easy going dog I've ever met. Lola was a bit put out at first, but she's getting used to it. So now we have two staffy-crosses, one staffy and a white fluffy job. Sigh.

....

My car is struggling along with a nearly dead gearbox, next to no synchrometer and only one headlight (or so Dad tells me, cars are a mystery to me), but The Parents, overprotective as ever, have offered to buy me a new one as opposed to fixing this one until something else breaks, in order to "make sure I'm safe on the roads" so I don't spend my meagre available amount on buying something "unsafe". Reluctantly (cough) I agreed and it looks to be an ex-demo Corolla, possibly. I've sworn to pay them back, but mum got "the look" in her eyes and I'm sure she'll pull the same trick whereupon all my repayments get put aside and I actually get it all back later. I'll just look at it as saving.

....

Job hunting goes slowly, but goes. Mostly because I'm lazy and can't really be bothered. But they're hiring in the Bookcaffe, I hope, which would be my heaven on earth. Books and awesome brownies; what's not to love?

.....

I'm going to Melbourne in a month! Woot! Can't wait.

cough wheeze

2007-05-20T08:49:58Z

Ugh, I haaaate being sick. Damn Jo for giving me her uber cold of ultimate death. My head is throbbing, my limbs are disconnected from my body and the only thing I can keep down is chicken soup. I HATE chicken soup.

Waaaaah. Whinge whinge cough cough. I need an unhappy icon. Make that more icons, period. I have three. Boo.

In other news, I've inherited about ten skirts from mother dear from her giddy youth. And by giddy youth we mean a youth full of sober and proper young lady activities. The skirts are all similarly proper, but fit perfectly, no need of hemming since she's even shorter than me XD and are perfect for work. Yay. Now I don't have to spend ridiculous amounts of money on "grown-up clothes" that cost three times as much as my usual less prim attire.

One of my aunties is visiting from South Africa, which is nice. She's altering all my clothes *happy dance* I once tried hemming. I had to throw the pants out. I can't even knit. Gave it a go once, started off with a 20 stitch row, which one row later was 48 stitches, then 17, then 32, and so on. I fail utterly and completely at all things domestic.

Moved the horses yesterday, which wasn't too much of a drama, much less than I had expected. Bugs only had to be drugged a little bit, and although he had a bit of a hissy fit before hand and nearly kicked my head in, he walked onto the float with not too much fuss after that. Pawed a little bit, but didn't kick the door down like last time, which is an improvement. Sharon, who runs the place we've put them, has faithfully promised not to overfeed Herbie this time, which I will keep her to with hawk-like vigilance of poor old Herb's feet. If he founders again he'll probably die so I'm paranoid. Better he be a little lean, I think. I also need to make sure that Bugs stays separate from any and all other horses, since he turned into a killing machine last time that happened.

And I'm rambling. More pills are needed. Gah.

Really bad anime

2007-05-13T12:21:15Z

Ok, so I posted like half an hour ago, and this is utterly pointless but I just had lots of coffee and this got to me.

Has anyone else watched "Earth Girl Arjuna"? If so, did you find it as awful, self-serving, cliche and just plain CRAP as I am? The message is completely missing me. The episode I just watched has a guy becoming potentially fatally ill from a bloody hamburger. When he's eaten hundreds of them before, suddenly he's in mortal danger from additives and growth hormones and pesticides and preservative agents and every other buzzword the writer could think of. Ok, so pesticides bad, growth hormone bad. I get it, and incidentally I agree, but by god! With scintillating dialogue like "creatures of the earth, harmonise" said whilst she's spinning around in her own intestine cultivating the growth of her own gut bacteria, I am losing my sense of environmental responsibility! I almost want to go out and spray my vegetable garden with insecticide in retaliation. yes, retaliation to a really bad anime.

Why am I still watching?

.... excellent point. I like the music. :p And I really want to see if Juna and Tokiyo are ever gonna GET IT TOGETHER!

That is all. I think. For now.

Happy Mothers' Day!

2007-05-13T11:09:59Z

To all you mums on my flist, it's mothers' day where I live, so hope you all had a nice day.

I cooked lunch for my mum, and even shanghai'd my brother Dave into doing some manner of handy-man-ery around the place. Lowlight of the day was going grocery shopping with dad. After last Christmas, I had promised myself never to do that again, but he had the credit card and I sure as hell wasn't gonna pay for gourmet ingredients, so off we went.

Holy fuck. It was worse than I remembered.

I'm not even quite sure why it pisses me off so much. Must be something I get from mum, but he makes me SO ANGRY in the supermarket. My god! I don't know HOW he can be so irritating! Asking if I really NEED that ingredient, or saying "surely this would be better?" And his strange dislike of perfectly good regular potatoes! Insisting on the purple ones that go dry and take FOREVER to cook! Or wondering if I'm following the most efficient cooking strategy! The man hasn't cooked since he was in the army, BEFORE my parents got married, 28 years ago! And THAT was with army rations, which don't really count.

And let's not get into his grocery packing. Cos putting eggs with rockmelon is a GREAT PLAN!!!!

*breathes heavily* Of course, I should be more forgiving. I realised this as the checkout chick read out the total. I paled slightly, and dear dad flourished his platinum AMEX card before my eyes. It was then that I thought, "You know, Claire, he's an engineer. This is to be expected. Cut him some slack."

Thankfully, he's used to being henpecked by the women in his life and I cooled off, leading to a lovely lunch, a happy mum, and an unbruised bank-account belonging unto me.

But next time I need to go grocery shopping like that, I'll just take the AMEX. XP

So! Happy Mothers' Day to you mums, regardless of whether it's Mothers' Day where you are or not.

And another installment of the Big Ass Fic Table. 2 down, 198 to go. Kill me.

Title: Mould
Author: inaqui
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Prompt: 101: Destiny
Claim: BSG general, Table A level Omega
Completed: 2
Rating/Warnings: K. Character death, if you squint
Summary: Kara Thrace has always been the Gods’ tool. She’s just not the right shape yet.
Notes: Spoilers for Maelstrom, but if you've avoided those up to now, I'll eat my hat.

Mould

In order to be useful, a tool must have a shape for which a certain application is a given. The tool must be fashioned. A hammer is not a hammer until the handle is attached, the head shaped. When it is finally the shape of a hammer, it may perform its function, and it is a hammer by nature from then. Identity, shape, function are the same.

Kara Thrace has always been the Gods’ tool. She’s just not the right shape yet.

.......

Everyone wants something from her. But by the time they do, she doesn’t have what they want anymore. The irony doesn’t escape her.

Lee doesn’t want her, so she pours herself into Anders, and tries to fill the hole with him in return. But he’s nice to her. It’s so strange that she can’t quite handle it. It makes her jumpy, waiting for the blow, the “joke’s on you” line she just knows is coming. He wants her faith in him, in herself, and faith is something she could never hang on people.

Lee waits too long to want her. When she finally kisses him, drunk in the rec room after Caprica and Anders, she is hollow. He reaches for her and grasps the nothing that’s there in her place. It’s not enough, and she knows it. So she leaves him, before he can realise that Kara Thrace is barely there enough to be alive.

Disappointments and failures cling to her. Hopes fall from her like leaves in autumn.

.......

There is something purifying in violence. Rage flows through her, a clear singing torrent that simply does not allow for things like doubt, or fear, or that haunting feeling that she just is not meant to be happy.

When the punches are flying, the bullets are spraying or her Viper shudders around her, she can feel her heart beat inside her, reminding her it’s still there. Destruction comforts her, in some perverse way.

It reminds her of her mother.

......

She knows she’s losing it, and some part of her nearly cries with relief. It’s almost over.

There’s a bare thread left holding her to reality, and it’s fraying. She can almost see the Fates standing with her life stretched thin, knife poised, ready.

She’s desperate. Lee just seems confused, and she almost can’t blame him. Her, the hotshot pilot, not wanting to fly just doesn’t make sense. So he offers to fly her wing, and she accepts even as she wants to strangle him. All she wants is for him to save her, but he’s so used to her saving herself he can’t seem to remember how anymore.

She gives Sam a last chance, tells him about her mother, tries to make him get it, but he seems to think she’s okay. Offers some ridiculous platitude about her mother not being helpful, thinking that Kara opening up is some ridiculous move towards her maturing and dealing with her problems herself. He’s standing beside her, when all she wants is for him to clip her wings and save her from the awful thing that she can feel herself becoming.

.......

The little girl pops up at odd moments.

Standing in the door of the head, bruises all over her. Sitting in a Viper, tainting the one escape she once had from the all-pervasive hand of Socrata Thrace. Reminding her about a mother who thought suffering was good for the soul.

The girl comes more and more often, until one day she looks in the mirror and it’s not a little girl she sees. Her mother stares out at her from her own face, and she wants to scream and break things, but she doesn’t. The little girl is gone, and that might be why she’s still alive, but it is also why she wants to die. She is all hard edges and sharp planes, no softness left. She is what her mother made her, and what she made herself trying to escape.

She’s almost the right shape.

.......

The heavy raider weaves in and out of her vision, and something that is not Leoben whispers in her ear.. The last pieces of what was once Kara chip away, and the Gods’ work is done. Kara Thrace is finished, and the tool of the Gods sits in her place.

“See you on the other side,” she whispers to Lee. She can feel his pain, but he needs it. He has a destiny, too, and this is the first touch of the chisel.

She smiles as the hard deck of the planet approaches. She fits inside her skin, for the first time in her life, and her soul hums in contentment.

There is nothing left but light.

cries

2007-05-10T15:10:56Z

Life sucks.

My oldest brother has cancer. He lives on the other side of the country. I never see him.

My other brother has paranoid schizophrenia, and just when we thought he was going well, moved out, living independently, he had a psychotic break, got taken to the mental hospital, police escort, and generally went off the deep end.

My mother wants to leave my father, and seems to think telling me how unhappy she is about her entire fucking life, including her children, is a great idea. Go with the guilt, mum.

I hate my job. They don't pay me shit, I'm doing three people's jobs, I work overtime EVERY FUCKING SHIFT for nothing, and my boss is going to go apeshit when I quit, so I keep putting it off.

I'm four weeks behind in Econs, even further in Quants, exams are looming, I failed my Econs midsemester and the assignment, I have two assignments due tomorrow, my Japanese is going BACKWARDS for some stupid reason, all the books for my research essay are either checked out or in Adelaide (wtf?!) and i hate uni.

My car needs fixing. It's lights and gearbox is fucked.

I haven't ridden my horse in 9 months. How is that even possible?

I never see my best friend. Make that ANY of my friends except 2. They're all at different uni's.

I have no social life atm. None. Nada. Nil. The highlight of my week is Sunday, when I get to sleep in past 8.
My laptop is slowly dying.

My iPod broke.

I have a cold.

I've slept 4 hours in the past two days.

BAH I HATE LIFE! *burrows into hole to escape*

BSG fic - From Here To Oblivion

2007-05-06T12:44:52Z

I don't think anyone on my flist watches BSG, so ignore...

Title: From Here To Oblivion
Prompt/claim: Level Omega, table A, number 159: Brave
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Characters: Kat, Lee, Puppet
Rating: T for a bit of violence and gore, but what do you expect from this fandom?
Spoilers/Squicks: For Scar, if any, but only if you squint and hold your tongue right.
Summary: She wasn't scared, and she'd kill anyone who said she was. Set in season one when the first batch of nuggets de-nugget-fy.

.......

Louanne Katraine, lieutenant, junior grade.

She stared at the insignia on her palm, not really believing that they were there. Had she done it? Had she really pulled it off?

The little lieutenant pins didn’t go away. Not even if she blinked. So it must be true. She was no longer a nugget, was finally a pilot, well and truly. She was an officer in the Fleet.

Louanne Katraine, lieutenant, junior grade.

A grin spread slowly across her face, and lifted her gaze to meet the CAG’s. Apollo smiled back at her, saluting formally.

“Congratulations, Lieutenant. Dismissed.”

She schooled her features and returned the salute. “Thank you, sir.”

.......

“Galactica; Kat. Commencing long-range CAP, 1400 hours. See you in 5.”

“Acknowledged, Kat. Good hunting.”

Kat took a shuddering breath and pressed her throttle forward and sped away from the Fleet. She would be just fine. She was a lieutenant now. Fully qualified. Competent. She wasn’t going to die on a routine CAP. Even if she would be out of range of Galactica, with only one other pilot, in a non-FTL-capable ship, with cylons out for blood---

No. She would be just fine.

An hour of stewing later, her wingman decided he felt chatty.

“How you doing, Kat?”

Kat was pissed off as soon as the crackled words came through her comm. She wasn’t a nugget anymore! Just because he’d been flying for who knew how long and she’d been in a Viper less than a month didn’t mean he could treat her like an amateur.

“I’m fine, Puppet. How are you?” she bit back sarcastically.

“Hey, I’m just asking. Don’t mind me.” She wanted to punch that easy-going tone right out of him. “Did you catch the fight between the CAG and Starbuck yesterday? It was a doozy. I thought he was gonna strangle her.”

Ahh, the favourite topic of every pilot. Starbuck and Apollo and their strange relationship. “Don’t you have anything better to talk about than someone else’s life?”

“A bit tense, are we, Kat? Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”

Tense? She wasn’t tense. Wanting to tear a fellow pilot’s skin off because he was trying to be friendly didn’t make her tense, it made her… focused. On the mission. The mission where she might die, alone in space, without backup.

Frak.

"Just shut up, Puppet!"

“Fine, fine, we won’t talk about the CAG and the lead pilot’s torrid love-affair, and how she was engaged to the CAG’s brother, and how the reg’s forbid it, and how tormented Apollo is over the wrongness of it all, and how the Commander is oblivious, and--- Frak, incoming. Multiple contacts, bearing 146, carom 089. Weapons free. Prepare to engage. Stay on me, Kat.” Puppet’s tone was instantly professional, all hints of laziness evaporated.

Kat could feel her heart beating right out of her chest. Her throat was dry, and she couldn’t speak.

She could see the raiders, all six of them, closing fast. Six against two, even against expert pilots, were slim odds.

“Kat! Come in!”

But she was qualified, right? She was a lieutenant. Her hand flexed around her stick, thumb shook against her trigger button.

“Kat! Frakking answer me! That’s an order!”

Could he even give her orders? He was a lieutenant, too. Maybe he was senior grade. She couldn’t remember. Her jaw was shaking so badly she thought it would come off. Why wasn’t she answering?

“Frak! Engaging raiders.”

Puppet wove in and out of the cylon ships, guns firing and swearing the whole time. She couldn’t see how he wasn’t dead yet. All six raiders were on him. It was only a matter of time.

And all she did was drift, and wait.

One cylon went.

And another, and another.

Until there was only one left. Puppet was good, she had to admit. Five raiders were gone. But there was still one left, and maybe that was all it took.

“Kat! Get your ass into this fight!”

His viper rolled and pitched, but didn’t engage the raider.

“Kat, for frak’s sake, I’m bingo ammo!”

Bingo ammo? What did that even mean? She couldn’t remember. She should, right? She was an officer, they were supposed to know what those sorts of things meant.

“KAT! Help m---”

Viper explosions were always spectacular. The oxygen and fuel they carried meant that for a few brief seconds, even in the vacuum of space fire had something to burn. The metal flew everywhere, momentum unhindered by friction. And then there was the pilot’s body, which even if not destroyed by the crash, if they didn’t eject, was depressurised in moments, and that made a mess, too.

This explosion was no different. Puppet was there one second, and not the next. The raider’s bullets ripped his viper to shreds, and the oxygen went up in flames.

That was also the precise instant that Kat’s body decided to start working again, and the cylon was destroyed before she even realised that Puppet was dead, and it was entirely her fault.

.......

“I’d like to resign my commission, sir,” Kat told the CAG bluntly as she stood at attention in his office. She had always been an upfront person, and that wasn’t about to change.

Captain Adama blinked and leaned back in his chair with a puzzled expression. “I’m sorry; what? I thought this was a debriefing.”

Kat drew a deep breath. “What happened to Puppet was my fault, sir. I froze, and he died. That’s not what the Fleet needs its officers to do.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “No, what the Fleet needs is people to fly vipers, and that’s not a lot of people at the moment. One of whom is you.”

“But sir, I’m not right for this---“

“Ahh, see, there’s your mistake. You don’t decide. I do, and Starbuck does. Remember, she’s God.”

His attempt at lightening her mood fell flat. Didn’t he get it? “But I killed him!”

Lee sighed and met her gaze earnestly. “Did you shoot him?”

“What? No!”

“Then you didn’t kill him.”

“But… I didn’t engage, sir. I froze. He begged me for help, but I just… couldn’t!”

“So you’ll deprive the Fleet of two pilots instead of one, when you’re perfectly able to fly? Is that the action of an officer of the Colonial Fleet?”

“That’s my point. I’m not officer material.”

Lee grinned and cocked his head. “Have you met Starbuck?”

Kat smiled a little despite herself. But there was still the whole matter of her killing a fellow pilot. “Sir, she’s never let another pilot die when she could do something about it.”

Finally Lee seemed to take her seriously. “Look, Kat, I’m not going to pretend that it’s all okay. It’s not. Puppet is dead, and you are partially responsible. That’ll get you a write-up in your file, and extra maintenance duty. Plus there’s the guilt you’re obviously feeling, which is worse than anything I could do. But I have to look at the big picture.” He sighed, running his hands through his hair and leaning forward to rest his elbows on the desk, and fixed her with his gaze. “We have less than forty pilots, and even fewer Vipers. That many against the entire cylon fleet, with an infinite number of raiders and base-stars. So because one of my pilots feels guilty we should worsen those odds even more?”

Kat looked down at her feet, feeling all of twelve. “No, sir.”

“Good. Dismissed.”

Kat saluted half-heartedly and trudged to the door.

“And Kat?”

She just looked at him.

“Don’t ever do that again,” he said, in that harsh voice she hated hearing him use. But she swallowed, gathered her courage and nodded.

“Yes, sir,” she said, and left the office with her head high and back straight.

She was an officer of the Fleet, one of the last pilots standing between the human race and obliteration, and she would be brave.

.......

Did you know your smell has a sound?

2007-04-30T16:54:35Z

(Testing to see if my Firefox blogging plugin actually works, sorry for potential spam while I fix it. )

And yay it does.

Tonight, I went to Dylan Moran. Live. It was the best. Thing. Ever. That man is the funniest person alive. I'm in complete and utter fangirl mode right now. I laughed so hard I think I strained something. After rehauling the computer system at internship and dealing with 3 staff off at Kumon and MANY ANNOYING CHILDREN, it was so nice to go to Burswood Casino, have some wine and laugh at an Irishman. *relaxed*

o.O Bzuuuuh?

Famous last words

2007-04-29T14:18:53Z

Ok, so this is probably a really bad idea, what with exams, work, getting into competitions again, and all that, but what the hell. I need some motivation, and something to procrastinate with, and I've always loved biting off more than I can chew.

challenge_the's Table A, level 5 - Omega.

Pairing/Character/General: General
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica

001.	Light.	002.	Shadows.	003.	Truth.	004.	Lies.	005.	Fall.
006.	Secure.	007.	Purpose.	008.	Meaning.	009.	Past.	010.	Future.
011.	Star.	012.	Sun.	013.	Scar.	014.	Solitary.	015.	Penance.
016.	Sinner.	017.	Saint.	018.	Unconditional.	019.	Rules.	020.	Tales.
021.	Amazing.	022.	Special.	023.	Sick.	024.	Exhaustion.	025.	Choice.
026.	Dream.	027.	Sex.	028.	Passion.	029.	Intense.	030.	Soft.
031.	Unforgiving.	032.	Almost.	033.	Messy.	034.	Memory.	035.	Forgotten.
036.	Time.	037.	Gift.	038.	Red.	039.	Yellow.	040.	Blue.
041.	Gray.	042.	Sloshed.	043.	Regression.	044.	Laughter.	045.	Debt.
046.	Work.	047.	Pain.	048.	Hidden.	049.	Power.	050.	Animal.
051.	Pretend.	052.	Pillows.	053.	Cigarette.	054.	Leader.	055.	Follower.
056.	Ring.	057.	Journal/Diary.	058.	Flowers.	059.	Tree.	060.	Nature.
061.	Gold.	062.	Silver.	063.	Games.	064.	Foreign.	065.	Comfort.
066.	Music.	067.	Air.	068.	Water.	069.	Fire.	070.	Earth.
071.	Definition.	072.	Forever.	073.	Never.	074.	Learn.	075.	Teach.
076.	Grief.	077.	Leaving.	078.	Mundane.	079.	Picture.	080.	Crazy.
081.	Repression.	082.	Tragedy.	083.	Comedy.	084.	Romantic.	085.	What if.
086.	Paternal.	087.	Maternal.	088.	Better.	089.	Worse.	090.	Coping.
091.	Young.	092.	Old.	093.	Crisis.	094.	Body.	095.	Soul.
096.	Mind.	097.	Reason.	098.	Illogical.	099.	Hypnotize.	100.	Wisdom.
101.	Destiny Mould	102.	Groggy.	103.	Morning.	104.	Noon.	105.	Night.
106.	Coffee.	107.	Moment.	108.	Year.	109.	Month.	110.	Week.
111.	Day.	112.	Hour.	113.	Glory.	114.	Pride. Sins	115.	Lust. Sins
116.	Intemperance. Sins	117.	Greed. Sins	118.	Envy. Sins	119.	Wrath. Sins	120.	Sloth. Sins
121.	Holy.	122.	Moderation.	123.	Carelessness.	124.	Quitting.	125.	Observe.
126.	Favor.	127.	Spiritual.	128.	Sacrifice.	129.	Incompatible.	130.	Obsolete.
131.	Journey.	132.	Beginning.	133.	End.	134.	Importance.	135.	Numb.
136.	Innocent.	137.	Unhealthy.	138.	Destruction.	139.	Protection.	140.	Love.
141.	War.	142.	Peace.	143.	Name.	144.	Glass.	145.	Sea.
146.	Sky.	147.	Land.	148.	Fly.	149.	Outside.	150.	Inside.
151.	Together.	152.	Alone.	153.	Dead.	154.	Alive.	155.	New.
156.	Act Out.	157.	Restrictions.	158.	Cry.	159.	Brave. From Here To Oblivion	160.	Afraid.
161.	Irked.	162.	Chipper.	163.	Quixotic.	164.	Enthralled.	165.	Hopeful.
166.	Melancholy.	167.	Classic.	168.	Change.	169.	Tradition.	170.	Bolero/Waltz.
171.	Serenade.	172.	Requiem.	173.	Lullaby.	174.	Seduction.	175.	Failure.
176.	Savage.	177.	To forget.	178.	Polite.	179.	Wish.	180.	Alternate.
181.	Confusion.	182.	Pineapple.	183.	Tarnished.	184.	Moon.	185.	Addiction.
186.	Twisted.	187.	Dance.	188.	Fight.	189.	Hit.	190.	Eat.
191.	Hungry.	192.	Dessert.	193.	Landscape.	194.	Shopping.	195.	Silly.
196.	Author's Choice.	197.	Author's Choice.	198.	Author's Choice.	199.	Author's Choice.	200.	Author's Choice.

Oh holy crap, that's a lot of prompts.

ETA:

9 / 200

4.5% complete.

Happy ANZAC day. Maybe... if that's ok... I DON'T KNOW!

2007-04-25T12:59:21Z

See, I would say happy ANZAC day, but it just seems wrong, or disrespectful. Maybe.... contemplative ANZAC day? It just doesn't have the same ring. Anyway, *some sort of greeting* ANZAC day. If anyone even knows what it is XD

I got dragged out gay clubbing last night, which isn't my favourite pastime in the world. It's nice to be able to dance as un-chastely as one likes, if one is so inclined, and not get groped, but there's the other side of the coin, whereby you can't really meet anyone to be interested in if that's what you want. A conundrum indeed.

In other news, a plot bunny mauled me the other day, and this is the result, or at least the first chapter. Why is it my brain can't seem to think in micro, it jumps straight to macro? All my bunnies are for massively huge things that I can't even begin to fathom, but this one might actually be achievable in a timely fashion. I'm an atheist, so please don't be offended, anyone, by the mashing of any and all religions I could think of.

Title: On a Wing and a Prayer
Rating: T for teeny creepiness.
Pairing: None, yet. Probably will be canon
Word count: 3490, so long-ish
Summary:

Kagome is ordinary. Pathologically so. Being neither dull nor interesting had always been her lot in life. But when her boss is murdered and she's the prime suspect, the Universe finally decides to take notice.

But even Heaven messes it up sometimes, so the Guardian Angel she gets is an angry demi-deva with an attitude, a potty-mouth and one hell of a grudge. He's far more interested in selling her off to the highest bidder than keeping her out of jail. Or even alive.

But Kagome is finally seeing past the greyscale life she's used to, and she'll take on Heaven, Hell and everything in between for a chance at extraordinary.

***

How did things get this bad?

Things are never as bad as they seem, the optimistic part of her thought, though even it sounded sceptical, which was a bad sign.

No, they’re worse, the rest of her thought back waspishly.

There were some situations wherein optimism degenerated into idiocy, and Kagome Higurashi feared that this was one of them.

She crouched quietly in a corner of her holding cell, curled up on the little cot and pressing herself into the cold wall, trying to figure out just where the hell she went wrong.

***

Three days earlier…

Kagome waved to Minako from her desk as the other girl yelled a goodbye. It was late, but she was determined to finish the account before she let herself leave. It was dark outside already, she knew, even if she couldn’t see a window from her cubicle. Just a few more figures to check.

Accountancy wasn’t really a very interesting job, but it paid well and kept her distracted, which in the end was what she wanted. Sometimes she caught herself fantasising about a glamorous career as an actress or a singer, but then memories of her one and only time on stage came to mind and she froze just thinking about it. Who would have thought that accepting a graduation certificate would be so nerve-wracking?

Kagome finished with the final debits column and moved onto the credits in the Yamada file, the wealthy manufacturing company that outsourced their accounting for reasons she couldn’t quite fathom. Whatever the reason, Totosai had been the one to land the account, and had promptly handed it over to her with a smile, a pat on the head and his assurance that she would “enjoy the challenge”.

A challenge it was, alright. It had taken her a week to decipher the very odd notation system on the account book, then another to chase up all the documents she needed. Between that and all her other accounts, she was flat out.

But then, did she really mind? What else would she be doing except working? Kagome wouldn’t call her life bad, but it wasn’t perfect, by any means. Since university, her friends had skyrocketed on, leaving her behind in so many ways. She knew that they thought that the way she lived was strange. Maybe it was. That would explain a few things.

Kagome was, in a word, average. She was the type of person at whom opportunities looked, scoffed and walked away from before she even noticed they were there. Lady Luck ignored her completely and Happy Coincidence had no idea who she was. She wasn’t even up to Catastrophe’s notice, who knew everybody. Nothing ever truly wonderful or truly terrible had every happened to her. Mediocrity, however, embraced her. It permeated every facet of her being. She wore a lot of light grey. Her apartment was nice, but not too nice (the bathroom was serviceable, but the hot water didn’t always work). Her job was good, but not too good (she had a large cubicle, but it was next to the photocopier). She was not a terribly fantastic accountant, but by no means was she bad, either. She checked her figures carefully, and took her time of it.

Those who knew her would describe her as “steady” and “reliable”. People she had seen everyday on the bus for the past year would not know her from a bar of soap, and could probably hold a more fascinating conversation with the soap. Her ex-boyfriends, all three of them even at age 26, said she was “a great girl, but it just wasn’t meant to be”. Once they’d been reminded who she was.

For Kagome, not a whole lot was meant to be.

Except for that night.

Something malicious and evil saw her hunched over her work. A little imp, bored after being on his beat for nearly a whole shift, looked over the situation. In the street below: police. A few blocks away: a crime scene and a body bag. Right in front of him: a likely suspect. The imp cackled with a flash of yellow teeth and rancid breath, and something out of the ordinary brushed Kagome’s life for the first time.

The last figure in the column was double-checked and triple-checked, just in case, and then Kagome stretched, arching her back and hearing things pop. Rubbing her neck and blinking bleary eyes, she glanced at the clock on the wall of her cubicle. 9 o’clock already?

She had just finished packing up her satchel (old, dusty brown leather, not too fancy, not too cheap) when a loud bang rang out across the office. She turned and yelped, finding herself face to face with a forbidding black helmet. She fisted her grey skirt in both hands and gulped. Are those… are those guns?

“Can I help you?” she asked timidly.

“Kagome Higurashi?”

“Y-yes…”

“You are under arrest for the murder of Totosai Oyama.”

The evil little something poking its head around the corner of the cubicle grinned deviously and snickered. As it hitched a ride on the detective sergeant’s shoulder, the universe suddenly sat up and took notice of the now terrified girl in grey.

Taking in the scene, Kagome whimpering as she was pressed into the carpet by a member of the police and cuffed, none too gently, the universe resounded with one thought.

“Shit.”

***

“Are you for Legal Aid or can you afford a lawyer?” the police sergeant drawled, sounding absolutely bored as he leant against the bars of her holding cell. Kagome stood on the other side, rubbing the red marks on her wrist left by the less-than-gentle handcuffing job done by the arresting officer.

“How much does a lawyer cost?” she asked worriedly.

The sergeant chewed his gum lazily, perusing her sheet with a vague expression until he eventually answered, “Quite a bit. ‘Specially for something like what you’ve got. Nasty, that.”

He made it sound like a disease. Kagome bit her lip and hugged her shoulders. “Legal Aid, then.”

“Rightio.” The sergeant marked something down on his clipboard and strolled back to his desk, flicking the channel on the ancient TV to the Motor-cross finals. Kagome breathed in a shaky lung-full of air, and walked slowly over to the ratty bunk in the corner of her cell. She curled up on her side, staring into space and cataloguing her every activity of the last few days for any hint of what had led them to suspect her. She watched Law and Order, she knew the drill. She lived alone, so no alibi. Her neighbours were an elderly woman with hearing problems and a flight attendant who was always away, so no help there. What on earth was she going to do? Slowly, quietly, she started to cry.

***

In the darkest corner of the cell, there was a snicker. The slimy little imp that had been following her around for a few days rubbed its little clawed hands together and grinned with pure malice. It was gone in a puff, and a few called-in favours later, the phone in the holding block rang.

“Rob, your wife’s in the hospital. Something about a gerbil?” The sergeant’s boss sounded dubious.

“Shit. I’ll be there in ten minutes. She’s always had a thing about rodents.”

***

About eight blocks away in a dark office, a bored young woman with a bad perm pressed some buttons on the dispatch call-centre console. “Ernie, you’ve been re-assigned to the Midland holding cell block. Make it quick.”

The fat policeman grunted in response and turned on the red and blue lights above him, swerving in and out of traffic. No point in having a badge if you couldn’t enjoy the perks, right?

Ten minutes later, he signed into the holding cell post, took look at the vulnerable, fairly attractive woman cowering in the holding cell, and a malicious grin spread across his greasy face.

The imp materialised on his shoulder and went to work. Vague ideas turned to impulses, desires to obsessions, and Ernie picked up the key to Kagome’s cell.

The Universe went into a slight panic. Frantic red flags went up, waving desperately at the Power angels in the vicinity in charge of Justice. But they were lazy and tired, and took the phone off the hook, because after all, they weren’t getting overtime.

The sergeant turned his head to cast his beady eyes over the woman’s slim young body, and an unholy gleam was lit in their depths.

Kagome closed her eyes and prayed.

Finally, the Universe had something to work with.

“My, you’re a pretty one, aren’t you,” the sergeant wheezed, leaning against the bars of Kagome’s holding cell. She noticed with a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach that a large portion of his body actually oozed through those bars, like jelly on a fork. She could smell his sweat from her position in the far corner of the cell, trying to meld herself with the wall.

She had a very, very bad feeling about this.

***

Heart-rendingly beautiful music rang out over the ethereal landscape of Heaven, music to make mortals weep in joy and a landscape to send artists into paroxysms of aesthetic delight.

InuYasha thought that they should bloody well shut up and get rid of all the white. It was great in theory, but really, clouds get glary after a while. After all, sunglasses weren’t part of the uniform.

Being an angel was overrated, he had decided. The pay was crap, and the Third Choir got all the glory for no effort. There had been a union movement a few centuries ago, very popular with the worker angels, but Heaven, it seemed, was not a democracy, nor a socialist society. One Dark Age and several industrial disputes later, the Saints and Bodhisattvas had stepped in and, predictably, ruled on the side of the Archangels and the Third Choir. Thus, oppression was restored and government-sanctioned once more in Heaven.

Damn Archangels. Too vain for their own good. Gabriel was just an Ophanim, a glorified car-tire with eyes, when she’d landed the messenger gig and suddenly became ‘the favourite’, upped to Cherubim status, complete with those boobs and that fancy blonde hair that she never stopped fussing over…

What, InuYasha, bitter? Never!

He had been a fifth level deva, well on his way to one of the Five Pure Abodes and a cushy desk job before the Dominions (honestly, an entire angelic race devoted to bureaucracy was a bit excessive, in InuYasha’s opinion) had gone on their demoting spree. From “deva of unbounded glory” to “deva of limited radiance”. Talk about demoralising. There were only so many knocks to the ego that an angel could take.

So he had taken action.

That was his first mistake. The management didn’t take kindly to action. So when he’d chained himself to the pearly gates in protest, “Angel Rights” scrawled across his naked chest, they had deigned to tear themselves away from contemplation of Nirvana to tell him to shove it. No higher devas to tell him off, no terrified intern to carry the message, but The Saint himself. The irritating thing was how guilty he’d felt when Peter had… well, not told him off, exactly, more… been “not angry, just disappointed”. He hated it when Peter pulled that on him. He hated even more that it worked.

In any case, he’d unchained himself, said twenty rosaries, taken the Karmic rap on the knuckles and promised never to do it again. And since in heaven one can’t lie, in order to get around that promise the next time he was feeling rebellious, he had had to get creative. Especially with the fact that Raguel, the angelic equivalent of a Hall Monitor always willing to squeal to the big-wigs, had taken a special interest in his activities.

Picking up after humans for a century or two as a Virtue (the most thankless job an angel can get) had taught him the art of the practical joke. And InuYasha was nothing if not inventive. He couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped him when he remembered that last trick he’d played on Raziel. The guy hadn’t been able to move more than a few feet from the toilet for a week.

So he’d been demoted again, down to Guardian Angel. Which… hadn’t gone well.

The result of that little disaster was his finding out that there was only so much that even Saints could take before they ceased being disappointed and became angry. Very angry. It didn’t happen often, but it had happened to InuYasha. Thus his current state of exile, sitting on Cloud 9 mark 821.4, supposed to be strumming a harp to add to the atmosphere in Heaven. (Needless to say, harmony was not InuYasha’s strong point, so the harp lay in pieces and the Heavenly Choir was missing the occasional F sharp.)

There was still hope of his reform in some quarters. No matter how many times he had stolen Raphael’s underpants when they was younger, the Archangel was still willing to believe that InuYasha was merely misguided and idle, and to counsel (in other words, order) the Dominions against condemning him downstairs, to hell.

That was the problem with unruly angels. They couldn’t be fired and demotion only worked till there was nowhere left to demote to. To lose angels to Hell was to technically strike a point in the Big Red’s favour. However, InuYasha was sick of Heaven. He had heard that in Hell there was even a dental plan.

If that was true, he would defect as soon as possible. If not… then he’d just have to find a bargaining chip to make it worth his while. It was with that in mind that he hung over the edge of his cloud, staring down at the hustle and bustle of central administration, far below him.

***

The sergeant toyed with the keys on his belt, giving Kagome another once-over with his small, piggish eyes. She shrank back into the wall, trying to ignore the feeling of his eyes on her, like greasy fingertips sliding over her skin. He chuckled, and began to fit the key into the lock.

There was no mistaking that look in his eyes. Predatory, cold, and ravenous. Cold fear burgeoned in Kagome’s chest, freezing her reflexes and thought-process. Her breathing turned choppy and fast, rebounding off the walls and in her head until she couldn’t hear anything else. She was the prey, and she knew it.

In the office of the holding area, the phone rang, breaking the spell cast over the cell. The sound was reassuringly familiar, a reminder of the world outside the room of concrete and iron.

“Shit,” the policeman swore, and cast one last, burning look over her quivering body, folded up as small as she could manage. Sucking his teeth and scowling in regret, he stomped away and out of her sight.

Limbs shaking and tears in her eyes, Kagome unfolded her tense body.

“See? Things are never as bad as they seem.”

Kagome’s senses snapped into overdrive and she whipped her head up to stare wild-eyed at the person who had spoken.

A young man leant casually against the cell wall opposite her, an eyebrow raised and arms crossed as he smiled reassuringly down at her. His blue suit was perfectly pressed and black hair perfectly groomed, smoothed back into a tiny rattail that somehow managed to both suit him and seem professional. The smile on his face was so practiced that she knew that that smile was part of his job. There was something so inherently unthreatening about him that Kagome felt herself relaxing almost involuntarily.

But logic and common sense soon reasserted themselves, and she began to panic once more.

“Who the hell are you?!” she shrieked, scrabbling at the blankets on the cot around her for some kind of weapon. It was one thing to be leered at by an authority figure, invoking all sorts of documented reactions, but it was quite another for some sort of bureaucrat to appear in one’s cell.

The man just smiled suavely. “My dear Kagome, that is a question that cannot be answered with a mere name. Who I am, and indeed who we all are, is a question of infinite complexity with answers in every atom of the universe, burning in distant stars and resonating across reality into the unknown void beyond.”

Kagome blinked.

“But to simplify, my name is Miroku.”

“How… how the hell did you know my name?” Kagome asked shakily.

Miroku clicked his tongue chidingly. “You seem so fond of that expression, but I’m not involved with that end of the spectrum, I’m afraid. I’m here on behalf of the Department of Human-Divine Relations, and might I say that your problem is somewhat… unique.”

Kagome gaped. “My… problem?”

Miroku gestured vaguely to the cell they were in. “You know, false arrest, no alibi, little knowledge of the proceedings, alone and hopeless… all that good stuff. It’s like something out of a Bruckheimer movie.”

Kagome’s eyebrows had been steadily creeping up her brow, and they had reached their limit. “How do you know about all this?”

“Weren’t you listening? Human-Divine Relations. The heavenly equivalent of PR. You pray, we answer, and if the problem is big enough we come in person. Yours, as I said, is unique, so here I am.”

Kagome had never been a particularly religious person. She hadn’t been anti-religion, or atheistic, more ambivalent. She didn’t have an opinion either way.

Of course, that was before a well-dressed man had just appeared inside her cell and started talking about Heaven’s PR department. She had either lost it – a distinct possibility – or there was something else going on. Either way, she figured she might as well roll with it.

“Anyway,” Miroku was saying, rubbing his hands together industriously, “not to worry, I’ve got a few plans cooking and we’ll get you out of here.”

“How are you going to manage that?” Kagome asked, consciously putting her disbelief and questioning her sanity aside.

Miroku winked and flashed a toothy smile. “You, my dear, have just acquired a disgustingly rich aunt to post your bail and a QC doing his pro bono quota for you lawyer.”

Scepticism ingrained by years of lonely evenings spent watching the Discovery channel resurfaced briefly. “That’s impossible.”

Miroku’s grin merely widened. “Of course it is. That’s why I did it, not you. Now get some sleep. Tomorrow is going to be hell.”

Kagome blinked and he was gone.

***

It was time for a shift change in the local office for Divine Intervention. Nemamiah yawned and nodded absently to Munkir, the angel he was relieving, as he signed the entry roster. It was ridiculous that the grunts needed supervision for a job like this, but if they were left alone the devas just used the prayer lines to chat to their friends and pull pranks. So here Nemamiah was, once again, watching over a bunch of devas sorting and assigning prayers, instead of lying on his cloud with his girlfriend revelling in his unbounded radiance like celestial beings of his rank were supposed to.

Rubbing a hand over his bleary eyes, he put the kettle on to boil in the break-room. The sound of chatter in a thousand untold tongues filtered through the walls and Nemamiah yawned again. He wasn’t cut out for this kind of work. He was the angel of Just Causes for goodness’ sake, and he was babysitting instead of helping any of the millions of just causes all around the world.

All because bureaucracy demanded that he be here. What was the point of designated areas of power if angels couldn’t operate within them? No, here he was, minding the prayer lines, most of which wouldn’t even be answered because angels like him were too busy There were a lot of things wrong with the way that heaven ran things. Why they couldn’t promote one of the hard workers to a Deva of Unbounded Radiance to take care of this lot, he just didn’t know. He should put it in the suggestion box, even though no one ever read those things. Or maybe next time he was down at the pub and Jehoel was drunk he could plant the idea in his head.

He was just nodding at his own cleverness and leaving the break-room to bellow at the devas slacking off when he realised that a certain strategically-placed, deceptively small, and utterly imperative red light was flashing.

In the instant that he did notice that little light glowing on and off incessantly, he yelled some words that an angel really shouldn’t even know, and all Hell, literally speaking, broke loose.

Or rather, broke in.

Thoughts? Any and all!

inaqui @ 2007-04-20T22:51:00

2007-04-20T15:09:28Z

My screen was clear. Yay! No cancer for me. Should find out if it's genetic soon, and whether I have to go through this every year or just every five.

Had one of my mid-semesters yesterday, out of only two (yay!) and it was a Drama.

Myself and a hundred and fifty odd other students turned up dutifully at the lecture theatre where we had been told our (mathematics) exam was to be held. After waiting for the room to be finally opened up (late), I took a look at the exam paper at the seat I had taken.

"Promotion and Marketing 2204"

To which my brain screams, not unreasonably, "OH HOLY FUCK!!!!!"

Anyway, I check a few more papers, just in case it's a split venue, but they all say the same, ominous thing. After feeling the bottom of my stomach drop to the pavement and hyperventilation begins to set in, I hesitantly ask the enormous man presiding over the students filing in, "Which exam is this?"

He peers down at me from his great height and replies, "Promotion and marketing."

I had hoped for stress-induced hallucination. But no. It was as bad as I had thought.

By this point, several other perplexed looking people are gathering around us. The big man has turned away and has an 'I'm important and far too busy to be bothered by your insignificant questions' air about him as he shepherds people towards the papers. But I am bloody well not deterred.

"What about the Quants exam?" I persist, if somewhat timidly (he really is enormous!)

"What's Quants?"

Again, my brain helpfully adds, "SHIIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!!!!"

"Umm, I'm supposed to be taking an exam here, but it isn't Marketing..."

"Look, what's the name of your unit?"

"Quantative Methods for Business and Economics."

He looks stumped. "Call your lecturer."

Because we all carry around the mobile numbers of all our lecturers. "He's supervising another of the exams."

It begins to dawn on him, as the crowd gathering about him increases, that something really is wrong, it's not just a ditz who can't read a timetable. He raises his voice and gestures vaguely towards the door with a meaty hand. "Everyone here who isn't doing Marketing and Promotion, this isn't your exam."

Thanks, dude. That really helps. You know, you should go into HR.

Angry confused mutters grow louder as more than half the people in the room leave. It is at this point that the absent little South East Asian man, Duc Vo, one of those who is supposed to be supervising our exam, pitches up, papers in hand.

The students descend.

"He says it's not our exam."

"I studied so much and now I can't remember <i>anything</i>."

"What are we going to do now?"

"I have Commitments after this exam! Can't be late!"

"I can't POSSIBLY perform at my best now!"

"Feel... disadvantage... setting in!"

Poor little Duc Vo looks overwhelmed. It's somewhat like watching a deer being harassed by a pack of wolves.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is, runners are dispatched to fetch The Lecturer, who go back and forth about 4 times while Duc Vo and Unpronounceable Indian Lady try to impress upon him the seriousness of the situation while yelling at each other in thickly accented English. We students mill about and mutter darkly about the incompetence of the Faculty and how we can feel our knowledge draining and our ability to write an exam waning.

Eventually The Lecturer arrives. There's more yelling, more milling and more subversive muttering.

A few minutes later, a free lecture room is found, and the crowd of us is herded ALL THE WAY across the university to Engineering, we're sat down and given the exam.

40 minutes late.

Bah. At least the exam itself wasn't too hard. I still hate Calculus, even more without my trusty Graphics calculator Hans, but at least, as Calculus sans calculators go, it wasn't TOO evil.

LP, no disrespect to lecturers, I know you'd never do something like that. But then I think The Lecturer would forget his head if it wasn't firmly attached. His party trick is doing an entire problem wrong, redoing it, wrong AGAIN, and giving up with a vague, "well what does the BOOK say about this topic?" Grrrr... learn to plan a lesson, dude.

blah blah...

2007-04-14T17:49:26Z

Yay computer is working again. It died just after getting out of the doctor for a new DC adaptor, and now my harddrive is
online again! YAY! *confetti* Oh internet, I have missed you so...

Woohoo, cancer screening on Monday. 36 hours of ridiculous amounts of laxatives, clear fluids and sedatives while cameras get put in varied orifices. *blech* Damn this "increased risk" business.

In other news, I hate uni at the moment. Oh, and children, too. I'm really not cut out for teaching, even half-arsed part-time stuff. At least the whole point of Kumon is that the kids learn independently, so I can tell them to "figure it out" when they try to weasel the answer out of me. I REALLY don't like kids. But on the positive side, this is a fantastic incentive to ignore the little "baby-flutters" my hormones have decided it's about time for.

Crisis Averted!

2007-02-04T13:49:52Z

Ha! Well, after all the palava I went on about yesterday, today I woke up to boxes and a moving van! YES! Brother has moved out with his girlfriend! I thought they were waiting till mum came home, but I'm SO happy to be wrong. YAY! *happy dance*

Went on cleaning spree in celebration! It's SO nice to have the house to myself. Aaaaaah. I've got [V] blasting on the TV, feet on the couch and laptop on, coincidentally, my lap. Dogs are happy and sleeping, the smell of Mr Muscle and BYO is in the air, washing on the line and in the machine, a warm breeze is blowing in the door, Big Day Out raging half a km away...... aaaah. I feel much better. Today was a good day.

Also, after much agonising and chickening out, I've posted the 1st chapter of a fic on FFnet and MMorg. Arg. I've been sitting on this fic for nigh on two years now. It's slow going becaus I'm a nitpicker, 90 000 words in but absolute chickenshit when it comes to letting it out to play. Well, LP, you can stop your gentle nagging and motherly glares now, IT"S OUT! I'm now in aaaaaaaaaangst and wanting to take it down again. And I hate FFnet's system. Took SIX frickin' tries to format, and even then it's all wrong, but FUCK IT! I've got to write another drabble for 31_Days anyhow, so I give up.

Update

2007-02-03T15:33:43Z

Well, my brother has colon cancer. Fortunately, it was operable, and said operation went well, with no complications, and he WON'T have to have a bag. Which caused great relief all around. Unfortunately he still has to have chemo as a precaution, and he's just now in so so so much pain. I've never seen him so skinny, well, in photos at least. I'm on the other side of the country to him, which sucks. While my brother recuperates from surgery, and attempts to fart --- yes, that has been the trial of the last few days. Waiting to see if Chris can fart. Considering he and the other brother used to have competitions at the most accurate rendition of Beethoven's 5th, this is an odd situation--- I'm looking after the house, the dogs, and the other big brother, who is useless at ANYTHING that isn't TV, pot or bad for you.

Namely housework.

Buuuuuuh.

I really appreciate my mother right now. I take my hat off to all you mothers on my flist. I want mine, but of course Chris needs her more at this point.

I fail at housekeeping. It's a big house and there's shitloads to do. Often involving actual shit, considering the pets have been eating the dates that fall from the palm trees by the pool in summer. There are ants EVERYWHERE in the kitchen, the dogs had diarrhoea all over the laundry, the pool is festy, the garden is dying..... Arg. Big brother is USELESS at ANYTHING I ask him to do. He left dishes in the sink for TWO WEEKS!!!!! There were stone age societies living on them! Then after I FINALLY bit the bullet and washed them, I asked him to take the rubbish out. He asked me why couldn't I do it. I swear I nearly decked him. Grrrr. This will end in tears or violence. One of the two. And I'm all for violence at this point...

inaqui @ 2007-01-25T15:56:00

2007-01-25T06:59:28Z

My brother, the recently married one, is in hospital undergoing a radical colectomy pending diagnosis of the growth in his bowel after he collapsed yesterday. It's either Crohn's disease, lymphoma or colon cancer.

All I can think is, "Well.... shit." And cry. A lot.

Would appreciate positive thoughts sent our way

Pointless rambling

2007-01-21T16:26:18Z

I have a strange new fascination: "So You Think You Can Dance".

It disturbs me to admit this. I have always been able to resist Reality TV in all it's incarnations, but alas, my friends have sucked me in. Almost too quickly to notice, complusion has begun to dictate the ritual gathering of our crowd to Dan's house for watching, criticising and gushing. I'm frightened by how quickly this craze overwhelmed my resistance. At first, my disdain held firm, and I held myself aloof, superior in the knowledge that I alone was unaffected by lithe people in silly costumes gyrating around the stage, and screaming judges, and the astonishingly tall host. But no. I have succumbed. Inexorably I've morphed into what can only be termed a fan. I have watched Ivan and Allison's contemporary routine over and over on YouTube. I was releaved when Natalie wasn't voted off. I was dismayed when Pants-Man (aka Dimitri) was dismissed. My criticism has taken on a... genuinely interested air, instead of the cold indifference of before. My Restaurant Rules, Australian Idol, the Biggest Loser, Big Brother seasons 1 through 7... all other Reality TV held no allure, and I was proud of being able to say that I didn't watch it. But now... *sob*

In short, I am ashamed of myself. I've sold out. And I can't stop! Benji is too lively, Donyelle too vivacious to resist. I have to keep watching, despite the fact that I know nothing about dancing, and that I feel my dignity slowly slipping from beneath me...

Ok, melodrama over. XD

inaqui @ 2007-01-17T22:47:00

2007-01-17T13:49:58Z

Oh god. Kill me. Ate far too much icecream: an entire two litre tub of cookies and cream, followed by a chocbomb at the movies and Cold Rock after. Kill me. Did I mention I'm lactose intolerant? Food escaaaaaape! Red Dwarf, anyone? My belly is trying to crawl out of my body. Why did I do this? If i didn't know better I'd think I was pregnant, I am having such weird cravings.

In other news, I'm now a qualified Senior First Aid-er. Go me! With free triangular bandage! The whole "less than 2% survival rate with CPR" was kinda depressing, though. Another pointless entry... Oh dear, I need to become interesting.

Very late Happy New Year!

2007-01-15T04:28:23Z

I'm so relaxed I could melt into a puddle of goo. Thank god for impromptu holidays and friends with 64' luxury boats. *stupid grin* Spent the last two weeks cruising round the north of New Zealand on a brand new power yacht after my friend's parents decided that "family holidays" are all well and good, but civilized company their own age and keeping their daughter distracted with a friend is good, too. It was all decided and flights booked within 24 hours of the offer. I'd never been to New Zealand, and I discovered that their definition of "summer" is meant in the loosest possible sense. From 38 C to frickin' 20's. In midsummer! What's going on?!

We drank Bailey's, read books, went snorkelling, watched Pride and Prejudice marathon... it was fantastic. Also the first holiday I've spent with my parents in..... a long time. They're good folk, as are my friend's parents, and a good time was had by all. One unpleasant run in with the locals of Great Barrier island, but my conclusion = boat holidays are AWESOME. On a random note, saw Marie Antoinette in Auckland and was underwhelmed. Any thoughts?

Of course, now it's back to the grindstone and trying to find another job. Ack. I hate reality. Here endeth the pointless LJ entry.

I am employed again!

2006-12-10T09:29:54Z

Wooot! At last! And *drum roll* NOT IN RETAIL!!! *happy dance* I am now a corporate temp in the city proper, a job involving not a hell of a lot for large sums of money! *headless chicken impression* Now exams are over and school doesn't start again till March, I'm now rolling in free time XD

Brother's wedding is done and dusted, and they've gone off to Melbourne to set up house. I'm so glad to get them out of our hair, not so much my brother as my darling sister-in-law who can be too much at the best of times, and as the Bridezilla was an awesome sight to behold. ~~Look upon me, ye mortals, and despair.~~ Any advice on how to get on with new members of the family from those more experienced at such things than me? She's managed to offend every single one of us, including a few members of extended family that we hardly ever see due to an inconvenient ocean in between. She never fails to get my or my mother's hackles up with her treatment of and opinions regarding my other brother, not the one she's now married to. The newlyweds have always been incredibly involved in themselves and not much else, but always feel the need to pass judgment on things happening in our lives that they know nothing about. Grrrr.

In unrelated news, I'm off to see a Bach recital tonight. Should be good.

inaqui @ 2006-11-28T12:22:00

2006-11-28T04:22:48Z

AT LAST! It's over! My brother and the Bridezilla are wedded and off to Bintan for honeymoon, and the drama can END! Ugh. I HATE weddings.

My rellies are still here, though, and today they decided to go to Rotto, the island just off our coast. A nice idea at any other time, but right now is schoolies, whereupon the island is swamped by thousands of drunk, hormonal teenagers having just finished exams, and a nearly equal number of police and other authorities. There will be bottles and cans and syringes and groaning bodies strewn willy-nilly, which will certainly impeded on the scenery, one would think. But the relatives, when told this, replied "oh it can't be worse than what we see everyday where we come from." Well, maybe, but why not just wait a few days to view the island unimpeded? But no. Grrr. Stubborn South Africans.....

Grumble grumble grumble...

Angry Letters to things that are annoying.

2006-10-22T08:48:36Z

Dear Weather,

Please make up your BLOODY mind. If you want to be hot, be hot. If you want to be cold, be cold. But not on the same day. This is NOT Melbourne. I want my temperate zone back and am NOT amused by your little joke.

Kind Regards,

Inaqui.

***

Dear Jack the Dog,

Eat another one of my books and you will be sold to a South-East Asian nation for use in the hors d'ouvres of an international conference on Animal Welfare and Lola will finally have her spot underneath the coffee table back.

Somewhat crankily yours,

Inaqui

***

Dear Washing Machine,

Fuck you.

Inaqui

***

Grrrrrrrr.

inaqui @ 2006-10-09T08:55:00

2006-10-09T10:52:05Z

*hysterics* SHIT! Just had preliminary maths exam this morning, and FUCKED IT UP! *cries* I needed a 67% in this exam to PASS THE YEAR! So in order to get even a DECENT final grade I need like an 80% in the final!

*cries whilst burying head in more study books*

And oh my god, screwed for Japanese oral! Did I mention that? AHHHHH! I can hold conversations with random Japanese people I meet on the street but not with EXAMINERS that ask ridiculous questions like "what sort of person do you want to marry?"! Honestly, who asks that?!?! Or "what's your plan for when you're 50?"

*runs around like headless chicken*

I do not handle academic stress well. Other stress, yeah sure, but academic stress noooo.

ETA:

Fandom note: If this week's manga is another sword upgrade I might just have to take desperate measures. I mean, can it stop before Tessaiga gains nuclear capabilities? I yet hold out hope, however, that this is the demise or similar of Kanna... even *gasp* character development? *bated breath*