Title: Midnight And The Vow
Part: 1
Author: Savannah
Email: silverkris@earthlink.net
Disclaimer: You lookin' at me? I don't see nobody else here - except for those
high-powered production execs from the WB and their seedy lawyers. I'll just put
these characters down and back away.slowly.
Summary: Maria ponders Michael's previous incarnation, and how she might have
fit it.
Category: Michael/Maria
Rating: R
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Destiny is a word that used to mean almost nothing to me. I was never a big
believer in the idea that a person was meant for something, although I'll admit
to have toyed with the idea now and again. It's comforting in a way to believe
that you're not just part of the sprawling human mass, but that you are somehow
ordained for something greater. But I never really bought it.
My world began changing when I fell in love with an alien. An ornery,
emotionally unavailable alien with eyes that echoed my name long after the last
syllable had dissipated from his lips, and like the quintessential earthbound
dreamer, I fell for him like a pile of bricks. After a year of kissing and
touching and running from various individuals and entities that seemed
determined to hunt us all down like dogs, you'd think that I would have been
better prepared for Destiny, when it finally made it's entrance. But I wasn't.
Because when all was said and done, I wasn't a part of it. You see, my alien
wasn't alone; Michael's best friends Max and Isabel are also of the otherworldly
persuasion, as is Tess, the missing link who seemed to condense out of thin air.
They are teenagers now, like me and my best friend Liz, but in their last lives
they were a family. A royal family, no less, whose supporters preserved their
DNA and cannon-shot them to Earth to keep them safe for the next uprising. Max
is their King, Tess his former wife, Isabel his traitorous sister, and Michael -
my Michael - his second-in-command. Who was married to Isabel. And me? Nothing.
Zip. Human Complication Version 2.0. Worse than being no part of the plan, I'm
actually wrench in the cogs of Destiny.
But sometimes I dream of what I might have been. Sometimes when it's late and no
one's come into the restaurant for hours, I slide into a booth and close my
eyes, imagining what their home world might be like, who I might have been in
it. I don't know much about the last days of the Royal Family, but I've written
my own version of history, my own Destiny to be a part of. It begins at
midnight, before the end of the Reign of Zan.
On this world I am Navara, a girl from a poor village that lies open-armed along
the seashore. I came to the Capital to devote my life to the Granilith, to be a
priestess, to escape poverty and an arranged marriage to man I do not love. I
have taken the Vow; to be ever and always in the service of the King, to be his
advisor in the ways of the Gods and their machines. Tucked away in a room high
in the royal tower, my chamber is directly below those of the General's and his
wife Villandra, she of the golden hair and false heart. When I was first move to
the tower, I would hear the General and Villandra making love, and it would keep
me up all night, wondering if I'd made a mistake, wondering if I should go back
on my Vow and take a lover. Many in the Order did so, though it was not spoken
of. I wondered what the General looked like; I had only seen him from afar. He
was taller than the King, and his rashness in battle was well known. He was so
young to be such a seasoned soldier, but his Destiny had been set before he was
born, and he had been trained in battle as he had been trained to walk and
speak.
It would have been better had I never seen him face to face, as I did at last.
It was the night of Robita, the great feast before the old harvest would be
burned to make way for the new. An old tradition, it remained as a sort of magic
time. There was a Masque in the palace, and all of the Order in service to the
Royals were invited. I wore the dress of a Water Woman, a sparking sheath of
greens and blues meant to mimic sunlight over the waves. An inappropriately
girlish notion, I admit, but I am still a girl, after all. My mask was carved
green aluminum, light and cool against my skin.
Even then there were rumors about Villandra and her association with one of the
King's rivals, and I had my own reasons for believing them. Lately the chambers
above my own had been silent. The General was alone. As was I. And perhaps,
somewhere in the back of my mind, I was hoping to find him there at the Masque,
hidden behind another face. And I found him. But he was not hiding.
I'd been there long past sundown when he finally came to me, told me that he
liked my dress. I didn't know what to say. His battle uniform was intimidating
to sat the least; it made him look ten feet tall and made from solid rock, the
grays and reds snaking around his body like serpent's tongues. The seal of the
Royals, the five planets, seemed to hiss at me from his breastplate. He touched
my arm, led me out into the courtyard, tried to seduce me and soon was weeping
on my shoulders, my arms barely able to fit around his frame. He was as warm as
midday in my embrace, his skin smelled of spices. I kept my Vow. Barely.
Every night since then he comes to my room, sits on my bed, tells me of the
insurrection. He tells me of the Plan, of how the DNA of the Royals has been
replicated and inserted into regenerator pods. They have chosen a planet on an
outer arm of an outer galaxy. He knows he is going to die. Villandra left him,
betrayed them all, and now enemy forces march to the Capital, to take the planet
away from Zan and his followers. To avert Destiny. I listen quietly, every
minute etching away my resolve to keep the Vow. When they come for the Royals,
they will take the rest of us as well.
Now is the time. It is close to midnight. From the window I can see the fires of
the enemy over the ridge. Soon they will be upon us. Behind me, the door opens.
He has come.
"Zan has ordered the offensive to begin at dawn." There's something different in
his voice now. Something that resonates in my gut.
"You should be resting."
"Can't. I won't be with my soldiers. The Plan is in motion."
"Plotting strategy, then."
"Attack. That's the strategy. We didn't think they'd get this far. My armies,
they've been decimated. From north to south, east to west, they are gone."
I don't know what to say. He sits down at my desk, reaches out for me. I don't
hesitate.
"They're launching the pods in a few hours. Soon I'll be alive again on another
planet."
"I wish I could see that planet." I let my fingers drift through his fine hair.
"I'd like to see you in a place without war."
He looks up at me. His eyes.his eyes.
"I want you to come with me. I'll be your Sentinel."
What he's offering is heretical. A Sentinel is one who carries the soul of
another within, and such things are forbidden in scripture. To take one's soul,
to hold it inside, is to rob that soul of the Granilith, of eternal peace.
Still, it is tempting.
"What would you do with me?" My voice is lower than normal. My Vow is
splintering like kindling wood.
"I would sink your soul into one of the aliens on this new planet. They look
like we do, Navara, we made certain of that. We could be together."
His hands drift across my back, lower. The air in my room thickens; soon I'll be
gasping. "But Villandra is going with you. What of her?"
His gaze never moves from mine. "We are not meant. What has happened is not her
fault. It was a mistake from the beginning. The Destiny was misread."
More heresy. The Destiny has been divined by high clerics of my own Order for
centuries. They cannot be mistaken. I open my mouth to tell him this, to remind
him that I'm a sailor's daughter, a country girl pretending to be a priestess.
But no words came. Instead, I kissed him. This was truly a night of rules
broken. I could be executed for even presuming to may hands on a Royal, much
less pressing my lips to his. But it is done, and he is with me, and the bells
chime for midnight, and jagged reams of moonlight press in though the window,
and my Vow is forgotten.
Afterwards, we face each other on the bed, limbs locked tight. He presses his
forehead to mine and tells me he loves me. And I do love him, sinner and fallen
woman that I am. He brings forth the Light, the power of the Royals, and he
whispers to me:
"Your self in my self, within and held fast. In the night, through the fog, I am
your Sentinel. Be with me, loved one."
And then I am inside of him, deeper and brighter than he was inside of me. He
covers my body with the sheets, takes me down, down the tower to the caverns,
where the other Royals and the King's Mother are waiting. Then there is only
darkness, and long, dreamless sleep.
And in my version of Destiny, that's how I came to be here in Roswell. And
that's why, someday, Michael will return to me.
The End