(no subject)

Orlando honestly thought that Atti was mindblowingly attractive. Not just the wit, charm and intelligence -though god knew, that was all enough to make you whimper- but the body too. Lovely, lovely body, lovely arms, great bones, built to house adjectives like trim, tasty, gorgeous, etc.

Elijah was lovely too.

Something strange, jailbait and other womanly about Elijah. Like the girl a wife would worry about, not because e they're the prettiest (though he was) or the funniest, but because they have

soft skin and sharp teeth, open eyes that looked like stained glass in the process of shattering and a tendency to bruise easily.

LA was a hothouse or a whorehouse or a madhouse, depending on who you asked. Weirdly innocent and young in some ways, adult and manipulative in others.

If I don't admit it, it's not there seemed to be Elijah's instinctive approach. As if at some point he'd made a decision not to be aware of the

"You know the joke, I wouldn't want to be part of any club that would have me as a member? Well, nine times out of ten, the sort of person that went after me was not the sort you'd leave your kids with."

Elijah looked disgusted. "You know what's worse? When you're sixteen, and you know you look about twelve half the time, but fine, you can deal with that. And you meet someone, they're interested and you're hormonal and it's working right up until you realise that the only reason they're interested in you is because you the sociably acceptable substitute for a genuine twelve-year old."

He leaned back against the table, looking cynical, rebellious and for sale.

"Just make yourself accessible, all right?"

(no subject)

She thinks, how difficult [painful, empty] it must to carry your crew [family, loves] outside you always, in danger or fraying or being detached.

Leviathans are solitary creatures. They do not flock or swarm, do not travel together except for those rare occasions where two have the same destination. Distant calls across space and brushes in passing. Communications sent out at random, warnings and greetings to be heard by any Leviathan that travelled in that space.

[like penpals, Crichton says, posting letters into the void]

Exterior is solitude. Belonging, in the species/family/crew sense, is interior. Her people are carried inside, in the walls of her body.

She had a son/was a mother, once. Leviathans are not tribal, have no network tied by species and kinship. mother/child is the only relationship that exists, teh only reason for two leviathans to have each other's company. For a time.

[dead and lost and lost fist, her son born in space, distance between them since he left her. She was only a mother before his birth]

Her Pilot who was not her Pilot, who came after the first. Painful, to wake up and find the emptiness inside where companionship would be.

[shh, she tells him, whispers, sings, when his guilt threatens. Past, and I have you now/we are here]

Space is distance, freedom, movement. Space is mostly empty.

[she was mostly empty, pain-crippled-pilot, no family inside her, just a control collar until they freed her, freed themselves].

Crichton loves space, needs it as much as she does. Space is distance, is freedom, is exterior.

They carry all their [belong-to] outside, unattached, so they can be lost by any passing wind.

Birth is loss. Separation is loss.

Zhaan sang and opened, so Moya was [inside the feel of Zhaan] when Zhaan was within her.

She has kinship with these, people who swim through/need space as she does.

[Aeryn, spaceborn, raised, who loves her, will protect her, but only when within her. She's leaving now, painselfish and empty].



Aeryn Sun is separating. [like birth] she thinks, [like waking up to find emptyPilotspace].

She can't protect him/them, the ones she belongs to/with. These are the people she loves.

She thinks [how can you bear it, carrying your loves outside your body].