She glanced at Dexter. His glance was flicking from her to the abomination. She was not sure which repelled him more.
"No," she said, loud enough for him to hear. She would not share her thoughts with this creature. That was for her people, for her lovers, for her loved ones. Al, Abby, Dexter.
She found herself thinking of the soul trapped within the Dark Star she had encountered on the way here. A pitiful thing, still dreaming of the protective blanket that had kept him safe from imaginary monsters as a child.
Well, she was a child no longer, and the hardest lesson Talia had ever learned as an adult was that not all monsters are imaginary, and there is no blanket to hide beneath.
There was only her.
Waves of shadow flowed from her hands, enveloping the abomination. Tiny sparks of light tried to shine through the dark cloud, but they were soon swallowed up. Talia concentrated harder, forcing the tendrils into its throat, its eyes, its nose.
It fell, still trying to summon the light, still trying to invade her mind. It was failing, naturally. Its power worked on fear, and she was not afraid of them.
Help me, came the pitiful psychic cry. It fell to the ground, head tilted back, choking sounds coming from its shaking body. It reached out one hand to Dexter.
Help me, brother.
Talia looked at him, trembling. He was looking back at her, his gaze stern. She caught a glimpse of horror in his expression. It had been almost two years. She had changed. He would have to understand that.
He would understand that, wouldn't he?
The abomination tried to crawl towards him. H elp me, brother, it said again, reaching out to touch him.
Dexter kicked its hand away. "No," he said softly.
It shrank up into a ball, now completely consumed by the shadow. Little moans came from it, but they were becoming quieter and quieter. The shaking grew less and less. The shadow became smaller and smaller and finally faded away, leaving nothing behind.
Talia looked up at Dexter. He was motionless, staring at her.
"Don't judge me," she whispered. "Don't dare judge me."
"You've changed," he said.
"I'm at war. Of course I've changed."
He walked over to the bed and sat down next to her. "I've changed
world they had always told themselves was possible.
They saw nothing.
Most of all, he loved his hopes for the future. So much of that part of him had been lost before I met him, and most of what remained has been lost since. He rarely spoke of his dreams to me, but sometimes he did, and then his eyes seemed to light up.That was what he truly loved, the future.
He was waiting for Lennier or Ta'Lon to get back to him. Both were investigating secret things, digging into buried mysteries. He was doing the same, but in his own way. Lennier and Ta'Lon were investigating conspiracies and secrets.
He was investigating the hearts and the souls of his people.
He told me once that he loved hope more than anything else, for hope was pure and perfect. You could hope for a better world despite knowing it would never come. You could hope for a victory and never have to imagine what would come afterwards, when the memory of the victory faded.
"Yes?" he said.
The Narn nodded, and then seemed to shimmer.
I have spent thirty years trying to understand everything he told me, and the most important lesson I have learned in all that time is that I never will. I miss him every day. I miss his wisdom, his kindness, his understanding, his drive.Most of all I miss the dreams of the young man he must once have been. There is no one left now who knew that young man. They are all gone. Speak his name to a few elderly men and women and their eyes will light up, their years drop away and they will remember his face and his speeches, but they will not remember him.
Still, perhaps that is magic enough. Perhaps that is legacy enough. It is more than most of us can ask for, to be remembered in that way.
As a legend.
"No. That man was not my father. That man was someone who once had been my father. I want to be my father as he was when I was a child."
Both men are one and the same, surely. The man you remember became the man who served the Shadows. The man who served the Shadows still had some of the man who poured water on to your roof at night to help you sleep. Which man was real, and which the illusion?
"They were both real, and whatever he did, he was still my father. I forgave him, at the end."
After all he did, you still forgive him?
"Yes."
You believe in redemption, then? You believe that a man might be forgiven his sins, his errors, whether intentional or not they can all be forgiven and atoned for? Any man can seek redemption?
Or any woman?
"I...."
Can you be forgiven, Sheridan? The things you did, is there absolution for them?
"I...."
You forgave your father. Why not yourself? What is it you have done that you cannot forgive, Sheridan? You killed Minbari, a great many of them, but that was war. You sent people to die in your war, but that was for a greater cause, was it not? You took up arms against your own people, but it was for their own good. You killed your wife on the deck of your own ship, but that was just a misunderstanding. Not your fault at all. You left Delenn and your unborn child on Z'ha'dum, but your instincts told you she was dead, and you did not know she was pregnant, so what blame there?