i am grey.

then I will tell you a great secret, captain. perhaps the greatest of all time. the molecules of your body are the same molecules that make up this station, and the nebula outside, that burn inside the stars themselves. we are starstuff. we are the universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out. and as we have both learned, sometimes the universe requires a change of perspective.

a study on: faith, transformation, duty and love ( always love ). an independent, selective and mutuals-only portrayal of   DELENN   from   BABYLON 5.   headcanon and show based, foretold by odette ( 26, she/her ).    this is a low-activity blog* set up mainly to write with friends, but open to plotting with new people, should they be interested in delenn. 

i'm not going to artificially set up a queue to make this blog appear more active. i am active on this blog (november 2022), but it's more based on interactions and having the right muse to write. it will go through some activity oscillations but unless i explicitly put this muse on my multi, consider it active!

 ❝   i never thought i’d get this far.   ❞

 the unexpected president of the federation    -    hell,     president of anything at all.    it’s all too likely those who pull maeve’s stings would die at such a sight:    brunette sat with someone who shouldn’t even know of her existence,    never mind hold vaguest clue that maeve exists   (  that,     for all her slights and sins,     she breathes without the malice others wish to breathe into her   ).      how must section 31 feel at sudden turn in events?     a turn where wildcard,     where a player they cannot put within their pocket or confine with their restraints has won the power they must always seek to control?    somehow their claims of wishes for ‘good of the federation’ have always fallen flat,     and the fact they will wish to fight something that genuinely is good for the greater good…  perhaps it proves it all.

 ❝   quite a position to not quite intentionally end up within,   @starstcff​.   ❞    there is teasing to dry remark,  lips curving for a second despite best efforts to keep self under wraps.  she watches,  as always,  with unusually unbridled curiosity.    ❝   I’m probably not the best person to be seen talking to,  given your new position.   ❞     not that scientist makes any effort to move herself from spot leaning against wall,    nails tapping light pattern on side of leg.    ❝   I don’t need to curtsy or anything now,  do I?   ❞

“    the universe places us where we are needed,    ”     it guided her away from the planet she adored, the culture she cherished to a strange green and blue rock, with a loud and unruly culture she was trying to understand.    delenn tried not to question the universe, very much, faith guiding her movements with a steady hand.   it was keeping its secrets close to its chest.    that was all right   —    she was patient.     “     running for something, and doing something, are different things.    ”     

          ❛ don’t pity us too much;  we do just fine. ❜    most of the time.  though cults of personality have driven individuals to commit crimes too horrible to recount in the past,  and there is plenty that lies in the history of earth that una has no desire to recount — and not only because it would surely rapidly disqualify her from such temporary assignments as this.    ❛ you asked how we distinguish the noise,  how we separate our own thoughts from those of others.  I think,  when you are raised amongst the clamour,  you don’t hear it,  the same way that someone raised in the desert doesn’t feel the heat the way someone accustomed to icy latitudes may. ❜

          ❛ I suspect that most of those whose voices we heard today would find minbar stifling. ❜    one need not be better than the other,  and this was undeniably one of the best pieces of her job:  glimpses into the vast diversity of a universe all too infinite in its possibilities.  her lip curled in a smile.    ❛ we can find someplace quieter for a next visit,  if you prefer. ❜

head tilts forward in quiet understanding and acceptance.   for all of the distance delenn had created between herself and the rest of the minbari people, willingly or unwillingly, she is still entrenched in their customs and world-view.    they are an old species, put themselves on a pedestal and watch the world unfurling down below as if they weren’t part of it.    “     you create your space in the noise if you grew up with it.     your voice is part of the clamour, distinguishable to you and those near.     ”     delenn offers, trying to untangle the concept.

         ❛ show me a race that doesn’t hold grudges. ❜    it seems to be as much a universal characteristic as any other.  the narn and the centauri,  humans and the minbari.  half the squabbles from then nonaligned worlds too begin and end in grudges,  in the past dug up and laid once more before the enemy’s feet as justification.  perhaps the vorlons possessed a more enlightened perspective,  but john couldn’t know one way or the other since ambassador kosh never bothered to attend council meetings.   ❛ I’ll just be glad if they ❜    —  her people —    ❛ tolerate my placement. ❜    acceptance is wholly optional.    ❛ we’ve got enough trouble on our  hands on any given day. ❜

          gaze drifts back to the reports before him,   and he sighs,  drawn inevitably back to the practical matters and to the origin of their conversation.     ❛ well,  go ahead.  what’s the all-important truth here I’m supposed to reexamine? if you’re going to make a big fuss over it,  you might as well just tell me and spare me the effort.  otherwise, I consider myself perfectly justified in persisting in my delusions. ❜    

“    i’d be careful not to point that out during the next council meeting, captain.    some of them might just try to prove you wrong.    ”

          still in bed seems something of a miracle…  not for the same reasons as it would have in past years, when to lie in bed long after the sun was up ( even if no more than metaphorically ) was a rare luxury.  no,  the miracle is rather that he is here,  in soft bed,  with blankets and a pillow beneath his head.    ❛ funny,  how over a week without a bed can change your perspective on things.   I might just lie here forever. ❜    for all his efforts to be lighthearted,  to joke about something far too grim for words,  john knows he falls far short of the mark. 

          he does not mean it,  not truly,  though his body feels heavy,  his motions lethargic,  requiring far more energy than he wishes to expend.  he fights through his body’s resistance,  however,  enough to prop himself up,  to take the glass of water from her,  fingers lingering for a moment upon hers before taking their place.    ❛ how long have I been asleep? ❜    it is all too sore a subject,  the passage of time.  the lies and manipulations of his interrogator leave all too raw a wound,  but he trusts the answer from her.  

          the water is cold and clear when he takes a sip,  and in a rare moment since his freeing,  he fears neither brackish taste nor surreptitious poison.    ❛ I guess the world hasn’t ended,  yet? ❜    except it had,  it had,  and all would remain topsy-turvy.  he is unsure that earth can ever be the same.

the brief touch is not nearly enough to placate the longing which she has felt in the past few weeks;    in the span of a year, she has twice had to adjust to the possibility that she will never see john sheridan alive again in this lifetime, and her heart nearly stopped beating the first time.    there was no possibility of stopping this time.    she fought each day, readying the white star fleet for the final battle according to his plans, trying to work herself into a state where thoughts of him would stop haunting her, but it was no use.   

sitting down on the bed next to him, fingers clasped on her lap, she gives the contraption a thoughtful look.    “    while i am still not sure if i approve of these...   human beds, i would not be opposed to such a plan.    ”      she had once told him he would get himself killed, and there would be no more dinners, a tactful way of reminding him of his mortality, and expressing her desire, even before she had worn his ring on her finger, to share such precious moments with him.   

          there’s nothing to be done but to stop when she steps before him,  effectively cutting him off.  that alone would delay forward momentum,  but he stills too beneath her touch.    ❛ I’m not saying that it’s a waste of my time… ❜    though he is,  albeit in other words.  it’s  not the sentiment,  however.  rather,  it’s a matter of prioritization,  of selecting the most necessary of the many things he could and should do.    ❛ the day would have to be at least twice as long to leave space for everything worth doing. ❜   the fact that,  in space,  the day was little more than an artificial construct was another matter entirely,  though the human body could only go so long without rest.  he already pushed that limitation. 

          part of him wants nothing more than to say yes;  if it matters so much to her,  if it would make her happy,  then it should be an easy sacrifice.  sheer stubbornness cries at him to hold his ground,  its voice accompanied by those of fatigue,  and stress,  and even the anxiety induced by impossible circumstances and lack of sleep.  a compromise then,  to satisfy pride and,  with luck,  extricate himself from the situation without having to decline.    ❛ who else are you asking to come? ❜    if,  and only if,  they all agree…  that will be his offered solution.

“    lennier, marcus, ivanova, garibaldi, franklin,    ”     the first two, she is convinced she will come, while the others are a gamble.     they might, she believes she has gotten through to them, but to really reach them, she returns to the same position she is now  —   waiting for the most stubborn man in the station to give her an answer.     tilting her chin slightly, head leaning to the right, delenn glances at him with a particularly innocent look, expression beguiling nothing.    “    and londo and g’kar, of course.    ”

two years ago, she had performed the ceremony for a group of people.    despite their participation, they were standing in as spectators, not fully grasping what was going on before them.     “     of course, there are some i don’t expect to come, even if they would benefit from it.    but i’m afraid londo has strayed too far off for me to reach him now.    ”