Another prompt fill for @thatpegasusmedley, following on from the first one, and set in the same AU (though a little time later), since you were kind enough to ask for more. I hope you enjoy! 💖
8. The fine line between wanting to say so much and knowing that it’s better to say nothing. (Babylon 5) (Neroon & Delenn)
"You should have told me," Neroon snapped, some hours later, as he paced up and down Delenn's office like a caged tiger. "The pike she carries is unmistakable." The President watched him, and said nothing. "A Warrior knows the markings of every pike we ever fight--they are ingrained upon our souls. We remember the pitch and ring of the metal, and the scars and dents that tell its history. I know Susan Ivanova's pike, Delenn. I have fought it before. I bloodied my own on the body of its last owner." He growled angrily. "That was what you meant, then, when you said that Ivanova and Lennier had 'griefs in common.' I suppose she was breaking that Human's heart while you were breaking Lennier's."
Delenn caught him by the arm, glaring up at him with pale eyes like ice. "Her griefs are her concern," she retorted. "I told you what you needed to know."
"Which was precisely nothing."
His voice, his face--his entire body was tight with fury. "You've made me second-in-command to someone who wants my blood--and for what? A fight to the death from twenty years ago, that I lost! Were you ignorant of this as well? Or were you simply planning to poison me with the incredible irony of my situation?" He broke from her grip and turned away, uneasy with her nearness.
"I am well aware of what Marcus's feelings for Susan Ivanova were. But it was he who broke her heart. He saved her life, and died because of it." Delenn would not let him get away so easily. Instead, she came and stood before him, with barely an inch between them. "She has a debt to him, Neroon. As I have to you."
For a moment, Neroon was lost for words. "She is not going to repay that debt with my broken body. And neither, Entil'zha, are you."
She gave him a look that he could not fathom. "I have never wanted either. You have been broken enough in my service." He growled and looked away. "Neroon, I do not want you to make her task any easier. She knew when she agreed to the position that she would not be coddled."
"She is unprepared, Delenn."
"Then you can teach her."
"I do not mean physically--although that's bad enough. I mean she is not prepared for the task you have laid on her shoulders."
"She has held positions of command and authority all her life."
"Then why," Neroon demanded, "does she capitulate to my authority? She came to the training room when she had every right to demand I meet her where she wished. She fought me with a weapon she has no knowledge of when she could have walked away. The only challenge she made to me was practically made in your name! That I could not possibly kill her... and it was in her voice that I could not do it because you had appointed her. She has no confidence in her title."
Delenn smiled a little, her eyes half-lidded as a particular thought grasped her attention. "Humans do not attach automatic authority to titles. They believe that one should earn authority and respect. She may feel that she has to earn yours."
He snorted. "When she gives me an order, then she can have it."
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(PS I’ve been a huge fan of your fic since I stumbled across In The Light of Two Moons one night when I couldn’t sleep)
AHHHHHH THANK YOU 🥹🥹🥹🥹 Okay, I have an idea for #8 but it's taking longer to gel, so doing #38 first. I am using this prompt as a shameless excuse to play in a little post-canon AU of mine and @rivendellrose's that we've never posted anything for, where Neroon survives the Starfire Wheel and joins the Rangers in fulfillment of his declaration that the calling of his heart is for the Religious caste. This is also an AU where Lennier never makes that one single terrible decision. I hope you enjoy it!
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38. I am ready to follow you, even though I don’t know where. (Babylon 5) (Neroon & Delenn)
Kha'ai Alyt, the other Rangers called him, although never to his face. The scarred captain. Neroon had heard the whispers for more than twenty years now. They caused him no grief, just as the faint marks he would bear until the end of his days from his ordeal beneath the Starfire Wheel caused him no pain. The name was always spoken with respect.
It was with respect that Delenn had come to him now. He had to keep reminding himself of that. "What you are asking of me could be taken as a grave insult."
Delenn nodded. "I know." And she did know; that was the amazing thing. Neroon could see clearly how taut every muscle in her body had become. And yet she had still asked. "But there is no one else I trust enough to undertake this task."
"What of Lennier? He acted as Ranger Two for John Sheridan. Surely he is capable of instructing another human to be Anla'shok Na." He refrained from saying that it would be simpler if she would appoint a Minbari to act as leader of the Rangers. They had beaten that argument to death, more than once.
"John was accustomed to giving orders and Lennier to obeying them. And they were never overawed with one another. Lennier was the right person to assist John."
"But not Susan Ivanova?"
He saw the veil behind Delenn's eyes. "Lennier and Susan have... griefs in common."
"You think he would be too easy on her," Neroon translated, in his blunt way.
"I think their friendship might impede her progress. Susan responds well to challenges. As do you."
Neroon couldn't help but smile at that, even if the smile was a tight one, beset by old memories now painful with being stretched after so long. He had once overheard Anla'shok Na Sheridan say, "She always knows just how to get my goat, and I never figure it out until I'm half done with what she wanted me to do." Neroon had had to look up what a 'goat' was, and still didn't understand the idiom, but he knew the sentiment intimately.
In deference to the oath he had sworn, he had taken up the Ranger's mantle under Delenn's command, and had remained Anla'shok even after John Sheridan became their leader. It had rankled many to be under the hand of Starkiller, and Neroon had been one of them. He had suffered under Sheridan, suffered the quietly needling pangs of jealousy as well as a warrior's indignation at being subservient to a former enemy. But he had made a vow to Minbar--a vow to Delenn--and a nominal change of leadership could not change where his loyalties inevitably lay.
He rose from his knees; Delenn did the same. His dark eyes glittered in the candlelight. "To be given the post of Anla'shok Kas is a great honor. But to ask a Warrior to serve under a Human--not to take John Sheridan's place in any capacity, but to be a mere aide to his alien replacement... You tread on dangerous ground, Delenn."
She said nothing. He waited for some sign of defeat, some change in her posture to signal that she was done with him. None came.
Internally, Neroon cursed her as well as himself. "It would be an unforgivable insult... if it were anyone else but you."
"Then you accept the post."
"Not for honor, or for insult. But because you have asked, I accept. I will do this thing you ask of me."
They bowed to one another, and Delenn laid her hand over his heart. "Thank you, my friend." Her smile was warm, beaming, with only a hint of satisfied victory--she was a fighter, though her weapons were words, and he had always admired her for that.
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Prompt and ye shall receive! Currently accepting prompts from this list.
Genuinely really love that Londo is the only one of the main group of diplomats who doesn't give a speech at the press conference in "Rising Star." For once, he's not the center of attention, and not trying to be, and he's fine like that. He just looks happy and proud of his friends.
I feel like this underscores his character development through the show and especially across the past season so nicely (and makes season five even sadder in a way - he gets the imperium once he no longer wants it). This is what he's needed all along - not to be most important person in the room, but to be part of something that matters, working side by side with people he respects and cares about. He doesn't need to be in the spotlight. He enjoys watching them get their moment in the sun.
Help me they're so cute I love them
On a side note, I also really like how Delenn being a foot shorter than everyone else makes it look like the wings/flames in the logo are coming out of her shoulders.
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The Minbari ambassador absolutely should be able to see coming that in an interview with Earth News there'd be questions about the war c'mon is this amateur hour
The best trans feminine representation on screen that I've seen that was *intentional* is Delenn from Babylon 5. Yes, despite the fact she's not textually a trans woman - she was actually meant to be a trans woman and she was written as if she was a trans woman from season 2 onwards. She has to deal with bigotry for who she is from her family, she has difficulty with living as who she is now until the women around her help her and teach her, she has to deal with so much from the people around her in terms of outright hatred and disrespect despite the fact that in the first season, she's one of the most powerful people in her society.
She only wasn't textually a trans woman because they didn't cast a trans woman (a little cowardly, but it *was* the 90's) and the tech the SFX they were trying to do in order to make her "male" for the first season just didn't work on their budget. So, instead, they wrote her dealing with transmisogyny in effect during the show, the subtext is that she's an intentional trans allegory.
She is also, in the show, one of the most important characters, she commands respect, affection, love, and authority among those who don't hate her for her transition, and she eventually overcomes that as well.
I love her and I love the way she's treated by the show. It's one of my favourite shows for a reason. It's a detriment that she's not textually a trans woman, but she *is* a trans woman in all the ways that matter.
I should also point out that JMS, the show's creator and nearly sole writer on the show, said that he wrote her *specifically* to be a trans allegory. He also worked with the Wachowski sisters on Sense8 after B5.
Just started to watch Babylon 5, and I already love the aliens' design (why are half of them bald?? Love the chaotic bald ambassadors). Also, Talia and Ivanova have managed to have the gayest interaction in just one episode wtf
Any viewing order that you recommend? I usually prefer going for the broadcasting or production order, but I saw there are some continuity problems and I'm confused😭
