All That Has Come Before Trilogy - The Cross Among the Green

[calmacil-20.livejournal.com]

Title: All That Has Come Before Trilogy
Chapter: The Cross Among the Green
Author: calmacil_20
Disclaimer: Characters do not belong to me, they are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Fox. and Universal
Rating: PG-13
Timeline: Prequel to the series (during the war between Independents and The Alliance).
Characters: Book/ofm
Author's Note: Well, it's taken me a while to actually get around to finish this trilogy up, but at last I have, so here's the second part. Thanks to neroli66 for the beta and all her thoughts and advice. Below is the link to the first part. I hope everyone enjoys it, and feedback is appreciated

Fire and Ice 

A dry wind hit Kaytelyn Tull like a slap in the face, blowing her dusty white robes and midnight black hair back. Instead of recoiling, she tilted her head back and smiled, grateful for any breeze on a sweltering day like this.

 

Just another day in the Georgia System, she thought to herself, shielding her eyes from the brutal sun as the wind died down. The nearby bushes stopped their rustling and she was surrounded once again by the sounds of buzzing bugs and the occasional bird call.

 

Kaytelyn stood atop a small mesa, looking over the vast blank nothingness of the desert stretched out before her feet. She wiped the beads of sweat off her brow as she thanked God that she was wearing white; any other color in this heat would have been unbearable. Granted, not many people can afford white, she thought to herself as she turned around to view her family’s farmhouse and the town of Purgatorio.

 

Purgatorio; the name was old Latin for Purgatory. She always marveled at the name, wondering if it were possible for Hell to be any hotter. On the other side of the planet there was a town by the name of Paradiso, which seemed just as mocking. 

 

Purgatorio was not as large as Paradiso, but it was not small either. Buildings made of wood and brick lined the town’s main street, with a few avenues breaking off from the street like the rivers she had heard about as a child. She could barely make out the tiny specks of the townsfolk, going about their daily business.

 

As she looked to the west of the town she could make out her family’s farmhouse. Coaxing anything to grow in this unforgiving soil was like coaxing a rabbit out of a hole with a snake at your feet, but her father had a knack for it. Because of his successes as a farmer, he had become the most prominent member of the town and his wife and daughter were respected by everyone in Purgatorio. Her father had used this to make sure that she was as educated as possible, so that she could handle anything that she came up against.

 

Everyone in the town knew her and called her Kaytel or “little Kaytel”, and she knew and loved everyone in the town back. Sometimes, though, she longed for new faces and some excitement in her life instead of the same old things over and over. 

 

As if on cue, a shadow fell over the mesa and the sound of a far off roar drew closer. She turned in time to see a large transport ship come hurtling towards her, heading for the landing area at the eastern side of town. Now, a transport ship coming to Purgatorio was nothing new, but this one seemed larger than any that had stooped by lately.

 

As the ship settled down to land, Kaytel grabbed her skirts and hurried down to meet it.

 

************************************************************************

 

Derrial Book had to shield his eyes from the incredible brightness of the sun as he climbed off the ship and onto the dusty ground. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the blinding light, but when they did all he could see was brown ground and blue sky.

 

So this is what a desert planet looks like, he thought to himself, as he looked around at the small brick and wood buildings and the dusty road that went down the middle. Certainly nothing big and fancy like the planets closer to the core where he had come from; not that he had expected anything to be like that on a border planet.

 

As he stood adjusting his pack, one of the ship’s crewmembers rushed up to him and said, “I just spoke with the Hangar Master sir, and he said it’d be fine if your drone ship remained here. Should I unload her?”

 

Derrial, or Der to his friends, nodded and added a thank you as the man walked back into the ship to move the craft. He watched as the man got into his drone and slowly and gently flew it out of the ship’s cargo hold and onto the ground.

 

The drone had been a last minute idea he’d had before leaving: just a small, one-man ship, not capable of leaving atmo, but it could quickly get you around on whichever planet you were on. As the man left the ship, he went over to it and made sure that everything he had left was still in it. To his satisfaction, everything was. He had second thoughts about leaving his father’s sword on the ship, but carrying around a sword in a place like this would lead to more than a few raised eyebrows, and right now he wanted as much anonymity as possible.

 

Other than the sword he had brought no weapons, hoping that he wouldn’t need any. Besides, if it came to it, he was pretty lethal with his blade. His father had always taught him that a man of class’s best weapon was a sword, and had put his son through rigorous training since he was old enough to lift one. Of course, he’d had training in guns too, but the sword was his preferred weapon.

 

With one last check to make sure his ship was locked down, he hefted his pack over his shoulder and headed towards the center of town. He recognized other people who had traveled on the transport with him, but barely nodded to any of them.

 

As he walked along the town’s main street, he thought about what he was doing on this xiāngbālâo planet. He had grown tired of his redundant life and with the war between the Alliance and the gorram Browncoats still raging, he wanted a chance to experience some of the excitement before the Alliance crushed the rebels once and for all.

 

He had never really taken a trip like this, so far into the outer rim, but he had a chance to take some time off from overseeing part of his father’s mine and he decided that he wanted to visit the border planets where many of the Browncoats came from. His father had recommended he come to this planet, because he had been here himself long ago on business and thought that it was relatively safe. After all, he didn’t want to lose his son, who had turned out to be one of his best workers in the twenty plus years he had worked on the mine. 

 

But now that he was here, he wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to do. Mix in with the culture a bit, see what they have against unification he guessed. Luckily enough, his chance to do just that lay right in front of him.

 

He saw a large cluster of townspeople gathered around a building, reading something that had been posted on the wall. Der gathered that this was the local law enforcement office, because there were all kinds of posts tacked to the wall, included wanted signs for criminals.

 

The sheet that seemed to have all the villagers riled up was printed on a pristine white paper and was the transcript of a speech a prominent member of parliament had made just a few days ago, calling for the Independent’s to surrender and accept total unification. Der had actually heard the speech and thought it was particularly well written, but the locals seemed to disagree.

 

“Gorram Alliance, trying to meddle in the affairs of decent folk who just want to be left to their business,” exclaimed a tall man, dressed in a shabby blue shirt with brown pants and boots, as he turned and spat.

 

“qù tāmāde!” said another man, dressed in the same type of clothes as the first. This immediately got him a smack on the arm from a woman in a blue dress standing next to him. “Watch your language husband,” she warned and the man immediately went red in the face, causing his neighbors to chuckle. Der didn’t blame him: the woman looked hard enough to bend iron if she had the mind to.

 

“Can you believe they expect us to swallow this shit?” said a voice from behind, slapping Der on the back. He turned to see a short man with a big grin looking up at him expectantly.

 

“Well, it would be nice to end the war and stop the bloodshed,” Der said, shifting his shoulder so the man would take his hand off of it.

 

“Course we all want that, God knows, but all them flowery words just to basically say we want you on your knees to us? And they expect people to believe it?”

 

Starting to feel defensive, Der replied, “I didn’t think it was that bad at all,” a little louder than he intended to, because soon all the villagers’ eyes were on him instead of the paper.

 

“You one of them Alliance lapdogs?” asked the man he had first heard speak, with a dangerous glint in his eyes.

 

I think I may be out of my element here, he thought to himself as he looked at the disapproving stares from a dozen or so people here, all waiting for a response.

 

“No, I’m not,” he answered slowly. “I just don’t think that the war ending is such a bad idea. If the Alliance is willing to accept the surrender and stop all the dying, I don’t think it’s that unreasonable.”

 

“Only one thing you just said was true: you don’t think,” said a feminine voice as the crowd parted and a woman in white walked towards him. He was as surprised by what she said as by the woman herself; long black hair framed a face browned by a lifetime in the sun. Eyes as blue as the clearest water bored into him as she stepped closer and Der suddenly felt like his face was on fire and he had no control over his words anymore.

 

“If you think that the surrender of the Independents will stop the Alliance from killing people until they get the ‘verse exactly the way they want it, then you should probably have your head examined,” she said dryly as she stopped before him.

 

He fumbled for something to say, but his tongue seemed cleaved to the top of his mouth and his lips moved soundlessly.

 

She laughed quietly as she said, “Well, I guess you need to practice your thinking skills, and then we’ll try this again,” and gracefully walked away, his eyes following her until she disappeared down an alley

 

The rest of the townspeople chuckled as well and started heading off in various directions, one ripping down the speech and throwing it away.

 

“Don’t feel bad friend,” said the same grinning man, slapping him on the back for the second time. “You’re not the first one little Kaytel’s stung with that mouth of hers, and I reckon you won’t be the last.”

 

He laughed, not unkindly, and walked away, leaving Der standing open-mouthed by himself.

 

************************************************************************

 

The window from Der's room looked down upon the main street where a steady stream of people moved up and down.

 

He had found the inn without much trouble, seeing as it was the only one in town, and had been given a modest room with nothing but a bed and a wash area, on the second floor. Food was served on the inn’s main floor and the meal, if nothing overly fancy, had been quite good.

 

He had spent his past two days in Purgatorio wandering the streets and the outskirts of town, occasionally engaging in conversation with the locals who proved to be a colorful bunch. Some were more educated than others, mostly those who lived in town and had gone to the small learning center, and the main concern of most seemed to be work or gossip. In such a harsh environment, he supposed that work was crucial if you wanted to survive.

 

He had gone with Tomlin, the grinning man he had met upon his arrival, to the town’s mine a few miles north and seen where the majority of the people were employed. The men were the ones who did most of the digging and grunt work, while many of the women were assistants to the various bosses and foremen, or else acted as a kind of secretary, walking around with sheaves of paper, noting how the men were doing, how much the mine was producing, any problems and things of the like.

 

As he had stood at the edge of the mine, with the sun blazing down on his back, he was grateful that back home the work he did was in a cool office, not in the ridiculous heat of this planet.

 

Of course, not all the folk worked in the mine. There were a few housewives and some people ran the town’s few small shops. There were the farmers as well. Farmers like the Tull family.

 

It hadn’t taken much effort to find out that the woman who had made a fool of him in front of everyone was named Kaytelyn Tull, or little Kaytel to everyone, and was the only daughter of the town’s most prominent farming family. At his request, Tomlin had shown him the Tull farmhouse on his first day here adding that “Ol’ Tull could grow plants on a pig if he was covered in enough mud.”

 

Now as Der buttoned up one of his nicer silk shirts he wondered what Kaytel would do when he showed up at her door. What her father would do was also a question that hung heavy in his mind. He had caught a glimpse of the head of the Tull family yesterday and didn’t want a man of that size thinking he had any ill intentions.

 

He left the relative cool of the inn and headed west towards the farmhouse, still deep in thought. What was it about this woman that had him so entranced? Sure she wasn’t bad to look at, but he had seen many beautiful women back home, some of them Companions, and it doesn’t get any prettier than that. Still there was something about her that set her apart from every other woman he’d met.

 

He supposed a normal person would have a pretty low regard for a woman who had embarrassed him as she had, but for whatever reason, he felt no anger or resentment at all. When looking back on the situation, he realized she had probably saved him from what was quickly becoming a downright unpleasant encounter with the townspeople. He wondered if she had meant to.

 

He walked out of an alley and up the pathway to the Tull farmhouse. It was a decent sized house in his mind, but seemed like a mansion compared to how many of the people here lived. Made mostly of wood painted red with some brick, the house looked solid and cozy. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ol’ Tull had built the thing himself, he thought.

 

As he entered the fenced yard he started having second thoughts about this whole visit. What was he supposed to say to her if she opened the door? Hello, I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m the man you made look a chûnrén a day or two ago?

 

If her mother or father answered, he would be in even deeper he suspected, because they would see him as some stranger come to try and impose himself on their daughter.

 

Neither prospect seemed that enticing.

 

He had just made up his mind to turn around when he heard some faint, sweet singing from behind the house. Curious, he followed the sound to the rear of the house and was shocked by what he saw.

 

He stood on the edge of a beautifully lush garden, peppered with flowers of all kinds and all the colors of the rainbow, many were varieties he didn’t even recognize. He also saw a small strawberry patch with berries that looked like they’d soon be ripe enough to pick. If this was what Tull could accomplish, then he really is a wonder, Der thought to himself, surveying all the green.

 

The sound of singing filled his ears again and he finally saw the source: in the center of the garden Kaytel was kneeling at the foot of a stone cross, her arms clasped in front of her, apparently singing a hymn.

 

Der had never put much stock in religion, believing that it was just something that people who had nothing held onto to keep from sinking into desperation. He had read the Bible as a child, and found most of it highly improbable and pitied those who devoted their lives to its teachings.

 

Yet the image before him was a close to a holy image as he had ever seen, and he suddenly felt like an intruder in a sacred place. As he slowly moved back the gravel under his boots crunched and Kaytel whirled around, stopping in mid-song.

 

“bèn dàn!” she exclaimed, her voice losing its sweetness and taking on the dryness that he knew so well. “Don’t they teach people not to trespass on those core planets of yours? Isn’t that where all the “civilized” people live?”

 

She rose and stared at him, crossing her arms under her breasts, waiting for an answer. All he could do was stare; she was beautiful, more beautiful than any woman he had ever seen. She was again dressed in white, but her black hair had several braids hanging down interlaced with sky blue beads that matched her eyes.

 

After a moment of silence she said, “Well, apparently you’ve haven’t taken my thinking suggestion yet.”

 

That was enough to give him back his voice.

 

“I apologize,” he said, his voice shaking but getting stronger with each word. “I was headed to your door when I heard your singing and followed it. I didn’t realize there’d be anyone back here.”

 

“So where you’re from the air can sing, not people?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

 

Der felt his face flush and heat enter his words, “Look, it was an accident. I didn’t mean to interrupt, but that’s no call to be rude.”

 

“You don’t think being interrupted during prayer is call to be a little snippy?” she said, her voice rising too.

 

Feeling like he was losing ground fast and in an attempt to ward off any shouting that would attract attention, Der said “I’m sorry” and lowered his eyes.

 

He heard an exasperated sigh and looked up to see Kaytel eyeing him curiously, with a slow smile spreading across her face.

 

“Just when we’re about to get to the fun part, you go and clam up on me,” she said.

 

Der balked. “The…the fun part?”

 

“Sure, haven’t you ever had a really loud argument? All the yelling and screaming gets exciting.”

 

More confused than before, “Oh,” was all he managed to get out.

 

“But I reckon you’re more the silent type anyway,” she said, giving him a genuine smile. No one had ever smiled like that at him before, and he felt his heart turnover.

 

“This isn’t Eden you know; you can come into the garden,” she said and Der found himself standing next to her amid the green in front of the cross. For some reason it felt cooler here, with all the planets, and he breathed heavy of the mix or aromas that floated around him.

 

Now that he was closer to the cross, he could see that there were words carved into it; faded words he could barely make out and had no idea what they meant: Tecum vivere amem, tecum obeam libens.

 

As if reading his mind, she said. “It’s old Latin; says “With you I should love to live, with you be ready to die.” This cross has been in my family for years. My papa says it might even have been made on earth-that-was.”

 

“Ah,” Der said, raising his eyebrow appreciatively, but Kaytel apparently saw more in that then he intended.

 

“I take it you don’t believe in any of this, do you?” she said, as she gestured to the cross.

 

Feeling that she would know if he lied, he admitted, “No, not really. I just have a hard time believing in God when we ruined the ‘home’ he made for us and he did nothing. Plus there’s all the death of good people nowadays with the war going on.”

 

Now that the words were flowing, he couldn’t seem to stop them, and since she made no move, he continued, “It just seems too dogmatic and ignorant. People can use God to justify almost anything, saying that it’s God’s will. It blinds people to life, thinking that someone somewhere has some kind of plan for them. They stop trusting themselves and live for someone else instead of fixing what needs to be fixed.”

 

Kaytel smiled understandingly and said, “Those are the same reasons I’ve heard a thousand times. If you’re hoping that I have a shiny reply to you, that will answer all your questions, I don’t. To me it’s not about making sense or solving problems; it’s about belief and faith. I don’t need to question it because I just accept it as truth. You don’t fix faith Derrial, it fixes you.”

 

“How’d you know my name?” he asked, more than a little moved by her words.

 

Instead of a response, she put her hand on his shoulder for a moment and smiled, then turned and walked into the house.

 

************************************************************************

 

It had been a week since they had met in her garden and now, as Der walked side by side with Kaytel, a brief respite in their conversation gave him a moment to look back on the days that seemed to have just flown by.

 

After she had left him in the garden; he had returned to the inn, his mind and heart going over again and again what had happened and the feelings he was now dealing with. Whenever he thought of her, or pictured her face, it felt like his heart was trying to climb out of his throat and he got all fidgety. Was this the beginnings of love, or did the woman just intrigue him because she was so different than he was? He went to bed that night, and every night following for that matter, with the question unanswered.

 

He had left the inn after breakfast the next morning to find her in the shade outside, almost as if she had been waiting for him.

 

In response to his raised eyebrow she said matter-of-factly, “I was getting hot, and thought I’d take a rest for a minute,” but didn’t complain when he fell into step next to her. They had spent the rest of the day walking about talking, exchanging stories about their lives and slowly getting to know each other.

 

Everyday since then, he would come out of the inn to find her there, waiting for him. The first few times she still offered some sort of excuse, but lately had stopped saying anything, just offering one of her luminous smiles as he walked out.

 

They walked all over the town and the surrounding lands, her greeting the people she knew, which was apparently everyone, and him slowly being drawn into these peoples lives. Everyone he met was so kind, if admittedly a little backwards, that he started to feel more and more at home here, which was no small worry to him. This was just one of the new worries that had started cropping up in his mind.

 

Their talks had moved from their lives to their hopes and dreams, religion, politics; essentially anything that came to mind, and he found her so articulate and knowledgeable, that despite everything he had ever been taught, he found himself starting to see things her way. Granted, he would make a few points here or there that she had to acknowledge, but for the most part she talked, and he listened. The more he listened, the more he learned and started to agree. What if I’ve been wrong about so much all of my life, he often thought as he lay in bed at night. He also worried that he was losing himself and who he was. Am I really as strong as I thought I was, he’d wonder, if she can change my mind with so much ease?

 

Today as they strolled down the street they had been discussing the war for unification and, to no surprise, they were on opposing sides of the subject, although his heart just wasn’t in it today. 

 

He was shaken from his reverie by her picking up the conversation.

 

“I just don’t understand how you can think that some people thousands of miles away can possibly know what is right for every planet in the ‘verse,” she said, nodding politely to two shepherds who walked by.

 

“It would just make things easier for everyone that way; people would have equal opportunities to make better lives for themselves. No more bickering between would-be governmental bodies on planets or even between planets; just one for all.”

 

“gôu pì!” she said.

 

“Now now, is that how God would want you to talk?” he smirked. She shot him a dirty look.

 

“Besides, the Alliance would be better able to protect the planets and make a safer ‘verse for everyone.”

 

She threw up her hands in frustration.

 

“Do you even listen to yourself? Give a few people control over the lives of thousands? How much sense does that make? Besides, what do we do if they abuse their power? Can we stop them? If they have total control, how will anyone’s voice be heard, especially in opposition?”

 

Her questions were heavy in the air, not only because he had no answers but because he had found himself wondering about the same things lately, no doubt as a result of spending time with her.

 

“Well, I’m waiting,” she said.

 

Der just shrugged, “Sorry, I don’t have any answers for you.”

 

“What’s the matter?” she asked, concern actually audible in her voice.

 

“méi guānxi,” he replied.

 

“Not good enough.”

 

He looked hard at her for a moment, before carefully replying.

 

“It’s just, I used to be so sure about it. I knew why unification was a good idea; I knew that God was a myth; I knew people who lived out here on the border were uneducated and uncivilized. Now…I don’t know about any of those.” He could feel despair seeping into his voice. “I don’t know about anything.”

 

“Is that such a bad thing?”

 

He looked at her with wide eyes.

 

“Of course it’s a bad thing! That was who I was! I knew exactly what and who I wanted to be. Now I feel like I don’t even know myself.”

 

He felt her smooth hand slip into his as she said, “Or maybe you’re finally meeting yourself.”

 

He looked into her eyes and saw a fierce light burning; not the light that she would get when she was arguing or the sparkle when she laughed. He saw love there and realized that it was in his eyes too. From this moment on, he knew his life would never be the same again.

 

Yet he found himself smiling like he had never before, with such a lightness and joy that he could scarcely contain it. At least when he went to bed to bed tonight, Derrial Book thought, he wouldn’t have to think about his question anymore. He had just received his answer.