Title: Between the Worlds
Author: three eyes open
Rating: G/PG
Summary: Trance performs an ancient ritual.
Spoilers: Not really.
Disclaimer: I do not own Andromeda; the selection of lyrics is from "Samhain" by Inkubbus Sukkubus; no copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: Thanks to Ilphi for quoting the lyrics; that was a real bonus to this little fic.
From the west comes old Death
A-riding on the storm
With hungry eyes for funeral fires
To burn till the morrow's dawn
Trance sat in her circle she had prepared in her cabin, privacy mode engaged. On the floor were flour black plates. The one in front of her held the food she had prepared; on the others sat black votive candles, the flames shedding a little light in the darkness. She had said the invocation and the prayer; now she sat with her eyes closed, quieting her mind.
For tis the night, here comes the dead
Unbound from the Underworld
And the children dress as the babes of Hell
All the boys and all the girls
As I walk through the mist of the circle’s walls, her appearance startles me. Last year her skin was violet, her hair blonde and she had a tail. Now her skin is gold, her hair red-gold, and the tail is gone. She is a mysterious creature, even to us. Where did she learn this most ancient ritual?
And the fires shall burn
And the wheel of life shall turn
And the dead come back home on Samhain
And in the night sky
On the lunar light they fly
It was still so ironic to Trance, performing a human ceremony on a ship of humans who would never recognize the ceremony, who would never even sense that she was not eating this meal alone. So much time had passed; yet for her dinner companions it didn’t matter. The humans who walked the galaxies had become alien to them. A change that had began millennia ago, so long ago that some of her companions were not old enough to recall it, had transformed the species. And on the world that birthed them, only the stars were recognizable to the ancients.
And the dead come back home on Samhain
At the Sabbat high on the funeral hill
Wait the witches at the feast
For the first winter’s day
The first winter’s sun
A-rising in the east
There isn’t even any certainty that she will be one of us. And so few remember us now. It is both depressing and liberating. Depressing because we still care about them; liberating because we don’t owe them anything. Yet there are others, like this strange creature, who honor us on this night, as did the ancestors of the others on this ship millennia ago. It is a call we have never denied, and shall never deny as long as there is someone who makes that call.
For Death has come for the summertime
And to take the leaves of spring
Hecate, Nemesis, Dark Mother take us in
The candles flames flickered, rising and lowering, quivering and straightening, without the touch of any wind. Shadows on the walls, multiplied and gigantic showed an ancient scene, long forgotten for centuries. Trance ate her meal in silence, slowly, contemplating the thoughts in her mind that weren’t hers.