Coming of Age, The Dancer Season 2 Episode 1 2.0

[Damascus]

Mary Theresa reached up and touched the white cloth covering the scarred flesh of her chest, an eternal reminder of the foes they now faced.

The beautiful woman answered again with the same message, born in faith for her more pragmatic partner,
”Have you ever faced Love and Memories, John?”

The wind caught her long white trench coat lending the material the vague appearance of wings,
”These Dancers are a flight of angels…there are not enough devils in Hell to vanquish them. We must bleed them one drop at a time…till they are too weak to remember…too weak to love.”

”Love and Memories,” Milton repeated; a measure of understanding entering his voice.

Mary Theresa, otherwise known as the Operative, Damascus, lifted her head to the distant town,
”Amor et Memoria (Love and Memories)”



(*Damascus usually speaks in Latin and her accent runs as such)

End Interlude

[Elizabeth Heller-Brannigan]

The Well - On Stage


In days yet to dawn, Captain Elizabeth Heller-Brannigan will lead men and women to their deaths. The doomed will follow her without question and give all of themselves to fulfill her orders. She will weep for them all and place their memories in her heart’s remembrance, where they will rub shoulders with constellations and gods; formed with light in the shapes of giants, valkyries, gypsies, dancers, twins, barbarians and magic men.

But the future, with all of its sadness and joy, was at least a day away, and Elizabeth’s hands and heart were still free of blood and the souls of the departed. Instead she reveled in the prestige of her remaining innocence and gave voice to her song with the same strength that would later order friends to their end.

”Didn’t you LOOOOVE ME, faster than the devil
RUUUUUUN me straight into the ground,”

Deftly Jason kicked a partially empty cord crate behind Elizabeth, while the massive Bryan scooped up their lead singer and placed her on the newly arrived riser. Abandoning their own mics, the guitarists converged on Elizabeth’s, and the three became one before the crowd.

”DROWNING deep inside your water
DROWNING deep inside your sound!”

Mild Bill’s hair whipped forward in perfect time with his thunderous attack on his drumheads, but among the wave of golden locks, the entertainer’s brilliant white smile blasted through the madness.

Between the cries of the two guitarists, Elizabeth felt the riot of emotions warring in her and poured everything she was into the words…banishing evil cowboys, broken rocket bikes, and even a magic man.

”LOOOOVE ME, faster than the devil
RUUUUUUN me straight into the ground,
DROWNING deep inside your water
DROWNING deep inside your sound!”

Unable to help himself, Bill leapt from behind his drum kit, wedged a bongo under his arm to keep the beat, and joined the rest of the band at Elizabeth’s mic.

Wrapping her arms around the three musicians, Elizabeth drew them closer until all four wailed in as close to perfect harmony as science and nature would allow.

”LOOOOVE ME, faster than the devil
RUUUUUUN me straight into the ground,
DROWNING deep inside your water
DROWN IN LOVE AND MEMORIES!”

Even as the final note hung in the air, Elizabeth felt herself being lifted off the ground by her band mates, as Bill, Jason and Bryan roared with the rest of the audience. From her new height, the youngest Dancer laughed in triumph but her eyes looked through the crowd looking for the others…looking for her Mom and Dad.

And when hers eyes met theirs, the gaze carried with it a simple message…

"Please tell me you saw that!”




(Music by O.A.R.)
(Sorry for the self-indulgent posts, but Little Elizabeth is made up of a lot of special people. Sometimes I just like ‘hanging out’ with them again and these posts are the result. ANYwho, thank you for your patience)

[Synthia Lyndon Heller]

There are moments that stand out in time, when memory burns in deep, so that even when sight grows dim and once cool breezes bring chills and everyday tasks demand concentration to move one's hands along paths they once danced down without thought or effort, these moments still shine bright.

They aren't always the big ones, the moments that arrive heralded well in advance by anticipation and planning; the milestones immortalized in captures and framed documents. The brush of cool gold around one's finger, the kiss at the altar; these things might be the recognized milestone, but perhaps it's the moment one wakes in the middle of the night, and feels that warmth and breathing alongside them beneath the sheets, so new and so familiar, and one realizes in that moment that this is how it will always be, that this is what it all really means, that one truly feels the change, and fixes that moment down deep among those memories that never fade.

Synthia hadn't ever seen Elizabeth sit up, or crawl, or stand and walk for the first time. Hadn't read her first bedtime story or comforted her first nightmare or dealt with the first time she had willfully shouted "NO!" These things had happened at some point to a girl she hadn't yet met.

Nor did she have the memories of discovering she was pregnant, or feeling the baby kick, or touching that tiny hand for the first time, and hearing herself say "Her name is Elizabeth." These memories belonged to someone else, if in fact, the moments had happened that way.

But she remembered that dinner aboard the ship when Elizabeth had first come on board.

As first Syn and then Rique conversed with the small child, Elizabeth kept her head down. Though the young girl did not look up, she reached under the table and placed her small hand inside Syn's metallic one, resting it there...finding comfort.

"Lord knows Round Jack over there ain't too partial to tea-parties anymore."

Elizabeth raised her head slightly at the mention of a tea-party and for a moment met Rique's gaze.

"I ain't never hads t-tea," whispered the child.

That small touch, even though her metal hand couldn't register it in exactly the same way as flesh and blood, was something she would never forget.

The Elizabeth she knew now was a long ways from that shy little girl, but she could still see that little girl in her in ways few others would be able to.

Now, as Elizabeth sought out her eyes from up on the stage, she could see echoes of that little girl in the older girl that stood there, but this moment would always stand tall in her memories for the glimpse it gave of the woman that Elizabeth would one day become. A moment that Elizabeth stood illuminated by the soft glow of the past and the first breaking light of the future.

"Yes." she said with her eyes. "I saw that."

I saw everything.

Blue text quoted from a Round Jack post dated Apr 28, 2006, before the start of the BDV, when the Dancer was still the Wayfarer

[Imza Tsenko]