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Neroon didn't know what he'd expected the afterlife
to be like, but he certainly hadn't thought he would
find himself back in the bowels of Babylon 5,
contemplating the dark, dirty room that had
witnessed his battle with a Human Anla'Shoc. It
was appropriate, though. The path that had ended in
his death in the starfire, a sacrifice for Delenn and
her caste, had begun with denn'sha.
To the death. Not just a metaphor after all. For a moment, Neroon wished that the Anla'Shoc-- Marcus, a name he discovered only later--were here to see him through this transition, as well. They had had little occasion to speak after the denn'sha, but somehow the few words they shared eased the sudden uncertainty Neroon had found rising in himself. He had not been accustomed to questioning his own convictions. But he was alone now and though he didn't understand why his soul had returned to this place-- or why it had conjured up this place, either could be the truth--before moving on, Neroon knew it could not be his final destination. So he considered his options. Presuming that he was meant to navigate this place as he had in life, there were two exits from the room. The corridor that had brought him here originally and that which he had followed to his confrontation with Delenn. But which was correct? And what would the consequences be of choosing wrongly? Neroon scowled heavily. Perhaps declaring himself Religious caste at the last moment had been a mistake. This philosophical puzzle seemed better suited to a Priest than to a Warrior; he couldn't help but wonder if he'd have faced a different transition if he had not made that declaration. Well, there was no withdrawing it now. Nor, if he were honest with himself, would he choose to. He did wish he could look back on the world and see if it had had the intended effect, but this was the afterlife. There was only going forward. Only going forward... Perhaps that was the answer to the question of which route to take from the room. He could not retrace his steps, erasing what had happened here. He could only recognize the results of those events and affirm the path he had taken afterwards. Neroon laid his hand on his pike and set off down the hall he had taken away from this place once before. For a few moments the halls were just the same as they had been the first time. But slowly they grew unfamiliar and Neroon began to wonder if he was truly moving on to something different now. But though the familiarity receded, everything still seemed very...concrete. If there had been turns to take, he might have suspected he'd simply lost his way and was stranded in the depths of Babylon 5. Abruptly, the corridor widened into a room. The same room. Neroon cursed under his breath. Apparently he'd chosen incorrectly; this route had returned him to the beginning. He supposed it could have been worse. His mistake could have led him into some terrible punishment. Turning to look back at the passage that had delivered him here, Neroon found himself looking down the hall that had brought him to this place in life. It hadn't seemed the same when he was walking down it. Of course, his return to this room meant that this was, indeed, a spiritual construction rather than a return to the physical place. There was no reason that the construction had to be consistent. In any case, there were only two choices and he'd already seen that one of them would get him nowhere. Time to attempt the other. There was the same familiarity as he began and the same recession of that familiarity as he continued, but this time Neroon was wary of it. He slowed his pace and examined the corridor more carefully, but there were no turns, no additional options, and inevitably he was returned once again to the room from which he had started. There was no maze, no tricks. The place was not a labyrinth. Just a loop. Neroon found himself at a loss. Was this some sort of punishment after all? He sat on the step that bisected the room and considered for a long moment. This could not be all there was. He refused to believe that. Perhaps the point was not which choice he made, but his state of mind when he made it. He'd rarely practiced his meditations in life. It seemed now he would make up for that deficiency. Neroon stood before one of the corridors--it no longer seemed to matter which one--and tried to hold a sense of resolve, of peace and acceptance, in his mind. He had tried focusing on moving forward, on meeting new challenges, on facing the past, on the state of his own soul, on the mistakes he had made, on the triumphs he had enjoyed, on the turning points in his life, on the moment of his death, and all had led him back to this place. It was hard to fight down the frustration, to truly feel the acceptance, and he wondered now if that struggle would return him to the beginning once again even if acceptance was the correct choice. Neroon supposed he would have no way of knowing. But he started forward anyway, clinging to the thin veneer of calmness he'd drawn over his mind. Neroon knew even before he arrived back in the room that he had not succeeded in his task. The unfamiliar changes in the corridors had grown familiar by this point. He stepped back into the room, his frustration already welling up, and stopped in shock. He was not alone. "Marcus?" Neroon asked in disbelief. The human spun to face him. "Neroon? Where did you come from?" Neroon waved to the corridor behind him. "I have been trying to leave this place for..." he paused, realizing suddenly that he had no idea how long he'd been in this place. "For some time now. But no matter what I do, these passages always return me to this room." "Ah." Marcus paused. "I take it I'm dead now." Neroon lifted his brow. "You didn't know?" "I suspected," Marcus said sheepishly. "But as the life drained out of me I simply seemed to fall asleep. I wasn't sure where I would wake." "Purgatory, apparently," Neroon scowled. "But perhaps it is only my purgatory. Perhaps you can leave." "Leave?" "Move on," Neroon clarified. "This can not be all the afterlife there is." Marcus frowned. "I'm not sure I like the idea of leaving you behind." "It would only be what I deserved." Marcus arched an inquiring eyebrow, so Neroon explained. "I left you here once before, when you were in need of help. It was a petty thing for a proper Warrior to do." But Marcus waved this argument off. "You'd just come to a rather perception shattering realization. I don't blame you for escaping from the place it struck. Besides, I wasn't exactly at death's door. Hurt, but not on the verge of expiring." Neroon considered his next words carefully before he spoke. "And now you are here. Has it been a very great time since my own passing?" "Ah...no," Marcus admitted. "A couple of months, perhaps. Your sacrifice ended the Minbari Civil War, but Sheridan pushed on towards Earth. I...don't know how that turned out. Susan Ivanova was badly injured. Almost killed. I abandoned the fleet in the midst of the final battle and returned to Babylon 5 to save her. I succeeded, but the method required my own life in exchange." He fell silent, looking away from Neroon. "There is no shame in giving your life for another," Neroon said quietly. "Indeed, it is something to be proud of." "And leaving comrades behind to fight a desperate battle?" Marcus asked harshly. "Is that something to be proud of?" "Your choice was between love and principles. Who am I to say you chose wrongly?" Marcus shot Neroon a wry glance. "Someone will make that judgment when I leave here. Perhaps that's why I'm not eager to make the attempt." "You can't linger in this place forever," Neroon argued. Then he snorted. "Much as I might appreciate the company." "I suppose there's nothing I can do now to change the eventual conclusion," Marcus said philosophically. He stood and walked towards the corridor leading away from the room. He paused at the mouth of it. "Though it does make you wonder why we were delivered here in the first place, if we were only meant to move on immediately afterwards." With that, he disappeared down the corridor. Neroon watched him go. Strange that they should reach the same purgatory despite dying at different times and under different circumstances. Surely there were others dying by the thousands even now, of causes both natural and unnatural, but none of them were here. He could understand his own soul's connection to this place, but surely their battle had not had the same effect on-- "Blast!" Turning around, Neroon found Marcus standing just outside the mouth of the tunnel which had once led him into this room. "Apparently neither of us will easily leave this place," the Warrior said darkly. Marcus dropped down to sit on the step next to him. "I take it that's what happened to you." "Precisely." They were quiet for a long moment. "Why this place?" Marcus asked at length. "Why bring us back here?" "I had assumed that I was returned to the place where I made the decision that set me on the path to my death," Neroon said. "Denn'sha. To the death. And the death was mine. It seemed appropriate. But not for you." Marcus hummed thoughtfully but didn't argue the point. "But we're both here. And there's no one else." "It doubtless would not be an appropriate purgatory for anyone else," Neroon observed. "This place is only significant to you and I." "Perhaps..." Marcus paused. "Perhaps we were brought here not because the place is significant to each of us, but because we are significant to each other, and this is the only place we have in common." "The infirmary--" "Was only the aftermath, not the moment," Marcus interrupted. Slowly, Neroon nodded. As much as he would prefer to remember laughing with this man, the connection had been made in this dirty little room, with Marcus bleeding on the floor and his own pike raised for a killing blow. The connection... "We are of the same heart," Neroon murmured to himself. "What was that?" Marcus asked. "We are of the same heart," Neroon repeated. "When I said that, in the infirmary, I meant Humans and Minbari. But I came to that knowledge because I saw myself in you, Marcus. We are of the same heart. Perhaps that is why we are here, together." "Soul mates?" Marcus asked, but there wasn't as much skepticism in his voice as there might have been. "Is it such a strange thought?" Neroon paused, but...his life was over. What further consequences could there be to any admission? "I rarely felt any true bonding with my fellow Minbari," he said quietly. "Not even my fellow Warriors. Perhaps that is why I was so insistent on displaying Branmer's body. He was my commander. I should have felt more connection to him than I did, and the guilt for that failure drove me to somehow atone for it after his death. "But here, in this place," Neroon gestured around at the room, "here, I made such contact as I had always sought and never found before." Marcus was quiet for a long moment. "I can't say I felt that connection here," he admitted. "Even if it was made here. But in the infirmary, when you spoke to me...I'd never had an impact on someone like that before. Never touched their heart before as it seemed I'd touched yours. Not before, and not since. Not for all my trying." "We have only tried to move on separately," Neroon observed. "Perhaps two individuals with the same heart ought to move on together." Deliberately, he stood and held a hand out to Marcus. Marcus looked up at him, wide-eyed. "What...what does it mean if it works?" A small smile curved Neroon's lips. "It means that whatever there is to face, we will not be facing it alone." Slowly, Marcus reached out and took Neroon's hand and used it to lever himself to his feet. "Worth a try, I suppose," he said, his voice light even if his eyes were weighted with emotion. Hope, Neroon thought. And perhaps a little fear. They stepped into the corridor together, standing shoulder to shoulder, their hands resting on their pikes. Behind them, the room faded. |