Dejah Thoris (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dejah_thoris) wrote2015-05-18 01:48 pm
dejah_thoris) wrote2015-05-18 01:48 pm
[oom] History, In Progress
She'd kept his journals. All of them. They were well worn, the leather dark with age but still supple, still soft in her hands. The pages were fragile in places, but still whole. Even the parts she'd thumbed through thousands of times.
As she was doing now.
She didn't even remember pulling John Carter's sketchbook off the shelf, but here she was, idly paging through his earliest memories of Barsoom. She recognized the faces. Tars Tarkas. Sola. Her. She drew her fingertips over the image. As if she could reach through the years and touch the hand that held the pencil.
She kept telling herself, they'd had forty years together. It had been forty good years. They'd vanquished the Thern on Barsoom, and restored peace between Helium and Zodanga. They'd built a life together. It was not long in her lifespan, but it was all they'd had. Forty precious years.
She turned the page and saw a sketch of Helium, clearly from the air. Shining parapets, banners whipping in the wind. A city from the pages of a fairytale. Another page showed the marketplace and the thoat pens, opposite a light flyer corsair. Another page showed a collection of sketches, her profile and her hands. She'd have to go to her sketchbooks to find images of him, but she's not sure she could take that right now. Not without breaking down in tears.
He had been gone more than twice as long as they'd been together, and she still misses him like it was yesterday. The work had kept her mind from wandering too far down this path. Grieving was also a luxury for a Jeddak. For anyone on Barsoom. Lives were meant to be remembered, ancestors honored, their work built upon, not lauded as the end of the journey. And she tried to honor his memory in everything she did.
But at the end of the day, she missed his presence. His easy laugh. The way he could always find trouble. Every day with him had been an adventure of some sort. She missed his tactile nature. She missed his touch, his hand in hers, the way he would always put his arm around her, sweep her into a hug. She missed sleeping with her head against his chest at night.
She hadn't felt it quite so sharply as she had in the past few days.
The wind was shifting, blowing in a new direction. There were new possibilities emerging. And a new face in her dreams. John would like him, she thought. She closed the journal with a loving hand and set it back on her desk.
There was work to be done.
As she was doing now.
She didn't even remember pulling John Carter's sketchbook off the shelf, but here she was, idly paging through his earliest memories of Barsoom. She recognized the faces. Tars Tarkas. Sola. Her. She drew her fingertips over the image. As if she could reach through the years and touch the hand that held the pencil.
She kept telling herself, they'd had forty years together. It had been forty good years. They'd vanquished the Thern on Barsoom, and restored peace between Helium and Zodanga. They'd built a life together. It was not long in her lifespan, but it was all they'd had. Forty precious years.
She turned the page and saw a sketch of Helium, clearly from the air. Shining parapets, banners whipping in the wind. A city from the pages of a fairytale. Another page showed the marketplace and the thoat pens, opposite a light flyer corsair. Another page showed a collection of sketches, her profile and her hands. She'd have to go to her sketchbooks to find images of him, but she's not sure she could take that right now. Not without breaking down in tears.
He had been gone more than twice as long as they'd been together, and she still misses him like it was yesterday. The work had kept her mind from wandering too far down this path. Grieving was also a luxury for a Jeddak. For anyone on Barsoom. Lives were meant to be remembered, ancestors honored, their work built upon, not lauded as the end of the journey. And she tried to honor his memory in everything she did.
But at the end of the day, she missed his presence. His easy laugh. The way he could always find trouble. Every day with him had been an adventure of some sort. She missed his tactile nature. She missed his touch, his hand in hers, the way he would always put his arm around her, sweep her into a hug. She missed sleeping with her head against his chest at night.
She hadn't felt it quite so sharply as she had in the past few days.
The wind was shifting, blowing in a new direction. There were new possibilities emerging. And a new face in her dreams. John would like him, she thought. She closed the journal with a loving hand and set it back on her desk.
There was work to be done.