In Chains and In Freedom

I would have referred to certain persons but as I have already said that I can not live without them. It would be redundant to continue in that thread so I have chosen a box.

It is a plain wooden box with some unimpressive engravings on it. (It was Kailin and Lady Deljah’s first attempt at wood carving.) Its dark wood is old and worn and bleached from years of sitting under the eastern window here in my room. The box is cherished for it reminds me of Kailin in his youth and my mother but what it contains is just as prized.

There is a pair of Lord Thero’s dress gloves from his military uniform and his letters that he would send to me when he was away. Many contain pictures of Earth and Centauri Prime. There is a chain that holds Gunrunner’s onyx ring and the amethyst one he had given me just before he asked me to be his wife. It was never to be, not five minutes after he had asked and given me the ring, wrapped in his arms with his lips pressed to mine, he was shot in the back. His guild gloves are also in here still dirty from the filth of the Mars Colony underground but I dare not wash them. I use to wear the ring but I have tucked it away now because I have found that my hearts lie elsewhere and though I will never forget him it has come time for me to move on with my life and my hearts.

There is a smaller silver metal box within the wooden one, the Babylon 5 logo embellishes the top and it is lined with dark silk. Here are all of the letters from Ambassador Mollari, the pressed flowers and the small box that the beautiful brooch would sit in. That small stone box sees little use these days as its original contents never find themselves that far from my person. A single Babylon 5 door card that reads “Green 2 – 2, Londo Mollari” stolen incidently but I don’t think he will mind. There is also a new letter that has been added to it from Vir. I hope perhaps that I will get a few more from him over time as he brings gladness to my hearts. Being perhaps in the eyes of many the only one besides me foolish enough to worry about, care for and believe in Ambassador Mollari. Nestled in an envelope in the very bottom of this metal box are two pieces of paper. One is a good-bye note from Ambassador Delenn; the other is the paper that Londo handed me just before leaving Babylon 5, the paper that had given me my freedom.

There are the letters from Kailin and the pictures of the Centauri Navy that he took out of the window of his fighter as the fleet orbited Centauri Prime and pictures of the capitol city and Celini, which I think is the most beautiful place I have seen. I wish to visit it sometime and gaze from its sheer cliffs across the ocean. There is also one very special picture in here of Kailin and his wife with Cellena in the sitting room a few weeks after she was born. She was a beautiful woman; it is sad that I never got to met her. Kailin always says that we would have got along well and driven him mad.

In an even smaller glass box is a pair of Cellena’s dress shoes that she has outgrown in the four short months since I have returned. Also in this box is a letter that I have always kept, it is dated 2244 and is quite possibly the most moving letter I have ever read. The last letter my mother received from Lord Thero before he died even then the poetry still flowed from his hands as water does from a stream.

There is an album of miscellaneous pictures of friends and family. A single picture of Gunrunner, Na’Loth and I in the Moonlight, Kitty sitting with Niomi on the Mars Colony teaching her to read Narn, Na’Loth passed out in the middle of the floor after having a drinking contest with a group of Centauri in the Dark Star, Palen and my mother in the garden when Kailin was a young boy, a picture of Londo and I that Gera had sneakily taken in the Zocalo, Lord Thero, Matriarch Thero and my mother on the beach near the Capitol and a hundred others that I cherish.


The box contains three other things, probably the most unusual of the lot. A pair of Narn gloves that Na’Loth stripped from the man who sent her into slavery. She sent them to me as a gift after completing her Shon’Kar; I can’t say that this is surprising. The second is an envelope that contains a Thank You note from Mariel. No doubt this would make Londo faint away if he ever saw it but probably not as much as the last thing. A single pressed bloom of a Narn plant that I do not know the name of that was given to me by Ambassador G’Kar. Why he gave me a flower is anyone’s best guess but I have it none the less.

There is nothing that could replace this box or its contents and that makes it treasured above all my other material possessions. It breathes my life and reminds me of where I have been and who I have been.


Crossposted to theatrical_muse