From: Coridon.Henshaw@TCSconcordia.tor250.org (Coridon Henshaw)
Subject: Last speech
Date: 28 Sep 97 20:40:20 -0500

|
| "Last speech"
|
| In a way, this will be my last speech.  I have totally given up on the
| Babylon 5 universe, and will be confining my writings in the future to my
| universes.  My public works, when I have written any, will be published on
| my web page at http://www.myna.com/~gcircle/csbh.html.  I assure you that
| they will all have happier endings than the two serious works that I have
| posted to B5 creative. :-)
|
| I'd like to thank the residents of B5 creative and the J&D storybook for the
| enjoyment they have given me over this year.  I would also like to thank JMS
| for the wonderful character of Delenn, and while he underuses her greatly,
| few of the fanfic writers seem to suffer from the same problem.  I, too,
| have enjoyed pulling her strings.  It was good, while it lasted, but I'm
| sick and tired of B5.  My problem is not with the creative or fan
| communities, but with the way JMS is taking the real thing.
|
| Please, do not send me email trying to convince me to change my mind: you
| will be flamed.
|
| Goodbye.
|

Spoilers for 'Deconstruction of Falling Stars.'  I suggest that you read the
spoilers first or you will have no idea what is going on.



























A Minbari acolyte pushed a wheelchair carrying a hooded figure towards the
panel, bringing all discussion to a stop.

The figure slowly reached to pull back its hood, revealing the unmistakable
figure of Delenn.  Her face was drawn with age, and her hair was entirely
white, but she was very much alive, dispute a hundred years since the founding
of the Alliance.

The panelists looked at each other in shock.

One of the panelists said "you are supposed to be dead!"

"I did not live to one hundred and ninety years by doing as I am supposed to,"
Delenn replied.  Her voice, while weak, was as low and rasping as in all the
old records.

"I do not know if the time I have left is measured in days or hours; my body
is failing me, but my mind and my memories are intact."

The old woman made a small cough.

"I am the only one left from the founding of the Alliance; Lennier was killed
by your people many years ago; I have even outlived my son. The Alliance was
founded before any of you where even born, but I still remember."

"You are fortunate that I am no longer able to walk, or I would fight all of
you for insulting the honor of my family.  Our roles that you dismiss as
trivial where most certainly not.  You sit and criticize the 'mistakes' of
Sheridan's presidency, but none of you have any comprehension of the amount of
work that both of us performed to repair these events, and to prevent others."

"My face shows the signs of many months of worry and countless weeks spent
without sleep that come with leadership.  Until any of you have held the
office of president, you have no right to say that either of us failed in our
duties."

"Sheridan and I where much more than two people in the right place at the
right time.  We could not have built what we did alone, but none of the others
had either the will or vision to create it without us to show them how."

She swallowed, hard, and took a few moments to gather her breath.  Death, when
it came, would be a welcome release from the confines of her ailing body.

"From where I have lived for the past eighty years, I have heard of many
questioning why my later writings express a dislike for humans.  Your
hypocritical," she accusingly waved her arm at the panel, "nature is why.  You
are glad for the Alliance and that we saved your people from their Alliance
with the Shadows, but you reject those who caused it to happen."

"You believe that you have 'grown out' of your desire for totalitarian
leadership, or support of the Shadow's ideals, but you are only deluding
yourselves.  Your government was inclined towards the Shadows' ideals when I
first researched your people a hundred and sixteen years ago, and it still is
to this day.  If you truly believe that advancement is only through pain,
suffering, and the destruction of the weak, then you will certainly destroy
yourselves.  If that is your path, then Valen help you because I cannot."

Delenn roughly pulled her hood back over her head, then commanded her acolyte
to "take me from this place" in Aderonto.  The acolyte silently obeyed,
pushing the old woman from the studio.

On her ship, one of the quaint, old, White Stars, Delenn lay on her bed,
surrounded by her descendents, both by blood and otherwise.  Her four
biological grandchildren sat on either side of her shallowly angled bed, with
their children near them.  At the foot of her bed where her five adopted
Minbari children, all Lennier's, but it was his dying wish, when he and his
wife where killed, that she take care of them if she could.  Fortunately for
her, Minbari children where not as difficult as their human counterparts, even
for a single mother.

"I am glad that you could all come to see me," she softly said.  "I feel
in my soul that my time in this life has come to an end."

"We care, grandmother," John said.  "It's not too much to ask."

Delenn gently smiled and slowly exchanged gazes with everyone in the room.

"I hope that each of you follows their path to make your children's future
better than your own, as the future I have given you is very uncertain, and
that I am not entirely proud of."

"It was a challenge," she said, looking at her adopted children, "to raise
some of you, but it was also my great delight."

"I never thought your father had such great desires," she said with a faint
chuckle.

Lennier's children looked at each other in embarrassment.  They did not always
appreciate Delenn's sense of humor.

She coughed, slightly, and returned to serious matters.  "The humans have
forgotten what I have done and why, so I have reminded them. That duty now
belongs to all of you."

One of her great-grandchildren asked "how should we remember you, nanna?"
She reached to hold the little girl's hand.  It was sometimes a challenge
to tell which of her great-grandchildren where which.

"You won't need to remember me for a very long time, little one," she said,
smiling.  In truth, she utterly hated small children, but did her best not to
show it.

"Grandmother," Susan, one of her grandchildren, asked, "where do you think
you'll go, er, after?"  The woman's voice trailed off.

"Oh," she said, whimsically, "I don't know.  I don't mind too much.  If you
are right," Susan was an atheist, "I will be star dust and unable to care
about anything."

She looked at her adopted children.  "If we are right, I may be eternally
happy."

"Assuming John doesn't drive to insanity first," she dryly added.  The last
years of their relationship had occasionally been fraught with conflict.

"You will find a way, mother," Reshenn said.  "You always have, even with
five of us, or fighting a Shadow fleet."

"I have, yes," she said, "but I was younger then.  You know very well that
life has become frustrating for me because I can think as clearly as I ever
could, but I feel trapped in this body."

She felt herself almost entirely black out; she knew that if she did lose
consciousness, it would be for the last time.

Her descendents sensed her nearing death without her saying a word.

"Goodbye, nana," the little girl, Delenna, said, speaking for all.

"Goodbye, Delenna," she replied.

Time became short.  She decided to recited the new Ranger mantra as her last
words.

"Live well, serve well, hope above all, to strive, never to yield, never to
accept defeat, to die with honor."

Delenn lost the feeling in her legs, then her arms.  "I love you all," she
whispered.  "Goodbye."

Her head fell to the side as her eyelids closed, bringing her final thoughts
to a close.
--
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