Title: A Hierodule's Blessing
Author: grey_sw, greyfic@gmail.com
Pairing(s)/Character: Laura/Elosha
Summary: Before Kobol, Laura and Elosha seek Aphrodite's favor.
Rating & Warnings: NC-17, sexual content

Author's Notes: Written for trialia in the Spring 2009 bsgficexchange.
This takes place before Laura's mission to Kobol in Season 2. Spoilers through "The Farm"; very mild spoiler for "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I". The Hierodules were real people -- they were Aphrodite's sacred temple prostitutes in ancient Greece -- but the ritual here is my own invention. Unfortunately, nobody knows exactly what the Hierodules actually did. Other than frak, that is! In the same spirit, I hope you enjoy this story!

( A Hierodule's Blessing )

This meme looks fun:

Give me one of my stories and a timestamp sometime in the future after the end of the story, or sometime in the past before the story started, and I'll write you at least a hundred words of what happened then, whether it's five minutes before the story started or ten years in the future.

All of my fics are listed here.

Title: All About Mathematics
Author: grey_sw
Author's Contact Info: greyfic@gmail.com or grey_sw
Rating: R (for language)
Genre: Cylons, humor, post-series
Spoilers: MAJOR spoilers for 4x20, "Daybreak, Part II"
Characters: Cavil, Doral, Simon
Pairings: None
Summary: 45,708 Cylon survivors in search of a home... called perfection.

( All About Mathematics )

Title: The Most Important Mission
Author: grey_sw
Characters: Cavil, Doral
Rating: G
Spoilers: 4x18, "Islanded In A Stream Of Stars"
Prompt: Lies


"So what's this mission you've got for us?" Doral asked.

Cavil glanced away. "Oh, uh, it's nothin' difficult. But it's vital to the Plan, y'see."

The other Doral grinned. A bombing, maybe. That'd be fun!

"It's just in here. Mission... parameters are up to personal discretion."

Doral looked into the room; behind the security panel, Hera and Cavil's Eight were playing with crayons.

"Wait, what?!"

"You can handle it, I'm sure," Cavil said dryly. "You know pattycake, dontcha? Or the Itsy Bitsy Spider?"

"Er..."

"C'mon, Eight, let's get some dinner. Good luck, Aaron!"

Hera giggled. The Dorals glanced at each other.

"Um, I'm a little teapot, short and... stout?"

Title: Obviously 5 Believers
Author: grey_sw
Characters: The Final Five
Rating: PG
Spoilers: 4x17, "Someone To Watch Over Me"
Prompt: Bob Dylan Song Titles


Galen prays, surrounded by Baltar's groupies, but he's not sure who he's praying to. Is it Zeus? Apollo? The One True God? No matter. He can't stop. I'm so sorry, Athena.

Saul drinks. He smokes. He remembers open eyes, like his; he cries in Bill's arms.

Tory puts her hands in the datafont, dreaming of a new home. This, she thinks, is power.

Ellen could pray. She could ask God to forgive Cavil, to bring him back to the fold. But she won't, because after everything, she's beginning to realize that she never really wanted to.

Sam wants to, but he no longer can.

Title: Taken
Author: grey_sw
Characters: Caprica Six
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: 4x16, "Deadlock"
Prompt: Empty


Cottle had taken her Liam.

He'd been gentle, had held her hand and told her: I'm so sorry, Caprica.

Then he put her to sleep for a while. When she woke up, she was empty and sore.

She screamed and fought. Finally they tied her down. A while later, they put her back to sleep.

When she woke again, her Gaius was there, warm eyes full of compassion.

"Don't cry, dear," he told her, squeezing her hand, as if he were really there.

"Don't cry. We'll get our baby, and we'll take her to the Opera House together, and all will be well again."


Title: Cleaning Crew
Author: grey_sw
Characters: Simon
Rating: G
Spoilers: 4x09, "The Hub"
Prompt: Empty


After the Hub was destroyed, the bodies on the Resurrection Ship began to rot. The Ones, Fours, and Fives voted to dispose of them. The Simons and Dorals spent three days helping the Centurions airlock the bodies, while the Cavils drained and mopped each tub.

At first, Simon was uncomfortable with it. The bodies were limp and heavy in his arms; hundreds of brothers who didn't live, who would not live. Fours, like him, but dead, forever.

By the time they were finished, he didn't care anymore. He couldn't.

They left the Resurrection Ship as-is, endless rows of empty tubs.

Title: Gunny
Author: grey_sw
Characters: GySgt Erin Mathias
Rating: PG
Spoilers: 3x03, "Exodus I"
Prompt: Guns


Gunny. That's her rank, and it's what she is. Ever since childhood, Gunnery Sergeant Erin Mathias has loved to shoot.

When she was small, she and her sister played Colonials and Centurions with toy rifles (Kelly was always the Cylon, because Erin said so). When they were older, they'd go to the quarry and hunt daggits. And when Erin enlisted in the Colonial Marines, at 17, she was already the best shot in her squad.

Kelly must've died on Caprica, like everyone else.

But Gunny's alive, and today she bagged a real Centurion, on a world called New Caprica, for her sister.


Title: Games
Author: grey_sw
Characters: Centurions
Rating: G
Spoilers: 3x01, "Occupation"
Prompt: Guns


Late at night, when they are supposed to be standing guard over the humans, sometimes the Centurions play.

They have very little with which to play -- and they have to be very quiet because it's a secret, and they are not quiet if they move much! -- so each of them takes a round out of its gun-arm and spins it in its other hand, carefully, like a top. Whoever spins it the prettiest wins... but they are all so very pretty no one can choose, so everybody wins! It's a nice game.

Daylight gun games are not so nice.

Now that I've seen it twice and had a couple of days to think about it: I hated this episode. Deeply. If I had made a list of the sort of thing I never wanted to see on this show, half of this episode would have been on it. And the list would still have been better than No Exit, because I'd never even have imagined some of this crap.

Case in point: The basis for Cavil's character is Mommy issues? Seriously? He goes from a self-assured, snarky, and somewhat bemused sense of rational atheism ("the Gods can't help you, you're on your own", "it can't be proven either way", etc) to being pissed off at God because he's unloved? And the one Cylon who spent the entire series joking about the others' holy war is secretly the one who created it... because all of a sudden the writers love monotheism?

Wow. This is definitely a Retcon Too Far for me. They just re-wrote the entire series six episodes before the end... into what looks suspiciously like a Judeo-Christian morality play. Surprise, it turns out the Cylons aren't violent monotheists, after all: their religion is peaceful and kind, and they've just been fooled by a mean ol' atheist!

I can't say I didn't see this coming -- the writers have been leaning in a less-morally-ambiguous direction since the beginning of season 4.0 -- but the extent to which they went for it is really disappointing. "Want an apple, Boomer?" The Centurions are nicey-nice because they believe in a "loving God", and Cavil is meany-mean because he "rejected mercy and had a twisted morality"? The skinjob backstory is Cain and goddamn Abel? Are you shitting me, show? What happened to the ambiguity? What happened to the shades of gray?

Two days ago, I was really happy that Ellen and Cavil were coming back before the end, because both characters were so proud and snarky and joyous and funny. Then the episode started with their Sturm Und Drang Retcon Reunion, and it just got worse and worse for an hour. Frak it, I'm not sure this show remembers what "pride", "humor", and "joy" even are.

On top of that, Starbuck is back to being weepy again (and is given a lovely setup for more YOU'RE GOING THE WRONG WAAAAAAAAAY Special Destiny bullshit with the Final Five); they're leaning on the Boomer/Chief ship (which I loved in Season One... but it's not Season One anymore, and without enough time left to develop a new relationship between them, it's just gonna seem like a backwards-looking rebound for both characters); Adama randomly flip-flopped on the Cylon technology idea, and then randomly flip-flopped back again; the writers entirely forgot about every single minor character involved in the mutiny, except for Mr. Sideburns from the Quorum; and #7 is probably Starbuck's Dad. Or maybe the guy from Caprica.

I love BSG, but the writers on this show have never been willing to allow the plot to grow organically from the characters... and now it looks like the ending will probably be a Grand Sweeping Gesture that deals with the backstory they just made up this week, rather than a natural resolution to the deep and complex conflicts they've been building since the miniseries.

That said, I'm more than willing to see where they go with this -- who knows, maybe the next six episodes will be amazing and morally ambiguous and beautiful, and I'll eat my words with algae sauce -- but boy, was I frakkin' disappointed this week.