Chapter 1: Portraits
Chapter Text
Less than six hours after she'd arrived, Na'Toth was working. She was supposed to have a week of guidance and orientation, but a sudden transport schedule change had forced G'Kar to depart on his strange 'vacation' early, leaving Na'Toth alone with (and largely unprepared for) Emperor Mollari. It was less than ideal, to say the least. She was satisfied, however, that Mollari seemed just as uneasy about the arrangement. Na'Toth would not harm him, no matter how much she thought it a wiser course of action than protecting him, but she could enjoy letting him wonder about it. Her performance as his bodyguard would be flawless, and she'd leave him properly unsettled as he waited for the trick, the twist, the other side of the coin. It would be satisfying.
She stood now watching a rather dull party over Mollari's left shoulder. It rendered her mouth dry, her head foggy. A near constant stream of frilled and feathered Centauri women approached Mollari's throne to pay some sort of respect, and Na'Toth had to restrain sneers each time. How G'Kar had endured these, even with his odd tastes in bedroom companions, she could not fathom.
“I don't imagine you've seen much of this sort of thing, hmm?” Mollari idly swirled some wine in a golden cup, watching it more than the party. He might as well have been talking to the wine, for he made no eye contact with Na'Toth.
Prison walls versus glittery parties. “No, I somehow missed these opportunities,” she hissed.
He nodded, but from this angle, his expression couldn't be read.
“The lady at the back there,” he said, nodding toward a woman in the far corner who was leaning against a pillar and keeping her distance from the dancing. Her dress was enormous and seemed to stick out in the front and back far more than even the Centauri could consider practical. “That's Lady Ellov.”
“Indeed.”
He took a breath. It was not so quick or so pained as to be called 'sharp', but it was audible, Na'Toth could sense it, even in the constant murmur of this foolish event.
“I only thought her worth pointing out.” He looked back into his wine. << Her dress looks like a boat.>>
<<Oh, absolutely! She looks –>> She stopped suddenly, realizing what she'd heard and who had said it. She lowered her voice quickly and leaned in enough to be heard over the party. “You speak Narn?”
He did not look at her, but rather raised his glass in polite acknowledgment of someone across the room who had done the same to him. “G'Kar has been trying to teach me. It is not much, but it is enough to get by.”
“Or enough to insult women's dresses.”
Mollari shrugged one shoulder and smiled into his golden cup. “G'Kar's curriculum may leave something to be desired, but you learn what you practice, and we find the greatest use for it right here.”
She almost wanted to smile, though it was more at the image of the now-absent G'Kar suggesting language lessons in order to covertly insult the citizens in the palace than at Mollari sitting beside her, largely useless and all draped in gold.
A couple approached the elaborate throne where Mollari sat and bowed at the steps in front of him. Na'Toth contained both growls and nausea while they pointedly avoiding speaking to or about her. They made much of the quality of the party, and attempted to establish how they were connected to Mollari through some long and tortured social family tree. She had only limited experience with this man, but time with G'Kar had taught Na'Toth to sense insincerity where ever it was to be found, and even Mollari seemed to tire of this couple's fawning. A good sign, perhaps. If he'd willingly learned even rudimentary Narn from G'Kar, there was a chance he would not be completely unbearable for the next three months.
“Lovely to see you both, yes!” Mollari called as the couple bowed and backed away from him. “Please enjoy yourselves!”
As they moved into the crowd, Na'Toth bent closer to Mollari, and spoke slowly, clearly, and with basic, unadorned speech, just to be sure. <<The man has forgotten something.>>
Mollari glanced up at her, confused. At first, it looked like he had not understood, and then he spoke.
<<Forgotten what?>>
She casually scratched at a spot near the back of her head in order to nod in the couple's direction. When Mollari looked back into the crowd and Na'Toth saw him restrain a laugh at the sight of the man's hair slowly flopping downward, she had a sudden urge to join the leagues of others now worshiping G'Kar. His irreverent foolishness may have saved her for once.
“I'm glad to see you capable of smiling. I hoped something like this might warm you up to me. Perhaps make all of this easier.” He looked at her properly for the first time since the party began and smirked as though quite pleased with himself. Unpleasant. How G'Kar saw that smile even once and remained on this planet of his own free will would be an enduring mystery for as long as Na'Toth lived.
“Perhaps,” she replied. Her smile had vanished, but she was polite. Diplomacy. G'Kar would be proud.
The golden cup clinked as Mollari set it on the tiny table to his right. He rose to his feet and Na'Toth tried not to lock her jaw in anticipation of orders.
“Shall I be expected to protect you while you dance among a sea of would-be killers?” She framed it as concern for him, but she suspected her sneering distaste for the event showed through.
“G'Kar usually dances with me,” he replied as he straightened one of his countless layers of silk. “The other guests generally find it unsettling, and so he naturally finds it very entertaining. But, no, I had something else in mind, actually. Come along.”
Something else? Something just not specified? Could that be what it sounded like? Did Mollari have a taste for Narn like G'Kar's for Centauri? Every cell in Na'Toth's body stiffened in revulsion and she wished for something other than the polished stone floor to dig her heels into. How did G'Kar do this, even with casual language instruction to distract him? Dancing and bowing to this man's whims, whatever they were? Perhaps he really was Mollari's pet like the gossip on the transport had supposed.
Well, whatever it was, she would end it. One does not just 'have something else in mind' for Na'Toth or any other Narn, and one certainly does not casually order a Narn to go anywhere, ridiculous Emperor or not. G'Kar would be informed as quickly as possible that it had not taken more than the space of a few hours for this 'trustworthy' Londo Mollari to return to his roots.
Appalling though he may have been, Mollari was not unobservant. “I'm not suggesting anything of an inappropriate sort, Miss Na'Toth.” He was not accusing, not joking, and not loud. Strange.
“G'Kar would not have even risked hinting.”
“Believe me when say I had no reason to hint. I am also not G'Kar. I only want to show you something that may be of help to you.”
“Surely I don't need help from you to do this job?” What would a man who couldn't stop being attacked know about being a bodyguard?
“I might argue with you, but you are not G'Kar either.” He took a step toward the curtain that hung behind his throne. His voice was soft, reassuring. Unsettling. “Trust me for a few minutes, and if what you see does not change anything, then you may return to hostile suspicion with my blessing.”
He nodded between Na'Toth and the curtain, and she returned the nod, confirming this temporary agreement. The way he smiled in response made her regret it, but she had just promised a few minutes of trust and imagined G'Kar would be displeased if Mollari died not only on her watch but by her hand, so she kept her disgust to herself and followed Mollari behind the curtain.
Londo Mollari had broken her out of this very palace only a few years ago, and while he may have saved her life, Na'Toth had not developed G'Kar's trust in or fondness for the Centauri Emperor. Thus, had anyone but G'Kar requested she return here, she'd have spit in their faces and stomped them into the dust as payment for the insult. Special as G'Kar was, he received only the spit.
“I trust you will find this educational,” Mollari said, his voice echoing into a large brightly lit corridor around the corner.
“And what am I to be educated on?”
“History,” he said, stopping in front a large portrait of a Centauri woman on he left wall. It was the first large painting in a seemingly endless line that stretched as far as Na'Toth could see down the hall and potentially beyond. She quickly imagined being taken on a tour of each one of these portraits of dull colonialists' wives and had to swallow a growl.
“I agreed to trust you for a few minutes, Mollari.”
He waved his hand dismissively. “Yes, yes, and it's all you will need. One noblewoman's portrait is really much like another.”
Na'Toth blinked. She'd been prepared for patriotism in the faces of all these painted women, not flippant disregard. “Then why are we here?”
“When the Emperor Taren fell in love with a woman of an unsuitable class, rather than leave her because of her rank, he celebrated her. He had this portrait made and hung in a place of great significance in the main hall. Pride being what it is, when the next Emperor took the throne, he could not let his reign pass without commissioning a portrait of the woman he loved most. If Taren's lower-class woman warranted a portrait, surely the next Emperor's noble mistress was deserving of equal if not better treatment.”
“Fascinating,” she said, though it wasn't.
“This has continued for hundreds of years. The people in this hall are...” He paused and frowned, as though looking for the words. “They are those who have been beloved by every Centauri Emperor since this first portrait. Most of them are like these ladies,” and he spread his hands as though formally presenting the first two paintings to Na'Toth, “and they are socially unacceptable lovers, mistresses, and somewhat curiously loved wives.”
“I'm afraid I fail to see where this is going.” She was also afraid she might 'accidentally' vomit on one of these works of 'art' given much more time. She had eaten some Centauri food from the buffet earlier in the evening...
“It is just most of them.” He took a few steps away from her, following the progression of the paintings. “Walk along here until you reach the end, and tell me what you see.”
She snorted and strode ahead of him, eager to end this sorry excuse for bonding quickly. Her stomach soured with each passing image of trussed up Centauri women, all useless and decorative, with their dresses crowding them in their frames and likely filling up their skulls as well.
“Lace and silk and little else,” Na'Toth reported about halfway down the hall.
He followed behind her slowly, giving each portrait more time than he had given some of the living creatures in the Great Hall where the dance was still taking place. “Humor me, and wait until the end. Try not to run, or you'll miss the good parts, hmm?”
She whirled around and stomped purposefully away from him at emphatically-not-a-run. She would tear up every one of his historical women fantasies and tell him what she thought of a world that spent time painting pictures of spoiled, pathetic excuses for women drowning in ribbon while scorching her world beyond recognition.
Her boot squeaked against he polished floors when she stopped abruptly at an unexpected portrait of a Centauri man.
“And what is he doing here?” The Centauri had not struck her as people civilized enough to accept what this might be implying.
Mollari smiled, and to Na'Toth's surprise, it was not smug, nor was it especially disgusting. “Being the apparent most beloved of Emperor Vadenza.”
She narrowed her eyes, waiting for him, watching him. Waiting for a glance, or a word, or a flicker of an eyelid; something to betray some kind of agenda. He gave up nothing, only continued strolling along the long line of painted dresses with faces pasted into them.
As she resumed her march toward the end of the hall, the fashions morphed, hair made a brief comeback on the women's heads (a poor choice), and a few Emperors made 'beloved' decisions beyond young, beautiful, and female. While this was of mild interest, it still did not change what she was going to tell Mollari about his world and his people's decisions when she reached the end. G'Kar had asked her to temper her anger, and encouraged her to channel it to 'places other than Mollari' during her time as G'Kar's replacement, and she would do so, but not before she was sure Mollari knew where they stood with each other.
Finally, she was close enough to the end to give her verdict, to tell Mollari what she'd seen. She turned to address him face to face when she caught a flash of the familiar in the corner of her eye. There at the end of the row, distinctly less frilly and excessively bejeweled than anything that had come before it, was what Mollari had wanted her to see.
“G'Kar?”
“I had to fire three royal painters before one would agree to paint a Narn. Particularly a religiously important one.”
Again, she waited for the joke, but again, it did not come. Instead, Mollari stood beside her in front of the portrait and serenely waited for Na'Toth to process what she was seeing. G'Kar looked down at her with a hint of a smug smile hiding under his otherwise royally benevolent gaze. The artist had been quite competent at capturing the expression of a man who knew quite well that he was going to annoy the entire palace for centuries just by sitting for a portrait.
G'Kar wore more jewels here than she'd seen him in when she and Mollari hastily saw him off to his transport, but it was still far less than the women or even the men in the long row before him. Barring a few touches here and there, he was relatively uncorrupted of Centauri influence.
“And everyone agreed to all of this?”
“He would not be up here otherwise.”
“'Mistresses, lovers, and wives', you said.”
Mollari tilted his head to either side a few times and scrunched his nose a bit. “Yes, more or less.”
“He-”
“I trust whatever conclusion you arrive at would be close to at least some part of the truth.” G'Kar's influence may have had a hand in part of that sentence, and the idea of it all hit Na'Toth somewhere under her ribs.
This seemed a large thing to leave out of a request to cover G'Kar's duties. Had there really not been enough moments to spare a few words for something like 'By the way, I may have undersold my relationship with Mollari'? Did G'Kar imagine this as some kind of footnote? Why not mention it even once in all the communication they'd exchanged in all the time since he'd been staying here? Was it possible Mollari was making it all up? She glanced between the portrait and Mollari several times, but neither the painting nor Mollari seemed to be faking anything.
“I – on the transport over, I heard rumors and gossip, but --”
“Of course you did!” Mollari laughed, and Na'Toth saw his sharp teeth for the first time since she'd arrived. “It is among their favorite things to discuss, I think.”
“They called him your pet.”
“He left before I could put a picture up in the pet room too.” He put on an exaggerated pout, which someone must once have found endearing or he wouldn't be trying it on her.
However, the joke sent a shock through her and she whirled to look him properly in the eyes and growl, but found Mollari blinking back at her and appearing not as a soft, overly primped, and decorated bit of mold, but as an actual sentient creature. When that had happened, she didn't know, but seeing it was enough for her to catch herself before a snarl escaped her throat.
It didn't matter. Mollari noticed, and he knew. He knew she objected to his tone and his disregard for the weight behind the word, and she was surprised, but not placated, when he showed instant regret.
“Apologies,” he said, and paired it with a nod that was nearly a bow. “G'Kar would have laughed.”
She took a step away from him. “I am not G'Kar.”
“I know. Nor am I, and it seems we are both used to him. We have some adjusting to do, yes?”
“Perhaps,” she conceded slowly. She gazed back into G'Kar's painted face, royally smug, wearing what must have been Mollari's jewels on his chest and shoulder, and all at once the task of guarding Mollari seemed as though it would be not only bearable, but entertaining.
“He must be delighted to make so many uncomfortable with this,” she said fondly, running her finger across the elaborate frame surrounding the painting.
Mollari sighed and turned back toward the way they had come in. “He delights in few things as much as making the palace squirm.”
She trotted up beside him and smiled. “That appears to be something the three of us have in common.”
He returned her smile, though it was restrained and far from the sorts of beaming grins she used to see on him during his time on Babylon 5. It looked, however, very much like G'Kar's expression from the portrait.
“I wonder, Miss Na'Toth, if you have any interest in learning to dance.”
“I believe that is an adjustment I'd be willing to make.”
Chapter 2: Dance
Summary:
A brief dance lesson.
Notes:
Then once I'd mentioned dancing, I guess I couldn't stop.
I'm so fond of drawing Londo and G'Kar dancing to make others uncomfortable, so I wrote Na'Toth beginning to learn about it. It's a snippet, as many of the following pieces will be, but I enjoyed doing it.
Chapter Text
For several days after the party, Na'Toth watched Londo Mollari exist as two people.
She stood at his side while he reviewed reports delivered to him by representatives of far off Centauri colonies in the morning, and was accidentally breaking expensive vases with him by midday. (It was he who said “I'm sorry,” rather than demanding the apology from her after they crashed into each other and the table the vase rested on. “G'Kar usually anticipates where we are going. Don't worry, I won't let them blame you for this.”)
At dinner, she listened to the freshest vapid court gossip and political bickering and was given very fine Narn cuisine for her trouble. (“G'Kar tells me that greenish thing is particularly good, and his favorite is that sort of shredded black … thing. I can't pronounce it, but I also can't digest it, so I'm not making that much of an effort.”) After the meal, Mollari both gave an official approval of some tax allocation and slipped out onto a balcony to hide from a noble he did not particularly want to deal with. (“I have been avoiding him for a week and a half. G'Kar faked being dramatically sick the last time. When this man speaks, it's like your brain turns to spoo and threatens to seep from your ears. I am doing us a favor, trust me.”)
Na'Toth slept in a small room just off of Mollari's quarters, but the room, which she'd been told was designated specifically for the purpose of housing an imperial bodyguard or telepath, was oddly empty. It gave no appearance of having been occupied for any length of time, let alone at all recently. A few things she recognized as being Narn in origin were tucked into the corner of one shelf, but there was no other indication that G'Kar had ever been here. He'd either lied to her and Mollari about the proposed length of his absence and packed up everything he owned, or G'Kar has never bothered to live in this room.
The portrait she'd seen suggested the latter.
And so, frankly, did everything she'd seen. Only a few days in the palace, and already she'd heard about military organization, heard intelligence reports from far away worlds, and learned the most humiliating secrets about the husbands of several of the women at dinner. If Na'Toth had been privy to these things, G'Kar likely knew even deeper secrets. He's been present at meetings, meals, and official signings for two years. G'Kar could unravel these people if he chose.
But he had not.
It was he that was the religious inspiration after all. People like Na'Toth were not. That was fine with her. However, it did not make her head spin less to consider all that he must know and quietly never share with anyone. Anyone but Mollari.
Was G'Kar out in space now, sharing Centauri military secrets? It would have been like him five or six years ago, certainly. He'd have traded all he knew for weapons, ships, genetics. But now, as she fell asleep on this awful planet, she imagined G'Kar as he was in the portrait hall, decorated in Mollari's jewels, flying through space, speaking to the stars not of military secrets, but of universal truths, dancing, faking sick, and fine food.
A week after her arrival, she was awoken early by a rapping on her door. She sprang to her feet, and tore the door open, terrified that she'd fallen asleep so deeply as to need rousing. Was she late? Was Mollari dead on her watch? She nearly fell through the doorway.
“Yes?!”
Mollari stood in front of he door, not dead, wearing a fewer ridiculous layers than usual, and a bit taken aback.
“Sorry, I thought you'd be awake.”
“Yes, yes, I should have been, I was just--”
“It's nothing. It is still very early, and I am not going anywhere yet. I only wanted to warn you now that today is the beginning of some holy festival days. I should have let you know earlier, but... well.”
Na'Toth nodded and straightened herself in the doorway. “G'Kar would have known, yes, of course.”
He folded his arms behind him. “It will take me some time to adjust.”
“What will I need to do?”
“Well, if you were serious when we first spoke, that dancing we discussed would not be unwelcome.”
She crossed her arms and leaned against the door frame. “Your people would allow a Narn to dance with them on a holy festival day? I am not a religious person, Mollari, but the ones I have met make me think this would not be an appreciated gesture.”
“I am the Emperor. If I have a Narn dance with me, who will they complain to?”
“I'm sure attitudes like that have gotten many of your predecessors killed.”
“Then I will have company.”
His voice softened, and even in the beginnings of his royal finery, he looked suddenly quite pathetic. Again. This developing sympathy for Mollari was rapidly becoming annoying.
“G'Kar usually does this with you, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Teach me what you can, then. I will even try not to embarrass you.”
He laughs. “Now I am sure you are not like G'Kar. He would make it his sole purpose.”
The dance was not complicated.
“No, no, the other foot.”
The dance was not crude.
“I don't see what difference it makes.”
The dance was not embarrassing.
“If you put your foot there, then I'm going to trip over it because I have to do this. See?”
The dance was actually rather elegant.
“Oh, and I am worried about that?”
Mollari smirked at her. “Yes. You are.”
“Ah, it seems I've misunderstood.”
The dance was not ugly, inappropriate, or objectionable in any way.
“It has been a week and already you are sarcastic. Back, left, side, good, yes. I should have known G'Kar would send me someone prickly.”
“He is a wise man.”
“Ha.”
The dance was romantic.
“He knows a good match when he sees one.”
Mollari raises an eyebrow and smirks, but says nothing else on the subject of G'Kar. He stops moving and pulls back from Na'Toth to look down at their feet.
“You are going too quickly here,” he says, tapping his right foot. “There's a beat between this -” he slides his foot across the floor between them toward his left, “and this.” He pulls the foot back between them in place to begin the step that will turn them sideways.
“But there's nothing to do with my foot for the other beat.”
“Yes, yes, you've got to press into it a bit. Bounce on it. Use your knee, G'Kar is fond of doing it that way.”
“My knee...” She tries the step a few times to Mollari counting it through – in Narn. She doesn't have time to comment on it before he is satisfied with her performance.
“There! That was it. Here, here, do it again.”
He joins her and they manage to sync well despite her beginner status.
The dance is fun.
G'Kar probably enjoys it largely for the discomfort of the spectators, but Na'Toth cannot help but wonder as she is led somewhat clumsily around a spare meeting room, in extremely close contact with Londo Mollari, replicating a dance she has been told was created for a dead emperor's wife, whether he also enjoys the context.
Chapter 3: Library
Summary:
Na'Toth wanders away from a meeting.
Notes:
This was one of the earliest things I imagined for some reason. It started something of a theme. I'm literally realizing the parallel with a Disney movie as I type this note nine months to a year later. So okay, then.
Chapter Text
She took a wrong turn, and ended up in another world.
She'd asked to be excused for just a few minutes. The room had been filled with people Mollari counted as friends, or at least people who were in agreement with him about what needed to be done on this world. He felt safe, the room had guards just outside the door. Na'Toth was permitted to step out to ease her rumbling stomach. She'd made a quick dash to the kitchen and collected several of the fruits usually kept on hand for G'Kar, intending to bring them back to eat loudly and messily during Mollari's meeting.
Now she stood in the doorway of a library with an armful of orange and purple produce.
The palace had several libraries. Mollari explained to her at some point in her first month there that one Emperor had preferred to read on the east end of the building, the other on the south, another near his bedroom, and another near his kitchen, so each had one commissioned in the location he preferred, because the Centauri had nothing else to spend time and money on, evidently. Each library contained material suited to the relevant ruler's interests and had been that way 'since the days of the old Republic.'
This one was newer than the others she'd seen. Still-gleaming polish on the floors, no dust, no scratches, clear and crisp signs in untarnished metals, and a particular smell. The smell was familiar. Achingly familiar. New things hold a smell that someone used to the object eventually ceases to detect, and that newness was very much present here. Lingering just under 'new', however, was 'ancient', 'important', and 'home.'
She knew the words on the spines of the books, she knew the images decorating some of the shelves. She knew the smell of that paper, she knew the colored pattern on the floor, she knew the light fixtures, she knew these shapes.
It was not often that she spoke to herself aloud, but in her wonder, she exhaled and, “It's all Narn...” came out with it.
There were shelves upon shelves of books, more than she'd seen in some collections on her own world. All were from her world, as far as she could tell. The smell of the plants used to make these pages... she couldn't mistake it. She set the fruit down on a cart near the heavy open doors and stepped deeper into the room. She pulled a book at random from the shelf and found a history of the Kha'Ri. In other, a study of how the worship of G'Quan had changed over the centuries. Every word in Narn, every aspect of every page from her world.
She flipped through the books eagerly, reaching for another nearly the second she opened the first. Every so often, she'd find a reprint, something made with Centauri paper and Centauri binding, but not a single Centauri word. There were so many, and even though all in the section she pulled from were religious and held no special appeal to her in their content, that they were here! Not just on Centauri Prime, but in the royal palace! This was incredible, if they'd not been stolen.
Maybe also blasphemous, not that she cared for such things. But G'Kar would care, he would –
G'Kar.
She scanned the room, took in the labels and signs. Religious books, history books, folklore, cook books. On the far side of the room, a shelf was labeled as Centauri translations of the most significant books in the collection. Behind the tall desk in the center sat stacks of fine paper, expensive inks, and elegant pens. There was also a single locked drawer.
If this room was not tailored for G'Kar, it did not exist.
“I thought you might be in here.”
Mollari, of course.
“Why?”
“The kitchen is not that interesting. Even G'Kar eventually comes out. And we're in the right part of the palace.” He entered the room with the same kind of serene patience she'd seen in him as he stood among the portraits in the 'Beloved' hall, and picked up one of the fruits Na'Toth had left on the cart.
“This room. This is his, isn't it?”
“It was a gift.”
Not once in all their correspondence had G'Kar seen fit to mention that he was given an entire small library of fantastically valuable books. Not once had he thought this was information she'd have liked to know! She remained cool and detached, however, and pretended to be deeply interested in inspecting one of the elegant pens.
“For any particular occasion?”
“He'd been here two years.”
Admittedly, she didn't know what a Centauri year was compared to a Narn one, nor did she care to be as versed in Centauri custom and culture as G'Kar, but 'Biennial Give Your Bodyguard a Library Day' had escaped her notice.
“That was your reason?”
“It was more than enough.”
“And your people approve of such lavish gifts being given to a Narn?”
He set the fruit back on the cart and walked to the front of the desk, so it now stood between them. “There is very little about G'Kar that anyone here approves of.”
“And yet you can still do this.”
“It's a funny thing,” Mollari said, reaching over the desk and picking up a pen. “You see, it turns out that I am the Emperor.”
“That is a dangerous way to think, Mollari.”
“You can let me worry about that.”
Much could be said now of it being her concern while she is supposed to be protecting him, but the library could not be undone, so it was not worth the effort. In several weeks, Mollari would be G'Kar's problem again.
“Where did you get all of this?”
He looked around at the collection and puffed himself a bit, twirling the pen between his fingers. “It is an impressive amount, isn't it? I was surprised to get so much.”
“But where did it come from?”
“Your world, of course.” He placed the pen back on the desk. “You can imagine there were not many Narn bookshops around here.”
She glared across the desk at him. “Mollari. If you have stolen these, then I will be forced to --”
“What? No! They were purchased, loaned, or simply given to me.” He shook a finger at her. “In fact, I rescued most of these! They were being kept in basements and caves when their libraries were destroyed. Here, they are safe and being looked after while things are rebuilt.”
“We can take care of our own things,” Na'Toth growled.
“And you should. That's why everything in here belongs to G'Kar. In fact, knowing the books were going to him specifically was what convinced most of my donors to give them up. He will decide what to do with them and when. It is out of my hands. I am sure they will all go back to your world someday, and when they do we will keep copies here to try to foster some understanding.”
“So a gift for G'Kar that serves civilization at large?” She almost laughed at him. Londo Mollari, Public Benefactor, Lover of Narns. Ridiculous.
“It suits him, don't you think?”
“...yes.”
“As luck would have it, it suits the budget just as well.”
“How heartfelt.”
“I frequently find myself heartsick over budgetary concerns, yes.” His reply was so quick it may have been he didn't even notice that Na'Toth had been hoping to pry some more information out of him about his relationship with G'Kar.
“Come along, Miss Na'Toth. The others are still in the meeting hall.”
It was also possible that there was more to Mollari than she had believed. As he helped her gather up her fruit from the cart at the door, the idea made her a bit sick.
Chapter 4: Ornaments
Summary:
Na'Toth snoops into jewelry and coat lining.
Notes:
I'm posting this against a still-strong push not to. Please enjoy it.
Chapter Text
She had little time to snoop, but what she did have she tried to make the most of.
Part of her job was securing the various rooms Mollari and his people used for any of their trillions of meetings, or any location he was well-known to spend time in. Na'Toth walked the perimeter of his bedroom suite two to three times a day and each time checked closets, curtains, drawers, corners, beds, benches and light fixtures for intruders or their tools. In the pursuit of safety, she saw tiny hints of Mollari's day to day world. Opposite the library in scale, publicity and grandeur, but just as rich in information.
He had a box containing his many jewels, medals, and fussy bits and pieces. Most were what she expected – bright gems, too much gold, elaborate designs featuring tentacles, and brooches too large to serve any practical purpose. Every so often, however, she ran into something that didn't quite fit. Something that looked as though it had been made with iridescent shell rather than a gem, something with tiny rivets, something featuring an eye rather than a tentacle.
Once she knew they existed, she'd see them on Mollari's sash, peeking out from under all his layers stuck to an elaborate waistcoat, or pinned on his coat over one of his hearts. Among all his other excessive finery and to eyes not expecting to see them, they blended right in.
Then, she began to see the little things everywhere. The edge of his coat flipped up in his chair, and the lining had been sewn in a patchwork of fabrics much rougher than any typical of the Centauri. It was paler than the colors most widely in use on her world, perhaps the fabrics had even been bleached, but the style was unmistakably Narn. One night, she took a few extra minutes to clear his bedroom of any danger, and she found the same patterns and styles in rich jewel tones on vests and waistcoats. He did not wear them often that she'd seen, but he also could not wear them for events in which he was expected to present in all white and gold, and those seemed to be growing more and more frequent even during Na'Toth's short time on this world. Many otherwise Centauri articles of clothing sported Narn-made buttons, and tiny studs and rivets caught the light where they were sewn into the hems of the embroidered Centauri fabrics. It was not in everything, but the more she looked, the more she saw.
Even if his position allowed him little in the way of sartorial variation, Mollari had tucked tiny references to Narn – or maybe just G'Kar, if Na'Toth was honest – into as many pieces of his clothing as possible.
G'Kar had left on his trip with a portion of his wardrobe, of course, but even what he'd left behind was interesting. His shelves contained something of a spectrum between Centauri and Narn aesthetics. There were things clearly tailored to him that appeared almost entirely Centauri, and there were just as many things that were clearly Centauri made but in a Narn style. He had several garments that were entirely Narn, though some appeared to have been repaired with leather that was very much not. He had coats and vests that appeared tailored to accommodate armor, and his own properly Narn formal armor pieces sat among everything, nicely polished.
After her initial discovery, she kept the knowledge of this strange fashion leakage to herself. She would have continued to do so had Mollari not prompted her otherwise. She was securing the room before bed time one night when he stepped in prematurely.
“Perhaps I can help you with something?” he offered.
“The point of this is to avoid you coming to harm, so no.”
He raised his eyebrows and took a step back so he just lingered in the door frame. He bounced a bit on his feet with his hands clasped behind his back. “It is only that I noticed your interest in my clothes. Is there something in particular you're looking for?”
“G'Kar,” she said, before she had a chance to think about it.
“I think --”
“I mean,” she said firmly, “his influence. He seems to be everywhere I look in this palace of yours, despite that he is not physically here.”
Mollari glanced around the room. “I've noticed the same as of late.”
She flung the curtains back to ensure no one hiding among them. “You own Narn ornaments.”
“Yes.” He paused, perhaps waiting for her, and then added, “Legitimately. They were given to me.”
“Reassuring,” she said, running her hands over the surface of the bathing screen. No bugs or trap buttons. “G'Kar?”
“Yes.”
“I've noticed your coat, as well. Buttons, vests...”
“Miss Na'Toth, what are you trying to get at, exactly?”
“I am not sure,” she admitted. “But I will tell you when I find out.”
He smiled. “You've seen his things too, haven't you?”
“Until recently, I'd only seen his portrait.”
Mollari laughed, still standing in the doorway. “Did you think he went about every day covered in all that?”
“I have been considering it.”
“It is ceremony. It gives him status to be seen in very Centauri things, particularly the jewelry. It saves him harassment and grants him some shred of respect to be seen with things from my House, or with Imperial trinkets, but he is otherwise steadfast in his fashion choices.”
“And the Centauri garments I saw in there?”
Mollari shrugged. “For a few events, to surprise people, that sort of thing. He doesn't wear them as – I'm not forcing him into them, if you're worried about that.”
She had been. And even with this assurance, she still was. She'd have to speak to G'Kar when he returned.
“Your people recognize all those bits of jewelry?” She knelt to the floor and swept her arms under the bed.
“People of a certain status, yes. It is just something we learn. Styles of every house, lineages, particularly famous pieces... We all learn.”
“Amazing that you have the time for such things,” she sneered. “Come. The room is clear.”
“I think far fewer children will be taught about jewel families now, if that is some consolation to you. Soon they will recognize only the Emperor's seal and the design for a Beloved pin.” He laughed a bit and shrugged himself out of his sash and coat.
“Beloved? As in that gallery?”
He nodded. “It's a famous story, the way it started. Everyone knows the shape of it.”
“It's always the same?”
“Did you not see them? Every portrait in the hall is wearing a pin of the same design.”
“My focus was somewhat elsewhere.”
He pulled off his white gloves and flexed his fingers. “Next time you are there, look a bit closer, hmm? That little thing grants G'Kar far better treatment than he would have without it.”
“Isn't this all a little telling?”
Without hesitation, Mollari answered, “He saved my life, and he continues to protect it daily. Why wouldn't I select him?”
“Don't you have wives or something?”
“You obviously have not met her. Timov would throw it in my face if I ever dared approach her with something like that.”
“Charming.”
“She has been recently, yes. G'Kar talks to her more than I do and that's really done wonders for our relationship.”
“Relationship with which of them?”
He glanced up at her and laughed, but did not answer.
Chapter 5: Greenhouse
Summary:
Na'Toth meets the only other Narn in the palace, who tells her about a greenhouse.
Notes:
I'm enjoying being really lazy with these titles, frankly.
Lots of little things in this one, so it's more like three sections than one all about a greenhouse, but it'll do! It will segue well into the next one this way, so it all works out.
Chapter Text
A portrait in a hall set aside for particularly beloved people, trading ornaments, and a library were only the start. G'Kar's position in this palace was reflected as ubiquitously as possible for a Narn. If something for or by G'Kar was not on full display, it was tucked in the corners or lingering on the fringes, waiting to be uncovered. It was likely it served to make the palace occupants used to the idea of a Narn among them as much as it was to amuse G'Kar. The palace functioned thanks to an all-Centauri staff in the kitchens, closets, basements, gardens, and transport docks. The medical staff, however, were the exception. Of the three doctors usually on hand to assist the palace, only one was Centauri. The others were a Minbari and a Narn.
Na'Toth crossed paths with the Narn doctor in a corridor only once, but just the sight of each other had been enough to offer a great sense of connection.
“Well, look at you!” The doctor exclaimed when she and Na'Toth drew close enough to see each other. She offered Na'Toth a proper greeting, with her hands thumped solidly against her chest. “I'm Doctor Ka'Hari. I hadn't expected to see another Narn here after G'Kar left!”
“I'm surprised to see another here at all.” Na'Toth returned her greeting, relieved to perform such gestures and be properly understood. “I'm called Na'Toth. What brings you here?”
Doctor Ka'Hari laughed – a cute but hearty sound - and said, “I was personally requested to ensure the health and safety of the Prophet G'Kar. Even this place couldn't get me to say no to helping him. What about you?”
“Strangely,” Na'Toth replied, “I'm here for much the same reason. It is a favor to G'Kar.”
She smirked, amused. “You're watching over Emperor Mollari?”
“Yes.”
“You must be having some fun.”
“Must I?”
“Well, G'Kar is very fond of him. They have a lot of fun at the expense of the visiting royals here and – Have you seen the portrait?”
“Yes. And the library. And the food. And the jewels.”
Ka'Hari laughed again. “And the greenhouse?”
“Greenhouse?” By this point, Na'Toth wasn't surprised it existed, just that she'd gone so long without seeing it.
“Oh, you'll love it. There's a balcony view into it on the third floor, and a proper entrance downstairs, beyond the kitchen. It's a little bit of home.”
“I will look into it.”
She patted Na'Toth's shoulder. “Do so, it might help. Good day to you, Na'Toth.”
They nodded in parting before Na'Toth thought to ask what a greenhouse could help with.
She returned to Mollari and his afternoon of seeing various officials in his throne room, but found her attention was not on possible threats to his life but on the greenhouse.
What would be in it? Plants from Narn, surely, but which plants? How many? How large a greenhouse? Why?
Well. She knew why. Or at least she strongly suspected. G'Kar and Mollari almost certainly had to be entangled more closely than Emperor and bodyguard. Even if the Centauri made a not-unwise practice of spoiling their bodyguards, G'Kar's closeness to Mollari, so evident even in his absence, was a strong indication that something else was going on.
“Are you feeling all right?” Mollari waved at her from his seat.
She snapped to attention. “Yes, yes. Just thinking.”
“Anything in particular?”
“You did not tell me you employed another Narn.”
Mollari shrugged. “Technically, I only employ one. G'Kar is not my employee.”
“Isn't he?”
“Not as such. He's...” Mollari fluttered his fingers in front of him, thinking. “A volunteer.”
“That's not the word I'd have used.”
He laughed and grinned widely. “Really? And what would you have used, eh?”
Na'Toth closed her eyes. “It doesn't translate into Centauri.”
“I see.” He sounded entirely unconvinced and she did not blame him. “Well,” he rose from his throne and signaled to the guards on the far side of the room to close the ornate doors to the room. “I think we are finished here for today. Dinner?”
“Whatever you wish.”
His mouth twisted into a crooked smile and he released an amused breath. “I don't think you have ever said that to me before.”
“The rock moves eventually.”
Mollari narrowed his eyes at her for a moment, puzzled, and then his eyes shot wide and he grinned. “Ah, yes, I know that one!”
“I'm sorry?”
“The story about the stone door moving for the first time. I've read it”
“Oh.” She hadn't even realized she'd used an expression from an old Narn tale. It was so natural to her it was hard to imagine other people did not know it, though of course it made sense that they wouldn't. “Was it G'Kar's idea for you to learn Narn?”
“I don't remember whose idea it was, or if it even was one." He stepped down from his throne and the two of them walked behind it to head deeper into the palace, toward the small private dining area. "I knew a little before, you know, but what you learn to get by in a military setting is somewhat limited. I could understand far more than I could speak and even that... Well, Vir was always better at it.” He looked then like he might add something more, and then shrugged. “As for the lessons, one day, they just started happening.”
Na'Toth smirked. “Of course they did. Like many other things, I imagine.”
Mollari raised an eyebrow. “Something you'd like to say?”
He absolutely had to know that she knew. He'd been encouraging her to this conclusion for her entire stay here.
They'd reached the arched door to the dining room. “Not particularly. May I be dismissed after dinner? There is something I would like to attend to.”
He gave her a bow and a permissive 'after you' gesture. “Of course.”
After dinner, she saw Mollari to his quarters and left him in the capable hands of the guards stationed at his door. She'd spoken to both of them several times during her stay in the palace. One was quite simple while the other was surprisingly insightful, and while they often frustrated each other, they were both very much in favor of the work Mollari and G'Kar had been doing with regard to Centauri and Narn relations. Mollari was safe with them.
Na'Toth followed the doctor's directions to find this greenhouse. The sky was already dimming, and it had been doing so earlier and earlier every night, but she estimated she'd have the better part of an hour in the greenhouse before there was no more sunlight.
She went immediately to the kitchen, where Doctor Ka'Hari claimed there was an entrance. The cook was still there, preparing meals for his fellow staff members now that she and Mollari had finished. He waved enthusiastically to Na'Toth.
“Hello, Lady Na'Toth! Need a snack already? You and G'Kar have the same stomach!”
A friendly and enthusiastic man, he'd been calling her by that Centauri title since her first week here, and she'd given up correcting him. “No, I'm quite full, Dikan, thank you. I'm looking for the greenhouse.”
“Oh, just through there!” He gestured with a spatula and a nod that waved through his hair toward an unassuming curtained doorway off to Na'Toth's right. “Religious day coming up, huh?”
“I am not religious,” she answered automatically as she approached the door.
The moment she pulled back the curtain, she understood the comment. Bursting from every corner of the greenhouse and crowded into everything in her vision were bushes upon bushes of G'Quan Eth. She had never seen that many in her life, let alone in one place.
There were other plants in the greenhouse, and most of them were from her world. She could pretend to be in a garden at home if she let her eyes blur.
Centauri made some kind of extremely potent drink from the G'Quan Eth, which could explain their presence, but Ka'Hari had seemed to think this was for G'Kar. Mollari had stocked an entire green house with a rare, expensive, and extremely endangered species just for G'Kar. He'd filled a library with rare and important Narn literature. He'd been importing some expensive and difficult to obtain food that Centauri could not digest. Just for G'Kar.
Everything here could be explained away with some other explanation, some kind of cultural exchange, public benefit project, even payment for G'Kar's service, but the easiest solution was the close nature of Mollari and G'Kar's relationship. It would account for absolutely everything and, as she'd learned on the trip here, the population at large was already keen on spreading rumors about that particular explanation. Why not just admit to everything?
She stayed in the greenhouse well after it had become dark, inhaling the scent that had become endangered back at home.
Chapter 6: Fun
Summary:
Na'Toth asks the Emperor what G'Kar is really doing there.
Notes:
Shoutout to Sholio in the comments, who made me want to dig up the rest of this for posting, uh, an embarrassing amount of time later. There are a few chapters left, including one I don't know how to handle! We'll see how it goes.
Chapter Text
In the weeks she spent with him, Mollari told Na'Toth little stories of broken vases, large stories of counselors and ministers ousted first from rooms and then their positions for refusing to do their work with a Narn present, and stories in which, despite everything, he and G'Kar were having fun.
The position was not fun itself, but in all the ways Mollari tried to make it bearable for Na'Toth, he had done that and more for G'Kar before her. When she mentioned it between meetings one day, Mollari, seated at a large ornate desk, exhaled, but did not betray any large emotion.
"They are treating you better than they did him, at first," he said, thumbing through several pages of parchment. "I think they might be capable of learning, after all."
"He has tolerated a great deal, being here." It came out more accusatory than she planned, but she made no effort to correct it.
"More than he ever should have. I have never felt there was enough here to compensate him, but he does what he wants." He looked at her and shrugged. "Who am I to tell him otherwise?"
"The Emperor," Na'Toth replied flatly.
Mollari puffed - a laugh not quite strong enough to escape. "Not to him. There is no hierarchy anywhere in the universe to G'Kar, and most certainly not one involving me. He knows how to play the game and what to say to who, but he doesn't subscribe to any of it. There is no Emperor and Prophet - there is not even really an Emperor and a bodyguard. It is just Londo Mollari and G'Kar. Here. Doing what we can, because we must."
Na'Toth does not seek permission to ask straight forward questions anymore, because G'Kar wouldn't.
"How much power does G'Kar actually have here?"
Mollari frowned a bit, and Na'Toth thought he may not answer.
"Officially? None. Unofficially… that might depend on who you ask."
"I am asking you."
"Well, if you ask the Emperor, he will tell you G'Kar is his bodyguard and an unofficial ambassador of aspirational cooperation between our people. He serves as an advisor of political matters and a symbol, with no power to make any final decisions." Mollari tilted his head slightly to one side. "If you ask Londo Mollari, he will tell you that a little bit of G'Kar is in everything that happens in the palace."
"I have noticed."
"You are not the only one. But it is all right. We expected this. It has gone well, I think, given the circumstances. He hasn’t complained to you about being here, has he?” The question sounded almost like Mollari was worried, but his tendency toward joking and his accent made it difficult to be sure.
G'Kar had not said anything to her in all the time he had been gone. No messages or updates at all.
“No, he hasn't complained. It is just —”
A palace attendant ducked in at that moment to announce that the next person Mollari was supposed to meet with had arrived in the next room. Mollari nodded and waved his hand.
“Thank you, send him in.”
The attendant glanced nervously at Na’Toth. “Is she- Should I show her to the hall, or-?”
“You must be new,” Mollari said. He sounded amused, reassuring.
"Only a little! I mean, I am new, but not that new, just-"
“You remind me of a friend of mine. Do not worry – it is not that serious.”
“Your Majesty?”
“All of this. The fuss, the propriety. It doesn't mean as much as you think it does. Don’t take it too seriously.”
“Oh.” The nervous newcomer glanced back at Na'Toth. "So-"
"What is your name?"
"C-Cirus, Your Majesty."
“Miss Na’Toth will stay with me, Cirus, thank you."
Cirus skittered from the room with a nervous, "As you wish, Your Majesty."
Mollari returned to addressing Na'Toth. "What were you saying?"
"Just that remaining here is not something I would have done."
"How fortunate that I had him, instead, then."
When the visitor did not appear in the next breath, Na'Toth poked at the situation. "Your goal with him being here, what is it?"
Mollari didn't look up from his paperwork. "It is a bit late to be asking that, isn't it?"
"It wasn't my place to ask."
He laughed. "Is it your place now?"
"I am not so concerned about what my place is anymore."
"Very much like G'Kar." He signed the final page of a long document and cleared the pages off to one side of the desk. "You will have to ask him what his goal is. Personally, the goal for me is entirely selfish," he said, folding his hands and looking up at her. "Perhaps there is a touch of practicality. Easier to just have the man here than say to myself, 'What would G'Kar do?' all the time."
"And what is the actual reason?" she demanded, impatience prickling under her skin.
"What makes you think that isn't it?"
"You do not need him. You do not need to ask his opinions, no matter how much wiser they might be. You are more than capable of operating this world without him."
"Of course I am! I know the politics of things here inside and out. I've shaped myself into what this world wants for a few decades now. But because of that, even after everything that has happened, the perspective he inspires is helpful. He reminds me of what we've done, what we could have done to makes things worse, and how things might be better. I'm not making a Centauri Prime full of Narns, not one that lives forever flogging itself for what has happened, but one that doesn't need mass murder to be something grand. G'Kar is a guidepost. Exposure therapy." He put his elbow on the desk and propped his chin up in his hand. "And we work well together. So it is fun."
Na'Toth could have made a comment here, and nearly let the words escape, but the voice of the guard outside announcing Mollari's visitor cut her off.
She observed Mollari and the man from some outer world speak but took in almost none of it. Detached, she considered how much fun seemed to factor into what is being done in the palace. Could one have fun rehabilitating a world bent on genocide only a few years ago? Na'Toth had had fun with G'Kar on Babylon 5, but that was before the Shadows, before everything. It was about things like pride and principle that few others would see or know of. It was little spats in the larger scheme of things. Could the same things be done on a scale like this?
She had already participated in some of it, she supposed. But long term? That Mollari found as many ways to have fun in his position as he did unsettled Na'Toth on a professional level. That he could have fun at the expense of things she had once imagined every Centauri worshiped unsettled her on an intellectual level. That he had been having this silly kind of fun with G'Kar while actually improving his world unsettled her on a personal level.
Things were getting done. Whether it was because G'Kar was fully using Mollari as a willing puppet for steering the Centauri worlds or whether they were diplomatically working together on the concepts Na'Toth has seen brought before tribunals, the method appeared to be making real changes that average citizens were embracing, even if the nobility was struggling. The combination of social progress and childish delinquent behavior was so much like G'Kar. Of course he was staying if he was having fun.
She did not jump to the idea immediately, meaning she'd softened toward the Centauri Emperor thanks to life in this absurd palace, and the thought did G'Kar a disservice, but it did eventually strike her to wonder whether Mollari was making bodyguard life fun for G'Kar in order to keep him there.
Chapter 7: Trust
Summary:
Mollari takes a sick day.
Chapter Text
Mollari was not completely an irresponsible fool, as she had thought he would be, but nor was he what the Centauri would have likely envisioned as their ideal ruler. So the day Na'Toth reported to him in the morning and he waved her away, still clad in a nightgown that tied all the way up to his throat, she did not know which part of him to blame.
“Thank you, Miss Na'Toth, but I won't be needing your service today.” He sounded tired, perhaps sad. Both would be frustrating to deal with.
"Should anyone be informed?" She was still here to do this job well.
"I will take care of that, thank you."
She narrowed her eyes, skeptical, and left his room with every intent to wash her hands of it and uncover more of G'Kar under the palace's surface. It had been months and she was still finding little scraps of him everywhere. Instead, duty to G'Kar or an uncomfortable level of irritated fondness for Mollari brought Na'Toth almost on autopilot to the kitchen, where she collected the things she and Mollari would have eaten that morning in the dining hall. Her own meal was practical, as always, and easily eaten partly on the trip back to Mollari's suite.
The guards assigned to Mollari's room found it odd that she would return, but they let her through with just a glance under the lid on her tray of food.
"I have brought breakfast," she called out, but did not wait for an answer and stepped confidently inside.
Mollari's voice shot out in surprise, "Miss Na'Toth, are you trying to kill me?!" He was standing, simply clothed in comparison to his usual garments, with one hand in a tight grip on the edge of a table covered in empty decorative bottles. The other was pressed over one of his hearts. "You can't just barge in on someone like that!"
She could not bring herself to apologize until she knew what he was up to.
"I did not expect you to be awake,” she said instead. “However, G'Kar would be encouraging you to eat, so I have brought it to you."
Mollari nodded and swallowed, regaining some composure as he released his nearly clawed grip on the table.
“He would.”
The silence lingered a moment too long, prompting Na'Toth to fill it.
“It is not poisoned,” she offered, setting the covered tray down on the edge of Mollari’s bed.
He glanced from the tray to her and back down to the tray. “You would be saying that even if it were, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes. But you trust G’Kar and he trusts me, and so it is not.” Clear fact.
“Secondhand trust, eh?” His surprise from Na’Toth’s entry into the room was gone. He sat on the bed and slid the tray closer to him to look at the contents. “I have eaten on shakier grounds than that. Thank you, though I would have sent for it myself.” He looked up at her. “Will you be having some?”
“I ate most of mine while walking back.”
“G’Kar would have, too,” he said, as he lifted the lid on the tray. His food was arranged artistically compared to Na'Toth's, though even hers had looked as though there was deliberate intent to look considered before she began picking at it.
She deliberately watched him bite into a piece of bread, following the the motion of him chewing with slight nods, much like she would if she had poisoned his food. She, however, had gone through the effort to sustain Mollari rather than kill him and was intent that she could not be said to have neglected something G’Kar would have paid attention to.
“Why did you tell me you would not need me today?” Na'Toth asked as she watched him finish the bite of food.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said.
“Why not?”
His shoulders sank as he exhaled. “I just cannot today.”
“Is this a holiday I don’t know about?”
He looked amused with her, giving her half of a weak smile. “Have you never felt a little sick, Miss Na’Toth? Just wanted a break?”
“You got dressed.”
“I did. I thought it might help.”
“Has it?”
“Perhaps I will know after breakfast.” He looked tired returning his gaze to the food, but not necessarily ill.
“Will there be anything else I can do for you?”
He smirked hearing her ask. She worried she might be the sick one considering how easily the question had come to her.
“Actually,” Mollari said, apparently fully intending to eat sitting on the corner of his bed, “if it's not a terrible burden, I wonder if you wouldn't mind staying a little while after all. I find I do a bit better with company.”
“There is no burden.” There was no reason to refuse, and so she did as G’Kar would have done and sat on the edge of the bed to eat what remained of her food. Mollari was not wearing shoes, but in readiness for anything, including a breakfast assassin, Na’Toth remained in her boots. She couldn’t put them on the bed itself, and so kept her legs off the side. Mollari did not seem to react one way or another. She peeled away the rind on a piece of cheese and they ate in silence for a brief time.
“Are you still holding up well?” Mollari asked after several silent bites. “To being here, and dealing with all this for so long?”
“I believe so,” she replied. It was the closest thing she had to what she thought was truth.
“Did G’Kar warn you enough?”
“I do not think he warned me for the correct things,” she said quickly.
“No?” He raised his eyebrows but his gaze remained on the food.
“Nothing that matters. I have to repay a debt, and so I would have come even if he told me it was still a nightmare here.”
“I hope you will consider the debt paid when your time here is done.”
“I think it is for G’Kar to decide.”
“Ha. Well, if we know the same man, he would not let you mention a debt again. He sometimes tries to absolve even me of them.”
“Perhaps he is looking to have things reset, then.” It was a charitable response to Mollari, certainly, but was some way of explaining out loud to herself as well. “He has talked often of becoming a new person, rebirths. He told me you had both become new people some time ago.”
“He does put great weight in the idea, yes.”
“Do you not?”
“It is not that I don't like the idea, I even hope it is true, but his certainty in the concept has been hard to reproduce in myself."
"Was becoming the Emperor not a suitable starting point for renewal?"
His brow furrowed and he frowned while contemplating some meat Na'Toth found tedious to chew. Centauri teeth seemed more suited to it.
"If renewal started for me anywhere, ending up here was a consequence of it, not a cause."
"'Ending up'?" She took one of a cluster of small fruits likely meant for Mollari. G'Kar would have. "Do you not enjoy being Emperor?”
“‘Enjoy’ is too strong a word, but 'hate' would be too. It isn’t up to me to like it or dislike it, I am here. I have to do it, and that's all."
“Why not just give it up? Centauri only do things that please them, afterall. There must be many who would take your place.”
He looked a bit disappointed. “You cannot believe it is that simple.”
“No, I suppose not. But you did not really answer me.”
"Of course there are many who would be eager to step in. But not only can they not be trusted with the position, they do not truly know what it is they think they want." Mollari sighed. “There was a time – it feels like a lifetime ago – that I thought I wanted this. I was wrong, of course, as seems to be my lot in life, but at the time, the power of this position was appealing.”
“And now power is more work than you imagined.”
“It is not that. I am used to work. This is a higher obligation - that I should pay for what I did, what I knew, what I didn't know, by serving broken worlds this way. It is something that must be done, and it should be done well.”
Na'Toth tilted her head to one side.
“Or at least by someone with good intentions,” Mollari tried.
They sat together for a few seconds while Na'Toth thought of greenhouses, libraries, relief funds, Narn doctors, jewels, and recent replacements in positions of power.
“I do not think you are doing badly,” she conceded.
Mollari smiled and held his glass - which contained only juice - up to her. “A drink to the day Miss Na'Toth does not entirely disapprove of me!”
She held her own water up hesitantly, waiting for the usual outbursts that come with Centauri toasts, but instead of a long shout, Mollari only nodded and gently clinked the glasses together.
“Don't worry,” he said. “I'm meant to be sick today, remember? It wouldn't do for the guards to think we are having a good time in here."
"And what are we doing in here? Dodging work?"
"You do not have to stay," he replied, not really answering her question. There was a distraction in him, a concern that she hated she could recognize.
"G'Kar would stay." She could have worded this as a question, but she knows it is not.
"Yes, but that's him. You may do whatever you like. The guards outside will be more than enough to make sure I am not murdered before dinner."
"Why does G’Kar stay?" She loaded the question with her real meaning, ‘not for breakfast, but on this world,’ and, to his credit, Mollari heard it.
"I do not know." Mollari's answer was unexpectedly swift as he picked through his food for bits he particularly liked. "I have said before: you will have to ask him why he does anything he does. I have reminded him that he is free to leave from nearly the moment he arrived, but… Well, he has ideas and things he thinks he wants. He is stubborn.” He poked pieces of food as he listed G’Kar’s traits. “Persistent. Nosy. Likes being in the way."
"Well-suited to you, then."
"I’m not sure whether to be insulted or flattered." He tilted a small nod in her direction as he ate another bite. After he swallowed, he added, "Well done."
She took another sip of her water. If Mollari was offering direct answers, Na'Toth was going to take them.
“Why did you choose G'Kar to be your bodyguard?”
“I didn't. Delenn chose him for me.”
“But he has stayed, Mollari. Long after he --”
“You would have to take that up with him,” Mollari said as he shrugged. "I am not interested in arguing him out of it."
Na'Toth persisted through his attempt to brush it off. “When I knew you both on Babylon 5, there was nothing too petty for you two to fight about. Why accept Delenn's choice?”
“You think we no longer fight?”
“You are dodging the issue. You were bitter enemies, and now there is..." She set her glass down firmly and gestured to the room surrounding them, where traces of G'Kar were in every speck of dust. "There is this.”
He raised his eyebrows, amused, but did not look up. “'This', indeed.”
"I know you have been enjoying watching me make assumptions on my own, but -"
Mollari looked up at her as though she’d made a sudden sound. "Did you know, Miss Na'Toth, that I have heard nothing from G'Kar in all the time you have been here? Not a word, in all these months."
She stopped, the need for attack suddenly vaporized. "You, too?"
His demeanor shifted to surprise. "He's said nothing to you either?"
"No, nothing. I thought whatever he was saying to you was being kept private."
"No." Mollari's eyes moved quickly from one spot of nothing to the next, processing implications in the air between them.
"Has he done this before?" Na’Toth tilted her head as though it would help her see into Mollari’s head.
"Never."
"Is this why you are staying in today?"
He winced, his sharp teeth visible for a moment and his gaze finally settled on the bedspread. "No, not specifically. But his absence in general is…," he tapped a few fingers on a surface unsatisfying for tapping, "...a contributing factor to many things."
Faking sick because he misses G'Kar? Na'Toth nearly choked on the notion (or perhaps a seed). Could that truly be it? It did not suit him. It hardly suited anyone.
"This is G'Kar, Mollari. He is all those things you described as well as irreverent and frivolous and filled with too many words for his own good. He's become absorbed in writing a constitution for the stars to live in peace with the dust or being worshiped by some undiscovered world and doesn't know how much time has passed. It doesn't mean anything with him."
She had not started this assignment or even this morning with the idea of offering reassurance to Mollari, and yet it came concerningly easily. Gross.
"Perhaps," Mollari replied. The answer was weak and flimsy and no longer inspired reassurance but instead deliberate redirection.
If what Na'Toth had seen meant what it seemed to, then Mollari had been pouring all this over the top devotion into someone he did not believe should stay with him. And that someone, absurdly enough, was G'Kar, who whole swaths of her people believed in more than anything else. The urge to defend a man who could defend himself easily but would sooner choose to breeze by the need to arose in Na'Toth's throat.
"No one can be responsible for your safety if you do not trust them," she said firmly.
"What?" He blinked at her.
"You do not believe he will be back," Na'Toth asserts, "and so you do not trust him."
"I trust him more than anyone,” Mollari countered defensively, “but I also think that even he has the good sense to escape."
She leaned closer, daring him to contradict her. "And what is he escaping from? The fine food? The gardens attached to a palace to live in? The library, the dancing at parties, the greenhouse, the jewels, the portraits?"
He shot a list back at her, angrier than she'd seen him in the rest of her time on his world. "The position, the restrictions, the history, the secrets, the looks, the hostile alien world, the risks, the petty nonsense, the politics, the-!"
"You." She spat the interruption with all the venom she had.
His torrent of reasons stopped and he froze like something dead, stuffed, and mounted for display in a polished white room.
"You think he should be running from you, Mollari." She leaned back, satisfied that her venomous barb had struck as intended. "I do not know what he has been doing here with you, but I know what I have observed, and I'm not sure which of you is the larger fool for doing it. You do not need to tell me anything further about this thing that is happening, but when my time here ends, it will be because he has come back and then you will see which of us has trusted him better."
She rose to her feet, grabbed a last piece of food from the tray, and stepped into the doorway.
"Get well, Mollari."
Chapter Text
“Are you sure this is wise? Going out like this with just one guard?”
Mollari glanced away from the window he'd been nearly glued to since they'd boarded the train. He'd removed much of his Emperor's white for this trip and opted instead for something that passed for less ostentatious on this world, hoping to go at least partly unrecognized in public. “Miss Na'Toth, are you genuinely concerned for me at last? You are a bit late for that.”
Na'Toth crossed her arms and turned away from him to look out the window herself. The buildings and trees in the royal city flashed by, offering nothing of much worth to watch. “I only thought it risky. We could have sent the public relations team out to do this.”
“Has G'Kar lied to me about your abilities? Have I been unsafe all this time?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Then I think I am willing to risk simply being outside for an hour or two.”
She looked back at him. “An hour or two? It cannot take that long to retrieve someone from a transport station.”
“You sometimes find,” Mollari said to the window more than to Na'Toth, “that for any number of reasons, there is no one there to pick up when you arrive for them.”
“Delays, you mean," she replied firmly.
Earlier that week, Mollari had been given word via an automated message that, after over three months away, G'Kar was returning to Centauri Prime. His transport was scheduled to arrive this afternoon. It was not a personal message, only a courtesy notification from the transport company, as though Mollari were simply receiving a package. It seemed off, even Na'Toth could admit that. No message from G'Kar to ensure the arrival could be discrete, no message teasing that it definitely would not be. But Na'Toth was still certain he would be there. The passenger information passed on to them surely could not have been provided without G'Kar's consent.
It would be good to see G'Kar, and Na’Toth looked forward to finally leaving Centauri Prime. Though she had been perfectly able to control her reactions while in the palace, she had still been held there once, only a few years ago. It wasn't a place she would spend time in at any other's request but G'Kar's and he had the place comfortably handled judging by… everything. She'd seen the holes G’Kar had left in his absence from the palace and she was eager to see him in person instead of smirking down from a gilded frame in the Beloved Hall. She would pay her respects and then the moment she got the chance, Na'Toth would be quite forthright in sharing her thoughts on the ridiculous situation he'd dropped her into three months ago by not mentioning the degree to which he had tied himself up in Mollari.
Mollari, however, radiated so much anxiety about the impending arrival that Na'Toth thought the slight pain in her stomach might not actually be the first signs of transport sickness. It would not be the first time it had happened over this issue. Na'Toth and Mollari had almost fought about whether G'Kar would return at all. The hope that he would and the doubt that he should churned in Mollari enough to make Na'Toth feel sick from simply witnessing it.
What were G'Kar's feelings like if even Mollari's made Na'Toth feel sympathetically queasy?
Mollari had been distracted most of the trip. The shadows from the passing scenery flickered across his face as he gazed through the window and the anxiety gathered in the darkest corners of his face. They had spoken about this, about this lack of trust in a man an entire world reveres, and yet the possibility G'Kar would not be there that day still clearly gnawed at him.
In the time since she accused him of lacking trust, however, she'd uncovered another small vein of pity. She quashed it best as she was able, even if her insistances that G'Kar was coming also served as reassurance. They were not on bad terms, but she would never have the patience for Mollari that G'Kar did.
“Delays, Mollari,” she repeated firmly, looking for some kind of reaction to break his trance.
“Yes.” He pressed his lips together and slowly reclined further into his seat. “Delays.”
He said very little for the remainder of the trip.
The crowd outside the transport gates was, predictably, primarily Centauri, with bald heads and beads and fans of hair bobbing about through most of the shuffle around her and Mollari. There were, however, a few Minbari, and even a Human or two. Conspicuously absent were any Narn but Na'Toth.
Mollari said nothing while he and Na'Toth stood near the back wall, but he looked like he'd swallowed something unpleasant. She had instructed him to stand here so he could be more easily defended if recognized but the wall may have served the extra function of keeping him upright. Whether pity or frustration led her, Na'Toth did not know, but she tried to reassure him still.
“It is early yet,” she said. "I doubt if it will even be on time. You know these things are always late."
He tried to smile, but looked considerably bitter about it. “Of course.”
"When he arrives," she put considerable stress on the first word, "we mustn't make too much of a fuss. It is going to be noticeable enough having another Narn here, we don't need a dramatic reunion making it more so."
"I know what I can do in public, thank you."
She exhaled, trying not to become too frustrated. "What exactly do you think will happen if he is not here?"
"Nothing," he said. "In the wider scheme of things, absolutely nothing."
Na'Toth narrowed her eyes, studying him.
He continued, "But for me, it will uproot everything." He looked over the crowd as though each person carried one of the possible outcomes of today. "Perhaps he is coming back to collect his things and never be seen again. Perhaps he will be here in the form of ash in a box, and I was listed as his last address."
"That's ridiculous." She had not realized the anxiety about this went as far as Mollari thinking he could be getting G'Kar's remains rather than the man himself.
Mollari shrugged and tried to joke. "Or maybe he won't be here at all and I will die a slow death from humiliation at the hands of the media."
"There are no media here."
"They are everywhere. They knew G'Kar had been given a gift the day I presented it to him in the palace. They will know."
"And if he is on the transport? If he walks out, loud and annoying and with no idea you thought so little of him?"
Mollari winced. "It isn't that I think little of him at all. I think too much of him, if anything."
"Act like it, then," Na'Toth answered. "Or he will begin to think you can only express the sentiment in material things."
He exhaled, briefly placed a hand against whichever heart she had hit, and said nothing else.
Fifteen minutes after what was definitely, absolutely going to be G'Kar's transport was due, the signs nearby indicated that it had arrived and the gate finally began filling with people emptying from the transport. For several minutes after that it was entirely possible to miss even a Narn in the crowd. With the persistent announcements in multiple languages, the flashing signs, and people ducking and darting in opposing directions, Na'Toth was only certain people were exiting the transport because the signage said so. Bags and carts and crying children and cargo only increased the chaos.
If someone wanted to arrive in a place but be totally concealed or lost in it, this crowd was the best way to do it. Mollari evidently thought so too, as she caught him frowning at scene in front of them.
"Flights and transports are never on time. He said he would be back and so he will be back," Na'Toth said with the conviction of a stone pillar. "Soon he will be here and I will be proven right."
She scanned the faces, the gaits, the postures, the clothing of the crowd, but could not be sure she saw everyone.
When the crowd emptying into the lobby began to thin, Mollari took a very long stabilizing breath.
“It is still emptying," Na'Toth said before Mollari could say anything to make her worry too. "You know what the luggage storage is like. We have not seen everyone.” And still she did not know her pity from her frustration.
"I know," he said. "I know. This whole thing is ridiculous." He clearly wanted very badly to be dismissive.
With every group of stragglers from the transport, Mollari's twisted anxiety became more visible. He obviously wanted G'Kar back with him — just being in the palace for a few hours months ago had shown Na’Toth enough to know that — but he was so convinced there was a chance that would not happen that his nerves were contagious. If G'Kar did not arrive, Na'Toth would be down a point of pride, not to mention several points of respect for G'Kar, and may also be stuck replacing him long term. She had become begrudgingly fond of Mollari and believed now that he may be what his awful world needed, but she couldn't leash her life to him as G'Kar had. She certainly could not replace G'Kar in the role that had landed him in the portrait hall.
Minutes counted by and the number of travelers near the arrival gate trickled to nearly nothing. Just as Na'Toth was going to offer to make an inquiry at the information desk, the problem mercifully fixed itself.
G'Kar was heard before he was seen.
“...and the Captain there for meee~”
Mollari reacted to the ridiculous singing as though struck by lightning – his posture snapped him taller, his eyes widened, and he inhaled sharply.
As the gate area stood nearly empty, G'Kar's voice continued loudly over the metal and tile in the terminal, "Charming, isn't it? I've been singing it for days!”
He ducked through the arrival gate, slightly too small for him at its rounded edge, and was now properly visible walking very leisurely next to a very small female Minbari. He carried a bulky bag on a strap over one shoulder and though some of his clothing appeared in need of mending or cleaning, he still wore an obviously valuable Centauri pin near one shoulder. Na'Toth recognized it now even at a distance as the same one she'd seen on the shoulders of painted beloveds nearly every day for three months.
The Minbari woman laughed at his song and asked him a question. She was not clearly audible, but the same could rarely be said for G'Kar.
“I learned it at a rest stop on a moon just a few worlds from here," he said. "Unfortunately, I'm afraid the man who taught it to me was too drunk to know where he had learned it, so I can't tell you where it is really from. Come to think of it, I'm not even certain he knew the song too well at that point. I may be singing you an apocryphal version.”
They laughed. The Minbari's laugh was sweet and restrained but G'Kar's laugh in particular carried through the terminal as they drew closer to where Na'Toth waited.
He looked up from his companion just then and stopped walking abruptly when he saw Na'Toth. She nodded to him, smiling. Just off to her side, Mollari still looked frozen to the spot.
“I'm sorry,” G'Kar said to the Minbari, offering her a bit of a bow. “The one I was telling you about is here to collect me, so I must be going. I do hope you enjoy the rest of your trip.”
"Oh, yes, of course. Thank you. It was a pleasure.” She bowed back to him and then nodded toward Na'Toth. “Is that her there?"
"No, he's the slightly ill-looking one next to her."
"Oh!” She startled. “He's Centauri! I wouldn't have thought --” Here she paused and leaned toward them, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. Then she turned and whispered something to G'Kar which Na'Toth could not hear but suspected very much had to do with recognizing Mollari outside of his official wardrobe.
G'Kar held a hand up to stop her. "Ah, just a minor detail. Let's let it be our secret."
She bit her lip, apparently trying hard not to smile too hard and said something further before they parted.
G'Kar mimicked her gentle triangular parting gesture and then cheerily waved goodbye as she set off in another direction. He then turned the wave on Na'Toth and Mollari, who finally seemed to come unstuck from his spot against the wall and took several steps forward.
She did not know who to blame when the two fools ended up in a hug, it was too sudden. Experience leaned toward G'Kar, who could be counted on for sudden silly and dramatic gestures, but the anxiety spring finally snapping in Mollari could not be ruled out. Either way, there was a loud, bulky Narn hugging a Centauri man people were bound to recognize if they looked at him too long in a public transport terminal and it was still Na'Toth's job to ensure the safety of both of them.
"If I may-" Na'Toth began, but they did not hear her.
“Great Maker, I have missed you.”
"I missed you, too."
Mollari laughed, seemingly at nothing, but likely in relief from his own absurd worry that G'Kar would not return. He leaned back enough to look G'Kar in the face but not enough to let go of him. They had hold of each other's arms and Na'Toth still needed to shuffle them along before a crowd formed.
"You bastard, where have you been?" Mollari said through his laughter, shaking G'Kar's arm.
"Did you not read the itinerary I left with you?"
This made them both cackle for reasons lost on Na'Toth. Some kind of inside joke?
She had seen Mollari enjoying himself while at any of the palace's endless parties, and she'd certainly seen him laugh (she'd even caused it and joined in it more often than she'd ever have expected), but any joy she saw in him while she had worked with him in the palace was not like this. With the anxieties and fears he'd had lifted, Mollari practically glowed. His sharp teeth were quite visible when he laughed this openly and with him back in colored clothing this seemed more like the man she was expecting when she arrived in the first place.
G'Kar laughed with just as much enthusiasm. Even after his portrait, the library, the greenhouse, all the food, everything, this – this obvious joy at reunion from both of them – was the most surreal thing she'd seen in the last few months.
"Mollari," Na'Toth said, again unheard.
"You have completely ruined me," Mollari said to G'Kar. "I hate you."
Na'Toth had never heard the words said with so much fondness imbued in them.
Mollari had been so intentional these last three months about never defining this exact relationship with G'Kar. He had very purposefully given hints, and had smiled when Na'Toth recognized them, almost congratulating her, but all questions he'd answered vaguely, nothing was stated outright, nothing confirmed, everything plausibly something else. "I hate you," however, said with more love than most songs on the topic she had ever heard, betrayed him beyond what anything in the palace could have.
She stepped forward and tapped Mollari on the shoulder. “Ahem.”
Mollari startled. G'Kar, seemingly reflexively, pulled slightly on Mollari's arm, ready to shove him back and away until he recognized the 'threat' was the woman he had placed here in his stead.
His eyes widened and he grinned. “Oh, Na'Toth!”
“Yes, I am still here. You'll pardon the interruption, but I believe you are moments away from making something of a scene.”
“I don't care,” Mollari said petulantly. “Let them fuss.”
G'Kar, however, somehow the one with sense, eased Mollari away from himself, his hands on Mollari's arm. “She's right. We should go.”
Mollari stepped back, but with a clear disapproval. “Do you both hate joy? Is that it?”
G'Kar grinned, and nearly laughed, but spoke very sweetly. “I would not have come back if I did.”
"Of course," Na'Toth said as she tilted her head toward Mollari in a pointed nod. She had been right, and now he would have to untangle the mess inside him just as she had said.
For a second or two, Mollari paused, and then backed away from G'Kar with a dramatic dismissive flail of his arms. “Feh! Come on then, let's get going.”
“It's good to see both of you,” G'Kar said reassuringly. “Both of you alive, and -” He grabbed Mollari's elbow and shook his arm a bit. “And in one piece!”
Mollari snatched his arm away. “We got along just fine, thank you!” He'd clearly meant to be snippy, but every word he said and every movement he made was laced with his obvious joy over G'Kar's return that his outburst came out as nothing but a fond scolding.
Surreal.
Obvious.
G'Kar smiled, looking quite a lot like his portrait.
“Of course. I had no doubts," he said, with a tone that betrayed several.
Mollari followed Na'Toth through the final security gate to the palace's transport train, but continued talking to G'Kar. “If I can put up with you, I can handle anyone. You forget what I am capable of after doing this job for so long. ”
“On the contrary, I think I know precisely what you are capable of.”
When Na'Toth looked back, Mollari was making a face with G'Kar snickering at him. The familiarity and fond fighting between them made so much of her stay in the palace make sense. She sighed and continued leading them to the palace's transport, imagining a long ride ahead of them.
They were settled into the royal cabin by several official-looking attendants. Each addressed G'Kar as 'sir' as easily as they referred to Mollari as 'majesty'. G'Kar thanked them cheerily as they departed and closed the doors behind them, as though they were children who needed extra praise.
"Stop that!" Mollari said.
"I haven't been called 'sir' in months, I thought it nice that they remembered."
"You don't even like titles." Mollari laughs. "Besides, no one who works for me could forget you even if they wanted to. "
"I do seem to stick out here. Can't imagine why. It must be my innate charm."
"Something like that."
On the way to the transport station, Na'Toth had sat across from Mollari on the train, and she did so again, but now she had G'Kar sitting next to him to observe. Even with the bulk of G'Kar's clothing designed to prevent it, Mollari kept their shoulders close and G'Kar facilitated and apparently encouraged it. It was admittedly a subtle thing, and could be 'explained away' by the size of the seating, but Na'Toth knew better. Seeing them together for only fifteen minutes explained why Mollari had tripped over Na'Toth so often during their first week together – he had evidently been used to being only a breath away from someone who could fully anticipate his movements at all times. G'Kar was so obviously comfortable, used to this.
“How much longer will you be here?”
She was almost surprised G'Kar was speaking to her.
“I have a transport back home in two days," she said.
Mollari poked G'Kar's arm. “Na'Toth and I were hoping you'd be agreeable to dinner and attending the Equal Night Party before she leaves.”
G'Kar's eyes widened and then he laughed deep in his chest, his whole body moving with the force of it. “Na'Toth, have you done your job so well that I'm being invited to events in my own home?”
Mollari's breath caught as he and Na'Toth realized the same thing at the same moment. They shared a brief moment of eye contact.
She'd planned to ask G'Kar about everything. She'd planned to inquire about how he'd felt receiving a library and what the portrait meant to him. She was prepared to address the jewel he wore on his shoulder, the greenhouse, the food, the sleeping arrangements, the doctors, the everything.
And with one casual word, she no longer needed to.
G'Kar, the Narn's new most beloved religious figure and champion for his own people, had just called the palace of the Centauri Emperor on Centauri Prime his'home.'
Mollari recovered quickly. "You are still technically on vacation until Miss Na'Toth leaves. You could go anywhere you like.”
“Anywhere I like?! Just imagine –“ G'Kar spread his hands above him, face full of mock-wonder. “A Narn, alone, with no chaperone – and no one to chaperone! – in the royal capital of the Centauri Republic. Just think of the possibilities.”
“What potential for joy,” Na'Toth joined in. “Honestly, sir, I could not blame you for skipping dinner and the party entirely. Wandering alone among hundreds of Centauri who are unbridled by social niceties and politeness... Oh, were I only in your enviable position!”
"Maybe someone will charge me too much for consumer goods!" G'Kar suggested.
"Or tell you you are very brave for being here."
"Or ask to touch my head!"
"Oh, are you getting asked?"
They burst into laughter while Mollari wore an exaggerated frown beside them.
“Are you two finished?” he grumbled.
“Not quite,” G'Kar said, fondly leaning into his shoulder. “But I can save the rest of it for dinner.”
Mollari pulled back his upper lip in a crooked mocking smile, exposing one of his sharp teeth, and disgustedly mouthed “Not quite” in response. G'Kar shoved him with his shoulder and Mollari dropped the act and smiled at him.
"You are coming then?"
"Of course - there will be free food."
"All your food is free."
It was a strange little show, and would have disturbed her a few months ago. She had seen so many manifestations of Mollari’s deep and sincere fondness for G’Kar (was it fair to call it only that now?), and his anxiety that he would be deservedly abandoned that Na'Toth was prepared for his half of this foolishness, but this obvious mutual joy at each other's company was slightly unexpected. Some part of her had evidently thought G'Kar was letting this happen to him but was not fully in.
Na'Toth kicked G'Kar's knee gently to get his attention. “Nice to be back?”
“Immensely.”
“Don't listen to him,” Mollari said. “He'll tire of me now that he's had a taste of the stars.”
They were already shoulder to shoulder, and yet that was apparently not enough. G'Kar made a show of elbowing Mollari, and then linked their elbows.
“I think I can adjust.”
Mollari 'harumph'ed, but let G’Kar keep his arm locked against him for the remainder of the ride back to the palace.
With G'Kar back, Na'Toth no longer knew where she should stand, how much she should follow along, or if she was even still technically in Mollari's employ. When Mollari returned to his room to replace his outfit with something more befitting the Emperor, Na'Toth was immediately lost. It felt intrusive to be there now that G'Kar was also present. He'd said 'home', after all. He was leaving his luggage in the side quarters Na'Toth had been using. Once they had cleared the room of containing assailants, listening devices, or sudden hidden knives, following G'Kar's lead seemed an awkward option. The relationship here was obvious, and if it were her finally reunited with someone important...
“Shall I... wait outside?”
“I'll wait with you,” G'Kar offered cheerily.
It was unexpected – she'd imagined Mollari and G'Kar would want a moment locked in a room together – but there was no obvious pouting or complaining from Mollari, who seemed to think nothing of it.
G'Kar closed the door behind them and stood tall next to it in silence for a few moments before he turned his head toward Na'Toth and smiled.
“Was he any trouble?”
“Yes.” The reply came automatically, and G'Kar laughed.
“Manageable trouble, then?”
“We have... coped,” she said slowly. G'Kar nodded and looked quite satisfied. This would be a good time to poke him with this barb, then. She leaned toward him, grinning and teasing, but letting some of the frustration from her months in the palace leak into her words. “I only wish I hadn't been lacking so much information.”
He understood her immediately.
“Oh, I am sorry, Na'Toth. Time was unexpectedly short when I left and, upon consideration, I thought some things better heard from him.”
“Please explain to me which part of Mollari implying that you two are having some kind of affair was better than you directly saying so.”
He smiled, but it was small and something heavy lingered behind it. “I know it must not make much sense to you, and it is possible I misjudged. Still, there are some... complications with the situation. Much of my life here must be plausibly deniable.”
“Because you are Narn.”
“Because he is the Emperor.”
“Hiding in plain sight among people who hate you, day in and out playing Mollari's employee, and yet you told us you were happy to return?”
“Oh, I am. Very much.” He turned his gaze from the wall across the hall to Na'Toth. “Or did you think I lied to him when I said I missed him?”
“I don't know what to think of you most of the time. Or him, anymore.”
“Good.”
The G'Kar she'd met on her first day on Babylon 5 so many years ago had found it difficult even to be in the same sector with Mollari, and this one never left Mollari's side to the extent that it seemed a strain for them not to be in physical contact with each other.
"So what happened, then?," she asked.
"Happened?"
"That you didn't communicate with anyone while you were gone."
He tilted his head. "What do you mean?"
"Mollari said you did not contact him, either," Na'Toth said.
G'Kar looked puzzled. "I sent you both messages."
Na'Toth shook her head. "We received nothing."
"Nothing? Something must have happened to them in transit, I sent you both a message every two weeks or so!"
The door opened then and Mollari leaned out, pullling his arms into another long ivory coat. "Did you?"
Na'Toth frowned. "Were you listening at the door?"
"No, his voice just carries," he said, flapping his hand at G'Kar.
G'Kar stood with his hands clasped over his abdomen. "I am sorry. I didn't know you hadn't received them." He glanced at Mollari. "No wonder you looked so ill when you saw me."
The joke that should have gone there was something like, 'Who wouldn't be sick, knowing he was waiting for you?' but Mollari only swallowed and tried to nod his way through the feeling.
"I was a little concerned," he said.
Na'Toth kept 'He was so concerned even I almost threw up from his anxiety' to herself. For Mollari's sake? She had been in this place too long.
"I'm so sorry," G'Kar said again. "I wouldn't have wanted either of you thinking I wasn't returning. I don't know what happened, I — "
"It's nothing," Mollari said, waving his hand dismissively. "Don't worry about it now. We are both just glad you are back, eh?" He looked at Na'Toth and she found herself regretting that she did not know him well enough to know if there was something he meant to convey in the glance. A regrettable feeling by itself.
"Of course," she replied. "It means I get to leave."
"There, you see?" Mollari said. "She's just like she was when you left her here, no lasting damage from thinking you weren't coming back."
"We'll see," G'Kar said dubiously. He did not look completely convinced - and if Na'Toth could tell, Mollari would be able to too. "Still, I hope you'll both forgive me."
"Of course," Mollari said. "It's nothing."
Na'Toth was not sure how much G'Kar needed to know that it had very much not been nothing until about an hour ago.
Notes:
I ended up splitting the last part in pieces, so there will be at least one more of this.
Chapter 9: Light
Chapter Text
The party Na'Toth had stayed for was an old festival for some kind of equinox or another. Something to do with lights. What it was specifically didn't concern her. The celebration was old, traditional, and had nothing at all to do with Na'Toth and her people. It would be an easy event to endure. She might even not hate it.
"I'm glad you decided to stay for this," Mollari told her when G'Kar said he needed to step out. "This is is his favorite holiday here. I think he will enjoy it even more with you here."
"It was not long ago I would have struggled to conceive of G'Kar having a favorite Centauri holiday."
"Well, in reality, G'Kar does not care what the party is about. If someone who doesn't like Narn has to bow in his general direction because he comes in with me, and he gets to single-handedly clean out a third of the buffet, he is happy.”
She watched him look over a few more memos, requests, and notices before she spoke again.
"Did you talk to G'Kar about the messages?"
"What about them?" He did not sound convincing.
"That you were worried."
His smile was so soft and fond and still strange against her old memory of him. "You don't need to worry about me."
"Actually, until G'Kar dismisses me, it is my job to do that."
"Miss Na'Toth, I should be very lucky to have you and your dedication here if I am ever lacking G'Kar again."
At mention of his name again, G'Kar's voice broke in. “Am I interrupting you two bonding? I can come back later.”
He stood in the doorway with a small pile of bread and baked goods loosely wrapped in a bundle he had tucked into his elbow. He held some kind of jelly-filled confection in the opposite hand.
Mollari immediately tossed his hands up in frustration. “G'Kar, that is the third time! Save some for the guests!”
“I'm hungry now, and I will need fortitude to deal with them later. This is insurance.” He took a comically large bite of the jelly-filled snack.
Mollari shook his head and set his papers and pen aside. “Come in, you aren't interrupting.” He looked back to Na'Toth and lowered his voice slightly. "It is much cheaper to feed you."
"It takes fortitude to endure a Centauri party," G'Kar said before taking another large bite and talking through it. "Thish ish prefarashion."
Na'Toth wrinkled her nose. “No wonder Mollari's people continue to dislike ours. With you as the only example, even I'd second guess us.”
G'Kar swallowed. “I'll have you know the highest authority on this world thinks I'm delightful.”
“And yet even I want you to chew properly,” Mollari said.
Clearly enjoying himself, G'Kar turned toward Na'Toth. “I think he's become too serious since becoming the Emperor, what do you think?”
She smiled back at him. "Sir, if you chewing your food properly has become one of his main concerns, I could accuse him of not being serious enough."
"Mmm, you could be right. We could depose him, I think," G'Kar said. "We are both much stronger than he is."
"This seems a well-reasoned and logical approach," she replied. "I can't see how it would fail. I'll follow your lead."
"Excuse me," Mollari interrupted. "How did I end up as the villain in a scenario where he is the one chewing pastries like some kind of farm animal?"
"Mollari!" G'Kar widened his eyes and then put on a voice of mock-offense. "I can't believe you would use that word to refer to us. And with poor Na'Toth here!"
"She agreed with me!"
This was fun. Pretending to be deeply culturally offended by Mollari with G'Kar, while knowing full well no one was actually upset, was fun. She was having fun and it was unsettling. No wonder Mollari had said they had fun together while they work. Perhaps it was not the worst thing they could be doing.
They extended the joke until Mollari washed his hands of it, told G'Kar to chew however he felt befitting his ancestors, and G'Kar to took a celebratory bite of something that nearly spilled out onto him.
"Lovely to see you really did get along here while I was gone," G'Kar said, steering the filling back into its pastry.
"I think we did," Mollari said. "She even-Oh!" He sat up straighter, suddenly struck with some idea. "Miss Na'Toth, would you be willing to show G'Kar what you learned for your first big event here?"
"Ah, I suppose."
"Ha!" G'Kar burst out, delighted. "What did you teach her, Mollari?"
"You'll see."
"Oh, I hope it made Lady Torgia squirm," G'Kar said dreamily.
Mollari grinned. "She hated it."
Na'Toth recalled a woman pretending to be ill when she had obliged Mollari and participated in the dance he had taught her. "Was she the one with the …" Na'Toth held her hands up and motioned from the back of her head to the floor, "the rope?"
"That's the one," G'Kar chuckled. "I always feel like I've done my part for the night if I can tell I've ruined hers."
"It's a 'braid'," Mollari added. "She's been growing it since she was a child, has never cut it, and makes sure we all know about it. She will certainly be there tomorrow night. Won't she be delighted to see two of you."
They spent the rest of the evening telling Na'Toth stories of this woman's dramatics and how funny it was every time she complained. G'Kar shared his armful of treats and he and Mollari attempted to finish each other's stories of the woman who had said the guests shouldn't be 'forced' to eat food from the same table as a Narn. Despite the topic of conversation, Na'Toth could almost forget Mollari was Centauri for a moment. She counted it among her most comfortable moments in the palace, which made it all the more startling when she remembered what her options were for sleep that night.
Na'Toth had been using the quarters for an attendant, servant, or guard built into the suite for the Emperor, which, while somewhat obviously not where he slept, was where G'Kar stored many of his things. With him back, Na'Toth considered being in that smaller room while knowing G'Kar and Mollari were both in the main one and her bones wanted to crawl from her flesh, no matter how much she liked either of them that evening. G'Kar seemed to have anticipated her having reservations about the arrangement and, when Mollari left them to change for the night, G'Kar shrugged out of his coat and spoke to her from an overly decorated chair in Mollari's room.
"You're welcome to stay as you have been," he said.
"I thought it might be uncomfortable for you two having me so nearby."
G'Kar shrugged. "It doesn't bother me."
"You haven't seen him in a few months. I am happy to stay in another room." She stressed her words as much as she could without sounding desperate.
"I wouldn't want to uproot you."
"There are no roots involved. I have traveled light and will only have to move what I need for my last nights here."
He lowered his head, smiling in concession to the argument he was never really having. "As you wish. Let me make a call."
Na'Toth watched him pull a data pad out of a drawer or a pillow or something behind him and, a few swipes later, a young Centauri man appeared on the screen.
"What can I do for you, Your Maje-"
"It's just me."
"Oh, G'Kar! Welcome back! Need a snack?"
"Not tonight, but I do love the way you think. I'm actually looking for an open room for my friend Na'Toth. Can you find something suitable for her?"
Whoever this young man was, he did not ask nosy questions and did not miss a beat. "The Empress's Suite is always empty, sir. Lady Na'Toth could stay there with Emperor Mollari's permission."
G'Kar waved his hand dismissively. "None needed, he'll approve it."
"Are you sure, sir?"
"Blame any trouble it causes on me, if you like."
"Will do, sir. Housekeeping can come to collect Lady Na'Toth in ten minutes. Will that be acceptable?"
G'Kar glanced at her for approval.
"That's… fine," she said.
"That will be perfect, Daro, thank you."
He ended the call and tossed the little tablet aside.
"You call him often?" Na'Toth asked, smirking.
"He is an important ally; works night shifts between kitchen and cleaning duties. He will bring snacks right to the door, at any time of night."
"Night shift explains why I haven't met him. I have met the cook who likes you so much, though."
"Which one? I've worked very hard to be in good favor with all of them."
"I also met your doctor," Na'Toth continued.
"Not because you needed to, I hope."
"No. I happened to encounter her in the hall where she advised me to see your greenhouse."
G'Kar laughed. "Is this about to be an interrogation? I can call Daro and have him drag you out of here faster."
"I found the library very tasteful," she went on, undeterred. "Though I'm still unsure about the portrait."
"I thought the artist really captured my good side," he said. "Mollari wouldn't let me hold my eye for it, though."
"He is still Centauri," Na'Toth said. "You can't pluck tradition out of them so easily as they can an eye. They'll even give their ancient antiques to a Narn if he fits the criteria."
"He told me it would protect me socially in exchange for me protecting him physically," G'Kar said, elbow on the arm of the chair and chin in his hand. "He was right."
"Before or after he told you it meant you were 'beloved'?"
"Before." He snorted a small laugh. "I'm surprised he told you that."
"He told me many things," she said.
"Oh?"
She stood, purposefully not answering his hint for more. "I should get my things together for the night. Your night shift friend will be coming to deliver me elsewhere soon. When should I be here in the morning?"
"We'll come get you."
She was very happy there were things Mollari did not tell her.
She did not ask questions about the Empress' Suite being always unoccupied. Mollari had said he had a wife — and it was safe to assume most Centauri men had at least one — but she did not pry about it. If G'Kar wanted to be tangled up in silly domestic drama with some woman Na'Toth had never met, it was not her business. In the process of checking the room over for safety, she found a few garments and trinkets, but nothing that suggested anyone had ever sincerely occupied the space or called it home in a long time. Unlike Mollari's suite, which was very lived in, even with daily inspection and cleaning, this room seemed more ornamental. Perhaps the woman who was supposed to inhabit it didn't like feeling the same way.
She hadn't considered that the accommodation would not be suited to a Narn when she made her tactful insistence that she leave the two fools to whatever they got up to alone. The Centauri bed was uncomfortable and excessive. She considered how long G'Kar must have endured one in order to be considered for a portrait and willed herself to sleep.
In the morning, Na'Toth awoke with no one check on, no task for which she was needed. She gazed out the windows on the world that was rebuilding itself inside and out. Seeing their Emperor so clearly value his relationship with a very important Narn would surely affect some of them enough to make the future safer. She even now trusted Mollari to make a good choice about who should follow him on the throne. Trusting Mollari to do anything at all had not been something she thought possible when she arrived.
She spent an easy morning looking around the room and even ordered herself some tea. Just when she was beginning to think that she'd been forgotten in the midst of other things, the door chimed to announce a visitor.
"Why doesn't it work for me?" G'Kar's voice asked beyond the door.
The reply had the quality of Mollari's voice, but Na'Toth could hear only the sound and not the words. G'Kar's voice really did carry through the closed doors. She could apologize to Mollari for assuming eavesdropping earlier, but she wouldn't.
"Enter," she called out, and watched them emerge through the room's many curtains. Mollari in white and gold looked born from them, but even with a few Centauri sparkles, G'Kar loomed like volcanic rock over marble.
"Good morning," G'Kar sung at her. "We've come to see if you want breakfast."
"He's come to ask that. I'm here because it's polite to check in on how you slept."
"I don't know what use I have for polite at this hour," Na'Toth observed, "but I would enjoy breakfast."
"Ha," G'Kar said, grabbing Mollari's shoulders and steering him around to leave the room.
"I'm going, I'm going!"
Na'Toth followed with oddly high hopes for the day.
During breakfast, Mollari tried to explain more about the holiday while G'Kar translated things to the nearest equivalent celebration traditions among the Narn. They told her to expect people to fill the palace and for things to be bustling in the streets everywhere. There would be lights until late hours and parties everywhere on the planet, not just the palace. People invited to the palace for the evening would start arriving that afternoon and many would spend the night.
Occasionally, explanations stopped for commentary on food.
"Oh!" G'Kar exclaimed when looking at Mollari's plate. "I haven't had one of these in months."
He reached over and took the little ball of something breaded with no hesitation. Mollari did not even blink.
"I used to try to stab him with the fork when he did that," Mollari said, making absolutely no moves to do so.
"And why don't you?" Na'Toth asked. "I think I still would."
G'Kar swallowed whatever he had stolen. "He likes me."
"Not worth constantly replacing the forks," Mollari said dryly.
"You two are very strange," Na'Toth said suddenly. She hadn't intended it to come out, but she wasn't eager to take it back.
"Thank you," G'Kar said. "I've been working on it a long time."
"Oh, is it work for you?" Mollari asked. "I'm surprised. You make it look very easy."
G'Kar threw a small vegetable at him.
They were stationed at the head of the room as always. The room glowed in the gold and lights that had been placed on every surface that would hold them. The atmosphere was as warm as she felt Centauri Prime capable of being. Large windows sparkled, there was a breeze from the balcony, and everyone wore something that glowed. Flowers, jewels, tiny lights sewn into clothes, and all manner of things that shone were on display.
Na'Toth had been given a stone pendant to wear for the event that emitted a soft green glow. The gold of the chain caught the lights around her and thus she met the dress code.
She stood with G'Kar behind Mollari, who was welcoming every visiting Someone who had responded to an invite. People working for him, small community leaders, widows with too much money; they all poured into the great hall in an endless stream. Some greeting G'Kar warmly, all things considered, and even nodded politely at Na'Toth, but just as many would not look at them at all. They were there serving as guards and so were not part of the introductions, but G'Kar's jewelry gave him a social boost that Na'Toth did not possess.
After the river of guests in line to formally see him trickled to a stop, Mollari was free to welcome the room fully, wish them whatever ritual greeting accompanied this holiday, and encourage the mass of fabric and glowing jewels to enjoy themselves.
He returned to his seat and looked to G'Kar. "She's a bit late, don't you think?"
"I'm sure just convincing herself to come."
"Who?" Na'Toth asked.
"My wife," Mollari laughed.
"She comes to these?" Na'Toth had woken in a room unused and ignored and thought the woman who was meant to use it would be much the same.
"Every so often, when it matters. To maintain certain images."
"I see," she said, though it seemed futile to bother with any kind of image with G'Kar there. Instead of bothering with it, Na'Toth scanned the room for any loners, odd movements next to walls, hand gestures that seemed a little too big, nervous manners, excessive focus on Mollari or anything else that could signal an assassination in progress, but found mostly dresses covered with lace and glowing flowers, coats trimmed in gold, and people who wanted to be near the bowl containing a bright green drink at all times.
She watched the people weave through dances in unison, their shining accessories glinting back and forth. When she glanced back and Mollari and G'Kar, though, there was no movement. They watched just like she did. Clearly, she was missing something.
"You say this is your favorite?" Na'Toth asked.
"Alright, alright," Mollari said, getting to his feet, as though someone saying something was all he needed. "I suppose waiting for her won't make any difference." He clapped his hands together in front of him. "Would you like to see some people squirm a bit?" he asked Na'Toth.
"It would be rare that I do not," Na'Toth said.
The moment she'd answered, Mollari was down from the platform the thrones sat upon, followed closely by G'Kar, who had been given some subtly lavish items to add to his outfit on top of his usual jewel from the portrait. He was still very much Narn, and stuck out in his manner of dress as much as Na'Toth, but a few details of his clothing contained Centauri fabrics and gold. Parts of him now caught the light in the room as much as any other attendee.
G'Kar waved to a few women who seemed genuinely happy to see him and even knew his name. Mollari laughed at the attention they gave him, and seemingly even more when the waving looked more like flirting. She supposed it would have been too much for Mollari to be possessive of G'Kar, but it was still a strange thing to witness him encouraging the women's attention on someone he'd visibly missed for months.
The music flowed into a new song and a small cheer went up from the crowd. G'Kar nodded to the small group of women, but it was their Emperor he went to for the dance everyone around them was falling into. Only a few seconds in and it was apparent that Mollari and G'Kar knew the dance for this song, and they knew it well. It contained movements requiring meeting your partner's hands at precise moments that others around them did not execute so well. Even Na'Toth, ignorant of the dance on far more levels than anyone else in the room, could see it was being done with some flourish by Mollari and G'Kar, both of them smugly grinning through the duration of it. G'Kar knew this dance better than some of the people it was supposed to be exclusive to.
Mollari laughed so often it seemed he should lose the rhythm of the thing, and yet never faltered. He and G'Kar knew this dance fluently. Mollari had a strong sense of the timing needed and knew every word to the song in it's archaic Centauri dialect. He nodded to G'Kar when the dance was going to shift patterns and to cue him to introduce some kind of variation on what the rest of the room was doing. G'Kar anticipated which variation every time. He'd cue Mollari with another nod when the variation ended, or when he was going to extend it, and Mollari apparently could tell the difference. It was difficult to tell who was making the choices or who was leading it, if either of them. How many times had they done this, for how long?
The people around them gave them a small bubble of space – out of respect for Mollari or fear of G'Kar likely in equal measure, but it gave them room to be exuberant and enthusiastic regardless. It should have been absurd, but there was something in them doing something so rehearsed that it no longer looked practiced that struck her, and seeing G'Kar so obviously delighted was a bit of a novelty. Not that she hadn't ever seen him happy, just that he was this happy in a room this full of Centauri. When Mollari laughed or smiled, G'Kar did the same and more. They communicated with glances, waves of Mollari's hair, quick gestures, and potentially Centauri telepathy for all Na'Toth knew.
The music slowed while she watched them, and the other dancing pairs continued on with the same steps, the same motions, just at the appropriate pace. Mollari and G'Kar, however, switched to something else entirely. Mollari let go of G'Kar, took a backwards step away from him, and offered him his hands, all still in time with the music. G'Kar had a well-rehearsed set of complementary motions to go with this, took Mollari's hands a beat after they were offered, and then they rejoined the dance at the same step as the rest of room, but now, as far as Na'Toth could tell, with G'Kar in charge of what was happening.
A few measures later, it became clear why they'd switched. The music hit a light and triumphant note and every Centauri woman in the ballroom was lifted lightly into the air, even if briefly, and their Emperor went with them. Rather than simply ignore that particular step because Mollari would never be able to pick up G'Kar, they'd choreographed passing control to G'Kar for that portion of the song to ensure he would be in the right position to pull it off.
This was what everything else she'd seen stemmed from. What was visible during this dance was why the library, the greenhouse, the food, the jewels, the everything.
Mollari had said that G'Kar loved making people uncomfortable by performing Centauri dances. He'd left out the part in which G'Kar did so by twirling the Centauri Emperor around like a doll while they both grinned like fools. She understood a little more now, though, why Mollari had asked her to show G'Kar that she'd learned a dance here too. If anything was a very literal image for others of how well Mollari could function with someone else, this was.
Na'Toth shook her head slightly, and someone else voiced her thoughts.
“Ridiculous, isn't it?”
A partly-veiled Centauri woman stood next to Na'Toth, perfectly still, her hands clasped in front of her.
“Excuse me?”
“Are you a friend of G'Kar's?”
Na’Toth regarded her, dressed head to toe in soft fluttery fabric with loose draping, and considered she could be hiding any number of weapons in the layers. How had she been permitted so close by the outside guard? “Are you?”
The woman laughed and her shoulders shook slightly. “I don't know. We talk often enough, but it's usually just about ways I can avoid having to see too much of my husband.”
Na'Toth relaxed. “You're Mollari's wife.”
“Through no fault of my own.”
“I am called Na'Toth. I was here serving as G'Kar's replacement while he was away, at his request.”
“Timov,” the woman said, nodding slightly in Na'Toth's direction. “I'm here just as much at G'Kar's request as you.”
“You know about all this?”
“Everyone knows about 'all this'. I'm only here to make it seem like it could be otherwise.”
“Plausible deniability.”
“We must keep up appearances,” she recited.
“Even when 'appearances' are you standing here with me and Mollari dancing with G'Kar?”
“'Appearances' are cheap. This is all it takes. I'm not complaining.”
“You don't mind, then.”
“Mind?” Timov laughed through her nose. “I'm grateful! G'Kar and I have come to something of an agreement.”
Na'Toth must have made a face, because Mollari's wife laughed at her.
“Whatever you're thinking, that's not it. I only mean we make it possible for each of us to have what we want. I'm spared having to live with Londo and being set dressing, and G'Kar gets away with frolicking around with him because I am willing to show up and admit association on occasion. In the meantime, Londo is kept happy and no one assassinates him. You could argue that everyone wins.”
Across the room, with the dance ended, Mollari – firm grip on G'Kar's elbows from the final stretch of the dance still intact - chatted enthusiastically with one of the women on the dance floor. She motioned between G'Kar and Mollari and Mollari burst out laughing in response.
“Are you kidding? Look at him!” was audible over the other boisterous chatter in the room. "I tried! Not a hair off the floor."
Timov shook her head and sighed. “I have to say this for Londo, if nothing else: few people are so skilled in hiding out in the open.”
Mollari's wife used his first name. It made sense, of course, but she was the first person Na'Toth had met in all the time she'd been here who called him that. She wondered if G'Kar did in private and then quickly cut off that train of thought.
A piercing sound suddenly ricocheted through the room and Na'Toth winced. The sound scraped through her skull and she struggled to keep her eyes open.
"Oh, they should know better,” Timov said. She seemed unaffected by the sound but was nonetheless sour about something.
The sound flowed – if something so awful could really be said to flow – into a song of some kind. Most of the hall erupted into cheers, applause, and stomps of approval, louder and more boisterous than the last. Mollari and G'Kar bowed away from the rest of the dancing with only a few cutesy protests from G'Kar's admiring women. They approached the steps in front of Mollari's seat and ducked between the guards to join Na'Toth and Timov.
Timov pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows when Mollari was in range to hear her. “It's comforting to see even you wouldn't be foolish enough to dance this one.”
He took her hand and made something of a show of pressing it to his lips. “I do know where the line is, my dear Timov. Besides-” He gestured to G'Kar. “There are a few bars in this one that disagree with him.”
G'Kar stood behind Mollari, pressing on the sides of his head and contorting his face as though he had water inside his ears. “Can't you ban this one, Mollari?”
Mollari gave him a sympathetic glance and lightly patted his arm. “I'm sorry. It's their favorite.” He gestured to the rest of the room. “It's old, it's symbolic, knowing it is considered a great marker of status... It's one of the most Centauri things ever conceived of. They'd tear me apart and drum the song with my bones if I ever touched it.”
“Pity,” Timov said dully.
“Would you believe,” Mollari said, addressing Na'Toth, “that this is what she is like now that she does not completely hate me?”
Timov laughed. “You would be dead if I'd ever completely hated you.”
“You see? Like a beacon of tenderness and sunshine.”
Mollari returned to his throne to sit out this dance. Timov joined him in the smaller seat beside him, and for all that she'd spent the last several minutes poking at him, they seemed to talk pleasantly. Or at least without committing homicide, which Na'Toth had been led to believe was an achievement of the species as a whole with regard to marriage.
The sound that had started the music echoed through it every so often, subtly irritating, but never as grating and painful as the first ring of it. The couples dancing were tightly linked in this dance, with the legs of both partners in some couples seeming to vanish into the women's dresses. They held their faces close, separated for only quick, sharp bursts, and came together again just as close as they'd begun. Was she seeing intimacy? Clockwork precision? Some kind of symbolic linking of couples? As unpleasant as Na'Toth and G'Kar found the instrument used in the music for this dance, the Centauri seemed to find it quite passionate.
Exactly, she guessed, why G'Kar and Mollari were not participating in this one. One round of this, and they'd simply be plain sight instead of hiding in it.
“Eager to return home?” G'Kar stood beside her, his hands clasped in front of him in much the same way Timov's had been.
“I don't know if eager is quite the right word. But I am prepared to go.”
He grinned. “Enjoying yourself here more than you'd planned?”
She stood tall and surveyed the room, detached. “I'd planned to loathe every second, so yes, technically.”
“He grows on you.”
“With all due respect, sir, I do not want him growing on me the way he's grown on you.”
“I don't think any of us want that.”
“And you are enjoying yourself here, G'Kar? Are you content here stealing food and spinning at ridiculous parties?” She hadn't planned for this to come out here, or this way. At least no one in the vicinity was likely to speak completely fluent Narn.
“No.”
She turned her head to look at him, but he continued to stare out over the swirling dancing.
“If I am ever truly content, I suspect I will no longer be living.”
“That is not what I --”
“I know what you meant, and I'm not sure I can answer you in a way that will satisfy you. I have no loyalty to this world. I do not love it the way Mollari does, nor can I. I accept being here, however, because I care deeply for what he is trying to do.”
“And for him.”
He glanced at her. “Yes.”
“You're a complete fool.”
“So is he.”
“I suppose it is alright as long as you're aware of it.”
“I think you are confusing 'foolish' with 'wrong.'”
"That is possible," she conceded. She glanced at Mollari and Timov, who were discussing something or someone Mollari was pointing out across the room. "Did you speak to him about thinking you wouldn't return?"
"Thank you for your concern," G'Kar replied.
"Did you?"
"Yes."
"He had me believing it for a minute, he was so certain that you should abandon him."
"It happens every so often. The incident here after the war left quite a mark on him. He still believes every breath he takes is taken in debt to me, that he should earn every second his hearts still beat instead of just being alive. This is the longest I've been away since I decided to stay here with him and since the messages didn't arrive... It isn't completely unexpected."
She looked at him in the glittering light of the Centauri party, pin on his shoulder sparkling with the shifting glow around them and really took in everything. That he'd been fed like a king, decorated with expensive things, his interests and passions indulged in their own rooms, his likeness immortalized in paint even at the social cost it must have been for Mollari who had been born with the importance of social standing running in his veins.
"He adores you."
"It's strange to think of it in those words."
"Clearly it has not needed to be in words in all this time."
"No."
"Will you stay here?" This wasn't concern for Mollari exactly, just something she couldn't shake. Would G'Kar spend forever here with the Centauri Emperor who had apparently been traumatized into falling in love with his Narn bodyguard?
He did not answer right away.
"I scolded him for not trusting you," Na'Toth said sharply. "Do you plan to make me wrong to have done it?"
"No, no. It is more that I plan to stay with him, not specifically here. It seems to happen that we are meant to be together whether we like it or not, so I've chosen to embrace it, wherever it is."
"You two are strange," she said, echoing her sentiment from breakfast.
"Thank you."
The music once again shifted, mercifully away from whatever tone was so irritating and into something Na'Toth thought she actually recognized.
"Miss Na'Toth!" Mollari called from his throne. "Will you?"
The dance she knew could be used for this song.
"I believe I can." She looked at G'Kar, who was restraining the size of his smile. "If you'll excuse me, I have some guests to unsettle."
He waved her on and she took to the floor with Mollari, who seemed delighted to do this again. This dance was not nearly as complicated a thing as what he'd done with G'Kar, but it was still something Na'Toth was not supposed to know. The steps came back to her quickly and Mollari compensated for anything she wasn't sure of. She caught G'Kar applauding her from the corner of her eye one moment, though the next she couldn't find him.
"Not the worst experience you've ever had, I hope?" Mollari asked over the music.
"I will recover," Na'Toth said. "Should you not do at least one of these with your wife?"
"We will get there!" he laughed. "There are plenty still coming!"
Now that she knew better the extent of Mollari's feelings for G'Kar, she could see them in every movement. Even his willingness to adjust what he was doing to ensure Na'Toth looked better said something about all this. There was a person in there who was being strangled by the fine ivory fabrics of his world.
When the dance pulled them closer to each other, she said, "Next time he goes on a vacation, go with him."
He pulled away, puzzled expression on his face.
"Just think about it," she said, and continued concentrating on the steps.
Moments later, G'Kar was next to her, perfectly executing the dance with Mollari's wife, the four of them making a strange group.
"We've come to rescue you," Timov said.
"Unless she decides she likes me better than you, Mollari!" G'Kar said as the dance led him and Timov closer.
"She does!" Mollari laughed at the same moment that Timov said, "I do!"
They all laughed, and it was like talking late into the night and eating breakfast. Fun. Like two of them weren't Centauri, like Mollari was a friend. Maybe she wouldn't tell G'Kar off if he ever asked her help with his troublesome choices again.
In a few motions, she found herself trading Mollari for G'Kar, who immediately suggested they abandon the Centauri dance by the next song and do something from their own world.
"Just how many dances do you think I've learned in my life?" Na'Toth asked him.
"Surely you know something."
"I do, but it would never work with this."
"Do you think that matters to these people?"
With that, Na'Toth nodded and they conspired to make it work at the next even mildly fitting tune.
It required some timing adjustments which took them a few tries to nail down, but once they had, G'Kar and Na'Toth's obviously alien dance attracted the attention of G'Kar's admirers, a few of whom were trying to replicate the steps in their big dresses. Mollari and Timov, who had been having some sort of serious discussion, stopped what they were doing and moved in closer.
"Will you share?" Mollari asked. "Teach a dance for a dance?"
The Centauri Emperor dancing a common and unremarkable Narn dance would say much the same thing as any Narn dancing noble Centauri steps.
"We will be strict teachers," G'Kar said.
"You may die in the attempt to learn," Na'Toth added.
"Let him give it a try, then," Timov said.
"May the best one of us survive it," Mollari said to her.
Teaching them was entertaining, even if they were not at all dressed to perform it properly. Some of the guests were eager to try even as most of them pretended they weren't seeing Centauri royalty take cultural instruction from a Narn.
"I see G'Kar's favorite guest is enjoying this," Mollari said between guidance about foot placement, nodding subtly toward the far corner of the room where a woman with an extremely long tied hairstyle was frowning and animatedly complaining to her dance partner. Mollari looked to his right. "G'Kar-"
"I see her!" G'Kar sang back.
The night continued this way, committing silly social atrocities just by existing, teaching Mollari's wife Narn dance steps, laughing at G'Kar's popularity with a certain subset of the female guests, and trying every snack that G'Kar declared his favorite. At some point several dances into the night, Na'Toth remarked on G'Kar's easy relationship with Timov and Mollari laughed.
"He's been telling me to talk to her more often for ages! He says we would get along better now that things are what they are."
"Why would he want you to do that?"
"You see, that's exactly what I said. I don't think there's anything there to salvage. You can't have optimism about Timov."
"I meant-"
"That too," he said quickly, indicating he knew exactly what she meant, "but I don't know that, either. You'd have to ask him."
"Does it bother you?"
"No? Why?"
"Nevermind." She shook her head. "Good luck, Mollari."
"Thank you," he said somewhat hesitating. "I get the strangest feeling when you say it like that that I'm going to need it."
The party ended, as promised, late into the night. Mollari made an announcement that things had come to a close and bade everyone goodnight, encouraging the remaining the guests to say their final words to him and retire to their rooms or to their transports home.
G'Kar, meanwhile, worked very hard to convince Mollari's wife to stay the night and was nearing successful from what Na'Toth saw before walking away from the conversation. She wanted to know what that was about even less than she wanted further detail on G'Kar's relationship with Mollari. If Timov spent the night in the palace, Na'Toth did not know about it. She was assured she did not need to accompany Mollari any further for the night and passed departing guests on her way back to the room meant for Timov. She was not bothered or questioned about it. If Timov was staying, she wasn't using her own room. Na'Toth had one more night in the palace on Centauri Prime and then would be on her way home with some of the strangest memories of her life.
In the morning, she awoke late. The sun was in the wrong position in the windows as she scrambled to her feet and into her clothes but found Mollari's suite empty. She found him and G'Kar in the next logical place to look - breakfast. They were dressed simply, almost casually, with Mollari down several layers of fabric and G'Kar missing his long coat and bulkier armor.
"Ah, there she is," Mollari said when Na'Toth came through the door. "We were just wondering about you."
"Come sit down," G'Kar said, waving enthusiastically to a chair next to him. "They've made those eggs I told you about."
"We didn't want to bother you," Mollari said as Na'Toth took her seat.
"I am still on duty," Na'Toth protested.
"No you aren't. I can handle him," G'Kar said.
A kitchen attendant brought her food and Na'Toth took in the extremely relaxed air of the palace that morning.
"Where is everyone?" she asked.
"A side effect of a big holiday," Mollari said. "The day after, so many people are hungover it isn't worth it to try to return to normal. It's a day of recovery. Guests will be fed in their rooms. Should be very quiet for you for your last day."
"You could have woken me," Na'Toth said. "I did not drink anything."
"Neither did I," Mollari told her.
"I did," G'Kar said cheerfully.
"Enjoy having no responsibility here for a few hours if you are able, Miss Na'Toth."
"I will do my best," she said.
"Oh, here," Mollari pulled a small data stick from the pocket of his vest. "G'Kar's messages came in last night. Here are the ones for you."
He slid the stick across the table.
"I misread the form," G'Kar said. "I thought the field about the delivery date was the last day the recipient would be at the address, not the date the message should be delivered. Translations are not what they could be in every sector."
The messages would be fun to read with what she now knew. She was not supposed to care about such things, but she imagined Mollari was much more at ease now. A much as feeling that way sat oddly within her, she could feel herself relieved for him.
After eating, she excused herself to pack her things that were still in the room attached to Mollari's suite. It was perfectly clean when she entered, though it was still new to her to see more of G'Kar present in the open rather than neatly tucked away. His long coat hung on the wall, where she could see patches of Centauri fabric in the lining and the pin that gave him so much freedom here still attached to the front. Na'Toth's clothing remained firmly Narn in origin, but she thought she would one day end up with nostalgia for a Centauri breakfast if nothing else.
With her things packed, she went on a small tour around the palace to bid goodbye to the cooks, the young cleaning girls, Dr. Ka'Hari, and the gardener who had been tending the greenhouse. She'd expected to find no one worth her attention or care in the palace, but she'd found herself not only grudgingly fond of Mollari, but members of his staff as well. She suspected she would never want to trust the Centauri as a whole — even G'Kar had said he could never forgive them as a people — but there were individuals who possessed something worth the effort it took to know them.
On the platform to the transport that would bring her home, Na'Toth stood with her bag to say goodbye to G'Kar and Mollari.
Mollari took her hand in both of his and bowed his head toward her.
"Thank you for being here, Miss Na'Toth. I hope you didn't suffer too greatly."
"I will send you the bills for the therapy I must now receive," she told him.
"I promise never to ask you to endure any time with me again," he laughed, "though you would be very welcome to visit."
"It was not all bad," she said.
"Can I give you something?" Mollari asked.
"Something else? I already have all this-" He and G'Kar were sending her home with souvenirs from G'Kar trip, a few small potted G'Quan Eth plants, several books, and a few of G'Kar's favorite snacks for the trip back.
"It is small," Mollari said.
"What is it?"
He pulled what looked like a gold coin from a pocket in his coat. "Here," he said, holding it out to her. "It's a token seal from House Mollari. If you are ever traveling and being on good terms with me will be of use to you, please use it to your advantage."
"Surprisingly practical for you," Na'Toth said, clasping the coin in her hand and resting the hand on her chest. "Thank you."
She tucked the coin in pouch at her hip. It was not a pin, but it was Mollari once again using objects to give his power to others in tiny pieces.
G'Kar, with far less riding on his goodbye looking formal, pulled Na'Toth into a hug. She coughed from the force of it and then he released her to give her the proper salute goodbye. Hands on his chest, he bowed his head toward her.
"Thank you, Na'Toth. This was a great service. I could hardly have entrusted the role to anyone else."
"No one else would have had the patience for either of you," Na'Toth told him, echoing his bow.
"Precisely."
"Thank you for the unexpected hospitality, Mollari. I expect to come back in several years and have you explain a golden statue of him to me. Please do not need me again too soon. Remember what I told you about the vacation."
"I will do that," he said.
"Do you two have jokes I don't know about, now?" G'Kar asked.
Na'Toth smiled pleasantly at him. "Enjoy that tiny taste of my life here the last three months, sir."
She boarded the transport content with what she'd done and how she'd left the strange fools she'd spent her time with. When Centauri Prime was out of view, she looked through her bag for G'Kar's messages.
'Na'Toth —
I apologize for my quick departure and hope you are surviving the palace. You are doing me a great favor. If you are struggling, I suggest taking a look in the big portrait hall. You might find it amusing.
You won't believe me now, but I promise you it is possible to become very fond of him.
Good luck.'
Pages Navigation
Kittyknowsthings on Chapter 1 Sat 06 Feb 2016 04:17PM UTC
Comment Actions
LadyYateXel (XelBleedsGlitter) on Chapter 1 Mon 08 Feb 2016 02:03PM UTC
Comment Actions
JlbVMLS on Chapter 1 Mon 23 Oct 2023 03:00AM UTC
Comment Actions
Serenablackcat on Chapter 1 Sun 07 Jan 2024 10:54PM UTC
Comment Actions
batpuppet on Chapter 1 Sun 10 Aug 2025 02:46PM UTC
Comment Actions
XelBleedsGlitter on Chapter 1 Sun 10 Aug 2025 03:55PM UTC
Comment Actions
Ibenholt on Chapter 3 Mon 08 Feb 2016 06:17PM UTC
Comment Actions
mzdzuzv on Chapter 3 Fri 12 Feb 2016 07:05PM UTC
Comment Actions
mzdzuzv on Chapter 4 Tue 16 Feb 2016 11:25PM UTC
Comment Actions
LadyYateXel (XelBleedsGlitter) on Chapter 4 Mon 22 Feb 2016 03:13AM UTC
Comment Actions
Serenablackcat on Chapter 4 Wed 14 Feb 2024 12:51AM UTC
Comment Actions
mzdzuzv on Chapter 5 Sat 05 Mar 2016 02:04PM UTC
Comment Actions
PenroseSun on Chapter 5 Sun 16 Apr 2017 05:29AM UTC
Comment Actions
Poetry on Chapter 5 Sun 07 May 2017 02:28PM UTC
Comment Actions
lilyoftheval5 on Chapter 5 Mon 03 Jul 2017 09:36PM UTC
Comment Actions
arthie on Chapter 5 Fri 07 Oct 2022 03:23AM UTC
Comment Actions
Serenablackcat on Chapter 5 Wed 14 Feb 2024 01:00AM UTC
Comment Actions
Sholio on Chapter 5 Wed 25 Jun 2025 05:24AM UTC
Comment Actions
XelBleedsGlitter on Chapter 5 Sun 10 Aug 2025 03:46AM UTC
Comment Actions
JlbVMLS on Chapter 6 Sun 10 Aug 2025 01:59AM UTC
Comment Actions
Sholio on Chapter 6 Sun 10 Aug 2025 05:54AM UTC
Last Edited Sun 10 Aug 2025 05:55AM UTC
Comment Actions
JlbVMLS on Chapter 7 Mon 11 Aug 2025 03:32AM UTC
Comment Actions
Sholio on Chapter 7 Mon 11 Aug 2025 04:25AM UTC
Comment Actions
XelBleedsGlitter on Chapter 7 Tue 12 Aug 2025 02:04AM UTC
Comment Actions
batpuppet on Chapter 8 Wed 20 Aug 2025 10:12PM UTC
Comment Actions
XelBleedsGlitter on Chapter 8 Wed 20 Aug 2025 10:51PM UTC
Comment Actions
Pages Navigation