| To Speak of a Dream |
| Summary: | Bannik comes to speak to Quinn about her dream of the Falls. |
| Date: | 21 May 2042 AE |
| Related Logs: | Lost in the Flood. |
| Players: |
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| Guest Quarters — Deck 3 — Battlestar Cerberus |
| The area here has been spiffed up for the Delegates. Bunks are kept neat as a pin, the lockers are brand new and have a beautiful shine on the fake wood. A table sits in the center with a vase of fake flowers resting in the middle. The deck has been mostly covered with a round, braided rug of multiple colors. To the back of the area, there is a private shower area. This is just one of five separate areas along Deck 3. |
| Condition Level: 3 - All Clear |
| Post-Holocaust Day: #448 |
Quinn looks up, definitely shocked to hear Bannik's voice. She didn't really think it'd be the deck hand in her quarters, instead of the few people in the circle of trust that regularly visit she and the little one. Hell, she's barely talked to her fellow Aerilonian since he went vaguely crazy, or literary, or both. Depending on whom you talk to in the crew. SHe gives him an almost nervous smile, "Ah… thanks. Yeah… so far, so good, I guess. And… how are you?"
"I'm all right." Bannik offers his best smile. "I'm back on the Deck. Damon didn't press the silly charges that the Marines wanted to push. I'm — you know. I'm doing things." He gestures towards a seat in the quarters. "Do you mind if I join you? I — I heard that you had — that you dreamed of things."
Quinn still seems a bit wary about it all, keeping Kal close to her shoulder, her fingertips slowing down their patting just a bit more. "No, I suppose… I'm not really up to anything. And… I dream of many things. Don't we all?" She asks him with arched red brows, her cheek resting close against Kalli's temple.
"I heard you dreamt about the Falls." Bannik might as well just put that out there. "Lamparis Falls. On Gemenon." You know, that place that Tyr keeps writing about. He settles himself into a seat, giving her a small, hesitant smile. "I'm still the same Tyr that you know, Jugs. I'm not — I'm not going to do anything. I just want to talk."
Quinn finally gets a good little burp out of the little pink bundle, not too much spit up with it, but she turns her head and uses the little spit upt cloth to dab at the girl's lips, "Theeeere we go, short Kal…" She mutters soothingly, not longer really needing to bob her around quite so much. Maggie, instead, steps over to her bunk and folds down into sitting there, crossing her legs beneath her so they can form a bit of a cradle to hold the baby, giving her arms a bit of rest. "Yes, I had a dream months ago about the falls…" She admits, still a bit skeptical, but she's trying to force herself to relax. He's a home-planet boy, after all.
"Do you want to talk about it?" asks Tyr. "I had heard about the dream, but uh." Bannik pauses. "I don't know anything about it." He folds his hands in his lap, trying to make himself look as innocent and unthreatening as possible.
Quinn shrugs a bit, "If… you want me to. It might have really just been a dream, you know? What do you want to know about it?" She asks gently, trying to keep herself and her voice calm so she doesn't get the baby cranky, at least.
Bannik pauses for a moment, considering how to put this. Finally, he says: "Well, how about you just tell me what it was about? I mean, it could be a coincidence. But maybe not." He's doing his best to stay — you know, rational about these things.
Quinn appreciates rational, really. It allows herself to relax a touch more. She frowns, "Uh… alright. This was before Kalli was born, I was… very pregnant, though. I dreamt of her, though, and my house growing up on Aerilon. She was four… maybe five, playing on the floor. There was our fireplace, but in front of it was a big, big snake curled up like a dog. It was pouring outside…" She breathes out slowly, not looking at him, stroking her fingertips across the baby's forehead. "The rain was coming down very hard, flooding. Two older people knocked on our door. Their names were Tom and Cass… they asked if I believed in God… Kalli said she wanted to go with them. She wanted to go home. I wouldn't let her. They said they were going to the falls and had to go, before it flooded."
Quinn says, "Then they left. I tried to follow, but the water was too high… and the serpant swallowed me up before I could get anywhere."
Bannik nods his head at that, taking it all in. "They asked you if you believed in God? One God?" Tyr seems thoughtful, turning this around in his head. "And there was a serpent? Huh. What do you think it means?"
Quinn nods in affirmation. "They were talking about the one true God. I remember. It was… weird to hear. I don't know… and there was a serpent. I have no clue what it means. I'm not really… religious. I try not to be.. That was my sister…" But, if Bannik can read body language, there is a weird tension to her form.
"But something bothers you about it," suggests Bannik, perhaps trying to coax it from her. "What is it?"
Quinn shakes her head. "No… not about the dream. I've just had… predictive dreams before, is all. Sometimes I wonder if this is like that? but normally…" She shrugs, "i think I am just crazy. So I would not worry too much about it."
"What happened before? I mean, when you predicted something before?" Rather than label Quinn as crazy, Bannik shifts topics to the thing she suggested before.
Quinn really doesn't like to talk about this. That tension grows even more, clearly her nerves being about this part of her life, not really about the dreams. "…Nothing, really. I've never -predicted- anything. I'm not an oracle, or anything. Really. Those don't really exist. Just a bunch of hoowah my grandmother talked about."
"Sure." Bannik agrees with that readily, even if perhaps he disagrees. "A lot of people think it's all crazy. But — a lot of crazy things have happened, Quinn. And they happen for a reason, don't you think? I mean, all of this perhaps suggests we need to be more open to things."
"Open to… what? Even if dreams could predict the future, they didn't stop all the worlds from ending. Everyone's gone… humanity's dying, Bannik. Nothing's helped anything. The cylons have done all they could to destroy us…" There is guilt on her pale, freckled face, though. Discomfort about it all. Kalli seems to read her mother's discomfort, beginning to squirm and gurgle unhappily in Maggie's lap.
"Not all of them have." Bannik comes to the defense of those Cylons he interacted with. "The Twos and Elevens haven't. They've helped us. But I didn't come to lecture you, Jugs." His voice trails off. "Just — you had that dream for a reason. It's too similar to things that have happened elsewhere. It can't be a coincidence, can it?"
Quinn tilts her head. "Similiar to what?" She studies him a bit closer, those words -possibly- giving him an open door to preach as he wishes.
"Well, why is it that so many things point to the Falls? Can it be coincidence? Can it be that we all just happen to be hallucinating and thinking about serpents and Falls? Or perhaps — or perhaps the gods want us to go to the Falls. And they're thinking of every way they can — dreams, messages, signs, even Cylons …" Bannik's voice trails off. "To get us there. Is that crazy, Jugs?"
Quinn frowns a bit more, bouncing her knee just slightly to try and calm the cranky, tense Kalli down without scooping her up from the cradle made by Maggie's folded legs. "But… it's just a tourist attraction… the falls -aren't- anything. And getting down there is dangerous as hell anyway. We're as close as we're going to get… I wouldn't worry too much more about it, Bannik. There's nothing more you can do."
"You… were chosen? Why do you say you?" Maggie narrows her eyes a bit more upon him, studying his face, the expression behind his eyes. Kalli seems to have msotly calmed, at least.
"I don't know," admits Bannik. "But I was the one sent to the router that was sabotaged by the Areion personnel and found McQueen and McQueen took me to Gemenon and they presented the offer to me. That has to be for a reason. Why me? Why all of those coincidences? I think —" Bannik pauses. This is his preaching. "I think what happened to humanity — as awful as it was and is — is part of the story that was told in the Sacred Scrolls. That its telling is inevitable; that it has happened before and that what lies on Gemenon in the Falls will help us understand the before so we can play our role in it happening again."
Quinn looks skeptical, still, her lips pressing in a tight, cool line. "I…I don't know. But command isn't just going to let you run down there willy nilly. They're looking into it as best they can… that's all we can do. We still have a fleet to protect… lives to try and live. We can't just… take these risks. if we do and we're wrong?…That's it. That's the end. Period. You know that, Right?"
"I do." Bannik nods. "But I think if we just sit out here and run and hit and fade and — do whatever it is we're doing right now, which seems to be a whole lot of nothing, that's the end, too. We aren't just doing this on faith. We've had so many signs. My visit there was just the most recent." He forces up a smile. "I'm sorry, Jugs. I know dealing with a baby is tough enough. I just — I just thought I'd come and talk to you about these things, that's all."
Quinn shrugs a bit to him, "Even if I agreed with you and I saw the stars in my eyes, Bannik…there's nothing I could do about it. I'm not going to risk my life… the fleet, my daughter… on some dream. I've had dreams before, I'll have them again… they've never changed anything but how well I slept the night after."
Bannik nods his head once and rises to his feet. "I understand, Jugs," says the deckhand, softly. "I would never ask you to put any of that in jeopardy. I just thought I'd come talk to you, that's all." He glances away. "I'm sorry if I wasted your time."
Quinn frowns a bit more, her heart going out to him. She cradles the child a bit closer, but her eyes are all for him. "…Is there anything I -can- do for you?"
Bannik considers this for a moment. "If anyone ever asks you? Or if you hear people talking? Tell people I'm not crazy, okay? I mean, it's fine if they disagree with me or whatever, but I'm really not crazy." He flashes a smile. "If you could?"
Quinn bows her head softly to him, "You as well, Tyr… Gods bless you as well." She does relax a touch more as he says 'gods' and not 'god'. That's a good sign at least, right?