TM Prompt #318: What does your future look like?

Someone once told me that bright, shiny futures are overrated. Which is what I've always thought, but it was nice to hear it from somebody else.

I'm not going to get a bright shiny future, and I've been okay with that for a really long time. My job is to make sure the rest of humanity gets their future, the future that they have suffered and endured for. Maybe that future will be on Earth, maybe it'll be somewhere else, I don't know. But wherever it is, I will probably not get to see it. That's just a fact. Like I said, I'm okay with it.

I am a Viper pilot. The whole white picket fence, porch swing, 2.5 kids thing never did anything for me and I don't think it really ever will. The only thing that I am meant to do is shoot Cylons out of the frakkin' sky. I am going to live, and then I'll probably die in some messy, frakked-up, stupid way because that's usually how pilots bite it. I'm not being masochistic or anything. That's just how it is. Pilots died right from the attacks. Hell, they died before the attacks and their deaths sure as hell didn't make any more sense than after the Cylons came.

I guess there's that destiny. Kara Thrace and Her Special Destiny. Sounds like a bad cover band, I told Sam once. I still think that's true. To expect any kind of predetermination in your life is just frakked. I mean, why the hell would the gods choose me, the frak-up, the insubordinate screw-up, to lead humanity to Earth and be their savior? It doesn't make sense. I'm not a doctor, I'm not a scientist, I'm not a religious leader, I'm not anything special and I never have been. I'm just me. That's all I want to be. And sometimes, not even that.

My future is to fight. My future is to protect the Colonial Fleet. As long as I've got that, I don't care what else happens.

Muse: Kara Thrace
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Words: 340

TM Prompt #305: Write about something you've outlived.

( Take your frakkin' pick )

Muse: Kara Thrace
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Words: 533

TM Prompt #301: Wake up.

Every day she woke up.

And every day she wished that she could remain asleep.

How he could ever think that she wanted this ... and she wasn't sure, sometimes, to which he she was referring.

There were so many who could fit that description.

Every morning she'd squeeze her eyes shut, even after wakefulness, a large part of her knowing that it was useless but not caring all the same. She needed to pretend for a small moment that this was an extension of her dream, no matter what that dream had been. If it was something happy, if her mind could not account for the change, no matter. This couldn't be her reality.

That was how she coped.

And once her eyes opened, it was always the same blank ceiling, the same white paint, the same view of the railing, occasional sunshine trying and failing to heat cold metal. She refused to sleep in his bed, to follow his rules, because to do so would have been the final capitulation. To do so would have been to acknowledge that she was going crazy, that she could no longer deal with this. And she was many things, but she refused to be a quitter.

Waking up was the worst.

And the day she could not believe in her dream any more, the day that the fiction no longer made sense?

Then, and only then, did Kara Thrace begin to kill him.

Muse: Kara Thrace
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Words: 272

TM Prompt #286: When is it permissible to break the law?

Gods. I don't know how many laws we've broken. Counting 'em all up would take more time than I've got right now.

But at the time, we always thought we were doing the right thing. It was always for the preservation of humanity. The greater good. Shit like that. Not saying it's shit, but sometimes it really was an excuse. Human beings can be so frakking hypocritical. And I'm not excluding myself. I'm just as bad as everyone else, but that's what comes with being a screw-up, right?

The Cylons tore up the rulebook first, I guess. I'm not gonna quibble over stuff like did humans do it first, because they created the Cylons? I don't know. Shit, you could argue about that forever. But for everyone in the Fleet right now that's when it started. The attack on the Colonies. From then on I guess we felt like we could do anything, like society'd fallen apart anyway so what the hell was the point of carrying on? And everything could be justified In The Name Of Humanity. If you killed the guy next to you you could say he was a Cylon and you were trying to neutralize the threat. Lee and I ... Lee and I blew up the Olympic Carrier because we told ourselves otherwise it would've nuked us. I tortured Leoben because I was told to, because I was authorized to do so by orders. (Never mind that's the lamest frakking excuse ever. Gods.) Did that mean it was right? No. Did that mean it was easy? Also no.

I'm not a godsdamned philosopher, okay? I'm a Viper pilot. I don't know. All I know is following orders and having the guts to question them when they're wrong. But even that was mostly done out of spite, not for the greater good. I know where my loyalties lie. At least I think I do. I'd break the law for those loyalties.

And for now, I guess that has to be enough.

Muse: Kara Thrace
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Words: 335

TM Prompt #280: What do you think?

( Spoilers through S4.5's Daybreak, Part 2 )

Muse: Kara Thrace
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Words: 391

((OOC: My apologies for the extended absence, folks! The end of the school term, exams, preparing to graduate from university and a broken laptop all conspired against me, but I'm back now and ready to take the reins again. *grins*))

TM Prompt #272: Do you have any pets? Would you like some (more)? Why/why not?

( Pets? Like, animals? )

Muse: Kara Thrace
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Words: 465

TM Prompt #268: The End.

( Spoilers for S4.0 and vague spoilers for aired S4.5 episodes - cutting just in case )

Muse: Kara Thrace
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Words: 425

TM Prompt #267: In medias res

( Spoilers through 4x12: A Disquiet Follows My Soul )

Muse: Kara Thrace
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Words: 488 (not including quotes)

TM Prompt #266: Start something.

I'm good at starting things. Finishing them, not so much.

I've started fights. Relationships. Big huge messy bar brawls. One-night stands, the kind where you can't look them in the eye next day because the situation is so frakked. But I can't take the next step. I can't finish, because somehow that comes with a whole lot of other details I can't think about.

Can't think about, or don't want to consider? I guess that's the question I really should ask, but it sounds like something that would have come out of the shrink's mouth back when I was in flight school. Yeah, they had a shrink, to judge whether we were "psychologically competent." Those who were got through okay and those who weren't bluffed it and still got through mostly okay. Like me. But then, I've fooled a lot of people in my lifetime. Can't remember exactly when I just started doing it to survive.

Gods, that makes me sound like the Colonies' biggest liar. But there's a difference between lying and fooling. You lie to deceive people. You fool them so they don't come closer, so they don't see something beneath the surface they might not like.

I can't even follow my own advice on that, though. There are people I should have kept on fooling and didn't, out of my own frakked-up belief that I could handle it. Lords, you'd think I'd know myself better by now. But I don't. Some people never learn and I'm one of them. I guess that's why I keep starting things and not finishing them.

Except for fights. I'm good at finishing fights.

Muse: Kara Thrace
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Words: 272

TM Prompt #265: What did you dream last night?

( Spoilers through 4x10: Revelations )

Muse: Kara Thrace
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Words: 296
Mun note: So, hi! I'm mostly back, after a hellish summer and a busy fall. I apologize for the long absence, and I promise I'll try to be better about updating and answering prompts. I'd best be, as Kara has become available at theatrical_muse and I'm next on the waiting list! *squee* This is my application post - I'm going to send it off tonight and hopefully be accepted by week's end. *bounces* Can't wait!