Work Text:
There are three of them the night Delenn beholds the true face of Sheridan. The night that ends in spilt glitter and glass, in the walls of one world in shards upon the floor and the walls of another world already falling into the gravitational pull of Z'ha'dum.
But at the beginning, there is just her and him and Kosh. But perhaps that is how it has always been.
Kosh looks up at Delenn through Sheridan's closed eyelids. He looks upon the face of she who watches, and in a way, he sees a true face of a different kind, one that is never meant to be seen.
As a child, Kosh looks and sees someone who may be Mother. Delenn has that warmth, that outpouring of love and affection, that nebulous aura that surrounds Mother, that shelters and breathes. Mother watches her sleeping child, and she is wiser than all; her knowledge and being encompasses the entire world.
Like the little glass world in her hands. Turning, then falling, falling...
As a tree, Kosh looks and does not see. He merely feels the weight of Delenn's gaze resting on the rise and fall of Sheridan's chest like the pressure of a sleeping head. It is warm, though there is no sunlight here. As a tree, Kosh yearns for the light, reaching his branches with straining leaves towards breaks in the sky. But as Sheridan, Delenn's gentle eyes will suffice, in lack of the light.
Trees do not assign arbitrary divisions to the passage of time. But Kosh feels the opening of the door, the lift of Delenn's head, the sunlight fade from her eyes. He feels them as one simultaneous moment.
As an angel, Kosh looks and sees Delenn. He sees a Minbari woman wearied by war, who speaks with the voice of her people yet who bears the mark of a different people on her head, on her body, in the figure beheld in her eyes. He sees a woman who is so young and naive in a universe still far too big for her, a woman who is so old and wise that maybe she knows it better than anyone. He sees the gentle play of starlight on her skin, and the deep shadows that follow.
As an angel, Kosh looks and sees. Were he uncloistered in encounter suit or Sheridan's body, everyone would see and recognize his true form, his own true face, laid plain and bare before all. Angel and god and monster and nothingness unveiled. It is far better to receive divine visions in one's sleep, true face to true face, than in the stark light of day where at least one illusion stands between, painted in harsh lines.
But there are three of them that night. And Sheridan does not know that he shares his breath with an angel, with a tree, with a child, with Kosh. And Delenn does not know that she-who-watches is watched, that her true face is seen, and with it, all of the vulnerability that shadows it.
Humans and Minbari and all other peoples have the tendency to mistrust the face of the divine when they see it in all of its glimmering definition pass the distortion of the glass.
The snow globe breaks.