Disclaimer: Not mine. No money being made out of this story.
Rating: PG.
Author's Notes: This was written for Hobsonphile as a slightly late birthday present. I am shamelessly handwaving all the drama that must have happened around this time in B5 canon in order to get to the story I wanted to tell. Mea maxima culpa.
Vir Cotto hadn't planned to linger in the Imperial Mausoleum at midnight, but once he'd persuaded himself to go down there in the first place, it was surprisingly hard to leave. It had occurred to him that this might be the last time he left the palace without a flock of armed guards – it was only the chaos that still reigned on Centauri Prime that had allowed him to slip away quietly, without an escort. There were some things even an Emperor Elect had to do alone.
He stood and stared at the urn he had placed at the foot of the coffin, to avoid looking at anything else, and wondered if he should say a few words. He doubted that G'Kar would appreciate prayers to the Centauri gods in his honour, and he didn't know what Narns said at moments like this.
Tenatively, he glanced down the row of glowing transparent boxes, eerie in the darkness. Emperor Terensus, Turhan's grandfather, would have been horrified that the remains of a Narn were now resting in state with his. Vir wasn't sure that G'Kar would have been that happy about it either. He'd spend the past two years complaining about being surrounded by Centauri, after all.
On the other hand, he'd also made it clear to Vir that he didn't care what happened to his body, provided it wasn't either preserved or left to rot. Traditionally, Narn families actually ate the bodies of their dead, an idea that made Vir's stomach churn. He'd grown to like G'Kar, but he wouldn't do that for anybody. Since the only other thing he'd specified was that his remains were to be kept well away from his home planet, in case his people get into a fight over them, Vir had felt comfortable following an old Centauri custom.
In the first days of the Republic, the Emperors had gone to their graves with both slaves and wives. If G'Kar was neither of those ... well, wherever Londo had gone, Vir hoped that he wasn't in need of a bodyguard any more, but it never hurt to make sure. At least G'Kar would be better company in here than -
Vir avoided looking at the box immediately to the left of the one that had been added recently, and the empty space that waited to it right made him almost as uncomfortable. Instead, he walked over to Turhan's resting place. Like his more recent predecessors, the first Emperor Vir had met was preserved in his cube of glass, frozen in state. Vir was relieved to find that he only looked as if he was sleeping peacefully.
Vir wondered if it was significant that, in all the destruction and desecration that had occurred in the capital over the past fifteen years, the mausoleum had never been so much as scratched. It didn't seem fair that the dead should rest so peacefully while the living suffered. At last, he sighed and turned toward the door, only to jump, startled to see a shadow appear there.
"Hello?" he said, wondering if he should have brought the guards with him after all, "is somebody there?"
"Yes." It was a woman's voice. Mature, but still strong and clear. Vir stepped forward, and she moved out of the doorway to let him step out into the moonlit courtyard.
"You aren't meant to be here!" he said, looking her up and down. The first thing he noticed was that she was holding a large bunch of starlaces, not a flower traditionally associated with the dead. She was dressed plainly, but quite well, her head shaved in the way appropriate to her age and station. She certainly wasn't one of the priestesses who tended to the mausoleum.
"I apologise, lord. I intended no disrespect."
She kept her eyes on the ground, but Vir had become used to watching people closely for signs of their true intentions over the course of a diplomatic and political career. There was something studied about her modesty. She didn't sound frightened, or even very apologetic, and she was standing up very straight.
"You came to pay your respects to the Emperors?" he asked.
Her eyes raised themselves from the ornate mosaic beneath their feet and met his for the first time.
"I came to farewell Londo Mollari."
Vir looked at the woman properly now. She had probably been beautiful, when she was young. "You met before," he said, stating the obvious.
"We knew each other, a long time ago."
Her tone told Vir that she probably didn't mean they'd bumped into each other now and again at parties. Londo had certainly known a lot of women. Even in the time Vir had spent as his aide, he'd rarely wanted for female company when he'd pursued it. Back then, Vir hadn't known whether to feel embarrassed over his superior's antics, impressed, or jealous.
"Did you - know him well?"
The woman shrugged elegantly. "Not especially. We were married."
Vir felt his mouth drop open. "You're – you must be –"
"His first wife," she said, "I am surprised that he mentioned me to anyone."
"Never by name," Vir said, "but he spoke of you." He wanted to say fondly, but that wasn't exactly true. Usually when Londo talked – had talked - about his first marriage, he'd made light of it. It wasn't until a few years ago that Vir had even heard the real story of their divorce.
"I am Sania," she said, with a smile. "He must have trusted you very much, Lord Cotto, to speak of me to you. His family made sure that I never mentioned our marriage to anybody."
"He was my friend," Vir said, feeling a lump form in his throat.
"I am glad to know that he had friends." She sounded as if she meant it.
"Where have you been?" Vir asked, "I mean, all of this time?"
"The same place I have always been," Sania said, laughing. "Here, in the capital, only a short walk from the palace itself. It was not so far from there where we met – now I train dancers, then I was a dancer myself. But I am sure that you know all about that."
Vir was less prone to blushing in front of ladies than he used to be, but he still coloured slightly. "Yes, he told me the whole story. He was – sorry, about the way that things turned out. He regretted what he did."
She nodded. "I wish that I could have told him that I came to understand it. At the time, he seemed so powerful, so rich – you cannot imagine what it was like for me. So many men would talk of taking me away, but when he actually did it, and then ... well. It took me many years to see that, in some ways, he had even less freedom than I did."
"None of us are truly free," Vir agreed.
"When I saw him in the broadcasts, he never looked happy. Like an animal trapped in a cage."
"The years of his reign were - difficult for him," Vir said. He didn't want to think of Londo as he had been for the past decade and more, wasting away in spirit under the dominion of the Keeper.
"He told me that was what he wanted," she said, with a shake of her head, "that he wanted to have power, influence. At the time, I was angry, although I tried not to show it. I hoped that when he had what he wanted, it would only make him miserable. Now I think that was an awful thing to hope for. I wish that the wish I made then had not come true."
Vir looked at the bunch of starlaces clutched in her hand, and wondered if there was anything he could do now to help her. "Would you like to go inside? The Emperors, I mean the bodies, they're preserved so –"
She smiled at him. "That would be very kind of you."
Vir wondered if he was going to get out of this mausoleum in time for his coronation, and how many more inappropriate guests Londo would have. First a Narn, and now an ex-dancing girl. He sure wasn't raising the tone so far. Vir smiled at the thought – that was just the way Londo would have wanted it. Maybe they should throw his coronation party down here.
Sania stood at the end of Londo's coffin, where Vir had lingered earlier, and stared at the body inside. "He's so still," she said.
Vir had never quite put his finger on what it was about seeing Londo unconscious that had always troubled him, but she was right. He had almost never been entirely still in life. His expression had constantly shifted with his mood, even when it was only his eyes that were changing. Now, the spirit that had given him life and movement was gone.
Vir scrubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, wiping away tears. "I hope that he's happy," he said, "wherever he is now."
Sania put her flowers down in front of the coffin, and brushed away tears of her own. "Come," she said after another moment, "we should leave him."
Vir looked back, at Londo's coffin, at the urn, at the flowers, at the coffin to the left that held the body of the man he had killed, at the empty space to the right that was waiting for him.
"Thank you," Sania said, "for allowing me to say goodbye."
"He cared for you, I know. He would have wanted you to be there."
"I should not detain you any longer," she said. "I imagine you are going to have a busy day tomorrow."
It was only then that Vir realised how strange it was to share this experience with a woman he had met not five minutes ago. They were two strangers, saying goodbye to a man both of them had loved. Of course she had her own life to return to now, just as he had his.
"Yes," Vir agreed. "Between the coronation and the wedding, I don't think I'll be getting much sleep tonight."
"Do you love the woman you are to marry, Lord Cotto?"
Vir thought of Senna, who was probably wondering where he was. "Yes, very much," he said.
"I'm glad," she said. "Remember how lucky you are."
"I will," Vir said, feeling another lump in his throat.
"Goodbye - I am sure that you will make a fine Emperor. Londo would be very proud of you."
Vir could only watch her turn and walk away, back straight and moving with a dancer's grace, and hope that it was true.
The End