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spacefunguspartyTitle: Terrible As An Army With Banners
Authornenya_kanadka
Fandom: Star Trek: Discovery
Wordcount: 2521
Rating: Mature
Characters: Mirror Philippa Georgiou, Katrina Cornwell
Pairings: Katrina Cornwell/Mirror Philippa Georgiou, Katrina Cornwell/Philippa Georgiou (past), hints of Michael Burnham/Philippa Georgiou if you squint
Warnings: Canon (the Mirrorverse specifically) is the warning; brief non-explicit references to rape and torture.
Notes: Spoilers for 1x13 "What's Past Is Prologue" and the teaser for 1x14 "The War Within, The War Without." Blamekore for inspiration and lizbee for the Kat fixation.
Summary:
Kat's eyes snap to the Emperor's face. She hadn't known till this moment how much she'd wanted to be able to tell the story of Gabriel's betrayal to Philippa and have her look back at her like this. The other Philippa holds Kat's gaze, and smiles a grim smile, and it ought to terrify her that she stares back and wants.
Also at AO3
"There was...one other thing."
Acting Captain Saru's lanky stride stops just outside the doors of the Discovery's conference room, and there's a pause in his hurried summary of his crew's extracurricular activities since Gabriel Lorca disappeared with the ship nine months ago. For a moment, whatever happened to him out there to give him confidence recedes, and he's back to the diffident Kelpien Kat remembers.
He throws Specialist Burnham a look, and she picks up the narrative, lifting her chin and turning to face Kat. "Admiral, we—there was an unexpected rescue." She sucks in a breath. "It's my responsibility; I understand that. But I wasn't able to leave her."
Kat raises an eyebrow. "Her?"
"Philippa Georgiou."
Philippa. Kat freezes, staring at Burnham's squared jaw and defiant eyes as if that will make the words make sense. Philippa died. Sixteen months and twenty-three days ago, Philippa died on a Klingon warship, and Kat has spent sixteen months and twenty-two days coming to terms with it.
Before the Klingons captured her, she'd dreamed sometimes that Philippa had come back. She'd be sitting in Kat's front room with a cup of coffee and a smile, a PADD in her hand and her uniform jacket over the end of the couch. Sometimes Kat could kiss her before she woke up; in the worse dreams, they'd be making love when Philippa's face would go death-grey and she'd begin to cough blood, just before the Klingon knife pushed through her chest and Kat came awake screaming.
After the Klingons captured her, Kat knew her lover was dead.
Her eyes must widen with the shock. She starts forward automatically, barely feeling Saru's cautioning hand on her shoulder. "Admiral Cornwell—" The worried note in Burnham's voice, too, is lost in the thudding of her pulse.
Philippa. Here?
The conference room doors slide open. The room is dim, just like the other Gabriel used to keep it. There's a woman standing at the viewport, and her silhouette is so familiar it makes Kat's throat ache. She turns, like the woman in Kat's old dreams, and Kat's cry of Philippa! dies in her throat.
It is Philippa; she has no doubt of that. There's no way to counterfeit the grace in her movements or the tilt of her chin or the way Kat's heart leaps in her chest. But it's a Philippa clad in gold and deep black, her hair straighter than Kat's, and her face—her eyes—
"Cornwell," the woman says, cold as ice, and Kat doesn't need Burnham's murmured "I'm so sorry," to know that she's made a terrible mistake.
"Who—" Who are you, who ARE you, how dare you take her face, you—
The woman's lip curls in bitter amusement. "I am Emperor Philippa Georgiou, formerly of the Terran Empire. I am told there's no such thing here."
That terrifying place that Burnham and Saru say the Discovery barely escaped. The world Gabriel—Lorca, the one who betrayed her—came from. Death. Slavery. Horrors that make her time in Klingon captivity seem almost quaint. And Philippa at the helm of it all, a goddess of death standing astride the destruction of worlds.
"Don't you know me?" the woman says.
Kat wants to wake up.
* * *
Somehow, Kat gets through the debriefing. Lorca's Xanatos gambit, his deceptions, his appropriation of Discovery for his coup against the woman at the other end of the conference table. The other Paul Stamets and his perversion of the mycelial network. Burnham's bravery and quick thinking; the exemplary performance of Discovery's crew. She notes that they don't say anything about the Klingon or two they have in the brig, and they don't mention the tormented man who may or may not be Lieutenant Ash Tyler. She's certainly not going to bring up those complicating factors in front of the genocidal dictator who wears Philippa's face.
She wants to hate her. There's an arrogance when she speaks that Philippa never had, and she looks at Kat as if she's debating what to do about a poisonous snake. If Kat focuses only on the gold breastplate and thinks of her as the Terran Emperor, she can almost slide into the role of war strategist she's had so much practice at these last few months. If she can just think of her as another L'Rell—a brilliant adversary whose skills may be useful, someone who is simply her enemy and has no qualms about turning on her at a moment's notice—Kat can get through this.
And then Burnham begins to speak about their final escape from the Emperor's flagship. It doesn't take much to imagine this woman in a battle for her life. All she has to do is add her razor-sharp air of danger to Philippa's finesse on the dance floor. Burnham's report is as straightforward as a Vulcan's, but underneath it Kat can hear real respect for this version of her captain. "Our plan succeeded," Burnham says, and Kat can tell she means hers and the Emperor's, not just hers and Saru's. "We took Lorca by surprise."
Kat catches Saru's eye, because she doesn't want to look at the Emperor or see whether Burnham looks the way she sounds. He doesn't have to speak for Kat to know that all four of them in this room are thinking of her Philippa.
Into the silence, the Emperor speaks. "I killed him, for what he did to Michael."
Kat's eyes snap to her face. There is naked anger there, and satisfaction, and infinite softness as she says Burnham's name. Kat can't look away. A harsh thrill goes through her and she thinks, You hate him too. She'd been able to admit to her Starfleet therapist how she felt about her Klingon captors—the damage she wanted to do, the way the torture had warped her sense of self, how she wanted to hurt and hurt and hurt them back—but this had cut too deep. She hadn't known till this moment how much she'd wanted to be able to tell the story of Gabriel's betrayal to Philippa and have her look back at her like this.
And Philippa wouldn't, she knows she wouldn't. Philippa wouldn't hate the way the Emperor clearly does. Philippa was too good a person for the cruel, sharp joy Kat feels at the thought that someone paid that bastard back for leaving her to rot on a Klingon prison ship. If she told this Philippa that the other Gabriel had, in essence, raped her, and that that's almost better than thinking her old friend had sold her out for his own gain—well, she might look at her the way she's looking now.
The other Philippa holds Kat's gaze, and smiles a grim smile, and it ought to terrify her that she stares back and wants.
* * *
"I'd like to see the prisoner," Kat tells the guard on the Emperor's door. They've given the Emperor a junior officer's quarters—no comms, but all the other comforts Starfleet would normally provide for a guest who's not the god-empress of a horrorshow. But even if Burnham feels the same ambivalence that's making Kat's hands sweat, they're clearly taking no chances. The guards are armed, seasoned security officers, not raw ensigns playing honour guard.
The guard gives her a doubtful look, but Kat's an admiral. She can go where she wants. The thought stiffens her spine as she steps into the room to face Emperor Philippa Georgiou alone.
The Emperor is sitting on the Starfleet-white couch in the living area, her head tipped back against the cushions and her eyes closed. They snap open as the door slides shut behind Kat. With the minutest shift in posture she moves from exhausted former despot to live predator.
"I thought you'd come," she says, with a slow smile that sends Kat's adrenaline spiking.
Kat swallows. "I wanted to ask you something." She's put her hands behind her back so the Emperor can't see how tightly her fingers are digging into her other wrist. There's a silence, broken only by a lift of the Emperor's eyebrows. "What happened to my Gabriel?"
The Emperor gives a careless shrug. "There was nothing left of the Buran but stardust."
Kat nods tightly. "There wasn't in our universe either. If they switched places..."
"Then I suppose he's dead. Does that bother you?" That watchful gaze again. Kat can't imagine how even the other Gabriel Lorca could get anything past this woman.
"Of course it does," she snaps. She ought to go. This was a stupid idea.
The Emperor's voice is like barbed silk, and catches her before she can turn away. "But that's not what you came to say to me."
"I—"
The predatory Philippa is on her feet suddenly, and almost in Kat's space before she can take a breath. God, she's fast. "You came to say," she says in that liquid voice, and somehow Kat's back has hit the wall before the end of the sentence. "You came to say thank you."
Kat gasps. She stares into those black, black eyes and it's all she can do to breathe.
"What did he do to you, Katrina?" The Emperor is very close now, and the hand that's not trapping her against the wall is running very slowly up and down the zip of her uniform.
She would tell the real Philippa anything. This one—all she can force out is, "He tried to kill me." It's fear that's making her tremble, that's all. Wiring for fear is so close to arousal. That's all.
"Of course he did," the Emperor says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world—like Kat hasn't felt ashamed of that night, for not knowing how wrong things were before they happened. Before he pulled a gun on her. Before she fucked him. Before the rest of it.
"Do you know," the Emperor continues, stroking Kat's neck with a single finger, "who my Cornwell was?"
Kat takes a breath. Tries, tries to think, over the buzzing in her head, over the faint pressure of the Emperor's fingertips at her pulse. "Someone who's dead," she says. Had the Emperor killed her? No—but— "And you don't care."
The Emperor laughs. "She was my chief interrogator," she says. She sounds almost proud, and Kat feels sick. What kind of a human being—is Kat capable of that kind of barbarity? Is that what it means that she's here in the Emperor's quarters, panting under her touch, not even thinking of calling for help?
She turns her head away, and the Emperor says, "She was the one who first convinced me to trust him."
"That," Kat manages, "that was stupid of her."
"Yes," the Emperor says, with a voice like icicles, and Kat is afraid now. She must look just like the Katrina Cornwell who betrayed this Philippa. And she's here, where the Emperor could do anything—it doesn't matter that she's not armed—anything to her. The Emperor slides her hand down Kat's torso, and half of Kat's brain wants to hit her in the face and run, and the other half wants to grab her hand and shove it hard against her own cunt.
She locks eyes with the woman who isn't Philippa, and doesn't move an inch.
"I hurt her," the other woman says, low and harsh, "Myself. I hurt her quite a lot." Her fingers dig into Kat's hip, and Kat bares her teeth. Not so different from L'Rell, after all. The Emperor leans forward and that beautiful golden armour presses into Kat's breasts. Her teeth are sharp, her eyes are black with lust, and Kat knows she's done everything she says and more.
It's not like Gabriel. No false promises, no misdirection. This woman wants her, and she wants to hurt her, and—
"Katrina still made me come like no one else."
Kat lunges forward and kisses her. It's all teeth, and she's probably growling, and she doesn't care. She shoves off the wall, gasps out "Computer, privacy," just in time to muffle the crash of the gold breastplate as Kat spins them around and slams the Emperor against the bulkhead.
The Emperor's hand is a fist in her hair, she's kissing her back furiously, and Kat has just enough time to swallow the Philippa that's trying to claw its way out of her throat before her feet are swept out from under her. She hits the rug almost hard enough to knock her breath away. The Emperor stands over her, glorious and terrifying, backlit by the low lamps that glint off her armour.
And then she's on her, one knee between Kat's thighs, hot merciless pressure against her core, her forearm an iron bar across Kat's upper chest. Her grin is dagger-bright and there ought to be blood on her incisors. "Is this what you came for, Federation Katrina?"
"Fuck you," Kat snarls, and pulls her down.
They tumble across the floor, tearing at each other's clothing. Kat can't find the fastenings for the breastplate, but Philippa rips it off with practiced fingers, and she thinks—one of the last clear thoughts she has—that that probably means she isn't going to kill her. Then she's panting, biting the hand Philippa has over her mouth, and Philippa's other hand shoves past the waistband of her uniform and hard, perfect fingers drive into her.
For the first time in months, the fact that everything is wrong doesn't matter. You're not you, she thinks, and Philippa, Philippa, and it's hot and rough and she wants to claw this woman's skin off until the woman she loves comes back to her. Till the war ends and she finds out how to turn back time, till she's whole again. She wants to fling herself against the murderous edges of the Emperor's power till there's nothing left of her. She wants to forget everything but the sting of the Emperor's teeth, the scent of Philippa's skin, the taste of her breasts, the bright heat of the way she comes—just like Philippa—she's alive, she's alive, and Philippa isn't, and—
"I hate you," she rages into Philippa's shoulder, clinging to the shreds of her sanity, "I hate you, I hate you," and Philippa's hands dig hard into her arms as Kat grinds herself desperately against her, and she says "I know," and Kat laughs like a wild thing, anger and grief and love and lust roaring through her like a plasma breach.
I love you, Philippa, Philippa, I love you.
* * *
Afterward, she replicates a new uniform, and the Emperor drapes herself across the couch and watches her without a word. She doesn't look at Kat like she's prey anymore.
Afterward, she thinks she'll talk to Burnham. She thinks there are things they can say to one another that no one else would quite understand.
Afterward—she isn't the other Katrina. She won't do to anyone else what was done to her. But she will win this war, and she will gather her people around her, and God help anyone foolish enough to stand in her way.
she’s not here, and I’d rather see her lovely
step, her sparkling glance and her face than gaze on
all the troops in Lydia in their chariots and
glittering armor.
—Sappho, The Anactoria Poem
Author
nenya_kanadkaFandom: Star Trek: Discovery
Wordcount: 2521
Rating: Mature
Characters: Mirror Philippa Georgiou, Katrina Cornwell
Pairings: Katrina Cornwell/Mirror Philippa Georgiou, Katrina Cornwell/Philippa Georgiou (past), hints of Michael Burnham/Philippa Georgiou if you squint
Warnings: Canon (the Mirrorverse specifically) is the warning; brief non-explicit references to rape and torture.
Notes: Spoilers for 1x13 "What's Past Is Prologue" and the teaser for 1x14 "The War Within, The War Without." Blame
kore for inspiration and lizbee for the Kat fixation.Summary:
Kat's eyes snap to the Emperor's face. She hadn't known till this moment how much she'd wanted to be able to tell the story of Gabriel's betrayal to Philippa and have her look back at her like this. The other Philippa holds Kat's gaze, and smiles a grim smile, and it ought to terrify her that she stares back and wants.
Also at AO3
"There was...one other thing."
Acting Captain Saru's lanky stride stops just outside the doors of the Discovery's conference room, and there's a pause in his hurried summary of his crew's extracurricular activities since Gabriel Lorca disappeared with the ship nine months ago. For a moment, whatever happened to him out there to give him confidence recedes, and he's back to the diffident Kelpien Kat remembers.
He throws Specialist Burnham a look, and she picks up the narrative, lifting her chin and turning to face Kat. "Admiral, we—there was an unexpected rescue." She sucks in a breath. "It's my responsibility; I understand that. But I wasn't able to leave her."
Kat raises an eyebrow. "Her?"
"Philippa Georgiou."
Philippa. Kat freezes, staring at Burnham's squared jaw and defiant eyes as if that will make the words make sense. Philippa died. Sixteen months and twenty-three days ago, Philippa died on a Klingon warship, and Kat has spent sixteen months and twenty-two days coming to terms with it.
Before the Klingons captured her, she'd dreamed sometimes that Philippa had come back. She'd be sitting in Kat's front room with a cup of coffee and a smile, a PADD in her hand and her uniform jacket over the end of the couch. Sometimes Kat could kiss her before she woke up; in the worse dreams, they'd be making love when Philippa's face would go death-grey and she'd begin to cough blood, just before the Klingon knife pushed through her chest and Kat came awake screaming.
After the Klingons captured her, Kat knew her lover was dead.
Her eyes must widen with the shock. She starts forward automatically, barely feeling Saru's cautioning hand on her shoulder. "Admiral Cornwell—" The worried note in Burnham's voice, too, is lost in the thudding of her pulse.
Philippa. Here?
The conference room doors slide open. The room is dim, just like the other Gabriel used to keep it. There's a woman standing at the viewport, and her silhouette is so familiar it makes Kat's throat ache. She turns, like the woman in Kat's old dreams, and Kat's cry of Philippa! dies in her throat.
It is Philippa; she has no doubt of that. There's no way to counterfeit the grace in her movements or the tilt of her chin or the way Kat's heart leaps in her chest. But it's a Philippa clad in gold and deep black, her hair straighter than Kat's, and her face—her eyes—
"Cornwell," the woman says, cold as ice, and Kat doesn't need Burnham's murmured "I'm so sorry," to know that she's made a terrible mistake.
"Who—" Who are you, who ARE you, how dare you take her face, you—
The woman's lip curls in bitter amusement. "I am Emperor Philippa Georgiou, formerly of the Terran Empire. I am told there's no such thing here."
That terrifying place that Burnham and Saru say the Discovery barely escaped. The world Gabriel—Lorca, the one who betrayed her—came from. Death. Slavery. Horrors that make her time in Klingon captivity seem almost quaint. And Philippa at the helm of it all, a goddess of death standing astride the destruction of worlds.
"Don't you know me?" the woman says.
Kat wants to wake up.
Somehow, Kat gets through the debriefing. Lorca's Xanatos gambit, his deceptions, his appropriation of Discovery for his coup against the woman at the other end of the conference table. The other Paul Stamets and his perversion of the mycelial network. Burnham's bravery and quick thinking; the exemplary performance of Discovery's crew. She notes that they don't say anything about the Klingon or two they have in the brig, and they don't mention the tormented man who may or may not be Lieutenant Ash Tyler. She's certainly not going to bring up those complicating factors in front of the genocidal dictator who wears Philippa's face.
She wants to hate her. There's an arrogance when she speaks that Philippa never had, and she looks at Kat as if she's debating what to do about a poisonous snake. If Kat focuses only on the gold breastplate and thinks of her as the Terran Emperor, she can almost slide into the role of war strategist she's had so much practice at these last few months. If she can just think of her as another L'Rell—a brilliant adversary whose skills may be useful, someone who is simply her enemy and has no qualms about turning on her at a moment's notice—Kat can get through this.
And then Burnham begins to speak about their final escape from the Emperor's flagship. It doesn't take much to imagine this woman in a battle for her life. All she has to do is add her razor-sharp air of danger to Philippa's finesse on the dance floor. Burnham's report is as straightforward as a Vulcan's, but underneath it Kat can hear real respect for this version of her captain. "Our plan succeeded," Burnham says, and Kat can tell she means hers and the Emperor's, not just hers and Saru's. "We took Lorca by surprise."
Kat catches Saru's eye, because she doesn't want to look at the Emperor or see whether Burnham looks the way she sounds. He doesn't have to speak for Kat to know that all four of them in this room are thinking of her Philippa.
Into the silence, the Emperor speaks. "I killed him, for what he did to Michael."
Kat's eyes snap to her face. There is naked anger there, and satisfaction, and infinite softness as she says Burnham's name. Kat can't look away. A harsh thrill goes through her and she thinks, You hate him too. She'd been able to admit to her Starfleet therapist how she felt about her Klingon captors—the damage she wanted to do, the way the torture had warped her sense of self, how she wanted to hurt and hurt and hurt them back—but this had cut too deep. She hadn't known till this moment how much she'd wanted to be able to tell the story of Gabriel's betrayal to Philippa and have her look back at her like this.
And Philippa wouldn't, she knows she wouldn't. Philippa wouldn't hate the way the Emperor clearly does. Philippa was too good a person for the cruel, sharp joy Kat feels at the thought that someone paid that bastard back for leaving her to rot on a Klingon prison ship. If she told this Philippa that the other Gabriel had, in essence, raped her, and that that's almost better than thinking her old friend had sold her out for his own gain—well, she might look at her the way she's looking now.
The other Philippa holds Kat's gaze, and smiles a grim smile, and it ought to terrify her that she stares back and wants.
"I'd like to see the prisoner," Kat tells the guard on the Emperor's door. They've given the Emperor a junior officer's quarters—no comms, but all the other comforts Starfleet would normally provide for a guest who's not the god-empress of a horrorshow. But even if Burnham feels the same ambivalence that's making Kat's hands sweat, they're clearly taking no chances. The guards are armed, seasoned security officers, not raw ensigns playing honour guard.
The guard gives her a doubtful look, but Kat's an admiral. She can go where she wants. The thought stiffens her spine as she steps into the room to face Emperor Philippa Georgiou alone.
The Emperor is sitting on the Starfleet-white couch in the living area, her head tipped back against the cushions and her eyes closed. They snap open as the door slides shut behind Kat. With the minutest shift in posture she moves from exhausted former despot to live predator.
"I thought you'd come," she says, with a slow smile that sends Kat's adrenaline spiking.
Kat swallows. "I wanted to ask you something." She's put her hands behind her back so the Emperor can't see how tightly her fingers are digging into her other wrist. There's a silence, broken only by a lift of the Emperor's eyebrows. "What happened to my Gabriel?"
The Emperor gives a careless shrug. "There was nothing left of the Buran but stardust."
Kat nods tightly. "There wasn't in our universe either. If they switched places..."
"Then I suppose he's dead. Does that bother you?" That watchful gaze again. Kat can't imagine how even the other Gabriel Lorca could get anything past this woman.
"Of course it does," she snaps. She ought to go. This was a stupid idea.
The Emperor's voice is like barbed silk, and catches her before she can turn away. "But that's not what you came to say to me."
"I—"
The predatory Philippa is on her feet suddenly, and almost in Kat's space before she can take a breath. God, she's fast. "You came to say," she says in that liquid voice, and somehow Kat's back has hit the wall before the end of the sentence. "You came to say thank you."
Kat gasps. She stares into those black, black eyes and it's all she can do to breathe.
"What did he do to you, Katrina?" The Emperor is very close now, and the hand that's not trapping her against the wall is running very slowly up and down the zip of her uniform.
She would tell the real Philippa anything. This one—all she can force out is, "He tried to kill me." It's fear that's making her tremble, that's all. Wiring for fear is so close to arousal. That's all.
"Of course he did," the Emperor says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world—like Kat hasn't felt ashamed of that night, for not knowing how wrong things were before they happened. Before he pulled a gun on her. Before she fucked him. Before the rest of it.
"Do you know," the Emperor continues, stroking Kat's neck with a single finger, "who my Cornwell was?"
Kat takes a breath. Tries, tries to think, over the buzzing in her head, over the faint pressure of the Emperor's fingertips at her pulse. "Someone who's dead," she says. Had the Emperor killed her? No—but— "And you don't care."
The Emperor laughs. "She was my chief interrogator," she says. She sounds almost proud, and Kat feels sick. What kind of a human being—is Kat capable of that kind of barbarity? Is that what it means that she's here in the Emperor's quarters, panting under her touch, not even thinking of calling for help?
She turns her head away, and the Emperor says, "She was the one who first convinced me to trust him."
"That," Kat manages, "that was stupid of her."
"Yes," the Emperor says, with a voice like icicles, and Kat is afraid now. She must look just like the Katrina Cornwell who betrayed this Philippa. And she's here, where the Emperor could do anything—it doesn't matter that she's not armed—anything to her. The Emperor slides her hand down Kat's torso, and half of Kat's brain wants to hit her in the face and run, and the other half wants to grab her hand and shove it hard against her own cunt.
She locks eyes with the woman who isn't Philippa, and doesn't move an inch.
"I hurt her," the other woman says, low and harsh, "Myself. I hurt her quite a lot." Her fingers dig into Kat's hip, and Kat bares her teeth. Not so different from L'Rell, after all. The Emperor leans forward and that beautiful golden armour presses into Kat's breasts. Her teeth are sharp, her eyes are black with lust, and Kat knows she's done everything she says and more.
It's not like Gabriel. No false promises, no misdirection. This woman wants her, and she wants to hurt her, and—
"Katrina still made me come like no one else."
Kat lunges forward and kisses her. It's all teeth, and she's probably growling, and she doesn't care. She shoves off the wall, gasps out "Computer, privacy," just in time to muffle the crash of the gold breastplate as Kat spins them around and slams the Emperor against the bulkhead.
The Emperor's hand is a fist in her hair, she's kissing her back furiously, and Kat has just enough time to swallow the Philippa that's trying to claw its way out of her throat before her feet are swept out from under her. She hits the rug almost hard enough to knock her breath away. The Emperor stands over her, glorious and terrifying, backlit by the low lamps that glint off her armour.
And then she's on her, one knee between Kat's thighs, hot merciless pressure against her core, her forearm an iron bar across Kat's upper chest. Her grin is dagger-bright and there ought to be blood on her incisors. "Is this what you came for, Federation Katrina?"
"Fuck you," Kat snarls, and pulls her down.
They tumble across the floor, tearing at each other's clothing. Kat can't find the fastenings for the breastplate, but Philippa rips it off with practiced fingers, and she thinks—one of the last clear thoughts she has—that that probably means she isn't going to kill her. Then she's panting, biting the hand Philippa has over her mouth, and Philippa's other hand shoves past the waistband of her uniform and hard, perfect fingers drive into her.
For the first time in months, the fact that everything is wrong doesn't matter. You're not you, she thinks, and Philippa, Philippa, and it's hot and rough and she wants to claw this woman's skin off until the woman she loves comes back to her. Till the war ends and she finds out how to turn back time, till she's whole again. She wants to fling herself against the murderous edges of the Emperor's power till there's nothing left of her. She wants to forget everything but the sting of the Emperor's teeth, the scent of Philippa's skin, the taste of her breasts, the bright heat of the way she comes—just like Philippa—she's alive, she's alive, and Philippa isn't, and—
"I hate you," she rages into Philippa's shoulder, clinging to the shreds of her sanity, "I hate you, I hate you," and Philippa's hands dig hard into her arms as Kat grinds herself desperately against her, and she says "I know," and Kat laughs like a wild thing, anger and grief and love and lust roaring through her like a plasma breach.
I love you, Philippa, Philippa, I love you.
Afterward, she replicates a new uniform, and the Emperor drapes herself across the couch and watches her without a word. She doesn't look at Kat like she's prey anymore.
Afterward, she thinks she'll talk to Burnham. She thinks there are things they can say to one another that no one else would quite understand.
Afterward—she isn't the other Katrina. She won't do to anyone else what was done to her. But she will win this war, and she will gather her people around her, and God help anyone foolish enough to stand in her way.
she’s not here, and I’d rather see her lovely
step, her sparkling glance and her face than gaze on
all the troops in Lydia in their chariots and
glittering armor.
—Sappho, The Anactoria Poem
no subject
Date: 2018-02-01 04:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-01 05:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-01 05:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-01 10:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-01 07:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-01 05:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-01 05:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-01 05:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-01 05:43 am (UTC)(And YEAH, Kat, sweetheart, darling, terrible coping methods here, but on the other hand: Philippa Georgiou in THAT costume. Wouldn't YOU?)
no subject
Date: 2018-02-01 05:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-01 11:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-01 11:23 pm (UTC)(I'd like to find out if it was a deliberate choice that they never kissed on camera, and didn't even share a frame in that scene. A few weeks ago I found that frustrating; now I'm just relieved.)
no subject
Date: 2018-02-02 03:19 am (UTC)But also: Damn! *shakes head* FEELINGS D:
It definitely makes me even happier than I already was for how respectfully they filmed her in that whole sequence. I always LOVED that the visual they used for "yeah they're gonna fuck now" was her taking off her insignia/badge rather than say unzipping her jumpsuit. It signalled exactly what was going on, and the change from professional to personal interaction, and was like...negative points for male gazey. <3 But now? Holy fuck I'm even gladder. (Likewise how they did the post-sex scenes, where she's clearly scared and confused and pissed off, but it's also 100% her POV and there's no loving lingering on her half-naked and distressed or anything.
SO MUCH GOING ON even that far back!
(But ouch, if I had properly shipped them at all...ow!)
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Date: 2018-02-01 04:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-01 11:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-01 11:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-02 03:22 am (UTC)(I'm so relieved, after all the attempts I made last week to get a good icon out of her caps from the Mirrorverse. THINGS ARE TOO DARK THERE GUYS.)
((goes without saying that obvs it's shareable <3))
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Date: 2018-02-02 02:06 am (UTC)This is so wonderful and horrible and perfect! Properly scary and hot and sad and oh god lovely. ♥ You did a fantastic job getting poor Kat's feelings all out there, and Emperor Philippa is... everything she is. So damned scary and perfect and wrong.
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Date: 2018-02-02 03:31 am (UTC)Yesssss, this is what I was going for. XDDD
I mean, I think we can all say with Kat that Emperor Philippa is sex in a gold chestplate, but at the same time you were one hundred and twelve percent correct, my friend, when you said she was going to be legitimately frightening. :D
POOR KAT, that girl needs a hug, and she's so brave and lovely. <3
(Maybe she can go fall into some of that Shohreh Aghdashloo as Commodore Paris fic and get some properly loving domming after this, IDEK.)
The other side of this, of course, is: Here's the petrifying hell-world evil version of your beloved, and that brings up a million conflicting feelings, and it's STILL less headfucky than Gabriel goddamn Lorca. :P
<33333