"I can do that. What's this item do?"
"A great many things. It's called the Apocalypse Box."
Ha'Cormar'ah G'Kar loved many things in his life, although it did not come easily to him to say so. I could read some of the things in his expression as he told his tales of the old days.
G'Kar looked at the shrine for a long time, his eyes half-closed, seeing half of what was and half what of had been and half of what he dreamed it could be.
No one ever saw what was there. They saw what they wished to be there.
Or what they feared was there.
Or some combination of both.
He loved his people. He loved his cause. He loved his friends dearly. He loved Delenn of Mir and Emperor Londo Mollari and he even felt some love for Primarch Sinoval, who was hardly the easiest person to love. He loved Commander Ta'Lon and the memory of Neroon, and most of all he loved Lennier, almost as much as I did.
He even loved me a little.
People passed by, no one seeming to notice the building in front of them. A holy place, dedicated to the lost and the fallen, and no one seemed to care. He saw a young human stare at it for a long time, a wide-eyed sense of wonder in his face, and then walk on. He saw a Narn girl humming to herself as she looked at it. He saw an elderly Narn soldier, walking with a heavy limp and missing an arm, stare at the memory of the building with misty eyes.
But the adults, those who held the power or supported those who held the power. The current generation of the Narn people. His generation, those who had survived the Occupation and the War and been able to realise the better world they had always told themselves was possible.
They saw nothing.
Most of all, he loved his hopes for the future. So much of that part of him had been lost before I met him, and most of what remained has been lost since. He rarely spoke of his dreams to me, but sometimes he did, and then his eyes seemed to light up.
That was what he truly loved, the future.
"So much is forgotten, so much is lost."
He was waiting for Lennier or Ta'Lon to get back to him. Both were investigating secret things, digging into buried mysteries. He was doing the same, but in his own way. Lennier and Ta'Lon were investigating conspiracies and secrets.
He was investigating the hearts and the souls of his people.
He told me once that he loved hope more than anything else, for hope was pure and perfect. You could hope for a better world despite knowing it would never come. You could hope for a victory and never have to imagine what would come afterwards, when the memory of the victory faded.
"Ha'Cormar'ah," said a voice quietly to him. He turned to see someone looking at him. He had made no attempt at disguise, but neither had he made any effort to draw attention to himself. No one had spared him a second glance. He was sure the agents and the eyes of the Kha'Ri would have noticed him, but to his people, he was no one.
"Yes?" he said.
The Narn nodded, and then seemed to shimmer.
I have spent thirty years trying to understand everything he told me, and the most important lesson I have learned in all that time is that I never will. I miss him every day. I miss his wisdom, his kindness, his understanding, his drive.
Most of all I miss the dreams of the young man he must once have been. There is no one left now who knew that young man. They are all gone. Speak his name to a few elderly men and women and their eyes will light up, their years drop away and they will remember his face and his speeches, but they will not remember him.
Still, perhaps that is magic enough. Perhaps that is legacy enough. It is more than most of us can ask for, to be remembered in that way.
As a legend.
G'Kar realised what it was almost instantly, memories left over from his sojourn in the Great Machine rising in his mind. But he was paralysed by a sheer lack of comprehension.
Not here! He had expected many things. Thenta Ma'Kur, alien mercenaries, common street thugs, but not this.
The thing that was not a Narn moved too quickly for him to react. One blow staggered him and the second felled him.
He stared up into the sun with unblinking eyes.
Not a Faceless. He had never expected a Shadowspawn here.
He told me once, bitter and angry, how much he resented being a legend. He would have been happy to have his name forgotten and erased from history. Alas, by writing this tome I fear I have removed any hope of that.
But most of all he wished to have his message remembered, his words, his meaning. That was what mattered, not his name.
I hope I have managed to do that, even a little.
No one noticed as the body of Ha'Cormar'ah G'Kar was removed.
In less than a minute it was as if he had never been there at all.
L'Neer of Narn, Learning at the Prophet's Feet.
John J. Sheridan. Saviour of the galaxy. Defender of the true and the virtuous.
You can hide no secrets from me, Sheridan.
All was dark, save for the light of the tiny candle at the foot of the mirror. The mirror was vast, towering up as far as the eye could see, but all he could see in it was himself, staring back at him, speaking with a voice not his own.
"Is this a dream?" he asked himself.
That depends. Are you a man dreaming you are a ghost, or a ghost dreaming you are a man? Is anything real? Is Delenn real, or is her touch only an illusion? Am I real?
"Who are you?"
Who are you?
We have been over this, Sheridan. You don't know who you are. Look, we have stripped everything away, you and I. All that remains is the darkness, a tiny light, the mirror, and yourself. Shorn of all encumbrances and burdens and duties. Here of all places you can surely know who you are.
"How can any of us answer that question?"
Very well, then. Another question. A different one. Who do you want to be?
"My father," he replied instantly. "I want to be my father."
The one who joined the Shadows, who allied with them, fought for them, sent countless millions to their deaths in their cause?
"No. That man was not my father. That man was someone who once had been my father. I want to be my father as he was when I was a child."
Both men are one and the same, surely. The man you remember became the man who served the Shadows. The man who served the Shadows still had some of the man who poured water on to your roof at night to help you sleep. Which man was real, and which the illusion?
"They were both real, and whatever he did, he was still my father. I forgave him, at the end."
After all he did, you still forgive him?
"Yes."
You believe in redemption, then? You believe that a man might be forgiven his sins, his errors, whether intentional or not — they can all be forgiven and atoned for? Any man can seek redemption?
Or any woman?
"I...."
Can you be forgiven, Sheridan? The things you did, is there absolution for them?
"I...."
You forgave your father. Why not yourself? What is it you have done that you cannot forgive, Sheridan? You killed Minbari, a great many of them, but that was war. You sent people to die in your war, but that was for a greater cause, was it not? You took up arms against your own people, but it was for their own good. You killed your wife on the deck of your own ship, but that was just a misunderstanding. Not your fault at all. You left Delenn and your unborn child on Z'ha'dum, but your instincts told you she was dead, and you did not know she was pregnant, so what blame there?