Work Text:
In Valen’s Name.
Delenn does not remember a time when she did not know those words. From her earliest memories in the temples and at home she heard them spoken. Reverently, in chants; quietly, conversationally as her parents and other elders met while she played in the next room. She said them often herself, as she pursued her education, as she grew in knowledge and wisdom in the temples.
She whispered them when her father died, over and over, trying to find the same comfort and serenity she’d heard so often in his voice when he’d said them. She said them quite calmly when her mother left to pursue her further training.
The words pervaded her litanies as she became an initiate, until the syllables were as much a part of her as her own heartbeat, though she paid considerably more attention to the former. They are central to her life as she advances, as she grows closer to Dukhat and to power.
After Dukhat’s death, during the war with the humans, her faith seems hollow, ashen. As if in giving in to vengeance, she had sacrificed the part of her that could believe in the universe. It was the only time she’d ever found the words empty of meaning.
When she saw the triluminary respond to Sinclair, her faith returned in a torrent that was as much pain as it was relief. It was an end to war, yes, but a blade of guilt through her heart that she had not found the way to understanding before so much death. Her faith came when she needed it most, a hope that once more, the universe was unfolding itself, albeit at the cost of so many lives. In Valen’s Name indeed.