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rainbowfic2013-03-06 11:17 pm
shadowsong26) wrote in rainbowfic2013-03-06 11:17 pm
Entry tags:
- author: shadowsong26 supreme whumpmaster,
- color: jade,
- color: tyrian purple,
- story: lux,
- style: mural,
- style: saturation,
- supply: acrylic,
- supply: brush,
- supply: canvas,
- supply: fabric,
- supply: feathers,
- supply: glitter,
- supply: modeling clay,
- supply: novelty beads,
- supply: oils,
- supply: pastels,
- supply: stickers
Tyrian Purple, Jade #12
Name: shadowsong26
Story: Who Wants to Live Forever?
'Verse: Lux
Colors: Tyrian Purple Saturation, Jade #12. Riches and honours are floating clouds/Look down, look up, the years flow on, twenty springs have passed
Supplies and Materials: saturation, mural, canvas (all except the last), brush (meritorious), acrylic, oils, stickers (In space, astronauts cannot cry because there is no gravity, so the tears can't flow.), feathers, fabric, modeling clay, pastels (my current gen + romance card B4 "holy place"), novelty beads ("Duty is heavier than a mountain, death is lighter than a feather." - Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors), glitter ("Evil is a point of view." – Anne Rice)
Word Count: 10,003
Rating: R
Characters: Simon, Michaela, Ruth
Warnings: Death, war, kidnapping, Michaela taking Simon's mind away with and without his consent, suicidal ideation, references to self-injury and attempted suicide, depiction of depression, flashbacks, Vikings, plague, very brief reference to adultery, familial death, fire, ableism and internalized ableism. I think that's all of them. If I missed any, please let me know.
Notes: Constructive criticism welcome, as always. Last Jade! This saturation took for fucking ever. I've been working on it for...I don't know, at least two months or so. Anyway, a few things to note: Simon uses many different names through this, but it's always him. He occasionally refers to another man named Simon, who was a good friend of his during his original life, sorry if it's confusing. He also perceives Michaela as male sometimes and female sometimes, but if a tall blond/e turns up, especially with long fingers, said blond/e is always Michaela. And if anyone (except Kat, who already knows) manages to guess Simon's original identity from this, I'll write them a drabble of their choice.
14. eternal sleep
80 AD
Judaea
The place still felt like death, overpowering.
He'd avoided this place for as long as he could, and maybe that was the problem. He'd finally come back because he thought it would be a good place to find it himself. At last. After decades of trying and trying and trying--the first one was the only one he could explain away. Miriam had found him, Miriam and Simon together, and--
He pushed that thought out of his mind as best he could. Wallowing in past attempts wouldn't do him any good.
More disturbing than his apparent inability to die was his clear inability to age. He was something close to ninety years old, as near as he could figure--even if age wouldn't have killed him by now, there should be some sign of it. Instead, he looked half his age, at most; no older than when--
He was forced to stop, abruptly, when his path was blocked by a blonde woman, alone, in Greek dress. ...what...?
...no. Not a woman. Too tall, too...strange. She didn't even look human. Her shoulders were stretched tall--everything about her was stretched, long and lean and all out of proprortion.
She reached out, brushing a hand along his neck. He flinched backwards--but maybe she would solve all his problems for him, he wouldn't have to--
"You are offered a new life," she said, softly. "Cessation of all your pain. It will be taken away."
...how is that...
"It is not for you to question how," she said, a bite of impatience in her voice. "If you consent, it will be erased. And you will do some good with your years."
"It will all be gone...?"
"Yes."
He might not be able to die, but this was the next best thing.
"...I consent."
5. winged messenger
124 AD
Egypt
Matthias woke in total darkness, with his hands bound and his head pounding and the distinctly sour taste of bile in his mouth. There was sand in his lashes, making what little he could see of the world grainy.
...where?
Matthias closed his eyes, trying to retrace his steps. He had been travelling. Assisting a trader, coming up from Kush to the Roman markets of Egypt. He spoke Latin--though he hated it, for some reason he couldn't determine, probably buried deep in his lost youth--and Greek, and the trader needed a translator.
Something must have happened, though he couldn't quite recall what. Sometime before they reached their goal of Alexandria--before they even reached Thebes.
His heart sank into his stomach. Bandits, or worse. His life had taken a sudden dark turn.
There was a sudden blaze of light, blinding him--he must be in a tent, with the flap suddenly pulled back.
While he blinked, trying to clear his vision and trying to scramble away, long, cool fingers went to work on his wrists, unbinding them.
"Do you trust me?" a voice said, low and sexless, in Greek.
"Wh-who...?"
"That is unimportant."
His vision had cleared enough to see a tall silhouette, long and thin, and somehow not of this world.
Obviously, this...person had not been involved in the attack on the caravan. "...yes," he croaked.
"Keep your head down, and follow. You will be kept safe."
Not really trusting whoever this stranger was, despite saying he did, Matthias rose and stumbled after him. Because the alternative was staying and facing God alone knew what peril.
He only hoped he wasn't fleeing to something worse.
23. lonely inventor
231 AD
Greece
There was war, to the east, or so Simon heard. It hadn't touched the town he lived in yet, so he tried to put it out of his mind. He had a good life here--if there were things he couldn't explain, about his lost childhood, about the mark on his neck...
Enough troubles lay in his past, Simon was certain, to make borrowing against future ones a poor idea.
He lived alone here in the town. He kept accounts for an illiterate trader. He rose every morning, breathed in the spring rains, tended the little vegetable garden he kept, did his work, went to sleep. Quiet and calm, a good life.
Until the knock came on his door.
The man on the other side was tall--unreasonably so, with long icy blond hair. "...can I help you?"
"You must come," he said.
Simon blinked. "Who are you?"
"That is unimportant."
"...I am closing the door now."
The tall man held out a hand and stopped the door. No matter how hard he shoved, Simon could no longer get it to budge.
"You may use the name Michaela. But you must come."
The feminine ending to a man's name was the least disturbing part of the whole thing.
This is a dream. This is a very strange dream, I am going to wake up in moments and go back to my garden and my ordinary life--
Michaela had found his hand and tugged him out the door. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't resist.
8. Achilles' heel
357 AD
Constantinople
It started with nightmares.
Well, that was a little inaccurate. He'd been having nightmares since...well, for as long as he could remember. Most nights, though not all; he'd wake in a cold sweat, swarmed by guilt and grief and terror that he couldn't quite explain. On those nights, nothing would help him sleep again, so he would wander the city, trying to distract himself and escape the blood cascading through his mind.
But the nightmares getting worse, much worse--and not steadily, all at once--did start it. Probably.
First, they were more vivid. He couldn't just feel his soul bending under the weight of all those emotions, but he could smell blood, and feel pressure against his throat, and hear weeping, and rage, and accusations. He could remember some of it when he woke, but never the start.
Then they started coming more and more often, until he couldn't sleep without feeling that fear, seeing that blood, waking up convinced he couldn't breathe.
Then, no matter how far he walked after, no matter if he got dead drunk, he couldn't make it go away.
And still the worst was yet to come.
It had been maybe a week of fearing to sleep, sleeping in fear when he did--perhaps two--when he tripped and banged his head into a door frame. It was the blood, the blood trickling down his eyes, seeing his bloody face half-reflected in a water basin, that did it.
He smelled it, heard it, felt it all, his hands started shaking, his breath caught in his throat, he could feel something rough caressing it and knew, knew that it was the right choice, the only choice.
And he remembered.
It enveloped him like a tidal wave or a sandstorm, filling in all the cracks in his memory--not just years, but decades, centuries that he should not have had.
Blinded by bloody tears, he wedged himself into a corner and curled up, unable to do anything but pray for a death that never came.
24. melted wings
455 AD
Rome
Thaddeus paused on a hill outside the burning city and turned to study it.
For as long as he could remember living there (which was, to be fair, as far back as he could remember at all), he had hated Rome. It was crowded, it was messy, it was incredibly expensive to live in, and there was a strange twitchy feeling in the back of his mind that he couldn't quite explain.
The perils of having no memories, perhaps. There might well be something buried deep in his mind to explain his distaste for the city.
True, it was arrogant, overlarge, cruel, despotic, greedy, decadent, and the Emperor--this one, at least--was faithless. When Thaddeus thought of it that way, he couldn't help but be a little smug that said Emperor and Rome itself had received some sort of justice for it all, whatever that it really was at its heart. While he didn't know all the details--something about a broken betrothal with a barbarian prince--the results were clear in front of him.
He closed his eyes, tasting the distant smoke, and realized that, somehow, his hand had crept up to his neck without his realizing. But he only did that when he felt particularly gloomy about something. And he didn't. Because, for whatever reason, he hated Rome.
But...he hadn't done too badly, living there. Even if the politicians and most of the army ranged from usless wastrels to vicious scoundrels, the ordinary people didn't.
Maybe that was the problem.
A cool hand rested on his shoulder--the same one that had pulled him out just as the barbarians came pouring in. He didn't look up.
"Do not dwell on it," the blond said softly.
Thaddeus nodded, then took a deep breath and turned away from the fallen city.
He did not, however, drop his hand.
21. lifelong affair
585 AD
Sicily
It was easy to blame Michaela for everything. Michaela, after all, pulled him in and out of names, identities, places, lifetimes at will and seemingly at random, without much care for how it affected him or the people he'd met. Michaela left him in places he hated and took him away from places he grew to love.
But...
But Michaela let him forget, and that was still such a powerful gift--forgetting, all the horrors he'd seen and committed. Michaela gave him times and opportunities where he could do some amount of good for the rest of the world. Even if it was only helping a few small people in a few small places with a few small problems, even if it didn't come close to making up for his crimes, it was still something. It was an opportunity he would never have had, if not for Michaela.
So he wandered this mountainous island, avoiding the people who lived here when at all possible, keeping to hidden passes and caves. He wandered, and he wrote messages to the people he'd loved, over the centuries, and tossed them into the sea where they might, somehow, reach their spirits.
And he waited.
Because as much as he hated Michaela for the sometimes-poor execution of granting him those gifts, time and again, he had been saved from intense pain by Michaela's hand. And, for a while, she gave him peace, and something approaching joy.
Michaela gave him oblivion, and it was worth the horrors in between.
He retreated back to the cave where he was sleeping. Sooner or later, Michaela would come.
Michaela always did.
25. the Midas touch
642 AD
Volga Basin
Simon had grown very, very good at negotiating between all the people who tried to lay claim to this area over the past few years. He could explain his inexplicable scars as souveniers from one group while trying to court another for supplies. He'd found a place, hidden enough to serve as a shelter, where he welcomed all refugees, no matter what nation or tribe they claimed, on condition that there would be no violent disputes within the settlement. People grumbled, when they heard that restriction, and sometimes he had to have them forcibly removed in order to enforce his rules and keep things safe for everyone else, but...but the fighting was still minimal.
Somehow, he made it all work.
By some miracle of persuasion, no matter who ruled the area in practice, people listened to him. Simon had no earthly idea why, but he decided not to question his good fortune. After all, it got him what he needed--his haven and his supplies. There were children born here who had a reasonable expectation of growing up in health and safety, and that was something he had done.
Wherever he got his silver tongue, wherever he got his scars, whoever he'd been before waking up on a raft in the river seven years ago, whoever he became in years to come, he could be proud of this part of his life. For now, he was happy enough with that.
19. pillar of stones
711 AD
Spain
Pedro paused in hauling in his nets, squinting at the blur on the southern horizon. It was strange, and more or less impossible, but it seemed to be moving.
He called out to his friend, Santiago--who never questioned when he got confused, or far-away, internally chasing ghosts of lost memories. "Do you see that?"
Santiago looked up, holding up a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. "...it looks like ships..."
That likely meant nothing good. "I'm going up, to get a better look."
"All right."
Pedro finished hauling as fast as he could and left the rest for Santiago to handle, then scrambled up the closest cliff to get a better look.
In the time that it had taken Pedro to climb to the better vantage point, the movement on the horizon had gotten much closer, and proved Santiago right. They were ships, there were a lot of them, and they were crossing the straight.
He caught a reflection off something metallic and his heart leapt into his throat. That could only mean one thing.
Arms and armor.
Invasion.
"Santiago!" he yelled. "Santiago, run to town, tell them an army--"
Something hot and hard slammed into his shoulder, throwing him off balance. He blinked down at it, eyes swimming, seeing an arrow with grey-white fletchings emerging from his shoulder. Oh. Oh, my...
He'd stumbled to the edge of the cliff somehow, and started to think he should really get down and hide. Another arrow whizzed past him and he flinched away from it, completely losing his footing and tumbling down, off the cliff.
He felt the impact of the water in every fiber of his being. The ocean screamed into his shoulder, curling under and around the arrow where one would think nothing could pass. His limbs felt limp, disassembled, buffeted by the water in all the wrong directions, at new joints he hadn't had this morning.
He couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe, and the pressure on his chest and along the scar on his throat was devastating.
As the world went dark around him, the sun fell down from the sky and burst through the water. The pressure on his chest increased, but suddenly he was rising, and he felt water fall away from his head.
He felt solid rock beneath him after a moment, and it hurt so terribly. "S-santiago..." he managed to croak out.
"Shh," his rescuer--not Santiago--said. Pedro couldn't quite make out his face, just long, cool fingers, bracing themselves next to the arrow. "Everything will be all right. You are safe now."
The stranger yanked the arrow out of Pedro's shoulder and a blinding white-hot flash chased away all hope of consciousness.
1. chained to a rock
817 AD
Ireland
Brother Maitiú knelt in the small chapel in the monastery and closed his eyes. In the eight years since he had been found, wandering the beach, with no memory of how he'd gotten there, he had grown more attached than he'd ever thought possible to his brothers and to the life here. It was quiet, and peaceful, and he could think of nothing better to do with one's life than serving God.
Particularly since he carried scars and an inexplicable sense of guilt with him. This life was the only possible way to find redemption for a crime he couldn't remember--if he couldn't remember, how could he confess and receive absolution? He could do that for small sins that he still committed--he was only human, after all, monk or no--but not for the great crime he knew he had forgotten. The Abbot agreed, and did his best to help, but he was still not entirely sure it was enough. But it was all he could do, so he did it, to the utmost of his abilities.
Brother Maitiú returned his thoughts back to his prayers, quietly berating himself for letting his mind wander, and then the silence was shattered and he smelled smoke.
He leapt to his feet and hesitated, trying to decide whether to hide or try to find out what had happened and help his brothers, and then the door to the chapel burst open.
Raiders.
Tall, blond, ruthless raiders, the kind that had been harrying the coast for twenty years, according to rumor. They had never come here but Maitiú knew, deep inside himself, that it had really only been a matter of time.
He froze, unable to determine what to do, and then a beardless raider, taller even than all the others, pushed to the front and said something to the apparent leader, who snapped back. The tall raider punched the leader in the face and he fell back, blood spurting from his nose and mouth--Maitiú yelped with a distressing lack of dignity--and then the tall man dodged the others and grabbed Maitiú.
"Brace yourself," the tall man murmured, and then they were moving, faster than Maitiú could have thought possible, bowling through and past the others and out into the dying light.
12. golden fleece
998 AD
Greece
He lay on his back on a sunny hillside near Athens, watching the lightly painted clouds, trying to decide what shapes they made. Some of the few fond memories he had, from his natural life, were doing this as a small child with his sister.
He'd found a rabbit, a house, and a sleeping lion before someone lay down next to him. He didn't have to turn to know who it was.
"Do you have siblings to play this game with?" he asked.
"Games are not played," Michaela answered softly. "Not with cloud-shapes, at least."
He nodded, and decided the next one was a human hand. "They've been saying the world will end soon."
"Humans often do."
"I take it that means it won't?"
If he hadn't known better, he would have sworn he felt a vibrating hum of laughter from his companion. "Not so soon, no. But someday."
He sat up and turned to see Michaela's face. "When?"
Michaela sat as well, and sighed. "It cannot be explained in terms you would understand. Soon, but that means something different to you."
He felt a stab of bitter disappointment. He was starting to think that his existence would end only when the world did. And that couldn't come soon enough for his taste.
He fell back and returned to watching the clouds. "Will you tell me, before it comes?"
Michaela's silence was answer enough.
6. the lying oracle
1098 AD
Syria
Nathanael yanked his sword back and almost fell over with it. He was, by now, no longer sickened by the endless waste of life surrounding him. The Pope himself had called for all Christendom to go to war, so it must be just. Being sickened by it was likely a sin. It was good he'd become inured to it.
Still, he couldn't help but think that there must be a better way to reclaim the Holy Land. Without that endless, terrible waste. He was no priest, so he couldn't really know for sure, but it seemed to him that this would not be God's will.
But the Pope had decreed that it was, so it must be so.
He turned to engage again, and watched the man fall at his feet, bleeding savagely from an arm nearly severed at the shoulder. It seemed to him that they would do better to try and convert, rather than slaughter, these poor men.
But it was just. It was holy. And a part of Nathanael did believe that--a part of him must believe that, else why would he even have come?
He sighed, and lurched over, nearly losing his balance. He was bleeding himself, had somehow failed to notice. He choked back a laugh and fell to his knees.
So he would die here, alone, fighting for something...something he believed in, yes, but using tactics he did not.
A brightly-armored blond man at once blocked and amplified the sun. Cool fingers touched his forehead, and everything slowly emptied out of him, and he felt, for a disorienting second, his blood stop flowing.
Then he felt the other man lift him, and quieted into blissful sleep.
30. mother of monsters
1140 AD
Armenia
It was rather strange to live in a world where one's name was a byword for everything evil.
He tried not to think about it too much--it wouldn't change anything. It might make things worse, even, hard as that was for him to admit, to accept that anything could be worse.
Not that this was a particularly bad time for him. He was...of all the times he could remember, of all the times he was himself, anyway--he didn't really count the periods of oblivion--this was one of the...not happiest, he was never really happy, but...least distressing.
It hadn't been from the start. The first year or so after waking up was, as always...difficult. He picked up many new scars during that first year, as a rule, and this one had been no exception. But it got a little...not better, but less crushing, as time went on. He never forgot--especially not with the way his name was used--but it wasn't ever-present, beating an endless tattoo in his head, that the people who used his name as a synonym for 'evil' were absolutely right.
Now, though...well, he would never deny that there weren't still times, many times, where those drums in his head started again--they're right they're right they're all right--but most of the time he was more amused by it than anything. As if any person, any name, any choice--even any crime--could be whittled down to a single concept.
Evil.
He might have been evil, at his heart, he might not. But his name--was a name. It was his name, no matter how many others he wore, by choice or by Michaela, and therefore inextricably attached to his crime, but turning his name into 'evil' was far too simple for something as vast as a symbol for his identity.
So, when he heard his name used that way, he fought the urge to shake his head and smile. Because, even if they were right, they were also wrong.
He was something more than evil.
9. Trojan horse
1238 AD
Kievan Rus'
He woke in a ditch, with a strange man hovering over him.
"Are you all right?" the stranger asked, sounding genuinely concerned.
He sat up slowly. His head hurt, but nothing else did. He could see clearly, and he wasn't sick to his stomach, so whatever blow he'd taken hadn't been too severe. "I...I think so?"
The stranger looked confused now. "I'm...sorry?"
"I think I'm all right," he tried, confused himself. Why couldn't the other man understand him? He was speaking plainly...
"...I'll be back in a moment," the stranger said, loudly and painfully slow, over-enunciating every syllable and gesticulating wildly.
He put a hand to his forehead and pressed, feeling the pain in his head blossom. What is going on? Why couldn't he understand me?
...more to the point, how had he come to be in that ditch?
He searched back in his mind, as far as he could, but...nothing. Darkness, only darkness.
Fear thrummed along his spine and he drew himself up, still unsteady, in hopes that something he saw along the horizon might spark something in him.
"Hello?"
He turned. A worn-looking older man, accompanied by the first stranger, had approached.
"I don't know what's going on," he said, helplessly.
The old man frowned. When he spoke again, he spoke as slowly and enunciating as carefully as the first, but not so loud and without the flailing. "Can you understand me? Nod or shake your head, please."
He nodded.
"But you cannot speak our language?"
He shrugged helplessly. He could've sworn he had been, but...
"My name is Yuri Ivanovitch," the old man said. "I am the priest in the village nearby. What is your name?"
It sprung to his lips faster than his mind. "S-Semyon. Semyon Semyonovich."
He couldn't remember the father whose name he shared, but for some reason he knew his name. "I...I don't know anything else, I'm sorry..."
The man jerked. "What are you sorry for?"
Apparently he'd switched languages?
Semyon buried his face in his hands. "I don't remember!"
Yuri Ivanovitch was silent for a long moment, then put a hand on Semyon's shoulder. "Come with me to the church," he said softly. "I will look after you."
Something buried deep inside him was suspicious, but this priest had been kind, had not treated him like an idiot, had not shied away from him or flown into a rage. He needed help, and this priest was offering, without being asked.
Semyon nodded, and let the priest guide him towards the village.
13. children upon children
1348 AD
Florence
Giacomo closed his eyes and allowed himself to sag against the wall for a moment. Three more this morning, the widow Valenti and her brother and her son, not more than ten. Sometimes he could save them, through some gift or magic (though he tried not to think of it that way). He did better than any of the others who tried to help those who became ill, anyway. But those three...and more others than he cared to think about...
He'd have to deal with the bodies. Which likely meant burning, most of the cemeteries were full. He hated burning the bodies. It made the stench worse.
But, more than that, he couldn't escape from the fact that there was something different this time, even before the burning, something harder about these three. Not the child so much--he'd become numb to dead children some weeks ago. If he let them all cut him to the quick the way a child who suffered so horribly in dying should, he would run mad.
Nor was it the boy's mother, though she was young enough to remarry and have more children, particularly sad when now there were so few.
No, it was something about the brother, the young man. Something about the way his head had fallen to the side in death, something--
My God, my God, what have I done?
They laugh, they jeer, and there is so much blood, so much blood, and I--
I was trying to help! I was trying t--
The world reasserted himself around him. Giacomo shook his head, bewildered by this sudden, so vivid vision. I think I haven't been sleeping enough.
He took a deep breath, and then went back to tend to the bodies.
He managed to put it out of his head, as more infected came to his door that night. But he couldn't quite shake the thought that that flash had, somehow, been real.
18. virgin hunter
1425 AD
France
He stopped, hidden in the hills somewhere in the war-torn kingdom, to rest for a few hours. It wasn't easy, travelling through what had started as an invasion and occupation and proceeded to spiral out of control, adopting aspects of civil strife as well. His natural sympathies lay with the natives, being all too familiar with the horror of living under foreign rule--but, then again, his sympathies were not enough to be willing to fight for these people. He'd had more than enough of war, in his lifetimes.
It still felt strange to think of 'lifetime' in the plural and attach it to himself.
He must have dozed off for a while, because the next thing he knew, he heard a light, breathless little girl's voice. As facile as he was with language, he didn't quite grasp French--at least not the dialect spoken in this region; perhaps it was too close to the Latin he loathed--but he knew the tone, of worshipful reverence.
He winced a little and stood, as slowly and silently as he could, hoping he could slip away rather than intruding on her private moment.
And then he saw who the girl was speaking to, and froze.
She was kneeling on the grass, staring in awe at a familiar blond, who was sitting cross-legged in front of her, in a white robe that was somehow immune to grass stains.
He wanted to warn her, wanted to warn her that Michaela would use her and throw her away, that whatever she did on Michaela's orders would never be worth the price, but he found himself rooted to the spot, bile rising in his throat.
After only a few moments, Michaela vanished and the girl began to weep.
Still frozen, he didn't even realize he was doing the same.
22. the dogs of war
1517 AD
Wittenberg
Johann kept out of the furor in the streets as much as he could. Heresy was a serious subject, he was hardly going to deny that, and what Luther had said was surely heresy, but whether or not Johann agreed with the points he had made...
That was a little more complicated.
There was no question that the Church had grown corrupt. Even her most fervent supporters didn't usually deny it, though Johann was almost positive they'd keep those complaints to themselves from now on. But whether the heresies Luther proposed in exchange for that corruption were any better...
The problem wasn't that the questions had been raised, to Johann's mind. The problem was that no one seemed willing to discuss them with any civility. No, everyone was screaming at everyone else, as if that was any way to solve a knotty intellectual and theological problem. And no one seemed willing to accept or believe that anyone could be neutral, or undecided, or want more information before making up his mind. Johann was all three of those things, and it made going out now that Luther had spat in the Church's face, so to speak...unpleasant.
If only people could be reasonable.
As it was...
It was time to move on. Time to find someplace untouched by these troubles, where Johann could live his life in peace.
15. the gift of fire
1666 AD
England
He kept to back alleys, mostly. London had plenty of places where he could hide. He thought about moving on often nonetheless--the frenetic joy the new King tried to create did not suit him at all. But moving would take time, and money, which he didn't have and was unwilling to interact enough to earn.
So he stayed, and he drifted, on the underbelly of London, through plague and plot and pageantry.
And then came the Fire.
As despicable as it was for him to say, he was grateful. It roused him, to a certain extent, from his apathy. While life was hell for him, the innocent people of the city--and even the too-joyful, debauched court--had futures, lives, hopes, children...
He dove into the firefighting efforts with every fiber of his being.
At first, he worked by himself, using what he had to try and smother small outbreaks of fire in his immediate vicinity. He was spotted by a young matron, who grabbed his arm and pulled him over to the parish church, where the actual supplies were being kept. From there, he went where he was told, helping construct a firebreak at the end of the street.
It failed.
While some faded and were replaced by other volunteers, for nearly four days, he followed the fire around the city, pulling down buildings, dumping sand and water from the Thames when he was close enough, until finally, sometime on Wednesday, it faded away.
He sat down, in the wet, sooty remnants of the Cathedral, and stared at his hands. He'd barely felt it when it happened, but they were burned, badly.
Familiar long white fingers closed around his wrists, and the blackened cracks in his flesh began smoothing over.
He met Michaela's eyes, and the tall blond pulled him forward and kissed his forehead softly.
He followed Michaela out of the ruined city, away towards oblivion and another life.
17. chariot of the sun god
1770 AD
France
Philippe de Valmont felt almost entirely out of place here, in this glittering world of privelege and hollow glory. True, the King's mistress liked his poetry and had invited him here, so he did belong, in some way, but it was all so...much. He'd even met the King, though he had seemed more bored by him than anything else. Philippe himself had just found it painfully awkward, though he'd done his best to hide that and thought he'd done rather well.
It was a beautiful palace, though, built by the King's grandfather as a stunning monument to his power and opulence and arrogance. And Philippe was very fond of wandering in the gardens when the lady didn't require his company. They were beautiful, and, despite an odd sense of melancholy that often possessed him here, particularly if he was out at dawn or in the late afternoon, a melancholy whose source he couldn't quite define...he had never written anything more beautiful than the verses that came to him here.
One late spring evening, while he was perched on a bench near his favorite fountain, trying to write, he suddenly became aware he was not alone.
He looked up, and there was an impossibly tall man, shimmering like a polished pearl in the dying light at the edge of the pool. He was pale, with long blond hair--natural and unpowdered and still nearly white--pulled back loosely, and an icy blue suit that fit him like a glove but was far too plain for the fashions of the court.
Philippe couldn't escape the feeling that he knew this man.
Clearly aware that he had been noticed, the blond skirted the edge of the water and joined him. Philippe rose, uncertain.
"It is time to leave this place," the tall man said.
"I...I don't know who you are, and I am still..." Philippe trailed off, fully aware that the tall man wasn't listening.
"Come. There is work that must be done, and you are required for it."
Before he could stop it, the stranger had taken his hand--his fingers were so long, and cool, and--
Philippe felt a faint pressure on the side of his neck, along the scar whose source he could never explain, and the garden faded around him as the tall blond stranger pulled him away.
3. born of sea foam
1882 AD
The United States of America
The harbor was bustling frenetically as James stepped off the ship. For a heartrending moment, the ground seemed to shift beneath his feet, as the ship had for the first few days. At least, as it should, the ground took less time to settle.
He took a deep breath--fresh ocean mixed with the ordinary foulness cities develop, exactly what he'd expected. And yet...
It felt sweeter than the air he'd left on the other side of the ocean, though he had no earthly idea why. Perhaps because the Old World was full of dark memories he didn't have, and the New held nothing but a future, which would be as bright or as dark as he was capable of making it. Metaphorical refreshment, rather than literal, perhaps.
Not that America was perfect--no country was, not one populated by mortal men, in any case--but at least here he could better hide the fact that he had no past. Perhaps he'd head further west, to the wild frontier towns where no one cared to ask or answer questions. It wouldn't be comfortable, no, but it would be free and open and unhaunted.
Yes, he would go west. West, where the secrets even he didn't know couldn't haunt him. Even if he never repaired his broken mind, he could find someplace where such things didn't matter.
James breathed in that sickly-salty-sweet smell of refuse and promise one more time, then moved away from the ocean into an increasingly bright future.
11. Pandora's box
1948 AD
The United States of America
Thomas spent most of his time pacing in the hotel room where he'd woken up two weeks ago. How he'd got here, he couldn't say. He knew his name was 'Thomas' because he'd found it written down, in a wallet full of cash, and because it felt right.
Not knowing what else to do, he'd contacted a PI once he was sure this whole thing wasn't a dream. That had been three days ago. Erwin hadn't gotten back to him yet.
So he fretted, and he paced, and he stayed shut up in there, because how the hell was he supposed to navigate the world when he wasn't even a hundred percent sure about his name?
He jumped about a mile when someone knocked on the door. He hesitated a fraction of a second before opening it, then slumped a little in inexpressible relief to see Erwin standing there.
"Did you find anything?" he asked, standing aside to let him in.
"Yeah. You're not gonna believe--"
A ray of moonlight behind him suddenly shifted, and the PI dropped. Thomas yelped and leapt back, wishing like hell he had some kind of weapon to defend himself.
The moonlight materialized into a tall woman, holding a goddamned sword nearly as long as Thomas was tall.
"He will wake unharmed, with no memory of you," the woman said, softly.
Thomas stammered something barely intelligible even to him, and the woman sheathed her sword and picked Erwin up and slung him over her shoulder, as easily as if he were a dress or a coat, something light and malleable.
"Do not ask questions," she said. "You are happier in ignorance." She turned and vanished without another word, leaving Thomas staring into a suddenly empty hall, more terrified than he would previously have thought possible.
29. don't look back
2047 AD
The United States of America
He had paid an incredible amount of money for a ticket to the special exhibition and waited in line for an hour, and here he was.
He could hardly believe there was this much interest in so small a thing--fragments of about a dozen letters he had written, during his original, natural life. Then again, controversy bred interest, even in people who didn't believe that--well, all he had to do was remember that novel fifty-odd years ago to know how much this nation, this current world, was drawn to things like his letters.
He went down a narrow passage, with photographs and explanations of the archeological mission that had found the small cache of letters buried in Saudi Arabia, of all places. How they'd gotten there, he couldn't say--though, to be fair, he'd lost track of them, other than knowing Simon had given them to Miriam for safekeeping. He had, of course, lost track of his daughter and her children the first time he'd lost his memory, and it had been too painful--and too difficult--to try and find them again when he recovered.
After twenty minutes of slow progress through the crowded exhibit, he reached the center. The clearest letter-fragment, with the most legible text--one written about four years before...before--was on prominent display, in an airtight, climate-controlled glass case. There was a rough translation on a small plastic plaque next to it, but he--obviously--didn't need it.
--peace. I know I can't explain it, I'm a translator, not a poet, but--
--speak, I know there is no other thing in the world---------contentment.
More than anything, he wished he could reach through the glass and touch it, hold that faded fragment for a moment--how it had survived all these centuries was beyond him, it wasn't even very good quality--and try to recapture that contentment. But he couldn't. And even if he could, he knew enough about document preservation to know that touching it would destroy it further. The only true contemporary account of...things--so much of what was left was corrupted by time, he couldn't bear the thought of losing what little truth there was.
He moved on after a momentary struggle, so as not to block the view of the other visitors. He remembered the rest of the letter, of course, but if he allowed himself to be drawn down the path of memory in front of it, he would draw undue attention.
He stepped out of the museum, blinking into the bright, clear November day, and sat down in a nearby sculpture garden, closing his eyes and thinking. When he tried, when he really tried, despite all the horror that had come after, he could almost recapture that feeling of peace and contentment that had been there in those early days, even without holding the physical proof of it.
He let out a long, slow breath, and opened his eyes, contemplating the sky. He couldn't quite say that the good memories sprinkled through--when he was left alone long enough to pass through everything flooding back and find them--were worth all the rest. But...but he liked to hold them, when he could.
When he opened his eyes, a familiar tall blond was standing in front of him.
He was going to lose it again, the horror, yes--but also those faint traces of joy.
He wept.
27. Cupid's arrow
2173 AD
The United States of America
"So, David, have you ever been married before?" Ruth asked brightly, about halfway through dinner.
And then things got a little awkward.
It had been going really well, too, for a blind date--one of the other teachers had set David up with a cousin, and Ruth was sweet and funny and pretty and not too young, and...
"I'm so sorry," she said, catching on to her open-foot-insert-mouth moment right away. "I'm so, so sorry, I just...I mean, Kay told me, she did, I just...I forgot."
David found his voice again. "It's okay. It's...um. It's not exactly obvious." And this was why he didn't really get out, let alone date. What kind of woman wants to spend her life with a man who only has four years of history?
The awkward silence stretched a few minutes, and David smiled a little. Ruth was still sweet and funny and pretty and not too young, and she had made an honest mistake--not exactly hard for the first time ever meeting someone with total retrograde amnesia. "I like to think I haven't, though," he said.
She blinked. "Yeah?"
...and that was probably a bad move. Depressing justification, and all. "Well...if I was, then she's probably wondering what happened to me. I don't like thinking I made someone worry that much, intentionally or otherwise."
Ruth was quiet for a long minute, then nodded. "Yeah, I can see that."
The pause that followed was, at least, significantly less awkward than the last. "Um. Do you have any pets?"
David smiled again, and relaxed a little, settling back into a less-treacherous conversation.
Because, after all, Ruth was sweet and funny and pretty and not too young, and she didn't seem to mind taking a chance on a man with no history.
It might be nice to sit back and see where this took him.
28. Orpheus' song
2257 AD
The United States of America
The cemetary was quiet, peaceful, green.
It had taken him nearly a decade, since recovering himself, to find it. He'd kept track of her for a while, after he was taken from her, while he was between wipes, but how could he approach? How could he explain why he'd gone, or why he hadn't aged?
It would only hurt her worse.
He finally found it, and sat down to study the name and dates, tracing them with one finger.
Ruth Jessica Stone-Greenberg
December 18, 2140-June 29, 2238
"Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings."
He bowed his head, and whispered, "I'm sorry."
"She was happy, you know."
He jumped.
Michaela was standing a short distance away, dressed simply, in white, as always.
He turned away. "Not here. Whatever you want me to do, not here."
"That is not the reason--" Michaeala broke off, and he got the distinct impression that ever-perfect Michaela was actually struggling to figure out what to say. "She was happy. With you."
"While you let me stay."
To his surprise, Michaela's head bowed, in slight acknowledgement.
They remained there, not speaking, for a long moment. When he broke it, his voice wavered. "Why?"
"Why?" Michaela sounded puzzled.
"Why would you do that? Give me to her, and then take me away?"
Michaela was clearly distressed by the question. "Were you not happy? Did you not love her?"
He closed his eyes and choked back tears. "Yes. I did. And I was. More than I have been since..." He shook his head. "But...but I left her. She deserved...she deserved someone who could stay. She deserved better than me."
"Perhaps," Michaela said, then was silent for a long moment. "Do you know why you are given oblivion?"
"So I stay out of the way until you need me?"
"No."
"What does this have to do with--"
Michaela cut him off. "You are granted oblivion so you can have peace, and joy. It is a gift to you. It is done from kindness. You were happy, with her. And she with you. There was no reason to intervene."
He stared at the gravestone, tracing the psalm quote with his fingers again. "Leave me alone, Michaela," he finally whispered.
A short silence, and then a faint rush of wind, and he was alone with his grief and with his memories.
10. the face that sailed a thousand ships
2382 AD
Canada
They were not alone in the universe.
Andrew reread the headline and the article attached another half-dozen times. He'd never even considered the possibility, outside of science fiction, that there were other fully sentient species scattered around the universe.
Six ships had landed in six cities, without warning--one on each continent. New York, Buenos Aires, London, Cairo, Beijing, and Sydney had all been chosen, by some formula that the visitors hadn't deigned to explain. New York kept them from all being capital cities, so that wasn't it. They were all centers of wealth and culture, but not necessarily the peak one in their nations, or on their continents. That all depended on who you asked.
But that wasn't really the weird thing. It was just comforting for Andrew to focus on.
No, the weird thing was, it wasn't like something out of a sci-fi flick, not even close. The aliens--or Aliens, the article used the capital letter--had genuinely come in peace. Possibly for symbolic value, there were representatives of six species on each ship--thirty-six in all--and they were inviting humanity to join something called the Consortium of Sentient Species.
Andrew put the paper aside, mind still reeling. Yes, this wasn't necessarily a bad thing--tech and so on and of course no war with technologically superior beings--but he still couldn't quite believe it was actually real.
They were not alone in the universe.
Andrew wasn't quite sure it was a good thing, either.
2. hold up the sky
2429 AD
Open Space
Simon watched the Earth recede behind him, then closed off the viewscreen. This must be how immigrants to the Americas felt in like the nineteenth century, he thought. Like the whole universe was at their feet, now that they'd taken that first leap of faith.
Because that was how he felt. Opportunity and a new beginning. Adventure was a side benefit, but that was nice, too. What he mostly liked was the fresh start.
Surreptitiously, he looked around the shuttle, trying to guess how many people wanted adventure, and how many, like him, were running from a dark and troubled past. Though, to be fair, he was probably the only person there who didn't actually know what he was running from.
His hand drifted up and touched the high neck of his sweater, picturing the scar underneath with perfect clarity. The other scars bothered him, too, but nowhere near as much as that one. At least he was able to cover it, and all the others, so no one would ask. Even if a turtleneck made him feel slightly twitchy and imagine he was choking for the first minute or so after he put it on every morning, it was better than answering questions.
But maybe, just maybe, on another world it wouldn't matter so much, and he could put all that--whatever it really was--behind him.
Simon had to hope.
7. three seeds
2511 AD
Oberon
Bartholomew loved living on Oberon. For all it was one of the most frontier of the frontier colonies, it was peaceful and even prosperous. The environment bubble worked perfectly--according to his neighbors who'd made a go of things on other colonies, other moons, surprisingly perfectly.
It was settled enough to be simple here. Not the rough existence eked out on harsher moons, or the over-complex post-industrial cities on Earth and the closer colonies. Just...well, pretty damn close to the idealized pastoral world people liked to daydream was the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Bartholomew had read enough history to know that idea was totally false, but it was still nice to have something to daydream and be nostalgic about. And it was very nice to live in what the closest possible reality to that daydream.
He headed out to his garden after an early breakfast, prepared for it to be just another day on Oberon, gentle and quiet and utopian.
The ships screamed into the atmosphere in midmorning.
They rained bombs down on the environmental bubble, putting cracks in the shield from the empty air outside. Bartholomew could do nothing but watch in horror as the people around him, his neighbors, his friends, for God's sake, turned from screaming to suffocating in moments, and he...
His chest and neck seized up, hurting more than he thought possible. He fell to his knees in his ruined garden, wind from the broken artificial atmosphere whipping around him. He couldn't breathe, he could feel no air moving in and out of him, feel his eyes and skin and heart straining, but he didn't black out, and he didn't die.
He leaned forward, lying with his face to the ground, mind screaming in horror at the freakish limbo he hung in, hearing the attackers' boots in the dust around him, trampling what was left of the garden.
Only he survived, and even when a tall blond rescue worker with sad, kind blue eyes pulled him up and into a hyperbaric chamber, he couldn't grasp why.
Bartholomew closed his eyes and felt another kind of artificial wind whip through him, and tried not to think of Oberon.
16. dawn's rosy fingers
2673 AD
The Moon
The colony on the Moon was an actual city, unlike most of the frontier colonies he tended to gravitate towards, which was why he was here. He never thought he'd come this close to Earth again, not after spending close to twenty-five centuries wandering, but...here he was.
He had a small room close to the top of a...was it really a skyscraper if the sky was artificial? In any case, he had a room in the top of a very tall building, one from which he could clearly see the planet floating below, waiting for sunrise.
For a place that had caused him such pain, he had to admit it was beautiful.
The sun finally curled around the rim of the planet, spinning rays of light out to grasp it. The way Michaela took hold of his mind, sort of, to give him moments of light in a universe of endless darkness.
He sighed, and closed the window so he didn't have to see anymore, then turned back to his little room.
As much as he liked the anonymity of city life, and as much as he'd wanted to see the sun rise over the Earth, he didn't think he'd stay here much longer. He'd gotten what he'd come for, whatever that was.
He crossed over to his small bag--which wouldn't hold much other than a knife, some money, a blanket, a spare set of clothes--and made sure it was packed with all those necessities, then shouldered it and headed for the door.
Time to move on.
20. watcher with a thousand eyes
2749 AD
Charon
Paul absently scratched patterns in the icy dust with his right foot, listening to the litany of problems the colony-town was facing this week.
It was very strange, the way he'd somehow ended up...village headman would probably be the best way to put it, since mayor was something a little more formal and the settlement was too small for any other word. He hadn't sought out to be. Hell, he wasn't even one of the original settlers--he'd come five years ago, with a third group and a supply ship.
Maybe it was because, despite his scars (though he'd managed to keep the one on his neck hidden), he usually managed to stay calm when things went wrong. He was good with language and with numbers, and...well, people had just sort of...started coming to him with problems.
He couldn't help but feel that this was a very, very bad idea, but since he couldn't explain why--at least not without revealing his amnesia or the scar on his neck--he didn't object when they came to him, and he answered their questions to the best of his ability.
Today, it was something going wrong with the environment bubble they lived in. Not anything vital--the water and atmosphere purifiers still worked--but with the climate control. Which meant that there was a chance they'd run out of food before the next time a supply ship came (something tickled at the back of his mind, but he couldn't chase the thought-thread well enough right now, so he ignored it).
"Shoot off a message to one of the Pluto colonies," Paul finally said. "See if they can spare anything, or if they have a short-hop shuttle and can loan us help with repairs." It might not be in time to fully replenish their supplies--the rest of the (standard) year would be tight--but it might be enough to keep them from losing too many people.
"All right."
Still sketching in the icedust, Paul watched the others leave, presumably to do what he'd suggested, and sighed faintly. Life on the frontier was hard, but it let Paul live an almost normal life, despite everything. Whether he deserved it or not, whether he even enjoyed the leadership, he wouldn't trade this life for the world.
4. golden apple
2827 AD
Titan
Simon's thumbprint let him back in his apartment, and he dropped his bag with an audible thump. A long day, but at least it was over. He could fix himself a drink and zone out in front of a film or something--there was a new one, that had one a bunch of off-planet awards, that he'd been looking forward to all week.
Or that was his plan, until he saw that there was a flashing light on his message box, and he groaned internally. I don't want to deal with this right now. But there ws a good chance it was from his boss, or hell, even one of the neurologists who'd been sent his scans. It might be important, and it might not even be bad news.
The movie could wait. Just in case.
The machine took several minutes to boot up. It was an old model, holographic only--video and sound, and depth of course, but no other sensory data. It was way behind for most people, but about average for Titan, which tended towards low-tech as a rule. Besides, Simon preferred it that way. Or maybe he was just used to it, since he'd never used anything else for as long as he could remember.
Not that that was an actual lifetime or anything, only two and a half years, but still.
Finally, it hummed into life and a head-and-shoulders hologram materilized above it.
Said head and shoulders were his own.
"What...?" he whispered.
The hologram flickered, and then began to speak. "Hello," it said, and that was Simon's voice, though with a slight accent that was strange, but at the same time settled over him like a second skin. "I don't...I don't know exactly where you are, or how long it's been, or what your name is now. But..."
Simon missed the next few words, staring dumbfounded at the hologram that was him and not-him and oh my God did I erase my own memory?
"I know how...I know how hard this is," the hologram was saying when he checked back in. "I've gone through it more times than I care to count. And I've learned..." Another hesitation. "I've learned that careful, gentle recollection, under controlled circumstances, hurts less. Not much less, but enough. I used to write letters to myself, and emails, things like that. Some videos. I made some audio-only recordings, too. I think there's still a cassette tape, from the 1980s. ...I wonder if you even remember what a cassette tape is?"
He did, sort of--outdated audio-only recording tech that had had a heyday of like a decade back in the 20th century.
"But that's...that's not important. Look, whatever name you have now, whatever life you have now, however happy you are...it won't last. It never does. Sooner or later, one way or another, you'll remember. I just...I want to record this, before Michaela comes, so it's at least a little bit easier."
The name 'Michaela' stirred something, a vague impression of someone tall, with long fingers and pale blond hair, dangerous and a savior all at once.
Simon shook his head to clear it. Surreal didn't even begin to describe this experience.
The hologram took a deep breath, then laughed a little, a choking, bitter laugh. "No matter how many times I do this, I never know where to start. I guess...I guess I'll start with this."
It was silent for a long moment, and Simon stared right into the holographic eyes of the man who was at once him and not him.
Finally, the hologram began. "A long time ago, I committed a terrible crime..."
26. black sails
2989 AD
Mars
He hated being on Mars.
Most of the colony towns were either stereotypes out of post-apocalyptic dog-eat-dog science fiction, or private corporate enclaves. Which, on the one hand, meant a wanderer could go to one of the towns without too much fuss, but, on the other, it also meant a level of decayed, dangerous debauchery that he preferred not to deal with if at all possible.
But, or so he thought, all of that--the anonymity, the half-tamed barbarity side-by-side with insular paranoia--meant Michaela was unlikely to find him.
He had long since stopped wishing for the kind of oblivion Michaela provided. Yes, some of his ignorant selves had been content--at least one had even been happy--but when it all came back...
It was much better, he knew now, to be left alone to wander.
So he stayed on Mars, which he hated, because he was almost positive Michaela would hate it even more. If Michaela was even capable of feeling something as human as hate.
Of course, that lasted for about six months before Michaela appeared, like a ghost out of nightmare, in his leaky, filthy apartment.
He stared for a moment, then turned away. "Leave me alone."
"That cannot be."
Michaela sounded different than usual. Urgent, almost--
Could Michaela actually experience fear?
He shook his head. "I don't want oblivion anymore. It never ends well."
"That is not what--" Michaela gave an impatient sigh. "You are needed. Urgently. There are things that can only be done by you, places only you can access. There is much fear if you do not."
Despite himself, he turned and faced Michaela. "I don't want to be wiped."
"It will be necessary," Michaela said, almost sorrowfully. "It will be necessary, to not alarm--it will be necessary."
More things it wasn't important for him to know. He wasn't surprised, except at how angry that made him. Michaela always did that. "I want you to tell me what you need me to do."
Michaela stretched tall, glaring down at him from a truly imposing eight feet, and he had a vague flash of Erwin, of a Viking, of Ruth, of--
He shivered and drew back.
"It is not for you to make demands," Michaela said, disturbingly quiet. "Future wipes can be discussed after this is done. But you have a purpose, and you have a task, and you will fulfill it."
And that was the last straw. Something in him snapped. He'd had enough of being Michaela's puppet, tucked away into quiet corners of the world unless something needed intervention, with no control over his life or his memories or even his self.
He ran.
He made it about three steps before the hot hilt of Michaela's sword connected with the back of his head and he fell, despairing, back into oblivion.
Story: Who Wants to Live Forever?
'Verse: Lux
Colors: Tyrian Purple Saturation, Jade #12. Riches and honours are floating clouds/Look down, look up, the years flow on, twenty springs have passed
Supplies and Materials: saturation, mural, canvas (all except the last), brush (meritorious), acrylic, oils, stickers (In space, astronauts cannot cry because there is no gravity, so the tears can't flow.), feathers, fabric, modeling clay, pastels (my current gen + romance card B4 "holy place"), novelty beads ("Duty is heavier than a mountain, death is lighter than a feather." - Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors), glitter ("Evil is a point of view." – Anne Rice)
Word Count: 10,003
Rating: R
Characters: Simon, Michaela, Ruth
Warnings: Death, war, kidnapping, Michaela taking Simon's mind away with and without his consent, suicidal ideation, references to self-injury and attempted suicide, depiction of depression, flashbacks, Vikings, plague, very brief reference to adultery, familial death, fire, ableism and internalized ableism. I think that's all of them. If I missed any, please let me know.
Notes: Constructive criticism welcome, as always. Last Jade! This saturation took for fucking ever. I've been working on it for...I don't know, at least two months or so. Anyway, a few things to note: Simon uses many different names through this, but it's always him. He occasionally refers to another man named Simon, who was a good friend of his during his original life, sorry if it's confusing. He also perceives Michaela as male sometimes and female sometimes, but if a tall blond/e turns up, especially with long fingers, said blond/e is always Michaela. And if anyone (except Kat, who already knows) manages to guess Simon's original identity from this, I'll write them a drabble of their choice.
14. eternal sleep
80 AD
Judaea
The place still felt like death, overpowering.
He'd avoided this place for as long as he could, and maybe that was the problem. He'd finally come back because he thought it would be a good place to find it himself. At last. After decades of trying and trying and trying--the first one was the only one he could explain away. Miriam had found him, Miriam and Simon together, and--
He pushed that thought out of his mind as best he could. Wallowing in past attempts wouldn't do him any good.
More disturbing than his apparent inability to die was his clear inability to age. He was something close to ninety years old, as near as he could figure--even if age wouldn't have killed him by now, there should be some sign of it. Instead, he looked half his age, at most; no older than when--
He was forced to stop, abruptly, when his path was blocked by a blonde woman, alone, in Greek dress. ...what...?
...no. Not a woman. Too tall, too...strange. She didn't even look human. Her shoulders were stretched tall--everything about her was stretched, long and lean and all out of proprortion.
She reached out, brushing a hand along his neck. He flinched backwards--but maybe she would solve all his problems for him, he wouldn't have to--
"You are offered a new life," she said, softly. "Cessation of all your pain. It will be taken away."
...how is that...
"It is not for you to question how," she said, a bite of impatience in her voice. "If you consent, it will be erased. And you will do some good with your years."
"It will all be gone...?"
"Yes."
He might not be able to die, but this was the next best thing.
"...I consent."
5. winged messenger
124 AD
Egypt
Matthias woke in total darkness, with his hands bound and his head pounding and the distinctly sour taste of bile in his mouth. There was sand in his lashes, making what little he could see of the world grainy.
...where?
Matthias closed his eyes, trying to retrace his steps. He had been travelling. Assisting a trader, coming up from Kush to the Roman markets of Egypt. He spoke Latin--though he hated it, for some reason he couldn't determine, probably buried deep in his lost youth--and Greek, and the trader needed a translator.
Something must have happened, though he couldn't quite recall what. Sometime before they reached their goal of Alexandria--before they even reached Thebes.
His heart sank into his stomach. Bandits, or worse. His life had taken a sudden dark turn.
There was a sudden blaze of light, blinding him--he must be in a tent, with the flap suddenly pulled back.
While he blinked, trying to clear his vision and trying to scramble away, long, cool fingers went to work on his wrists, unbinding them.
"Do you trust me?" a voice said, low and sexless, in Greek.
"Wh-who...?"
"That is unimportant."
His vision had cleared enough to see a tall silhouette, long and thin, and somehow not of this world.
Obviously, this...person had not been involved in the attack on the caravan. "...yes," he croaked.
"Keep your head down, and follow. You will be kept safe."
Not really trusting whoever this stranger was, despite saying he did, Matthias rose and stumbled after him. Because the alternative was staying and facing God alone knew what peril.
He only hoped he wasn't fleeing to something worse.
23. lonely inventor
231 AD
Greece
There was war, to the east, or so Simon heard. It hadn't touched the town he lived in yet, so he tried to put it out of his mind. He had a good life here--if there were things he couldn't explain, about his lost childhood, about the mark on his neck...
Enough troubles lay in his past, Simon was certain, to make borrowing against future ones a poor idea.
He lived alone here in the town. He kept accounts for an illiterate trader. He rose every morning, breathed in the spring rains, tended the little vegetable garden he kept, did his work, went to sleep. Quiet and calm, a good life.
Until the knock came on his door.
The man on the other side was tall--unreasonably so, with long icy blond hair. "...can I help you?"
"You must come," he said.
Simon blinked. "Who are you?"
"That is unimportant."
"...I am closing the door now."
The tall man held out a hand and stopped the door. No matter how hard he shoved, Simon could no longer get it to budge.
"You may use the name Michaela. But you must come."
The feminine ending to a man's name was the least disturbing part of the whole thing.
This is a dream. This is a very strange dream, I am going to wake up in moments and go back to my garden and my ordinary life--
Michaela had found his hand and tugged him out the door. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't resist.
8. Achilles' heel
357 AD
Constantinople
It started with nightmares.
Well, that was a little inaccurate. He'd been having nightmares since...well, for as long as he could remember. Most nights, though not all; he'd wake in a cold sweat, swarmed by guilt and grief and terror that he couldn't quite explain. On those nights, nothing would help him sleep again, so he would wander the city, trying to distract himself and escape the blood cascading through his mind.
But the nightmares getting worse, much worse--and not steadily, all at once--did start it. Probably.
First, they were more vivid. He couldn't just feel his soul bending under the weight of all those emotions, but he could smell blood, and feel pressure against his throat, and hear weeping, and rage, and accusations. He could remember some of it when he woke, but never the start.
Then they started coming more and more often, until he couldn't sleep without feeling that fear, seeing that blood, waking up convinced he couldn't breathe.
Then, no matter how far he walked after, no matter if he got dead drunk, he couldn't make it go away.
And still the worst was yet to come.
It had been maybe a week of fearing to sleep, sleeping in fear when he did--perhaps two--when he tripped and banged his head into a door frame. It was the blood, the blood trickling down his eyes, seeing his bloody face half-reflected in a water basin, that did it.
He smelled it, heard it, felt it all, his hands started shaking, his breath caught in his throat, he could feel something rough caressing it and knew, knew that it was the right choice, the only choice.
And he remembered.
It enveloped him like a tidal wave or a sandstorm, filling in all the cracks in his memory--not just years, but decades, centuries that he should not have had.
Blinded by bloody tears, he wedged himself into a corner and curled up, unable to do anything but pray for a death that never came.
24. melted wings
455 AD
Rome
Thaddeus paused on a hill outside the burning city and turned to study it.
For as long as he could remember living there (which was, to be fair, as far back as he could remember at all), he had hated Rome. It was crowded, it was messy, it was incredibly expensive to live in, and there was a strange twitchy feeling in the back of his mind that he couldn't quite explain.
The perils of having no memories, perhaps. There might well be something buried deep in his mind to explain his distaste for the city.
True, it was arrogant, overlarge, cruel, despotic, greedy, decadent, and the Emperor--this one, at least--was faithless. When Thaddeus thought of it that way, he couldn't help but be a little smug that said Emperor and Rome itself had received some sort of justice for it all, whatever that it really was at its heart. While he didn't know all the details--something about a broken betrothal with a barbarian prince--the results were clear in front of him.
He closed his eyes, tasting the distant smoke, and realized that, somehow, his hand had crept up to his neck without his realizing. But he only did that when he felt particularly gloomy about something. And he didn't. Because, for whatever reason, he hated Rome.
But...he hadn't done too badly, living there. Even if the politicians and most of the army ranged from usless wastrels to vicious scoundrels, the ordinary people didn't.
Maybe that was the problem.
A cool hand rested on his shoulder--the same one that had pulled him out just as the barbarians came pouring in. He didn't look up.
"Do not dwell on it," the blond said softly.
Thaddeus nodded, then took a deep breath and turned away from the fallen city.
He did not, however, drop his hand.
21. lifelong affair
585 AD
Sicily
It was easy to blame Michaela for everything. Michaela, after all, pulled him in and out of names, identities, places, lifetimes at will and seemingly at random, without much care for how it affected him or the people he'd met. Michaela left him in places he hated and took him away from places he grew to love.
But...
But Michaela let him forget, and that was still such a powerful gift--forgetting, all the horrors he'd seen and committed. Michaela gave him times and opportunities where he could do some amount of good for the rest of the world. Even if it was only helping a few small people in a few small places with a few small problems, even if it didn't come close to making up for his crimes, it was still something. It was an opportunity he would never have had, if not for Michaela.
So he wandered this mountainous island, avoiding the people who lived here when at all possible, keeping to hidden passes and caves. He wandered, and he wrote messages to the people he'd loved, over the centuries, and tossed them into the sea where they might, somehow, reach their spirits.
And he waited.
Because as much as he hated Michaela for the sometimes-poor execution of granting him those gifts, time and again, he had been saved from intense pain by Michaela's hand. And, for a while, she gave him peace, and something approaching joy.
Michaela gave him oblivion, and it was worth the horrors in between.
He retreated back to the cave where he was sleeping. Sooner or later, Michaela would come.
Michaela always did.
25. the Midas touch
642 AD
Volga Basin
Simon had grown very, very good at negotiating between all the people who tried to lay claim to this area over the past few years. He could explain his inexplicable scars as souveniers from one group while trying to court another for supplies. He'd found a place, hidden enough to serve as a shelter, where he welcomed all refugees, no matter what nation or tribe they claimed, on condition that there would be no violent disputes within the settlement. People grumbled, when they heard that restriction, and sometimes he had to have them forcibly removed in order to enforce his rules and keep things safe for everyone else, but...but the fighting was still minimal.
Somehow, he made it all work.
By some miracle of persuasion, no matter who ruled the area in practice, people listened to him. Simon had no earthly idea why, but he decided not to question his good fortune. After all, it got him what he needed--his haven and his supplies. There were children born here who had a reasonable expectation of growing up in health and safety, and that was something he had done.
Wherever he got his silver tongue, wherever he got his scars, whoever he'd been before waking up on a raft in the river seven years ago, whoever he became in years to come, he could be proud of this part of his life. For now, he was happy enough with that.
19. pillar of stones
711 AD
Spain
Pedro paused in hauling in his nets, squinting at the blur on the southern horizon. It was strange, and more or less impossible, but it seemed to be moving.
He called out to his friend, Santiago--who never questioned when he got confused, or far-away, internally chasing ghosts of lost memories. "Do you see that?"
Santiago looked up, holding up a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. "...it looks like ships..."
That likely meant nothing good. "I'm going up, to get a better look."
"All right."
Pedro finished hauling as fast as he could and left the rest for Santiago to handle, then scrambled up the closest cliff to get a better look.
In the time that it had taken Pedro to climb to the better vantage point, the movement on the horizon had gotten much closer, and proved Santiago right. They were ships, there were a lot of them, and they were crossing the straight.
He caught a reflection off something metallic and his heart leapt into his throat. That could only mean one thing.
Arms and armor.
Invasion.
"Santiago!" he yelled. "Santiago, run to town, tell them an army--"
Something hot and hard slammed into his shoulder, throwing him off balance. He blinked down at it, eyes swimming, seeing an arrow with grey-white fletchings emerging from his shoulder. Oh. Oh, my...
He'd stumbled to the edge of the cliff somehow, and started to think he should really get down and hide. Another arrow whizzed past him and he flinched away from it, completely losing his footing and tumbling down, off the cliff.
He felt the impact of the water in every fiber of his being. The ocean screamed into his shoulder, curling under and around the arrow where one would think nothing could pass. His limbs felt limp, disassembled, buffeted by the water in all the wrong directions, at new joints he hadn't had this morning.
He couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe, and the pressure on his chest and along the scar on his throat was devastating.
As the world went dark around him, the sun fell down from the sky and burst through the water. The pressure on his chest increased, but suddenly he was rising, and he felt water fall away from his head.
He felt solid rock beneath him after a moment, and it hurt so terribly. "S-santiago..." he managed to croak out.
"Shh," his rescuer--not Santiago--said. Pedro couldn't quite make out his face, just long, cool fingers, bracing themselves next to the arrow. "Everything will be all right. You are safe now."
The stranger yanked the arrow out of Pedro's shoulder and a blinding white-hot flash chased away all hope of consciousness.
1. chained to a rock
817 AD
Ireland
Brother Maitiú knelt in the small chapel in the monastery and closed his eyes. In the eight years since he had been found, wandering the beach, with no memory of how he'd gotten there, he had grown more attached than he'd ever thought possible to his brothers and to the life here. It was quiet, and peaceful, and he could think of nothing better to do with one's life than serving God.
Particularly since he carried scars and an inexplicable sense of guilt with him. This life was the only possible way to find redemption for a crime he couldn't remember--if he couldn't remember, how could he confess and receive absolution? He could do that for small sins that he still committed--he was only human, after all, monk or no--but not for the great crime he knew he had forgotten. The Abbot agreed, and did his best to help, but he was still not entirely sure it was enough. But it was all he could do, so he did it, to the utmost of his abilities.
Brother Maitiú returned his thoughts back to his prayers, quietly berating himself for letting his mind wander, and then the silence was shattered and he smelled smoke.
He leapt to his feet and hesitated, trying to decide whether to hide or try to find out what had happened and help his brothers, and then the door to the chapel burst open.
Raiders.
Tall, blond, ruthless raiders, the kind that had been harrying the coast for twenty years, according to rumor. They had never come here but Maitiú knew, deep inside himself, that it had really only been a matter of time.
He froze, unable to determine what to do, and then a beardless raider, taller even than all the others, pushed to the front and said something to the apparent leader, who snapped back. The tall raider punched the leader in the face and he fell back, blood spurting from his nose and mouth--Maitiú yelped with a distressing lack of dignity--and then the tall man dodged the others and grabbed Maitiú.
"Brace yourself," the tall man murmured, and then they were moving, faster than Maitiú could have thought possible, bowling through and past the others and out into the dying light.
12. golden fleece
998 AD
Greece
He lay on his back on a sunny hillside near Athens, watching the lightly painted clouds, trying to decide what shapes they made. Some of the few fond memories he had, from his natural life, were doing this as a small child with his sister.
He'd found a rabbit, a house, and a sleeping lion before someone lay down next to him. He didn't have to turn to know who it was.
"Do you have siblings to play this game with?" he asked.
"Games are not played," Michaela answered softly. "Not with cloud-shapes, at least."
He nodded, and decided the next one was a human hand. "They've been saying the world will end soon."
"Humans often do."
"I take it that means it won't?"
If he hadn't known better, he would have sworn he felt a vibrating hum of laughter from his companion. "Not so soon, no. But someday."
He sat up and turned to see Michaela's face. "When?"
Michaela sat as well, and sighed. "It cannot be explained in terms you would understand. Soon, but that means something different to you."
He felt a stab of bitter disappointment. He was starting to think that his existence would end only when the world did. And that couldn't come soon enough for his taste.
He fell back and returned to watching the clouds. "Will you tell me, before it comes?"
Michaela's silence was answer enough.
6. the lying oracle
1098 AD
Syria
Nathanael yanked his sword back and almost fell over with it. He was, by now, no longer sickened by the endless waste of life surrounding him. The Pope himself had called for all Christendom to go to war, so it must be just. Being sickened by it was likely a sin. It was good he'd become inured to it.
Still, he couldn't help but think that there must be a better way to reclaim the Holy Land. Without that endless, terrible waste. He was no priest, so he couldn't really know for sure, but it seemed to him that this would not be God's will.
But the Pope had decreed that it was, so it must be so.
He turned to engage again, and watched the man fall at his feet, bleeding savagely from an arm nearly severed at the shoulder. It seemed to him that they would do better to try and convert, rather than slaughter, these poor men.
But it was just. It was holy. And a part of Nathanael did believe that--a part of him must believe that, else why would he even have come?
He sighed, and lurched over, nearly losing his balance. He was bleeding himself, had somehow failed to notice. He choked back a laugh and fell to his knees.
So he would die here, alone, fighting for something...something he believed in, yes, but using tactics he did not.
A brightly-armored blond man at once blocked and amplified the sun. Cool fingers touched his forehead, and everything slowly emptied out of him, and he felt, for a disorienting second, his blood stop flowing.
Then he felt the other man lift him, and quieted into blissful sleep.
30. mother of monsters
1140 AD
Armenia
It was rather strange to live in a world where one's name was a byword for everything evil.
He tried not to think about it too much--it wouldn't change anything. It might make things worse, even, hard as that was for him to admit, to accept that anything could be worse.
Not that this was a particularly bad time for him. He was...of all the times he could remember, of all the times he was himself, anyway--he didn't really count the periods of oblivion--this was one of the...not happiest, he was never really happy, but...least distressing.
It hadn't been from the start. The first year or so after waking up was, as always...difficult. He picked up many new scars during that first year, as a rule, and this one had been no exception. But it got a little...not better, but less crushing, as time went on. He never forgot--especially not with the way his name was used--but it wasn't ever-present, beating an endless tattoo in his head, that the people who used his name as a synonym for 'evil' were absolutely right.
Now, though...well, he would never deny that there weren't still times, many times, where those drums in his head started again--they're right they're right they're all right--but most of the time he was more amused by it than anything. As if any person, any name, any choice--even any crime--could be whittled down to a single concept.
Evil.
He might have been evil, at his heart, he might not. But his name--was a name. It was his name, no matter how many others he wore, by choice or by Michaela, and therefore inextricably attached to his crime, but turning his name into 'evil' was far too simple for something as vast as a symbol for his identity.
So, when he heard his name used that way, he fought the urge to shake his head and smile. Because, even if they were right, they were also wrong.
He was something more than evil.
9. Trojan horse
1238 AD
Kievan Rus'
He woke in a ditch, with a strange man hovering over him.
"Are you all right?" the stranger asked, sounding genuinely concerned.
He sat up slowly. His head hurt, but nothing else did. He could see clearly, and he wasn't sick to his stomach, so whatever blow he'd taken hadn't been too severe. "I...I think so?"
The stranger looked confused now. "I'm...sorry?"
"I think I'm all right," he tried, confused himself. Why couldn't the other man understand him? He was speaking plainly...
"...I'll be back in a moment," the stranger said, loudly and painfully slow, over-enunciating every syllable and gesticulating wildly.
He put a hand to his forehead and pressed, feeling the pain in his head blossom. What is going on? Why couldn't he understand me?
...more to the point, how had he come to be in that ditch?
He searched back in his mind, as far as he could, but...nothing. Darkness, only darkness.
Fear thrummed along his spine and he drew himself up, still unsteady, in hopes that something he saw along the horizon might spark something in him.
"Hello?"
He turned. A worn-looking older man, accompanied by the first stranger, had approached.
"I don't know what's going on," he said, helplessly.
The old man frowned. When he spoke again, he spoke as slowly and enunciating as carefully as the first, but not so loud and without the flailing. "Can you understand me? Nod or shake your head, please."
He nodded.
"But you cannot speak our language?"
He shrugged helplessly. He could've sworn he had been, but...
"My name is Yuri Ivanovitch," the old man said. "I am the priest in the village nearby. What is your name?"
It sprung to his lips faster than his mind. "S-Semyon. Semyon Semyonovich."
He couldn't remember the father whose name he shared, but for some reason he knew his name. "I...I don't know anything else, I'm sorry..."
The man jerked. "What are you sorry for?"
Apparently he'd switched languages?
Semyon buried his face in his hands. "I don't remember!"
Yuri Ivanovitch was silent for a long moment, then put a hand on Semyon's shoulder. "Come with me to the church," he said softly. "I will look after you."
Something buried deep inside him was suspicious, but this priest had been kind, had not treated him like an idiot, had not shied away from him or flown into a rage. He needed help, and this priest was offering, without being asked.
Semyon nodded, and let the priest guide him towards the village.
13. children upon children
1348 AD
Florence
Giacomo closed his eyes and allowed himself to sag against the wall for a moment. Three more this morning, the widow Valenti and her brother and her son, not more than ten. Sometimes he could save them, through some gift or magic (though he tried not to think of it that way). He did better than any of the others who tried to help those who became ill, anyway. But those three...and more others than he cared to think about...
He'd have to deal with the bodies. Which likely meant burning, most of the cemeteries were full. He hated burning the bodies. It made the stench worse.
But, more than that, he couldn't escape from the fact that there was something different this time, even before the burning, something harder about these three. Not the child so much--he'd become numb to dead children some weeks ago. If he let them all cut him to the quick the way a child who suffered so horribly in dying should, he would run mad.
Nor was it the boy's mother, though she was young enough to remarry and have more children, particularly sad when now there were so few.
No, it was something about the brother, the young man. Something about the way his head had fallen to the side in death, something--
My God, my God, what have I done?
They laugh, they jeer, and there is so much blood, so much blood, and I--
I was trying to help! I was trying t--
The world reasserted himself around him. Giacomo shook his head, bewildered by this sudden, so vivid vision. I think I haven't been sleeping enough.
He took a deep breath, and then went back to tend to the bodies.
He managed to put it out of his head, as more infected came to his door that night. But he couldn't quite shake the thought that that flash had, somehow, been real.
18. virgin hunter
1425 AD
France
He stopped, hidden in the hills somewhere in the war-torn kingdom, to rest for a few hours. It wasn't easy, travelling through what had started as an invasion and occupation and proceeded to spiral out of control, adopting aspects of civil strife as well. His natural sympathies lay with the natives, being all too familiar with the horror of living under foreign rule--but, then again, his sympathies were not enough to be willing to fight for these people. He'd had more than enough of war, in his lifetimes.
It still felt strange to think of 'lifetime' in the plural and attach it to himself.
He must have dozed off for a while, because the next thing he knew, he heard a light, breathless little girl's voice. As facile as he was with language, he didn't quite grasp French--at least not the dialect spoken in this region; perhaps it was too close to the Latin he loathed--but he knew the tone, of worshipful reverence.
He winced a little and stood, as slowly and silently as he could, hoping he could slip away rather than intruding on her private moment.
And then he saw who the girl was speaking to, and froze.
She was kneeling on the grass, staring in awe at a familiar blond, who was sitting cross-legged in front of her, in a white robe that was somehow immune to grass stains.
He wanted to warn her, wanted to warn her that Michaela would use her and throw her away, that whatever she did on Michaela's orders would never be worth the price, but he found himself rooted to the spot, bile rising in his throat.
After only a few moments, Michaela vanished and the girl began to weep.
Still frozen, he didn't even realize he was doing the same.
22. the dogs of war
1517 AD
Wittenberg
Johann kept out of the furor in the streets as much as he could. Heresy was a serious subject, he was hardly going to deny that, and what Luther had said was surely heresy, but whether or not Johann agreed with the points he had made...
That was a little more complicated.
There was no question that the Church had grown corrupt. Even her most fervent supporters didn't usually deny it, though Johann was almost positive they'd keep those complaints to themselves from now on. But whether the heresies Luther proposed in exchange for that corruption were any better...
The problem wasn't that the questions had been raised, to Johann's mind. The problem was that no one seemed willing to discuss them with any civility. No, everyone was screaming at everyone else, as if that was any way to solve a knotty intellectual and theological problem. And no one seemed willing to accept or believe that anyone could be neutral, or undecided, or want more information before making up his mind. Johann was all three of those things, and it made going out now that Luther had spat in the Church's face, so to speak...unpleasant.
If only people could be reasonable.
As it was...
It was time to move on. Time to find someplace untouched by these troubles, where Johann could live his life in peace.
15. the gift of fire
1666 AD
England
He kept to back alleys, mostly. London had plenty of places where he could hide. He thought about moving on often nonetheless--the frenetic joy the new King tried to create did not suit him at all. But moving would take time, and money, which he didn't have and was unwilling to interact enough to earn.
So he stayed, and he drifted, on the underbelly of London, through plague and plot and pageantry.
And then came the Fire.
As despicable as it was for him to say, he was grateful. It roused him, to a certain extent, from his apathy. While life was hell for him, the innocent people of the city--and even the too-joyful, debauched court--had futures, lives, hopes, children...
He dove into the firefighting efforts with every fiber of his being.
At first, he worked by himself, using what he had to try and smother small outbreaks of fire in his immediate vicinity. He was spotted by a young matron, who grabbed his arm and pulled him over to the parish church, where the actual supplies were being kept. From there, he went where he was told, helping construct a firebreak at the end of the street.
It failed.
While some faded and were replaced by other volunteers, for nearly four days, he followed the fire around the city, pulling down buildings, dumping sand and water from the Thames when he was close enough, until finally, sometime on Wednesday, it faded away.
He sat down, in the wet, sooty remnants of the Cathedral, and stared at his hands. He'd barely felt it when it happened, but they were burned, badly.
Familiar long white fingers closed around his wrists, and the blackened cracks in his flesh began smoothing over.
He met Michaela's eyes, and the tall blond pulled him forward and kissed his forehead softly.
He followed Michaela out of the ruined city, away towards oblivion and another life.
17. chariot of the sun god
1770 AD
France
Philippe de Valmont felt almost entirely out of place here, in this glittering world of privelege and hollow glory. True, the King's mistress liked his poetry and had invited him here, so he did belong, in some way, but it was all so...much. He'd even met the King, though he had seemed more bored by him than anything else. Philippe himself had just found it painfully awkward, though he'd done his best to hide that and thought he'd done rather well.
It was a beautiful palace, though, built by the King's grandfather as a stunning monument to his power and opulence and arrogance. And Philippe was very fond of wandering in the gardens when the lady didn't require his company. They were beautiful, and, despite an odd sense of melancholy that often possessed him here, particularly if he was out at dawn or in the late afternoon, a melancholy whose source he couldn't quite define...he had never written anything more beautiful than the verses that came to him here.
One late spring evening, while he was perched on a bench near his favorite fountain, trying to write, he suddenly became aware he was not alone.
He looked up, and there was an impossibly tall man, shimmering like a polished pearl in the dying light at the edge of the pool. He was pale, with long blond hair--natural and unpowdered and still nearly white--pulled back loosely, and an icy blue suit that fit him like a glove but was far too plain for the fashions of the court.
Philippe couldn't escape the feeling that he knew this man.
Clearly aware that he had been noticed, the blond skirted the edge of the water and joined him. Philippe rose, uncertain.
"It is time to leave this place," the tall man said.
"I...I don't know who you are, and I am still..." Philippe trailed off, fully aware that the tall man wasn't listening.
"Come. There is work that must be done, and you are required for it."
Before he could stop it, the stranger had taken his hand--his fingers were so long, and cool, and--
Philippe felt a faint pressure on the side of his neck, along the scar whose source he could never explain, and the garden faded around him as the tall blond stranger pulled him away.
3. born of sea foam
1882 AD
The United States of America
The harbor was bustling frenetically as James stepped off the ship. For a heartrending moment, the ground seemed to shift beneath his feet, as the ship had for the first few days. At least, as it should, the ground took less time to settle.
He took a deep breath--fresh ocean mixed with the ordinary foulness cities develop, exactly what he'd expected. And yet...
It felt sweeter than the air he'd left on the other side of the ocean, though he had no earthly idea why. Perhaps because the Old World was full of dark memories he didn't have, and the New held nothing but a future, which would be as bright or as dark as he was capable of making it. Metaphorical refreshment, rather than literal, perhaps.
Not that America was perfect--no country was, not one populated by mortal men, in any case--but at least here he could better hide the fact that he had no past. Perhaps he'd head further west, to the wild frontier towns where no one cared to ask or answer questions. It wouldn't be comfortable, no, but it would be free and open and unhaunted.
Yes, he would go west. West, where the secrets even he didn't know couldn't haunt him. Even if he never repaired his broken mind, he could find someplace where such things didn't matter.
James breathed in that sickly-salty-sweet smell of refuse and promise one more time, then moved away from the ocean into an increasingly bright future.
11. Pandora's box
1948 AD
The United States of America
Thomas spent most of his time pacing in the hotel room where he'd woken up two weeks ago. How he'd got here, he couldn't say. He knew his name was 'Thomas' because he'd found it written down, in a wallet full of cash, and because it felt right.
Not knowing what else to do, he'd contacted a PI once he was sure this whole thing wasn't a dream. That had been three days ago. Erwin hadn't gotten back to him yet.
So he fretted, and he paced, and he stayed shut up in there, because how the hell was he supposed to navigate the world when he wasn't even a hundred percent sure about his name?
He jumped about a mile when someone knocked on the door. He hesitated a fraction of a second before opening it, then slumped a little in inexpressible relief to see Erwin standing there.
"Did you find anything?" he asked, standing aside to let him in.
"Yeah. You're not gonna believe--"
A ray of moonlight behind him suddenly shifted, and the PI dropped. Thomas yelped and leapt back, wishing like hell he had some kind of weapon to defend himself.
The moonlight materialized into a tall woman, holding a goddamned sword nearly as long as Thomas was tall.
"He will wake unharmed, with no memory of you," the woman said, softly.
Thomas stammered something barely intelligible even to him, and the woman sheathed her sword and picked Erwin up and slung him over her shoulder, as easily as if he were a dress or a coat, something light and malleable.
"Do not ask questions," she said. "You are happier in ignorance." She turned and vanished without another word, leaving Thomas staring into a suddenly empty hall, more terrified than he would previously have thought possible.
29. don't look back
2047 AD
The United States of America
He had paid an incredible amount of money for a ticket to the special exhibition and waited in line for an hour, and here he was.
He could hardly believe there was this much interest in so small a thing--fragments of about a dozen letters he had written, during his original, natural life. Then again, controversy bred interest, even in people who didn't believe that--well, all he had to do was remember that novel fifty-odd years ago to know how much this nation, this current world, was drawn to things like his letters.
He went down a narrow passage, with photographs and explanations of the archeological mission that had found the small cache of letters buried in Saudi Arabia, of all places. How they'd gotten there, he couldn't say--though, to be fair, he'd lost track of them, other than knowing Simon had given them to Miriam for safekeeping. He had, of course, lost track of his daughter and her children the first time he'd lost his memory, and it had been too painful--and too difficult--to try and find them again when he recovered.
After twenty minutes of slow progress through the crowded exhibit, he reached the center. The clearest letter-fragment, with the most legible text--one written about four years before...before--was on prominent display, in an airtight, climate-controlled glass case. There was a rough translation on a small plastic plaque next to it, but he--obviously--didn't need it.
--speak, I know there is no other thing in the world---------contentment.
More than anything, he wished he could reach through the glass and touch it, hold that faded fragment for a moment--how it had survived all these centuries was beyond him, it wasn't even very good quality--and try to recapture that contentment. But he couldn't. And even if he could, he knew enough about document preservation to know that touching it would destroy it further. The only true contemporary account of...things--so much of what was left was corrupted by time, he couldn't bear the thought of losing what little truth there was.
He moved on after a momentary struggle, so as not to block the view of the other visitors. He remembered the rest of the letter, of course, but if he allowed himself to be drawn down the path of memory in front of it, he would draw undue attention.
He stepped out of the museum, blinking into the bright, clear November day, and sat down in a nearby sculpture garden, closing his eyes and thinking. When he tried, when he really tried, despite all the horror that had come after, he could almost recapture that feeling of peace and contentment that had been there in those early days, even without holding the physical proof of it.
He let out a long, slow breath, and opened his eyes, contemplating the sky. He couldn't quite say that the good memories sprinkled through--when he was left alone long enough to pass through everything flooding back and find them--were worth all the rest. But...but he liked to hold them, when he could.
When he opened his eyes, a familiar tall blond was standing in front of him.
He was going to lose it again, the horror, yes--but also those faint traces of joy.
He wept.
27. Cupid's arrow
2173 AD
The United States of America
"So, David, have you ever been married before?" Ruth asked brightly, about halfway through dinner.
And then things got a little awkward.
It had been going really well, too, for a blind date--one of the other teachers had set David up with a cousin, and Ruth was sweet and funny and pretty and not too young, and...
"I'm so sorry," she said, catching on to her open-foot-insert-mouth moment right away. "I'm so, so sorry, I just...I mean, Kay told me, she did, I just...I forgot."
David found his voice again. "It's okay. It's...um. It's not exactly obvious." And this was why he didn't really get out, let alone date. What kind of woman wants to spend her life with a man who only has four years of history?
The awkward silence stretched a few minutes, and David smiled a little. Ruth was still sweet and funny and pretty and not too young, and she had made an honest mistake--not exactly hard for the first time ever meeting someone with total retrograde amnesia. "I like to think I haven't, though," he said.
She blinked. "Yeah?"
...and that was probably a bad move. Depressing justification, and all. "Well...if I was, then she's probably wondering what happened to me. I don't like thinking I made someone worry that much, intentionally or otherwise."
Ruth was quiet for a long minute, then nodded. "Yeah, I can see that."
The pause that followed was, at least, significantly less awkward than the last. "Um. Do you have any pets?"
David smiled again, and relaxed a little, settling back into a less-treacherous conversation.
Because, after all, Ruth was sweet and funny and pretty and not too young, and she didn't seem to mind taking a chance on a man with no history.
It might be nice to sit back and see where this took him.
28. Orpheus' song
2257 AD
The United States of America
The cemetary was quiet, peaceful, green.
It had taken him nearly a decade, since recovering himself, to find it. He'd kept track of her for a while, after he was taken from her, while he was between wipes, but how could he approach? How could he explain why he'd gone, or why he hadn't aged?
It would only hurt her worse.
He finally found it, and sat down to study the name and dates, tracing them with one finger.
December 18, 2140-June 29, 2238
"Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings."
He bowed his head, and whispered, "I'm sorry."
"She was happy, you know."
He jumped.
Michaela was standing a short distance away, dressed simply, in white, as always.
He turned away. "Not here. Whatever you want me to do, not here."
"That is not the reason--" Michaeala broke off, and he got the distinct impression that ever-perfect Michaela was actually struggling to figure out what to say. "She was happy. With you."
"While you let me stay."
To his surprise, Michaela's head bowed, in slight acknowledgement.
They remained there, not speaking, for a long moment. When he broke it, his voice wavered. "Why?"
"Why?" Michaela sounded puzzled.
"Why would you do that? Give me to her, and then take me away?"
Michaela was clearly distressed by the question. "Were you not happy? Did you not love her?"
He closed his eyes and choked back tears. "Yes. I did. And I was. More than I have been since..." He shook his head. "But...but I left her. She deserved...she deserved someone who could stay. She deserved better than me."
"Perhaps," Michaela said, then was silent for a long moment. "Do you know why you are given oblivion?"
"So I stay out of the way until you need me?"
"No."
"What does this have to do with--"
Michaela cut him off. "You are granted oblivion so you can have peace, and joy. It is a gift to you. It is done from kindness. You were happy, with her. And she with you. There was no reason to intervene."
He stared at the gravestone, tracing the psalm quote with his fingers again. "Leave me alone, Michaela," he finally whispered.
A short silence, and then a faint rush of wind, and he was alone with his grief and with his memories.
10. the face that sailed a thousand ships
2382 AD
Canada
They were not alone in the universe.
Andrew reread the headline and the article attached another half-dozen times. He'd never even considered the possibility, outside of science fiction, that there were other fully sentient species scattered around the universe.
Six ships had landed in six cities, without warning--one on each continent. New York, Buenos Aires, London, Cairo, Beijing, and Sydney had all been chosen, by some formula that the visitors hadn't deigned to explain. New York kept them from all being capital cities, so that wasn't it. They were all centers of wealth and culture, but not necessarily the peak one in their nations, or on their continents. That all depended on who you asked.
But that wasn't really the weird thing. It was just comforting for Andrew to focus on.
No, the weird thing was, it wasn't like something out of a sci-fi flick, not even close. The aliens--or Aliens, the article used the capital letter--had genuinely come in peace. Possibly for symbolic value, there were representatives of six species on each ship--thirty-six in all--and they were inviting humanity to join something called the Consortium of Sentient Species.
Andrew put the paper aside, mind still reeling. Yes, this wasn't necessarily a bad thing--tech and so on and of course no war with technologically superior beings--but he still couldn't quite believe it was actually real.
They were not alone in the universe.
Andrew wasn't quite sure it was a good thing, either.
2. hold up the sky
2429 AD
Open Space
Simon watched the Earth recede behind him, then closed off the viewscreen. This must be how immigrants to the Americas felt in like the nineteenth century, he thought. Like the whole universe was at their feet, now that they'd taken that first leap of faith.
Because that was how he felt. Opportunity and a new beginning. Adventure was a side benefit, but that was nice, too. What he mostly liked was the fresh start.
Surreptitiously, he looked around the shuttle, trying to guess how many people wanted adventure, and how many, like him, were running from a dark and troubled past. Though, to be fair, he was probably the only person there who didn't actually know what he was running from.
His hand drifted up and touched the high neck of his sweater, picturing the scar underneath with perfect clarity. The other scars bothered him, too, but nowhere near as much as that one. At least he was able to cover it, and all the others, so no one would ask. Even if a turtleneck made him feel slightly twitchy and imagine he was choking for the first minute or so after he put it on every morning, it was better than answering questions.
But maybe, just maybe, on another world it wouldn't matter so much, and he could put all that--whatever it really was--behind him.
Simon had to hope.
7. three seeds
2511 AD
Oberon
Bartholomew loved living on Oberon. For all it was one of the most frontier of the frontier colonies, it was peaceful and even prosperous. The environment bubble worked perfectly--according to his neighbors who'd made a go of things on other colonies, other moons, surprisingly perfectly.
It was settled enough to be simple here. Not the rough existence eked out on harsher moons, or the over-complex post-industrial cities on Earth and the closer colonies. Just...well, pretty damn close to the idealized pastoral world people liked to daydream was the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Bartholomew had read enough history to know that idea was totally false, but it was still nice to have something to daydream and be nostalgic about. And it was very nice to live in what the closest possible reality to that daydream.
He headed out to his garden after an early breakfast, prepared for it to be just another day on Oberon, gentle and quiet and utopian.
The ships screamed into the atmosphere in midmorning.
They rained bombs down on the environmental bubble, putting cracks in the shield from the empty air outside. Bartholomew could do nothing but watch in horror as the people around him, his neighbors, his friends, for God's sake, turned from screaming to suffocating in moments, and he...
His chest and neck seized up, hurting more than he thought possible. He fell to his knees in his ruined garden, wind from the broken artificial atmosphere whipping around him. He couldn't breathe, he could feel no air moving in and out of him, feel his eyes and skin and heart straining, but he didn't black out, and he didn't die.
He leaned forward, lying with his face to the ground, mind screaming in horror at the freakish limbo he hung in, hearing the attackers' boots in the dust around him, trampling what was left of the garden.
Only he survived, and even when a tall blond rescue worker with sad, kind blue eyes pulled him up and into a hyperbaric chamber, he couldn't grasp why.
Bartholomew closed his eyes and felt another kind of artificial wind whip through him, and tried not to think of Oberon.
16. dawn's rosy fingers
2673 AD
The Moon
The colony on the Moon was an actual city, unlike most of the frontier colonies he tended to gravitate towards, which was why he was here. He never thought he'd come this close to Earth again, not after spending close to twenty-five centuries wandering, but...here he was.
He had a small room close to the top of a...was it really a skyscraper if the sky was artificial? In any case, he had a room in the top of a very tall building, one from which he could clearly see the planet floating below, waiting for sunrise.
For a place that had caused him such pain, he had to admit it was beautiful.
The sun finally curled around the rim of the planet, spinning rays of light out to grasp it. The way Michaela took hold of his mind, sort of, to give him moments of light in a universe of endless darkness.
He sighed, and closed the window so he didn't have to see anymore, then turned back to his little room.
As much as he liked the anonymity of city life, and as much as he'd wanted to see the sun rise over the Earth, he didn't think he'd stay here much longer. He'd gotten what he'd come for, whatever that was.
He crossed over to his small bag--which wouldn't hold much other than a knife, some money, a blanket, a spare set of clothes--and made sure it was packed with all those necessities, then shouldered it and headed for the door.
Time to move on.
20. watcher with a thousand eyes
2749 AD
Charon
Paul absently scratched patterns in the icy dust with his right foot, listening to the litany of problems the colony-town was facing this week.
It was very strange, the way he'd somehow ended up...village headman would probably be the best way to put it, since mayor was something a little more formal and the settlement was too small for any other word. He hadn't sought out to be. Hell, he wasn't even one of the original settlers--he'd come five years ago, with a third group and a supply ship.
Maybe it was because, despite his scars (though he'd managed to keep the one on his neck hidden), he usually managed to stay calm when things went wrong. He was good with language and with numbers, and...well, people had just sort of...started coming to him with problems.
He couldn't help but feel that this was a very, very bad idea, but since he couldn't explain why--at least not without revealing his amnesia or the scar on his neck--he didn't object when they came to him, and he answered their questions to the best of his ability.
Today, it was something going wrong with the environment bubble they lived in. Not anything vital--the water and atmosphere purifiers still worked--but with the climate control. Which meant that there was a chance they'd run out of food before the next time a supply ship came (something tickled at the back of his mind, but he couldn't chase the thought-thread well enough right now, so he ignored it).
"Shoot off a message to one of the Pluto colonies," Paul finally said. "See if they can spare anything, or if they have a short-hop shuttle and can loan us help with repairs." It might not be in time to fully replenish their supplies--the rest of the (standard) year would be tight--but it might be enough to keep them from losing too many people.
"All right."
Still sketching in the icedust, Paul watched the others leave, presumably to do what he'd suggested, and sighed faintly. Life on the frontier was hard, but it let Paul live an almost normal life, despite everything. Whether he deserved it or not, whether he even enjoyed the leadership, he wouldn't trade this life for the world.
4. golden apple
2827 AD
Titan
Simon's thumbprint let him back in his apartment, and he dropped his bag with an audible thump. A long day, but at least it was over. He could fix himself a drink and zone out in front of a film or something--there was a new one, that had one a bunch of off-planet awards, that he'd been looking forward to all week.
Or that was his plan, until he saw that there was a flashing light on his message box, and he groaned internally. I don't want to deal with this right now. But there ws a good chance it was from his boss, or hell, even one of the neurologists who'd been sent his scans. It might be important, and it might not even be bad news.
The movie could wait. Just in case.
The machine took several minutes to boot up. It was an old model, holographic only--video and sound, and depth of course, but no other sensory data. It was way behind for most people, but about average for Titan, which tended towards low-tech as a rule. Besides, Simon preferred it that way. Or maybe he was just used to it, since he'd never used anything else for as long as he could remember.
Not that that was an actual lifetime or anything, only two and a half years, but still.
Finally, it hummed into life and a head-and-shoulders hologram materilized above it.
Said head and shoulders were his own.
"What...?" he whispered.
The hologram flickered, and then began to speak. "Hello," it said, and that was Simon's voice, though with a slight accent that was strange, but at the same time settled over him like a second skin. "I don't...I don't know exactly where you are, or how long it's been, or what your name is now. But..."
Simon missed the next few words, staring dumbfounded at the hologram that was him and not-him and oh my God did I erase my own memory?
"I know how...I know how hard this is," the hologram was saying when he checked back in. "I've gone through it more times than I care to count. And I've learned..." Another hesitation. "I've learned that careful, gentle recollection, under controlled circumstances, hurts less. Not much less, but enough. I used to write letters to myself, and emails, things like that. Some videos. I made some audio-only recordings, too. I think there's still a cassette tape, from the 1980s. ...I wonder if you even remember what a cassette tape is?"
He did, sort of--outdated audio-only recording tech that had had a heyday of like a decade back in the 20th century.
"But that's...that's not important. Look, whatever name you have now, whatever life you have now, however happy you are...it won't last. It never does. Sooner or later, one way or another, you'll remember. I just...I want to record this, before Michaela comes, so it's at least a little bit easier."
The name 'Michaela' stirred something, a vague impression of someone tall, with long fingers and pale blond hair, dangerous and a savior all at once.
Simon shook his head to clear it. Surreal didn't even begin to describe this experience.
The hologram took a deep breath, then laughed a little, a choking, bitter laugh. "No matter how many times I do this, I never know where to start. I guess...I guess I'll start with this."
It was silent for a long moment, and Simon stared right into the holographic eyes of the man who was at once him and not him.
Finally, the hologram began. "A long time ago, I committed a terrible crime..."
26. black sails
2989 AD
Mars
He hated being on Mars.
Most of the colony towns were either stereotypes out of post-apocalyptic dog-eat-dog science fiction, or private corporate enclaves. Which, on the one hand, meant a wanderer could go to one of the towns without too much fuss, but, on the other, it also meant a level of decayed, dangerous debauchery that he preferred not to deal with if at all possible.
But, or so he thought, all of that--the anonymity, the half-tamed barbarity side-by-side with insular paranoia--meant Michaela was unlikely to find him.
He had long since stopped wishing for the kind of oblivion Michaela provided. Yes, some of his ignorant selves had been content--at least one had even been happy--but when it all came back...
It was much better, he knew now, to be left alone to wander.
So he stayed on Mars, which he hated, because he was almost positive Michaela would hate it even more. If Michaela was even capable of feeling something as human as hate.
Of course, that lasted for about six months before Michaela appeared, like a ghost out of nightmare, in his leaky, filthy apartment.
He stared for a moment, then turned away. "Leave me alone."
"That cannot be."
Michaela sounded different than usual. Urgent, almost--
Could Michaela actually experience fear?
He shook his head. "I don't want oblivion anymore. It never ends well."
"That is not what--" Michaela gave an impatient sigh. "You are needed. Urgently. There are things that can only be done by you, places only you can access. There is much fear if you do not."
Despite himself, he turned and faced Michaela. "I don't want to be wiped."
"It will be necessary," Michaela said, almost sorrowfully. "It will be necessary, to not alarm--it will be necessary."
More things it wasn't important for him to know. He wasn't surprised, except at how angry that made him. Michaela always did that. "I want you to tell me what you need me to do."
Michaela stretched tall, glaring down at him from a truly imposing eight feet, and he had a vague flash of Erwin, of a Viking, of Ruth, of--
He shivered and drew back.
"It is not for you to make demands," Michaela said, disturbingly quiet. "Future wipes can be discussed after this is done. But you have a purpose, and you have a task, and you will fulfill it."
And that was the last straw. Something in him snapped. He'd had enough of being Michaela's puppet, tucked away into quiet corners of the world unless something needed intervention, with no control over his life or his memories or even his self.
He ran.
He made it about three steps before the hot hilt of Michaela's sword connected with the back of his head and he fell, despairing, back into oblivion.
no subject
I really, really love your language in this. There are some flat brilliant turns of phrase (soul bending, frenetic joy), and it's a joy to read even when it's jumping up and down on your heart to break it into tiny bits. Lovely job.
(ps: dear everyone in the comm: I KNOW SOMETHING YOU DON'T KNOW)
no subject
Jessie can give Simon cookies! Simon needs all of the cookies. And hugs.
no subject
This was great, and really intense! I love how he's somewhat different from life to life, but still the same person, and with this underlying sense of purpose, of wanting to make up for something. And I'm really curious why Michaela thinks he's the only one who can do these things, whatever these things might be.
no subject
Yep, Judas is correct! What would you like for your drabble? (Also, out of curiosity, what tipped you off? I don't think I've really alluded to the Biblical connections/roots in this story much before, and I was trying to drop clues of varying subtlety. Just curious as to what worked. ^^)
As for why he's the only one who can solve certain problems for Michaela...that's complicated? And I'm still trying to iron out some details. But it has a lot to do with who he is, and why he's essentially immortal.
no subject
For my drabble, um... hmm. Something creepy? You write creepy so well XD
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There is, and that's actually exactly who his friend Simon is ^^. Technically, there are two apostles named Simon, though one is renamed and becomes Peter--he's referred to a couple times in the Gospels as Simon Peter.
Oh, JCS. I love that show so much. There's a singer I adore, who's been in the show like eight times, about half as Jesus and half as Judas. So, naturally, someone spliced together two different versions of The Last Supper, so he's yelling at himself. It's kind of hilarious.
no subject
That sounds completely awesome XD