Atlantis ficlet - huh, that was unexpected.
I haven't written fic in a long time, it seems. I wax and wane, creatively. Spent years with words, and then found a pencil and have spent the last two years drawing. Not every hour of every day, obviously, heh. And sometimes fic will creep in here and there, but my fixations, in general, shoulder each other out of the way, like rowdy siblings, and it is art and not writing that has held sway in recent times.
But one of the bits of fic that crept in late at night, is what I am posting here. For no good reason, really.
I never know how much info to put into a summary. This fic(let) is especially short, barely 550 words. I'd kind of like it to be read cold, with no hint of which fandom or what's happening, but I think that is asking a bit much. But still I am going to be as cryptic as possible, just because I can. However, none of it will make much sense if you *don't* know the fandom. And, to be honest, it may not make much sense if you do. I think, again to be honest, I was writing to indulge myself, and never intended it for human consumption. But hey ho. I've written a tiny spoilery explanation at the end.
Title: And here we are, at the end of time...
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Rating: Anyone
Spoilers: Sort of? Does it still matter? The explanation at the end of the fic would probably spoil more tha the fic itself.
Disclaimer: I didn't invent the show, but I can't actually remember who did. I may Google this later.
Summary: This is what happened in the end.
And here we are, at the end of time.
They are only curious. They want to see what manner of creature she is - cold and alone, waxy cheeked and pale. She is silent and still to the core of her and doll-like in the stillness.
*
Awareness comes back to her like an echo of life, faint and hollow. Blankets are unwrapped, fibres sticking to damp skin, as they pull her from the shroud in which she'd been hidden. The blankets are heavy wool, clinging wet-soaked to her body and cold, so cold. Perhaps they gave her warmth until the river pulled her in? There are some things she can't remember. But she knows the river took her, that the sodden mass of her slid through dark, cool blue-green algaed waters, before sinking deep into the cold. So cold. The cold permeating all. Even her thoughts were frigid, silted up and layered down in the dark, where the only light was the distant glimmer of a diluted sun. Time moved slowly there, as she waited to breathe the last gasp of air in a place where there was no air to left breathe, and she had no breath left to take.
Now, the cold that binds her is slowly dragged away and she is wrapped in finer cloths. There is a distant warmth, a warmth long since fled and she wonders, vaguely, if a fire has been lit on the grassy bank of the river. Or, perhaps, the river had dragged her out into the ocean depths, and now she is washed up on gritty sand, while a driftwood campfire sputters heat into the night. A face looms pale and unfamiliar above her. There is a voice she doesn't understand, a high and sibilant speech like cicadas, but she does not yet have the energy to respond, nor the will.
A slender three fingered hand gives a delicate, but deliberate touch to her chest and then her forehead. A shudder of fear wriggles through her, or perhaps the memory of such, but the hand is deft, pulls back and mimics the same gesture on the face and body to which it belongs.
Slowly, as the water drains away from her, and the leeching cold is replaced by faint heat, she drifts closer still to the surface of consciousness. In her scattered state, she feels a shepherd should come gather her in. The wide eyes in the pale face are asking a question, she thinks. As are the precise hands and unintelligible speech. The heat pulls her onward, upward. She blinks and shifts, a tremor in her limbs and the chirr of voice increases in pitch.
She comes back to herself suddenly, like the snap of an elastic band, a sharp focus that blurs for a moment before it shocks her, wakes her, snaps her back into place. It is silver sheets wrap her, and she rests on a cold metal floor. Cold, but not as cold as the river. The river and the seas and the frozen dark lakes that existed only in her mind. The river never took her but the darkness of space did and she went with open arms and willingly.
The three-fingered hand, the voice and the eyes all question her. And she is solid, conscious, returned. Pulled out of the river, out of the shocking cold of space and endless time, onto a metal shore. Drifting no longer. And now she has the wit to respond.
"I am Elizabeth," she says.
fin
Elucidatory SPOILER moment: Elizabeth Weir (or her 'clone') sacrificed herself by leading her fellow replicator friends through the gate and into the depths of space. I was never happy with this, Lizzie ending up drifting in space. It seemed to me to be a highly unsatisfactory ending for the character. This is not really a resolution, but I wanted her back, out of the black, and this is her re-awakening, if you will. And this is 'all she wrote' before the urge to sort it all out, suddenly petered out.
But one of the bits of fic that crept in late at night, is what I am posting here. For no good reason, really.
I never know how much info to put into a summary. This fic(let) is especially short, barely 550 words. I'd kind of like it to be read cold, with no hint of which fandom or what's happening, but I think that is asking a bit much. But still I am going to be as cryptic as possible, just because I can. However, none of it will make much sense if you *don't* know the fandom. And, to be honest, it may not make much sense if you do. I think, again to be honest, I was writing to indulge myself, and never intended it for human consumption. But hey ho. I've written a tiny spoilery explanation at the end.
Title: And here we are, at the end of time...
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Rating: Anyone
Spoilers: Sort of? Does it still matter? The explanation at the end of the fic would probably spoil more tha the fic itself.
Disclaimer: I didn't invent the show, but I can't actually remember who did. I may Google this later.
Summary: This is what happened in the end.
And here we are, at the end of time.
They are only curious. They want to see what manner of creature she is - cold and alone, waxy cheeked and pale. She is silent and still to the core of her and doll-like in the stillness.
*
Awareness comes back to her like an echo of life, faint and hollow. Blankets are unwrapped, fibres sticking to damp skin, as they pull her from the shroud in which she'd been hidden. The blankets are heavy wool, clinging wet-soaked to her body and cold, so cold. Perhaps they gave her warmth until the river pulled her in? There are some things she can't remember. But she knows the river took her, that the sodden mass of her slid through dark, cool blue-green algaed waters, before sinking deep into the cold. So cold. The cold permeating all. Even her thoughts were frigid, silted up and layered down in the dark, where the only light was the distant glimmer of a diluted sun. Time moved slowly there, as she waited to breathe the last gasp of air in a place where there was no air to left breathe, and she had no breath left to take.
Now, the cold that binds her is slowly dragged away and she is wrapped in finer cloths. There is a distant warmth, a warmth long since fled and she wonders, vaguely, if a fire has been lit on the grassy bank of the river. Or, perhaps, the river had dragged her out into the ocean depths, and now she is washed up on gritty sand, while a driftwood campfire sputters heat into the night. A face looms pale and unfamiliar above her. There is a voice she doesn't understand, a high and sibilant speech like cicadas, but she does not yet have the energy to respond, nor the will.
A slender three fingered hand gives a delicate, but deliberate touch to her chest and then her forehead. A shudder of fear wriggles through her, or perhaps the memory of such, but the hand is deft, pulls back and mimics the same gesture on the face and body to which it belongs.
Slowly, as the water drains away from her, and the leeching cold is replaced by faint heat, she drifts closer still to the surface of consciousness. In her scattered state, she feels a shepherd should come gather her in. The wide eyes in the pale face are asking a question, she thinks. As are the precise hands and unintelligible speech. The heat pulls her onward, upward. She blinks and shifts, a tremor in her limbs and the chirr of voice increases in pitch.
She comes back to herself suddenly, like the snap of an elastic band, a sharp focus that blurs for a moment before it shocks her, wakes her, snaps her back into place. It is silver sheets wrap her, and she rests on a cold metal floor. Cold, but not as cold as the river. The river and the seas and the frozen dark lakes that existed only in her mind. The river never took her but the darkness of space did and she went with open arms and willingly.
The three-fingered hand, the voice and the eyes all question her. And she is solid, conscious, returned. Pulled out of the river, out of the shocking cold of space and endless time, onto a metal shore. Drifting no longer. And now she has the wit to respond.
"I am Elizabeth," she says.
fin
Elucidatory SPOILER moment: Elizabeth Weir (or her 'clone') sacrificed herself by leading her fellow replicator friends through the gate and into the depths of space. I was never happy with this, Lizzie ending up drifting in space. It seemed to me to be a highly unsatisfactory ending for the character. This is not really a resolution, but I wanted her back, out of the black, and this is her re-awakening, if you will. And this is 'all she wrote' before the urge to sort it all out, suddenly petered out.