Yuletide Fic: "Love Will Tear Us Apart (Gravity Will Keep Us Together)." (Solar System) G
Title: Love Will Tear Us Apart (Gravity Will Keep Us Together). (On Archive Of Our Own)
Author:
lannamichaels
Fandom: Solar System (Anthropomorfic)
Rating: G
A/N: Happy Yuletide, Cephalopod! Your prompt was amazing and inspiring, I hope this is (close to) what you were looking for! Thank you to karanguni for the beta.
Summary: Being the saga of the planetary system Pluto-Charon, ruler of the Kuiper Belt, defender of the Oort Cloud, terrible chronicler of adventures.
SPACE. IT'S WHERE WE LIVE.
These are the orbits (and also the voyages) of the dwarf planet and its largest moon -- [excuse me, NOT A MOON, I pull enough weight in this relationship. Double-planet] -- {binary system} -- [we have actual moons, you know] -- {planetary system} -- [two objects orbiting a shared barycenter] -- PLANETARY SYSTEM Pluto-Charon. Its unending mission: to seek out strange new Kuiper Belt rocks, to wave to incoming and outgoing comets, to boldly go where it has been going since it settled into this stupid orbit in the first place.
You realize you're not helping.
THESE ARE OUR VOYAGES. THIS IS OUR STORY.
Yes.
These are the orbits of Pluto-Charon, undisputed -- [somewhat disputed] -- {shut up} -- ruler of the Kuiper Belt. We are very benevolent and also very scary. [You wish] -- {Yes, I do wish. Is that a problem?} -- [You know, you're the reason we have this reputation in the first place. It's like you LIKE being on the Most Wanted posters.] -- {They capture my good side.} -- [Post pics or retract] -- {Shut up, we were on a roll here.}
Look, the Most Wanted posters are mostly unsubstantiated (and unsubstantiable) conjecture, and also, we find it a little flattering. [You find it a lot flattering.] -- {We balance each other out. And c'mon, don't pretend you don't think it's pretty thrilling that everyone knows our names.} We've even got Neptune a little frightened of us now, which is so great. The big ones don't really understand the orbits of us smaller ones. IT LETS US TAKE THEM BY SURPRISE. Not that we've been throwing rocks at Neptune for the last several billion orbits. That would be rude.
Also, it's not throwing if the rocks volunteer. That way, it's just assisting them in the pursuit of their rocky life goals. It's the helpful thing to do. We aim to be helpful. We also aim at Neptune. Because Neptune had it coming.
Totally.
And sometimes, we just have to stand up for the little guy. The little rocks are really susceptible to influences; it's only right to try to protect them. Guide them, you know. And it's a complete slander to say that we intimidate them, or toss them towards the giant rocks, or threaten to do that if they won't become our satellites. We have totally never done that.
Much.
Okay, okay, we don't do that as much lately. Things have mostly settled down in the Kuiper Belt. The scattered disc suburb is still a mess, but we've been throwing our weight behind Eris and, anyway, we respect its territory.
So, as you can probably tell from this pointless infighting, which is the worst habit, we swear on our cores -- life can get pretty boring out here in the Kuiper Belt. We've mostly got ourselves sorted out. It's the same old, same old, with just the occasional collision requiring a shotgun marriage.
But the Oort Cloud, it can feel a little divided sometimes. Its inner and outer layers sometimes, well, there's some friction, some politicking, it's a lot of drama. We do not like drama. [Lies, I don't like drama, your heart is full of it] I mean, I'm just saying, there's friction there. We're just saying, there's friction.
So we had to fix it. It's just being good neighbors. And, also, we'd long ago cowed the Kuiper Belt into submission, so life was getting kinda boring. So it only made sense to make inroads into the Oort Cloud. We can only buzz Neptune so many times before even its overreactions get old.
The first step was dealing with the rogue wanderers. Every so often, someone stumbles through the Oort Cloud and disrupts everything. Orbits get shifted, rocks fly into each other, it's a literal mess. You gotta be careful of collisions. Drive safe, you know? So we went over and gave them solar safety lessons and instituted a regular flying exam. No one should crash into each other unless they want to. Being drunk on the solar wind is not an excuse!
Okay, it's an excuse, but it's not a good one. We firmly believe that if you are going to do something idiotic, at least have a good reason for it.
Anyway, once we'd reduced asteroid accidents with our kick-ass tried-and-tested prevention measures, it was time for more aesthetic changes. Some rocks don't have the greatest compositions. They can be a little out of joint with themselves. Between the two of us, we know how that goes. Breaking out into ice mountains kinda hurts a lot, plus Charon has a giant acne scar that's so awesomely fantastically horrible, we call it Mordor. No one should live like that if they don't want to. {I know it's there because you want to. And I like how Mordor looks on you, by the way.} -- [Shut up, I know. I don't need flattery, especially from something as not-flat as you.]
We instituted some periodic Oort Cloud meetings. It gave rocks the opportunity to meet each other and plan sensible, carefully negotiated collisions. We talked with a lot of rocks who wanted to shift around a bit and we helped them find friends to do it with! We've done our share of Rocks With Benefits ourselves, back when we were a bit younger. Those early few orbits really shook a lot of people up. We had to knock minerals a few times, really hammer into each other, to get ourselves the way we liked. There was a lot of dust spewing out of places we don't always like to think about, but once it was all over, I think we can all agree that the satisfaction outweighed the soreness. Plus, it was really hot.
We also had long talks about proper boundaries, keeping your distance, you know, that whole thing. It's really easy to disrupt someone if you get too close to them, so it's important to flash your gravity at them, let them have enough time to navigate in relation to you. It's not good to mess up orbits without permission!
And we're very proud, because the last time we aligned and went over to visit, we found out that they had instituted a postal system! Every so often, one of them decides to go visit some of the big rocks, so the Oorters have put together a system for having that rock send messages back and forth. They're still working all the kinks out (Jupiter is causing a lot of crashes, we really need to have a word with it about that, it's not a nice thing to do), but we think it has a lot of promise and potential! It's so great to see the kids coming up with plans, figuring out how to implement them, and tweaking everything until it works! If we were still volcanic, we'd spew in happiness and pride.
Do we have any more voyages to report?
Uh, we've had some cool alignments, and just now, an artificial rock sped by, taking a lot of pictures. It said it was from the inner planets, the hypothetical hot ones that come after the rock belt that's between Jupiter and the star, but I'm not too sure I believe they exist. Wouldn't those "hot rocky planets" burn up, being that close to the star? We remember when some of our particles were closer than they are now, and it really wasn't pleasant. I wouldn't want to do it again. A lot of the rocks who go on adventures don't come back, and not all of the ones who do come back say anything about any inner planets. That's kind of a discrepancy. We're not sure we believe the few who claim to have seen inner planets. We don't know, it just seems unlikely. Don't call us a denialist. We're just skeptical, is all. We're just waiting for some real evidence. We're a skeptical planetary system, is what we are.
Don't tell us that you believe in inner planets. Next you'll be saying that you believe Uranus meant to look like that. Yeah, right, sure. We all know what really happened. We were all there. Your fantasies are nice and all, but facts are important, 'kay?
Now if you'll excuse us, we have a rock slide to deal with. Someone got a little excited about tidal locking again.
OUR ADVENTURES WILL CONTINUE... SOME OTHER TIME!
This entry was originally posted at http://lannamichaels.dreamwidth.org/953643.html.