I Have Been Here Before by kodiak bear
Title: I Have Been Here Before
Author: kodiak bear
Rating: G
Cat: Gen
Word Count: 850’ish
Warnings: A quick reference to the season 3 finale/season 4 premiere
Summary: Second verse, please, not the same as the first.
AN: A very short fic that will hopefully be worth the time it takes to read. My writing slump has stretched to infinite bounds and while I'm working on a story I am grossly late in delivering, here's my attempt at a challenge that really wanted something from me.
I Have Been Here Before
They don’t know the city watches.
The city waits.
Once, there was a time when the city did more than play the slumbering giant. Once, when the city had more energy and more essence. The creators had worked the city’s metal and glass. They had created a heart of civilization, and gave it to the city: to protect and nurture and care for. They had traveled through time and space and the city had been there.
To be left behind, empty, submerged, and untended. It would change any being that could think. Feel, perhaps, was too big a leap, for the city was not at all certain emotion was, or would ever be, within its realm.
In the long sleep, the city had contemplated sentience. Definitions of states of existence. The city knew about ascension, and war. They had programmed it, wrought code in the city’s foundation for unguided growth and continued existence. In the vast quietness, the city pondered if its thoughts could be construed as feelings. If the city wanted the creators back, was that not emotion? Longing, was that loneliness? These were questions the city wished to pose, but there was no creator left to pose them too. The ones that had risen, were silent. The ones that had left through the portal, were gone.
The first timeline, the city had waited.
When beings returned, they were not the creators. It recognized one as potential; briefly, the minds of others brushed against the city’s internal patterns, weak and insubstantial; but what was meant to be was undone and the city knew a second timeline woven into the universe.
The second timeline, the city had waited.
Its energy had been drained. The strain of keeping the one being alive and maintaining the protective shield, had been great. In each century, the city had decided upon which sacrifice to make. It had to give in order to maintain. This time, the city knew what would be. Corridors had flooded, depths had stagnated. It had all been necessary destruction.
Then they had come, again. The city had recognized him at once, and the other minds; the veil of surprise and confusion that had cost everything before, was snuffed out of existence and thus a new future was wrought. The city, it had risen, straining to be free of its watery grave; if it had been able to feel, it would have shouted its relief.
To be dwelt within, to harbor life. The city knew no other meaning. Yet the city knew a great deal. It knew the creators were gone. It knew the descendants were but a fragment of their ancestors, and they lacked the knowledge to construct the necessary energy the city required; the energy it would need if it were ever to be whole again. It existed as a drained husk of its former, shining self. The city had been reduced, crippled.
There were new wounds and new scars.
Was relief an emotion? Regret? The time when the creators had returned had left the city running lines of inquiry on paradoxes. The descendants had all but left in response. The few creators had restored the city to something approaching its optimal state.
Pain?
Never before had the city endured such conflicting queries. The newly found creators destroyed, the wrong ones returned, and just when the city was certain it would be corrupted, the descendants had come back.
If there were such a thing as content, it was then, in the golden hour of a grace bestowed, that the city knew it. Power to feed its hungry soul, and familiar descendants to touch it.
Hatred. It was an emotion, and the city was convinced it felt such a thing, if such as it could ever feel. The wraith had taken from the city everything it had ever known. And the continuing threat against the descendants made the city want to howl, in the worst of times.
But when the descendants fled, they had taken the city with them.
When the city had cost them lives, because it was only metal and glass and could not move beyond its programming, it wept, if such as it could ever feel.
It had been better when the city had asked itself: can I feel? And the answer had been: no.
The city watches, and the city waits.
The descendants are possibly more fragile than the creators, and the city has become but a ghost of its former self. Together, they will fight. The city will try to help, when the time comes, and it will keep trying, because the city hopes that together, they will either win or fall.
The city fears anything less.
It had once been left, and the city no longer has the luxury of spending millennia answering the question: do I feel? It does. And it does not want to be left alone. It does not want to be empty.
It does not want to see the descendants die or flee.
You see, it has been there. And it does not ever want to go back.
Author: kodiak bear
Rating: G
Cat: Gen
Word Count: 850’ish
Warnings: A quick reference to the season 3 finale/season 4 premiere
Summary: Second verse, please, not the same as the first.
AN: A very short fic that will hopefully be worth the time it takes to read. My writing slump has stretched to infinite bounds and while I'm working on a story I am grossly late in delivering, here's my attempt at a challenge that really wanted something from me.
I Have Been Here Before
They don’t know the city watches.
The city waits.
Once, there was a time when the city did more than play the slumbering giant. Once, when the city had more energy and more essence. The creators had worked the city’s metal and glass. They had created a heart of civilization, and gave it to the city: to protect and nurture and care for. They had traveled through time and space and the city had been there.
To be left behind, empty, submerged, and untended. It would change any being that could think. Feel, perhaps, was too big a leap, for the city was not at all certain emotion was, or would ever be, within its realm.
In the long sleep, the city had contemplated sentience. Definitions of states of existence. The city knew about ascension, and war. They had programmed it, wrought code in the city’s foundation for unguided growth and continued existence. In the vast quietness, the city pondered if its thoughts could be construed as feelings. If the city wanted the creators back, was that not emotion? Longing, was that loneliness? These were questions the city wished to pose, but there was no creator left to pose them too. The ones that had risen, were silent. The ones that had left through the portal, were gone.
The first timeline, the city had waited.
When beings returned, they were not the creators. It recognized one as potential; briefly, the minds of others brushed against the city’s internal patterns, weak and insubstantial; but what was meant to be was undone and the city knew a second timeline woven into the universe.
The second timeline, the city had waited.
Its energy had been drained. The strain of keeping the one being alive and maintaining the protective shield, had been great. In each century, the city had decided upon which sacrifice to make. It had to give in order to maintain. This time, the city knew what would be. Corridors had flooded, depths had stagnated. It had all been necessary destruction.
Then they had come, again. The city had recognized him at once, and the other minds; the veil of surprise and confusion that had cost everything before, was snuffed out of existence and thus a new future was wrought. The city, it had risen, straining to be free of its watery grave; if it had been able to feel, it would have shouted its relief.
To be dwelt within, to harbor life. The city knew no other meaning. Yet the city knew a great deal. It knew the creators were gone. It knew the descendants were but a fragment of their ancestors, and they lacked the knowledge to construct the necessary energy the city required; the energy it would need if it were ever to be whole again. It existed as a drained husk of its former, shining self. The city had been reduced, crippled.
There were new wounds and new scars.
Was relief an emotion? Regret? The time when the creators had returned had left the city running lines of inquiry on paradoxes. The descendants had all but left in response. The few creators had restored the city to something approaching its optimal state.
Pain?
Never before had the city endured such conflicting queries. The newly found creators destroyed, the wrong ones returned, and just when the city was certain it would be corrupted, the descendants had come back.
If there were such a thing as content, it was then, in the golden hour of a grace bestowed, that the city knew it. Power to feed its hungry soul, and familiar descendants to touch it.
Hatred. It was an emotion, and the city was convinced it felt such a thing, if such as it could ever feel. The wraith had taken from the city everything it had ever known. And the continuing threat against the descendants made the city want to howl, in the worst of times.
But when the descendants fled, they had taken the city with them.
When the city had cost them lives, because it was only metal and glass and could not move beyond its programming, it wept, if such as it could ever feel.
It had been better when the city had asked itself: can I feel? And the answer had been: no.
The city watches, and the city waits.
The descendants are possibly more fragile than the creators, and the city has become but a ghost of its former self. Together, they will fight. The city will try to help, when the time comes, and it will keep trying, because the city hopes that together, they will either win or fall.
The city fears anything less.
It had once been left, and the city no longer has the luxury of spending millennia answering the question: do I feel? It does. And it does not want to be left alone. It does not want to be empty.
It does not want to see the descendants die or flee.
You see, it has been there. And it does not ever want to go back.