FIC: untitled, Ilyria & Data
Untitled ficlet for erykah101, who wanted to know about the relationship between Data and Ilyria. I said I was still working on these, didn't I? I'll get them all done eventually...
*
Winifred Burkle's body lasted three centuries before it began to disintegrate on the outside as well as in. Ilyria did what she could to keep the ragged edges of flesh together, but by then all those who might have helped her were dust and ashes, and humans crawled across the face of not just this world but also thousands of others. Others - more like her old form than her new - had gradually begun to visit her adoptive world, but they were still few and far between. Ilyria could walk the streets without a guise to cover her, and be unmolested, but what use was that when she would soon be dead.
Dead, Ilyria, thought, still somewhat confused by the concept. The Shell had died, and her guide, and even those half-human young ones that had clung to her in the wake of what had befallen L.A. Still, she could not comprehend how she was to experience this, when there was no sleeping place waiting for her. Briefly, Ilyria wondered whether she should attempt transference to another body, but the idea was so pointless that she rejected it. What did it matter if that new body lasted a decade or two longer than this one? It, too, would fail - inevitable and mortal - and she would be back where she started. Bit by bit, she would give up slices of her power each time she moved, and bit by bit, she would become like the humans she so despised, clinging to life at whatever cost.
No. Better to embrace death, though this time 'death' would be longer than thousands of years. It would be longer than even she could comprehend, and she was wasting her few precious days sitting in a sterile, empty café in san Francisco, watching the humans mill excitedly around a table not far off. I should visit the markers of their deaths, Ilyria thought. I should go back to L.A., and to San Diego, and to London, and visit the slabs of stone that mark their ashes. It is what they would have done for the Shell, if they could have.
The crowd at the table cleared a little bit, and she could see two profiles, familiar from the comm. casts and newsreels. One - a bald human male, aged but still fit - did not concern her. She could 'see' another's markings all over him, shouting possession from the rooftops. There was no use having designs on this one, even if she were to consider what those extra few centuries would buy her. No: not that one. It was the other that caught her attention - gold-skinned, black-haired, blank-faced - and she was paying for her coffee even before she was aware of it. Him, she recognised.
Ilyria smiled.
*
fin
*
Winifred Burkle's body lasted three centuries before it began to disintegrate on the outside as well as in. Ilyria did what she could to keep the ragged edges of flesh together, but by then all those who might have helped her were dust and ashes, and humans crawled across the face of not just this world but also thousands of others. Others - more like her old form than her new - had gradually begun to visit her adoptive world, but they were still few and far between. Ilyria could walk the streets without a guise to cover her, and be unmolested, but what use was that when she would soon be dead.
Dead, Ilyria, thought, still somewhat confused by the concept. The Shell had died, and her guide, and even those half-human young ones that had clung to her in the wake of what had befallen L.A. Still, she could not comprehend how she was to experience this, when there was no sleeping place waiting for her. Briefly, Ilyria wondered whether she should attempt transference to another body, but the idea was so pointless that she rejected it. What did it matter if that new body lasted a decade or two longer than this one? It, too, would fail - inevitable and mortal - and she would be back where she started. Bit by bit, she would give up slices of her power each time she moved, and bit by bit, she would become like the humans she so despised, clinging to life at whatever cost.
No. Better to embrace death, though this time 'death' would be longer than thousands of years. It would be longer than even she could comprehend, and she was wasting her few precious days sitting in a sterile, empty café in san Francisco, watching the humans mill excitedly around a table not far off. I should visit the markers of their deaths, Ilyria thought. I should go back to L.A., and to San Diego, and to London, and visit the slabs of stone that mark their ashes. It is what they would have done for the Shell, if they could have.
The crowd at the table cleared a little bit, and she could see two profiles, familiar from the comm. casts and newsreels. One - a bald human male, aged but still fit - did not concern her. She could 'see' another's markings all over him, shouting possession from the rooftops. There was no use having designs on this one, even if she were to consider what those extra few centuries would buy her. No: not that one. It was the other that caught her attention - gold-skinned, black-haired, blank-faced - and she was paying for her coffee even before she was aware of it. Him, she recognised.
Ilyria smiled.
*
fin