Myst prison study, take 2.
Title: Home
Fandom/Spoilers: Myst, Myst IV: Revelation
Rating: PG
Summary: A not-quite-so-short study of Achenar's life in Haven.
Author's Note: Because someone suggested I should, here is a sorta-kinda companion piece to “Stone,” my (much shorter) piece about Sirrus in Spire. This one’s got less imagery and focuses a lot more on Achenar’s inner voice and past (including times before the imprisonment), and is a lot less objective than “Stone” was. This is a good page-and-a-half longer than the Sirrus fic, but I just wrote what came naturally and I hope it lives up to the quality of its predecessor despite not being as condensed. “Stone” grew up around the single image of the stone-slab bed in Spire; I had no focal point for this followup, which is a large part of why it rambles on so. I just wanted to capture in a few words the effect Haven has on Achenar.
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Achenar never really believed he could escape from Haven. He didn’t exactly give the idea much thought. Most of the time he was far too occupied, and the rest of the time... the rest of the time, thought was the last thing he wanted.
Sirrus had always been the more devious of the two of them, more assertive, intelligent, ambitious. Achenar should have been jealous -- he had every right to be jealous, being shown up every minute of every day by his younger brother. Little Sirrus, barely walking when Achenar was already five and doing maths; little Sirrus, always the self-centered baby wrapped up in a shell of prodigal maturity; little Sirrus, lithe and wiry and with a mind like a whip, sharp and fast and cruel and so, so accurate. But truth be told, Achenar was never really jealous of what Sirrus had, because Achenar had never wanted those things. He envied Father a little, it was true -- envied his ability to create worlds and people and objects of beauty. Achenar never had much chance to create. Not as much as he would have liked.
In the end, Achenar had followed Sirrus a little out of fear, but more out of curiosity. Sirrus’ machinations were distasteful but deliciously cunning, and they led Achenar into so many more Ages than Atrus and Catherine had been willing to show the boys. The worlds Sirrus manipulated were beautiful and delicate and so very alive -- everything Achenar had ever wanted. All he had ever dreamed of building. Full of such craftsmanship, such history and care...
Envy had raised its ugly head at last, striking Achenar hard and fast and deep, each Age he visited becoming another nail in the coffin of his innocent naivety. All the gravity-defying machinery and immense, noble trees and insects like lace and landscapes like waking dreams -- all the beauty of Atrus’ Ages dulled in Achenar’s sight, blackened by the invasive knowledge that Achenar would never have this power over words, ever.
Because Sirrus was the eloquent one as well as the ingenious one, and Achenar simply did not have the vocabulary or the wordcraft for the Art, no matter how badly he longed for it. It never occurred to him -- or at least occurred to him in earnest -- that he could create other things, perhaps mesh his creative energy and brute strength into artisans’ skills like woodcarving or stonework. Sirrus’ belief in power above all else rubbed off on him until he found himself resenting everything and everyone for not endowing him with the sheer ability to control that was shared by his father and his brother.
He could have talked to Catherine, maybe. He realized that much too late, after he was already trapped in Haven and fumbling with the vague, painful idea of repentance. Mother was a little like Atrus in that she could Write, but her perception of the Art was so different from Father’s, so much more practical, almost irreverent sometimes, at least compared to Father... or maybe Achenar had too much reverence, reverence to the point of fanaticism, a viewpoint he could only have picked up from Sirrus.
Mother might have listened. Mother might have understood, and stopped Sirrus, and convinced Achenar of his own worth.
Too late now.
Achenar never really believed he could escape from Haven because he never really wanted to. Maybe at first -- for a year or so. He had spent a lot of time back then sulking alone in the shipwreck, and raging over the unfairness of it all. He realized now, more mellow and mature as he was, that he had acted quite the fool back then, posing in his misery for an audience that he had eventually been forced to realize was not -- and could never be -- there to pity him.
No one cared he was gone. That thought was what hurt the most.
That, and the voices.
It had taken a long time, of course, before Achenar had dared to venture out of the shipwreck, and longer still to make much headway around the island of Haven. He’d spent many months and most of his anger dealing with the carpetees, and was still haunted by their bones. The jungle had been murder to hack paths through, and the grassland predators had nearly cost him a limb while the poison plants had definitely cost him some brain cells and, to a large degree, his sense of smell. Eventually, though, he mastered the woods and found the edge of the swamp -- and that was where he met his match. Not in monstrous killer sea-life, nor in poison, nor sharp teeth, nor exposure; these were things he could fight, things that fueled his anger rather than discouraged it.
No. The thing that brought Achenar to his knees was a single skittish creature, hunched and lizardlike with an almost cartoonish crest sweeping back from its too-humanoid face -- a creature which, upon seeing him, abandoned its leisurely meal and fled with a cry that sounded so much like those of the shock-cage subjects, hoarse and low even from the throats of children, that Achenar found himself screaming back without even realizing why.
It had been a sobering moment, to realize how far he’d distanced himself from his own crimes. How badly he didn’t want to be reminded of them. Because even then, so early in his imprisonment and still so suffused with righteous anger, Achenar knew that the things he had done were wrong. That he was a criminal. That he had been misled, and had allowed himself to be misled, and that the latter was infinitely worse and could never be reconciled.
Later, he built his hut in the middle of the lake, just outside the swamp, close enough that he could still hear the zeftyr’s cries in the night, and those cries translated into nightmares filled with screaming voices. He complained about it to his journals and even went so far as to make a pair of ear plugs, but the nightmares never stopped.
He could have moved, or slept in his hunting lofts, but he didn’t. He could have built somewhere else, but he hadn’t. And in those few moments in which he was honest with himself, Achenar understood that he didn’t deserve to sleep in peace, which was the real reason why he had built on that lake, and why he’d stayed.
Achenar never really wanted to leave Haven. He was afraid of what would happen if he did. What he would do, or say, or who he would be forced to interact with -- were there any survivors of the worlds he and his brother had razed? Would Father make him visit those worlds, meet those people? It would be very much like Father to come up with a punishment so simple and so cruel, like the Trap Books, like this very island.
Achenar often retreated to the lower edge of the grasslands, down by the water, and twisted a stalk or two of the tall grain between his fingers while he watched the sunset and thought, and ached at those thoughts.
He wondered about Sirrus sometimes. Sirrus had gone to Spire first, before Achenar had entered Haven, so Achenar knew Sirrus was trapped as well. He wondered what Spire was like and how Sirrus was faring there, whether he was having the same sort of second thoughts -- probably not. If Spire was as full of life as Haven, Sirrus would probably be the king of the monkeys by now. Sirrus couldn’t approach a living thing without feeling superior to it and needing to control it. Achenar, on the other hand, had learned between the carpetees and the camoudales just how worthless his life really was on this island, higher intelligence or no. And how worthless his life was in comparison to the hundreds, maybe thousands of others he and Sirrus had taken.
So Haven became Achenar’s home as much as his prison, and he grew to, if not love it, at least tolerate it, just as it finally grew to tolerate him. Haven even accepted him -- welcomed him -- to some degree, as in the case of the mangrees. Even the zeftyrs grew less skittish around him, after they discovered at great length that he would not prey on them. The camoudales snarled and skirted his main territories, waiting for a weakness, but they were afraid of his poison spears and the strange structures he’d built. Life got easier, introspection got harder, and Achenar grew up little by little from the perpetual child he had been well into his twenties, into the mature (though slightly mad) man who first greeted his father in the Linking Chamber on the beach.
It was a little self-centered, still, to think that he deserved the torment of isolation and hardship -- a little like wallowing in self-pity. But Achenar made up for such thoughts with hard work, pouring his long-repressed creative energies into carving and building, creating a playground for the local wildlife and memorials for their dead, and ultimately living the life -- although on a decidedly reduced and twisted scale -- that he had always wanted to live, the kind of life he’d imagined for himself from back before the green-eyed monster had marked him.
Achenar never really thought he could escape from Haven because he never tried. He didn’t want to try. After twenty years, Haven had become just that -- a haven.
A home.
Fandom/Spoilers: Myst, Myst IV: Revelation
Rating: PG
Summary: A not-quite-so-short study of Achenar's life in Haven.
Author's Note: Because someone suggested I should, here is a sorta-kinda companion piece to “Stone,” my (much shorter) piece about Sirrus in Spire. This one’s got less imagery and focuses a lot more on Achenar’s inner voice and past (including times before the imprisonment), and is a lot less objective than “Stone” was. This is a good page-and-a-half longer than the Sirrus fic, but I just wrote what came naturally and I hope it lives up to the quality of its predecessor despite not being as condensed. “Stone” grew up around the single image of the stone-slab bed in Spire; I had no focal point for this followup, which is a large part of why it rambles on so. I just wanted to capture in a few words the effect Haven has on Achenar.
------
Achenar never really believed he could escape from Haven. He didn’t exactly give the idea much thought. Most of the time he was far too occupied, and the rest of the time... the rest of the time, thought was the last thing he wanted.
Sirrus had always been the more devious of the two of them, more assertive, intelligent, ambitious. Achenar should have been jealous -- he had every right to be jealous, being shown up every minute of every day by his younger brother. Little Sirrus, barely walking when Achenar was already five and doing maths; little Sirrus, always the self-centered baby wrapped up in a shell of prodigal maturity; little Sirrus, lithe and wiry and with a mind like a whip, sharp and fast and cruel and so, so accurate. But truth be told, Achenar was never really jealous of what Sirrus had, because Achenar had never wanted those things. He envied Father a little, it was true -- envied his ability to create worlds and people and objects of beauty. Achenar never had much chance to create. Not as much as he would have liked.
In the end, Achenar had followed Sirrus a little out of fear, but more out of curiosity. Sirrus’ machinations were distasteful but deliciously cunning, and they led Achenar into so many more Ages than Atrus and Catherine had been willing to show the boys. The worlds Sirrus manipulated were beautiful and delicate and so very alive -- everything Achenar had ever wanted. All he had ever dreamed of building. Full of such craftsmanship, such history and care...
Envy had raised its ugly head at last, striking Achenar hard and fast and deep, each Age he visited becoming another nail in the coffin of his innocent naivety. All the gravity-defying machinery and immense, noble trees and insects like lace and landscapes like waking dreams -- all the beauty of Atrus’ Ages dulled in Achenar’s sight, blackened by the invasive knowledge that Achenar would never have this power over words, ever.
Because Sirrus was the eloquent one as well as the ingenious one, and Achenar simply did not have the vocabulary or the wordcraft for the Art, no matter how badly he longed for it. It never occurred to him -- or at least occurred to him in earnest -- that he could create other things, perhaps mesh his creative energy and brute strength into artisans’ skills like woodcarving or stonework. Sirrus’ belief in power above all else rubbed off on him until he found himself resenting everything and everyone for not endowing him with the sheer ability to control that was shared by his father and his brother.
He could have talked to Catherine, maybe. He realized that much too late, after he was already trapped in Haven and fumbling with the vague, painful idea of repentance. Mother was a little like Atrus in that she could Write, but her perception of the Art was so different from Father’s, so much more practical, almost irreverent sometimes, at least compared to Father... or maybe Achenar had too much reverence, reverence to the point of fanaticism, a viewpoint he could only have picked up from Sirrus.
Mother might have listened. Mother might have understood, and stopped Sirrus, and convinced Achenar of his own worth.
Too late now.
Achenar never really believed he could escape from Haven because he never really wanted to. Maybe at first -- for a year or so. He had spent a lot of time back then sulking alone in the shipwreck, and raging over the unfairness of it all. He realized now, more mellow and mature as he was, that he had acted quite the fool back then, posing in his misery for an audience that he had eventually been forced to realize was not -- and could never be -- there to pity him.
No one cared he was gone. That thought was what hurt the most.
That, and the voices.
It had taken a long time, of course, before Achenar had dared to venture out of the shipwreck, and longer still to make much headway around the island of Haven. He’d spent many months and most of his anger dealing with the carpetees, and was still haunted by their bones. The jungle had been murder to hack paths through, and the grassland predators had nearly cost him a limb while the poison plants had definitely cost him some brain cells and, to a large degree, his sense of smell. Eventually, though, he mastered the woods and found the edge of the swamp -- and that was where he met his match. Not in monstrous killer sea-life, nor in poison, nor sharp teeth, nor exposure; these were things he could fight, things that fueled his anger rather than discouraged it.
No. The thing that brought Achenar to his knees was a single skittish creature, hunched and lizardlike with an almost cartoonish crest sweeping back from its too-humanoid face -- a creature which, upon seeing him, abandoned its leisurely meal and fled with a cry that sounded so much like those of the shock-cage subjects, hoarse and low even from the throats of children, that Achenar found himself screaming back without even realizing why.
It had been a sobering moment, to realize how far he’d distanced himself from his own crimes. How badly he didn’t want to be reminded of them. Because even then, so early in his imprisonment and still so suffused with righteous anger, Achenar knew that the things he had done were wrong. That he was a criminal. That he had been misled, and had allowed himself to be misled, and that the latter was infinitely worse and could never be reconciled.
Later, he built his hut in the middle of the lake, just outside the swamp, close enough that he could still hear the zeftyr’s cries in the night, and those cries translated into nightmares filled with screaming voices. He complained about it to his journals and even went so far as to make a pair of ear plugs, but the nightmares never stopped.
He could have moved, or slept in his hunting lofts, but he didn’t. He could have built somewhere else, but he hadn’t. And in those few moments in which he was honest with himself, Achenar understood that he didn’t deserve to sleep in peace, which was the real reason why he had built on that lake, and why he’d stayed.
Achenar never really wanted to leave Haven. He was afraid of what would happen if he did. What he would do, or say, or who he would be forced to interact with -- were there any survivors of the worlds he and his brother had razed? Would Father make him visit those worlds, meet those people? It would be very much like Father to come up with a punishment so simple and so cruel, like the Trap Books, like this very island.
Achenar often retreated to the lower edge of the grasslands, down by the water, and twisted a stalk or two of the tall grain between his fingers while he watched the sunset and thought, and ached at those thoughts.
He wondered about Sirrus sometimes. Sirrus had gone to Spire first, before Achenar had entered Haven, so Achenar knew Sirrus was trapped as well. He wondered what Spire was like and how Sirrus was faring there, whether he was having the same sort of second thoughts -- probably not. If Spire was as full of life as Haven, Sirrus would probably be the king of the monkeys by now. Sirrus couldn’t approach a living thing without feeling superior to it and needing to control it. Achenar, on the other hand, had learned between the carpetees and the camoudales just how worthless his life really was on this island, higher intelligence or no. And how worthless his life was in comparison to the hundreds, maybe thousands of others he and Sirrus had taken.
So Haven became Achenar’s home as much as his prison, and he grew to, if not love it, at least tolerate it, just as it finally grew to tolerate him. Haven even accepted him -- welcomed him -- to some degree, as in the case of the mangrees. Even the zeftyrs grew less skittish around him, after they discovered at great length that he would not prey on them. The camoudales snarled and skirted his main territories, waiting for a weakness, but they were afraid of his poison spears and the strange structures he’d built. Life got easier, introspection got harder, and Achenar grew up little by little from the perpetual child he had been well into his twenties, into the mature (though slightly mad) man who first greeted his father in the Linking Chamber on the beach.
It was a little self-centered, still, to think that he deserved the torment of isolation and hardship -- a little like wallowing in self-pity. But Achenar made up for such thoughts with hard work, pouring his long-repressed creative energies into carving and building, creating a playground for the local wildlife and memorials for their dead, and ultimately living the life -- although on a decidedly reduced and twisted scale -- that he had always wanted to live, the kind of life he’d imagined for himself from back before the green-eyed monster had marked him.
Achenar never really thought he could escape from Haven because he never tried. He didn’t want to try. After twenty years, Haven had become just that -- a haven.
A home.