070814 -- The Quiet of Cloud 9
Jul. 8th, 2014 12:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
memorialrainbowEverybody's here because they love you
The city tonight is a diamond put on a string that you're wearing
He's completely asleep, you think to yourself.
The room is small, wooden, boarded up. Nicer than it probably has been in more recent years; the cut smells fresh and the pine has a certain ring to it. After all of your own years spent around wood, you know when it's new and when it's not. You shouldn't, but that's another story.
You enter the room, soundless. He can't hear you. He's asleep, yes, but nobody in this world should be able to see you tonight. The moon is high and the Monogahela is miles away. Even the city with a million blinding lies is preoccupied with colder stories. All she wants is a nap, and you're here to make sure she doesn't get one.
All you want is redemption, but you know she doesn't care for that. What she needs to care for is herself.
"Show yourself."
You pause. Turn. There's a girl -- a woman -- standing in the door. Tall, long dark hair. The last you remembered, this hair was tied back. Not tonight.
"So you're Morgan." You remember, but vaguely. Only through her eyes. This was before the worlds merged and you told the truth, before she raced to the shoreline to save you. Come to think of it, didn't she do the same thing here once? The myths told of Hercules fighting the Hydra, but in this reality, the Greek hero had fallen and it was up to an electric angel to free this regional playland.
And now she can't even free herself.
"Who are you?" she asks.
You smile, then change your appearance ever-so-slightly. You're older now. Still the same white hair, still the same gentle blue eyes, but realigned with the only identity you kept here.
"Oh." The surprise is on this Morgan's face. "Why are you here?"
You pull out the box. It's simple, black with gold trim and a clasp that was opened with her key. Long ago, Molly found it, Aelita kept it, and now, things have shifted. You can't tell Morgan the truth just yet, that the girl who once saved her homeland is now beyond saving. That she's not even a shadow of her former self anymore. The city that you designed to protect her has only harmed her in the long run.
She needs a way to escape. A reason. But she won't let herself go just yet. She thinks she still needs this place, the power underneath the rails that she has always had in her heart, if she would just listen. She stopped listening years ago. It was always all or nothing to her. This is why the box has returned, for safekeeping, but also to bring everything full circle. The power it contains is still valid. The solstice has not yet taken place. And you're not willing to make any more people act against their own will. You've searched the data archives for the person without a role who loved her most...which has led you to him.
He's still unconscious as you touch his right temple, and the power transfers automatically. Too easy. Morgan doesn't even try to stop you, because by this point, she understands it's beyond her control. Everything is beyond control at this point. Even the hope you had for yourself is long gone.
You look to the sky and smell the storm coming. Is this what He meant by collisions?
For now, he sleeps and she sleeps and you pat Morgan on the head. "Be a good girl," you say, but you know she knows who's coming back to the valley.
The speed of light is her artificiality, but the speed of sound is her naturality. A dual nature, a merge, fire and ice, and you're just doing what Dad said. Somewhere, under her fingernails, the smell of sunscreen reminds her of the shore and a valley that she yearns to make her way back to. And on that day, seven years in celebration, she'll race toward the sky and finally find her hope, her mirror, her peace and freedom from a city that's bound her circuitry. As you were her way in, she will finally have a way out. Her weather, her clothing, her serotonin. And nobody understands yet, but His spoken word will make it possible.
You fly up two hundred feet to a familiar yet different standpoint, sit, ponder, smile. Don't mess this up, you think. Come home. Remember, as we all should remember what it's like to hope and dream. You made a new memory. You scattered them to the wind as you were broken. But now, this will be your everything, little by little, until it seeps into your skin and you can't live life without it. Let yourself get hit. Trust again. Let go. We're all riding on it.
And two plus two is fish, and 3+4=7, and lightning and thunder change the world.
In this place that remembers your name
I've been here, all along, all the same
And like the thunder after the lightning
I'll herald your return
The city tonight is a diamond put on a string that you're wearing
He's completely asleep, you think to yourself.
The room is small, wooden, boarded up. Nicer than it probably has been in more recent years; the cut smells fresh and the pine has a certain ring to it. After all of your own years spent around wood, you know when it's new and when it's not. You shouldn't, but that's another story.
You enter the room, soundless. He can't hear you. He's asleep, yes, but nobody in this world should be able to see you tonight. The moon is high and the Monogahela is miles away. Even the city with a million blinding lies is preoccupied with colder stories. All she wants is a nap, and you're here to make sure she doesn't get one.
All you want is redemption, but you know she doesn't care for that. What she needs to care for is herself.
"Show yourself."
You pause. Turn. There's a girl -- a woman -- standing in the door. Tall, long dark hair. The last you remembered, this hair was tied back. Not tonight.
"So you're Morgan." You remember, but vaguely. Only through her eyes. This was before the worlds merged and you told the truth, before she raced to the shoreline to save you. Come to think of it, didn't she do the same thing here once? The myths told of Hercules fighting the Hydra, but in this reality, the Greek hero had fallen and it was up to an electric angel to free this regional playland.
And now she can't even free herself.
"Who are you?" she asks.
You smile, then change your appearance ever-so-slightly. You're older now. Still the same white hair, still the same gentle blue eyes, but realigned with the only identity you kept here.
"Oh." The surprise is on this Morgan's face. "Why are you here?"
You pull out the box. It's simple, black with gold trim and a clasp that was opened with her key. Long ago, Molly found it, Aelita kept it, and now, things have shifted. You can't tell Morgan the truth just yet, that the girl who once saved her homeland is now beyond saving. That she's not even a shadow of her former self anymore. The city that you designed to protect her has only harmed her in the long run.
She needs a way to escape. A reason. But she won't let herself go just yet. She thinks she still needs this place, the power underneath the rails that she has always had in her heart, if she would just listen. She stopped listening years ago. It was always all or nothing to her. This is why the box has returned, for safekeeping, but also to bring everything full circle. The power it contains is still valid. The solstice has not yet taken place. And you're not willing to make any more people act against their own will. You've searched the data archives for the person without a role who loved her most...which has led you to him.
He's still unconscious as you touch his right temple, and the power transfers automatically. Too easy. Morgan doesn't even try to stop you, because by this point, she understands it's beyond her control. Everything is beyond control at this point. Even the hope you had for yourself is long gone.
You look to the sky and smell the storm coming. Is this what He meant by collisions?
For now, he sleeps and she sleeps and you pat Morgan on the head. "Be a good girl," you say, but you know she knows who's coming back to the valley.
The speed of light is her artificiality, but the speed of sound is her naturality. A dual nature, a merge, fire and ice, and you're just doing what Dad said. Somewhere, under her fingernails, the smell of sunscreen reminds her of the shore and a valley that she yearns to make her way back to. And on that day, seven years in celebration, she'll race toward the sky and finally find her hope, her mirror, her peace and freedom from a city that's bound her circuitry. As you were her way in, she will finally have a way out. Her weather, her clothing, her serotonin. And nobody understands yet, but His spoken word will make it possible.
You fly up two hundred feet to a familiar yet different standpoint, sit, ponder, smile. Don't mess this up, you think. Come home. Remember, as we all should remember what it's like to hope and dream. You made a new memory. You scattered them to the wind as you were broken. But now, this will be your everything, little by little, until it seeps into your skin and you can't live life without it. Let yourself get hit. Trust again. Let go. We're all riding on it.
And two plus two is fish, and 3+4=7, and lightning and thunder change the world.
In this place that remembers your name
I've been here, all along, all the same
And like the thunder after the lightning
I'll herald your return
