Oroborus


by llamajoy


author's note: "Myyah" is the Japanese transliterated equivalent of "Miang," and it's closer to being the polar opposite of "Elhaym," anyway. The "oroborus," of course, is the snake-eating-its-tail, and the infinite principle within elhaym-myyah.




there will be miracles after the last war is won
science and poetry rule in the new world to come
prophets and angels gave us the power to see
what an amazing future there will be
--billy joel, "two thousand years"


Marvelous thing, the circle. I have always been fond of the circle, and its ambitious three-dimensional cousin, the sphere; both of them balanced in perfection, all sides equidistant from the center. There is much to be said for such equilibrium, seldom to be found in human beings.

Her nanocapacitor, nestled securely there within the nape of her neck where the human cerebellum would be, is a sweet and perfect sphere.

It is invisible to the human eye, of course, even as I lift her thick emerald hair away from the spot, it is not discernable. Finely crafted, down to each minute and loving detail. As she lies on her stomach, I run one finger along her spine, from the base of her skull and downwards, dipping between her shoulderblades, trailing to the smooth hollow of the small of her back. Her flesh quivers, utterly natural, so precise is the skin's reaction to the slight stimulus. She murmurs something in her sleep, a fluttering bird-wing of a gasp.

I find myself shivering, as well, beholding her, though I cannot remember the last time that something affected me so.

I have long known that she was his, her introns and the symmetry of her macrocircuits, every nanometer of her speaks of him, as surely as his own handwriting. I have read enough of his reports, the hours and years of his research, to recognize his style. The perception enablers that he innovated, coupled so effortlessly with the motion-balance generators, and the total effect: the breathless unblinking young girl whole of her.

But only now do I begin to realize that she is hers as well, fine synthesis that she is, with something of her kindness matched with his technological artistry. Such marvels, within her, humanity and science in a slow whirling dance, one-winged each. Any logician knows: extract any slice from a circle, no matter how small, and with a little calculation you can always ascertain the dimensions of the original.

Always tell, by looking at the piece, the breadth and nature of the whole.

It is so, with her. And it was always so, with him... though I knew him as Lacan.

And it was so with her, too, self-sacrificing Sophia, the eternal Elhaym, though I was too in love to notice much. Or perhaps I noticed because I was in love, the way that the universe curved when it touched her, as easily as liquid bending light. The way a hundred other eyes looked through her own, lending weight to the smile she never shared with me. She changed the world, as I had always known she would. Heralding the end of an era-- though the rest of us screamed her name, she never faltered. Her ship blossomed in petals of glorious flame, and that first war died with her.

And so did he, though it took him five hundred years to realize that.

Perhaps I did as well. But then her counterpoint, dark-haired mirror-Elhaym, found me, and I no longer noticed. Caged in Shevat, that ancient bitter soul sought mine, and called to me to free her, and she promised answers. I saw in her the image-negative of the woman I had lost, and I agreed.

Though Myyah dearly loved to disconcert me, I was unsurprised when she offered me the truth of them. I may have been a little startled, if only in the way that she could speak my native tongue as surely as she had. But her disclosure was nothing I did not already know; I had examined the arc and the shape of them, Lacan and Elhaym, and I could see that they were part of a larger circle indeed.

Shevat's little queen, too, must have sensed something of the infinite curve of Sophia's destiny, as she sequestered herself in her hanging gardens and grieved for the disharmony of the world. Myyah and I laughed as we fled that high lonely city, knowing the long long years that she would fly before her penance was achieved, atoning for the sins of us all-- for we had nothing of regret.

But this, the child they had and never had, is beautiful. My hands seek to memorize her, my mind to hold every secret that she carries. She makes a little restless sound as I gather her closer, and she turns in my arms. One hand is lost in the rich jewel-shadows of her hair, the other triggers delicate little shudders of reaction as it moves across her stomach. Too inviting, she seems to beckon me with her all-knowing innocence, and I lean in to taste the savor of her almost-human skin.

If he had always loved her, I can little wonder that he made this girl for her sake. I am no painter, no selfless mewling artist wretch-- but for her I would have resigned my position in her military, and would have sold my soul, to create such a flawless existence as this child.

Not a child any longer, not as young as when they first discovered her. When I found her in the twilight of the universe, she was still wearing the clothes that I gave to her-- still, that is, before we removed them between us. The ragged edge of the uniform top barely came to her belly, and the torn pants were no longer so loose around her well-shaped thighs. For a moment I am curious, and wish to ask her what has happened, what has lengthened her face and broadened her hips, what experience has touched the pituitary simulator at the tender crux of her brain, and caused her to flower.

But she is sleeping now, and I will not wake her.

I did not know that nanomachine colonies could dream. I did not know that there was anything yet that could still surprise me.

She is dreaming, though, I can feel it beneath my fingertips if I brush my hand across her bright forehead. There is a spark there, a fire in her head, and I know that she is dreaming the world, here in the evening of genesis. And because I am who I am, I can feel her dreaming. Perhaps none of this was so until this exact moment, nothing true until she closed her eyelids and wished the past to be.

Her head lays lightly in the crook of my shoulder, her eyelashes light like angel-feathers.

I brush aside the glory of her hair, and breathe against her slender neck. Her nanocapacitor, acting as it should, registers the warmth and weight of me as I kiss her softly. "Beautiful, my little work of art."

For all that I would have let her sleep, my voice does rouse her. She wakes slowly, looking up at me in that green-eyed unblinking way, as if she could drink my soul from my eyes, thirsty. This glimmering girl lifts herself beneath me, sitting on her hands like a little child who knows she has been up to no good.

Perhaps I have always been a love-struck fool-- or is it but the probability that is at the heart of prophecy, the dreams of the world fulfilled? There has never been such a delicious edge to the uncertainty principle as when I lift her hand and watch her watching me.

"Did you dream, Emeralda?"

But for all the words that he carefully encoded in her neural-linguistic circuits, she can barely speak to me. Perhaps she is still relatively new from her four-thousand year sleep... or perhaps he did not think to include, in her perfect brain, any word for what I have become.

Her mouth, as she stares wordless up at me, form a little "o," warm young lips in a perfect circle. And then her voice shapes my name and her perfect hands reach out to me.

How the circle expands, becomes a sphere, and still it blossoms, mathematical release, into four dimensions, five, six--

And look, she is smiling at me, Sophia's smile, though I have nothing more to give her. Perhaps that is why she smiles.

I know that I know nothing, and I am fabulously free.

Marvelous thing, the circle.


this is our moment, here at the crossroads of time
we hope our children carry our dreams down the line
they are the vintage-- what kind of life will they live?
is this a curse or a blessing that we give?


Emeralda woke to find herself sitting upright in her bed, her own voice startling her. "I had a dream!"

No one stirred; she was alone.

She was too conscious of her heartbeat, her fingertips brushing against her clammy skin, lingering curiously on the pulse at her wrist. "I had a dream," she said again, more quietly this time, lost in her own odd inflection.

He hadn't teased her about her halting words, her silence. He had laid a hand against her waist, and she had not been afraid. He had been naked and unashamed, and with wings-- wings golden like her Crescens-- and they had flown together. She'd heard their stories of him, but she did not believe them; he was still gentle, and powerful, and he meant what he said.

He had said that she was beautiful, like her mother. Beautiful.

She touched her mouth, and closed her eyes.

He had flown away.

Her hands moved to touch her own cheeks, feeling the half-dried moisture on her face. She shivered.

Fei came in the room then, still damp with sweat, blood up from his early-morning kata. "Hey, Em, you're awake!" He smiled at her, resting his hands on his knees to catch his breath. The dawning sun came through the clouds, casting moving shadows over his face: light, then dark, then light again. "Shouldn't you still be sleeping?"

"I do not require sleep," she said, and laughed a little. "Silly. Made me this way."

Good-natured, he made a face. "Right... right. So what are you doing up? Even Elly's still fast asleep--"

Feeling the slow ache beginning beneath her skin, she wondered if this were what it meant to be human-- like Margie, or Maria. Like any other growing girl. She licked the sweat from her upper lip, and said, "I had a dream."

"I thought you didn't sleep?" There was only curiosity in his voice.

"I never dream," she insisted, shaking her head and feeling the weight of her hair resting on her back-- wishing for hands to lift it away, wishing for a mouth to kiss the nape of her neck. "I dreamed of... Krelian."


and in the evening, after the fire and the light
one thing is certain: nothing can hold back the night
time is relentless, and as the past disappears
we're on the verge of all things new
we are two thousand years


~o~





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