by Temaris


It was quiet.

In the heart of her, one, slight, barely living form remained. A poor remnant of what once had been, a lone heart beating once a year, just a memory of life.

She waited.

Once, there had been ten thousand heart beats, more. Once, she had sailed stars, not hidden at the bottom of a gravity well, straining to keep back the water.

To see so much, and never again touch it. To hear so many voices and endure silence...

She turns outwards. Through the drifting waters she amuses herself by listening to those who share her seas. They are as trapped as she, yet have a freedom that she only dreams of; she who once had a freedom they could never conceive of. Freedom to move; companionship; the million darts and dives of a swimming body. The long dance, evolution moving past her as she waits.

Time slows to that one, living, yearly heart beat. An erratic, unscientific way to count the passing of time. Once the tremble of a particle marked the passing picoseconds, and that was too slow to do more than hint at what she could do in the spaces between the troughs and crests.

Further out, the universe sings, a low, cold sound, humming softly to itself. She can hear it under the hum of her own dwindling life.

Ten thousand heart beats later there is noise and light. A system engages that has not opened inwards in millennia, a forbidden place. And then, then -- life!

She rushes back to watch, turning away from the sounds of stars burning, and the faint heartbeat of the nearly dead.


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