Fic - Metaphysical Headaches
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shadowknightTitle: Metaphysical Headaches
Rating: G
Universe: Home
Timeline: January 17th, 2006
Written: January 17th, 2006
Summary: Mike's given back a piece of what he once gave up. A gift.
It was overcast in Crescent Beach, but damn near seventy-five degrees despite it. It took a lot of thinking to realize that this was actually January. January, as he knew it, was frigid and bitter; frozen ground and little color.
The others were out getting lunch and doing some unwinding. Mike knew they wanted him to go along, but they didn't prod too much when he bowed out. He wasn't really up for socializing yet, at least in groups; one on one took a little work on his behalf still. Even so, it was slowly getting easier.
He still spent a little more time in his own thoughts than was necessarily good for him; if anything, he missed those days where instinct overrode rationality on an almost regular basis. Admittedly, it got him into trouble sometimes, but it sure beat the heck out of deep introspection -- you overthink things, and they get more complicated than they ever should.
Instinct, in this sense, said something very simple: Survive. In any way you can.
And he was trying. And, in a slow way, succeeding.
He wasn't so sure why he'd come back. Rick just asked him, and he agreed, and spent the ride home dreading it. But what Rick had said rang somewhere in his head -- "A man travels the world in search of what he needs and returns home to find it," he had once heard -- and he agreed. Maybe Rick meant it; at least, here, he would be safe and protected. He hoped Rick meant it.
Nance was there. He didn't know if she had any clue how much that meant. It wasn't a mental thing, or a conscious thing, but an instinctive thing. Instinct's way of helping make real the simple thing it said: Survive.
The wind was blowing good today, so he had to stay on the deck for fear of getting sand-blasted in the eyes. But it was warm out, and that was nice. In a slightly surreal way... afterall, this was January. He still had to write back to the others; actually, he still had to read his letters, then write back.
He wasn't sure what he would say.
"That you love them. That nothing... not time, nor distance, nor reality, nor death can take what you have with them."
The voice was cold despite the words, like January, and he heard it despite the wind... in part, because the hair on the back of his neck stood up a moment before he did. Mike got to his feet, looking across at the celestial avatar, trying to resist the urge to look down at the ground. "I suppose Scott sent you?"
Amber tilted her head slightly, eyes narrowing a little, searchingly. "No. I came on my own. Though, you should know that he's worried about you."
"What else is new?" She still scared him a little. Admittedly, the fact that she and Aerin had pitted him and Scott against each other in a mud pit--
She didn't smile, but there was a hint of humor in her voice as she interrupted his thoughts, "You're still holding a grudge about that?"
"Not so much anymore," Mike replied, honestly. Really, she scared him because of how she was every other time they'd crossed paths. It was a primal reaction; gut-level, instinctive. "So, why are you here?"
Amber didn't reply, as she looked towards the ocean thoughtfully. That was nothing particularly new; even Shade, who was infinitely more accessible, tended to be kind of cryptic on occasion. Okay, very cryptic.
He tried switching tracks. "You know about the others." It wasn't a question.
"I do."
"And you could bring them back." Mike already knew she could; he'd had that kind of power once, though never enough skill to actually skip realities and dimensions.
She didn't say anything for a long moment, and when she did, it wasn't what he expected, "Do you regret it?"
"That's not an answer."
"Answer me," she ordered, looking back at him, and it was like an arctic wind.
Mike didn't back away from the cold look, though he really did want to. But he answered, "No."
"Why not?"
"I wouldn't leave them."
"Yet, that's what you just recently did."
He flinched, reflexively. "That's not the same."
"Why isn't it?"
Mike fell silent. He didn't really have an answer to that; well, he did, but it wasn't one that made much sense to him, let alone to a nearly omnipotent being.
"We each have our appointed tasks. No less... and no more," she said, finally, her tone softening a little.
Generally, talking with these people gave him a headache. This was no different. They tended to talk in riddles at best... he hoped Selenity would resist the urge to get all cryptic like Amber and Shade were. Unable to resist, he asked, "How about putting all this in plain English?"
She actually smiled, though it didn't have much in the way of warmth to it. "You have free will."
Mike raised an eyebrow. "And you don't?"
Amber shook her head. "No."
It was still too cryptic for him. How could someone not have free will? She certainly did things that couldn't have been part of the great cosmic plan, or whatever the Hell it was. He mulled it over in his mind, despite the headache that was rapidly growing in strength. Metaphysics on this level was never particularly easy to puzzle out, though. Even if she didn't have free will, would he have had to give his up had he kept the title, and the power, that they offered?
Ugh. He needed an Excedrin. Or Buffrin. Little, yellow, different, better. Yeah.
"We have our appointed tasks," she said again. "Once, a very long time ago, I was as you are. I gave up choice for destiny... gave up free will for fate. I was given a task, and have since then fulfilled it."
"You never did tell me what we..." He paused, then continued, "What you did. I tried asking Shade how many times, but she just kinda dodged it."
"You might not have made the same choice had you known," she replied, honestly. "What if, had you found out what your job was, you would have felt obligated to take it despite the costs? What if you would have given up what you have now for an eternal task, not because you truly wanted to, but because you felt you had to?"
"So... what was the task?" Maybe he'd finally know that one. God knows, he'd wondered on it for quite some time.
"What you already do." Amber looked back out again. "This is an infinite universe, and those of us tasked with moving it are legion. The name and the powers are little more than covering for things far more universal. Long ago, I was first known as the Black Wolf by a people long since gone from this mortal realm, and finding it apt I kept that name and everything we are has since been crafted around it. In truth, though, it's just a name, just an illusion."
Forget the Buffrin. It wouldn't be enough.
She sighed a little, though it wasn't a sound of exasperation or anything else. It seemed more like it was just a sound that she made to sound human, or maybe the memory of a sound that she once knew. "You know of the Phoenix. But the Phoenix is just another incarnation of a power beyond comprehension. In that case, of rebirth."
"So you're saying, think simple." Mike rubbed at his temples, wishing he could pick up 'The Idiot's Guide to Cosmic Metaphysics'. "You're just the personification of a universal constant."
"One of many."
It finally clicked in his head, and when it did, it felt like being frozen, despite the balmy temperatures. "...death."
"Close." She tipped her head up, looking at him again. "There are souls that are irredeemable. It's my appointed task to... handle those, though I'm not the only one who does."
It was amazing that something so simple could still seem complicated. But it did explain, to some degree, why she made him feel so nervous. Why she seemed so much like the colorless January. "So, Selenity..."
"You save souls."
"That's crazy."
Amber raised an eyebrow. "Why do you think that you were considered?"
Mike shook his head, sharply. "I think you're giving me a whole Hell of a lot more credit than you should."
"You make it so much more complicated than it is." She shook her own head, more slowly. "You handed back a power handed to you, that would have broken lesser men, or twisted them. Others might have kept it simply to have it. Still others would have made the same choice, yet regretted it. But you gave it up, without a hesitation... and even though you still miss it, you would make the same choice again. You reach out to those who others would have given up on... not because you think of it, but simply to do it. You fight off your own griefs and sorrows before they can wind their way through your heart, never quitting until they're gone, and try to help others do the same. And yet, you wonder at your own strength."
"I'm not the only one," he protested, in part... there was a lot about the above statement he wanted to argue against.
"No."
"So, it's not anything special."
She smiled again, and again it didn't have much like warmth in it. "I have a feeling we'll be arguing in circles for a very long time, and your 'Shade' would have to mediate." She paused for a moment, then said, "What belief you lack in yourself is made up for in the beliefs that others have in you."
Mike would have rather Shade showed up, really. She might be cryptic, but she was very personable and he did on occasion miss her. He owed her a lot. Amber was just... well, frightening. And confusing. And spoke in terms that, if she were actually human, would seem painfully melodramatic... but all of those omnipotent types tended to sound that way. He had a feeling that the only reason she was here was just to make his head hurt a whole lot.
"Actually," she said, interrupting his thoughts again, "I came to give you something."
"Uh..." Telling her to stay out of his head would have been useless.
"What do you miss?" she asked, regarding him for a long moment. "Don't think about it, just answer me."
Mike knew what she was referring to, and said the very first thing that came to mind, a little caught off-guard, "Running. Not to anywhere, or away from anywhere. Just running."
"Then run," she said. And this time, the smile was almost real.
---
"Why?" he thought, knowing that she would be able to hear it.
"Sometimes, a gift is just a gift," she answered, aloud, typically cryptic. "No obligations, no duties. Just enjoy it for what it is."
"Hrm," Mike replied, mentally. Once, a few years ago, he would have just accepted that. Now, the urge to question was there. "So you won't tell me how this fits into the great cosmic plan."
"I think I liked you better before you started questioning everything," Amber said, and there was an undertone of amusement in her voice. "You have free will... use it to choose not to question a gift when it's been given."
He set his head down on his forepaws, laying on the deck after taking a dash up and down the beach, sifting through the thousands of ambient scents (ocean, sealife, seaweed, Rick, Nance, Lorna, Bonnie, mussels, dead fish, older male, older female, four different dogs...). It took some getting used to again. "How'm I going to talk to anyone, though? No telepathy, no TK, no teleporting, just this... how'm I gonna communicate?"
"You'll figure it out." She stood up from where she'd been sitting. "And I suggest being somewhere near a soft surface whenever you switch back."
"Why?"
"You'll see."
He went to ask her something else, but she had vanished.
Explaining this to the others would be interesting. Well, Lorna and Bonnie already knew that he used to spend at least some of his time as a four-legged hairball, but explaining the sheer oddball circumstances that gave him back his wolf form (temporary or not, he didn't know yet) would probably be surreal at best. And Rick and Nance were just utterly clueless about the whole thing...
Wait.
Rick and Nance had no clue.
He stood and stretched, shaking some sand out of his coat, and jumped down the steps to find a place to lay in wait. They would be back soon. They were clueless. This could, potentially, be a very amusing situation.
Maybe that's what the gift was.
Rating: G
Universe: Home
Timeline: January 17th, 2006
Written: January 17th, 2006
Summary: Mike's given back a piece of what he once gave up. A gift.
It was overcast in Crescent Beach, but damn near seventy-five degrees despite it. It took a lot of thinking to realize that this was actually January. January, as he knew it, was frigid and bitter; frozen ground and little color.
The others were out getting lunch and doing some unwinding. Mike knew they wanted him to go along, but they didn't prod too much when he bowed out. He wasn't really up for socializing yet, at least in groups; one on one took a little work on his behalf still. Even so, it was slowly getting easier.
He still spent a little more time in his own thoughts than was necessarily good for him; if anything, he missed those days where instinct overrode rationality on an almost regular basis. Admittedly, it got him into trouble sometimes, but it sure beat the heck out of deep introspection -- you overthink things, and they get more complicated than they ever should.
Instinct, in this sense, said something very simple: Survive. In any way you can.
And he was trying. And, in a slow way, succeeding.
He wasn't so sure why he'd come back. Rick just asked him, and he agreed, and spent the ride home dreading it. But what Rick had said rang somewhere in his head -- "A man travels the world in search of what he needs and returns home to find it," he had once heard -- and he agreed. Maybe Rick meant it; at least, here, he would be safe and protected. He hoped Rick meant it.
Nance was there. He didn't know if she had any clue how much that meant. It wasn't a mental thing, or a conscious thing, but an instinctive thing. Instinct's way of helping make real the simple thing it said: Survive.
The wind was blowing good today, so he had to stay on the deck for fear of getting sand-blasted in the eyes. But it was warm out, and that was nice. In a slightly surreal way... afterall, this was January. He still had to write back to the others; actually, he still had to read his letters, then write back.
He wasn't sure what he would say.
"That you love them. That nothing... not time, nor distance, nor reality, nor death can take what you have with them."
The voice was cold despite the words, like January, and he heard it despite the wind... in part, because the hair on the back of his neck stood up a moment before he did. Mike got to his feet, looking across at the celestial avatar, trying to resist the urge to look down at the ground. "I suppose Scott sent you?"
Amber tilted her head slightly, eyes narrowing a little, searchingly. "No. I came on my own. Though, you should know that he's worried about you."
"What else is new?" She still scared him a little. Admittedly, the fact that she and Aerin had pitted him and Scott against each other in a mud pit--
She didn't smile, but there was a hint of humor in her voice as she interrupted his thoughts, "You're still holding a grudge about that?"
"Not so much anymore," Mike replied, honestly. Really, she scared him because of how she was every other time they'd crossed paths. It was a primal reaction; gut-level, instinctive. "So, why are you here?"
Amber didn't reply, as she looked towards the ocean thoughtfully. That was nothing particularly new; even Shade, who was infinitely more accessible, tended to be kind of cryptic on occasion. Okay, very cryptic.
He tried switching tracks. "You know about the others." It wasn't a question.
"I do."
"And you could bring them back." Mike already knew she could; he'd had that kind of power once, though never enough skill to actually skip realities and dimensions.
She didn't say anything for a long moment, and when she did, it wasn't what he expected, "Do you regret it?"
"That's not an answer."
"Answer me," she ordered, looking back at him, and it was like an arctic wind.
Mike didn't back away from the cold look, though he really did want to. But he answered, "No."
"Why not?"
"I wouldn't leave them."
"Yet, that's what you just recently did."
He flinched, reflexively. "That's not the same."
"Why isn't it?"
Mike fell silent. He didn't really have an answer to that; well, he did, but it wasn't one that made much sense to him, let alone to a nearly omnipotent being.
"We each have our appointed tasks. No less... and no more," she said, finally, her tone softening a little.
Generally, talking with these people gave him a headache. This was no different. They tended to talk in riddles at best... he hoped Selenity would resist the urge to get all cryptic like Amber and Shade were. Unable to resist, he asked, "How about putting all this in plain English?"
She actually smiled, though it didn't have much in the way of warmth to it. "You have free will."
Mike raised an eyebrow. "And you don't?"
Amber shook her head. "No."
It was still too cryptic for him. How could someone not have free will? She certainly did things that couldn't have been part of the great cosmic plan, or whatever the Hell it was. He mulled it over in his mind, despite the headache that was rapidly growing in strength. Metaphysics on this level was never particularly easy to puzzle out, though. Even if she didn't have free will, would he have had to give his up had he kept the title, and the power, that they offered?
Ugh. He needed an Excedrin. Or Buffrin. Little, yellow, different, better. Yeah.
"We have our appointed tasks," she said again. "Once, a very long time ago, I was as you are. I gave up choice for destiny... gave up free will for fate. I was given a task, and have since then fulfilled it."
"You never did tell me what we..." He paused, then continued, "What you did. I tried asking Shade how many times, but she just kinda dodged it."
"You might not have made the same choice had you known," she replied, honestly. "What if, had you found out what your job was, you would have felt obligated to take it despite the costs? What if you would have given up what you have now for an eternal task, not because you truly wanted to, but because you felt you had to?"
"So... what was the task?" Maybe he'd finally know that one. God knows, he'd wondered on it for quite some time.
"What you already do." Amber looked back out again. "This is an infinite universe, and those of us tasked with moving it are legion. The name and the powers are little more than covering for things far more universal. Long ago, I was first known as the Black Wolf by a people long since gone from this mortal realm, and finding it apt I kept that name and everything we are has since been crafted around it. In truth, though, it's just a name, just an illusion."
Forget the Buffrin. It wouldn't be enough.
She sighed a little, though it wasn't a sound of exasperation or anything else. It seemed more like it was just a sound that she made to sound human, or maybe the memory of a sound that she once knew. "You know of the Phoenix. But the Phoenix is just another incarnation of a power beyond comprehension. In that case, of rebirth."
"So you're saying, think simple." Mike rubbed at his temples, wishing he could pick up 'The Idiot's Guide to Cosmic Metaphysics'. "You're just the personification of a universal constant."
"One of many."
It finally clicked in his head, and when it did, it felt like being frozen, despite the balmy temperatures. "...death."
"Close." She tipped her head up, looking at him again. "There are souls that are irredeemable. It's my appointed task to... handle those, though I'm not the only one who does."
It was amazing that something so simple could still seem complicated. But it did explain, to some degree, why she made him feel so nervous. Why she seemed so much like the colorless January. "So, Selenity..."
"You save souls."
"That's crazy."
Amber raised an eyebrow. "Why do you think that you were considered?"
Mike shook his head, sharply. "I think you're giving me a whole Hell of a lot more credit than you should."
"You make it so much more complicated than it is." She shook her own head, more slowly. "You handed back a power handed to you, that would have broken lesser men, or twisted them. Others might have kept it simply to have it. Still others would have made the same choice, yet regretted it. But you gave it up, without a hesitation... and even though you still miss it, you would make the same choice again. You reach out to those who others would have given up on... not because you think of it, but simply to do it. You fight off your own griefs and sorrows before they can wind their way through your heart, never quitting until they're gone, and try to help others do the same. And yet, you wonder at your own strength."
"I'm not the only one," he protested, in part... there was a lot about the above statement he wanted to argue against.
"No."
"So, it's not anything special."
She smiled again, and again it didn't have much like warmth in it. "I have a feeling we'll be arguing in circles for a very long time, and your 'Shade' would have to mediate." She paused for a moment, then said, "What belief you lack in yourself is made up for in the beliefs that others have in you."
Mike would have rather Shade showed up, really. She might be cryptic, but she was very personable and he did on occasion miss her. He owed her a lot. Amber was just... well, frightening. And confusing. And spoke in terms that, if she were actually human, would seem painfully melodramatic... but all of those omnipotent types tended to sound that way. He had a feeling that the only reason she was here was just to make his head hurt a whole lot.
"Actually," she said, interrupting his thoughts again, "I came to give you something."
"Uh..." Telling her to stay out of his head would have been useless.
"What do you miss?" she asked, regarding him for a long moment. "Don't think about it, just answer me."
Mike knew what she was referring to, and said the very first thing that came to mind, a little caught off-guard, "Running. Not to anywhere, or away from anywhere. Just running."
"Then run," she said. And this time, the smile was almost real.
---
"Why?" he thought, knowing that she would be able to hear it.
"Sometimes, a gift is just a gift," she answered, aloud, typically cryptic. "No obligations, no duties. Just enjoy it for what it is."
"Hrm," Mike replied, mentally. Once, a few years ago, he would have just accepted that. Now, the urge to question was there. "So you won't tell me how this fits into the great cosmic plan."
"I think I liked you better before you started questioning everything," Amber said, and there was an undertone of amusement in her voice. "You have free will... use it to choose not to question a gift when it's been given."
He set his head down on his forepaws, laying on the deck after taking a dash up and down the beach, sifting through the thousands of ambient scents (ocean, sealife, seaweed, Rick, Nance, Lorna, Bonnie, mussels, dead fish, older male, older female, four different dogs...). It took some getting used to again. "How'm I going to talk to anyone, though? No telepathy, no TK, no teleporting, just this... how'm I gonna communicate?"
"You'll figure it out." She stood up from where she'd been sitting. "And I suggest being somewhere near a soft surface whenever you switch back."
"Why?"
"You'll see."
He went to ask her something else, but she had vanished.
Explaining this to the others would be interesting. Well, Lorna and Bonnie already knew that he used to spend at least some of his time as a four-legged hairball, but explaining the sheer oddball circumstances that gave him back his wolf form (temporary or not, he didn't know yet) would probably be surreal at best. And Rick and Nance were just utterly clueless about the whole thing...
Wait.
Rick and Nance had no clue.
He stood and stretched, shaking some sand out of his coat, and jumped down the steps to find a place to lay in wait. They would be back soon. They were clueless. This could, potentially, be a very amusing situation.
Maybe that's what the gift was.
