For Rho, in the 2010 Yuletide Madness
challenge.
Beyond Growing, Beyond Dividing
by Estirose
c 2010
Darkness, and fuzziness. Melding together, splitting apart, melding
together and splitting apart again.
These happened cycle by cycle; nothing really changed. Nothing until
they came, and the meld-and-split was disrupted, this
not-part-of-itself not melding and splitting like had always happened.
Parts of it went to make the not-bits split and meld like they were
supposed to.
Many parts of itself went into nothingness, but before they did, they
touched bits and pieces of the not-self. There were vague impressions
of joining before the bits of not-self became no more, enough that
something inside wanted to touch. Wanted to make the not-self part of
the self and make all whole.
More splitting-apart, and more of self rushing out to defend from
not-self. More touching of not-self, of impressions, impressions both
ways of splitting and joining and... a lot more. There were not-self
parts touching self-parts and the not-self parts were different. They
were not parts of one self, they were... separate. Free parts, still a
little like self, but having their own functions. They had a whole...
Earth? But not part of a whole.
Not like bits of self that were just bits of self. Each had... a
concept of identifying themselves from their whole. There were no parts
of self that needed such; no parts of self that weren't part of self
whole.
And even more, there were glimpses in some of them, glimpses that even
though they were part of the Earth-whole, parts of Earth-whole didn't
work well with other parts of Earth-whole.
Its self-parts were not like that, unless they came apart from the
whole. Which sometimes they did, joining the Earth-whole, taking part
in the Earth-whole's self. Helping remove other parts of Earth-whole.
Self sometimes sent out parts of self to bring those parts of self
back. But they were too different now, parts of Earth-whole, parts of
the other. Held by the other. But those touches of self that were no
part of self gave glimpses of things that were strange to self. Gave
self touches of Earth-parts, of different Earth-parts, with different
identifiers, different *names*, different importances. Self did not
identify parts of self other than parts of self, except by function;
those parts-of-self that drifted across liquid-parts were different
than those that drifted across solid-parts.
There were many Importances among the Earth-whole - Deidre,
Earth-Deidre, was the first and foremost. Other names came too, but
that part of Earth-whole was the one that interacted most with
Self-parts, and so that part was of Importance.
Self now probed in different ways. It was easier to find Earth-parts
now; not as easy as finding Self-parts, but easier than before. Some
easier than others. It touched each part, little by little, finding
names, finding connections. Finally, it found the one it was looking
for.
Earth-Diedre.
And then everything changed.
Alpha Centauri fanfics