TOG fic: Un'emozione da poco
Mar. 31st, 2023 09:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sealieIn a far flung future
Future fic
Outside perspective
Warning: none spring to mind.
Relationship: m/m
Disclaimer: writing for fun and not for profit
Beta: I don’t think that I asked my beloved beta to beta, but I did it would have been the wonderful Springwoof. Thank you, Springy
By sealie
The man was a void—weirdly, he wasn’t a telepath—and wasn’t that the strangest experience Adepa had ever encountered since leaving the Housing. As a fifth generation telepath, six generation model G-T, she was the epitome of evolutionary engineering. Every human emoted on every level be it base or carefully cultivated and refined.
How could such a blank mind even exist?
The man, turned and stared at her—a curiously piercing, pale-eyed stare. Adepa gawked, she couldn’t help herself. She felt like she was watching one of her favourite, early 2000s nature documentaries about the then world. The extinct cat—a leopard—carefully lapping from the stream as it eyed the cameraman—threat on both sides evident.
He had sensed that he had caught her attention, though. How?
The man smiled, ruefully. ‘Lost?’ he signed with large hands and blunt fingers, and pointed at her.
‘You?’
Adepa almost thought that he meant because she couldn’t read his mind, but then realised it was because she had turned left instead of right and she was now in the delta-prohibited warehouse facility of the spacehub. She had been far too intrigued by the mystery of such a strange fellow, a void on the edge of her consciousness. They didn’t even make nulls anymore. Occasionally, they were born, but RNA engineering could repair them if they were—
“Nicolò?”
Sun and moon, she thought, there’s two of them. She hadn’t even known that there was another person in the warehouse. The second one actually spoke words.
Nicolò gestured at her—twisted his fingers, conveying additional meaning like a third or fourth generation G-T adding nuance to lesser telepathic communication. Words? Adepa’s ears rang.
“Boo!” the second one rapped, and Adepa startled back a step.
Nicolò jabbed his fingers into the back of his other hand, ‘Naughty,’ he chided.
“Whatever,” the bearded man drawled.
The disconnect from hearing such emotional laden scorn without sensing it was highly discombobulating. She was surprised that a null could do that.
‘Leave,’ Nicolò signed. And then touched his chin and let his hand drop.
Adepa wondered at the disturbing pale-eyed null. How could you understand its motivation? And the other, did he actually only have words to only communicate with?
“You’ll have to excuse us, mi’lady.” The bearded one bowed. “We have a lot of work to do.”
Talking was just so crass.
::What work?:: she projected without thinking. How were they even able to work? They should be in a protected enclave.
“I work fine.” Astonishingly, the bearded one responded.
Clearly, he had base telepathy and a modicum of empathy. The nuance rolling through and over his spoken words made her wince. He implied so much on so many physical levels—terse words, a twist of his lips, narrowing of his brown eyes and a sad, sad shake of his head—it was difficult to parse.
Stunned, Adepa folded her hands into fists, surprising herself. She took in a much needed breath, finding stability. She knew what she needed to do—she should call for assistance to contain the pale-eyed null. Bracing herself, she let her hands drop and straightened her back, rolling her shoulders down.
“Yusuf.” Nicolò caught his forearm. Yusuf lowered his clenched fist.
“She’s going to—”
“No, she won’t,” Nicolò said calmly—calmly. So many words. He opened his mouth and,
“C'è una ragione che cresce in me
E l'incoscenza svanisce
E come un viaggio nella notte finisce”
She sank to her knees, arms crossed over her chest trying to hold herself in, even when she couldn’t tell what was trying to break out.
Yusuf knelt before her. Shush, he thought sibilantly. Shush.
“Dimmi, dimmi, dimmi che senso ha
Dare amore a un uomo senza pietà
Uno che non si è mai sentito finito
Che non ha mai perduto”
The frisson of hair on Adepa’s arms, across the back of her neck, and down her spine disarmed her. What was that? Her ears rang. Her heart throbbed. Tears on her cheeks caught her by surprise.
“It’s called singing. And that is one song of millions,” Yusuf said. “Something your people have lost as you have pursued an ideal.”
She was paralysed by Nicolò’s voice—by this singing.
Yusuf patted her on her shoulder, commiserating, and stood.
“You can come out now; we’re leaving,” he said nonsensically, and opened a container door at the back of the hold. Children, small children, were clustered together in a huddle holding onto each other. She hadn’t sensed them; more nulls.
“Mai per te, per te, una canzone
Mai una povera illusione
Un pensiero banale, qualcosa che rimane
Invece per me, per me, più che normale.”
The ‘singing’ captured her. Peripherally, she would recall later in the medical centre that Yusuf had chivvied the children away through a partition to the docked cargo vessel. But her focus had been on the voice, the echo of raw emotions rising through her very being.
“You live in a manufactured reality,” Nicolò used words that grated as he paused by the space lock. “I think that you could live well without it, but that is not my decision to make—that is yours. But you should not make the decision for the children.”
And then he had left, the song incomplete. Only the resonance remained, singing along her nerves, as she knelt sobbing into her hands—changed by exposure to a single song.
No wonder they were lost to history.
fin
Future fic
Outside perspective
Warning: none spring to mind.
Relationship: m/m
Disclaimer: writing for fun and not for profit
Beta: I don’t think that I asked my beloved beta to beta, but I did it would have been the wonderful Springwoof. Thank you, Springy
By sealie
The man was a void—weirdly, he wasn’t a telepath—and wasn’t that the strangest experience Adepa had ever encountered since leaving the Housing. As a fifth generation telepath, six generation model G-T, she was the epitome of evolutionary engineering. Every human emoted on every level be it base or carefully cultivated and refined.
How could such a blank mind even exist?
The man, turned and stared at her—a curiously piercing, pale-eyed stare. Adepa gawked, she couldn’t help herself. She felt like she was watching one of her favourite, early 2000s nature documentaries about the then world. The extinct cat—a leopard—carefully lapping from the stream as it eyed the cameraman—threat on both sides evident.
He had sensed that he had caught her attention, though. How?
The man smiled, ruefully. ‘Lost?’ he signed with large hands and blunt fingers, and pointed at her.
‘You?’
Adepa almost thought that he meant because she couldn’t read his mind, but then realised it was because she had turned left instead of right and she was now in the delta-prohibited warehouse facility of the spacehub. She had been far too intrigued by the mystery of such a strange fellow, a void on the edge of her consciousness. They didn’t even make nulls anymore. Occasionally, they were born, but RNA engineering could repair them if they were—
“Nicolò?”
Sun and moon, she thought, there’s two of them. She hadn’t even known that there was another person in the warehouse. The second one actually spoke words.
Nicolò gestured at her—twisted his fingers, conveying additional meaning like a third or fourth generation G-T adding nuance to lesser telepathic communication. Words? Adepa’s ears rang.
“Boo!” the second one rapped, and Adepa startled back a step.
Nicolò jabbed his fingers into the back of his other hand, ‘Naughty,’ he chided.
“Whatever,” the bearded man drawled.
The disconnect from hearing such emotional laden scorn without sensing it was highly discombobulating. She was surprised that a null could do that.
‘Leave,’ Nicolò signed. And then touched his chin and let his hand drop.
Adepa wondered at the disturbing pale-eyed null. How could you understand its motivation? And the other, did he actually only have words to only communicate with?
“You’ll have to excuse us, mi’lady.” The bearded one bowed. “We have a lot of work to do.”
Talking was just so crass.
::What work?:: she projected without thinking. How were they even able to work? They should be in a protected enclave.
“I work fine.” Astonishingly, the bearded one responded.
Clearly, he had base telepathy and a modicum of empathy. The nuance rolling through and over his spoken words made her wince. He implied so much on so many physical levels—terse words, a twist of his lips, narrowing of his brown eyes and a sad, sad shake of his head—it was difficult to parse.
Stunned, Adepa folded her hands into fists, surprising herself. She took in a much needed breath, finding stability. She knew what she needed to do—she should call for assistance to contain the pale-eyed null. Bracing herself, she let her hands drop and straightened her back, rolling her shoulders down.
“Yusuf.” Nicolò caught his forearm. Yusuf lowered his clenched fist.
“She’s going to—”
“No, she won’t,” Nicolò said calmly—calmly. So many words. He opened his mouth and,
“C'è una ragione che cresce in me
E l'incoscenza svanisce
E come un viaggio nella notte finisce”
She sank to her knees, arms crossed over her chest trying to hold herself in, even when she couldn’t tell what was trying to break out.
Yusuf knelt before her. Shush, he thought sibilantly. Shush.
“Dimmi, dimmi, dimmi che senso ha
Dare amore a un uomo senza pietà
Uno che non si è mai sentito finito
Che non ha mai perduto”
The frisson of hair on Adepa’s arms, across the back of her neck, and down her spine disarmed her. What was that? Her ears rang. Her heart throbbed. Tears on her cheeks caught her by surprise.
“It’s called singing. And that is one song of millions,” Yusuf said. “Something your people have lost as you have pursued an ideal.”
She was paralysed by Nicolò’s voice—by this singing.
Yusuf patted her on her shoulder, commiserating, and stood.
“You can come out now; we’re leaving,” he said nonsensically, and opened a container door at the back of the hold. Children, small children, were clustered together in a huddle holding onto each other. She hadn’t sensed them; more nulls.
“Mai per te, per te, una canzone
Mai una povera illusione
Un pensiero banale, qualcosa che rimane
Invece per me, per me, più che normale.”
The ‘singing’ captured her. Peripherally, she would recall later in the medical centre that Yusuf had chivvied the children away through a partition to the docked cargo vessel. But her focus had been on the voice, the echo of raw emotions rising through her very being.
“You live in a manufactured reality,” Nicolò used words that grated as he paused by the space lock. “I think that you could live well without it, but that is not my decision to make—that is yours. But you should not make the decision for the children.”
And then he had left, the song incomplete. Only the resonance remained, singing along her nerves, as she knelt sobbing into her hands—changed by exposure to a single song.
No wonder they were lost to history.
fin
