Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Shorah! I haven't written anything (for any fandom) in a year and a half, and I figured the Inktober 2019 prompts would be a great way to get back in the swing of things!

All prompts will be in the Myst/Uru series. Tags, relationships and warnings will be updated daily as I get inspired by the prompts, but all chapters will be rated for General Audiences with the content to match.

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Sirrus’ legs were starting to grow numb with the hours spent on his throne, but comfort was the last thing on his mind this night. He was so close, he could feel it. He tiredly scrubbed a hand over his face and re-tuned the instrument yet again.

The familiar sensation of electricity forcing the hairs on the back of his neck to stand at attention gave way to a harsh light, his ears ringing as he increased the frequency higher and higher, the sound so loud it was setting his teeth on edge--

An explosion rocked the chamber, the shockwave nearly knocking Sirrus off the throne. He grabbed on tightly to the armrests and curled in on himself, lest he tumble into oblivion. Seconds dragged by before he deemed it safe to lift his head.

The smoke slowly dissipated, and the long-awaited sight of shattered nara stone greeted his exhausted eyes. A twenty-year-long stifled storm finally broke as Sirrus buried his head in his hands, the sounds pouring from his throat a combination of triumphant maniacal laughter and broken sobbing.

He found it. He found the frequency.

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The room was too hot.

Three days ago, Kentra would have been happily enjoying the cool ocean breeze while fishing alongside her parents. But Lord Gehn had decreed that the future of Riven needed to be taught true culture, and not waste their days in mindless drudgery. So today the five-year-old girl was squirming in her seat, losing her concentration in the sweltering windowless classroom.

The robed instructor noticed Kentra’s attention flagging, and rapped his knuckles sharply against the chalkboard. He did not even speak to scold her; he simply pointed behind her to the children’s very first lesson--the wooden counting game.

Kentra turned to the wahrk figurine with fear in her eyes. Then she turned back to the chalkboard as the teacher resumed his lesson. Her posture was stiff as she tried her hardest to learn the D’ni alphabet, and did not even dare to wipe the sweat from her brow.

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“I hope I pushed the right button, my dear brother. What a very interesting device you have here. I’m not erasing anything important, am I? ...Remember, he is preparing. Take only one page, my dear brother.”

A toothy sadistic smile blossomed on Achenar’s face as the imager powered down. His vicious glee even triumphed over the usual overwhelming urge to strike the grin off his little brother’s smug face.

Mother took the bait, and dear Father was on the way to take his as well. Achenar could practically hear Father’s screams already.

He quickly grabbed his prepared rucksack and began making his way to the elevator, but not before changing the imager recording to once again show his own face and not Sirrus’. It might be quite some time before Achenar returned to Channelwood from ransacking Haven’s treasures, and his subjects would need a clear reminder of who was the true ruler of the Age.

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Atrus froze in his tracks at the library’s entrance.

The walls, the ceiling, the paintings were all perfectly intact and unharmed. But the books…

His library. His books. His Books.

The acrid stench of burnt paper still hung in the air.

He staggered to the bookshelf, hands trembling as he gingerly grasped the spine of Everdunes, only to have it fall apart to ashes on his fingertips.

The ash stung Atrus’ eyes as he buried his head in his hands and wept for every Age and every friend he lost.

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Atrus took a long drink of the cool well-water, resisting the urge to dunk his entire flushed face in it.

Building was so very different from Writing. No comfortable desk chair to rest his bones, and callouses on both hands instead of just his dominant hand’s middle finger.

Still, it always felt good to hold something tangible in his hands, to make something new physically instead of mentally.

And as he kissed his beloved Catherine weaving a new blanket in the shade for those chill desert nights, he ran a protective caress over her growing belly, knowing they made the right decision to build Tomahna from the ground up instead of writing a new Age.

They were building a new beginning.

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Atrus was so alone.

He long since abandoned talking to himself in his K’veer prison; almost his every waking moment was dedicated to paving over Riven’s growing cracks. His fervent prayers to the Maker to keep his beloved Catherine safe were only spoken in his mind; the only sounds he made was his pen constantly scratching against paper.

His head rose in shock as he suddenly felt himself being watched. A person, a stranger appeared before his eyes, who looked just as shocked to see him as he was to see them.

Atrus had no thought for his usual pleasantries, just a startled question, his voice husky from disuse:

“Who the devil are you?!”

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She still looked beautiful, Gehn silently mused as he played the message yet again.

Cool blue light flickered in his private chambers on Age 233, a bright contrast to the harsh orange sunset that permanently bathed the world. The image had degraded ever so slightly, but not the audio. Keta was speaking D’ni slowly but confidently, completely unlike his idiot subjects that spoke his tongue so haltingly that he constantly was fighting the urge to throw all of them to the wahrk.

A tear escaped Gehn as he fruitlessly pondered what would have happened had she lived. She would have made a flawless queen--no, an empress--for all his Ages, and her subjects would have fallen for her enchantments just as he had.

But that would never come to pass. His wife was dead, and this was all he had left of her.

The imager came to life once more.

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Then as now, he was frail.

His thin arms had shook with the strain of lifting his child’s body higher and higher up the thick tree trunk. His stomach had turned at the sight of the churning water steadily rising. His eyes had wept when he looked at the few other humans that reached the abode of the tree-dwellers and realized with horror that his mother and father were not among them.

But while his body was weak, he was strong in spirit. Strong enough to survive the earthquake that changed his life forever, strong enough to adapt to the trees while the other humans didn’t last, strong enough to lead his new people for many years.

And strong enough to shake off the confused traveler’s offered hand and grasp his earned final peace at last.