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edenfallingI am not satisfied with the ending of this fic -- it doesn't have the punch I'm looking for -- but I am not sure how to fix it. *sigh* Anyway, "Prayers to Broken Stone" is a (remarkably non-descriptive) descriptive vignette about what happens to Charn once Jadis, Digory, and Polly leave. Very gloomy, as befits the aftermath of an apocalypse. 400 words exactly, which I suppose makes it a quadruple drabble.
The title is a random T. S. Eliot quote, because gloomy apocalypses always make me think of The Hollow Men.
[ETA: The revised final version is now up here on AO3 and here on ff.net. Mostly, I fiddled with the ending -- the new conclusion alters the message and mood of the vignette somewhat, though it still fails to nail the effect I was aiming for.)
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Prayers to Broken Stone
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This is Charn, after Jadis and the children leave.
The palace wavers, small cracks splintering through the façade. Paint chips and flakes off the statues. A thousand years of rain and sand and wind wreak havoc in accelerated madness.
The palace sinks in on itself with a thunderous roar of stone. The earth shakes as it falls.
The city is precariously balanced, preserved only through the lack of bacteria and plants to aid its decay, and the sheer age of the world. Charn is long past seismic tremors, long past earthquakes and volcanoes. Nothing but rain and wind have touched these bricks and stones, eating away at them year after mindless year until every structure is as delicate as a house of cards, ready to fall at the merest nudge.
The palace dies, and brings the city with it into ruin.
For a time, dust obscures the darkening air. When it clears, the sun is gone. The cold eye of the Watcher hangs alone in the heavens, limping toward the weary horizon, until the sliver of a bilious moon peers over the distant hills on the opposite edge of the sky.
This would be the time for monsters to wake, to hunt, but no monsters live.
Nothing lives. Nothing changes.
Only the unwinding clockwork march of sun and moon and star, alone in the endless, unrelieved black of the heavens. Only the winter rains, lighter each year, as the atmosphere bleeds into the gaping maw of the sky. Only the restless wind carrying its stinging freight of sand, but quieter each year, falling slowly into sleep. Into stillness. Into death.
Look at the ruins of Charn, a heap of shattered stones and broken dreams. Once this world was beautiful. Even at the end, even in its monstrousness, it was beautiful. It was alive. It could have been saved.
It was not.
This is what Jadis wrought. This is what no one prevented. Digory and Polly will bury this taste of entropy triumphant under the distraction of Narnia. They will forget Charn.
Do not join them. Touch the stones, cut yourself on their edges. Watch your blood mix with the dust, the only sign of life in all the world.
This is Charn, after the end. Remember it. Remember the desolation, the creeping chill, the gnawing silence.
This is the grave of a universe. Mourn its loss.
No one else will.
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Inspired by the 9/21/09![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
15_minute_fic word #123: nowhere
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On another topic, apparently I will be posting "Undertow" unbeta'd Monday night. *sigh* Oh well, if it sucks, it sucks.
...Seriously, though, is nobody willing to do a quick beta for me? I swear it won't take that long. You don't even have to have canon knowledge of Naruto -- the story is designed to work as fanfic and original fiction simultaneously.
The title is a random T. S. Eliot quote, because gloomy apocalypses always make me think of The Hollow Men.
[ETA: The revised final version is now up here on AO3 and here on ff.net. Mostly, I fiddled with the ending -- the new conclusion alters the message and mood of the vignette somewhat, though it still fails to nail the effect I was aiming for.)
---------------------------------------------
Prayers to Broken Stone
---------------------------------------------
This is Charn, after Jadis and the children leave.
The palace wavers, small cracks splintering through the façade. Paint chips and flakes off the statues. A thousand years of rain and sand and wind wreak havoc in accelerated madness.
The palace sinks in on itself with a thunderous roar of stone. The earth shakes as it falls.
The city is precariously balanced, preserved only through the lack of bacteria and plants to aid its decay, and the sheer age of the world. Charn is long past seismic tremors, long past earthquakes and volcanoes. Nothing but rain and wind have touched these bricks and stones, eating away at them year after mindless year until every structure is as delicate as a house of cards, ready to fall at the merest nudge.
The palace dies, and brings the city with it into ruin.
For a time, dust obscures the darkening air. When it clears, the sun is gone. The cold eye of the Watcher hangs alone in the heavens, limping toward the weary horizon, until the sliver of a bilious moon peers over the distant hills on the opposite edge of the sky.
This would be the time for monsters to wake, to hunt, but no monsters live.
Nothing lives. Nothing changes.
Only the unwinding clockwork march of sun and moon and star, alone in the endless, unrelieved black of the heavens. Only the winter rains, lighter each year, as the atmosphere bleeds into the gaping maw of the sky. Only the restless wind carrying its stinging freight of sand, but quieter each year, falling slowly into sleep. Into stillness. Into death.
Look at the ruins of Charn, a heap of shattered stones and broken dreams. Once this world was beautiful. Even at the end, even in its monstrousness, it was beautiful. It was alive. It could have been saved.
It was not.
This is what Jadis wrought. This is what no one prevented. Digory and Polly will bury this taste of entropy triumphant under the distraction of Narnia. They will forget Charn.
Do not join them. Touch the stones, cut yourself on their edges. Watch your blood mix with the dust, the only sign of life in all the world.
This is Charn, after the end. Remember it. Remember the desolation, the creeping chill, the gnawing silence.
This is the grave of a universe. Mourn its loss.
No one else will.
---------------------------------------------
Inspired by the 9/21/09
15_minute_fic word #123: nowhere---------------------------------------------
On another topic, apparently I will be posting "Undertow" unbeta'd Monday night. *sigh* Oh well, if it sucks, it sucks.
...Seriously, though, is nobody willing to do a quick beta for me? I swear it won't take that long. You don't even have to have canon knowledge of Naruto -- the story is designed to work as fanfic and original fiction simultaneously.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-21 07:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-21 09:16 am (UTC)...I'm a ditz.
Sorry?
Anyway, yeah, hit me. Just need to reread the leadup, which shouldn't exactly be a chore. ^_^
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-21 10:41 am (UTC)I'm willing to beta for you... ^_^
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-21 03:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-21 03:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-21 03:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-21 04:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-21 04:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-21 07:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-21 07:29 pm (UTC)And yeah, now that I think of it, this does have echoes of Wells's portrait of the end of the world. I have little use for the Eloi and Morlock sections of that book, but that final despairing vision always haunted me. "All your works are futile," it says. "Everything comes to nothing in the end." I believe that even if everything comes to nothing, that nothingness will not negate the truth that we were alive -- that while we lived, we lived -- but it's still an awfully depressing prospect to contemplate. It will eat at your mind in the depths of the night if you let it.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-21 09:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-22 02:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-22 02:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-22 08:05 pm (UTC)I love the way Charn destroys itself--it's such an old, dead place and that really comes through. And you're right, man, no one remembers this!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-23 02:42 am (UTC)It's odd to me that Charn is so ignored in Narnia fandom, because IIRC, Aslan specifically points it out as a warning for Earth and tells Digory and Polly not to forget it!