A letter to my kin
A letter, from an Aru.
Congratulations kin, sibling, Aulvae. You've survived! Congratulations for what? Survived what? Correct! You've awoken from a breathtakingly long(or perhaps shockingly short) cryosleep, stored away for eons - or perhaps years, or hours and birthed into a brand new world. Exciting maybe, or terrifying. You no doubt recall little of your past, a flicker of a conversation or perhaps a friendly face - a song, or a taste. The harder you try to recall, the harder it becomes to narrow down specific details. Surely, you do remember awakening, in a dark cave....surrounded by cold and familiar steel - formless, the hum of your chamber a gentle lullaby that both calmed your mind and brought you back into focus as this eternal engine finally freed you to these new creatures. You couldn't understand them at first, but the song of the engine fed you some scant details.....Sleeping for ages, ill beyond repair and locked away till such a time as you might be mended. It doesn't take a brilliant mind to determine that something has gone wrong, you've been awoken to miracles of science certainly...but not of Aulvae make. You remember your name, its song practically imprinted within your core - You remember your voice, yourself....at least, it feels as though you do. You can conjure little else, but that's alright. You're no doubt an adaptable sort and these new creatures if strange and cold are so clearly brimming with a curiosity that harkens to our shared past.
Aru, Aulvae. Kin, sibling. Ours are a people of flux, of change. Perhaps it was only fitting that the ultimate threat to us was the very same mutable life - The Academics, the ones who brought you from the cold earth. To them, it is Cancer - embarassingly, or perhaps luckily a long since solved game and one for which precious little expenditure was required to cure. It would mean little without the Arul, you might recall them as a strand...or a part? Those with a peculiar intellect and outlook, they were the first to bridge the gap in language first with symbols and instruction and gesture - soon in song and then in word. They can be a bit cold - even to our kin. Perhaps it's only natural that they struck so quickly with the meat-strands.
It was a strange few cycles, time certainly passed and devices hung on the wall indicating its passage in a language we couldn't yet understand - but we could understand that time passed, we could understand that some kin were removed, sometimes they returned right away - sometimes after tens of cycles, sometimes hundreds or thousands. It was hard to be too worried - the Academie as they came to be known provided for all our basic needs and then some. They didn't understand at first - but they tried and that's what matters isn't it? Perhaps the afterglow of victory over an eternal enemy clouded our judgements, perhaps some held a far more dire outlook. Few spoke out and dared break the joyous energy that abound for how many thousands of cycles.Yet, all good things must come to an end.
The establishment of communication was an important mark in interactions with these creatures. Organics, like you, like me - yet alien in so many ways. simple, rigid forms like those of animals - meat, the meat-strand some so jovially took to calling them, they didn't seem to appreciate the name. Human, Mar'Qua - they were the majority, curious and at times single-minded. Sablekyne and Cindarite. Kriosan, Akula, Opifex....Cht'Mant, Naramad- and oh so many thinking machines. Was such a thing even possible? A machine that thinks, acts, and talks like a sentient? It seemed so, not the most strange thing to encounter so far, but close. Brynn was the fore amongst them and one of the major beings responsible for establishing communication. They. It? He? She? The machine seemed nonplussed by our attempts to learn of it, yet they remained cordial and kind at every step. We taught our song, and in kind were taught theirs- 'Common' they call it, as good a name as any for a shared tongue.
One year, six month, four days, eight hours, fifty five minutes and thirty two seconds. The amount of time we remained within the Soterians world, it wasn't an unpleasant place - small, and by all accounts something of a prison - Those most curious amongst us probed and prodded at the borders of our newfound home, finding little that would flex or yield to their intrusions. More amongst our kin were slowly awakened, how many was it at first? One? A dozen? A hundred? The first cycles - Sorry...weeks? That calming lullaby still hung in our cores, how much rest must one have before they've had too much? Apparently our time held in suspension wasn't enough to get a true rest. On that final day we could feel something had changed, Brynn remained his usual cheerful self. She even came to deliver the news in person; We knew that the Academie was not all there was to this place, they had hinted at it before but we couldn't have expected the flow of officials, agents, and officers soon to come.
They came to speak, to question - sometimes to hear, sometimes to be heard. A few of us were taken along with them - escorted through private tunnels and brought before who must have been severely important individuals within this place. They asked, we answered. The asked our allegiance, as each and as all. Few had any answer to give but 'towards our saviors'. Some had other things to say, some fed lies and some simply spoke their truth - some were taken away, and not seen again and some were returned. The energy had changed, this was a new uncertain time for our people - split, fractured and shrunk....the warmth of our victory slipped away as we waited - practically drowning in our own uncertainty. Until, finally we were each presented with a simple document...paper- *paper*. It was funny, to some at least. The paper went back, soaked through in cytoplasm and returned in the form of screens and stylus' as we'd been presented before. "Do you swear your allegience to the colony of Nadezhda, as an Ally and as a citizen. Do you swear to do Her no harm, nor her citizens nor her works. " It was long, it was droning - it was begining to paint a picture of the brutal efficiency with which these creatures comported themselves in matters of business.
'Yes.', or 'No.'. We made our decisions - attempts to rouse discussion fell flat again and again - to make us move as one had never felt so difficult, had it? This felt different, in the worst of ways. Ultimately, we spoke as individuals, we were told no harm would come to us regardless of our choice. We had no reason to distrust these foreign beings, in spite of their consternation and coldness they had done for us what our own could not on their own. Some stayed, most stayed i'd suppose. I cannot tell you what to do, I do hope that you are reading this *before* you have made your decision or perhaps before you've found yourself wandering this strangely familiar planet. We are far from home in oh so many ways, given a second chance at life through the machinations of intelligences utterly inscrutible and absolutely distant - I hope in some small way, that this story from a weary early riser offers some help in guiding your journey. Perhaps our paths may even cross deep in the jungles of Amethyn, in some distant colony in Ceti or a bar in the core of the Galaxy. I wish you good luck in finding your way, Kin- Be strong, be well. Signed - Azue.
