Which is Your Favorite Scene from Myst/Riven?

[babybottomfeeder]

Title: Observer Effect
Characters: Yukawa Manabu and Utsumi Kaoru.
Summary: Sometimes the change doesn't happen to the observed. Spoilers for episode six. 798 words.
Archival: If you wish to archive, please link to my website. Please keep all my headers intact.

She's not prone to falling asleep in the lab. Sometimes, however, Yukawa becomes aware that the quiet has gone unnatural, and when he drags his attention away from his computer or student papers, there she is, her head resting on her outstretched arm, mouth open and eyes closed. Utsumi doesn't look like a child when she's asleep, as so many people do. It is rare for her to look at rest and usual for her to have a furrow between her eyebrows, like she's struggling with things in her sleep.

It's impertinent to watch her like this, to consider her with such close regard. She is, however, asleep, and she can't tell him not to stare like she would if she were awake. The thought of how she might react is usually enough to break the way his attention is caught by her face. There is beauty there, in the asymmetrical symmetry of her features, the way her eyebrows soar over the dark curve of her eyelashes, the slight flatness of the tip of her nose, in the way the angles and planes all meet: the triangles, circles, and parallelograms of her features. There's no formula for her face, yet.

The first time he'd seen her asleep was when they'd been trapped in the cargo hold of that ship. It was understandable that she had fallen asleep, of course, as hard as she worked. It was still unexpected, he recalls, to have said something and received no answer. When he'd checked her, then, she'd looked exhausted, faint smudges under her eyes noticeable even in the shadow he cast over her. It would have been cruel and unreasonable to wake her. So, he'd gone back to where he'd been, a vast space between them, and checked the time on his watch. He hadn't laid down. She'd woken on her own, when the clanging of approaching feet and cries above their heads had sounded loud enough to startle him from the restful reverie he'd fallen into, and made her sit up, disoriented. She'd been asleep four hours and twenty-three minutes.

Even though she does possess the ability to be quiet when need be, she is not patient, and she is loud, and she talks too much. When she's asleep, she's none of those things. She may not look like a child, but she looks bereft, like she's lost something of herself in sleep that she only has when she's awake. If he leaves her alone long enough, the anxious look she wears will fade, as she slides deeper into sleep. She sleeps like the dead, then, and not even calling her name will wake her.

It has now become a familiar oddity to find her there across from him, her eyes shut, the slight rise and fall of her form her only movement. Now, watching her sleep starts a tight sensation at the base of his skull, a reaction he can't explain, but he knows what it signals: the urge to shake her awake, and get her out of his lab, out of his space, and away. Despite it, he has never roused her in that manner. He's never been able to, though he has tried, a hand hovering above her shoulder. There's something too personal in even the thought of it, as though it would violate the trust inherent in her action. He falls back on an alternative method. There are, after all, numerous thick books around that make a satisfying and thunderous sound when dropped.

She always apologizes when she wakes up. He always has his back turned to her when she does.

One day, she will be asleep, like usual, and he won't be able to resist, like he has before. One day, he will reach out, like a child with an outstretched finger to something new, something with the potential for harm, but still too peculiar, too fascinating, to leave alone.

One day, he will reach out, and the tips of his fingers will graze her cheek, the warm soft curve of it. It will be done before he can take it back or even consider how foolish he's being. The only change in her breathing will be a short stutter which will fall back into regular deep breaths. He will be quiet as he walks backward, before turning and finding his way back to his seat behind his desk. It will be a long fifteen minutes before he stands, to find that thick book and slam it on his desk.

She will ask if she fell asleep again. ay she did and chide her for not going home, when she so obviously needs rest. He will pretend he did nothing, but he will not forget. The tremor in his hands won't let him.

Title: the hearth that warms, the stone that chills
Summary: Atrus and Catherine's reunion immediately after linking from Riven. 948 words.
Archival: If you wish to archive, please link to my website. Please keep all my headers intact.
Notes: Sometimes one has to write what one wants to read. The shift in mood was planned, but turned out differently from what I expected when I first started writing.

Catherine drew her fingertips across the fabric, weft and warp a landscape rough, draped across the stones, on Atrus's makeshift desk that she knew from old. She raised her head, and turned a slow circle, taking in the columns and the darkness, waiting. The sound of his linking turned her to it, her welcoming smile already blooming on her face, a breath escaping, his name forming on her lips.

"Atrus," she whispered, and her lips curved into a smile.

His form shimmered into view, and she saw that he was already searching her out. Seeing her, he dropped the satchel he held from off his shoulder, making strides to her.

"Catherine," he said, "oh, how I've missed you." He leaned forward, gathering her to himself with a gentle grasp at her shoulders, moving up to cradle her face between them. He touched his forehead to hers; he closed his eyes.

She reached up and put her hands on his arms, reveling in the feel of him under her hands, warm and there, after so long. "And I you. But, what of your friend?"

He raised his head. His gaze was intent, focused only on her. She drew breath; held it. "Gone through the fissure, home, I pray."

She sighed out, bowing her head for a moment. That was good, as it should be. She said, "I have no doubt that will be so." She reached up, touched his face, the bristle of his beard prickling her fingertips, so conscious of him, his closeness. When they were still in Riven, she'd touched him so, but there was no time for more, and no privacy. She bent her fingers around his neck, and stood on her toes, and pulled down, and met his mouth with her own. His mouth was gentle against hers, and she opened her own to him, eager, tasting the warmth of his. So long without this, so long with just memories and dreams, that dissipated in the harshness of days passing. She opened her eyes now to see him-to chase doubt away, to make him real. He was; he was not a memory, not a dream, not the disorientation of turning in her cot to reach for him and touching nothing but empty space. She closed her eyes, her sight satisfied, and pressed herself up into him, learning the form of his body anew, wrapping her arms around him, under his cloak. The fabric of his shirt was smooth against her fingertips; hot with the proximity of his skin.

"It's been so long," she whispered against his mouth, and pressed her mouth against his again, a brief kiss, before she laid her head on his chest, and listened to his heart.

He sighed, a deep breath that seemed drawn from depths she could not fathom, and stepped back, putting distance between them, yet he did not let go of her. Instead he brought his hands up to her face, again, to curve them to her cheeks. She smiled and closed her eyes. His hands were warm on her face; his thumbs, with callouses worn soft with time, yet never quite gone, traced paths on her skin. Warmth bloomed in her breast. This was home. This was the heat of a hearth fire.

He took his hands away from her and she opened her eyes to see him turning away from her. He raised a hand to hide his mouth, and she frowned. That gesture of his was a sign of distressed thought. He said, "There is something I must tell you." He turned his head to look at her, his hand leaving his face, dropping down to his side. He said, "Our sons, Catherine...this is such a terrible thing I must say..."

She reached out, took his hand in hers, her face drawing tight with grief and concern. She said, "I know that I was sent to Riven on a false pretext. There was time enough and more to understand-"

He said, looking her in the eyes, "They have been trapped by the books I wrote-in Haven and Spire. They have done such terrible deeds... I can't find the words to tell you-"

She stared at him, mouth open. Though she still held his hand she could not feel anything within that grasp.

He said, "They fooled me as well, trapped me here, until our friend came. I'm sorry, Catherine, that it has come to this."

She felt her lips move, trying to summon words. He stepped closer, and placed his arms around her, drawing her to him with a careful gentleness. She found her voice, and said, "You say they are lost to us. Our sons. Achenar and Sirrus."

The pain in his voice was an echo of that in her heart. "Yes. I am sorry for this, for my failing you."

She turned her face into his chest, and closed her eyes. They burned. She said, the words coming out thick and clotted, tears caught in her throat, "There is nothing to be done, is there? There is nothing I need to forgive."

He said, "My love," and though his voice was low, it filled her ears like thunder. He held her closer and she squeezed her eyes tighter and wished for things she could no longer have.

"I am only yours," she answered. It was always true. It was all she could cling to, this love they had forged from pain and secrets kept. She held tighter to him and let the tears escape. She'd had so much time in Riven, and now, still, there was time. She was strong, then; she was stone, then. She could be it now.