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Feb. 15th, 2019 07:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dantealighierianonymous on tumblr asked:
nyarlathotep/carter, 'things you said under the stars and in the grass' OR 'things you said when we were on top of the world' bc i couldn't decide
In his short life, Randolph Carter had seen many things other men might have deemed impossible. He was no stranger to the strange and wondrous; though he would never say he had become blasé or jaded at the marvels the cosmos had to offer, he considered himself rather experienced in these matters, and difficult to surprise. Nearly two decades of adventuring in the lands of dream had taught him an attitude of acceptance to the whims of chance— many a time he had found himself in a situation that might have caused a more rigid-minded man to panic, and managed to escape by means of a certain matter-of-fact clear-headedness, making the best of whatever strange experience something beyond him had seen fit to place him in the midst of.
So he had acquiesced with what some might have called foolhardy confidence when Nyarlathotep offered to show Carter his favorite spot in all the cosmos. It had been early in the small hours of a September morning, in one of the last warm days of the fast-waning summer; they had been lying in the grass, having spent the day at the old Carter place out near Dedham. (For a malicious god, Nyarlathotep was a surprisingly good guest, and wonderful company to have on a lazy Sunday afternoon. In fact, he was so pleasant that Carter had found himself almost able to forget that he was entertaining the same being that governed reality itself, and was so far above human concerns that it could have crushed the entire planet between forefinger and thumb and thought no more about it than a human stepping on an ant on the way to work. Also, he had brought some excellent wine.) Sleepy and vaguely drunk, Carter had only half been listening as Nyarlathotep pointed out constellations in the night sky, expounding at length on the cosmic phenomena and alien civilizations occupying each one. It was fascinating stuff, Carter was sure, but it was late and he was tired and the honey-sweetness of Nyarlathotep’s voice was starting to have something of a soporific effect. He thought nothing of it when Nyarlathotep rolled over onto his side, propped himself up on his elbow, and asked if Carter would like to see the black hole of Cygnus.
“Of course,” Carter murmured, threading his fingers through the grinning god’s. He wasn’t sure what a black hole was, and he only vaguely knew the constellation it was apparently located in, but he figured it might be a fine diversion— and, in any case, Nyarlathotep rarely took well to being told no. Carter figured Nyarlathotep might conjure up a mirage, turn the night sky into a cinema for the two of them, or something to that effect. It would be a pleasant end to the evening, and then he could finally go to sleep.
What he had not figured was that Nyarlathotep would sweep him up in a blaze of blinding white light and deposit him at the other end of the Milky Way.
All Carter’s experience in wonder and strangeness, his nearly twenty years of adventuring across a tiny sliver of the universe, could never have prepared him for— this. Floating untethered in space, the infinite expanse of the cosmos spread out all around him— gods above, how could it be so empty? From Earth the heavens appeared as a jewel-box, black velvet scattered with a diamond spray of stars, but set in the middle of it all Carter suddenly realized that the jewel-box was larger than he could ever have imagined, and all the diamonds were farther away than his mind had space to comprehend. Tiny points of glimmering light in a void that was, for all human intents and purposes, endless.
He had never felt so small.
Carter screamed, panicked at the infinity all around him, irrationally terrified that it might reach out and crush him as easily as a human would a bothersome insect caught exposed on a kitchen countertop. He didn’t stop to think how he was alive, suspended in interstellar space like this— where his oxygen was coming from, how he was still warm, how he could even hear his own cries, considering the lack of a medium for them to travel through.
Are you quite all right, little human? came— not a voice, per se. More of a feeling, something that Carter knew with every sense, but that was somehow also transmitted through the emptiness directly into his mind. Within and without at once, and Carter realized with a start that Nyarlathotep was there beside (around?) him. Not in a comprehensible form, certainly— the closest Carter could come was that it was somehow geometric, though not in a way he could understand, surely larger than his mind could comfortably fathom, and conveyed somehow a sense of unbearable brightness, despite the fact it emitted no light his eyes could see.
“Warn me next time,” Carter said shakily.
Noted, said (not the precisest of terms, mind) Nyarlathotep, laughing. Take a look behind you.
Carter turned (he wasn’t sure how, considering that there was nothing below his feet, but he did) and gasped.
“It’s— it’s eating the star!”
Rather, murmured an amused Nyarlathotep. Remind me, has your human science gotten around to puzzling out black holes yet?
Carter couldn’t tear his eyes away from the sight long enough to formulate an answer. It was so— so terrifyingly beautiful, the spinning light, the bending of the universe, the furious glowing of the titanic blue star as its matter was stripped from it by…it. Carter had no name for it other than that. It was a hole in the center of the light, blinding bright against blinding…not dark, but absence. As though some creature for which he had no name had twisted reality until it snapped like fragile fabric, and this was the result.
I suppose not. Nyarlathotep shifted, somehow, and Carter felt something that he might have called a hand on his head, gently stroking his hair. How this was possible he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Well, your assessment isn’t far off the mark, they are…distortions, I believe you’d call them. I’m rather fond of them myself, I think they’re quite lovely.
“Did you make this one?” Carter asked.
Nyarlathotep laughed, and Carter felt the knit of reality around them tremble. Me? No, this one is natural. I don’t particularly care to synthesize phenomena that would occur on their own, it seems a waste of energy. Still, though, I would consider it an…object lesson, of sorts. A teaching moment.
Carter frowned. “What do you mean by that?”
Nyarlathotep’s presence moved down to grasp Carter by the waist, fingers— or analogues, rather— meeting at his front as easily as if he were picking up a pencil. It’s an example, he murmured in Carter’s ear, of what happens to the delicate and foolhardy when they get too close to things too powerful for them.
Carter looked out at the star, at the moment of complete absence pulling its lifeblood from it in a blinding blue stream of light, and shivered.
“Of course,” Carter murmured, threading his fingers through the grinning god’s. He wasn’t sure what a black hole was, and he only vaguely knew the constellation it was apparently located in, but he figured it might be a fine diversion— and, in any case, Nyarlathotep rarely took well to being told no. Carter figured Nyarlathotep might conjure up a mirage, turn the night sky into a cinema for the two of them, or something to that effect. It would be a pleasant end to the evening, and then he could finally go to sleep.
What he had not figured was that Nyarlathotep would sweep him up in a blaze of blinding white light and deposit him at the other end of the Milky Way.
All Carter’s experience in wonder and strangeness, his nearly twenty years of adventuring across a tiny sliver of the universe, could never have prepared him for— this. Floating untethered in space, the infinite expanse of the cosmos spread out all around him— gods above, how could it be so empty? From Earth the heavens appeared as a jewel-box, black velvet scattered with a diamond spray of stars, but set in the middle of it all Carter suddenly realized that the jewel-box was larger than he could ever have imagined, and all the diamonds were farther away than his mind had space to comprehend. Tiny points of glimmering light in a void that was, for all human intents and purposes, endless.
He had never felt so small.
Carter screamed, panicked at the infinity all around him, irrationally terrified that it might reach out and crush him as easily as a human would a bothersome insect caught exposed on a kitchen countertop. He didn’t stop to think how he was alive, suspended in interstellar space like this— where his oxygen was coming from, how he was still warm, how he could even hear his own cries, considering the lack of a medium for them to travel through.
Are you quite all right, little human? came— not a voice, per se. More of a feeling, something that Carter knew with every sense, but that was somehow also transmitted through the emptiness directly into his mind. Within and without at once, and Carter realized with a start that Nyarlathotep was there beside (around?) him. Not in a comprehensible form, certainly— the closest Carter could come was that it was somehow geometric, though not in a way he could understand, surely larger than his mind could comfortably fathom, and conveyed somehow a sense of unbearable brightness, despite the fact it emitted no light his eyes could see.
“Warn me next time,” Carter said shakily.
Noted, said (not the precisest of terms, mind) Nyarlathotep, laughing. Take a look behind you.
Carter turned (he wasn’t sure how, considering that there was nothing below his feet, but he did) and gasped.
“It’s— it’s eating the star!”
Rather, murmured an amused Nyarlathotep. Remind me, has your human science gotten around to puzzling out black holes yet?
Carter couldn’t tear his eyes away from the sight long enough to formulate an answer. It was so— so terrifyingly beautiful, the spinning light, the bending of the universe, the furious glowing of the titanic blue star as its matter was stripped from it by…it. Carter had no name for it other than that. It was a hole in the center of the light, blinding bright against blinding…not dark, but absence. As though some creature for which he had no name had twisted reality until it snapped like fragile fabric, and this was the result.
I suppose not. Nyarlathotep shifted, somehow, and Carter felt something that he might have called a hand on his head, gently stroking his hair. How this was possible he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Well, your assessment isn’t far off the mark, they are…distortions, I believe you’d call them. I’m rather fond of them myself, I think they’re quite lovely.
“Did you make this one?” Carter asked.
Nyarlathotep laughed, and Carter felt the knit of reality around them tremble. Me? No, this one is natural. I don’t particularly care to synthesize phenomena that would occur on their own, it seems a waste of energy. Still, though, I would consider it an…object lesson, of sorts. A teaching moment.
Carter frowned. “What do you mean by that?”
Nyarlathotep’s presence moved down to grasp Carter by the waist, fingers— or analogues, rather— meeting at his front as easily as if he were picking up a pencil. It’s an example, he murmured in Carter’s ear, of what happens to the delicate and foolhardy when they get too close to things too powerful for them.
Carter looked out at the star, at the moment of complete absence pulling its lifeblood from it in a blinding blue stream of light, and shivered.
