Work Text:
Their existence is eternal. Their shared mind omniscient. This she knows from the time of her birth, as every child.
That she meets Them is an opportunity afforded only to the most few of denizens, that she meets Them multiple times a near impossibility. She is special, They say. Her mother had been great, of Their blood, a genius, an architect, as close to nobility as their society possessed. She would be the same.
Protocol dictates that she speak in Their language when in Their presence, when walking in Their halls. The writing old, the language itself older, well-preserved, forever unchanging as is its speakers. It's something that every child learns, to be used in formal occasions and worship. Incomparable with the language of everyday life.
She's well-versed in it. Well-versed in Their ways, for all that she sees Them only rarely. They don't need her in physical sight to be aware, of what she has done, is doing, will do a week, a year, a century from now. They don't need eyes to see, ears to hear. Just light, seamless, and darkness, stretching from Their beings like void. Blinding and consuming if you look too long.
She wonders what They think as she travels the planet to correct her folly, to salvage what had been lost on the way back home. Whether They even think at all, or if They sit by knowingly in their sanctum, all-knowing, all-aware, everywhere and nowhere at once. It's something she's wondered ever since she was small. Nobody can give her an answer.
Maybe one day, she'll understand. After she's returned, after she's grown and travelled through time, again and again and again, until time itself starts to lose meaning. As They have taught, as she must do. Maybe one day, she'll truly know Them. Maybe.
Or maybe not. This world is far better than her obligations.
Only They might know.
