Two stories; Highlander, Mythology; Teen
Jun. 14th, 2011 11:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
morgynleriTitle: Here
Fandom: Highlander, Mythology
Genres: Crossover
Rating: Teen
Characters: Anat
Word Count: 200
Summary: Here, she can make herself in her own image.
Here, she isn't the Destroyer, the Warrior, the Winnower of Death. She isn't the Mother, the Creator, the Wanton. Not a goddess, terrible and beautiful, feared and worshipped.
Here, she is a gardener, an artist. A woman, confident and pretty. Forgettable, walking alone in a crowded city. She could be anyone she chooses, but always she'll be seen as just another woman. Talented, but human.
Here, she can make herself in her own image, rather than being molded by the expectations of others. She can choose where her affections are bestowed, what work she takes on, what her life entails.
Here, she is not displayed in her full glory, gilded and painted and put on a pedastal. She's not confined by chanted stories and temple walls. Not constrained by worshipful and jealous priests.
Here, in this quiet garden in a city both youthful and old, she can be freer than she is even out there. Can be the simple woman, working with soil and plants and seeds, and the goddess whose power is bound in the living.
Here - and perhaps this most importantly - in the sanctuary of a foreign temple, in the company of another's priest, she can be herself.
Title: Differences in Faith
Fandom: Highlander, Mythology
Genres: Crossover
Rating: Teen
Characters: Darius, Anat
Word Count: 521
Notes: I think this is actually a scene from a larger story, but I don't know what that story is yet, and it is sorta needed to make the double drabble above make more sense.
Summary: "Not as different as you might think, Darius. Gods, after all, can die."
Once he worshiped her as a goddess of war. Perhaps not in the name she's as yet remembered by, but in the one aspect she's most laid aside. Now, the world has changed, and the both of them with it. He serves a religion barely older than himself, ans she seeks faith for her abilities in fertility, neither championing war and destruction as they once had.
She has her hands buried in the soil of his garden, planting herbs at his direction, looking for all the world like a normal, mortal woman. As good as disguise as any Immortal, he supposes, if perhaps for different reasons.
"Not as different as you might think, Darius." Anat turns her head to look at him over her shoulder. "Gods, after all, can die just as mortals and Immortals can. No matter that the means are different."
That she can discern his thoughts is no surprise, and Darius smiles a moment before passing her the next delicate seedling to be put into the prepared bed. Despite the brief moment its in her hands, it seems to take on a greater vibrancy, a vitality he knows from experience will last the season through. It is the only thing that is visible of her deity, so carefully hidden under its mask of humanity.
"Their faith in you is important, then." Something that's brewed at the back of his mind for centuries. "Faith, rather than knowledge." He wonders if it is the same for the god he serves, that he has never met. If the faith of all those who believe in Him have molded him from nothingness as Anat has said she was molded by the thoughts of men.
"Not quite, but close." Anat gently settles the plant in its new place, putting soil in around it with delicate care. "Knowledge of my talents feeds faith in those skills, better allowing me to use them. Knowledge of how that faith helps my skills - knowledge of the truth of my deity - tends to lend itself to dependence on my intervention, and a subsequent sapping of my energy and my life."
She pauses, sitting back on her heels. "At least, that is the simplest part of the explanation. Their expectations, their knowledge, also tend to shape me more than such would do to a moral woman. I find it comforting that there are fewer to believe in me, and expect certain things of me, in this era." After a moment, she looks up at him, a smile curling the corners of her mouth. "And that is merely what I have to deal with when coping with mortals. Immortals are a whole other dimension to the dynamic."
Darius chuckles, passing another seedling to her. "Do any Immortals take you merely on faith?"
"None that I've met." Anat returns to her task with a shrug. "Immortals seem to have a greater faith in what they are certain will outlive them. And while few gods give the oldest of your kind that reassurance, it certainly provides the younger ones with that. So, they know, and they believe all the better for it."
Crossposted:
Livejournal, Here on AO3, Differences in Faith AO3, my website
Fandom: Highlander, Mythology
Genres: Crossover
Rating: Teen
Characters: Anat
Word Count: 200
Summary: Here, she can make herself in her own image.
Here, she isn't the Destroyer, the Warrior, the Winnower of Death. She isn't the Mother, the Creator, the Wanton. Not a goddess, terrible and beautiful, feared and worshipped.
Here, she is a gardener, an artist. A woman, confident and pretty. Forgettable, walking alone in a crowded city. She could be anyone she chooses, but always she'll be seen as just another woman. Talented, but human.
Here, she can make herself in her own image, rather than being molded by the expectations of others. She can choose where her affections are bestowed, what work she takes on, what her life entails.
Here, she is not displayed in her full glory, gilded and painted and put on a pedastal. She's not confined by chanted stories and temple walls. Not constrained by worshipful and jealous priests.
Here, in this quiet garden in a city both youthful and old, she can be freer than she is even out there. Can be the simple woman, working with soil and plants and seeds, and the goddess whose power is bound in the living.
Here - and perhaps this most importantly - in the sanctuary of a foreign temple, in the company of another's priest, she can be herself.
Title: Differences in Faith
Fandom: Highlander, Mythology
Genres: Crossover
Rating: Teen
Characters: Darius, Anat
Word Count: 521
Notes: I think this is actually a scene from a larger story, but I don't know what that story is yet, and it is sorta needed to make the double drabble above make more sense.
Summary: "Not as different as you might think, Darius. Gods, after all, can die."
Once he worshiped her as a goddess of war. Perhaps not in the name she's as yet remembered by, but in the one aspect she's most laid aside. Now, the world has changed, and the both of them with it. He serves a religion barely older than himself, ans she seeks faith for her abilities in fertility, neither championing war and destruction as they once had.
She has her hands buried in the soil of his garden, planting herbs at his direction, looking for all the world like a normal, mortal woman. As good as disguise as any Immortal, he supposes, if perhaps for different reasons.
"Not as different as you might think, Darius." Anat turns her head to look at him over her shoulder. "Gods, after all, can die just as mortals and Immortals can. No matter that the means are different."
That she can discern his thoughts is no surprise, and Darius smiles a moment before passing her the next delicate seedling to be put into the prepared bed. Despite the brief moment its in her hands, it seems to take on a greater vibrancy, a vitality he knows from experience will last the season through. It is the only thing that is visible of her deity, so carefully hidden under its mask of humanity.
"Their faith in you is important, then." Something that's brewed at the back of his mind for centuries. "Faith, rather than knowledge." He wonders if it is the same for the god he serves, that he has never met. If the faith of all those who believe in Him have molded him from nothingness as Anat has said she was molded by the thoughts of men.
"Not quite, but close." Anat gently settles the plant in its new place, putting soil in around it with delicate care. "Knowledge of my talents feeds faith in those skills, better allowing me to use them. Knowledge of how that faith helps my skills - knowledge of the truth of my deity - tends to lend itself to dependence on my intervention, and a subsequent sapping of my energy and my life."
She pauses, sitting back on her heels. "At least, that is the simplest part of the explanation. Their expectations, their knowledge, also tend to shape me more than such would do to a moral woman. I find it comforting that there are fewer to believe in me, and expect certain things of me, in this era." After a moment, she looks up at him, a smile curling the corners of her mouth. "And that is merely what I have to deal with when coping with mortals. Immortals are a whole other dimension to the dynamic."
Darius chuckles, passing another seedling to her. "Do any Immortals take you merely on faith?"
"None that I've met." Anat returns to her task with a shrug. "Immortals seem to have a greater faith in what they are certain will outlive them. And while few gods give the oldest of your kind that reassurance, it certainly provides the younger ones with that. So, they know, and they believe all the better for it."
Crossposted:
Livejournal, Here on AO3, Differences in Faith AO3, my website