Best fanfic I’ve ever written:
Metamorphic:
It’s over thirty years in the future and one of Mensah’s grandchildren is chatting away to her as they do some gardening together. They find an interesting rock and Mensah suggests the child puts it to one side and asks uncle Gurathin (or great uncle Gurathin) about it later.
And the child says “Or SecUnit?” And then does that thing little children do and asks why SecUnit and Gurathin aren’t married if they live together. And Mensah explains that not everyone who lives together is married, and that some people just live together.
“But why aren’t they married?”
And Mensah senses this is something that’s been bothering the child, so she stops pulling up the roots of weeds and looks at the child, who is now drawing in the dust with a stick.
“Well, people get married because they love each other.”
Child stabs at a hole in the ground with the stick.
“Devi and Stannal are married, and they don’t seem to even *like* each other, they mostly shout at each other.”
Mensah laughs, those two members of her extended clan do seem to have a relationship which stretches the meaning of the word volatile.
“They sometimes don’t show it, but they do love each other very much.”
“But, Uncle Gurathin and SecUnit? Don’t they?”
The words “love each other” hang in the air.
Mensah pauses to think. She supposes the obvious answer is “No, not like that.”
But that’s a stupid answer. As if they can’t “love” (she mentally inserts the inverted commas around the word, like little tongs holding something slightly distasteful: only because just thinking of applying the word to SecUnit conjures up an image of its face hearing her do so) each other because they don’t have any sort of physical relationship? Because they would never even hug? Mensah has seen them occasionally touch each other, but it’s been almost forty years now, and she could probably count the times (if you discount those which involved one of them being close to death) on her fingers. The occasional hand laid on a shoulder; she was sure everyone noticed and tried very hard not to be seen to notice.
She wondered if they laughed about the way other people responded to them, together on the feed.
“Why don’t they live on Perihelion anymore?”
Oh, so the thoughts had moved on.
“Well, uncle Gurathin is getting quite old now” we all are, she thought, “and artificial gravity and space travel are easier when you’re young. He prefers to stay on the planet now.”
The hole in the ground was being enlarged, the stick twisted.
“SecUnit says it doesn’t like the planet.”
Mensah sighed.
“But it says it like it’s a joke. It says it doesn’t like uncle Gurathin either sometimes too. I’ve heard it.”
Someone had obviously been paying attention.
“Do you think it likes the planet?”
“It take me on long walks and shows me plants and rocks and animals. It can recognise all the bird songs. There are wild birds that come to it when it calls.”
Yes, Mensah thought. Whether SecUnit liked the planet or not, it certainly seemed to like it. The fields surrounding Gurathin’s farm were beautifully tended, though the garden a wilderness it was an intentional wilderness. It probably took a lot of work to keep it that way, a haven for wildlife but aesthetically pleasing too.
The stick was drawing circles in the dirt again now.
“But they aren’t married?”
No they aren’t, Mensah wonders if SecUnit would even be outraged at the suggestion anymore. Probably not. Gurathin would still almost certainly act mock horrified.
“Do you know how long ago the first construct/human marriage here on Presevation was?”
Child now looks up, wide eyed.
“It must be ages and ages ago. Three has been married forever!”
“It was not that long before you were born. Before then it was illegal here like everywhere else.”
The child looks a bit sad, “But they must have loved each other before then?”
Mensah isn’t sure if this is a specific “they” or a more general comment on how Preservation customs and laws had responded to the influx of “free constructs” over the last few decades.
“Sometimes people are slow to change.” She says, hoping this covers the child’s actual question.
“Well I think they should get married.”
Mensah looks at the vegetable bed, she reckons they’ve done enough for today.
“Well, you can tell them that when you ask about the rock. Let me know what they say.”
Later the child tells her that it’s a piece of blueschist, and it’s a type of metamorphic rock. It’s been described by geologists as the prettiest rock there is, formed in high pressure low temperature situations like cold oceanic slab subducts.
So Mensah is glad that’s been cleared up.
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