I do not own any of the characters from Gunnerkrigg Court! They are the property of Tom Siddell!
A/N: There was a time before the creation of the Earth . . . before the emergence of the great gods of men, . . . before Coyote . . . before even, . . . Jones. Rated M for future potential violence.
A Tale for the Wanderer
Chapter 1: The Seed
Prologue:
There is only silence in space, despite the clashing of matter against matter. Without any atmosphere, or some medium to transmit sound, even the largest of asteroids plummet into the planet's surface with not so much as a whisper. And even if an atmosphere did exist, would it still make a sound, . . . if there is no one around to hear it fall? There was plenty of light and heat to go around, however. Clouds of hot plasma still swirled about, and molten chunks of rock and metal, fell like rain onto the freshly forming surface of the planet below.
In the distance, a tiny sliver of polished metal wove its way through a red-orange sky of dust particles. An experiment was about to take place. Two capsules of some very unique "materials" were readied for drop off, and the ship drew closer towards the turbulent surface of its intended target. Gigantic domes of fiery magma swelled up from below, spattering open like monstrous blisters, releasing trapped gases from deep within the fledgling planet. The sky seemed to be sliced apart by streaking meteors plunging into the molten landscape, sending plumes of material high into what little atmosphere was only now beginning to form. No matter. The ship was merely a probe, specifically designed to withstand the hellish temperatures and conditions found on the surfaces of newly forming planets. It was being controlled remotely from a larger vessel that operated a million miles away, safely outside the planetary accretion zone.
The drone slowed to a hover, the payload was lowered, and two cylinders, being only slightly more dense than the surrounding magma, were released, floating together temporarily as their couplings melted away. At that point, they began to drift apart, the chaotic ocean of molten rock slowly separating them, and soon they began to sink below the surface. The mother-ship, satisfied with another successful mission, recalled the probe, and it began to rise higher and higher, making its way back. This trial experiment was to be repeated in other parts of this nondescript, and rather ordinary galaxy, inside other similar, planet-forming nebula, though the results would not become apparent for several billion years, at the very earliest.
With the probe retrieved, these other worldly sojourners turned their ship towards the next nebula, and, within seconds, had vanished. Little did these visitors know that their investigations would be disrupted in a most violent, and dramatic, fashion.
A rogue planetoid, one-third its size, was bearing down on the young proto-planet, from across the developing star system. It impacted with devastating results, sending unimaginable of tons of matter flying off into space. A ring of debris slowly formed around the new planet, which over time, would accumulate enough material to eventually become the planet's satellite, the Moon.
Of the two experimental cannisters, both were forcibly ejected from the host planet after the monstrous collision. One eventually fell back to the planet's surface, where it once again, began to slip into the magma ocean. The other's fate remains unknown.
Wandering Eye
There was a clearing in the middle of Gillitie Wood where trees and plants would not not grow. None of the forest creatures would pass through it, and if they did, they did not stay long.
At first glance, it was not a particularly forbidding place, merely a flat slab of ancient, andesitic basalt, revealed eons ago by the scouring of ice against its surface. The earliest human inhabitants of the area, recognized the peculiarity of the slab, and erected around it, a wall of huge monoliths to mark its location, not as a place of worship, but as a boundary between this world, and one inhabited by strange spirits. The ancient druids would not enter the ring of stones, and even the conquering Romans, would not cross between, their horses shying away from it. For them, there was something strange there that they could not explain, so therefore, it must be a force for evil. Those humans who sought refuge for the night, were sometimes found the following day babbling, driven mad by something they could not describe.
Ysengrin, the guardian of the forest, said going near it, raised the hackles on his back, and he would not dare enter the stone circle unless ordered to by Coyote. Coyote, himself, was not affected by the unusual rocks, and seemed indifferent, but given his great curiosity, he would sometimes accompany the only entity who ever visited on a regular basis: a beautiful, petite, blonde-haired woman he called, "Wandering Eye."
He liked to tease and play games with her, for he knew her to be straight-forward, and very tolerant of him, if such a word could describe her. And while she appeared on the surface to be a human female, even he was not sure what Wandering Eye really was. He was just as curious about her, as for the reason why she had taken to visiting this forlorn slab of polished rock. She had adopted many names throughout her remarkably long existence, but none persisted. Jones, as she now called herself, would stand in the center of the stone for hours on end, in the dead of night, as if in meditation, or a trance, then abruptly leave with the sunrise, which left him puzzled. Out of boredom, he asked her.
"Do you even know why you come here?"
"This piece of basaltic rock," she said, "is as close to my place of origin on this planet as I have been able to determine. It is even older than I am."
Coyote sprang to his feet at this revelation. "Aha! But you claimed to be as old as the planet itself! Was that an 'exaggeration' on your part?"
"Do not try to put words into my mouth, Coyote. This planet was well underway long before I became cognizant. I merely stated I was here during its formation."
"Ah yes yes yes! My memory must be lapsing, like poor Ysengrin's! Aha ha ha ha!" He paused momentarily to consider her words once more. "So, what you are telling me, then, is that this conglomeration of 'cobbles' is as close to a 'birth place' as you have on this world? You must have an emotional attachment to this spot!" The trickster enjoyed prodding her, for while Jones insisted she had no emotions, she was far too altruistic to be completely devoid of them. How he would dance to hear her say she was wrong.
It wasn't often he got to talk to her, but he loved hearing her voice, thus tried to get her to talk as much as possible whenever they were together. What she lacked in facial expressions, she made up for in the range and tone of her voice. It was very soft, deep, and sultry most of the time. A voice honed by millions of years living among the various animals of the planet, listening to, and imitating the sounds they made. If one closed their eyes to just listen, they would suspect she was tall, dark-haired, and incredibly sexy looking. They would be wrong of course. But she knew how to use her wonderful vocal cords, to get her point across. If she had been so inclined, she might even have made a talented voice actress.
"Something calls me here, Coyote. Perhaps it is what originally drew me to seek out Gunnerkrigg Court in the first place. It tells me I have a purpose, above and beyond that which I have chosen for myself." Coyote pushed his nose into the cold surface, as if sniffing out a scent.
"I sense nothing. Maybe you are imagining all this! Could it possibly be something incased within the stone?"
"You know I have no capacity for imagination. I have determined that there seems to be a message, very faint, which comes scattered in bits and pieces, like a language, long forgotten. I only discovered this place twenty years ago, and the message repeats itself at intervals, once every four hundred and twelve days, a time when the Moon is at it's closest approach to the Earth. None of it is very clear, and the slightest disruptions in atmospheric conditions breaks it apart further. After all this time, I am no closer to deciphering it."
"And you know for certain that this is some kind of message?"
"I am quite sure. It is not repetitive, like a simple SOS signal might be, but shows signs of variation. It may be responding to a prompt from somewhere out among the stars." The god lay down at her feet, partly bored by her reply, and partly because he didn't understand what she meant.
". . . You've lost me already . . ."
"I do not expect you to understand even the simplest processes of the humans' technology, but I also realize that bringing a team of researchers and their equipment here would be unacceptable to you, and especially Ysengrin, so we are at an impasse at this point."
"True, true! Ysengrin would be most upset to see even a few humans, let alone their machines, in the forest! I do not want to impose on his 'good nature' too often! But you know, Wandering Eye, there are things here older than this piece of rock, older even than the planet itself!"
"And what could that possibly be?"
"Why, the ether, of course! It was here long before you and I came into being, and it will be here long after we are both gone. Between the two of us, perhaps we can discover what you really are!" Coyote, as he was apt to do, wrapped himself around Jones like a great snake, looking her straight in the eye, "What do you say, Wandering Eye? Would you like to find out?"
"What do you have in mind, Coyote?" The trickster god was pleased with himself, and pranced around her merrily. Jones had rarely ever shown anything closely resembling emotions, but she was clearly interested this time.
End Chapter 1
A/N: While Gunnerkrigg Court is vaguely placed somewhere in the UK, there is an area in northwestern Scotland called the Lewisian Complex which contains some of the oldest rocks on planet Earth, mainly a metamorphic rock called gneiss. Some of the rocks there have been dated to the early or middle part of the Hadean period, when the Earth was still being bombarded by all manner of extra-terrestrial debris, about 3.8 to 4 billion years ago.
In keeping with the mysterious nature of Gunnerkrigg Court, I have used andesitic basalt instead of the Lewisian gneiss, mostly to disguise where, exactly, the location of GKC is (As of this writing, there is no clue either!). The Giant's Causeway in Ireland is also made of basalt, but it is only about 60 million years old.
It is theorized that a Mars sized object, named (unofficially) Theia, slammed into the proto-Earth some 4.5 billion years ago, and gave us our Moon. The Earth building process had already begun about two hundred million years prior to that event, and this is where my story begins.
Since Tom Siddell, creator of Gunnerkrigg Court, has not given much information regarding Jones' origins (and I don't see any forthcoming in the near future!), this story should probably be considered an AU, written just to satisfy myself and some others who cannot stand the wait! It will be a short story because I don't want to be creating spoilers just in case Mr. Siddell's comes so close to mine (or vice versa) that things become awkward, so don't get your hopes up too high. At this point, I cannot say how long this story will be, so for the time being, suffice to say it will be rather short.
While I love the character, Jones, I can tell right away that writing for her will be difficult, given her seeming lack of emotions. Beautiful, but bland! I figure if I can't give her meaningful facial expressions, then at least she should have an expressive voice (something that would not be so apparent in the comic), and be very knowledgeable of it's uses, subtleties, and implications. She'd likely been around for a couple of billion years before even realizing she had vocal cords, and didn't use them until she ran across other creatures that were capable of making sounds.
Without facial expressions, others (humans) would find her hard to trust, which, no doubt, would make it difficult to live among the people she wished to observe. However, she could possibly make up for the lack of it, with the proper intonations in her voice. As I write this, I try to imagine what she would sound like.