Tears Of Stone
Timeline: This story is set during Awakening, a day or so after the Gargoyles have been awakened.
Summary: The pain may be a thousand years old, but to him it happened only a few nights ago.
Disclaimer: Gargoyles is the property of Disney. This is a work of fanfiction and as such no money is being made off it.
Author's Note: Thanks to Jenigoyle whose story In His Eyes Entry 1: Awakening provided the inspiration for this by inadvertently making me realise that although a thousand years had passed in real time, to the gargoyles trapped in stone sleep it wouldn't seem like nearly so long.
Tears of Stone
By Bil!
Stone, crumbled at his feet.
Stone, dead and cold and lifeless.
Stone, bearing the broken faces of those he had loved.
Stone, falling from his hands like clumsy tears.
Stone, just stone.
Suddenly he hated stone. Hated the stone that had cocooned him safely for a thousand years, hated the stone that had frozen his clan beneath the sun and doomed them to death. Hated the stone that formed the castle that had been their home and had held their shattered remains.
He hated stone.
Goliath stood on the castle wall and stared up at the stars, so faint and pale in this city of lights, trying to shake off the memories that threatened to pull his mind into unending darkness. But there was no solace, no freedom from the pain and the grief and the sorrow. His clan, his brothers and sisters, were dead, and their loss tore holes in his heart so that he thought it could never be whole again. And his Angel too, she was lost to him forever... No, the wounds to his soul could never heal.
Stone, crumbled at his feet.
No! Distraught, he flung himself off the castle and into the now-alien night. If he could just fly fast enough he would surely escape the memories. He had to, he just had to.
As he sailed through the crisp night air, his wings instinctively using each little gust of wind to best advantage, he stared down at this strange new world. There was no wonder engendered in his heart, only despair; he was far, far from the world he knew: an ocean and a millennium away. The thought made his heart ache and he caught a gust upwards, looking up to the stars and seeking the old, familiar constellations he had always known. Seeing them, he could almost imagine that nothing had changed...
Stone, falling from his hands like clumsy tears.
His wings faltered, he fell, plummeting down towards the glittering city. For a moment he thought to just fall, to end his life and end the grief and pain. But instead, almost without his conscious choice, his wings opened and checked his descent. He couldn't kill himself; he couldn't do that to the few remnants of his clan.
Stone, bearing the broken faces of those he had loved.
He had never realised that there was this much pain in the world, had never dreamed that the twin blades of death and betrayal could cut so deep. Within the space of a night he had learnt a harsh lesson: that his kind were even more vulnerable than he had believed, that they would always be hated and feared and betrayed.
And now he was told that all these things, all this pain, had happened a thousand years past. The humans he had known were barely even memory now, the gargoyles - his clan - not even that. No one remembered the events of those nights a millennium ago and no one cared, for that was history, long gone.
Stone, dead and cold and lifeless.
But he remembered. He cared. To him and the sparse remnants of his clan those events had happened a few scant nights ago, and still burned with the sting of fresh, unhealed memory. A thousand years of stone sleep had done nothing but keep the pain alive, not giving it a chance to heal. Stone cannot weep; stone cannot grieve. He almost wished himself still stone, still locked away where the pain could not touch him, but that was a coward's wish, a wish that demeaned the memory of those he had lost. He had to live, had to remember them: as long as they were remembered they still held some semblance of life. No, he had to live, had to grieve and had to heal.
But there was no time to heal now. Goliath didn't trust the human Xanatos, and not just because he trusted no human now and never would again. Xanatos he distrusted because of the look in the man's eye, the arrogance in his face. Goliath had to be watchful and alert, and not fail the last of his clan. He could not grieve now for it was his place to lead.
And lead he would, regardless of the grief of a few nights ago and a thousand years past. For those few who remained of his clan he had to look forward, not back.
He turned his flight towards the castle that was always his home, regardless of where it stood, with a new resolve in his heart.
Stone, crumbled at his feet.
If only it didn't hurt so much...
Fin
Copyright 2003