Quintessence
by Persephone
Disclaimer: The characters Cable, Apocalypse, Rachel, Warlock, and the Askani (as a group entity as well) are Marvel's. My take on them is probably heavily influenced by Alicia McKenzie, to whom this story is dedicated because she wanted a story whose title started with the letter Q on her archive. The Borg and Star Trek belong to Paramount, in case anyone was worried, but the Star Trek Q doesn't come into this at all. Really. I can't believe I'm babbling this much over one line, either. This story is not intended to produce financial gain but rather purely for entertainment. Please contact me before MST or Pop-Up.
What is, is.
The heart of Askani philosophy, the guiding light of a group of very strange, very secretive, very manipulative women my sister recruited, calling them "outsiders," to defy Apocalypse in a variety of very strange -- and so forth -- ways.
Come to think of it, maybe she *is* the weirdest of my relatives after all. Fierce competition.
All right, yes, it's a tautology, and it probably seems incredibly obvious on the face of it. Statement of the obvious. On the other hand, given the existence of philosophical debate on whether there is such a thing as objective reality, maybe it's not so obvious.
Maybe it's an affirmation that there *is* at least some sort of reality, anyway. For some reason I don't think that was quite what Rachel was getting at, though. Reality existing doesn't seem like something that was really a question for her; maybe it was more of an automatic assumption or at least a good working hypothesis.
After all, as far as anybody's usually able to tell it's there, and we have to deal with it whether it's real or not.
Actually, come to think of it, that's fairly close to the point itself.
Things and events and people and times and places *are*, and we have to deal with them. Perceptions *are*, too, and even if they're false they still exist.
To be dealt with, met head on, and reinforced or dispelled or used.
I prefer a slightly more forceful approach, myself, but that's a personal thing. Unusual for a telepath, apparently. Maybe it comes of having my powers so tied up all the time. That's another piece of reality I have to deal with, and a very annoying one it is, too. To put it mildly.
What is, is.
One little phrase for so many things. It looks easy to hide behind, to use as an excuse: "That's the way things are, that's all there is to it." It isn't. Not when the Askani were built around it in a time when Apocalypse was purging the "unfit" and it served as a rallying cry, a proclamation that he was committing a travesty against humanity and how it should be allowed to develop, mutant and nonmutant alike, in its own way and time.
Of course, it's not as if we don't go changing things just as drastically, or trying to.
More drastically. Time travel, changing the past itself, changing what has been already, what's often thought of -- by people who don't know any better -- as immutable. How much more drastic can you get?
I shouldn't say "who don't know any better." In a very real sense, it is immutable. That's another thing that little sentence does -- it serves as a reminder.
What is, is: no matter how far back someone goes, or how important an event she manipulates -- or I manipulate -- either it'll end up having been that way all along, or it'll sprout a new timeline and create a new reality, but the old one will still be there. Even if it weren't, the one who got rid of it would remember, and even if not, it would still be lurking there as the background cause of its own not-having-been.
We can change things. We do change things, by whatever means necessary, sometimes terrible ones. They do some of it -- and they send me to do some of it. Sent. Will send. English is NOT a language designed for discussing time travel. The verbs don't work out. Future perfect is useful, but the name of the tense is so laughable it hurts.
No matter what we change, though, what we left is still there and there's no way to get rid of it altogether. And if there were, would we really want to? Things we regret, things we love....
Sorry has no meaning. It's similar, in a way. It doesn't mean regret doesn't exist, or even that it's necessarily meaningless, or that sorrow is meaningless.
Being sorry doesn't change anything, though. I was sorry when I shot Tyler. I was sorry when I shot Hammer. I was sorry I had to do it, sorry I'd let it come to that, but that didn't keep me from pulling the trigger either time, and I don't think for one second it mattered to either one of them that I was *sorry*.
It... does make a difference, I guess, that I could still feel enough for it to hurt. But it doesn't help either of them.
There's that, and there's the possibility that sorry has no meaning because it can have too *many* meanings. I've heard it said so many ways -- after something that can't be undone, after something that should be undone, during something that should never be done but has to be. I've heard it said in tones of real sorrow and in tones with so much sarcasm it was an accusation, not an apology, and I've heard it tossed off so casually it was only a sop that didn't even have real regret behind it.
That last... might be the kind that's really meant by that phrase. Never thought of that before. Might even just have been Rachel having a bitter moment.
I should think of things like that more often. I used to think Askani philosophy and rhetoric were sheer stupidity -- or else a very clever scam for stupid people to listen to. Sometimes I still think it's stupid, but now I've been suffused with it or something and there's no getting away.
We are Askani of Borg. You will be assimilated.
I should never have watched Star Trek with Warlock.
Definite mistake.
Not one of my worst ones, but a definite mistake.
I guess, after all, the point is that reality has to be faced and you can never completely eradicate what's past, even if your past is the future and vice versa -- but you can work within whatever present you happen to be occupying, and try to make it better. And try not to make it worse. It never remains quite the same whether either of those happens or neither.
What is... is.
But it doesn't have to stay that way.