Country- & Cityhumans Oneshots

What you (don't) remember [Crete]

(For anyone that doesn't know, Crete is a Greek state and an island in the south. Oneshot around 900 words long) 

No trigger warnings this time, I think. I tried to play around with themes of immortality, how a lost civilisation, in this case Minoa, would influence the memory of a countryhuman, what they would forget, what and how they would remember.

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On some days she heard voices in a language she couldn't understand when she was near the ruins, sometimes full of glee or of pain, depending on who was there. And she usually didn't hear them when she wasn't close to the ruins. The keyword being "usually".

She slammed the car brakes in the middle of the abandoned village, her face scrunching up in pain when something screamed at her in words she couldn't understand anymore. Her hands on the steering wheel, she looked around, only for the screaming to stop as abruptly as it started. The something (had it been a presence or a ghost driven into madness? She'd never know) receded. She was alone again.

Even after waiting for a few minutes, nothing else happened. Her car stood in the middle of the road while she walked around to check that whatever had screamed at her was gone. N̷o̷b̷o̷d̷y̷ ̷l̷i̷v̷e̷d̷ ̷i̷n̷ Not many passed through the village anyway, and while the drive would take much longer, the last time she tried to use a portal she scorched her hand. Crete got into the car again and continued driving.

Voices, or rather whispers, weren't a rare occurrence. It was well established that sometimes, things were forgotten by their kind and lurked around at the edge of their memories, with nobody really knowing what happened, only that something had happened. Old ruins or other structures her humans didn't know much about and she herself had never heard of or long forgotten always sent shivers down her spine. For representations that had archaeological sites in their territory, whispers around there were common.

And sometimes, the whispering things detached from their original spot and just went around screaming into people's ears, apparently.

But she knew that something was different about the whispers she heard. She had lived in those ruins long ago, she thought, she just forgot. At some point, she had probably known the voices that called her, maybe they had even been friends three thousand years ago.

The more humans found out, the more she remembered. 1915 she'd jolted awake, plagued with nightmares of her burning home she didn't remember. She hadn't known the nightmare corresponded directly to Chatzidakis' discovery of the palace, but the memories had rested alongside the ruins until those had been disturbed. (Surely even humans had things they could compare to her situation. Maybe they were aware of a distant memory, maybe from their childhood, they didn't know the details of and asked their parents for confirmation or context. And the moment they were told the details, a memory snapped into place, with the human not knowing if they only made it up or if they actually remembered. That's how she often felt.) 

She often went to the Archaeological Museum in Heraklion after it had been opened in the 1880s, looking at the objects on display and wondering if she had ever seen them in another life, when she had been Minoan and not Greek.

Sometimes something snapped into place, a mural which she had seen somewhere already, pottery she remembered the feeling of in her hands. One time she had understood the language for one split second, before the knowledge ripped itself out again and skittered away. The headache she got from that had hurt.

So she tried to avoid it as much as possible. It was a personal decision. Humans showed interest in the Minoan civilisation and had it been anything else she would have shared it. Most of the ethnic Greek cities on the mainland were as interested in it as humans were, but they didn't have the small problem of their skin itching for an older, forgotten form and voices whispering around her when they visited. They had never been a part of the civilisation she had been and when she brought them with her to the sites, rage alongside an urge to drive them off their island overwhelmed her. The mistake wasn't repeated and when they asked for a tour, she booked them one, instead of giving one herself.

The rest of the drive went by rather quickly with her thoughts occupying her mind and the radio playing in the background. In the last few minutes, whispers joined it, getting louder with every meter until they weren't whispers anymore, just normal voices, muttering excitedly between each other.

It wasn't as late as she had expected when she arrived, so she just parked her car some kilometres away and walked the rest. The night wouldn't provide her with cover, but she fixed that with a quick procedure for disillusionment and skipped the line without even considering paying for entering as everyone else did. That had been her home, regardless of how little she remembered of it and its old voices welcomed her into it, although she didn't understand a single word of the cheer-like chants.

The North-West site behind the trees didn't interest her as much as the few still standing walls that formed a big structure she remembered better every second. Her welcome died down slowly, as the ochre walls grew to support the ceiling and she turned around to see the stunned faces of companions she hadn't seen in about three thousand and six hundred years. That must have been the generation that rebuilt the palace after the earthquake, she mused.

What a shame she wouldn't remember any of this after she'd go away again, with only the voices there to call her back and a terrible headache, probably. Hopefully she had painkillers and water in the car.

"It is good to see you again, my friends", she smiled, the Minoan language starting to make sense again as if she'd never forgotten it, "It's good to see you again"

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The main story is about 900 words long. Any mistakes I apologize for, I wrote this in one sitting while on painkillers and still felt like something was worming around my intestines.

And my trip to Crete some months ago was the perfect opportunity to build some headcanons :) I'll limit myself to two: I'm a firm believer in the fact that Crete is a victim of pelvic obliquity and was around for four thousand years or maybe even more, meaning she saw the Minoan civilisation and when the temples were burned (around 1150 BC, I think) and spent time as Greek, she forgot about Minoan culture entirely.

Anyway, comments and criticism are all very appreciated :)