Steampunk: Part XIV and Epilogue

This ... kinda breaks my heart to post, in a way, because it's the last chapter. Making this the first ever long fic I have finished, and perhaps the single proudest moment I've had in a long, long while. To every beginning, an end. But ... to every end, a new beginning. I'll be coming back to this universe. I promise you that.

Very long one, this time, because I included the Epilogue. And that means that as a whole, this thing weighs in at 54, 927 words. *happy burbling* Anyway!

Title: The Wind At Midnight
Rating: PG-13 overall, I think.
Characters/Pairings: Bruce/Clark. Lois/Barbara. Bruce, Clark, Dick, Lois, Arthur, Barbara this chapter.
Summary: Almost a quarter of a century ago, the cities of Earth were torn from the earth by some mystic upheaval and set flying, before threatening to fall back. To prevent the incredible loss of life if they fell, structures known as Ramparts were rapidly constructed, containing the material apparently most susceptible to the new mystical gravities of earth: silver. A new world order was built, as the deserts created on the surface during the Upheaval denied cultivation, based on Cities and flightpaths and park-grown food, a world in tentative political and physical balance. And now that balance is threatened.
Chapter summary: Endings and new beginnings.
Disclaimer: Characters are not mine. Conceit inspired by James Blish's 'Cities in Flight'. Rest is mine.

( The Wind At Midnight, Part XIV )

( The Wind At Midnight: Epilogue )

More Happy

I'm just cheerful this weather. Maybe it's all the sun getting to me?

What kind of idiot goes paddling in the river in late September? Me, that's who! *grin* But it was so sparkling and inviting, and there were these gorgeous green rocks on the riverbed, like a fairy path out into the river, and I wanted to follow them so badly ... Only up to my shins, though, because I was in long pants, and carrying my shopping home. Of course, after that, I was carrying my shoes home too. *smiles* I think I must have looked a sight, wandering through campus with wet feet, my shoes in one hand and a shopping bag in the other, and a silly grin on my face. *laughs* Yes, I am a crazy person. Why do you ask?

Makes me miss the sea a bit, though. I just realised I haven't been swimming all summer, what with everything. I may have to get a wetsuit, because the pool is just not the same. There's no waves in a pool, no sting of salt, no breakers to catch you in the chest as you try to jump them and pull you under to tumble blind, breathless and exhilerated along the sea floor until you're tossed dazed and laughing onto the beach. No rock pools full of weird seaweeds and stoned crabs, and windey little passages in the rock that make you wish you were an undersea explorer. No sea arches to jump off into a tidal pool, and no rock walls to get slammed into when you accidentally jump into a rising, winddriven tide and end up spreadeagled across the cliff face wondering what the hell just happened. No curved little niches in the rock face that catch incoming waves just right to rain the spray gently down as if you were standing in a seesawing shower cubicle. No lazy lagoons where you can watch the drift of seaweed clouds along the sand floor while the sun plays at making light-ripples over the rocks.

No, the pool is just not the same. I must save up, I must. Snorkling, rock-diving, swimming ... I miss them all so much, and lovely and refreshing as a paddle in the river is, I want more.

But for now, with the sun shining and my feet slowly drying, I'm rather happy with the day's idiocy. *grin*

Meme from Ilyena

I know I did this somewhere before, but anyone want to play again on the 36 Things About You meme?

( Questions )