Work Text:
The ammonite could not properly remember how life had been at the beginning.
Surely, it hadn't been so dry.
It recalled a wide and wondrous world, watery and wet, dark with shadows and depths unexplored. It recalled warm temperatures, and a multitude of beings to feast on.
Predators had abounded, of course.
The Devil of the Seas had been Anomalocaris. A beastly thing, prowling about and attacking unsuspecting prey. During those times, the ammonite had cowered within its protective shell, desperately hoping no one would take interest in a pathetic little mollusc.
It had been lucky.
It had lived.
The ammonite couldn't be certain of the duration of time that had passed since the day it had respired its last, but it must have been very long indeed. Where had the sea gone?
The weight of the rock above lessened as time passed. The ammonite waited patiently for the day it would breach the surface. The event seemed inevitable now.
Finally, it happened.
A day came when the chalky deposit covering it washed away, eroded to fine dust by the elements. The ammonite basked languorously in the cold air, and wondered about its new surroundings.
Never in its quiet life before the rock, had it ever seen the sky.
The sea of its origins had long since evaporated, and now the ammonite found itself amongst the highest mountains in the world, the towering Himalayas.
It was grateful for the water, shallow as it was.
The Kali Gandaki river was colder and more hostile than the warm tropical waters of the Tethys, but it couldn't bring itself to mind too much. It had no need to move these days. Eons spent in the rock had hardened its shell and soft belly.
If the ammonite could, it would smile. Not even an Anomalocaris could threaten it now.