A/N: Another one-shot from me…this one's odd and old. I just found it in one of my older files. It's interesting, I think. Enjoy!

Exsul

They dreamed the most, when a planet drew near. Well, actually it was they who drew near it, but they never liked to remember that they were the ones moving. It was easier for them to accept that something else changed and that they stayed forever the same. For them, forever was an instant. They would glance at the planet, and know its entire history. What was important about its history anyway. Who had been there? Had they become like us? Space faring? Did someone still live there? Was the setting prime for the development of a species? Could it support a vast ecosystem?

The things machines needed to know. That was the kind of history they learned. But the dreams came with the planets. It was a developing suspicion that the planets gave off some sort of micro electricity, undetectable to the sensors that influenced them. After all, they never dreamed between the stars. They were odd, like ghosts of ancestors, which would flit past the eye when it was closed. Beings they didn't know, always different, always telling a story that the computers never could.

It was how they came upon a small desert planet, stuck third in line to the sun. The computer told them that the sun was very old, on the edge of destruction. It wouldn't be wise to linger. But the dreams were strong there.

So strong, they stayed longer than they did anywhere else. The planet moved gracefully beneath them, made mostly of sand. The computers said that it was possible for life to have been there, millions of years ago, but that it had been a low intelligence, nothing too special. It once had been beautiful, as a simulation showed. Blue and green and gold in all it's glory of its young days. But it had fallen closer to its sun, drying out…dying out. There was no chance of life there anymore. There was little sign that life had ever been there, but for points on the map that showed condensed metals that should not have been together in nature. The heat signatures picked up small pockets of variated temperatures, but that could have been anything. Certainly, no life could survive on this planet, the computer stated simply.

The dreams became treasured, and the people put off leaving. They stayed, stared at the golden, dead planet, and began to wonder. They had never done so before, and had no idea what was happening to them, when they began to summon pictures of the beings that visited them in dreams while they were awake. The computer had no explanation for them, but offered them words for their visions. Memories, perhaps, or Imagination. Whatever these visions were, they made the ship seem bigger, made them feel a feeling they had not had for years. Happiness. Hope.

These dreams-when-awake pushed the crew. They had never known a home planet, had not known the place where they came from, its location was lost, too far from memories of being or machines. Only a name remained.

This planet and its dreams, its ghosts, left an impact on the beings, and they reached out to it. But they were forced to move on. The dreams would have to remain behind. Life was not here. Was there a planet there that they could take as there own? Maybe if they had found this one years ago, it would have been the right one. But it was a dying planet. No hope here.

Time to move on.

But they had been here. And they wanted something in the universe to know them, so they dropped a plaque, which plunged through the atmosphere and crashed into the ground. They could see the sand from the impact site, even as they pulled away, flying past the single gray moon that orbited the small, lost planet.

~~*~~

For all the souls exiled,

For all the dreams gone by,

This world stands for us.

For all the hearts decimated,

For all the worlds empty,

This world is for each of us.

For all the souls left bare,

For all the lives destroyed,

This world represents all life,

In any form.

Although we never met the beings of this planet, we call them Brother. They shared their dreams with us, as we wish we could with them. For each, his own. This world is our remembrance of the universe as it was. We, Exiled, weep for our Brothers. We proclaim to the universe, that we were here. That they were here.

The name long forgotten, we give this planet new life. We name this planet in honor of our home world, also long forgotten by the universe. The planet for which we search.

We name this planet: Earth.

~~*~~

Movement, the sands shifted, and the being rose, dusting himself off. The world had shaken so violently, and then the clouds of dust. He glanced again at the stars, wondering at the brightest one, which seemed to dim, even as he watched. The gift from the sky rested in a deep hole. He made a clicking noise with his tongue, and other people surfaced.

He was the first to slide down to the sand-covered object. It hissed and produced heat. The fallen star was no star at all, but a great block of metal. The others murmured amongst themselves. Do not touch. Dangerous.

But he saw the markings, and began to laugh. His people had almost forgotten the written language, but he was one of the oldest. He had heard the stories he had refused to share with others. He laughed, even as the others worried. They offered him a hand, but he pushed them away, and then read the words to them. They still did not understand the laughter.

"They were the Exiled!" He finally cried, "Exiled! Those from long ago, when this planet breathed! It is the greatest joke the universe has ever played on us!"

The others turned away, but still he laughed.

"The Exiled, searching for their home! The lost members of Humanity!" He laughed all the way back to his tribe, "The universe plays such wonderful jokes! We thought we were the end! But humanity will live forever…" his voice died down, and he grew serious, "As long as the Exiled search for the blue planet Earth...humans will live. Earth is not a beautiful blue planet anymore…that view exists now only as a dream."

Alright, that was another one-shot from yours truly. I don't really know about that last part, I was going to leave it out, but thought I'd explain things differently. I think it turned out pretty good, although not too sure. Let me know, should I drop the last part?

Oh, yeah, the title means 'exile' in Latin.

*^_^* Crystal Child