taxonomites | [Accidental Visual | Location: the streets of Osten]

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[Accidental Visual | Location: the streets of Osten]

Godric is walking leisurely down the street toward Fangtasia when the music swells up around him. He stops and looks around, briefly perplexed before becoming alarmed. Oh no. This glitch has been affecting everyone else, and now it seems it's his turn. Before he can swear, the song rises up in his throat and escapes in an pleasant melody. He wouldn't win American Idol, but he can sing.

We're bound to wait all night
She's bound to run amok
Invested enough in it anyhow,
To each his own
The Garden is sorting out
She curls her lips on a bow
I don't know if you're dead or not
To anyone

Come on and get the minimum
Before you open up your eyes,
This army has so many heads
To analyze...
Come on and get your overdose
Collect it at the borderline
And they want to get up in your head...

At first, the song seems fairly innocuous, the metaphors up to interpretation. And then abruptly, things start hitting too close to home for Godric.

Cause they know and so do I
The high road is hard to find
A detour in your new life
Tell all of your friends goodbye

The dawn to end all nights
That's all we hoped it was
A break from the warfare in your house
To each his own...
A soldier is bailing out
And curled his lips on the barrel
And I don't know if the dead can talk
To anyone...

It's hard not to choke on the words, his expression becoming increasingly disturbed.

Come on and get the minimum
Before you open up your eyes
This army has so many hands
Are you one of us?
Come on and get your overdose
Collect it at the borderline
And they want to get up in your head

Cause they know and so do I
The high road is hard to find
A detour to your new life
Tell all of your friends goodbye

It's too late to change your mind
You let loss be your guide...

It's too late to change your mind
You let loss be your guide...

It's too late to change your mind
You let loss be your guide...

It's too late to change your mind
You let loss be your guide...

As the music fades away, Godric doesn't move. He remains where he stopped, perfectly still. It's impossible to tell what he's thinking.

[Here's the song if you'd like to listen.]

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"Sol."

With her hand back at her side, she starts pacing to give that impulse to move buzzing just under her skin a way to quiet itself. "Others. Go and leave... Cracks. The empty spaces but nothing here is a vacuum."

Solomon. He hadn't known the man well, but they'd been making progress on that front, and Godric had been fond enough of what he'd known. He looks distant and sad at the thought that they will no longer speak of temples. He's sad too, for River, who has lost a surrogate father.

"...Leila?" The two had been a pair, and if she's still here, she's probably in mourning. If not...

If not, they have bigger troubles. Alarm bells start ringing in Godric's mind as he remembers that it's only Leila who has been keeping the Doctor in line.

There's a pause and then a nod as the pacing gets more frantic. Her hands bunch and unbunch in the fabric of her skirt and she stills herself randomly, so that her movement isn't much more than a series of unsure steps, but her eyes manage to stay on Godric's face.

"Two... Two by two in an ark and it's a third--," and she almost laughs as she wraps her arms around her middle and leans forward. "Fourth of the sequence and it just gets bigger."

It's Godric who reaches out this time, holding her arms gently to still her and calm her.

"Shhh, Litten Amiral, making yourself frantic will do no good." He takes her ranting as a 'yes,' though, and resolves to do something about it as soon as possible. But River is a higher priority than the Doctor in Godric's book.

River can see his hands, understand their how and why, that she needs to be kept still because she can't manage stillness herself, but her first instinct is to flinch backwards once he has a hold of her. Then she glares.

"Jag er inte en smula barnen."

It's a small moment, defiant and angry, and it fades quickly into a nod as she sways to one side and looks through the space over Godric's left shoulder.

[jag er inte en smula barnen - I am not a child]

For his part, Godric is only mildly taken aback, and his lips twitch upwards at the defiance. It's good to see, for many reasons, and he doesn't hold her too tightly. She's free to move, if she wants to.

"Jag veta du er inte." It's clear she isn't a child. All her moments of child-like behavior are tempered by a greater awareness that is decidedly not childish.

"Ibland jämn Jag nöd hjälp till finna lugna." His gesture was not intended to belittle.

["I know you're not." "Sometimes even I need help to find calm."]

She can move, so she sways. Not purposeful, just the remnants of pacing, kinetic energy and a pendulum just swinging in her head. Her head nods and her eyes stay just off Godric's face; it's still disconcerting to see eyes with everything behind them and nothing she can see.

"I know," more nodding, and she looks at his chin. "You sang about death." Slowly, her eyes move to look instead at his ear.

There was something she was supposed to say, but River can't quite get it back. "Decimation came with a band-aid for the canyon, but the offer was refused."

"Yes, I did." He sang about death, and he's not sure why.

Godric is silent for a few heartbeats as he attempts to figure out what River just said. Arranging River's metaphors into coherent sense is like putting together a puzzle that's missing pieces. Godric takes the usual steps, getting as far along as he can guess without assistance:

- An offer was refused (presumably by River)
- Said offer had something to do with band-aids (not actual band-aids, but healing aids, fixes, insufficient to cover a wound?)
- The band-aid was for a canyon (not an actual canyon, but the wound; the band-aid was definitely insufficient)
- Said insufficient offer which was refused was offered by Decimation (a person, apparently not a pleasant one)

This all leads Godric to ask the first, most pertinent question.

"Who is Decimation?" He watches River avoid his eyes, but it doesn't bother him. It's probably a wise thing to do around a vampire of his type, in any case.

"He's not allowed inside."

And River risks that seasickness of looking in his eyes this time, because this is important. This is important and somewhere in the back of her mind she's afraid and it's not a name, she can't answer with the name, but it's a good sized puzzle piece at least.

Again, it takes a few moments, but soon enough, it clicks. His expression darkens.

"The Master. He offered you..." What? A band-aid? What would he seek to-- The comprehension floods his face all at once, but he looks to her for confirmation. "He offered to heal you?"

Almost immediately, he realizes that 'heal' is probably not the proper verb to describe whatever the Master might have suggested, but it's close enough for going on with.

There's a nod, sure and short, and her eyes drift away again to somewhere on his jaw, though River doesn't really see it.

"To make nonvolatile or solid," she says with another nod. "To fix."

She stops swaying, holds herself still like she's trying it on for size. Being still, one state without fluctuations and shifts, but she can still feel the molecules and cells (they never lie down) so she starts again.

"He isn't to be trusted."

"No, he is not." That's sure enough. If he used River once, how can he be trusted to delve into her mind again?

"Even if he can fix you, which may be a lie, allowing him into your mind leaves you open and vulnerable. He could do anything he pleases. I'm glad you refused." But it has him thinking now, and even he's not entirely comfortable with where his thoughts are going. Godric has touched River's mind once before, and he knows that to put her back together and make her whole again is a feat beyond him. However...

"Litten Amiral..." He hesitates. What he's about to propose is no small thing. "Fixing you is not something I can do, but in some small way, I may be able to help you fix yourself. All I'm capable of is implanting suggestions to help guide you, but I would not harm you, or manipulate you in any way you don't approve of, if you decide you want to try."

He can't glamour her too many times, but applied correctly and in the right manner, it could help River Tam start putting the pieces back together.

There are many things in Taxon for River to be afraid of.

This is the first time Godric has fallen so hard into that category.

It's instinct. After too many cooks in the kitchen the prospect of someone else, even if the goal is to straighten instead of take away, is terrifying. Implanting suggestions, building cabinets, constructing dams. This wouldn't be the first time; there are very few of those left in her mind. But River can already feel a nod on the tip of her chin, feel wanting the walls back and the straight lines and how everything had been simple so that when Simon comes back (there is no question because he will, he has to, it's what he does and she's resigned herself to this place) he can see his sister as better.

She can't see intent in the seasick dissonance.

She can't figure out how the equation is supposed to be solved.

She needs an advocate.

She needs Simon.

"No," and River is rearing like a spooked horse, stepping back and nudging the boundaries to see just where they lie. "Know, it's not..."

There is more sway, more nudging the edges and not looking anywhere even close to his face. Shoulders are safer, shoulders and chest and arms and the ground outside them.

"Too many doctors," she says and squeezes her eyes shut because maybe seeing nothing is better, "and the sleep cycle is an important part of the process."

Godric watches River rear back and doesn't move. He's spooked her, clearly, and he won't make it worse. In some way, he can even understand her fear, even if she'd never had anyone in her mind before him.

"Then I won't," he responds softly but firmly. "I won't ever do anything without your permission. I promise you, River. I will only do what you request, and if you request nothing, then I will do nothing. Your mind is safe in my company."

Well, except perhaps on the rare occasion when someone's gone in before him and ordered her to attack people, but that's an extenuating circumstance if there ever was one. Even now, thinking back, Godric isn't sure they had much other choice but to glamour her out of it. It had definitely been the most expedient solution.

There are exceptions to every rule. Especially when there's a high chance of injury on all sides.

But she keeps moving, bouncing inside the barriers like a pinball. The cessation of movement is dangerous. It has consequences and pits and pitfalls and bumps in the road waiting for the moment you stop paying attention and River has no plans at the moment to stop. Not right now.

"Don't make me sleep," and she's going for commanding and self-assured even though there's no small amount of keen at the edges of her voice. "Not time yet. Not the time or the place."

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[Accidental Visual | Location: the streets of Osten]

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[ location: osten streets ]

[ location: osten streets ]

[ location: osten streets ]

[ location: osten streets ]

[ location: osten streets ]

[ location: osten streets ]

[ location: osten streets ]

[ location: osten streets ]

[ location: osten streets ]

[ location: osten streets ]

[ location: osten streets ]

[ location: osten streets ]

[ location: osten streets ]

[ location: osten streets ]