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taxonomites2011-05-09 10:19 am
biverbam.livejournal.com) wrote in taxonomites2011-05-09 10:19 am
Entry tags:
梦见: [ location: serenity | accidental visual ]
River hasn't been sleeping, not well, not since Dawn, and when the tablet clicks on from its place amidst a haphazard pile of flowers to show Serenity's cargo bay.
Every few seconds she walks across the frame (step step heel turn step heel turn step turn step step step). She's holding her necklaces (one a cross, the other a locket of vervain) taut enough to dig in at the back of her neck but not hard enough to break, and if she'd hold still one might notice some impressive bags under her eyes.
It's been days. Multiples. She can see them stretching out in front of her nose, a snake of exponential progression winding into a giant coiled ball, growing and growing until mass present exceeds the limits of volume and everything breaks. Maybe that's how they'll get out, eventually. The city will be too full of snake-days and their husky skins to let the barriers stay in place...
River snorts an unamused little laugh as she turns back around. "That's not likely. Adjustments... It's thoroughly biodegradable husk."
A beat passes and she stops, heel on the ground and toes in the air ready to make another step. Any second now.
"Smells like a graveyard," is her only irritated observation before she's off again.
(Step step heel t urn step heel turn step turn step step step.)
Every few seconds she walks across the frame (step step heel turn step heel turn step turn step step step). She's holding her necklaces (one a cross, the other a locket of vervain) taut enough to dig in at the back of her neck but not hard enough to break, and if she'd hold still one might notice some impressive bags under her eyes.
It's been days. Multiples. She can see them stretching out in front of her nose, a snake of exponential progression winding into a giant coiled ball, growing and growing until mass present exceeds the limits of volume and everything breaks. Maybe that's how they'll get out, eventually. The city will be too full of snake-days and their husky skins to let the barriers stay in place...
River snorts an unamused little laugh as she turns back around. "That's not likely. Adjustments... It's thoroughly biodegradable husk."
A beat passes and she stops, heel on the ground and toes in the air ready to make another step. Any second now.
"Smells like a graveyard," is her only irritated observation before she's off again.
(Step step heel t urn step heel turn step turn step step step.)
[ voice ]
River?
[ visual ]
They're funereal.
[ voice to visual ]
[ and elena switches the function she's broadcasting in, trying to get a better look at the room river's in. (it's not clear how switching the function she's broadcasting in would help her do that, but maybe being able to see who she's talking to will help.) if river cares to look, she can see the dark circles and worry lines around elena's eyes, the mussed-up hair and downturned mouth. ]
Are you safe?
[ she's heard about dawn. she knows better than to ask 'all right'. ]
[ visual ]
Locked the doors.
[ it's as safe as river can get, and she goes back to pacing. ]
[ visual ]
Good.
[ pause. ]
If you need any company...
[ she's got her hands a bit full what with jenna and caroline's arrival, but she wants river to know she's there for her if she needs someone to be. ]
[ visual ]
Company isn't-- [ annoyed huff. ] Already forced proximity to the problem.
[ and she frowns, points at some random molecule of air and looks off at the distance. ]
Proximity isn't the problem. It's forced. Relational positioning...
[ with that, an an aggravated sounding grunt, it looks like she loses her train of thought and the pacing becomes stomping. ]
[action]
It's been pretty easy to ignore her in this place, since they're grounded and neither of them are trapped on the ship all day, but every so often they appear at the same place at the same time and she spouts her jibberish, he makes small talk, though God knows why he bothers, and they go their separate ways again.
He turns and starts for the stairs. Kaylee's been keeping herself busy lately and Jayne hasn't seen hide nor hair of her, so it's just the girl and himself. As long as she's not hiding a machete somewhere on her, which isn't likely seeing as she weighs 90 lbs. soaking wet, he thinks he'll be all right.
When she speaks, he inhales deeply and shrugs, still coming down the stairs. "Smells fine in here to me."
[action]
Left, right, forward, left, twisting the necklaces against the movement. It steadies her like a placebo counterbalance weighing against the alternative. The gravity, a shift in equilibrium, the fall and laying down and sleep and nightmares.
"Put you under and it," she pauses, looks at the flowers, frowns, continues, "...piles. We're buried."
[action]
"I don't know 'bout you, but I ain't buried 'neath no fertilizer." He shakes his head and continues over towards his weights. He left the area a bit of a mess and he wants to get everything squared away before Kaylee comes around to scold him.
[action]
[action]
"Ain't my fault you're a jumbled mess. Should just take your craziness elsewhere and leave me in peace."
[action]
She stops with a horrified, desperate little wail to stare at her hands and then furiously try to wipe the scent and pollen off on her dress.
[action]
"Just... take a gorram breath, girl." he tries, not really expecting her to listen. "Now, what is it? Yer hands are dirty? You can just go in the bathroom and wash 'em. All right? No call for raisin' a fuss."
[action]
"They made her into a coffin-- Put rot inside and you don't even see it."
[ yěmánrén - barbarian ]
[action]
[action]
[action]
[action]
[action]
[action]
[action]
[ visual ]
[ angela is trying to be helpful, in her way. river's obviously troubled about something, and though she doesn't know the girl very well, she doesn't want to ignore the transmission. ]
What's going on?
[ visual ]
It's cancerous.
[ visual ]
[ the word makes her think briefly of john, and she wonders if he's all right back at home. she knows he'd been healed, somehow, but in his line of work his or someone else's life was always on the line. angela doesn't know dawn, but she's heard about someone recently having been glitched into a vampire. she doesn't know that the two cases are related. ]
What can I do?
[ if anything. ]
[ visual ]
[ it's practical advice, with a vampire on the loose. kind of pithy when that vampire is your best friend, but river manages with what she can. ]
And don't breathe through your nose. It's noxious. [ said with a disgusted gesture toward the flowers. ]
[ location ] i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
River, who he found by following the sounds of a heartbeat beating far too fast - like some cornered and afraid; like someone who was being hunted and knew they were prey - and was currently flinching in her sleep in a way Stefan wasn't comfortable with continuing to watch.
He shakes her - gently at first, one hand on one shoulder accompanied by her name, his, and an urging for her to awaken. When nothing happens, he tries again, a little rougher, but not so much as to hurt her in the hopes of jostling her awake from what appears to be a bad dream.
"River. River, wake up. It's Stefan. River."
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
Stefan may be shaking her but he doesn't wake up.
Her frown deepens, face pinched and distressed. Her throat twitches like she's trying to swallow but forgot how. Her eyes are darting beneath her eyelids like pinballs and her hands are eerily still against all this movement.
A sharp intake of breath. A swallow not-swallow. A slow exhale while her head cranes back against the metal floor then lolls to the side.
She still doesn't wake up.
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
He releases his hold on her once he's removed her necklace, moving away to sit against the opposite wall; he doesn't need to be close, after all. Concentrating, Stefan focuses in on River. It's like compulsion, only instead of forcing your way through the walls of a person's consciousness, you simply find a backdoor and slip inside, unnoticed.
Door found, Stefan enters her subconsciousness. He intends to step in and pull her back into the world of the awake, but what he finds once he steps inside is not what he expected.
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
A thin layer of sand over hardwood. Smells antiseptic and white on top, trickles down beneath the cracks in some spots but the volume never changes. Walls are there-not-there, great flat hallways of sand and the whine of drills behind each door.
Her feet thunk-skisssh as she walks.
(Somewhere something is dead, crawled inside the floorboards all mummified and dusty old with neglect. There were no oils or brains or burials just that corner, that spot no one sees as the sand seeps in but goes nowhere.)
Her feet thunk-skissssh as she walks.
There are hands at the ends of her arms, hands she forgot she had, purple evil things that do evil deeds. The blue and the blood that stains the gray she's wearing wherever she touches it and leeches up her arms in slow spindly reaching.
(thunk-skisssh)
Her mouth is open but all that comes out is a rush of sea-foam that trickles down but goes nowhere.
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
"River!" He shouts, gripping at the walls that come and go as they please, eventually finding his footing again.
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
When River turns to look at Stefan the sea-foam is gone. There's something on (in) her forehead like a giant insect with the purple from her hands creeping up her shoulder, winding up her neck like a blooming bruise. There are splatters of blood on her and a metal serving platter in her hand but she doesn't know where they came from.
"Shhh."
Behind her there are clunks like falling dominoes as the doors lock and the endless hallway bends out of sight. There are clunks like falling dominoes of feet moving closer.
Eyes wide and panicked she whispers, "Run," right into his ear from twenty paces away and takes off.
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
What he does takes longer than it should, but it's been years - decades, even - since Stefan's done this, and there's something about River's mind that feels almost elastic. He pulls, but instead of there being slack and give, there's resistance like tugging on rubber. He has to focus and pull, putting all of his effort into it in order to drag the scenes spun by River's mind to him and weave them into something else entirely. While Stefan was originally going to recreate something familiar to River from Taxon, it's taking too much out of him and falls back on default, taking something from his own mind and applying it to River's, something he can easily throw together without much thought or effort: Veritas.
River will now find herself standing outside of great plantation house, the air hot and thick as it was in the days before the land was covered in more buildings than the Earth was meant to hold. Stefan sits on the steps to his childhood home, calm and as if being here is the most natural thing in the world.
"You don't need to run."
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;
i try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone;