02 || River Tam || Day 55

[enchangement]

The air tastes strange. [ River knows the video is on but she's not looking at it, allowing instead for the broadcast to show the hallway of house seventeen in the waning afternoon light.

An arm reaches out and a door swings open to a bedroom. Bed rumpled and several books scattered around but otherwise empty.

They took him and she doesn't know when. They took a note, the whole song is wrong now.

[ River sounds exhausted. ]

The air tastes strange. All the notes should be careful and keep themselves in tune.

Comments

video;

[facilitated]

[ Worried Laura is worried, so she replies quickly to this. Within seconds her feed flicks on, and she's locking curiously at the bedroom. ]

River, are you okay? Who's gone?

video;

[enchangement]

Mmmmmnrh. The worst question you know better than that.

They took Darwin.

video;

[facilitated]

[ Oh, Christ. That explains a lot. It takes a moment to force an encouraging smile on her face - people are going missing at an alarming rate, and for all their searching, they still haven't found Party and KK. She has to try, though. ]

How long has he been gone? We can start looking now, he might not have gone.

video;

[enchangement]

He's not here, I've looked, I've stood and I've looked and all his particles have been swept clean.

video;

[facilitated]

[ it's kind of hard to stay cheery and optimistic when she knows River, knows some of what the girl is capable of. She's not going to patronise her with more promises of hope, just gives a small nod. ]

I'm...I'm sorry. Some people go home, he might have gone home. That's...good, right?

video;

[enchangement]

[ River makes a soft clicking sound with her tongue. ]

A truer fairy tale from ancient and past and gone. There are no happy endings in those. The dead stay dead.