cape_kore | River Tam | Day 64

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River Tam | Day 64 | Video

[ Sometime before dawn the video clicks on, though it might not be terribly obvious at first; a night like this in a place with such little artificial light means that the video begins terribly dark, but eventually it focuses to show the strange constellations in the sky above Cape Kore. ]

Good morning. May God give you a good morning, adios, good bye, vas a Dios, you go with God, so it has always been attributed to higher and distant and foreign powers, that there is no control to be had over our spinning through the 'verse. Trapped on a rock, in a dream, trapped and here we are, back to ourselves.

Worse for wear. Damaged, cracked, broken, missing pieces, missing tunes, missing bones, missing missing missing...

Some of you are new, agitated and angry and odd like all the others. Why are you here? We don't know. How do you go home? We don't know but she can tell you, she can tell you this...

When you go you are taken and when you are taken it is sudden, and when it is sudden it sets the entire axis to spin in the wrong direction.

[ She sighs. A hand moves to blot out some of the stars, fingers spreading a bit to let the light back through, but not all of it. ]

If God is here then God is trapped along with all the other rats in the maze.

Come on new voices. Come on and upheave your suffering, vent your frustrations, scream to the sky. Make noise that we may be able to better identify the new notes, she and I, make noise so that she may be better able to say goodbye when you're gone if she remains.

Announce yourselves, oh friends of mine, that she may feel reassured you haven't gone to dust like the carbon in starts that sits in our very bones, the iron and silver and atoms that are only as close as they will ever be. Nothing ever touches.

Announce yourselves for I am tired and angry and will set my soul to wounded hearts like the anchor and she won't be tracking you all down today. No, not today.

So much happens from sunset to sunrise. So much happens during the day. So much happens in so few hours, a handful of moments and it may be a miracle we haven't set the woods alight.

Why haven't we?!

[ Private to: Steve Rogers ]

Would you like a list? The dead and the missing?

There was a murder and there are several who did not wake in their beds.

[ Private to: Daneel ]

You have been a good friend to Ned. Thank you thank you thank you.

This means you have to keep yourself whole. Do you fight? Can you fight?

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River.

[ As much as he wishes he could dive into obscurity and vanish forever he couldn't possibly do that to her. When they had met she had been like a piece missing in the jigsaw of his life and now when he's wounded and aching and horrified at himself he needs to assure himself that she will be fine. ]

Are you safe?

[ Charles gets River in a mental rush, more water than burning star at this hour, because she was worried and because she knows Erik and Raven are gone. Unfortunately this also means she encounters the source of his personal horror and nearly drowns herself in a sudden flurry of emotional response that she has to create some distance from before she can actually frame a response.

Charles is her friend; so is Ned. She is disgusted and horrified and saddened, and it makes her limbs ache. She presses the heels of her hands to her eyes until there are more stars to join the ones in the sky. ]

Every cell is where it belongs.

[ She's coming over. ]

You don't have to.

[ He knows she knows and perhaps he would rather she reacted with scorn - with anger - because it is what he deserves. Charles has been holding himself back for so long that he thought he was above something like this - had refused aid from Dr. Banner simply because he assumed he was better at it than most.

His hands curl at his side where he sits on Erik's bed and mourns. ] I just wanted to make sure you were all right. Or as all right as you could be.

This is not a negotiation, she is incurring a dictatorship for the well being of all.

[ She makes her way off the roof. Does he really want her scorn, her anger? Because she imagines it could rend flesh from bone and leave the latter bleached in the sunlight of the desert. ]

Nearly killed a man for less, for containment not near death and now you know.

Hubris has made a fool of you, Charles, please say you've learned.

Please.

[ He deserves no less.

He thinks of the flowers in the kitchen but shields his thoughts from her as though he can keep the horror contained. ] I am well aware, River.

[ He is tired, his hands pressing into the sheets of Erik's bed as though he could feel him through them. ] I have been a fool, thinking I could control something like that. It took me years to be able to protect from my telepathy but I thought it would take mere days to keep the need at bay. I know what I am.

[ She walks slowly down the path between her home and his, face tilted towards the sky. People need to know what they are, need to know what they're capable of, need to know their strengths and weaknesses still. What are hers? That she feels too much and not enough at all sometimes.

She wishes she'd been there to stop it. ] Will you ask his forgiveness?

You're you, and a fool, and he's alive. [ Is it enough? Maybe. ]

So now we know.

Of course I will. I'll do whatever I can to atone for what I did.

[ Even if he never does manage it. He can't think of what would be good enough. He almost killed him. In essence he had. Ned's heart had stopped. Charles had taken a life. ]

Now we know.

[ River doesn't like that Charles has to be added to this list, this concept of people who under certain circumstances hurt Ned, but she wasn't there, and there wasn't anything to be done for it. It can't be set aside, not exactly, but it can be classified as there, and dangerous, and nothing River can do a blessed thing about right now. ]

Let me in, I'll make you food.

[ She's not that far and she could just break in but someone has to make sure Charles eats. ]

[ He doesn't want to fight with River, can't because she has a special place in his heart that wouldn't do to be shattered right now. He couldn't bear it. So while he doesn't communicate with her any further she probably gets the distinct impression of movement in his mind, of someone leaving a room to unlock a door and then step back.

His fingers stray near the metal lock for a minute and he lets out a stray breath before taking a post on the stairs to wait for her, his arm around his knees and plucking at a stray thread. ]

[ When River arrives she hovers in the doorway slightly, taking in Charles' posture, his location on the stairs, before turning towards the kitchen and busying herself in that room.

It makes sense that Charles would avoid it; the carpet is missing and River doesn't want to know why (she knows, she can't help but know between both Ned and Charles, but she doesn't want to admit knowing right now).

Toast happens. Two eggs. Mint tea. Whatever she can identify from ancient looking spice shakers that don't make her sneeze. Erik is better at this, River thinks, this pushing onwards with what is necessary when the heart is broken and the mind is tired - Mal is better at it too, would know what to say that would force Charles to sigh and stop hiding in his own skin, but River ...even knowing, River doesn't always know what to say, what to do, how to be more comforting and less of a burden.

Because she can't, won't, isn't going to say to Charles look you must pull yourself together or we'll both fray apart. She can't hold on to her anger at what happened to Ned any more than she can hold on to any emotion, right now - she feels like a sieve with too many holes stretched out through time and it's probably dangerous and possibly short-lived but it is, and it worries her that it is.

Only she can't hold on to that worry for very long, either.

Whatever happens - if Charles falls off the edge he's precariously balanced upon or if River jumps first - she'll be there, she has to be, and he'll be there, because he doesn't want to lose another thing and that's ...

Well. It's not good but it is, much like she suspects the eggs aren't good but they are in existence and intended to be eaten. So she presents this halfhearted breakfast to Charles without a word, making sure he takes at least two bites for her one before she sighs and leans against him, head on his shoulder. ]

Sorry is such a stupid, hollow word.

[ He balances the plate on his knees and leans back against her in much the same way. It's hard to talk but he doesn't want to use his mind at all now that she's here and in person, all he wants to do is let it settle, let his thoughts remain unbidden. ]

It was only a matter of time. [ But to what - the breaking of his core or losing Erik and Raven he doesn't elaborate. ]

When we were small, Raven and I taught each other how to make eggs. [ His voice light. ] We had a cook but there was something soothing about providing for each other. I'm surprised we didn't make ourselves sick. [ Chewing as he cuts his toast up and offers her some. ] One day I'll make you egg and soldiers, if you'll let me. I think you'll like it.

[ To both, River suspects, but she knows she'd said something quite similar to herself, once; it was only a matter of time before she gave up on Simon coming to get her, only a matter of time before the last part of her broke, only a matter of time before that crack worked to shatter her completely.

Suffering and loss are only a matter of time. ]

Good for her. Good for you to have that. Someone to chase that empty sadness away. [ Plucking the offered piece of toast into her mouth. ]

Is a soldier a sausage? [ She's purely guessing. ]

No.

[ He grins. ] It's toast. You cut it into strips. Then you make an egg but you keep it in its shell. It's soft. My nanny would call it a dippy egg. We had special egg cups painted like the queen's guard.

[ Thinking of Raven sets an ache in his throat but he doesn't push it away. ] Raven coming to me was the reason I first used my telepathy with any sort of insistence. I had to make them believe she belonged there with me.

[ River cants her head a bit, smiling. She can't imagine it but she gets the image of it from Charles' description. ]

Would want to try that. [ Or anything Charles could manage cooking, really.

If he can stand being in the kitchen. ]

It worked. It was better. [ She knows that. Better for Charles, better for Raven. ] She'll be waiting for you back home.

I hope so.

[ Wrapping his arms around himself, his plate balanced easily. ] I hope they're both safe.

[ River can't echo the sentiment. Hope is a stupid and fragile thing for her, one that reality laughs in the face of every single breathing moment. She constructs faith instead, faith fueled by knowing, only here?

Here she doesn't know much and it shows. ]

What is safety?

Now that's a question I don't know the answer to.

[ He'd love to understand, to be able to give River the answers she needs. ]

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River Tam | Day 64 | Video

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