River Tam | Day 64 | Video

[enchangement]

[ 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?

Comments

[hexappeal]

It's not science at all. They're two very different things. If anything, magic came first; Chaos and Order have no place on a table of elements. [But she likes the last part. You can hear it in her voice.] Magic is whatever the caster makes it and sometimes, what the people around make of it. Magic itself inherently has no alignment.

Maybe it isn't creative, but it's still a good name.

[enchangement]

Is magic then a natural native force, dictated only by context and accessible only to a few?

Everyone she likes says it. [ You're in good company Zatanna. ]

[hexappeal]

I probably couldn't describe it any better than you just did. [Magic is and magic isn't. That's the best way to describe it, really. But that's not detailed enough.]

She being you?

[enchangement]

There's nothing like that where she comes from.

Yes. Usually. A variable distance in a difference of pronouns but that's all they are. She's an entire thing.

[hexappeal]

Some realities don't have it, that's true.

I would hope you are! It might be difficult to deal with if you were half a person. [Heh, a little chuckle.] Do you prefer "you" or "she"?

[enchangement]

You to me. She about me.

Same as most? Not a preference, more a quick, a function of rotten gears.

[hexappeal]

Seems like the gears are working just fine to me.

[enchangement]

She used to be different, she used to sound more like everyone else, but ...

You're sweet.

How is settling into our experiment by the seaside?

[hexappeal]

Being like everyone else is overrated. Take pride in uniqueness.

Hrm, well, I suppose. I'd like it better if there were a greeting committee; do I just take up residence wherever I please? Things all look kind of lived-in... [She'll probably build herself something nice eventually, either way.]

[enchangement]

There were lives before and lives in the interim now lost, gone, forever perhaps or maybe just until tomorrow.

Everything is second-hand, even the greeting. Take up where you wish? No one will stop you.

[hexappeal]

Then we'll just have to wait and see about that, won't we? Tomorrow is always another day. [Ugh, Zee.]

So I can just waltz on in and inherit another person's life? How lovely. [Her voice doesn't match her words. If anything, she's uncomfortable with the prospect.]

[enchangement]

Exactly. If the lives were even real to begin with. Hard to say, hard to know.

Everything is in transience here.

[hexappeal]

Reality can be subjective. [So as to say that she doesn't seem to be bothered by literally any of this.]

That seems an apt way to put it. I'm not exactly against that.

[enchangement]

Especially to minds fractured and stressed upon.

There is flux by choosing and flux by force. This is a case of mostly the latter. Some of the houses find themselves with more space, now.

[hexappeal]

Happen to know which ones? I could use a place to crash. [She almost adds "sweetpea," to it, but it's a little soon and she suspects much like any teenager? She won't much care for it.]

[enchangement]

4 9 12 13 17 18.

[ She thinks of house seven, but ...no she must be confused, or distracted, or something else is going on. ]

Those are the ones.

She lives in the penultimate but don't worry. The tightropestretches far and she keeps her balance.

[hexappeal]

You in the market for a roomie, then? [Riddles aren't her thing. You can only go so far with magical philosophy, you know?]

[enchangement]

The rooms here are empty, the introduction is made. Why not, why not?

Sometimes she sleeps elsewhere. Only sometimes.

[hexappeal]

That's mildly depressing. Where are you at? You can give me a grand tour. [She'll even make dinner. You know, assuming there's foodstuffs.]

[enchangement]

Penultimate. Seventeen.

Later, when the sun is lower, she'll be home. Have to check up on other people first.

[hexappeal]

Then I'll be there after that. I'm not just going to waltz on in and make myself comfortable. [That's exactly what she's going to do.]

[enchangement]

Will you tango instead? Perhaps samba.

[hexappeal]

I could do both. Is there a preference? I could also jitterbug...

[enchangement]

[ River laughs. ]

There are no locks. No purpose in a cage this large. Welcome, welcome. 

[hexappeal]

Oh, I could think of a few reasons... [Don't ask, you already know.]