Comment fic - River
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: The characters and settings referred to here are not mine, they belong to Joss. No infringement is intended and no profit is made.
Author's note: Two short pieces written for prompts at comment_fic. geek_mama_2 was kind enough to look them over for me. The first is set before the movie, the second could be after.
River, "Invisible Monsters"
Once there was a girl who lived in a house, no monsters under her bed, below the stairs, peeking out, or in her head. She knew her science, equations by heart, and how to dance, the steps and techniques, but she didn’t know death, its faces, its hands.
Simon says, mèi mei, there’s nothing there, just brain-ghosts and left-behinds, and “You’re not there,” she echoes, covers her ears and closes her eyes, humming loud. Not hers, not real and not there. But it doesn’t always help and Simon, he can’t see what he’s never seen, never had to watch what they showed her, her mind going white, then blank on overload. Poor little mouse, almost gone, lost in a labyrinth of synapses, paths all rewired and booby-trapped. No wonder, not strange that she flinches at shadows.
Once there was a girl who went to a place, monsters wherever she turned, wherever she fled, peeking in, and they cling, they won’t go away.
River, building sand-castles on the beach
She knows: what she builds will crumble. Not yet, but soon the water will rise, inching up, dragging down and laying claim. The moat will fill, the towers fall, this castle come to sand. She doesn’t mind, it’s ebb and flow, the ocean’s pulse, she makes it pretty while it lasts, a bridge, there, and crenelations, an escape route for princesses with the will and rope. Salt is in her hair, grains between her toes and her clothes are dirty, her fingers smudged, crusty, like the beach-picked shells in her pocket, before she brushed them and blew. She’ll brush her hands clean too, when she’s done, cross her legs and watch the waves crash, basking in the moment she’s caught.
Disclaimer: The characters and settings referred to here are not mine, they belong to Joss. No infringement is intended and no profit is made.
Author's note: Two short pieces written for prompts at comment_fic. geek_mama_2 was kind enough to look them over for me. The first is set before the movie, the second could be after.
River, "Invisible Monsters"
Once there was a girl who lived in a house, no monsters under her bed, below the stairs, peeking out, or in her head. She knew her science, equations by heart, and how to dance, the steps and techniques, but she didn’t know death, its faces, its hands.
Simon says, mèi mei, there’s nothing there, just brain-ghosts and left-behinds, and “You’re not there,” she echoes, covers her ears and closes her eyes, humming loud. Not hers, not real and not there. But it doesn’t always help and Simon, he can’t see what he’s never seen, never had to watch what they showed her, her mind going white, then blank on overload. Poor little mouse, almost gone, lost in a labyrinth of synapses, paths all rewired and booby-trapped. No wonder, not strange that she flinches at shadows.
Once there was a girl who went to a place, monsters wherever she turned, wherever she fled, peeking in, and they cling, they won’t go away.
River, building sand-castles on the beach
She knows: what she builds will crumble. Not yet, but soon the water will rise, inching up, dragging down and laying claim. The moat will fill, the towers fall, this castle come to sand. She doesn’t mind, it’s ebb and flow, the ocean’s pulse, she makes it pretty while it lasts, a bridge, there, and crenelations, an escape route for princesses with the will and rope. Salt is in her hair, grains between her toes and her clothes are dirty, her fingers smudged, crusty, like the beach-picked shells in her pocket, before she brushed them and blew. She’ll brush her hands clean too, when she’s done, cross her legs and watch the waves crash, basking in the moment she’s caught.