For justprompts: Tea Leaves
Image prompt from post 4/16-4/30 (09):
"What do you see?"
There was something wrong with his tone (inflection deflation modulation and pitch), but River couldn't figure what it was. Not exactly. He smelled like Earl Gray, or maybe it was the light that did, and she could feel the poke against her head and the smooth of latex holding things in place.
It was a dream. She couldn't be sure, she never was, but it felt like one. Real and blurred, sudden with being all wrong and right at the same time, but too wrong to be as real as realness was.
Dream of a memory, maybe. Memories of maybies.
Interviews and needles had never happened at the same time.
But maybe there was a reason. More cost effective.
Cost...
Costly. Something had been costly. It was all on the tip of her tongue, pricked and swollen, but she couldn't grasp it. Her hands were fastened to the arms of her chair (her bed the infirmary Inara's shuttle someone's in the cargo bay and a body somewhere was wearing very strong perfume) and her fingers could only strain and writhe against themselves and the watery nothing of the air.
"What do you see, River?"
And she squinted into the cup he was holding, and when she spoke she tasted honey. Something, someone-- There was a smell of copper in the air.
"Someone was very, very... Bad. Naughty children don't get treats. Never get-- Treated?" She weighed it, considered it, then tossed it aside. "No. Treatments."
River watched her words move up, blueish-purple smoke that tickled her nose before it accumulated at the ceiling, formed clouds, and started to rain. For once she knew what she meant, if not why or when, and would've smiled but for the ink staining her dress.
Simon would be livid. Another thing ruined, and she could feel a fish flop into her hair and burrow between bits of coral and an anemone that had blue eyes and was speaking all of Sycorax's lines.
But her hands were free and River wiped the drops away. Invisifying ink. It faded and sucked itself into her skin like she was a sponge as she watched, eyes wide and searching (veins spots maps left turns wrong turnabouts) for where, exactly, they thought they were going.
-----
Sitting but slumped, forehead against bulkhead, River was curled just enough that her back was flush with Serenity's hull in the little corner she'd eked out for herself hours before. Weeks without adequate sleep and nights full of side-effects and wandering had caught up with her while the crew unloaded their cargo a few yards away. Pallets with smaller crates were stacked, sides bearing the same logo most any processed cargo had, and carrying all manner of assorted sundries. Simple but fancified supplies that would fetch good prices and thanks instead of fuss when the time came that they be sold. Once and again she'd flinch at the sound of crates breaking and opening so smaller packages could be pulled out to fit into the niches and nooks around her, but for the most part she slept.
"What do you see?"
There was something wrong with his tone (inflection deflation modulation and pitch), but River couldn't figure what it was. Not exactly. He smelled like Earl Gray, or maybe it was the light that did, and she could feel the poke against her head and the smooth of latex holding things in place.
It was a dream. She couldn't be sure, she never was, but it felt like one. Real and blurred, sudden with being all wrong and right at the same time, but too wrong to be as real as realness was.
Dream of a memory, maybe. Memories of maybies.
Interviews and needles had never happened at the same time.
But maybe there was a reason. More cost effective.
Cost...
Costly. Something had been costly. It was all on the tip of her tongue, pricked and swollen, but she couldn't grasp it. Her hands were fastened to the arms of her chair (her bed the infirmary Inara's shuttle someone's in the cargo bay and a body somewhere was wearing very strong perfume) and her fingers could only strain and writhe against themselves and the watery nothing of the air.
"What do you see, River?"
And she squinted into the cup he was holding, and when she spoke she tasted honey. Something, someone-- There was a smell of copper in the air.
"Someone was very, very... Bad. Naughty children don't get treats. Never get-- Treated?" She weighed it, considered it, then tossed it aside. "No. Treatments."
River watched her words move up, blueish-purple smoke that tickled her nose before it accumulated at the ceiling, formed clouds, and started to rain. For once she knew what she meant, if not why or when, and would've smiled but for the ink staining her dress.
Simon would be livid. Another thing ruined, and she could feel a fish flop into her hair and burrow between bits of coral and an anemone that had blue eyes and was speaking all of Sycorax's lines.
But her hands were free and River wiped the drops away. Invisifying ink. It faded and sucked itself into her skin like she was a sponge as she watched, eyes wide and searching (veins spots maps left turns wrong turnabouts) for where, exactly, they thought they were going.
-----
Sitting but slumped, forehead against bulkhead, River was curled just enough that her back was flush with Serenity's hull in the little corner she'd eked out for herself hours before. Weeks without adequate sleep and nights full of side-effects and wandering had caught up with her while the crew unloaded their cargo a few yards away. Pallets with smaller crates were stacked, sides bearing the same logo most any processed cargo had, and carrying all manner of assorted sundries. Simple but fancified supplies that would fetch good prices and thanks instead of fuss when the time came that they be sold. Once and again she'd flinch at the sound of crates breaking and opening so smaller packages could be pulled out to fit into the niches and nooks around her, but for the most part she slept.