Doctor Who and the Great Eclipse - part 6 - Blue
Part Six
Blue
The cargo bay that looked close was farther a walk than the docking pilot could have imagined. It appeared near, but the sheer size of the detached bay deceived the eye into thinking that it was smaller and less distant than it really was. The thoughts kept circling in her head as variations on the theme as she trudged through burnt alien soil that shifted under her feet like rocky sand making every step an exercise in not falling flat on her face. A walking stick might have been a good idea.
They ended up walking until her lungs burned and her legs ached. Behind her Paris wheezed something horrid. She really, almost, felt bad for him, but then, if this was his cargo then he lucked out. Certainly he had more luck than Owens did already. She eyed the cargo bay and noticed that the light seemed to find holes in the hull and pierce though the shadows with pinprick brightness that had no visible cause. Of course, she couldn’t find cause for any of this.
It was just uncanny that even one of the cargo holds managed to come down this close to the bulk of the rest of the ship. It was even stranger that the Hunter-Gratzner's forward bays hadn’t hit it as they slid past on the final touchdown. This compartment was one of three double bays, and the last one that they picked up this trip, if the Chinese graffiti that hadn’t fully burned off during entry was any indication. Which would mean that the other cargo containers might be located in the opposite direction. But how far was anyone’s guess.
Somehow the entire thing had landed nearly intact and was in better shape than hull scrap she’d ridden down. Hopefully the cargo inside wouldn’t be smashed to pieces. The twin suns had crept ever so slowly toward the horizon, giving the impression of very, very long days here. From the moment she had realized that there was nothing to drink every second seemed critical. Hours could have and likely did pass with the suns just hanging suspended in the sky. They had moved though, according to Johns. She just hadn’t been aware of it.
The hike to the cargo bay left her winded. She sure hoped to heaven that there was something to drink here. If there wasn’t they wouldn’t last another day. Johns and Imam worked together to force the door open. The bay was tilted at an angle like one corner hit first and embedded itself into the alien soil. Carolyn had to scramble up into the doorway with help. Then she turned and had to give the wheezing Paris a hand up too.
Johns and the holy man managed just fine without help, having longer legs. The art dealer scanned the containers lining the hall. He set off mumbling in Chinese to himself stopping to touch each door and peer at the symbols etched into them. Rounding a corner he stopped at a very large container, one that took up an easy quarter of the space, “Mine here…”
Carolyn is surprised. “Wow, really?” Talk about tossing-salt-over-your shoulder and knock-on-wood luck. The overweight puffy man had it in spades. She wondered if a little would rub off on her if she stuck close to him. The marshal shifted beside her, swaying.
“You’d be surprised what trades from various core worlds in Blue Sun, Tangiers and Helion. I make this run quite regular. And this is the first time, ever, that there has been a problem.” He turns his attention to the lock, “Actually, I’m getting too old for this. You realize I spent my seventy-fifth birthday in cryo-sleep?”
Fry would have been paying attention to the prattle if not for the marshal lurching dangerously beside her on a slope that would be dangerous to slip on, “S'matter?” she says, catching his arm.
Johns steadied himself against the bulkhead wall and blinked like he’d experienced a wave of dizziness. “I got on at Conga remember? They had an epidemic of the flu sweeping them. The Doc planetside said I was past contagious and cleared me to leave because the authorities wanted Sir-Shiv-a-Lot out of the system. I guess I haven’t totally kicked it yet.”
“Lack of water can’t be helping.”
The badge shook his head slowly. The doors to Paris’ cargo container swung open revealing exotic treasures from various periods of history, mostly reproductions from all across Earth-that-Was. It is a juxtaposition of East and West, Primitive and modern, and everything in between. There are a few genuine items though, dating back over 500 years. “King Tut's tomb...” Johns said in awe. There must be several million credits worth of stuff here that she can see. And who knows how much more lurked under the padding and mooring straps that secured some of the stuff.
The art dealer moved into his hold checking over the status of the items. Amazingly, it looked like just about everything is in prime shape. “Looks like a few scratches here and there, but luckily none of the truly priceless items are harmed.” Fry cleared her throat. “Oh, right. Not what we are here for.” He moved over to some containers that are heavily padded and strapped. It takes some knife work to get the ornate chests and cabinets open, but inside are dusty bottles of sherry. Vintage Port. Glenfiddich. Bicardi 151. Rare rice wine from 2330 Japan. All carefully packed inside fitted webbing of cushioning foam. The best and most exotic wines and hard liquors from the Core planets. It’s like a liquor store of ancient and rare spirits all perfectly preserved.
Carolyn gives him an exasperated expression; “This is it? Booze? That's what you have to drink?”
If there was one thing that the art dealer cannot stand was lower-class trash trying to cheapen his line of work. No one in their right mind would call any of this fine stockpile of spirits ‘booze’ any more then they’d dare call the Mona Lisa a ‘drawing’. Clearly their fine captain has no class. “Humph," he said under his breath as he turned to look at her, "200-year-old single-malt scotch is to ‘booze’ as foie gras is to ‘duck guts,’” Paris sneered at her.
Fry sneered right back, feeling not a wit of compassion for the man. He can keep his goddamned luck. Highbrow ass.
But Johns doesn’t really care about any of the fancy stuff. He’d drink moonshine right now. He picks up a bottle, peels off the webbing, and looks at the fancy black label and rich amber contents. It looks as good as any other, and the mix of Chinese, Arabic, and English on the label pretty much cements that it’s meant for import. He cracks it open, “A toast to whatever he just said.”
“I'll need a receipt for that.” The art dealer looks from Fry to Johns to Fry, “For all these. This is my personal stash.”
Johns offers her the bottle and she accepts it, “Top of my list.” Imam and his two older pilgrims are watching from the doorway. The boys look slightly envious, while the holy man looks stern. After swallowing she looks up at him, “I don't suppose...”
The dark man shakes his head; “It is not permitted, especially while on Hajj.”
“There is no water. You understand that, don't you?” Johns tosses over Fry’s shoulder.
There’s a smile, a knowing smile, on the Imam’s lips; “All deserts have water. It just waits to be found. I know God shall lead us there.”
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
She is aware, first, of the calm that seemed to cushion her. It feels so nice that she almost rolled over and curled back up on the hard metallic surface she’s laying on. But she’s not sleepy, never was really. Simon had made her sleep with his needle when what she needed was someone to understand so that she could comprehend. The peace, she noted, faintly boiled with something not so calm. She can see the blue and black texture of it in her mind as it rolls and foams, alien to her mind, and not touching it like there’s glass between them. It’s kind of beautiful in a scary way. The storm has so much hegemony, power and fury, untapped for the most part, but there a thought away, for use whenever needed. She felt herself swell, like she is filling up the space that had been reclaimed in her mind.
There are knots in her brain, her psyche; still, that she doesn’t want to look at yet. But once the time comes, she guessed, that the storm would be there with her, feeding her the element that they share. And maybe, just maybe, she could be River again. A girl, with just a bit more. And perhaps Simon would believe. Because right now her brother, brilliant as he was, didn’t understand. He couldn’t see or hear or feel the things she did. Not yet anyway. He still needed to learn that not everything he’d read was set in stone fact, and the humans did not know all the secrets of the ‘Verse.
River stretched, catlike and graceful, as the chemical sleep eased out of her body. She found herself dressed in a loose cotton tunic and bike shorts that are knit but wicking the moisture away. She has not opened her eyes yet but knows that there are boots just off to her left with thick socks stuffed into the right hand one. And a natural colored linen duster is folded just past that with a wide brimmed had settled on top of it. Simon’s solars are hiding under the hat, as if she can’t tell they are his. She can knows this because she sees it in her mind, even as she processes what her body is feeling.
Hot. Oh so hot. Hot and dry. So not blue. Not wet.
“Here,” came a voice that she didn’t, yet she did, know. There was a warped bottle being pressed into her hand. The other holding it left behind tickles of frost on the container. She sat up and opened her dark eyes, looking at the mysterious patterns as they faded oh so quickly from the terrible heat of this baked world. The sealed bottle was filled with cool water. So tempting to just gulp it down, fast. But that would make her sick, as dry as she was. She thumbed the seal off and sipped, eyes wandering about, looking for whatever there was to see.
Overlaid on top of the ruins and shattered alien landscape, filaments drifted about, some catching an ethereal wind and fluttering about with only one connection, others seemed securely attached and bound, coil like, flexible but tensed, almost waiting. And there was the other kind, the third type that shifted and shimmered and seemed unconnected to anything. But that had to be a lie. She figured she just couldn’t see the connection was all. The color of them was unlike anything she had ever seen before. She could peg them as gold-ish, and warm-ish, and sometimes even a bit amber or green-ish but none of those terms actually fit.
She tilted her head to the side as one of the ribbons tickled her nose with the scent of lightning and honey, cloves and musk. She turned her head to follow it and found herself looking at a man with smooth skin stretched over etched features. His ears seemed too large for his head, just slightly. It wasn’t bad looking, just strange in an unsettling way that she couldn’t place a finger on. “Hello, River,” he said in that familiar, but not, voice.
She knows that they are both water. Blue. She flows; he rages. She cuts; he washes away. She’s a river; he’s a tempest. She sits, just staring at him. He lets her. She sips from the bottle again, soaking in the cool of him, the calm and the void. Water is a strong thing, able to slip and change, becoming part of the air, moving the earth, cracking the stone, quenching the fire. She’s never seen herself as strong before, but watching him she glimpses a possible truth, a possible path, something she can cut for herself, if she dares.
He was sitting cross-legged on the metal floor, unconcerned about the temperature. She mimics his position, her deep ebony hair falling into her face in long tangled strands. The sleeves of the tunic brush her bare calves as she wiggles her toes out of simple desire to feel the air against them. Her eyes never leave his face, however, even as she drinks in every detail about him that she can perceive.
The only concession she could see that he’s made to the heat is that his jacket is in his lap and the thin forest green sweater has been tossed over the edge of the white box leaving him with a dusty black tee. His exposed arms are smooth as can be, with less hair than a child would have. What is there is wispy and blonde, even though the hair on his scalp is dark and brown. And clumpy-patchy looking. And very soft, like it’s never been cut even though it is short. Baby hair, only too thick.
And then there are his eyes, so like Simon’s in color but like her own in what they see. Universes are born and die in his eyes, and time flows forward and back and sideways in his hands. Creation and destruction. Justice and vengeance. Paradoxes and truths. So much pain and so much love. Both old as the ‘verse itself and new as an infant. It's a rush to know these things, these secret things. To see that trust he has in her goodness, shattered as she is. In that moment she loves him, for all the selfless things he's done, and will do, regardless of the pain he suffers. Is suffering. Right now. Because he was the one filtering for her, holding the chaos at bay. River let that timeless, unbounded love flow like water. She sipped again letting her element renew her in more ways than one and smiled shyly at him through the curtain of her hair, “Hello.” His name doesn’t matter, she knows who he is.
“Simon is resting, but we do need to move soon. I’d like to find the others before someone else falls foul of this world’s secrets. How do you feel?” It’s been a long time since anyone has asked her that. How does she feel? Hot. Her bum is sore from the metal under it. But aside from that, fairly normal. Blessedly normal. Like a girl. With a bit extra. She flashed him a brilliant smile, not hiding now behind the shield of her hair.
He knows how she feels, she knows. At the moment, his universe and hers run in sync. “Fantastic,” he said, mirroring her smile. It changes his entire face. For a second and an eternity he’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. Even with the odd ears, large hands and strange skin he is truly gorgeous. And truly terrible. The people that have hurt her are going to be in very deep gou-shi she knows. Because he knows everything. Under the calm and the smile is a smoldering rage, water-fueled turmoil that can wipe worlds clean. She can see it boil just on the other side of the glass. Blue and black. And she’s not afraid anymore of the torrent that flows from within her own source of water with its ability to move and shape and flood and alter. He’s the storm; she’s the river. They are both blue, liquid, elemental water. And Water is mighty.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Richard B. Riddick had been a lot of things in his day. Hunter and hunted. Killer and savior. Entertainer and brawler. And once, long ago, he’d been the good guy gone bad because a bad guy said so. He’d learned that the ‘verse wasn’t a fair place. Winner takes all, loser dies. It had been the rule for so long he didn’t remember when it had first been set like that. He’d never been a loser, and he was determined to keep it that way.
Now, his blue-eyed-devil was gone. So were the noisy pilgrims. All he had to do was avoid the bushwhackers and make like the wind outta here. Then they’d be playing by his rules, his game. But it was best to not get too far ahead of himself. None of those plans for his amusement could happen until after he got free. After he got his hands in front of him. From behind. And he was cuffed with stiff bindings with his hands around a pillar and his feet looped to a peg drilled into the floor.
Most people would give it up as hopeless. But one thing Richard B. Riddick was not was being like most people. There wasn’t a slam out there that could hold him, thus far anyhow. He’d slipped them all, even the ‘fool-proof’ ones, the deep-storage triple-max installations where no one even retained their name; the max-sec ones where being in space kept most prisoners docile, planetside or deep vacuum, didn’t matter. So this… This was nothing more than a game. And it was time to change the rules.
He could see the cutting torch that the lady bushwhacker used to cut the kid free sitting just within reach. The welding goggles were discarded next to it. It’s perfect. Like its fated. Sometimes, Johns makes this too easy. He looked up with his one clear eye and could see the fracture in the support post. Just all too easy. The fake-badge thinks that pain will detour him from seeking freedom? Not a chance in hell.
And he already knows it’s going to be a painful maneuver, getting his stiff chains up that high. Near the ceiling where the bulkhead fractured just a slim opening where maybe, just maybe, he could pass them through. But he and pain are old friends. Older than he and Johns are adversaries.
He centered himself mentally and shimmied up the post until his back is against it, first stiff then loose and free. He can do this. No pain. His shoulders dislocate from their sockets as he rotated his arms up, backwards from how they are supposed to go. He’s just slightly too short and has to rise up on his tiptoes to make the gap, but he does it. His balance is shit, coming down. But he feels no pain as he hits the floor, reaching for the torch as he lands like a bellyflop into water only the surface is solid metal. The jolt against the floor pushes at least one shoulder back into place.
Freedom is so close he can taste it.
He quickly makes short work of the wrist cuffs, the ankle chains, the horse-bit and the blindfold. He smirks as he slips on the goggles and carries Johns’ expensive but useless high-security gear out into the alien landscape in a bid to confuse the shit out of the mercenary, ‘Lets see how you cope with my spreading your shit all around the crash site, okay, Johnny-boy? ‘Cuz I ain’t going back to slam, not this time.’
Blue
The cargo bay that looked close was farther a walk than the docking pilot could have imagined. It appeared near, but the sheer size of the detached bay deceived the eye into thinking that it was smaller and less distant than it really was. The thoughts kept circling in her head as variations on the theme as she trudged through burnt alien soil that shifted under her feet like rocky sand making every step an exercise in not falling flat on her face. A walking stick might have been a good idea.
They ended up walking until her lungs burned and her legs ached. Behind her Paris wheezed something horrid. She really, almost, felt bad for him, but then, if this was his cargo then he lucked out. Certainly he had more luck than Owens did already. She eyed the cargo bay and noticed that the light seemed to find holes in the hull and pierce though the shadows with pinprick brightness that had no visible cause. Of course, she couldn’t find cause for any of this.
It was just uncanny that even one of the cargo holds managed to come down this close to the bulk of the rest of the ship. It was even stranger that the Hunter-Gratzner's forward bays hadn’t hit it as they slid past on the final touchdown. This compartment was one of three double bays, and the last one that they picked up this trip, if the Chinese graffiti that hadn’t fully burned off during entry was any indication. Which would mean that the other cargo containers might be located in the opposite direction. But how far was anyone’s guess.
Somehow the entire thing had landed nearly intact and was in better shape than hull scrap she’d ridden down. Hopefully the cargo inside wouldn’t be smashed to pieces. The twin suns had crept ever so slowly toward the horizon, giving the impression of very, very long days here. From the moment she had realized that there was nothing to drink every second seemed critical. Hours could have and likely did pass with the suns just hanging suspended in the sky. They had moved though, according to Johns. She just hadn’t been aware of it.
The hike to the cargo bay left her winded. She sure hoped to heaven that there was something to drink here. If there wasn’t they wouldn’t last another day. Johns and Imam worked together to force the door open. The bay was tilted at an angle like one corner hit first and embedded itself into the alien soil. Carolyn had to scramble up into the doorway with help. Then she turned and had to give the wheezing Paris a hand up too.
Johns and the holy man managed just fine without help, having longer legs. The art dealer scanned the containers lining the hall. He set off mumbling in Chinese to himself stopping to touch each door and peer at the symbols etched into them. Rounding a corner he stopped at a very large container, one that took up an easy quarter of the space, “Mine here…”
Carolyn is surprised. “Wow, really?” Talk about tossing-salt-over-your shoulder and knock-on-wood luck. The overweight puffy man had it in spades. She wondered if a little would rub off on her if she stuck close to him. The marshal shifted beside her, swaying.
“You’d be surprised what trades from various core worlds in Blue Sun, Tangiers and Helion. I make this run quite regular. And this is the first time, ever, that there has been a problem.” He turns his attention to the lock, “Actually, I’m getting too old for this. You realize I spent my seventy-fifth birthday in cryo-sleep?”
Fry would have been paying attention to the prattle if not for the marshal lurching dangerously beside her on a slope that would be dangerous to slip on, “S'matter?” she says, catching his arm.
Johns steadied himself against the bulkhead wall and blinked like he’d experienced a wave of dizziness. “I got on at Conga remember? They had an epidemic of the flu sweeping them. The Doc planetside said I was past contagious and cleared me to leave because the authorities wanted Sir-Shiv-a-Lot out of the system. I guess I haven’t totally kicked it yet.”
“Lack of water can’t be helping.”
The badge shook his head slowly. The doors to Paris’ cargo container swung open revealing exotic treasures from various periods of history, mostly reproductions from all across Earth-that-Was. It is a juxtaposition of East and West, Primitive and modern, and everything in between. There are a few genuine items though, dating back over 500 years. “King Tut's tomb...” Johns said in awe. There must be several million credits worth of stuff here that she can see. And who knows how much more lurked under the padding and mooring straps that secured some of the stuff.
The art dealer moved into his hold checking over the status of the items. Amazingly, it looked like just about everything is in prime shape. “Looks like a few scratches here and there, but luckily none of the truly priceless items are harmed.” Fry cleared her throat. “Oh, right. Not what we are here for.” He moved over to some containers that are heavily padded and strapped. It takes some knife work to get the ornate chests and cabinets open, but inside are dusty bottles of sherry. Vintage Port. Glenfiddich. Bicardi 151. Rare rice wine from 2330 Japan. All carefully packed inside fitted webbing of cushioning foam. The best and most exotic wines and hard liquors from the Core planets. It’s like a liquor store of ancient and rare spirits all perfectly preserved.
Carolyn gives him an exasperated expression; “This is it? Booze? That's what you have to drink?”
If there was one thing that the art dealer cannot stand was lower-class trash trying to cheapen his line of work. No one in their right mind would call any of this fine stockpile of spirits ‘booze’ any more then they’d dare call the Mona Lisa a ‘drawing’. Clearly their fine captain has no class. “Humph," he said under his breath as he turned to look at her, "200-year-old single-malt scotch is to ‘booze’ as foie gras is to ‘duck guts,’” Paris sneered at her.
Fry sneered right back, feeling not a wit of compassion for the man. He can keep his goddamned luck. Highbrow ass.
But Johns doesn’t really care about any of the fancy stuff. He’d drink moonshine right now. He picks up a bottle, peels off the webbing, and looks at the fancy black label and rich amber contents. It looks as good as any other, and the mix of Chinese, Arabic, and English on the label pretty much cements that it’s meant for import. He cracks it open, “A toast to whatever he just said.”
“I'll need a receipt for that.” The art dealer looks from Fry to Johns to Fry, “For all these. This is my personal stash.”
Johns offers her the bottle and she accepts it, “Top of my list.” Imam and his two older pilgrims are watching from the doorway. The boys look slightly envious, while the holy man looks stern. After swallowing she looks up at him, “I don't suppose...”
The dark man shakes his head; “It is not permitted, especially while on Hajj.”
“There is no water. You understand that, don't you?” Johns tosses over Fry’s shoulder.
There’s a smile, a knowing smile, on the Imam’s lips; “All deserts have water. It just waits to be found. I know God shall lead us there.”
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
She is aware, first, of the calm that seemed to cushion her. It feels so nice that she almost rolled over and curled back up on the hard metallic surface she’s laying on. But she’s not sleepy, never was really. Simon had made her sleep with his needle when what she needed was someone to understand so that she could comprehend. The peace, she noted, faintly boiled with something not so calm. She can see the blue and black texture of it in her mind as it rolls and foams, alien to her mind, and not touching it like there’s glass between them. It’s kind of beautiful in a scary way. The storm has so much hegemony, power and fury, untapped for the most part, but there a thought away, for use whenever needed. She felt herself swell, like she is filling up the space that had been reclaimed in her mind.
There are knots in her brain, her psyche; still, that she doesn’t want to look at yet. But once the time comes, she guessed, that the storm would be there with her, feeding her the element that they share. And maybe, just maybe, she could be River again. A girl, with just a bit more. And perhaps Simon would believe. Because right now her brother, brilliant as he was, didn’t understand. He couldn’t see or hear or feel the things she did. Not yet anyway. He still needed to learn that not everything he’d read was set in stone fact, and the humans did not know all the secrets of the ‘Verse.
River stretched, catlike and graceful, as the chemical sleep eased out of her body. She found herself dressed in a loose cotton tunic and bike shorts that are knit but wicking the moisture away. She has not opened her eyes yet but knows that there are boots just off to her left with thick socks stuffed into the right hand one. And a natural colored linen duster is folded just past that with a wide brimmed had settled on top of it. Simon’s solars are hiding under the hat, as if she can’t tell they are his. She can knows this because she sees it in her mind, even as she processes what her body is feeling.
Hot. Oh so hot. Hot and dry. So not blue. Not wet.
“Here,” came a voice that she didn’t, yet she did, know. There was a warped bottle being pressed into her hand. The other holding it left behind tickles of frost on the container. She sat up and opened her dark eyes, looking at the mysterious patterns as they faded oh so quickly from the terrible heat of this baked world. The sealed bottle was filled with cool water. So tempting to just gulp it down, fast. But that would make her sick, as dry as she was. She thumbed the seal off and sipped, eyes wandering about, looking for whatever there was to see.
Overlaid on top of the ruins and shattered alien landscape, filaments drifted about, some catching an ethereal wind and fluttering about with only one connection, others seemed securely attached and bound, coil like, flexible but tensed, almost waiting. And there was the other kind, the third type that shifted and shimmered and seemed unconnected to anything. But that had to be a lie. She figured she just couldn’t see the connection was all. The color of them was unlike anything she had ever seen before. She could peg them as gold-ish, and warm-ish, and sometimes even a bit amber or green-ish but none of those terms actually fit.
She tilted her head to the side as one of the ribbons tickled her nose with the scent of lightning and honey, cloves and musk. She turned her head to follow it and found herself looking at a man with smooth skin stretched over etched features. His ears seemed too large for his head, just slightly. It wasn’t bad looking, just strange in an unsettling way that she couldn’t place a finger on. “Hello, River,” he said in that familiar, but not, voice.
She knows that they are both water. Blue. She flows; he rages. She cuts; he washes away. She’s a river; he’s a tempest. She sits, just staring at him. He lets her. She sips from the bottle again, soaking in the cool of him, the calm and the void. Water is a strong thing, able to slip and change, becoming part of the air, moving the earth, cracking the stone, quenching the fire. She’s never seen herself as strong before, but watching him she glimpses a possible truth, a possible path, something she can cut for herself, if she dares.
He was sitting cross-legged on the metal floor, unconcerned about the temperature. She mimics his position, her deep ebony hair falling into her face in long tangled strands. The sleeves of the tunic brush her bare calves as she wiggles her toes out of simple desire to feel the air against them. Her eyes never leave his face, however, even as she drinks in every detail about him that she can perceive.
The only concession she could see that he’s made to the heat is that his jacket is in his lap and the thin forest green sweater has been tossed over the edge of the white box leaving him with a dusty black tee. His exposed arms are smooth as can be, with less hair than a child would have. What is there is wispy and blonde, even though the hair on his scalp is dark and brown. And clumpy-patchy looking. And very soft, like it’s never been cut even though it is short. Baby hair, only too thick.
And then there are his eyes, so like Simon’s in color but like her own in what they see. Universes are born and die in his eyes, and time flows forward and back and sideways in his hands. Creation and destruction. Justice and vengeance. Paradoxes and truths. So much pain and so much love. Both old as the ‘verse itself and new as an infant. It's a rush to know these things, these secret things. To see that trust he has in her goodness, shattered as she is. In that moment she loves him, for all the selfless things he's done, and will do, regardless of the pain he suffers. Is suffering. Right now. Because he was the one filtering for her, holding the chaos at bay. River let that timeless, unbounded love flow like water. She sipped again letting her element renew her in more ways than one and smiled shyly at him through the curtain of her hair, “Hello.” His name doesn’t matter, she knows who he is.
“Simon is resting, but we do need to move soon. I’d like to find the others before someone else falls foul of this world’s secrets. How do you feel?” It’s been a long time since anyone has asked her that. How does she feel? Hot. Her bum is sore from the metal under it. But aside from that, fairly normal. Blessedly normal. Like a girl. With a bit extra. She flashed him a brilliant smile, not hiding now behind the shield of her hair.
He knows how she feels, she knows. At the moment, his universe and hers run in sync. “Fantastic,” he said, mirroring her smile. It changes his entire face. For a second and an eternity he’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. Even with the odd ears, large hands and strange skin he is truly gorgeous. And truly terrible. The people that have hurt her are going to be in very deep gou-shi she knows. Because he knows everything. Under the calm and the smile is a smoldering rage, water-fueled turmoil that can wipe worlds clean. She can see it boil just on the other side of the glass. Blue and black. And she’s not afraid anymore of the torrent that flows from within her own source of water with its ability to move and shape and flood and alter. He’s the storm; she’s the river. They are both blue, liquid, elemental water. And Water is mighty.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Richard B. Riddick had been a lot of things in his day. Hunter and hunted. Killer and savior. Entertainer and brawler. And once, long ago, he’d been the good guy gone bad because a bad guy said so. He’d learned that the ‘verse wasn’t a fair place. Winner takes all, loser dies. It had been the rule for so long he didn’t remember when it had first been set like that. He’d never been a loser, and he was determined to keep it that way.
Now, his blue-eyed-devil was gone. So were the noisy pilgrims. All he had to do was avoid the bushwhackers and make like the wind outta here. Then they’d be playing by his rules, his game. But it was best to not get too far ahead of himself. None of those plans for his amusement could happen until after he got free. After he got his hands in front of him. From behind. And he was cuffed with stiff bindings with his hands around a pillar and his feet looped to a peg drilled into the floor.
Most people would give it up as hopeless. But one thing Richard B. Riddick was not was being like most people. There wasn’t a slam out there that could hold him, thus far anyhow. He’d slipped them all, even the ‘fool-proof’ ones, the deep-storage triple-max installations where no one even retained their name; the max-sec ones where being in space kept most prisoners docile, planetside or deep vacuum, didn’t matter. So this… This was nothing more than a game. And it was time to change the rules.
He could see the cutting torch that the lady bushwhacker used to cut the kid free sitting just within reach. The welding goggles were discarded next to it. It’s perfect. Like its fated. Sometimes, Johns makes this too easy. He looked up with his one clear eye and could see the fracture in the support post. Just all too easy. The fake-badge thinks that pain will detour him from seeking freedom? Not a chance in hell.
And he already knows it’s going to be a painful maneuver, getting his stiff chains up that high. Near the ceiling where the bulkhead fractured just a slim opening where maybe, just maybe, he could pass them through. But he and pain are old friends. Older than he and Johns are adversaries.
He centered himself mentally and shimmied up the post until his back is against it, first stiff then loose and free. He can do this. No pain. His shoulders dislocate from their sockets as he rotated his arms up, backwards from how they are supposed to go. He’s just slightly too short and has to rise up on his tiptoes to make the gap, but he does it. His balance is shit, coming down. But he feels no pain as he hits the floor, reaching for the torch as he lands like a bellyflop into water only the surface is solid metal. The jolt against the floor pushes at least one shoulder back into place.
Freedom is so close he can taste it.
He quickly makes short work of the wrist cuffs, the ankle chains, the horse-bit and the blindfold. He smirks as he slips on the goggles and carries Johns’ expensive but useless high-security gear out into the alien landscape in a bid to confuse the shit out of the mercenary, ‘Lets see how you cope with my spreading your shit all around the crash site, okay, Johnny-boy? ‘Cuz I ain’t going back to slam, not this time.’