舞: [ visual | location: castle summers ]
Believe it or not, Castle Summers has a well stocked library, though when it shows up on the tablets it looks a bit like it's been hit by an extremely localized tornado. There's a pile of books in the middle of the room, some open and some closed with a few sprinkled on top that look as if at some point in time they'd been journals, with a River standing over them.
She looks clean and brushed in her black shorts and over-sized top, but it's not an improvement across the board. Her eyes are tired (a side effect of avoiding sleep, that's when they work and she's had enough of that thank you), and the way she holds herself as she paces around her book pool is careful, anxious and on the edge of something she can't quite figure out as she nudges at them with her toes.
"Not here," she mutters, distant and frustrated when she dips her toe into the pile like she's checking the temperature before she cannonballs in. "Nothing is in here."
With an agitated kick one hefty book goes flying, and predictably (if you've been paying any attention to this month's litany of musical shenanigans) its landing thunk cues a low murmur of music as River walks out of sight. It's all strings of various tones and pitches, and when she walks back into frame, across to the right of the books, the music is strong and waiting.
"Crush me down an aluminum can.
Poke me with a fork and half baked yam."
She sings, and the dance starts, one foot moving heel-toe-heel-toe to pull her left. It turns her around and the motion crawls up her body until her shoulders shift and turn, arms following the motion fluidly as she steps on a book and kicks it behind her with a coy glance over her shoulder.
"Toss me in the frying pan.
I would never bite the hand
If I could be sure the hand that feeds me."
River picks up one of the books and turns with it until she's facing the tablet again, then steps on it, pushes it to the ground and then follows to kneel and press her forehead against it. Then, as if a flip is switched and with a chorus of "do do do"s, she jumps back and away, limbs pulling her up, then right and back left.
"Feeding frenzy on prescription words,
Swallowing the silence that returns.
Following in footsteps petrified by time,
Under madness are familiar faces."
In fits and starts, she bends over and attempts to position herself. Arms pull her legs forward, up onto her toes before she straightens and pirouettes and bounds off to the right where she jumps and spins again in an attempt to get herself back over to the books. Once she's there, she opens one and continues her strange dance, fighting against her limbs fighting against each other as they pull her back and forth, into spins and then finally down among the books where she sits herself down and pulls one forward.
"And you are just a semblance of before,
Following the dust and calling it more."
River doesn't get far with the book before she leans back onto her elbow... and falls. She pushes up again, falls again, then rolls away to fight back up on elbows and hands and knees, books sliding beneath her.
"These are the seeds,
These are the seeds that beseech the leaves for cover."
She moves right, again, and it's all the strain and stretch of muscle, flexing joints and swinging hair. The perfect moving portrait of a body working desperately against itself as the music plays on.
"Hiking canyons where people have fallen,
These are places where some learn to fly."
As if on cue, she twirls and tumbles to the floor. Then she does it again, graceful and light with one hand over her head reaching up up up, but her axis tilts just a little too much like a top out of control and she crumbles, down again without so much as a thud before she starts fighting against gravity to get back to her feet. Somewhere behind the music, as she makes her way back to the books, River wonders if she's become a baby giraffe.
"Breaking escaping molds that are growing,
Stepping over cutting off the ties."
Still singing, she picks up a book, fights and crawls with it (foot, heel, knee, forward, foot, heel, knee, forward) around the rest of the pile before she manages to stand and slam it back to the ground.
Then, because this routine should just be weirder, she hops over to the right, kneels next to the book she opened earlier, rips a page out, and then shoves it in her mouth. For the duration of the short musical interlude that follows, she moves, paper in her mouth, across the imaginary stage. Though she's still fighting herself, putting in the positions and struggling out of them with limbs going their own way to pull her back and forth, she's steady. River spins and doesn't fall, takes leaps in steps over books and around journals and though she's pulled, she's cohesive and whole.
But the bridge has to end, so she faces the tablet and takes the paper out of her mouth, holds it above her head and drops it like trash.
"And you are just a semblance of before,
Following the dust and calling it more."
Again to the right, back to fits and starts with a let going one way while her arm pulls her opposite. She spins and turns and fights herself, move by move back to the books, pushing herself back to stillness before her elbow pulls her out again and back into the fray before she finally manages to collapse on the pile.
"These are the seeds,
These are the seeds that beseech the leaves for cover."
Frantic, she pulls the books closer to her and ends with her face inside one, pressing it closed against her face against the floor as she sings the last chorus of "do do do"s.
When the music fades out, River shoves the book she'd been trying to crawl into away from her, into the tablet, and the visual cuts out on her sprawled over the pile, breathing heavy. Glitched dancing takes a lot out of a crazy person.
[ooc: Song is 'Aluminum Can,' and the badly described dance can be seen here. It looks much better than how I tried to say it. They don't match up quite right so. Liberties. They were taken.]
She looks clean and brushed in her black shorts and over-sized top, but it's not an improvement across the board. Her eyes are tired (a side effect of avoiding sleep, that's when they work and she's had enough of that thank you), and the way she holds herself as she paces around her book pool is careful, anxious and on the edge of something she can't quite figure out as she nudges at them with her toes.
"Not here," she mutters, distant and frustrated when she dips her toe into the pile like she's checking the temperature before she cannonballs in. "Nothing is in here."
With an agitated kick one hefty book goes flying, and predictably (if you've been paying any attention to this month's litany of musical shenanigans) its landing thunk cues a low murmur of music as River walks out of sight. It's all strings of various tones and pitches, and when she walks back into frame, across to the right of the books, the music is strong and waiting.
"Crush me down an aluminum can.
Poke me with a fork and half baked yam."
She sings, and the dance starts, one foot moving heel-toe-heel-toe to pull her left. It turns her around and the motion crawls up her body until her shoulders shift and turn, arms following the motion fluidly as she steps on a book and kicks it behind her with a coy glance over her shoulder.
"Toss me in the frying pan.
I would never bite the hand
If I could be sure the hand that feeds me."
River picks up one of the books and turns with it until she's facing the tablet again, then steps on it, pushes it to the ground and then follows to kneel and press her forehead against it. Then, as if a flip is switched and with a chorus of "do do do"s, she jumps back and away, limbs pulling her up, then right and back left.
"Feeding frenzy on prescription words,
Swallowing the silence that returns.
Following in footsteps petrified by time,
Under madness are familiar faces."
In fits and starts, she bends over and attempts to position herself. Arms pull her legs forward, up onto her toes before she straightens and pirouettes and bounds off to the right where she jumps and spins again in an attempt to get herself back over to the books. Once she's there, she opens one and continues her strange dance, fighting against her limbs fighting against each other as they pull her back and forth, into spins and then finally down among the books where she sits herself down and pulls one forward.
"And you are just a semblance of before,
Following the dust and calling it more."
River doesn't get far with the book before she leans back onto her elbow... and falls. She pushes up again, falls again, then rolls away to fight back up on elbows and hands and knees, books sliding beneath her.
"These are the seeds,
These are the seeds that beseech the leaves for cover."
She moves right, again, and it's all the strain and stretch of muscle, flexing joints and swinging hair. The perfect moving portrait of a body working desperately against itself as the music plays on.
"Hiking canyons where people have fallen,
These are places where some learn to fly."
As if on cue, she twirls and tumbles to the floor. Then she does it again, graceful and light with one hand over her head reaching up up up, but her axis tilts just a little too much like a top out of control and she crumbles, down again without so much as a thud before she starts fighting against gravity to get back to her feet. Somewhere behind the music, as she makes her way back to the books, River wonders if she's become a baby giraffe.
"Breaking escaping molds that are growing,
Stepping over cutting off the ties."
Still singing, she picks up a book, fights and crawls with it (foot, heel, knee, forward, foot, heel, knee, forward) around the rest of the pile before she manages to stand and slam it back to the ground.
Then, because this routine should just be weirder, she hops over to the right, kneels next to the book she opened earlier, rips a page out, and then shoves it in her mouth. For the duration of the short musical interlude that follows, she moves, paper in her mouth, across the imaginary stage. Though she's still fighting herself, putting in the positions and struggling out of them with limbs going their own way to pull her back and forth, she's steady. River spins and doesn't fall, takes leaps in steps over books and around journals and though she's pulled, she's cohesive and whole.
But the bridge has to end, so she faces the tablet and takes the paper out of her mouth, holds it above her head and drops it like trash.
"And you are just a semblance of before,
Following the dust and calling it more."
Again to the right, back to fits and starts with a let going one way while her arm pulls her opposite. She spins and turns and fights herself, move by move back to the books, pushing herself back to stillness before her elbow pulls her out again and back into the fray before she finally manages to collapse on the pile.
"These are the seeds,
These are the seeds that beseech the leaves for cover."
Frantic, she pulls the books closer to her and ends with her face inside one, pressing it closed against her face against the floor as she sings the last chorus of "do do do"s.
When the music fades out, River shoves the book she'd been trying to crawl into away from her, into the tablet, and the visual cuts out on her sprawled over the pile, breathing heavy. Glitched dancing takes a lot out of a crazy person.
[ooc: Song is 'Aluminum Can,' and the badly described dance can be seen here. It looks much better than how I tried to say it. They don't match up quite right so. Liberties. They were taken.]