For dark-desert-hwy.

[loveisenough]

Alice was in the library, knees to her chest and a cigarette in her right hand. She was flipping through a book of Beatrix Potter fables, smiling at old rhymes that had comforted her when she was a little kid. She hummed a little as she read, toes curling around the chair as she flipped the page. Lazy smoke rings flew up to circle the ceiling,

Comments

[takingcareof]

River had made her way down to the lobby after speaking with Voronwe, and decided that the hotel was at least simple to navigate. She was already lost; she didn't want to become lost in her own mind as well.

She'd turned into the first room she'd seen off a stairway she'd just discovered, and promptly gasped, her mouth falling open silently. The room was full to the brim with books. Books and flat discs that looked like holovids and everything one could ever want.

River had just kept walking, mouth open in silent wonder, and thus hadn't noticed the person in the path of her heavy boots. It all happened so fast - the person gasped, turned around; River dropped to a stance as if she'd been born in it. In some ways, I have.

[loveisenough]

Alice clapped a hand to her chest, over her heart, laughing nervously. "Hey, you startled me." She tapped ash into an ashtray, and turned to look at River.

"Did you just get here?" She cocked her head to the side. "I haven't seen you around." Alice was trying to create an air of calm. She knew from River's stance that she was ready to fight, and she also knew that she didn't have the first idea how to throw a punch.

[takingcareof]

She succeeded; River lowered her outer defenses, though her mind remained ready to analyze any possible weak points. "I'm trying to find Simon," she finally replied. If this girl knew who put her here, then she would know how to get out, and if she didn't, maybe she could help River find Simon. "And Serenity."

[loveisenough]

"I don't know who those are, I'm sorry." She didn't move from her near-fetal position, tucking some hair behind her ear. "My name is Alice. You must have just got here." She bit her lip a bit. "I don't know how we get here, and I don't know where your family is. I'm sorry."

Praise for your evocative passage

[anonymous]

Hi