and the stream runs in circles from the chasm to the core

[lumenrelegandus]

Who: MULTIPLE THREADS! Expected: there are some plans. Unexpected: how would I know?
When: Right after this-with flexibility. All sparked by this after this.
Where: The Clinic
Format: [hates choosing] Whatever I start with, do your own thing!
What: Tonks visitations. Lupin's return. Shirley in da house. Trepkos the Grouch. AND MORE.
Warnings: Ow ow

Comments

in lieu of posting that log, I will hijack this one.

[impossibly]

[ If you build a temple in marble and daub the keystone with the blood of your first-born son, is it an inoculation or a ward? The Clinic always smells like growth, cells repairing and tissues knitting together and flowers with little white cards. River isn't always obvious when she comes, and barely ever helpful, but to her, as a building, it rings more of warm steady hands soothing her back than needles and sharp shocks through the teeth, spilling over, spilling over. ]

[ Today she has bouquets, half a dozen all piled in her arms, and their wrappings crinkle as she climbs the stairs with soft feet. Somehow there's hope in decay, and she will carry them from room to room, silently leaving one behind. They have no signature and no vase; just lilies and chrysanthemums, stark and sweet. ]

[ In the corridors, River hums softly, a few notes, high and sweet. A music-box tune, or a lark song. For a few days thinks were all jumbled but for now everything seems cold and clear and easy. ]

[wotchesyou]

[ It's not as simple as not being sad.

Tonks lifts her head so that she can watch River carefully. Bangs fall forward and obscure most of face. She recognizes the girl from the Forge device. If she wants to, Tonks could go back and watch that conversation. She doesn't want to. ]

Thank you.

[ She accepts the flower but she can't smile. Tonks knows that she should. That's what one does when you're given a flower but she can't make herself. She doesn't even want to smile anyway. ]

[impossibly]

[ River doesn't care if she smiles with her mouth. She doesn't need niceties. What she wants is for some of that fog to be lifted, for colour to come back into the world. It will seep back slowly with time, River knows. ]

Bukequi.

[ You're welcome. The sort nod that goes with it is more universal. ]

It gets easier.

[wotchesyou]

[ Tonks carefully handles the lily. Now free from its roots, it really is quite fragile. It wouldn't take much to crush the lily within the palm of her hand and for a moment she thinks about it.

She doesn't crush it, instead she just holds the bloom. ]

I'm not sure that it does.

[impossibly]

It gets... easier.

[ She kneels on the floor, because she's comfortable like that, looking up at Tonks. ]

There's always... there's a concept of yourself. Can't be touched except by you. Moulding and shifting. Own it.

[ The most important thing she ever learned came from a cannibalistic monster with the power of a god. ]

[wotchesyou]

I don't know what you mean.

[impossibly]

That person, in there. She's the only thing that's certain.

[ River puts a hand over her own heart. ]

If someone makes you do terrible things, it's because they think they own you. But they can't.

[ She looks up at Tonks, the pain of her eyes like a mirror. ]

Eventually you'll forget their faces.

[wotchesyou]

[ Tonks breaks down. Her shoulders draw up and start to shake as she leans forward, her forehead almost resting against the bed. ]

I didn't want to but she was going...

[ Bellatrix was going to do far worse things than just kill them. What she had done had been a mercy but it is also unforgivable, at least in her own eyes. ]

They were all screaming.

[impossibly]

There was nothing else you could have done.

[ River places her hands flat-palmed on her knees and closes her eyes. She's trying not to cry as well, but it gets mixed up in her head, someone else's reality sparking the memory of her own. Needles and drugs. Screaming. ]

There was nothing else, she made you. You were just a weapon.

[wotchesyou]

[ Tonks turns her head to the side and looks over at River. ]

You've been there, haven't you? What did they make you do?

[impossibly]

Took me apart. Rebuilt me for killing.

[wotchesyou]

[ Tonks slides off of her bed leaving behind the lily and photograph. If River will allow her to, she will move and sit next her to her. It seems as though they understand each other. They share the same pain but Tonks' pain is fresh and the memory still plagues her.

She cannot offer River much but to sit next her in a silent understanding. ]

[impossibly]

[ River doesn't mind. She balls her hands into fists and tips her head at a strange angle, her body tilting like Pisa until her shoulder brushes Tonks', lightly, looking a little like a doll that has slipped sideways after being placed. ]

[ Nothing you could do nothing you could do nothing you could do. ]

[ Words are important to River, but she doesn't need voice for them. Though she is a fidgeter (toes curling in her boots, chewing on her lower lip) she is happy to stay still and silent for as long as Tonks wants/needs/remains. ]

[wotchesyou]

[ Tonks doesn't have anything to say. However, she is content to just sit there at least for the moment. ]

You don't have to stay.

[ That is not a request for her to leave. ]

[impossibly]

I know.

[ She doesn't move. ]

moves to better place!

[trephaestos]

[In the other private room, in the light of the window, Daniel stared at his arm.

That spot. Right there. Where the palmaris longus caused a furrow when he twisted his forearm.

A month ago (one month) it had been burned. Second degree progressing to third. Up both his arms, onto his chest, across his face. He'd been burning.

He should be mutilated for life.

(And who's to say he wasn't.)

But there's not a scar. No contractures. No amputations.

A week in a clinic. Not even a burn unit. Another week in wheelchair. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

He should have died of inhalation injury. Of poisoning.

These people, these doctors, these… whatevever they were, with their magic wands-literally! no, can't be-had healed him