tushanshu | first verse ☯ video;

[ River's sitting in her suite in the Water, evidenced by the soft colours and natural materials in her background. She touches the screen carefully, teeth pinching her lower lip as though she doesn't know recording has started -- but then she starts speaking without changing anything, so maybe she does know. ]

High chance of improbability even in this 'Verse, can't go between-between-between. Even if you use orthogonal coordinates, meeting at right angles. Two wrongs to make a right, two rights to make a wrong, the graph is broken. Order of chelonii or testudines but even the largest can't hold a city. Can't check the book, no chapters on waking up in new places.

[ She seems briefly frustrated, whether at the improbability of her situation or merely her own inability to verify what the kedan told her is unclear. She hadn't had the opportunity to think on it much with being drafted into the bottle, with all that had followed that and now that she did, she was still no better equipped to explain anything. Her fingers tangle in a dingy chain around her neck, tugging at a small ring and charm that seem very tarnished. ]

I'm supposed to have a job.

---

((OOC: Relink for River's permissions post too, if you haven't filled it out yet!))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I - guess I did.

[He's a stupid jerkface but at least he has manners?]

Did you just get here? [Maybe he should get Elizabeth to talk to her. Or make her a scarf or something.]

[ She liked it, shhh. ]

I went inside the bottle first.

Oh. Sorry to hear that. It wasn't exactly a walk in the park.

I like the parks here.

[ You started this tangent, Booker. ]

Walk and run and be real.

[Well... it's a nicer topic of conversation than the bottle, at least.]

Uh, yeah, they're... nice. So... what sort of place are you from?

[Why did he do this again? Elizabeth thinks he should talk to more people.]

[ Very true, and River doesn't really want to discuss the bottle anyway. ]

I'm from a ship, called Serenity. Have you ever been on a ship?

[He assumes she means a ship on the ocean.]

I've been on an airship. [Well, technically a couple of them. None of them stayed in the air long, though.]

[ River nods enthusiastically, because they're probably not different than the planet-side shuttle ships that didn't exit the atmosphere. ]

Like that.

My trips up were pretty short, though. Most of 'em didn't end well.

[Or any of them, for that matter.] Yours sounds nice, though. Serenity.

Did you fly into things? You need a better pilot.

[ She's actually just guessing at this one, rather than being empathic. ]

She's very special. She let me share her, for a while.

No, the last time, it was more like somethin' big flew into us.

[On purpose. Songbird does that.]

She? Oh, the ship? Hm. Not much of a mariner myself. Prefer to keep my feet on the ground.

[ she laughs a little ]

That's not much better.

Maybe not. Hard to leave a place when everyone's tryin' to keep you there.

[ River looks suddenly, incredibly sympathetic. ]

Yes, it is. Sometimes someone has to come for you.

[Booker has to laugh faintly.] Yeah, I guess that was my job.

Was it?

[ She senses a story here, leaning forward toward the screen. ]

Who?

Ah. Her name's Elizabeth. She's here now. Safe.

[That last bit is Very Important Information.]

[ And River inexplicably seems to pick up on that, because she nods solemnly. ]

She knows it.

[Booker considers that for a moment, and finally nods.]

I think so. She's happy. No one here is tryin' to hurt her.

That's what Simon tells me too, when I wake up from bad dreams.

Well, it's true enough, mostly. I've been a lot worse places.

[And he and Elizabeth both have enough nightmares.]

This Simon a friend of yours?

[ That's something River knows intimately about; nightmares are too common for her too. ]

My brother.

And did he save you from a tower?

[Because that's what Booker did for Elizabeth.]

Yes.

[ So while it might not have been a literal tower, the concept was the same. ]

He came to take me away from all the bad people, he put old River to sleep and the new one woke up.

Sounds like a good brother. Is he here with you? [He kind of hopes so, for her sake.]

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