heart-break Who: River What: She felt it When: BACKDATED to 10th early early Where: Her room. The Mayor's mansion Status: Complete
Somewhere nearby, a maid awakens and hears the screaming. (She'll wish she hadn't watched that horror movie; now every noise is a creak of the floorboards under the killer's feet and the bloodcurdling scream fits too well into her fantasy.) Bravely, she hides beneath the covers. ~
A waking: -- damp, tangled in sweat-soaked sheets with heart pounding. River's voice gets raw.
She blinks, again and again but the nightmare is never over, replaying the faded projection on the backs of her eyelids in grainy whites and blacks. Dusty and scratched. They never replace the old film reels anymore. River opens her throat and screams again because there are teeth sinking into skin not her own.
"STOP." River's words feel thick as petals, half formed when they fall from her mouth and into her numb hands. Rose petals, she's sure, because only thorns could constrict her so wholly.
But this isn't the usual panic. No, not the kind she's used to anymore.
Not the kind --
Not
The:
what she sees again
---
It's dark, but then, it's always dark in dream-worlds.
And it's a cheerful sort of dark, with a cheerful sort of cold, because they know they shouldn't be out this late (mother would scold, River thinks with a smile, and wonders if smiles truly exist in dreams or just memories of them). They name stars together. He creates his elaborate worlds and he makes something practical. What fitting and alien courtship!
Flashes! -- hair, teeth, and gnashing. a canine grin.
He gives away his coat and they think silly, romantic things. How long it's taken to get them here! Somewhere in the midst of aliens and Rifts and stopwatch games. Somewhere spanning centuries -- millenia! -- and the Atlantic ocean. Losing, gaining, never forgetting. He proudly never forgets.
Instead, he lies about the cold with shifty motives -- but the ageless man always liked that about him.
A voice on the wind bellows: "RU n!" a glimpse of dirt ground stumbling lEaves (it's getting green now, springtime sunshine). purple in the east moves slow slow slow while canine smile moves fast fast fast
The curling way he speaks his "aaa" "iii" "ooo". The curve of his mouth. How it moves just ethnic enough. Lilts when he gets nervous. Wavers when he's scared. The flustered motions of his hands when he's distraught. " a special series of knocks "
the cruel jaw. dirt in the creases of unwolf paws. ruins the nice fabric. (even if he could fix those rips, his best suit is marred) stains. dark stains, oh god--!
something snaps
---
The vessel crumples and her screams become an echo. She sobs at the floor now, clawing until she hurts herself and pain brings back memories of how-to-be conscious. No nearer to waking than dreaming, River falls apart, every seam a flimsy top-stitch. She looks into an east-facing window and light does nothing but blind her, trapping her instead somewhere folded inside herself and gleaming with premonition.