River had been finding more and more opportunities to exert her independence, slipping out from under the watchful eyes of the nurses and attendants assigned to make sure she didn't break anything again. Even though they'd told her again and again and again that she wasn't a prisoner and was free to go at any time, they kept giving her shots and pills and trying to give her therapies to calm her down. She'd certainly settled from her initial state after first coming through the rift, although Naboo reminded her a little too much of Osiris. Rich textures, too clean. Even with all the refugees who had come to call it home, there was still something oddly clinical about everything.
She had taken to wandering the streets, picking up bits of conversations external and not, absorbing the stories of the people around her. If she was going to live in this universe, stuck on this planet (despite promises that she wasn't), she needed to regain her strength, her control, her bearings. Life on Serenity had made it easy; just a handful of voices echoing in space, ones she had learned not to pay as much attention to. They generally stayed away from heavily populated areas, and if it was too busy outside, she stayed in her refuge of metal and glass, and listened to the stories the ship had to tell her about the early days.
Here, she didn't have as much opportunity for reprieve. The street she was on appeared to be a main arterial, and she found herself lost in a neverending stream of people, tossed and turned this way and that as she tried to focus on where she was and not listen. Become the stone, she told herself. Let it wash over you and around you, but not penetrate you. The mantra helped for a time, but eventually she needed air and space and a place to hear herself. She slipped into an alleyway nearby, cutting across to a quieter street, one that appeared more residential. It was more sedate, and brought back a measure of calm as she stepped carefully over the paving stones.
She sensed Wanda before she saw her, and approached the bench cautiously. Most people didn't like strangers coming up to them, as she had learned, but there was something about this woman that was different. The box resting on the bench beside her, too, seemed to whisper to her. Standing at the far edge of the bench, she stared silently for a long moment at it, her hair falling around her shoulders as her head began to cant to the side. When she had finished her examination, she lifted her eyes to Wanda, and smiled.
"You were nice to me," she said. "But your box seems rude."