the mattress can't be trusted

This blog is basically on permanent hiatus. If I ever choose to RP River again, I will most likely reboot. These days, you can find me on brazenlass.

Anyway, for a brief update, I’m about to move to Texas for Primary (flight school). Also I’m currently trying to create a Lucifer who’s only barely rooted in mythology, and he’s joining Thalia on her blog. I’m borrowing heavily from Prometheus for his development because I like the idea of deities being FOR human technology and progress, so basically I’m linking the knowledge tree fruit with the fire that the titan brought down. It’s good fun and probably utterly blasphemous, but you all knew I was a heathen. 

I hope you’re all doing well! Be safe, have fun, brush your teeth.

He squinted at her through his exhaustion, through the sting of sweat dripping in his eyes, through the blood dripping from the cut just within his hair. Why was she asking him for such a promise? His shoulders ached, joints straining under the hold of his chains, and he shook his head before letting it hang heavy and low, the stubble of his chin scraping against his chest. 

“It ain’t my style t’fight anyone who ain’t fightin’ me, lass,” he told her tiredly. 

She drew closer, her steps light and nearly silent, and this close, even through his swollen and broken nose, he cold smell the vastness of space in her hair, as if she came from the stars themselves. 

“I promise,” he said at last. “I promise not t’hurt you or yours. Just get out’a here while ya can…”

River needed only his words, and her cool hands were on his wrist and the shackle there, small sticks of metal busily clacking inside the lock until it fell open. And then she was working on the other, working with silence and efficiency. And it was done, and he was free.

“I will get out of here when my captain chooses. Not before.” She slipped the picks back into her dress pocket as she stepped back, considering him with unmitigated curiosity.

“Thanks, that’s– that’s great,” he grunted, wrestling with an arm that’d found its way around his neck. “Give them– a good telling-off, I didn’t– think of– that...” The owner of the arm had a good thirty-pound advantage on him and frankly, it was a personal feat that he was still holding out. 

Another of his assailants staggered to his feet, winded but still going, and threw himself into the fray; Psi launched himself up, using the larger man for leverage, and launched a kick into the other’s gut with as much force as he could muster.

The second stumbled back, almost bumping into the girl, but she easily sidestepped and, with a casual air, spun into a high kick that landed against his temple and brought him down. The attention was suddenly on her.

Malcolm had been sneaking around this paddock for the pst couple of days and had yet to determine the handler. He jumped when he heard the sounds of many birds moving at once. He followed the sound and saw them flock around a girl. He frowned. How young did they allow handlers to be? Perhaps she just looked young. He watched her for a few moments, waiting to see what the Pteranodons would do. Then he cleared his voice loudly. “Uh…Miss? Hi…yes, uh…Dr. Ian Malcolm…I’ve been trying to find you for days. May I have a word?”

“Me?” She turned a quarter circle to face him, brown eyes wide and innocent. The creatures were unsettled by her movement, flapping broad wings and hopping about. The name she recognized, though she did not immediately comment. More curious was his apparent search for her. She would have heard if he’d been expressing interest in her code. He must have her mistaken. River considered him, and decided she’d quite like to see how that played out.

There’s a pause in the inner workings of his brain, and he can actually feel his heart breaking at those words. She’s not wrong, she did need him and where was Simon? Where was he when his sister was S U F F E R I N G ? Words did not pour from his lips, there were no excuses to hide behind this time. He couldn’t blame their parents, he could only blame himself and himself alone. “—River.” Her name slipped through the knot in his throat, and the guilt begins it’s daily feeding in the pit of his stomach. He wants to reach out and touch her, just to rest a hand on her shoulder, get her grounded to look at him. Hear him. They’re family—- she’s all he cares about, all he wants to protect. Simon gave up everything for her but that— that didn’t make them even. No— “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” A broken whisper falls from his lips, and he can’t look at her. “I can’t— I can’t change what happened but— I’m here now. And, I swear, I will never leave you again. I promise.”

Impatience and frustration. There’d been so much of both since he’d freed her. Her hands pressed against her forehead, fingers digging into the seam between face and hair as she tried to draw out the knots in her brainpan. She’s trying to explain, and it’s all jumbled together, all the pain, the need, the love. It wasn’t that he wasn’t there. It was that they’d told her he was never coming back for her. It was that there were times she believed them. It was that, there he was, and she still struggled with the sensation of unreality, the feeling that this might be a dream.