A tree in the park, Tuesday lunchtime

[moonbrain-tam.livejournal.com]

After visiting Kerrigan, River had brought her lunch to the park. She had found a new tree this time, one she had never climbed before, and one of the branches had grown in a way that made it comfortable for her to lie on her back on it, her legs and tangly hair hanging down, her eyes staring up at the grey sky.

[Open. Work is not busy today, yay!]

Comments

[minnesota-teen.livejournal.com]

It was too loud, Amber thought, in the common room to practice her tapping. Maybe it wasn't, but she didn't want to disturb anyone. Coming outside, she pranced along, hands in the air.

Sometimes Amber just had to let loose.

[moonbrain-tam.livejournal.com]

The park had been peaceful and River had kept her mind open to the world around her. She sensed a presence approach, and joyful movement. It made her smile, and she closed her eyes, listening and moving her feet in the same rhythm, as if they were walking on air.

[minnesota-teen.livejournal.com]

Oblivious thus far to being sensed, Amber continued on in the slow, wonderful movement she set her feet too. She could go faster, but it wasn't about that right now. She wanted the enjoyment of each thought-out step, while her mind turned to her ma and how she was missing her especially today.

[moonbrain-tam.livejournal.com]

Mothers, personal memories, missing someone. River's mind quickly shut a door to those thoughts, and unfortunately to some of the happiness felt in each step too. She opened her eyes and turned her head, watching now instead of sensing. She didn't notice that her feet had stopped moving.

[minnesota-teen.livejournal.com]

Amber stopped too, just like that. Lowering her arms she looked up and saw River. In a tree. What was she doing laying down in a tree? "Hi, River!" she called out, taking a tentative step forward. "I hope you're bein careful up there."

[moonbrain-tam.livejournal.com]

River watched Amber. "Trees don't hurt you," she said, swinging her legs back and forth.

[minnesota-teen.livejournal.com]

She tilted her head, thought about that. No. No they didn't. Tree's didn't hurt you at all. If you fell, then you fell, not because the tree pushed you.

Amber smiled. "I haven't climbed a tree since I was little." When she had fallen and twisted her ankle. "How are you, River?"

[moonbrain-tam.livejournal.com]

"I wish I was a tree," River replied, looking down at Amber. "It wasn't the tree's fault."

[minnesota-teen.livejournal.com]

That was an odd reply. "Why would you want to be a tree? You're rooted to one spot and what if someone decided to cut you down? You would cease to exist. That would be so sad."

"What wasn't the tree's fault?"

[moonbrain-tam.livejournal.com]

"Wouldn't be human," River offered as explanation. "Not the tree's fault that someone gets hurt. Have to know which branch to step on."

[minnesota-teen.livejournal.com]

Amber decided River was profound in her thinking. "I've never wondered what it would be like to be anythin else. Well... I did wonder what it would be like to be a baby bunny one time. They're so cute and fluffy and snuggly." She chuckled then nodded. "I agree; it's not the trees fault."

[moonbrain-tam.livejournal.com]

"They breed quickly," River observed concerning bunnies. "And die quickly."

[robinthefrog.livejournal.com]

Dancing! Robin stopped in his skateboarding to watch.

[ecirpnellehada.livejournal.com]

The simpler place first, because the most obvious answer was rarely the right one, and, besides, they were beset with stairs best avoided. The closest of the possible spots to find River explored, she set a course for the village. She didn't think that she was working at the hotel today, but the switching of shifts seemed to be something happening to Adah often enough that she, for once, wouldn't have her perception jerked and shifted and addled by it should she discover someone else behind the desk. Besides, she wouldn't mind the overpriced fix of caffeine at the coffee shop either, if these ventures proved as futile as earlier ones. As day started to make its unbalanced wobble from midpoint to afternoon, Adah made a detour through the park, head angled up, as usual, checking the trees for birds or hanging snakes.

No, these temperate temperatures rarely hid anything like the snakes of Africa in their boughs, but, imagine that, there was something else dangling from them, twisting strands of deoxyribonucleic acid hair and long, pale legs, tightly bound with muscles that Adah rather suddenly (surprisingly) thought must be exactly what Leah's legs must be like. Adah stopped, still looking up, and No Snikcidy Lime announced her arrival, although Adah was pretty sure she didn't have to.

Then will I not repine,
Knowing that Bird of mine
Though flown
Shall in a distant tree
Bright melody for me
Return.

She only half expected River to bother acknowledging her.

[moonbrain-tam.livejournal.com]

The park had been quiet and empty and River had sensed Adah approaching from a distance. While her instincts still wanted her to reach out and listen, her decision had been made and she shut the doors to her mind firmly, letting in nothing. The world around her turned quiet, less alive, but that was the price of numbness. The price for not hearing Adah Price. This seemed to be a day for bad puns.

Shut inside her own mind she didn't even hear the poem.

[ecirpnellehada.livejournal.com]

Adah sucked in a breath, head still angled upward toward today's odd bird. Forget having Leah's leg; River seemed to certainly be gifted with the blind stubbornness of a Price as well. She was doing a fine job, just as well, as making Adah quite glad she went with logic and reason instead of just immediately dragging her half-self up the stairs to find River in the most obvious place, if her efforts were just going to be met with being ignored. But that was fine. Adah could be patient. The two most powerful warriors are patience and time. Adah had both.

Unlike some people in present company.

[moonbrain-tam.livejournal.com]

Stubbornness and patience were sometimes just two sides of the same coin. Of course, River wasn't aware of Adah's thoughts, all her attention being on keeping them out. She had heard her come closer and stop though - sounds still reached her. Stubborn - or patient - she swung her legs slowly back and forth, staring up at the sky.

[ecirpnellehada.livejournal.com]

Annoyance building with each swing of that pendulum leg, Adah looked away for a moment as if trying to decide why she would even bother. She knew for a fact she wasn't going to go an feel guilty about River's overreacting when River was going to lay there and act like her dead six year old sister, the one who nearly died of malaria because she refused to take her quinine because she didn't like the taste of them. Fine. Let her get malaria, then.

But Adah was going to give one last attempt. She moved, to pick up a long stick long since shaken from the canopy of the tree, carefully, awkwardly, but well enough that it allowed her enough length to reach up and poke River slightly with it.

[moonbrain-tam.livejournal.com]

Before the stick reached her River flung her hand out and grabbed hold of it. Adah might shout loudly inside her mind for all River cared, River wouldn't listen. "Rather poke me with a stick than use words?" she asked curtly, knowing that words were spoken for certain Eels who didn't have the ability to listen without them.

[ecirpnellehada.livejournal.com]

Adah had a give a small grunt of annoyance to bite back all the things she could say in response to that. And then she cleared her throat. "I've been using a lot of words," she said, and, after a breakneck choice of which way she wanted to take this situation, she continued, "It's isn't my fault that you have a habit of only hearing the ones you want you."

[moonbrain-tam.livejournal.com]

Still holding the stick in her hand, River stared up at the sky, not looking at Adah. "Have to choose between contradictions. Could give me clear messages." Like preferring Eels to Rivers.

[ecirpnellehada.livejournal.com]

"Yes, because I, for some reason, should be superhuman in the fact that I'm any more likely to have clear and precise thoughts at all times than any other person," Adah responded back, testily. Again, she gave a frustrated sigh. She didn't even know what the messages in her own head were saying half the time here.

[moonbrain-tam.livejournal.com]

"Not what I'm saying," River snapped, hurling the stick away from the two of them. "Don't ask for clarity, just for clarification." Her eyes narrowed, but she still didn't turn her head. "But that would require you to listen to your own mind," she added cooly. "Too much to ask for."

[ecirpnellehada.livejournal.com]

"It's not too much to ask for," Adah allowed, with another sigh. "But I think you're giving me more credit than I deserve. All I do is listen to my own mind, River, and it drive me just about near insanity."

[robinthefrog.livejournal.com]

It was a nice day out, and Robin decided he needed to be out in it. Also it'd been too long since he'd practiced with his skateboard, so he was out, weetiny helmet and pads and all.

*Zoom!*

"Wheee!"