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The Arms Hotel Lobby, Friday

River sat behind the desk in silence, her eyes following anyone who walked past. In front of her on the desk sat a collection of apple sculptures depicting various tormented and possibly dying heads. The next piece of apple art was still in her hands. The fruit bowl was now empty of apples.

Welcome to the Arms Hotel
Today's Special
Apple Soup with Tabasco.

The Arms Hotel is open.

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That, of course, lead Adah, her head tilted with a slightly distressed expression of confusion, to a murd nun oc, feeling slightly bad for wanting to abandon her inquest on the situation of the eye-less apple head to find out more about fruit's role in preventing nudity...

"Hide relevant body parts behind a suitably shaped fruit," River clarified, looking quite serious. The bowl contained a large amount of bananas as well as a pair of melons. "Jeff has issues with nudity," she added, although she was fairly certain Adah could guess that River did not.

Adah was feeling fairly certain that she didn't even know where to begin on trying to figure out what she thought about that, except, perhaps, idly feeling that the bowl lacked coconuts. She looked at the bowl a moment longer, shook her head, and then glanced back to River. She'd made a wrong choice; they should talk about the apple head instead.

"Coconuts are hard to open," River pointed out. "Can talk about apples instead." She looked at Adah, her eyes suddenly caught by the curve of her lips and the line of her neck. Averting her gaze, she poked one of the apples on the desk.

Oh, they weren't too difficult; it was all just a matter of having something to crack it again, preferably pierce, but perhaps Adah simply had enough practice and a belief that if she could do it easily enough, anyone could. Slouched still in the chair, she watched River as she poked one of the apples and wondered what the fate of the missing eye might have been and if this was an example of the oh-so-productive ways in which River spent her time here at the hotel.

"My experience with cocnuts is limited," River told her, then looked at the one eyed apple-head. "Reavers. The side effect of a government experiment gone wrong. Millions dead, a minority turned into raving cannibals. Mutilated themselves, but are mostly known for their habit of attacking to torture, rape, maim and eat the unlucky who cross their path." She took another bite of the muffin. "I have killed reavers."

Then River turned her head and nodded at the towel animal zoo. "Another project," she said. "Am just as productive as you are in the library." That last sentence was added with a hint of teasing.

Considering that her last shift included getting another aide, who she felt it prudent not to name despite the fact that she knew he didn't have to be, doing her work for her, Adah took the teasing in stride by giving River a cool, steady glance. She shook her head slightly. River had mentioned Reavers to her before; she hadn't needed to explain again. Adah was certainly the type to remember that sort of thing which almost made her wonder if it wasn't so much that River felt she needed to explain as much as it was River simply liking to explain. Or to brag. Her answer, and her attention toward the towel animals (she briefly recalled Orleanna's reception of such an animal over Christmas; it mostly included Orleanna choosing to not talk about anything for the rest of the day), however, did not satisfy Adah's inquiry about the eye. Had it been consumed? Rolled away in the scuffle? Removed for the sheer satisfaction of hearing it being plucked out of a socket, or was the removal something more utilitarian, in the desire for another hole?

These were, clearly, important details here.

So the teasing had worked, but River found she didn't quite like the information she got in return, nor did she like to be told she was bragging. "Am not boasting about it," she replied defensively. "It upsets some people." Not Adah though. "My boyfriend at the time chose end the relationship over it." She wasn't sure why she mentioned Blair. It had hurt at the time, and she didn't expect Adah to feel sorry for her. Perhaps it was just to let Adah know that there had been other people in her life, before Adah's arrival.

"The reasoning of reavers is a mystery," she continued. "Might be any of the explanations. Aggression takes over; maybe the boundaries of their bodies dissolve. Eat your own eye or someone elses becomes the same thing."

Adah quietly kept an eye on River as the other girl explained, brow quirking slightly. Interesting thing to end a relationship over; logical, though, she supposed, to a certain degree. It had her comparing, though, thinking of differences between the states of relationships in different mode of intentional and accidental killing, and so she tried to focus, instead, back on the apple. Back curved with her hunching, she scooted her chair forward so that she could lean on the desk a little, reaching a hand out to shift the way the head was facing, to examine it from a different angle. The consumption of an eye. Seemed vaguely reminiscent of the nganga Kuvudundu strange and ineffective magic.

Chosing to stick to the subject of reavers of apples River replied: "I doubt reavers have a complex belief system. Acting on instinct, ruled by emotions." She had finished the first muffin and now she took her fruit knife and stabbed one of the carefully carved heads, lifting it to take a large bite.

Having a complex belief system, Adah mused idly as she watched the fruit knife sink into the mealy meat of the apple with a light, sharp sound, didn't save one from being terrible. It just gave most people an excuse; she felt a little bit of envy for the sort of freedom that would come with being a Reaver, as she watched River's teeth dig into the apple. Lacking an eye, lacking a body, now lacking his entire left cheek, soon to become slight, rhythmic twitches on River's own cheeks as she chewed it up...

"No excuses needed for reavers. No justification. Just primal anger." River looked down at the apple then at Adah. After a moment of hesitation she offered the apple, still pierced on the knife to the other girl.

She should have stayed away from apples. The taste and consistency brought back too many memories associated with touching and tasting Adah, who was sitting just next to her. She looked away, pulling up her mental barriers a little more.

Adah continued to quietly watch River, even as River turned away, even as she lightly went to take the apple carefully, slowly sliding it away from the blade it encased. Only when she was certain that River would feel the distinct lack of weight at the end of the blade from the moment of release did she look away, curving the apple in, twisting her wrist around as she surveyed it from different angles. Her fingers moved, quickly, dancing, the position of the apple changing in sudden jumps from the skilled work of her often used left hand until she could run her thumb along the clean line of where the knife had stabbed into the apple. She considered what little features of the head was remaining, making a quick diagnosis of which part of his brain River had permanently damaged, before taking her own bite.

She shouldn't stay much longer, she mused as she chewed, glancing toward River and offering the apple. She had her club to get to soon...

"Occipital lobe," River replied, turning back to look at Adah, now smiling a little. She leaned forward to take a bite out of the apple but leaving the fruit in Adah's hands.

Adah joining a club surprised her a little, but in a good way. She hesitated, then said: "Thank you for coming."

Adah grinned a little lopsidedly as the poor little victim in her hand had many more things to worry about than his occipital lobe. She then gave River a light nod. "Thank you for listening," she responded back quietly, "and accepting the peace offering."

River reached up to gently touch the flower behinf her ear, slowly tracing a petal. There was another small smile. "Will eat them for dinner."

Adah gave a small smile back as she followed the moments of River's fingers. It looked nice on her; if she hadn't been so set on black for obvious reasons, she would have liked to have gotten something lighter, brighter, that would set itself off in River's dark deoxyribonucleic acid hair and compliment her eyes better, but the consistent color pallet didn't necessarily distract from the beauty. Adah let that thought sit for a bit, stew, marinade, before commenting, "That's a terribly unhealthy dinner."

As Adah watched her and reflected on what she saw, the thoughts made River blush, unable to resist opening up her mind completely for a moment. She shouldn't, she knew that, but Adah looking at her like that made something in her chest flutter. She reached out a foot, her toes curling, stopping before she touched Adah's leg.

"Won't kill me though."

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The Arms Hotel Lobby, Friday

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