Not mine, natch.
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At the Academy, they had a swimming pool. It was full of slick, cold, blue fluid that wasn't quite water. They held River's limbs in iron hands and made her swim there, as part of her physical training. It made her skin itch and the chemical smell clung inside her lungs.
They gripped her legs and said, "kick." They bent her arms to demonstrate the strokes.
River liked dives the best, for those few seconds deep under the blue where all is silent, and she looks up at the water-distorted world overhead. Her lungs burn and her legs kick and she feels so strong.
One day, she is too strong. The instructor holds her underwater for too long. It's not peaceful like the dives, it's all bubbles filled with her screams, churning water.
And River can feel his heartbeat, the air in his lungs, the blood in his veins.
She surges up in a thick spray, coughing not-water. The instructor has time to take half a step back before she seizes his head in one graceful hand and forces it beneath the liquid. She digs her fingers into pressure points and he twitches.
Of course the cameras have picked her up. As the instructor's struggles slow, guards run in. River can't find their eyes behind the tinted sunglasses. They might as well be faceless. They rush into the pool, kicking up loud, high plumes of spray, shouting, reaching. Hard hands grab her and she goes quietly, hot tears sudden on her cold cheeks. This is wrong.
River looks up at the artificial skylight and sends her thoughts to Simon.