Author's Note: I wasn't entirely sure what rating to use for this, so I chose T just in case. It doesn't contain any sex or violence, but the themes could be considered 'adult', insofar as only teenagers and older are really going to understand or care about them. Technically, there's nothing a seven-year-old shouldn't be hearing, but on the other hand, a seven-year-old would be bored to tears. So I went with T.
Disclaimer: If you think I'm the great God Joss, I'm not going to complain . . .
What is She?
River's feet go everywhere, wandering lambently through the fabric of space-time. They are an important part of her, glowing with their own significance, though no one but she can see. Probing forward, exploring, each step noteworthy, deserving of contemplation. So she gives it, every time. And every time, it echoes through her mind.
Her hands caress her surroundings also, stroking objects and sashaying over surfaces. River appreciates her hands, firm yet supple, holding and enclosing and manipulating reality, deriving their meaning from functions too numerous to mention. Despite the pointlessness of attempting to classify their existence, possibilities cascade through her mind, like the droplets of water that leap from a fountain.
Glittering brown threads tangle themselves in the air about her, drifting in and out of her vision and thoughts. Soft and pliable, composed of her cells, erupting from her skin. They serve no obvious purpose, but their own, subjective movements reaffirm her motions, the exterior sum of her existence in the universe, and so she likes them anyway.
These tendrils draw the attention of that which stands in contrast to them, brown but not linear, smooth and circular. Although not all brown; pinks and creams and velvet blacks combining in the formation of the two glossy orbs in her face. It is fitting, River muses, to spare time for the colour of such things, when colour plays so integral a part in allowing them to accomplish their task. She is aware of them receiving immeasurable knowledge of the world, which they transform into ideas and explain to her brain. What would she be without her eyes? She shudders to think.
Two fleshy half-shells, stoic sentinels, stand to attention on either side of her face. They catch the vibrations which shake the air, bouncing them around and translating them. Sound energy becomes electrical energy becomes chemical energy . . . these sounds enter the chambers of her mind and fill them with life, a glorious concerto in which nothing is in harmony, and yet all the disparate parts coalesce perfectly.
So many elements of River, distinct from each other and yet bound together, a physical formation, in her mind an overwhelming impression of throbbing limbs and rippling muscles, the interactions of mechanisms, so many parts . . . this wondrous machine that is River, the embodiment of her own reality, without which she could not exist. Of it, dependent on it . . . what of her is of it and what is of her only? At what part of her does it end? In her mind they are entwined, each the opposite of the other, and yet she cannot tell them apart . . . who is she? What is she?
Author's note: Any comments, good or bad, much appreciated, please! Especially in this case, since it was kind of an experiment and I have no way of knowing if it will make sense to anyone but me . . . And reviews are shiny!