A/N: PTSD! It's that fun thing you get when you deal with horrible things for a living.
Check out Dragon Ball Z: The Space Train for my other work alongside my lovely coauthor Feraligreater.
Prompt 24: DARKNESS
River remembered a time, just after being resurrected, where she had stared up at the sky and seen thousands of stars on a clear, still night. She had to double check, just be sure - she left their apartment and took her ship north, out beyond where the City had sprawled, and found the highest peak she could. All the lights on her ship dimmed, River stepped out into the pitch black night.
There, above her, the moon, luminous and shining. There were stars, yes - but fewer. And as she stood and stared, watching the same stars she had years ago, River watched them begin to blink out.
Her heart sank. The Black Fleet had not destroyed the stars, but they had eaten them up with those black pyramid ships, blocked them out from view.
All of the hair on her arms stood on end as she stared up at the inky, hungry black. Once upon a time, River might have looked at the Darkness as just something new. But that was before a time where she had seen what horrible Darkness could do, what a powerful foe could shape someone corrupted into.
Her finger itched as she remembered pulling a trigger not too long ago. And she knew she couldn't really hear it, but something came to her on the wind, whispering - so she turned and entered her ship, hands shaking, and didn't unclench her fists from the controls until she had reentered City airspace.