Title: The Nature of Water and Rivers
Author: Tenebraeli
Fandom: Firefly/Serenity
Rating: PG
Spoilers: None
Beta: None -- anyone who would like to point out bits, please do.
Written: December 23, 2005
Disclaimer: River, the crew of Serenity, and Firefly in general do not belong to me. They are all the property of Joss. Who is sometimes mistaken for god.
Notes: Um... this ends without an ending, and thus I suppose it could be considered a first chapter. Although I never write things with more than one chapter.
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River wishes she was simple, fewer pieces, not so shattered.
Sometimes she is Simon's little sister, and that is sweet as berries in summer.
Sometimes she is River, who knows too much, and can't speak for all the words trying to climb out of her throat at the same moment. They gag her.
Sometimes she is river, flowing around the earthy things, the worldly things. Flowing around people like trees, and buildings like rocks. That river doesn't always lie still, passive in its banks, that river surges and floods and rips roads out from under folks. When the mood takes it.
Sometimes the river is more than a flowing body of water. Sometimes it is River herself.
Sometimes she is a being that lives there, in and of the water-world.
She's never sure if it's dreams, or some other world, or someone else's memories... wouldn't be the first time.
She sees her hair floating about her, like zero-gravity, but not quite, because she can feel the surge and ebb of a tide.
She sees her clothing, her shirt, and it's torn, or made of fringe, or just remnants tied together over her breasts, and it floats too. She wonders if she is a jellyfish, but then counts her limbs and is certain that she doesn't have enough. And she is relatively certain that none of them are tentacles.
Counting the limbs though, that presents a problem. She's used to four. Tidy, divisible by two and one, and convenient for her use.
She sees three limbs.
One right arm, shaped much as ever, save for the fingers which are webbed. This newness doesn't bother her, not as much as the other changes to the arm. She's wearing jewelry, she never wears jewelry. But there it is on her right arm, with some sort of gold snake coiling around and around above her elbow, and on her wrist are more bits of fringe or string, and some of them have little shells tied to them.
One left arm, similar to the right, which satisfies her sense of order at least. Though she still doesn't know why she has jewelry on.
One leg...
No, that's incorrect. She has one tail.
It starts somewhere around her waist, her skin gradually becoming scales, and the scales slowly shading from skin tone, to a silver, which gets darker as it goes along, until the tip of her tail which is the same color as her hair. It's a beautiful tail, as tails go, shimmering and gleaming and she can feel how strong it is. It isn't just some addition to her body, it is her body as much as her head is.
Once, twice, she flexes muscles that she is quite certain she did not have before, and her tail moves strongly through the water.
Oh yes, that's the other thing. She's underwater, and yet not drowning. So it's probably a dream.
A quick sparkle of a school of fish dart before her, and she is instantly hungry, and without another thought she leaps forward, webbed hands reaching towards her prey, tail moving her quickly and powerfully through the water...