The reviews I am getting are giving me all kinds of motive to write, and since I have yet to hit a metaphorical brick wall, I will continue to post ass fast as my little fingers can type. There will be a lot more added to the Pitch Black plot because I find it a little unbelievable that they happened to crash on the exact day that darkness falls. So you will get a lot more interaction between people. =) Thank you all. Again, I own nothing please don't sue.
Riddick's POV
"So you can see who's sneaking up on you in the dark?" Fry asks, the slight scent of fear rolling of her tongue as she says this.
"Exactly."
"Leave!" She orders the girl, who looks all the more perturbed and all the more tempting as she does. She leaves but not after a small growl escapes her throat.
"Cute kid." Johns now has his attention turned back to me with that last comment. I can smell the jealousy dripping out of his every pore. His stench is screaming that the girl will be his no matter what, but lil'Johnny boy forgets I don't play nice when people touch things that are mine…
A moment has passed in relative silence, and you can tell the captain and merc are itching for me to continue…
"Did I kill a few people? Sure. Did I kill Zeke? No. You got the wrong killer."
"He's not in that hole. We looked."
I rumble out "Look deeper."
River's POV
The butterfly and others are poking around where they do not belong. The butterfly thinks she will be able to fly away from the things that lurk below if needed. Silly, silly, little butterfly, only Orpheus ever returned from below.
The girl watches as they lower the butterfly by the life line, down into the pits. She knows what will happen, can see it so clearly now. She is not needed here, and wanders towards the music.
She walks gracefully through the twists and turns, trailing her hand over the glittering flowerbed of metal.
"Do I understand nature? Do I understand myself?" She says to no one in particular. "No more words. I shroud dead men in my stomach... Shouts, drums, dance, dance, dance!…Thirst and hunger, shouts, dance, dance, dance!" And again she dances through the flowerbed of metal.
She is approaching the cage now, but the symphony is loud and it sweeps her into its folds. Swan Lake has morphed, and woodwind is replaced by brass and percussion, and the orchestra is calling at the inner Valkyrie.
Riddick's POV
He can smell the girl approaching; smell the waves of lavender roll in like a fog. He can feel the air visibly shift about her form as she dances about the room.
"If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it; that surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die." He can't help but laugh at this. No one ever called his mind music. This girl is all kinds of twisted and it makes him like her that much more.
"The other's looking deeper?" I ask even though I already know the answer.
"Affirmative" She replies. She is about a meter in front of me now, and I want nothing more than to reach out and grab her by the arms and pull her into me, inhaling the scent of lavender.
Her next movement surprises me, and she is tracing the contours of my face with her fingertips. I clench my jaw at this and she can feel me stiffen and she giggles.
"Silly Orpheus, the dancer merely wishes to remember the symphony."
"You keep calling me Orpheus, care to explain little girl?"
She is now removing the blindfold around my eyes and replacing it with the goggles the idiot hype left behind. After she has done this she takes a step back and sits herself gently down on a box nearby.
"You are her Orpheus, the maker of sweet melodies, they calm the girl, they sing of sadness, of bloodshed, of passion. But only the girl is moved by them."
I can see her now and she gets a dreamy look on her face while saying this, and visibly sways a bit.
"So if I am this fucking Orpheus, who are you?" And she again giggles that sweet little laugh and again it makes my blood begin to boil.
"The girl has been called many things, daughter, sister, maiden, prize, but they are labels, things the girl has not chosen for herself. She is a dancer, one who cannot help but be carried away by the music. But she is also a weapon, trained in a dance very few know. This makes her the Iron Queen, the harbinger of death, the one who presides over it."
"Ahh, all hail the Queen of the Underworld," I say with a bow of my head and this earns another giggle from the girl.
"Still doesn't tell me your name girl." I look back at her, challenging her to answer me.
It takes her a moment to answer, and I can tell that it's difficult for her to. "…River," she says barely above a whisper, "the girl's given name is River."
"River" I purr. The name rolls off my tongue. It fits her, she moved like liquid, fluid and graceful.
"So why don't you and I have a little talk, hmmm?"
"The girl will answer his questions the best she can, but she does not have all the words to supply the lyrics to his music."
"Okay, so more riddles, I can live with that." She noticeable smiles at being understood, something I have a feeling she has gotten very little of before.
"So you are a reader, correct?"
"Affirmative, the girl hears things others cannot."
"And the Alliance had you in one of their programs."
"Again, Affirmative."
"What did they take from you?"
She pauses at this, and it looks like the air has been sucked from her sails a bit. "The girl is broken. They took away the bits that made her whole and made her something new. But all that glitters is not gold."
"They tampered with your brain, took parts away," he says more to himself than to her.
"Affirmative. They made the girl a weapon. The girl became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity; horrible pain."
"But you took back from them you said," and she noticeable perks at the mention of this.
"How?" She understands what I am asking. Not how did you escape, but how did you kill them? How did you make the fuckers pay?
"They thought they had created the perfect weapon. Molded from the clay in the image that they wanted. But they forgot to lock her in the tower. They forgot that they had given her everything the girl needed for redemption. The wrath of the furies rained down on them one by one. The blades pierced the cords, cut the strings, and the girl made beautiful music of her own. After that the girl merely walked off stage."
She looks like a predator stalking its prey as she says this. There is an almost feral grin on her face. Girl was full of surprises. Had an affinity for blades too, my kind of woman.
All I could say was "Shiny," and give her a grin that matched her own.
Fry is being hauled up screaming from the pits Zeke was in. She is out of breath and panting, and the others are asking her a million questions.
"I…don't know…what the fuck is in there…but whatever is, it got Zeke…, and it nearly got me…"
River's POV
The girl feels acceptance pulse around her. The man is not ashamed of what she has done, he does not condone her for it; he accepts her. This pleases her to no end. The girl knows that the man is needed to weather the storm, and acceptance is a key to survival.
She is about to begin explaining the storm that is coming when she feels the sharp needles approach. As if the blue devil didn't annoy her enough already. The Riddick has caught the scent and nods in acknowledgement.
She just sits there as the blue devil enters and begins with his demands.
"Finally found something worse than me?" She cannot help but giggle at irony of this.
"So here's the deal. You work without chains, without bit and without shivs….You do what I say when I say it." Johns says with contempt in his voice. He doesn't like that he has to ask the killer for help.
"For what? The honor of going to some asshole of a cell? Fuck you."
"The truth is…I'm tired of chasing you. Thinking I want to chase something else around instead of your ugly ass," he says as he looks in the girl's direction. This does not sit well with the girl or the Riddick and both acknowledge the other's annoyance.
"Are you saying you would cut me loose?"
"I'm thinking you could have died in the crash." The blue devil says with a false swagger.
The Riddick is getting more annoyed by the second. "My recommendation: Do me. Don't take the chance that I'll get shiv-happy on your wanna-be ass. Ghost me motherfucker. That's what I would do to you." The last part is said at a hair's breadth above a whisper but Johns heard it all the same.
The next moment happens in a flash that it is even hard for the girl to process. The blue devil has pulled the shotgun and shot the lock that bound the chains. The only sound is the clank of metal chains hitting the floor.
"Do we have a deal?"
The girl can only smirk as the table is turned on the blue devil. Orpheus now holds the instrument on him and it's all the more pleasing.
"I want you to remember this moment." He rumbles
"Just one?"
"For now." The Riddick says as Johns takes back the shotgun and proceeds to walk out the door. She can feel the wave of concern about the girl's presence but he knows better than to make a move in front on an unchained beast so he leaves.
The girl is left alone with the Riddick for the first time without chains, and the predatory grin returns to his face. He makes a move towards her, but she is quicker, and dances past him. She calls over her shoulder as she leaves the room. "No touching, the Orpheus must earn the right to play for the Queen." And with that she leaves the room.
She is dancing back towards the others and she can feel one thought reverberate through her mind "Mine!"And her own grin returns to her face.
As she rejoins the others, the Riddick is not far behind. The others look on in astonishment and turn back to arguing with Johns
"So, you click your fingers and he's one of us now?" The gilded butterfly feels threatened by the change in power dynamic, as she should, but she is underestimating the girl, which will have to be corrected sooner or later.
"I didn't say that. At least this way I don't have to worry about you all… falling asleep and not waking up." The implication hangs in the air and the others understand the meaning in his words.
"Alright so this is the plan, in an hour we are going start moving stuff over to the settlement. Anything you can salvage and that's worth taking. We are going to take 2 of the power cells with us to see if we can get that shuttle up and running. So rest, drink some off the water and in an hour we move out." Fry says in an almost authoritative tone. The others do as they are told and begin to scatter to the various spots of shade and supplies that have been recovered.
"Come child, it is not a good idea for you to be by yourself right now," the Holy man says. She smiles at his unfounded concern but moves to sit with him and his charges. Paris soon follows as he realizes he has been left standing near the murdered, and drops a bottle of booze in the process.
Riddick's POV
"Blast!" Paris says.
I inwardly smirk at the little man's jumpiness around me. Like I said ain't me they need to be worried about. I pick up the bottle and begin looking at it.
"Paris P. Ogilvie," the little man says as he sticks out a trembling hand. I grasp it with mine in a slightly firm than necessary handshake.
"Richard B. Riddick. Escaped convict…murdered." He blanches at his and takes his hand back quickly. I begin to take a drink from the bottle in my hands.
"That's a good Shiraz. It's a lovely drop." He wants me to stop drinking but I am thirsty and this is the first drop I have had to drink since Johns tied me up again. The little man continues his plaintive little complaints as I continue to drink.
"It's very expensive. By all means, please. Help yourself." He finally admits defeat and begins walking to the shade where the Holy man, River, and the three boys are. Shazza, Johns, and Fry have all gone to look for more supplied in the wreckage.
As I approach I can hear the girl giggle at something the preacher has said. She notices my arrival but makes no outward sign of moving so I sit down and begin to listen to the conversation.
"Bible's broken; contradictions, false logistics. Doesn't make sense."
"Child, the bible is not meant to be scientific, it's based on faith." The Holy man responds.
Paris feels the need to jump in at this point, "All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry... It is why the church is wealthy." He says with a twinge of jealousy.
"Edgar Allan Poe," River remarks. Paris noticeable startled that she knew the source of his words. This just amuses her and she giggles, while Paris again retreats to silence.
"What about you Riddick," the Holy man asks. "What do you believe?"
"I ought to have a special hell for my anger, a hell for my pride, - and a hell for sex; a whole symphony of hells!" Again there is a giggle from the girl's lips.
"I can tell you jest with this, but keep in mind that just because you do not believe in God does not mean that God does not believe in-" The holy man stops short as I whirl around to face him.
"Think someone could spend half their life in a slam with a horse bit in their mouth and not believe? Think he could start out in some liquor store trash bin with an umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and not believe? Got it all wrong, holy man. I absolutely believe in God... And I absolutely hate the fucker."
There is dead silence after I finish my statement. Even the girl has stopped her giggling.
River's POV
The symphony has become a cacophony. And she frowns at the headache she is being given by the voices around her.
Suddenly she begins to hum, to relieve some of the tension burning in her head. A minute goes by before the voices start again.
"Little girl why do you keep humming that infernal song?" Paris bit out. His calm was severely damaged by the presence of the convict and he did not want anything to irritate the man.
"Because it is the song of the girl." She simply states and continues her humming.
"What song is again?" The Holy man asks pleasantly, enjoying the girls humming.
"Requiem Mass: Lacrimosa," Paris replies, and the girl cannot help but stop and stare a bit at the man before continuing.
"Why does it bother you so much little man, seems downright pleasant to me," Riddick responds.
"Do you have any idea what the song means?"
"No," Riddick replies, even the Holy man shakes his head in the negative.
"It's a song of death, of dying."
"Exactly, it is the girl's song." And all but one face turns to look at the little girl humming her tune.
"My kind of song." The Riddick replies and with a smile, the girl just keeps humming.
Riddick's POV
Johns, Fry, and Shazza are returning from their scavenger hunt. Seems like he is dragging the 2 power cells behind him and the women are carrying a few more odds and ends.
"Alright Riddick, time to earn your keep." Johns says as he drops the ropes to the power cells at my feet. I don't say anything but send him a warning glance to watch his tone. He just chuckles at this and I cannot help but think about his eventual demise.
"Alright people, let's move out." And the rest of them begin to get up and follow her in the direction of the settlement.
River and Johns are the only two that lag behind. She goes to make a move to help with the cells, but Johns stops her with an icy glance. She just shrugs and skips off ahead to where the Holy man and the boys are.
"Keep your hands to yourself Riddick, pretty little Core girl like that has no place in your life," Johns bitterly spits out.
I cock my head to the side to regard him a minute and then a smile begins to ghost onto my face.
"You mean your life don't you Johns?"
There is another minute of silence between us before he turns and walks after the others. Oh yeah I as definitely going to enjoy the day I got to go shiv-happy on his ass. Fucker better learn to keep his hands away from what's mine.
Author's Note: Alright so as you guys may have known from the start, this was the chapter where we learn how River came to 'leave' the academy, but does it still completely explain why she was on the HG by herself? I don't think so ;) Hopefully this chapter gave you a little more insight into how River sees herself. Obviously she is not 'perfect' in the brainpan, but she definitely understands what is going on around her and is not as helpless as in the series. Things will begin to get darker now, which should make things interesting. Feedback always appreciated,