fandomhigh | Library, Wednesday [ 09/19 ]

Once again River stopped by the library before class. She wondered if Adah would have the books she had mentioned there, but otherwise just sharing an apple was an option, is Adah wanted.

She quietly slipped through the door, trying to see if there was any chance of sneaking up on Adah.

River possessed a thing called grace and Adah possessed a book on brains. A more fitting question would be as to whether or not anyone could actually fail to sneak up on Adah. In fact, the lions of Africa knew already how easy it could be and, unfortunately for Adah, there were no baby bushbacks here to distract River from her initial prey.

River reached out a slender arm and attempted to poke Adah's shoulder. It amused her that the book was about brains, but it wasn't surprising.

The poke on the shoulder lead to much more of a twitch than a jump; Adah's body wasn't entirely capable of a jump, although it did feel like that was what her heart was trying to do, into her throat, past the esophagus, rolling along the red of her tongue and past her silent lips, plopping finally onto the open page with the diagram of the medulla oblongata, nervous system and circulatory system united in a tragically dysfunctional fashion.

It didn't, though; it just stayed neatly in place, with a slight racking against her lungs that made her breath catch. Her head jerked around...too fast, pain pulling the muscle of her neck, retracting it back to where it was. But not too quickly that she hadn't seen who it was, and her body relaxed as much as it would allow. River....not fair... But Adah was grateful that that was who it was.

There was a pang of guilt. "Didn't mean to hurt you," River said quietly, taking a step back and withdrawing her hand. Adah both had a strength and something vulnerable that made River unsure sometimes about how fast she could move next to her.

The ticking of a clock, Adah thought as she turned her head a little and then slowly dragged her eyes behind her to find River, looking up at her, was painful to her on any given day, so River should not worry about something like that. Adah was used to it; she had just been a little caught off guard, that was all. The nerves had settled again; the lungs had forgiven the heart for the jumping trespass against them. Everything was fine. She gave River a faint smile. Since it had been River, everything was fine. She was wondering if she might stop in today...

River replied to Adah's thoughts with a warm smile, reflecting what River felt herself. She jumped up on the desk and took a seat next to Adah, dangling her bare legs.

"I remember one of my brother's books about the brain, from when he went to medical school. Beautiful holographic illustration. Tried to map out the different connections." She dug an apple out of one pocket and a fruit knife out of the other. "Share this?"

Adah blinked at the glint of light against the knife as River took it to the apple, a sharp contrast of brief pain with the hopefulness of another shared apple. Tricky lighting here, unnatural; she tilted her head to better see the blade bite into the flesh of the forbidden fruit. Presumably, anyway; very few translations actually bother to identify it as an apple, and considering the geography, that it was actually an apple is highly unlikely. Most likely a pomegranate, or a kiwi.

And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them. The Bible had much to say about knives, most of them visceral, dark, painful. She much preferred what the poets had to say, speaking of how utilitarian and useful they were, and she was content in watching how River used hers, to cleave the apple. She tried to not be too critical if the cleaving was not done evenly, although she ached a bit for it to be that way. Yawt aht, that way.

River's eyes widened a little at Adah's thoughts of Biblical knives, and she couldn't help wondering what Adah would think of her if she knew of all the other things River could do with a knife. There was a wall in her room full of knive trophies, after all, brought back by River and Buffy from Miranda. She had saved lives then, but that still hadn't meant Blair could accept it.

She had won prizes for her apple sculptures as a child, and although this wasn't a sculpture River could still prove she knew how to use a knife. She peeled the fruit, creating one long spiralling strip of apple peel, then cut it in half, offering one part to Adah.

Leaning her head backwards she let the strip of peel circle down on her tongue.

Adah gingerly took the apple half from River, her head lowered slightly out of a stab of annoyance at herself for wishing she'd sliced it into smaller, easier pieces. She should know better than to want something more than what was offered when the offering was done so kindly. She lifted her eyes and, Adah, ever the watchful, ever the observant, caught the length of River's neck as her head tilted back, and the previous thoughts drifted away as she followed he vein toward River's face, watched as the peel dropped, refusing to fall in anything but a graceful spiral, to the open, waiting mouth. It was hard...no, impossible for Adah not to become fixated on it; the reverse of the desired path of her heart moments ago, instead of sliding up, slithering down, down...

Adah had to close her eyes for a moment at the rush building up into the red across her cheeks. As if that would stop herself from knowing that River was probably aware of every tiny fixation.

The image of herself through Adah's eyes came vividly to her mind. River didn't blush, but she held back a smile, pleased that Adah found her fascinating. Her head upright again, she held out a strip of peel towards Adah, holding it above her head like she had done for herself.

S'driby bab. Adah's mind jumped instantly to baby birds as her eyes slowly opened, head still tilted up to perfectly catch the spiral of peel held there. A mother bird would either dangle a worm or, if there were no worms, produce her own regurgitation to feed the eager, flightless, twisted little things without their feathers. The red increased quickly on Adah's cheeks; her mind rivalled between which was worse, the sense of helplessness that the association fostered, or the sense of intimacy. But her body seemed to decide something before she could, as usual, left arm darting up to quickly just take the peel from River's hands, eliminating the problem all together. The movement, so out of her control, so out of line with the direction of her thoughts, embarrassed her more than the thoughts themselves, and she drew away, closing herself off again in frustration.

River let Adah take the apple peel, for a moment brushing her fingertips against Adah's hand at the exchange. Then she pulled away, sensing Adah needed the space, but the moment of closeness was still in her memory.

She cut a wedge of the apple and placed it in her mouth, chewing thoughtfully while she flipped the fruit knife between her fingers. "You're not a helpless bird," she said. "Have strong enough wings to have flown all the way to Fandom." She sliced another wedge, stabbed it with the knife and swallowed it. "Many ways to use a knife and I'm good at most of them."

Not a helpless bird, indeed. Despite herself, Adah straightened as much as she could and trying almost desperately to hold back a very strong surge of anger. As if coming to a school was the height of Adah's endeavors. She wasn't even supposed to be able to walk, speaking unlikely, intelligence doubtful. The last thing she needed to be reminded of was that she wasn't helpless; she knew that better than anyone, but the bitterness was overwhelming. Maybe because it was coming from, of all people, River.

"Thought came from your head, not mine." River's voice was defensive. Sometimes talking to Adah was like stepping through a mine field. "Never mean to hurt you, but I can just listen, not predict." There was a hint of irritation. She stabbed the remaining piece of apple on the knife and began to spin the knife handle between her palms

Adah winced slightly at the reminder that, yes, it was her brain that made the association but it was just that, a fleeting association. She shifted in her chair a little, leaning forward and reaching past River for her book, the functions of the brain. Brain functions weren't always linear, weren't always circular; associations coming and going like solar flares, some stick, some don't, some apply, some don't...some come unhindered, unwelcome. Listening takes more than just listening; Adah couldn't filter her brain, didn't have the time to dismiss something before it flared up unannounced. Usually, it wasn't an issue, because usually, she just did not speak what the brain brought up, and that didn't matter with River. Everything was just...exposed and unfiltered...

Adah was not a helpless bird, but when the strength of her silence was taken away, doubt flooded into its place. She didn't want to doubt herself, but River, by nature, stripped away all her armor, leaving her defensive.

"Can't filter either. That part was disconnected. Everyone doubts, hides things." But Adah couldn't read her mind and see what River hid. "Knowledge isn't balanced," she said. No way to change that though. Talking to Adah could never be like with those people who could talk back in their minds, but occasionally River forgot.

She watched Adah's hand reach for her book. "To compensate you can ask. I'll answer."

Drawing in a slight breath, Adah flipped a few pages to a better diagram, and circled her finger around the page. There. The part of her brain that didn't function, wasn't whole, was possibly shriveled and clinging to the other with some impossible hope for life, like most living things do. She traced its curves and folds slowly, thoughtfully, thinking about how that part of the brain might feel right now, with the left hand tracing it, sending little shocks and nerves along her arm, through her shoulder, up her spinal chord and sparking the right side with so much life and vibrance.

The fingers on her limp right hand in her lap twitched; the features of Adah's face twitched with it in a brief pull of pain, and she pressed her lips together for a moment before looking at River and edging the book close to her with a single finger.

Her turn.

River reached her hand out, and placed a finger on the diagram, her tip circling the part of her brain that had been isolated from the rest, unable to perform its function. "Dead zones. A theory that the brain strives to compensate. One part dies to bring another to life, or to maturity." She looked at Adah. "If it's true, which one?"

Adah's finger tapped on the desk as she frowned at the book thoughtfully. It would have to be the second one. After seventeen years, what had her brain striven to compensate with? Mathematics, and language, she supposed, a heightened sense of awareness and an increased cynicism for everything. Heightened sense of awareness. Noticing things like how many dots on the ceiling in a matter of seconds didn't exactly hold a candle to how River's brain seemed to compensate for her loss. And these dead zones of hers were so much smaller than the half-brain of Adah's. Her mind went to evolution; unlikely that too much could change in five hundred forty five years, but, then again, a lot could change in the blink of an eye. A species of animal can start adapting within a just a few generations, starting to spew out a better product suited to whatever changes were necessary. Perhaps Adah was just the older class; River's version of compensation was just the next evolution of genius.

Her thoughts still jumbled, Adah's head tilted, and she looked at River questioningly. Didn't River mention that this was something done to her, though? She did. One could argue that this was done to Adah, as well, but there was a difference here still that seemed, to her, to make all the difference. When. Adah had always been like this; River, however, had not...

"Not evolution. Would require millenia. Experiments aimed to offer the government hidden weapons." One corner of her mouth turned upwards. "Seeking knowledge can be dangerous."

She put the last piece of apple in her mouth. "Compensation occurs regardless, but it's difficult to control."

Almost as if her brain had decided Adah, you are thinking on this way too hard; you are straining me far too much trying to comprehend something that I just cannot allow, she could only let out a small snort of a laugh. Small, and it jerked her shoulder a little, but there was a lot in that laugh. Frustration, confusion, worthlessness, annoyance, envy, amusement, fascination...but mostly just exhaustion. The jumble of thoughts all just filtered away to one thing: she'd read something like this in a book before.

She couldn't remember how it ended.

"It ends?" River asked, raising an eyebrow. Her ears picked up the laugh but her mind was washed over with the emotions it contained. River had long since stopped trying to make sense of people's feeling. They were generally too complex and contradictory. Pulling her legs up to sit cross-legged on the desk she leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. "Am making you tired?" It wouldn't have been the first time she had done that to someone.

It was a book; of course it ended. Everything ended eventually, just like everything made Adah tired, so she looked up at River with an apologetically exhausted look. Her brain had to work overtime for even the smallest compensations, it seemed.

River returned the look, her apology being for making Adah tired. She bit her lip and tilted her head, placed her palm across the page, covering the diagram of the brain and moved her fingertips close to Adah's. "Will go now, leave you to work."

Library, Wednesday [ 09/19 ]

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