fandomhigh | Library, Wednesday [ 09/19 ]

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Library, Wednesday [ 09/19 ]

There are seven ways for a foot to touch the ground, each with its own particular power. As she came into the library today, to open it up, to stay, to be expected to do nothing more than curl up and point others in the right direction when she herself was pointed so awkwardly, Adah was thinking about spreading ashes and how she used to watch things like that, if the dancer was interesting enough, but it hadn't done her much good in the long run. Still, she was thinking maybe she should start watching again.

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"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."

Hesperus bringing together, all that the morning star scattered. It was a good thing Adah was feeling tired enough to be able to recognize the futility of her reaction to such a small movement of a hand. The same string of emotions that always flooded from her, confusion and fear and apprehensive tension, and then they've be followed by the fact that feeling them and trying to decide how to react to them made no different, because, no matter how she acted, River saw all paths. Best to just keep her hand there, kept in middle, in the neutral, not pulling away or moving closer, although her couldn't help a small curling in of her fingers, staring at the two hands. Two hands like snakes. Don't move, and nothing will happen. Try to move, and you'll get bitten.

Letting their fingertips meet, River looked up at Adah. "Wouldn't bite you," she said quitely, then pulled away andslipped down of the desk, her movement fast and sudden. It wasn't until she was halfway to the door that she noticed she'd left her fruit knive on the table. Adah could keep it, she decided and threw a smile over her shoulder before disappearing out of the room.

Adah hadn't noticed the knife; it, like her half of the apple, had gone mostly forgotten and would remain that way for a while. She stared down, still, at the book, at the ghost of where River's hand had been. Her own fingers curled slowly in toward each other, lightly touching, reminding her what touch was like so she could figure out if that was a touch just a second before River took off, flash of motion, or if it was just the brain, compensating for the want to touch.

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Library, Wednesday [ 09/19 ]

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