milliways_bar | (no subject)

(no subject)

The door opens, and River wanders in.

She looks to be in a reasonably good mood; at least, she's looking around the room, rather than staring at the floor or the air, even if her gaze doesn't quite settle quite normally. It's the tall boots today, rather than bare feet, under a loose floral skirt, and a couple of shirts in layers.

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"They're known for not forgetting." A little regretfully: "Not surfing, though."

"And they have graveyards. Most animals don't care."

"They care. They forget."

She watches her fingers make slow sweeps against the wide-grained wood.

"Eat, sleep, and eat... Big world. It's what they need."

Anthy watches her knitting. Click click click. The rhythm's always a little off.

"Do you think they tell stories?"

She watches her fingers move.

After a while, "Don't talk."

Whether that's a yes or a no is open for discussion.

"They might. Words aren't the only way."

She stops knitting in order to take a sip of tea, and starts up again when she sets the teacup down. "If they couldn't, why would they care about their dead?"

"Don't have to."

"Of course," Anthy says vaguely.

Vagueness is fine with River.

Eventually, she peers at the tiny sweater.

The tiny sweater doesn't peer back. It dangles cutely at River, though, and Anthy tilts her head in a gesture of indefinite inquiry.

River reaches out as if to touch it, but her hand drops before it reaches it.

"Green," she says vaguely.

Curiously: "Do you like green?"

"His coffin was 'Assumption,'" she adds, distantly. "Or was it -- I'm getting confused."

"Green. Inside."

She's still looking at the knitting.

Anthy glances at her, and at the knitting, and offers it for River to hold or touch or ignore.

River touches it gently.

It's soft.

Anthy watches -- not particularly intently -- quite content to be silent. She waits to see if River will say anything more.

She doesn't.

She strokes the sweater gently with her fingertips.

"I could make you one," Anthy says, eventually. "Something."

River looks at her.

"No thorns."

It's mostly a question.

"Maybe not." The needles slow, and stop, for a moment. "Everything has thorns."

"Sometimes they're invisible." Her hand strokes along the knitting, falls back to her side. "Don't cut you."

The needles start up again. "Sometimes thorns don't. They don't if you hold the flowers right . . . but invisible ones can still cut, can't they?"

"Sometimes."

She looks down.

"Some of them aren't really there, and some of them are knives and they make you bleed, and... some of them aren't. Made-up. Don't hurt unless you ask them nicely."

"Knives?" Mildly curious.

She blinks at River. "Do you ask them nicely?"

She shakes her head sharply, staring at the ground.

Anthy looks at her silently for a moment.

"In the end, all girls . . ."