A dryad. Somehow, that strikes him as the perfect thing for River to become. Of course, even the bastard scientists who orchestrated all this couldn't turn River into a monster. They could only make her something strange and beautiful and unexpected, like she already was.
Ned sits close beside her on the grass, working on pulling together the threads of his fraying composure. He does this by focusing on River, on the details of this new form of hers. The barkish quality of her skin, her hair, and something else - some treeish quality to her that he senses, not with sight or sound or smell or any other sense he is accustomed to having. It is more of a presence - the kind of presence he realizes, now, that he has been experiencing all day, from the flowers around him, from the trees of the woods, even from the grass beneath his feet. As if there really is some kind of tangible connection, between him and all these growing things.
From the sound of it, her usual power has vanished, the same as his has done. He wonders if that is why she doesn't seem to be using her habitual third-person, just now. Why she's calling herself I. It's a sign of how accustomed he's become to River's unique speech patters that it immediately strikes his ear as strange. He can't imagine the emptiness of that silence, just as he couldn't imagine the weight of having everyone else's thoughts and feelings running through your head nonstop. If she wants him to talk, he's more than happy to talk - or at least to try.
He'll start of simple, work his way up. There's a shakiness lingering at the edges of his voice that gradually subsides as he speaks, "Don't know who I am today. If there's a name for it, I don't know it." That had bothered him a little, at first. It seemed like an insult, that everyone else here had become something defined, something categorizable, whereas he again was left without a name for himself. But now, that doesn't seem to matter so much.
"Whatever it is, I like it," he exhales, trailing his fingers over the grass softly. A few seconds later there are moonflowers pushing their way up through the soil, uncurling their bright white petals. It's easier to be calm, now, with River and the other plants around him. He can detach himself from the fear and sadness of the last hour or so, step aside as if they are a separate thing. "I love it, actually. It's everything good about what I could do before, but none of the bad. I'm not afraid I'm going to kill someone on accident." Because even if River can't read his mind now, she has been able to in the past, knows the way the consequences of his power were always there in the back of his mind, a constant threat.
"And... it's not just growing things, and healing. Other stuff's different, too. Like, it's not so hard for me to touch people. Or look at them when I'm talking to them. Everything that's usually worrying is... not so worrying." Which, he thinks, is perhaps why he can sit here like this, talking to River, so soon after everything. Under normal circumstances, he'd probably be a sobbing, hysterical mess right now.
no subject
Ned sits close beside her on the grass, working on pulling together the threads of his fraying composure. He does this by focusing on River, on the details of this new form of hers. The barkish quality of her skin, her hair, and something else - some treeish quality to her that he senses, not with sight or sound or smell or any other sense he is accustomed to having. It is more of a presence - the kind of presence he realizes, now, that he has been experiencing all day, from the flowers around him, from the trees of the woods, even from the grass beneath his feet. As if there really is some kind of tangible connection, between him and all these growing things.
From the sound of it, her usual power has vanished, the same as his has done. He wonders if that is why she doesn't seem to be using her habitual third-person, just now. Why she's calling herself I. It's a sign of how accustomed he's become to River's unique speech patters that it immediately strikes his ear as strange. He can't imagine the emptiness of that silence, just as he couldn't imagine the weight of having everyone else's thoughts and feelings running through your head nonstop. If she wants him to talk, he's more than happy to talk - or at least to try.
He'll start of simple, work his way up. There's a shakiness lingering at the edges of his voice that gradually subsides as he speaks, "Don't know who I am today. If there's a name for it, I don't know it." That had bothered him a little, at first. It seemed like an insult, that everyone else here had become something defined, something categorizable, whereas he again was left without a name for himself. But now, that doesn't seem to matter so much.
"Whatever it is, I like it," he exhales, trailing his fingers over the grass softly. A few seconds later there are moonflowers pushing their way up through the soil, uncurling their bright white petals. It's easier to be calm, now, with River and the other plants around him. He can detach himself from the fear and sadness of the last hour or so, step aside as if they are a separate thing. "I love it, actually. It's everything good about what I could do before, but none of the bad. I'm not afraid I'm going to kill someone on accident." Because even if River can't read his mind now, she has been able to in the past, knows the way the consequences of his power were always there in the back of his mind, a constant threat.
"And... it's not just growing things, and healing. Other stuff's different, too. Like, it's not so hard for me to touch people. Or look at them when I'm talking to them. Everything that's usually worrying is... not so worrying." Which, he thinks, is perhaps why he can sit here like this, talking to River, so soon after everything. Under normal circumstances, he'd probably be a sobbing, hysterical mess right now.