River listens with rapt attention, arms wrapped around her knees as he makes her flower crown and she threads this story into a visual in her mind; later - of course, there has to be a later when this all dies down and everyone is returned more or less to the states in which they found themselves upon arrival here - later, then she'll fill in the gaps, and the narrative will become a fully-fleshed memory borrowed from another.

For now, however, Ned is a very good storyteller and it helps to hear what he's been through, the changing of self and understanding of what was and what wasn't to be. She worries about this thing with the feeding, a vampire incurring a dragon to kidnap Ned like a trophy, but she's not entirely sure what can be done about it beyond keeping watch and hoping others will just let him be.

She puts on her crown and boops him on the nose with a forefinger. "It's oh so quiet." A laugh, because it's a song from someone, somewhere, she only knows just that much. "It's quiet and it makes me quiet. Trees aren't concerned with moments, just being, and so she and I are all just being very quietly." A shrug. "Not frightening, and it feels too old to be new? But I worry. What if something bad happens? What if I don't know?"

What if she'd been too late and Ned had been a dead trophy, what then?