[open] apples and quinces, lemons and oranges

[nedofpies]

Who: Ned, open to all
What: Here be species-swap logs involving Ned the unlikely fertility god.
Where: Anywhere (preferably outdoors).
When: Duration of the event (58 - 61); put date in header, please.
Warnings: Blood, kidnapping, creepiness and general Ned-terrorizing? [will add more as necessary]

Ned wanders the town barefoot, leaving a path of fruit and flowers and vegetation behind him. There are daffodils and bluebells, hyacinths and crocuses, irises of all colors, primroses and poppies and periwinkle in profusion. When he stops to sit quietly under a tree, by the edge of the woods, the vines spread out from his body like paint creeping through water. They slowly wind their way up the trees, or else sprawl across the ground, swelling with strawberries and blackberries, grapes and kiwis, passionfuit and cherries.

He doesn't understand why it is happening, but from the sound of the messages over the communicator, everyone has been going through some strange changes. As far as Ned's concerned, being some kind of plant conjurer is better than some options.

Since he can't think of much else to do with his time, Ned lounges in the dappled shade and makes bouquets. All he needs to do is rake his hands through the soil and a few minutes later, up come the snapdragons, up come the cala lilies. He finds that, if he focuses on a particular kind of flower as he does it, sometimes it is mixed amongst the others. As he sits the hydrangeas are bubbling up around him, shielding him from view.

Ned isn't worried about resting in the woods, despite all the dire warnings he's heard in his short time here. He is at the very edge, just in the shade of the first few trees; the lions and tigers and bears can't possibly have any objections. So he lounges in his cozy bower, hazy, half-awake (he hadn't exactly slept well, the previous night), weaving crowns of camellias and garlands of gladiolus.

Comments

[nedofpies]

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.

[enchangement]

River presses the soles of her feet together, bouncing her knees in thought as she listens to Ned's explanation. "It's good, to see you happy. Comfortable." It will be difficult, she's sure, when they go back to being themselves - everyone's mind emptied from her own in less than a second, as if a black hole had opened up in her consciousness and swallowed them all, leaving her only with herself - and part of her is severely tempted to take Ned by the shoulders and have him promise her that he'll remember this later, remember feeling this contented and happy with the world and his place in it, remember being unafraid of himself first and foremost, but...

But to do that now would be to drag the dark clouds into a clear sky and she just can't. She won't. Instead, later, if necessary, she'll sit with him like they're sitting now and remind him of this feeling, remind him of what it meant to live without fear.

For now it's good.

Some of the flowers Ned brings to life from the soil wind and gather themselves around her, sprouting new buds in her hair or the folds of her dress. It's a calming thing to watch and smile at, and River reaches for Ned's hand and squeezes it. "You deserve happiness too."

[nedofpies]

When River says he deserves happiness, Ned comes as close to believing it as he has in the last twenty years. It's hard to feel toxic when his touch gives life in such an obvious and beautiful and simple way - no complications, no rules, no drawbacks.

"I am happy," he confirms, with a hint of disbelief. Happy she saved him, happy to be with her here, happy to be the way he is now. He's more than content to leave his hand in hers, even if he does seem to be slowly leaving her a bright green glove of moss. "Which is pretty impressive, given the day I've had."

And then he starts to tell her about his day (she'd said she wanted to hear all the things she could otherwise just see in his mind). Tells her about discovering his power, about how it suddenly felt odd wearing shoes and being inside, about how he'd felt the trees and wanted to be close to them, about how he'd spent hours teaching himself to weave flower crowns (he reclaims his hand temporarily to make her one out of the moonflowers), about spending time with Daneel who was a human now and had cried for the first time in front of him, about the trances he found himself going into sometimes, about how Meyer fed on him and then learning he could heal, about Charlie showing up - at which point he stops.

"You know the rest from there," he concludes. It's strange, this feeling of knowing there are things he can leave out. He doesn't tell River just how frightened he'd been (though she could probably figure it out on her own). He also hadn't told her about the very start of it all - the nightmare, and Galen, and the fear. If they ever go back to the way they were before, she'll fill in the gaps, he's sure. For now, he's not going to ruin the peace of the moment by making her worry about him any more than she already is.

"What about you?" he asks, finally, "How are you handling all of it?"

[enchangement]

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?

[nedofpies]

Ned laughs, too, when she touches his nose, because it's such a River-ish thing to do. The change clearly hasn't altered her all that much. Still unpredictable and affectionate. It's fascinating, to recognize that in her and incorporate the side he'd seen earlier, with Charlie. All fire and anger and graceful violence. It rounds out his picture of her, adds depth and contrast. There's real danger, underneath brightness and the joy. But that's not frightening to him. He's dangerous underneath, too, in his own way.

What she says about just being strikes a chord with him, puts words to that ambient sense of inert contentment which he hadn't been able to articulate on his own.

"I realize how ridiculous it is for me to lecture anyone about worrying, particularly considering recent events, but it isn't your job to stop everything bad from happening all the time." But telling someone not to worry is never going to help. Ned knows that. Better to take that not knowing which is concerning her and distract her from it, or else make it into something enjoyable.

"Now's your chance to try all the stuff you couldn't do before because of your telepathy." Is there a list? Ned knows in his case there was a list of things he'd do without his powers, and he just assumes River will be the same. "We could play twenty questions." It's childish, sure, but he doesn't much care. Teaching Daneel to spin in circles until he was so dizzy he fell down had been childish, too, but it had also been the highlight of his day. "Come on. I'm thinking of a thing. You get twenty yes or no questions to guess what it is." A tree would be too obvious, a star run the risk of making her homesick. Unsurprisingly, he settles on a pie.

[enchangement]

"Okay..." River smiles and tilts her head, thinking. It's such a sweet thing to offer, a moment of pure childhood; if she and Simon ever played twenty questions it was likely along the lines of complex chemical markers and the distance between their favorite stars.

Of course she'll worry. Of course she can't stop, but by the same token she can't quite bring herself to be as distressed over it. It's in her mind, that need to be aware, that need to protect but in her body, her bones, her blood? There's a desire to take root, be still, enjoy the sun on her skin and the wind in her hair and just be.

Contentment is something she's never had many chances for and that, moreso than loosing her telepathic gifts or curses, is what she wants to hold onto now. That is the advantage she'll take.

So. Twenty questions. She wonders if she can get it in three. "Can you eat it?" She knows you, Ned. Gonna have to try harder.

[nedofpies]

Ned's laughter at her question gives the game away even further, but he doesn't care. Even without psychic powers, River clearly knows exactly how his brain works. It probably helps that he's unbelievably predictable. He's going to have to think of something more difficult for the next round. "Yes, you can eat it." She's gonna get it on her second or third guess, he's sure.

In the meantime his hands are busy making her a necklace to match the crown, weaving in jasmine and primroses with the moonflowers.

[enchangement]

With a grin River digs her bare toes into soft, warm soil, watching Ned make a necklace out of flowers. "Can you ...bake it?" Look at her, trying to give the benefit of the doubt.

This is good. This is ...nice, quiet, calming happiness that neither of them have had in spades in their lives up until this point. River can actually let go of fear for a moment, of concern. Let go of the weight of so many people on her shoulders. It'll be okay. This was okay, wasn't it?

She knows that's not exactly true, but she wants to believe it and this may be the only chance she gets to do it. Happy and laughing in the sun with a good friend, and not missing the stars for the first time since she woke up here.

[nedofpies]

"Yes." There's no question: she's onto him. Ned, too, is enjoying this moment of childishness. This chance to pretend, for a little while, that River really is his sister. They've been turned into related things, haven't they? Her the spirit of a tree, him... whatever he is right now. He imagines this is what it must have been like, for all the boys at school who had little sisters they saw around the holidays. Spending time together, playing games, being happy without it being an effort.

Of course, part of him knows that it likely wasn't that way. They were always complaining in loud voices (the school was always so loud when everyone came back after the weeks of silence and snow, or silence and sun) how annoying their sisters were, how they followed them around and wanted to spend too much time with them. Ned can't imagine that concept: a surplus of someone wanting to spend time with him.

[enchangement]

"Is it ...pie?" she asks with almost accusatory glee, not giving Ned much of a chance to respond before she sets at him with tickling until he howls with laughter and has to push her off.

Of course it's pie, what else could it be? Ned is still Ned even if the dying and reviving god has been rewritten to place its attentions firmly in the flora instead of human beings and variations thereof. It is good that they're similar, now - good that she can spend time with someone being quiet, good that she can make him laugh and not hurt, not worry.

It's good in the way that knowing and meeting Ned is good, and she tells him this long after the sun has gone down and they play a game of naming the strange constellations after flowers, trees, plants.

It's good to be grounded without pining for the stars.