two ☆ video

[enchangement]

[ The video starts zoomed in on a bowl, full of water, but the image reflected is oddly murky. River's finger appears from the top of the frame and gently rings around the edge with her fingertip. ]

Some things were found that belong but not to her.

[ The camera moves to a notebook full of detailed handwriting. River turns the pages rapidly, so it's difficult to determine just what the notes are for, but: ]

She could cook.

[ Another move to loose leaf pages written in strange symbol-like cryptograms. Some of it has side-by-side translations in Mandarin, but not all of it. ]

These are strange. Like a joke told in the dark in the wrong language.

[ Next to that there is a sketchbook with a pencil on it. Some of the drawings are River's, but some are not.

There's also a pocket stop watch and something else, something flesh colored and curved and somewhat small but River covers the lense at that one. ]

A device for counting and the part for listening, open, removed from the host.

Is it yours, here?

Comments

private text

[torrefied]

How did you end up with such a collection?

private text

[enchangement]

some were held by monsters
some she found while wandering
one was in her bed

perma for mister paranoid here

[torrefied]

You fought monsters for those things.

[River looks to Mello like she'd break in half if a monster looked at her.]

omg I lol'd

[enchangement]

She's a good fighter.

[ >:P ]

good <3

[torrefied]

[Sounds fake, River, but OK ... ]

She has a lot of experience fighting monsters, then?

[enchangement]

she's a living weapon

[torrefied]

[... OK, that's both a little disturbing and seriously intriguing.]

How so?

[enchangement]

They set up a school for the best and the brightest, she went and came out a different person.

They wanted perfect weapons. They broke her to achieve that.

[torrefied]

[Everything about these three sentences hits entirely too close to home for Mello. Maybe he was never meant to be a weapon, but he was designed to be a machine, one that solves complex problems with perfection and grace, and he was never able to achieve that, despite how far he bent himself in order to meet that goal. Maybe, he thinks, in the shocked silence as he stares at the screen of his phone, heart pounding, anger spreading in flickering heat across his chest, he too is broken. Maybe that's something they have in common.]

Then I hope she broke them right back.

[enchangement]

They are the government.

Too big to break.

[torrefied]

Nothing is too big to break.

[Take it from the guy who extorted the leader of the free world.]

[enchangement]

You'll have to teach her

[torrefied]

I can do that.

In person would be better, though.

[enchangement]

Yes. OK.

[torrefied]

OK. Let me know when she's ready to learn.

[enchangement]

Soon, yes. She'll let you know.