Totally actually in Milliways

[river_meimei]

River's lying on her back on a table, her feet against the wall. She's watching the room upside-down.

It's very comfortable.

Apparently.

Comments

[howling_laugh]

"Thank you for the condoms," the coyote says. "Very insightful of you."

[river_meimei]

It's been a long time; for a minute, River stares blankly at the coyote. (Upside down.)

The moment when memory clicks is visible, and then Coyote's getting an upside-down grin of pure cheerful smugness instead. River would beg to differ, and would call it innocence, but River is sometimes entirely wrong.

"Gifts are traditional," she says, primly.

[howling_laugh]

"Lychee is an interesting flavor." It's impossible to tell if she's referring to the gum or the condoms. They were from the future, after all.

"I am sorry to bring you the bad news, we were divorced. By ghosts."

[river_meimei]

Maybe both!

River looks -- well, it's hard to tell, especially upside-down. It's somewhere between sympathetic and dubious. "It's an unorthodox technicality."

Beat.

"Call it widowing polyamory," she adds, because River is just that helpful.

[howling_laugh]

"I was not married to anyone else at the time!" Coyote protests. "Just as well."

Beat.

"But if you are concerned about such things, I know a lovely place in Las Vegas where we could remedy that."

[river_meimei]

Now it's very easy to tell what River's expression is!

"The courtship," she informs Coyote primly, "is a necessary precursor."

[howling_laugh]

"Epimetheus and I did not get one. But that was more because of Lilly than lack of trying." Coyote likes to test drive her acquaintances before she marries them, usually!

"Besides. You don't marry everyone you court. So why should you court everyone you marry?"

[river_meimei]

...Uh, says River's face.

"It's a logical fallacy."

[howling_laugh]

"I have been accused of such things before.

"So, if you have not been getting married, what have you been doing, River?"

[river_meimei]

River shrugs. The motion's not as awkward as it really ought to be.

[howling_laugh]

"Informative," Coyote snorts. She rolls over on her back, and then it's a woman staring back at River. If they are both upside down now, do they look right-side up to each other?

"Boyfriend? Girlfriend?" She is working down from 'married'.

[river_meimei]

"No."

River's face says: come on, this is obvious. That's quite possibly because River tends to forget other people aren't psychic, though.

[howling_laugh]

"You are a lovely girl, you are lucky I do not try and matchmake you. And that you are not a robot, I know someone who needs a robot girlfriend."

Coyote sits up.

[river_meimei]

What, says River's expression. Very eloquently, for someone upside down.

(Sooner or later, the blood is going to start pooling in her head annoyingly. For now, she seems impervious.)

"It's a specific machination."

Beat.

"I'm not," she adds, just in case Coyote might have had any second thoughts.

[howling_laugh]

"I know. I could smell it, if you were. Unless you were a very sneaky machine. Also, you should not look so dubious, I am an expert."

[river_meimei]

"You're meddlesome," River informs her.

Maybe it's a correction, or maybe it's just an FYI. Either way, River doesn't seem particularly bothered. Just, y'know, saying.

[howling_laugh]

"I do not have this nose to keep to myself, River. It is a glorious nose, it deserves to go where it likes."

The coyote leaps up onto the table and starts sniffing her feet.

[river_meimei]

River jumps a little, and twists her head around to peer at Coyote more comfortably.

"It's not detachable." There's a certain dry undertone of please say it isn't.

At a particularly ticklish sniff, River's toes scrunch, nearly poking Coyote in her glorious nose.

[howling_laugh]

"Not the nose, no. But you know what they say about people with big noses." Usually it's MEN with big noses 'they' say things about, but you have to be inclusive in Milliways. And when talking to Coyote.

Luckily Raven is not around to comment on the eyeball juggling incident.

[river_meimei]

...

"Structural buttress of the sinus cavity."

River is helpful!

[howling_laugh]

Hahahaha, she said 'buttress'.

"Not quite. But why don't you trust me?"

[river_meimei]

Promptly, and cheerfully, "Got brains."

[howling_laugh]

"You have wounded me deeply, River. I may never forgive you if you do not make it up to me." Considering she is sniffing River's ankles now, this may be taken as an empty threat.

[river_meimei]

Placidly, "You're very demanding."

Experimentally, River wiggles her toes next to the coyote's ear.

[howling_laugh]

"Most certainly. You are lucky you are not my robot girlfriend, then you would see."

Her ear twitches.

[river_meimei]

Today is a day for eloquent faces. River's current one is an amicable grimace, and reads, We already covered the I-am-not-a-robot territory.

She stretches her feet slightly, and then wiggles her toes again.

[howling_laugh]

"Figure of speech," Coyote assures her. "Robots do not usually have ticklish toes. Girlfriends occasionally do. Humans are funny like that."

Coyote tilts her head, pretty obviously trying to remember how many girlfriends (wives, one night stands, etc.) were ticklish.

[river_meimei]

"Knismetic activity of the neural mechanoreceptors." This is absent; River's attention, about halfway through her first word, became fixed on a point of air somewhere to the left of Coyote's tilted head.

[howling_laugh]

She blinks. "Mechanoreceptors? Dear, I thought you were trying to convince me that you are not a robot. Try harder."

[river_meimei]

It takes a second for River's gaze to make its way back to Coyote's face, and (visibly) a second longer for her to remember what they were talking about.

"Ask your nose."

[howling_laugh]

"Perhaps you are clever enough to trick it. You are tricky, I assume? I like you, so you must be. Should I ask your friends? 'Has River been acting suspicious lately? Find any spare gears about?"

[river_meimei]

River's face shadows a little. (But only a little; this context is much different than it could be.)

"No masks." It's quiet, and may not be strictly true. River can be opaque, in her own way. "It's in the skin."

She glances up at Coyote's bright eyes. Seriously, "You can ask."

[howling_laugh]

Coyote knows it's not true. To be human is to have masks, even if someone else cracked most of them for you, like someone did to this girl. She knows what it is, if not how or why or who did this to her.

"Who should Coyote ask? Who are River's friends in Milliways? Besides me." She sits down, tucking her tail around her own feet.

[river_meimei]

River's grin is quick and bright, and a little conspiratorial. "Lots."

River is a people person.

"You remember," she adds, softer, and her gaze drifts slowly down towards the furry tail-wrapped feet as her smile fades away. "Even when they aren't they are."

Again, and soft this time: "Got lots."

[howling_laugh]

"You are almost as cryptic as Raven sometimes, sweet River. It pleases me that you have friends, but how should I remember them, even when they are not?"

Perhaps she is being thick on purpose. Hard to say.

[river_meimei]

River looks up at her.

This look -- this moment -- her focus is clear and direct, and right on Coyote. (Or, perhaps, right through Coyote.)

Softly, "Don't you?"

[howling_laugh]

There is a woman sitting across from her again. Something about that look makes Coyote tilt her chin up and meet River's gaze head on.

"I do not currently congress with the dead." Her last ghost rarely shows himself, and she is fine with ignoring him.

Anything else is not worth mentioning.

[river_meimei]

"Everybody does."

This is distant, and almost gentle. You'd never know she was talking to a being thousands of years older than her; if anything, you'd think she was talking to herself, or the empty air.

[howling_laugh]

"Do you, then?" It's a snap now, Coyote's mood swiftly changing to sullen.

[river_meimei]

Seriously, "Yes."

[howling_laugh]

"Tell me."

[river_meimei]

"I remember."

River sits up in a slow, smooth motion, and tucks her legs underneath herself. Her gaze slips distant again; her voice, too.

"All of them." Soft. "Gone to the Lady, but they're not. Inside her."

Beat.

"Got an elevator," she adds, with another glance at Coyote.

[howling_laugh]

Coyote stands, slamming her hands down on the table and staring at River.

"You saw her?"

[river_meimei]

River doesn't flinch; just looks a little startled.

Yes, says her face, of course, what did you think we were talking about?, even before she nods.

[howling_laugh]

Coyote had by now, convinced herself it was a dream.

She tears herself away from the table and heads quickly toward the door.

[river_meimei]

River starts to lift a hand, worried and bewildered --



and then her eyes drop abruptly, and her face shadows, and her hand falls slowly to her lap.

"Everybody does," she says, low and a little choked, to no one.