wisdomeagle: Original Cindy and Max from Dark Angel getting in each other's personal space (Default)
Ari (creature of dust, child of God) ([personal profile] wisdomeagle) wrote2006-01-28 01:12 am

ficpost: "flight & drowning" River/Kaylee

Title: "flight & drowning"
Fandom: Firefly
Pairing: River/Kaylee
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Fox, and the evil cabal. Not me.
Spoilers/Timeline: Anytime before the movie.
Summary: Girls.flight.drowning.
Words: 384
Note: A poem of sorts. You can hear me read it or read it yourself. Or both.



flight & drowning

Kaylee drowns when River drowns and River flies when Kaylee flies.

They slip inside the ship to make a home in her. Inside each girl there is a beating heart; inside each girl there is a thudding drum; inside each girl there is a woman to be born.

Inside each girl there is the other.

They live inside the ship and in each other's hearts, which beat forever in the thud-thud-thud of girls who know the meaning of a girl inside a girl 'long-side a girl inside a girl who slips her hand inside a girl who slips her brain inside a girl whose brain is full of girls and nothing else but girls.

The girl is River.

A river takes you down it makes you drown when you go down to find the river. The river runs away it runs forever 'long the shore and takes you with it. A river is an endless thing it rains in rivers floods from rivers. Moses had a river once and Jesus had a river too and though they are not shepherds they still know these things of rivers. They learn them in the doing, tasting, learn the rivers' ways their leaking seeping river-ways that run longside the everlasting way they float on rivers swim in rivers follow rivers down. When River drowns then Kaylee will drown with her.

The girl is Kaylee.

Kaylee flies like bird-on-wing like summer-sun like iridescent bubble-soap like winter's gone like summer's come like swinging on a tire swing forever. Kaylee knows why birds fly when the winter comes; Kaylee knows a girl's a girl until she flies and then she's like a woman. Kaylee knows that flight's a thing you find within the grinding cogs of spaceships, that flight's a thing between your wings, those long thin arms that crook and bend and fly away and take away all thoughts of home all need to stay and everything but flying. When Kaylee flies then River looks inside her.

Their insides and their outsides feel like summer and like winter. They're cold with heat and dead with life and all alone with longing. They fly and drown and twist and break and soft like flowers bend between each other's hands. They fly alone and drown alone and in the lonesome, knowledge.

[identity profile] rogueslayer452.livejournal.com 2006-01-28 06:43 am (UTC)(link)
This? Is absolutely beautiful. I was listening to you read and read along with you, and the pure prettiness and imagery you placed into this --- it makes my skin shiver. Me? Loved this River/Kaylee poem. So pretty and shiny.

Oh, and your voice is too cute for words. *squees of the cute*

[identity profile] polyartamorous.livejournal.com 2006-01-29 06:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Sorry to say it, but the first time I ever heard your voice (by which I mean EVER) I thought it was the cutest, sweetest voice in the world. =D You're not butch or amazon, Ruth Ellen, no matter how hard you try.

[identity profile] yhlee.livejournal.com 2006-01-28 05:38 pm (UTC)(link)
I can't listen to your reading closely while the toddler is bouncing around the walls, but this is gorgeous: there's a real sense of flow in the rhythm of the words, and the use of repetition structures the thing very prettily. Thank you for sharing this!
mayhap: Viking ship with text read the ocean by the cupful (read the ocean by the cupful)

[personal profile] mayhap 2006-01-28 07:50 pm (UTC)(link)
Gorgeous. I love your reading of it especially; it's so lovely and musical.

[identity profile] raedbard.livejournal.com 2006-01-28 11:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Wow. This is one of those things that I'm going to have to read (and listen to) again and again to get the sense of it properly, which is love. Also love is your reading: Moses had a river once and Jesus had a river too and though they are not shepherds they still know these things of rivers - amazing rhythm, just sticks in my head and resonates. The flow, the repition, the speed and the words melting into each other is perfect for River and actually rather wonderful (and haunting) for Kaylee. So yes, wow.

Poetic prose is bloody great, am I right?! ;)

And, I believe I've said this before, but yay Voiceposts!! ;)

[identity profile] sage-theory.livejournal.com 2006-01-29 02:09 am (UTC)(link)
Oh my god.

How utterly beautiful and right and so much better than anything. And your voice is so perfect and this is the spirit of River and Kaylee, this is how they are.

A place in me aches in a very, very good way from the beauty of this.

Inside each girl there is the other

*guh*

And I totally flashed back to River coaching Kaylee through getting out in "Objects In Space". I totally get it now.

Double. Freaking. Guh.

Kaylee/River - transcendental OTP!
- Meg

[identity profile] sangerin.livejournal.com 2006-01-29 05:34 am (UTC)(link)
That really is stunning. (And it sounds even more beautiful when you read it!) Just beautiful.

[identity profile] alixtii.livejournal.com 2006-01-29 01:35 pm (UTC)(link)
Indeed, 'tis a great voice. And an excellent use of object correlatives. (I know something about poetry! Poetry is so, like, a foreign language to me, but I can usually tell what I like. I like.)

[identity profile] zgirl714.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 12:10 am (UTC)(link)
I loved this. This was so pretty. Could I archive it at my femslash site, Magic Happens? Here's the URL, http://www.rogue-slayer.org/magichappens. Thanks.

[identity profile] piperrhiannon.livejournal.com 2006-01-31 12:10 am (UTC)(link)
Very sweet, and very River. :)