video, un: littlealbatross

[soulmakingsound]

[What the viewer sees first is hair. Long black hair obscuring the lens of the camera while River fiddles with it. The camera and the girl are both on the floor, and she leans back eventually, sitting against the foot of her bed while she talks.

She never looks directly at the camera.]

There are too many choices.

People talk about getting to go home. Going back to rebuild. I hear them in the halls, in their rooms. Making plans.

But what of the rest of us? The homeless. The lost. The ones who came after the dragon, who never settled.

I opened my eyes and there was snow. I walked where they told me to, stayed where they told me to, and that was easy. And now they give us choices.

Which train to take?

Which life to choose?

Comments

[soulmakingsound]

[Her smile drops and there's a wariness in her expression, in the tension of her shoulders and the straightening of her spine.]

What are Avengers. Were they the ones that hurt him. That changed Bucky.

[seeingscarlet]

That was Hydra. The ones Steve's been fighting.

[Wanda can only assume that Bucky must trust her if she knows - that or he's less private about his ordeals than she is, though the former seems more likely. Still, she hesitates before continuing. It's never something she'll be comfortable talking about. If she'd listened to her gut and not let Pietro talk her into it...would things have been better? Would he still be alive?

A lot of innocent people wouldn't have gotten hurt, at least.]

...they changed me, too.

[soulmakingsound]

Why are there so many of us? It's not fair. [It's less of a sniffle and more of a soggy inhale, trying to keep tears at bay.]

It wasn't Hydra, for me. But I know. I know how it hurts. What they do, how they make you think it's what you want.

You can't put needles in my eyes and ask me what I see.

[seeingscarlet]

[The color drains from her face and Wanda goes so pale one would be forgiven for thinking she might faint.]

They can't hurt you here. [And she doesn't know River, doesn't know what's been done to her or who might come after her, but she knows the one most important thing: they are kindred spirits, part of the same club of sadness.] We'll protect you, if anyone tries.