[ when wanda takes her hands, river can't help returning a small smile even before she starts speaking. there was a time she would've shied away from the physical contact, even before the dream reality gave her the ability to go to such extremes as to dissipate her physical form to avoid it. but after centuries spent without even the most casual of touches, she's grown to appreciate it in a new way, accepting the importance of connection to the people around her.

there's a connection here. river can't read wanda's mind, even outside the blissful silence of the horizon, but she doesn't need to to feel the emotion in her eyes and the squeeze of her hands. she understands.

in her 'verse, something river increasingly struggles to think of as 'home,' no one has a gorram clue what to do with her. they don't understand her powers and they fear the threat she poses, so unlike the people here in abraxas that get it and want to help her. really help her, not the way the academy claimed to 'help' her reach her full potential so they could use her like a toy soldier.

it's a connection she aches for so desperately and it does make her cry, although she smiles and holds fast to wanda's hands. ]

I would like that, very much.

[ because she is afraid, of her own powers and these new ones that come to her unbidden. studying beneath istredd and yennefer has changed her life for the better and she would eagerly soak up anything she might learn from wanda too. ]

Istredd and Yennefer have been teaching me, to try to understand the chaos and learn to control it. But I... I don't want to get lost. I don't want to be her.

[ she's still stuck on the dream and her fear of becoming the mad maiden one day. ]