[ she doesn't uncurl from her little ball but she listens to him carefully. he certainly does like to talk but river likes the sound of his voice too. a man of many many, words - some are nonsense, some are heavy; some are hidden, she thinks, but she doesn't actually know and isn't that the strangest thing?

he says impossible things like aria luminara and darillium and river can't see it through his eyes so, for once, she has to imagine.

is any of it real? are these places she could go to herself? is the theory of the multiverse true? does magic really exist?

is any of this real? ]

I don't know.

[ what does belong? ]

We're... objects in space, floating through the Black. No end. No beginning. Only... light, from far away. And memories.

[ that's what makes a life, isn't it? memories of what it meant to be alive. how do you measure that? the words aren't hers, stolen from a man as sad and lonely as the doctor when river mutters: ]

None of it means a damn thing.