There were two ways in which Adah could handle this situation. The first was to simply not go; easily, she could claim that it was just too much for her (which was true) and back out of the arrangement with River. However, the second managed to trump the first: it wasn't like she had much else to do. She wouldn't be able to have anything else to do because the stairs would take her a while, so many stairs, up and up and up, and not even temperal reality, like Escher. Adah figured she'd have an easier time with Escher stairs than regular ones.
She paced herself by reciting poetry, but not her usual poetry, or not even her usual backwards poetry, but the poetry of listing microbiotic organisms and viruses, their properties, and the sort of havoc they could wreak on a body. Ebola. Genus Ebolavirus, family Filoviridae, characterised by a long, filamentous morphology and surrounded by a lipid viral envelope, commonly causes viral hemorrhagic fever. Ectromelia. Genus Orthopoxvirus, family Poxviridae, commonly known as mousepox. Causes skin lesions and generalized disease, which can be fatal. It is the only poxvirus to cause disease naturally in mice. Equine herpesvirus. Genus uncertain, family Herpesviridae, known to cause abortions in horses....
By the time Adah got to rickettsia (genus of other non-motile, Gram-negative, non-sporeforming, highly pleomorphic bacteria, carried by parasites, and cause typhus, rickettsialpox, Boutonneuse fever and Rocky Mountain spotted fever), she'd reached the roof and the distraction of much worse sorts of things happening to her body other than the pain in her legs really lessened the task for her.
She still had to stop with her body heavily leaning against the doorframe of the door to the roof to catch her breath and keep from being dizzy, and to steel herself a moment before having to see how many people she'd have to try to pretend didn't exist. Most importantly, she couldn't let herself slip down, wall, left leg announcing, Adah, you have worked me too hard, I'm going to join the Right in rebellion against you. The stairs weren't so bad. She was getting better. She couldn't fall down.
Re: Mingle
She paced herself by reciting poetry, but not her usual poetry, or not even her usual backwards poetry, but the poetry of listing microbiotic organisms and viruses, their properties, and the sort of havoc they could wreak on a body. Ebola. Genus Ebolavirus, family Filoviridae, characterised by a long, filamentous morphology and surrounded by a lipid viral envelope, commonly causes viral hemorrhagic fever. Ectromelia. Genus Orthopoxvirus, family Poxviridae, commonly known as mousepox. Causes skin lesions and generalized disease, which can be fatal. It is the only poxvirus to cause disease naturally in mice. Equine herpesvirus. Genus uncertain, family Herpesviridae, known to cause abortions in horses....
By the time Adah got to rickettsia (genus of other non-motile, Gram-negative, non-sporeforming, highly pleomorphic bacteria, carried by parasites, and cause typhus, rickettsialpox, Boutonneuse fever and Rocky Mountain spotted fever), she'd reached the roof and the distraction of much worse sorts of things happening to her body other than the pain in her legs really lessened the task for her.
She still had to stop with her body heavily leaning against the doorframe of the door to the roof to catch her breath and keep from being dizzy, and to steel herself a moment before having to see how many people she'd have to try to pretend didn't exist. Most importantly, she couldn't let herself slip down, wall, left leg announcing, Adah, you have worked me too hard, I'm going to join the Right in rebellion against you. The stairs weren't so bad. She was getting better. She couldn't fall down.