The River’s Edge

The river had no single course.

From above, it might have looked like one — a dark ribbon cutting through the plain — but from where Liora stood, it was a braided confusion of channels, sandbars, and slow-moving pools. Water slid in one direction, then curved back on itself, then vanished briefly into the ground before reappearing downstream.

She followed the bank for a while, watching how the river chose its way.

Where the ground dipped, water gathered.

Where stones rose, it divided.

Where the current slowed, silt settled.

None of this happened all at once. The river did not decide where to go. It simply moved where movement held.

At one bend, a channel that must once have carried most of the flow was nearly dry. Grass had taken hold there, thin but stubborn. Nearby, a newer channel ran fast and shallow, cutting sharply into the bank.

Liora crouched and traced a line in the damp sand with her finger. Within moments, the line softened. Water seeped in, reshaping it, not erasing it so much as incorporating it.

She realised that the river’s form was not something it had.

It was something that was continuously being taken up by the water, the ground, and the slope together.

After heavy rain, the river would look different again. Old channels would reopen. New ones would appear. Nothing would return to what it had been, because nothing had been fixed in the first place.

Standing there, Liora understood that the river was not unstable.

It was precise.

Every curve, every division, every pooling was exactly as constrained as it needed to be — no more, no less.

When she turned away, the water continued on, carrying no memory of her presence.

It did not need one.

Its path was always being made.