Title: The River's Flow
Challenge #58: Backward
Fandom: Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch (book series)
Rating: G
Length: 283 words
Summary: Father Thames looked back on his river and back on its history.

These days when Father Thames looked over his river and barely recognized it. But he knew it enough, believed it in enough, not to cede it to anyone, not even Mama Thames, although he was, begrudgingly, willing to share.

Intimate familiarity with very boulder, every inch of the riverbed, every tributary was a result of witnessing its history unfold.

He had watched over his river as the Barrier was built, uncomfortably confining its flow.

He and his river had mourned when the bombs struck, leaving fire and destruction it their wake.

Previous to that was the glorious time he had stretched over his banks and slipped into a London that had all but forgotten him. The Thames flood of 1928, the humans called it. Payback, Mama Thames whispered.

She had not been correct, his reasoning had not been malicious. He was not petty enough to seek vengeance for the damages done to the Thames, the filth and waste sent with abandon to mingle in his waters. He'd laughed when they'd been surprised by the Great Stink of 1858, how the fools could not have seen such an event occurring was something he'd never understood.

They crawled over the river's surface like rats, built along his sides, took the water to battle their Great Fire. Their population grew. Bridges and towers and abbeys sprung forth, were torn down and built anew. The Vikings used the tide to invade. The Romans seized upon its strategic and economic importance.

Father Times watched it all. Be his river in London or Londinium, beside a nameless trading settlement or alone in the wild, he, God of the River Thames, was there, embracing his waters, his river, his home.