T&L Ficathon Entry
Title: Treading On the Toes of a Grimm Reality
Author: Thea
Fandom: Firefly
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: So, so not mine.
Summary: For grav_ity, who requested: " River/Inara, Firefly, River knows why Inara is leaving, but makes her say it anyway."
Post-Objects in Space. Pre-Serenity.
Notes: Thank you so much to simplystars for beta, and for the icon of fabulousness. Also thanks to shaye who I conned into beta duties then abandoned:)
*
When River wakes, the forest around her is dark. It hums and creaks and she turns on her side, fists her hands into the blanket of leaves. The loam is thick, pungent in her nostrils. Here she is safe. But not for long. She curls tight like a ball, like a small young animal, finds her courage.
"Simon," she calls, reaching out for him. "Simon. We need to go, the witch will find us, will feast on our bones."
He's silent and she grows angry. How can he lie there, say nothing? Doesn't he know that she's scared?
Pressing her hands along the forest floor, she stretches to touch him; stretches further and further. She rises to her knees and blinks in the dark. Chokes out his name.
The forest greets her with silence.
River stumbles to her feet, ignores the dirt and leaves that cling to the hem of her skirt. "Simon," she calls. "Simon, come out. Please don't be eaten. Don't be gobbled up."
The forest keeps its silence, disinclined to converse. It's the silence that stirs at her fears. Before, she's heard the trees, spoken in whispers and signs, pressed palms against bark and smooth rock. Now, there's just an empty hum, like motors gone dead. River's face is wet, hair tangled in front of her eyes and she trips as she runs, as she moves back towards the house of gingerbread and tiny finger-bones.
She has been there before, has taken Simon by the hand and lead him free when the witch started to nibble at his knees. Now she has to return.
Banging against the door, she cries out in surprise as the knob turns to sugar, melts in her hand. She clutches tight as the grains grow soft, warm, fade from sugar to wool, a progression that is linear and clean. She grapples with the blanket, feels it for what it is, cloth and cover, something of Simon's, of Serenity's. The witches house is very far behind and her forest is made of metal and flight. She's safer than she thought. No more need to fear.
Simon's bed is empty, but the sheets aren't cool, the heat from his body lingers. He was here, surely hasn't gone away to be devoured. She crawls into his bed, buries her face in his pillow, tries hard to feel safe again. He isn't gone, he's merely absent.
They've left her alone, forming bonds and pairs like electrons, ions battering and clattering at each other. Zoe and Wash, who let her sit at Serenity's helm, feel the world drop away as they take flight. Kaylee and Simon; the shepherd and… she bites her lip, won't give Jayne his name back. Zoe and Wash. Only she and the Captain are still here alone; and he doesn't have to be. Inara has already drawn in, has already gathered herself. She shares the space, the cooled, cooked atmosphere, but in her mind and in her heart, she's nearing the goodbye.
River feels the loss, breathes in the smell of Simon's skin and sheeting. Inara watches her with kind eyes, with compassion. Looks at her like River's mother used to, before all that was left were eyes to eat them up, eyes full of fear.
"It would have been okay," she snuffles into Simon's pillow as her head begins to ache. "I could have stayed home, stayed quiet." But that's a lie and she isn't supposed to lie.
Pulling Simon's blanket tighter around her shoulders, River brushes her feet together against the sheets , shucking the debris of leaves and loam that cling to her feet. River thinks of leaving, following streams and paths, of being left behind to follow a breadcrumb path. She thinks about Inara and about secrets, wonders how to lay claim to the one's she holds, how to give them out like candy and words. It is getting very hard to hide them.
*
River's face is streaked with white powder and red rouge, striping along her nose and under her eyes, thick like ceremony.
Her fingers are tinted with Inara's cosmetics, kohl drawings on her arms. She holds up her hands, head titled to the side.
"I know I used your paints and potions. They stick and smear. I'm sorry I didn't ask."
The girl doesn't come into her shuttle often, has never entered uninvited. Inara doesn't know whether the courtesy has been passive or deliberate; but the trust has now been broken. Inara sits down on the bed, plucks the feather from River's hair. She can't quite muster up the energy for anger at the intrusion.
"I'm a lost boy," River says, sitting back on her heels, little girl mouth turning up. "Want to look like the Indians." Her eyes are dark, vaguely empty, skittery underneath the striping. Inara curls her fingers around the feather, works hard not to be scared.
"You're a girl," Inara says gently.
River shakes her head, looks at Inara with kindness. "Simon is Wendy. But it should be Kaylee." She puts her cool hand on Inara's arm, leaves streaks of vermillion on the fine skin. "Maybe you're Tiger Lily."
"It's a story," Inara says, takes that in, pondering. It isn't one she's heard. "Will you tell me, then? None of my stories are for children."
"It's old, old. It's about not being able to grow up." River nods wisely. "Like me. They'll never let me grow."
"They'll keep you safe." Inara takes River's hand, ignores the whispery slickness of cosmetics against her palm.
"They'll hook me. Draw me in, and I'll bleed," says River. She sits further, crosses her legs. "Once upon a time, there was a boy who could fly."
*
"I don't know if she's actually dangerous. At least not directly… to us," Inara says, sipping tea, sitting next to Kaylee, watching Zoe with careful eyes. Kaylee is all heart. Zoe has a more practical bent.
"She is." Zoe takes no sustenance, sits at the table like it's a council of war.
Kaylee looks down at her hands. "I don't think she should be by herself." She rolls the cup between nervous fingers. "I think Zoe's right. We all been watchful, since…"
Despite the resolution, no one wants to say Jubal Early's name aloud. "But the Captain'll throw her off if…"
Zoe interrupts, driving to the heart of the matter. "Has she done anything more than trespass?" Her gaze is solid, calm. It soothes Inara.
"No," she says. "Nothing but enter and tell me stories."
"What kinda stories?" Kaylee asks eagerly and Inara is filled with nostalgia for her own girlish youth.
"Fairytales," says Inara. "Babes lost in the woods."
"That's her all right," Kaylee says. "Poor kid."
"I'm not quite certain that's true," Inara says, She runs her hand against the silk of her skirt, and wonders when she started to take an interest in the lost.
"You don't think she's… innocent?" Zoe's eyes are serious, black and focused.
Inara curves her mouth, feeling the crook there, the hint of a smile. "I think she lives in a story, lives somewhere only she can see, but I don't know if she's the princess in the tower or the dragon."
Kaylee licks her lips. "I think she's a little of both."
"Whatever they wanted her for," Zoe adds, "wasn't innocent."
"No," Inara agrees. "Not at all." She pauses. "I think… we spend so much time wondering what she can do. Perhaps we should simply ask."
"Because we're afraid of the answer," Zoe says.
***
"Can I carry your basket?" River walks beside Inara along the dusty path of Artemis' commercial district.
The girl wears her boots, laces untied, and a cloak. Inara had given it to her the day before, sorting through her belongings, shedding the remains of this life.
"I don't have a basket," she says. "But you may certainly help carry my packages."
River nods, watches herself in the grimy glass of the storefronts, sways a little as the wind teases the hem of her dress.
"Don't go in there," she says, stopping in front of a milliner's. "It's only wolves in there."
"Wolves that eat grandmothers?" Inara asks, trying hard to keep the smile from reaching her mouth.
"Sometimes grandmothers bite, sometimes they look out at you through gloss and hunger, ready to eat you up," River says. She turns her eyes to Inara. "But that man, he's just a wolf, pointed teeth and wicked thoughts. No bed caps or disguises."
"I need cloth," Inara says gently. "And thread."
"Then I'll go first," River says finally.
*
"You… shot a man on Artemis?"
"Well, it didn't… it wasn't…" Inara is rarely at a loss for words, particularly pointed words to direct at Malcolm Reynolds. But the…events… on Artemis defied description.
Mal rubs his forehead, his jaw, tries not to look to closely at Inara. His gaze shifts, catches on the wall. Inara follows his direction, sees the curves and fur, sees dark drawings on the wall of the kitchen, low near the floor, high up in the arches.
"Why..." he starts, moving his hands to his belt, toes tapping. He pauses, eyes catching in the corners, his attention suddenly on the shapes covering the inside of his ship."Why the gorram hell is my ship covered in…" He tilts his head. "Are those cats? I hate cats. Why''re there cats crawling all over my walls?"
She'd given River the charcoal herself, had told her the story of a boy in temple, protected by the things he saw in his head. Perhaps she'd expected a more … circumspect…appropriation. There's a flinty-eyed Siamese wrapped around the doorway, it's attention rapt; the drawing doesn't fit the steel and wood of this smuggler's ship.
"Yes, those are cats," Inara primly agrees.
"If they come at night," River says, "The cats will know."
Mal starts, head turning sharply. The girl stands in the doorway, blood on the front of her dress. She rubs her hands down the grain of the cloth and they comes away dusky, streaks of charcoal mixing with the darker stains. River steps delicately to the side, kneels down, puts her finger against the curve of the cat's back, stroking it like it could come out of the wall and purr.
Jayne follows behind her, gun resting against his shoulder.
"Are you planning to shoot her?" Hysteria claws at the back of Inara's throat, laughter or rage or fear, she can't tell which. They've all blended together since the afternoon.
Jayne shrugs. "If I get leave to." Everyone ignores him.
"Thought you were gonna keep her in her room," Mal mutters.
Jayne shrugs again. "Wasn't doin' nothing but drawin'. Thought I could at least get some supper while she did it."
"You could have just locked the door," Mal shifted his weight, face hard, exasperated.
"She opened it on her own last time," he answered back, eyes flitting around the kitchen.
Inara looks back down at River. "They're temple cats," she says slowly, kneels next to the girl. There's something about the two men looming large in the doorway, talking about this… child as if she's a threat on the level of… well anyone they've run across. She doesn't like it, distrusts the way emotions and fear have run so very high. River may be dangerous, but she's not… the danger is not often directed… out. The threat of course is that it could be. It's a threat Inara feels deeply, but she's determined not to let it interfere in defending the girl.
"Well," Mal says, throwing up his hands like a storybook girl. "That explains everything."
He steps close to Inara and she watches him from the corner of her eye, watches how he swallows hard when he catches the scent of her perfume. Watches the conflict there - to touch her or not, to rage or not. It hardly matters. She is safe, River is safe. The milliner is… not safe. But he isn't dead, either. She hadn't exactly… shot him. But when they left, there'd been a bullet in his side, his hand twisted and burnt from the explosion of the gun. She doesn't know quite what happened.
Mal stands too close. "You two are awful chummy these days," he mutters. "Seems an odd time to be makin' new friends." He doesn't yell, she thinks, because yelling would mean something, would show concern and he's still a man prone to speaking in silences, to withholding. He'd rather lay harsh words on her instead of seeking out what he really feels, asking what he wants to know. He rather strip her defenses then strip her bare.
Inara kneels next to River. "It's just a story, honey," she murmurs, wants to take the story in as her own. She wants to touch what River has done. A gift of watchers to keep them all safe.
Jayne looks at the cats. "I know that one," he says, shifts his gun to the other shoulder. "Them cats eat up a bunch of robbers. Kinda useful if you ask me. Unless of course we was the robbers."
River gives him a smile, sweetness and bitter knowledge, and Inara's stomach turns to ice. "We need to have something that can watch at night," River says. "Sleeping has become… problematic."
"She ain't wrong about that," Mal mutters, and stalks away.
*
Kaylee comes to help her sweep her mother's cottage. They've driven away the wolves, have fooled the leopards, remain whole if orphaned. Simon's leg is hollowed out, pinked and bruised at the edges, but he's stitched up now like cloth. His stuff will stay in. River tilts up her face, shines and basks in Kaylee's bright smile. No, not orphaned; taken in, fostered like princelings, living in this castle in the sky.
"There was gold there," she says as Kaylee takes up the other broom, the other brush. River knows the difference, but to here they're all the same. "Gold made of hair, coins cut from a beard."
"I remember my ma tellin' me that one," Kaylee says. She is Rose Red now and not Wendy, is a sister, loves the black bear deep in the woods.
This is something River knows. She can't hold her own secrets, has to tuck them far, far away, bury them deep until she can't reach them. But she can hold tight to others' - not a shepherd -just a man; betrayer and friend. She can hold tight to Wash and Zoe, can hold the sweet secrets between them; glances and heat and kindness; wanting family. She can hold tight to the Captain, trying to fill in all the little holes; to Simon, scared and uncertain, resentful. She can hold to Inara, leaving because she can't say what she wants to ears that can't hear it. To Kaylee, wanting to couple, wanting to love like sunshine.
Kaylee scrubs at the walls and River watches as the cats turn into dark tears, their fur sloughed back into water and charcoal.
She will keep the cats in her room. It is only fair. Kaylee gets to the bottom of the wall, drops the brush in the bucket of bubbles and water. "I reckon that one can stay. We just won't tell nobody. I think Serenity'll be happy to have eyes open for her at all hours."
River nods. She agrees.
The question, when it comes is soft and tuneful, humming like Serenity's engines. River hears it before it's given words.
"What… what happened down there? Was it like… him?" Of all of them, Kaylee was most frightened when Jubal Early came, brushed up tight against his darkness and his soft lies. River wishes she could have kept his ravenous claws from her friend. She thinks someday it will be an option.
"No," she says. She is lightheaded, singsong and particled, tiny bits of dust clinging together, negative and positive attraction. She is magnetic, and atom waiting to split. "It was just stopping a wolf."
"I know that one too," Kaylee says, mouth a whisper. "But first, he eats them all up, the little duck and the bird. Sometimes the gramma."
"Not this time," River says, and touches Kaylee's arm, leaving dark fingerprints.
*
"She's livin' in all these stories," Kaylee sits with her legs crossed on the couch. Simon sits at the other end, but they don't touch. He hasn't quite forgiven her since she told the others about River and the gun. He stays with her in evenings, talks and laughs sometimes, but he's holding tight to that anger, holding it like it's a kind of protection for River. Kaylee thinks River needs barricades and love but maybe not so much of Simon's silence and sacrifice.
"She's always liked stories," he laughs. "Although she used to get angry when everyone was given impossible tasks. She used to tell me her own fairytales when she was little girl, her own stories. But she outgrew them early. My father thought she was better off reading Shakespeare and 12th Dynasty poetry. "
Kaylee fiddles with the ties of her shirt. "She's been tellin' all sorts of stories lately. And most of 'em have things with pointy teeth."
She flicks her eyes up, and River's pressed tight against the doorway, looking at the ceiling.
Simon catches sight of her and his mouth tightens in worry. River's smile is wide, warm but as she turns towards Simon, her expression catches, shifts to sad.
"I want to be Ariel," she says. "But then you'd be Miranda."
Simon smiles sadly. "Oh brave new world," he whispers and Kaylee curls her fingers, smiles at them both, shut out of the words between them.
*
Inara closes the final trunk. She sits on the edge of her bed and thinks of leaving the drapings. Her neck aches, and her hands are tired; curled from opening and closing, from folding, from clenching tight to her side.
She will leave at the next system. All she can do now is tell it aloud.
When the knock sounds against her door, she thinks first of ignoring it. No one needs entrance right now.
The knock rings again, hollow amongst the silks and tapestries left hanging.
Inara sighs, pushes to her feet, moves to turn the knob of the shuttle.
River stands in a clean dress, hair pulled back. She looks much less like a girl, her gaze in the here and now.
"Would you…" She tilts her head, mouth slightly open, takes in the beginnings of bare walls, looks down and Inara realizes she knows, has known.
"I… have to go," she whispers, wonders why saying it out loud to this child feels so much like abandonment.
"I know," says River. "But you don't have to be scared."
Inara touches her cheek. The girl's skin is soft, dewy like a fresh peach. "I thought that it would be safe. That I could be…" her voice trails off, "Why are you here?"
River's shoulders lift. "We were fish first," she says, "After that no one can say." She giggles, grows serious. "Will you paint me? I don't want to be a lost boy any longer."
Inara licks her lip, surprised. River has come here in the last few weeks for stories, for tea and quiet but she hasn't touched the cosmetics since the first day's trespass. Gesturing for her to sit down on the low cushions, Inara gathers pots of kohl, small brushes and a faint berried gloss.
Drawing the brush along River's delicate features, she wonders what this all means to the girl. She remembers her own mother drawing on lines, darkening Inara's lashes, rouging her mouth and pinching her cheeks. She can hear the powdery whisper of her mother's love against her ear, "So very beautiful. Such a pretty girl."
River isn't beautiful, is transforming from child to young woman, round cheeked, apple-eyed. She's also a killer at heart. Or head, or something very deep.
Inara puts down the brush after stroking it gently across River's mouth. "That's lovely," she says, but hesitates.
"You don't like it?" River touches her lips, fingertips coming back sticky.
"It… you look… you don't need these things. You're still so young."
"He would have hurt us," River whispers suddenly, smears the khol around her eyes, looks like a ghost from a tale, the ones that haunted Inara.
"I know," she murmurs back, and again puts her hand on River's cheek. She doesn't feel… maternal, has no urge to curl her to her side like her own mother would have, to whisper of her beauty, of what the world has in store for a beautiful girl. The protectiveness is laced too much with fear. But she does feel… something.
She hates the thought of leaving all this behind. Kaylee with her warmth. River with her longing. Zoe with her watchful eyes. There will always be men to discover, but it has been a long time since she has been able to keep company with women. Inara carefully thinks of Nandi and puts that hurt deep away.
There is something she still needs to know. "Did I really shoot him?" Inara asks, even though she doesn't want to hear the answer. She was closer, her hand near the barrel, moving it away when he'd pointed it forward and leered at her, eyes hot on River's young face.
"We don't touch guns," River whispers. "Not yet."
Inara nods. "Then… how?"
"It didn't do what he expected of it. When he took it into his hands, he thought it could only do one thing."
River rocks her head forward rests her cheek against Inara's knee. "Things can do more. They can always do more."
Inara strokes her head, feels the warm silk of the girls hair against her fingers. "You will take care, won't you?" she whispers.
River rubs her cheek against the silk of her skirt, head tilting like a cat. "If I give you something, will you keep it safe?" she asks. "If I give you a story, can you hold on tight?"
"Yes," Inara says. "I'll take it with me."
"Once upon a time," River says, "There was a girl who went on a journey to learn of marvelous things." She takes a deep breath, a contented sigh. "But that's not what happened. Instead she and her brother ran away from a gingerbread house…"
Author: Thea
Fandom: Firefly
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: So, so not mine.
Summary: For grav_ity, who requested: " River/Inara, Firefly, River knows why Inara is leaving, but makes her say it anyway."
Post-Objects in Space. Pre-Serenity.
Notes: Thank you so much to simplystars for beta, and for the icon of fabulousness. Also thanks to shaye who I conned into beta duties then abandoned:)
*
When River wakes, the forest around her is dark. It hums and creaks and she turns on her side, fists her hands into the blanket of leaves. The loam is thick, pungent in her nostrils. Here she is safe. But not for long. She curls tight like a ball, like a small young animal, finds her courage.
"Simon," she calls, reaching out for him. "Simon. We need to go, the witch will find us, will feast on our bones."
He's silent and she grows angry. How can he lie there, say nothing? Doesn't he know that she's scared?
Pressing her hands along the forest floor, she stretches to touch him; stretches further and further. She rises to her knees and blinks in the dark. Chokes out his name.
The forest greets her with silence.
River stumbles to her feet, ignores the dirt and leaves that cling to the hem of her skirt. "Simon," she calls. "Simon, come out. Please don't be eaten. Don't be gobbled up."
The forest keeps its silence, disinclined to converse. It's the silence that stirs at her fears. Before, she's heard the trees, spoken in whispers and signs, pressed palms against bark and smooth rock. Now, there's just an empty hum, like motors gone dead. River's face is wet, hair tangled in front of her eyes and she trips as she runs, as she moves back towards the house of gingerbread and tiny finger-bones.
She has been there before, has taken Simon by the hand and lead him free when the witch started to nibble at his knees. Now she has to return.
Banging against the door, she cries out in surprise as the knob turns to sugar, melts in her hand. She clutches tight as the grains grow soft, warm, fade from sugar to wool, a progression that is linear and clean. She grapples with the blanket, feels it for what it is, cloth and cover, something of Simon's, of Serenity's. The witches house is very far behind and her forest is made of metal and flight. She's safer than she thought. No more need to fear.
Simon's bed is empty, but the sheets aren't cool, the heat from his body lingers. He was here, surely hasn't gone away to be devoured. She crawls into his bed, buries her face in his pillow, tries hard to feel safe again. He isn't gone, he's merely absent.
They've left her alone, forming bonds and pairs like electrons, ions battering and clattering at each other. Zoe and Wash, who let her sit at Serenity's helm, feel the world drop away as they take flight. Kaylee and Simon; the shepherd and… she bites her lip, won't give Jayne his name back. Zoe and Wash. Only she and the Captain are still here alone; and he doesn't have to be. Inara has already drawn in, has already gathered herself. She shares the space, the cooled, cooked atmosphere, but in her mind and in her heart, she's nearing the goodbye.
River feels the loss, breathes in the smell of Simon's skin and sheeting. Inara watches her with kind eyes, with compassion. Looks at her like River's mother used to, before all that was left were eyes to eat them up, eyes full of fear.
"It would have been okay," she snuffles into Simon's pillow as her head begins to ache. "I could have stayed home, stayed quiet." But that's a lie and she isn't supposed to lie.
Pulling Simon's blanket tighter around her shoulders, River brushes her feet together against the sheets , shucking the debris of leaves and loam that cling to her feet. River thinks of leaving, following streams and paths, of being left behind to follow a breadcrumb path. She thinks about Inara and about secrets, wonders how to lay claim to the one's she holds, how to give them out like candy and words. It is getting very hard to hide them.
*
River's face is streaked with white powder and red rouge, striping along her nose and under her eyes, thick like ceremony.
Her fingers are tinted with Inara's cosmetics, kohl drawings on her arms. She holds up her hands, head titled to the side.
"I know I used your paints and potions. They stick and smear. I'm sorry I didn't ask."
The girl doesn't come into her shuttle often, has never entered uninvited. Inara doesn't know whether the courtesy has been passive or deliberate; but the trust has now been broken. Inara sits down on the bed, plucks the feather from River's hair. She can't quite muster up the energy for anger at the intrusion.
"I'm a lost boy," River says, sitting back on her heels, little girl mouth turning up. "Want to look like the Indians." Her eyes are dark, vaguely empty, skittery underneath the striping. Inara curls her fingers around the feather, works hard not to be scared.
"You're a girl," Inara says gently.
River shakes her head, looks at Inara with kindness. "Simon is Wendy. But it should be Kaylee." She puts her cool hand on Inara's arm, leaves streaks of vermillion on the fine skin. "Maybe you're Tiger Lily."
"It's a story," Inara says, takes that in, pondering. It isn't one she's heard. "Will you tell me, then? None of my stories are for children."
"It's old, old. It's about not being able to grow up." River nods wisely. "Like me. They'll never let me grow."
"They'll keep you safe." Inara takes River's hand, ignores the whispery slickness of cosmetics against her palm.
"They'll hook me. Draw me in, and I'll bleed," says River. She sits further, crosses her legs. "Once upon a time, there was a boy who could fly."
*
"I don't know if she's actually dangerous. At least not directly… to us," Inara says, sipping tea, sitting next to Kaylee, watching Zoe with careful eyes. Kaylee is all heart. Zoe has a more practical bent.
"She is." Zoe takes no sustenance, sits at the table like it's a council of war.
Kaylee looks down at her hands. "I don't think she should be by herself." She rolls the cup between nervous fingers. "I think Zoe's right. We all been watchful, since…"
Despite the resolution, no one wants to say Jubal Early's name aloud. "But the Captain'll throw her off if…"
Zoe interrupts, driving to the heart of the matter. "Has she done anything more than trespass?" Her gaze is solid, calm. It soothes Inara.
"No," she says. "Nothing but enter and tell me stories."
"What kinda stories?" Kaylee asks eagerly and Inara is filled with nostalgia for her own girlish youth.
"Fairytales," says Inara. "Babes lost in the woods."
"That's her all right," Kaylee says. "Poor kid."
"I'm not quite certain that's true," Inara says, She runs her hand against the silk of her skirt, and wonders when she started to take an interest in the lost.
"You don't think she's… innocent?" Zoe's eyes are serious, black and focused.
Inara curves her mouth, feeling the crook there, the hint of a smile. "I think she lives in a story, lives somewhere only she can see, but I don't know if she's the princess in the tower or the dragon."
Kaylee licks her lips. "I think she's a little of both."
"Whatever they wanted her for," Zoe adds, "wasn't innocent."
"No," Inara agrees. "Not at all." She pauses. "I think… we spend so much time wondering what she can do. Perhaps we should simply ask."
"Because we're afraid of the answer," Zoe says.
***
"Can I carry your basket?" River walks beside Inara along the dusty path of Artemis' commercial district.
The girl wears her boots, laces untied, and a cloak. Inara had given it to her the day before, sorting through her belongings, shedding the remains of this life.
"I don't have a basket," she says. "But you may certainly help carry my packages."
River nods, watches herself in the grimy glass of the storefronts, sways a little as the wind teases the hem of her dress.
"Don't go in there," she says, stopping in front of a milliner's. "It's only wolves in there."
"Wolves that eat grandmothers?" Inara asks, trying hard to keep the smile from reaching her mouth.
"Sometimes grandmothers bite, sometimes they look out at you through gloss and hunger, ready to eat you up," River says. She turns her eyes to Inara. "But that man, he's just a wolf, pointed teeth and wicked thoughts. No bed caps or disguises."
"I need cloth," Inara says gently. "And thread."
"Then I'll go first," River says finally.
*
"You… shot a man on Artemis?"
"Well, it didn't… it wasn't…" Inara is rarely at a loss for words, particularly pointed words to direct at Malcolm Reynolds. But the…events… on Artemis defied description.
Mal rubs his forehead, his jaw, tries not to look to closely at Inara. His gaze shifts, catches on the wall. Inara follows his direction, sees the curves and fur, sees dark drawings on the wall of the kitchen, low near the floor, high up in the arches.
"Why..." he starts, moving his hands to his belt, toes tapping. He pauses, eyes catching in the corners, his attention suddenly on the shapes covering the inside of his ship."Why the gorram hell is my ship covered in…" He tilts his head. "Are those cats? I hate cats. Why''re there cats crawling all over my walls?"
She'd given River the charcoal herself, had told her the story of a boy in temple, protected by the things he saw in his head. Perhaps she'd expected a more … circumspect…appropriation. There's a flinty-eyed Siamese wrapped around the doorway, it's attention rapt; the drawing doesn't fit the steel and wood of this smuggler's ship.
"Yes, those are cats," Inara primly agrees.
"If they come at night," River says, "The cats will know."
Mal starts, head turning sharply. The girl stands in the doorway, blood on the front of her dress. She rubs her hands down the grain of the cloth and they comes away dusky, streaks of charcoal mixing with the darker stains. River steps delicately to the side, kneels down, puts her finger against the curve of the cat's back, stroking it like it could come out of the wall and purr.
Jayne follows behind her, gun resting against his shoulder.
"Are you planning to shoot her?" Hysteria claws at the back of Inara's throat, laughter or rage or fear, she can't tell which. They've all blended together since the afternoon.
Jayne shrugs. "If I get leave to." Everyone ignores him.
"Thought you were gonna keep her in her room," Mal mutters.
Jayne shrugs again. "Wasn't doin' nothing but drawin'. Thought I could at least get some supper while she did it."
"You could have just locked the door," Mal shifted his weight, face hard, exasperated.
"She opened it on her own last time," he answered back, eyes flitting around the kitchen.
Inara looks back down at River. "They're temple cats," she says slowly, kneels next to the girl. There's something about the two men looming large in the doorway, talking about this… child as if she's a threat on the level of… well anyone they've run across. She doesn't like it, distrusts the way emotions and fear have run so very high. River may be dangerous, but she's not… the danger is not often directed… out. The threat of course is that it could be. It's a threat Inara feels deeply, but she's determined not to let it interfere in defending the girl.
"Well," Mal says, throwing up his hands like a storybook girl. "That explains everything."
He steps close to Inara and she watches him from the corner of her eye, watches how he swallows hard when he catches the scent of her perfume. Watches the conflict there - to touch her or not, to rage or not. It hardly matters. She is safe, River is safe. The milliner is… not safe. But he isn't dead, either. She hadn't exactly… shot him. But when they left, there'd been a bullet in his side, his hand twisted and burnt from the explosion of the gun. She doesn't know quite what happened.
Mal stands too close. "You two are awful chummy these days," he mutters. "Seems an odd time to be makin' new friends." He doesn't yell, she thinks, because yelling would mean something, would show concern and he's still a man prone to speaking in silences, to withholding. He'd rather lay harsh words on her instead of seeking out what he really feels, asking what he wants to know. He rather strip her defenses then strip her bare.
Inara kneels next to River. "It's just a story, honey," she murmurs, wants to take the story in as her own. She wants to touch what River has done. A gift of watchers to keep them all safe.
Jayne looks at the cats. "I know that one," he says, shifts his gun to the other shoulder. "Them cats eat up a bunch of robbers. Kinda useful if you ask me. Unless of course we was the robbers."
River gives him a smile, sweetness and bitter knowledge, and Inara's stomach turns to ice. "We need to have something that can watch at night," River says. "Sleeping has become… problematic."
"She ain't wrong about that," Mal mutters, and stalks away.
*
Kaylee comes to help her sweep her mother's cottage. They've driven away the wolves, have fooled the leopards, remain whole if orphaned. Simon's leg is hollowed out, pinked and bruised at the edges, but he's stitched up now like cloth. His stuff will stay in. River tilts up her face, shines and basks in Kaylee's bright smile. No, not orphaned; taken in, fostered like princelings, living in this castle in the sky.
"There was gold there," she says as Kaylee takes up the other broom, the other brush. River knows the difference, but to here they're all the same. "Gold made of hair, coins cut from a beard."
"I remember my ma tellin' me that one," Kaylee says. She is Rose Red now and not Wendy, is a sister, loves the black bear deep in the woods.
This is something River knows. She can't hold her own secrets, has to tuck them far, far away, bury them deep until she can't reach them. But she can hold tight to others' - not a shepherd -just a man; betrayer and friend. She can hold tight to Wash and Zoe, can hold the sweet secrets between them; glances and heat and kindness; wanting family. She can hold tight to the Captain, trying to fill in all the little holes; to Simon, scared and uncertain, resentful. She can hold to Inara, leaving because she can't say what she wants to ears that can't hear it. To Kaylee, wanting to couple, wanting to love like sunshine.
Kaylee scrubs at the walls and River watches as the cats turn into dark tears, their fur sloughed back into water and charcoal.
She will keep the cats in her room. It is only fair. Kaylee gets to the bottom of the wall, drops the brush in the bucket of bubbles and water. "I reckon that one can stay. We just won't tell nobody. I think Serenity'll be happy to have eyes open for her at all hours."
River nods. She agrees.
The question, when it comes is soft and tuneful, humming like Serenity's engines. River hears it before it's given words.
"What… what happened down there? Was it like… him?" Of all of them, Kaylee was most frightened when Jubal Early came, brushed up tight against his darkness and his soft lies. River wishes she could have kept his ravenous claws from her friend. She thinks someday it will be an option.
"No," she says. She is lightheaded, singsong and particled, tiny bits of dust clinging together, negative and positive attraction. She is magnetic, and atom waiting to split. "It was just stopping a wolf."
"I know that one too," Kaylee says, mouth a whisper. "But first, he eats them all up, the little duck and the bird. Sometimes the gramma."
"Not this time," River says, and touches Kaylee's arm, leaving dark fingerprints.
*
"She's livin' in all these stories," Kaylee sits with her legs crossed on the couch. Simon sits at the other end, but they don't touch. He hasn't quite forgiven her since she told the others about River and the gun. He stays with her in evenings, talks and laughs sometimes, but he's holding tight to that anger, holding it like it's a kind of protection for River. Kaylee thinks River needs barricades and love but maybe not so much of Simon's silence and sacrifice.
"She's always liked stories," he laughs. "Although she used to get angry when everyone was given impossible tasks. She used to tell me her own fairytales when she was little girl, her own stories. But she outgrew them early. My father thought she was better off reading Shakespeare and 12th Dynasty poetry. "
Kaylee fiddles with the ties of her shirt. "She's been tellin' all sorts of stories lately. And most of 'em have things with pointy teeth."
She flicks her eyes up, and River's pressed tight against the doorway, looking at the ceiling.
Simon catches sight of her and his mouth tightens in worry. River's smile is wide, warm but as she turns towards Simon, her expression catches, shifts to sad.
"I want to be Ariel," she says. "But then you'd be Miranda."
Simon smiles sadly. "Oh brave new world," he whispers and Kaylee curls her fingers, smiles at them both, shut out of the words between them.
*
Inara closes the final trunk. She sits on the edge of her bed and thinks of leaving the drapings. Her neck aches, and her hands are tired; curled from opening and closing, from folding, from clenching tight to her side.
She will leave at the next system. All she can do now is tell it aloud.
When the knock sounds against her door, she thinks first of ignoring it. No one needs entrance right now.
The knock rings again, hollow amongst the silks and tapestries left hanging.
Inara sighs, pushes to her feet, moves to turn the knob of the shuttle.
River stands in a clean dress, hair pulled back. She looks much less like a girl, her gaze in the here and now.
"Would you…" She tilts her head, mouth slightly open, takes in the beginnings of bare walls, looks down and Inara realizes she knows, has known.
"I… have to go," she whispers, wonders why saying it out loud to this child feels so much like abandonment.
"I know," says River. "But you don't have to be scared."
Inara touches her cheek. The girl's skin is soft, dewy like a fresh peach. "I thought that it would be safe. That I could be…" her voice trails off, "Why are you here?"
River's shoulders lift. "We were fish first," she says, "After that no one can say." She giggles, grows serious. "Will you paint me? I don't want to be a lost boy any longer."
Inara licks her lip, surprised. River has come here in the last few weeks for stories, for tea and quiet but she hasn't touched the cosmetics since the first day's trespass. Gesturing for her to sit down on the low cushions, Inara gathers pots of kohl, small brushes and a faint berried gloss.
Drawing the brush along River's delicate features, she wonders what this all means to the girl. She remembers her own mother drawing on lines, darkening Inara's lashes, rouging her mouth and pinching her cheeks. She can hear the powdery whisper of her mother's love against her ear, "So very beautiful. Such a pretty girl."
River isn't beautiful, is transforming from child to young woman, round cheeked, apple-eyed. She's also a killer at heart. Or head, or something very deep.
Inara puts down the brush after stroking it gently across River's mouth. "That's lovely," she says, but hesitates.
"You don't like it?" River touches her lips, fingertips coming back sticky.
"It… you look… you don't need these things. You're still so young."
"He would have hurt us," River whispers suddenly, smears the khol around her eyes, looks like a ghost from a tale, the ones that haunted Inara.
"I know," she murmurs back, and again puts her hand on River's cheek. She doesn't feel… maternal, has no urge to curl her to her side like her own mother would have, to whisper of her beauty, of what the world has in store for a beautiful girl. The protectiveness is laced too much with fear. But she does feel… something.
She hates the thought of leaving all this behind. Kaylee with her warmth. River with her longing. Zoe with her watchful eyes. There will always be men to discover, but it has been a long time since she has been able to keep company with women. Inara carefully thinks of Nandi and puts that hurt deep away.
There is something she still needs to know. "Did I really shoot him?" Inara asks, even though she doesn't want to hear the answer. She was closer, her hand near the barrel, moving it away when he'd pointed it forward and leered at her, eyes hot on River's young face.
"We don't touch guns," River whispers. "Not yet."
Inara nods. "Then… how?"
"It didn't do what he expected of it. When he took it into his hands, he thought it could only do one thing."
River rocks her head forward rests her cheek against Inara's knee. "Things can do more. They can always do more."
Inara strokes her head, feels the warm silk of the girls hair against her fingers. "You will take care, won't you?" she whispers.
River rubs her cheek against the silk of her skirt, head tilting like a cat. "If I give you something, will you keep it safe?" she asks. "If I give you a story, can you hold on tight?"
"Yes," Inara says. "I'll take it with me."
"Once upon a time," River says, "There was a girl who went on a journey to learn of marvelous things." She takes a deep breath, a contented sigh. "But that's not what happened. Instead she and her brother ran away from a gingerbread house…"