(no subject)
Inara had endured six months on the island of Tabula Rasa, bearing witness to a season of snow and a day of Reavers. She had moved from Serenity to separate herself and still spent time with the crew regularly. She had made plans to start a school, a Companion house of her own, and found herself unable to start so complex a project, one that would fill her days and still mean she had made a commitment to the island, entrusted herself to spend untold time there, given up control over when or whether she would leave the work she had begun.
She was caught between. Somehow the stability of being unable to move or leave left her unsteady. Everything was in equilibrium, yet there was no balance to be found. She could be certain only of her own uncertainty and of the crew -- although even that was far from a sure thing, when Jayne had disappeared not long before, when she herself had apparently come and gone. Things had changes, but that was a constant as well; there would always be change. It was a matter only of anticipating and adapting, and Inara had always been good at both.
It was late afternoon when she found herself out by Serenity, wandering toward one of the few things on the island that had been familiar before her arrival. The setting sun cast the ship in shadows, and she stood a moment, considering anything but the life she had once known on board. If she couldn't be sure of her future, she could at least choose not to dwell on her past -- even if her feet had brought her to the greatest reminder that remained to her.