Room 313 and Front Lawn, Saturday Morning

[ambassadorinara]

Inara woke early and toddled over to the window, climbing up on the desk so she could move the covering out of the way. Trees, sunshine, grass, oooh, birds!

"Oooh, pretty."

That settled it. Today was an outside day.

Once she climbed down, she went to get dressed, and was most displeased by what she found in her closet. Why were they all

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[bigdamndean]

Zoe was on her way to her office as she passed by the dorms and the lawn, and even though she didn't recognize the child, her mothering instinct kicked in anyway.

"You should be careful," she called. "You don't want to fall and hurt yourself."

[ambassadorinara]

"'m not gonna fall," Inara called back, "I do this alla time."

Or possibly twice.

[bigdamndean]

"Oh really?" Zoe asked, willing to go along with that for now, until she could figure out where the little girl came from. "Is it fun?"

[ambassadorinara]

She nodded a lot, tongue caught between her teeth as she concentrated on settling herself on the branch. "Uh huh."

"You should try it," she remembered to offer, if a little late. "'s a big tree."

[bigdamndean]

"It's been a long time since I've climbed a tree. I might not do very well," Zoe said. "What's your name?"

[ambassadorinara]

"'nara," she said, giggling.

[bigdamndean]

Oh, so it was one of those weekends, Zoe realized. She was going to have to find the boys at some point, but for now, dealing with Inara seemed most important.

"Do you like to play outside a lot?" she asked. She couldn't quite imagine that, but it didn't seem entirely strange.

[ambassadorinara]

"Uh huh," she nodded lots at Zoe, swinging her feet in the air. "And running and jumping and yelling and lots of stuff."

[bigdamndean]

It was all Zoe could do to not laugh, settling for filing this information away for later. "It sounds like you're very active. But that sounds a lot like things boys like to do."

[ambassadorinara]

"Boys are dumb," Inara retorted. "We can do it better, plus some stuff they can never, ever, ever do."

[bigdamndean]

Somewhere in the back of Zoe's mind, a letter to Mal was already being written about this.

"There are an awful lot of dumb boys out there, aren't there?" she said. "What do you mean, there are things they can never do?"

[ambassadorinara]

"Uh huh," she nodded again, pleased that Zoe understood. "Like school, or fighting, or having babies."

[bigdamndean]

"You think girls make better fighters?" Zoe asked.

[ambassadorinara]

"Yep yep. 'cause they're littler and patient and only fight when they have to." Or maybe that was just her, when she was dealing with other children.

[bigdamndean]

"And people don't expect girls to fight as much," Zoe pointed out. "You're very smart for being so young."

[ambassadorinara]

"Thank you. I fight a lot," she said, sighing loudly. "Mama says I'm too good at it."

Or loud and not afraid to bite, which was almost the same thing, right?