Details - *Characters and their world belong to others; follies and errors belong to myself. - - :: Outer-rim Guild Training House:: - - Inara surveyed the room from the door. The choice of purple and yellow was brave, but the iris centerpieces pulled the room together. They had tried hard; they were learning something. Hot and cold, balanced opposition, the room suggested her students were learning something about control and restraint. She wondered how she could translate the lesson learned through objects into one about self. “The color palette is expressive. Joyful, and quite appropriate,” she said as she walked to the nearest table to stand behind a chair. What an image, she thought, her face reflected in waves and scratches from the etched silver dishes. “Of course, on a Sihnon table, chopsticks always go to the far left—” the silver pair in her right hand froze in the air, and she brought them down with a clatter, metal on metal and crystal, the sticks hitting plate and glass. She put too much weight on her other hand, gripping the back of the chair, turning her fingers white. But each girl had blushed or went pale at the mentioned mistake; one began to string together an apology, wholly consumed by their failure. All improper responses, but Inara just waved them away, straightened fast, placed the chopsticks gently in proper place. “It’s almost impossible to keep them all straight, arcana of the Core worlds.” She ran her fingers over the chopsticks once more. “Mei shen me...” she said, to herself. Then to the girls: “You have things well in hand; I shall see you when we greet our guests.” She turned and left the room, managed to walk clear-eyed and seeming calm, even as she left her students wondering: at her retreat, at her quick approval, at her dismissal of the detailed rules. Rules she repeatedly taught them in class, rules that formed the structure and upheld the beauty of their Guild and the worlds, rules that held civilization in place, rules that kept back the dark. - - :: Serenity :: - “River, I thought it was your brother’s week for kitchen chores,” Book said, looking up from his tray of fresh baked rolls, a rarity they’d been enjoying since a job paid in two barrels of flour and some hand-churned butter. River was walking around the table, setting places. She kept switching cups, moving forks and knives and chopsticks, brushing hands over the backs of the chairs. “River?” Simon tensed in the door to see his sister, frantic. Their cups and mugs and serving platters were now an improbably tall and beautiful pyramid at the center of the table. She grabbed a plate and looked into it, rubbing her sleeve against it, like a mirror. “River, looks like Shepherd Book has dinner almost ready.” “I do indeed.” “The center cannot hold,” she said, looking at Simon. “That might be, but we’ll have to unstack the glasses anyways to...” River picked up a knife and flipped it, over and over. “River.” “Mei-mei, you don’t want...” She set the plate on the knife and started it spinning. Book and Simon looked at each other. Kaylee’s boots echoed in the hall. “Shepherd you go and make us rolls again?” she sang out and stopped at the scene in the kitchen. She turned her head sideways. Simon and Book did the same. “Supper on?” Mal asked, following Zoe and Wash into the galley. “Je shr shuh muh...” “Now how’d she go and do that?” Jayne stuttered out, staring at River, turned in a hand-stand, toes pointed, sticking out from her printed pants, one to the ceiling, the other towards a galley hatch, her left hand outstretched to the other, the knife upright on her palm, plate spinning merrily. She craned her head about, and looked at Mal. “No balance,” she said and let the plate fall. - - ~*~*~* - Translations: Mei shen me: (idiomatic) It doesn’t matter; it’s nothing. Mei-mei: little sister Je shr shuh muh: What is this?