Another Way of Being By Belasera This is still very much intro, the action will come later. I was surprised to find that, for someone so secretive, Saffron has a surprising amount to say ………………………………………………………………………………………….. Don’t look so shocked. Just because I never have been in love doesn’t mean I couldn’t do it. Like most fierce things, I too have a soft underbelly. Don’t make me explain myself, I mean, have you seen the man? An absolute paragon of virtue and a viscious outlaw to boot. How could I not fall for such a walking contradiction, a living proof that I may not be the only creature built to defy reason. He’s my hope, you see, that there really can be another way of being. I have to make him see it, now. See that he and I are only fit to be together, that together we each make sense. He may hate me now, but so what? I half hate him still. No, I don’t expect you to understand. When do people ever understand each other, really? I am the only one who’s lived my life, after all. My life. Yeah, that caught your attention. Think I’ll spill it all to you, maybe even my real name? Why would I bother? People open up and let their guts fall all over the floor when they tell their histories, and when it’s done everyone is left with a vague sort of embarrassment and even less desire to know one another. I will tell you one thing and one thing only. I’m sorry to disappoint you; maybe you were hoping I’d launch into one of those, “When I was a girl on papa’s ranch, back on Hera…” Oh, I can’t even keep a straight face. No, this is what you get from me. My mother once looked me square in the face, one gorgeous green eye surrounded by a complement of black and blue, and said to me, “Baby, honesty is over-rated”. What else in the ‘verse could you need to know? …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. And now her saying it comes back to me in a flash, like gunshot. When I’m standing here, next to Serenity’s thrumming hull and he’s staring at me with cold hard eyes that make me want to be harder myself, they’re such a thrill. And he says to me, through his teeth, “Why ya’ here, try and tell me real honest like.” And I can’t help but grinning, ‘cause I know my eyes are sparkling just like hers when I answer him. “Baby, honesty is over-rated.”