Exile Part Two: A Thousand Miles by ShinyBug The day of the Midsummer Masque dawned bright and clear, like almost every other day on Lethe. By early morning the scent of cherry blossoms had threaded on the wind through the hanging gardens into the halls of the Oubliette, mixing with the redolent spices of baking confections and roasting savory creatures for banquet. Servants rushed here and there, carrying armfuls of linens and trays of silverware and crystal, laughing as they went from the excitement that hung in the warm air. On this day everyone celebrated, rich and poor, high and low. Come sundown, rank disappeared and masks were tied on, and The City became one huge soiree, and at its apex was the Oubliette, and Inara. After all, who knew more about wearing masks than Inara herself? Inara and Essa were up with the dawn to oversee preparations, and Inara was once again glad of her friend’s presence, because the emotional exertions of the night before had left her bleary-eyed indeed and feeling more than slightly off-balance. She felt that morning as she dressed simply and comfortably for the day in white linen and applied a cooling serum to her eyelids, that her mask was already on, and the entertainment had many hours yet to begin.

She looked at her reflection in her dressing mirror, noting a few tiny lines around her eyes and mouth that implied years of laughter, and Inara wondered why she couldn’t remember ever laughing much. Her youth was ebbing slowly away, she realized with less concern than a Companion should feel about such a thing. She was only thirty, and still in her prime. But Inara could see a day now when that might no longer be so. And she was so tired, she admitted to herself. So very tired.

She ran her forefinger over her ivory-handled hairbrush, peripherally remembering brushing Kaylee’s hair in her shuttle, so long ago, and Mal bursting in on them. ‘Have you got time to do my hair?’ he’d asked, trying to get a rise out of her. The comraderie was what she missed, the closeness. The knowledge that no one had expected her to wear masks on Serenity, preferred it if she didn’t. ‘I may not show respect to your job, but he didn’t respect you. Inara, he doesn’t even see you...’

Inara pressed her fingertips to her aching eyes. Why was she doing this? Why had she chosen a life in which those around her saw and appreciated only her status, not her self? He’d asked her to stay, they all had, and still she’d chosen this hard path that denied her any opportunity of being who she really was. Essa had said that she knew her, could see her, but when it came right down to it, Inara didn’t really know herself. Was perhaps afraid to know herself.

Sitting before her dressing table mirror, Inara let herself think about what the crew of Serenity might be doing right then. Wondered if they were all still sailing the black together. Wondered if River had ever found her own serenity, if Simon had ever found the nerve to kiss Kaylee, wondered if Wash and Zoe had ever had children. Wondered if Mal had moved on once his Ambassador had disembarked. Wondered if he had finally found a woman who could see him for who he was and love him anyway, or because of it. Someone not afraid to let him know that. Someone not her. Dangerous thoughts, those. They were a luxury that Inara very rarely allowed herself, because they inevitably led to treacherous thoughts of sending out a wave, maybe just an innocuous hello to old friends, which would be just a disguise for a plea of ‘take me back.’

Which was, as far as Inara’s wearied resolve was concerned, unacceptable. She put the hairbrush in the back of her dressing table drawer, next to a plastic dinosaur, and stepped away from her reflection.

Essa was truly a treasure that day, directing and delegating, and always as though the orders had come from Inara herself, and if the servants noticed that Inara actually said little, no one remarked on it. For her part, Essa watched Inara closely but silently, always that slight frown between her brows, and Inara knew their conversation had merely been given a hiatus, not dismissed. Inara waded through the day behind her young companion as one walking through shallow water, a little sluggish, a little slow, distracted by ripples. She thought about the place she called home, and she thought about Essa, who was substituting for an entire crew, despite Inara’s firm resolve not to become emotionally attached. She thought she understood now what it meant to feel alone in a crowd, and she was more aware than she had ever been of her own practiced actions: graceful gestures, appropriately planned phrases, a cool and unruffled demeanor in every situation. All a farce. The guests began to arrive just before sundown, and Essa guided Inara back to her chambers to dress for the festivity. It was difficult to muster up any excitement at slipping into another persona, as dozens of layers of the finest dove-gray tissue silk settled around her waist and fluttered to the floor in carefully tattered edges, tiny jewels twinkling myriad colors here and there where they were caught up in the fabric.

The cloth of her bodice was barely more than a strip wrapped around her breasts and shoulders, and it was so thin it showed the darkness of her nipples from behind the dark sparkle of a tourmaline here, a beryl there. A diamond rested in her navel, and pearls were threaded through the loosely piled curls of her hair with a thin vine of jasmine flowers. At her throat was the gold key to the Oubliette, heavy enough to remind her of its presence at all times. Essa carefully painted Inara's eyes with silver kohl and drew tiny intricate designs above her cheekbones in silver, and lastly tied on Inara’s gossamer wings around her shoulders. The wings Inara had chosen were not those of a butterfly, but those of a moth or lesser insect--not colorful or rounded but heavily veined and the same dove-gray as her dress, falling long and low from her shoulders to brush against the bare small of her back. She examined her reflection in the mirror. Perfect. Perfect, and false. An abomination. She was sure to be the belle of her own ball. “We can’t survive on our own, you know,” Essa said as Inara wove silver threads through her friend’s short mahogany hair. “We are social creatures, and we aren’t meant to go through life alone.” “Please, Essa. Not now.” Inara’s hands stilled their designing momentarily as she gathered her strength. “If not now, when?” Essa asked, her eyes alight, and kind. “If not them, if not me, then who? Inara,” she said, turning on the dressing stool to take Inara’s hands, “I know what you and I have is not True Love, nor do I think it is forever. But I hope you realize that you and I, we’re a family, and it does you no harm to admit that, nor does it tie you to me. If anything, it sets us free.” She kissed Inara’s hands and held them to her breast, looking up into her eyes with all the wisdom of youth. “We are only as strong as the sum of our parts.” Inara could only stare down at her friend in silence, locking those words inside her mind. As Titania, she emerged from the center of the Oubliette to greet her guests, with Essa as Cobweb at her side in a similar white costume. Their silk slippers made hushing sounds on the marble tile floor, which gleamed, mirror-like, in the torchlight that illuminated the corridor. Inara’s mask was made of tissue silk, stiffened and jeweled like her dress and just as revealing, for after all, there would be no question of who Titania was anyway. It was the illusion that mattered. Then they rounded the last curve and the guests were there in hundreds, masked and decadently colorful, spilling out the ballroom and banquet hall into the hanging gardens and the maze. There was music and laughter echoing through the nautilus corridor and into the night, and the stars winked overhead, and Inara melted into the crowd. She greeted guest after guest, mustering sincerity and cordiality, laughing when it was required and the rest of the time hoping that her silence would be taken as mysteriousness. In the ballroom she danced with many partners, for hours as the hands of the clock spun closer to vertical, and the stars and the ships wheeled overhead through the skylight. The masque was a success, from all she could tell. The best and the brightest in The City were gathered on the hill, and the lights of the party illumined the hill on all sides, bleeding down into the torches and bonfires set throughout the landscape, and everywhere there was the celebration of summer. One moment marred her composure, when one well-meaning dance partner jested, “Where has your Oberon gone off to, dear Titania?” and Inara had stumbled, unable to form a response through her closed throat. She found herself at that long ago ball on Persephone, with the hovering chandelier and Kaylee’s strawberry-cake dress, and Mal’s surprisingly graceful dance steps in his tightly tailored pants, his hand warm on the naked small of her back just above the vee of her gold dress...

...but the orchestra was playing a different tune tonight, on a different world, and her partner was an amiable older gentleman with graying hair and a better-tailored suit and austere hawk’s-beak mask, who whirled her with more surety than Mal had, having been dancing his whole life. She smiled up at his kind features, wondering wearily if she’d see him soon in her inner sanctum, and have to learn the special ways he liked to dance in the bedchamber.

She supposed he was wealthy enough to afford her, since he was here tonight, but she could not if her life had depended on it remember his name, having given the guest list only a cursory glance and left the tedious chore for Essa to take care of. She should really have paid more attention to such a thing, since it was of course her livelihood. Still, she danced, the image of respectability and Companionship, and Essa’s rich laughter carried like bells from across the room where she danced with a handsome young client. “...can’t believe we managed to get strawberries after all...” Inara glanced over at the buffet table as the comment drifted to her ears on her next turn near the edge of the dance floor. Two of her servants, dressed as harlequins and looking jovially half-intoxicated, were arranging a huge pyramid of juicy red strawberries on the table. Her partner spun her away, asking her a polite question, which she answered automatically, and when they swung back around she looked at the strawberries again. “Would you like to stop for one?” her partner inquired politely, noting her interest.

Inara gave a shaky smile, unable to say why she was so affected by the sight of fruit, except that they reminded her of Kaylee, who could be bought for the price of a ripe strawberry. Strawberries were not native to Lethe, and there had been speculation as to whether or not the shipment would arrive in time for the Masque. Obviously they had, and Inara was glad. It was yet another reason her masque would be the talk of the season. “...almost didn’t make it here,” one of the servants was saying as the music came to an end and Inara’s partner led her from the dance floor toward the buffet table. “Mechanic told me they’d had engine trouble. Funny thing, she met me at the dock with the captain, asking to keep a few for herself.” “The mechanic?” “Yeah, made a commotion until I let her keep a little box of them. Figured we wouldn’t miss a few. She was so happy, over some strawberries.” There was a roaring in Inara’s ears as she came to a halt abruptly in front of the table. Her partner, oblivious, began filling a plate with strawberries for her. “Mechanic?” she inquired sharply, causing the servant to jump guiltily. “My lady? I’m sorry, I thought just a few strawberries...it was only a few,” he floundered in apology. Inara shook her head. “Wh...what was the name of the ship?” Her heart thudded in her breast, so hard she was certain that it could be seen pulsing beneath her skin.

“S-serenity, I think,” stammered the abashed servant, red-faced beneath his mask.

Inara reached out to touch the strawberry at the very peak of the pyramid, felt its textured, seedy surface, its little green leaves. She turned away, forgetting her partner who stood, plate in hand, confused, next to the servant. Essa was making her way through the crowd to her, having apparently sensed that she was needed. The orchestra had begun another song, and Inara met her in the middle of the swirling dance floor. Inara grabbed her hands tightly, her eyes wide. “Serenity,” she finally said, as a course of explanation.

Though she may not have understood the details, Essa recognized the crux of the event. She pursed her lips as though to stop trembling, and her green eyes swam gravely with a scope of knowledge that reminded Inara of the way River used to look when seeing into a possible future. After a moment Essa set her jaw and yanked Inara through the whirl of dancers, leaving chaos in their wake as they ran through the corridor and out into the night. Essa threaded them through the garden maze as jasmine blossoms dropped around them like snow, down the hill to where the garden opened up to a huge iron gate whose doors were flung wide for the event, to the street outside. Essa hailed a hired transport vehicle and turned to Inara, whose eyes were still wide and unfocused. She reached up to touch Inara’s cheek, and pressed a hard kiss to her lips. “Go,” she commanded, sounding much older than her twenty years. “Go.”

Inara swallowed around a lump in her throat, thinking that she had done this remarkable young woman a serious injustice in never truly allowing Essa into her heart, and was about to do her another injustice by leaving her. The rueful smile that shone from Essa’s eyes but not her mouth said she counted Inara worth the cost. Inara reached for the chain at her neck. She unfastened the clasp with shaking fingers, and pressed the Oubliette’s key into Essa’s palm, curling her fingers around the gold. “Keep it for me,” she whispered.

“For how long?” Essa asked, her face pale.

“I...don’t...” Inara shook her head, at a loss.

Essa offered a little smile, and nodded. Inara stepped into the hired transport and said, “The docks, please,” and then they were motoring away through throngs of revelers, down the long hill to the city below. The night air was warm but the breeze was cool on Inara’s flushed cheeks, and her head was full of too many thoughts. The City’s belltower was tolling, ten...eleven... Was she about to make a colossal blunder, again? What if they were already gone when she got there? What if they didn’t want her there anymore? What if there was no place for her? What if Mal...what if Mal... It suddenly struck her as being ironic, given everything she had done to forget them, that it had all served to prevent her from doing that very thing, and in fact had led her to this moment, this dubious second chance. The hired transport took her within a half-mile of the docks before it got stalled in a traffic jam, the motorway clogged with revelers. Inara ripped a ruby off her skirt thoughtlessly and tossed it to the driver, who grinned hugely, and then she was running on foot, and she could smell the salt of the ocean nearby, and knew that she was near the port, which accommodated boats and space vessels alike. She looked up as she ran, watching for Serenity’s bird’s-head prow raised over the dock buildings, listening for recognizable sounds of crew and kin, letting the lights of the dock guide her home. Imbue. That’s the word. Just a room, just a place. Not what you’re running from. A thousand miles...a thousand miles...

Her heart hammered and her lungs ached when she finally stumbled to a halt in the square of golden light spilling out of a familiar cargo bay. No one was in sight, but the Firefly was unmistakably open for business. There was a crate of cargo half-loaded into the hold, the look of a transaction in process. On trembling legs Inara slowly ascended the ramp, her stinging feet reminding her that the soles of silk slippers had shredded during her flight, and one seemed to have come off entirely. Her cheeks were wet again. She ripped off her jeweled mask and clutched it in both hands. Heart in her throat, she listened. “...not goin’ anywhere tonight anyway, can’t we go into town for the party, Cap’n?” “For the last gorram time, no! Why’re you still arguin’ with me, Kaylee? I need you in the engine room figuring out why the hell we can’t get off this fancy ball of water.” After five years, his voice still burrowed into her belly like it belonged there, thorny rustic gruffness and all.

It was Kaylee she saw first, off to the side, leaning over the catwalk railing plaintively, wearing coveralls but somehow exuding the bearing of a few years experience, the effort of hair brushed and upswept from her face the way Inara had always tried to teach her to do.

“There ain’t nothin’ wrong with the engine, I told you already. Nothin’ that I can see. She just don’t wanna fly. I never seen nothing like it, Cap. So can I go?”

Inara heard Mal growl once, and watched Kaylee cringe. “Kaylee, I swear on Jayne’s gun, if you’ve tampered with the engine just to go to a party, I’m gonna...what?” The last was asked in trepidation, having seen Kaylee’s face as his mechanic locked eyes with something out of his line of sight. Kaylee’s mouth opened and closed silently, and Inara was afraid to look away from Kaylee’s eyes as Mal stepped around a high stack of crates, and then they were face to face and of course she had to look.

For a long moment they stared at each other, heedless of Kaylee’s feet pounding off down the catwalk and her voice hollering as she disappeared into the ship. Mal seemed at a total loss for words, eyes roving over Inara’s face, which was streaked with silver tears as her kohl had run down her cheeks, her bedraggled hair dripping pearls and jasmine, her fancy silk dress, her bare and bloody feet. “Mal,” she said, soundlessly. He swallowed. “‘Nara.” His voice cracked, just a little. The lines around his mouth and eyes were a little deeper too, like hers, and his hair was a little shaggy around the ears, but otherwise he looked belovedly the same as she remembered. Better.

She trembled, sending her wings shivering against her back, trying to read his eyes to find a welcome, unsure of everything. When she finally saw it she dropped her mask on the floor and let her stinging feet bring her three steps forward into the circle of his arms, and she thought of what Essa had said about admitting her need, and it setting her free, not tying her down.

His arms held her tight, and he buried his face into her neck and breathed deeply while she cried out her need into his shoulder, letting fly the composure she’d always tried for in his presence. She didn’t raise her head when she heard feet pounding down the metal stairs, when she heard Jayne’s voice exclaiming in Mandarin, or Wash’s excited chattering and Zoe’s soft reply. He kept holding her, and she kept crying, releasing the flood of thirty years of emotional restraint, letting herself be a woman, not a Companion, finally.

When she lifted her head, after what seemed an eternity, Mal’s features swam before her and she swiped at her cheeks and rubbed her eyes, gasping when her fingers came away silver, seeing kohl stains on his shoulder. “Stop it, I like you messy. You look real.” Mal pulled her hands away from her face and replaced them with his own, touching her almost roughly, the way he had when they’d said goodbye in this very spot. She let him, eyes shimmering, feeling reborn under his attention. “You got new boots,” she whispered inanely.

“How did you find us?” he asked, hands skimming down her arms to her bare waist, feeling her skin as if to assure himself it was there.

“Kaylee’s strawberries,” Inara croaked, her blood still thrumming hot in her veins from her journey through the city, and now from his nearness, and his hands.

“Kaylee’s...I love my mechanic,” he muttered into Inara’s hair as he took another breath of her. Behind them Kaylee crowed. Then Mal grew still, nose pressed to her ear. “Wait, you mean, that...we just brought...that shipment was for...”

“You supplied my Midsummer Masque with strawberries.” She looked up into his stunned face and managed a smile, shaky, but her first genuine smile in a very, very long time. “I’d like to take this opportunity, Captain Reynolds, to thank you for your well-timed delivery. As usual, just under the wire, but--”

And then she couldn’t speak because he was kissing her, and it was just as messy and artless a greeting as it had been a goodbye, and it answered many of the questions she had been unable to articulate. Where their first kiss had tasted of alcohol to drown sorrows in, this one tasted tartly of strawberries, and hope. Behind them came the sound of cheering from crew and kin, Jayne’s bellowing the loudest if only because there was kissing going on in his vicinity. Even Book’s voice joined the multitude, albeit in low, rich chuckling. When Mal let her go they were both breathing hard, like long-distance runners at the end of a race, and Mal was grinning at her with an expression she had never seen before, like he was actually...happy. Her heart swelled in her chest, and she had a sense of being transparent, just thin skin carrying a beating vessel too large for her body, and she thought she might just take off, powering Serenity’s stalled engine with the strength of her love for everyone around her.

“You should have worn better shoes.” Inara glanced up to see River balancing on the highest rung of the catwalk railing, wearing not a frilly dress but respectable pants and a knitted shirt, looking all grown up with braided hair, ordered and mature. “Oh, River, you shouldn’t...” came Simon’s harried voice as he moved to coax her off the railing. Inara couldn’t help but smile. Some things were still, obviously, unchanged.

“I suppose I should have,” Inara answered, looking up at River but gripping Mal’s hand tightly.

River ignored Simon’s entreaties, gazing down somberly at Inara. “A thousand miles is a long way to walk without proper shoes.” “Yes, River. It is.” River nodded, satisfied, and climbed off the railing.

“Who are you supposed to be, anyway?” Mal asked, peering over her shoulder at her wings, now askew, fingering the diaphanous veins in wonder.

Inara breathed in the scent of him as he leaned close. “Yours,” she replied. “Obviously.” “Well, ain’t that just like a woman,” Mal replied, his voice rich and a little smug, shaking his head and ignoring Inara’s indignation. “Had to come to that conclusion in your own good sweet time.” Inara cleared her throat pointedly. “In all fairness, Mal, you weren’t the one who had to choose between your successful career and disastrous true love.” “I’m not sure if I should be insulted or complimented,” Mal replied, crossing his arms over his chest. “Just like old times,” Inara murmured, smiling, leaning up to kiss him again.

“Fei chong,” said a small and unfamiliar voice, and Inara looked down to see a toddler-sized Zoe peeking around the crates, her wide chocolate eyes fixed on Inara’s wings.

“No, bao bei. That’s not a bug, that’s the Captain’s girlfriend,” Wash said patiently, scooping the little girl into his arms and winking at Inara with a grin. Zoe, leaning on the stair railing, snorted delicately. “Fei chong,” the little girl said again, obstinately, and there was no doubt as to her parentage.

Inara looked around the cargo bay to see if there were any other newcomers she had missed. There were no more surprises, unless Inara chose to count Book’s obvious lack of Shepherd attire and presence of shoulder holstered gun, Simon’s hand entwined with Kaylee’s, and Jayne’s unmistakable stance beside River, one big hand at her waist. Which Inara didn’t choose to count as surprises. Mal watched her registering the changes on board, and reached out to rub one of her bedraggled curls between thumb and forefinger. “I had to watch everyone else’s happily ever afters all by my lonesome,” he said, the humor in his voice almost but not quite disguising old pain. “I figure it’s my turn now.” Inara let her fingers follow the curve of his shoulders the way they’d always wanted to. “I don’t know, I’d hate to complete the ever afters and render your life boring, Captain. I know how you love a good adventure.” “Well now,” Mal said, reaching around Inara’s back to untie her wings, then handing them to Wash’s daughter to play with. He pressed his fingers into the small of her back, now unencumbered by wings, and drew her close. “There’s always the Alliance, the Reavers, the space bandits, and the inevitable gunplay to keep us on our toes. Not to mention the lover’s spats. So much for my no-shipboard-romances rule. So...” he trailed off, looking suddenly uncertain. A small frown appeared between his brows, reminding Inara of Essa.

“So...what?” Inara asked gently, curling her fingers inside the waistband of his pants, making him blush.

He cleared his throat and nodded toward The City’s high hill, which could be seen from where they stood in the open cargo bay, and the bright light of the Oubliette. “So...does this mean you’re...I mean, you’ve got that fancy place, right? I’m right in thinkin’ that’s your house up there, aren’t I? And maybe I’ve got this all...”

There was noticeable silence in the room, and it appeared that everyone was waiting for her answer. Inara looked over her shoulder at the bright light on the hill, thinking of Essa, thinking of being set free. “My biggest worry, Captain Reynolds, is how I’m going to spend all my extra free time now that I’m retired. And if you can’t come up with a few suggestions, you’re not the man I thought you were.” Mal’s back was to the rest of the crew, so no one but Inara saw the way his jaw flexed taut, the way his eyes sparkled briefly with moisture, the way his throat moved when he swallowed hard before saying, “Okay then. You’ve all got jobs to do, so go do ‘em. Jayne, you and Book finish getting this cargo stored. Kaylee, once you’ve convinced Serenity that she wants to fly again, I’m thinkin’ one of your chocolate protein cakes is in order. We’ve got some celebratin’ ahead of us.” Kaylee made joyful noises as she scampered up the stairs, and everyone else scattered like so many leaves in a high wind. Book and Jayne talked and laughed, moving crates through the bay. In the space of a moment, five years melted away into oblivion. Inara caught Mal’s gaze and held it. “That house on the hill? That’s just a place. Home isn’t a place.” The way Mal’s eyes crinkled when he smiled down at her, that was home. A deep rumbling purr vibrated the air around them as Serenity’s engine spun to life again, and from the heart of the ship came the sound of Kaylee’s laughter.

~End~

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Author’s note: There are lots of mythological references in this series. Forgive me, this is what a classical history degree will do to a person. For those inquiring minds, the planet of Lethe is named after one of the five rivers of Hades. Lethe is the river of forgetting, a place to lose one’s memories in. I thought it was fitting. The City on Lethe is based on Venice circa the Renaissance, during its height of decadence, and its love of courtesans and masqued balls.

There are also some Shakespearean references, and several subtle and not so subtle fairy tale bits too. What can I say? I was on a roll.

Thanks for reading! :)