"Aunt River, tell me a story" demanded the small 8 year old girl to her almost insane aunty, who was sitting alone at the kitchen table sharpening a knife.
"Okay Ally. Once upon a time there was a little girl who was very smart, so smart that her parents sent her to a special school…"
~ Across the ship ~
A very agitated Kaylee strides into the infirmary "have you seen Ally, is she in here with you?" she asks, almost franticly
"No, I was just about to look for River, I haven't seen her in hours" say Simon "you don't think…"
"Of course not" she says, not sounding entirely sure "RIVER, ALLY" she calls, Simon joins her pursuit, alerting Mal, Jayne and Zoe who also begin to look for the youngest members of the crew
~ In the Kitchen ~
"At the school the girl found herself two very special friends, friends who were a bit like her, but different. See, the girl could read minds, and her friend, Maya, was an empath, meaning she could read and influence emotions, and her friend Tsavo had pre-cognition, meaning she could read the future…"
Just then Mal, Jayne, Simon and Kaylee enter the kitchen in a huff. Kaylee immediately goes straight to Ally, asking menial things like 'are you okay, what were you doing etc.'
Simon going straight to her with Mal at his back "What are you doing, River, you know you're not allowed to be alone with Ally" he scolds his younger sister
"Aunty River was just telling me a story, Daddy, about a really smart girl, and a special school..." by this point Simon looked mad "and her friends their…" this brought confusion over his features "and they were all special, and we were just getting to the part where they do something awesome with their powers, right aunty River?" Ally asks
"Of course Ally" the young reader said with a smile. Then, with a cold glance at her brother, she leaves the kitchen and promptly goes to her room.
~ Several worlds away, small transport ship, heading on-route to a Firefly class cargo-hauler named Serenity ~
Tsavo sits alone, the blue hands in the next room. Idiots, leaving her alone like this, sending her to kill one of her best friends, of course they think she's under the control of her programming, but she's not. She knows this could end one of two ways, with her dead or with her unit coming together, to take down the academy, she was just hoping for the latter.
Don't they know where my allegiance sits, of course not, they weren't built that way, she knew her programing would be reset before she was truly deployed, and she hoped that River knew how to stop her doing something stupid. "only through blood comes retribution" she whispers.