Shattered.
"You're lost in the woods."
"I...I think I'm on the wrong ship."
"Or maybe, you're where you need to be."
Inara heard her own voice, one of her first conversations with Sheppard Book, as she looked down at his headstone.
Why hadn't she agreed with him? Why hadn't she simply told him to get off the ship and somewhere, anywhere else?
Because, a little voice nagged at her. As long as a respectable Sheppard could live on this ship...
Inara turned and headed back to Serenity.
Control. Confidence. Certainty.
Inara's life was dedicated to these three words. Her training in their use had started as far back as she could remember.
Nandi had left. She had not supported Unification. Or to be more precise, she had not supported the war. Nandi had been given the choice. Stand with the Guild or not. Support them wholeheartedly or not. There was a war brewing, and there was no halfway.
And Nandi had left. Willingly.
It had been the first thing in Inara's life that she could not comprehend.
The descision had been a simple one to Inara. The Guild had been her home, her school, her career. It's teachings were the way she wallked, the way she breathed. The way she sat when she ate, the way she modulated her voice when she spoke. And they stood with the Alliance. With stability. With order. This war wasn't about politics, it was a war for civilisation.
Inara supported Unification. The fact that Mal had not didn't bother her. It was his nature. Chaos was his nature. The Alliance had brought stablity, centralization, equality, balance. These were qualities that Inara had sworn to have as her very being.
Mal was the antithesis of every rule she had lived her life by.
But they did agree on one thing. Mal loved Serenity.
Mal had told her once, encouraged by Kaylee's moonshine, that the salesman had been trying to feed him lines about another ship, but Mal only had eyes for a Firefly that didn't work on the far side of a scrapheap.
Mal said that she called to him.
Kaylee had said the same thing once, about how she knew when Serenity was hurting, by the way she hummed her song to the young Mechanic.
Kaylee was the first of the crew that had come to see Inara, not counting Mal renting the shuttle. Kaylee had been her first friend outside the Guild. The girl was a sweetie and wanted nothing more than to be like Inara, and so inara had considered the mechanic a kid sister, started teaching her about things like clothes, makeup...
Kaylee had responded with engine-grease and impossible enthusiasm for the shuttle Inara had suddenly found herself in.
Inara spent her first night in the shuttle, and closed her eyes, listening to the way the ship hummed, the way the deckplates creaked, the way the gravity shift had moved gently out of synch so you could feel the turns she made...
And Inara had loved it.
Inara had been taught to read people. Every client, every friend, every enemy was different. You had to read each one as an individual. Mal had been right. Companions chartered their services on huge luxury liners, but not small border ships. Inara had tried a few of those Liners. But for all their oppulence, they were virtual carbon copies of each other. One ship the same as another from identical designs, one captain much like the other with identical uniforms and style. Everything orderly, regulated and precise, just as the Alliance liked it.
Serenity, she was alive. She was an individual. When she flew into the wind you could taste it in the way the wind ran over the hull. When her engine wasn't working right, you could hear it in the way she sounded. When she was pushing for speed you could feel it through the deck plates.
Inara had traveled on many ships, and this was the only one that actually felt like a living thing.
This ship made noise, this ship had a soul, this ship could be sensed and felt... this ship was a home.
But this ship was the exact opposite of her life. This ship had no stability, this ship had no confidence. This ship was always three inches away from drifting, always on the verge of being out of control, with only positive thinking and little pieces of wire to keep her flying.
Just like her captain, just like her crew...
It could not become her life. It could not become her home. She was too... 'respectable'. Not like Zoe. Not like Jayne.
Not like Mal.
She was the calm, confident, well spoken, well dressed, high class lady, and Mal was a petty crook who fought when he didn't need to and made disparaging remarks. Of course they despised the Alliance. They lost the war. Of course Kaylee despised them too, she adored her captain, she loved the ship... She had nothing to prove to him, nothing to prove to any of them.
So why was it she felt so smug when she was able to talk Mal straight out of prison?
She could feel herself being pulled away from her old life, from her regulation, from her control and certainty...
She fought that pull. She fought with Mal desperately over getting to worlds with 'respecatble' clients on them.
Respectable clients like Atherton Wing.
Mal appreciated a little order to his life too. Find a job, get paid, keep flying. His life was one of structure... a structure that never really seemed to work in his case.
Inara tried being business-like with the captain. A well mannered conversation over tea, a companion to a captain. Two professionals. It had lasted ten seconds before she started yelling at him. A whole day before she was actually helping him on the job.
Nandi and the Heart of Gold was the final straw. Nandi was dead.
Nandi had left, nandi had sided with Mal, even if neither of them had known it, and as a direct result, Nandi was dead. The lesson was clearly learned to inara. Chaos leads to nothing but grief, even for honest people like Nandi, who did not deserve it.
Of course they despised the Alliance. They lost the war... She had nothing to prove to him, nothing to prove to any of them. The Alliance had gone to war on the subject of Order versus Chaos, specifically so that people like Nandi didn't have to die.
Thirty million people just let themselves go to sleep, and Inara had suppported them.
The thought was shattering. But what was worse, was the thought that it happened before the war. The war that Inara had agreed with. Agreed! She agreed with them. She had believed in them! She had believed in the people that did this. The blood of Miranda was already on their hands and she had supported their cause when the war began.
Building Better Worlds.
Inara sat in her shuttle and fought down the urge to retch. Reavers. Reavers had killed Wash. Reavers had been created by the Alliance. Allowed to continue to pillage and kill, because the Alliance didn't want to admit they existed. Didn't want to admit the scary monsters were real. A secret that they were willing to kill to keep. They had killed Book keeping it.
Inara had questions when Nandi left. She had doubts when she spent some time on Serenity, and was conciously looking the other way by the time Simon and River went into hiding.
Simon...
Even to Simon, with River mutturing words that made no sense, and her brother on the Most Wanted list...
Simon had confessed that he suported Unification. Inara, even to Simon, running from the Alliance wrath, had defended them. "Things are a great deal better for a great many people."
Thirty million voices screaming their silence to River would disagree.
Inara had cast her lot with the murdurers. With the killers of worlds. With the Alliance. How had Mal not kicked her off the ship?
This ship was not her life. This ship was a business transaction. She travels to expand her client base, Mal gets a certain respectablity from having a registerd Comapnion on board.
A Companion registered to the Alliance. A registered Patriot of The Alliance. Just like Nandi used to be.
"Ready to get back to your civilized life?" Mal had asked her, with no particular tension or dissapointment.
"Actually?" Inara heard her voice say. It was not cultured or controlled. In fact she had never felt so awkward in her life. "I'm not sure."
Mal smiled. He was so proud of her. He was proud of her for admitting confusion. "Good answer."
Mal went back to the bridge, and left Inara to her thoughts.
She had no direction, she had no certainty, she had no path.
And she found, that it wasn't quite as scary as she'd expected it to be.
For the first time in her life, she was lost in the woods herself.
Take my love, take my land
Take me where I cannot stand.
I don't care, I'm still free.
You can't take the sky from me...
Serenity lifted off, and flew on into the storm.
You can't take the sky from me...
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