Disclaimer: I own nothing. All hail Joss!
The old superstition still held life on worlds throughout and beyond the Alliance, and there were more than a few Companions who'd had reason to be grateful for it. Sure death to touch an unconsenting Companion. An ugly, boiling death. Legend attributed the grisly fate to the wrath of the Mother Goddess, in vengeance against those who dared assault the women who chose to personify Her.
The truth was more prosaic. For centuries every Companion leaving the House carried a tiny, lined black box with her. Inside, a single vial and syringe. The Solution.
The Guild's teachings were unequivocal. Any Companion, in danger at the hands of a murderer or rapist, is duty-bound to administer the Solution. The hallucinations come within moments, the teachers assured. Dreams, commanding all her attention, making her indifferent to pain and terror. But can anyone know that for certain?was the unvoiced question in the minds of the young Companions. No one survives to tell us different.
"Mistress, if it looks like rape alone they're after, well, women have survived that - do we have to..."
"Fortunate child, chances are you'll never have to make that choice. Sister Companions, through the generations before you, obediently used Solution to ensure your protection. The question is, what value do you assign their sacrifices? Is your life worth more than theirs? And the lives of Companions to come?"
Solution will make of the Companion a vessel of vengeance. Inescapable deadly poison in every pore; in her breath, her sweat, her skin, blood, even tears. She is certain death for any who touch her, or even get close. Bubbling, shedding skin, like scum on the surface of rancid stew, the assailant will live in agony only long enough to watch himself dissolve. This ensures that very few men, even among the most hateful, psychotic or chemically stupefied, would dare molest a Companion in any way.
The poison will take the Companion's life as well, even if the wounds she suffers do not. No one in the Guild has ever researched a remedy. One woman's life, from time to time, is the necessary offering to keep the fear healthy. Death comes differently for the Companion - she must remain recognizable. Each time, needful that witnesses must know what she was, must report that she walked, skin aglow in a way that marked her, with the unassailable calm of the Goddess' chosen, laid waste to her ravagers with the power of her illuminated skin, until she cried out in rapture and collapsed, inviolate, to unite with her Mother in the world beyond.
The question is, how long does Solution retain its strength, after? The Captain said leave but she could stay, meet the Reavers, offer her flesh as the only draught for their thirst. But she has friends here. No way to warn them, once the dreams start. Three words: Don't touch me. Even three might be overambitious. If he knew her intent, would never agree. She could imagine, after, a friend's hand smoothing back her hair, lifting her cooling hand to a tear-washed cheek, looking for a pulse. Strong arms, stony face, lifting her away from the desecration. A benediction as he closes her eyes. Would she doom them all? She'd never imagined wavering in her loyalty to her sisters in the Guild.
A/N: I've been wondering about the vial since I read somewhere - can't remember where - that it's not for suicide. I don't even know if that's accurate. This is my first work of fiction ever. Please review.