Chasm
Disclaimer: I couldn't own Firefly or Pitch Black even if I tried really really hard and used rope. All I've got are my incredibly good looks and some pretty words to throw around.
All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.
Swami Vivekananda
River ran her fingers over the bruise on her shoulder curiously. She considered the omen of having her first real separation from Serenity result in a crash on a planet that positively wept, however dry it may appear.
"This is why I don't trust pilots who aren't me," grumbled Wash, only just recovering his good humor after nearly dying.
His wife surveyed the area, biting the inside of her lip and working out how they all came to be stranded in such a barren wasteland.
Seeing that his captive audience wasn't quite as receptive as he'd like, Wash continued, lamenting, "Oh, sweet merciful bikini, I apologize on behalf of my wife that I will not be seeing her in you any time soon. It's not that she doesn't like you, but we have yet again descended into the madness that comes with wacky space adventures."
River cut in, staring out into the distance, "The undertow is restless and rising. Dying here will taste like a needle in the eye, like ringing bells and hunger. I'll start finding the route back to tranquility."
"Tranquility, River?" asked Zoe, a deep understanding shaking her foundations as the young woman's warning touched some instinctive awareness for danger in her. She found that wading in the waters of River's words with her often achieved a better comprehension for the both of them.
Not to mention that she could feel danger, her eyes honed to catch it in the periphery. That, if nothing else about the psychic, Zoe definitively trusted.
Wash connected to River on a more detached, affectionate level and had taken to viewing his conversations with her as battles that he hoped to win by translating everything correctly.
River ducked her head, lips tipping up, as she allowed Wash to answer, "Serenity, sugarlips. Wonder Girl's gonna find a way out of this sweltering death trap, maybe even with our help. You can intimidate the idiots who will inevitably get in our way and I can provide commentary."
Zoe was exhausted from the trip, exhausted from the memory of Mal whining like a child when they convinced the good captain (over a leisurely eight week period) to let them go, and exhausted from the fact that the only thing available to take a refreshing dip in on this planet was dirt.
And somehow, miraculously, Wash still made her grin.
"I never get to sit back and run my mouth, husband."
Wash realized that the conversation had taken a very positive turn in his favor and tossed back, "Oh, you just don't know how to work with the peanut gallery like I do. You give them almonds; I give them pistachios. Plus, I enjoy having you impressed by my finesse."
"Finesse," Zoe repeated in a tone flat but sweet, "Your finesse is as impressive as your analogies."
And before Wash could protest any implied insult, she clasped a strong hand around his bicep and began propelling them to a group of survivors who appeared to be arguing over something ridiculous like—River heard Wash speculating as they walked off—who would be eaten first.
"River," Zoe called over her shoulder, "Keep safe. Stay alert. You're on…undertow duty. You know where we'll be."
River felt pleased right down to the ends of her hair that Zoe would pick her reply so carefully, so considerately, so trustingly, that she was unable to do anything but glow and nod.
The Reavers had taught the crew that River was a monster, but one willing to protect. She kept the chimera within her at bay, stroking it and sorting through the constant undercurrent of darkness in her mind.
The undercurrents of darkness in everyone's minds. A river of thoughts and wants and lost teeth; so easy to drown.
But she had fought for her lucidity even if her speech remained curvy and indirect. Three years after Miranda and she had strung her fragments together, created a River-galaxy inside of herself and admired the progress, mourned the spaces in between her stitches.
And now she would need to use her resources, her strength, and her madness to help find a way off of this planet, a thing wasted on the surface and howling below.
River watched the pilot speak to a man looking for a convict. Two selfish liars. Two scared lambs.
The further she walked, the more she realized how happy she was to be stranded with Wash and Zoe out of everyone on Serenity. They tried hard to be good to her. They didn't coddle her after her increasingly infrequent psychotic breaks. They understood, Wash sympathizing and Zoe empathizing, that Miranda had eroded her mind to some extent; it had shaped her topography and left its mark.
It had left her in shambles, dilapidated.
Something to be survived, but never revoked.
She concluded, loping across the foreign territory, that the planet was bathed in light, but felt bleak. It seemed to be a dead thing futilely trying to fight off a virus it just couldn't shake.
In the distance, she saw what could be ruins or a mirage of them. Great ribs and spines were spread over the land neatly, regal and lifeless as a graveyard, the suggestion of a fascinating history and a beautiful species.
Fearsome, at the very least.
"But not fearsome enough," she whispered, dragging a nail a careful nail down a rib, "Not fearsome enough to battle with bloodlust and win."
She could tell that trouble was coming—not in the form of a storm, but an eruption.
And she couldn't help notice, sliding her palm over ivory bone, that the remains had been picked clean.