swan song. firefly/serenity. river tam, inara serra/malcolm reynolds. inara is a swan, river is an albatross. spoilers: post-bdm.
They go to Sihnon once.
Inara wants to gather her things and put them back in her shuttle and Mal agrees for once, but she'd better not start redecorating the entire gorram ship with all that silk. River watches them from around the corner, and Inara just smiles.
When they arrive, Kaylee just stares wide-eyed, barely containing her excitement at being there, at being allowed in the Companions Guild's training house. The men aren't allowed inside, though (I'm impressed that you would make it this far, in that outfit) so the guys hang back in the garden while the girls follow Inara (she tells Zoe not to worry).
They all follow except River, whose gaze is trained on Serenity's hull. "Don't you want to go inside, mèi-mei? It could be fun," Simon gently says.
But River doesn't answer because she doesn't have time to; Kaylee runs back to them, grabs her arm and drags her inside.
There's silk everywhere, expensive and soft to the touch; the girls there are wearing the most beautiful dresses 'round the Verse, their eyelashes thick and dark, their cheeks pink and their hair made up in complex and elegant twists.
The girls' thoughts are a cluster inside River's head and she tries to shut them out the best she can. They're wondering, staring at Miss Inara's friends.
River is the one who intrigues them the most. Inara has washed and brushed her hair that very morning, but it's still wild. She's barefoot; she's seen the large expense of grass when she's eased Serenity to the ground and it tickled her feet pleasantly.
They're curious about her, this wisp of a girl.
She would have felt at ease, before the Academy. She would have been a little bit awkward, but she was born in the upper sphere, so she was used to all this (but not that interested in all the glamour and the shindigs.
What she liked was watching people as she hid under the buffet table when she was no more than 10 and how they interacted with one another; how they would smile at someone and then whisper behind their back.
The last time she went to one of those, she was 14 and no longer hid underneath the table. She still felt awkward, though, seeing girls around the same age already looking like women, and having the boys eating in the palm of her hands. It didn't matter, though, all she wanted to do was dance and go to that government academy with the most challenging program in the verse.)
River is glad when they finally reach Inara's room, and away from prying eyes. She still hears the thoughts, but it's only a background whisper now, replaced by Kaylee's squeeing over the size of the room, and the tapestry and all that silk.
She trails her fingertips along the softness of the fabric hanging on one wall, and longs for the coldness of Serenity's walls.
"The girls are so sweet and everything's so beautiful in there!" Kaylee says with one of her big smile and her thoughts are always pleasant but all River can think about is how Inara looked like a swan gliding on a peaceful lake, while she, River, is an albatross on a tormented sea.
Inara runs her fingers through River's hair. "Did you lie down in the grass, baobei?"
She nods and closes her eyes, lets Inara untangle the knots. Silence stretches, as Kaylee busies herself with sniffing Inara's oils, before River speaks up. "You are a swan," she tells Inara. "I'm an albatross."
It makes Inara smile. "You are good luck to us, then."
She dances one day, right there in the middle of cargo bay, with people unloading stuff. She dances to her own song, graceful. Jayne mutters something about dancing and moonbrained girls while Zoe dodges one flying arm with a laugh (not same as before but thank God) and a careful there, River.
They're on an outer planet and Badger gave them a job again. The man coming to take the cargo doesn't look like he's gonna be trouble for Serenity's crew. Instead, he just nods toward the youngest and dancing crewmember. "Who's that?"
Mal's eyes settle on River. "My pilot."
"Ain't she a pretty lil' thing."
The corners of Mal's mouth lift into a warm smile. "A real beauty."
River keeps on dancing, but hides her smile behind the curtain of her hair.
"Mal calls me albatross."
She's sitting on Inara's bed once again and the Companion is doing her hair up, carefully setting bobby pins to secure the long strands. River's agreed for once to let Inara apply make-up and do her hair. Still, that doesn't make her a swan (she's rather an albatross pretending to be a swan).
"He loves calling you that."
"I want to be as beautiful as a swan."
"You are beautiful just the way you are, River. You don't need all of this to get people noticing you." It's true she gets noticed but boys always feel a little intimidated when she says she's a pilot. She's only 18 and she has killed, but she doesn't tell them that – just the pilot part.
She doesn't want to hear their fear and disgust at telling them she's not only a pilot. She's a genius, a reader, a killer. She's been tortured and got her brain cut into – what she says doesn't always make sense.
They wouldn't accept that. They would be afraid of her.
And they don't interest her as much as the bad man.
This man finds beauty in her dance; it makes him glad she's being a girl again, a little more carefree. Not completely, everyone knows that, but it means she's getting better.
Serenity's in good hands.
River loves Mal. She realizes that when the course is set and the autopilot is working, allowing them to have dinner all together. He's regaling the crew with tales of Shadows, and things that happened while on the job.
She wants to get up and kiss him but she just sits there and doesn't say a thing, because she knows you can't force someone to love you.
Mal belongs to Inara.
It's Inara who literally takes his breath away. It's the swan/woman he's in love with. River knows all the women in Mal's life are special; all of them hold a part of him but Inara is a little more special than the others. Always been from the moment he first saw her.
(If I truly wanted someone bad enough... wouldn't be a thing in the verse could stop me from going to her.
Tell that to Inara.)
River knows that an albatross never grows up into a swan.
She'll be his luck, then.
That's enough.
—end