A/N: So this is just something I've had sitting on my computer for about half a year, I don't know if it has more to it or not yet, but I'm relatively happy with it either way so I thought I would put it up.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Inara was at home in her shuttle. It was the perfect mix of her own adopted silken luxury and something just a little bit battered. You would never guess it to see her, but she had not been born to this, in fact she didn't really know what she had been born to. She was an orphan, left at the doors of the training house as a child. She had very few recollections of her mother, just some hazy laugher and a scent of jasmine. The house priestess had taken her in without a second thought, in a way that had often led her to speculate if she wasn't the child of some long-exiled companion.
So no, she hadn't been born to that world, but she took to it. She could make even the richest most elegant folk feel awkward and out of place. Not that she ever would. It was her job to make people comfortable and confident. Make them feel at ease in their own skin. She loved that, she loved being able to see the changes she wrought in her clients, it was why she did what she did. Well it was part of it at least.
Inara could never quite explain to herself exactly why she stayed a companion. She had known countless peers to allow themselves to be kept by one client, to become personal companions. She couldn't do it though. There was just something in her that would never be able to relinquish so much freedom, she needed the self-determination. It was the same part of her that had left Sihnon in the first place. Left her luxurious life and bright career to travel the outer reaches of civilisation in a ship held together by love and captained by the most obstinate man she had ever met.
So she had tried to give it up when she could feel herself growing attached. She had returned to that tranquil, predicable life of clients. She had even helped teach the newer girls. There was a problem though, she just couldn't keep the wistfulness from creeping into her voice when she told of her travels. Couldn't help thinking of her second family out there in space doing god-knows what. Couldn't help but think of him and wonder what stupid dangerous plan he was currently trying to pull. Couldn't help hoping when she looked out the window in the morning that she would see Serenity soaring through the sky to her.
She had just about convinced herself to stop longing, when the Alliance operative had come to her.
Then Book, then Wash and the terror of Miranda.
Then she couldn't do it. She couldn't get off the ship again, couldn't leave that boat that was her home and her family. She couldn't take the sadness in Kaylee's face, couldn't bear to leave Zoe alone with her pain, she didn't have it in her to leave them again. Belatedly she had realised that they were all she cared about.
I don't know…. Good answer.
What now?
That's it then, short and sweet. Let me know if you'd like to see more. xx