A/N: In response to recent guest reviews: Guest; The original version of Mel was created BEFORE Overwatch ever came out, so no, Mel isn't like Bastion in any shape or form. Rachael; Thank you for the appreciation, but any questions concerning my other stories are better off asked in PM's to me, not in my reviews.
Shepherd Book was the one to offer his chair at the dinner table for Mel, opting to stand over at the counter for the time being. Although the gesture was courteous, they'd all neglected to consider that the chairs weren't designed for someone of her enormous stature.
Awkwardly seated on the small chair with her knees up in front of her, Mel's gaze was suddenly very nervously scanning everyone's face. Sure, she'd been with them for a couple hours now, but she felt uncomfortable in the small chair and wanted to trade places with Book. River immediately picked up on that thought in her head, likewise noticing that Mel wasn't eating herself, just letting Kitty pick and choose from her plate.
"Um..." Mel suddenly began, which somehow drew everyone's gaze to her, so she paused for a brief moment before continuing. "Chair small... Book, um... We switch back?"
Book smiled and nodded in understanding, making a mental note to build her a chair when they reached their destination in a few days. "Of course, my dear. Shall I assist you?"
"Is it a pain being so tall?" Inara asked curiously, since among the rest of the crew, Jayne and Malcolm were the tallest, unless you counted Book without his hair tied back, giving him an additional six inches.
"Sometimes." Mel nodded as Book helped her carry the plate - with Kitty still eating on top - over to the counter. "Clumsy and tall... But fast and strong."
"After... we eat, would you care to visit me in my shuttle?" Inara asked, not even daring to use a hint of Companion coercion or seduction in her request. Mel didn't seem like the type for any of that, but she did have an idea in mind to help the gentle giant.
"Left shuttle?" Mel remembered the drastically differing shuttle interiors from her tour. The fancy one was Inara's, while the more familiar looking one was the transport one for everyone else.
"Yes, that's right." Inara nodded with a smile as they all resumed eating, with Book back in the chair and Mel - more comfortably - at the counter with Kitty looking up at her with a sideways head tilt, chirping once with a note of concern.
"Okay, can Kitty come too?" Mel asked, and Inara's smile widened as she nodded again.
"Of course, Kitty is more than welcome to join us."
Jayne and Malcolm shared a glance at Inara's unintentionally subliminal comment, but neither said anything, forcing themselves to maintain a straight face as they resumed eating.
River picked up on it though. They couldn't hide anything from her and her mind reading power.
After dinner was finished and the dishes were cleaned - Mel wanted to help, but apparently this was an assigned task that rotated among them each day - so she followed Inara back to the cargo hold and into her shuttle, nervously taking in the vastly different interior as Inara gestured for her to join her on some already arranged cushions on the floor.
"Pretty." Mel's gaze took in the whole room as she mimicked Inara's seating pose on ths cushion, with her legs horizontal and supporting herself with one hand.
"Thank you, Mel." Inara smiled at the compliment of the shuttle's interior. "Now, this place is a safe haven, should you ever feel the need to step away from the hustle and bustle of the rest of the ship. All I ask is that you knock before coming in."
Mel nodded, and Kitty chirped in agreement, likewise tilting it's head down and back up like Mel.
"So, I wanted to ask you something away from the others. You don't have to be afraid, okay?" Inara kept her voice gentle, her body language relaxed, but once again refused to use her Companion skills to convince Mel to do what she was about to ask.
"Pretty shuttle safe place. Safe like Serenity." Mel understood what Inara meant.
"So, can I... see your face?" Inara asked, having been quite intrigued by the perpetually veiling curtain of hair concealing all but her right eye and a brief shadow of her nose.
"My face?" Mel's soft-spoken voice sounded surprised by the tame request. "Okay." She used her relaxed hand to tuck one of her curved claws around the curtain of hair and pulled it aside to reveal her entire visage.
Like the rest of her body, Mel's face was heavily scarred - and it had a fresh cut that she'd just given herself when she'd pulled her hair aside, just below her right eye and stopped at the side of her nose - and her lips were slightly pale, but both of her blue eyes were bright and seemed to stand out like sparkling sapphires amidst all the scarred flesh.
"Oh, Mel, you cut your cheek..." Inara could see that past the scars, Mel was actually a very pretty girl, but that cut was more concerning since River had explained Mel's claws were Titanium and quite sharp. She was about to stand up to fetch her small first aid kit when Mel actually smiled - revealing that her teeth were quite dangerously sharpened as well, but thankfully weren't metal and also kept in good health - and spoke again.
"Cut not problem. It heal now." Mel explained as the cut did indeed seal itself as she spoke, adding yet another scar to her already marred features. "Not problem. My body heal fast, leave scars. Scars not problem too."
"Um... You can regenerate?" Inara was briefly speechless, amazed by the display of accelerated healing.
"Is that word for my healing?" Mel tilted her head as Kitty gave a quick double chirp. "Re-Gen-Er-Ate..." Mel repeated the word slowly, getting used to saying it. "All of scars from regenerate. Most from claws, but some from targets. Guns and knives."
Inara found Mel's odd manner of speech and interesting grammar usage oddly cute, which was a strong contrast to her admittedly intimidating appearance.
"Do you mind... if I brush your hair? You have a beautiful face, and it'll help you be able to see a lot better. You don't have to if you don't want to." Inara made the request, waiting until Mel consulted with Kitty in a series of whistles and chirps - she could tell that they understood each other without any issues - before Mel asked a question she admittedly wasn't expecting.
"What is brush?"
Inara let out a small giggle at the naively adorable question, so she slowly stood up and walked to a nearby drawer and opened it to retrieve an elegant hairbrush, then returned to sit a bit closer to Mel's side and presented it to her to describe what it was.
"This is called a hairbrush, it is used to..." Inara actually paused to put words to the near-second nature action of brushing one's hair. "It helps clean hair, and with some special training, it can also be used to make hair pretty."
"Hairbrush..." Mel gave it a focused visual examination as she looked at Kitty preening himself. "So... Hairbrush like how Kitty fixes feathers?"
"Yes, that's right." Inara smiled at Mel's parallel comparison. "Do you want me to brush your hair?"
"Yes, please!" Mel actually liked the idea, so she released her curtain of hair - it returned to the more familiar veil over her face except for her right eye - and Kitty chirped once since he could tell he'd need to move. "Oh, Kitty. Here." Mel held up her index claw for Kitty to perch himself on while Inara stood behind Mel to begin her work.
"Let me know if I make you uncomfortable, okay?" Inara asked, and Mel nodded before she felt the first pass of Inara's hairbrush, the sensation new but very gentle. It felt good.
Elsewhere in the ship's mess hall, River and Simon were discussing how best to get Mel some clothes from what they had available for fabrics.
"For starters, Simon, we'll need her measurements." River's gaze examined the limited materials they could spare. "After that, we'd need to convince her to actually wear what we manage to make for her."
"If I may..." Book suddenly spoke up as he joined them at the table with a careful examination of their fabrics. "I think for a temporary solution that we fashion her a pair of pants or even shorts, and for modesty and simplicity, a sort of chest wrapping using this here long piece. There's also the matter of her hands..."
"I already figured somethin' for that, Preacher." Jayne was just passing by with his boxing gloves that he used for working out on the punching bag in the cargo hold. "See these here boxin' gloves? Why don't we fashion her some sorta padded mittens or the like?"
"If I had the proper tools, I could actually do the surgery to replace her claws with a rounded off version of her claws, like normal fingers. It would take ages of grinding those claws down to a safer shape otherwise..."
"Nah, Doc, you see the look in her peeper when the Cap'n mentioned getting her fingers fixed up? She ain't gonna do it, no way in hell." Jayne shook his head with a serious expression. "Can't imagine what I'd do with my fingers lookin' like that..."
"I once met a man on my travels, a man named Hagen, he was born with a defect to his hands. Three fingers from each hand were drastically stunted, almost not existent. He was such a skilled artist and writer, combining the usage of his proper digits with his lip at times to manipulate his brush or his pen." Book suddenly spoke up with a thoughtful, pensive tone in his voice. "As it stands, we should put more trust in young Mel's dexterity, and I'm sure Kitty can and will assist her with any sort of small or delicate maneuvering, being so small after all."
"If anything, though an admittingly safe approach to the problem, giving her padded mittens or making her wear boxing gloves is quite... demeaning." Simon sighed as he caught up with this. Right now, their concern was getting her some clothing, not her claws. "River, did you manage to find out how her hands were dealt with by the Alliance?"
"They used a special set of magnetic shackles, like this." River took her brother's hands and put them into the usual paw-like pose that Mel held her own in, then made a crab-claw grip with her hands around the front of Simon's hands, imitating the design of the shackles that she'd seen in Mel's memories.
"Even worse than what we were planning..." Simon nodded in understanding, then sighed again as River released his hands. "Alright, let's get started on making those pants for her, we'll just have to be careful... and stock up on sutures, just in case."