DISCLAIMER: Joss Owns all .......Nuff said!
NOTES: Well this took forever ..and it´s short! But at least the Muse is stirring! Not my best work, but a start .....Sorry to keep anyone waiting!
Underneath
She was singing ....to herself. Sitting in the dark on the kitchen table, her legs kicking into thin air. She was singing in that tiny, whispery voice that sounded so much like a child's, fingers weaving through her dark hair, inspecting each strand with mesmerized, astounded eyes.
River Tam was singing.....and it was like nothing he had ever heard; the sweetest sound, the most disturbing all the same. She was repeating the song like a nursery rhyme or a limerick, only longer, singing about things he had never seen. Things he sure didn´t understand .....part gibberish, part rhymes in strange places.
Some part of him argued that he was supposed to be angry, that a good yellin´at was in order, but somehow ....since he had found her in the shower a few days ago; looking like a measly, half- drowned little rat, since he had looked into her wide doe´s eyes and ...understood ....yellin´at her seemed to have dropped off the list of possible reactions.
Woke him up she did, but now that he was creeping up out of her sight, Jayne could not help but long to hear more.
Tonight ...you wear your dragon dress,
Each movement turning into small caress
As quicksilver, artificial skin hugs
Your white shoulders and wind obediently tugs
Into place your shining garb and silken hair.
The court awakes to more than mere
Magic and beauty when you walk the hall
A thousand creatures answering to your call
Eagerly awaiting your command
Without a word; a simple show of hand
Will suffice to rule your darkling throng.
T´ís a fact well known: The queen is strong
Enough; no rope, no chains could hold
Her rage. So thousands of wings unfold
At a smile that puts the stars to shame.
And who could blame all those who came
From far and wide, who sought
To catch your wandering eye? Only to be caught
In your net of glamour, witchery and night
Too bedazzled by your grace to fight.
And yet, there is no thing more real
Than your striking beauty, they all feel
The pull of it like moon and tide.
So you demand and we abide.
Each sound, each pillow whispered secret takes to flight
Like fireflies, to find your ear
And you amuse yourself with what you hear
Until you summon ghosts from the abyss
Who rise and waken to your kiss.
No mortal eye has ever seen
More perfection than is you, my queen.
No mortal man could ever boast to have laid eyes upon,
The queen of air and darkness and her darkling throng.
"She made that up when she was twelve....." Jayne whirled around to find Simon crouching in the corridor behind him, his back leaning against a bulwark, his face buried in his hands. The young man´s voice sounded tired....drained. The raw whisper had spooked Jayne quite good and it annoyed the mercenary to some extent. What had things come to if even the doctor could sneak up on him like that?
Both men looked at each other for a moment, both ready to ask what the other one was doing there.....but they didn´t.
In the other room River started the sing-song over again, apparently unaware of her secret listeners.
"Thought it was some crazy babble or a child´s song......" Jayne returned without thinking. It had sounded pretty enough, but one never knew with her .....
Simon shook his head, a smile breaking on his weary face.
"It´s a poem she made up after our father read Spencer´s "Faerie Queen" to her. She became obsessed with it ....I even made her wings so she could wear them on a new year´s celebration."
"All this from some fairy- tale?" The doctor caught Jayne´s blank stare and chuckled.
"It´s a poem, a very old one the poet wrote in praise of his queen, it´s like .....It´s very, very old."
Jayne´s brown knit together in impatience. He didn't care much for all that education the doctor constantly had to wave into everyone's face.
Schooling was for rich people and useless to the common, hard- working man, or so his daddy had always repeated. Too much schooling made you soft and worthless, might even make you a coward......or a weakling......
Mum, now she had had taken a different view; a strong body was nothing without a strong mind, she had always whispered to Jayne and his brother. She had gone to school, she had read them stories in front of the fire in cold winter nights.....She had made sure that Jayne could read and write.
But Jayne could hardly see how his high education would benefit Simon in his current situation, being on the run from the alliance and all.
The words that floated through the corridor towards them sounded pretty enough, but whether they had great meaning or not, did not make an ounce of different out here in the black.
He stared at the doctor in silence for a moment, until some other meaning of Simon´s train of thought came to his attention.
"So she remembers stuff? That a good sign?" he asked roughly.
Simon´s eyes narrowed for a moment at the unexpected inquiry, but he had to admit that it made a degree of sense he had not been expecting from Jayne.
"It might ...." He answered softly, getting to his feet. Jayne nodded, listening to her singing for a moment before he shrugged his shoulders.
"I figure you gotta be pretty damn smart to make something like that up still bein´a child, ha?"
"I wasn´t boasting when I said that my sister was a genius. By the time she was ten she was already correcting my essays for school. River is ...." Simon stopped, hesitating. A look of pain passed over his face before he corrected himself and went on.
"She was ....always an avid reader, even when she was very, very young. She ......liked Grimm´s fairytales and ancient myths and legends, but she would just absorb them like a sponge and then .... She got tired of that children´s material, as though it had become too simple for her, like she was craving knowledge just like other people crave food. She would read everything she could get her hands on...my books and once she was done she just moved on to my father´s library .....Keats, Shelley, Byron .....She loved poetry the most. My father was so proud of her .....but ....."
A shadow passed over Simon´s face and he looked at his feet.
"It scared my mother......how fast River seemed to learn, how intelligent she was. She said a nine year old should not understand Shakespeare ..it was not meant to be."
Jayne looked at the doctor, nodding to himself.
"Too smart for her own good, ha?"
He looked up at Jayne, who stood a few feet away, one muscular shoulder leaning against the wall, arm crossed in front of his massive chest. The mercenary´s face was set in the surly lines Simon was slowly growing accustomed to as he was listening to River´s repeated rendition.
"It wasn´t just that, I think. River ....she could loose herself in reading for hours, as though she was in her very own world."
He fell silent, looking at his feet. He did not have to say the words, but even if he was just thinking them, it did not make them less true.
She seemed to be in her own world now .....caught up in it so completely that she could not find a way out again.....and he had no way of leading her. She was there but still removed from him, he could hold her and still .....not really touch her. Sometimes he felt that despite them using the same words, River was speaking another language.....that there had to be a hidden meaning in what she said; signs, pointers she was giving him. He had been unable to decipher them, unable to understand his only sister.....unable to help. Deep inside, doubt was gnawing away at Simon´s belief in his abilities as a doctor and brother. He could not say it, could not give way to this doubt because once he voiced them to anybody, he might make them true.....make them fact.
He would fail her ...
Deep inside Simon Tam felt that with every passing day he was failing his sister more.