"Inara"
Inara sat in the lotus position on her richly appointed purple mat with gold leaf tassles. She found it paradoxically hard to meditate on Serenity, sometimes, so she fixed her mind on Brahman and his lotus, emanating from Vishnu's navel, everything flowing out from him and into him, out from and into his dark, implaccable, mysterious eyes like the universe waking up after a long sleep and stretching limbs that were too heavy to even contemplate, a metaphor, just like the lotus and Vishu and Brahman himself were all just metaphors to describe something bigger and more wonderful, impossible to describe because it was description, itself. It was no use. It should have filled her up and made her whole and empty, and the same time, but that serene, timeless face that was no face kept turning into Mal, smiling like Hanuman, teasing her. One never knew when the door would explode open and there Mal was, wearing that lopsided goblin grin. He wasn't always loud, though, Inara thought, no. He could creep as silently as the tendrils of cardamon and coriander burning in her incense pipes. Once he'd crept through the door while she meditated and folded himself, cat quiet, in front of her and watched until she was done, as still as Vishnu sleeping. She'd returned from her trance state surprised to find him there, and a little outraged, until he answered her heated question, "Why are you here Mal?"
"You calm me down sometimes," he said, "when I've got a headache or a bad belly. God knows I've had enough of that since it's just been Jayne and Kaylee cooking."
It was a moment of rare nudity, and she could not bring herself to claw the tender flesh beneath his shell so that it scarred over too. She bowed her head, instead, and closed her eyes, again, stretched out her atman mind to touch his. Their third eyes kissed with an uncommon passion and merged into something dark and sweet, poetic and perfect, so rich that it could not be real. It was a feeling beyond feeling, a being beyond being, and everything flowed into and out of the union of their tantric mirrors, Kali and Shiva embraced each another, all eight arms entwined.
Their minds broke off from one another, gasping. Mal and Inara still sat, as quiet and serene as if they'd never moved. They hadn't, had they? She could not tell, she did not care. Some thing were so profound that they could not be spoken, could not be thought, could not even be. She opened her eyes to find him watching her, again. He wore the mask of hardened melancholy that he mostly wore when he was alone, or thought no one was looking, when he leaned back in Wash's old chair and stared into the Black, asking questions that were impossible to articulate. Inara wondered if it ever answered, if he could understand it if it did. The silence grew between them and breathed. When Mal finally spoke the words came with difficulty, as if his throat was parched. "I've gotta go check the sensors. Make sure we don't hit a bump, or nothing. Then I guess I'll head to bed."
"Good night Mal. Sleep well." She knew how likely he was to sleep or have a good night, sitting with his boots propped on the control panel, idly fingering a plastic stegosaurus' tail, maybe singing softly to himself, or reciting sad poetry. Mal was not the only one adept at observing from the shadows. She'd heard him, once: And every tongue, through utter drought, was withered at the root; we could not speak, no more than if we had been choked with soot. Barely more than a whisper but it carried, it carried, it carried.