The Muse has given me a plot! This part is short. There will be more to follow.
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Everything That's Lovely
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"For everything
that's lovely is
But a brief, dreamy,
kind delight..."
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The second Civil War had been brewing since the weeks that had followed Miranda. Four months later, the resistance was well under way; this time with far more support than there'd been years ago. The Alliance had been exposed to the bones, and there wasn't much they could do beyond plausible denial. People were, of course, smarter than the powers that be anticipated, and key social and political figures had turned on them. Malcolm Reynolds was cautious with this information. He also didn't discard it.
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It was an idle day between a pickup and a drop off, cargo settled in the bay in a manner that was weighty only to those in the know. Serenity was peacefully moving through the black, Mal sitting alone in the pilot's seat listening to reports of the growing war on the Cortex. The rest of the crew remained quiet on the matter. Their fearless leader would no doubt make a decision one way or another eventually; they'd give him his space.
River was presently dancing circles around the dining area. While Inara sat braiding Zoë's hair at the table, Jayne cleaning his guns across from them, River was dancing, like the lilting fiddle that offset a quiet piano piece. The companion was humming a tune for the teenager to spin to, a smile on her face as Zoë was teaching herself to knit.
"You'll want to start purling now," River sing-song-ed as she made a pass around the warrior-woman's chair. Zoë smirked, and did so,
"Thank you, dancing girl," She replied, needles flashing. Zoë did make a rather amusing picture to anyone who knew how she'd looked only a few short weeks ago. She was showing now, a rounded mid-section announcing to all the Verse that there was a new crew member being incubated. It wasn't often one saw Zoë in a skirt and loose-fitting blouse either, but her regular wares no longer fit as they once had. The former soldier had always found a measure of stability and familiarity in her tight, military style clothing. She now felt somewhat foreign in her own skin then, with a small person inside and looking all feminine outside. But she wasn't complaining.
Passing behind Jayne's chair, River did a small spin, her hair brushing the back of his neck as she spun. The Merc swallowed lightly, smiling softly to himself as he polished the barrel of a handgun. River grinned, floating behind him with a secretive air. All was subtle and new between them. Inara was the only one to pick up on the fact that something was there. But if she knew anything, she did not let on, beyond the thoughts River could read. The companion simply kept humming. River's eyes flickered back to Zoë,
"Never give all the heart?" River tilted her head, the thoughts she felt from the new mother exiting her own lips in the form of a long-forgotten poem, "For love will hardly seem worth thinking of to passionate women, if it seem certain..."
"Yeats!" Inara looked up at River with a surprised smile. Jayne, of course, looked a bit lost, while Zoë seemed thoughtful. The Reader nodded, continuing to dance,
"And they never dream that it fades out from kiss to kiss;" River paused as she passed the far corner of the room, looking both thoughtful and intrigued. With a grin, she went on, but now in the same cockney accent she'd once used on Badger, "For everything that's lovely is but a brief, dreamy, kind delight. O never give the heart outright, for they, for all smooth lips can say, have given their hearts up to the play. And who could play it well enough if deaf and dumb and blind with love?" She spun 'round the table for another pass, stopping behind Jayne again, slinging her arms around his neck, and resting her chin on his shoulder, "He that made this knows all the cost, for he gave all his heart and lost..."
"Oh sweetie," Zoë said softly, her eyes fixed on her knitting, "Don't take what's on my mind to heart. I wouldn't feel this way if Wash weren't gone," She looked up, giving the girl a small, sad smile, distantly putting together the less-than-sisterly position River was in with Jayne. Her smile widened slightly, as she tapped her growing stomach, "Only one man is ever gonna get my heart again, and he's already pretty close to it at the moment,"
"Better to have loved than lost?" River tilted her head. Zoë paused in her knitting, pondering. Inara also paused, wondering what the widow's reply would be. Jayne pretended to be very taken by the task at hand and immune to all this lady-talk, though when the other two women weren't looking, he turned his head and kissed the side of River's arm.
"...Ask me that again after this baby's born," Zoë finally replied. River nodded slowly, still with that ever-pondering look on her face.
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They moved in a slow, delicate dance. An interesting perspective perhaps; likely no one had ever used the word 'delicate' to describe anything involving Jayne Cobb. But River Tam was involved also, and she had a habit of transforming everything that was near to her heart. He'd already picked up on this. She was already changing him, and they'd scarcely touched. Her slender fingers touching his arm at dinner, a kiss to her palm while passing in the cargo bay, brushing and braiding her hair for her while she sat in her pilot's seat. It was a gently rising tempo, that was mindful of her two other protectors, who were as yet unaware of the development.
Were this the same old familiar situation that involved a girl of course, Jayne would have had her in his bunk weeks ago. However, no matter how much knowledge and darkness were in her eyes or how many she'd killed or fought, that easy innocence was there as well. It was an innocence of spirit, more than simply physical. He was still selfish yes, and he was often insensitive to most, but Jayne wasn't daft. He knew she'd had enough of her youth stolen, enough experiences ruined. This would not be one of them.
To him she was becoming perfection, moon-brained though she was. That oddness and morbid ness was actually growing endearing to Jayne, when paired with those shining eyes and dancing feet. She made him feel like that awkward kid he'd been once upon a time. Back when he'd figured girls to be some mystery he'd never understand. River was a mystery that no one would ever fully understand, the greatest mystery perhaps. And Jayne was grasping for her, though he knew her to likely be smoke for all he was concerned. At least she was smoke that wanted to be near him.
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"So what was all that?" River looked down at Jayne's query, an innocently quizzical look on her face as she balanced perfectly on the railing over the cargo bay. The human tank gave her an unconvinced look in return from his spot on his weight bench far below, just as he set aside his weights, "Oh don't act like you don't know what I mean. I know that you know."
"Careful," She grinned down at him from above, "Weapon might start to sound paranoid to outsiders, those who know not that his Fair Maid holds the greatest of all skeleton keys," Her bare feet wrapped around the familiar metal bars of the catwalk railing. Simon had tried time and again to tell her to stop; it made his stomach drop to watch. River knew it was his job to worry, but it got exasperating. It worried Jayne too, but he knew better than to try and stop her. It was one of the few freeing things she had while on board. He understood that, "I was learning,"
Jayne snorted, "You mean to tell me there's still somethin' out there you don't know?" He stood from his bench, making his way toward the stairs and up to the catwalk. River's eyes followed him with her fond brand of put-on coyness, dark eyes peering out from behind long brown curls. A great and terrible beauty was she, in all of her simple wiles.
"Obviously, anyone can know about anything clinically," She informed him before turning one spin on the railing, red dress twirlling around her black shorts, "Even a thing commonly referred to as Love." Another spin, "Can know what great men wrote about it on Earth-that-was, what sad women from emerald-hued islands sang about it, and how current popular culture defines it," She hopped down from the rail, turning to face him, "Can't know what the truth is though until it is seen, felt, heard aloud," Jayne was approaching her down the catwalk then, and she smiled,
"Inara has all of the detached knowledge, Kaylee is in the dust-cloud of lust-loud and cannot see clear," If it was possible to wince and laugh at the same time, that was what Jayne did right then, as he stepped very close to his ships' good luck charm, "Zoë is the only one upon this flying home of ours who truly knows of the thing, and knows that she knows all things that can be known of it,"
"...Confusin' as that all were, I think I got it," Jayne replied after a pause, eyebrows up and somewhat surprised with himself. River grinned up at the tall sweaty Merc as if she had no doubt in the 'Verse that he had the potential to understand her. Taking the towel from around his neck, she used it to mop his brow and throat. Jayne smiled back down at her. She was awfully cute when she was pretending he didn't stink, "So, what're you plannin' on doing with all of this new information, pretty girl?"
"Tucking it away in my scattery head for future times," The girl tipped up her chin, her brown eyes dancing as freely as her limbs did most days, "Along with poems and songs and every...stolen...kiss..." Jayne tilted his head down, catching her lips and grasping her arms gently, pulling her closer. She kissed him back in that tentative manner, that said she knew what to do but putting it into practice was a mightily new venture; a kiss of trembling lips, beads of sweat and the orange-flavored sweets he'd nicked from Kaylee. It lasted for only a long, sweet moment, before River was spinning away,
"Ugh, you smell!" She giggled. Jayne laughed, still holding on to her arm and trying to tug her back.
"Like roses, Crazy," He informed her as she kept dancing away with those pretty eyes fixed on him, "Lovely, lovely roses..."
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Author's Notes: So! I've been watching the film 'The New World' obsessively, and it has been giving me all sorts of fic ideas. For this as well. There is indeed a plot in my head now! There will be at least four more parts to this story.
Previous disclaimers apply, the poem River recited is indeed by Yeats. Thanks to ALL of my reviews, they're so encouraging. More to come!