Hello, hello! Long time no update! I had a burst of writing energy this weekend and I felt inspired to get this chapter up. It sets up some crucial stuff for what lies ahead, but I hope it does so in an entertaining fashion. Also, there's a brief surprise appearance from another character on the show (whom I love and think deserved better than she got.)
Enjoy!
Soundtrack - Gilded Cage: "Something Is Wrong" by Bruno Coulais & Kila, from Song of the Sea: Original Soundtrack (2014)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
UNVEILED
09 - 30 -2506
Inara's cheeks ached. She'd held a smile all night, every night, for the past week.
She carried it in the hold of the jeweled choker around her neck, which trailed strands of diamonds down the open back of her gown. They matched the constellation of gem-studded pins in her hair, trussing her curls into an intricate woven pattern. Inara balanced the weight with every tilt of her head, every bow. She traced countless circles between the ballroom, parlor, and dining room, every two steps pulled into another conversation, another dance, another introduction.
All the while, waiting for disaster to strike.
Over a week had passed since the night she visited Mal, for the last time. A week of remembering the burn of baiju in her throat, and Mal's hands on her shoulders, brief and warm, before Talmai Davis had walked in.
She had no idea how she'd made it this long. It was the second-to-last night of her graduate celebration, and her father hadn't come to her in a rage, nor Min Song in quiet disappointment. This could only mean Davis hadn't told her father. Which meant Mal still had his job, and all of his limbs. She hoped.
Inara tried to appear engaged in the spiel of the aging, portly Lord in front of her. She kept her peripheral vision keen, watching for her father. At last she saw him, his moving form blurred in the gilt-edged mirror on the wall behind Lord Vobult.
The man tracked her wandering eyes, and frowned. Inara shook herself.
"Qǐng liàngjiě, my Lord. I lament my disrespect, but I have just seen my father. There is a matter I must discuss with him."
The man's mustache twitched into a frown. "Ah. We shall have to continue our conversation some other time, then."
"At the soonest opportunity. It was a sincere pleasure, Lord Vobult." Inara let the man bow to her first, out of respect to her debut, before she returned the gesture, and added, "Dàimàn zhī chù, qǐng duō bāohan."
She wove through the swirling crowds of people in the ballroom. Curious glances sliced the back of her neck. She forced herself to slow down, measuring her steps as her training demanded.
"Councilor," she called.
He turned around. It was the first time they'd seen each other that night, Inara realized. He'd been in meetings all afternoon while she had prepared, then they'd been tugged into different social orbits, parallel but never intersecting.
"My dear." He beamed, spreading his arms wide. "Tài piàoliang le."
Inara managed a smile at the compliment. She drew closer, and lowered her voice. "Have you spoken to Davis recently?"
"Who?" Her father's brow crinkled. "You mean, the groundskeeper?"
Inara nodded. Air clogged in her lungs, burning there.
"No, I can't say I have." Solomon smiled, bemused. "Is something the matter?"
Inara released her breath. She shook her head. "No. Everything's fine. I wanted to make sure he's prepared to clear the driveway before our guests depart. It's supposed to start snowing any moment."
"Ah. Very considerate of you, darling. But no doubt Davis is already aware. He's an odd one, but he doesn't make mistakes."
Inara swallowed the rest of her champagne, and set her glass on a passing tray.
"Just to be safe," her father added, "you could ask Lampson to pass along the message."
"I will," she lied. She had no intention of troubling the butler.
Solomon's eyes drifted past Inara's shoulder. A shadow skimmed his brow.
Inara turned, to see Priestess Song coming toward them. Her gown graced her long, lithe form, a gossamer sheen of rose-colored satin that drew out the bronze tint of her skin. Draped over her shoulders was a shimmering gold wrap, patterned to resemble wings.
"Inara. Councilor. May I offer my congratulations. It seems the celebration has been a great success."
"Thank you, Priestess." Solomon's smile was a bit too warm. "I owe much to its star." He laid a hand on Inara's back. "She has proven herself quite adept in the social arts, making connections that will advance her career as a Companion."
Min's eyes sparked. "I can imagine. The guest list is indeed extensive. It seems half of Parliament is here on this night alone. No doubt it's proved quite timely for you, Councilor. Election Day is tomorrow, isn't it?"
The sinews of Solomon's neck twitched. Inara opened her mouth, to deescalate, but before she could the Priestess spoke again.
"You must excuse us, Councilor. A guest has arrived whom I expect Inara will want to see right away."
Inara's father waved a hand. "Of course." His smile went stiff at the edges. "Always an honor, Priestess. I'm sure we shall see each other again before the night is through."
The Priestess arched her brow. "I expect so."
She linked her arm with Inara's, and pulled her away, through the ballroom, into the passageway that led to the parlor. Inara could feel her pulse under her chin.
"Is there really a guest, or did you want to speak with me for some other reason?"
Min cast her a sidelong glance. "Of course there's a guest."
"Then who-"
She cut short when she saw a familiar auburn head, adorned in braids woven with violet ribbons, to match the color of the young woman's dress.
"Nandi," Inara burst. Nandi turned, and Inara rushed into her arms.
"Inara. Are you a sight for sore eyes." Nandi pulled back, holding onto Inara's shoulders, to look her up and down. "For any eyes." She lifted her brow. "You look… xiàng nǚshén yīyàng."
"So do you. You look so well." Inara couldn't help but notice the taut line of Nandi's mouth, the tightness in her shoulders. She went on, breathless, "I thought you weren't coming, you didn't respond to the invitation-"
"I know." Nandi's brow cinched. "I'm sorry."
"There's nothing to apologize for." Inara tried not to think about the countless unanswered waves she'd sent, months before. She put on a smile. "You've been very busy."
"Inara, I-" Nandi pressed her lips together. She lowered her voice. "Is there somewhere we could speak in private?"
"Well, yes, but I shouldn't be gone too long…"
Nandi took her hand, and squeezed it. "It's important. It might be the last chance we have."
Dread fell like a weight through Inara's stomach. She nodded.
Too quick for anyone to notice, she pulled Nandi out of the parlor, and through the foyer. She led them up the stairs to the second level, into the first guest room. Once the door was shut behind them, she gestured to the bed. "Please, sit."
Nandi shook her head. Away from the parlor and the people, she had shed her composure. She paced back and forth across the busy patterned carpet, rubbing her fingers together. Inara stepped in front of her, and caught her hands.
"You're scaring me. What's wrong?"
Nandi lifted her eyes. At last she let it out, quiet. "I'm leaving."
Inara blinked at her. "You mean, you're going to leave Luguan? To work in another establishment?"
"No. I'm leaving. I'm quitting the Guild." She tacked on, in a rush, "They're going to expel me, anyway. It's the same result."
Inara couldn't say anything, at first. She held onto Nandi's hands. "The Guild can't expel you." She shook her head. "It would ruin your life. No- they don't just expel Companions."
Nandi dropped her eyes. "They do now."
"What happened? What have you done?"
"The problem is what I've refused to do." Nandi tugged her hands away. "Maybe we'd better sit down, after all."
They perched on the edge of the bed. Inara turned to Nandi, who faced outward, hands making a tight knot in her lap. She stared into nothing.
When she spoke, her voice was uncharacteristically faint. "Our life is supposed to be perfect. In Luguan, I mean." She tilted her eyes upward. "It is, on the surface. But there's… all sorts of ugly, underneath."
Inara took Nandi's hand, and rubbed a thumb over her knuckles. She let silence draw out the rest.
"They say the rules are for our own protection. Because of the so-called rebel infiltration across all levels of society. That's the reason we 'choose' our clients from a pre-selected pool. And the same reason interplanetary travel is too dangerous, so we can't leave Sihnon. Transportation of any kind is a risk. It all has to be approved by the board of directors of the establishment."
Inara bit her lip. "At least they let you come here."
"They didn't. I've been under house arrest, for disregarding orders."
"Orders?" Inara had to scoff. "They've no right to order you to do anything."
Nandi turned damp eyes to hers. "Yes, they do. I'm under a contract. If I don't fulfill my obligations, they'll dismiss me. And the Guild will expel me, for good measure."
"But... what 'obligations'?"
"A few months ago, the establishment let an official from Alliance Central Intelligence into my quarters. Apparently, there was reason to believe that some of my clients were moles. Working undercover for the Independent Faction."
Inara lifted a hand to her mouth. "Aiya."
"I was given a list of topics to bring up during my sessions, to read each client's response. If they were nervous, showing signs of sustained deception, et cetera. I was to make a report after every session." Nandi's jaw clenched. "I'm sure the ACI also stuck bugs all over my quarters."
"Oh, Nandi." Inara's stomach churned. Her dress felt horribly tight. "What did you do?"
"What choice did I have? I did what they wanted. The questions, the reports. But one day, I just-" Her voice faltered. "I couldn't stand it anymore. You know me." She quirked a corner of her mouth. "I don't much care for being told what to do. And to betray my clients' trust, over and over…"
Inara rested a hand on her shoulder. "You did the right thing."
"I know. But I'll never be able to work in the Core again, after the Guild expels me. My only hope is to find somewhere calm and clean enough, out on the Border."
"You're going to keep working… in the trade?"
"Sex was the one thing I enjoyed about being a Companion." Nandi managed a wry smile. "And I'm not going to get by playing the dulcimer, that's for sure."
Inara let out a laugh, but it crumpled, into something closer to a sob. She wrapped her arms around Nandi. They held onto each other tightly, pressed cheek to cheek.
"I'll be fine," Nandi said softly. "I'm not about to let some hùnzhàng in a suit decide the rest of my life is forfeit, just because I won't be his pet informant."
"No," Inara choked out. "Of course not."
Nandi drew back. "I'm so sorry, mèi mèi. I wish I could welcome you into your future with nothing but open arms and happy tidings. But I had to tell you the truth."
Inara ducked her head. She swallowed hard, and looked back up. "Thank you," she whispered.
Nandi stood, and moved to the door. Inara followed.
"I have to go. The fewer people know I was here, the better." She stopped, turning to capture Inara's eyes in hers, taking her hand. "Listen to me. I know everyone's always told you that your life is made. That your talent has paved your future in gold, and all that. But you have hard decisions ahead of you." Her words crackled around the edges. "Your life won't be easy. No life worth living ever should be."
Inara nodded. Her last moment with Mal in the barn bore down heavy inside her. Had there been time, she would have told Nandi everything about those past six months. About him. A thought struck in passing, like a spark between stones: Nandi's spirit was so like Mal's. They would have liked each other, had things been different.
"Nandi." Inara's throat closed up, too tight to speak.
"This isn't goodbye," Nandi said, as if reading Inara's mind. She pressed a kiss to her cheek. "We'll see each other again. I know it."
They left the guest room. Inara led the way down the stairs, seeing Nandi to the front door. She reassembled her composure, but only on the surface. Underneath, something sharp and unwieldy threatened to break through.
Their eyes met, for the last time, as Nandi stood on the front stoop. The first flakes of a snowfall dusted her hair.
"Safe journey," said Inara.
Nandi smiled, warm and sure. "Mangalam, my dear."
"Mangalam."
Inara watched until the taxi cruiser disappeared down the front drive, into the black totality that was night in the countryside. Even then, she didn't move from the doorway. The snow picked up pace, flakes swirling in the pool of light cast by the house.
"Miss Serra, is everything alright?"
She started, and turned to find Lampson still holding the door, waiting for her.
"Yes, of course. Thank you, Lampson." She gave him a smile, and turned around. The foyer wrapped her in the heady scent of cologne, the humidity of voices loosened by champagne, laughter ringing over marble. Inara stopped still.
She had to talk to her father. She had to make him understand that a life in an 'Alliance-protected' establishment would be no life for her, for anyone. A thought chased in that one's wake; becoming House Priestess of Madrassa would only remove her by one degree. She would send her trainees into the same situation, to have their wings clipped and their lives dictated by the Alliance.
Her hands curled into fists at her sides. The buzz of the party spilled out of the parlor, to her right. On her left lay her father's study. A rumble of voices seeped from the edges of the door.
"-can only speak for myself, but I'm certain you'll not have the Prime Minister's support in this."
Inara drew closer, head cocked, and managed to put a name to the voice: Thaddeus Delport, Vice Minister and one of the most powerful people in Parliament, second only to the Prime Minister herself.
"I'm not seeking support, but rather understanding," came her father's reply, measured and firm. "A mutual agreement, that we must take whatever steps are necessary. The Independents must not be allowed to make the first move."
"But this… this will start a war."
The air turned to cotton in Inara's lungs. She pressed her ear to the door.
"Only if it fails, Vice Minister." Her father chiseled his words out of stone. "And if war does come, what's important is that we start with the upper hand, and maintain it until the Independents are finished."
"What's important is that we maintain our integrity as defenders of civilization. Your plan necessitates a level of collateral damage and civilian casualties that our public is unlikely to accept."
The words crawled up Inara's neck. Her mouth hung open.
"My dear man, the public will accept whatever they are told," her father said evenly. "All we're doing is providing fuel for the fire. The Independents will be the ones to set it alight. Everyone knows they're self-destructive wēnshén. The public will easily accept that they are the authors of their own downfall, and the Alliance is right in taking military action, to save them from themselves."
"You're walking a dangerous line, Councilor. Between containing the chaos, and using it to your own benefit." Delport's voice grew louder, closer. "I'll see to it that an investigation be opened into your activities over these past six months."
The door handle turned. Inara gasped, and stumbled backward, flattening herself against the wall. Delport burst into the foyer, her father close behind. The door swung wide. Inara squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for impact. It didn't come. She opened her eyes. The door had stopped an inch from the end of her nose.
"Investigate me all you like, Vice Minister." Solomon's voice billowed, to fill the foyer. "But I remind you that once I'm elected Chancellor, I'll have the power to set my plan in motion anytime I choose. With or without the blessing of the High Council."
Their footsteps paused. "If you're elected. No one knows what tomorrow will bring." The clack of shoes began again, fading into the parlor.
Inara's father followed, as he said, "Truer words could not be spoken." A smile crisped the edges of his voice, carried across the hard and hollow space.
Inara didn't move. She waited for her father to return and close the door, and discover her.
He didn't. After a long minute, she slid out into the open. Her father stood some twenty feet away, with his back turned, caught in a conversation in the entry of the parlor.
Inara watched from outside herself, as she slipped into her father's study. Her hand was not her own, reaching out to pull the door shut behind her.
A moment later her father's footsteps rang out again, walking back across the foyer. Inara stood motionless. Her breath stuck in her throat.
Solomon paused on the other side of the door. A soft electronic trill rang through the handle: the sound of the fingerprint recognition lock. The door wouldn't open again, from either side, for anyone but him.
He walked away. Inara's heartbeat crashed over her ears, along with the echo of words like distant thunder.
"This will start a war."
She turned, and drew toward the desk. Her father's personal tablet lay on the surface. She picked it up, and activated the screen.
The text of the open document was dense, knotted with tables and graphs. Inara squinted at a phrase in bold. She had to reread several times before it sunk in. 'Expected mortality rate: 80-90% within a mile of blast radius.' She skipped to the next page, titled 'Target points,' and below it a name that pierced Inara's lungs.
'Shadow.'
The list stretched page after page, names of cities and provinces Inara had never even heard of. Hundreds, at least. Then began the list for Hera, and it kept on going, climbing into the thousands. The text blurred, as tears filled Inara's eyes. Frantic, she skipped ahead through the document.
Several pages detailed the structure of some kind of device. Inara assumed it must be a weapon. But the more she stared, the less she understood, as the images melted, and lost all meaning.
She let go of the tablet. It fell to the desk with a thud. She pressed shaking fingers to her mouth. The air pressed in around her, thick, smothering.
The windows on the far wall looked out into the night. Inara perked up as she remembered: the border security of the house had been temporarily switched off, for all the comings and goings of the party.
She pushed the window open. The plane of glass tilted horizontally, letting raw air pour in. Inara gathered the trail of her gown in one hand, and slipped through. She landed in the frozen flowerbed below.
Once she had pulled the window shut, Inara turned to face the night. She balled the hem of her gown in one fist, and stepped forward. The wind swallowed her whole.
She ran the route she knew by heart, through the darkness, plush and silent with thickly falling snow.
translations:
Qǐng liàngjiě - Please forgive me
Dàimàn zhī chù, qǐng duō bāohan - I'm sorry to neglect you, thank you for understanding
Tài piàoliang le - So beautiful
xiàng nǚshén yīyàng - like a goddess
Mangalam - [Sanskrit, not Mandarin] a traditional Buddhist farewell, to wish someone luck
wēnshén - troublemakers (lit. 'plague gods')
Well, I'll give you one guess as to where Inara's going... ;)
Aahhh! I'm so excited to post the next chapter you have no idea. I apologize for the lack of Manara in this one, but I can promise the next two will endeavour to make up for it. Unfortunately, my life is going to be consumed by final projects and papers for the next few weeks, but I hope I can get the next chapter posted soon-ish.
Reviews exponentially increase my writing speed! And I always love to hear from you, even if it's just a few words. Especially if anything in this chapter didn't make sense - please let me know and I'll do my best to fix it. Until we next meet, stay warm! (Unless you hail from the southern hemisphere, in which case, stay cool?)