Godliness and Deviltry... Part 1: ~ AN IMMUTABLE LAW ~

It was five days later now, in the morning, an hour after sunrise.

They'd made camp in a meadow. Kaylee'd guess it at about a quarter hectare, surrounded by flowers and grass and a ring of trees an such. Lola was in rabbit heaven and River weren't far behind. Her girlfriend'd been all humming and happy-go-lucky all morning and Kaylee had to admit she was enjoying basking in that feeling too. River just had that way about her. It was so easy to get caught up in her moods yourself, you didn't watch out... Course, at the moment, Kaylee was far too busy watching River to want to do much else...

They'd just had breakfast: berries an nuts an weeds an things... not that Kaylee exactly knew for a fact they'd been weeds, but they'd looked like um. Tasted good though, what River'd made from um. A magician at that, really she was. Other things too... At making love, best of all she thought all over again... That was the other reason Kaylee was in such a very good mood. She'd never had a sex life near this good... She just felt so close to River. It was hard to even think about sometimes, so mostly she really didn't think about it and let it be what it was between them instead.

River was sitting, holding Lola and feeding her a flower while Kaylee cleaned up things. It was only fair, after all, River having made the food and all. As far as Kaylee was concerned, it was a right perfect arrangement, actually. She'd never really been much use as a cook, though she could make do alright if she needed to. River though, now she was an artist... Fine quality to have in a future wife, she mused to herself a little smugly. Not that she had anyone else to be smug to about it, but it was a nice feeling anyway.

Having finished packing, Kaylee turned to River. "Well, that's that. Think we should get going now?" She asked, soft and thoughtful, considering River and wistfully wishing silently that they could be kissing again instead of going to take a walk through a city of dead people... Dead that had... had the things done to them that Reapers did to people... She'd seen what came of Reavers having their way on people before. It was horror in a way that defied words, that defied even memory... She hadn't even had a bad dream about it since seeing it, not one. It had just... Well, she supposed there were some things that a human mind simply weren't built to have facility to process. She knew... that she was going to walk through all of that, because Inara needed her, needed her and needed River, and that was that, but oh how she wished... just wished that it weren't so.

River perked her head up, looking up from Lola to meet her eyes, a curious and thoughtful look on her face. "We should, but... Lola likes it here. Me also... You also. Maybe we should just stay a while?" She asked, as though she'd plucked the thought right from Kaylee's mind and lain it out for her like a magic trick, knowing full well that it was only just that... Just a trick. Just some well-crafted illusion that couldn't be real but that looked real anyway and that might just help them both a little if they pretended it was really reality, maybe for just a small bit longer.

"Take a break, you mean?" Kaylee asked... Was true, they'd been making good time since crossing that river after the fire. They'd both felt the urgency of it. But Inara wasn't in the kind of trouble that couldn't wait a while longer, not really... and River was right: they were nearly there now, and none of what they'd have to do next would be anything like fun... Making their way through a butchered town and then having to dig out Inara from under that mountain. A little more rest and a few more happy memories might go a long ways towards seeing um through all of that. It's practical. Kaylee was sure River would tell her so too if she asked after it.

River nodded. "Is it a bad idea?" She asked, unsure of herself.

Kaylee smiled and shook her head. "It's a great idea." She told her softly... Seeing River's pretty smile in response, she got up and went round to sit behind her fiancé and wrap her arms about her, resting her chin on the other woman's shoulder. "I told you today how much I'm in love with you?" She asked, feeling very content about then, in what she was sure was just plain, outright, stubborn spite of what was going to be next for them.

"Yes, you did... but holding to positive patterns while abandoning negative ones is key to having a happy life. So the wisdom says." River spoke reflectively. "...Have I said today that I love you just the same?" She asked, soft and so heartfelt. Sounding happy in a very leisurely sort of way that made Kaylee want to be leisurely too. "Because I am... very, very much in love with you, that is."

Kaylee giggled just a little and then hummed, snuggling just that much closer to River and closing her eyes contentedly. "Me too." She replied simply. "Me too." And just like that, she was only a woman who was happy and in love and nothing else but happy and in love. Who wouldn't be happy like this, she wondered idly? Who wouldn't want to be in love this way? She was rich, she realized in a way she hadn't completely done before. Truly she was... Warm breezy day, field of flowers, someone to love and hold, and even a cute furry rabbit nibbling on flowers... Really, in the present moment, her life was probably as close to perfect as you could possibly ever get. What kind of a jieliu shgaua idiot would she have to be not to be grateful at that?

"I remember this, from the before..." River spoke. "I was nearly just like this, in a park with her one time. Not accounting for rabbitness, the symmetry is statistically aberrant. I wonder if it's me that causes it somehow? It would be nice to think it was so..."

"...You mean, your first girlfriend? She held you like this too? In a park?" Kaylee asked, feeling a kind of twist inside her at that. Not jealousy really, but more just a bit of possessiveness, along with mostly sadness at all River had lost and been made to go through in her life. "Her name was Ella, right? Ella Dannan?"

"Yes. Ella Dannan... She wasn't my first girlfriend though. She was my second. My first was Alexa Marin. She broke up with me because she thought I was boring. Talking about useless things all the time... She could have been right. I probably was..." River spoke, sounding kind of wistful and self-conscious about it.

Kaylee scoffed a little. "Boring you ain't." She smiled. "She thought that, she was the boring one, you ask me." She told her softly, very much meaning every word.

River giggled. "I like that you defend me." She told her, voice joyful. "It's chivalrous and romantic..."

Kaylee kissed the skin of River's neck softly. "You bring that out in me, I suppose..." She admitted, snuggling in to her girlfriend closer still. Close as she could, really. "...Did you bring that out in her too? Ella, I mean?" She asked. Were you in love with her the same way you're in love with me?, was what she thought, but didn't ask aloud.

"...I did, in fact. Her eyes danced with me, even when we were only sitting down sometimes... and she had a beautiful smile that I thought was only for me. And it was, she was, for a time, anyway..." River spoke. "You were in love with someone other than me once too, I think I can tell that. I don't know who it was, but... I think I can tell at least that there was a was. I think... I think that he died. I think that tragedies happens far too often for my tastes. I think it's so, so foolish, how many people seek them out... As if there's some value to them, like money or food or any such finery... Do they think it teaches them something, I wonder? Makes them better somehow? Or is it simply some sort of mirage that's hard to see through?"

Kaylee closed her eyes and felt her eyes threaten to tears. "...It's longing I think..." Kaylee found herself saying, though she wasn't quite sure where the words had come from. "I think... all of us were born with it, yaknow? Something just... missing... Can't see where, can only guess what, don't know why, or... if we do know, I guess it must be some sort of terrible sort of truth no one really would want to look into the eyes of..." She said softly. "We just... try to find things that fit. Look up to the sky, daydream under the stars, find a job, build a life, or steal one, I guess... or maybe some of us just get to like running... Those ones though, they... ought to be more careful... Gan feng, ni you keneng shouhuo dao baoyu..." She spoke to herself, her heart aching at the bittersweet memories. "Some there are, just can't help it I suppose." She finished, barely a whisper.

"...Tell me about him?" River asked soft, the words so simple and unassuming they seemed to travel over River's skin and give her a sort of warmth... A sort of courage.

"...James Talwin was his name. Jamie, everyone called him. Shone like the sun to me, he did..." Kaylee used that courage given her to speak aloud what she hadn't ever spoken before. "Moved to town when I was seven, died when I was sixteen. Some people have a joy to them, you know? Can't help but feel it, being in their company. Makes the world seem a better place than it is. You do that... I can't say how and I don't dare ask why, but... you're what's missing in me I think. Because that longing...? Never rightly saw it, but I do now... Was there, always was, and now it's not. Now... all I long for... is to stay with you..." She spoke so softly, like the words came right from her heart, no thoughts between them and her lips. The words scared her, even to speak them, but... didn't make them not true. Didn't make them that at all... "But, well, James... I... Wasn't like with you, but I... I mean, I loved him like... well, like you'd expect a girl that age to love a boy, I suppose. Like... An he loved me too. Did it like he did everything... Put everything he had into it... or tried to, anyway. I... I always got the feeling I wasn't... quite enough for him. An maybe I wanted something from him he couldn't give, so maybe that makes it my fault to... He was a dreamer and risk-taker, through and through. Restless, but so was I... He wanted a job in emergency services when he reached age. Was always training for it, pushing himself. He went out one day, hiking, while I had to stay home an work the farm. He just... didn't come back. They found him a few days later. Fell to his death, they said... I..." She trailed off.

"You don't talk about it." River spoke, sounding bothered and guilty and unsure of herself.

"Never have, no..." Kaylee admitted. And she hadn't. A little with her sister once, but had stopped and walked away before getting very far. She'd always thought... "I suppose I... never saw the point in dwelling on things ah can't change." She told her.

"You... told me though?" River asked.

Kaylee smiled wistfully to herself, never opening her eyes. "You asked... and I'd tell you anything I think. Anything you wanted at all..." She told River, and she knew that was true. She knew she'd give River anything... Anything that was hers to give, and be glad of it besides. She didn't know how it had happened exactly that she'd come to feel that way, but... she guessed it was just another thing she didn't see the point in dwelling on. It was true anyway. She didn't think she could change it by this point, and she was sure she'd swear on any stack of holy books you'd care to name that she never would want to change that, no matter what happened... Even more Reavers...

Kaylee felt a little surprised when River turned in her arms and looked into her eyes, touching her face... Her eyes said so many things. The one thing they said that Kaylee found herself most interested in though was that the time for talking could be over now if she wanted it to be. It was a question, and one that Kaylee found herself answering with a soft kiss as she moved forward with surety, one hand moving up to hold one of River's breasts, the other sliding in under River's shirt at her waist.

"Do you want to lay for me then?" Kaylee asked just softly between kisses.

"The answer to that is an immutable law of the universe, if anything is..." River told her in a soft, impossibly sexy voice as she sighed warmly, making Kaylee shiver with so much desire she could hardly believe it. River's hands searched for the ways to get her out of some of her clothing.

Kaylee smiled just a little shakily and lent her own hands to the effort... She'd always loved sex, and had never been exactly shy about the wanting of it, if and when she found herself lucky enough to find a man she'd wanted to have it with, but with River... it was... She didn't have words for what it was. An immutable law of the universe maybe, she supposed, as she got River out of her shirt and lowered her lover back onto the grass, trailing kisses, starting from her lips and going on downward...

She thought again of how River had told her about lovers making their home in stars. That idea had just seemed to stick in her head... and, the more time she spent with River as lovers? Well... like now... the way she felt, like she was just burning, bright and fierce? She was starting to actually believe that maybe, just maybe, River might somehow know the truth of stars when no one else did.

Chinese translations:

jieliu shagua = dammed fool

"Gan feng, ni you keneng shouhuo dao baoyu..." = "Dare the winds, you may reap the storm..."

(please note: I'm only getting my Chinese from Google Translate, so I can't guarantee it's accurate at all)

to be continued

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