( continues...) everyone?”

She looks at him sadly. “You landed it beautifully, Wash. Got them all in safe and sound. Brought her in like a leaf on the wind. It was just bad luck, in the end. It often is.”

He blinks. “What?”

She pulls a face. “You died.”

There's a beat, and he's waiting for the punchline, but it never comes. “What?” he says again, instead.

“You died, Wash. I'm here to guide you home.”

“You're – I – no.” He looks at her then, really looks at her, bone-white skin and glittering necklace and crazy black chaos of tattered frou-frou skirts. She's a stranger who feels as familiar as his Zoe, as familiar as his own face, and she's impossible. Crazy as River. Except – except that he's never seen anyone so thoroughly down-to-earth, so disarmingly sane. “Dead?” he says at last. “Really?”

She nods apologetically. “Really. Sorry. That's your lot.”

“Oh.” It feels oddly anticlimactic. “I always kind of thought there'd be, you know, a bright light. Maybe beautiful girls with wings. Not that you're not beautiful – I didn't mean that, I mean, you're very beautiful!” She's looking at him fondly, and he's blushing and stumbling over his words. “I mean, not like that – or, you know, maybe if I wasn't married – but – but – I'm just saying I thought there'd be wings.”

“I have wings,” she says, confidentially. “You just can't see them.”

“Oh.” He blinks out at the familiar heavens. “Okay then. Invisible wings. Well, that's nice. Not what I pictured, but – nice. No choirs of heavenly voices raised in song either? But that's probably a good thing – never much cared for madrigals. Mad wriggles. Silly word.” He looks at her sidelong. “So you're the grim reaper? I have to say, you don't look very grim. Or reapy.”

Her smile widens. “I've never seen the point of being gloomy,” she tells him. “I suppose I could try to look mopey, if it would make you feel better, but it always strikes me as rather silly.”

“No! No, not complaining. This is – nice.” Wash reflects for a moment, startled. “Weirdly, unexpectedly – nice.” He chews his bottom lip. “Will I get to see Zoe again?” he asks, after a while, in a small voice. When he glances across at her, he doesn't know how to read the expression on her face.

“That would be telling,” is all she says. She leans a little closer, and pushes one of the instruments in front of him. “Just a little further – yes. Like that.”

Wash blinks as the viewscreen begins to fill with something bright and unexpected.

“Oh!” he says, filling up with the kind of shocked, joyful sense of awe he had felt the first time he looked out at a planet from above.

“Yes,” she says, gently, and takes his hand.

iii

It's real shiny, this place. She likes it best of all.

Kaylee has a whole slew of different worlds bottled up in her head like candy in a jar, and her dreams can take her all kinds of different places. Lot of times this involves pretty boys in fancy waistcoats bringing her fresh-grown hothouse flowers – lotuses, or lilies, or orchids, like she's seen on the vids – or else feeding her strawberries or sticky rice with slivers of mango bright and wet and slippery as goldfish, while she reclines on froofy pillows on one of those fancy loveseats. Then the pretty boys might maybe lose their waistcoats, and their fine, clean shirts, and their tight, tight pants, and then it might be their skins that get all wet and slippery, and their perfect teeth bright as they bite down on her flesh and make her giggle.

Kaylee's plenty fond of that kind of dream.

Sometimes there might be more than one boy, 'cause Kaylee's a woman of healthy appetites, and she's got energy and enthusiasm enough to go round. Couple of times it was the Captain, and, boy, did she ever feel blushful when she handed him his tea at dinner the next day. She's had dreams about Inara too, a time or two, with her fine dresses and her knowing smile, but although she's curious, and game for anything, Kaylee would really rather be Inara than lie with her. She loves the thought of moving slow and (continued...)

( continues...) graceful like that, in a drift of scent. Loves the idea that men might have to stop in mid-chatter, or pause in mid-step, and turn their heads to watch her walk past, lovely and dignified and utterly desirable in her silk and velvet. But Kaylee knows, even in her dreams, that she could no more be Inara than she could turn into a horse.

Lot of times, she dreams about Simon. For a long while she didn't quite dare dream about doing anything that might mess up his pretty clothes, because it seemed kind of disrespectful, and, 'sides, he's so darned nice to just look at. Like something in a story book. She felt sure that she'd say something stupid, or get engine oil on his waistcoat, and his face would get that tight, disappointed look she dreads. That what-am-I-doing-here-with-this-dirty-little-hick expression. That I-should-be-talking-to-fine-ladies-and-gentlemen-right-now expression. He's not like the rest of Serenity's crew. He's – class. He's like the living, breathing embodiment of class. The finest thing Kaylee's seen outside of vids and fleeting glimpses of Inara's clients. Too good to touch, almost, like some kind of porcelain doll or spun-sugar candy that might break if you picked it up. She knows he can speak Chinese all proper, and from his name and his clothes and his money and his pretty dark eyes, she reckons he's got family in the Core – got hisself a Chinese grandpappy, maybe. Connections. Way out of the reach of Kaywinnit Lee Frye.

But he's awful pretty, and after a while she got over her shyness. Now she dreams about him all the time: dreams about watching his eyes go wide and startled as she opens up his shirt, dreams about all that fine, clean, unscarred skin. Dreams about having him up against the wall of her engine room, or on top of the dining table, or in his clean little medical room. Dreams about rolling in the grass with him like she used to do when she was a girl, or taking him on the desert floor (although she knows fine well, from experience, that that only leads to sand in places a girl really doesn't want to find sand). Dreams of lying with him in the glowing aftermath, curled up in his arms on a huge, soft bed with real sheets and billowing net curtains.

She likes those dreams. Likes them a lot. But they're not her favourites.

Kaylee's favourite dreams, better than the ones with strawberries or athletic and willing young men, are the dreams of machines. The happy purr of an engine working properly, oiled and tended and sweet as a nut. Small machines, grand machines, fine old antiques and cocky young things fresh from the factory. Steel and brass and copper and ceramic. Cogs knitting neatly into place. Finding purity and simplicity and patterns in complex tangles of wires and gears and pistons and chips. Following connections, tinkering, tending, listening to the lovely mix of voices sent up by each moving part. This is Kaylee's favourite place, the place where she's most herself, self-contained and purposeful and joyous, her mind and her heart and her soul at peace. Serene.

It's most often in those dreams, those bright and angular dreams of metal and oil and sparks, that she sometimes glimpses the man. Tall, pale, his hair an explosion of shadows, his eyes like patches of the star-scatterred heavens. He's nobody she knows, and if she saw a fella looked like him in her waking life she'd jump a mile, because there's strange and then there's downright unnatural. But – he belongs here. She gets that feeling, those rare times she sees him out of the corner of her eye, maybe while she's riding Simon like a pony, or when she's just figured out the source of a sad little rattling noise in the ship's engine: that this is his rightful place. And she knows about things having their natural order, about pieces sliding neatly together with a rightness, a perfection that defies the constant press of entropy. She surely wouldn't want to try peeling off his rich robes and feeding him slivers of mango or sticky rice, but she feels companionable towards him, when he drifts (continued...)

( continues...) around the edges of her dreams. She wishes he didn't so often look so sad. She's even thought about talking to him, once or twice – trying to bring a smile to that grave, pale, face – but he intimidates her more than Simon ever did, and she always falters and draws back, and sinks into embraces or machines once more. She feels him watching her – not threatening, just curious – and she hopes that he has a place that makes him feel all peaceful-like, the way her machines do her. The way Simon sometimes does. Because he surely looks like a man could use a touch of serenity – or, if not that, then somebody brave enough to feed him strawberries and make him laugh.

Oh. Fay.

I am not nearly as conversant with the Endless as I want to be, am most familiar with Death, and most fond of Wash, so the centerpiece was the heart of this tryptich for me. All lovely (especially Book! My heart!), all truly voiced.

But I hear Wash, and I see the expression on his face. Thank you for giving me that.

Again - moved to tears. Book chilled me - and that's what Destiny does. Wash...yes. As Beverly said.

And Kaylee...and Dream. Dream-from-Daniel is this silent, wafting, observant...thing. And yet she's not afraid of him - in fact...and this is the perfection: as Kaylee, she's just concerned that he's happy, or content.

Who else (besides, perhaps, Death)...who else cares about Dream's happiness?

Of course Kaylee does.

Thank you for reminding me.

Nice and tragic. Put me in my jester place, like marzipan in my pie plate. Yes, well, those were some of the rules in my house, so...it wasn't too precious, was it? Cause that's a danger when you write something thinking "oh, that would be cute," It could be like the Renesmee of scenes.(And now I've got to find out what he says to her. But Vince, Imo, doesn't spend enough time with women where sex is off the table...or, you know, out of the coat closet.)

Yay! Oh, cheers - glad they're working so far! Here's another one:

iv

It's not a secret, exactly. But it's not something they discover through any official channels at the Madrassa. It's not something that Inara learns from her sensei or her fencing instructor, not something they ever mention in deportment classes, or in dance lessons. It isn't something she hears discussed by any of the teachers; not by chefs or diplomats or masseuses, not by courtiers or courtesans, poets or composers, linguists or psychologists. Oh, everybody knows – but it's not something they're ever officially told about. It's something she learns from the other students, something whispered about as they sit in the hot baths after classes, boiling themselves like lobsters, soaking away the honest sweat of weapons drill or sex. A sly joke passed from reddened lip to shell-perfect ear at the sight of someone who looks beside themselves with bliss, someone who has been shell-shocked by sensual delight. Speculation. Envy, even, buried deep beneath the ripple of laughter. Recognition that there walks someone truly special, someone blessed. Or cursed. Or both.

There isn't a name. Or – there are countless names. Names are fluid, anyway. None of them wear their birth names, once they become Companions. They shed them, along with their native accents and responses. They let themselves be remade, boys and girls alike. They become mirrors, and vessels; confidantes and confessors; masters and slaves; confections for the rich. Exquisite, ephemeral possessions. Pliant and unshockable objects of desire. Perfect toys. Perfect spies. Perfect weapons.

Inara is an exceptional student. Inara glows. She listens, and she learns, and she pushes herself to be the best; to maintain her calm and her poise in the face of any test, to gauge a person's needs before they know their needs themselves. She knows all about listening to what is left unspoken, and how to read the tiniest tells on the face of a man or a woman in order to recognise what is truly the wish of their heart. How to judge whether she needs to be soft and yielding, to be passive and vulnerable and sweet as a new fall of snow, or to be rough and demanding and in charge. How to be sure she knows whether someone wishes to hurt or to be hurt – and if so, whether in play or in truth, for there are those a person in her profession must needs avoid, and sometimes it's difficult to pick them out from the crowd. Some customers want to leave scars or do worse, and a Companion needs to learn how to recognise that particular hunger so that they can avoid it without giving offence, or redirect it, or be ready to incapacitate an attacker as quickly and efficiently as possible.

She's very, very good at what she does. It helps that she is beautiful, of course – but that is only to be expected. They are all beautiful. It helps too that she is intelligent, quick-witted, flexible in mind and body, charming, and an exceptionally good actress. These skills have helped her to make the most of the rigorous training a Companion undergoes in all the many arts of espionage and entertainment. But that, too, is only to be expected. Only the most exceptional young people are accepted into the Companion Houses – the children whose extraordinary potential far outstrips their parents' wealth. They are all beautiful, and intelligent, and flexible.

No, the real thing that makes Inara Sera special, the thing that keeps customers clamouring for her, that keeps them coming back once they have had her, is the gift she has for leaving them unsatisfied. Leaving them spent, and glowing, and sated, and grateful, and feeling cherished – but leaving them with the nagging knowledge that they have not had her. That there was always something secret and wonderful of herself that they didn't reach, something unspeakably lovely and precious that they never quite touched. That she remains her own, always her own, and that for all the intimacy of her mouth, the pliability of her limbs, the sincerity of her delight (continued...)

( continues...) – she does not need them. That she will walk away from them, and no entreaty can bring her back.

Even as a student she has offers upon offers for permanent contracts, and she declines them all with such grace and charm that her patrons cannot feel insulted at the time, however they might find themselves railing later.

It is perhaps small wonder, then, that she should be chosen. But it still comes as a suprise when another student crosses the sun-drenched courtyard and hands her a billet doux. Inara's mouth falls open just a little as she looks down at the fold of paper, and when she looks up to demand an explanation, she finds that the courtyard is empty. Impossibly so. She swallows, and looks down again. The paper is thick and heavy in her hand. Expensive. She tugs gently at the crimson ribbon and it falls away with a soft slither of silk, releasing the faintest trace of some warm aroma, something sweet and half-familiar. Tantalising. The calligraphy inside is exquisite, and enigmatic: elegant swirls of ink present a time and a place, nothing more. It might be a jest; this, after all, is how he – or she – traditionally requests one's services. And surely it's nothing but a legend? A long-running joke? But the faint scent of peaches makes her mouth water, and the creamy paper trembles in her hand. Inara does not think this is a joke. She accepts the assignment.

She is kneeling, when her patron arrives. Head bowed in supplication, as she would greet a king or a general. The ghostly scent of peaches is cloying and tainted with rot, and yet it is still completely irresistible.

“Well, aren't you delicious?” She cannot tell, from the voice, whether it is a man or a woman, and that shocks her. Inara is not in the business of being uncertain about something so basic. And it is not that she thinks this voice belongs to someone of more flexible gender – for she knows fine well how many possible variations there are of male and female and inbetween and neither. But this voice is not quite human – and it is, somehow, both perfectly, totally masculine and perfectly, totally feminine in a way that Inara has never heard before.

She waits. She is startled to find that she is trembling, as her mysterious patron paces around her, looking her over like she's a prize heiffer. This is not uncommon. This is something she knows how to endure gracefully, and usually it would be a simple enough matter to sink into a calmer state, to modulate her breathing – but she cannot. Her blood is racing. This, she thinks, is something new. Something truly unexpected.

“Stand up, sweeting.”

Inara rises, as graceful as any trained dancer – for such she is – and the folds of her simple gown fall with a studied elegance, wafting the faintest scent of freesias onto the air. She looks up, her head tilted at precisely the approved angle, her lashes lowered provocatively, and then she freezes quite still at the sight of the single most heartbreakingly lovely creature she has ever set eyes on in all her life. And she still does not know – could not guess, if her life depended upon it – whether this person is male, or female, or neither, or both.

“Oh yes, you'll do. You'll do very well, my child.” He, or possibly she, sounds richly amused at some private jest. “It's your sincerity that will break their hearts.”

Inara swallows. “Forgive me, honoured patron. I do not understand.” She's taking a chance, risking giving offense, but she has always hated this vertiginous sense of vulnerability. She likes to be in control, even when she presents the illusion of surrender. This interview has her off balance, the mask of her professionalism suddenly paper-thin.

“Ah, you are mistaking me for someone who cares.” The smile that accompanies this is as cold as it is irresistible. “People often do. Now, let's see – a pillow book, I think. Yes. Let's test your much-vaunted restraint. You won't last, of course – but that's only to be expected. But if you amuse me, then I may be of a mind to grant you a boon.” Slender fingers twitch (continued...)

( continues...) through the air, indicating that she should undress. “Quickly, child. It doesn't do to keep a client waiting. Or at least – not this one. All your arts will avail you nothing. It's the heart that intrigues me.” She – or possibly he – gives a sudden throaty laugh that makes Inara go weak at the knees, and her fingers tremble on the ties of her embroidered robe. When she is standing naked, Inara usually feels strong, sure of her youth and her beauty. This time she feels like a virgin on her wedding night, and she has no idea why – only that this person, this nameless patron, is stimulating all her senses and making her heart race with unaccustomed yearning. This time it truly matters, in a manner terrifying and profound, that she not be found wanting.

Inara lets herself be lain down upon the scattered pillows, feeling the stiff gold threads of intricate embroidery press hard and unyielding against her nipples, and she tries to stay quite still while her anonymous, impossible patron produces ink and a brush and begins, with agonising slowness, to write a ribbon of tidy letters on the warm curves of her skin, reading out line after line as they are formed. The brush licks over every hollow and swell, sensitising Inara's body inch by inch, and she tries very hard not to tremble as the mesmerising voice reads out sonnet after sonnet in a warm and wicked rasp, growing ever more vivid, ever more detailed, ever more filthy and intimate – but always with impeccable attention to meter and rhyme, always filled with delicate nuances of meaning as well as lovely aliteration. Inara bites her lower lip so hard she tastes her own blood, and her fingers dig into the pillows with the desperate attempt to stay quite, quite still. She feels herself shuddering and tries to force her muscles to be still, but her breath grows ragged and her thighs grow wet with more than ink.

When Inara finally comes, from nothing more than the delicate swirl of the ink over her skin, and the shockingly arousing whisper of her patron's voice in her ear, she has words curling down her spine and nuzzling her hips, words spiraling around her buttocks and down her calves and straggling out to touch her toes, words sweeping sweet and perfect over the pristine curve of her arms and losing themselves in her collarbone.

She lies face down in the pillows, panting, tears in her eyes, startled at the intensity of the experience, and listens to her patron laugh.

“Not bad, my lovely. Not bad at all. So then: a gift.” He, or possibly she, lays a cool hand upon Inara's shoulder, where the ink is dry, and turns her over. She sprawls on her back in an ungainly heap, knowing that her hair is tangling in sweaty curls, and that her breasts and belly bear the imprint of the cushions' beading and embroidery. She has almost forgotten her own name, and can only blink helplessly up into catlike golden eyes that study her like she is some strange new toy. “I will give you your heart's desire, Inara Serra, but at a price.” The perfect mouth curls unkindly. “There is always a price, of course. But it never makes a difference.”

“My heart's desire?” repeats Inara, stupidly.

“You want your freedom, don't you? That, more than anything. You want a way out. This is the key to your success, my sweet – they all know that they can't have you. They all know you're a bird they cannot keep. And I can give you the chance to spread your wings, my dear. An opportunity will come your way, and sooner than you think. But – if you take it, you will find that it is a different kind of cage. A cage you long for, and fear, in equal measure.”

“My heart's desire,” Inara says again, uncomprehending, her body still racked with aftershocks of pleasure, and her peculiar patron leans forward and drops an idle kiss upon her brow.

“Just like in the stories, sweeting.” Another smile, this one even crueller than the last. “Of course, those stories rarely end well.”

FAY.

I just.... YES.

Thank you for this.