**

Chapter 3: Journey

In Which There are Revelations and Requests.

**

She knew. She saw them lying coiled in ice and knew. And Daddy knew too. Five hundred and fourteen of them, scaled and cold like hibernating snakes. She tried to tell Simon, but he didn’t get it, as usual. Instead he sat by her side, murmuring platitudes when sleep eluded her because, lao tian ye, the snakes were more important than sleep.

Then she knew something else. She saw flames and sparks, but not destroying, no these were banked and warming, comforting, with the cloying sweet smell of burning turf. The warmth that would revive those snakes and turn them into nourishment. So, fine, fang xin, everything’s ok. And she got up, she smiled, and she tried once more to tell Simon, but by then it didn’t matter. Because it wasn’t snakes they were bringing on. It was fish, healthy and nourishing in the hands of the right cook. And when sleep finally took her in the afternoon, it was sweet and good and natural, without drugs and she woke to the scent of daffodil stems in the sun.

**

After dinner, Zoë herded the Captain and Saoirse away from the kitchen saying “Ok, folks. Time for that chat.”

Mal closed the bridge door behind them and flopped into the pilot’s chair. Wash wasn’t too happy about being banned from his domain, but it was one of the few places to get privacy on a ship as small as Serenity.

“Ok, Miss O’Malley. Now, you know how your ideas usually work out.” Captain Reynolds opened conversation with a cautionary tone.

“Yeah. Flames, death and recriminations. Usually the flames and death for the purplebellies, and the recriminations for you and me. But this ain’t one of my patented ‘Reckless Requisition Runs’, Sarge.”

“Well, hell.” Zoë smiled as she took a seat on the pilot’s console. “I always liked those. As least they ended with food in our bellies and ammo in our guns. Can’t say that about most of the authorized missions we ran.”

A harried version of Saoirse’s broad grin flashed acro