(Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations by Joss Whedon, Tim Minear and the other writers of Firefly)

Preparations for a dance – part one:

Experience the beauty of Sihnon.

A typical tourism advert – it flared across the redundant minor monitors of the shuttle cockpit – the main screens were busy showing data, readouts, references and instructions from flight control. The windows – which had been dark from their Atmo- Solarised cloaking - were gradually revealing the reality of the world below.

It was a world that the pilot knew well. The white tipped mountains, radiant in the glow of the sunrise and the long undulating stretches of the Guild city wall, the ancient wall, the beautiful wall – topped with flags and crests and turrets and bustling along every inch with carts and rickshaws and pilgrims and merchants and traders and tourists and – the circling and unassailable wall.

So, the advert was unnecessary… but it played on nonetheless and it was not ignored and it was not insignificant.

Even as she eased her shuttle through the familiar gyrations of entry, twisting in through scarlet laced streamers of cloud – even as her hands moved expertly over the controls, brushing aside a silk scarf to crank the air brake mechanism beneath (there were tiny wishing bells woven around the handle) –

Even as she swore in violent Chinese at an oncoming joy-craft apparently buzzing the shuttle for fun –

Even as she followed directions to circle her shuttle around in a frustrating holding pattern –

Even in the midst of all of this… the advert played to her and the pilot listened – and as the pilot listened so she remembered – a kaleidoscope of memories and chaotic associations, triggered almost subliminally by the adverts inane narrative…

Experience the beauty of Sihnon.

“Well - we’re all running from something I suppose.”

Seemed so long ago now – felt like just yesterday too… that she had been stood on the high walkways of the ma