Inara could not decide which seemed bleaker, their situation, or the sterile, featureless surroundings the guards escorted them through. The space was otherwise abandoned, and the unsettling desolation crept through her like frost warning of further bad weather. In the disquieting dreams she'd had, River had shown her a place like this in stolen visions. A glimpse, that had morphed into a surreal journey through frozen worlds and battlefields and tombs.

As a girl Inara had entertained herself with fairytales and stories about the spirit world. There, she could escape from the tower into the wilds. Then her mother crossed over, and the fantasy lost the appeal. Later she learned she had always been far closer to that world than she wanted to be, halfway there already; living, and in some ways already gone. She had been specially selected, and it wasn't as beautiful or lovely as she had hoped. Story of her life, really.

She knew this place like her last breath. If she should stay here, and allow her friends another chance, she would. She couldn't offer much else for them anyway. So it wasn't her fast approaching end that frightened her, but rather the prospects of who else she might find there with her.

Surrounded as they were, it wasn't until they had nearly passed through that Inara realized the foreboding gates had finally opened for her. The soldiers packed them into the lift tight, an oubliette of smooth steel walls. Another disappearance, unheard and silent through the black soundless and crushing around this prison. She was determined that would not be the fate of her friends. A blessing, that they were all standing so near; Kaylee was right beside her, and the soldiers were paying more attention to Zoe and Jayne and their penchant for brawling as the two gunhands slumbered.

Serenity 's mechanic was just a girl, barely into her womanhood, and Inara sometimes wondered what Mal had been thinking, letting such a dear heart into the dangers they faced aboard the ship. Yet