TITLE: "INSIDE OUT"

SERIES: THE DICHOTOMY SERIES.

CHAPTER: 11. Sequel to "MASKS". **SERIES CONCLUSION**

FANDOM: "FIREFLY"

AUTHOR: Alison M. DOBELL

PAIRING: None

SUMMARY: "Once out of the simulation everyone picks up their

regular lives as if there had been no interruption and with no memory

of what happened. Only one person knows that the stage has been set

for something that will change their lives forever."

"INSIDE OUT"

A "Firefly" Story

Written by Alison M. DOBELL

* * * * *

The House Mistress stared at Inara as if she had taken complete leave of her senses. "Why do you want to leave House Madrassa?"

"It would not be permanent, Mother, I just feel being out in the world would broaden my experience as a Companion."

"It would be unseemly, Inara. Are you trying to bring this House into disrepute?"

Inara flushed. "That I would never do."

The House Mistress fixed her with a gimlet eye. "What has brought about this sudden desire to leave us?"

She could not afford to explain it, least of all to a House Mistress for whom duty to the Guild was everything. Inara knew her only opportunity to correct a most basic of errors lay outside these beautiful but cloistered walls. The company of her sisters would be missed but it would only be for a time and the more she thought about it the more fiercely the notion settled within her. To make her decision more believable she would need to fashion a life outside the protection of her House, one where she would continue to be a Companion loyal to the Guild but with the freedom to do what must be done without that constricting oversight.

"Where will you go?"

When Inara told the House Mistress what she had in mind the woman blanched. "Child, you are not thinking clearly!"

"*Bushi* Mother," said Inara in h