Author: Shealynn

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: no characters belong to me, glory be and the Joss be praised, thanks for lettin’ me play.

Email: shealynn88@hotmail.com

Summary: A day in the life of River Tam.

Serenity

1. a state of calm. To be without worry, stress or disturbance. From the 15th century latin word “serenus,” meaning clear or calm.

2. Name given by one Captain Reynolds to his Firefly class cargo vessel.

3. Name of a valley on Hera which was the site of a pivotal battle in the Unification War.

In her more linear moments, River liked to contemplate the word, serenity. It had special meaning for her. She longed to know the calm of the first definition, which had been impossible now for so long. People always talking, whispering, coloring her thoughts and crowding her out of her own head. Sometimes she thought she’d experienced it once, perhaps, a long, long time ago. It was so hard to remember a time before the chaos. But the second definition, that was easy to remember. The ship, her home, where she ate and slept and listened and tried so hard keep her thoughts inside. In a way, it was the most calming definition she had, because she knew it, understood it in a purely physical way. It was there whether she thought about it or not, and somehow, that was reassuring.

It was the third definition that gave her the most trouble, in a round about way. She knew it was the namesake of her home, a valley of war named after peace and then given to a ship that signified freedom. She understood that, and the many layers of pain that thought gave the Captain. He was grey again, today, thinking about it. Luckily he was rooms away, and she could think around that looming storm of despair and desperation. Sometimes, when he was close to her, he’d feel that way, and she couldn’t help it—it led her backward, like Ariadne forced to retrace her string, forced to track back through the Labyrinth, back to the blue hands and the dark thoughts and the sinister blue-grey clouds, and then