Disclaimer: Firefly and all related elements, characters and indicia © Mutant Enemy Productions and 20th Century Fox Television, 2003. All Rights Reserved. All characters and situations—save those created by the authors for use solely on this website—are copyright Mutant Enemy Productions and 20th Century Fox Television.

Please do not archive or distribute without author's permission.

Author's Note: For the ff_friday challenge #22 (dreams)

Sleeps in Elysium
by Tara LJC O'Shea

She helps her mother clear away the dishes from supper. Usually, Jian would do it—but she's gone to Tiantán because her mother is ailing, and so it's a rare moment for the women of the Tam family to see what it is like to scrape leftover lamb and ginger from the platters and into the reclamation bin themselves. They laugh as they stack the glasses and plates in the kitchen which sees a great deal of use, but none of it by their hands.

Her mother knows how to cook, but she never does it. As they slice the mango and arranged it on the delicate china plate with the cheese, she tells her daughter that there are so many more important things for her to do, than spend even a moment in tedious drudgery if one could avoid it. It's a privilage that she's glad she can afford her children.

They carry the tray into the dining room, where her father and brother sit, drinking New Canaan brandy and laughing. She sets it down next to the girl lying on the polished wood surface. The girl stares at the ceiling, unmoving, unblinking as her brother used the delicate laser scalpel to peel back the spongy pink and grey layers of her brain while he told them all about the camping trip to the preserve on Iona he'd gone on last week with Ren and his cousin.

She takes a slice of apple from the tray and uses her fingers to pile white and green cheese—she knows the green veins were mold, but she likes the way they tasted—onto the