Exile

Part Two: A Thousand Miles

by ShinyBug

The day of the Midsummer Masque dawned bright and clear, like almost every other day on Lethe. By early morning the scent of cherry blossoms had threaded on the wind through the hanging gardens into the halls of the Oubliette, mixing with the redolent spices of baking confections and roasting savory creatures for banquet. Servants rushed here and there, carrying armfuls of linens and trays of silverware and crystal, laughing as they went from the excitement that hung in the warm air.

On this day everyone celebrated, rich and poor, high and low. Come sundown, rank disappeared and masks were tied on, and The City became one huge soiree, and at its apex was the Oubliette, and Inara. After all, who knew more about wearing masks than Inara herself?

Inara and Essa were up with the dawn to oversee preparations, and Inara was once again glad of her friend’s presence, because the emotional exertions of the night before had left her bleary-eyed indeed and feeling more than slightly off-balance. She felt that morning as she dressed simply and comfortably for the day in white linen and applied a cooling serum to her eyelids, that her mask was already on, and the entertainment had many hours yet to begin.

She looked at her reflection in her dressing mirror, noting a few tiny lines around her eyes and mouth that implied years of laughter, and Inara wondered why she couldn’t remember ever laughing much. Her youth was ebbing slowly away, she realized with less concern than a Companion should feel about such a thing. She was only thirty, and still in her prime. But Inara could see a day now when that might no longer be so. And she was so tired, she admitted to herself. So very tired.

She ran her forefinger over her ivory-handled hairbrush, peripherally remembering brushing Kaylee’s hair in her shuttle, so long ago, and Mal bursting in on them. ‘Have you got time to do my hair?’ he’d asked, trying to get a rise out of her. The comraderie was what she mis