Ch 5

February 14, 2507. Sihnon. House Madrassa, bedchamber of Inara Serra.

Time had gone from being Layla Serra's enemy to her dear friend. As she zoned in and out of listening to her mother's lecture, Inara could not keep herself from marveling at how different the woman before her was from the one Inara remembered in her youth. The most obvious difference was the clothes. Layla Serra wore much finer garments now, much more fitting of the class to which she now aspired. There were advantages to having a companion has a daughter, including an almost instant rise in class. Layla had been milking every moment of it for the last five months. She attended dinners, bought herself feathered hats and studded purses, indulged in anti-aging treatments and days at the spa. "… please, Inara, assure me that you'll be taking another client soon."

The words intruded upon Inara's reverie. She looked up at her mother with heavy eyes. "I'm ill," she said quietly. She was. Her ailment had struck her without warning nearly two weeks before. The fever, than the dizziness and the nausea, then muscle aches, double vision, occasional shortness of breath… She was recovering now, but for days she had dreaded leaving her bed for anything. "I will take another client when I am feeling better."

"Inara…" The older Serra rose from the corner of Inara's bed, where she had been sitting for the better part of an hour. Inara watched as Layla paced the room, stop every so often to rub her hand across the surface of Inara's curtains or to admire herself in Inara's mirror. Inara could see how the environment rattled her, just a little, how it made her lose control just a little. Inara couldn't blame her. Layla Serra was living in her dream world. At first, it had been heart-warming, knowing that she had given her mother what she had always… but now, it was something else. Inara studied her mother's back as Layla traced the expression of the Buddha statue in Inara's corner. "A companion not working on St. Valentine's…" Layla trailed of