Miao Shan (The Girl in the Sky Remix)
Remix Author: Molly
Original Story: Comfort by Kari
Summary: "Zoe makes River want to be a star."
Rating: PG
Fandom: Firefly
Spoilers: For Serenity the movie
When River was crazy -- and she's begun to think of it like that, like a sickness that had taken hold and then faded slowly away -- when she was crazy, Serenity talked to her.
Now that she's better, there's less talking. After Miranda, Serenity changed like all of them, like her, and now she must relearn the first, the truest friend she made after she first came out of her box.
She must relearn them all, and put the voices in their proper places. When she can't sleep she crawls from her bed and wanders through the ship, checking in with everyone when they are at their most honest, behind their own, closed doors. It makes it easier to separate them out, to understand who belongs to each distinct new voice she hears with a clarity she never used to have.
She always starts with Inara, who sleeps peacefully now. River hears her during the day, remembering the fear that tickled at her while she was away, the never-knowing that kept her awake at night. Now she has no trouble curling up and drifting off, knowing that if anyone (Mal) is hurt, she will be among the first to know. She will be able to try and help.
River can understand that.
She leaves Inara to her comfortable rest and goes up, because nobody sleeps in the passenger dorms but her, now. She passes Mal's bunk first, stops with her palm flat against the sealed hatch. She is right on time; he is just dozing off. During the day his mind races, worrying over food stocks and fuel cells and spare parts, and how to keep them all alive to see the next day. And later he will dream, and they are sometimes terrible dreams, full of sadness and longing and so much death. His dreams are a lot like hers; she doesn't like being aware of them.
But she has reached him during his quiet time, when his mind is blanketed by the simplicity of a warm, soft bed and the time to be in it. He is in an in-between space that is peaceful and rare and pleases her to witness. She lingers; she doesn't want to miss a single moment.
She moves on as soon as she feels a glimmer of solid thought, because she's learned it's better not to take the risk. She caught him once in a pleasant dream, careful reconstruction of a happier memory, but it faded into the whine of seekers, the boom of explosions, the sense of being hunted, caged, trapped with no way out, and she got caught with him. He couldn't wake up, and she couldn't walk away. She won't do that again; she has enough nightmares of her own.
There is no such risk at Kaylee's bunk, because nobody sleeps within. River rests her hands on one ladder rung, closes her eyes, smiles at Kaylee's laughter and Simon's roaming, teasing, tickling hands. The happiness flooding from the room is like a physical thing, a wave so strong she cannot resist it. She sways on her feet. She hates to leave them behind, but this…this is theirs. This belongs to Simon, and he deserves to have at least one part of his life be his, and only his.
Across the corridor Jayne sleeps quietly, contently. His are simple dreams: easy money and pretty girls, family close at hand. River likes the things she knows about Jayne, likes the simplicity of everything he wants. Someday he will settle down and have his own tiny little kingdom, Vera in one iron fist and the begrudging respect of his peers in the other, and some will hate him but he won't care, and he won't be cruel. He will just be Jayne, and she finds it a comfort that if nothing else, he can be counted upon to be exactly who he is, always.
She hesitates before moving on, because Zoe…Zoe is the only one left, and it's harder to find causes for comfort here. Zoe's room is always dark, even though the lights are always on. Zoe never turns them out; she is not afraid, but she knows that the dark can make you forget. She knows there might be some night where she rolls over thinking she's still asleep, and her arm will encounter empty space.
So she leaves the lights on, so that she'll always know when she's awake. It's still dark, though, because Zoe thinks all the time about forever, like the 'verse, like the black that goes on and on and never ends.
Zoe makes River want to be a star. On Osiris, between shi er yue and san yue, she could look out her bedroom window in the middle of the night and see Guan Yin high in the sky. It is a peculiar grouping, an odd-shaped bundle that could be almost anything, but the astronomers from Earth-that-was looked up and saw a seated pusa, and a hooked line extending from it that they said was her willow branch, and they proclaimed that she would watch over this new world forever.
River always thought the constellation looked like nothing at all, but she liked that it was there. She liked to think of Guan Yin out there, watching with her thousand eyes, ready to ease everyone's pain. She thought the sky was the place to be if that was your job, and now she would like for it to be hers. She would like to be a single twinkling eye in the darkness, always there with her vase of compassion.
What she is, is a girl; she does not have to stay tucked above, always removed. She climbs down into Zoe's bunk with barely a thought, and she crawls into Zoe's bed with even less. She stretches out behind Zoe, tucking one arm under her head and lightly stroking back Zoe's hair with her other hand. Zoe isn't dreaming; her mind is restless and uneasy, and she wakes after only a few moments.
"River," she says flatly, going still and stiff next to River. "Some reason you're in my bed?"
"Miao Shan was a princess," River murmurs instead of answering. "She was a princess until her father sent her away for not being a son, and she was so very sheltered and sweet that when she looked around and saw all the sorrows of the world her head exploded into a thousand little bits. When they put her back together she had extra heads and her father had her killed. So then she went to hell, but she made everyone so happy that they had to kick her out before the balance was ruined. She became Guan Yin instead, and wandered around pouring love and compassion all over everyone's heads."
"Heard that one when I was young," Zoe murmurs. "Recall it involving fewer exploding heads, though."
"Someone took literary license," River says dismissively. "You heard the story. You know the words."
Zoe stiffens again. "Yes," she says after a long moment. "Namo Ta-pei Kuan Shih Yin P'usa. Tended to get said a lot during the war."
"Soldiers needing comfort. People, needing comfort. It's only natural."
"You aiming to be my Guan Yin?" There's a hard edge of something almost angry in Zoe's voice, a softer shade of something that sounds like need. "Going to wash me in your pity? You gonna fix it?"
"No." River strokes Zoe's hair back. "Wish I could. I would take it all away; I would make your heart sing with joy. But I'm only River. I'm still trying to put my head back together."
Zoe sighs and reaches up to touch River's hand and still it. Her fingers trail over River's wrist, then curl around it and pull gently to maneuver River's arm around her. "Fair enough," Zoe says softly. "Seems we've all got our own healing to do."
"But you won't heal." River curls closer behind Zoe's back, resting her cheek on the soft mass of curls trailing across the pillow. "You won't cry."
"No need for that nonsense. No time for it, either, getting all dragged down in wu yong indulgence that don't accomplish --"
"It's okay," River interrupts, nearly whispering. "Not wu yong at all…the willow weeps so that she can bend instead of break. It's okay."
Zoe shudders against her. "No. Ain't nothin' in the verse gonna make it okay, River."
"Can make it not get worse," River says stubbornly. "Have to let it out or you'll be like me. Your head will explode." She closes her eyes and tucks her face close against the back of Zoe's neck, and she squeezes the hand that Zoe never did take from hers. After a long, long moment, Zoe squeezes right back, and holds on tight as her muscles tremble and her breathing grows slightly more ragged.
River falls asleep in a wash of weightless relief, of release, of the sense memory of tears leaking sideways across a temple, the bridge of a nose. When she wakes up Zoe is sleeping again, still holding tight to her hand, and she untangles herself before laying a careful kiss on Zoe's cheek.
She leaves the light on when she leaves. Zoe will wake alone, and it will still hurt.
There will be time, though, to work on that.
**end**
shi er yue -- twelfth month on the Chinese calendar
san yue -- third month on the Chinese calendar
pusa -- Bodhisattva
Namo Ta-pei Kuan Shih Yin Pusa -- Namo to the Greatly Compassionate Kuan Shih Yin Pusa
Wu yong -- useless
**
Note: Info on Guan Yin can be found here, as well as many, many other sites (at least one of which, I promise, really does talk about her head exploding). Any and all inaccuracies here are…well, intentional. River does tend to muddle some things up.
Send Feedback to the Author of
Miao Shan (The Girl in the Sky Remix)
|
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters
belong to their owners/creators/copyright holders. This fan-written
fiction intends no infringement on any copyrights.