At the Last Reaches, for pearl_o

At the Last Reaches
by fourteenlines

FANDOM: Firefly (Inara/Nandi)

DISCLAIMER: Mutant Enemy owns the characters, but the author lays claim on the words.

RATING: R for naughty but mostly non-explicit girl-bits

SUMMARY: Some people thought Inara was cold-hearted, but really, her heart was simply never longing in the direction that people expected.

NOTES: Written (as a backup) for pearl_o in the Femslash 05 Ficathon. (Though some het slipped in there by accident. Sorry. *g*) Thanks go to Sophia for extending the deadline by a few hours, and Shrift and Thea for thorough and last-minute beta reading. I apologize for the places where I've cheerfully ignored your comments.




+++

Something the heart must have to cherish,
Must love and joy and sorrow learn;
Something with passion clasp, or perish
And in itself to ashes burn.
--Longfellow

+++

The morning sun was slowly creeping across the floorboards when a sly hand slid under the silk duvet and skated across Inara's bare breast. She started in her sleep. That same hand brushed a few tendrils of hair from Inara's neck, and a low voice crooned in her ear, "Good morning, my little early riser."

Sleepily, Inara grinned and burrowed deeper into the downy bedcovers. "Nandi," she chided.

Spider-fingers walked across the milk-white stretch of her exposed arm, then disappeared as Nandi lifted the duvet and slipped in beside her. Inara stifled a gasp at the sensation of Nandi's unclad flesh brushing against her own.

"Yes, mei-mei?"

Inara reached lazily backward, smoothed her hand over Nandi's long bare flank. She blinked and turned, stretching, onto her back. "I was having a good dream," said, in mock disapproval.

"Care to tell me about it?" Nandi asked, laughing. "Here you are, lolling in bed on a very important day, mei-mei. You wouldn't expect your big sister to let you turn into a layabout, would you?"

Inara rolled her eyes. "It's not such an important day."

"Of course it is! You've finally graduated from infernal etiquette lessons and being trained on the gorram lute. You're getting down to business. The core of the matter, if you get my drift." Nandi grinned hugely and licked her lips.

"You have a rim-dweller's sense of humor, Nandi," Inara said, amused despite her better angels.

Nandi's hand snaked over Inara's belly. "Beckridge is a good instructor. He'll give you a decent fuck. Make sure you come at least once. After you get the job done, of course"

Inara's lips thinned and she turned on her side again, away from Nandi. "A rim-dweller's sense of dignity, too."

"Inara." Nandi kissed her shoulder and regarded her with the first serious expression to cross her face all day. "You don't have to do it, you know. There are plenty of women who'll hire female companions."

"And the female companions who do never make any money."

"Well..." Nandi's lips came to rest on her neck, the tip of her tongue venturing out to stroke along Inara's leaping pulse. The hand on Inara's belly slid lower. "I suppose it would be a labor of love."

Inara stiffened and batted Nandi's hand away. She threw off the covers and vaulted out of bed, a cloud of plum-colored silk fluttering behind her as she pulled on her favorite robe.

"I know you're not nearly that naïve, Nandi, but I can't believe you're trying to manipulate me this way." She took a deep breath, quickly, in an effort to mask the shakiness. "You might as well tell me what you're really trying to get at."

"Besides your yindao?"

Inara raised one well-groomed eyebrow. "Besides that." She crossed her arms and gave Nandi a look that clearly communicated the shortened nature of her patience.

Nandi rolled her eyes and flopped back on Inara's scented pillow. "I'm just worried about you, mei-mei. If you don't like cock, you shouldn't have to take it. But there you go, about to take it anyway."

"Just because you have a natural affinity for the -- the male sexual organ does not mean that every Companion must."

Nandi threw Inara a particularly eloquent look of utter exasperation. She rose to her knees on Inara's bed, the coverlet pooled around her legs, her breasts swaying slightly as she balanced herself. Inara frowned and shifted. Nandi reached out, threaded her fingers through Inara's own and slowly, carefully, drew her back toward the bed. "Well gou shi, Inara," she said breathlessly, "natural affinity or not, if you're hell-bent for leather on servicing men, you're gonna have to learn to like it anyway."

Nandi made short work of the loose knot clasping Inara's robe. As the silk fell away from her skin, and Nandi's hands drew Inara's mouth ever closer to her own, Inara said, "I guess I'll learn to like it then."

+++

At supper that night, Nandi brushed past her in the dining room and murmured, "How are you, mei-mei?"

Inara looked up from under her lashes. "Sore," she said sardonically.

Nandi smirked and took her seat, farther up the table toward the House Mother. She extended her arm a little too grandly when the House Mother passed the bread, and held her fork at an angle that was just slightly too oblique to be strictly natural. It was nothing that most people would notice, and the House Mother said nothing because those perfect, over-the-top manners were the vogue at the time. But Inara knew Nandi, and she knew there was a mocking note in it, that it was just a little too put-on.

Inara, on the other hand, slipped into a Companion's skin like it was second nature. She never had to resort to playacting to attract attention. It was all far more subtly done than that.

Beckridge was down the table as well, and he caught her eye, gave her the slightest nod of approval. It had gone well, all things considered. And if it was done right, her soul never had to get involved, for all that she might convince people otherwise.

Inara retired early that night.

The door inched open around eleven o'clock, and caused Inara to look up from the book she was reading. "Come in, Nandi," she said. "Would it be asking too much to expect you to knock?" She grinned as Nandi's head peeked through the door.

"Good, the lights are low. Close your eyes, mei-mei."

"What? Why?" Inara asked. Nandi tilted her head, and Inara sighed, complying. "You might as well come in."

The door shut softly, and Inara heard the soft click of the lock catching. "Come to have your wicked way with me, Nandi?"

"You might say that." Nandi's silk robe made a shushing sound as it fell from her shoulders. "You can open your eyes."

Inara did.

Suddenly, it felt like there was no air at all in the room. Her throat was dry and she couldn't take her eyes off of Nandi, not while she crossed the room with a predatory gleam in her eyes, not while she crawled up the bed and parted Inara's legs like water parts for the prow of a sampan. It was all Inara could do to look up into Nandi's eyes, and not at the smooth black object, long and curving slightly upward, which was strapped to Nandi's hips.

"Um," she said, swallowing hard as saliva suddenly flooded her mouth.

"Did it go well this afternoon, Inara?"

"Yes," Inara gasped out.

"Not nearly as well as this will," Nandi promised, crashing recklessly into Inara, tongue thrusting into her mouth, hands greedy on her breasts. The blunt surface of Nandi's new toy brushed against Inara's thigh. Nandi didn't bother to check if Inara was prepared, just slid in, deep and rough and Inara threw her head backwards, her back arching. She reached up to grab the headboard, and held on.

+++

Inara woke in the middle of the night, roused by the heaviness of Nandi's arm still resting across her torso. "Nandi," she said, using her free hand to shake her bedmate softly. "Nandi, wake up."

Nandi took a deep breath and blinked awake, her hair falling in her eyes. Inara reached out and rubbed a smudge of eye makeup from her cheekbone. "Turning the tables, Inara?" Nandi asked, voice still rough from sleep. She buried her head in the extra pillow and yawned widely.

"You -- I'm sorry, you could stay, if you want." Nandi seldom fell asleep in Inara's bed, and even when she did, Inara was always the sole occupant come morning. She always slept soundly through Nandi's departure.

Nandi rolled to the side. The strap-on dildo looked nothing but sad and more than a little ridiculous at this time of night, half-unfastened and hanging neglected from Nandi's right thigh. She stretched and pulled the thing off.

Inara touched her back. "I didn't mean to --"

"Have you seen my robe?"

"Over there," Inara said. Her hand fell back to the matress. "By the footstool."

Nandi donned her robe and hid the toy in its voluminous sleeves. She turned to stare at Inara, her eyes reflecting light from the window. Inara wished she would have slept through the night.

"Good night, mei-mei," Nandi said softly, and turned to the door. The lock made a loud, heavy sound when it opened, and then the door shut, leaving Inara alone.

+++

It was some time afterward that Inara first saw Nandi with Alexander. He was a younger son of a prominent family on Xenon, and he'd never been one of Nandi's clients. Inara knew immediately, by the way that Nandi looked at him, that Nandi's time in her bed would shortly draw to a close.

He was a cad, in Inara's private opinion, but when it came down to it, she never did know if that opinion arose from jealousy or from some other, better instinct.

"Oh come on, Inara. We were having fun. Scratching the itch. You knew that," was the only thing Nandi said when Inara asked her about their own erstwhile arrangement. The thing of it was, Inara did know. She knew very well. She would never be what Nandi wanted, just as none of Inara's male clients would ever be what she wanted.

"Of course I did," Inara said. She didn't attempt to conceal the false note in her smile. The thing that got to her was how Nandi had always looked down on her somehow, like she was a charming provincial schoolgirl, simply because Inara still believed in falling in love. Nandi thought falling in love was a load of hogwash, a fairy story. Inara found it ironic that their arrangement ended because Nandi had gone and done it anyway.

Time passed. They nodded politely when they passed one another at mealtimes. Inara took her first client, and positively stunned him with her graces. She said nothing about it to Nandi. And when Alexander left her, Nandi didn't come to her to pour out heartaches on Inara's bosom. Inara heard about it from another of the girls.

Sometimes she fancied she could hear Nandi crying herself to sleep from down the hall, but that was really nothing but foolishness.

Shortly thereafter, the House Mother decided to start the girls on the dulcimer. By the time Nandi was shunned by the Guild, Inara hadn't associated with her in months anyway.

+++

The shuttle was dusty and dark, with hard edges everywhere. It was the polar opposite of House Madrassa, and everything she'd known in the life she left behind. Inara could change that, of course, but from the moment she'd seen the ship she'd known she would book passage, no matter the accomodations. The ship was a Firefly-class freighter, and maybe some would say she wasn't an appropriate vessel for a Companion, but when Inara looked at her she saw nothing but rustic elegance, a kind of faded dignity that couldn't be hidden by oxidized panelling and screeching hinges.

Inara had trunks full of silk and velvets, pillows and draperies. She could make the shuttle suit her needs. The ship, Serenity, filled a far more urgent need Inara felt. The need for freedom. The need, she supposed, to run away, just like Nandi.

Only of course it was nothing like Nandi's departure. True, Inara would have liked to be House Priestess. But she would never be House Priestess now, and she would have to learn to accept it.

The ship's captain she could deal with. He looked at her and he saw one thing, when in reality he had no idea who she was on the inside. She would maintain the illusion -- she was a Companion, after all. Inara ran a hand over the shuttle's steel frame.

Yes, she could certainly deal with the captain, if that was what it took to book passage on Serenity.

+++

Inara swept from the galley, her pride burning in her chest. Her cheeks were flushed, and it was unacceptable. Unfathomable. He was so --

"Inara!"

-- close behind her. Mal's hand seized on her arm just above her elbow. She clenched her muscles hard, anywhere he might not see, in order to keep from flinching.

Goosebumps broke out on her arms and she wished there were a way to control one's autonomic nervous system.

"What do you want, Mal?" she snapped.

"Don't go makin' a big deal out of it. Just ain't safe, is all." He was closer now, he'd taken a step closer, and she could smell him.

"I don't recall ever asking you to keep me safe, Mal."

Yes, good. Keep saying his name. Try to remind her body who this was, try to figure out why in the world she would react this way to him. She understood the science of attraction but this new aspect bewildered her as much as anything. His eyes were dilated and she could not look at him for the expression they held.

He didn't smell like the men she used to know. The men, to be perfectly frank, who had never excited her curiosity or made her body thrill. Mal smelled like hard work, and worry, and if he smelled good to her it was all him, not cologne or aftershave or anything artificial.

Inara pulled her arm away.

"I never asked you to treat me like a lady," she called over her shoulder, and even as she said it she knew how ridiculous it sounded.

+++

Some part of her wished that she could have ignored Nandi's cry for help. Another hoped that she hadn't chosen Serenity, chosen Mal, chosen to live her life on a series of ever-bleaker border moons, simply in the hopes that this would one day happen. Thinking such a thing probably meant it wasn't so, but Inara couldn't say for certain.

Nandi's hands didn't linger on her skin when they greeted one another, and Inara's heart stuttered at the way Nandi regarded Mal. It wasn't fair, that the two things she wanted were in this room, and neither one was something she could have.

After their meeting with Burgess, she retired to the birthing room gratefully, thankful that she had a task to concentrate on. She could keep up the charade as long as she wanted, but it did begin to wear a little thin.

Nandi stopped her in the hallway when Simon sent her for clean rags. "Inara," she said, smiling her old smile, and Inara knew it was not for her. "You haven't developed a sudden and unexpected affinity for the male sexual organ, have you?"

Inara drew in a breath. "Nandi. Let's not." She brushed past and drew up short when Nandi clutched at her hand.

"Mei-mei," Nandi said, squinting. "You're -- don't be mad. It's just the way things are. I ain't made for women any more than I'm made to be a Companion."

Inara's expression went perfectly blank. She had seldom been more grateful for her training. "I'm not angry, Nandi. I need clean rags, can you tell me where to find them?"

Nandi searched her face, but whatever advantage she used to have on Inara in keeping up appearances, she'd long since lost. She let out a breath that prickled against Inara's skin. "Laundry's the second door off the kitchen. Careful, they're still nailin' up boards in there."

Inara nodded and proceeded on her way. She tried not to think of the designs Nandi clearly held on Mal. It would do no one any good.

+++

Inara buried Nandi to the thin strains of "Amazing Grace," heard faintly in her buzzing ears. She'd known the woman the longest, but Inara thanked God that she no longer depended on her, like these girls did.

She did not cry at Nandi's funeral. She tried not to think about what it meant that she could cry over sex, but not death. All the things it said about her were things she didn't like.

+++

A man's body could bring her to completion, just as she could use all her skills to bring him to a climax the likes of which he'd never known. But it was nothing like the way she might long for the sensuous curve, the soft embrace of a woman's body. Some people thought she was cold-hearted, but really, her heart was simply never longing in the direction that people expected.

Malcolm Reynolds ruined so much that she'd thought was worked out in her life. She never could quite figure out what to do with him. She started taking female clients, in her fierce need to feel the touch of a woman's body again.

The night that Nandi died, the night that she told Mal she was leaving, Inara sat in her shuttle and thought about them together. They were the only two people she had ever really loved. She thought about the way their bodies must have entwined, and her breath came fast and she could not, could not, discern which of them she desired more, even in her imagination. It turned her world upside down. It had always defaulted to Nandi, before, even when it was Mal.

He'd never know it, but that was why she had to leave him. She was glad it had been him, on Nandi's last night. She was also aware of the irony. She and Mal always seemed to love the same things, to want the same things. She'd loved this ship before she loved Mal, and he'd loved it before he'd ever loved anything. Here, in the dark of her shuttle and at the last reaches of her soul, she could admit it forthrightly, as she'd never done before.

Her feelings on the matter had nothing to do with jealousy, or if they did, there was no way for her to tell who, exactly, she was jealous of. She didn't have enough perspective, and that was the one thing she could not do without. In the end, Mal had Nandi, and Nandi had Mal, and if she wanted them both, there was nothing for it. Even if Nandi weren't dead, there was still no solution that didn't carry with it too many complications.

Just because Inara believed in falling love, that didn't mean she could bring herself to give in to it.

--

end