Serenity: Deception

Chapter Three: Part 1

"Let's go up a mountain just to come down the same side. There's a great idea," Jayne said, sitting on the corner of the blanket throwing his knife into the ground in front of him.

Mal stood alone, just staring at the waving grass as though in a trance. Long grass and unscathed land were familiar to him. As a boy on the planet Shadow with his mother, Mal had spent days running through the fields with cap guns and jumping out at the few chickens on the ranch, sending them into fits. He remembered falling asleep at night to the lullaby of cows lowing and the sound of horses in the stable, their heavy hooves knocking against the wood plank floor.

River approached him, stood next to him and mimicked his stance with her arms crossed in front of her. Mal glanced at her briefly but didn't otherwise acknowledge her.

"Reminiscent of home?" River asked.

"No," Mal replied. "My home's a Firefly class freighter."

"Once you're on Serenity, you never leave. You just learn to live there," River said.

"Zoe's favourite line," Mal replied. "Any other home I knew is long gone, a vague memory, long in the past, a whole life ago."

"They burnt it to the ground," River said, reading Mal's mind.

"Gave the term scorched earth a whole new extreme. Made it so not a soul could ever live there again," Mal told her.

"Sometimes," River began, "I imagine I wasn't born. I imagine that I was planted like a seed beneath the floor of the ship and sprouted up and grew tall like a tree, strong and flexible but not unbreakable."

"I don't... I don't know what that means," Mal replied.

It had been a long, warm morning of relaxation and play around the vast valley. It seemed as though their feet were the only ones to ever leave footprints in the soil and the bent and broken grass. In the early afternoon, Mal, Zoe, Jayne and Nate headed in land on business. Mal took what jobs he could get; even those that were likely to make the cargo bay smell of fish for a month. Before he left, Nate led the others up the mountain path to a cool spring of crystal clear water.

River stood upon the rocks beneath a waterfall that trickled down into the spring. It was a tranquil place with the sound of running water and the faint call of birds high above in the canopy of the surrounding trees. It was an oasis surrounded by thick green foliage and rock sediment washed up onto the shore to form a small natural beach. Soon River was soaking wet, her hair hung in dripping drapes around her face and her sundress clung to her body.

Kaylee, wearing a wide brimmed sunhat, sat on a nearby rock with Simon, their feet in the water. Simon had rolled his slacks up to his knees and the sleeves of his shirt to his elbow. River jumped fully clothed into the spring, her dress ballooned out around her beneath the water. Her face broke the surface of the water and she pushed her wet tresses from her face with both hands.

River climbed out of the water onto a large rock that was heated by the sun and burned the bottoms of her feet. River slipped the sundress off her shoulders and removed it, revealing her bathing suit. She was wearing a one-piece white bathing suit with a sweetheart neckline and a black band that wrapped around her waist. River laid her dress flat on the rock to dry and then dove back into the water. Swimming swiftly beneath the shimmering surface of the water.

"It's like being on vacation," Kaylee said to Simon, admiring the surroundings, the spring with its picturesque waterfall and the trees with their infinite shades of green.

"I know. Though I didn't think a vacation with you would also have-"

"River!" Kaylee shouted, cutting Simon off.

"Right," Simon agreed.

River's head rose out of the water in front of them, a crossed expression on her face. She swam half a body-length toward them and then stopped, treading water.

"Simon's picturing you naked," she said smirking and then swam away.

Simon stuttered and fumbled for something to say.

"Okay!" he said finally.

"Wait, does this mean that River's now seen me naked?" Kaylee asked.

Simon nodded.

"She's gotta not do that," Kaylee told him.

Shortly after, River lay on the hot rock on top of her dress. The sun soon dried her body and gave her skin a bronze glow. She closed her eyes and pretended she were alone; she imagined that the oasis were hers and hers only. She felt a freedom as though the weight of rules and expectations lifted and the vigilant eyes of Simon and the crew were gone, even in the fantasy. River could have remained there, slept the night below the stars in the New Melbourne heat.