What can you say is truly yours?

[xiao_meimei]

I ain't got much in the way of things. Don't see much use for 'em. I mean, I'd like to have some things like Inara's, but they'd just get all dirty in the engine-room anyways, so it don't much matter.

I've got one fancy dress an' it is right pretty an' all mine. A gift from the Captain. But I don't think that's necessarily what you're askin' about. Or maybe you are. 'Cause the question is what can I say is truly mine.

That dress is mine. My clothes an' the wooden duck I picked up on some moon. They's everywhere, so I figured I should have 'least one. My bunk ain't really mine. Just my bunk on Serenity. Serenity is the Cap'n's, much as I love her.

Simon ain't mine. Not yet, leastways, but I am workin' on it.

My friends are mine. My family. An' I'm theirs. It kinda works that way an' that's shiny.

Still, the question seems t'call for somethin' a bit deeper than all that an' I just don't...

The sky. The black. It don't rightly belong to anyone, but when you're out in it? Cap'n says it's freedom an' it's yours.

Belongs to each of us utterly an' solely an' collectively. They can put you away an' take everything you got, but you still got the sky, even if only in your dreams. The freedom it represents.

I guess that's mine. Ain't got no rules to follow 'cept Captain's, long as we keep on flyin'.

Comments

[pixie-viscera.livejournal.com]

Does your pretty duckling fly?

[xiaomeimei.livejournal.com]

No. It's just made of wood. Like a toy.

[pixie-viscera.livejournal.com]

Pity, that. When the stars wish it, she might spread her wings and plunge away.

[xiaomeimei.livejournal.com]

Huh? I don't rightly think so. She's just carved out of a piece o' wood. She ain't gonna fly anywhere.

[pixie-viscera.livejournal.com]

Why, you're only bits of paper and lace, dear dolly.

[xiaomeimei.livejournal.com]

You ain't quite right in the head, are you?

[pixie-viscera.livejournal.com]

Hush, wee dolly. Haven't yet grown lips or tongue to speak.

Do you know the pixie queen?

[xiaomeimei.livejournal.com]

No, I don't know any such person.

I do to have lips and a tongue. I'm right here talkin'.

[pixie-viscera.livejournal.com]

Not right. Not here.

[xiaomeimei.livejournal.com]

Well, no. I ain't where you are. But I'm where I am and I'm all grown.

[pixie-viscera.livejournal.com]

Dropped in the bathtub, floating in tin.

[xiaomeimei.livejournal.com]

Serenity ain't made of tin.

[pixie-viscera.livejournal.com]

Bits and pieces, humming and buzzing...

[xiaomeimei.livejournal.com]

Well. Yes. She does do that.

[pixie-viscera.livejournal.com]

Little toy boat in the bathtub. Careful should it sink and bubble.

[xiaomeimei.livejournal.com]

I think you're loonier than River.

[pixie-viscera.livejournal.com]

'M not gurgling.

[xiaomeimei.livejournal.com]

Neither does she. It's just her name.

[pixie-viscera.livejournal.com]

She runs and runs.

[xiaomeimei.livejournal.com]

...Yes.

[pixie-viscera.livejournal.com]

Do rivers run dry, hmmm?

[xiaomeimei.livejournal.com]

Not ours, no.

[pixie-viscera.livejournal.com]

Not yet.

[xiaomeimei.livejournal.com]

Won't. We won't let her.

[pixie-viscera.livejournal.com]

Mmmhmm.

[xiaomeimei.livejournal.com]

You got somethin' t'say?

[pixie-viscera.livejournal.com]

I went sailing away.

[xiaomeimei.livejournal.com]

Did you now? On a boat?

[pixie-viscera.livejournal.com]

In the winter wind. It was cold.

[xiaomeimei.livejournal.com]

You is certainly a strange, strange girl.

[mal-dasheng.livejournal.com]

Rules are on the ship. Rules that make you crew.

There be rules that are yours though, that even me being Captain ain't got no call to interfere with. Rules that are your own, being your own woman.

Don't mean I ain't going to go bossy on you though.

[xiaomeimei.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't be my Captain if you didn't.