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Inara's shuttle smelled like flowers. It was how River came to discover it in the first place (drawing back the covers on something hidden and secret); she was walking the corridors of Serenity and measuring its boundaries, suddenly become her boundaries unless she were to steal a shuttlecraft, and passed near one of its twin shuttles and caught the scent of forsythia.She tracked the scent to a closed door that opened for her and blinked into candlelight and Inara's annoyed face that smoothed away into placidity and polite interest when she saw River. She smiled. "River. Would you like to come in?"River did. She stood in the middle of Inara's floor and saw flowers that had little scent and incense that had a great deal of scent and breathed in forsythia and candleflame, tasting their sweetness and heat in her throat."You can have a seat," Inara said, rising to her feet with a slither of silk. She gestured to her chair and then to her bed. "Wherever you'd like."The bed looked more comfortable, layers of blankets and pillows crumpled together like petals in a flower, but too comfortable and River would fall into the bed and into sleep, so she took the chair instead. Her dress slid across the seat with less of a slither than Inara had made: cotton sliding on silk rather than silk on silk. This close, the flowers smelled sweet, though Lilium davidii usually were unscented. River pressed her face forward and felt their petals brush across her cheeks and forehead."I don't often have the opportunity to have fresh flowers on board," Inara said quietly behind her. "They're something of a rare treat for me."Flowers were a rare treat for River, too. She closed her eyes and let the petals kiss her eyelids with soft, cool kisses.The bud in River's teacup unfurled slowly, blossoming in the hot water. River took a deep breath of fragrant steam and heard Inara doing the same from her chair. "Your shuttle reminds me of home," she said. "Not only in a crass and monetary way, though that's part of it, too."Inara turned a little pink, but she said, "Being a Companion tends to pay better than making delivery runs between backend worlds.""Yet your fortune's aligned with ours.""Yes." Inara nodded. "It wasn't a wise choice at all, but I think it was a good one. Most days, anyway.""You're the diamond in our rough," River said. "Not counting Simon, who isn't very rough at all, although he's trying."Inara laughed. "He certainly is," she said.River smiled at her and took a sip of tea, delicate and floral on her tongue."As the peach-blossom flows down stream and is gone into the unknown, I have a world apart that is not among men," River said, breathing in peach-scented incense from her comfortable curl in Inara's bed.Inara snorted delicately. "Men intrude in this 'world apart' with quite a bit of regularity.""Not when I'm here," River said and leaned forward a little to kiss Inara's soft, sweet mouth.Inara's lips stretched into a smile, and then she returned the kiss. "No, not when you're here, mei mei," she said several minutes later, brushing River's hair away from her forehead with a gentle hand.River turned her head to press a kiss to the palm of that hand, and then she slipped down farther in the bed to kiss elsewhere, tasting salt and a hint of sweetness as Inara's body opened to her like a heavy, ripe flower.