------------------------------------------

"I was misinformed."

------------------------------------------

Mal/Inara Not overtly fluffy. Spoilers for everything, but only vaguely. Warning for "The Rouka is doing her spastic 'poetic' voice again."

Also, I am quoting various things not my own, cultural and religious.

--------------------------------------------

"I came to Casablanca for the waters."

------------------------------------------

A Slow Study ------------------------

Wisdom taught from her earliest days proclaimed that all desire led to suffering, all wanting led to losing and all holding held you bound in ties.

The art of happiness was to forsake possession.

It was a philosophy made for the child with the bouncing curls and ever moving feet. She ran where she should walk and laughed where she should speak softly but to the experienced eye she promised a grace and splendor still dormant in her baby-round limbs.

"Little bird," her mother said and held back the need to press her child too closely to herself. "She was made for watching only."

Like a creature of the wild. Happiest, untouched.

Love, wisdom told her, was the greatest of all powers. Love and compassion.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Ideals gained substance in the child that tended to her brother's scraped knees as gently as her own. Buddha smiled on her and she learned.

The art of love was to care without need.

The art of strength was to give.

In taking lay a cage.

The quiet girl. The loud girl. The always watching one. She grew a tree made of impulse and deliberation and took all her wisdom to heart.

At age twelve, Inara chose freedom. The gypsy, fairy freedom of sprinkling joy and ever-spread wings and being as cold or hot as the night allowed.

Paid for in gravity, gladly given.

Wisdom informed her, this was the way to serenity. The tranquil peace of mind.

The water in the desert.

Prices, she learned at age twenty-seven, were never what she chose to give. Prices came without warning and wrenched themselves from her in secret tears, in too bright light. Prices stared in the shade of sky-blue while she launched for flight once again.

"I'm leaving," she said and scratched at the hands that dared to reach.

The blood stayed under her nails, even as she washed them in the sweat of others, and her wisdoms sounded hollow, repeated them for others to learn.

Pleasures tasted like yesterdays bread.

At age twenty-eight, Inara learned horror.

She learned the price of tranquility.

She learned to haggle with her truths.

At age twenty-eight Inara learned that love was patience and kindness, love was forgiveness and perseverence. But not hers.

"Good answer," he said and glowed with the promise of ties and need and metal-barred cages.

She chose to take.

The gypsy freedom of scrapes and lack of possessions and being too hot in the night or too cold. Buddha smiled on her and she learned.

This was the way of Serenity. The beginning of a beautiful...

- - END.