river_meimei | (no subject)

(no subject)

There's a certain district on Beaumonde where nobody from Serenity much wants to go any more. There are a lot of bad memories there. There's also a lot of notoriety, if you happen to be River Tam, and potentially a lot of people with scars and grudges.

However, Beaumonde's a whole world. There's more to it than one dive bar.

Half a planet away, in a different city, there's a pedestrian market of the sort frequented by both tourists and locals. It's full of color, in paint and flowers and bright draping fabrics. It's also missing most of the neon, and most of the general air of seediness. No good for handovers of illegal goods -- but plenty good for a girls' day out.

River and Kaylee have a mission.

And the mission is: fun.

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Well, DUH, says River's face.

"We can get him one too. Share the uniform."

Mal would be thrilled, no doubt!

"But then you wouldn't have somethin' one of a kind," Kaylee says. Wisely.

"He can have glitter."

"Works." Kaylee nudges River with her elbow. "Come on. We got a lot of places to visit."

--Oh yeah, moving helps, says River's small jump.

Obediently, she starts forward into the crowd.

The hats are not quite what Kaylee hoped -- although she does eye a straw cowboy hat very wistfully -- but in the end nothing quite catches their eye.

They do have fun trying them on, though.

And, some time later:

They've discovered the food booths.

River has a paper cone full of doughnut holes, and some skewers that used to hold pineapple bits.

She seems to be building some sort of structure out of them, at the moment, rather than eating. But she's having fun!

Kaylee, meanwhile, is glad for the chance to put down the plant.

She's settled on top of the picnic table they've commandeered, and is perfectly content to rest her feet on the bench, lean back on her hands, and tilt her face toward the sun.

The doughnuts and skewers are currently forming something like a very complicated cube.

"The fifth dimension is recalcitrant," River informs Kaylee, without looking up.

Squelch, says a jelly-filled doughnut, mournfully.

Kaylee glances over, lazily.

"Well, beat it into shape already." Pause. "Or eat it."

(She seems entirely too amused by this.)

That gets River to lift her head.

Patiently, "Digestion ruins the proportional distance."

"Well, 'scuse me for livin'," she says, cheerful enough. "Four dimensions is enough for anybody anyhow, 'cause if you got the fifth, you don't got none left over to eat. Or hardly enough, anyhow."

"We'll have to eat them all. It's inextricable."

River is sage. And logical.

Amiable: "River, you want me to explode?"

River glances at her, quick and startled.

"No."

Somebody missed the 'metaphorically' memo.

"Skipped the nitroglycerin," she adds, in case Kaylee got confused about that.

"I don't know."

Kaylee shakes her head. "They might've slipped it into the fryer."

...

"Jayne can give them cooking lessons." Darkly.

"Oh, so it'll explode faster? That what you're after?"

"Efficiency is a culinary virtue," River informs Kaylee, and absentmindedly eats the corner-doughnut of the fifth dimension.

"Well."

Kaylee surveys the structure sadly.

"There goes the neighborhood."

"There aren't any residents."

River blinks down at her not-exactly-cube, as if just discovering it.

"I evacuated," she adds, and offers Kaylee another doughnut. Since it's demolition time, and all.

"That was real thoughtful of you," Kaylee remarks, before popping the doughnut in her mouth. "Mmm."

River looks satisfied.

Not to say smug.

"So once we're through destroyin' the neighborhood -- "

Kaylee says this once her mouth is no longer full.

"What's on the agenda?"

"We'll skip the rampage."

Of course the future still has monster movies.

"Fun," she adds, decisively and wholly unhelpfully.