This ship is the most exciting place Inara has ever been. She can’t appreciate it for the first few minutes as she struggles to catch her breath, both from exertion and being winded. Maiya remains still in her hands, heart rate through the roof, her tiny claws digging in to Inara’s wrists. By the time Inara has enough breath to tell her to stop, Maiya is scrambling out of her hands and up onto her chest. She claws her way onto Inara’s shoulder as the latter sits up, setting her hands out behind her and looking about properly for the first time.
She has to catch her breath again.
It’s like a wonderland for children. The deck is a rainbow, each wooden slat a different vibrant colour. It glitters in the smiling sunlight, as though a thousand sequins have been crushed into the paint. Charging around on deck are gleeful children of a range of ages, some younger than Inara, others well into their teens. She’s never seen so many in one place before. More toys than she even knew existed in the world are scattered about and the children seem to be in a constant state of getting in one another’s way over them. As soon as one is tidied away into one of the enormous chests outside the cabin, at least three more have been extracted.
A voice cuts above the rabble, clear and youthful. Inara twists around to spy a teenager in scrappy clothes and a choppy hairdo watching her carefully. She’s different to the others – leaner, dirtier, more akin to Inara. These well-groomed, well-fed children are more like the landlubbers than the other children of the sea she’s encountered on other vessels.
Setting her feet flat onto the deck, she pushes herself up onto them and dusts herself off. It’s a useless gesture, since it’s difficult to tell what the original colour of Inara’s clothes are under the grime, but it’s vital to the image she needs to create. Although only five, Inara is well aware both of the crime of trespassing and the penalty for it. She can travel as she pleases only if she does so under the cover of a different identity.
“Am well, miss,” she tips a non-existent hat at the teenager and stands with her feet spread apart, hands on hips. “Am a boat inspect’a, see. Gotta make sure everythin’s all tip top. Are’ya re-spons-b’l for this ’ere ship?”
Aura