notes: title & summary from Rilke. for kindkit and inlovewithnight, both of whom said I'd love Zoe but neglected to mention Inara.
She does and loves and sometimes, late on a deep haul, she'll come to you.
And you will be grateful and think yourself a damn lucky *biao*.
You could learn from her, but she can't catch you watching.
She is skilled at everything she does. Her hands are small enough to fit into the gaps of your grief, her lips wide enough to laugh at you when you go too quiet. Her laughter runs through you like water, healthy, filtered until it shines silver like the rivers in children's waves.
She doesn't laugh often. You need to be out in the black for a good week, even two, before the quiet settles around her enough and the laughter can come. Like coaxing a cricket out of the rocks at the temple in the capital, you have to wait her out. Look elsewhere but stay close enough that she'll relax.
Even after the rutting's gone twice, three times on, hard heavy breaths and sweat gluing the two of you together, cold and sticky, she might not be relaxed enough.
You'll be dozing then, hand on the cords of her upper arm, and think that you're dreaming when you hear her voice. Just a trickle of sound, meditative and private, and you'll hold your breath, listening, willing yourself still as stone.
*Gui* gathering, bullets and the brown coats, death hanging heavy as mandarins' coats and lords' sashes, and she starts laughing.
When she laughs, you bathe in it, and the clean lasts you another month, another three.
You never say her name. All your skill draws back inside your chest and you are with her, alone, kissing her until the shudders creep up your flanks. You could come on her hands, shake and come again, paint those palms that kill as easily as you make tea.
You say her name later, in port or at the skyplex, enjoying a real bath paid for by some striving local, and touch your legs, your breasts, and you try to match her skill.
"Zoe," you whisper, and sometimes, not often, you hear her laughing with her husband. With him, there is love and joy.
You close your eyes then and remember you have skill enough.