Firefly fic: Moon Girl (Myth Taker's Remix). R/J. PG.

Title: Moon Girl (Myth Taker's Remix)
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned here.
Rating: PG.
Original Story: Moon Girl
Original Author: meinterrupted
Summary: Mythology has its purposes, and only one is to convey information.

For aliaspiral's Remix challenge.

Moon Girl (Myth Taker's Remix)




The moon girl liked stories. Jayne understood this on some level, even if he didn't give it voice. He was supposed to be the stupid one on the boat, after all. He did the grunt work, he did the shooting and the killing. He certainly didn't do the talking. But the moon girl was all about talking. She was all about voice and movement and mystery. There was nothing more mysterious or convoluted than myth. Old stories, old meanings twisted and changed somehow, different from the words themselves. Words in myths carried weight, had meaning and substance in a way that ordinary words didn't.

So he understood that she liked stories. He did. He understood that she would like allegory and the mayhem in mythology. It helped put her own life into perspective. It helped to give her a voice, some sense of meaning in a realm that didn't give her much of anything.

He liked her voice. He liked the way her lips curled around the syllables as her hands curled around his body. It almost didn't matter what the individual words were, the meaning was the same. I have a voice. I have meaning. I matter.

Oh, yes. The moon girl mattered very much.

She was pale, like the images of the moon in Cortex captures. She was like the ghostly afterimage of a moon in the night sky in those dim memories of home that he tucked away and greedily kept to himself. Jayne could share them with her, if she asked, but she understood the need for privacy and secrecy. Boundaries. She understood those especially well now, as she had worked so hard to create them for herself.

Maybe that was another reason to like myths. Boundaries were pretty clear even when they were blurry. Relationships might change, but the people were always the same.

She could talk about the moon, about the myths of the moon, but as far as Jayne was concerned, she was talking about herself. "One becomes three becomes one again," River would say, talking about the three-in-one goddess that was the moon. She had been a whole girl once, then split apart into pieces, then glued back together into something resembling a girl again. Jayne knew her better than that, now. She wasn't a girl any longer. While everyone else wasn't looking, she had grown up into a woman. She was Selene/Persephone/Phoebe, she was the moon in its budding femininity, the sexual moon, the curve of lip and breast and thigh. River was more than a little girl, even if no one else knew it yet.

This was another secret he jealously kept guarded within him. This was something else he didn't want taken away.

River was more than just a body, more than a face and a form to mindlessly touch and release sexual energies. She had a mind, a voice, a heart. She had all these things, tucked away in hidden recesses, shadows behind the moon. She was layered even when she wasn't, even when she was trying to be clear. He liked that about her, even as it could be maddening.

Jayne pulled her close, the press of skin on skin reminding him where she was. She was like the moon, ever changing and slipping just out of his reach. One day she would grow tired of him, tired of the way he took in her words and syllables without always understanding them. One day she would disappear like the new moon overhead in his home world's sky. One day she would leave and all he would have is an afterimage, the ghostly sensation of lips on skin where she used to be. She would grow tired of him, of the time it took to explain things to him, of the blurring boundaries between them. He would be sorry when she left, and miss her terribly. Still, he wouldn't blame her. She was a Moon Girl, after all. The moon was always in a state of flux, shifting and sliding away as time passed.

"No, Jayne," she murmured, curling around him. Crescent shaped, face in the crook of his neck and hair fluttering all about them like a cloud. "Never, never." She moved fluidly, liquid pools for eyes that drank him in. River pushed him onto his back and straddled him, her right hand over his heart.

Her fingers could claw into him, take out his heart, strip the life from his bones. She could do whatever she wanted as the moon goddess, and he would let her. He was her Endymion, the one that took in the myths that dripped from her lips like honey. He breathed her in, took in whatever she was willing to give him.

River's smile was soft and full of love. "Even in darkness, the moon is there. Even with age, the moon is there. She is watchful, waiting, changing. She protects against the darkness, you know. She knows the secrets and protects us. She guards us, sees the meaning in the stars and waits with us until it's safe." She bent down, pressing her lips against his forehead. "I could never grow tired, Jayne. I would grow and shrink a thousand times and still find something new. I curl around you, around the shadow of you. And when I cease to be maiden, when I grow into mother and crone, I would still be there for you."

"Moon girl," Jayne whispered, voice hoarse. His fingers tangled in her dark hair, holding her close. He breathed in the scent of her, the feel of her. He had always been afraid to hope to have something real. Hoping just hurt, and hoping just set you up for disappointment.

"We have each other," she whispered against his forehead. "I will give you eternal youth and all I ask is love."

"You have it," Jayne whispered, voice more sure. His hands fell down the length of her spine, still holding her tightly. "Always."

The myths always had separation and loss as a theme. Someone always lost, someone always hid and had to give way to the changing seasons.

But the moon girl always came back, and she was always a three-in-one goddess. Things would change and things would stay the same.

Jayne couldn't complain. He was holding the moon in his hands.


The End.