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Inara had a bit of a soft spot for the shopping on Albion.
It wasn't quite the super luxe experience that one could find on Sihnon or Londinium or Osiris, where they had the boutiques with recognizable names, but there was a good selection of high quality shops that couldn't be found on Three Hills or other planets on the Rim. Whenever the crew stopped for refueling and maybe a contact meeting, Inara tried her best to set up appointments at her favorite ateliers or bring Kaylee along if neither of them were busy.
Unfortunately, their current stint on the planet was specifically so Kaylee could make a few overdue repairs, which meant that she couldn't tag along. Since leisure shopping was far less fun without her friend, Inara decided it was best to get some Companion business done. She had a stop first at Lau and Duffy department store for a tea shopping appointment with their sommelier. They always offered the best samples and were generous with their scoops. Inara purchased some jasmine green tea and a few small packets of fruit-flavored black teas.
Her next stop was at the couture studio that made her robes and capes. She decided to walk there rather than take the town tram and made the most of her meandering route. There were new store window displays for Spring Festival and Inara made notes of new clutches and a few pieces of jewelry that caught her eye. She smiled at the people who stared at her as she passed on the sidewalk and sometimes they caught themselves and smiled back. She peeked into a few street food stands, considering a snack after her appointment with Mr. Maltin, but nothing really piqued her interest.
Mr. Maltin greeted her as she walked through the studio doors, pulling her in to kiss her on the cheek and expressed excitement at the fact she was wearing a wrap of his creation for the visit. He managed to talk her into trying out a turquoise charmeuse jacket, even though she'd never felt that turquoise was really her color, and she was on her way with promises to return in about a month and a half for the final fitting.
With another kiss on the cheek goodbye and an envelope full of fabric samples to show off to Kaylee (and River too), Inara left Mr. Maltin's atelier and found herself with quite a lot of time left in the day and nothing else planned. She walked along the main road of the shopping district for a little while longer before she took a glance down a side street and found it lined with street food vendors and drink shops. Inara picked up her skirt and stepped off the curb to peruse what was on offer.
Three stalls down, she found two young women making tanghulu, and after a moment spent watching the sugar syrup bubbling in the wok, Inara bought a skewer of glossy strawberries. Kaylee had probably been working all day while Inara had been wandering, and she certainly deserved something sweet.
She carried the tanghulu back to the ship as carefully as she possibly could, holding it delicately as she caught the tram from city center to the docks. Shepherd book was sitting in a folding chair on the ramp, acting as both ship representative to the people of Albion as well as the first line of security. He smiled as she approached.
"I see you had a fruitful day out and about," he said. Inara huffed a laugh.
"I hope you had the chance to walk around a little," she replied.
"Oh, I've been to Albion before," he said softly. "I'd prefer to stay home when it comes to spending time here."
"Well, then I hope you had a restful morning," Inara amended, and he smiled and nodded and returned to his reading. Inara passed him and started up the stairs towards the engine room. She paused for a moment at her shuttle to drop off her tea shopping bag but was standing at the door of the engine room in no time at all.
There were loose wires arcing through the space, parts laid out on the floor, and little yogurt containers and jam jars full of washers and nuts arranged in two rows under the hammock. Kaylee stood in the middle of it all, overall sleeves rolled up to her elbows, hair tied back, wrench in hand.
"Hello, hello," Inara said after spending a few moments watching Kaylee in her element. Kaylee looked up, a little startled at first to hear someone talking, but then her face lit up with a grin.
"Hey 'Nara! How'd your morning go?" She asked, turning her attention back to the mechanic issue at hand.
"Not too bad at all. Stocked up on tea; mostly jasmine, but I also bought some peach ginger tea I think you might like to try."
"I'd love to, if you ever have some you don't mind sharing."
"I wouldn't mind sharing with you at all," Inara assured her. "How are the repairs going?"
"Very smoothly," Kaylee said confidently, relief obvious in her voice. "I really just needed time dirtside to let everything cool off and not have to pay attention to moving parts. We're pretty golden now; Wash took me to the junkyard and they had exactly what I was looking for, so now I just have to get everything back into place. I took an extra bit of time to do some cleaning up of old grease and dust, too." She glanced back at Inara and only now did she notice the skewer of tanghulu that Inara was holding. She did a small double take but fixed her attention back on the engine. "It looks like you had some fun out and about."
"I bought it for you," Inara said, and giggled when Kaylee blushed.
"I hadn't wanted to assume, but…"
"You need a bit of a break," Inara said. "You've been working hard all morning." She held the skewer out and Kaylee hesitated.
"Ah…there was a lot more build up in the engine than you might thing," she said sheepishly, holding up her hands, which were caked in smears of black and the distinctive deep red of her preferred lubricant brand (Inara had once seen her hands covered in it early on in her stay on Serenity and panicked, thinking it was dried blood). "I'm afraid I'm not really in any state to be eating anything with my hands."
"Well, I'll feed it to you," Inara suggested immediately. "You deserve something sweet."
"Alright," Kaylee said, setting down her wrench. Inara held out the skewer and Kaylee leaned forwards to crunch into one of the candied berries, making a surprised little noise as the sugar shell cracked and strawberry juice went everywhere.
Without thinking, Inara wiped the juice up from Kaylee's chin and brought her fingers to Kaylee's mouth and after a beat, Kaylee got the memo and closed her lips around Inara's finger to lick up the strawberry juice and little wayward shards of the sugar shell. Inara couldn’t tear her eyes away from Kaylee's mouth. Maybe she'd let Inara slip more of her fingers past those lips…
Kaylee made a noise halfway between a moan and a confused whimper and Inara tore herself away from her sudden fantasy to realize that she'd been slipping the tip of her tongue through her teeth and her lips were slightly parted and Kaylee was looking at her like she'd suddenly thrown open a door that until now had been locked up tight and invited her through it.
"Inara?"
"I…are the berries good?" Inara asked.
"Yeah, they're really good. Thank you." Kaylee's voice was wobbly in a way Inara had never heard before.
"Do you think…could we…" Inara actually had to pause and wait for her brain to catch up to what exactly was going on, but she eventually got ahold of herself. "Would you like me to save these? We could share them later in my shuttle. Along with some of that peach tea. If you like."
"Yeah! Yeah I'd…yeah. I'll uhm…get this all cleared up as quick as I can and then…should I dress up?" Kaylee wondered.
"Ah, no. No need. You could wear something soft and comfy, though," Inara said, images of getting Kaylee into one of her velvet robes (and nothing else) flickering through her head.
"Okay. It won't be more than two hours."
"I hope you're not too distracted now," Inara said, a bit apologetically. Kaylee giggled.
"I did all the fiddly stuff already. Now it's just puttin' it all back. I could do it with my eyes closed, I reckon."
"Alright. I'll be waiting," Inara promised.