milliways_bar | The Crew.

"Not saying anything about 'serial killer,' but Jayne's right, and leaving aside just how scary that is -- "

Wash spreads his hands flat against the table, staring in open, scared disbelief at the gunslingers. "You can't be serious. No. No freakin' way are you talking about attacking the Academy."

Zoe lays one hand on top of her husband's, and looks around at the gunslingers again.

Casually, frankly, "I'm havin' a hard time seeing how that's doable, myself."

Eddie is standing. His hazel eyes are blazing and fixed on Jayne.

Of the people on the gunslingers's side of the table, only he really knows the term 'serial killer'. Susannah and Ted's times were a little early on that front.

"For the good of every 'verse, you goddamn coward. And you don't want to let your puling mouth talk about a gunslinger that way ever again. You really don't."

He turns to Zoe, ignoring Wash entirely. His rage fades but not the intensity. "There were four of us in Blue Heaven. There were one hundred and eighty guards, sixty to a shift. We killed them all and lost one man. You'll be amazed at what's doable with five gunslingers on your side."

*Jayne's head whips around, and before Eddie's even done talking, he's facing him head-on.*

I work for pay and nothin' else, and I ain't never backed down from a fight when I've got sufficient incentive to participate.

And last I looked, you weren't nothin' much to look on, so I guess you better keep any comments about my mouth to yourself, you hē chùsheng zájiāo de zānghuò.

Eddie's right hand is on Susannah's shoulder, clamped hard enough that, when they go to bed tonight, there'll be bruises, although neither is aware of it right now. It's a measure of restraint--for both of them.

If Detta gets started, Jayne will be leaving with his balls in a convenient carryout bag.

His mouth tastes like adrenaline, old pennies and dogshit, and every drop of it wants him to do something that will fuck everything up.

"You don't want to come, you can sit here and eat cherries while other people risk their lives. Nobody asked you to ride along. And you're right. Come to a fight, I guess Simon could take me at this point."

"But I am not alone."

"You never heard of a gunslinger before tonight. You didn't know River was one. Fair enough. You owe her an apology, but if she wants it I guess she can ask for it herself."

Zoe has been staring at Eddie, her composure visibly shaken by his last words about Blue Heaven, not to mention his calling River a gunslinger. She's glancing sharply toward Jayne now--but Mal is already stepping in.

"Jayne." His tone is low but lethally sharp, his eyes hard. He leans in, making sure Jayne's attention is on him. "We didn't come here to insult these people. We came here for serious talk about a serious matter, and if you can't keep your xī niú mouth shut, then walk away right now. Just don't complain later if your voice ain't heard when we decide on the matter."

*For his part, Jayne hasn't yet processed the whole gunslinger end of things, but he knows authority when he hears it, even if he doesn't know the word dinh from dinner.

Wordlessly, he subsides, still glaring at Eddie, but quiescent.*

River's hands slowly unclench -- it looks as if there ought to be a creaking sound -- and she raises them to shove her hair back roughly, lifting her head to stare up at a rafter across the bar.

"Ain't worth the paper," she says calmly. "Gets stupid and talks too much. It doesn't matter."

*Jayne starts and pales.

(The money was too good.)

He seems to pull in on himself without moving, eyes on River and Mal all at once.

He won't be saying a gorram word.*

And now Roland comes back to the table.

He's seen the exchange.

He and Eddie will be speaking later.

But for now, he stands at his place, hands cupped in front of him.

Tall, calm, impassive, he says, "A gunslinger, yar. River Tam is a gunslinger true. She faced me in rite of trial and came out the victor."

Roland lays his hand -- or what's in his hands -- on the table.

It's a rose in bloom, still as whole as the day it came from Anthy's hands.

"I cannot tell you the true reason that my tet chooses to attack Blue Heaven, for it hasn't happened to me yet. But it will -- and I have no doubt that we do it to keep the worlds -- all the worlds -- from ending. And there are strange connections, say true -- our Blue Heaven, and the Academy. And others, I have no doubt -- but because this has not yet come to pass for me, Eddie and Ted know more than I do."

His eyes go to River.

"But I will say this: it is not only our quest that makes us wish to destroy the Academy. River is a born gunslinger. A born warrior. Bound to our code -- though she and I have agreed that she will not carry iron until she is well. Her brother loves her well, and wishes to see her so. So do I feel."

Roland looks down at the rose for a moment, then gathers the Serenity folken with his eyes. "This rose -- it is only through magic that it has lasted this long, for River cut it from me in our duel. But I have kept it as a reminder and a promise to myself -- that any young woman gifted as River is deserves to fulfill her true potential, and not that imposed upon her by force by Doctor Sergio Lin and his colleagues, at the Academy at Setebos."

A small smile, now. Information. Just enough to prove that someone has done their homework.

"And if the rest of the children at the Academy are as River is -- I'd see that place razed and its ground sown with salt, sais. Say true."

Simon looks at the rose, and at River. She's looking at the rose too, her eyes a little too bright but her face otherwise curiously serene.

And again he sees it: the blade in River's hand, swiftness and power and grace, cutting the stem and saving the rose.

Somehow, when he wasn't looking, that moment has become emblematic to him of everything it means to be a gunslinger. Everything it means that River is a gunslinger.

Silently he looks around at the rest of the crew.

Shepherd Book is studying River intently; concern is clear in his dark eyes, and his brow has clouded over.

(she's just a child)

Zoe looks intently at Roland, trying to grasp what he's saying about River as a gunslinger when she's not even sure what a gunslinger is.

She glances at the girl, then at Mal. He meets her eyes briefly, but his expression is inscrutable, and she looks back to Roland instead, wishing he were easier to read. He doesn't seem like a dishonest man, but...

But doubts can be discussed when they're back on the ship. For now she leans back in her seat, one hand still resting on Wash's, and waits for one of the gunslingers to go on.

Wash has been silent. Not with shock, though, nor entirely with disbelief any longer. The side of one hand's pressed to his mouth as he thinks, brow furrowed deeply; the other's still touching Zoe's.

There's something very off about all of this. (Well, aside from the obvious part: that they're actually discussing, quite calmly and rationally, the idea of razing a major Alliance outpost to the ground. Ruttin' hell.)

Then it hits him, and he looks up at Roland suddenly.

"Setebos?" he repeats. "That's -- that doesn't make any sense. It's a dead planet, the terraforming didn't take. How would they...."

And he trails off. There's a look on his face that says he might have just answered his own question.

Slowly, they're being convinced. Slowly is just fine, so long as it takes.

Mostly they are, anyway. He's keeping a eye on this Jayne, even if he's not looking at him right now. Harrier, cruel, undirected mind and hand and mouth that strike out on their own when he's scared -- oh yes, he's watching. No fit tet-mate for a gunslinger, this one. No one to have at your back.

Eddie's fury fed them all, even if it's banked and hidden now that the confrontation is over, subsumed into silent support for Roland.

To Wash, he just nods, slowly. He doesn't know the word terraforming, but he gets the gist. Oil tankers in a dead refinery; prisons in the desert.

Kaylee has been biting her lip, hard. Fighting won't help River, and that's what they came to do.

But what this Roland said -- and gorram it if he doesn't look like the captain, and act like him, too, only older and...stranger -- a gunslinger? Kaylee can believe that. But what about the other part?

Kaylee raises her hand, timidly. And when Roland tells her to say on, she says, "Uh. I was just wonderin', if that's all right, 'cause I'd kinda like to know what's with all that -- all the 'verses ending?"

Eddie looks up, briefly, then glances at Roland and Ted, then back down at his clenched fists.

He's not inclined to be talky any more tonight either.

Roland nods. "Fair question." And he settles back in his chair.

"You all know what a wheel looks like. Spokes, and an axle. Existence is like this. The axle is the Dark Tower -- a tower at the end of End-World, in my where and when. And as you go up the tower...there are doors to many worlds. All the worlds. All the wheres and whens. It is the heart of everything. And it has ever been the task of the gunslingers of Gilead to protect the Dark Tower, and to see that it stands."

It is possible that Roland's tet-mates suddenly see a brief picture of a tower of soot-colored stone in a field of roses and huge fallen black stone faces, at sunset -- but it is gone, almost as soon as it appears.

"The Dark Tower is the axle, and the Beams are the spokes. Twelve spokes, and six Beams. If the Beams break, then the Tower falls. Just Before I was pulled into Milliways, the fourth Beam snapped. If another one goes, the Tower will fall into chaos and fire -- and all the worlds will go with it."

And now he is sitting straight in his chair. Now he extends his left hand to the left side of the table; his right to the right. "This is what we are working to prevent."

And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what Ted's role is in this, and Roland knows he shouldn't know -- but they can worry about that later.

"Dark Towers, Beams; all this stuff I ain't never seen in my life before, let alone heard of," Mal injects, breaking his silence that has persisted for quite some time during the conversation. He motions to the rest of the crew of the ship sitting around the table, asking, "Do you have an inkling of a concrete plan to do this, or is that where we come in? I'm out of practice tryin' to save anyone else but my own, but my crew has experience in sussin' out plans that get us on the side of things that we want to be on."

Susannah speaks, now.

Eddie is silent next to her.

"You understand, Mr. Reynolds -- we're not from your world. We don't know the particulars. We don't have maps of all the planets you and your crew travel to. If this is going to be done, we'll have to work together, because as handy as the Bar is, there's information that we just can't get here. But when we all have that information...we can come up with a plan, and a good one. As Eddie said, we took on a hundred and eighty with four, and lost one man."

Her voice and expression remain steady.

"And you folks look like you know what you're doin' around weapons, I'd say. It's got to be a collaborative effort if there's any way for this to work."

*Jayne was planning to keep his mouth shut, but even the best laid plans can go to waste, and Jayne was never any good at laying plans, say thankya.*

You're gorram right, we know our way around weapons. Took out a whole fèifèi de pìyăn space station by our lonesomes.

*His eyes are narrowed with the heat of a challenge, and he nods to indicate the gunslingers' weapons.*

You better believe we got enough firepower to match your frilly little antiques there.

Roland cuts into the sudden tension running along his side of the table.

Cordial: "Last I checked, sai, only took one bullet to stop a man." He inclines his head slightly. "We're content with our tools, say true."

The corners of his mouth turn up. It's not a smile. Not exactly.

Zoe's own mouth twitches upward briefly, and she cuts Jayne off with a look before he can say anything further.

She leans forward, then, looking from Roland to Susannah--who she already thinks it might be good to talk to outside of a group palaver.

"Mal and I are both war veterans, and Jayne, well--we don't exactly keep him around on account his winning personality. If there's any shooting to be done, the three of us usually handle it. The others avoid combat, mostly, but Wash and Book can both handle themselves with guns, and if push comes to shove, Inara's no lightweight with a sword. Far as non-combat goes, you won't find a better pilot than Wash, a better mechanic than Kaylee, or a better doctor than Simon."

There's distinct pride in her voice as she lists the crew's assets, pride for all of them--even Book, who's still a vexing mystery in many ways, and Jayne, who seems more trouble than he's worth some--well, all the time. Her crew. Her family. Her ka-tet--even if she doesn't know that term yet.

She looks from Susannah to Roland again, and nods. "We know what we're doing."

Book looks up sharply at Zoe description of him, but waits until she's finished to speak.

"You're asking us to take an awful lot on faith, Mister Deschain," Book says. "I'm sorry, but Beams and Towers and four against two hundred sound like a lot of fairy tales to me."

If he's at all aware of the irony, it doesn't show on his face.

"We may be in seven books -- or more -- but we're not fairy tales."

It's Ted who answers now.

"There's a man named Stephen King from your Earth-that-was. Maine, if that matters. He's been chronicling the story here. If you want proof of this, I can bring you my copies, and you can quiz any of the folks here on anything in there. Hell of a lot of third person close narration. King's fond of that. Overfond, maybe, but his books sell." And Ted shrugs. "And I can assure you of something -- in his world, we're fiction; but it's real as anything to us."

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