<strong>Name:</strong>Elfi<br/><strong>Position: </strong>Ship's Slave<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Galley<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Richard (mentioned), Serenity<br/><br/>Master Richard received a bobbed head in reply.  He was good and easy to work around.  He might give you a job, or point out where you'd done it poorly and order you to fix it, but he mainly left you alone.  There were no surprises with Master Richard, and no worries.  It was comfortable and that was something Elfi needed more of.<br/><br/>Walking into Serenity's shuttle was like going into a fairyland.  It was just so pretty, so different from the rough place she'd been birthed and the cold functionality of the ship.  And it smelled so, so good!  Sue's cooking sometimes had a similar effect, but it was hit or miss depending on the time of day and how the ventilation system was working.  But the shuttle always smelled nice, though she had no idea what all of the scents were.<br/><br/>Elfi watched Serenity with an intensity she was unaware of, with a needing to please expression on her face.  "Thank you, Mistis Serenity," she said to the offer to get comfortable but didn't quite know what to do.  Her hands plucked at the side of her shift as she thought about sitting, then thought about standing and did sort of an awkward shimmy in place.<br/><br/>"I better not drink anything else fancy tonight, thank you Miss Serenity."  Her, drinking tea with a Companion!  It was like a fairy tale.  But her tummy didn't feel right at all and she was afraid of making a mess if she accepted.  Somehow Elfi sensed Serenity wouldn't be offended.  The Mistis rarely was, she'd learned.  If a person was dealing from an honest deck, Serenity took them as they came and didn't play her mind games and word wars with them.  She'd never been anything but pleasant to Elfi, didn't even act like she didn't know how to take her.<br/><br/>"I'll see to the mirror now, Mistis," she said while Serenity went to make the tea.  The mirror was a big oval shaped thing, almost as tall as a woman grown and set in a frame that let it swing end for end.  Elfi took a cloth out of the pocket of her shift, folded it to a nice clean spot, and then began to work on the glass, huffing a little breath on it then polishing until it was clean in that small area.  She watched Serenity's reflection in the mirror and waited until she came back and sat down.<br/><br/>"Master Phil's powerful patient," she began.  "That man is like a well of putting up with things from me, Mistis.  Don't ever lose his temper and hit me none either when I'm being pig ignorant."  She crouched and began to work on the lower part of the mirror.<br/><br/>"I tries, honest I do, Mistis.  I just can't seem to make the letters hold still long enough for me to pull the meaning out of them.  He taught me the alphabet song, and I can sing it to myself, but it don't - doesn't -" she corrected, "make it no easier.  Them words, they sit there for him 'n you and all the other learned folk, but they just crawl away like mean little ants for someone like me.  Master Phil, he keeps tryin' but I'm afeared he's going to despair of it a day and give up."  She stood up and stepped back to check the mirror.<br/><br/>The girl that looked back was clean enough, even if her hair was quite a mess and she wore nothing but a real basic shift of unbleached cotton.  It was sturdy and that was all that mattered.  She was lean too, but not sexy lean like some girls or athletic lean like others.  Hers was the lean of a lifetime of poverty, of missed meals and bad vitamins and more than a day's honest work in a crooked 'Verse.  Compared to the sleek, sculpted beauty of the Companion whose reflection was also in the mirror, Elfi didn't even try to compare herself.  But the mirror was clean, and that was what mattered.  She nodded then stuffed the rag into the front pocket.<br/><br/>Elfi went and sat down across from the Companion.  She folded her legs up beside her and leaned a little to the right, both hands on the carpet.  Her fingers played with it and she watched them, enjoying the feel of the expensive fibers.<br/><br/>"Mistis Serenity?  Do you think it's okay if a girl has a secret she don't tell no one, on account of it's hers and not theirs"<br/><br/>