Inara Serra

Inara Serra is a 'Companion' from the show Firefly.

Appearance
Inara appears to be younger than she is but acts older than she is, generally. Although she's only in her late twenties there's a refined air to her that seems more mature, but she also takes great pains to take care of herself and look as youthful as she can. A classic beauty in many senses, she is slender and slightly taller than average and yet retains rounded, feminine curves, with long wavy brown hair that can at times be unruly, large dark eyes and a wide-set and expressive mouth. It's her mouth that most often conveys her emotion, her lips curled in anger or pressed together in annoyance or restraint, even when she can manage to keep the rest of herself composed.

Personality
Inara generally regards herself as being calm in a crisis, reasonable, intelligent, seductive, refined, devout and kind. That is certainly the personality that she's cultivated in her time as a Companion, anyway, and what she'd like people to see her as. But while she does mostly have these positive traits, they are also balanced out or completely nullified at times by the fact that she is also sometimes temperamental, petty, snobbish, secretive, meddlesome and deeply entitled. She holds herself above and apart from others and is very closed-lipped about both her professional and her personal life. Certain people can bring out the worst in her more easily than others, particularly ones who challenge her or her chosen role.

Certain people in Inara's past remember her as being very focused and very driven, and observe that she hates complications. On Serenity she lost a lot of her haughty edge and her drive to excel in her profession over time, though, as she got used to having her status and her sense of being somehow better than other people challenged on a regular basis as well as through interacting with people outside the top tiers of society perhaps for the first time in her life, and the latter of which faded as a direct result of her declining health. She wanted to see the universe before she passed on, but when running away to a life of adventure proved to be too complicated she ran away from it in turn.

She is a devout Buddhist, something that apparently has heavy ties to the practice of her profession, and tends to spend a lot of time on prayer and meditation.

Sexuality
Inara is a Companion by profession, something like an oiran, a courtesan or a geisha. She was trained from the age of twelve on in art, music, dance, conversation, psychology, anatomy...and most of all in sex. It's the primary role of a Companion to have sex with their clients, even with all the layers of respectability and legality that the profession is cloaked in. As a result of her training Inara has a very accepting and positive view of sex and sensuality, even to the point of seeing it as a way to achieve spiritual connections to people and enlightenment as part of her faith. Her training has assured that sex for her is more than just an obligation of the job, it's something that she knows how to truly enjoy, and she does so. She takes both male and female clients, but she sees women less frequently and they need to be exceptional to her in some way.

Partners

 * Daniel Jackson
 * Tyki Mikk
 * Simon Tam (under the influence of a demon)
 * Deanne Winchester
 * Frank Bannister
 * Malcolm Reynolds

Powers
During the Wish event she gained the power of pyrokinesis, creating fire.