Holiday Fic #6
Dec. 24th, 2005 05:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenFor ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
alizzy, a Firefly-fic featuring Mal and Inara. The prompt was "horses." Spoilers for the series up through "Our Mrs. Reynolds."
Getting Lucky
bytrinityvixen****
“You’re sure four days won’t be a problem for you?” It was less out of courtesy than astonishment that Inara found herself asking Mal this question one more time.
“Not even a bitty little. Go on and be pretty for your clients—they ain’t paying you to worry about us up here.”
He left her shuttle, hands tucked into the back of his pants. Of course he was up to something. However, if Serenity were in orbit around Salisbury, there would be no wasted time waiting for Serenity to return for her shuttle or leaving a client in a hurry because Mal’s job had gone south.
Which didn’t, in any way, lessen her concern over what sort of job Mal had found to occupy the entirety of four days worth of her affairs and still have him within shuttle range. Nonetheless, he’d been right about one thing--worrying would only distract her from her job, and she refused to grant him that power.
Mal was standing on the catwalk overlooking the cargo bay when Inara emerged from her shuttle, just returned from her last appointment. He didn’t stir or glance at her as she approached. She followed his line of sight to see what fascinated him so.
Standing by the metal stairway was a charcoal black stallion covered with a scarlet throw blanket bearing a gold coat of arms. Kaylee sat on the stairs cooing at it and squealing now and again to River, who was seated a few steps up.
“Inara!” Kaylee waved when she spotted her. “Would you look at him? Ain’t he just the prettiest thing you ever did see?”
“He is very beautiful,” she agreed. To Mal, she said, “Live cargo? I thought you’d made a rule.”
“Is just the one,” he muttered, still not looking at her. “And the pay’s well enough for a little droppings here and there.” He kicked some crates topped over with horse feed—hay, oats, and apples. “Promised Kaylee she could feed it. Easiest platinum we’ve ever made.”
“Be careful,” she teased, “there is a saying about counting your credit before you’ve earned it.” She suspended her relief. As much as his choice of cargo relaxed her worries—Companions were also trained equestrians, and her eye detected all the hallmarks of breeding perfection in this fine specimen—she remained suspicious of the motives behind the pickup.
Mal shook his head, finally turning to take in her presence. His eyes were sparkly with mischief. “Nothing to this one. Hidin’ some assets in a nasty divorce. Keep Bucky here out of contention, and we collect our coin.”
“I had thought after Zoe and Wash, you might have learned not to interfere in married people’s concerns, Mal.”
“Nonsense talk, woman. I ain’t interferin’ one bit. Just doin’ my part to see some rich fella keeps hands on piece of pretty when the separation goes through.” He smiled slyly. “You know how messy these splits can be. Wouldn’t be surprised if you’d caused a few in your time.”
Inara pursed her lips and kept her expression studiously neutral. If she had ever caused such misery, she wouldn’t be worthy to continue on as a Companion. Somewhere buried beneath prejudice, Mal probably knew that, too. There were Companions willing to interfere in marital affairs, to comfort widowers and divorcees, but she had never answered such a call.
Mal smiled, a soft, sad smile that always frazzled her ability to stay annoyed with him. “Chow’s on, if you’re hungry. I suspect you to be famished, all that work you been up to of late.”
It helped that, as easily as he invoked sympathy and concern, he threw it away so carelessly when next he opened his mouth. Still grinning while she fought to surface an answer, he strolled off, whistling. “Feeding time, Kaylee! You bring the in-patient.”
“She has a name—many, all legendary.” River warbled loudly, taking an apple from Kaylee and shoving it, straight-armed, at the horse. “Have to eat, skydancer.”
“That sure is prettier than ‘Bucky,’” Kaylee sighed. “Too bad Jayne got to name him first.”
This was too much for Inara. “Jayne named the horse?”
“It ain’t his real name, but he and the Captain brought him back, and they said that’s what we should call him.”
“I suppose I should have guessed,” Inara shook her head. “It's lacks imagination, just like Jayne.”
The next morning, Inara woke to the sound of a shuttle docking. This probably indicated that Bucky had gone back home, and business had been concluded peaceably. No sudden burns meant no running.
So she was surprised to emerge for breakfast only to find Mal brushing down the horse with a professional’s eye. On an obvious thoroughbred like Bucky, there were few snags in his mane or tail and not many burs in his glossy coat. Inara enjoyed observing Mal’s gentle strokes over the animal’s hide, showing an amount of care she wouldn’t have guessed him capable of.
“You’ve handled horses before,” she said, letting him know she was watching. She wasn’t the only one. River was back, sitting on the staircase with her knees tucked up under her chin.
“Yeah,” Mal said, patting Bucky on the rump as he finished the hindquarters. He didn’t elaborate on his answer or interrupt his work. Inara descended the stairs, pausing to smile at River, who stared fixedly ahead at Bucky and the Captain.
“I’m sure he doesn’t bite, River, if you want a closer look.”
“It’s okay to stand back. We’re leading him to water. Might make a splash.”
Inara nodded, accepting that this answer, while impenetrable to her, made sense to River at least. She passed the girl and walked over to Bucky, extending a hand slowly, palm up, to demonstrate she was no threat. He mouthed her fingers, and, finding no treats, ignored her.
“He is magnificent,” she said, stroking Bucky’s long nose. “A champion on the half-mile, I would say.” His forelengths were strong, and his shape was spare–a horse made to run and win ribbons and then collect a king’s ransom in stud fees.
“Don’t know nothing about that,” Mal shrugged as he shifted instruments to work on Bucky’s tail. “Never asked for his pedigree.”
“Just for money to keep him,” she pressed. “Mal, don’t you think it’s a tad unworthy to involve yourself in this kind of work? To keep a magnificent animal like this trapped in a spaceship just so some rich man can cheat his wife? It’s really not fair to her or to Bucky.”
He looked up from a snarled tangle on the comb, feigning hurt. “What’s that? Bucky, you have complaints we should know of?” Bucky tossed his head and stamped one hind foot, muscles twitching under Mal’s hands. “Seems he likes me just fine. I know he ain’t kicked a fuss about Kaylee and River going girly-eyed over him, so I’m not sure where you’re crying unfair for.”
“I meant about his rightful owner—owners, actually.” She frowned at him. “What if he doesn’t belong to the man who paid you to hold him?” Why didn’t he see that he was working in murky waters?
He was saved from having to answer by River, who was now on all fours and braying at the horse. She did a fair impression, too, and Bucky responded by whinnying back. He high-stepped over to her, leaving an affronted and indignant Mal behind. For a heart-stopping second, Inara had a vision of Bucky rearing and kicking at the slender girl. Instead, he sashayed in a circle as River padded softly to the cargo bay floor.
Speechless, she and Mal watched as Bucky and River danced together. Bucky jogged in tight circles, as if born to dressage in addition to racing. River wove around him, her arms thrown high and her smile radiant. Bucky neighed and River whistled; he grunted and snorted and she barked right back at him. River twirled about in bare feet that were never once trampled on as Bucky pranced around her. They were having a grand old time.
Simon ruined it all of a minute later. The doctor came running in from the infirmary and skidded to a halt when he saw what his sister was doing.
“River,” Simon called, taking hesitant steps past Inara and Mal. “River, come away from there.”
Sullenly, River stopped dancing, and Bucky followed suit. He bowed his head to her, and girl and horse pressed foreheads together until Simon wrapped his arms around River’s shoulders and backed her away. Inara was breathless, awed by how the gesture was very much like two partners bowing to each other in a proper assembly
“I’m sorry,” Simon said immediately to Mal. “I didn’t know she’d come down here on her own.”
Instead of chastising the doctor, Mal shook his head. “She weren’t causing no trouble.” A funny smile ticked up one corner of his mouth as he looked an exhilarated River up and down. “Might just be that was what Bucky was needing. ‘Nara thinks he might be some kind of derby champ. Must be aching for a good run.”
Simon blinked at him, working his jaw to try and swallow extended apologies he’d had at the ready. He’d expected censure--Mal rarely missed an opportunity to tease or goad Simon over his inability to control River’s behavior. Seizing the opportunity to have his sister make her escape before further exposing herself, Simon guided River out of the cargo bay and then reappeared in the doorway.
“Wash said to tell you he’s ready to depart after breakfast.”
“No rush.”
Simon lingered. “Jayne went out last night.”
“Yes, he sure did.”
Guilt chased over Simon’s features, replaced with irritation. “You didn’t take what I said seriously, did you?”
Mal smiled. “Doctor, you’re too smart to be asking me such a dumb question.”
Simon appeared as little reassured by this as Inara felt. “It’s a dirty trick, you know.”
“And I could never have cooked it up without your help. For that much, I can forgive your sis hangin’ all over my goods.”
Simon retreated, his expression clouded with shame and anger, Mal’s usual method of ending a conversation with an insult achieving its usual effect. When he turned back to Inara, she had a scowl ready for him.
“What?” He said, innocence thrown up in an instant.
“What is he talking about, Mal?”
Innocence crumbled into hard set lines of stubbornness. “None of your business, remember?”
She refused to allow this to pass. “Oh, but it is Simon’s?”
“Boy’s a part of my crew, ain’t he? Got every right to be as much a criminal as the rest of us.”
Inara glanced away in disgust but focused sharply on him again when Mal chuckled. “What’s so funny?”
“You’re mad because Simon gets to be a part of the gang, that it?”
“Ridiculous,” she dismissed him. “Hiding assets from those legally entitled to them is about as low a thing as I’ve ever suspected you capable of, Malcolm Reynolds.”
“Ho, now!” He laughed mirthlessly. “Full name treatment. Better watch myself.”
“Yes, you should,” she snapped. “Because Bucky’s convenient disappearance isn’t going to stop people from looking for him.”
She knew she’d overplayed, overstepped her bounds when he folded his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow at her. Mal didn’t suffer her to offer opinions on his line of work or his ability to execute his jobs any more than she tolerated it from him.
“You want to enlist, we’d take you on. Is a might more respectable than you’d think, thieving. Save you some rent, maybe a little dignity.”
She didn’t dignify this worth a response, only passed silently by on her way to the galley.
Inara avoided Mal for the rest of the day. Kaylee might have complained about her sealing herself off if it weren’t for the distraction Bucky provided. Through her shuttle door, she could hear the young mechanic going into raptures over the horse, and the cacophony of braying and whistling that meant she and River both were both enjoying themselves thoroughly.
Only when she felt Serenity surge forward did she emerge from meditating in her shuttle. Mal was in the cargo hold again, meeting Jayne on the catwalk. The mercenary was closing the hatchway of the second shuttle. The noises in the cargo bay had masked the sound of his departure and arrival.
Jayne dropped a bag of coin in Mal’s hand and took off aft without glancing down at their cargo. He stormed by her with an ugly look, tenderly rubbing the bridge of his nose, on which a white butterfly bandage stretched over reddened, puffy skin.
Mal tucked away the coin when she walked over to him. “We’re heading to St. Albans,” he said without preamble. “Not much for your work out that way, but it’s best we get there soon rather than wait for you to schedule your date book. Can stop off on Geraldton Settlement on Ita moon while we’re thereabouts, if you want. They have a few men as can afford you.”
She held her tongue. Time and again, she had proven that her temper could outlast Malcolm Reynolds’ ill humor. As she had come to inquire only about their intended destination, she didn’t have much else to say to him anyway. But she couldn’t resist needling him a little.
“You forgot to drop off your horse.”
He shrugged. “Ain’t mine.”
“Really? I thought you were conveniently ignoring that fact.”
“Not your business. Remember that, Madame Ambassador.” He left, tramping after Jayne.
They arrived at St. Albans three days later. Bucky’s price had obviously fetched enough to provide excess fuel for the hard burns they’d run for half of the transit. Kaylee was forced to split her time between pony and potential engine trouble, and was, as a result, stretched thin to the point of bursting into tears when they broke atmo.
Inara found herself unable to be anywhere else but the cargo bay at this late point. She intended to pass off her presence as one of friendly obligation, but Kaylee hadn’t needed her for comfort. Kaylee had secured Simon’s shoulder for crying on, which she did when she wasn’t cursing about what the hard journey had done to Serenity. Luckily for Kaylee, the doctor was another perpetual haunt of the temporary horse paddock as River wasn’t anywhere else these days.
“Here to say goodbye, are you?”
Mal had walked out from below decks and spotted her on the catwalk. Before she could answer, he looked away, eyes going wide. While Simon was preoccupied with Kaylee, River had climbed onto Bucky’s back.
“Hey,” Mal griped at her, “just what do you think you’re doing?”
“River!” Simon shouted, coming to and startling Kaylee.
“Keep it quiet there, doc, would you?” Mal moved around to Bucky’s front in a hurry; if Simon had spooked Bucky, it wouldn’t be safe to approach him from the rear.
Mal looked at horse and girl, hands on hips. “You coming off there or what?”
“The other rider is much heavier.” River pulled at her billowy dress, pinching out the fabric away from her slender body. “Big gut, larger than you remember.”
Mal stared at her a long hard moment, then started to laugh so hard he was wiping at his eyes before he recovered.
“I just bet he has, oh mercy.”
“Who?” Kaylee asked, perking up. “Who she talking about, Cap’n?”
“Man who’s gonna take the very finest care of Bucky, Kaylee, I can promise you that, okay?”
“Who’s the buyer?” Inara couldn’t hold in her curiosity, stunned as she was by Mal’s show of genuine amusement.
He stared up at her for a minute, attempting to determine if she was having fun, but answered honestly. “Ranch hand I know.”
She gaped at him. Turn that animal into a cattle rustler? Bucky was entirely unsuited to such work. He was built for speed, not hard labor. Inara had hoped Mal had at least managed to dig up a disreputable breeder to take the animal.
“You promised away racehorse for a ranch?”
Mal gave her no sign her disdain affected him one way or another.
“I had something he wanted. All there is to it.”
The drop point was well outside the city of Freehold, St. Albans’ only decent settlement. Situated on the second farthest planet from the Core, it wasn’t a populous destination. Inara wasn’t surprised by the remote location; even at the end of the ‘verse, people Mal knew often managed to isolate themselves just that much further from humanity.
Jayne cursed when he found them all assembled in the cargo bay as he went to open the outer doors. He gave Bucky a wide berth and a fierce snarl, but either or both might just as easily have been directed at River. She was now draped over Bucky’s back so that their hair fell in one cascade over his bowed head.
“Moonbrain thinks she’s Lady Godiva.”
“Not naked on the outside,” River mumbled darkly at him.
“That’s a shame,” Mal said. Seeing Simon’s sharpening expression, he clarified, “ ‘Cause I reckon old Slim’d pay extra for his horse if it were rode in to him by pretty girls in the altogether.”
“You’ve gotten enough help from members of my family on this job, Captain,” Simon groused.
Mal shrugged as he stooped to retrieve Bucky’s harness. Up until now, the horse had been well mannered enough not to require one, and he’d been watched almost around the clock anyway. Mal slipped the expensive leather straps over Bucky’s nose, and then helped River off.
“How about you, Inara? Gonna help us raise Bucky’s price tag? You’re the sort to be used to running around without clothes.”
She said sweetly, “I’m not a part of this, remember? Perhaps you should try it yourself. Might do us all the favor and forever rid us of the nightmare that you might reproduce.”
Jayne found that a righteously funny idea. “Would pay to see that happen.”
“You don’t want me to be about listing the number of things a man might do to you, Jayne, that people’d pay for to see,” Mal growled as he led Bucky towards the opening cargo doors.
Kaylee went with the horse as he led him out for a few steps, then she fell back, shoulders slumped with disappointment. Simon squeezed her hand once, and, under the influence of such attention from the otherwise emotionally reticent doctor, Kaylee shook her sorrows in a hurry.
“You make sure that man takes care of him, Cap’n!”
“Will do, Kaylee,” he waved without turning around. Bucky followed behind him willingly, the reins slack in Mal’s hand. Duty performed, Jayne took off, walking through the space Bucky had, until recently, occupied.
Inara saw Mal and Bucky walk twenty yards or so through tall yellow grass. Ahead of them, a short, corpulent man waved to the Captain. They embraced when Mal reached him, Bucky almost forgotten as he helped himself to a snack of leafy scenery.
It struck her only then that he’d gotten off alone. “Where’s Zoe?” She asked Kaylee.
“Up in her bunk with Wash, I think,” Kaylee frowned, trying to figure how that was important when she was losing her new pet. “Why?”
“Mal’s making this drop by himself?”
“Cap’n says he knows him,” Kaylee said, simply. “I think he might be an old war buddy.”
That was one possibility. Mal’s friends were few and far between that they knew of, and it was the rare friend indeed that wasn’t also a Browncoat. But the man he was talking to was all wrong for the part of a soldier. Too old, too heavy.
“Led a horse to water,” River said at her elbow, startling her. “Good thing it’s thirsty.” She waved enthusiastically out the doors, even though neither men nor horse waved back, then scampered.
They remained on St. Albans scant few minutes after Mal returned from the drop. Inara was pouring a cup of tea for herself when the captain entered the galley to scrounge together some cold protein for lunch.
Jayne, who was polishing off leftovers, watched him with limited patience. He gave up when Mal tucked into his food without any debriefing. “Ain’t you forgetting something?”
“Let’s consult the checklist,” Mal said, munching thoughtfully on a protein stick. “One–get horse. Two–get paid for horse. Three–deliver horse. Nope, got it all, I think.”
“What about the coin for the animal from the buyer?”
“What about it?”
Jayne looked flummoxed. “You mean you just gave that thing away? For nothin’?”
“Slim drives a hard bargain,” Mal grunted, unimpressed as Jayne’s gape soured into a pout. Jayne polished off the rest of his food and skulked out of the galley, leaving Inara and Mal alone.
“I know you got that appointment coming up,” he said, starting in with an argumentative tone before she could confirm or deny his words.
“Appointment?”
“You said you had to go back to the Core for check-ups or some such,” Mal said between mouthfuls. “ We got a job between here and there—shouldn’t take too long, but I promised the Shepherd I’d see him off with some of his type of people ‘fore we took you in. That work for you?”
“Ye-es,” she stammered, surprised by his willingness to accommodate her. “That will be fine.”
“It’s a bit of a distance,” he continued, as if determined to fight, “between here and the Core.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” she said, sarcastically. Inara walked around the counter to sit on his right. He kicked out the chair for her to sit, a sloppy attempt at chivalry meant as a peace offering of sorts.
“Just wanted you to know. Won’t be able to burn so hot as we did coming out here or Kaylee will wrap busted coils round my neck.”
“Mmm,” she hummed as she sipped her tea. They sat together in companionable quiet, before she asked, “Mal, who was that man?”
“Who–Slim?”
“Yes.”
“Fella I know, ‘s all. Used to break racehorses way back. Been past his prime a spell, and injury put him out of the game early. He was missing the fun, so we made a deal.”
Touched, she gave him an affectionate smile. “A deal from which, judging by Jayne’s reaction, you took away nothing.”
“Not nearly nothing,” he protested, “I got the coin from those as can’t know what to do with an animal that refined, and I got him to a man as would. We all profit, save for Mr. and Mrs. Yuan, who have instead learned a valuable lesson that should fair them better than a silly horse.”
Despite herself, she chuckled. “What, ‘don’t trust your property to strangers’?”
“Hide your stash better next time.”
“Very important lesson,” she agreed. “Still, an awful lot of trouble. You’ll have used up all the money you earned on fuel just getting out here.”
“Not quite,” he said without looking up from his plate.
“Oh?” Something clicked in her head. She fixed him with a suspicious look. “This wouldn’t have to do with Simon accidentally suggesting something to you, would it?”
“Accident? Making coin for us is our work. ‘Bout time the boy had something to contribute.” Mal took a swig of water from his mug. “This job just about fell in my lap, Inara, and I weren’t the one to say no. But I figure you’ve got a point: marriage affairs is mess I got no business getting myself into. No more after this. So, I figure, what’s the harm if it don’t go according to the boss’ plan?”
“Let me guess,” Inara rolled her eyes, “ ‘Slim’ wasn’t supposed to end up with Bucky?” He shook his head, drawing out an exasperated sigh from her. “Mal, if this Yuan person can afford an animal like Bucky, he’ll have influence. He might report you.”
“Ah,” he wagged a finger at her. “Then he’d have to admit to embezzling from the missus.”
Clever, she had to concede, especially for him. “And his wife? What do you suppose she’s hiding from him?”
“Oh, that’s easy,” he waved her off. “If I were her, and my racing pony was something I was like to miss, I’d have him snatched ahead of time so my mister couldn’t get to it first.” He gave her a look that conveyed doubts on her intelligence for not seeing what he felt was plain as day.
“Too bad for her you got there first,” she sniffed, petulant. “I suppose,” she said slowly, “you should be proud of yourself, cheating a woman out of her fair share of her husband’s estate.”
“Who said we was cheating her?”
Inara opened her mouth to answer, you did, and shut it again promptly. His eyes were twinkling, and he was fighting a smirk. “You’re working for her.”
“And I thought you were supposed to be so smart,” he chuckled, rolling his eyes. “Guess the doc’s got you beat on that score.” Mal let her stew before he confessed. “Simon overheard my cunning plannings and had some of the same objections you voiced of late.”
“I have every faith Simon objects to most of your jobs, Mal. So what?”
“Well, the doc has a tongue about as sharp as yours when he gets righteous cranky. Said as long as I was bothering to be a,” Mal screwed up his nose in distaste as he recalled his words, “ ‘an unwelcome interloper in difficult matters,’ I might as well make the most of it.”
“Meaning…?”
Mal’s grin threatened to split his face in two halves. “Doc’s got no faith in humanity, Inara. He said he figured if one of the pair of soon-to-be-exes was a slyboots about keeping his stuff, why wouldn’t the other be?”
“You can’t…you don’t,” Inara stuttered, “you took money from both of them?”
Mal shrugged. “Two bits of coin, one bitty animal. And it so happened there was a man I knew who’d be glad of the horse for a while.”
“You took money from the husband and the wife, and you gave it neither of them?”
“Don’t seem fair, does it? Now they’re both out cash they might could’ve made ten times over on studding if they hadn’t tried to cheat each other, even split fifty-fifty.”
“I hardly…Mal, that’s underhanded even for you.”
“It’s thieving, good and honest, which is more than can be said of what’s going on between the unhappy couple right now.” He produced a bag from one of his trouser pockets. “I got a deposit from each of them, and we spent half on the good cause of getting Slim his animal. Leaves us with one whole payment for our trouble. Evens out.”
Cocking his head to the side, he grinned at her. “Worth a bit of goings back on my honorable word, you ask me.”
“No one will contact you with work like this if that’s how you behave.”
Mal held up one hand and put the other over his heart. “No more after this, my hand to Serenity.”
“And this Slim person, he’ll take care of Bucky?”
“Not a man in the ‘verse I trust with an animal more than Slim.” Mal slumped back in his seat as though drained.
Delicately, she probed into this last mystery. “How do you know him?”
The pause wasn’t but momentary, yet she noticed it, read into it every detail he could betray in so small a gesture. A mere second of a stumble and then his casual indifference fell back into place.
“Slim used to drive cattle for us on Shadow.”
“Oh,” Inara pressed her lips into a firm line, unsure of how to proceed. She knew Mal had grown up on Shadow, a planet killed off in the war that had taken most everything else from him. As such, he let the history of his boyhood there lay as dead and forgotten as the place itself. Slim’s connection to Mal made up a full half of what she knew of his life before Serenity and Serenity Valley. “How did you happen to catch up again? Did you run into each other on a job?”
“Always knew where Slim was. Just never got around to contacting him.”
“And then a horse you knew he’d love happened to fall into your lap,” she parroted his words back at him.
Abashed, Mal scratched at the back of his neck. “Truth is I hadn’t thought about him in about forever, really. And then he just come up to my mind, being one of the last I knew who made it off world before the bombing. Started thinking about catching up after I--” and here he smirked at her--“since I talked about it some with Saffron.”
Inara’s nostril twitched involuntarily at the name, but she managed a wry grin of her own. “Getting cozy with the missus, were we?”
“Was wiled out of me against my will, Inara, you said so yourself. Anyhow, I wouldn’t have borne up that kind of confidence if I’d known what she was about.”
“Right.”
“So, I drug up some memories and worked towards getting Lucky aboard.”
“Lucky?” There was a story here, too, and Mal seemed appreciative of the change in subject.
“Oh yeah, his full name, and that I won’t never forget–the Yuans each told me it plenty times over.” He took a deep breath, flaring his nostrils as though assaulted with a hideous odor. When he spoke, his voice was thin and nasal. “Lord Lucky Stakes Patron Smithchild of High Waters.”
Familiar with the unique and usual names given to thoroughbreds, this grand title did not surprise her in the slightest, but it didn’t answer her question. “Where did Bucky come from then?”
Mal chuckled. “Ah that. Jayne got a little too happy about getting himself a pony, and he startled Lucky.” Though that thought was a tad incongruous with Jayne’s behavior towards Bucky on Serenity, Inara didn’t interrupt Mal as he reenacted the pickup--wherein Jayne ended up getting a full toss of horse head to the face.
“Lucky,” Mal said, squashed his nose flat, and repeated the word. It came out remarkably like “Bucky.”
“I see,” she put her fingers to her lips to stifle giggles. “Never a dull moment.”
“Unfortunately,” he agreed.
alizzy, a Firefly-fic featuring Mal and Inara. The prompt was "horses." Spoilers for the series up through "Our Mrs. Reynolds."Getting Lucky
by
trinityvixen****“You’re sure four days won’t be a problem for you?” It was less out of courtesy than astonishment that Inara found herself asking Mal this question one more time.
“Not even a bitty little. Go on and be pretty for your clients—they ain’t paying you to worry about us up here.”
He left her shuttle, hands tucked into the back of his pants. Of course he was up to something. However, if Serenity were in orbit around Salisbury, there would be no wasted time waiting for Serenity to return for her shuttle or leaving a client in a hurry because Mal’s job had gone south.
Which didn’t, in any way, lessen her concern over what sort of job Mal had found to occupy the entirety of four days worth of her affairs and still have him within shuttle range. Nonetheless, he’d been right about one thing--worrying would only distract her from her job, and she refused to grant him that power.
*****
Mal was standing on the catwalk overlooking the cargo bay when Inara emerged from her shuttle, just returned from her last appointment. He didn’t stir or glance at her as she approached. She followed his line of sight to see what fascinated him so.
Standing by the metal stairway was a charcoal black stallion covered with a scarlet throw blanket bearing a gold coat of arms. Kaylee sat on the stairs cooing at it and squealing now and again to River, who was seated a few steps up.
“Inara!” Kaylee waved when she spotted her. “Would you look at him? Ain’t he just the prettiest thing you ever did see?”
“He is very beautiful,” she agreed. To Mal, she said, “Live cargo? I thought you’d made a rule.”
“Is just the one,” he muttered, still not looking at her. “And the pay’s well enough for a little droppings here and there.” He kicked some crates topped over with horse feed—hay, oats, and apples. “Promised Kaylee she could feed it. Easiest platinum we’ve ever made.”
“Be careful,” she teased, “there is a saying about counting your credit before you’ve earned it.” She suspended her relief. As much as his choice of cargo relaxed her worries—Companions were also trained equestrians, and her eye detected all the hallmarks of breeding perfection in this fine specimen—she remained suspicious of the motives behind the pickup.
Mal shook his head, finally turning to take in her presence. His eyes were sparkly with mischief. “Nothing to this one. Hidin’ some assets in a nasty divorce. Keep Bucky here out of contention, and we collect our coin.”
“I had thought after Zoe and Wash, you might have learned not to interfere in married people’s concerns, Mal.”
“Nonsense talk, woman. I ain’t interferin’ one bit. Just doin’ my part to see some rich fella keeps hands on piece of pretty when the separation goes through.” He smiled slyly. “You know how messy these splits can be. Wouldn’t be surprised if you’d caused a few in your time.”
Inara pursed her lips and kept her expression studiously neutral. If she had ever caused such misery, she wouldn’t be worthy to continue on as a Companion. Somewhere buried beneath prejudice, Mal probably knew that, too. There were Companions willing to interfere in marital affairs, to comfort widowers and divorcees, but she had never answered such a call.
Mal smiled, a soft, sad smile that always frazzled her ability to stay annoyed with him. “Chow’s on, if you’re hungry. I suspect you to be famished, all that work you been up to of late.”
It helped that, as easily as he invoked sympathy and concern, he threw it away so carelessly when next he opened his mouth. Still grinning while she fought to surface an answer, he strolled off, whistling. “Feeding time, Kaylee! You bring the in-patient.”
“She has a name—many, all legendary.” River warbled loudly, taking an apple from Kaylee and shoving it, straight-armed, at the horse. “Have to eat, skydancer.”
“That sure is prettier than ‘Bucky,’” Kaylee sighed. “Too bad Jayne got to name him first.”
This was too much for Inara. “Jayne named the horse?”
“It ain’t his real name, but he and the Captain brought him back, and they said that’s what we should call him.”
“I suppose I should have guessed,” Inara shook her head. “It's lacks imagination, just like Jayne.”
*****
The next morning, Inara woke to the sound of a shuttle docking. This probably indicated that Bucky had gone back home, and business had been concluded peaceably. No sudden burns meant no running.
So she was surprised to emerge for breakfast only to find Mal brushing down the horse with a professional’s eye. On an obvious thoroughbred like Bucky, there were few snags in his mane or tail and not many burs in his glossy coat. Inara enjoyed observing Mal’s gentle strokes over the animal’s hide, showing an amount of care she wouldn’t have guessed him capable of.
“You’ve handled horses before,” she said, letting him know she was watching. She wasn’t the only one. River was back, sitting on the staircase with her knees tucked up under her chin.
“Yeah,” Mal said, patting Bucky on the rump as he finished the hindquarters. He didn’t elaborate on his answer or interrupt his work. Inara descended the stairs, pausing to smile at River, who stared fixedly ahead at Bucky and the Captain.
“I’m sure he doesn’t bite, River, if you want a closer look.”
“It’s okay to stand back. We’re leading him to water. Might make a splash.”
Inara nodded, accepting that this answer, while impenetrable to her, made sense to River at least. She passed the girl and walked over to Bucky, extending a hand slowly, palm up, to demonstrate she was no threat. He mouthed her fingers, and, finding no treats, ignored her.
“He is magnificent,” she said, stroking Bucky’s long nose. “A champion on the half-mile, I would say.” His forelengths were strong, and his shape was spare–a horse made to run and win ribbons and then collect a king’s ransom in stud fees.
“Don’t know nothing about that,” Mal shrugged as he shifted instruments to work on Bucky’s tail. “Never asked for his pedigree.”
“Just for money to keep him,” she pressed. “Mal, don’t you think it’s a tad unworthy to involve yourself in this kind of work? To keep a magnificent animal like this trapped in a spaceship just so some rich man can cheat his wife? It’s really not fair to her or to Bucky.”
He looked up from a snarled tangle on the comb, feigning hurt. “What’s that? Bucky, you have complaints we should know of?” Bucky tossed his head and stamped one hind foot, muscles twitching under Mal’s hands. “Seems he likes me just fine. I know he ain’t kicked a fuss about Kaylee and River going girly-eyed over him, so I’m not sure where you’re crying unfair for.”
“I meant about his rightful owner—owners, actually.” She frowned at him. “What if he doesn’t belong to the man who paid you to hold him?” Why didn’t he see that he was working in murky waters?
He was saved from having to answer by River, who was now on all fours and braying at the horse. She did a fair impression, too, and Bucky responded by whinnying back. He high-stepped over to her, leaving an affronted and indignant Mal behind. For a heart-stopping second, Inara had a vision of Bucky rearing and kicking at the slender girl. Instead, he sashayed in a circle as River padded softly to the cargo bay floor.
Speechless, she and Mal watched as Bucky and River danced together. Bucky jogged in tight circles, as if born to dressage in addition to racing. River wove around him, her arms thrown high and her smile radiant. Bucky neighed and River whistled; he grunted and snorted and she barked right back at him. River twirled about in bare feet that were never once trampled on as Bucky pranced around her. They were having a grand old time.
Simon ruined it all of a minute later. The doctor came running in from the infirmary and skidded to a halt when he saw what his sister was doing.
“River,” Simon called, taking hesitant steps past Inara and Mal. “River, come away from there.”
Sullenly, River stopped dancing, and Bucky followed suit. He bowed his head to her, and girl and horse pressed foreheads together until Simon wrapped his arms around River’s shoulders and backed her away. Inara was breathless, awed by how the gesture was very much like two partners bowing to each other in a proper assembly
“I’m sorry,” Simon said immediately to Mal. “I didn’t know she’d come down here on her own.”
Instead of chastising the doctor, Mal shook his head. “She weren’t causing no trouble.” A funny smile ticked up one corner of his mouth as he looked an exhilarated River up and down. “Might just be that was what Bucky was needing. ‘Nara thinks he might be some kind of derby champ. Must be aching for a good run.”
Simon blinked at him, working his jaw to try and swallow extended apologies he’d had at the ready. He’d expected censure--Mal rarely missed an opportunity to tease or goad Simon over his inability to control River’s behavior. Seizing the opportunity to have his sister make her escape before further exposing herself, Simon guided River out of the cargo bay and then reappeared in the doorway.
“Wash said to tell you he’s ready to depart after breakfast.”
“No rush.”
Simon lingered. “Jayne went out last night.”
“Yes, he sure did.”
Guilt chased over Simon’s features, replaced with irritation. “You didn’t take what I said seriously, did you?”
Mal smiled. “Doctor, you’re too smart to be asking me such a dumb question.”
Simon appeared as little reassured by this as Inara felt. “It’s a dirty trick, you know.”
“And I could never have cooked it up without your help. For that much, I can forgive your sis hangin’ all over my goods.”
Simon retreated, his expression clouded with shame and anger, Mal’s usual method of ending a conversation with an insult achieving its usual effect. When he turned back to Inara, she had a scowl ready for him.
“What?” He said, innocence thrown up in an instant.
“What is he talking about, Mal?”
Innocence crumbled into hard set lines of stubbornness. “None of your business, remember?”
She refused to allow this to pass. “Oh, but it is Simon’s?”
“Boy’s a part of my crew, ain’t he? Got every right to be as much a criminal as the rest of us.”
Inara glanced away in disgust but focused sharply on him again when Mal chuckled. “What’s so funny?”
“You’re mad because Simon gets to be a part of the gang, that it?”
“Ridiculous,” she dismissed him. “Hiding assets from those legally entitled to them is about as low a thing as I’ve ever suspected you capable of, Malcolm Reynolds.”
“Ho, now!” He laughed mirthlessly. “Full name treatment. Better watch myself.”
“Yes, you should,” she snapped. “Because Bucky’s convenient disappearance isn’t going to stop people from looking for him.”
She knew she’d overplayed, overstepped her bounds when he folded his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow at her. Mal didn’t suffer her to offer opinions on his line of work or his ability to execute his jobs any more than she tolerated it from him.
“You want to enlist, we’d take you on. Is a might more respectable than you’d think, thieving. Save you some rent, maybe a little dignity.”
She didn’t dignify this worth a response, only passed silently by on her way to the galley.
*****
Inara avoided Mal for the rest of the day. Kaylee might have complained about her sealing herself off if it weren’t for the distraction Bucky provided. Through her shuttle door, she could hear the young mechanic going into raptures over the horse, and the cacophony of braying and whistling that meant she and River both were both enjoying themselves thoroughly.
Only when she felt Serenity surge forward did she emerge from meditating in her shuttle. Mal was in the cargo hold again, meeting Jayne on the catwalk. The mercenary was closing the hatchway of the second shuttle. The noises in the cargo bay had masked the sound of his departure and arrival.
Jayne dropped a bag of coin in Mal’s hand and took off aft without glancing down at their cargo. He stormed by her with an ugly look, tenderly rubbing the bridge of his nose, on which a white butterfly bandage stretched over reddened, puffy skin.
Mal tucked away the coin when she walked over to him. “We’re heading to St. Albans,” he said without preamble. “Not much for your work out that way, but it’s best we get there soon rather than wait for you to schedule your date book. Can stop off on Geraldton Settlement on Ita moon while we’re thereabouts, if you want. They have a few men as can afford you.”
She held her tongue. Time and again, she had proven that her temper could outlast Malcolm Reynolds’ ill humor. As she had come to inquire only about their intended destination, she didn’t have much else to say to him anyway. But she couldn’t resist needling him a little.
“You forgot to drop off your horse.”
He shrugged. “Ain’t mine.”
“Really? I thought you were conveniently ignoring that fact.”
“Not your business. Remember that, Madame Ambassador.” He left, tramping after Jayne.
*****
They arrived at St. Albans three days later. Bucky’s price had obviously fetched enough to provide excess fuel for the hard burns they’d run for half of the transit. Kaylee was forced to split her time between pony and potential engine trouble, and was, as a result, stretched thin to the point of bursting into tears when they broke atmo.
Inara found herself unable to be anywhere else but the cargo bay at this late point. She intended to pass off her presence as one of friendly obligation, but Kaylee hadn’t needed her for comfort. Kaylee had secured Simon’s shoulder for crying on, which she did when she wasn’t cursing about what the hard journey had done to Serenity. Luckily for Kaylee, the doctor was another perpetual haunt of the temporary horse paddock as River wasn’t anywhere else these days.
“Here to say goodbye, are you?”
Mal had walked out from below decks and spotted her on the catwalk. Before she could answer, he looked away, eyes going wide. While Simon was preoccupied with Kaylee, River had climbed onto Bucky’s back.
“Hey,” Mal griped at her, “just what do you think you’re doing?”
“River!” Simon shouted, coming to and startling Kaylee.
“Keep it quiet there, doc, would you?” Mal moved around to Bucky’s front in a hurry; if Simon had spooked Bucky, it wouldn’t be safe to approach him from the rear.
Mal looked at horse and girl, hands on hips. “You coming off there or what?”
“The other rider is much heavier.” River pulled at her billowy dress, pinching out the fabric away from her slender body. “Big gut, larger than you remember.”
Mal stared at her a long hard moment, then started to laugh so hard he was wiping at his eyes before he recovered.
“I just bet he has, oh mercy.”
“Who?” Kaylee asked, perking up. “Who she talking about, Cap’n?”
“Man who’s gonna take the very finest care of Bucky, Kaylee, I can promise you that, okay?”
“Who’s the buyer?” Inara couldn’t hold in her curiosity, stunned as she was by Mal’s show of genuine amusement.
He stared up at her for a minute, attempting to determine if she was having fun, but answered honestly. “Ranch hand I know.”
She gaped at him. Turn that animal into a cattle rustler? Bucky was entirely unsuited to such work. He was built for speed, not hard labor. Inara had hoped Mal had at least managed to dig up a disreputable breeder to take the animal.
“You promised away racehorse for a ranch?”
Mal gave her no sign her disdain affected him one way or another.
“I had something he wanted. All there is to it.”
*****
The drop point was well outside the city of Freehold, St. Albans’ only decent settlement. Situated on the second farthest planet from the Core, it wasn’t a populous destination. Inara wasn’t surprised by the remote location; even at the end of the ‘verse, people Mal knew often managed to isolate themselves just that much further from humanity.
Jayne cursed when he found them all assembled in the cargo bay as he went to open the outer doors. He gave Bucky a wide berth and a fierce snarl, but either or both might just as easily have been directed at River. She was now draped over Bucky’s back so that their hair fell in one cascade over his bowed head.
“Moonbrain thinks she’s Lady Godiva.”
“Not naked on the outside,” River mumbled darkly at him.
“That’s a shame,” Mal said. Seeing Simon’s sharpening expression, he clarified, “ ‘Cause I reckon old Slim’d pay extra for his horse if it were rode in to him by pretty girls in the altogether.”
“You’ve gotten enough help from members of my family on this job, Captain,” Simon groused.
Mal shrugged as he stooped to retrieve Bucky’s harness. Up until now, the horse had been well mannered enough not to require one, and he’d been watched almost around the clock anyway. Mal slipped the expensive leather straps over Bucky’s nose, and then helped River off.
“How about you, Inara? Gonna help us raise Bucky’s price tag? You’re the sort to be used to running around without clothes.”
She said sweetly, “I’m not a part of this, remember? Perhaps you should try it yourself. Might do us all the favor and forever rid us of the nightmare that you might reproduce.”
Jayne found that a righteously funny idea. “Would pay to see that happen.”
“You don’t want me to be about listing the number of things a man might do to you, Jayne, that people’d pay for to see,” Mal growled as he led Bucky towards the opening cargo doors.
Kaylee went with the horse as he led him out for a few steps, then she fell back, shoulders slumped with disappointment. Simon squeezed her hand once, and, under the influence of such attention from the otherwise emotionally reticent doctor, Kaylee shook her sorrows in a hurry.
“You make sure that man takes care of him, Cap’n!”
“Will do, Kaylee,” he waved without turning around. Bucky followed behind him willingly, the reins slack in Mal’s hand. Duty performed, Jayne took off, walking through the space Bucky had, until recently, occupied.
Inara saw Mal and Bucky walk twenty yards or so through tall yellow grass. Ahead of them, a short, corpulent man waved to the Captain. They embraced when Mal reached him, Bucky almost forgotten as he helped himself to a snack of leafy scenery.
It struck her only then that he’d gotten off alone. “Where’s Zoe?” She asked Kaylee.
“Up in her bunk with Wash, I think,” Kaylee frowned, trying to figure how that was important when she was losing her new pet. “Why?”
“Mal’s making this drop by himself?”
“Cap’n says he knows him,” Kaylee said, simply. “I think he might be an old war buddy.”
That was one possibility. Mal’s friends were few and far between that they knew of, and it was the rare friend indeed that wasn’t also a Browncoat. But the man he was talking to was all wrong for the part of a soldier. Too old, too heavy.
“Led a horse to water,” River said at her elbow, startling her. “Good thing it’s thirsty.” She waved enthusiastically out the doors, even though neither men nor horse waved back, then scampered.
*****
They remained on St. Albans scant few minutes after Mal returned from the drop. Inara was pouring a cup of tea for herself when the captain entered the galley to scrounge together some cold protein for lunch.
Jayne, who was polishing off leftovers, watched him with limited patience. He gave up when Mal tucked into his food without any debriefing. “Ain’t you forgetting something?”
“Let’s consult the checklist,” Mal said, munching thoughtfully on a protein stick. “One–get horse. Two–get paid for horse. Three–deliver horse. Nope, got it all, I think.”
“What about the coin for the animal from the buyer?”
“What about it?”
Jayne looked flummoxed. “You mean you just gave that thing away? For nothin’?”
“Slim drives a hard bargain,” Mal grunted, unimpressed as Jayne’s gape soured into a pout. Jayne polished off the rest of his food and skulked out of the galley, leaving Inara and Mal alone.
“I know you got that appointment coming up,” he said, starting in with an argumentative tone before she could confirm or deny his words.
“Appointment?”
“You said you had to go back to the Core for check-ups or some such,” Mal said between mouthfuls. “ We got a job between here and there—shouldn’t take too long, but I promised the Shepherd I’d see him off with some of his type of people ‘fore we took you in. That work for you?”
“Ye-es,” she stammered, surprised by his willingness to accommodate her. “That will be fine.”
“It’s a bit of a distance,” he continued, as if determined to fight, “between here and the Core.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” she said, sarcastically. Inara walked around the counter to sit on his right. He kicked out the chair for her to sit, a sloppy attempt at chivalry meant as a peace offering of sorts.
“Just wanted you to know. Won’t be able to burn so hot as we did coming out here or Kaylee will wrap busted coils round my neck.”
“Mmm,” she hummed as she sipped her tea. They sat together in companionable quiet, before she asked, “Mal, who was that man?”
“Who–Slim?”
“Yes.”
“Fella I know, ‘s all. Used to break racehorses way back. Been past his prime a spell, and injury put him out of the game early. He was missing the fun, so we made a deal.”
Touched, she gave him an affectionate smile. “A deal from which, judging by Jayne’s reaction, you took away nothing.”
“Not nearly nothing,” he protested, “I got the coin from those as can’t know what to do with an animal that refined, and I got him to a man as would. We all profit, save for Mr. and Mrs. Yuan, who have instead learned a valuable lesson that should fair them better than a silly horse.”
Despite herself, she chuckled. “What, ‘don’t trust your property to strangers’?”
“Hide your stash better next time.”
“Very important lesson,” she agreed. “Still, an awful lot of trouble. You’ll have used up all the money you earned on fuel just getting out here.”
“Not quite,” he said without looking up from his plate.
“Oh?” Something clicked in her head. She fixed him with a suspicious look. “This wouldn’t have to do with Simon accidentally suggesting something to you, would it?”
“Accident? Making coin for us is our work. ‘Bout time the boy had something to contribute.” Mal took a swig of water from his mug. “This job just about fell in my lap, Inara, and I weren’t the one to say no. But I figure you’ve got a point: marriage affairs is mess I got no business getting myself into. No more after this. So, I figure, what’s the harm if it don’t go according to the boss’ plan?”
“Let me guess,” Inara rolled her eyes, “ ‘Slim’ wasn’t supposed to end up with Bucky?” He shook his head, drawing out an exasperated sigh from her. “Mal, if this Yuan person can afford an animal like Bucky, he’ll have influence. He might report you.”
“Ah,” he wagged a finger at her. “Then he’d have to admit to embezzling from the missus.”
Clever, she had to concede, especially for him. “And his wife? What do you suppose she’s hiding from him?”
“Oh, that’s easy,” he waved her off. “If I were her, and my racing pony was something I was like to miss, I’d have him snatched ahead of time so my mister couldn’t get to it first.” He gave her a look that conveyed doubts on her intelligence for not seeing what he felt was plain as day.
“Too bad for her you got there first,” she sniffed, petulant. “I suppose,” she said slowly, “you should be proud of yourself, cheating a woman out of her fair share of her husband’s estate.”
“Who said we was cheating her?”
Inara opened her mouth to answer, you did, and shut it again promptly. His eyes were twinkling, and he was fighting a smirk. “You’re working for her.”
“And I thought you were supposed to be so smart,” he chuckled, rolling his eyes. “Guess the doc’s got you beat on that score.” Mal let her stew before he confessed. “Simon overheard my cunning plannings and had some of the same objections you voiced of late.”
“I have every faith Simon objects to most of your jobs, Mal. So what?”
“Well, the doc has a tongue about as sharp as yours when he gets righteous cranky. Said as long as I was bothering to be a,” Mal screwed up his nose in distaste as he recalled his words, “ ‘an unwelcome interloper in difficult matters,’ I might as well make the most of it.”
“Meaning…?”
Mal’s grin threatened to split his face in two halves. “Doc’s got no faith in humanity, Inara. He said he figured if one of the pair of soon-to-be-exes was a slyboots about keeping his stuff, why wouldn’t the other be?”
“You can’t…you don’t,” Inara stuttered, “you took money from both of them?”
Mal shrugged. “Two bits of coin, one bitty animal. And it so happened there was a man I knew who’d be glad of the horse for a while.”
“You took money from the husband and the wife, and you gave it neither of them?”
“Don’t seem fair, does it? Now they’re both out cash they might could’ve made ten times over on studding if they hadn’t tried to cheat each other, even split fifty-fifty.”
“I hardly…Mal, that’s underhanded even for you.”
“It’s thieving, good and honest, which is more than can be said of what’s going on between the unhappy couple right now.” He produced a bag from one of his trouser pockets. “I got a deposit from each of them, and we spent half on the good cause of getting Slim his animal. Leaves us with one whole payment for our trouble. Evens out.”
Cocking his head to the side, he grinned at her. “Worth a bit of goings back on my honorable word, you ask me.”
“No one will contact you with work like this if that’s how you behave.”
Mal held up one hand and put the other over his heart. “No more after this, my hand to Serenity.”
“And this Slim person, he’ll take care of Bucky?”
“Not a man in the ‘verse I trust with an animal more than Slim.” Mal slumped back in his seat as though drained.
Delicately, she probed into this last mystery. “How do you know him?”
The pause wasn’t but momentary, yet she noticed it, read into it every detail he could betray in so small a gesture. A mere second of a stumble and then his casual indifference fell back into place.
“Slim used to drive cattle for us on Shadow.”
“Oh,” Inara pressed her lips into a firm line, unsure of how to proceed. She knew Mal had grown up on Shadow, a planet killed off in the war that had taken most everything else from him. As such, he let the history of his boyhood there lay as dead and forgotten as the place itself. Slim’s connection to Mal made up a full half of what she knew of his life before Serenity and Serenity Valley. “How did you happen to catch up again? Did you run into each other on a job?”
“Always knew where Slim was. Just never got around to contacting him.”
“And then a horse you knew he’d love happened to fall into your lap,” she parroted his words back at him.
Abashed, Mal scratched at the back of his neck. “Truth is I hadn’t thought about him in about forever, really. And then he just come up to my mind, being one of the last I knew who made it off world before the bombing. Started thinking about catching up after I--” and here he smirked at her--“since I talked about it some with Saffron.”
Inara’s nostril twitched involuntarily at the name, but she managed a wry grin of her own. “Getting cozy with the missus, were we?”
“Was wiled out of me against my will, Inara, you said so yourself. Anyhow, I wouldn’t have borne up that kind of confidence if I’d known what she was about.”
“Right.”
“So, I drug up some memories and worked towards getting Lucky aboard.”
“Lucky?” There was a story here, too, and Mal seemed appreciative of the change in subject.
“Oh yeah, his full name, and that I won’t never forget–the Yuans each told me it plenty times over.” He took a deep breath, flaring his nostrils as though assaulted with a hideous odor. When he spoke, his voice was thin and nasal. “Lord Lucky Stakes Patron Smithchild of High Waters.”
Familiar with the unique and usual names given to thoroughbreds, this grand title did not surprise her in the slightest, but it didn’t answer her question. “Where did Bucky come from then?”
Mal chuckled. “Ah that. Jayne got a little too happy about getting himself a pony, and he startled Lucky.” Though that thought was a tad incongruous with Jayne’s behavior towards Bucky on Serenity, Inara didn’t interrupt Mal as he reenacted the pickup--wherein Jayne ended up getting a full toss of horse head to the face.
“Lucky,” Mal said, squashed his nose flat, and repeated the word. It came out remarkably like “Bucky.”
“I see,” she put her fingers to her lips to stifle giggles. “Never a dull moment.”
“Unfortunately,” he agreed.
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-27 07:57 am (UTC)Oh, I am far too entertained. I can absolutely picture it all happening - especially River's insta-connection to the horse and Kaylee fawning over him... and Jayne's "naming". *dies*
The Mal and Inara interplay was dead-on: the way he hits her with so many offenses at once that she's winded and hardly knows where to begin in coming back. As always, any mention of Shadow or hint of before-the-war Mal (his gentle grooming) wins tons of points (I think I have as much of an obsession with that aspect of Mal as Inara does). And his whole elaborate scheme for the job is just so perfectly... Mal.
This is like a quirky little lost interlude, that could fit nicely between any two Firefly episodes.
In short: it makes me happy. THANK YE.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-27 11:25 pm (UTC)I couldn't resist giving Jayne a pony. I just couldn't. Happy Holidays!