Five for Silver, Six for Gold [Firefly]

[ringsofsaturn]

um... hi, hello, everyone! i'm kind of new, but i come bearing fanfiction as an offering! i've been poking through the forums for a while now, and i saw there were a handful of requests for Firefly fanfiction, so i thought i'd see if i could deliver. i'm not sure how long it'll be, probably at least four or five parts, but i guess we'll see.

this is both my first time writing sneezefic, and my first time writing Firefly fic, so... please be gentle!

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One:

"Great, this is just great." Jayne grunted as he hacked through the tall grass with a machete, pointedly stomping on the crushed plants in his wake. "We ain't had a good meal in two weeks, and the first real job we get's on a planet full'a ruttin' vegetarians."

Zoe snorted a laugh as she moved through the parted grass behind him, a rifle strapped between her shoulder blades and her hair pulled back low against her neck. "Aw, come on, Jayne, it ain't that bad," she said with a shake of her head. "They say tofu meatloaf tastes exactly the same if you close your eyes."

"Yeah, they also say yī fū dāng guān, wàn fū mò kāi," Jayne spat, "but it's a load'a fei hua, too. If'n I wanted to eat a block'a tasteless goo, I'd be happy with the protein blocks we got in the mess!"

"Now, Jayne, I don't want you insulting our client," Mal said, bringing up the rear. "A man's diet is his own choice. Trust me, I'm in your camp when it comes to carnivorosity, but if Lǜjūn offers you a plate of roughage you're gonna eat it, without bein' tetchy."

Jayne groaned like this was the worst possible punishment in The Verse, but made no further complaint as he continued hacking his way through the long grass.

Xethao was a strikingly beautiful planet, especially in comparison to the other worlds along The Rim. It was only about half the size of Earth That Was, but had needed only minimal terraforming to be habitable. Two-thirds ocean, the vast waters dotted with hundreds of small islands and archipelagos, Xethao was a wealth of agriculture. From rice fields to fruit orchards, Xethao had a flourishing produce and grain export market, making it one of the most prosperous and successful planets along The Rim. Unfortunately for Jayne, the planet had exactly one species of fauna: humans. The oceans were completely devoid of fish, the trees empty and silent, no birdcalls filled the air. The original settlers of Xethao had been a large religious congregation who had seen animals as unclean, lesser creatures, and when the Alliance had sent the first pairs of animals to populate the planet, the settlers had instead sent the shipment off to the next planet. They had preserved the 'purity' of Xethao as a strictly human world, and had collected a hefty sum for their troubles--it had been a win/win for the settlers.

Of course, that meant that there were no birds to help pollinate the orchards, and no oxen to pull plows, so while Xethao was a world of deeply refined religious folk, the people were incredibly hard working. They had to meticulously cultivate and seed all their crops themselves, and everything was harvested by hand or with simple machinery. It also meant that everyone on Xethao was strictly vegetarian, both because their religion demanded it of them, and because they... literally had no livestock.

What the citizens of Xethao wanted with a crew of smugglers was beyond Mal, but a job was a job, and he had a very strict policy of never saying no to money before he got the details.

"How much further?" Zoe asked, swiping the back of her wrist over her brow with a sigh. "Feels like we been walkin' for miles."

"Lǜjūn lives in an estate on a dinky little island in the middle of an atoll," Mal said, gesturing broadly at the field of grass all around them. "There's nowhere for a ship to land on the island, and everything within spittin' distance is marshland." He stomped his boots against the ground. "Too soft to hold a whole ship, so we gotta hoof it to the shore and then we'll be met by a boat that'll take us to the island in the lagoon."

"That all sounds nice and fancible," Jayne said, rolling his eyes, "but, uh... are there like... women on this here tropical paradisical rock?"

"Can't you think of anything except meat, Jayne?" Zoe asked.

"Hey, a man has needs, you know?" He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and gave a shrug, lifting his palms toward the sky. "Meat on his bones, and, uh... maybe some bone in--"

"La la la~ This is your captain speaking," Mal shouted, covering his ears with both hands. "To your left, you'll see a rapid subject change."

"Don't be such a tóngnán, Cap'n," Jayne sniggered. "Maybe Lǜjūn's got a concubine for ya."

"Hâo le, both of you," Zoe said sharply. "Let's just get to the estate and find out what sort of job this Lǜjūn guy's got for us. We can worry about your carnal desires after we get paid."

The trio crossed the rest of the marshy field in silence, nothing but the sound of Jayne's machete slashing through the grass to fill the air. It was a little eerie, Mal thought with a frown. He wasn't really used to silence. Even in the dead of space, there was always the hum of Serenity's engines, thrumming gently through the walls of the ship like a heartbeat. On a planet, though, there was rarely such quiet. Between the hustle and bustle of settlers in the run-down cities that dotted the worlds, the roar of ship engines in ports, or the lowing of cattle in fields, to hear nothing but the wind and their footsteps here was kind of giving Mal the creeps. Hooking his thumbs into the waistband of his trousers, he followed along behind Jayne and Zoe, his eyes scanning the field. Xethao had an almost nonexistent crime rate, but a good captain never fully let his guard down.

At the edge of the marshy field was a line of trees, deep green and draped in moss. Jayne paused at the treeline and rested his machete against his shoulder, then looked behind him at Zoe and Mal.

"If I'd known we were goin' on a hiking trip, I'd'a worn my comfortable boots," he quipped.

"Jayne, you only got one pair'a boots," Zoe said, and Jayne turned and threw his hands in the air.

"Well, and whose fault is that?" he asked sarcastically. "Maybe one'a these days we'll actually score a job that pays enough to get myself a second pair'a boots!"

"For pity's sake, Jayne, we got more important things to worry about than your footwear," Mal growled, gesturing at the forest in front of them. "Now will ya quit bellyachin' and blaze the gorram trail? We got a job to do, so let's get to it."

Jayne rolled his eyes, but swung the machete down from his shoulder and turned to head into the trees.

It quickly became obvious that there was very little traffic through this wooded area. The underbrush was all overgrown, and the trees grew huge and heavy with gnarled branches hung low with curtains of moss. Jayne continued slicing through the foliage as they trudged through the trees, and after a few minutes of walking, Jayne stopped abruptly in his tracks and swatted one hand through the air.

"Gorrammit, Mal, I thought you said there weren't no critters on this rock," he snarled, whacking a nearby tree with the machete to stick the blade into the wood and free up his hands. He snapped both hands up and slapped his palms together.

"There ain't no critters on this rock," Mal said, walking up past Zoe to approach Jayne as he made a noise of disgust and smeared his hands on the thighs of his pants.

"Well then what the hell're all these bugs doin' here?" Jayne demanded, swatting at the air again. "What if they're carryin' some kind'a disease? We're all gonna get lamaria!"

"The disease is malaria, Jayne," Zoe said, shaking her head, "and it was eradicated like two hundred years ago; we've got nothing to worry about."

"Just 'cuz there's no critters here don't mean there's no bugs," Mal said, waving one hand as a buzzing sound flitted past his ear. "Xethaoan religion only restricts human contact with animals, not insects." He blew out a puff of air and waved his hand through the air again. There did seem to be an awful lot of insects in these woods. It seemed that the more they swatted at them, the more they swarmed around them, a great shifting silver cloud of tiny flecks of light.

"It'd be pretty impossible for all this plant life to exist without birds or insects," Zoe pointed out, swatting at the cloud. "People can't hand-pollinate everything. Come on, let's keep moving, before we get eaten alive."

Mal waved both hands in the air as the silvery cloud of insects continued to swirl around them, but oddly enough the bugs didn't seem to be biting them. The swarm buzzed all around them, collecting near their faces, but even as they began to swat more vigorously at these bugs with no sense of personal space, the peculiar insects didn't seem interested in biting them. Jayne let out a disgruntled snarl of annoyance and grabbed the machete again.

"Jayne, don't you dare start swingin' that thing around," Mal said sharply, and then made a shooing gesture with both hands. "Go, just go," he said, then stuck out his tongue and blew a raspberry as one of the insects flew into his open mouth. "Oh--eugh, bleugh..."

"Keep your mouth closed, sir, and you won't catch flies," Zoe teased, and before Mal could return a barb of his own, he made a garbled noise that consisted mostly of consonants and scrubbed both hands against his face. Reaching out with one hand and shoving Zoe's shoulder to push her forward, Mal stumbled blindly after her as they hurried further into the woods and away from the mass of bugs. Zoe turned over her shoulder and shot Mal a concerned look as he staggered after her, his eyes squeezed closed and his face scrunched up in something that wasn't exactly pain, but was definitely some sort of discomfort. "Sir, are you okay?" she asked, her forehead knitting together in worry. "Captain? Mal, say something!"

Mal's grip on her shoulder tightened, and he nearly tripped on an upturned root in the path, yanking Zoe's jacket to catch himself. She called for Jayne to wait a minute, then turned and grabbed Mal by the elbow, leaning forward and searching his face intently.

"Sir, what happened?" she asked, her voice tighter than her grip. She couldn't see any blood anywhere--had he been bitten by one of the insects? Was he having some kind of reaction? There were no visible insect bites on his skin, but that didn't mean he hadn't been bitten. "Captain!"

Mal shook his head, his eyes still squeezed closed, and the expression on his face warped suddenly. His eyebrows lifted and his lips parted, and he sucked in a sharp breath. Before Zoe could ask if he was in pain, Mal turned away sharply, his whole upper body lurching forward like a released spring.

"Huh-ishoo!"

Zoe blinked. Well... that wasn't what she'd been expecting. She released Mal's elbow and stepped back, folding her arms over her chest as he stood up again, scrubbing at his nose with the heel of one hand and then giving a loud sniffle.

"Ugh," he said, shaking his head quickly. "Did you see that? One'a those gorram bugs flew right up my nose!"

Zoe arched one dark eyebrow, looking keenly unimpressed. "Do you want me to call the doctor?" she asked dryly.

Mal didn't seem to hear her, his expression having gone slack and his eyes looking a bit far away. He scrunched up his nose and stepped to one side as his breath hitched suddenly, sharply, and he planted his hands on his thighs as he doubled forward with another vicious sneeze.

"Huh-heh-ischoo!"

"Captain..."

He held up one finger without looking at her, and Zoe hefted a sigh as Mal took several deep breaths.

"Ha... hang on a... heh-ischoo! Ik'tchoo!"

"Whenever you're done, sir."

Mal sniffled pointedly, then scrubbed at his nose again before standing back up and turning very calmly to Zoe.

"I don't even get a 'bless you'?" he asked with mock injury.

"And who exactly would you have me ask to bestow that blessing, sir?" she asked, deadpan, and Mal shrugged with a nod.

"Good answer," he said, and then sniffled again, shook his head, and pointed further down the trail. "All right, let's get out of these woods before anything else flies up my nose."

"Maybe next time we should bring some bug spray," Zoe suggested with a smirk.

"Next time, I'm bringin' the blowtorch," Jayne said, curling his lip a bit as they headed down the path that would lead to the docks beyond the forest.

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just a quick note: yī fū dāng guān, wàn fū mò kāi is an old Mandarin idiom that reads, 'if one man defends the pass, ten thousand cannot pass'. which is basically an inspirational proverb to say one man can make all the difference if he's in the right place at the right time.

Lǜjūn is literally a word i made up by mashing together the characters for green and lord.

all the other Chinese is pretty standard Firefly fare.

hope you've enjoyed this so far! i'll try and get some more work done on it ASAP if you guys like it!

[sapphiremint]

This is beyond perfect. I love the characterizations, they're all spectacularly done! I can't wait to read more!

[ringsofsaturn]

This is beyond perfect. I love the characterizations, they're all spectacularly done! I can't wait to read more!

thank you so much! i've always loved how distinctive all the Firefly characters are, so getting to play around with their personalities in fic has been really fun so far. <3

[NoV]

We need more Firefly fics on this forum, gorrammit!! Nicely written fic

[•.*°•☆. Q .☆•°*.•]

Count me among your fans and readers. That was incredible. The character accuracy and voice was perfect.

[ringsofsaturn]

ahh, thank you for your comments!  i was a little worried that this wasn't meeting expectations, since it seemed to have a good number of hits but only one response.    i'll try and get another chapter up soon!

[RiversD]

... What they said.

 

I'm bad at timely reviews, but I've had this one on my "should say something" list for a while. (also sorry if the formatting ends up scrappy, still getting used to the new forum...)

 

The character voices are really good, especially Jayne, terrible person though he is. I was comfortably back in the Firefly universe very quickly, which made everything that much easier to enjoy. Plus, you're super-good at getting detail in there (thinking particularly about the planetary environment) so that I feel immersed without being overwhelmed by infodump. Super good worldbuilding.

 

Bug-up-the-nose was a cool idea, too. Not sure I've seen that happen to a person in a sneezefic before (maybe I'm looking in the wrong places). It was a cute little bit of indignity for Mal.

 

I loved Zoe's "Whenever you're done, sir." it made me giggle.

 

And I liked the closing exchange:

"Maybe next time we should bring some bug spray," Zoe suggested with a smirk.

"Next time, I'm bringin' the blowtorch," Jayne said, curling his lip a bit as they headed down the path that would lead to the docks beyond the forest."

 

Funny, a neat way to end, and exactly the sort of back-and-forth I'd expect from these characters.

 

Thanks for posting this one!