Time for Some Thrilling Heroics
Okay, guys. My second try at the writing game produced a batch of Firefly drabbles. Which were all insanely fun to write.
So, here they are, for all you to enjoy. Click on the title for the story.
Title: Rumor
Fandom: Firefly
Word Count: 86
“There’s rumors circlin’ about,” said Badger, twirling an apple on his peeler, “that some experiment, a girl of some sort, ‘scaped from the Alliance.”
“Is there now?” asked Mal, trying to sound disinterested.
“The rumor is she’s worth a good deal of money,” Badger added. “And that she’s hiding out on a firefly.” Badger looked at Mal, eyes glowing with suspicion and greed. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, now would ya?”
Mal looked back at Badger. “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear, Badger."
(All the following drabbles are pre-canon, just so you all know.)
Title: Parallel
Fandom: Firefly
Word Count: 162
“What’ve we got?” Simon asked one of the nurses rushing a gurney into the Operating Room.
“Twelve-year-old girl,” the nurse snapped back. “Punctured left lung and possible ruptured artery.” Another nurse helped her lift the girl onto the operating table.
Simon looked down at the girl, and immediately felt his chest tighten. This girl, with her dark hair and pale skin-she could have been his sister. She wasn’t, but she easily could have been. River was turning thirteen in a few weeks.
She was bleeding badly from her chest right below her tiny left breast. And it didn’t take him long to figure out that there was nothing he could do. She was going to die.
“Doctor Tam?” said the nurse. “What are your instructions?”
The girl opened her eyes. They were so full of pain and fear.
“Dope her,” Simon said quietly. The nurse did so.
And as the girl drifted off, Simon said softly, “It’s going to be okay.”
Title: Brown Coats
Fandom: Firefly
Word Count: 195
It wasn’t much of a uniform, really. Because they weren’t soldiers.
They were settlers, farmers, ranchers. They didn’t go through their lives learning to fight and kill others. But they learned fast. Because, if they were anything, they were survivors.
They used whatever they had. And what they had typically turned out to be brown. And any Browncoat would tell you , “The clothes don’t make the man.”
They were a rag-tag group of men and women who had no training, no experience, no tactical know-how. But they fought anyway, knowing that the odds were against them, knowing that they would probably lose, and that those losses would be would be heavy.
But what could they do? This was their land, their livelihood. They had hashed out what little they had with their bare hands in a Godforsaken and unforgiving landscape. They couldn’t just let those rich arrogant pricks in the Alliance, whose hands were perfectly manicured and hadn’t done a day’s work in their lives, just take it all away from them.
So they fought, because they couldn’t afford to lose. Because losing the war meant losing everything.
And that is exactly what happened.
Title: The Boy They Call "Jayne"
Fandom: Firefly
Word Count: 196
“Shouldn’t start fights, Jayne,” said George, wiping off her bloody hands on her pants. “Someone’s liable to get hurt.”
Two boys dropped a scrawny, bleeding teenager on the dirt and laughed as he coughed and wheezed and tried to regain his breath. “What’s the problem, Jayne?” they jeered. “Is momma’s little girl hurt? Does she have a boo boo?”
“Go run to your momma, Jayne Cobb,” George sneered. “Your whore momma.”
“Yeah,” the other boys said. “Your momma’s a whore.”
“Don’t talk about my momma like that you bitch!” Jayne yelled. His pain completely forgotten, he exploded, grabbing George by her knees and forcing her to the ground. He flung his fists across her face again and again and again. When George’s posse tried to intervene, he elbowed them in the nuts.
Before Jayne knew it, the fight was over. He’d won. He could hardly believe it. George was lying on the ground bloodied and bruised and her boys were still doubled over, tears crawling slowly down their cheeks. George was looking up at him, her eyes filled with shock and amazement.
Jayne smirked. “Didn’t you know, George? You start fights, someone’s liable to get hurt.”
Title: Windswept
Fandom: Firefly
Word Count: 100
If you had asked anyone in Hoban Washburne’s hometown what had happened to him, they would have looked up at the sky, shrugged, and answered, “The wind just swept him up, I suppose.”
If you had asked Hoban Washburne the same question, he’d smile and say the same thing.
And , in a way, it did.
Wash had always been fascinated with whatever was beyond that thick cloud of pollution and smog. He wanted to know. He wanted to see.
So he learned to fly. And one day, as the wind blew gently, he left.
And he never looked back.
(And this ends the pre-canon drabbles.)
Title: It's Lonely at the Top
Fandom: Firefly
Word Count: 200
Inara sat before her small mirror running a brush through her long black hair in the comfortable silence of her shuttle.
“Gotta big date tonight?” Mal’s voice interrupted the silence.
“Not that it’s any of your business,” Inara replied in agitation, “but yes, I do.”
“Oh?” Mal said. He began wandering around the shuttle, picking up knick-knacks, playing with tassels, touching fragile china. “Who’s this one? Wait, let me guess. Some rich ambassador with deep pockets come to sweep you away to a life of culture and happiness?”
“Would you stop touching my things?” Inara said. “And he is not an ambassador. He’s an officer.”
“An officer?” Mal said with a laugh.
“Yes,” Inara replied. “An Alliance captain.”
“A captain,” Mal said, eyes turned upward as though he were consulting with some higher authority. “An Alliance captain needs a whore?”
Inara had had enough. “Yes, Mal,” she said angrily, slamming her brush down but not turning to face him. “A captain needs a Companion sometimes. Being a captain is a lonely life.”
All of a sudden, Mal looked hurt, and Inara instantly regretted saying it. Mal looked down, wouldn’t, maybe couldn’t, look at her. “Yeah,” he said quietly, “I know.”
Enjoy, everyone!