-"It's okay! I am a leaf on the wind!"
-"What does that mean?"
Wash had never seen trees before. At least, not trees that could be properly counted as such. Of course they had a hydroponics unit on the ship where he was born, but the only tree there was a scraggly old bonsai, many times older than the ancient Chinese cook it belonged to.
He'd read about them in books, in the books he used to read about Earth That Was. When he wasn't following his uncle around learning everything the man could teach about flying, Wash was holed up in his bunk, blankets pulled up over his head, flashlight eagerly scanning the pages of his most recent treasure.
He'd seen pictures of trees in his books, pictures of the majestic Giant Sequoia, the sturdy oaks, the intricate strangler figs…but to young Wash, trees were just like the dinosaurs. They must have existed at some point, but they certainly weren't around any longer. Which is why, when his Aunt and Uncle asked him what he wanted for his tenth birthday, his request was quite simple: dinosaurs and trees. The plastic playset he received that year instantly became his favorite possession. Within hours, the dinosaurs all had names. And each dinosaur had his very own tree. And one by one, they migrated onto the console of the ship as Wash began to take over his Uncle's piloting duties.
Which is why they were now safely stowed away in the bottom of his satchel as he arrived on Ariel to begin flight school. He'd never been to a central planet before, and he'd certainly never been on solid ground more than a few days shoreleave in between runs. He was fifteen, nervous, and utterly out of place. A wind, an honest-to-goodness wind whipped through his reddish blond hair, and Wash eagerly turned, letting the wind rush across his face. Above him, fallen leaves from the nearby trees danced and spun in intricate patterns across the sky. Wash thought he had never seen anything quite so beautiful.
Wash was kicked out of flight school just a few months later, for "the development and execution of flight plans that constituted reckless endangerment of students and staff."
"…What do they know?" Wash asked himself as he packed his stegosaurus away. "I am a leaf on the wind, watch me soar!"