A/N: Thank you all so much for reading, reviewing and favoriting! Gaben, and RionaEire you two rock! This was a really hard story for me to write. And I'm not sure why; but, I finished it and hope you enjoyed it. Gaben, thank you for being an awesome beta!
Chapter 3
Mal laid his daughter down carefully in her cheerfully painted bunk; she looked like an angel with her short crop of hair spread out around her head like a halo. He gently brushed an errant lock of hair off her face and kissed her on the forehead, carefully pushing Zoe in under her arm and tucking her into her very pink castle.
Caroline had given him quite a scare today. Gao yang jong duh goo yang! Motherless Goats of All Motherless Goats! Giu! Hell! She'd given them all a scare today. In many ways Mal was glad he'd actually been off-ship when she'd fallen; he wasn't sure that he coulda taken the shock. At the same time he wished that he could have been there to hold her while she cried. But, now she was sleeping; and Simon had assured him that when she woke up there wouldn't be much pain. Her mouth was healthy, and her teeth were healthy. There were a couple of small cavities; but, they were in baby-teeth that would be coming out soon. Mal could tell that Simon had been wishing he'd been a dentist and could fill the cavities; but, there wasn't much he could do about that.
Simon had started talking about how much worse Caroline's tumble down the stairs could have been; and when both Mal and Jayne started turning white. Kaylee jumped in with how lucky they'd been. And that she must have had an tiānshǐ, angel, looking over her. And wasn't it just shiny that the Doc could do a dental exam too! Inara hopped in to the conversation trying to sound enthusiastic about the good that came of the day's events. After all, they'd all see how much the little girl hated anything to do with the medical bay. Jayne was still looking a little peaked; but, even he had a bite mark from Caroline trying to escape Simon when he'd tried to examine her a couple days earlier. Yeah, anything medical related made his daughter turn into a hellion!
So now Mal sat here in his berth's silence, humming a wordless tune his mother had hummed when he'd been little. "Mmmm, mmmm, hmmm." The melody brought him back to when he'd been about Caroline's age, maybe a little older; but, not much. It had been summer; he could remember that because it was so hot the men in the fields were working without shirts.
"Ma, Ma, Ma!'
"What, Malcolm? I'm right here, you don't have ta' yell."
"Can I go swimming with the Larsen's and Pieter?"
"Yer chores done?"
"Yes 'm" Mal nodded vigorously, he really wanted to up to the swimming hole.
"Be back before supper."
Mal turned to sprint towards where the boys were waiting for him until he heard his ma yell something else. "And iffn you hear thunder;r you all best come back now. I'm not likin' the look of that sky."
"Yep! We'll be back for supper. Love ya ma!" Mal waved as the four boys all ran off together.
Looking over at his still sleeping daughter, Mal thought about the similarities between that day and this one. He stared at the angelic expression on Caroline's and fingered the scar on his own head. Yeah, that day had been a lot like this day; started off quiet, and ended up like da-shiang bao-tza shr duh lah doo-tze! The Explosive Diarrhea of an Elephant!
Kaylee and the rest of the crew had told him all about the good morning they'd been having. Breakfast got et; first set of lessons got did; and they're was all kinds of mischief being made in the sun on the ramp when the Shepard had said that they'd better do some more lessons before lunch.
Yeah, that was pretty much what ma had said that morning, and every morning when Mal had wanted to go off and do fun stuff. "Yer chores done?"
Running through the fields with the boys was one of Mal's favorite things to do! Especially when they started trading insults.
"You're the liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh ur-tze!You're the stupid Son of a Drooling Whore and a Monkey" Pieter threw out to start the daily battle.
"Ching-wah tsao duh liou mahng! Frog-Humping Son of a Bitch!" One of the Larsen's threw out; Mal never bothered to try and tell them apart. It wasn't like they were ever apart.
"Bun tyen-shung duh ee-dway-ro! Stupid Inbred Stack of Meat!" The other Larsen tossed out as he clambered over a rock and around a tree that led to the entrance to the old quarry that was now full of water.
Reaching the top of the hill Mal stripped off his shirt while running and hurled himself over the edge "Last one in is a huh choo-shung tza-jiao duh tzang-huo! Last one in is a filthy fornicator of Livestock!"
Of course had any of their parents heard the language pouring out their mouths, they would have been dragged home and had had their mouth washed out with the joo fuen chse;pigs droppings,that old man Cheng sold for soap. But that was the best thing about being a boy, and having free-run of their little section of Shadow afternoon!
Laughing the three other boys followed him up the rocky hill to the old quarry. Most of Shadow was flat; but, there were a couple of hills. And they pretty much were all on mineral or stone deposits. This one which was adjacent to the Reynold's ranch was stone. A nifty type of stone that the teachers at school blabbed on and on and on about! None of the boys gave a fay-fay duh pee yen, a baboon's asshole about the geology. But, they did care that the hill was tree covered with just enough underbrush to let them play Alliance and Rebels! And the best part was that the quarry itself had mostly filled with water over the years and even on the hottest days the water was cool.
The boys quickly stripped down. The Larsen twin quickly dumped all their clothes into a heap and leaped from the ledge into the water below. Pieter stayed in his tattered under shorts, not wanting to listen to taunts about their shrinking, yīnjīng, once the frigid water hit his body.
"Hey, Mal you too delicate ta go in buck," teased one of the Larsen's having realized that all Mal had taken off was his shirt. None of them had worn shoes up here; it was summer, shoes were for winter. And they were expensive, better stuff to spend coinage on then shoes no one needed.
"Yep, all kinds of a mama's boy." The other one chimed in, a chorus… As usual.
Mal dropped straight down into the water he'd just climbed out of and bobbed up next to his friends, "Nah, jist don't wan' my junk bein' mistaking for a pea." He laughed as he dunked the Larsen closest to him; Johann he thought.
Johann, or Maxim came back to the surface spitting water like a fountain into the sky.
"Come on in Pieter!" Malcolm yelled at his friend.
"Are you scared?" Shouted the twins.
"Scared like a nǚhái, girl!" Taunted Malcolm while he treaded water.
Pieter cannonballed into the center of boys yelling at the top of his lungs the whole way down. "Damn this water is cold enough to freeze the tits off a cow!" he exclaimed as he bobbed back to the surface of the quarry.
The cold water was a relief against Shadow's strong summer sun. The boys spent a bunch of time paddling around the big pit and jumping off the ledge at the edge of the trail. Playing silly games, laughing, and generally enjoying their free time. Summer was busy for the ranches on Shadow so the four boys didn't get a lot of time to be together.
They played games like How Joh Bu Jian; where the player in the middle had to close their eyes and try and grab the players splashing around you. But, the catch was that you could only capture your opponent underwater.
"Shee-niou, cow sucking..." Yelped Pieter when Maxim scared the go shi out of him.
Maxim grabbed his friend by his legs and yanked him hard under the cool water, then, " Go tsao de, dog fucker," spluttered Pieter as his head burst out of the water.
The boys were having a blast, splashing and trying to see who could be the crudest. No one really had an edge; because, they all lived on and around ranches. And the ranch hands, especially the old ones, could make even the most hardened whore blush.
Mal leaned forward in his chair when Caroline mumbled in her sleep, and rubbed her arm gently to let her know that he was there. She reflexively grabbed his hand, and he just stared at how small her fingers were next to his and settled back into a comfortable position. He shook his head at how tough the four of them had been that summer when they were seven.
There was a lot of kicking and splashing and squealing for quite a while; interesting expletives were exchanged; dares were tossed around. And town gossip was exchanged: How Johann and Maxim had seen Ming making out with their older brother Dirck.
Then the dare came up. The dare to jump off the high ledge. The ledge that only the teenagers jumped off. The ledge that you had to jump over the rock slide into the quarry.
Looking back, Mal thought it was Pieter that had tossed the dare out there; but, it could have been Johann. He was pretty sure that it wasn't Maxim. Thinking about it now, that just wasn't the type of thing Maxim would do. Nah… It had to have been Maxim that tossed the dare; and Malcolm was the only one brave enough to take it at the ripe old age of seven.
With all the bravado and determination he could muster, Mal climbed out of the water and walked up the trail towards the ledge that they usually jumped off, it was only about six feet above the water. Pieter, Johann, and Maxim's taunts followed him up the path he kept walking past the ledge with only a small pause and a little bit of trepidation in his step. He reached the ledge where the teenage boys all dared each other to jump from. It was about twenty feet above the water; and you had to make sure you jumped out about five feet towards the center to miss some jagged rocks just above the water line.
"Shun shen duh gao wahn! Holy testicle Tuesday!" Mal whispered to himself as he stared down at the quarry waters where Pieter, Maxim and Johann were swimming and splashing. "That's a long way down."
The water looked like it was a mile away, and the rocks looked like jagged teeth!
"Come on! What are you a jī, chicken?" Pieter yelled up at Mal
"Yeah, hurry up!" The twins shouted and then started crowing like chickens and trying to flap their arms while treading water.
"Wuh duh ma huh tah duh fong kwong duh wai shung! Holy Mother of God and All Her Wacky Nephews!" Mal whispered to himself before yelling out "Here goes nuthin!'
He grabbed his nose and with a giant leap he flew off the ledge to the sounds of guys in the water shouting "Yeah!" and "Whoot!"
Mal shook his head as he remembered that day; well, as he didn't really remember the next few hours after the dive. And honestly, he really didn't remember the few minutes before the dive either; the doc said that was pretty common. Caroline moved in her sleep and moaned a little and he reached over and stroked her hair humming gently until she quieted back down. Looking back all those years ago; he'd really been young, dumb, and foolish!
There really wasn't much he remembered from the rest of that day. He'd woken up to the doc talkin' to his ma. Mal had heard a few words here and there; he remembered 'lucky,' 'scar,' and a couple other random words. He hadn't felt so lucky the next morning when he'd woken up again and gotten one heck of a tongue lashing from his mother. But, at least she felt that the gash on his head; and his mild concussion was punishment enough for being a yú, foolish, boy!
Gently rubbing Caroline's arm; which she usually found comforting, Mal felt pretty much the same way. He'd yell at her tomorrow for running without her shoelaces tied; but, for now he was just relieved that she was fine, and it wasn't a twenty foot cliff that she'd decided to jump from. Though, if she'd slipped under the railing on the mezzanine, the long drop to the loading bay would have been worse. Yup, he was going ta be doin some yellin' alright.
E/N: Well, I did it: Used it all fifteen words that topless robot dot com said were the most creative in the Firefly 'verse. Yeah! And thanks to Gaben for helping me get words fourteen and fifteen in. So, now that you've read this glorious piece of work. Go forth and read my other awesome stories!
Giu – Hell
Jī -Chicken
Joo fuen chs - Pigs droppings
Nǚhái - Girl
Tiānshǐ – Angel
Yú – Foolish (stupid)
9 - Gao yang jong duh goo yang - Motherless Goats of All Motherless Goats
10 - Da-shiang bao-tza shr duh lah doo-tze - The Explosive Diarrhea of an Elephant (Mal)
11 - Liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh ur-tze - Stupid Son of a Drooling Whore and a Monkey
2 - Ching-wah tsao duh liou mahng! Frog-Humping Son of a Bitch! (Repeat)
1 - Bun tyen-shung duh ee-dway-ro. Stupid Inbred Stack of Meat (Repeat)
12 - Huh choo-shung tza-jiao duh tzang-huo - Filthy Fornicators of Livestock (Mal)
3 - Fay-fay duh pee yen - A baboon's asshole
7 - Shun shen duh gao wahn - Holy testicle Tuesday (Repeat)
13 - Wuh duh ma huh tah duh fong kwong duh wai shung - Holy Mother of God and All Her Wacky Nephews (Mal)
14 - Shee-niou - Cow Sucking
15 - Go tsao de – dog fucking
