Post by The Muse on Nov 16, 2009 0:03:38 GMT -5
Title: Jayne’s Day
Challenge: #6 Outsider Perspective
Fandom: Firefly/Serenity
Pairing/Characters: OCs, Fess Higgins, References to Jayne Cobb, Magistrate Higgins and Inara Serra
Summary: Riot time hits Higgins’ Moon again.
Rating: PG13. Strong violence implied but not shown, swearing in Mandarin
Warnings: Blood.
Disclaimer: All Hail Whedon
Word Count: 1000 exactly!
“Ah know y’all feel like we was disrespected but please in the name’a Buddah, stop the violence! Wuh de tyen, ah! This ain’t no way t’act! What would Jayne do?!”
Sheppard Tang’s words fell on deaf ears. Looters were pushing past, away from the carnage of Magistrate Higgins’ mansion and down the ornate stone steps carrying armfuls of plunder. Behind the hysterical preacher, flames burned as hot as Mudders’ anger, filling the sky with acrid smoke.
The first time Higgins had rolled in and threatened to take down the town’s statue of Jayne Cobb, the entire factory town rioted. Months later, meeting their lacklustre hero in person dented their resilience but the ideal somehow survived its own sordid origin. The statue was resurrected, bullet holes and blood stains carefully daubed over with fresh mud and once again, through all their troubles, the Mudders found solace at their idol’s feet, in the scent of incense and the light of candles.
This year’s desecration was the final straw. A drunken foreman, a foggy night and a truck with bad brakes… they woke to find their beloved altar reduced to rubble. The second riot became a revolt, the revolt became anarchy. The Alliance dismissed it as a ‘private workforce dispute’, they were busy handling hundreds of Anti-Pax protests on a half-dozen nearby planets.
“Words won’t do no good now, Sheppard.” a girl’s voice beside him pronounced. “Folks’re already mad about Miranda, bad luck just pushed ‘em too far this time.”
He turned to find the voice’s owner was a dark, stocky figure in a ragged cotton dress, duct-taped boots and braids peeking from a straw coolie hat. Amid the chaos she was the only other person not raiding the building or assaulting the ‘prods’; smeared with mud and soot but not blood. She turned and Tang recognised the face under the headgear, one of the slaves who helped tend the stately gardens after her furnace shifts.
“Mahdi? Don’t tell me you’re a part’a this insanity…”
“Not hardly” she scoffed. “Y’know some gou shi buru done killed all the Koi in the lilly pond? Wh’did the fish ever do?”
“Town’s actin’ like Reavers, God help us all. Go on, get outta here, girl. It ain’t safe with these lunatics runnin’ around!”
“Oh, don’t worry about me.” A smile crept onto the girl’s face that the preacher could only describe as dangerous. “Got mahself a shooter from the boss’s private cache!”
Something flammable exploded at the back of the building and the girl took off.
“Jun ta ma yao ming!” Tang yelled after her. “It’s a madhouse back there, girl!”
*
Mahdi marched down through the township clearly looking like she was about to murder someone. It fitted the brutal performance going on around her, but the former slave had nobler intentions. A looter at the mansion had mentioned a lynch mob on the edge of the bog; they were going to feed the entire Higgins family down its slimy brown gullet. This bothered Mahdi, to say the least.
Over the years she’d dug herself into a romantic ditch, pinning away for the Magistrate’s son, Fess. She’d volunteered for garden duty, let her gaze linger a little too long whenever he passed, was dumbfounded the first time he’d talked to her. When the pair chattered fervently about ‘the man they call Jayne’, it was the only time Fess didn’t look lonely, and it was the only time Mahdi stopped acting like a pit-bull and let herself be a girl.
The beautiful ‘companion’ who’d swooped down and claimed Fess for a night was a hard blow to take, harder than every blow she’d watched Jayne use to beat Stitch Hessian’s head into pulp the very next day. But maybe she didn’t have to be the glamorous companion to win him over now, maybe Canton just needed a new hero.
*
A single gunshot from the back of the crowd cleared a path. It was a practise common with the foremen and the Mudders’ instinct was to scatter. Yuji, an indentured kitchen-hand, had clearly nominated himself as ringleader and was all set to bring a meat cleaver down on Fess Higgins’ left wrist. Fess was turned away from the arm being forced out, eyes scrunched shut. He looked different without his glasses; younger. Madame Higgins was kneeling beside him, curled inside her taupe kimono like a terrified snail. Since Yuji was wearing a blood-spattered magistrate’s robe, Mahdi guessed she was too late for Fess’ father.
She stepped warily through the crowd, stolen shotgun aimed directly at Yuji’s head. “You’ve had you’re fun, boys,” She scowled. “But I think you’d best drop the sharp an’ git!”
“Mahdi?” he scoffed, using her name like it was an insult. “I always knew you were soft on this pup.”
“Soft ain’t nothin’ t’do with it. Back off or I come down on you like a ton o’Canton-Mud bricks.”
Yuji hesitated, noticing that no one else was defending him. “Pofù, you wouldn’t dare!”
“S’funny you say that…” and the smile that had disturbed Sheppard Tang surfaced again on Mahdi’s face. “Reason ah’m here is cuz I asked mahself one simple question: What would Jayne do?”
The resounding silence of the crowd spoke volumes. Many had seen Jayne Cobb beat a so-called friend’s head into the ground with his bare hands, those who hadn’t got the blow by blow account soon enough. Deep down, no matter how much they wanted to imagine otherwise, everyone knew the real Jayne would pull the trigger and take Yuji’s head clean off.
The cleaver blade bit into the ground at Mahdi’s feet, almost claiming a toe.
“Fess?” Mahdi beckoned, gun barrel still pointed squarely at the butcher behind him.
Fess looked up at her the way little children used to stare up at the statue in the town square. But then he reached out for her hand, and like the shortest end of the stick ever offered a human soul, he took it. And it was something.
Challenge: #6 Outsider Perspective
Fandom: Firefly/Serenity
Pairing/Characters: OCs, Fess Higgins, References to Jayne Cobb, Magistrate Higgins and Inara Serra
Summary: Riot time hits Higgins’ Moon again.
Rating: PG13. Strong violence implied but not shown, swearing in Mandarin
Warnings: Blood.
Disclaimer: All Hail Whedon
Word Count: 1000 exactly!
“Ah know y’all feel like we was disrespected but please in the name’a Buddah, stop the violence! Wuh de tyen, ah! This ain’t no way t’act! What would Jayne do?!”
Sheppard Tang’s words fell on deaf ears. Looters were pushing past, away from the carnage of Magistrate Higgins’ mansion and down the ornate stone steps carrying armfuls of plunder. Behind the hysterical preacher, flames burned as hot as Mudders’ anger, filling the sky with acrid smoke.
The first time Higgins had rolled in and threatened to take down the town’s statue of Jayne Cobb, the entire factory town rioted. Months later, meeting their lacklustre hero in person dented their resilience but the ideal somehow survived its own sordid origin. The statue was resurrected, bullet holes and blood stains carefully daubed over with fresh mud and once again, through all their troubles, the Mudders found solace at their idol’s feet, in the scent of incense and the light of candles.
This year’s desecration was the final straw. A drunken foreman, a foggy night and a truck with bad brakes… they woke to find their beloved altar reduced to rubble. The second riot became a revolt, the revolt became anarchy. The Alliance dismissed it as a ‘private workforce dispute’, they were busy handling hundreds of Anti-Pax protests on a half-dozen nearby planets.
“Words won’t do no good now, Sheppard.” a girl’s voice beside him pronounced. “Folks’re already mad about Miranda, bad luck just pushed ‘em too far this time.”
He turned to find the voice’s owner was a dark, stocky figure in a ragged cotton dress, duct-taped boots and braids peeking from a straw coolie hat. Amid the chaos she was the only other person not raiding the building or assaulting the ‘prods’; smeared with mud and soot but not blood. She turned and Tang recognised the face under the headgear, one of the slaves who helped tend the stately gardens after her furnace shifts.
“Mahdi? Don’t tell me you’re a part’a this insanity…”
“Not hardly” she scoffed. “Y’know some gou shi buru done killed all the Koi in the lilly pond? Wh’did the fish ever do?”
“Town’s actin’ like Reavers, God help us all. Go on, get outta here, girl. It ain’t safe with these lunatics runnin’ around!”
“Oh, don’t worry about me.” A smile crept onto the girl’s face that the preacher could only describe as dangerous. “Got mahself a shooter from the boss’s private cache!”
Something flammable exploded at the back of the building and the girl took off.
“Jun ta ma yao ming!” Tang yelled after her. “It’s a madhouse back there, girl!”
*
Mahdi marched down through the township clearly looking like she was about to murder someone. It fitted the brutal performance going on around her, but the former slave had nobler intentions. A looter at the mansion had mentioned a lynch mob on the edge of the bog; they were going to feed the entire Higgins family down its slimy brown gullet. This bothered Mahdi, to say the least.
Over the years she’d dug herself into a romantic ditch, pinning away for the Magistrate’s son, Fess. She’d volunteered for garden duty, let her gaze linger a little too long whenever he passed, was dumbfounded the first time he’d talked to her. When the pair chattered fervently about ‘the man they call Jayne’, it was the only time Fess didn’t look lonely, and it was the only time Mahdi stopped acting like a pit-bull and let herself be a girl.
The beautiful ‘companion’ who’d swooped down and claimed Fess for a night was a hard blow to take, harder than every blow she’d watched Jayne use to beat Stitch Hessian’s head into pulp the very next day. But maybe she didn’t have to be the glamorous companion to win him over now, maybe Canton just needed a new hero.
*
A single gunshot from the back of the crowd cleared a path. It was a practise common with the foremen and the Mudders’ instinct was to scatter. Yuji, an indentured kitchen-hand, had clearly nominated himself as ringleader and was all set to bring a meat cleaver down on Fess Higgins’ left wrist. Fess was turned away from the arm being forced out, eyes scrunched shut. He looked different without his glasses; younger. Madame Higgins was kneeling beside him, curled inside her taupe kimono like a terrified snail. Since Yuji was wearing a blood-spattered magistrate’s robe, Mahdi guessed she was too late for Fess’ father.
She stepped warily through the crowd, stolen shotgun aimed directly at Yuji’s head. “You’ve had you’re fun, boys,” She scowled. “But I think you’d best drop the sharp an’ git!”
“Mahdi?” he scoffed, using her name like it was an insult. “I always knew you were soft on this pup.”
“Soft ain’t nothin’ t’do with it. Back off or I come down on you like a ton o’Canton-Mud bricks.”
Yuji hesitated, noticing that no one else was defending him. “Pofù, you wouldn’t dare!”
“S’funny you say that…” and the smile that had disturbed Sheppard Tang surfaced again on Mahdi’s face. “Reason ah’m here is cuz I asked mahself one simple question: What would Jayne do?”
The resounding silence of the crowd spoke volumes. Many had seen Jayne Cobb beat a so-called friend’s head into the ground with his bare hands, those who hadn’t got the blow by blow account soon enough. Deep down, no matter how much they wanted to imagine otherwise, everyone knew the real Jayne would pull the trigger and take Yuji’s head clean off.
The cleaver blade bit into the ground at Mahdi’s feet, almost claiming a toe.
“Fess?” Mahdi beckoned, gun barrel still pointed squarely at the butcher behind him.
Fess looked up at her the way little children used to stare up at the statue in the town square. But then he reached out for her hand, and like the shortest end of the stick ever offered a human soul, he took it. And it was something.
but I thought the story was intelligently written and used very good vocabulary. Love the dialogue. 
