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happy birthday, darling (daily writing)
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isabeau's birthday, so I wrote her a very silly fic.
It's Firefly, set *gasp* back in the series, roundabout Safe.
It is called "The Soup Thing" and it is 2534 words.
The first morning out on the Persephone-Jiangyin run, they found some of the cows had full udders, and Kaylee had said, "Oh, no, do you think there are poor little motherless calves back on Persephone?" because all of the ones they had on the ship were full size.
"I'm pretty sure what's back on Persephone is veal cutlets," Mal said, not unkindly.
That didn't stop Kaylee from looking at him all horrified, though, because women were funny about baby animals. River's response to Kaylee's distress was to upset her brother tearing the stitches all out of a pillow, and then sew it back together again, with much finger-pricking and her brother's surgical sutures, into the shape of a raggedy kitten, with a button for a nose, which she gave to Kaylee. Kaylee hugged it and hugged River and took it to her bunk to snuggle at night. Simon did not so much forgive River for the sutures as simply let the matter drop when Kaylee looked at him reproachfully with large eyes, over the head of her new stuffed kitten.
The idea of veal put Jayne in a drooling mood, and he had the bright idea of eating just one of the cows, saying what was the chance the buyers'd notice? Mal asked him where exactly he planned on butchering it, thinking this would be enough of an obstacle to derail him, and Jayne said he figured that if the infirmary was set up to cut up people in, why couldn't you cut up an animal in it? Mal allowed that that might be possible, but before he had a chance to explain that this was a delaying tactic and not permission, he was distracted by Wash calling down that there was an Alliance patrol and how badly did they need to miss it? By the time Mal got back, Jayne was struggling with trying to get a cow carcass onto the examination table, cursing up a storm over the blood pouring out of its slashed throat.
"What kind of bai chi1 who bu bian shu mai2 are you?" Mal demanded, trying to catch the thing's rump before it fell all over the floor. "You get it where you want it, then you kill it!"
It was about then that Simon lured his sister in for her meds, and River got herself a whole new aversion to the infirmary. Mal couldn't rightly blame her not wanting to come back. Simon was not well-pleased either, but he was too busy with River to give them the lecture that Jayne, at least, deserved until much later.
Still, the thing was dead. There weren't much else to do but have beef for dinner.
The ship had a party feel to it the whole time they had meat to eat, like New Year's. Kaylee and Inara made little paper shades for all the lights in the kitchen, and Kaylee took to wearing her hair up all different ways, braids and loops and things, and then there was the stealing dried hodgeberries from Book's store to wet up and stain her lips with. It was an odd streak of vanity to have when you were about to sit down to a big meal and wash everything off your mouth anyway, but Mal let it pass until it turned out she was also stealing honey to use on her hair, and that damn near caused a mutiny.
Book did the butchering, as it turned out he knew most about it--didn't seem a very priestly calling, but an abbey full of priestly folk still got to have someone do the meat up, it seemed. There were steaks for two nights, and he spent hours stuffing sausages--which Wash swore up and down he wasn't going to ever eat again now he knew what the wrapping was--and on the third night weren't no big pieces left, so they made the little pieces into shish-kabobs.
Zoe asked for the leather, said she needed a new pair of pants. Nobody had any objections to this idea, even Jayne, who'd been eyeing the cowhide himself. The idea of it hugging Zoe's shapely tush was far more pleasing to him than any other use he might have put it to, and he said so, even though no fewer than four of his fellow crew members (in short, everyone present) hit him or threw things at him or yelled at him for it.
River asked Book to cut her off bits of fat--the white bits, she called them. Book didn't understand what for but he couldn't think what harm it would do, and figured they probably ought not to be eating all the fat if they valued their arteries anyhow, so he did what she asked, kept her a bowl of it. "Grossest jellified thing I reckon I ever did see," grumbled Jayne, hunting through the fridge for the milk.
The fourth night, after all the proper cooking was done, River got out her bowl of fat and started putting it into a big old pot of boiling water. It stunk up the place right fine, but Jayne must have had a turnip for a nose, because when Mal came in to ask what the di yu3 was going on, Jayne said, "The crazy girl's making soup!" and tried to stick his finger in.
River hit him with on the shoulder with the ladle and said, "No tasting!"
Well, she wasn't screaming, so Mal left her be.
River went right on making soup until they got to Jiangyin, at which point she skimmed all the fat out and put it back in the bowl in the fridge, looking much whiter, and asked her brother and Mal, hands in her skirt, if she might could go on the planet this time, instead of being hidden away.
Simon said, "Mei-mei,4 you know it's not safe--"
Mal, feeling some sympathy for her being cooped up and never seeing the sky, said, "Well, I reckon it might be safe enough, here. Alliance don't come through these parts often."
"I have to burn things," said River. "Can't burn them on the ship, eat up all the oxygen. Eats up the same oxygen planetside, but the air is free there." Which was somewhat disturbing and baffling, but at least showed good sense.
"What things?" Simon asked her. "The garbage compactor on the ship--"
"Not destroy," River said. "Burn."
"Huh," said Mal. "Well, you have fun with that." Before they set down, he said, quiet-like, to Simon, "Best you take a fire extinguisher, hear?"
Simon said, "She's probably already forgotten." Mal figured that was wishful thinking, but it wasn't his responsibility if she burned herself up.
Of course, it wasn't herself tried to burn her at the stake. That did give Mal a turn, when they caught up with Simon and River--he wondered if she'd somehow foreseen they'd be kidnapped, and she accused of witchcraft, and all. But if she'd known, then going out would have been just plain foolish, no?
She had a packet of ashes in her borrowed apron's pockets, though, and she proceeded to make soup with that. "Those ain't from the big bonfire from--?" Mal asked, not a little creeped out.
"Cleaned the fireplace," River said, which didn't seem to be much of an answer yes or no. "Do you have any feathers?"
"I'm afraid I don't," Mal said.
"Hmm," River said, and put a single potato, uncut, in her soup.
Jayne said, "This ain't like that stone soup thing where we all gotta put in something, is it?"
River said, "It's a potato, not a stone. A stone wouldn't float."
Mal gave up trying to make any kind of sense out of it and went up to sit with Wash in the cockpit, where the craziest thing that one might expect to happen would be a dinosaur attack.
Shepherd Book said, "That can't be the tastiest thing. It looks a little... bland," full prepared to offer River the contents of his spice rack.
River said, "It's not time for the flavors yet," and tipped more ash into the pot.
Jayne sat about the kitchen all hours, watching her cook, waiting for whatever it was to be done. After a while, River got out the fat soup and started mixing it with the ash soup in yet another pot, mixing and mixing and mixing, muttering about proportions all the while.
Kaylee came in now and again. They all did, of course, River having taken over the kitchen, and it being an area they all had to come to now and again, unless they were inclined to starve. But River didn't blush and fidget when anyone else came to see how she was doing, only when Kaylee came over. Kaylee was also the first to figure out what River was doing--she leaned over and sniffed River's concoction and said, "Soap. You're making soap!"
Jayne, being a man chronically unacquainted with basic hygiene, said, "Of course she's making soup, I've been saying that all along!"
River rolled her eyes at Jayne, less than impressed with him. Kaylee giggled and said, "Is it for your brother? He's always so clean. He must be running low."
River shook her head and leaned over to whisper to Kaylee, "It's for you."
"You made me soap?" said Kaylee, looking confused, and trying not to look hurt. "Do I smell, or something?"
Jayne sniffed big, and didn't smell anything on Kaylee but girl-sweat and engine grease, which smelled fine to him.
River said, "Want to wash your hair," which didn't seem to answer the smell question either way, but it made Kaylee turn pink.
"Really?" Kaylee asked.
"Should have used vegetable oils for hair," River said sternly to the pot, "but they didn't sacrifice jojoba at Sappo. This has tradition." She looked apologetically at Kaylee. "Used what I had."
"I'm sure it will be fine," said Kaylee, holding River's hand.
River smiled at her. "Come on," said River, and dragged Kaylee up to Inara's shuttle.
Jayne was left poking the soup in bemusement. It finally being unguarded, he had a spoonful, and decided it wasn't to his liking. Couldn't decide if it was just that she was crazy, or if those Core folk had no idea how to cook.
Up in Inara's shuttle, Inara greeted Kaylee and River with gracious surprise, and River asked bluntly, "You have oils?"
Inara's brow furrowed prettily. "Massage oils, you mean?" she asked.
"Champi,5" River said musingly. "Yes."
"All right," Inara said, and got out a pretty hardwood chest full of vials, different scents for different clients. River sorted through them rapidly, and Inara asked politely, "Have you studied massage?"
Kaylee said, "She's making soap. I've never seen anyone make soap before--at least, not like she did. Back home we chopped up soapwort and used that."
River dumped two handfuls of vials on the bed before Kaylee and said, "Now you have to pick what you want to smell like."
"Just these?" Kaylee asked. River had left a number in the box.
"They're pure," River said firmly. "Those aren't."
Inara looked thorugh her wooden chest and smiled. "She's right. She picked out all the essential oils, and none of the ones with alcohol."
"It would upset the chemistry," River said.
"I guess soap-making is complicated," Kaylee said, and sat down on the bed to start sniffing vials. "Ooh, what's a pomegranate?"
Shortly after this, the kitchen started smelling much nicer, for the first time in at least a week. "Smells like Christmas," Book commented. He was spending most of his time sitting at the table, not being up to much wandering about, after the being shot incident.
It did smell like Christmas--planetside Christmas, because they didn't often get the fixings to cook up a proper Christmas feast on Serenity. It smelled the oranges you never wanted all that much but your Ma put in the bottom of your stocking anyway, and like cinnamon and cloves and nutmeg, all those thing they put in wassail or pumpkin pie. And almonds--it smelled like almonds.
Jayne said, "Damn, girl, when do we get to eat some?"
River and Kaylee looked at each other, River stirring, Kaylee at the table, and started giggling.
River announced, "It's ready," and had to slap Jayne's spoon away. Kaylee dragged her chair over to the sink and pulled her hair out of her ponytail and leaned back.
"Huh," said Jayne as Kaylee shook her hair out. Book tsked and turned a page. "Why are you rubbing soup in her hair?" he asked River.
River smiled and finger-combed the lather through Kaylee's hair.
This was about when Mal wandered in, made hungry by all the fine smells wafting through the ventilation system. Jayne said, "Mal? Why's River rubbing the soup in Kaylee's hair?"
Mal stopped to watch for a moment, but Kaylee seemed to be liking it more that was strictly appropriate, so he cleared his throat and looked away. Mal clapped Jayne on the shoulder and said, "It looks awfully sudsy-like to be soup." He leaned over and sniffed the back of Jayne's neck--Jayne leaned away and looked at him with an expression of some worry. Mal said, "You should try it some time. Gorram, Jayne, you ever hear of bathing?"
"I bathe!" Jayne protested. "Every month!"
Mal also leaned away. They stood like that, feet right next to each other, but split off like tree branches. "I may have to institute some mandatory washing rules," Mal sighed.
"Aw, come on," said Jayne, "it was bad enough you making me do all that laundry all the time."
Because Jayne was thick, the hairwashing was known as the Soup Thing for pretty much all eternity, or at least until the end of the month, when Jayne had a sponge bath with a can of chicken soup and that was the Soup Thing. Jayne decided he didn't much like washing with soup, because it made him itchy, and didn't make his hair shiny like it did Kaylee's. Not that he went around saying that after Mal laughed and told him his hair was just as pretty as could be even without some fine soup, because Jayne had just about had enough of Mal calling him an idiot all sideways like.
"You wanna call me an idiot, you call me an idiot straight to my face," Jayne said.
"You're an idiot," Mal said.
Jayne grunted, because there wasn't much to say to that.
1bai chi--idiot
2bu bian shu mai--don't know how to do anything (literally, can't tell beans from wheat)
3di yu--hell
4Mei-mei--little sister
5champi--Hindi for massage; root of English shampoo
Author's notes:
Everything I know about making soap I learned from the interweb, and Fight Club.
isabeau's birthday, so I wrote her a very silly fic. It's Firefly, set *gasp* back in the series, roundabout Safe.
It is called "The Soup Thing" and it is 2534 words.
The first morning out on the Persephone-Jiangyin run, they found some of the cows had full udders, and Kaylee had said, "Oh, no, do you think there are poor little motherless calves back on Persephone?" because all of the ones they had on the ship were full size.
"I'm pretty sure what's back on Persephone is veal cutlets," Mal said, not unkindly.
That didn't stop Kaylee from looking at him all horrified, though, because women were funny about baby animals. River's response to Kaylee's distress was to upset her brother tearing the stitches all out of a pillow, and then sew it back together again, with much finger-pricking and her brother's surgical sutures, into the shape of a raggedy kitten, with a button for a nose, which she gave to Kaylee. Kaylee hugged it and hugged River and took it to her bunk to snuggle at night. Simon did not so much forgive River for the sutures as simply let the matter drop when Kaylee looked at him reproachfully with large eyes, over the head of her new stuffed kitten.
The idea of veal put Jayne in a drooling mood, and he had the bright idea of eating just one of the cows, saying what was the chance the buyers'd notice? Mal asked him where exactly he planned on butchering it, thinking this would be enough of an obstacle to derail him, and Jayne said he figured that if the infirmary was set up to cut up people in, why couldn't you cut up an animal in it? Mal allowed that that might be possible, but before he had a chance to explain that this was a delaying tactic and not permission, he was distracted by Wash calling down that there was an Alliance patrol and how badly did they need to miss it? By the time Mal got back, Jayne was struggling with trying to get a cow carcass onto the examination table, cursing up a storm over the blood pouring out of its slashed throat.
"What kind of bai chi1 who bu bian shu mai2 are you?" Mal demanded, trying to catch the thing's rump before it fell all over the floor. "You get it where you want it, then you kill it!"
It was about then that Simon lured his sister in for her meds, and River got herself a whole new aversion to the infirmary. Mal couldn't rightly blame her not wanting to come back. Simon was not well-pleased either, but he was too busy with River to give them the lecture that Jayne, at least, deserved until much later.
Still, the thing was dead. There weren't much else to do but have beef for dinner.
The ship had a party feel to it the whole time they had meat to eat, like New Year's. Kaylee and Inara made little paper shades for all the lights in the kitchen, and Kaylee took to wearing her hair up all different ways, braids and loops and things, and then there was the stealing dried hodgeberries from Book's store to wet up and stain her lips with. It was an odd streak of vanity to have when you were about to sit down to a big meal and wash everything off your mouth anyway, but Mal let it pass until it turned out she was also stealing honey to use on her hair, and that damn near caused a mutiny.
Book did the butchering, as it turned out he knew most about it--didn't seem a very priestly calling, but an abbey full of priestly folk still got to have someone do the meat up, it seemed. There were steaks for two nights, and he spent hours stuffing sausages--which Wash swore up and down he wasn't going to ever eat again now he knew what the wrapping was--and on the third night weren't no big pieces left, so they made the little pieces into shish-kabobs.
Zoe asked for the leather, said she needed a new pair of pants. Nobody had any objections to this idea, even Jayne, who'd been eyeing the cowhide himself. The idea of it hugging Zoe's shapely tush was far more pleasing to him than any other use he might have put it to, and he said so, even though no fewer than four of his fellow crew members (in short, everyone present) hit him or threw things at him or yelled at him for it.
River asked Book to cut her off bits of fat--the white bits, she called them. Book didn't understand what for but he couldn't think what harm it would do, and figured they probably ought not to be eating all the fat if they valued their arteries anyhow, so he did what she asked, kept her a bowl of it. "Grossest jellified thing I reckon I ever did see," grumbled Jayne, hunting through the fridge for the milk.
The fourth night, after all the proper cooking was done, River got out her bowl of fat and started putting it into a big old pot of boiling water. It stunk up the place right fine, but Jayne must have had a turnip for a nose, because when Mal came in to ask what the di yu3 was going on, Jayne said, "The crazy girl's making soup!" and tried to stick his finger in.
River hit him with on the shoulder with the ladle and said, "No tasting!"
Well, she wasn't screaming, so Mal left her be.
River went right on making soup until they got to Jiangyin, at which point she skimmed all the fat out and put it back in the bowl in the fridge, looking much whiter, and asked her brother and Mal, hands in her skirt, if she might could go on the planet this time, instead of being hidden away.
Simon said, "Mei-mei,4 you know it's not safe--"
Mal, feeling some sympathy for her being cooped up and never seeing the sky, said, "Well, I reckon it might be safe enough, here. Alliance don't come through these parts often."
"I have to burn things," said River. "Can't burn them on the ship, eat up all the oxygen. Eats up the same oxygen planetside, but the air is free there." Which was somewhat disturbing and baffling, but at least showed good sense.
"What things?" Simon asked her. "The garbage compactor on the ship--"
"Not destroy," River said. "Burn."
"Huh," said Mal. "Well, you have fun with that." Before they set down, he said, quiet-like, to Simon, "Best you take a fire extinguisher, hear?"
Simon said, "She's probably already forgotten." Mal figured that was wishful thinking, but it wasn't his responsibility if she burned herself up.
Of course, it wasn't herself tried to burn her at the stake. That did give Mal a turn, when they caught up with Simon and River--he wondered if she'd somehow foreseen they'd be kidnapped, and she accused of witchcraft, and all. But if she'd known, then going out would have been just plain foolish, no?
She had a packet of ashes in her borrowed apron's pockets, though, and she proceeded to make soup with that. "Those ain't from the big bonfire from--?" Mal asked, not a little creeped out.
"Cleaned the fireplace," River said, which didn't seem to be much of an answer yes or no. "Do you have any feathers?"
"I'm afraid I don't," Mal said.
"Hmm," River said, and put a single potato, uncut, in her soup.
Jayne said, "This ain't like that stone soup thing where we all gotta put in something, is it?"
River said, "It's a potato, not a stone. A stone wouldn't float."
Mal gave up trying to make any kind of sense out of it and went up to sit with Wash in the cockpit, where the craziest thing that one might expect to happen would be a dinosaur attack.
Shepherd Book said, "That can't be the tastiest thing. It looks a little... bland," full prepared to offer River the contents of his spice rack.
River said, "It's not time for the flavors yet," and tipped more ash into the pot.
Jayne sat about the kitchen all hours, watching her cook, waiting for whatever it was to be done. After a while, River got out the fat soup and started mixing it with the ash soup in yet another pot, mixing and mixing and mixing, muttering about proportions all the while.
Kaylee came in now and again. They all did, of course, River having taken over the kitchen, and it being an area they all had to come to now and again, unless they were inclined to starve. But River didn't blush and fidget when anyone else came to see how she was doing, only when Kaylee came over. Kaylee was also the first to figure out what River was doing--she leaned over and sniffed River's concoction and said, "Soap. You're making soap!"
Jayne, being a man chronically unacquainted with basic hygiene, said, "Of course she's making soup, I've been saying that all along!"
River rolled her eyes at Jayne, less than impressed with him. Kaylee giggled and said, "Is it for your brother? He's always so clean. He must be running low."
River shook her head and leaned over to whisper to Kaylee, "It's for you."
"You made me soap?" said Kaylee, looking confused, and trying not to look hurt. "Do I smell, or something?"
Jayne sniffed big, and didn't smell anything on Kaylee but girl-sweat and engine grease, which smelled fine to him.
River said, "Want to wash your hair," which didn't seem to answer the smell question either way, but it made Kaylee turn pink.
"Really?" Kaylee asked.
"Should have used vegetable oils for hair," River said sternly to the pot, "but they didn't sacrifice jojoba at Sappo. This has tradition." She looked apologetically at Kaylee. "Used what I had."
"I'm sure it will be fine," said Kaylee, holding River's hand.
River smiled at her. "Come on," said River, and dragged Kaylee up to Inara's shuttle.
Jayne was left poking the soup in bemusement. It finally being unguarded, he had a spoonful, and decided it wasn't to his liking. Couldn't decide if it was just that she was crazy, or if those Core folk had no idea how to cook.
Up in Inara's shuttle, Inara greeted Kaylee and River with gracious surprise, and River asked bluntly, "You have oils?"
Inara's brow furrowed prettily. "Massage oils, you mean?" she asked.
"Champi,5" River said musingly. "Yes."
"All right," Inara said, and got out a pretty hardwood chest full of vials, different scents for different clients. River sorted through them rapidly, and Inara asked politely, "Have you studied massage?"
Kaylee said, "She's making soap. I've never seen anyone make soap before--at least, not like she did. Back home we chopped up soapwort and used that."
River dumped two handfuls of vials on the bed before Kaylee and said, "Now you have to pick what you want to smell like."
"Just these?" Kaylee asked. River had left a number in the box.
"They're pure," River said firmly. "Those aren't."
Inara looked thorugh her wooden chest and smiled. "She's right. She picked out all the essential oils, and none of the ones with alcohol."
"It would upset the chemistry," River said.
"I guess soap-making is complicated," Kaylee said, and sat down on the bed to start sniffing vials. "Ooh, what's a pomegranate?"
Shortly after this, the kitchen started smelling much nicer, for the first time in at least a week. "Smells like Christmas," Book commented. He was spending most of his time sitting at the table, not being up to much wandering about, after the being shot incident.
It did smell like Christmas--planetside Christmas, because they didn't often get the fixings to cook up a proper Christmas feast on Serenity. It smelled the oranges you never wanted all that much but your Ma put in the bottom of your stocking anyway, and like cinnamon and cloves and nutmeg, all those thing they put in wassail or pumpkin pie. And almonds--it smelled like almonds.
Jayne said, "Damn, girl, when do we get to eat some?"
River and Kaylee looked at each other, River stirring, Kaylee at the table, and started giggling.
River announced, "It's ready," and had to slap Jayne's spoon away. Kaylee dragged her chair over to the sink and pulled her hair out of her ponytail and leaned back.
"Huh," said Jayne as Kaylee shook her hair out. Book tsked and turned a page. "Why are you rubbing soup in her hair?" he asked River.
River smiled and finger-combed the lather through Kaylee's hair.
This was about when Mal wandered in, made hungry by all the fine smells wafting through the ventilation system. Jayne said, "Mal? Why's River rubbing the soup in Kaylee's hair?"
Mal stopped to watch for a moment, but Kaylee seemed to be liking it more that was strictly appropriate, so he cleared his throat and looked away. Mal clapped Jayne on the shoulder and said, "It looks awfully sudsy-like to be soup." He leaned over and sniffed the back of Jayne's neck--Jayne leaned away and looked at him with an expression of some worry. Mal said, "You should try it some time. Gorram, Jayne, you ever hear of bathing?"
"I bathe!" Jayne protested. "Every month!"
Mal also leaned away. They stood like that, feet right next to each other, but split off like tree branches. "I may have to institute some mandatory washing rules," Mal sighed.
"Aw, come on," said Jayne, "it was bad enough you making me do all that laundry all the time."
Because Jayne was thick, the hairwashing was known as the Soup Thing for pretty much all eternity, or at least until the end of the month, when Jayne had a sponge bath with a can of chicken soup and that was the Soup Thing. Jayne decided he didn't much like washing with soup, because it made him itchy, and didn't make his hair shiny like it did Kaylee's. Not that he went around saying that after Mal laughed and told him his hair was just as pretty as could be even without some fine soup, because Jayne had just about had enough of Mal calling him an idiot all sideways like.
"You wanna call me an idiot, you call me an idiot straight to my face," Jayne said.
"You're an idiot," Mal said.
Jayne grunted, because there wasn't much to say to that.
1bai chi--idiot
2bu bian shu mai--don't know how to do anything (literally, can't tell beans from wheat)
3di yu--hell
4Mei-mei--little sister
5champi--Hindi for massage; root of English shampoo
Author's notes:
Everything I know about making soap I learned from the interweb, and Fight Club.
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And now I shall scoot out of your journal and stop leaving late messages. *scurries*
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