plantfood | (no subject)

There are days when Mathias isn't quite so sure why he does this. Every so often, building something comes naturally to him and he feels like he's picked something he's good at, but then, the rest of the time, the pieces don't quite come together or the delicate woodwork he's trying to do ends up flawed and there's a part of him that wants to scrap the whole thing.

At the very least, this rocking chair isn't meant to be a gift for anyone, just an addition to his own hut.

"Maybe I am being too ambitious," he says to Mal, leaning back a little to appraise his work. They're just outside Serenity, one of the places Mathias has found he likes best when he's not on the beach or at his place. It's familiar to him and he likes being close to an engine, likes knowing there is still something much bigger than him out there in the world.

"Maybe a nice table would be easier," he says with a laugh, wiping sweat from his forehead.

"No!" Sam says from her place nearby in the sand. "A rocking chair!"

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"Sounds like the little one has spoken," says Mal, looking up from his own project, which is also a chair but nothing so complicated as a rocker. "Also, you could make a table, but I don't think it'd serve exactly the same purpose. Might have to adjust what you're looking for."

"Maybe I could make a regular chair and tell her that it's a rocking chair," Mathias suggests, looking at what he's trying to build. It's a bit too complicated for his current skill level he thinks, although maybe he'll be able to tackle something like it again in a year or so. "Do you think she'd notice?"

"I don't know," says Mal, setting down what he's working on and walking over. "She seems pretty switched on."

He studies what Mathias is doing. "Or, I could help and we could call it a joint effort."

It feels strange to choose to do these kind of things.

"Yeah?" Mathias asks, looking at Mal, his smile turning hopeful. "Do you know how to make a rocking chair?" Even if he doesn't, really, he figures between the two of them, they can probably manage something. At least, he hopes so. He should have really thought this through before telling Sam he could make one for her.

"I made one once, a long time ago. Chair's probably burned to ashes but I can probably still remember the how."

It feels good to make things. Even if they're things he's made before.

"See, I mostly picture you and River up there doing things I could never dream of doing," he says with a grin, pointing up to the sky briefly. "Not making furniture." But he's glad that Mal does, that he's had experience doing it and that he's doing it here. It's not the sort of thing Mathias expected to share with someone, but he's glad he does all the same.

"We did a lot of that. On the raggedy edge. Fun kind of life," says Mal, nodding as he glances up reflexively, up where he knows the black is waiting.

"But, once, I did make chairs. Back on Shadow."

"Shadow?" Mathias asks, glancing over at Mal. Sometimes, given how different their lives were, he isn't sure if they're talking about planets or ships or other planes of existence entirely. All three seem like they could be possible and he doesn't like to make assumptions.

"Home world," says Mal and he might not have that many fond memories of it but maybe that's all changed, now that he can't ever go there again.

A lot of things were different, after the world.

"I was raised on a farm. Wasn't a whole lot of anythin' to do."

"Except maybe make chairs now and then?" Mathias asks, trying to imagine a farm on another world. It's not impossible, not with the things he's seen, both back home and on the island. "I grew up in Munich. Right in Munich. There wasn't much room for farms there."

"Riding horses," says Mal, bending over the chair. "I always knew how to ride a horse." He glances across. "We're going to need to shape the wood."

He reaches for a clamp. "Don't know of any world with a Munich. Guess we left it behind on Earth-that-Was."

"Yeah, that's probably the place it got left," Mathias agrees with a nod, watching Mal for a second before he reaches over to help. "There wasn't a lot of space travel in the time I'm from. There was some, but most of it was unmanned, sending probes to different planets and we certainly didn't get as far as you."

"We figured it out," says Mal, hands busy. "Kind of had to, I figure. Needful that we got ourselves gone, due to numbers and pollution, I remember my history right. Find ourselves new ways to be."

"I think my world probably needed something like that as well," Mathias admits. "Hopefully they will have figured it out before it's too late to do anything about it." Either way, that's not his world anymore. If he leaves the island, there's nowhere else to go.

"If your history's my history, that you did," says Mal, hands moving methodically still as he concentrates on the task. "Out to where the Alliance could hold sway."

Mathias helps where he can, though it's clear Mal knows more about this than he does. It's good, though, he appreciates the help. "River hasn't talked much about the Alliance. Enough that I know the name, but not much more."

"She wouldn't," says Mal, expression grim for a moment. "Alliance hunted us halfway across the verse, after that girl. Took showin' them some things they probably didn't want to see to turn things around."

Mathias shakes his head, although he's not surprised to learn that things like that still happen. That people are still hurt, still hunted. "And then she came here," he says, though he hadn't been on the island yet when she'd first arrived.

"She did," says Mal, nodding and focusing on his work. "And I came with her. First me. Fathered Zoe. Haven't ever exactly had the grit to ask her how that all came about."

Mathias shakes his head a little, because it isn't a story he knows. During Mal's first time here, the two of them hadn't been friends, really, though he'd known him through River. As long as Mathias had known River, though, Mal had been there.

"Do you think you will?" he asks. "Eventually." It's a hard thing to discover, he imagines.