LIGHT AND SHADOW

Part 01

Waaaaay backstory about Mal’s parents and life on Shadow. Fits in with my series of Firefly fanfics, but it is not necessary to have read my other stories to read this.

To tide you over until the next story in my series, "Ends with a Horse," is ready for posting.

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“You heard the news, Dean?”

He took a moment to swallow his drink, leaned back, and looked his interrogator in the eye. “Depends on which news you mean, Hank.”

“New schoolteacher,” Hank said eagerly.

Over-eagerly, in Dean’s opinion. “Why, you thinkin’ about goin’ back for more schoolin’, tryin’ to make up for your natural deficiencies?” He gave his friend a smile, all charm and open-hearted warmth.

Which immediately set off Hank’s alarm bells. He was used to Dean’s natural mix of charm and obnoxiousness. “Ain’t what I said.” He took a pull of his own drink. “New teacher. ”

“And this is supposed to interest me how, exactly?”

“New blood on the Northside,” Hank told him. To him, it was plain as daylight. In a country as sparsely populated as the Northside of Shadow, any new arrival was of interest, and if that new arrival should happen to be an unmarried woman of suitable age…well, so much the better, in Hank’s opinion. In a community like theirs, just weren’t that many opportunities for an unmarried fella to interact with members of the fair sex as weren’t blood kin or raised up together like your sisters and therefore out of bounds. The monthly Saturday night dances at the Tairbeart Community Hall just didn’t come around often enough, and even then, there was stiff competition, bein’ as the young men outnumbered the women by a goodly amount. “Hope she’s pretty.”

Dean scoffed. “You said that about the new clerk at Piper’s General Store, last year. Turned out she was older than Methuselah, and about as good a looker as your Great Aunt Gippy.” Placing a coin on the bar, he nodded at the bartender, who refilled his glass. “What do you say t