HUGE HONKIN' SPOLERS FOR THE BDM...

Pairing: Mal/River/Serenity

Summary: Capt. Mal Reynold’s introspective piece.

Disclaimer: We all know I am not working for the networks because, like the rest of you I’m not stupid enough to cancel something as fan supported as Firefly. I’m not Joss Whedon either so I am using his creation respectfully and with much praise for the creator.

Author’s Note: I have written this using a sort of countrified language that we hear traces of on Firefly, so… Yes, I know some of the spelling is off.

Beta’d by: gwenfrewi72

MAL POV

War it does funny things to men. One man might find hisself in battle, but not have the heart for it. He looks at the blood on the ground around him, but sees the faces of them it belonged to and he fires his weapon and sees his brother at the other end of the barrel. That man feels each report of his riffle deep in his own soul and a peace of him dies with each crimson drop he spills. A man that feels that deep don’t last long either he sits down to wait for death or he ends it all to the sound of guilty recriminations from all those he imagines he’s killed.

Some say that’s a cowards way, but there ain’t no shame in that, a man bein’ peaceful at heart tain’t no cause for shame.

While another, well he might find hisself in battle and he might not like it, but he knows what has ta be done, the bloody and hard things not just the flowery words and speeches that send men off to war, but the killin’, the fightin’, an’ the dyin’. His faith is why he’s doin’ it all an' it carries ‘im, enough to stand his ground and just do it... the hard thing.

Now, that second man he believes in some thin’ and that there’s a thing that can keep a man standin’, when others they just lay down like the dead. If a man has somethin’ to stand for, that there’s a thing a man can fight for an’ have faith in and just maybe he’s willing ta die for it, too.

Freedom it don’t come cheap, but the price when ya stack it up next to the payment that subjugation demands, su