“*Goa yang jong duh goo yang*!” Captain Malcolm Reynolds could talk a blue streak when it was called for and right now it undoubtedly was. “Gorramit woman, how many times am I gonna have to say this? No pony in my ruttin’ cargo bay!”

“Aw Mal! It’s only tiny, it won’t make much mess and you ain’t even gonna notice it in this big ol’ space, if’n Little M shuts up about it for five minutes, that is…”

“I ain’t gonna notice it, ‘cos it ain’t gonna be here, is why!” Mal clattered up the stairs from the cargo bay towards Serenity’s kitchen, his small wife following hard on his heals. Once in the galley he began to fix himself coffee.

“But Mal,” Hat’s voice was combative, she was fixing for a proper row. Mal sighed and sunk his nose deep into the coffee pot. “Since you’re so clever and all, you just go on an’ tell me this… How’s the boy ever gonna learn to ride, we don’t teach him and let him practice some? You was ok, you grew up on Shadow, surrounded by horses and me the same on Pa’s ranch back on Zephyr. But our boy, all he’s got is this tin can we racket around in, I don’t believe he’s seen a real mule more’n five times in his life so far, poor little nipper!!”

Captain Malcolm Reynolds, scourge of the skies and all round cool customer, decided it was high time to put a stop to the argument before it got properly started. He growled with exasperation and, having poured himself a coffee, pulled out a chair and sunk down heavily into it, swinging his feet rebelliously up on to the table. His wife, in one swift movement, swatted them off again. He looked up at her resentfully. “He’ll learn good enough the way things are and you know damn well it. Hell, Zoë grew up on a boat and she rides well enough to my mind.”

“I fell off a time or two in my early days, fore I learned you’d best cling on some… We are talking about the riding of horses, ain’t we?” asked Zoë, somewhat cautiously, as she entered from the cockpit end of the galley. “’Cos there’s other kinds of riding came much more natural.” She too head