locker_monster | Mal/Inara drabble / Putting my Chinese to use (Reply)

Title: Plum Blossoms
Characters: Mal, Inara
Rating: G (which is code for badly written fluff)
Disclaimer: These are Joss' characters. I can only claim the crappiness of the drabble.
A/N: See below

“Can we return to the ship?” asked Mal.

Inara smiled. “Are you unwilling to be seen here?”

They walked, not talking, for a minute. “I don’t like leaving Serenity for a long time,” replied Mal.

“Autumn is the best time on Sihnon,” said Inara. “All the leaves of the trees become red.”

“This is very pretty.”

“Look at the red plum blossoms. They remind me of an ancient poem. ‘Lóngdōng dào lái shí, bǎi huā jī yǐ jué. Hóng méi bù qūfú, shù shù lì fēng xuě.’”

Mal listened and looked at the red leaves. “We can stay a little longer.”

A/N (which will probably be longer than the drabble): So first off, Inara's poem is "Red Plum Blossoms" by Chen Yi, a Chinese poet and strategist. The poem roughly translates as: "When the severe winter comes, Flowers have vanished from sight. The red plum blossoms do not yield to frigidity, Every tree stands firm, braving snowstorms."

And it's because of this poem that I wrote this very bad drabble. My Chinese prof told us we have to remember it for a review test tomorrow (because nothing says Valentine's Day like a test). As I was writing it out, in Chinese, I decided to write a drabble around it just so I could practice the rest of my Chinese. So the above was written all in Chinese characters, save names of people and planets, with the limited vocabulary I've learned over the past two years. There's probably grammatical errors to boot. But check it out!