Work Text:
The drums thrummed overhead, as he hoisted the rope in front of him. A flash of light grazed just barely over his head as he prepared the wobbly sheet.
"3, 2, 1, and...." he muttered under his breath as he heaved the heavy anchor up.
His back protested, but he stayed strong. Can't let go... just a little bit... Quite suddenly there was a sudden relief of weight as the next system in him took the crane's ropes. He relaxed his thick, twined limbs for a moment as he popped the sheet to let his shipmaster know his bit was done. Turning to the otherside, he quickly started heaving the next crate up.
A ship's golem was a hard used thing, but he found the work pleasant enough. Good hours, the scrolls were decent and he never had to deal with pigeons, not like at that dreadful junkyard he used to have to stand outside of. His feet were now allowed to move from one side to the other when the ship was docked, which was pleasant. He wasn't quite sure how long he'd been cemented to the roof of the Junkyard, but jobs were jobs. And since he was last century's model, he felt he should be fair grateful he had one at all.
He felt the thick stone that made up his leg groan as he finished hauling the last crate up. Shifting to his central position, he pulled the bell that signaled he was ready. A gruff voice barked orders up on deck.
He had once been a young golem, all shiny and new. Back then his arms had been steel plated, and his eyes made of emerald. He was a sight to be seen then, he pondered, remembering the 'good old days'. He was a sentry for the royals- before the uprising mind. And then they took away his pretty armor and his pretty eyes. he supposed that made the church job easier, not having eyes. The mouth he was sad to lose, but he figured the young man- or what felt like a young man, probably needed his silver teeth more than him. His ears were still good, one of the first of their kind, allowing him to hear fabulously.
He had lost his plating to some beggar woman of surprising strength, but the one thing he kept was his mind. One of the original Clockworth models, he supposed he might have once been valuable. But now he was nothing but an engine on a rather small cargo ship. Some form of bug it was named after. He liked it well enough, though the cows and livestock were oft stored in his area and they left ever so much mess in his quarters.
The beagles were reprehensible, and he supposed that if he still had his writing hands he would have written a rather strongly worded letter about the beagles, though if his hearing was anything to go by, the beagles were something of a bust. Silly humans, he thought. An odd feeling rocked his core as the ship took off. It always gave him a funny feeling somewhere deep in his mind. An almost empty feeling. He wondered if the nice human girl also felt this way. She spoke to him a lot, repaired him when need be. She was nice and silly. He sometimes asked her about the tall doctor man, and he enjoyed hearing her get flustered as she tweaked some knob on his chest or a gasket or replaced some part.
The Captain man was a loud one, but he got on with his crew. He was close friends with the woman-not-captain and her husband, though he remembers the days when the woman-not-captain hated the husband. He tried to think of the other members, but they always stayed away from his hatch. No matter to him, he supposed. Not like he was a guardian tutor to the family before they died. He rather did like the human girl, who sometimes painted words on him. He supposed it felt almost like a tickling feeling- or at least what she told him was a tickling feeling. She was the only one who cared to talk to him most of the time. All other times it was some gruff comment from the captain about how he would need to hold out another month for parts.
But regardless, he was quite happy to keep his ship in the air as long as the happy girl stayed with him. He wasn't so sure what would happen if his happy girl went away, with her stashes of fruit on him, or her habit of rambling about every little thing. The Jayne-not-Jane man was usually the source of her grumblings, but he supposed that that was life. The Stream girl was the only other one who sat in him proper. She felt funny inside him, but she treated him well enough. Better than the Jayne-not-Jane man.
As he departed from the sheer cliffs of Ariel, he supposed he had lived a good life, a happy one. And he really was rather keen on the name he had been given- Serenity.