FIC: "The Word for World Is--" ST:AOS. 1/1. Gen.

[laurajv]

I think this fandom has eaten my brain.

The Word for World Is--

Humans would've named the planet New Earth and the places things like New Africa or New Russia. Vulcans did no such thing; they named the planet Vik: the well in the desert. They named the continents Ashv'cezh, Laktra, and Vrekasht: Revenge, Grief, and Outcast.

---

Spock moved his rook up three levels, and Kirk frowned. "About the Vulcan colony," he said, calculating his options.

"Yes?"

"You don't find those names...emotional?"

Spock raised his eyebrows. "They are Vulcan."

"No, I mean, of course they're Vulcan, but -- "

"Jim." Kirk held his breath; Spock so rarely used his name. Spock frowned at him. "The names are...consonant with Vulcan history and culture."

---

The highest mountain on Vik rose out of a long chain of rock along the coast of Laktra. The Vulcans did not give it a name. It was not Seleya-that-was, though the remaining Kohlinaru took up residence, though the course of the kahs-wan ran over its sides, though hired crafters and builders recreated the Hall of Ancient Thought under the direction of an aged Vulcan mason.

---

Kirk found her in the empty botany lab after her shift. She was carefully picking out scales on a Vulcan lute. "Lieutenant Uhura?"

"Captain?" Her face was carefully neutral; he'd annoyed her too many times at the Academy for her to like him, he thought.

"You're the closest of any of us to Spock."

Her hands stilled the strings. "Perhaps."

"I don't want to pry," he said, sitting down across from her. "But I need to know how he's doing." He tapped his temple. "In here."

She simultaneously flinched and relaxed. "How would you be doing, in his place?"

"I'd be recklessly destroying government property in an effort to prove my manliness."

"So what you do anyway."

He shook his head and grinned at her, rueful. "And I'd be having screaming nightmares while simultaneously denying I needed any help." He searched her face. "Unless I had someone who knew me too well to let me get away with that."

She nodded. "There's...some of that. He's getting better. Did you know, Captain, that the entire Vulcan race is mentally linked to some degree?"

Kirk frowned. "I did know, yes -- when so many of them died, it must have hurt like hell."

"I think so," she said. "Spock says -- he says the Vulcan crew get together, every few days, to touch minds. It helps them heal." She ran her fingers through the notes of the scale, almost absently.

"I'm surprised so many Vulcans stayed in Starfleet," Kirk said. "I thought they might all leave, to help rebuild."

"They're all young," she said, thoughtfully. "All of them; I think Spock's the eldest by a number of years. I've heard Vulcans judge adulthood differently than we do."

---

The Kohlinaru knew every carving on every wall, every echo in every room, and the name of every katra that had been lost to the winds when Vulcan died. They touched their fingers to the face of the aged mason, and to the faces of all the Vulcans working under her direction; the mason's swift hands drew out the plans for all her alien crew.

The mason also met with the Federation aid officer, for the Kohlinaru would not speak with him. "What do you do?" he asked, at their first meeting.

She turned her face upwards, lifted her arm, and pointed up the long slope to the site of the Hall. "I build on the mountain," she said.

"But what do you do?" he said, waving his padd at her. "I have to write down what you do, and what aid you need, and how you will use it."

She shrugged. "We are the people of the mountain, and the desert, and the well. I build on the mountain, the highest mountain of Vik, where Laktra meets the sea. Perhaps one day we will be a people of the sea, as well, but we will always need the mountain."

---

The two eldest Vulcan crewmembers -- eldest, but for Spock -- resigned their commissions abruptly, and took commercial transport to Vik. Kirk found the rest of them holding a small, quiet conference in a corner of the rec hall, with Spock standing a little apart, his arms crossed. "I am half-human," Kirk heard him say, with the mismatch of mouth and voice that meant Spock was speaking Vulcan; bless universal translators. He hovered, almost out of earshot, his translator set to maximum, and pretended to be engrossed in reading a padd. "I have been told by my counterpart that I will not be spared, but it will be some time."

The others ducked their heads. "I had forgotten your counterpart," Ensign Setep said. "I merely wished to know if you would consider relinquishing any claim on my family; we have three women of age but would prefer they be free to wed at any time. Of course, if there is one of them you would take, my clan-head would be honored, but --"

Spock shook his head. "No need, Setep."

Setep closed his eyes. "We have all lost much. I did not wish our clan to breach contract-- "

"Your family owes the House of Surak no obligation but what it owes to all our people. There are so few of us; I would not hold anyone back from a productive arrangement. I am sure my father and my clan-head would agree."

All of them were silent, for a time, and Kirk was about to click off the padd and depart, when another -- Lieutenant T'Mit, he thought -- said "It is the month of the blood-mountain, when the watcher is blind. I have arranged to hold a room for us, for a week, for the meditations of blood. I will send a message for scheduling." She paused. "I have no knife."

"I have two," Setep said. "One of bone, one of steel. I will loan you the steel for the duration."

"This one is grateful," she answered, and the meeting broke apart.

---

Vik was a wetter world than Vulcan, with several oceans and many rivers, but the colonists showed little interest. When asked, all they would say is "The well weeps for those who cannot."

They built five villages, scattered over the continents, and began cataloguing the flora and fauna of their new home. Every village was within sight of a mountain, and surrounded by desert, and centered around a well.

From the mountains they quarried rock and built arenas in the deserts; in each arena they hung bells and a gong. "It will suffice," they said, "for now," and touched each others' faces in reassurance.

---

Kirk reached out and flicked Spock's king over. Spock caught it before it fell from the board. "You're distracted tonight," Kirk said, and Spock sighed.

"Yes."

"Woman trouble, or Vulcan trouble?"

"Why must it be either of those options?"

"Because I'm your CO, and I know it's not professional trouble. That leaves only woman trouble, or Vulcan trouble."

Spock fidgeted with his king, then set it down on the table with a thump. "My counterpart is an unsettling individual."

Kirk laughed. "He is that. What's he done?"

"He married." Kirk could hear a strange undercurrent in Spock's voice.

"He married, and...?"

"And he forced the Council to agree that my father could leave me unmarried until I chose my own mate."

"And that's unsettling because....?"

Spock looked faintly aggrieved. "How did he know I wished to find my own mate? I did not even know, until Vulcan was destroyed."

"He's you," Kirk said.

"He is not," said Spock. "He is someone I might have been, with a life very different from the one I am living now."

Kirk started setting up the chess pieces for a new game. "So think of him as a strangely prescient cousin. You're black this time."

"I also do not understand," said Spock, "how someone whose experience and political ties exist solely in another reality forced the Council to agree to anything."

Kirk grinned. "Look," he said, "would you want to mess with that guy? I sure wouldn't. I bet T'Pau took one look at him and went weak in the knees just from the vibes he gives off."

"I find that exceedingly unlikely."

---

The House of Surak made its home in the village nearest the unnamed mountain. The Federation aid officer stood at the well, with Sarek of Vulcan at his side. "What will you name this village?" he asked. "New ShiKahr?"

Sarek raised one eyebrow, and looked across the central square to where T'Pau stood, speaking with his other-son. "We do not name as humans name," he said. "This is Heya, city of the mountain."

"But all your settlements are near mountains," the aid officer said.

"Only one is near this mountain," Sarek answered. "Come, I will show you the school; it is nearly complete."

---

end.

A/N: Diane Duane's use of mountains in Spock's World was an enormous influence on this story.

The Vulcan vocabulary is all Modern Standard Vulcan, somewhat loosely translated. The most complete Vulcan dictionary online that I know of is http://www.starbase-10.de/vld/

Comments

[zvi]

This is precisely the sort of fic I've been looking for; it's really great.

[cesperanza]

This is pretty freakin' awesome. Wow. I want a whole novel of this!

[kdorian]

This is wonderful, thank you for sharing it!

[destina]

This really is a lovely story, and it has exactly the right feel to it. I love your portrayal of the Vulcans, and the cost to them, and the feel of displacement and trying to find/make home.

[fanofall]

So beautiful and spare and breathtaking -- kind of like Vulcan. The one we knew, anyway. Thank you!

[normaltrouble]

This is very good, and yes, the new fandom has eaten my brain too.

I'll be looking forward to a whole new "mountain,well and desert" of stories, from newbie, oldsters, and middling era folks as well...

Am reccing this in my journal.

[dossier]

mmm, tasty brains. I was thrilled to see a STXI story by an old school trek writer, especially one that I adore. This is brilliant, a fascinating peek into Vulcan mind and culture. Beautiful, sad and oddly hopeful.

[ranlynn]

Most excellent.

I'm looking forward to more fic inspired by this Trek 'reboot'.

[flyingcarpet]

This is really intriguing -- I like it a lot. thank you.

[dancing_serpent]

Impressive, very much so. I like the feeling of this fic - the alien structures of the Vulcans' thinking and culture, Kirk trying hard to understand, to live up to Spock Prime's perception of him - beautifully written.

[rhaegal]

This is lovely, and brilliantly original. I love how you manage to make their grief agonising, while keeping them perfectly Vulcan.

[thedeadparrot]

I adore this. The world-building is so deep and thorough. The Vulcans are so complex and amazing, and yes, Spock Prime is just that badass.

[myst]

Here via lanning.

Thanks for a most beautiful, poignant read!

here via reboot_genfic on LJ

[illariy]

Most enjoyable read. Vulcans as you wrote them here are just about the perfect mix of strange, hard to understand and painfully familiar. Thank you for sharing, and I'm looking forward to more. *cough* Erm, I mean, my sympathies on having your brain eaten.

here via rec

[ender24]

andI must admit, I feel a bit like elynross , I like the movie, but I have not been seeking out fics in that extent, that I thought I might.

but this is absolutely gorgeous, that alien feeling that the vulcans create!

[kerravonsen]

Wow.

The Vulcans are a deep and subtle people.

[kei-rin.livejournal.com]

You write Vulcans really well. It's a beautiful fic both in how you express the grief of the Vulcan community and how you show them rebuilding.

[gandaki]

I really love this.

[ange]

This is lovely! And the story really does have a Spock's World sensibility to it - the image of dry Vulcan giving birth to a people who are run still but very deep. Beautiful.

And I love your Kirk, here! You get the inspirer-of-devotion part and the cheeky asshole part, and that's awesome! Thank you for it.

[betareject]

I was recced this tale and I won't lie I was no disappointed. This was so haunting and beauiful. I loved how subtle, yet profound the Vulcan's pain was how they struggle to heal to find their place in this new home.

I really enjoyed seeing how Kirk and Nyota help Spock heal while respecting his privacy and need to heal his own way.

[thedrummertobeat]

this was great. I just finished a re-read of Spock's World, and as I was sitting in the theatre this afternoon watching XI for the third time, I found myself wondering: what will Vulcans become out from under the watchful red-flecked eye of T'Khut? It wasn't shown in the film, to the best of my knowledge, whether T'Khut was destroyed in the singularity that took Vulcan. But particularly in Spock's World, as much as Seleya dominated the landscape and thus the lives of its inhabitants, so too did T'Khut, almost as a manifestation of the Other itself, looking down on them.

Well done. This is very much a keeper for me.

[longtimegone]

This is really beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing it!

[themostepotente]

This is WONDERFUL. God, thank you for writing such a lovely piece about the Vulcans.

[rinsbane]

This is so lyrical, both in the writing and in the theme and ache that twines through it. Just lovely.

[heathen_outpost]

This was engaging and well cone. I enjoyed following sulking!Kirk. Spock's reaction to himself was entertaining.