completely irrelevant question of the day

[laurajv]

So what IS with the backrub scene in "Shore Leave", anyway?

Also, someone give me commentfic prompts. FIVE someones.

Comments

[beatrice_otter]

Reboot, T'Pau, reproducing the Vulcan race and evolutionary biology.

[laurajv]

T'Pau's handmaiden had been a first-year student at the Vulcan Science Academy, offworld on a study trip when Vulcan died. Now she braided green bands of mourning into T'Pau's hair each morning, and each morning T'Pau laid hands on the gentle swell of the girl's belly, to feel the mind-spark of the children within.

The Federation envoy wished to know why the adult survivors did not go to one of the Vulcan colonies, with their millions. She wished to know why the colonies only took children older than seven and younger than twenty. She wished to know so many things, and T'Pau did not wish to answer.

Indeed, it had been easier not to answer any questions at all when she was T'Pau of Vulcan, with the weight of billions behind her. She had another meeting with the envoy today, and there would be little enough of pleasure in it. She drew her robes about her and walked through the streets; the air on this world was too moist, and carried scent upon. That male, there, his head bent, smelt of fever. "Young one," T'Pau said, "art thee bonded, or has thee been triggered?"

"Bonded, T'Sai T'Pau," he said. His eyes were glazed, but not yet wild. "I had not -- all was well not an hour ago."

"We are few," she replied, "and this changes our bodies. In this, young one, thee must yield." His face trembled, on the verge of contortion. Gently, she said "Go to thy bonded, child. No doubt she awaits you."

He looked grateful for the direction, and turned, almost stumbling in his hurry. T'Pau watched him go for a long moment, her meeting forgotten. She remembered the bright burn of her mate's body in the plak tow, the falling away of logic and the way her body had rocked upon the sands of Vulcan as she took him within her, the shock of the heat of it, of his mouth on her breast and her legs wrapping him closer. The way he had been silent, that time and all others, and she had begged incoherently in her own need, and the children that had come of each joining.

This world, rising from the scattered bones of Vulcan's people, would soon be overrun with children. The children of her handmaiden, and others like her; of that young man, and others like him. So it had been in the days past, when their kind were few in number, and so it would be now. T'Pau herself would bear no more children, but she would touch their minds, see them born, birth them with her own hands if need be.

This was the Vulcan way.

She straightened her shoulders, recalling her meeting. The envoy could choke on her impertinent questions; there were things known, but not spoken of, and that, too, was the Vulcan way.

[beatrice_otter]

Thank you!

[laurajv]

I'm not sure T'Pau had any answers for you about that Vulcan evolutionary mechanism! But she's fun to write.