NEW: TOS Sympathy for the Devil 2/6 [PG-13] (S/f, f/m)
Rabble Rouser
AUTHOR: Rabble Rouser
CONTACT: Rabbl...@aol.com
SERIES: TOS
RATING: [PG-13]
CODES: S/T'Pring, T'Pring/Stonn
PART: 2/6
DATE: October 12, 2000
SUMMARY: T'Pring tries to find a way out of a bond she does not want.
See Part One for Disclaimers and Acknowledgements.
* * *
After that I was told I could not see Spock. Worse, as I was not allowed on the
estate, I could not continue my studies on the violin with Amanda. That is when
I learned my greatest lesson about emotional control. Indifference can itself
be a form of victory. I had been at the top of Mount Seleya once. I imagined
myself there and drew the cold to me. I would feel nothing. It is not
punishment if you feel nothing. They do not win if you feel nothing.
Nearly a year later, I was told that I would be betrothed to Spock after all.
Sarek had not found someone else who would link a daughter to a seemingly
unstable son. My mother told me stiffly that in the future I must hold myself
as an exemplar of Vulcan propriety and that public displays of affection even
between those betrothed were unacceptable. For my family, the connection
represented a distinct honor. Sarek's House had wealth and position far beyond
any on Vulcan. For that, my mother at least was willing to overlook
irregularities Houses older in honor would not. My father, for his part,
thought well of Spock who would often pester him for tales of his travels
off-world as a trader.
My first question to her was if I could resume my music lessons. My mother
gazed at me searchingly, but I had remembered to keep any eagerness out of my
expression and was rewarded with a nod. After the ceremony, I was told, I could
resume my lessons and see Spock again. Obviously my mother did not wish Sarek
to see me acting in any manner that would jeopardize the match.
Amanda drew me aside from the others before the ceremony. I felt her cool moist
lips on my brow. "T'Pring, it will be wonderful to have you as a daughter!
Wouldn't you like that?" She squatted down and tried to embrace me.
"I already have a mother, Lady." I thought I saw hurt in those alien blue eyes
as I pulled away. My face was ice. I could not articulate it then even to
myself but there was something in the surreptitiousness of her gesture that
repelled me. If Spock has grown ashamed of his human heritage, I do not think
you need look to the taunts of children. His own mother refused to hold to a
Vulcan discipline and yet would not simply *be*--there was something in her
manner that spoke of shame of her humanity. It would be many years before I met
other humans and learned that hers was not at all the usual manner of those
born of Earth.
I felt chilled anew when I saw Spock but this was not the inner ice I had
summoned. At Spock's side stood a Kolinahru. My mother's sister had entered Gol
two years ago. She had gotten a short leave when Grandmother had died four
months ago. The computer that ran our home had more personal presence than a
Gol adept. The Kolinahri rarely left the Sanctuary. I had heard that an
exception had been made for Spock and that a Master of Gol had taken leave to
serve as Spock's tutor.
In less than a year, Spock stood transformed. He had chosen the Vulcan way
after the kahs-wan, and like many whose right to a path was questioned, he had
sought perfection. In his eyes I saw no welcome and he barely permitted himself
a slight nod acknowledging my presence. This is not how I had imagined our
reunion. It occurred to me that I no longer knew Spock. I did not permit myself
even a nod then but stood eyes front and center.
T'Pau officiated over the bonding ceremony and would guide us in the link.
T'Pau was then the chief deputy to T'Kahma, who ruled the Council of the Clans
and through it Vulcan. In less than a year, T'Pau would succeed her. That she
would preside over the ceremony was yet another sign of the power of Spock's
family. I schooled myself to stillness as our fathers read aloud from the
scrolls that linked our Houses and lit the coals signifying the burning that
would later draw us together. Spock and I exchanged the ritual words that
fulfilled the forms of assent.
Then T'Pau approached us. She interlaced her fingers in my right hand and
guided the other to Spock's meldpoints on the right of his face. Then she did
the same with Spock's hand drawing his fingers to my meldpoints.
There was little subtlety in T'Pau's mental touch. She held her position by
birth rather than mental acuity. I felt as if I were being placed into a cage.
My mind rebelled and I pushed against her physically and mentally. I sensed her
profound disapproval as she imposed her heavy weight on my mind. Spock could
feel my rising panic. Through our growing link I could sense him shy away
mentally, and over it T'Pau by force locked together two immature, barely
trained minds. The more she pressed on my mind, the harder I resisted the link.
I felt my knees buckle and sunk into unconsciousness fearing I had betrayed
Spock in a way he would not forgive.
And so it was done.
* * *
When I awoke, I was in my room at home and my mother and father were at my
side. So was T'Pau. Though my head was on fire I scrambled to stand. Even at
seven, I knew that you do not face T'Pau from a position of weakness. My mother
helped support me with a hand at my elbow.
T'Pau passed her gaze over me as if assessing a good in the market. "Foolish,
stubborn girl. It is hard to comprehend why Sarek would think it logical to tie
himself to this House. To forge an alliance with the daughter of a physician
and a merchant where once he had married a princess. No doubt no other House
was willing to let their daughter marry a human."
My father put his hand on my shoulder, a rare gesture among us. "I agreed to
the match because they were friends and I felt that might be a good basis for a
life partnership. I can only assume Sarek thought the same. Spock has
considerable abilities, as does T'Pring, and he has chosen the Vulcan way.
Neither House should have any reason to regret the match."
"So speaks Provenn the trader in trillium and other trinkets. Sarek cannot now
think he chose wisely given that the girl fought so visibly against this bond."
I felt my father squeeze my shoulder and I looked up and saw him look down in
reassurance. T'Pau's snobbery did not bother him and he often had a caustic
comment about the High Vulcan affectations in her speech--often enough used
wrongly.
"Due to the clumsiness of your mental touch, T'Pring could have been
permanently damaged," my mother said.
T'Pau ignored the insult. "She now belongs as much to the House of Surak as to
the House of Peren and as such she will need to learn discipline. I shall have
her fostered with me."
"I think not," said my mother.
"She has a duty to the clan," said T'Pau.
"And if she needs training in that duty I am willing to let her spend time with
you. But she has obligations to this House as well and is to receive training
as a Healer. As you well know, a Healer's training must begin young and all too
few have the gift. Your rights here do not go so far that you can remove my
daughter from her duty to this House."
"It is well. A Healer's training, along with what I can teach her, will instill
the mental discipline she requires. Listen to me carefully, T'Pring s'T'Sela.
If thee do not master thy passions, they will be thy undoing. To act as thee
have is to act as an animal, not a Vulcan. Only animals and humans allow their
actions to be ruled by the passions of the body. Thee are a child no longer and
will not be indulged as one. I will not allow someone of thy future position to
grow up wild. If thee persists in thy stubbornness, I will put thy mind under
my control until thee can assert discipline. Does thee understand?"
I nodded my head, not trusting myself to speak. I knew then that from now on
the only thing that stood between me and an invasion of my mind was a
countenance and voice schooled to utter blankness in her presence.
* * *
I was still abed a week later when my father ushered in a visitor. Spock hung
back at the threshold a moment, then walked to my beside and sat.
"Spock, I did not expect to see you here." *After a year apart,* I completed in
my thoughts.
"We are betrothed. It is only proper that I visit."
"You seem well."
"I was not injured. Father says those with the healing talent have delicate
dispositions and..."
I snorted. The closest thing to laughter I was permitted. I wanted to ask if he
was angry with me. I wanted to apologize. He would only deny the first and
question the logic of the second. Amanda and Spock had taught me much of the
language of emotion but I had already learned better than to use it. I
shrugged, an expression I had picked up from Amanda. "It is over and I will
soon be well. I do not want to speak of it."
"Father has been teaching me to program the computer. I have built one of my
own devising."
"I would like to see it."
"I play chess with it."
"Chess?"
"It is an ancient Earth game that is becoming very popular. It is a challenging
exercise of strategic skill that requires a player to logically plot out his
moves and that of his opponent several places ahead."
"Yes, Uncle Sardek once tried to teach me. The rules are simple but the play is
complex. I did not know what to make of it."
"I will teach you."
There was a confidence in his voice and a new poise in his bearing that was
appealing and intimidating at once. I did not know what to make of this Spock
except that he was neither the shy, unsure boy I remembered nor the cold,
distant automaton I feared when I saw the Kolinahru by his side at the bonding.
He removed something white from his pocket and laid it on my bed. "I kept this
for you." At my puzzled look he continued. "It is your kerchief from the last
time..."
He cleared his throat. "Father has warned me not to tire you. Mother wants to
know when you will come to visit."
"As soon as I am able."
Spock nodded and left.
I kept twisting the kerchief in my hands after he left. I felt strangely
pleased and yet confused that he had kept it for me. I felt he was trying to
send me some kind of message I could not decipher. I think sometimes of that
young T'Pring and Spock with a kind of despair. Was it that we were each in our
way too alike? If one of us then had found the key to unlock what we were
feeling, could one have freed the other?
* * *
Soon afterwards I resumed my music lessons with Amanda. Nothing I did could
stop her greeting me with an embrace and quick caress of the cheek. The woman
seemed starved for touch. After a while, I endured her touch quietly, for even
having her chaotic emotions thrust upon me in this manner was a small price to
pay for the music lessons. I was welcome to come at almost any hour to
practice. It was on one such occasion that I finally met Sybok.
The music room was paneled in a wood, mahogany, imported from Earth. No where
else on Vulcan have I seen this, an entire room lined in wood, for there is
little of the land of our planet that is not desert, and wood here is more
precious than any metal. A grand piano, also imported from Earth, dominated the
room. Its very presence spoke of a vast wealth for few could afford to import
such a massive item from across the stars. From the window one could see the
Earth roses that Amanda cultivated. They were delicate blooms never meant for
our desiccated air and greedy for water that was applied with a liberal hand.
I made sure I was alone. I told the computer to call up the accompanying music
for Barber's Violin Concerto. I should have worked on the closing presto, for
the accelerating tempo of that movement with its triplet semiquavers was
difficult to master and a good exercise of technique. Nevertheless, I was far
less fond of the angular presto. I could not resist beginning with the allegro
as I loved the lushness of that opening. I expressed through that music all the
wayward passions that were being stripped from my voice and face and movement
in my training with T'Pau and my mother. I closed my eyes and luxuriated in a
sensation of lightness and soaring I could not find elsewhere.
What I saw when I opened my eyes, made my heart beat rapidly in my side. By the
door was Spock and a strange young man stood with him. What had my countenance
revealed? The first thing I noticed was that Spock looked relaxed as he had
rarely been in the two years since we had been bound together. The stranger
actually had his arm laid casually around Spock's shoulders. He had a presence
that spoke of command and utter confidence. When he spoke, his speech added to
my confusion. It was informal and warm in tone and not what I had come to
expect.
"That was beautiful, little one," said the stranger, "and unlike most your age
you're not afraid to play it as it was meant--with feeling." I felt my face
coloring.
"There is no need to insult me, sir. I was simply practicing to bring out the
inner voice of the harmonic language."
He moved toward me and I drew in deep breaths to resume control. To my shock he
took my free hand in the human manner and held it in both of his. "I have you
at a disadvantage for Spock has told me who you are, T'Pring. I'm Sybok,
Spock's elder brother." One shock after another, for then he smiled at me and
took my violin and bow from my nerveless fingers and studied them a moment
before laying them on the piano. "This is a brave choice. Your choice of the
traditional lyre is far safer, brother, a more ethereal instrument."
Some of the stiffness returned to Spock's face. "Music is a worthy intellectual
exercise that engages the mind, trains the ear, and inculcates great manual
dexterity."
Sybok shook his head in mock severity. "I believe the music lessons taught
among us so universally must be our first lessons in hypocrisy. For how can one
value music as we do and pretend it's only an intellectual exercise akin to
mathematics?"
I felt a fierce urge to defend Spock. "The choice of instruments was not ours.
Sarek chose the lyre for Spock."
"But you chose the violin for yourself," Sybok said. "Amanda has told me the
story. You were not yet three when you were begging to learn it and refusing to
practice any other instrument. Indeed, Amanda is quite proud of you. She tells
me you could make it your profession, and that you remind her of the most
gifted musicians from her own days as a conservatory student."
"My path is otherwise. I am to be a healer as is my mother and as was her
mother."
"Is that what you want?" he asked gently.
I did not know how to answer. No adult before this had ever asked what I
wanted. He took each of my clenched hands in his and squeezed tightly. I heard
him whisper softly so only I could hear. "So much pain in someone so young.
What are we doing to our children?"
* * *
Sarek was away that entire year on a diplomatic mission off-world. I would
spend time with T'Pau being schooled in the disciplines of logic and feel like
someone buried under sand. When I was on Sarek's estate, it was as if I had
broken the surface and could draw in great gusts of air. Sybok had been
expelled from the Academy and was continuing his studies in pre-Surakian Vulcan
philosophy in private. We two children were the first he tried to convince that
the route to enlightenment was through emotion rather than logic.
I was there when Sarek came home. Sybok was reading to us from a pre-Reform
treatise, S'Pak's "Dialogue of Ni'var," about the meaning of love. Sybok was
seated in a chair while Spock and I lay sprawled on the floor with a chessboard
between us. Spock, as usual, was arguing against his brother's advocacy of
emotion with a relish that betrayed an emotion of its own.
"How could love be infinite? That is not logical. Everything there is must have
a measure to have an identity. If there is no measure, how can you know it is
real?" Spock asked. As he spoke, he moved his knight and took mine without
pausing or looking down at the board.
"S'Pak is saying that love is unbounded and often seeks to break boundaries.
Like Sarek and your Mother who broke the boundaries of custom and even species
to come together and have you."
I looked at the board and casually tipped my king. No need to postpone the
inevitable. It would be checkmate within five moves if Spock did not make a
mistake--and Spock never made a mistake. "Father was explaining that the only
way to measure what a good is worth is what people are willing to pay to gain
or keep it. Maybe love is like that, it is measured by what you're willing to
give up to get it."
I saw a look of impatience flicker over Sybok's face quickly smoothed over with
a smile. "I suppose it is inevitable given your background that you would think
in such metaphors. Emotions are of the spirit, and like the spirit, partake of
the infinite. You should not try to bound it with things material."
"Even katras must be tied to the material to continue to exist, Sybok," Spock
countered coolly. To my chagrin, Spock was setting up the board again. I could
never refuse a challenge from him even one as implicit as this one. I think I
also was trying to keep a connection to him in any way he would allow. Why he
bothered to play with me I could never understand. Nine times out of ten he
would win with ridiculous ease, the tenth time I could perhaps manage a draw.
Yet he never seemed to tire in his attempts to teach me the nuances of the
game. Perhaps he still hoped to shape me into a worthy partner.
I looked up to see Sarek at the threshold. That he had not called out or in any
way greeted us was not a good sign. Sybok saw the direction of my gaze and
turned. A smile lit his face. That was his first mistake.
Sarek lifted an eyebrow. "I had hoped the reports exaggerated. Or that at least
you would have enough courtesy not to act in this manner in my house. Must you
debauch even children? A worthy thing to match yourself against unformed
minds."
"Act? You do not object when the Lady Amanda expresses emotion."
"The Lady Amanda is human and is too old in years to be trained otherwise. What
is more, she acknowledges the superiority of the Vulcan way and of my
authority. I expect more from my son--both my sons."
"I could say that Spock is half-human--but that would be to concede that it is
the human side only that is emotional and passionate. We know better. Don't we,
Father?"
"It is because Spock is half-human that he will be the perfect bridge between
our worlds. He has chosen our path and is well on his way to mastery. Spock
will show humans that this too is a path open to them--the path to peace and
harmony."
"The path to sterility and hypocrisy."
Sarek turned to us then. "Spock, T'Pring--leave us."
Spock took the chessboard with him and we went into the garden to play. For the
first time I defeated him easily. He made no comment but attempted to set up
the board again--this time I stopped him with a hand. From here Sybok's voice
carried to us. He was shouting. I had never heard a Vulcan raise their voice in
anger. I felt then as if something in myself had been pulled out by the root
and saw Spock go rigid at the same moment.
I knew immediately what had happened. Sarek had sheared his parental bond with
Sybok. Every Vulcan is tied tenuously to the other. When a quake destroyed the
city of T'Qen, every Vulcan on the planet felt the shock as thousands of minds
went dark. We have words to categorize a dozen kinds of links from this
slenderest of gossamer threads to the strong cable of a marriage bond. The link
I had with Spock was not meant to be strong or permanent at this point.
Sometimes when in close proximity, it made us sensitive to each other's moods.
Yet even I could feel the shock of the severance of the familial bond through
my link with Spock. I saw Sybok stride through the garden. Spock ran to meet
him but he turned him away with a gesture. That would be the last time I saw
Sybok cha'Sarek for several years.
End of Part Two
_ _ _
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We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
--T.S. Eliot
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