1C13:11, Chapter 5, Prv13: 5-7
Apr. 29th, 2010 12:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
teaoliTitle: 1C13:11 — Prv13:5-7
Characters: Spock, Amanda, Uhura, multiple OCs
A/N: Spock is ready to take more from life; Nyota is not pleased.
Warning: Starts off very K, but eventually flirts with M.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Star Trek, any Star Trek characters or any Star Trek concepts. I also don’t get paid for writing about any of those.
( Read Ru2:13 )
( Read Prv22:6 )
( Read Prv4:1-15 )
( Read Col3:21 )
“I don’t like her.” Nyota expertly rolled a thick bunch of kale leaves into a neat cylinder and began slicing it into disks. “She doesn’t say what she means. Her words don’t match her… you know.”
Upenda looked up from the batter she was mixing. “Ennie… you know better than that,” she admonished gently. “You’re not supposed to be Listening to our guests.”
Nyota frowned and attacked the next roll of kale with more vigor than was strictly necessary. “I can’t help it!”
Guilt formed a rock in Upenda’s belly. She and Muta had spent so much of their sister’s childhood excluding her from their activities; Nyota rarely turned to them with the upsets of her life; she had adopted, instead, an older boy from several worlds away to do the job her siblings should have been doing all along.
Upenda set her spoon down on the work surface and moved closer to Nyota’s end of the long counter.
“Yes, you can,” she whispered, placing a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “Do you need me to help you with your shielding? You sound all jumbled up inside, dada.”
Letting the knife and the kale slip from her fingers, Nyota looked up with watery eyes.
“It’s just… whenever I see them together, I…” Unable to continue, she shook her head. “I’m sorry, dada. I really can’t stop Hearing her.”
“Ennie, let me Listen to you try,” Upenda murmured, laying her ear against the top of Nyota’s head. “Think of her and try to shield yourself.”
She waited for the small body relax into her light embrace and then Listened. The synapses fired and connections were made — only to fall apart before a strong mental wall had been formed. She Listened more deeply and Heard the sounds of Nyota’s anger and fear winnowing away at the strength that should have gone into the shielding.
Anger makes sense, she thought. The Risian has her Vulcan, but…
“Why are you afraid of her, Ennie?”
“I’m not afraid of her; I’m afraid for Spock,” was the tremulous reply, and Upenda Heard the truth in the steady rhythms of Nyota’s body. “I don’t want her to hurt him.”
“I know how you feel about Spock — he’s come to be like family to all of us,” she soothed. “But he is a grown man now, and he’ll be okay, even without our ‘protection.’ You’ll see.”
“But she lies, Penda. She lied to Mama when they first got here — she doesn’t really admire her for leaving the Corps,” came Nyota’s fierce whisper. “And she lies to Spock all the time — about liking us — about liking it here. It’s just… now that he’s not bonded…”
Upenda raised her head and turned her sister around for a tighter embrace, the gesture intended to induce silence as much as it was meant to comfort. Because of the true vocation of so many of their Wakufunzi relatives and because of Ennie’s ears — even, though to a much lesser extent, because of Baba’s work — she and her siblings knew many things they weren’t supposed to know. But they had also been taught what they could speak of and what they needed to keep to themselves. They weren’t supposed to talk about why Vulcans bonded.
The small girl fit just under Upenda’s chin and she felt a distinctly maternal twinge as she stroked her back.
“Maybe you’re hearing her wrong, Nyota ndogo,” she whispered, hoping that she was right. “She certainly likes Muta.”
The younger girl’s stiff back was the second clue that Upenda had said the wrong thing; the first was a tiny spike in her sister’s blood pressure. She rushed to continue before Nyota could comment on the woman’s interest in their brother.
“Besides, we haven’t studied much about the Risians yet,” she went on. “I even have trouble just Hearing if she’s healthy or not.”
Nyota wiped her eyes against her sister’s neck then tilted her head back to meet the older girl’s eyes.
“I thought we weren’t supposed to be Listening to our guests?”
Upenda smiled as she turned Nyota back to the chopping block. “I won’t tell if you don’t tell,” she promised.
He could feel the Risian’s eyes on him.
“On Risa, we value all forms of pleasure,” Damalis had explained when she’d begged him to play for her. “But music is my own particular passion.”
He’d agreed because music was also his passion. And because, although his sisters didn’t like the woman who had arrived with Spock a week ago, she was a breathtaking sight — golden brown skin the same color as the instrument his fingers were caressing and pale green eyes with dark, tightly-curled hear that framed a face of exquisitely-formed beauty — and captivating and he hadn’t been convinced that Pen and Ennie were right about her.
Until tonight. The verbal barbs she directed at Ennie were as readily apparent as the nearly improper praise she’d been tossing his way.
The last of the music dissipated from his blood, letting the heat of Garissa and the sweet and spicy and tangy scents of his father’s gardens call him back into the world with a fading African sun.
He hadn’t released the love and longing swirling within him as he played and sang — that was the rule when they had visitors. But even if his parents hadn’t forbidden it, he would have hesitated to do so in the presence of the Risian.
Muta laid the Terran lute flat on his lap and opened his eyes. He allowed himself a moment to bask in the warmth of his parents’ and sisters’ affectionate smiles. Even Spock nodded approvingly, if infinitesimally.
The half-Vulcan’s girlfriend was another matter.
While his Wakufunzi-given talent seemed to have manifested itself almost entirely through musical ability, he had become nearly as adept as the rest of his relatives at reading others. He may not have had his parents’ training or an ability to Listen the way either Upenda or Nyota did, but even at thirteen, Benjamin and M’Umbha Uhura’s only son recognized the look of a predatory female.
“You are very talented,” the Risian purred. “On my world your gift would make you a highly sought-after… companion.”
His face heated at the compliment — and at its not-so-hidden meaning. He exchanged a glance with the elder of his two sisters, then let his eyes wander to the darkening gardens below them. The Uhura home was built into a hill — there were more floors at the rear than in the front. The design made the hot season bearable. Tonight, but it gave Muta a place to look away as he decided to ignore that minute shake of Upenda’s head.
“Ennie,” he called, against Penda’s wishes, “join me for the next one.”
“Nyota has a pleasing and proficient singing voice, Damalis,” Spock told his girlfriend.
“Oh, how sweet,” the woman cooed. Muta only just managed not to roll his eyes.
Ennie’s eyes skittered around the room, narrowing slightly at the sight of the Risian’s hand covering Spock’s. Muta sent up a silent prayer that, in gathering dark, no one but he and Upenda noticed that the small girl had to collect herself before turning to beam at him.
“Okay, Mu,” she said and made her way to where he sat before the doors leading inside.
Looking up in time to catch his mother’s approving nod, Muta placed his fingers over the lute’s strings again and began strumming the opening notes of a song he knew would lift his sister’s spirits while showing off her voice to good advantage. Not that there was much that didn’t sound beautiful coming out of her mouth. Still, he couldn’t stand to see her hurting, and as alluring as he found the Risian, he wanted to wipe that condescending smile off her gorgeous face.
“No,” Ennie whispered, and the pained crack in her voice combined with the anguish written across her face, sent Muta’s fingers skidding off the strings. “Not that one.”
He stared at her for a long moment, silently considering. Then, he put the instrument in its stand.
His eyes sought out Baba’s in the gathering dark. Without breaking the gaze, he motioned Upenda over, and handed the her his favorite duduk. Sliding to the floor to sit cross-legged behind his tabla, he let his fingers slide over the heads of the teak dayan and copper bāyāñ while she changed the mouthpiece of the double-reed flute.
Ennie smiled a little, seemingly pleased with the choice. She reached over and grasped the discarded lute.
With a nod of permission Muta believed no one else caught, Baba stood and began walking around the stone balcony, lighting the torches that stood at each corner.
“This song, written by Mr. Peter Gabriel who came from 20th Century England, became the anthem for the Uhura warriors when our ancestors were fighting for African freedom,” he informed their guests as he walked. “Our children hold fast to its spirit by singing it with their brothers and sisters and cousins on the eve of their days in the wilderness.”
Carefully, gently, Muta lowered his shields. He Sent a tendril of reverence into the night as his palms and fingers picked out a rhythm on the two drums to accompany his father’s speech.
“My children” Baba waved his left hand back towards Muta and the girls as he approached his seat again “have made it their own.” He turned and sank down next to Mama, then nodded in the siblings’ direction again.
Upenda placed the reeds between her lips and the duduk’s first low, soulful notes seemed to grow to fill the air, and Muta took a deep breath and unshielded completely.
“In this proud land, we grew up strong,” he sang. “We were wanted all along.“
The tabla joined the duduk and emphasized his words. He Sent his sadness.
“I was taught to fight, taught to win. I never thought that I could fail.”
The weight of flute and drums flowed through his veins and he painted the pain of it into the tale of lost dreams and lost identity.
Then the lute and Ennie’s soft voice wove their way into the despondency of the tabla and duduk, challenging the despair, offering a counterpoint of hope.
“Don’t give up,” she sang gently, her voice dancing around the dayan and the bāyāñ, sliding beneath the duduk. “‘Cause you have friends. Don’t give up. You’re not beaten yet…”
With voice and drums, Muta unleashed sorrow upon suffering.
“… thought that we’d be the last to go. It is so strange the way things turn…”
But Nyota, lightly shielded, was there, her song growing in strength as his anguish threatened to conquer them all.
“… don’t give up. No reason to be ashamed.”
His palms and fingers protested against the heads of the dayan and the bāyāñ — Upenda translated her disbelief through the hypnotic call of the duduk.
But their sister did not give up her assault of faith. Muta pulled a strand of her burgeoning hope into the tapestry he was weaving. He released the new fabric of emotion into the night.
“… don’t give up. You know it’s never been easy. Don’t give up,” she ordered them. “‘Cause I believe there’s the a place, there’s a place where we belong.”
____________
As her brother’s Sending began to melt away, allowing what she was feeling to reassert itself, Upenda slowly lowered the duduk from her lips and scanned the faces in the orange glow of the torches.
The frolicking light — she smiled at the thought. Frolicking! Muta had used Ennie’s bright feelings perhaps a little too well — revealed tears streaming down Mama’s unlined face. Just as Upenda knew they would do again in two months on the night before Ennie left for her Trial. M’Umbha had cried for her eldest and second child—even without Sent emotion. It seemed that knowing this performance was only a prelude to what was to come made little difference in their mother’s reaction.
Baba’s smile was full of approval. He was proud of his warrior ancestors, and of the fact that his children had embraced that heritage, in spite of the strong pull of bin Wakufunzi in all three of them.
Even Spock had been moved. Upenda couldn’t tell if had been the work of the music, Muta or of the message, but she could Hear the changes in his body chemistry that indicated a strong emotional response. His face remained as impassive as ever as he offered a minute nod in their direction, but she didn’t doubt what she Heard.
Damalis’s smile hid a mystery the teen couldn’t decipher through Listening, but she’d learned enough about the woman since Spock had brought her to the compound six days before to feel a trickle of trepidation as the Risian opened her mouth to speak.
She hoped, for Spock’s sake, that the woman did not plan to continue to fawn over her brother or demean her little sister. What she’d told Ennie was true — Mama and Baba accepted him as a second son just as she, Muta and Nyota saw him as an elder brother. None of them would accept seeing him hurt. And Spock, Upenda knew, was equally protective of his ‘second family.’
____________
Benjamin watched his elder daughter’s lips tighten and saw that she stepped closer to her sister. Almost immediately, his son was at Nyota’s other side.
Although he lacked the Wakufunzi gifts for fluent communicating, he had been a xenopsychiatrist for more than twenty years. He could read bodies and faces. A surge of pride-laced affection coursed through him as his children closed ranks to protect their own.
“That was wonderful, Muta!” Damalis cried, clasping her hands together. She jumped to her feet and descended on the children, stopping just half a meter away. “You truly are a talented young man.”
Benjamin’s eyes narrowed. His youngest child’s shy smile didn’t falter, but he noticed her hands reaching out for her siblings.
“And Miss Upenda, your playing was exquisite! I’m only sorry you weren’t able to sing, as well.”
“You would have been even sorrier had you heard me sing,” Penda assured her with false cheer. She drew her sister closer to her side and Muta followed her lead. “Ennie and Mu inherited Mama’s voice. I usually sound like a pterodactyl choking when I try. The night before my Trial, I had to resort to Sprechstimme to keep from doing irreparable damage to everyone’s ears!”
The self-deprecation elicited delighted laughter and protests of “I’m sure that can’t be true!” from the Risian woman.
Nyota, Benjamin noticed, was clutching her siblings’ fingers tightly as Damalis went on praising the older children.
“Excellent performance, Nyota,” Spock said, his voice barely above a whisper. But Benjamin knew from her growing smile and the relaxing of her hands and shoulders that his daughter had heard.
The sun still hadn’t risen by the time they left the hover behind to make the rest of their way on foot. Upenda had allowed Ennie and Mu to take the lead — his experience was two years more recent than her own, and she believed their sister would benefit from sharing his memories of his Trial. Spock and Damalis had followed, the Risian showing all signs of being lost in the Vulcan, though he clearly took his role as chaperone seriously. Every twenty or so meters, he’d glanced back to make certain that Upenda still followed.
Nearly two hundred years before, the Tana River Dam had nearly destroyed the desert region that made up most of Garissa. Where the slow-moving river and the resultant humidity had once prevented the district from feeling like a true desert, after the dam, residents of the area had been left with little more than a trickle of muddy water that was useless for commerce and didn’t allow for patches of green to relieve the red and beige landscape of monotony.
Eighty-five years of hydration research that had made Garissa famous had done much to correct the wrongs of the past, and now the small party walked through the desert similar to what Upenda’s Wakufunzi ancestors had known. But only hard work kept the place from being entirely incapable of supporting life. Although it was a far cry from the highland plains of central Kenya, that green place where Nyota would have her true Trial, it would good preparation for what was to come.
Upenda glanced up to note the sun was nearing its high point. They would stop soon — even if Ennie didn’t think it necessary, Mu would make sure it happened.
She focused again on the trail her siblings were creating just in time to see the pair halt near a high dune held together with straw-colored grasses that would not have existed during the Dry Time. Spock and the Risian were still in sight, however, and when she focused, she could hear what they were saying.
“…very strong and handsome,” Damalis observed. “On Risa, he would be popular for more than just his music.”
“Muta is only thirteen Terran years old,” her boyfriend chided. Upenda didn’t need to break Mama’s rules to hear the restrained tension in her friend’s voice, but the Risian woman may as well have been oblivious.
From behind, it appeared Damalis’s eyes never left her target. “And what is the ‘Terran age of consent’?” she asked. Her voice managed to ooze both blithe irreverence and loaded sensuality. The fifteen-year-old admired the feat and vowed to learn the trick for herself, but hated that the tone was a reaction to her younger brother.
“Seventeen,” was his terse response. Spock’s face didn’t change, but Upenda knew his displeasure was steadily increasing.
Ennie and Mu vanished behind the dune and Spock quickened his pace.
“I can wait four years,” the Risian trilled, curling an arm around his elbow.
They reached the dune Ennie and Mu had rounded moments earlier, then they too disappeared from Upenda’s sight.
“It was my expectation that, by then, you would be my mate,” she heard Spock tell his girlfriend, in spite of his lowered volume.
“Oh, mine as well,” assured the Risian, “but marrying does not mean the end of the search for pleasure, does it?”
Upenda didn’t hear Spock’s answer, but suspected Damalis would not find it pleasing.
____________
“Here!” Ennie declared. “This is the place.”
Muta quickly surveyed the site his sister had selected for their first night’s rest. She had chosen a spot close to a small wadi. Once it would have been a wise choice while traveling through the desert, as the seasonal stream would not only provide a place to replenish depleted water supplies, but also serve to temper the extreme temperature contrasts between day and night. Since the Dry Time, however, a wadi such as this one have little of ameliorating the rapid cooling that would have left less the less experienced shivering in their sleeping bags.
There was nothing to be done about that, however. Nyota had made the best possible choice. And since the Risian had been slow to begin walking again after they’d waited out the worst of the day’s heat in the shadow of a large dune several kilometers back, it was possibly their only choice.
“You’ve done well, Ennie,” he told her, giving her slim shoulder a light squeeze beneath the strap of her pack.
He shrugged off his own backpack as she beamed at his praise.
It was good to see her in such a cheerful mood. Damalis had been less obvious in displaying her dislike during their rest — and it wasn’t precisely dislike, Muta conceded. It was more like… the Risian had little use for his awkward little sister because her people appreciated beauty and had made pleasure a way of life. Nyota, still growing into herself, was rarely comfortable in the presence of strangers; around the beautiful golden-skinned woman, she sometimes became the clumsy child she’d spent the last six years banishing. The beauty her family believed she would have one day was difficult for an outsider to see. Today, though, Ennie had moved like a dancer as they’d their way through the desert, and he suspected Damalis had taken note.
Tossing his sleeping bag on the still-warm sand before working on setting up his single-person tent, Muta decided his interpretation must be correct. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched his sister turn in a slow circle — a queen surveying her nation — and smiled.
_____
He was nearly finished when he heard her shout and then the splash.
Muta hadn’t turned in time to see Nyota turn from the wadi, her hands full of two dripping canteens. He’d missed Damalis tossing a third water bottle — this one empty — in her direction. He hadn’t seen his sister’s legs becoming tangled in the straps of the pack she’d left at the edge of the stream, as she tried to catch the Risian’s canteen.
But, late into the night, when he rested by Spock’s side in the two-person tent the Vulcan had meant to share with his Risian, the African boy reviewed his friend’s dive into the water to pull out his sister and her soaking wet pack.
He remembered that Spock hadn’t hesitated to return to the wadi to find the three water bottles Nyota had dropped in her fall.
He recalled the nearly harsh tones Spock had used to chastise Damalis’s unseemly enjoyment of the incident. The woman — she was Spock’s age! — had pointed and laughed, even as Ennie had struggled not to cry.
He thought of the Risian woman who now slept alone, in the tent he had erected himself, and he was pleased.
Smoothing her fingers across small round table, its dark wood glossy in the sun-filled kitchen, Amanda soaked in Africa’s comparatively gentle warmth. The transition the home from her childhood to the home she shared with her husband was less abrupt when there was Africa between Washington and Vulcan.
“After the way that woman behaved the first week, I should have said ‘no,’ but Nyota had been looking forward to it for so long. And with her Trial so close, and then the trip to Washington…” M’Umbha sighed. She reached out covered Amanda’s hand with her own. “I really am sorry.”
Amanda also knew what the trip had meant to the little girl. She recalled a conversation, overheard years before.
“Much like your kahs-wan,” the little girl had explained in her precise Vulcan, “our Trial is a test of maturity and strength. We go into the wilderness when we are eleven years old, not seven — and we are permitted to take supplies…I must be strong. I will practice and prepare until I am eleven. ”
“No… M’Umbha, no. This isn’t your fault.” Amanda turned her hand beneath her friend’s, automatically seeking the closeness of palm-to-palm contact in the Vulcan way. “Spock has been making his own decisions ever since he rejected the VSA. I’ve been really proud of most of them, and I know you have been, too. But Damalis… she was just a bad choice. He only stayed with her so long because she, um… because she’d proven herself capable of being an ideal companion during the Time.”
She let her head fall forward. Unbidden, images of what must have transpired during the camping trip where her son had supervised the Uhura children filled her mind.
M’Umbha threw her husband a look of alarm. Head nearly touching the table, the American woman’s shoulders were shaking almost violently, though no sound escaped her lips.
Although doing so went against what M’Umbha had always taught her children regarding the use of Wakufunzi gifts, she razed walls she’d kept mostly erect since she’d first left the Diplomatic Corps, pushed out and Listened to what her friend was feeling.
And realized… Amanda was not crying. The Vulcan’s wife wasn’t bowing under the pressure of a bondless son who might face his Time in less than a year. She was laughing — great hiccupping guffaws, now that her friends knew what she was doing.
“It’s just… it’s j-just I thought of Spock having to dive into that w-wadi,” she sputtered, “to drag Nyota out…” Another fit of the giggles forced her to trail off. “After s-six years of ballet lessons…” she gasped, “and personal training every other year… all to make her more graceful… he ruins all their hard work when he brings home that… Risian who doesn’t like our Ennie.”
The picture she painted was vivid — Nyota, pack and sleeping bag still strapped to her back, tumbling backwards into the seasonal desert stream. M’Umbha imagined Spock, wet and shivering in the desert cold after rescuing her daughter, while a contrite Nyota apologized and that… Risian cackled. Upenda and Muta no doubt jumping in to protect their sister’s feelings. Then Spock… opting to defend all three of them…
The amusement was contagious. Suddenly she was laughing, too. Even Benjamin chuckled quietly.
Tensions and fears melted and all three shook their heads over the many trials of parenthood. And smiled at the many joys.
Spock was back at Star Fleet Academy; Upenda, Muta and Nyota were on Betazed. For the moment, all of their children were safe.
Laughter died away, finally, and the two women grew serious once more. Benjamin, they noted individually, appeared serious even when amused over their children’s misadventures.
Amanda reached out again, this time letting her left hand close over M’Umbha’s right.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “We don’t even know that we need to yet. Spock’s half human… And even if it happens, there are other ways.”
The other woman opened her mouth to protest, but then, shaking her head sadly, decided against it. She knew the young half-Vulcan’s mother spoke the truth. There were other ways. But humans weren’t supposed to know about any of this.
“He’ll be fine, M’Umbha,” Amanda stated firmly, because she needed to believe it was true. A gentle squeeze on her right shoulder brought a measure of comfort. She looked over to meet Benjamin’s kind eyes. “He’ll be fine,” she repeated.
The African woman slid her left hand over to entwine fingers with her husband’s right. The three sat for a moment, linked together in a house built into a hill, thinking about their children and the future.
A/N addendum: Again with the references to things that are more fully explained in my other fics! I can’t help it. Some elements don’t change from story to story, although this one continues to stand on its own.
In my other fics, Muta is always described as a music virtuoso. As was suggested in the beginning of this chapter (and is implicit in other fics), Upenda’s talent leads her to be an extraordinary doctor.
The song Muta originally chooses for Nyota is Natalie Merchant’s “Wonder.” Because she has a tendency to be shy around non-family members, the Uhuras encourage her to sing this song when they fear she’s having an attack of low self-esteem. In the end, however, she and Muta sing a duet of Peter Gabriel’s “Don’t Give Up.”
I’ve based Nyota’s vocals on a concert where he sang the song with Paula Cole, rather than on the original, which he sang with Kate Bush. The musical arrangements are completely new — I slowed the tempo considerably — and utilize instruments from around Earth.
Special thanks to the women of STCC Writers Guild for forcing me to make this more than short the filler chapter I’d intended to be.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aquasoulsis, I’m gad you kept insisting on more More MORE, even if I grumbled at the time. Nubian Amazon, thank you for listening to song after song after song after… spocklikescats, you are so brilliant with the red pen, you chase me down even after I post (and, lucky me, you do!!).
Go to Chapter 6
Characters: Spock, Amanda, Uhura, multiple OCs
A/N: Spock is ready to take more from life; Nyota is not pleased.
Warning: Starts off very K, but eventually flirts with M.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Star Trek, any Star Trek characters or any Star Trek concepts. I also don’t get paid for writing about any of those.
( Read Ru2:13 )
( Read Prv22:6 )
( Read Prv4:1-15 )
( Read Col3:21 )
“I don’t like her.” Nyota expertly rolled a thick bunch of kale leaves into a neat cylinder and began slicing it into disks. “She doesn’t say what she means. Her words don’t match her… you know.”
Upenda looked up from the batter she was mixing. “Ennie… you know better than that,” she admonished gently. “You’re not supposed to be Listening to our guests.”
Nyota frowned and attacked the next roll of kale with more vigor than was strictly necessary. “I can’t help it!”
Guilt formed a rock in Upenda’s belly. She and Muta had spent so much of their sister’s childhood excluding her from their activities; Nyota rarely turned to them with the upsets of her life; she had adopted, instead, an older boy from several worlds away to do the job her siblings should have been doing all along.
Upenda set her spoon down on the work surface and moved closer to Nyota’s end of the long counter.
“Yes, you can,” she whispered, placing a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “Do you need me to help you with your shielding? You sound all jumbled up inside, dada.”
Letting the knife and the kale slip from her fingers, Nyota looked up with watery eyes.
“It’s just… whenever I see them together, I…” Unable to continue, she shook her head. “I’m sorry, dada. I really can’t stop Hearing her.”
“Ennie, let me Listen to you try,” Upenda murmured, laying her ear against the top of Nyota’s head. “Think of her and try to shield yourself.”
She waited for the small body relax into her light embrace and then Listened. The synapses fired and connections were made — only to fall apart before a strong mental wall had been formed. She Listened more deeply and Heard the sounds of Nyota’s anger and fear winnowing away at the strength that should have gone into the shielding.
Anger makes sense, she thought. The Risian has her Vulcan, but…
“Why are you afraid of her, Ennie?”
“I’m not afraid of her; I’m afraid for Spock,” was the tremulous reply, and Upenda Heard the truth in the steady rhythms of Nyota’s body. “I don’t want her to hurt him.”
“I know how you feel about Spock — he’s come to be like family to all of us,” she soothed. “But he is a grown man now, and he’ll be okay, even without our ‘protection.’ You’ll see.”
“But she lies, Penda. She lied to Mama when they first got here — she doesn’t really admire her for leaving the Corps,” came Nyota’s fierce whisper. “And she lies to Spock all the time — about liking us — about liking it here. It’s just… now that he’s not bonded…”
Upenda raised her head and turned her sister around for a tighter embrace, the gesture intended to induce silence as much as it was meant to comfort. Because of the true vocation of so many of their Wakufunzi relatives and because of Ennie’s ears — even, though to a much lesser extent, because of Baba’s work — she and her siblings knew many things they weren’t supposed to know. But they had also been taught what they could speak of and what they needed to keep to themselves. They weren’t supposed to talk about why Vulcans bonded.
The small girl fit just under Upenda’s chin and she felt a distinctly maternal twinge as she stroked her back.
“Maybe you’re hearing her wrong, Nyota ndogo,” she whispered, hoping that she was right. “She certainly likes Muta.”
The younger girl’s stiff back was the second clue that Upenda had said the wrong thing; the first was a tiny spike in her sister’s blood pressure. She rushed to continue before Nyota could comment on the woman’s interest in their brother.
“Besides, we haven’t studied much about the Risians yet,” she went on. “I even have trouble just Hearing if she’s healthy or not.”
Nyota wiped her eyes against her sister’s neck then tilted her head back to meet the older girl’s eyes.
“I thought we weren’t supposed to be Listening to our guests?”
Upenda smiled as she turned Nyota back to the chopping block. “I won’t tell if you don’t tell,” she promised.
He could feel the Risian’s eyes on him.
“On Risa, we value all forms of pleasure,” Damalis had explained when she’d begged him to play for her. “But music is my own particular passion.”
He’d agreed because music was also his passion. And because, although his sisters didn’t like the woman who had arrived with Spock a week ago, she was a breathtaking sight — golden brown skin the same color as the instrument his fingers were caressing and pale green eyes with dark, tightly-curled hear that framed a face of exquisitely-formed beauty — and captivating and he hadn’t been convinced that Pen and Ennie were right about her.
Until tonight. The verbal barbs she directed at Ennie were as readily apparent as the nearly improper praise she’d been tossing his way.
The last of the music dissipated from his blood, letting the heat of Garissa and the sweet and spicy and tangy scents of his father’s gardens call him back into the world with a fading African sun.
He hadn’t released the love and longing swirling within him as he played and sang — that was the rule when they had visitors. But even if his parents hadn’t forbidden it, he would have hesitated to do so in the presence of the Risian.
Muta laid the Terran lute flat on his lap and opened his eyes. He allowed himself a moment to bask in the warmth of his parents’ and sisters’ affectionate smiles. Even Spock nodded approvingly, if infinitesimally.
The half-Vulcan’s girlfriend was another matter.
While his Wakufunzi-given talent seemed to have manifested itself almost entirely through musical ability, he had become nearly as adept as the rest of his relatives at reading others. He may not have had his parents’ training or an ability to Listen the way either Upenda or Nyota did, but even at thirteen, Benjamin and M’Umbha Uhura’s only son recognized the look of a predatory female.
“You are very talented,” the Risian purred. “On my world your gift would make you a highly sought-after… companion.”
His face heated at the compliment — and at its not-so-hidden meaning. He exchanged a glance with the elder of his two sisters, then let his eyes wander to the darkening gardens below them. The Uhura home was built into a hill — there were more floors at the rear than in the front. The design made the hot season bearable. Tonight, but it gave Muta a place to look away as he decided to ignore that minute shake of Upenda’s head.
“Ennie,” he called, against Penda’s wishes, “join me for the next one.”
“Nyota has a pleasing and proficient singing voice, Damalis,” Spock told his girlfriend.
“Oh, how sweet,” the woman cooed. Muta only just managed not to roll his eyes.
Ennie’s eyes skittered around the room, narrowing slightly at the sight of the Risian’s hand covering Spock’s. Muta sent up a silent prayer that, in gathering dark, no one but he and Upenda noticed that the small girl had to collect herself before turning to beam at him.
“Okay, Mu,” she said and made her way to where he sat before the doors leading inside.
Looking up in time to catch his mother’s approving nod, Muta placed his fingers over the lute’s strings again and began strumming the opening notes of a song he knew would lift his sister’s spirits while showing off her voice to good advantage. Not that there was much that didn’t sound beautiful coming out of her mouth. Still, he couldn’t stand to see her hurting, and as alluring as he found the Risian, he wanted to wipe that condescending smile off her gorgeous face.
“No,” Ennie whispered, and the pained crack in her voice combined with the anguish written across her face, sent Muta’s fingers skidding off the strings. “Not that one.”
He stared at her for a long moment, silently considering. Then, he put the instrument in its stand.
His eyes sought out Baba’s in the gathering dark. Without breaking the gaze, he motioned Upenda over, and handed the her his favorite duduk. Sliding to the floor to sit cross-legged behind his tabla, he let his fingers slide over the heads of the teak dayan and copper bāyāñ while she changed the mouthpiece of the double-reed flute.
Ennie smiled a little, seemingly pleased with the choice. She reached over and grasped the discarded lute.
With a nod of permission Muta believed no one else caught, Baba stood and began walking around the stone balcony, lighting the torches that stood at each corner.
“This song, written by Mr. Peter Gabriel who came from 20th Century England, became the anthem for the Uhura warriors when our ancestors were fighting for African freedom,” he informed their guests as he walked. “Our children hold fast to its spirit by singing it with their brothers and sisters and cousins on the eve of their days in the wilderness.”
Carefully, gently, Muta lowered his shields. He Sent a tendril of reverence into the night as his palms and fingers picked out a rhythm on the two drums to accompany his father’s speech.
“My children” Baba waved his left hand back towards Muta and the girls as he approached his seat again “have made it their own.” He turned and sank down next to Mama, then nodded in the siblings’ direction again.
Upenda placed the reeds between her lips and the duduk’s first low, soulful notes seemed to grow to fill the air, and Muta took a deep breath and unshielded completely.
“In this proud land, we grew up strong,” he sang. “We were wanted all along.“
The tabla joined the duduk and emphasized his words. He Sent his sadness.
“I was taught to fight, taught to win. I never thought that I could fail.”
The weight of flute and drums flowed through his veins and he painted the pain of it into the tale of lost dreams and lost identity.
Then the lute and Ennie’s soft voice wove their way into the despondency of the tabla and duduk, challenging the despair, offering a counterpoint of hope.
“Don’t give up,” she sang gently, her voice dancing around the dayan and the bāyāñ, sliding beneath the duduk. “‘Cause you have friends. Don’t give up. You’re not beaten yet…”
With voice and drums, Muta unleashed sorrow upon suffering.
“… thought that we’d be the last to go. It is so strange the way things turn…”
But Nyota, lightly shielded, was there, her song growing in strength as his anguish threatened to conquer them all.
“… don’t give up. No reason to be ashamed.”
His palms and fingers protested against the heads of the dayan and the bāyāñ — Upenda translated her disbelief through the hypnotic call of the duduk.
But their sister did not give up her assault of faith. Muta pulled a strand of her burgeoning hope into the tapestry he was weaving. He released the new fabric of emotion into the night.
“… don’t give up. You know it’s never been easy. Don’t give up,” she ordered them. “‘Cause I believe there’s the a place, there’s a place where we belong.”
____________
As her brother’s Sending began to melt away, allowing what she was feeling to reassert itself, Upenda slowly lowered the duduk from her lips and scanned the faces in the orange glow of the torches.
The frolicking light — she smiled at the thought. Frolicking! Muta had used Ennie’s bright feelings perhaps a little too well — revealed tears streaming down Mama’s unlined face. Just as Upenda knew they would do again in two months on the night before Ennie left for her Trial. M’Umbha had cried for her eldest and second child—even without Sent emotion. It seemed that knowing this performance was only a prelude to what was to come made little difference in their mother’s reaction.
Baba’s smile was full of approval. He was proud of his warrior ancestors, and of the fact that his children had embraced that heritage, in spite of the strong pull of bin Wakufunzi in all three of them.
Even Spock had been moved. Upenda couldn’t tell if had been the work of the music, Muta or of the message, but she could Hear the changes in his body chemistry that indicated a strong emotional response. His face remained as impassive as ever as he offered a minute nod in their direction, but she didn’t doubt what she Heard.
Damalis’s smile hid a mystery the teen couldn’t decipher through Listening, but she’d learned enough about the woman since Spock had brought her to the compound six days before to feel a trickle of trepidation as the Risian opened her mouth to speak.
She hoped, for Spock’s sake, that the woman did not plan to continue to fawn over her brother or demean her little sister. What she’d told Ennie was true — Mama and Baba accepted him as a second son just as she, Muta and Nyota saw him as an elder brother. None of them would accept seeing him hurt. And Spock, Upenda knew, was equally protective of his ‘second family.’
____________
Benjamin watched his elder daughter’s lips tighten and saw that she stepped closer to her sister. Almost immediately, his son was at Nyota’s other side.
Although he lacked the Wakufunzi gifts for fluent communicating, he had been a xenopsychiatrist for more than twenty years. He could read bodies and faces. A surge of pride-laced affection coursed through him as his children closed ranks to protect their own.
“That was wonderful, Muta!” Damalis cried, clasping her hands together. She jumped to her feet and descended on the children, stopping just half a meter away. “You truly are a talented young man.”
Benjamin’s eyes narrowed. His youngest child’s shy smile didn’t falter, but he noticed her hands reaching out for her siblings.
“And Miss Upenda, your playing was exquisite! I’m only sorry you weren’t able to sing, as well.”
“You would have been even sorrier had you heard me sing,” Penda assured her with false cheer. She drew her sister closer to her side and Muta followed her lead. “Ennie and Mu inherited Mama’s voice. I usually sound like a pterodactyl choking when I try. The night before my Trial, I had to resort to Sprechstimme to keep from doing irreparable damage to everyone’s ears!”
The self-deprecation elicited delighted laughter and protests of “I’m sure that can’t be true!” from the Risian woman.
Nyota, Benjamin noticed, was clutching her siblings’ fingers tightly as Damalis went on praising the older children.
“Excellent performance, Nyota,” Spock said, his voice barely above a whisper. But Benjamin knew from her growing smile and the relaxing of her hands and shoulders that his daughter had heard.
The sun still hadn’t risen by the time they left the hover behind to make the rest of their way on foot. Upenda had allowed Ennie and Mu to take the lead — his experience was two years more recent than her own, and she believed their sister would benefit from sharing his memories of his Trial. Spock and Damalis had followed, the Risian showing all signs of being lost in the Vulcan, though he clearly took his role as chaperone seriously. Every twenty or so meters, he’d glanced back to make certain that Upenda still followed.
Nearly two hundred years before, the Tana River Dam had nearly destroyed the desert region that made up most of Garissa. Where the slow-moving river and the resultant humidity had once prevented the district from feeling like a true desert, after the dam, residents of the area had been left with little more than a trickle of muddy water that was useless for commerce and didn’t allow for patches of green to relieve the red and beige landscape of monotony.
Eighty-five years of hydration research that had made Garissa famous had done much to correct the wrongs of the past, and now the small party walked through the desert similar to what Upenda’s Wakufunzi ancestors had known. But only hard work kept the place from being entirely incapable of supporting life. Although it was a far cry from the highland plains of central Kenya, that green place where Nyota would have her true Trial, it would good preparation for what was to come.
Upenda glanced up to note the sun was nearing its high point. They would stop soon — even if Ennie didn’t think it necessary, Mu would make sure it happened.
She focused again on the trail her siblings were creating just in time to see the pair halt near a high dune held together with straw-colored grasses that would not have existed during the Dry Time. Spock and the Risian were still in sight, however, and when she focused, she could hear what they were saying.
“…very strong and handsome,” Damalis observed. “On Risa, he would be popular for more than just his music.”
“Muta is only thirteen Terran years old,” her boyfriend chided. Upenda didn’t need to break Mama’s rules to hear the restrained tension in her friend’s voice, but the Risian woman may as well have been oblivious.
From behind, it appeared Damalis’s eyes never left her target. “And what is the ‘Terran age of consent’?” she asked. Her voice managed to ooze both blithe irreverence and loaded sensuality. The fifteen-year-old admired the feat and vowed to learn the trick for herself, but hated that the tone was a reaction to her younger brother.
“Seventeen,” was his terse response. Spock’s face didn’t change, but Upenda knew his displeasure was steadily increasing.
Ennie and Mu vanished behind the dune and Spock quickened his pace.
“I can wait four years,” the Risian trilled, curling an arm around his elbow.
They reached the dune Ennie and Mu had rounded moments earlier, then they too disappeared from Upenda’s sight.
“It was my expectation that, by then, you would be my mate,” she heard Spock tell his girlfriend, in spite of his lowered volume.
“Oh, mine as well,” assured the Risian, “but marrying does not mean the end of the search for pleasure, does it?”
Upenda didn’t hear Spock’s answer, but suspected Damalis would not find it pleasing.
____________
“Here!” Ennie declared. “This is the place.”
Muta quickly surveyed the site his sister had selected for their first night’s rest. She had chosen a spot close to a small wadi. Once it would have been a wise choice while traveling through the desert, as the seasonal stream would not only provide a place to replenish depleted water supplies, but also serve to temper the extreme temperature contrasts between day and night. Since the Dry Time, however, a wadi such as this one have little of ameliorating the rapid cooling that would have left less the less experienced shivering in their sleeping bags.
There was nothing to be done about that, however. Nyota had made the best possible choice. And since the Risian had been slow to begin walking again after they’d waited out the worst of the day’s heat in the shadow of a large dune several kilometers back, it was possibly their only choice.
“You’ve done well, Ennie,” he told her, giving her slim shoulder a light squeeze beneath the strap of her pack.
He shrugged off his own backpack as she beamed at his praise.
It was good to see her in such a cheerful mood. Damalis had been less obvious in displaying her dislike during their rest — and it wasn’t precisely dislike, Muta conceded. It was more like… the Risian had little use for his awkward little sister because her people appreciated beauty and had made pleasure a way of life. Nyota, still growing into herself, was rarely comfortable in the presence of strangers; around the beautiful golden-skinned woman, she sometimes became the clumsy child she’d spent the last six years banishing. The beauty her family believed she would have one day was difficult for an outsider to see. Today, though, Ennie had moved like a dancer as they’d their way through the desert, and he suspected Damalis had taken note.
Tossing his sleeping bag on the still-warm sand before working on setting up his single-person tent, Muta decided his interpretation must be correct. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched his sister turn in a slow circle — a queen surveying her nation — and smiled.
_____
He was nearly finished when he heard her shout and then the splash.
Muta hadn’t turned in time to see Nyota turn from the wadi, her hands full of two dripping canteens. He’d missed Damalis tossing a third water bottle — this one empty — in her direction. He hadn’t seen his sister’s legs becoming tangled in the straps of the pack she’d left at the edge of the stream, as she tried to catch the Risian’s canteen.
But, late into the night, when he rested by Spock’s side in the two-person tent the Vulcan had meant to share with his Risian, the African boy reviewed his friend’s dive into the water to pull out his sister and her soaking wet pack.
He remembered that Spock hadn’t hesitated to return to the wadi to find the three water bottles Nyota had dropped in her fall.
He recalled the nearly harsh tones Spock had used to chastise Damalis’s unseemly enjoyment of the incident. The woman — she was Spock’s age! — had pointed and laughed, even as Ennie had struggled not to cry.
He thought of the Risian woman who now slept alone, in the tent he had erected himself, and he was pleased.
Smoothing her fingers across small round table, its dark wood glossy in the sun-filled kitchen, Amanda soaked in Africa’s comparatively gentle warmth. The transition the home from her childhood to the home she shared with her husband was less abrupt when there was Africa between Washington and Vulcan.
“After the way that woman behaved the first week, I should have said ‘no,’ but Nyota had been looking forward to it for so long. And with her Trial so close, and then the trip to Washington…” M’Umbha sighed. She reached out covered Amanda’s hand with her own. “I really am sorry.”
Amanda also knew what the trip had meant to the little girl. She recalled a conversation, overheard years before.
“Much like your kahs-wan,” the little girl had explained in her precise Vulcan, “our Trial is a test of maturity and strength. We go into the wilderness when we are eleven years old, not seven — and we are permitted to take supplies…I must be strong. I will practice and prepare until I am eleven. ”
“No… M’Umbha, no. This isn’t your fault.” Amanda turned her hand beneath her friend’s, automatically seeking the closeness of palm-to-palm contact in the Vulcan way. “Spock has been making his own decisions ever since he rejected the VSA. I’ve been really proud of most of them, and I know you have been, too. But Damalis… she was just a bad choice. He only stayed with her so long because she, um… because she’d proven herself capable of being an ideal companion during the Time.”
She let her head fall forward. Unbidden, images of what must have transpired during the camping trip where her son had supervised the Uhura children filled her mind.
M’Umbha threw her husband a look of alarm. Head nearly touching the table, the American woman’s shoulders were shaking almost violently, though no sound escaped her lips.
Although doing so went against what M’Umbha had always taught her children regarding the use of Wakufunzi gifts, she razed walls she’d kept mostly erect since she’d first left the Diplomatic Corps, pushed out and Listened to what her friend was feeling.
And realized… Amanda was not crying. The Vulcan’s wife wasn’t bowing under the pressure of a bondless son who might face his Time in less than a year. She was laughing — great hiccupping guffaws, now that her friends knew what she was doing.
“It’s just… it’s j-just I thought of Spock having to dive into that w-wadi,” she sputtered, “to drag Nyota out…” Another fit of the giggles forced her to trail off. “After s-six years of ballet lessons…” she gasped, “and personal training every other year… all to make her more graceful… he ruins all their hard work when he brings home that… Risian who doesn’t like our Ennie.”
The picture she painted was vivid — Nyota, pack and sleeping bag still strapped to her back, tumbling backwards into the seasonal desert stream. M’Umbha imagined Spock, wet and shivering in the desert cold after rescuing her daughter, while a contrite Nyota apologized and that… Risian cackled. Upenda and Muta no doubt jumping in to protect their sister’s feelings. Then Spock… opting to defend all three of them…
The amusement was contagious. Suddenly she was laughing, too. Even Benjamin chuckled quietly.
Tensions and fears melted and all three shook their heads over the many trials of parenthood. And smiled at the many joys.
Spock was back at Star Fleet Academy; Upenda, Muta and Nyota were on Betazed. For the moment, all of their children were safe.
Laughter died away, finally, and the two women grew serious once more. Benjamin, they noted individually, appeared serious even when amused over their children’s misadventures.
Amanda reached out again, this time letting her left hand close over M’Umbha’s right.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “We don’t even know that we need to yet. Spock’s half human… And even if it happens, there are other ways.”
The other woman opened her mouth to protest, but then, shaking her head sadly, decided against it. She knew the young half-Vulcan’s mother spoke the truth. There were other ways. But humans weren’t supposed to know about any of this.
“He’ll be fine, M’Umbha,” Amanda stated firmly, because she needed to believe it was true. A gentle squeeze on her right shoulder brought a measure of comfort. She looked over to meet Benjamin’s kind eyes. “He’ll be fine,” she repeated.
The African woman slid her left hand over to entwine fingers with her husband’s right. The three sat for a moment, linked together in a house built into a hill, thinking about their children and the future.
A/N addendum: Again with the references to things that are more fully explained in my other fics! I can’t help it. Some elements don’t change from story to story, although this one continues to stand on its own.
In my other fics, Muta is always described as a music virtuoso. As was suggested in the beginning of this chapter (and is implicit in other fics), Upenda’s talent leads her to be an extraordinary doctor.
The song Muta originally chooses for Nyota is Natalie Merchant’s “Wonder.” Because she has a tendency to be shy around non-family members, the Uhuras encourage her to sing this song when they fear she’s having an attack of low self-esteem. In the end, however, she and Muta sing a duet of Peter Gabriel’s “Don’t Give Up.”
I’ve based Nyota’s vocals on a concert where he sang the song with Paula Cole, rather than on the original, which he sang with Kate Bush. The musical arrangements are completely new — I slowed the tempo considerably — and utilize instruments from around Earth.
Special thanks to the women of STCC Writers Guild for forcing me to make this more than short the filler chapter I’d intended to be.
aquasoulsis, I’m gad you kept insisting on more More MORE, even if I grumbled at the time. Nubian Amazon, thank you for listening to song after song after song after… spocklikescats, you are so brilliant with the red pen, you chase me down even after I post (and, lucky me, you do!!).Go to Chapter 6
Tags:
