Chapter Text
As Vulcan’s sun set on the temple complex, T’Pau contemplated the knife-like form of T’Pring, standing on the rise, overlooking the burning desert, alone. She had sent Stonn away with a crisp, “I did not need you for this, so it is logical that I do not need you now. Go home, Stonn. I will not be returning to Ankeshtan K’til.”
“Was it a logical choice, girl?” T’Pau creaked out, her voice very old and carrying—she thought—much wisdom.
“Yes,” T’Pring said. “It was eminently logical.” She stared out at the burning sands of Vulcan. “Ethical, even.”
T’Pau raised an eyebrow. That distinction was not often made. But a logical decision was simply correct, an ethical decision acknowledged the pain to the decider. “Live long and prosper, T’Pring,” T’Pau said.
T’Pring turned to look at her, her eyes sharp and mouth set into a fierce line. “You may wish to rescind those wishes some day, T’Pau. Be careful with them.”
#
The clan house in ShiKahr was quiet, even as its towering expanse contained nearly thirty members of the Yehenik. “The Clan Mother has died,” said Karis. He spoke with the authority of the clan’s representative to the Vulcan High Command, even though he was barely seventy. “She did not pass her katra to any, and so after the ritual interval of mourning, the clan council will meet and determine her replacement."
It was tradition that the eldest in the main house family would become the next Clan Mother, but T'Laian, now the eldest member of the main house, knew that her ascension was not assured. Some branch houses thought the main family should step down from their place. It was only logical, as they bore the taint of a child having been disowned for illogic.
T’Laian was aware of her own feelings about that event, but did not consider them. It had occurred. All things remaining the same, it was likely that the branch houses would form an alliance and appoint their chosen elder to be Clan Mother and replace the main house. But according to her logic, that outcome would be most unfortunate.
“Karis,” she said, summoning him into her private office. “We must speak.”
After Solen’s untimely death, Karis had become their representative to Vulcan High Command. Lately, he had been concerned about a policy proposal suggested by the young representative of the Hgrtcha clan—Rysurak, Sarek's protegee. Rysurak thought that Vulcan should rethink its approach to the colonization of planets. Now that relations with the Illyrian colonies had settled, and the Illyrians had gained Federation status, it was appropriate to fully investigate their strategies. Rather than changing a world to fit Vulcans, why not change Vulcans to fit a new world?
Karis found this illogical. The form of Vulcans was the form of Vulcans. If they altered it, they would no longer be Vulcans. He had also remarked a few times in the privacy of the clan house that that genetic experimentation had only been a hindrance for the Hgrtcha. Look at Spock. He disregarded his father’s ambition for him. He preferred the company of humans to Vulcans. He was continually involved in the most illogical situations that anyone had ever heard of. It was logical for the Hgrtcha to defend their decision to produce Spock by promoting this plan, but it did not mean that the plan itself was logical. Unfortunately, Hgrtcha had many allies in the High Command, and it would take subtle means to bring doubt upon their proposals.
“What is it you wish, T’Laian?” Karis inquired.
“I am considering a strategy and I would appreciate your insight. It involves an act that will reaffirm the status of the main house as the center of the Yehenik, and also one that will act as a check on the arguments of the Hgrtcha.”
“As a strategy that could do both these things would be very beneficial to our clan; it would seem logical to pursue it. What, T’Laian, is this plan?”
“To reclaim what is ours,” T’Laian said. “The daughter who has been disowned from the clan must be re-owned. I speak, of course, of T’Pring.”
#
Music blared in the kitchen, as Christine Chapel, M.D. Ph.D., spun on her socks with exuberance, a pair of tongs raised high in the air. She was rocking her hips and tossing her head side to side nearly with the beat. She did a twisting slide, drew back the tongs to her ear, and made a dramatic air guitar gesture. Then her eyes opened, bright and wild; she realized that she had an audience and grinned. “I think it’s got to be the state-changing proteins,” she said.
T’Pring stood in the doorway, having been dragged away from her meditation by the noise from the kitchen. She made no expression in response. “I have interrogated a number of other human scientists,” she said. “Strangely, your assertion that everyone gets their best ideas by dancing before breakfast has not been supported.”
“Are you saying I lied to you?” Christine said, pressing her fingertips to her chest in mock shock. “I would never.”
“Then what is your explanation?”
“Everyone would get their best ideas by dancing before breakfast. I’m just the only one clever enough to figure it out.”
The corners of T’Pring’s eyes crinkled up. “And once again, you continue to be impeccably logical.”
“Such is genius,” Christine said, sidling close and depositing the tongs on the counter. “Join me?”
She offered a hand.
“This is—”
Christine leaned close to her ear. “Give it a chance. Sometimes human culture isn’t all bad.”
“I never said it was.”
T’Pring let Christine loop her arms around her shoulders and settled her own hands on Christine’s hips. There was a reverence in Christine’s touch, enough that made this no casual intimacy. She did not attribute it to a respect for Vulcan culture—T’Pring had little enough of that, and of course in an intimate context, touch was expected and unmarked. This reverence came from Christine herself, who sometimes flopped down on top of her like a lazy cat, and other times wore a silly, bewildered expression while her fingers brushed across skin, as if she wasn’t entirely sure that she was allowed to be here, allowed to touch. To prevent unnecessary over-thinking, T’Pring drew them closer, until their hips pressed together. Christine bit her lower lip and drew T'Pring into a more near embrace at the shoulders as well. The song changed into something slower, and Christine rocked them side to side, moving in a casual rhythm, her head bending and her forehead just brushing T’Pring’s. Her eyes were a little wide and wary, as if she still wasn’t entirely sure this was welcome. But of course it was.
T’Pring played a little with Christine’s hair and lifted her chin to move closer to her ear. “Stop being afraid of being annoying,” she murmured. “I find everything about you annoying and delightful at the same time.”
Christine laughed, and swept them around the kitchen. “Such a comfort.”
It had been an odd few months. They had never lived together before, but T’Pring had a year-long visiting lectureship at the Bidadanure school, and Palo Alto was Christine’s home base, so it was only logical to share quarters. Getting used to being in each other’s space for an extended period of time had taken some effort. There had been some stepping on each other’s toes, some arguing, and then some negotiating. Meditation time was essential, and so were Christine’s early morning jam sessions. T’Pring just liked real books, and, yes, they ended up everywhere, but it was so much easier to remember her thoughts with physical books, and it wasn't as if Christine's office wasn't an avalanche zone of equipment and PADDs. If T'Pring was writing Christine wasn’t even allowed to think that she wanted to ask her something. Alternatively, Christine would leave nearly any task half done and possibly on fire if she had a good idea, and that was not about to change. But both of them liked the room ice cold when they slept, and Christine had seen T’Pring’s bathing set-up exactly once before she abandoned her own efficient sonic showers and climbed in too.
It still felt new and intense, but they were getting used to it.
The song swelled, and Christine spun her, her hot hand lighting up the mental connection that opened at barely a push. T’Pring blamed the Betazoid cocktails. Humans were negligible telepaths, but they’d both been very drunk that first night, and ever since any touch had made it dilate—sometimes at very inconvenient times. There were reasons for the no-touching in public rule.
Then they came back together, and as the music faded, they stilled, a pair of hands still clasped, forehead to forehead. T’Pring’s free hand moved of its own accord, placing itself on Christine’s cheek and temple. T'Pring felt the pleasure of connection, of the kash-naf, of feeling so close to someone who wished only to be close to her. She felt Christine sense her feelings, her own flush of warmth in response, still a little surprised that anyone could actually love her, which was absurd, as she was impossibly lovable—impossibly, frustratingly, irritatingly easy to love.
A soft-voiced Ferengi balladeer started singing on the PADD hooked into the kitchen sound system, and slowly they untangled themselves from each other. T’Pring was sorting through her schedule for the day—classes and marking and there should be a library delivery as well—when she caught a sense of bemusement that shouldn’t be where it was. She looked over at Christine who had opened her PADD to take notes on whatever inspiration she’d had that morning, but she too had stilled, the stylus slack in her hand. She turned slowly, her blue eyes wide, dark brows making her expression stand out almost comically strong. T’Pring’s mouth went tight, her body tense, because this wasn’t…
“It’s still there,” Christine said, worriedly. “I can still … feel you.”
T’Pring swallowed hard, and stared back at her. There was a shiver in the room, in the space, as the universe realigned just slightly. “Yes,” she said. “I can feel you too.”
#
“Is this—”
“It is known,” T’Pring said, dropping deep in to outsider diction for the phrase. “Sometimes emergent mental bonds occur between Vulcans who share a stressful experience, or—”
Christine’s brow arched in an impressive imitation of Vulcan skepticism. “Not sure how stressful goofing off in the kitchen is.”
T’Pring huffed out a breath. Christine had already been able to tell when T’Pring was using ‘acting Vulcan’ (it was 'outsider Vulcan' actually, but humans would not know the difference) as a defense mechanism. Now she could probably tell even more. “Or are compelled into an emotional attunement in another way—such as prolonged physical contact.”
Christine watched her, wary and uncertain. “I’m still not a Vulcan.”
T’Pring shrugged, turning away in an unsubtle bid to end the conversation—which made no sense , because the conversation was definitely not finished. And yet she didn’t want it. She needed to be alone . Christine wasn’t a Vulcan, and the logical part of her brain said that that shouldn’t be important, but a deep-set emotional part did. “It never stopped us mindlinking before.”
“Is it permanent?” Christine asked, carefully.
“Not necessarily,” T’Pring said. “With the aid of a telepathic professional we could end it. I should contact a suitable than-tha—”
“Hey!” Christine cut her off. “I didn’t say I wanted to break it. Unless you do?”
That was not a question T’Pring knew how to answer, not yet, not without meditating and sorting her mind. “If it is bothersome to you—”
“I didn’t say that,” Christine said. “I didn’t say . . . anything. I can feel you. That’s all.” She looked thoughtful. “You know I love being able to feel you.”
“I don’t want to have my presence be invasive. You didn’t ask for this.”
Christine looked like she was going to react to that, reject the implications of a truthful statement by rejecting truth itself and mount a defense of presumed emotions, but she stopped herself, and took a moment. “Let’s talk more about it tonight,” she said. “I need more data.”
It was . . . entirely logical. T’Pring fought for her own control. She was the one acting emotionally, and she needed to stop. “Very reasonable. I will-- I will go finish readying myself for class.”
It was a long day of trying to keep her emotions in check. She had a break before Christine was usually back from the lab and stayed on the meditation mat for the whole two hours. She subjected her feelings to full interrogation. Of course, some of them were about Christine, about her not understanding and therefore reacting in ways that made T’Pring feel insecure and uncertain. But she knew that the real source of discomfort had nearly nothing to do with Christine herself. The emotion came from her memory of the k'war'ma'khon, and those empty spaces where bonds had been and were supposed to be.
Logically, she would never do anything that made Christine uncomfortable. Emotionally, she wanted this bond. She wanted it so badly that she didn’t want it if it wasn’t perfect. Illogic. How could it ever be perfect when what she truly longed for was that bond to Vulcan, the sense of being part of a community of linked minds? What was this solitary, lonely, individual bond to that? But also, how could she think ill of this, when her own family had turned their backs on her, had said t’kona, ‘Go, and never come back,’ and had their familial bonds—father and brothers, aunts and cousins—burned away, until T’Pring was a husk of herself? Christine had become everything—and seen against the empty backdrop, how paltry that seemed. Or, seen from the opposite direction, how little did T’Pring have to offer, being only herself, stripped of clan.
“Hey.”
Christine was in the door, watching her, and T'Pring could feel the bond well with sympathetic affection. She’d kept it narrowed all day, not wanting to disturb Christine with her distress, but on seeing her, it opened like a reflex. That too was wrong. A Vulcan would know how to keep their end quiet, making the bond both as polite and as intimate as a light tap on the shoulder. Christine let it flow, shifting and changing like water under dappled light, unashamed of her emotions. “You look like you’ve been there for a while. Need a hand up? Don’t want you to get creaky knees.”
T’Pring wasn’t sure she could handle the touch. “Why don’t you come down here instead?”
Christine dropped down into a cross-legged sit, and T’Pring rearranged her legs into a more casual position.
“So,” Christine said, tipping her head to the side. “I did a bit of research.”
T’Pring tried not to sigh and turn her gaze away. Christine took a deep breath and arranged herself in a position almost mirroring T'Pring's. Her expression revealed nothing, her posture was straight and stable. “I think it is logical that we keep the bond,” she said, in her near perfect imitation of a Vulcan. “It seems that it emerged out of affection and physical intimacy, and as I have no expectation or desire for those two things to alter, eradicating the bond would be merely pruning a weed. It did not cause me discomfort today, and if you are also comfortable with maintaining the connection, I would be honored to stay bonded to you.”
The words were entirely sensible and clear. They were even a reasonable semblance of what a Vulcan might say in the situation. There was no way to refute any of them. But they still were wrong. Christine did not use the ritual words to confirm the promise of the van-kal t'telan—but she would not know those words. She did not understand the meanings of a kah-telan, nor did the expectations mean anything when applied to her. They had not conferred with their clans, drawn up contracts, spoken the words and knelt before each other. They had not performed the kash-nohv that would actualize an adult marriage bond. They simply had grown used to placing their hands on each other’s bodies and opening their minds along that corridor of connection. It was merely not a problem. “That . . . seems to be the logical answer.”
“How much research has there been on the biology of telepathy?” Christine asked. “I know the Illyrians developed that kind of empathetic aura reading thing, but-–”
And she was off.
T’Pring allowed herself a small, wry smile. There was an ache, but there was no reason for one. Christine was Christine. Everything had changed and yet nothing had changed. The bond was just another reminder that you couldn’t let your life entwine with someone else's without courting consequences. But it didn’t have to be a bad thing.
Imagine someone saying, “Our fundamental situation is joyful.” now imagine believing it.
Or forget belief: imagine feeling, even if for a moment, that it were true.
#
An Excerpt from T’Pring’s Essays on Bonding , eventually published in 2275
Here is the unexpected truth about telepathy. Some think that through it you can see love, feel love, know love from it. But it isn’t there. Love is not an emotion, a concrete object, a single electric-lit neural network. So what is it? Nelson suggests that it may be a systematic illusion. Like color is the relation between the eye’s mind’s and the texture of objects, as conveyed by light, love is simply the strange, unknowable thing I see when I look at you. It reflects your patterns, but the meaning exists only in my mind. Or it is a relation—we place ourselves in a coordinate position, and yet as I am I and only I, I can only rise up and see where I think you are, hoping to find you near to me. Or, perhaps I cannot see you at all, and only sense the conveyed vibrations of your presence near me. Have I mistaken a dark, strange presence passing at night for you?
We are ships at anchor, moving at the ends of our long ropes, always just about to drift apart, break our rope upon jaggy rocks. And perhaps that is why the affirmations are so important—whether they are words of love, acts of consideration, or those moments when I look up from Bluets and realize you have been looking at me, eyes backlit blue, for far longer than I am worth regarding—because they tug again at our ropes and our anchors grind together, and I know that where I am is near enough, near enough, near enough, even while you are always still too far away.
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