1. The Home That I Will Never See by Hagalaz Runedance
This parting from you, ashalik…it's more than a landscape, loss; more than a world, emotion. I am utterly stranded, as if in space. It is a curious thought; other people are dim stars, but unreal. I do not orbit the space left behind, only face the deep, overwhelming dark.
There is hope, it's said. There is hope, life going on. A whole planet, they try to tell me; something new created. I go through the motions but that spark I only realized was there when you ripped the pain into me with your death cannot be rekindled except in more pain. there is much more to Vulcans, to anyone, I realize, than logic or anything really understandable.
I stand before the void, a choice before me. Behind me lies a thousand years of life not my own, words empty and unfeeling for they do not contain the body, the mind, the being I miss: yourself. Ahead of me, the vast dark. I journey there, for perhaps you wait for me.
2. Winter Song by Sara Bareilles
Snowflakes.
David's breath, his piercing sadness. Saavik can only see it through a flurry of snow. So turbulent, the emotions of the new planet.
Spock cries out. The new Spock, the one as if erased and reformed of snow; unsure, the same and different. His touch burns the snow away, and his touch burns; he cannot touch what he wants, cannot stop the fire. She must listen and endure the cries, for the inside of her is frozen, unsure—the time for choice has almost passed; filling her mind, painted in darkness in light, is a familiar face but not the one before her.
Spock reaches out two fingers; as if by accident, they connect to her lips. His thoughts jolt into hers, so for a moment she stands frozen, shocked by the overwhelming innocence and confusion of the reborn Vulcan.
It's as if he doesn't want to harm me, but of course he cannot realize.
She did not turn away, but later, feeling David's gaze burning against her now-blanket-clad form, she cried and was not surprised.
The last snowflake melted.
3. Che Faro Senza Eurydice? by Christoph Willibald Gluck
These brief moments of happiness, this brief indescribable sweetness. Running through the forest…a whole world before me, the horizons undarkened by the grief I now know is unfounded.
I pretend, as I run, that the man beside me is now David, but yourself, ashalik. For you would know my every thought.
And yet, now, I do not feel alone.
4. Carmen Suite: Prelude (Georges Bizet)
The inevability of death…the sharp final point. For he will not live again, though you do.
And still you do not see.
5. O Viriditas Digiti Dei by Sequentia
Knowledge is perfect, in a way, she reflects. It has so many unknown facets, so many comforts to fall upon: if knowledge is wrong, it can always be corrected. You can always find belief in it. It creates new worlds.
She tries to forget, tries to listen to the call of the words before her, tries to bury her mind in books, in words—feeling the text while seeing the images, trancelike, when the holodisks no longer distracted her.
New worlds, and new horizons; the secret to many kinds of life, the beauty in a single structure, the inevitability of the universe.
And yet a strange downward spiral sinks below me as the knowledge bridges above; every structure of the life, every pattern and remembered reason does nothing but pass over the vast emptiness of the knowledge of the complexity that is lost to me, the unknown depths I attempted to bridge with you, that I had forgotten since Hellguard.
It is almost like religion, knowledge; my fingers against the words as if the knowledge could become me, as if I could become only energy, fleeting, memory-less, infinite, a bright spark across the universe, Weightless, Meaningless. My fingers do not press against paper, in the chambers of my mind. And with religion is always some aspect of sadness.
6. Blackthorn by Anúna
The beautiful pattern of the trees, their dark branches against the sky. It was only her face David desired to see; there was an ease in him when around her; he could forget the other women who always pressed, always were anxious, expectant. She was unlike anything that definable, more like a pattern of light against a dim, remembered wall; something beyond his imagination, beyond the rules of the universe and his knowing.
Saavik looked up from her book, eyes not startled but calm. She did not ask, and he was grateful.
7. La clarière des fées by Artesia
In a single moment, hand against hand, before unity is hurled away and all essence and understanding is shattered.
Her motions are not her mind. She knows this, has experienced it before.
"He died saving us.
I thought you should know."
But she could not stop the strange, overwhelming reaction that swept the landscape inside of her into a turbulent ocean. Her mind was reeling, suddenly alone again, as her body simply looked up to the sky where the sun rose. She was suddenly unsure of the dawn.
8. I Am A Stranger In This World by Azam Ali
Feet against the red dust. For some reason, barefoot. This place I know as familiar, sand and sky, planes of face and of heart; face of stone and hands of mine—this place with its own unspoken language, the language of the land.
I dream I climb a mountain, one with sides beyond the cloud, and I stand no longer on Vulcan, but with my feet bridging space and time. I cannot see my hands, see myself, and then myself is gone.
A deep voice tells me not to be afraid.
I know this voice; the richness, the intensity, the almost-roughness of it stops me from kicking and screaming against the unknown, and I am back at the mountain top, then familiar arms carry me.
"You do not have to return, but in the return lies a past and a future—though not your own, integral in your life. It is illogical, but so I would like to think."
She wakes in the strange ship where reside the people who do not hurt her. Arms are still around her, not gently restricting anymore but loosened, almost comfortable. She turns, sees the one whose features are reassuringly more like her own than the golden one's but whose emotions seem different, shown differently. She cannot tell if he is asleep, wriggles a little away as his eyes blink calmly open.
"Spock, will you die?"
Her legs have stopped swinging against her high perch.
His gaze is infinite as he calculates the thoughts he cannot understand. His voice is sleep-roughened, more than how she dreamed. Hesitantly he lays a long hand over the curve of her small head and back; the tight curling hair and tiny pointed ears bump against his skin.
"It is unlikely that I shall die anytime soon.
But Saavikam, you must not fear death. It never truly parts anyone," Spock said gravely.
Then, so quietly that human ears would miss it, "You do not need to fear, Saavikam." His eyes close again, and she yawns like a kitten before nestling into his embrace. She dreams of warmth and of the stars that are no longer distant but watching, wondering—a future.
9. My Heroes by Kimya Dawson
Three steps over the blasted ground and Saavik cannot contain it anymore. The covering of ferns and leaves is enough to hide her as she kneels shakily, feeling the blood drain from her face.
David is dead.
She cannot bear to look up at the stars she knows she will see even in daylight.
Spock will not remember.
But, David is dead.
She brushes a strand of hair aside from her face, then her hand falls away from doing so as a violent, painful force grips her; her head spins even after the heaving has stopped.
Dead.
No-one to find her paralyzed there with her knees hugged tightly to her chest, no-one to wonder, no-one to think of her lapse in consciousness as she realizes, minutes or even hours later, and cleans her sick away. Spock is deep in a fever she cannot heal, his bones reforming, the landscape of him changing—paralyzed too, for a longer instant.
No-one for her to care for when she feels this numb. She walks over to the fire, sees it reflected blankly across his eyes. He is deep within himself, withdrawn—she recoils from the immeasurable pain that screams into her from his mind, at an accidental touch, and withdraws her hand. Somehow her arms hug herself again and she huddles into a tight ball.
Only when on the Enterprise-taken-over Klingon warbird again does she feel the full impact of both deaths and only one rebirth, and ripping through her at the same time is the knowledge that her nausea hasn't abated. The Chief Medical Officer hauls her into sickbay as she still keens under her breath, still overwhelmed, and ironically, only treats Saavik for severe shock.
Spock would have known, she thinks, and decides not to take the medical scanner and hold it over her abdomen. Instead, blissfully, she falls into a sleep without awareness, but upon waking, the double loss and pain still shadow her mind.