AN / I did make up a planet for this: it's called Terracotia. The people there are much taller and fairer than humans, and they are considered to be mainly an artistic people. So please enjoy, and remember, I'm happy for all the help I can get. A real writer always is.

"And so, as a start to your second year of philosophy class, we're gonna write a little essay. It will be due on Monday."

The class groaned quietly. To this teacher, a little essay wasn't so little at all.

"It's going to be about why you are here. At Starfleet. A little motivator for the year, no? Make it personal, include things about you and your past. This should be emotional."

When the class dismissed, all but one student left the room. She was an odd-looking thing, not very pretty, and with a somber expression on her face.

"Excuse me, Professor?" she asked in a tone nearly void of inflection. "How personal do you require this essay to be? What length, and how much information on our pasts would be appropriate?"

The teacher sighed. "Cadet Valdis, I know this is hard to explain, but it shouldn't be very precise. Not too short, maybe four pages typed, I don't know, enough to get your point across. And don't give me any 'logical and educational' stuff about being here. I mean why you want to be here. Why you chose to be here. What this place means to you. You get the idea."

It was a phrase Valdis did not truly understand. 'You get the idea'. Why did anyone use it, unless they were absolutely sure the person to whom they were speaking understood the idea?

"How much background information, and specifically what kind are you expecting?" Valdis asked.

"Tell me about your heritage. Some childhood memories, and something about the places and people you grew up with. It shouldn't be that hard, Valdis. Didn't you grow up with two sets of grandparents, partially on Earth and partially on Vulcan? Yours should be interestingly multicultural."

"Clara, are you seriously starting on that essay now? You have 'till Monday!" Melanie exclaimed.

Clara sighed inwardly. "Yes Mel, but I am not doing anything else tonight and figured it would be an appropriate time to get ahead on schoolwork." Unlike her laid-back roommate, Clara actually liked getting things done earlier than the night before they were due.

"Okay, but don't stay up too late. Me, you, Caroline, and Maria are going out tomorrow for some shopping, and no!" Melanie said suddenly. "Don't you protest at it, we know you like it as much as we do." Clara had been about to comment on the illogic of multiple shopping trips in one week.

Clara's lips turned up into a smile, barely noticeable but there. She did enjoy the trips, not for the shopping itself but for the time with her friends.

"You just go to bed Melanie, and I will be well rested for tomorrow, I promise."

As her roommate snuggled in under her blankets, Clara stared at her PADD, the cursor blinking dully at her. What should she write?

Hoping that the words would simply flow from her, Clara decided to start with her heritage from the beginning. She leaned over her desk, hearing the soft breathing of the already-sleeping Melanie, and began to write.

Why am I here?

My name is Clarabella T'lith Sophronia Raya Valdis. I was born March 8th, stardate 223387, and my name is ridiculously long because my parents could not decide which language to select my name from. Trust me, though many have expressed their distaste at it, the length bothers no one so much as me.

I shall start with my backstory, which is how any tale should correctly begin. I come from a long line of mixed planetary heritage.

My great great grandparents, the maternal grandparents of my paternal grandfather, were the first to marry outside their species. My Romulan great great grandmother Letaya ran off with my Vulcan great great grandfather Talok after meeting him while he was on Romulan for a brief time. Letaya's family disowned her and never spoke to her again, so they lived their lives on Vulcan. They had one daughter, Raya T'meta. Raya grew up and married a Vulcan named Sundrek, and they had a son named Kossan Gleno, my grandfather.

Meanwhile, my Terracotian great grandmother Sylvionia was working as a singer, traveling the galaxy, when she found herself on Vulcan and met Xilak. They stayed with one another and traveled for a while before settling on Terracotia and having my grandmother, Ilka Hypatia, and her younger brother Suran Arvel.

My Vulcan great grandmother Xenia was working on Earth as a translator when she met Ebenezer Wood, a struggling xenolinguist student. She began teaching him Vulcan in their spare time, and eventually they found they wished to stay together. They moved to Vulcan and had a daughter named T'pippa Elaine.

T'pippa and Kossan met in school as children, and their immediate friendship made clear the logic of their bonding. They made sufficient livings as a professor of human culture at the Vulcan Science Academy and a engineer, respectively. They had a son named Talok Olen Alexander.

Meanwhile, Ilka grew up to become a most successful botanist, and while studying abroad on Earth met Peter Valdis, a young human studying to be a chemist. She stayed on Earth to marry Peter, and worked at an interplanetary experimental greenhouse. Peter taught chemistry at a prestigious school, and they had a daughter named Laura Jareina Xanthel Valdis.

T'pippa and Kossan urged Talok to apply to the Vulcan Science Academy, as his outstanding progress in school was sure to guarantee his entrance, but he did not, preferring instead to apply to Starfleet. There he specialized in computer software and design, and met Laura. Laura was specializing in rocket technology, and together they designed many aspects of Starfleet vessels. They were married, and soon afterward had me: Clarabella T'lith Sophronia Raya.

Unfortunately when I was only a few months old, they had to leave to fix a stranded, damaged starship near Orion. They left me on Earth with my grandparents Ilka and Peter, but it was too late. The starship was seen to have major malfunctions, and though my parents and their colleagues managed to evacuate most of the ship they did not manage to escape it before it exploded.

My parents were never spoken of by my grandparents, any of them. They all felt their children had betrayed them by joining Starfleet, but they mourned for them in secret ways. They begrudgingly told me tidbits of information about them, but never anything much, and never showed me a picture of them. I imagined them as completely wonderful, everything I struggled to be and everything I longed for. They were my imaginary friends. I wanted to grow up and be just like them.

I lived on Earth until I was three. Then, my Vulcan grandparents made contact with my Human grandparents and made a deal about my well being: I was to spend alternate school years on Earth and Vulcan, and wherever I had not spent the year and summer I would spend the Christmas holidays (though they do not celebrate Christmas on Vulcan, it was a chance to visit). They believed this would be a sufficient and well rounded way of raising me.

In earlier years, I recall not how difficult it was to switch languages every year, or to switch schools or homes, but to switch names. On Earth my last name was Valdis. Grandpa Pete often shortened my first name to Bella, and Ilka only called me Sophronia, my Terracotian name, and had me call her by the Terracotian word for grandmother, which is Gena. I went to school as Clarabella Valdis. But on Vulcan, my school name was T'lith, but when my grandmother was pleased with me she called me Klonika, and occasionally my grandfather would call me Raya, my Romulan name. I would have days where I would not answer to my name when it was called, becoming mixed up.

I struggled incessantly as a child as to what I should be. It seemed everyone wanted me to be something different.

Gena Ilka was part Terracotian and part Vulcan, which of course made growing up on Terracotia difficult. Terracotian looks are dominant over Vulcan looks, so she could physically blend in, but her voice was lower in pitch than the high-voiced Terracotians, she was quicker to learn and process information, she could mind meld, etc. She was constantly mocked and teased as a child and came to despise her Vulcan heritage. Her parents and younger brother died unexpectedly in an accident which she has never told me about, and she was highly embittered. Meeting Grandpa Pete softened her, but living with her was still difficult.

She wanted me to be as Terracotian as could be, which was an unrealistic demand of her as I am only 12.5% Terracotian. She made me practice the graceful walking and high voice, and complained that I was too short. She made me wear my hair down at all times to hide my Vulcan ears. When I could not comply with her wishes, she grew violent against me, and I soon came to fear her greatly. I never fought her back, she was stronger and angrier than me and would have only grown more violent. She often told me that I was too Vulcan (but I never pointed out to her that while I am 43.75% Vulcan, she herself is 50%.).

My human Grandpa Pete was equally demanding of me, but in a very different way. He wanted me to be what his daughter was to him: a tomboy who was interested in sports and rockets, not books and stars. Unlike Gena Ilka, however, I was never afraid of him, despite his slowly worsening drinking problem. I strived with a positive heart to be everything he wanted of me, and honestly enjoyed his company. I do not laugh easily, but Grandpa Pete could make me laugh whenever he wanted to.

At school on Earth I had no friends. A 37.5% human is really not enough for human schoolchildren. I was strange-looking and cold; it was natural that they avoided and mocked me. Though the courses there did not challenge me nearly as much as the ones on Vulcan, I studied on my own and in some ways learned more by that method. Because of my natural alien strength I could always fight off physical attacks from human children.

Unfortunately, humans are very difficult to predict, and countless times in my life I fell prey to surprise verbal and physical attacks. They managed to hurt me if I let my guard down for any time.

The school on Vulcan was much different, much more challenging. I thrived on the academics, and was often one of the best students of my age. However, though on Earth I was perceived as cold and emotionless, on Vulcan it seemed my every emotion was showing on my face. I tried to be like them, but they could see how I struggled with it more than they ever had to. Also, on Vulcan I would accidentally display human qualities, like standing too close to those with whom I was conversing. My classmates verbally taunted me and would even sometimes physically attack me while trying to remain emotionless. They were always stronger than me, and nearly always injured me.

I once was bonded, but he dissolved the union when we were only fifteen. I never regretted his decision, for it was a completely logical thing to do: we had not enjoyed one another's company.

My half-Vulcan half-human grandmother was a very quiet woman, and I regarded her as very wise. She acknowledged that though she and I had alien traits among the Vulcans, she believed we could overcome them. She viewed her own humanity as a weakness that she had defeated, and was very keen for me to become as Vulcan as possible. She had meticulously planned my life for me, her little Klonika.

I was to become the brightest child at the school, enter the Vulcan Science Academy, and become a very prestigious Vulcan in whatever my field should be. I suspected that this plan was what she had made for her son, and that she was using me to fill the gap. I wanted to be everything for her, because she was always there for me. She forgave me my minute human, Terracotian, and Romulan tendencies, and seemed to always have the answer to what I didn't know. When she was disappointed in me, she simply pulled away. I tried everything to keep her proud of me, and was generally successful (breaking from my bondsmate was not one of those times).

One thing I didn't like about her insistence on making me Vulcan was that she, like Ilka, thought I was ugly. Except they thought different qualities about me were ugly: while Ilka had raged against my dark hair, pointed ears, and short height (in comparison to most Terracotians), T'pippa frowned at my curls, green eyes, and purplish lips. Nowhere in the universe can I go and completely blend in.

My grandfather Kossan was a tricky man. He was sour and cold, even for a Vulcan, and I do not remember a time before I shied from him. However, though he mostly belittled or ignored me, I knew he was proud of me in his own way, or most likely my 6.25% Romulan bit. Though he never truly said, I believe he was proud of his Romulan blood, because when it came out in me, his incessant anger toward me seemed to lessen. Of course, like any good Vulcan man he would scold me when I acted out of passion and loyalty rather than logic, but he would scold me using my Romulan name, Raya. I loved it when he did that, it made me feel strangely alive. And though T'pippa hated my curls, curls are dominant on Romulan and sometimes when he melded with me, Kossan would play with my curls affectionately.

But of course, these were very rare moments. Though my grandmother would never admit it to anyone, Kossan had always been a violent man. He would become very violent with me, but it was never foreseen. One moment he would be as calm as the next Vulcan, and the next he would be in a rapidly provoked rage. And though I could defend myself from the children at school, my grandfather was much more skilled at fighting than I, and much much stronger. I took to spending less time in their home and more by myself, especially after I turned nine years of age. He, in a fit of a medical angst known to Vulcans once every seven years, had been feeling terrible that day and could not locate my grandmother. I was the only one home.

It was something we never spoke of. I had to be briefly hospitalized for a broken wrist and broken ribs, and T'pippa told the doctors I had taken a particularly bad fall. I was forbidden to tell the doctors of any other injuries, any injuries that would have given away the true nature of the event. In the hospital, I had to pretend that it did not hurt to walk and sit. My grandmother allowed me to skip school the next day, for the first and only time, but still no one bothered to explain the nature of the disease to me. And though he seemed forever ashamed of it and did not attack me for a short while, Kossan quickly fell back into his violent habits. I tried to distance myself.

I had always been filled with the desire to follow in my parents' footsteps and join Starfleet, and when I was fifteen I was presented with the opportunity to attend Starfleet Academy early, at age sixteen. I decided to do it, enlisting under the name Clara Valdis. I called myself Clara in private, a name I used only for myself. I imagined my parents called me Clara. I wanted Starfleet to be a new beginning for me, with a new name to accompany it.

My grandparents, all of them, were terribly angry at me. Gena Ilka slapped me, and told me I would never be a Terracotian and would always be a disgusting hobgoblin, as Terracotians are a people that specialize only in graceful arts and sciences, not Starfleet. Grandpa Pete's opinion was that I was just going to die like my mother, and that I was never anything more than a cold, lonely little bookworm anyway. T'pippa flew into a yelling rage that I had never seen her in (showing her 'defeated' human side was not so defeated after all), screaming that after all she had done for me I was going to follow my emotions and become an unintelligent human in space. Kossan became violent with me (probably set off by T'pippa), and simply repeated what I'd heard about a hundred times in my life, from all of my grandparents: "No one likes a half-breed."

Unlike my grandparents, who do not physically show their pedigree, you can see I am cursed with an odd mix of looks. Terracotian looks are genetically dominant over the others, but I am only a little bit Terracotian. I have their large glinting eyes and the angular facial shape, as well as the famous dark violet-tinted lips. My skin far lighter than most people's, another Terracotian trait.

Most of my appearance is Vulcan, however. I have pointed ears and upswept eyebrows, and when I blush my cheeks tinge green. I have black hair that I usually wear in a high bun. I am not as strong as most Vulcans, but stronger than humans, and I fully possess the abilities associated with Vulcans such as telepathy.

To humans, however, I attribute my eye color. My eyes are green with grey and violet in them. This is unusual even for humans, and humans often draw much too close to me to observe them. My curly hair texture is a trait that can be traced back to either human or Romulan ancestry. I am not sure which.

Here at Starfleet, my friends have done something no other soul has done to me. They accepted me. All my different traits and quirks were embraced without question, and though they say any good friend does this I will always be indebted to them. They would never dream of asking me to be anything but what I am, and in that I have truly found myself, I think. They enjoy when I share my emotions but do not pressure me to. They listen to me, and are honest with me. They have never told me I am ugly, but on the contrary have told me I am beautiful and unique, words that I have heard but never to describe me. I enjoy their company, and for the first time, each day is not a struggle.

My grandparents have, in very subtle ways, begun to forgive me for deserting their dreams for me to join Starfleet. And I have begun to forgive them for my childhood. Though no one says so,

Sometimes, they joke around that I am many people rather than one, due to my highly variable personality. Of course, though I know they are simply being humorous, I cannot help but recall my childhood (which was not all that long ago but seems to be so since my life is so different now). Because to me, I was always many people.

Clarabella Valdis was a pointy eared alien girl on Earth, too smart and cold for her classmates, trying to fake her emotions since she could not express them, in a fruitless effort to stop the cruelty of the children.

Bella Valdis was a quiet girl who tried her hardest to be a fun, tomboy human to win the love of her grandfather, but could never replace her love of knowledge and exploration with love for sports and socializing.

Sophronia Valdis was a green-blooded imitation-Terracotian, terrified of her grandmother, who tried to be an elegant and graceful girl, but her bruises proved she would never grow tall enough or sing sweetly enough to be worthy.

T'lith was a green-eyed human outcast, her grades the envy of her classmates and her face their punching bag, her emotions seemingly always on display to be mocked and chastised for.

Klonika was an almost-Vulcan girl who, through intelligence, had nearly won the love of her grandmother, but could never manage to truly win it, and would always be nothing but a disappointment.

Raya was a Vulcan face with a Romulan temper, both the pride and victim of the grandfather whom she never could learn to please, whose face and voice haunted her dreams for years to come.

However, Clara Valdis is 43.75% Vulcan, 37.5% human, 12.5% Terracotian, and 6.25% Romulan. She is beautiful and intelligent, and never too afraid to try. She loves stars and space and exploration, and will do what she wants with her life. She has dreams and standards, and she likes to wake up each morning knowing she is who she is, and that everyone knows this and still enjoys to be with her. She is happy.

Why am I here?

My parents' memories are here. My friends are here. My dreams are here.

Why am I here?

In the human way to put it, love is here.

At five in the morning, Clara finished typing the last words. She stared at her work, which basically spilled her entire life into a school essay. And she hadn't needed to stay up that late finishing it; she had until Monday to turn it in.

It just had seemed to her that once the words came into her head, they demanded to be put down on a paper. They had built up inside her, these things she had never told a soul. Should she send it? Should she really put such personal memories in a first-week school assignment? She had written of such personal things, things that, if she had been on Vulcan, she would have never dared mention to anyone.

Clara saved it carefully, then placed the essay in an email to send to her professor. She hesitated over the 'send' button, however. She fought the fearful and ashamed emotions that gripped her. Suddenly she felt a hand at her shoulder.

It was her roommate Melanie. She was behind Clara, reading over her shoulder. Her cheeks were wet with tears. Her eyes met Clara's, and she closed her hand over her roommates on the mouse. With a glance of permission from Clara, she clicked the 'send' button.

"It's okay now Clara. Everything's going to be okay."