Metaphor
By Laura Schiller
A Star Trek: The Next Generation Story
Copyright: Paramount
"Can you believe it?" Will Riker shook his head as he walked with Deanna back to her quarters after a drink at Ten-Forward. They had been celebrating the Captain's safe return, and not only that, but the alliance he had forged with a species that had been judged impossible to communicate with. "Metaphor. Seriously. That has got to be the most impractical form of language in the galaxy. Do they even have words for numbers? Or measurements?"
"They must have, or they couldn't have reached warp speed," Deanna pointed out. "My theory is that they're telepaths, but only among each other. That would explain why they're all so well-versed with one another's stories. There's no way a metaphor-based language could work for humans, for example."
"Why not?"
"It would be hopelessly confusing. You – we," she corrected, remembering she was half human herself, "Have built up such an enormous cache of history and literature that finding even two people with enough in common, let alone millions, would be impossible."
"Are you so sure?" Will grinned. "Ever tried it?"
She thought ruefully that she should have known better than to call anything impossible in front of him. "All right. If we were Tamarian, what would you say to me right now?"
He didn't bat an eye at the challenge, only linked his hands behind his back and walked a little slower. "Hmm … " His blue eyes glinted as he looked down the length of her turquoise dress. "Helen of Troy?"
"Ha." She swatted him lightly on the shoulder, trying not to blush. "Casanova in prison."
"What?" He shrugged with exaggerated innocence. "Pinocchio. His nose short."
"Good one. Hermione Granger lifting the feather."
He raised an eyebrow. "I wouldn't have pegged you for a twenty-first-century type."
"My father used to read me the Rowling collection when I was a child."
Deanna swallowed back the familiar grief that still surfaced at the mention of Ian Troi, even after all these years. Will must have seen that – or sensed it – because he tucked a friendly arm around her shoulder. She leaned into him as they walked.
"Hey."
"Hmm?"
"Harry Potter and Hermione Granger."
She smiled up at him with real gratitude, but a different metaphor slipped out before she could stop it: "Viola and Orsino."
"What?" Will's step faltered, making her stop too.
"They're from Twelfth Night - "
"I know Twelfth Night, we saw Beverly's theatre group do it two years ago. It's just - " He cut himself off, frowning in a way she didn't see often, even during a crisis. It was a frown of uncertainty, of self-doubt. A furrow cut between those bright blue eyes.
He turned to her, and the frown disappeared, replaced by an intensity that took her breath away. He leaned down, so close her curly hair brushed his face.
"Shakespeare," he murmured into her ear. "Sonnet 116."
She knew exactly which sonnet he meant: Let me not to the marriage of true minds/admit impediments; love is not love/which alters when it alteration finds/or bends with the remover to remove …
He had given her a collection of Shakespeare's sonnets on Betazed - only days before leaving her behind.
His commbadge – his Starfleet commbadge – was level with her nose. It reminded her forcibly of how far away from Betazed they both were. She backed away with an awkward little laugh, shaking back her curls.
"You're right," she said. "This is impractical. I have no idea what you just said. I stand by my theory about the Tamarians being telepaths."
For a moment, she could have sworn he looked hurt. A quick use of her empathic ability would have confirmed that, but she knew better by now than to try. There were boundaries they had both agreed not to cross except in dire emergencies, which this certainly was not.
"And that," said Will, with a cheerful sweep of his hands, "Is why we speak Standard. So much easier."
"Exactly." She stopped in front of her own cabin door with a rush of private relief. He wasn't hurt. He couldn't be, to sweep the whole subject away like that.
"Oh, and Deanna?"
Stepping through the doors as they whooshed open, she glanced at him over her shoulder. There was a sly twist at the corner of his bearded mouth, and his eyes sparkled. Where had she seen that look before? In the mirror. He looked like her, when she'd discovered a lovely secret that no one else knew.
"Pinocchio," he said, "His nose growing."
He tapped her on the nose with one finger and withdrew as the doors slid shut.