Just a drabble I wrote while my heart was feeling philosophical. I say my heart because my mind is always feeling philosophical. I don't think it's really fluff, but it's a little sweet, and a little angsty (why is everything I write angsty?). Hope you enjoy.
Watch The Moon
(Chain Reaction)
The Terran moon was brilliant that night.
Two birds flew from their perch in the palm tree at the edge of the narrow, deserted beach. One called out; an invitation. The second followed suit. They soared out, over the waves, to a cliff that sat halfway between a sandbar and the moon. The water rippled, like a response, but not truly in reaction.
Spock stood on the sand, his Starfleet regulation boots slipping uncomfortably in a substance they were not designed to travel, his gaze scrutinizing the faint hint of a shoreline in the distance. The birds cawed, soft in the distance, and he felt a shiver race down his spine, uncontrollably.
His eyes moved to the vaguely gray waves, watching the rise and fall, the upwards and forwards movement of the water before unseen currents sucked it away, back into the ocean. Really, it is the moon. Their creation, their destruction.
Much like Humans; an odd - but interesting - comparison. Their choices affected history, and yet they never seemed to put thought into the small decisions that they make. You never can tell the effect that your smallest choices may have on another being, as he had once told a dubious cadet who had come to him for advice.
He could not help but wonder what Jim might have said if he could have seen him there, studying the waves. Probably the Captain would have come and stood beside him, waiting for an explanation. When he found none, he might ask Spock the reason why he stood, unmoving, or perhaps he would simply say 'Sometimes, it's good just to watch the waves'. But those were only two possibilities in a world of such. And each decision, perhaps even each thought, triggered another action. Reaction.
Life; a chain reaction. Such was the work of 'fate' (a phenomenon singular to Earth, it seemed), Jim had told him once, as he stood, much like this, at a window in the wall of the Enterprise, looking at the stars, and at T'Khut, the sister of Vulcan.
Humans wish, most of all, to find fulfillment. We cannot think but to hunger after an experience to make us grow. We cannot feel but to thirst after an opportunity. Such is the work of fate, Mr. Spock, to live and to laugh and to think, and to love, and to die. What else could a man of my planet wish for? And Spock contemplated this, but did not understand. It seemed very much as if most Humans wished for a great deal more than to do as 'fate' dictated. (He suspected that fate was really the actions of others, those who influenced one's life. Strange, that Humans found reason to mystify and fantasize the idea.)
But what the Captain had said was strikingly similar to what Spock's mother had told him, standing on this very beach, as they watched the waves. Far too long ago.
Ah, Spock. What does a Terran such as I want in life, after all? To sit and to talk, to believe. To laugh, to love, to learn, to think back on other times. To worry, to hope, to help, to fail, to succeed. And, in the end, to die. Fate is such; the course of a life. We find satisfaction in the illogical and in the gratification in the good. We learn, over time, to forgive, and even to forget. But it comes from something else. Don't watch the waves, my son, watch the moon.
Terran, Human. One and the same.
The birds returned from the island, settling in the same tree they had started in. One laid its head on the other's wing; a soft cry, like a manifestation of contentment, swept over the beach, riding on the cold wind.
The Human moon was brilliant that night.