Sparrow
Note: As speculative fiction, Trek takes on questions of morality, progress, and the meaning of humanity; this is my first foray into that ring. A big universe brushes up against the Federation, so readers looking for familiar characters will find they have only a cameo here.
Disclaimer: Incidental overlap with the Trek universe is deliberate, but does not profit me in any way.
Rating: K+.
"She is my child, Doctor Bashir," I say firmly. I can just hear the translator they have pinned to my chest, conveying the words; it is supposed to be undetectable, but because it has to transpose the words up into the impossibly high register that is the middle of their aural range, every word is accompanied by a persistent whine.
The doctor folds his instrument and leans up against the pallet, an expression of skepticism and barely veiled anger on his face. His face – so much like hers, I cannot stop thinking, so much like my Tenhu. "I'm sorry, Mr. Nuirin," he says, and his disdain makes my skin crawl, because even though I hate his judgment I know that it is fair. "But anyone who can do this to a helpless child – "
But I should begin at the beginning, because before she was a helpless child we had crippled, she was a deformed infant left on our doorstep. It's all a question of context.