Juliette tugged hard on the grosgrain sash until it dug into her skin. It was meant to hang loose on her hip, but at twelve, all she could do was hitch and hope. Still, she loved the sash and her long, taffeta gown in plum and russet. It was light enough to be comfortable even on hot days but modest enough to accommodate all but the most provincial species. It was her first choice for official occasions, and it made her feel as regal as any Scion of the 433rd House of Betazed should.
The helmet that squatted on her head, however, was decidedly un-regal. A pale slug, it shoved her golden bangs into her eyes, and no dress on Betazed could make it look fashionable. What had been a brief novelty for a seven-year-old, over the years became her nemesis: Its weight made her awkward. She couldn't wear her hair long like her sisters. It foiled every attempt at grace or style. Most were too polite to laugh, but she didn't need empathy to see their compliments were tinged with more compassion than honesty. Boys especially, and that was the worst.
The doctors hadn't cared about fashion; their concern was function. But even as a shield from outside thoughts the helmet was a failure: It didn't block them, it smeared them into a nauseating blur and filled her head with ants that crawled and clicked and itched. One day, she'd have a huge party, and invite all the important houses, and the festivities would culminate in transporting the helmet into the heart of a star. She sighed. Someday. But for now, as un-regal and disorienting as it was, nosebleeds and seizures were far less dignified. So, on it stayed.
"I'm Juliette Sri. I am Juliette. JU-liette Sri. Ju-LI-ette." She tried to pronounce her name as Vulcans would and hoped Master Surot and the Scientists would be impressed. Their language had so many words, and each sounded as though it had been carefully considered, weighed, measured, and categorized, before being added to exactly in the right spot in the lexicon. It was ... logical. That was the word.
Juliette was lifted off her feet in mid-LI. The interior of the shuttle spun as she was turned, pulled tight by her sister Lara's hug. Her contact brought a rush of sudden, sweet affection that snuck by the helmet's defenses, but it wasn't long before it intervened and Juliette's ants became a frantic swarm. She wobbled as Lara set her down.
Lara tapped the helmet. "You won't have to wear that much longer."
"But I'll be stuck here on Vulcan and be back on Betazed," Juliette said. As much as she loathed the helmet, it was a small price to pay for being with her sisters.
Lara's response was interrupted as Kanara bustled in with an armload of bags, her typically neatly-tied raven plait partially undone and trailing. "I have your things in the top case, and your night clothes and toiletries in the trunk. I checked with customs, and your velvet creeper plant will have to stay on Betazed. If we forgot anything, we'll have to ship it later." She surveyed the mound of luggage, arms akimbo. "You're not taking enough clothes. I suppose you can replicate more, but I can only find last year's patterns."
"Matron said I shouldn't dress Betazoid here. I should try to fit in."
Lara smirked. "We could have the Vulcans point your ears."
Juliette pictured her ears long and pointed, and her brows angled upward, her face drawn and serious. "I don't want to be a Vulcan."
Kanara rolled her eyes. "You won't be a Vulcan, and try not to look like you're going to prison."
Juliette grimaced. Maybe not a prison, but a lab. Maybe both. She glanced toward the front of the shuttle where the open hatch led to the spaceport of Shikahr City. On Vulcan, away from Betazed. Away from House Sri. Away from Home. Away.
Lara pinched Juliette's arm. "That helmet only blocks your empathy, sister. Cheer up. We'll use the university's projector to contact the Vulcan Science Academy. You'll hear so much from us you'll be begging for privacy."
"You'll just be holograms." She'd see them, hear them, and even be able to touch them, but the most important part - their presence - the part she could empathically feel, even when it hurt, would be gone. No hologram had presence. Juliette's gaze went from one sister to the other. In a matter of hours, they would be gone.
She gritted her teeth and shoved the ants aside plunging her awareness outside the confines of the helmet. For a second, she felt them both, Lara and Kanara, radiant and wonderful in between hot waves of pain. She lunged, connecting. The helmet whined in protest.
With a gasp in unison, her sisters glared at Juliette. The helmet compensated with a blast of vertigo. Juliette staggered until Lara first steadied her, then thumped the top of her helmet. "Stop that, you little show off! You'll push yourself into another nosebleed, and then we'll have to find another dress."
Kanara sighed and straightened her braid with practiced dexterity. "Hurry, it's almost time anyway. Matron will be ready."
The hub's gravity was Federation normal - just a little heavier than Betazed. A team of Vulcans worked with quiet efficiency to ready the shuttle for return, its passenger manifest diminished by one. Were they relieved to be home? They never looked relieved, nor did they ever look distressed. They were always calm. Juliette tried to match the Vulcan's serene expressions. To her left, transport tubes reflected the amber sky as they snaked across a scoured, rocky plain toward the graduated spires of Shikahr City small in the distance. Somewhere, in that cluster was the Vulcan Science Academy, where they promised to heal what the very best Betazoid doctors could not. It's not a prison, it's not.
On her right, the plain pushed to the horizon, where regiments of blunted mountains slashed across the surface. Smooth, rolling dunes clung to the rock and nestled in crevices. The sunset's shape boiled on the horizon, disrupted by waves of heat and the polarized screens of the shuttle port.
"It's just like the holos," Lara said.
"Yes, it is," Kanara said, but her tone didn't carry her agreement as a compliment. In the holos, the air had been dry and gritty, the sun so brilliant one always wore shades. But the air of the port was the same carefully regulated temperature meant to be tolerable for most species, but comfortable for none. The holos had also said that parts of Vulcan looked like Betazed, but wherever Juliette looked, she didn't see anything that looked like Betazed. At All. There had been a war, Juliette remembered. It's why the desert looked so - broken.
Juliette was presented before her parents for approval. Matron wore a somber plum robe with narrow gold piping. Papa's suit was even more severe - gray with pinstripes - his only indulgence for house colors was his plum cravat. Juliette was surprised to see his blond hair was combed neatly for once. The communication unit in his ear made him look more like staff than her father. Of all matrons consorts, she liked him best. His expression held excitement - maybe a little worry. There was too much uncertainty in reading expressions; it was so much easier sensing the emotions, but the last battle with the helmet left her woozy.
"Matron," Juliette said to her mother, "Kanara said I can't take the velvet creeper."
Matron knelt, cupped Juliette's chin and stuffed her bangs beneath her helmet. "Vulcan has a delicate ecosystem. Your father will take care of it, won't you, Lars?"
"It will get the best of care. I will ask Professor Halan will help me."
Matron turned her head to face her. Her eyes were black as Juliette's, with a soft ring of gray around the edge of the iris. "Your father runs universities, Juliette. He can handle your creeper." She smiled at Juliette's nod. We are so very proud of you."
Juliette reached out again, chasing her mother's words back to the feeling that spawned them. This time, helmet constrained her, and the exchange made her stomach churn. "Mother, I can't feel you. I can't feel Papa. I can't feel anything."
Her mother's eyes softened. "You will in time. You just have to heal. But for now, look at me. Use your eyes to see how I feel. Listen, and hear me with your ears. You knew how your father and I felt about you before you became aware, didn't you?"
Juliette tried to remember, but all she could feel were the knots in her stomach. She nodded anyway.
"We will not be so far away."
Juliette rolled her eyes. "Mother, This is the Beta Quadrant. Betazed is in the Alpha Quadrant."
Matron's pleasant expression was replaced by an all-too-familiar knotted brow and a smirk. "Oh, aren't we the clever one! Do not let me hear that you have taken such tone with your hosts."
"Yes, Matron."
Her mother smiled and gently took Juliette's hands in her own. "You are a scion of House Sri. Light years are nothing to us."
"Yes, Matron," Juliette tried to keep her voice from shaking and attempted to match her mother's pleasant expression.
"Be honest. Show compassion."
"Yes, Matron."
"They are the smartest beings in the galaxy. They have said they can help you manage your ability. They do not lie. They will help you, and you will come home."
"And never wear this stupid helmet again?"
"Daughter. Third Scion of House Sri. That helmet was made by the honorable Twelfth House. We are most grateful to their efforts."
"Yes, Matron," Juliette said, and dutifully recited, "The Third Scion of House Sri is most grateful to the Twelfth House for their efforts." The Twelfth House had been generous, but it wasn't working as well as it had. Eventually, it wouldn't help at all, and then it would just be an ugly an ugly old helmet, and she'd be-
Juliette felt her mother tap the plastic shell.
"Good. And no, you will not have to wear that stupid helmet again." Matron said with a hidden smile.
Juliette sighed. That day could not come soon enough.
Lars had been listening to his earpiece. "Dr. Surot regrets not being able to be at the shuttleport and has sent an associate - his name is Lorot, and he and his family will meet us at the half gravity point."
Matron shrugged. "So much for Vulcan precision. Let them know we appreciate their thoughtfulness and meet them halfway, then have tea at the concourse. Full Vulcan gravity is not such a trial that we need to rush our departure. We should get a sense of this Lorot and his clan. Let's not keep them waiting."
With each successive section of the walkway down the spoke toward the main hub, gravity increased slightly until at halfway, it split the difference between Vulcan and Betazed. Just beyond the centerpoint stood a trio of Vulcan. They looked different than the Vulcans she had seen before: Their matching robes - beige with a mustard scapular - and their haircuts were flat bowls, even on the woman. For a moment, Juliette wondered if they were not part of some misplaced museum hologram, distributed throughout the port to educate travellers as they rushed to their destination.
The pitch in the helmet changed. Juliette looked back to Mother and Papa exchanging a concerned look.
"Mother…" Juliette murmured.
Papa squeezed her shoulder. "There is a monastery near here, and I'm sure it's not unusual for monks to work with the Science Academy. How exciting for you to meet real Vulcan monks."
Kanara leaned forward to whisper in Juliette's ear. "Don't let them cut your hair like that!" Her whisper ended in a yelp as Matron pinched her arm.
The Vulcans were tall and narrow, like the jagged peaks outside. Juliette stepped forward and tilted her head up to look at them. In the heavier gravity, the helmet overbalanced and made her head spin. The air had become hot, and she tried taking deeper breaths to calm herself. The Vulcan's expressions were unreadable to the point of being disconcerting.
"Live long and prosper," the tallest said. His Federation standard was smooth, his accent added a lilt to his words.
"Peace and long life," Juliette responded in Vulcan, remembering to form her hand in the proper gesture.
The woman continued in Federation Standard. "I am P'nem. Mine husband Lorot. Our son Danek."
Juliette repeated the names in her mind, wobbling as the introductory words she had worked so hard to remember slipped away. It was an honor that Matron let her speak for the family, and she very much wanted to impress her new hosts with her Vulcan phrases. I am Juliette, Third Scion of House Sri. I present my Matron, Sedna, First Scion Kanara, Second Scion Lara, and Matrons Consort Lars. I am honored and grateful that you are my hosts on Vulcan.
As she began to speak, the helmet turned silent, and she was struck dumb with wonder at the clarity of minds around her: Matron's intense scrutiny of the Vulcans, enveloped by Papa's comfort, mixed with caution and sadness. Kanara's worry, sharp and sweet in its own way, Lara's excitement and intense curiosity and the Vulcan's surprise.
Her sphere expanded. She felt the shuttle pilot's eagerness to return slipped into the cascade of emotion. In the next spoke over, a squabble in a queue, lost baggage. Not everyone was Vulcan in the port. Travellers in distress, falling in and out of love, confusion, dismay, they fell to Juliette as if she was an inescapable gravity. They clung, compressed, twisted.
Juliette looked back with dismay as the din of emotion turned into an agonizing shriek. The helmet was supposed to stop this. She reached to Matron for comfort, but all their worry and love and care burned against her mind. She clawed at the helmet. The walkway was no longer beneath her feet, but pressed hard against her cheek. Her arms trembled rubbery as she tried to push herself up, only to be shoved back down by a crush of nausea. He stomach gave way and refused to stop until she she was too weak to move. And still the emotions came, pushing and filling until she felt herself splinter.