T'Sreil had been to Earth twice before, but she hadn't quite remembered how cold it was until she arrived. She stepped out from the airport where her interplanetary travel ship had landed and shivered. The atmosphere was thicker, the gravity was less, and the air was at least fifteen percent colder. T'Sreil stiffened her back and straightened her robes, her composure never flickering. She stepped onto a hoverbus and sat down silently, glancing around. The bus was nearly empty, the only other passengers a human woman of approximately eighty-seven years of age, and a young Orion man who was staring curiously at her ears. She raised her gaze to him and locked their eyes. He faltered under her stare and looked away, embarrassed. She returned her look to the window beside her and watched as the bus pulled up to the curb and the Starfleet Academy sprung into her view.
T'Sreil stepped off of the bus, readjusting her head-scarf, and walked briskly along the sidewalk and up the steps that led to the large glass doors. Other people of her age, some still waving goodbye to their parents, were walking in the same direction and she avoided eye contact with the surrounding people as she entered the building. She joined a line of people wearing the wristbands that had been mailed with the acceptance letter and focused on memorizing the space around her, the lobby. When she reached the front of the line, she held her band up to the red-haired woman of approximately forty-seven terran years wearing a Starfleet uniform sitting behind the counter who scanned it and handed her a slip of paper and a padd.
"This has your dorm room number and passcode. Your roommate has already checked in. Your schedule is on the padd, along with your course requirements," the woman said, barely looking at her. T'Sreil said nothing but turned and walked to the left, where she entered a turbolift and stood to the left, scrolling through her class list. She had xenolinguistics, interspecies ethics, Astrophysics, basic hand-to-hand-combat, botany, biochemistry, warp theory…
Her thoughts were interrupted by a masculine voice to her right.
"It's your first year too?"
T'Sreil turned her head to see a yellow-haired human male of her age smiling at her.
"Yes," she stated plainly.
"Same. Are you from Earth?" he asked, his frightfully bright green eyes widened in curiosity.
"No," she answered, returning her eyes to her padd.
"Where then?"
"I originate from Vulcan, of the Vulcan star system," she answered once more, her voice calm and leveled.
"Woah," the boy answered. "Cool."
She turned to look at him again, hiding her skepticism at his description.
"Vulcan is twenty percent hotter than Earth," she said.
He chuckled and shook his head, confusing her further. What did he find amusing about their conversation? T'Sreil decided against asking and instead flicked her eyes back to the screen of her padd, scrolling down the list of classes.
The turbolift doors opened and T'Sreil stepped out, walking down the hall until she came to the door she recognized as her dorm. Punching in the code, the door slid open with a whoosh and T'Sreil entered the room before the door closed behind her. She was about to walk into the bedroom when the glass partition opened and revealed an Orion girl with red hair tied in a ponytail, dressed only in her underwear and a bra.
"Eeeeeeee!" she squealed and ran forward, nearly tackling a very surprised T'Sreil in a powerful hug. T'Sreil wriggled out of the Orion's grasp and re-composed herself, swallowing her embarrassment and drawing a step back.
"Cadet U'Aidat?" she asked, her hear inclined in question, for that was the name on her padd.
"Call me Taylaa!" the girl exclaimed excitedly.
"My name is S'chn T'gai T'Sreil. I am your roommate."
"I know! I'm Gaila's daughter! Your mom was roommates with my mom!"
T'Sreil was unaware that her mother's best friend had sent her daughter to Starfleet, although she had heard many stories about Gaila U'Aidat.
"Come on, I'll show you the room!" she said, pulling T'Sreil by her gloved hand through the doorway and into the bedroom.
It was small, but not tiny, and the beds were double. A dresser sat on either side of the wall and a bedside table in-between.
"The right one's mine but you can have the left!"
T'Sreil crossed over to the bed further from the door and opened her suitcase that had been delivered to the room in advance.
"Better get dressed, we've only got twenty minutes before we have to be at the auditorium!" Taylaa said, skipping to her bed and lifting up a mess of cloth before stretching it over her head.
T'Sreil stored her luggage underneath the bed; she'd unpack when she had more time, and opened her dresser, where a red Starfleet uniform tailored to her measurements had been folded. She slipped out of her dress and hung it and her Vulcan robes in the closet to the left. She pulled the orangey-red high-necked shirt over her head and zipped the firm red skirt up, reaching three inches above her knee. She looped the neck of the dress over her shirt, fastened the jacket and straightened her back as she glanced in the mirror. The uniform fit very well, and she was pleased that it was warm, although not quite as comfortable as her robes. She let her straight black hair out of the braid it had been in and fashioned it in a row of rolled knots that started in the middle of her head, the size of marbles, and traveled over her head in a line that grew steadily to the diameter of golf-balls and continued past the nape of her neck down her back in a tail of knots that felt secure and tight. She arranged the red head-scarf she had requested, offered to Muslim and Vulcan students, tucking the soft orangey cloth behind her ears. Content with her appearance, she brushed a speck of dust from her cheek and stood to wait for her roommate, for she had expressed interest in leaving together.
Taylaa emerged from the bathroom having done her makeup and joined T'Sreil at the door. Her skirt only reached her upper thigh, exposing much more skin than T'Sreil's did. Her face shimmered with cosmetics.
"Was there an issue with the measurements of your uniform?" T'Sreil asked her.
"No!" Taylaa responded with a wink. "I might have made a few adjustments."
T'Sreil did not respond but instead opened the door and walked side by side with Taylaa to the turbolift. They fell into each other's pace as they made their way to the auditorium, collecting an array of curious looks from other cadets, although T'Sreil couldn't tell if it was because of Taylaa's green skin color, or the length of her skirt.
They sat in the red seats of the huge auditorium for a few minutes before the entire room was filled in and the assembly began. On T'Sreil's right side sat Taylaa, and the seat to her left was occupied by a blue skinned Andorian boy who had, no doubt, felt more comfortable sitting near two other students from different planets. His hair was white, like the rest of his species, and his antennae protruded from the sides of his head, the bases hidden by his hair, unlike many adult males. His sleeve brushed T'Sreil's and she briefly felt his nervousness at being the only Andorian in attendance. She felt empathy for him, for if there was another Vulcan at Starfleet, she was not aware of them.
A tall woman in a teacher's uniform walked to the podium and began to speak, and T'Sreil listened closely, instantly memorizing everything she said about the school and their jobs as students.
T'Sreil saw the Andorian look at her in her peripheral and she turned her head to face him, to which he blushed and smiled at her nervously. He obviously recognized her lineage.
"Rii," she said, greeting him in Andorian. His eyes widened slightly in surprise and he smiled widely at her, apparently thrilled to meet someone who spoke his language.
"Rii!" he replied to her with a grin.
"You speak Andorian?" He asked her in said language.
"I am fluent in Andorii and lesser Andorian," she replied with an incline of her head.
"I cannot speak Vulcan," he said sadly, still smiling.
"I would not expect you to, as the Andorian larynx is of a vastly different design, and thus makes it impossible for you to pronounce many of the sounds necessary to speak Vulcan fluently."
He smiled again and nodded.
"I am Ashran Th'ishisrass."
"I am S'chn T'gai T'Sreil."
He did not extend his hand, knowing that Vulcans did not shake, but spread his fingers in the traditional Vulcan salute.
"Live long and prosper, S'chn T'gai T'Sreil."
T'Sreil allowed a small smile when he greeted her formally, and returned the gesture with great respect.
"Peace and long life, Ashran Th'ishisrass."
T'Sreil returned her attention to the student director who now stood introducing their instructors. Mostly human, she noticed only a few among them weren't from Earth. She took note that her Interspecies ethics professor was half Romulan- a curious combination if she had ever seen one. She suspected that many of the students were not aware of the teacher's lineage, as the only defining Romulan feature T'Sreil could see was the difference in bone structure in the face, a detail many might overlook.
"Do you see the Romulan as well?" Ashran asked her, nodding in the instructor's direction.
T'Sreil did not turn her head but nodded slightly back at him.
"I estimate that many of our classmates do not, however."
"I wouldn't be surprised, they've most likely never seen someone from that star system. I doubt they've even seen a Vulcan, from the looks they've been giving you."
T'Sreil turned to look at him before glancing around the room, indeed catching a few stares.
Ashran stumbled over an apology, afraid that he'd offended her.
"Do not apologize where no offense was taken. It is true that few of the first-year student have most likely met a Vulcan in person, much less a Romulan as well." She inclined her head slightly to reassure him that she was not hurt by his comment, and he relaxed, knowing that Vulcans did not lie.
"Are you the only Andorian attending?" She asked him, not particularly interested in the long-winded speech being made by their dean of students; he was practically reading the handbook aloud.
"As far as I know. I have seen only one other Vulcan, but he is not in our year."
T'Sreil suppressed a look of surprise, but raised an eyebrow in curiosity.
"He's a second-year I think." Ashran explained.
"That would explain why I haven't seen him; I surely would have noticed another Vulcan in our class."
A moment passed.
"What's your major?" Ashran asked her, obviously eager to keep the conversation going.
"My interests lie in bridge positions; I aspire to eventually take command of a starship," she answered. While some in her family had made comments about her inheriting her mother's talent for xenolinguistics, (a fact genetically impossible), she found she shared her father's proclivity for oversight of other officers rather than specific fields. If she was found not up to the task of a bridge position, she was content with a job in warp theory or astrophysics.
"I'm an interspecies ethics guy," Ashran told her with a smile.
"A position I hope we will find interesting under the teachings of a Romulan-Human genetic hybrid."
"I've never met anyone of mixed species before."
"I am of mixed descent," T'Sreil told him, usually hesitant to share such a fact, but did so in the hopes that Ashran would not think she was making a judgement upon their Romulan teacher for being mixed.
Ashran's eyes widened in surprise.
"Really? I couldn't tell. You look pretty Vulcan to me."
"I do not resemble my 'human half' as others call it in terms of physical traits, although I have been told I bear a striking resemblance to my grandmother on my father's side, a human woman, in terms of bone structure. Otherwise, my blood has the pigment of a Vulcan, and my eyes, ears, physical anatomy and abilities mirror that of my Vulcan descendants."
"So, you've got green blood, pointy ears, your organs are Vulcan, and you can read people's minds?"
"Essentially, yes."
"Your eyes look human."
"They are not. They are the Vulcan shape and anatomically Vulcan."
T'Sreil was often told that her eyes look human, but she diagnosed that most who thought so were simply referring to the emotion portrayed in them, rather than their actual design.
The assembly abruptly ended and students shuffled out of the rows and down the isles to the doors. T'Sreil maintained a distance of two feet between her and the others as she walked with Taylaa into the hallway, where many of the students were headed to the cafeteria for dinner.
"What do we have after dinner?" Taylaa asked her, knowing that Vulcans had eidetic memories.
"Scheduled is a social mixer taking place at a local terran bar one mile off campus. Do you wish to attend?" T'Sreil asked her in standard.
"Yea! Anything beats staying home."
"Very well." T'Sreil did not particularly want to spend the evening at a bar, but it seemed only logical that she get to know at least a few of her classmates.
T'Sreil chose to unpack her belongings rather than go to dinner, and Taylaa returned from the cafeteria after a short while.
T'Sreil looked on as Taylaa tossed handful after handful of glittery fabrics onto her bed with wild abandonment, drawing a golden metallic garment from the heap and shaking it out.
T'Sreil's eyes widened slightly as Taylaa stripped and stretched the dress over her head, adjusting it so that the sweetheart neckline was aligned correctly.
"Like it?" Taylaa asked with a smile, posing as if for a magazine photo.
T'Sreil did not answer, but went on unpacking.
"What are you wearing?" Taylaa asked her, peering over her red clothed shoulder.
"I had not planned on changing," T'Sreil answered plainly.
"What?! You can't wear that! Come on, what else have you got?"
T'Sreil stored the last of her things in the dresser and closed it, facing Taylaa.
"I am perfectly fine with my current attire."
Taylaa smiled devilishly.
"If you haven't got anything, I'll have to make you borrow one of mine."
T'Sreil looked to the side. The chances of an Orion female physically overpowering her were extremely slim, yet her threat seemed genuine. She would much rather wear her own clothes than one of the tiny shimmery things currently lopped at the bed.
T'Sreil looked back to Taylaa.
"I agree to wearing my own clothing."
Taylaa squealed and bounced on the balls of her feet, gesturing for T'Sreil to show her.
T'Sreil opened her closet, pushed the robes delicately to the side; she wasn't willing to risk someone spilling something on them.
The pair argued back and forth about what was and wasn't appropriate for the occasion, Taylaa intent on getting her to wear a dress, but T'Sreil refusing to wear one of her traditional Vulcan gowns to a bar.
"Fine," Taylaa relented with a pout. "how about this, you pick the clothes, but I pick the shoes and do your makeup!"
T'Sreil considered the proposal for a moment, but eventually decided it was a safe bet to make, still finding the prospect of cosmetics unnecessary and unappealing.
She pulled from her drawers a black jumpsuit of sorts that covered her from the high neck to her ankles, but clung to her tightly so that the form of her body was clear. She hoped the it would satisfy her roommate's proclivity for tightly fitting clothing. A black zipper ran from the navel to the neck, and she sipped it up all the way.
"Hm…" Taylaa cocked her head and put her weight on one foot in consideration. "A few adjustments."
She walked up to T'Sreil and lowered the zipper to approximately four inches below her collar bone, exposing the soft white skin of her chest ever so. She pulled the scarf and knots from T'Sreil's hair and instructed her to brush it. When she had, Taylaa drew it tightly up into a high ponytail with a red elastic. She made T'Sreil sit on a stool as she rifled through a glass box, extracting several instruments with which she lined her eyes in a thin black line that ended in what she called a 'wing'. After completing her own cosmetics, Taylaa pulled T'Sreil back into the bedroom and shoved a cropped red leather jacket into her arms before crouching over her many pairs of shoes.
T'Sreil shrugged the jacket on and felt her head with her hands. She could feel her long straight black ponytail brush her back, and was glad she refused lipstick.
"These! Wear these!" Taylaa dangled a pair of red leather boots in front of T'Sreil and dropped them in front of her bare feet. They came to her knees and had heels a few inches high. Capable of spearing someone's hand, T'Sreil thought. She stood in front of the full-length mirror and cocked her head skeptically at her reflection. Her eyes were more defined, her rather long legs accentuated, and her neck looked longer. She zipped her jumpsuit back up to the neck along with the jacket; the Earth air still felt freezing to her. She focused on raising her body temperature slightly when Taylaa tripped over to her, adjusting her own strappy stilettos.
"Are you ready to depart?" T'Sreil asked her.
"Yea, let's go! You know the way, right?" she asked as she opened the door and strutted out.
"Yes. I estimate our journey by foot should take seventeen minutes, thirty-four seconds, but our journey by shuttle should take no more than three minutes twelve seconds."
"Let's take a shuttle then, I'd rather not walk in these shoes."
T'Sreil agreed that this was the logical option.
