"Tell him what the Tellarite ambassador said then, Uncle 'Bansi!"

Nyota darted in between and around her mother's brother and Spock as the two headed away from the practice field and toward the stand of olive trees set beyond the last of the Benjamin Uhura's ornamental and experimental gardens. She got to see her favorite uncle a lot more than she saw her favorite Vulcan, but that still wasn't enough, and she didn't want to give up any time with either of them.

The only solution, she'd decided, was to make them spend time together. And asking them both to supervise her athletic training this morning had been logical: two years ago, Spock had devised the series of exercises that already made her so much less clumsy; Uncle 'Bansi was in Starfleet and knew what she needed to know to get in the Academy.

They'd watched her go through the obstacle course — a trainer from Baba's university changed it every week — and offered pointers during her routine on the balance beam. The running, they'd all agreed, could wait until a little later.

For now, Uncle 'Bansi was telling Spocky about Starfleet, and Nyota wanted to make sure he got it right.

"Just like you and Auntie 'Stella." She hadn't forgotten her promise.

Starfleet Academy wasn't the Vulcan Science Academy where Spock was going to go, but she needed her best friend to be proud of her when she got in, anyway.

"Pride is a human emotion," Spock had admonished once.

She brushed that memory aside to interrupt the story again. "Tell him how he couldn't even agree about the color of the chair, Mjomba! And how you fixed it even better than the Corps people could!"

"Who is telling this story, mpwa? Nyota ndogo, or mjomba kubwa?" Her "big uncle's" eyes sparkled happily as he delivered the reproof, but his "little Star" knew he was serious. It was time to stop talking.

"Uncle 'Bansi has the best job in the universe," she couldn't resist adding with a glance up at Spock as she quickly, but gracefully, circled the half-Vulcan. "And he tells the best stories."

She winked at her uncle, then darted ahead of her companions, only to abruptly pivot for a return jog when she was about ten meters away. Her strides were smooth and careful, her speed impressive.

"You gait has improved significantly," Spock observed as she reached them.

The little girl beamed at the praise she heard behind the words.

"I practice like that every day," she announced, jabbing her thumb towards the training course and, in spite of her best efforts, failing to hide the note of pride in her tone. "And Mama still makes me go to the lessons you sent for my birthday." Hopping down the path on one leg while managing to keep pace with her uncle and friend, Nyota wrinkled her nose at the thought of the weekly classes with children her age who were all taller than she was. "There's a whole month left," she added dejectedly before switching feet.

"Ballet training has been good for building up your strength and balance," Spock pointed out.

Nyota opened her mouth to tell him it was the other children she didn't like, but Uncle 'Bansi cleared his throat right then.

Now walking on both feet, Nyota looked up, up, up at her tall uncle and smiled sheepishly.

"Sorry, Mjomba. I'll be quiet so you can finish your story," she promised, taking both his and Spock's hand — she was secretly proud of herself for teaching her best friend not to pull away — in each of hers. "Make sure you tell Spocky about the Tellarite, though, okay?"

Uncle 'Bansi squeezed her right hand and made a funny sound that she knew meant he was trying not to laugh.

Spock tugged at her other hand. She looked up to see his eyes were nearly as sparkly as her mjomba's.

"Perhaps," he said, "you should return to the practice field and complete the balance of your exercises before the day grows any hotter."

She didn't even bother to block it when Spocky let a trickle of his amusement — another accomplishment! — flow through his fingers to hers (her mentor on Betazed wouldn't approve, but she was pretty sure Uncle Tabansi wouldn't tell on her). Still, she knew his "suggestion" was meant to be an order. If she refused, her mjomba would only make it official.

She dropped both of their hands and turned back. "Oookaaay," she replied over her shoulder, dragging her feet as she dragged out the word.

"Running only, mpwa," her uncle called after her. "Stay off the beam and out of the course." And then he went back to telling Spock how wonderful his Starfleet career was.

.

.

It took less than twenty minutes to finish her circuit, but the sun was already much higher in the sky by the time Nyota made her way into her own garden of low-growing plants and hurried over to the pool to the right of the entrance.

She toed off her shoes and stripped away her socks, rolling and arching her feet before she stepped into the ankle-deep water. As much as she wanted to return to her hero's side, she needed to cool off even more.

Footsteps pounding out an unfamiliar cadence along the main path caught her attention. She could identify everyone on the compound by the sound of their walk. This was a stranger coming.

She raised a hand to her forehead to shield her eyes. Squinting through the sunlight, she watched as the tall figure moved closer. Something about the way the man moved was familiar to her. Like someone she'd seen in a holovid…

"Sa-mekh?" she called out in Vulcan, as Sarek came into view. "What are you doing here?"

.

.

Sarek stared down at the undersized African human. She stood in a small pool, holding a pair of athletic shoes in one hand. A pair of thick socks hung from the waistband of loose grey shorts dusted with red earth.

So, he thought, this is the girl.

He did not allow the sense of disapproval that slid through his mind whenever he thought of her show in his facial expression. There was no logical reason not to approve of her, he knew, yet what he'd heard T'Pau tell his son just before Spock and Amanda had left Vulcan — "It appears that is she very intelligent for a human child. I might endeavor to meet her someday" — had left him uneasy enough to move up his trip to Earth by a standard week.

"You must be Nyota," he said in the same language. "I am looking for my son. My wife said that he and your uncle were observing your physical training."

"We finished that almost thirty minutes ago, but Uncle Tabansi and Spock decided I should finish my running before the day grew too hot," she told him, indicating the running shoes. "Spock is to give me a mathematics lesson when I am finished. They are waiting for me in the olive stand."

Sarek looked in the direction she pointed. The tops of the olive trees were visible beyond several different gardens. He judged the grove to be approximately point five seven kilometers away. It would be unwise for the human child walk so far in this heat.

"I would have returned to them right away, but I wanted to cool off first." She glanced down at her feet in the water.

The Vulcan studied her flushed face with its light sheen of perspiration, then bent and lifted her into his arms. "I will take you back to your mother's house. Your body temperature will lower more efficiently there."

He had already resumed his forward progression when she began to protest. "But, Sa-mekh, I must go back to Spock. And I am too big to be carried like an infant!"

The flash was brief, but intense. Almost as astonishing as the force of her emotion when she had spoken his son's name was the strength and ease with which she had erected her mental and emotional walls immediately after.

The annual trips to Betazed have a purpose apart from visiting distant relatives, he realized. Is this why T'Pau so often speaks with Spock about the child?

He did not have an answer to the question, but now there was a more important matter to be dealt with.

Many sentient beings deduced that because the vast majority of Vulcans declined to express their emotions they were a race without feelings — or, at the very least, a race that did not understand the emotions they worked so hard to repress. This was an inaccurate assumption.

In order to successfully suppress one's feelings without damaging the psyche, one had to understand what one was attempting to control.

He understood, from his glimpse of what the human child was feeling and from what he had heard while on Vulcan, that she could pose a threat to his son's future.

Sarek spared a glance at the small child he carried in order to assess her belief in an obviously incorrect declaration. She was too heavily shielded for him to sense whether she be deliberately misrepresented the facts.

He knew her to be seven years old, but she was far smaller than most humans her age. Still, he refrained from pointing this out. His years married to a human female had been sufficient for him to learn many important lessons about interacting with that half of the species; among the most important of those was the commandment Amanda called "Thou shalt not make negative comments on a human female's weight."

The adult females, data showed, preferred to be referred to by words synonymous with "small"; conversely, very young females, he had also noted, desired to be considered bigger than they were. The phenomenon was perplexing, but as his interest in the workings of the female human mind was limited to understanding only his wife and the occasional Earth diplomat or politician, he had not attempted to solve the puzzle.

Instead of responding to the child, he continued towards the Uhura house, lengthening his strides.

He was pleased to know that his early arrival on the planet had not been without merit. Spock's future might depend on his intervention.


Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek, any Star Trek characters or any Star Trek concepts. I also don't get paid for writing about any of those.