Carlisle 2135
T'Pol made her journey in a reinforced crate. It was small, too small, and so she'd meditated. Old chants her mother had taught her. Chants the Great Surak had told would unlock the infinite truths of all things. Chants which Surak's people now mainly used to stay sane in crates when shipped from place to place.
She'd not opened her eyes the whole way. She'd not opened her eyes when the housemaster took delivery of her, or when he'd opened the crate. But finally, when he impatiently cleared his throat he had to. So she did.
The housemaster, she saw was a Vulcan as well, which was not unusual, an older man, perhaps her mother's age, with grey hair and an unreadable face.
"You must call me Lloyd," he said to her without preamble.
"Lloyd," she repeated carefully, she'd not heard that syllable before.
"And you are called?"
"I have been called Rosalind," she replied cautiously for this is the way of things now. He has not told her his real name - his Vulcan name - and so she cannot tell him hers. She cannot trust him, she cannot trust ANYONE here. Most Vulcans she had met were of Vulcanmind, but some were of humanmind, and those might kill her instantly were she to say her real name. She'd seen it happen.
"Very well, Rosalind," Lloyd replied. "I shall escort you upstairs now. I expect you have some understanding of the services for which you have been purchsed."
"Yes," T'Pol replied bloodlessly.
She was whisked upstairs then, snd lead off a corridor into a spacious set of rooms, bruskly chained to a wall by a chain of moderate length, and left completely alone without another word being spoken.
She had spent very little of her life entirely alone, and no time at all in a room like this one. She considered escape, as foolish as it would have been, but there was nothing within her reach, and her hands were immobilised by splint like bindings anyway. And there was the matter of the chain. Nothing at all within her reach. No food. No water. No lavatory. It was just a larger crate.
She tried to return to her meditation, but peace deserted her, so she turned her mind instead to memorising the room, one inch then another.
Eventually he came. The son, not the father. He walked into the room, as if he owned it, so she supposed that he did, not even looking up from whatever book he was engrossed with. He dropped a satchel slowly from his shoulder to the floor, still not looking up. The abandoned satchel was the only hint of disorder in the otherwise immaculate room.
When she cleared her throat, he startled, and he only just managed to hold onto the book. He stared at her wordlessly, as if entirely unable to account for her.
"Did you forget you had purchased me?" she asked incredulous.
"I...er...no. I just didn't realise you would be... right there. Already. I... I'm new to this."
T'Pol blinked. "As am I. As I believe you are aware. As I believe you paid a premium for."
"Right," he replied unhappily. "Um... are you hungry?"
"Yes," T'Pol answered quite truthfully. She was beginning to sense that this human was a fair bit younger than she had assumed.
"Okay... well... I should fix that I suppose," he continued haltingly. "Um...what do Vulcan's eat?"
"You have Vulcan slaves here," T'Pol replied baffled. "At least one of them. I met Llyod. How can you live in a house with Vulcans and not know what we eat? How can you own Vulcans and not know what we eat."
"Um... well... I'm not actually in charge of feeding them? And frankly, you needn't be so cross with me. I'm just trying to get you something to eat. So, if you could just tell me what Vulcans eat, I will go and sort it out. Or I could look it up I suppose. Or, did you come with any information sheets?"
T'Pol blinked. "Did I come with 'Information sheets'? No. I did not."
"Right. Well that's the first think I'd change. This has all been most unnecessarily difficult, and a few helpful tips, such as what Vulcans are supposed to eat would enormously simplify the process, and you still haven't told me by the way."
T'Pol paused. The answer to "What do Vulcans eat?" was "Whatever was put in front of them, and not enough of it, at that," but she remembered something her mother had told her, a little pearl of Vulcan lore. "We do not eat the fleah of animals. To do so is violent and barbarous. We eat plants."
To T'Pol's amazement the young man's troubled face broke temporarily into a relieved smile.
"Oh! That's it? You're just a vegan? But that's easy! My sister is even a vegan sometimes. We'll get take out..."
T'Pol waited for some sort of further clue about what 'take out' might be, but none was forthcoming.
"Oh! Here we go! Thai! That will work, and its only just up the road, we can walk... although, I'd probably just go myself, wouldn't I? I'm sure my father would say that it wouldnt be proper to take you. And I've no idea what the resturant would do, to be honest. I should find out, because if you are allowed in, you can go next time...er...here we go! Now, how do you feel about tofu? Oh, you know what? This will be a while, and you're hungry now, and I still have an apple from lunch, and... oh, here you go!"
He held out the apple, large glossy and red, his brow soon furrowing with confusion when she did not take it.
With a sigh, T'Pol held up her still splinted hands.
"What are those? Did you catch your fingers in something?"
"They are restraints. For transport."
"Oh... right. Obviously. Well, I'm sorry you weren't unpacked properly. Erm... here, hold this," he said, absently forcing the apple between T'Pol's teeth. Sweet juice leaked out from each place her teeth punctured it, and she almost sobbed from hunger.
Astonishingly, despite his general air of hopelessness, the young man quickly inferred the mechanism of the hand splints and soon had them removed. With a slightly self satisfied flourish he tossed them absently on the bed, and then turned his back on her, his neck within easy reach of her now unrestrained hands.
Slowly T'Pol took the apple out of her mouth, observing the white flesh poking through the red skin, The man would be the opposite. White fleah and red blood, and salty instead of sweet.
"Do you intend to rape me this evening?" she asked calmly, considering the apple. If she aimed this apple well, she could crack his skull with a single throw.
The young man's demenour shifted again. "I...um...well...no...because...because, um, because you've been travelling, and so you must be tired. So... for now, let's just you eat your apple, I'll fetch the take away, we'll both get a good night's sleep and then we'll figure out what to do tomorrow."
T'Pol considered. "That is surprisingly wise advice," she replied at length, and then began to consume the apple, mindfully savouring each sweet, nourishing bite.
