The Ears of the Elves

by Asso

Have you ever paid attention to the shape of the ears of the Elves? T'Pol did.

10. The Ears of the Elves - Chapter Ten

The Ears of the Elves

By Asso

Chapter Ten

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Please, my friends, do not skin me alive.

The saviour...

Oh you'll have to wait a little longer to know him.

Trip and T'Pol have stolen him the scene.

Hopefully he will not take revenge.

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The Ears of the Elves

Chapter Ten

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

"Trip!"

With an effort on herself really unheard T'Pol found the strength to break away from Trip.

And also the strength to try to regain a little of her logic, of her own logic, the one quieter, that did not fly as high as his, but was a little less turbulent, a little more normal. More... more reassuring! No. Not more. Less. Less 'frighteningly' reassuring!

It was paradoxical! It was paradoxical that now she felt so! Reassured by him, by what he had... he had conceived, and, at the same time, so... so terrified!

Possible that it were to be always so? That, with him, with the chosen one of her katra, of her heart, it were to be always so? That he could always be capable of enchanting her and at the same time of frightening her? Just as enchanting and frightening had been the feelings he had inspired in her? Exactly as they had been defined by the other older self?

That vision of him, of her Adun!

It was true. It was true that in some way it was reassuring, because in it, in its grandiosity, all fears flaked off, in some way, as if dispersed in its vastness beyond imagination. All. Even those, indefinite and obscure, that - after that so unexpectedly and so powerfully the sentence pronounced by Trip had given rise to a dismay which went well beyond the bewilderment that she had experienced when reading the fable alone, without him - the tale inevitably led with it, if, as it was unavoidable, one started to think about all the dire vicissitudes that the ancient events of the King and of Lil had brought with them. (*)

That vision was... was so majestic! So fascinating!

Too much, though!

TOO MUCH! It was otherworldly. Was shocking. Was... awe-inspiring.

It was so... so frightfully beautiful as to be even… to be even appalling!

Because... because it had the flavour of the truth!

But a truth that transcended all logic!

That took your breath away!

And out of breath, both for the long and passionate kiss with which her fiendishly logical bond-mate had dizzied her and for the wonderful yet scary feeling that that vision inspired in her, T'Pol, panting, attempted to set down her feet again to the ground.

"The… [huff] …the paths… [huff] …of logic con… [huff] … contemplate even… [huff] … the possibility of fortuitous events!"

Trip did not answer. Panting he too, he simply looked at her with a keen eye.

T'Pol felt being scrutinized. And, indeed, she was.

And she knew that he knew how to scrutinize her very well.

Outside. A lot; and very attentively. Especially when she was… without veils.

And inside. As if she was without veils.

Finally he spoke. With his hands intertwined behind his back. Like it was her habit.

"Well well well. Let us see a little." He extricated his hands and began to walk slowly around the room. Then he stopped. He turned to her.

He began to stroke his chin with his hand, as if trying to bring order in his thoughts. But his tongue wasn't tormenting the inside of his cheek and T'Pol knew what this wanted to mean. It meant that he was not at all embarrassed or looking for the right words. He knew exactly what to say and where he wanted to get.

And his blue eyes were laughing cheerfully.

"If I understand correctly, you, my sweet princess," - and he stressed a lot that name; princess - "are telling me that after all it could be at all logical to think that that phrase - mine, I mean – might be the same that you have read and that, as you say, is the phrase with which our saviour appears on scene, merely for a simple, banal and fortuitous coincidence."

T'Pol found herself swallowing, but managed to talk coldly. "Correct."

Somehow that way of proceeding, now, on his part, was calming. Even if with his usual irony, he was using the paths of logic, of her own logic, to bring order in the tumult of her heart. And this... this was good for her.

Now, albeit in the way which was his own, he was fully the cold and logical Trip who was of help to her and of whom she was in need.

And he had taken full control of the situation. Just as it was of help to her and how she was in need.

Although in her discomposure, or maybe just for that, T'Pol found herself thinking that if she had been human she should have thanked wholeheartedly the God of logic, if ever there was one, for wanting to put her katra in the hands of that individual, so unpredictably illogical and yet so unsuspectedly logical - Unique. And hers! - who was her Adun.

Who went straight on his way, still with smiling eyes and with his affable subtly ironical tone. "So, still if I understand correctly, it could also be at all logical to think that we might have nothing to do the one with the other, in reality. I mean, I and that damned saviour, as well as, and even more so, you and that poor princess."

T'Pol found herself swallowing again. Very little vulcan, but very little preventable, too. Indeed, by no means preventable. Just like that. It was hard to try to deny what you felt being the truth. But she succeeded again in replying in a controlled tone. "Correct, this too."

"Very well." He approached her. He took her in his arms. He smiled at her. "In this case, my sweet vulcan better half, it is best that you meditate a little more or that you entrust yourself to some other means, perhaps superior, to give balance to your vulcan mind."

He winked at her and his smile became crafty. "What do you say, honey? Maybe it could be me; I mean I could be such means. I seem to have worked pretty well, on other occasions."

His smile became so crafty that more it wasn't possible. "You know. Hugs and kisses are helpful only until a certain point. Definitely it takes something more."

"Trip..."

T'Pol tried to free herself from his embrace, but without much conviction. His suggestion was awfully intriguing! And… and it was true that he... had worked extremely well in countless other occasions. She decided she could afford to indulge in his embrace and... and later... to surrender to his suggestion. But not now. And she told him.

"Trip... la... later. Later, please."

He deposited a very slight kiss on her lips. "I count on that, T'Pol."

She sighed in his arms and on his lips. "Me too, Trip."

He nodded. He let her go.

She put herself together. She looked at him with some suspicion.

"Why should I need to meditate a little more or... use other means?"

He smiled again, cunningly.

"Well, my little vulcan doll, it did not seem to me that your reaction to the sentence was properly controlled as it should be expected from a vulcan female. Now, I understand that my influence can be a wee bit harmful to you, but, honestly, the reaction appeared a little excessive, even with all the bad sway I can have over you. Unless... "

"Unless?"

"Unless this time the logic to consider fortuitous the sameness of my sentence with that of the saviour is a false logic, and the true logic has to be the logic to consider anything but fortuitous the fact that the sentences are exactly alike."

T'Pol took a deep breath. That was the truth. The logical truth.

"Trip..."

"And in this case, honey, no one, not even the most rigid of Vulcans, would find nothing to find fault about your reaction. For a Vulcan the inexplicable is unbearable, in a sense. It can trigger reactions in him anything but vulcan. Am I wrong, honey?"

There! He had done it. Now he had done it precisely with her own logic.

He had found logical justifications for her behaviour.

She took his hand. She was sure that there was no need for words to express her gratitude to him. In that touch, in that gesture, there was all.

And the soft smile of contentment on his face showed clearly that she wasn't mistaken.

But he didn't content himself. He went further.

His hand was strong and protective around hers, as he spoke softly.

"Indeed, if we want to say it all, a Vulcan who hadn't been you, probably would have decided to ignore what was under his nose, by classifying it in the list of things not worthy of being taken into account or even to be considered lacking in any real consistency, because you can do without tackling what you decide to pass over in silence. It takes a strength far greater than that of an ordinary Vulcan, to have the strength to exhibit the reaction you've had the strength to exhibit, my peerless vulcan little doll. To have the strength to acknowledge a truth devoid of logic. I mean a logic that is not the everyday smooth logic."

It was true. It was unquestionably true.

What Trip was claiming could also sound offensive to the species to which she belonged, but, now, she had gone through such experiences that she could do nothing but recognize that there was something in what he said. More than something. In effect he was right. And a lot. It would have been illogical not to admit it. It would have been illogical, for example, to deny that the Vulcan High Command had obstinately negated any possibility of time travel, when not a few were the evidences that showed such a possibility. Evidences, however, that were outside the 'everyday smooth logic' of... the ordinary Vulcans.

And it was true that she was not an ordinary vulcan female. She was the vulcan female who had fallen in love with a Human, her Human, and had proudly claimed her right to be his.

And it was true that she was stronger than any other Vulcan.

She was stronger because she had had the strength to follow her heart.

Was stronger because she had the strength to be different.

And she was stronger because she had the strength of her Trip.

She could afford the strength to be weak and this was a strength that no other Vulcan had.

This, basically, if not practically in no uncertain terms, her Adun had told her.

And later she would show him how much she was grateful to him in… a tangible way, doing with him what… he counted she would do.

And that she craved to do.

And that she would do as she had never done.

Later, however. Later. When… all the chickens of the fable would come home to roost, as he would have said.

For now...

T'Pol approached Trip, a breath from him.

She stood up on tiptoe.

She kissed him on the lips very slightly, with a kiss so tender and so sweet that she felt clearly through the Bond his ecstatic happiness.

That reverberated, strong and powerful, in her happiness.

For a moment they stood looking at each other in the eye without speaking, then Trip broke the silence with a little difficulty.

He cleared his throat. "You're ... uh, well ... you're calmer now, aren't you?"

T'Pol raised her eyebrow. "Vulcans never lose their cool. You should know well, husband."

He grinned. "Yes, indubitably you are calmer."

T'Pol prevented with determination her mouth from starting to chuckle as his. On the appearance of her eyes, though, she could not swear. Were they sufficiently deadpan? Um...maybe not, anyway… "If my Husband and Lord believes that it is so, I won't contradict him for sure."

Trip nodded with an ostentatious seriousness. "Very well. It is gratifying to have a so obedient wife."

With an equally ostentatious seriousness, T'Pol replied. "For me it is gratifying to be obedient to my Husband and Lord, o my Lord and Husband."

"In this case, I ask you to increase the degree of my gratification, wife."

T'Pol was taken aback. She didn't manage to prevent her voice from sounding a little uncertain. "What... must I do, my Husband and Lord?"

Trip, this time, spoke with real seriousness. It was manifest.

"Accept the superior logic of our love, my love. Without dreading doing it. "

T'Pol felt her heart tremble. Truly she was without veils, for her Adun!

"What... what do you mean, Ashayam?"

Trip took her hands warmly. "T'Pol, honey, we both have just agreed that the sameness of my phrase with the phrase of this saviour can not be a mere coincidence."

With a whisper T'Pol nodded. "Yes."

"And we have therefore agreed that once again we have to deal with something of us that... has already been."

T'Pol nodded again. She failed in saying yes out loud.

"T'Pol, my darling." Trip's hands clenched strongly those of T'Pol, which trembled slightly in his. "This filled me with fear, a mountain of fear, to which I responded in my usual stupid way. With impulsive anger. But then, driven by the need to soothe your fears, I realized that neither fear nor anger had to be the feelings I would have had to feel."

His hands were now a warm support to hers as well as to her heart.

"I understood, my love, that our love is so great to transcend our lives."

T'Pol was hanging on his every word.

He laid his lips on her forehead.

"Why being afraid of such a thing, my joy? Why being afraid to believe that our love has no limits?"

T'Pol felt her heart swell with something she could not even define. But which was ... was stupendous! It, her heart, and all of herself, drank the words of her Trip! They were thirsty for them!

"Is it illogical? Is it absurd? Meaningless? No. It is not more illogical, not more absurd, not more meaningless than what we, you and me, have by now well understood, my love."

He drew himself up proudly and proudly looked at T'Pol, still with her hands in his.

"I was your love in the flesh of the King and you were my love in the flesh of Lil. This is a fact, T'Pol. A love of the devil, certainly. A diabolic love. But still love. With uppercase letters. So much to extend infinitely forward in time, until the two of us. And now, once again, we learn that our love - and you, you in person, who already know the fable, you've let be understood that the spark will fire even between the princess and her saviour - is already lived also in others, besides us and besides the King and his wretched beloved."(*)

T'Pol's heart continued to swell.

"Is it illogical to think, my love, that it will continue to live after us? In others, different from us, but similar to us? In others who will be us? You and me?"

Trip's hands ran to her face and took it between their palms. His face went down, came up close to hers. His blue eyes merged with her dark eyes.

"Is it illogical to think that what I feel inside me for you, my treasure, is so great that it can not have started with the two of us?"

T'Pol felt her heart was bursting.

"Is it illogical to think that what I feel inside me for you, my treasure, is so great that it can not come to an end?"

Enough! Enough! Really her heart was bursting!

Trip lowered his mouth on hers.

"Is it illogical for me to think that you feel within you the same thing that I feel for you?"

Her heart broke out along with her voice, as she threw her arms around her Adun's neck and hugged him so strongly as to do harm to herself.

"No! No! It is not illogical! IT IS NOT ILLOGICAL!" Her voice was almost unrecognizable, in its vehemence and in its ardour. "Nothing of what you say is illogical, my K'diwa!"

She heard his voice, a little choked because of her embrace that, though, not even remotely passed through her mind to loosen, resound lovingly jocose to her ear, near, very dangerously near to its tip.

"So I was not exactly hopeless. I mean, in the end I've made it, I've been capable of learning a bit of your logic."

T'Pol felt a light heart, now, as well as the mind.

In a moment, in no time, he had made disappear all the clouds, every burden of heart and mind.

His vision, now, no longer elicited awe. It was solely and exclusively gorgeous and grandiose.

And even... even the fable, now, and what it implied and that he did not know yet and that acquired even greater depth in the light... of that sentence... even this was no longer so much unsettling, now.

It still was, of course. But not like before. His logic had made it... lighter.

Like her heart. Like her mind.

And with lightness, the same of him, she replied. With the sweetly ironical lightness of tone and of manner to which he was clearly inviting her; with which - legitimately, rightfully - he wished to worthily crown the long and powerful effort that she herself had asked him, and quite directly, and that he had made, even on himself, just to lighten her heart and her mind.

With that lightness of tone and of manner; and of heart; and of mind; with that, T'Pol replied, her mind and her soul well far from wanting to deny to him - and to herself - such a pleasure. But without even dreaming to unloose the hug. Not in the least. Just by shifting a little away her ear from his mouth. This yes, she did. Too hazardous the extreme proximity of his mouth to the tip of her ear. Just few small kisses, maybe even accompanied by some small bites on that tip and, she knew, what she had in store for him for later couldn't have waited anymore.

And she did it by continuing in that delicious Game of Roles that the two of them had put themselves playing, that evening. The two of them. He. The Husband and Lord. And she. The humble and obedient wife. It was a sweet game. A love play.

"It must be recognized that indeed, you have made great progress, my Husband and Lord. In all honesty, forgive your humble and obedient wife if she dares say it, it was extremely hard even merely to conjecture it was possible."

"Uh, thanks, my humble and obedient wife. A lot."

"Of course, your logic, however much truly improved, leaves yet a lot to be desired. Please, forgive again the temerity of your more than ever humble and obedient wife, my Husband and Lord."

Trip gently parted T'Pol from himself and, still holding her in my arms, looked at her with a quizzical and amused expression.

"What's wrong yet, in my logic, o my humble, obedient and extremely sincere wife?"

T'Pol looked down, as if she didn't dare answer.

"So, my hugely obedient wife?"

T'Pol did not look up. Her voice dripped with consternation and shame. "It is... maybe it is..."

She raised her eyes to look at him. Oh God! What a treat, those bright eyes and deep, which laughed and laughed and laughed, in all their vulcan sternness!

Trip swallowed. Only God knows how the hell he was able to continue the game, indeed, even just to speak, in front of those eyes in whose enchanted bottomless depth he felt literally sinking.

"Is…?

Even her face was laughing now, like those bewitching eyes she had. And like her mouth. Even her mouth was laughing, even though it did not seem to do it. That wonderful mouth that asked only to be kissed!

And her voice, too, was laughing.

"O my Husband and Lord ..."

Trip almost choked, but he managed to shirk the spell of those eyes. And what the heck! It was him the one who should have run the show! Not her!

"Speak, wife!"

This time T'Pol didn't drop her eyes.

And, slightly, almost imperceptibly, but this time really she smiled in speaking.

"Maybe your logic is a little too imaginative, my Husband and Lord."

That answer, that witticism which wanted to be and in fact was wittily joking and teasing, contemporaneously sounded knowingly and intentionally affectionate and tender, and it was just what was needed. In a flash it put back Trip decidedly at ease. Somehow his T'Pol had given him the reins back in hand, although... well, how could you deny it? ... deep down the one who constantly held the reins in hand was always her.

The reins of his life and of his heart.

But was there perhaps anything to complain about that?

Eh no! Not at all, holy smoke! He could be... like his logic. Imaginative, to quote her. And okay. But crazy surely not!

A broad smile blossomed on his face.

"Imaginative, T'Pol? So is my logic?"

"In effect, my Lord..."

"Well, you know it, T'Pol. I tend to be imaginative."

"Indubitably, my Lord."

"Consequently, also my logic."

"Logical, my Lord."

Trip could not help but laugh heartily.

"Logical, eh? Well, of course. You're right, T'Pol."

"I humbly thank you, my Lord."

"Don't mention it, my humble, obedient and quick-witted wife. But tell me, that my logic is imaginative does it mean that it is lacking in rigour?"

"Let's say that it's imaginatively rigorous, my Lord."

Trip laughed loudly and cheerfully. He lowered abruptly his head and affectionately rubbed the tip of his nose against the tip of the nose of T'Pol, a gesture that surprised her but that, for sure, did not displease her at all.

Nose tip against nose tip, while his arms held her gently, he laughed again, softly.

"Let's say so, T'Pol."

T'Pol could not resist rubbing in turn the tip of her nose against the point of his. It was so nice!

"Let's say so, my Lord."

Trip stood so for some moments, with the tip of his nose against the tip of hers, with his merry eyes chained to the laughing eyes of her.

Then he raised his head and pulled away from her.

His look changed. The cheer did not disappear from his eyes, but something - a shadow, a thought - flowed inside their blue.

"T'Pol…"

T'Pol didn't speak. She waited for Trip to express what was going through his head. And, whatever it was, she knew that one should have never underestimated what passed through his mind.

He was imaginative, sure. Like his logic. And unpredictable, volatile, annoying, stubborn, impulsive, impetuous, quick-tempered, curt, etc etc etc, and of course, absolutely wonderful!

But he was also terribly clear-headed.

"T'Pol, I am imaginative, like my logic, all right." A quick amused smile made its appearance on his lips and in his eyes. "And, indubitably unpredictable, volatile, annoying, stubborn, impulsive, impetuous, quick-tempered, curt, etc etc etc. You know, you said it to me so many times!" The amused smile faded away and his face became serious again. "But you told me also that sometimes... "He laughed softly."... just sometimes, I am capable of being passably clear-headed."

T'Pol did not let it show, but inside her she could not help but wince. Even after all the elapsed time it continued to be still very hard even only to try not to remain stunned in front of the unpredictable and unfathomable communication paths of the Bond!

"You are well more than only passably clear-headed, Ashayam! You are terribly clear-headed. And not just sometimes!"

"Okay, okay. Thank you. Anyway, no matter if I am capable of being passably or terribly, frequently or only occasionally clear-headed, I think this is one of the times in which one can say I am so. And not a little."

"What do you mean, Ashal-Veh?"

His eyes grew intent.

"I am clear-headed enough to realize that, now, my imaginative logic is not enough, Hon."

"Is not enough?"

"No. We need something more, T'Pol."

"Something… more?"

"Yup." He came back to her and took her hand. He looked at her straight in the eye. "We need true logic, T'Pol. The logic that is able to really explain things. Your logic, sweetheart."

T'Pol squeezed his hand. "Adun, your logic explains everything. All things. And wonderfully!"

"Even how it is possible that I have pronounced the same sentence uttered by him? The saviour?"

"What? But... but Trip! What are you saying? Your logic..."

"T'Pol..." Trip also took her other hand and brought them both to his chest. "My logic has highlighted that the sameness of my sentence with that of the saviour means that there is a link between me and him, a tie that transcends time, as well as, more than realistically, between you and the princess. My logic has highlighted that, in all likelihood, that damn fable is not just a fable, and, frankly, I am persuaded that you had already well more than a few well-founded suspicions, in this regard."

Clear-headed? T'Pol could not help but sigh with pride. This attribute didn't justice to her Adun! And her pride grew even more, because Trip, with her hands clasped over his chest and his eyes looking at her with love, made sure that her pride couldn't do anything but increase.

"And it is not hard for me to believe, sweetheart, that just in the veracity of what that fable carries with it - a veracity perhaps before, I mean before I had uttered that phrase, by you only suspected or, who knows, too difficult to be accepted by you without bewilderment, but fully recognized after the fact - precisely therein lies the reason of the paralysing disconcertment that I had read in you, and that I absolutely had to alleviate, till to bring you back to your usual control of yourself and of things." He smiled sweetly. "And of me."

He took a slight breath.

"Successfully, thank God, it seems to me, and that's why now, I speak so openly, Honey. I really believe that right now I can do it."

Another soft chuckle made itself heard from him. "It seems really to me that there is no longer any risk that my pearl oyster now may shut herself up inside her half shells, like she tends to do when she sees waters become turbid around her."

Clear-headed, sure! And absolutely to love! T'Pol found herself thinking that if she had not already been madly in love with him, she would decide there, on the instant, on the spot, that it was really the case for her to fall head over heels in love with him.

But it was not over yet.

"And, my love, about the fact that now we need a logic a little less imaginative than mine, a logic as precise and rigorous as yours ..."

He paused and batted briefly his eyes, as his tongue began to harass the inside of his cheek.

This time he was looking for the right words, it was clear for T'Pol, who was impatiently expecting for him to say what troubled him. This, too, was clear, just as it was also clear that he wished her to find some rigorously and not imaginatively logical explanation for the question that was stirring in his mind and this increased even more her pride, because her decidedly clever Ashayam expected for her to arrive where he could not. He... he believed her capable of everything! Well, in a positive sense, of course. Even though... oh well, all things considered, he just wasn't then altogether wrong when he said to her… 'You're capable of everything, woman!' And, this time, not exactly in a positive way.

He seemed to have found the words he searched for, in the end, or, at least, he believed he did.

"Honey, sweetheart… "

He squeezed even stronger her hands on his chest. She had her eyes lifted to his face and was waiting… we should say anxiously.

"My logic... my imaginative logic... is able to explain, I think, why we... we love each other so much. And it is because our love is so great as to be greater than us."

T'Pol felt her heart accelerate.

"Our love is so great, T'Pol, so great! It can not be constricted into the quick blink of the eye of our lives!"

T'Pol felt her heart rush away at a gallop

"We have already got proof of that, with the King and with Lil, and now..." Trip left his phrase pending, but not his thought. "That sentence can not be a mere coincidence, T'Pol. This is a fact. It means that I have already experienced the love that I feel for you not only into the King, but also into... into the saviour. I was him and you were the elven princess who, I am certain even if you haven't said it clearly, has loved him. And not with an unrequited love. I am certain of that too, even if not even this, you have said clearly. Our boundless love has lived in them too."

Was it really possible that her heart could gallop so wildly?

"But... even if that sentence is proof of what I say, of what we both know... how... how is it that it is reported in the fable? I mean... I mean... "

Trip fell silent again, while T'Pol began to understand the reasons of his disorientation. Which were then also hers. In fact... in fact he was simply bringing into the open what lay also in her mind.

"T'Pol... it's as... it's as ..."

"As if the drafter of the fable had explicitly wanted us to be able to read the phrase."

"E... exact, sweetheart!"

"As if, being aware of that phrase - your phrase, my Adun - the drafter of the fable had wanted it to be expressed in it, it to be the phrase with which the saviour comes into the picture so as to..."

"So as to make us understand that the two of us... that we have a lot to do with the princess and her saviour!"

"As... as if he, the drafter of the story, knew that the two of us would read it!"

"And that therefore... therefore..."

"We would have drawn our conclusions!"

For a long moment there was silence. Only the eyes spoke, wide open and amazed.

And scared.

And how could you be not scared in front of the inexplicable? If this inexplicable lengthens its scary shadow over you? How could you not be scared if another world, a world different and alien and unearthly, a world that you have not even thought could have any consistency, that you had always placed in the realm of the non existent, suddenly bursts into your normal and quiet and well ordered world? How could you not be scared if you realize suddenly that this other world has its own reality? And that it's sucking you up into this scary - otherworldly - reality?

It was Trip who broke the silence, while their hands now clung to each other with such force as to be livid.

"But... but... but T'Pol! This is… this is... this is totally absurd!"

Abruptly he let go of her hands and looked at her, frowning.

"T'Pol! What logic can ever explain all this? Mine, certainly not. Yours... yours can do it, hon. Only yours." He smiled at her. A strained smile. "Come on! See to work hard, girl! I know you can do it."

"Trip..." Uncertain. Unsure if having to feel proud for his trust or startled by it. "I don't know if I…"

But he didn't pay heed to her.

He pulled away from her and began to wander around the room, gesticulating, but not so much agitated, after all.

Intent, rather.

He was speaking both to himself and to her.

He was trying to circumscribe the ambit of the things that had to find an explanation, if there ever had been one.

"Someone who knew that we would have read the fable. Someone who knew that I had pronounced - or should I say 'that I would have pronounced'? - that phrase. Someone who has put on purpose that phrase in the fable, so that we could read it. Someone who wanted us to be able draw our conclusions, who wanted us to be able to grasp the connection between us and the princess together with her goddamn saviour. "

All at once he stopped talking and halted. He raised his head, as if struck by a sudden thought.

His lips moved. They murmured something. T'Pol's acute hearing grasped the words, as much as spoken in an extremely low voice. "Our conclusions."

He turned abruptly toward her, who had remained motionless watching him and listening to him.

With an excited look, he came back to her.

"T'Pol! Our conclusions!"

T'Pol looked at him blankly. "Ashayam ..."

"But... do not you see, honey?"

This time he was agitated. Quite agitated.

Conscious, he tried to calm down. He had to - he absolutely had to - make clear to her his... his conclusion!

With great effort, he succeeded. He spoke in a manifestly forced calm.

T'Pol was staring at him, tense and attentive. She seemed to feel her ears pricked up, literally, to hear him better.

"What's the sense to make sure that we could be able to draw the necessary conclusions only for the sake of it? I mean, only to make us able to become aware of this damned tie between us and the princess and her saviour?"

T'Pol continued to watch him blankly, looking confused.

He took her face in his hands. Practically he spoke on her face.

"T'Pol, my sweetness, the one who has taken the trouble to do all this, the devil only knows how and in what way, can't have done it without a purpose and this purpose can not simply be to make the two of us aware of our… of our further previous incarnations. Okay, now we know. And then? Beautiful, wonderful, knowing that our love is timeless, but then what? Is this all? All this mess just to let us know?"

He paused dramatically.

"T'Pol! He, whoever he is or has been or will be, expects us to do something! Maybe ... maybe something that has to do with the fable! I do not know! Maybe it's the fable in itself that hides this something, indeed, that may be in and of itself... a message for us. I know, I know. This is not true logic. This is still my imaginative logic. But... but is it perhaps more illogical that the fact that in the fable, in the mouth of the saviour, there is the same sentence that was in my mouth? "

T'Pol gasped. Literally.

In her mind, as in a whirling kaleidoscope, imperfectly, confusedly, incompletely, fragments of sensations, of strange perceptions, that she had had by reading the story and that had continued to stir restlessly inside her, began to connect with each other, and she realized, at that moment, that those sensations, those perceptions, had been the cause of her bewilderment, even more than the disconcerting reality that the fable carried with it and that her T'hai'la did not know yet.

And now, now that it had happened... what had happened, now, after... after that sentence and everything it carried along with it... now those sensations, those perceptions, became sharper and... and stronger. Even more disconcerting. And, even though yet lacking in real basis, in true and demonstrable consistency and substance, however, they were starting to emerge into the open, were beginning to reveal themselves in their preposterous... preposterous but, perhaps indeed true... reality.

The reality that her Adun had dangled in front of her eyes.

Her Adun!

Her incredibly clear-headed Adun!

He did not even know how he had possibly been capable of hitting the mark! And... and what this could possibly mean or… or perhaps did mean for real!

Her Adun.

Her Adun asked her to find with her logic the answers to his questions, including the one implicit in his last impassioned assertion, namely what the two of them were supposed to do, now that they knew. And, in his lucidity, in his inexplicable ability to intuition, that so often had been for her a source of wonder, he put forward the possibility - and also in this he could not even imagine how much he, possibly or actually, had hit the mark! - that the 'something' the two of them were supposed to do could be concealed in the fable, substantially that the fable per se could be the means by which it was communicated to them not only that they were supposed to do 'something', but also what this 'something' was!

And he asked her to discover with her logic the planner of all that!

Well, her logic had, possibly, the answers to his questions! Possibly! Yes! Possibly! Just possibly. Because... because these answers... these answers were so… so out of logic as to appear… as to appear illogical!

And yet... and yet...

She… oh she absolutely needed to re-read the fable in the light of their new knowledge, to see if her sensations and perceptions, which now were acquiring more distinct and precise contours, although… imaginative, were really provided with some logic, some true logic, to quote him, her T'hai'la. Yes, now she really needed to re-read the story, even more so than it had been necessary early in the evening, when he had asked her to do so. And she had to do this with him. Absolutely with him! Much, much more than at the beginning! Because only together with him she could try to give some sort of logical form to the answers that, now, circled shapeless in her mind and that he - and she - were seeking.

But... an answer... a truly logical answer... she already had it. For sure.

And that answer... she had to give it to him!

The answer…

The planner!

His voice shook her by the whirlwind of her thoughts.

"T'Pol! What's wrong? What have I said? Shut... shut your little mouth, my love! Do not... do not make me worry!"

T'Pol grabbed again his hands on impulse. She squeezed them.

"Ashayam! Do not worry! Everything right. I'm fine. I was... I was thinking."

Trip nodded, a little uncertain. "Ah, okay."

Then he narrowed his eyes. "Were you thinking about how to give an answer to my questions, T'Pol?"

In a whisper she replied. "Yes."

"And... was your logic able to figure out who might be the unknown friend who has masterminded all this pandemonium? And what on earth he wants from us?"

T'Pol recoiled. She was insecure, was uncertain. Perhaps, ultimately, she was wrong.

She lowered her eyes, under the attentive gaze and tense of him.

And nonetheless that answer, the one she already had, was logical. Absolutely logical. Logical in the sense that he, her Ashayam, asked her it to be. Yes. It was.

She raised her look and watched him so hard that he recoiled in turn.

She approached back him, almost rushing and vehemently.

She took her hands again, looking at him with an uneasy glance.

"Trip..." Her voice, too, was unquiet, and nevertheless, in some way, it resounded even firm. "For the moment I think I can give a logical answer to only one of your questions, namely about who may have put in the mouth of the saviour the sentence that you said."

"Oh, my gosh! And does it seem nothing? And... and who would be the wag, T'Pol? I mean, whom should we thank for having put on this whole mummery?"

Inadvertently, T'Pol held her breath.

"Ashayam, in order to report that phrase in the fable and make it be said by the saviour, the 'wag' or even the… 'wags' in question must have been aware of the sentence as well as that it had been pronounced by you."

"Well, sure. I think that, at least in part, I myself have already stated this. So then, sweetheart? Who…? Mh… wags?"

And okay. He had pricked up the... antennas. The plural had not escaped him. T'Pol sighed deeply. She squeezed more strongly Trip's hands.

"T'hai'la, if you pay close attention, there can be no doubt whatsoever about who might be aware of all that. Think carefully, my Adun. There can be no one else except…"

T'Pol stopped without finishing the sentence, and waited for Trip's reaction.

That, at first, did not come.

Then a light went on into his eyes, which right after widened dramatically, along with his mouth.

It took a while before he could be able to bring his lips near to one another again, as much as it was enough to him to articulate a few words or at least to try.

"But... but... but..."

Then, finally, a sentence that made sense succeeded in coming out of his mouth.

"But it wasn't me the one with an imaginative logic?"

T'Pol let go abruptly his hands. She crossed her arms over her chest and looked at him almost sullen.

Bad thing, for her, having to admit reluctantly inside herself that, after all, he was not wrong. So much that she decided... that he was wrong.

"My logic is not imaginative. My logic is… logical. And that's that."

Not precisely in keeping with the behaviour of a docile, obedient and respectful vulcan wife, but... when it takes it takes.

Despite everything, Trip found himself smiling.

She was gorgeous when she was pouting.

And then... come on... she was right.

Yeah. Just so. In effect, as much as it could sound… imaginative, her logical conclusion was absolutely… logical.

And, while continuing to smile, he, taking again her adorable sulky face in his hands, told her. Plainly.

"Honey, do not get angry. You're absolutely right, and I'm the usual cabbage head."

All the irritation of T'Pol faded abruptly. "Ashayam... do not exaggerate." How wonderful his hands that held her face so, and that look of him that stared at her that way. So full of love. "It is at all understandable that my conclusion may sound imaginative, but..."

"But it is a logical conclusion, sweetheart. Perfectly logical, in the true sense of the word."

His lips went down to touch hers.

"We, the two of us, have gone through such unbelievable experiences that having even just the mere idea to deem your logical conclusion as imaginative, it would be, to say the least, totally illogical."

He softly laughed at his own joke, then lifted his face, gently released hers and stepped away from her.

He stopped nearby, turned to her and looked at her seriously.

"However, T'Pol ..." He paused. His voice grew severe. "Please, stop being reticent. If you have been able to reach such a conclusion, it's because, I'm sure..."

He stopped speaking again, then resumed with a sigh.

"T'Pol, my joy, do not you think that the time has come to tell me something more about that fable? That fable that speaks of Elves and Humans... and of children? Special children. Like the ones - your own words - whom we two might have. Do not you think that now there is no more reason to feel dismay for that fable, whatever may be the deep reason? Your... logical conclusion, my love, goes far beyond any possible dismay."

He took once more a short pause, then started to talk again, watching her with eloquent eyes.

"What is there, in that fable, in addition to elven princesses, human saviours and children of elven princesses and... is not it? ... of human saviours, children similar someway to the children of vulcan females and... human engineers? What is there, in addition to all that, that has baffled you so much? And even before we two, you and me, were sucked into the bewilderment provoked by that phrase?"

Another pause. Then, on his forehead deep furrows appeared.

"T'Pol..." His hand fidgeted, expressively, like to give strength to the sudden thought that had formed in his mind. To his question. "From where does it come, that fable? Where did you find it?"

T'Pol remained still and silent. She looked... strange. Yes. It was so. There was something strange in her. Something, inside her, which, despite everything, continued to trouble her.

Trip approached her. "T'Pol. Sweetheart." With the most soft of voices.

She sighed deeply. Then she shook herself. She looked down for a moment. Then she raised her eyes. She looked at him with those large, liquid eyes of her, which always were capable of melting his heart.

She sighed again.

And finally she spoke in a tiny voice.

"When I started my research, I obviously thought that, if my suspicion had some basis in reality, I was supposed to turn my attention to Earth, of course, but also to Vulcan."

She stopped talking, as in difficulty to continue.

Well, sure. She was basically saying to him well clearly that she had really devoted herself to that weird - illogical - research with zealous scientific rigour. Her usual zealous scientific rigour. And, certainly, it was hard for her to admit so openly that an effort so intense on her part, in all likelihood an effort worthy of a better cause, had been profusely lavished by her in that research. It was... logical... that she felt embarrassed.

Trip grabbed her hands. He looked at her with a gaze full of understanding.

"T'Pol, darling. Do not feel uncomfortable. As you see, in the end you have been definitely right in applying yourself so hard to this research."

He chuckled.

"Well, honestly hard to tell if we will not have to regret it, but about the fact that the result of your research is noteworthy... well, nothing to say. Not at all."

Her chuckle turned into an open and loving smile.

"And then, sweetheart, for me it wouldn't really be possible to recognize my T'Pol if she had not devoted herself to her research with her usual zealous, commendable, scientific rigour."

T'Pol's face brightened. Literally. As her eyes.

As her voice.

"Thank you, my T'hai'la. I'm... glad you think so."

Trip smiled again. He squeezed her hands by way of encouragement.

"So then, hon? This research?"

T'Pol resumed speaking, always with her hands in his. And admittedly with greater fluency. With greater ease.

"Initially, I felt disheartened, T'hai'la."

"You..."

"Yes. You see, it is always disheartening committing to a research and discovering that you do not get anywhere. I really think you can understand me."

"Oh yes." His hands squeezed hers affectionately. "I understand you well, T'Pol."

She nodded. Then, after a little sigh, she continued.

"Nothing. I could not find anything able to corroborate my idea."

She let go his hands and began to wander around the room, talking both to herself and to him, just as he had done before.

"Earth was filled with legends and essays about the Elves, of course, as well as literary works, just like "The Lord of the Rings", which talked about them but which obviously were not to be included in my research. Yes, really lots, mountains of such stuff, but nothing able to support in any way my thesis. And as for Vulcan... nothing. Absolutely nothing. On Vulcan, nothing that spoke of the Elves. I used all possible search keys... non-Vulcans with pointed ears... myths and legends on the ears of the Vulcans... legendary encounters between Vulcans and other peoples... and many, many others, well aware that the term Elves could not exist on Vulcan. But nothing. Just nothing."

T'Pol stopped her going in circles around the room and turned towards Trip, who was following very carefully every move and every word of her.

She crossed her arms behind her back, in the pose that she assumed, Trip knew it, when she had to show a quiet and confident air (and, perhaps, she just was not precisely quiet and confident).

Trip encouraged her with kindness. "And then, T'Pol? What did you think of doing? Because no doubt you've thought about doing something, haven't you?"

She nodded and, in some way, she put on an expression that resembled a little the expression that he tended to put on when he had to tell her something a little bizarre and feared that she could disapprove.

With that expression on her face, she at last made up her mind to reply to him.

"I got an idea a little bizarre."

Difficult, very difficult for Trip not to smile in his sleeve, at least as difficult as it was for him being mistaken about her and, to tell the truth, he could not avoid it.

He tried to remedy in front of the raised eyebrow of T'Pol, but his own innate little evil genie put a spoke in the wheels to him. Everything he was capable of saying was... "Mh, really pestiferous, my influence over you, isn't it?"

For a moment it seemed that T'Pol would want to incinerate him not exactly only with her look, but then her gaze softened. The eyebrow came down and a playful light was kindled in her eyes.

"I can not deny it, but we must say that your influence may sometimes be also quite useful."

Trip chuckled slyly. "Glad to know, sweetie." Then he winked. "As in this case?"

T'Pol seemed about to wink in turn. Maybe - but was it ever possible? - she, imperceptibly, did it really. "As in this case."

And then... she surpassed herself.

Her eyes became hazy and vaguely inattentive, as if she was mulling over something and her tongue began to haunt the inside of her cheek. Then she stopped doing that and spoke, watching Trip well straight in the eye, with a look that couldn't be more serious and with an unnaturally deep voice, a voice that wanted to be not her voice, however not without - before - making wander for a little while yet the tip of her tongue alternately along the inside of both her cheeks.

"Damn it! And why not? After all it's not said that what I seek has necessarily to be on Vulcan, holy smoke! Perhaps I ought to look elsewhere! Bloody hell! Yup! It's so!"

Trip could not react immediately to T'Pol's performance.

He was too busy trying to make go back up his mandible from the ground.

Then, only God knows how, he recovered. And he did not laugh. No. He simply exclaimed: "You are fantastic, T'Pol!"

She bowed her head graciously. "Thank you, my Husband and Lord. Does this mean that you have appreciated my imitation, my Lord?"

"If I have appreciated? Wife! I seemed to see and hear myself!"

"I am glad that you think that I was good at imitating you, my Lord."

"You have been well more than good! You have been superb! Really!"

"I humbly thank you, my Husband and Lord."

"Stop thanking me, T'Pol. You've been simply amazing, in addition to being surprising, of course. And that's that. Simply amaz ... oh, ahem ... T'Pol?"

"Yes, my Lord?"

"But for real... ahem... for real, I am in the habit of speaking by employing so many imprecations?"

"Well, my Lord ..."

"Really, T'Pol?"

"Hem... not just like that, my Husband and Lord, but… please forgive again your very sheepish wife… wanting to be honest..."

"Oh! I... I'm sorry, T'Pol! I'm really sorry. I promise I'll improve. I swear. I will."

T'Pol's eyebrow rose a bit. "You will?

"But yes of course, darn it!

"I see, o my resolute Husband and Lord."

"Oh for crying out loud!"

"Precisely."

*Oh shit! Double, triple, quadruple shit! And now, my clever engineer as well as matchless jackass?*

Yeah, and now? What could he ever do to redress?

"T'Pol, my darlin ', I'm sorry, please, I ..."

"I like you as you are, my Adun. Do not change."

And for the umpteenth time that evening, Trip found himself trying to recover in front of the continuing source of wonders and surprises that was his T'Pol.

But what a splendid source of sweet wonders, what a wonderful source of sweet surprises was her!

"T'Pol! Have I ever told how much I love you?"

"Not enough, T'hai'la." And an impish spark danced in her eyes. "

"I believe that I shall never tell you enough, T'Pol. I love you too much."

And the impish spark became a blaze shining with joy.

Trip coughed slightly, embarrassed and happy at the same time, while T'Pol remained to watch him without speaking, with that dancing light in her eyes and that mouth of her that was capable of smiling without doing so.

Then he managed to react. He chortled. "Well, I hope, however, that your imitation, sweetheart, has been a deliberate exaggeration. I mean, I just hope that my influence over you is not such as to make you talk really like that."

"If I have to be sincere, my husband, you're rather… pervasive, actually."

"Ah. Well, if I too can be sincere, you're not outdone, wife."

"I hope that my pervasiveness towards you is just as useful to you as your own for me, husband."

"But for sure! Oh... ahem... Why? Was it helpful to you, T'Pol?"

T'Pol made an unequivocal gesture. She raised her eyes to heaven. Oh Holy Peace! How much patience was needed with her Adun!

"Trip, don't you remember that I said that your influence on me is sometimes quite useful? As in the case of the idea that came to my mind about my research?

"Oh yeah! Oh yeah." Trip cleared his throat again. "That bizarre idea. Right. Well, actually, in addition to the way you've exposed it, it must be said that thinking of searching somewhere that is not Vulcan the possible evidences of something that Vulcans might have done in the past, is rather bizarre. "

"Indeed it is. But - I told myself - the history of Vulcan sinks far back in time as well as - and even more - all the part of the unwritten history that is cloaked in myth and legend. Traces of the Vulcans, in not few cases more than just traces, are present in many worlds. Why, therefore, to exclude a priori that it were possible to find elsewhere what I was looking for on Vulcan?"

"Well, actually, from this point of view... but, T'Pol, it would not have been enough a whole lifetime!"

"Exactly, Trip. And that's why I thought of a possible shortcut. "

"Shortcut?"

"Yes. And this shortcut... this yes, it was pretty bizarre."

Now Trip was really curious and also very impressed. What the hell had that sort of devil in a skirt that was his vulcan wife devised?

He folded his arms behind his back and raised his eyebrow, just like she would.

Well, about the fact that her influence, too, was rather pervasive towards him... impossible to have doubts.

"And this shortcut was?"

T'Pol did not answer.

With studied slowness she turned. She reached the couch. She turned with her back toward it. She sat down on it, making herself comfortable. She crossed her legs.

She looked at him quietly, frying him on hot coals.

Damn, undoubtedly his influence over her made itself be felt. However... guys!... her vulcan essence was damn present, but, and this was the trouble, if so it could be said, damnedly accentuated by that sort of human femininity that had settled inside her, sharpened by her being able to be femininely vulcan.

Easier having to deal with a dozen human females and a score of orion females rather than with a single vulcan female, femininely vulcan, who was also capable of being humanly feminine!

But she was his vulcan female!

And, with her, he had no weapons. Neither did he want to have.

He tried, however. Quite unconvinced.

He put his hands on his hips and looked at her with a certain air of impatience.

"So? This shortcut?"

And, at that point, T'Pol showed clearly that she was trying to appear at ease, but that, in fact, she wasn't, or, at least, not completely.

Trip by now knew her well.

He knew what it meant, that quick, repeated blink of eyelids on her part.

He came up to her and smiled warmly.

"So, wife?"

She looked up at him with uncertain eyes.

Then she decided.

"The library of the Bannerdas." (**)

It took a while before Trip could find again the ability to speak.

Well, decidedly, that evening, T'Pol was working hard, about such matter.

Finally, a choked voice earned its way out of his mouth.

"I... I do not know if 'bizarre' is a term that gives justice."

T'Pol jumped to her feet. She grabbed once again his hands.

"Ashayam, try to understand me, please. The... the Bannerdas exist no more, of course, but their immense library still exists." (***)

"Yes but..."

"In there, there is everything. Since and for times that go beyond the imagination, the Bannerdas have collected in it, following their own inclination, a colossal number of writings, essays, short stories, novels, poems, documents, fragments and a huge amount of other things from a huge amount of worlds."

"Yes but..."

"Why not thinking that in the midst of all that material there could also be what I was looking for?"

"Yes but..."

"Vulcan, like Earth... and Andoria... and Denobula... and a host of other worlds... are present in that incommensurably vast library. Why not thinking that something that on Vulcan was not or was no longer findable was instead findable in that library?"

"Yes but..."

"And the Bannerdas were methodical and meticulous, like... like Vulcans. Even more, I thought, considering... considering that, in a way, we Vulcans come indirectly from them. Even in the midst of all that mountain of stuff, I was sure I could have easily found my way, following the categorization method that for sure they had used."

"Yes but..."

"Oh I know, I know. You mean that that library is now under the jurisdiction of Starfleet, that isn't possible to have access to it. "

"Well... in fact."

T'Pol's look became... Was it embarrassment? And possibly with a hint of shame?

"But I'm T'Pol. I... I have a few rights on Starfleet. Like you, my Adun. Starfleet owes much to both of us."

Well, now it had become a habit. Trip found himself once again trying to close his mouth.

"Do you mean you've made weigh your privileged position? You?"

Yes. It was embarrassment. With a hint of shame.

"I… I did, Ashayam."

"Ooookay. Now I'm not sure."

"About what, T'hai'la?"

"That my influence over you, sweetheart, is definitely nefarious."

"Oh, but…"

"But definitely, useful, also, as you claim." A smile together sly and conspiratorial was painted on Trip's face. "You know, my love? There is a saying on Earth. The end justifies the means. Not that it is always valid, in fact seldom if ever. But... sometimes it is."

T'Pol's hands ran up the arms of Trip. They leaned on them as to get some support, but also with something flirtatious, a touch of coquetry, also evident in her gaze, which sent him over the moon.

"And... this is my case, Trip?"

"Well, honey, considering that you have not caused harm to anyone and in the light of the obtained results, I would say so, yes. Although... well, even though we do not know yet whether it is really true that no one will be damaged. I am talking about the two of us. "He beamed. "But that of going to end up constantly in trouble is in all likelihood our destiny. What can you do, my love? Fortunately we have the lifeline of our love."

T'Pol rested her head against his chest, sighing with contentment. "Yes, we've got it, Trip."

He held her like that for a while, revelling together with her in the warmth of their sentiment.

The soft movement of her lips caressed his skin. "But you, T'hai'la... you've never acted like me. How can you say that your influence is nefarious to me?"

It was a game, and Trip knew.

He smiled and kissed her hair.

"I'm not precisely a saint, sweetheart."

He detached her a little from him and, with two fingers, lifted her chin so she could look at him. And at his mischievous smile and enamoured.

"I am rather good at pretending, T'Pol."

"But not with me, do you, my Adun?"

Oh, what a delightful game!

His hand lovingly stroked her fluffy hair.

"No, with you no, my love."

And T'Pol leaned her head again on his chest, sighing with unconcealed pleasure.

It was easy, by staying so, in that way, to forget about the tale. Very easy. But the fable, with all its enigmas, existed.

And Trip, reluctantly, did remember about it.

"Hon..." Softly.

"Yes, Trip?" Languidly.

Damn! But how could one do?

Yet it was to do. That fable was important. It was...

Yes. There was nothing left to chance in the fable, possibly not even the way it had come into T'Pol's hands, in her bizarre idea to resort to the library of the Bannerdas.

The fable in itself was not a case.

T'Pol's phantasmagorical and yet logical conclusion about the... architects of the fable and of its arrival in their hands was an evident proof of that and if her conclusion was true... and - incredible, unheard of, surreal – but, even more than most likely, it was... well then just one could not afford the luxury of forgetting about that tale, coming from a reality that seemed to be beyond reality.

But that there was, existed, and wanted them to act.

He resorted to his usual light tone. It was his nature and in addition she liked it.

"Do you have just intention to leave me to brown slowly in all my curiosity, wifey?"

She lifted her head to look at him quizzically, all leaning on him and with the palms of her hands resting on the front of his shoulders.

He made a soft smile. "I mean, okay, given that the fable has come into your hands, it is clear that your idea was right, T'Pol. But would you please tell me a little more?"

T'Pol nodded, but no one could deny that she seemed to do it rather listlessly.

And in fact the sigh of disappointment with which she broke away from Trip was a clear confirmation that, at that time, the idea to give up her comfortable position to resume her statement of the facts was not at all to her liking.

But so it had to be. Her Adun was right.

So she pulled away again from Trip, moved away a little, making a few steps back, and finally, with another small sigh, began to tell how things had gone.

"In fact I was right, Ashayam. The cataloguing methods of the Bannerdas were... are... really remarkable. It was not hard for me to get my bearings. Everything was catalogued by subject, author, origin, and so on and so forth. Obviously the language of cataloguing was that of the Bannerdas, but this is a language that we know, so there were no problems. I thought that the first thing to do it was to make a search by topic and so the key search that I used has been the term 'Elves'. I was not sure it was the right method, because, perhaps, in this way I would have limited the search field only to Earth, being the word 'Elves' typical of your world, T'hai'la. And here I had the first surprise."

Now Trip was really interested and curious. It was indeed intriguing to see how T'Pol had proceeded, using her usual methodicalness, her rigour, her rationality. To tell the truth, he was a little disappointed that she had not wanted to involve him in her quest. It would have been nice and stimulating doing it together. But he could understand her. She had let herself be engulfed into a difficult and challenging job but also, in some way, illogical. What was the point of doing all that? So, she had been afraid that, the moment he had realized how deep it was the effort she was lavishing in something that probably did not have too much sense, he could disapprove her. She, his T'Pol, abhorred being disapproved by him. Oh well, never mind. Whatever the case, it was fascinating realizing how she had proceeded. And he told her this plainly, with stated admiration.

"Fascinating, sweetheart, as you would say. I mean, the way you have proceeded. You are really admirable, nothing to say. And what was the surprise you're talking about, hon?"

"Thank you, T'hai'la." With sincere pleasure. No my husband and lord this time. It was no more time for jokes, that one.

T'Pol gathered up a moment the ideas.

"The surprise, you say, Ashal-veh? That's what it was." She paused an instant. "When I inserted the term 'Elves' as a search key, I was directed to a very dense and extensive page, which described with a wealth of information who the Elves were and which basically explained that the Elves were mythical figures of Earth folklore and that similar figures weren't present in cultures of other worlds. The work began badly. Of Elves or characters like that there was no talk anywhere else that was not Earth and, therefore, not only on Vulcan, but also in any world where the Vulcans could have left traces."

"Oh T'Pol! What a disappointment you must have felt! "

"I would be tempted to say, Adun, that Vulcans do not feel disappointment, but ..."

"T'Pol! Come on!"

"... But I will not tell you, because in fact I was left very disappointed."

"Oh, honey!"

"But there was a note, in the text of the page, really intriguing, as you would say."

"And that is?"

"It said it was very interesting that the Elves of the human folklore had pointy ears. There was to wonder whether this physical connotation could have been purely random or attributable to an unconscious reminiscence, on the part of the Terrans, of the ancient aspect of the primordial Bannerdas or - please, pay attention, Trip - to a possible transposition in the myth, on the part of the Humans, of some population characterized by having pointy ears, and with which the Humans might have had some encounter. And it was said, in the note, that clearly such population should have been humanoid and should have had an appearance practically identical to that of the Humans, except for the ears. The note went on by saying that the population with the more suitable requirements, indeed virtually the only one, when the third hypothesis had been true, was that of the Vulcans."

"Wow, hon!"

"It was not all, Trip. In the note, erudite and detailed, there was a meticulous examination of the various pros and cons of the different hypotheses and, at the end of that discussion, it was concluded that the peculiarities of the ears of the Elves compared to those of Humans, left to assume that it was difficult to consider that as a fact of pure randomness, but, on the other hand it was equally difficult, though not impossible, that Humans had invented mythical figures reflecting the look that was once of the Bannerdas. Proceeding - so it was said verbatim, Trip - by logical exclusion, it was to be believed that the Elves of human folklore were, therefore, really the legendary trace of real people, equipped with those pointed ears, with whom Humans had had contact. To wit, definitely more than as a mere presumption, the Vulcans."

"Twice wow, hon! Practically a confirmation of your thesis! And coming from a truly reliable and knowledgeable source!"

"Exactly, Trip. But to me it was not enough. I wanted to lay my hands, as you would say, on something more. A document, a paper, an essay, a recording, a find... whatever it was of tangible, concrete corroboration to my thesis and the thesis of the scholar or scholars who had written that enlightening and… comforting page. I was well aware, Trip, that actually it was not exactly logical to insist. If something along the lines of what I was looking for there had really been, in this case, why shouldn't this something have been noticed by the one or those ones who had drafted that page? Substantiating in this way, well before me, the third option? Yet I wanted to insist. It was as if..." T'Pol's voice faltered. "... as if a will stronger than mine was pushing me not to give up. I told myself that it was not impossible that the drafting of that page could be previous to something that had been included in the library some time later that the page had been drawn up. And, on the other hand, it was well known that that extraordinaire library, a treasure of knowledge beyond imagination, had been rather neglected, if one may say so, by the Bannerdas in recent times. Which, for the Bannerdas, could mean for very, very long time. Longer that the duration time of many civilizations.

T'Pol lowered her head for a moment.

"Mine were rather forced arguments, not to say grounded on thin air, I know well, and... I knew even then. But I did not want to give up. Illogical, I know, but I did not want."

"Hum. Yeah. Illogical. Sure." Trip allowed himself a slight smile. "So much as to be logical."

T'Pol, obviously, did not lose the opportunity to raise her eyebrow.

"Oh... ahem... sorry, wifey. So what? Come on, continue."

T'Pol clenched a little her lips and knitted her brows.

She was putting order in her thoughts, was clearly looking for the best way to expose the rest of what she had yet to tell, because, even that was clear to Trip, now they were to the point. The highlight was going to come.

And he could not help but think that, with that expression painted on her face, she, if possible, was even more beautiful.

And finally she was ready.

A small sigh. Hands folded behind her back. Shoulders and bust well upright. Intent face and calm, deadpan enough, but not too much, just to the right point. Okay. Trip smiled to himself. *Steady as she goes, hon.*

"At that point, it occurred to me what you would define an inspiration, T'hai'la. An intuition. And - you must be very proud of you, Ashayam, of the influence you have over me - I decided to follow it. It was not at all logical to proceed so, especially considering in what the intuition consisted, but I did it. You made me realize that, not infrequently, intuitions can be expression of a covert and finer logic, which is played in the depths of our minds."

"Oh... thank you, hon! And... and... this intuition? "

"I decided to enter an additional search key. I entered... The ears of the Elves."

"Oh my God! And...?"

"And the second surprise came."

"That is to say? That is, T'Pol?"

"As expected, I was sent back to the same page where I had read the assumptions of the Bannerda supporting my thesis and, together, a quantity of other links appeared, with respective title, properties, location and so on. They were a number really great, Trip, huge, but my attention was drawn to a particular link. "

"What? What, T'Pol ? Come on. Don't make you be prayed!"

T'Pol could not help but smile to herself. What a wonderful perennial child was her Adun!

"The link stood out not only because it was on top of all the others. It was isolated, too, separated from the others. It was impossible not to notice it. And it had no indication about what it was, about what was referred, about where it were located the document or whatever it were what the link stood for."

"Damn, T'Pol! You could be prompted to say... you could be prompted to say that it had been put there, that way, on purpose, so that it could be noticed. And…" Trip snuffled forcibly. "And I don't struggle to believe... by you."

An obscure gleam of uneasiness crossed the eyes of T'Pol. "Yeah, Ashayam. And now... now we could even think that... someone wanted precisely it to be so."

Trip, nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah. Now we might think so, T'Pol. We might think that that someone might just have done this to make sure that you, sweetheart, could notice it."

"But at that time I could not know any of this, Ashayam. All I could think was that it was an undoubtedly strange circumstance, perhaps even wanted, although I did not understand why, but, in any case, a circumstance to exploit, even... even in light of the words that made up the link. And even this was really strange, but I didn't pose to me questions that couldn't have answers at that time. It was... not logical."

A kind of suspicion - an intuition? - peeped out in Trip's mind.

"Hon, you wouldn't want to tell me that ... would you?"

"Yes, Trip" T'Pol perfectly understood that Trip had imagined what were the words making up the link. "The link, verbatim, was The Ears of the Elves."

"Oh, damn!"

"Written in the language of the Bannerdas, but, of course, without the translation into this language of the word Elves, which was taken without any alterations from the human standard language adopted by Starfleet, just as, on the other hand, in the first page I had found. But the link was exactly so. The ears of the Elves."

"Hon, but ... but what have you thought, at that time? Haven't you... haven't you thought it was a bit too much what was happening to you?" And, at that point, Trip wasn't able to restrain himself. "Why... why did not you say anything to me?"

T'Pol looked down. Her Adun was right. Why had she said nothing to him? Because...

She raised her look. It was worried. And… contrite, too?

"Because I was too taken in what I had found, Ashayam. And…" A slow blink of the eyelids, which said a lot to Trip about her embarrassment. "…because I wanted to prove to you that I had all the reasons to devote myself to what I was looking for. You were so... so skeptical! Even intolerant, a little. I wanted... I wanted to make you pay your attitude!"

How many times that evening, Trip had found himself trying to close his mouth in front of the continuous source of wonders that was T'Pol? Many. And this was another time yet.

"Ho... ho..." *And obey, my mouth!* "Honey! But... but... but..."

T'Pol dashed to him, hugged him tightly.

"Oh please, T'hai'la! Do not be mad at me! I... I do not know what came over me! The fact is... the fact is..."

"The fact is, my gorgeous vulcan doll, that a woman more woman than you, it is impossible that there may be! And I love you to death!"

T'Pol, even in her more than understandable embarrassment, looked at Trip from below with the most puzzled of glances.

But Trip's eyes gushed love as they watched her from above.

And that was more than enough for her.

It was all.

Smiling, Trip teased her. "C'mon, my nice dolly. Make me pay the way down. Go ahead."

A little uncertain, T'Pol nodded.

She untied the hug and walked away once again from Trip.

It was her who, this time, cleared her throat. "So ..."

Trip urged her with a beautiful smile, quiet and warm. "I listen to you, sweetheart."

T'Pol nodded again. "Okay, Trip." She regained her composure and resumed her detailed account with some confidence.

"Obviously, I took advantage of the link and on my terminal, connected remotely via the Starfleet control centre with the computer system of the library, I saw appear ..."

"What? What, T'Pol? The fable?"

"Yes, Trip. But I did not know it was a fable, when I saw it the first time. It appeared in the guise of a booklet, with, written on the cover, a title. That title, Trip. The ears of the Elves. Written in bannerda language except for the term Elves, even there in the Starfleet standard language. And under the title, another inscription, that I assumed it was the same title expressed in a language I did not know. I downloaded immediately the booklet in the memory of my computer, as... as afraid that something could happen that would prevent me from reading it. I interrupted the connection to the computer of the library and started to scroll the booklet from page to page. The subtended reading software was constructed so that it was to be read just like that, as a real book. It was bilingual. On the pages of the left, there was a text that I judged to be written in the same language of the title of the cover, the one expressed in unknown language. In the pages of the right, there was what I thought it was the translation, made in bannerda language and… and also - and on this I did not want to dwell! – in the Starfleet standard language. Unable to restrain myself, I began to read. And since then... "

T'Pol's eyes became severely troubled, as she looked at Trip. And even her body language denoted disquiet. It was obvious to him.

"Since then, Ashayam, I read and reread it dozens of times, because... because..."

"Why, T'Pol? What's in that fable? What have you found in it that has stumped you so much and that now ..." Trip made a pause full of meaning. "...and that now bewilders you even more? Now, after we've found out... what we've found out? After we've understood what we have understood? What..." His voice hardened. "...what do you think that we two must do? What is the message of the tale? What message ..." He took a step forward. He looked at her with stern eyes. He said it clearly. This time he said it clearly. Bluntly. Without mincing words. "...what message we two have left for us two?"

T'Pol reeled under the barrage of questions from Trip, under the powerful directness with which he posed them.

And she felt falter even more so because she... she thought she knew, now, what was the message.

She thought she knew, now, maybe, what the two of them were supposed to do, although she couldn't even imagine how and in what way and even when the two of them could have done what they were supposed to do. Although she would never have imagined that who should have done what had to be done, should have been the two of them. Although she would never have imagined that the impulse to them two to do what the two of them were supposed to do, would be conveyed by means of the fable by them two to themselves. Although she could not imagine why just in that way, by means of that fable, the message had been sent by the two of them to themselves.

And her heart trembled even more at the thought that if the two of them had not done what they should have done...

This, the consequences of this, would have been... would have been that she - she T'Pol! - could never have… existed! Trip, her Trip, her Adun, her K-diwa, her Ashayam, her Ashal-veh, could never have been her Trip, her Adun, her K-diwa, her Ashayam, her Ashal-veh. Their timeless love would have exhausted its time!

But... and if she was mistaken? If those sensations, those perceptions that she had had by reading the fable and that had now acquired such a strong consistency to push her to think all she thought... if those sensations and those perceptions were nothing but sensations and perceptions? Foolish and fallacious?

And yet... and yet...

Yet that phrase...

And her logical conclusion...

WHICH WAS LOGICAL!

But then, if there was some logic in her conclusion... if she was not wrong... if what she had sensed and was forcefully trying to rationalize had some substance, some soundness… in this case the answers she thought she had found... weren't absolutely enough!

Other answers were needed. Answers about how, when, where, what the two of them should have done, could have been done… for real. Seriously. Actually. Effectively.

And many other answers. To many other questions.

It was necessary to review and retrace the whole tale to try to find those answers.

And this was something she could not - and did not want to! - do alone.

Oh, she could not. She could not just simply tell her Adun all was going through her brain, all her... her bizarre conclusions, all the content of the fable, and analyze that content and all her thoughts and all her conclusions together with him!

If before she, after her initial hesitation, wanted the two of them, together, to read the fable so as to go through it together and together rebuild in well-defined form the castle that had taken smoky shape in her mind, now it was even more necessary.

It was essential.

For her.

She needed the stormy quiet of his tumultuous brain.

Just like that.

No one who were not her could ever understand it, but it was so.

She needed the stormy quiet of his tumultuous brain.

To put order in her thoughts.

And in her heart.

Step by step with him.

Step by step

Page by page.

"Don't you answer me, T'Pol?"

His voice shook her. But that voice was not harsh, like just some moments ago. Oh Surak! No. It was not. It was the gentle and teasing voice she loved. And needed.

"Ashayam ..."

His smile warmed her heart, quieted her one more time. A bit.

"Come on, hon. Tell me something. I am convinced that you have something in your head." He winked at her with pleasantness. "You know, you don't hoodwink me any more." A mischievous chuckle. "Well, hardly ever, presently."

T'Pol took a step toward him.

"T'hai'la ..."

"T'Pol, wifey. Please. Tell me what you found in the fable. Tell me what you think. I'm sure that if we work together we can find in the fable all the pieces of the puzzle that we need and be capable of recomposing it in its entirety."

T'Pol practically snapped. With voice and body. "Exactly!"

Then, in front of his astonished look, she calmed down. A bit.

"Exactly, Ashayam. You are right about the fable. There, inside it, there is all we seek. We, though, my Adun. We. You and me. Together. Also on this you're absolutely right."

Trip looked at her a little weirded out.

"What do you mean, T'Pol?"

T'Pol hurled herself onto him and once again she threw herself into his arms.

Once again she buried her face in his chest.

"Let's resume the reading, my T'hai'la. Together. As you wanted it to be. I will read and you will listen. And together - together - we will find all the answers, will be able to recompose the puzzle."

She lifted her face to him. It almost seemed that her eyes were pleading. And, perhaps, they were.

"Together, my Ashal-veh."

Trip understood.

And how could he not understand?

How could he not understand - and fulfil - the needs of his T'Pol?

She had asked him to read together with her the fable, just as he himself had asked her to do at beginning and as, afterwards, she had told him she wanted to do.

But there was more behind her request.

Sure, she wanted the two of them to penetrate together the secrets of that damn story, secrets that, she probably already alone had begun to fathom, like, in hindsight, the logical conclusion she had reached made you understand. Behind that conclusion there were her previous readings of the tale.

The fact, however, was not this. The fact was that she needed him. One more time, in that evening. One more time, in order to handle the fable, to govern its content. And… yeah, sure… in order to handle - to govern - the 'something' which she had in her mind, which occupied it.

That 'together' meant ... 'I need you.'

It was of no use for her to tell him, purely and simply, what she had found in the tale and analyze it, together, the two of them, in order to find the answers, to recompose the puzzle.

She needed now, more than ever, to share with him the fable, to untangle along with him its occult thread.

She… and practically she had said it to him… She. Needed. Him. Period.

And, obviously, he would have given her everything she needed.

His whole self.

Well, of course, in every aspect of his self and, on the other hand, there was to believe he wasn't wrong at thinking that she would be not at all displeased that he were... him.

It was what she wanted and, come to think, she needed. Sure. Without forgetting that he too liked it a lot. He'd always enjoyed teasing her and joking with her, and now, then, that she had learned to give him back tit for tat... well, it was even better.

And it always worked to smooth situations and asperities.

And then there was, tonight, that great game - new and delightful - about their roles. She, the vulcan wife; humble, respectful and obedient; his property. And he, her Husband and her Lord. Her master. - Trip felt a great warmth inside. - The master of the mistress of his heart.

Yes, a really nice game. A game to make the most of and through and through.

Therefore...

"Well, my exacting vulcan wife, why not?"

Two wonderful dark eyes rose up, a little suspicious, towards him.

"Why not, what?"

"That you resume reading the fable. To tell the truth, it is not all bad."

"It's not all bad?"

"No. Not at all. I find this tale quite gripping and - do we want to say it? - written not at all badly, too." He smiled roguishly. "One might think that it was me to write it."

T'Pol pulled away from Trip, with light heart again. There he was, her Trip, the Trip who knew how to soothe every trouble she could have.

She looked at him exactly as he expected her to do. With the eyebrow raised in the expression that meant 'what the hell are you blathering? '. And she also spoke just as he expected from her. With vulcan self-importance.

Without though forgetting her own role, of course, the role of docile, obedient, humble, respectful vulcan wife. Eh no. It was not something that could be forgotten. It was their new, wonderful game of love.

"My logical conclusion does not imply that you or I or both of us have been or will be the drafters of the tale and, indeed, I consider rather unlikely to be you the one who wrote it. With all due respect, my Husband and Lord, I have serious doubts that in the midst of all your... ahem ... undoubted qualities, there is also that of the 'good writing'."

"Are you insinuating that I'm not able to write well, wife?"

"I'm not insinuating, my Lord"

"Ah. You're saying it clearly, huh?"

"How could your humble wife contradict what you say, my Husband and Lord? If you say it's so, it is so."

Trip laughed heartily. "Little to do, huh, with you, my humble wife? You've always the upper hand, with me."

"Forgive your ignorant wife, o my Husband and Lord, but I do not manage to understand the way you express yourself. Could you be a little clearer, if I may dare ask?"

'Mh, well, you know, one who writes bad can not be too much clear in speaking.'

"Your relieved wife is glad you agree with her."

"Hey! I did not say that! I said that ..."

"That the way you write can not fail to reflect the way you speak. Is your hopefully not absent-minded wife possibly in error in thinking that you said this, my Husband and Lord?"

"No! Viz yes! Viz no! Viz..."

Trip shrugged and, laughing, raised his hand to ruffle the hair of T'Pol. "Oh, never mind, o my anything but smart wife. I do not think I can outargue you. I've never succeeded, and probably never I will."

He winked at her. "Have I been able to express myself clearly enough in this respect, o my anything but shrewd wife?"

"Your contrite wife would never dare to put you in a quandary, my Husband and Lord."

Could there be a face more stolid than that of T'Pol? Luckily, for Trip, her laughing eyes spoke for her.

And while she stood there watching him with that stolid face, he decided it was time to really take control of the situation.

So, he snapped forward.

T'Pol was rapid, certainly. Her reflexes were quick, certainly.

But, first point, she did not expect his move, second, he wasn't then so bad, as regards physical prowess and speed.

And then there was a third point.

Why on earth should she have even the slightest idea to shirk what he was doing?

Why should she have even the slightest idea to escape those strong hands of him, that lifted her from under her armpits, that carried her aloft suddenly, that made her go down slowly towards him, that brought her face so close to his smiling piratical face and her mouth so close to his mouth?

His mouth.

His mouth which - while his hands were holding her raised from the ground, while her hands rested on his shoulders, while her blue-green eyes immersed themselves in his blue eyes - was speaking softly upon her mouth, with cheerful exuberance.

"One day or another I'll make you pay for your insolent conduct, my irreverent vulcan wife. If you don't change your attitude, I'll reduce you into many little small pieces by dint of voracious kisses."

And why on earth should she have even the slightest desire to hold back the words that bloomed on her mouth?

"I will try to change with all my strength, my Husband and Lord, but I'm really sorry to have to tell you that unfortunately I just do not think I'll be able to correct me. I'm afraid that, despite your benevolence, you will be inevitably forced to inflict on me this just punishment."

There was no response from Trip.

His mouth answered for him.

And the mouth of T'Pol replied to his mouth.

Then he slowly made her go down until her feet touched the ground again and they stood so to look at each other for a moment, facing each other, without speaking.

Trip then cleared his throat. "Ahem ... well ..."

Finally he blurted out with exuberance a little intentional.

"Enough. No more delay. We have a lot of work to do."

He smiled, naughty. "Mh, I seem to have already said something like that." He winked at her. "Am I mistaken, hon?"

She raised her eyebrow. "You are not, husband. And actually when you said this that other time, the two of us had to… really do a lot of work."

"Mh, true. Significantly different from the one we have to do now, though. Right, T'Pol?"

"Definitely, my husband."

"Mh, yeah yeah. And frankly I think that that other kind of work is not terminated, far from it. What do you think, wife?"

"I think that that other one, that in which we have strenuously committed ourselves after your solicitation, is a type of work that will never run out, husband."

"True, true. So let's get on with the kind of work ahead of us right now, so that, later on in the evening, we will have some time left over to take us a little forward even with that other work, okay T'Pol?"

An indubitable spark of cheerful mischief shone in the eyes of T'Pol. "As I have previously said, my Husband and Lord, your humble and obedient wife would never have the impudence to object to your will." Then the suggestion of a slight malicious smile made bend upward the corners of her mouth, emphasizing the malice that glowed in her gaze. "What you want, I want."

The same slyness showed itself in Trip's eyes. "Ah, very well. Your Husband and Lord is very pleased, my obedient vulcan wife. So, later on, we'll do... mh, this too does not sound new to me. If I don't deceive myself, it seems to me that you, my obsequious wife, have previously pointed out that, later precisely, we two would be engaged in a different activity."

"As always, and it could not be otherwise, you're right, my Lord. I've already said this, quite recently, and you've benignantly been in agreement with me."

"Hum, okay. And besides, I myself I have just said that for the moment the two of us have other work to do. But ..."

"But, my Lord?"

"Well, my... I do not know how much reliable... wife, I order you not to try, in this time that we'll use to do other things, to make me desist from inflicting on you your just punishment for your behaviour. You know, the little matter to reduce you into little small pieces with ..."

T'Pol's eyes widened with genuine horror. "Oh no, absolutely not, my Lord! I deserve this punishment and it is totally fair for me to be subjected by my Husband and Lord to my just chastisement!"

"Ah well, well. No problem, then. So then, since we have thoroughly scheduled our coming activities, including your retribution..." Trip's gaze eyed up all around. "Where the hell... ah, here it is."

He bent down and retrieved the PADD from the nook where it had ended up. He tucked it between T'Pol's hands with a triumphant expression on his face.

"Okay. Your current working tool is available again, sweetheart. You can resume ..." His eyes widened as if he'd been struck by a sudden thought and then they narrowed, almost with a frown, to emphasize his words. "Mh, however, if the two of us must go forward together ..."

He waved his index finger under the nose of T'Pol.

"Tell me, my little vulcan doll, the fable... even on your PADD can it be read in the form of book?"

Without understanding where her unpredictable Adun wanted to get at, T'Pol nodded, slightly uncertain.

"Of course, my Lord. I have extracted the translation in Starfleet Standard Language, making it a separate file. But it is always readable like a book, if you want to do it."

"Very good. I love old books." He grinned. "Who knows, maybe one of the fixations that the Captain has attached to me."

T'Pol could not help herself. "It would have been good that even some of your fixations had remained attached to the Captain, Trip."

"Ah, let's not to dig up things that it's good they are not dug up, T'Pol. Anyway, I'm really glad that the tale is readable on your PADD like a book."

Now T'Pol was genuinely curious. "Why, Trip?"

"Because in this way for me it will be a real pleasure to read it together with you." He winked. "If the two of us have to work together on the fable, it is necessary for us to read it together. Fine for me that the acting voice is yours, but now the conditions are different than before and I want my eyes and my mind to be able to follow step by step the tale as you're reading it. Indeed, to proceed to the best... "

Abruptly Trip stopped speaking and looked at T'Pol with an expression halfway between surprise and appreciation. "Hey, hon. Incidentally, do you know you're really good at expressing with the inflections and the tone of your voice the emotions conveyed in the fable? It would appear that you know what the emotions are. But it's clear that I'm misinterpreting things. You are a vulcan female, aren't you?"

There wasn't any raised eyebrow in response on the part of T'Pol. She answered by voice and in a voice extremely quiet and starkly flat and unemotional, in addition, as it befits the voice of a Vulcan.

"Actually, my Husband and Lord, it is as you say. As always you're right. If I may dare, though, I feel to say that in compensation there are other things that Vulcans know and consequently I too. For example ..." If possible her voice became even calmer, but, to tell the truth, a little less flat and unemotional. "...the Vulcan nerve pinch."

"Oh... oh... ah... sure, sure. Ahem, unpleasant, if you find yourself having to experience that treatment, eh, T'Pol?"

"It is designed to do no harm, but I can not exclude it can be really quite unpleasant, my Lord."

"Well then, better to try to avoid it."

"Once again you are right, my Husband and Lord."

At that point, Trip failed to avoid bursting out laughing. "I do not know if I shall succeed, my wife. I mean, I'm afraid that one day someone - who knows who, huh, T'Pol? - will be tempted to use that manoeuvre with me."

In turn, once again T'Pol didn't manage to avoid smiling tenuously. "I am convinced, my Lord, that this someone, if the 'someone' you have in mind is the 'someone' I have in mind you have in mind, for sure will prefer to use other methods in order to... how was that figure of speech?... in order to get to grips with you. "

"To get to grips with me, eh? Well, okay. Anyway, I feel relieved. A lot. And... what kind of methods, prithee?"

"Oh my Husband and Lord. Equally persuasive than the Vulcan nerve pinch, but definitely... more pleasurable."

"Mh. Like our upcoming working methods?"

"Sort of."

"Ah."

"Perhaps even more persuasive, my Husband and Lord. You know, the Vulcan nerve pinch is not a trivial matter. To compete with it one must work hard. And not a little. But that 'someone', I think, would know how to overcome in persuasiveness this manoeuvre."

Trip smiled happily. "I have no doubts about it."

And T'Pol could not help but lower her head to hide the frank smile she wasn't able to repress but that didn't displease her at all. What was the logic to deny it? And, also, she didn't shoot back anymore. What was the logic to do it? The sweet, warm, gladness that reverberated in the Bond didn't require further words.

"Oh damn, T'Pol!"

T'Pol lifted abruptly her head and raised her eyebrow at Trip's sudden outburst.

"We are wasting time, sweetheart. So, let's see... what was I saying?... ah yes. Here it is. In order to best proceed with our common reading of the tale, regardless of whether the narrative voice shall continue to be yours, we must..."

And he said no more.

He was an action man.

He passed from words to deeds.

He grabbed T'Pol's hand and dragged her with him to sit on the couch, with all the PADD she was holding.

But not next to him.

On his legs.

Just like that.

On his lap.

With her... Trip grinned to himself... awfully nice bum on his thighs, Sideways and dangling legs. Her side and her shoulder propped against his chest. And with his arm that, well tight around her shoulders, held her firmly in that position.

"Ah excellent! This way is fine."

He twinkled at T'Pol who, without moving from that position and with the PADD in her free hand, had turned her head towards him and was watching him perplexed, with her eyebrow well raised. But also pretty amused. Trip could bet on that and... it happened to him to grin again within himself ... extremely unrealistic he wouldn't win the bet.

He smiled at her beatifically. "Well, sweetheart, we started with my head resting on your lap as on a pillow, and we end up with reversed roles, with you sitting on my lap and in the best position for our incipient work. See?" With a nod of his eyes he pointed to the PADD in T'Pol's hand. "In this position I can follow very well all that you are reading aloud. Perfect, isn't it?"

T'Pol nodded. "Ah, I got it." But her eyebrow made no move to get down. What changed was her expression. The perplexity disappeared. The amused air... was it perhaps a tad more pronounced? "It's for that, to ease our incipient common work, that you have positioned me in this way. Right, my husband?"

"But certainly, T'Pol! And why else otherwise?"

"Of course. Why else, otherwise?"

"Mh. Are you uncomfortable? Would you prefer a different position?"

T'Pol's expression changed again. The eyebrow went down and the amused air gave way to a perfect vulcan impassivity.

"I would like to take the liberty to remind you that, according to the law of Vulcan, I'm your wife, and that, therefore, I am your property, my Husband and Lord. It follows that you can position me in any position you prefer." A flash of mischief, very quick, into T'Pol's eyes. "Are there other and different positions besides this in which you would like to position me? It would be for me a source of great pride and contentment being able to satisfy my Husband and Lord in all positions in which he wants to position me."

In Trip's minds at least a dozen images suddenly started to overlap with each other, all relating to possible positions of T'Pol while... she was satisfying him.

And in the midst of this mental whirlwind of definitely vivid images, it was rather difficult for him to grasp immediately the meaning of what T'Pol was now saying to him, with her face very close to his neck, her mouth very close to his neck, with the arm not holding the PADD around his neck.

"I know from experience, my Husband and Lord, that you possess a fervid and extremely creative imagination."

Trip managed not to choke. By a hair, but he did make it.

"Cough ... cough ... I ... You ..."

Then he snapped.

"T'Pol! But haven't we said 'later on'?"

"Later on what, my Lord?" Could there be a more innocent expression than that of T'Pol?

"Later on our ... our ..."

"Our what, my Lord?"

"Oh stop! It does not matter! Forget it!"

Then, inevitably, he laughed. Damn of a vulcan female. Oh yeah, it was damn true. Much easier having to deal with a dozen human females and a score of orion females rather than with a single vulcan female, especially if the vulcan female in question was T'Pol!

But, guys, what a girl!

And she was his girl!

"No way with you, eh sweetheart? The winner it's always you."

"My Lord?"

"But if you want us to go on with our more urgent work, you have to have a little compassion for your poor Husband and Lord."

"Compassion? I for you? But my Lord!"

"Rest assured that, later, I'll know how to prove to you how fervid and creative my imagination can be, fear not."

"Oh!"

"But now, let's get on with reading, T'Pol, and if this position is not your own terms ..."

This time the expression of T'Pol was not at all sought on purpose. It was blatantly contented and sincere. "It pleases me... completely, T'hai'la."

And equally contented it was the smile of Trip, possibly even more.

"Very well. So, come on, let's start."

"Immediately, Ashayam."

"However, T'Pol ... "

T'Pol looked at Trip quizzically. "Yes, T'hai'la?"

"Do not omit that sentence." He smirked a little tight-lipped. "The fateful expression, I mean."

"You want me to re-read that sentence, Trip?"

"Yup."

T'Pol could not resist. "But why?"

Trip replied with gravity, or rather began to respond. "Well, you know, honey ... " But he left the answer in mid air and T'Pol feared that the thought of what couldn't be properly defined as goodness of the saviour - namely, in practice and according to his high logic, of one who was something of what he had been, of one who was him himself - had painfully crept back in him.

Instinctively and on impulse, she gave him a quick soft kiss. "Ashayam, you do not ..."

But Trip did not give her time to finish what she wanted to say. Rubbing his thumb against his lips just as he had done that time, in the corridor, when he had cunningly led her to uncover herself finally and once and for all with that kiss en plein air, and with the same roguish expression printed on his face, he silenced her with a loud "Oh good!"

After that…

"You know, my caring wifey, it is a matter of drama intensity. That is the phrase with which the saviour introduces himself to the honour of the world. It can not be neglected, God forbid! The whole scene starting from it, the scene of the saviour, I assume, would suffer. And then…"

He smacked his lips. "Well, T'Pol, it's not a bad phrase, is it? You know, it is so expressive that it might be a sentence of mine. "He tapped his forehead with the palm of the hand." Ah, but what a kind of stupid! That is a phrase of mine! That's why I like it so much that I want to hear it again! "

Trip then winked slyly at T'Pol. "T'Pol, you know what? That, after all, this damn saviour must not be so bad, if he speaks as I speak. Something of me, he must have! "

With the hand of the arm that held T'Pol tight to him, by encircling her shoulders, Trip squeezed gently T'Pol's shoulder, as he was addressing to her a look ostentatiously worried. "Unless I am to be totally thrown away!"

Trip's gaze became theatrically quizzical. "What do you say, wifey? Am I to be thrown away? Totally? Nothing good in me that even the saviour may have?"

T'Pol looked at him straight in the eye with a very serious expression. "If I may speak frankly, my Husband and Lord..."

"Granted, wife."

"Something good there's in you"

"Oh, thank goodness. As in the saviour? "

T'Pol sighed. She felt a clear mind and the heart quiet. "As in the saviour."

"Okay. Good to know. So then, go, wife. With that phrase... straddling two worlds."

T'Pol nodded. There were no more shadows. Her Ashayam had dispelled all of them. The enigma of the fable... the two of them would solve it together. Her logic would find all the answers, would be able to piece together the puzzle, just as he, her Adun, had asked her to do, acknowledging to her the ability to do so.

And when her heart had had to tremble again, he would be there, with her, to prevent it from doing it, to make it beat loud and safe.

She brought the PADD at reading height, making sure that he too could see clearly what was written on it, and switched the reading software to the book mode, as her Ashayam had said he liked.

She settled well comfortably on his lap, enjoying the firm and gentle grip of his arm around her shoulders.

And she read.

In a voice clear and firm.

And very careful to give strikes an appropriate tone.

'Is that any way to treat an elven princess? Really impolite, if you allow me.'

---

End of Chapter Ten

TBC

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I remember perfectly, mu friends what I said to you in the footnotes of the previous chapter.

"And now there are no more excuses, my friends.

It's time for the saviour to reveal himself fully.

For better or... for worse."

Well, I say it again now.

And, this time, there are really no more excuses.

Word of Asso.

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(*) "The Hall of the Mountain King","The Hall of the Mountain King". Oh yeah.

(**)Still "In the Hall of the Mountain King", although in the chapters written so far there's no mention of this library. But it will be spoken of it. And it will be central in the whole story.

(***)And so I have revealed something that in the story (In the Hall of the Mountain King) there's not yet. Oh well, it matters little. I hope