Petrichor

Ensemble | General


House Grilka was in chaos, but it was an exciting, wonderful chaos. The sort of chaos that comes from bringing home a newborn baby.

Whatever lingering doubts Quark had about Klingon maternal instinct had been thoroughly quashed. Parenting was a challenge, of course, but it was one that Grilka rose to admirably.

So too was the anxiety about bonding with their female child. Quark's own parenting abilities would turn out to be more of a mixed bag… some things came naturally, while in other aspects he was a complete mess.

Grilka's mother, Gorana, moved in for a few months to help with the baby— until the time came to hire a ghojmoK. Both of her parents had stayed loyal to the House of Konjah, even after Grilka was the head of her own House. Hakor took the time to visit them whenever he was on-planet, but Gorana… she hadn't spoken to Grilka since— well, since Quark came into the picture.

She coped with the fact that her son-in-law was Ferengi by absolutely refusing to acknowledge him. He'd never seen a Klingon act so passive-aggressive, but there was a first time for everything. Gorana wouldn't even say his name or species, and if she absolutely couldn't avoid mentioning Quark, at best he was 'the child's sire', at worst 'that clod'.

The mental gymnastics she did to accomplish this were hysterical. Quark was way too amused to be offended.

Grilka didn't find it nearly as funny. Her relationship with her mother was not great to begin with, so having Gorana around was more than little stressful for her. But 'Grandma' took the graveyard-shift… ultimately, a full nights sleep outweighed the vexation of having her in the house.

What surprised them was Sirella.

"Ohhhhhhh!" she squealed— yes, squealed— in delight. "She's hideous! I've never seen such an ugly baby!" Apparently Sirella had some kind of hopeless fixation on homely children, or something, because she was utterly captivated. She visited daily, under the guise of supporting her friend, and was so smitten that for a while Grilka started getting paranoid that Sirella would kidnap her. So much for 'crumbling the very foundations of our Klingon heritage'.

Things devolved into regular, ulcer-inducing chaos when Rom and the rest of his immediate family came to visit. The sort of chaos that comes from having another four Ferengi— one of which was Zek—, a Bajoran, and a pair of rivaling Hupyrians all running amok on Qo'noS. Klingons on Ferenginar had been bad, this was an unmitigated disaster.

But that's another story.