Spock leaned back against the aircar as he surveyed the modest home where Stonn and T'Pring resided. It was, most certainly, a far cry from his ancestral homes in ShiKahr and the estate at Keldeen. An old memory flashed through his mind. The cold appraising look in T'Pring's eyes the first time she'd seen his family estate at Keldeen. Through their fledgling bondlink he'd felt her pleasure at the knowledge that one day she would be the mistress of that home. There had been another thought though, one he'd not fully understood at the time: This would be her recompense for the indignity of joining herself to his tainted bloodline.
He noted the soft sound of rustling fabric and the light feminine steps of his wife and daughter approaching from the small garden in front of the house He had acquiesced to his wife's suggestion that he remain outside, the logic being that T'Pring might be less likely to allow her maternal emotions to surface in his presence. Though he highly doubted his former bondmate harbored any warm maternal feelings, he had no particular desire to spend any more time in her presence
Spock programed the coordinates to T'alv'lor into the computer of the aircar as Christine slid into the seat beside him and the three of them sped off into the darkened desert.
"Can you pass me my medical bag, T'Kirk?" Christine leaned back to the seat where her daughter was sitting. "I think I may have fractured a couple of metacarpals."
Spock looked over at his wife and noticed that she was rubbing her right hand gingerly.
"What happened back there?" he asked.
"Nothing," Christine responded.
"It is hardly nothing, Christine, your hand is swelling."
"Mother slapped T'Pring."
"Christine?"
"You should have seen the look on her face, Father. She never saw it coming."
"I can not imagine that she did," Spock responded, struggling to shield his amusement.
"She was asking for it," Christine said.
"Indeed. So the decision to behave so barbarically was based on logic, my wife?"
"I assure you, husband, the cause was sufficient."
…..
T'Kirk stared into the quiet Vulcan night. T'Kuht, Vulcan's sister planet, rose from the east, her crimson glow softly illuminating the desert landscape. In the front seat of the aircar, her parents talked softly, their tone warm and intimate. Her father reached over to her mother, resting his hand tenderly on hers, and T'Kirk felt a comforting swell of affection through the familial bond she shared with her parents. She'd grown up surrounded in their love. The very obvious love they had for one another, and the love they had for her and each of her brothers and sister. She was not certain when she first realized her family was quite different from the families of her friends. On Terra, and particularly in San Francisco where so many Fleeters made their homes, term marriages were common, and most of her friends had an endless series of step parents.
"Vulcans marry for life, little one." Her father had assured her gently.
For life. Would Stovan ever love her as her father loved her mother? And what of her? Would she be able to love and accept Stovan and his Vulcan nature completely? Would there be anything left for them after the burning?
"Just up ahead," she heard her father say as the thrusters on the aircar downshifted. He set the car down on a flat piece of land less than 100 meters from the ancient stone megaliths.
The air had cooled considerably but the sand under her feet was still quite warm. Her father was carefully fastening a back pack on her mother, snapping a communicator and a phaser onto the outside flap. She couldn't make out the words he spoke to her, but the tone in his deep voice was deathly serious. T'Kirk closed her eyes and reached out through the gentle desert breeze for Stovan's presence but felt nothing. A moment of despair swept through her. What if they were already too late; what if Stovan was lying dead in one of the dozens of caves on the hills above them?
No, she protested, he was here somewhere. Yes, yes… the certainty of his presence flooded her perceptions. Hot, she was suddenly so very hot, it was as if her skin was on fire.
"He is here."
"You feel him?" her father asked as he made a final check of her mother's pack.
"Yes."
"T'Kirk, there is no dishonor in changing your mind, my daughter."
"I am decided, father."
He nodded his agreement. "I will wait here. If Stovan were to sense the presence of another male it could provoke him to violence. Christine, if he is already in the Plak Tow and senses T'Kirk you understand what you must do." Her mother looked down to the phaser clipped to her pack and nodded gravely.
Spock watched as the two women disappeared up the sandy path, then set himself to the building of a small fire. Settling down before the dancing flame, he called upon the ancestors to grant his daughter strength for what was to come this night.
Nearly twenty years ago he too had walked such a path into the desert. As was the custom, he had fled to the desert to face the end and spare his family his madness. Closing his eyes he recalled how he had stared deeply into the flame in a futile effort to halt the burning madness that had been encroaching on his consciousness. He had not known it was possible to feel such pain and still live, and he had understood in that moment the end must be approaching soon.
"Christine?" His mind had reached for her through the starlit desert outside of the small cave where he'd secreted himself.
"Illogical," he chided himself. Christine was most likely on the overnight shuttle bound for Terra, it was difficult to be certain, his inborn sense of time appeared to be no longer functioning, the first casualty to this fever burning within him.
"She is safe." He sighed with a brief sense of relief. The rooftop, he had been meditating in the rooftop garden of his ancestral home in ShiKahr. The pain as the forces of the Plak Tow gathered themselves within him had been excruciating. He had cried out to the ancestors for succor, but if they had heard his plea they remained silent.
She had come out of the shadows, moving toward him, unexpectedly sweet, like a cool breeze in the desert heat.
"I'm unarmed," she'd said with a light melodic laugh and then had held her arms up over her head in mock surrender turning around slowly before him. "See, no soup." Then she had offered herself to him, as casually as if she'd offered to share a sandwich. He had wanted her, more than he'd wanted anything in his entire life. But he had summoned up the last vestige of honor within himself and sent her away. He had allowed himself the small pleasure that he had been strong enough to spare her this. But he did not delude himself into believing he could continue to defy the power of the ancient curse much longer. He had hastily gathered a few things together and fled to the desert to face the end in solitude.
Another wave of fiery pain gripped him, and he turned within himself to find some tattered thread of his Vulcan control. The tide subsided, but he knew the respite would be short lived, perhaps an hour or two at most. The next wave would pull him under, pull him down into the madness. He crawled to the blanket he'd spread across the stone floor, reverently touching the white burial robe he had so carefully laid out.
"It is my wedding night," he had whispered as his fingers explored the smooth, pristine white cloth bearing his clan symbol. "I have come at last to claim my bride."
He had struggled to his feet, then stripped off the roughly woven travel robe he was wearing. He'd felt a stirring within him, something fragrant and cool moved over his fevered body. A woman, no, not simply a woman, it was her. It was 'his' woman
