Bare These Bones
The Brand I Bear
Night had fallen over the campus, the students hidden away in their own dorms, other dorms or sneaking through the halls with hopes of not getting caught. The night was cool, the air crisp and refreshing. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and the moon was half-full as it hung above the world. Vahl'Sai could see it through the window of the gymnasium, between the silhouettes of her feet. Resting on her forearms, she had lifted her body into a form of headstand before lowering her feet down to arch her back, cracking the joints in the process. Wearing no shoes, she was able to flex her feet into an arch to make a mock circle with how close her feet were to her head.
Sighing in relief, her back popped pleasantly in several places as her spine was stretched and curved. She could feel her uniform shirt slide down along her stomach from the position, her undershirt gliding down with it. The cool air inside the gym brushed against her taut stomach and she resisted the urge to shiver. Taking a deep breath, she pushed up with her arm muscles, thrusting her legs back up into the air and raising her body onto her hands all in one move, her momentum aiding in the lift.
Her arms burned at the excessive need to hold up her body weight, but it was such a good burn. After holding herself back when fighting humans for so long, it was amazing to use training techniques from her home planet to get back into her own rhythm. Fighting with Spock had been a great relief on her pent up energy, but she still didn't use as much as she would when fighting on her own planet. Even just living on her own planet.
Pushing up again, her body lifted up onto her fingertips this time, the ten digits holding strong as her weight bore down on them. Her shirt hiked lower until it was resting below her breasts, baring the marks that matched the ones on her arms and snaking around to her back as well. Her shoulders began to tremble and she decided that she had let the blood rush to her face enough, allowing her body to fall backward so that she was arching as her feet touched the ground before her torso lifted up to stand her straight once more, her shirt falling back into place.
"That was impressive," an indifferent voice said from the doorway, drawing Vahl'Sai's attention over her shoulder to where Spock was standing, his hands behind his back as he stood uniformly. "Are Sahvarians all so limber?"
"It is a learned trait," she answered, rolling her shoulders to hear the satisfied crack that came from each joint at the rotation. "I am surprised to see you here, Commander Spock. May I help you with something?"
"It is about Cadet Kirk," Spock said as he entered the room, as though the conversation had somehow been an invitation to him. "Although I do not doubt your abilities as an instructor, Cadet Kirk seemed to have used techniques that I did not see any other cadet using during evaluations." Vahl'Sai blinked slowly before sighing, her anger sparking in her chest but her mind refusing to act upon it.
"Cadet Kirk requested a couple of weeks ago that I teach him after school, giving him extra classes," she admitted, turning to face the other Commander fully. "He is a very persistent man and I'll admit that I half agreed to get him to finally stop talking." Spock quirked an eyebrow and Vahl'Sai moved to stand before him so that it didn't seem like they were speaking across a room to one another. It wasn't difficult to hear—they both had extraordinary hearing, so it wasn't any kind of feat. No, it was merely polite.
"And the other half?"
"He told me that he wanted the extra lessons because he had made a bet to a friend that he could beat him in a fight. A friend that is a Vulcan." Her anger bled through into her tone and Spock knew that she had not known of his participation in the evaluations. "I assure that Cadet Kirk will be making up for his transgressions very soon." The fanged smile that she gave Spock would have been unsettling to an average human being, but Spock found the canines curious.
"May I inquire on one more subject?" Spock asked suddenly, watching as her smile turned into a calm, simple rise at the corners of her mouth. At her nod, he continued, "You were withholding full caliber today during our spar. Why?"
"I do not know how much strength to use when fighting against a Vulcan. You are much better of an opponent than any of the humans that I have fought in spars, but I still have to monitor my strength. If not, I could accidentally cause serious damage." She went quiet for a moment, looking into Spock's dark eyes. "When I first came to this academy, I had never been around people that were weaker than me. The only time I had ever concerned myself about being cautious with my strength was when dealing with children or animals. Within the first month here I accidentally hurt someone when assisting them up after they fell. I almost broke their hand because I had gripped it too hard; what was too hard for them was gentle for me."
Emotions swirled in Spock's eyes as he regarded the almost broken look that came to Vahl'Sai's face as she thought back to the past. "I never want to have to worry about doing that ever again," she continued, "So I make sure that I'm at human strength when fighting."
"Were you a warrior on you home planet?" Spock asked; the curiosity that swelled within him was too much to keep quiet. There wasn't much on Sahvarians in the system and he wanted to know as much as he could concerning her race. They were so different than anything else that he had ever heard of; it was hard not to give into the hunger for knowledge.
Vahl'Sai laughed, however, and shook her head. "I suppose, in a sense. I was not permitted to be in the battles of my planet, but I trained and fought with the warriors none the less. I did not enjoy the home life of many women on my planet, and without a mate I had no reason to stay at home. However, compared to this planet even just living can turn you into a warrior. It's not safe in my world, you see; even going out on a walk into the woods could kill you."
"I see why the Federation is reluctant to let many Starfleet members travel there," Spock said thoughtfully.
"Yes. I hear they are trying to set up safeguards, but it is difficult. And my planet is quite large, compared to Earth." Vahl'Sai stopped herself when she was about to mention that Vulcan was also much larger than Earth, before she remembered that it no longer remained. She did not wish to throw salt into the wounds, and so she wisely kept her lips shut against the words on the tip of her tongue.
Spock must have caught onto the longing buried in her tone, because he inclined his head toward her in an almost sympathetic gesture. "Will more Sahvarians be joining Starfleet?"
"I do not know," she sighed softly. "They do not inform me of what is happening as much as I would hope."
"If I may make a request?" Spock as suddenly, as though he needed to speak before he changed his mind. Cocking her head to the side, Vahl'Sai regarded the tall, dark haired man. She was always intrigued when she saw someone like herself; different from everyone else. She wondered how Spock could do it, although his heritage answered for itself.
"Of course," she answered cautiously.
"A rematch," he almost demanded. "On our own time, and we may fight how we grew up knowing."
Vahl'Sai schooled her face to stop from offending Spock, because if she hadn't than she would surely have laughed. On her planet, things such as biting and scratching her common practice; with fangs and claws her kind used them as weapons in a fight. If she had the chance to go for someone's jugular, she would take that chance.
"I think that the…savage nature of my kind could be left out for the most part. I will fight the more refined way, however," she finally agreed, bowing slightly. She knew that Vulcan's didn't shake hands, or were very reluctant to, and so she respected his wishes and kept her distance. Spock nodded, accepting the answer and turned to depart. He couldn't help but to pause in the doorway and look back toward her, remembering when he had first stepped into the dimmed gym.
Across the exposed ribs of the white haired Commander were swirling dark lines, resembling a human tattoo, and yet Spock knew somehow that they were not tattoos at all. They had appeared to almost shimmer when shadowed and he found himself awed to watch as she flexed her stomach and curved her back, focusing on the moon outside of the window. He had felt the strange, disturbing urge to trace his fingers along their patterns, and he wished to see if they continued along her back as well, as the lines twisted about on the flesh of her side before disappearing.
Vahl'Sai remained standing still as she looked toward the door that he had stepped out of, wondering about the man that was Spock. He was different from the humans and it made her feel a connection to him that she hadn't felt with others. He was an oddity here, just as she was. And now, his race was endangered. Sympathy swelled in her chest as she thought of what she would feel if her planet had been destroyed before her own eyes, but pushed it down. She doubted that Spock was one for sympathy or pity.
Glancing over her shoulder to the window lit by moonlight, she sighed softly before flipping backward into another handstand, beginning to lower and lift herself in a form of push-up. Her arms burned pleasantly from the action, and she continued to count the presses in her head.
It was near midnight when she returned to her quarters, shucking off her clothes to get ready for a shower. She preferred when she could bathe, since it reminded her more of home, but they took too long and she didn't feel like waiting for the bath to fill.
It was as she was standing beneath the torrent of water the fell from the showerhead that she allowed herself to fully relax, taking a slouched and lazy posture that she fought not to do when she was around other people on Earth, especially Commander Spock. There was something about the Vulcan and the perfection of his posture that could make even the most at ease people feel intimidated and the need to impress by straightening themselves properly.
Running her sharp nails through her hair slowly, she allowed herself to relax under the feel of the water and took the time to actually let her brain forget about Cadets and Commanders, friends and enemies and just relax. Her headaches had become more common and she had a strong feeling that it had to do with the pollution on Earth, which was not present on Sahvanah.
The next day, with no classes over the weekend, Vahl'Sai took the time to dive into the write-ups of her final evaluations, taking time in the morning to exercise in the gym before she made her way out to the stone boarder that blocked the campus yard off from the shore that the long bridge resided over. She didn't remember the name of the bridge, but she knew that it was quite old in Earth's history. The openness allowed her to feel somewhat more comfortable than her boxed in office did.
Resting her PADD on her left forearm with her fingers gently keeping it in place from the top, she tapped away with her right hand quickly, going through any notes that she had made the night of the evaluations while they were still fresh in her mind. The cool wind that blew off of the water tickled the back of her neck, a sharp contrast to the heat of the sun on her exposed, tanned skin and her black uniform.
A familiar set of footsteps echoed against her eardrums that were beginning to try Vahl'Sai's patience for the day.
"Do you ever wear anything but that black uniform?"
"Perhaps not a question a Cadet should ask his Commander," she replied in a strict tone. "Is there a reason you have sought me out today, Cadet Kirk?"
Kirk was silent for a moment and Vahl'Sai could hear the slight increase in his heart rate and almost wanted to growl in annoyance. "Did I do something wrong, Commander?"
Looking up from her PADD, the older woman met with eyes with an icy emerald stare, the pupils nearly non-existent in their contracted state. "Commander Spock brought some information to my attention last night. I also came to realize that he is the only present Vulcan at this academy." Sliding from the stone wall to rise to her opposing height of six feet, Kirk took a nervous, though discrete, step backward. "I am going to ask you a question and you will answer it with honesty. I will know if you are lying this time."
"Yes, Commander."
"Were you requesting my aid in fighting against Commander Spock?"
"Yes."
Putting the screen on her PADD to sleep, she turned to look Kirk directly in the eye and came to notice that she had grown again, for he was just slightly shorter than her now. "Be relieved, Cadet, for the fact that at the time in which you sought my help Commander Spock was not known to be doing the evaluations."
She had never heard a human's heart change pace so many times in one conversation.
"I wasn't trying to do anything," Kirk rushed to say as he caught up with her on her way back toward the teacher's building. "I honestly didn't know that Spock was going to be helping with the evaluations; I did, however, know that he can very easily kick my ass and I didn't want that to happen again. 'Cause, I mean, come on, I get on peoples nerves."
Vahl'Sai made a sound that was a mix between a hum of agreement and a growl in the back of her throat, taking Kirk slightly by surprise. The more time he spent with the woman while she wasn't teaching class, the more behaviours he noticed that were distinctly non-human. "It is to my knowledge that you knowingly provoked him into fighting with you at that time."
Kirk made a laughing scoff sound as he looked away almost abashedly. "Yea well, wasn't one of my happiest moments."
"But you did save Earth. Forgive me, Cadet Kirk, but I have evaluations to send in."
Update, yay! I didn't realize how long it had been since I updated this until I put all my stories in order of recently updated and down, and WOW, did I realize I was being a prick and not updating a lot of my stories. Please, don't hate me!