An Oath from Birth

Vahl'Sai arrived at the gym before Spock, roughly fifteen minutes before their decided meeting time. already dressed in her usual uniform for fight classes, the Sahvarian had nothing more that she could do than stretch while she waited for Spock to arrive. Settling herself down on mats gracefully and placing her the bottoms of her feet together in front of her, she leant her elbows on her knees and pushing them flat to the ground before bending forward to let her forehead touch the cool material of the mat she was sitting on. At the sound of light footfalls, she looked up.

Spock was wearing a uniform quite similar to hers, but while hers was meant for instructing and had the red and black that signified the security team, his was full black and more casual. In that moment, she realized that she had never seen him in anything other than his black Commander's uniform, not surprising since they had never met outside of the school.

"You arrived early," Spock commented, almost sounding surprised.

"I prefer early more than late," Vahl'Sai explained as she rose elegantly to her feet, cracking her back in the process after having been hunched over for a good couple of minutes. "Shall we have a warm-up spar?" she asked a moment later, her head tilting just slightly to the side. When Spock agreed with a light incline of his head, she smiled faintly. "Alright, the same rules apply as with our class demonstration."

Moving together to the center of the gym with a couple of yards distance between them, Vahl'Sai looked at the clock and called the minute. After ten minutes had passed, they would cease the warm up, having been given sufficient time for their bodies to adjust to the fighting.

Instead of having someone there to call go, they simply began. Much as before, Vahl'Sai made the initial attack, this time darting around Spock to get behind him while he was not as quick as her, landing a hit to his back between the shoulders. Instead of just tensing up at the hit to his spine like most would, he turned to meet her when she was moving away, clearly having learned from her attacks the previous time they fought. However, much the same as it had been, they also fought evenly matched, neither getting an upper hand before they were knocked back down by a counter or block. Spock was the one who noticed when their ten minute mark was up and called it, letting them both step back.

Spock watched her carefully as she took a breather, the both of them taking a brief break before their actual spar. She wasn't even breathing heavily and her posture showed no sign of strain or fatigue.

"Ready?" Vahl'Sai asked after a minute, looking over to where Spock was returning to his start position.

"Affirmative," the Vulcan affirmed as he fell into a stance that Vahl'Sai had not seen before. It was clearly from his culture, sturdy and calculated. Nodding her head, though it was more to herself than anything else, Vahl'Sai tensed her leg muscles and bent them at the knee, standing with them shoulder width apart. One of her arms moved behind her back, keeping it mostly relaxed, while her other was crossed in front of her, palm down and fingers spread in anticipation.

Looking over the way that she was standing, Spock noticed that there was a loose way in which she stood. The only thing that was actually tensed was her legs, and he already knew that she used her legs in her more serious attacks. Instead of the usual beginning, in which Vahl'Sai would charge Spock, she remained perfectly still in wait until he jolted from his spot. Spock anticipated when Vah'Sai dropped down to evade his hit and had the time to jump over the swing of her leg when she aimed to swipe his legs out from beneath him.

However, he did not account for her to completely twist her body beyond the capacity that any human could, tangling one of her legs in his and bringing him down harshly to the floor. Spock had to push himself into a roll to get out of the way when her free leg moved to slam her heel into his shoulder, hoping to dislocate it.

He barely dodged the attack and her heel slammed into the mats with enough force that he could hear the bones in her ankle shift briefly to act as a shock absorber.

Rolling away from one another, Vahl'Sai didn't take the time to let Spock regain his composure before she had thrown herself back into the fray, blocking a punch and grabbing onto his arm before she used the muscle in her legs to throw herself up and over him, bending Spock backward to the point that it was straining on his spine. The hold that she maintained on his arm prevented him from turning to take the pressure off of his spine, but it kept her hand occupied with trying to stop him from escaping.

Instead of being forced to stay in that position at a stand-still, Vahl'Sai was able to reach one of her long legs around to hook between his and trip him at the same time that she threw their weight to get Spock off of his feet, but dragged herself down in the process. One arm still bent behind his back, Spock was left face down on the mat while the Sahvarian above him was kneeling above him with a relatively calm look. Using his free hand, Spock was able to reach for the shoulder of her right arm, since it was holding his left behind his back, and gripped at the crook of her neck before she could block him.

Vahl'Sai let out a hiss as the pressure that he was putting on her nerve, but it was not as bad as he had been assuming since she was not the same as a human or a Vulcan. Her arm burned with pain and her muscles relaxed in her hand reflexively, letting Spock's arm go. Knowing better than to try and recapture his arm, she jabbed her knuckles into the wrist holding her shoulder and sent a shock of pain through his hand that forced him to release her and gave her the chance to roll away.

Aside from the discomfort in her arm, she wasn't in any other pain and shaking the limb helped to restore proper sensory movement. Spock rotated his wrist, seeing that a green bruise was already beginning to form, and watched as Vahl'Sai rose up just slightly onto the balls of her feet. That was his only warning before she charged at him with the speed he had never before seen a humanoid reach.

The lock that they had gotten themselves into made both of them more cautious of themselves and the other, preventing the fight from progressing much more past that initial point when Spock was nearly caught.

However, when Spock was able to land even just a faint punch against her sensitive shoulder Vahl'Sai soon found herself on her back on the mat, her arms blocking Spock from getting to her neck for a third time. In retaliation to him pinning her, she lifted her legs to wrap around his waist in a death grip that, if she had really wanted to squeeze hard enough, would have damaged his heart because of the location of the organ near his side. She could feel the pulse against her leg and felt extreme discomfort at being so close to Spock's most vital organ.

In a quick movement of arms, Vahl'Sai had pulled Spock's right arm down below her right shoulder, leaving his body flat over her chest, and trapping him away from her tender nerve. Spock was left with only one good arm, but because it was on the opposite side as her head, he didn't have much chance of hurting her unless he was able to reach either over his back or across his shoulders.

She, on the other hand, was squeezing his waist and hips hard enough that his bones were grinding together. Unlike the previous body lock, they were not going to escape this one nearly as easily. Spock tried to lift her from the ground at one point, slamming her back into the mat with the hope that his arm would be released and he could get out, but she kept her back arched and her shoulder blade pinning his forearm down.

All he had really succeeded in doing when he lifted her from the ground was to drag her body a foot until he was on his knees with her sitting in his lap, her legs still locking him in place.

Usually being the one on top gave a person the upper hand, but Vahl'Sai was making sure that Spock's advantages were all removed and turning the position against him. He was stuck firmly in place, with no way of getting out. When Vahl'Sai legs moved up higher to his ribs, Spock knew that he had lost the duel when her knee was firmly located over his heart. If she were to squeeze her legs with the true strength that she possessed, she would crush his ribs and his heart, effectively killing him.

"I admit defeat, Commander," Spock said as he glanced over his shoulder, only able to see the side of her head of white hair. Simultaneously, her legs released his waist and his arm was relieved of the pressure she had been pressing down onto it, letting him lift his already stiff arm. Removing his body from above her person, Spock found her green eyes to remain watching him carefully.

She remained silent, still lying on her back, for only a moment more before she rose fluidly onto her feet. "I apologize if I used excessive force," she finally said as she straightened her uniform, suddenly appeared distracted.

"Is something troubling you, Commander?" Spock asked as he watched her tense body refuse to relax after the match had already been called.

Vahl'Sai was trying to relax her body, she truly was, but it was something new for her to have a match end so abruptly. While fighting him before, she hadn't needed to let herself think as a Sahvarian would and therefore didn't let herself lose to her instincts. This time, however, fighting in the style of her people had set her mind back to her opponents on her world. Even when training, a fight was not finished without bloodshed or injury. For Spock to have admitted defeat to her without her actually having to injure him was something she was not accustomed to nor prepared for.

"My people do not give up so easily; it caught me off guard," she finally admitted, turning to face the Vulcan once more as her muscles slowly began to uncoil from the fight.

"Would you care to elaborate?"

Lifting a hand to message the pinched nerve on her shoulder, Vahl'Sai continued, "Even if only training, it usually takes a crippling injury for someone to call a loss. If I had been fighting with another Sahvarian right now, I would have had to crack his ribs to get him to concede defeat."

"Had you done so, you would also have severally, if not fatally, damaged my heart. It was only logical that I admit defeat before either of us was wounded," Spock explained calmly, not seeming to mind that she had said she would have nearly killed someone at any other time.

"It may be the logical thing to do, yes," she agreed with a nod of her head, her green eyes falling closed. "But my people truly are as savage as we are accused. Before coming to Starfleet, I never left a lesson on fighting without the marks to show it."

"Your black tattoos?" Spock spoke before he fully contemplated how she may react to his words. Her eyes reopened in surprise at his words, clearly not having been expecting him to bring them up. He could see when it clicked in her mind, when he could have seen them, before her narrowed eyes of surprise softened down and she reached for her sleeve to roll it up, revealing the black designs.

They were no longer blue, all traces having faded away at last, and were once more an inky black. "They are not tattoos," she began, tracing her thumb over the one closest to the ball of her palm. "We are born with them, these marks. They start out more of a silvery white when we are young, before they gradually darken to black. When all of the markings on the body reach the same black hue, a Sahvarian is considered fully matured."

"Are you?" Spock asked with a slight tilt of his head, speaking with curiosity even as he continued to inspect the swirling dark marks.

"Not yet," she answered calmly, not seeming to care about how personal the question may have been for most people. "Very soon, however, the last of the grey marks I have will change. Given how you saw my markings, you probably saw near the grey ones—above my ribs."

Spock had seen the ones on her ribs, and he understood what she was saying as he realized that it meant her grey markings would be located on or around her breasts. "Do all Sahvarians have the same markings?" he asked, turning the topic away from her body and back to the actual significance for her people.

"Basics, but not identical. Each family has its own unique qualities, and when two families merge another new marking is created. I come from a very…specific bloodline, and because of that I have more markings than most. The markings on my torso signify my mother's bloodline. The Royal Bloodline."

"You are an heiress?" Spock asked with shock evident in his voice, no matter how much he tried to hide it.

Smiling humourlessly, Vahl'Sai rolled her sleeve back down to hide her markings again. "I suppose you could phrase it that way. My mother and father are both deceased, and the only family I have left if my uncle. He is the Leader of the council on my planet, basically the king. He has no heir or other blood relations to pass his place down to, so if anything were to happen to him I would have to take his place."

"You have no say in the matter?"

"No," she denied, motioning him to follow as she approached where her bag was located with something to drink inside. "It's tradition. Not one I look forward to following, but there is no one else that is allowed to ascend to power aside from me."

"You do not sound enthused with the prospect of taking the place of Leader," Spock pointed out as he watched her extract a bottle of water from the bag she had brought with her. He had forgone bringing anything with him, and only watched as she took a simple drink from the bottle.

"The position is hardly a blessing; it's a job that comes with shackles. I would not be permitted to have my own life, but only the life that the council believes I should have. I have seen my Uncle's life as the Leader, and though he should rule over the council and the people, they rule him, instead."

After the two had left the gym, they walked together as Spock continued to ask about her culture, to which she would answer before posing a carefully thought question of his culture in return. She didn't want to accidentally offend him since she knew that Vulcan's were very private. It was hard to try and select what she wanted to say to him and to ask him; he had just lost his planet and she had been made aware that his mother was gone as well. Having never known her own mother, but still losing her in all technicalities, Vahl'Sai knew that it would remain deeply painful for him.

"How is you shoulder?" Spock asked when the exited the building, stepping out into the cool evening air. They had been in the gym for only a short while so it was only reaching toward eight at night.

Rolling the joint in question, there was still that tingling sensation that ebbed through the muscle when she moved it. "Tender, but it will be healed very soon," she answered easily. "Did I wound your hand?" she asked in returned, remembering that she had to jab him pretty hard to get him to release her.

"It was an accurate hit," Spock answered while he lifted his hand. "But it will heal."

Reaching for his hand instinctively, Spock froze in place when her rough fingers took hold of his wrist and gently prodded the area. Even though her skin was rough from the years she had spent physically training and fighting, she was gentle in her actions. It was the touch of a mother, he realized. The instincts of her kind were not to kill, or be savages as she had said earlier; they were to protect. Pike had told him when explaining why she would be a good strategist that when being tested for Starfleet, she came up in the ninety-ninth percentile for protective instincts, and only the forty-eighth in violent tendencies.

She knew how to fight and protect herself, yes, but Spock couldn't see her hurting someone unless it was necessary. She had been so careful not to hurt him, and to hurt others, even when teaching them in a fight class. It wasn't that she was afraid of getting in trouble, but she just hated the idea of letting her strength rule over her.

When her thumb skimmed the bottom of his palm Spock couldn't repress a flinch, mostly of surprise, and retracted his hand. Her grip had immediately gone slack and released him.

"I apologize; did I hurt you?"

Spock clasped his hands behind his back in a way of both keeping them out of her reach, and stopping himself from reaching back for her hand. "Negative, a Vulcan's hands are sensitive, that is all."

"I did not mean to overstep my bounds," Vahl'Sai said with a bow of her head. She had been trying so hard not to verbally offend him, and ended up physically upsetting him instead.

"Pay it no mind," the Vulcan assured as he glanced over to her brilliant eyes, her expression hesitant. "Come, we should eat before the hour grows too late," he added on and motioned to their right, across where she was standing on his right side, to the path that they were coming up to that led to the cafeteria.

"Of course." Changing their direction, they resumed their previous conversation—Spock had been asking about religious beliefs of her people and Vahl'Sai was trying hard to explain it. There was the struggle of words, as many she was using had not been translated into English, but Spock's mind was quick to understand her meanings as she struggled over her examples.

Not many cadets were left at the school, but those that were watched the two with curious eyes, knowing the reputation of each Commander.

Of their differences.

Been a bit longer than I intended, sorry, but I could never get the fight scene to my liking. It still don't really like it, but it'll have to do because even I'm losing my patience with getting this chapter out! Again, sorry for the delay, hope to hear your feedback!