Content warning for allusions to CSA. There are also mentions of disordered eating. Always feel free to message me if you need more details.
9.
Rites of Passage
Nyota is fourteen when she leaves home for university.
Coach Bryant texts her the day she receives her acceptance letter from Oxford. Congrats, he says. She doesn't know how he found out she got in.
Thanks, she texts back.
#
She's exhausted all the local class offerings: advanced calculus applications, linear algebra, abstract algebra, partial differential equations, geometry and topology; quantum physics, field theory, subspace mechanics, warp mechanics; economics, literature, psychology, biology, French, German, Russian, Mandarin, Cantonese, Persian, Hebrew, Arabic, several Afrosiatic languages, including an even spread between Berber, Semitic, Chadic, and Cushitic tongues.
She wants to know everything about everything and then some. Mama calls her Sifongo, sponge. It just kills her—absolutely kills her—that there's some knowledge floating about out there in the ether and she hasn't learned it yet.
#
Can you make it to our spot Friday after school?; I want to celebrate you properly, Coach Bryant texts.
IDK, she writes back.
I got you something.
What?
Something special for a special girl.
I don't want anything.
Fine. Forget it.
Are you mad at me? she asks, her thumbs moving frantically against the touch screen of her PADD.
He doesn't text back.
Coach? she asks.
What? he texts.
I'll come, ok?
Can you spend the night?
Ok. I'll tell my mom I'm at Mary-Elizabeth's.
#
Nyota still doesn't menstruate. Mama blames cross country, says Bryant trains her too, too hard. Demands too much. "It is not healthy to run as much as you do when there is nothing chasing you," she warns. "What are you fleeing from?"
The school counsellor is worried about Nyota's eating, or rather, Nyota's lack of eating. She says malnourishment might be why Nyota hasn't gotten her cycle yet.
#
"Mama?" Nyota asks.
"What is it?" says Mama, only half paying attention as she browns goat meat in the iron skillet in preparation for supper.
"Is it okay if I don't go?" Nyota asks, her elbows resting on the surface of the kitchen table, surrounded by books and PADDs and research she's printed out to compare offers from various schools.
"Is it okay if you don't go where? To Mass tomorrow? That's fine. I know you have that test on Monday to study for, though of course you'll do fine. You always do."
Nyota adds another pro to her Oxford pros and cons list in pencil. They've agreed to cover her tuition, housing, and travel expenses, as well as to award her a 40,000-credit per year living stipend. "I mean to university," says Nyota. "Is it okay if I don't go to university this year? Will you be disappointed in me?"
Mama sprinkles salt over the meat that's frying, sets her wooden spoon down across the pan's rim, then looks at her daughter. "You could turn up home with a dead body in the backseat of the flitter, child, and I would not be disappointed in you. Your existence alone makes me proud, and anything good or bad you do doesn't really change that," she says, throwing some flat bread dough into the oven. "That said—why on God's green Earth would you not want to go?"
Nyota sets her pencil down and prepares to make her case. "I'll be too young to compete at a college level for track. No way to train. How can I go to the Olympics without a team to train on?"
"Since when do you care about the Olympics?"
"I love to run."
"Loving to run has got nothing to do with the Olympics. I have never heard you mention the Olympics. Ever."
"Coach Bryant said if I waited on university and trained with him for the next two years, I could maybe go some day. He said it was a waste of potential if I didn't at least try for it. He said he's never seen anyone as fast as me. He said I had a gift. He said I reminded him of a duma." Nyota picks up her pencil again and starts to tap it—she needs something to do with her fingers.
Mama turns away and faces the stove, adds chopped carrots and onions to the meat. "Coach Bryant said that?"
"Yeah."
"What else has he said?"
Nyota draws squiggles with her pencil, then a smiley face, then a flip-book using the bottom corners of her notebook of a girl running, running, as fast as she can. "I don't know. A lot of stuff."
"Like what?"
"Like normal coach stuff, I don't know. I'm going to my room to think about all this."
#
She decides to attend the Institute for Advanced Mathematics, a satellite college of Harvard University located in Ethiopia. She's not comfortable with specialising yet, so English schools are out. Ethiopia is far enough away from home that she'll get the real university experience, but close enough that there are hourly shuttle rides.
When she tells Coach Bryant, he says, Okay, and that's the last she hears from him in a long while.
That night, she looks at herself in the mirror. Her chest is small. She is small. Sometimes she wants to stay this way forever, like he wants her to; sometimes she wants to be Giant, Colossus, Leviathan, Behemoth. She wants to be lovable, or unlovable.
#
She and Mama fly the family flitter all 2000 kilometres from Mombasa to Addis Ababa, pausing in Tsavo East National Park, visiting El Sod and the singing wells, watching herders play the flute for their mountain goats, staying in inns and with family. They teach her how to cook and how to pray and how to catch fish with her bare hands.
It is a 29-hour drive turned into a month-long expedition. Mama says, "I never put much stock into all the pomp and ceremony people put into rites of passage, but now that you are leaving me so soon, I realise there is much I haven't taught you. You don't even know how to cook mandazi. How to hold your hand over the hot palm oil to tell when it's hot enough to add the sweet dough for frying. Your woman-time still hasn't come though you are far past the age. Don't be using any random old cloths when it arrives. Go to the market and get yourself proper sanitary items, all right?"
"Yes, Mama," says Nyota
#
She graduates in three years with a joint major in mathematics and psycholinguistics, goes to Addis Ababa University for her PhD, transfers to Starfleet because Commander Spock—fricking Lieutenant-Commander Spock with his stupid fringe and stupid superior attitude and stupid over-articulation—convinces her how much more she can do at the Academy then at a typical university. It would be illogical to attend anywhere else, he'd said.
She's still wary of him even after all the work he did to return the Skeleton Scrolls to the land where they belong, but he's all right.
#
Mama sends her shoe boxes filled with soap, socks, sweets—the trifecta of s's; handwritten notes in cursive warning Nyota 'don't let Starfleet change you and please stay away from those fast-ass American boys with no kind of sense and no home training; TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF; don't be doing everything for everybody like you always do; you got to remember your own needs; and for once in your life get a B.'
Definitely not in danger of any American boys winning Nyota over. Nyota hasn't had sex in seven years.
#
COURSE: SCI486A – Student Led Research Projects in the Applied and Natural Sciences
INSTRUCTOR: Commander Spock
TEACHING ASSISTANT(S): Cadet Li Xiaodan, Junior Lieutenant Ha'Tal
ASSIGNMENT #: 1
STUDENT: Nyota Uhura
PERCENTAGE GRADE: 83.1%
LETTER GRADE: B-
INSTRUCTOR NOTES: A very intriguing and intellectually exciting hypothesis, Cadet; however, without sufficient data to support the claims, your essay does not satisfy the standards expressed in the rubric. A more rigorous analytical approach is necessary should you wish to explore this line of inquiry further. Please contact me at your earliest convenience to arrange a time to meet and discuss your deficiency in statistical methodology, as I may be able to provide some assistance to you in this regard.
#
Nyota's comm vibrates. New text message from Carol.
- Did you see that Commander Spock put up our grades this morning?
Uhura's thumb hovers over the holographic keyboard, then she types:
- Yeah. I saw. How'd you do?
A few seconds later, her phone buzzes again.
- Better than expected given his reputation. 89. His only comment was, "Sufficient." You? A+ as usual?
- No. Low B. : / I wouldn't usually care. The comments were rough, though. Doesn't help that I've had a shit, shit, shit week.
- Sorry to hear that, lady. Want to get coffee tomorrow and talk? This about that thing you were telling me about?
- Yeah. I guess. I don't know.
- Endless hugs. Whatever you need, I'm here.
- K. I'll text you later. Love you, Carol.
Uhura sets her comm onto the mattress and pulls her knees into her chest.
"Ny? You okay?" asks Gaila from in front their vanity. She's using Uhura's flat iron to press her curls out for the open house tonight. "You smell sad—and angry."
Uhura remembers that it's not just pheromones Orions detect, but neurotransmitters, dopamine. It's her ability to sense mood, more than anything else, that makes Gaila such a powerful seductress. And competent friend.
"I'm fine. It's nothing." Uhura slides off the bed and retrieves her shoes from beneath the bunk. "I'm going for a run." She wiggles out of her skirt, digs around in a pile of not-that-dirty clothes until she finds her grey leggings, pulls them on. "Do you know where my one t-shirt is?"
"Ummm, which one?" asks Gaila.
Nyota presses her hands against her hips and taps her foot. "Don't give me that. You know which one."
"You mean the really, really cute one with the programming pun that you said I couldn't borrow but maybe I borrowed anyway and spilled bleach on, so I ordered a new one and it should come tomorrow and please don't hate me?"
"Unbelievable," says Nyota, but it's not really. They're both pretty bad at boundaries. It was just last week that she'd stolen—borrowed—Gaila's PADD because her own self-destructed when she was rewiring the hardware.
"Here, early birthday present," says Gaila, setting the flat iron down to go grab something from under her bed.
"What's this?" asks Nyota. "Because if it's another vibra—"
"Just open it."
Nyota's not in the mood, not even a little bit, but she takes a seat at the edge of the bed and unwraps her gift. Beneath a layer of tissue paper is a black shirt, white text on the front: Boldly Go Down On Me, it says, a play on Starfleet's motto. "Seriously, Gaila?"
"You know you like it," she says, and sometimes her smile is irresistible. "Why don't you wear it now? Nothing like a snarky t-shirt to give new life to a jog."
It's true, so very true, so Nyota slides in on over her lycra sports bra.
"Let me tag along?" asks Gaila, already undressing.
"You'll sweat out your hair," Uhura says.
Gaila shrugs, heads over to the chest of drawers and pulls on a t-shirt over her black bra. "Then I'll straighten it again. No big deal. This was just a practise round, anyway. To see if I liked it. And I do. I look hot, right?"
"Always," says Uhura, smiling. She pulls her laces tight, finds her heart rate monitor and sticks it onto her bicep. The sensors transmit data to a log on her PADD, so she can keep track of her progress. She's gotten to the point where a twenty-minute 5K barely spikes her heart rate above 129 beats per minute.
"You are like a machine," says Gaila, rolling her eyes as she walks over to Nyota to remove the monitor. "Whenever you use that thing you go overboard with it. I don't want you to injure yourself, okay? Just an early evening jog. That's what this is. Okay?"
Nyota's too inside herself to argue, so she lets it go. "Okay. Whatever. Come on. Hurry up."
#
They run fast, 10K in about 35 minutes, and it feels like a sprint. At any moment, Nyota will lift off.
She only stops because it finally gets dark, and the chill in the air has her throat and chest burning. "Ny? here, have some of this," says Gaila, handing her a bottle of water. "Take a breath. Okay?" So Uhura inhales, exhales. Sweat runs into her eyes, and it burns. She deserves it, that nip of pain. "Talk to me. Please? And for goodness sake, drink." Gaila nudges the bottle of water toward Uhura's lips.
"I'm okay. Promise," says Uhura, and smiles. "We should get back to the dorm. We need to shower, dress, and if you wouldn't mind going over my speech with me one last time before—"
"You have that thing practically memorised. You're going to do great at the Open House. I'm not enabling your obsessive-compulsive tendencies," says Gaila.
"I know. It just, it needs to be perfect."
#
Captain Pike calls her the Academy's wunderkin in front of some Admiral and a host of ambassadors, but of course, it's a lie. She's—deficient and doesn't satisfy standards.
"Excuse me while I go grab a refreshment. I am so honoured to have met all of you," she says, nodding her head before extricating herself from the group of mostly men. The buffet table is packed, but she manages to snag a glass of sparkling white wine from a waiter's tray.
She's about to take a sip when she sees him, Kirk, his blue eyes doing that ridiculous thing blue eyes do. It's like, they don't quite sparkle, just kind of annoyingly insist on their presence at every possible juncture. "Hey, Ashley," he says.
Uhura can't help the way her face breaks into a smile. "Ashley Uhura. You finally got it," she says.
"I knew it," says Kirk. "I've been getting Ashley vibes from you all semester."
"Oh, and how strong are those Ashley vibes in comparison to the Ermengarde vibes you described last week?" Uhura asks.
"Pretty strong," he says, and somewhere along the line, his grin transformed from cocksure to playful.
She's surprised Kirk's even here. The Open House is one of Starfleet's larger recruitment events, but it's by no means necessary. Uhura is only here because she'd been asked to present some of her research. It's a Friday night. If she had free rein to go clubbing, she would.
"You know something, Ashley Ermengarde Uhura? Beautiful name by the way."
"What?" says Nyota. When a waiter comes by to take her drink, she has to resist the urge to grab another.
"You look really good tonight. I mean that," he says. His eyes might actually be smouldering.
"Doesn't she?" says Gaila, appearing from out of nowhere, which she always seems to do when Kirk is about. "I taught her how to do winged eyeliner, you know. But at this point, I think it's fair to say the student has surpassed the teacher."
Nyota is mid-laugh when she sees him across the ball room, Commander Spock, in his dress greys. He is speaking with a human woman, perhaps in her forties? Fifties? It's hard to tell her age precisely given this distance, but she has her arm draped around Spock's waist. A girlfriend? Friend? It is difficult for Nyota to imagine him as anything other than her always-punctual, perfectly prepared stiff professor.
"Ashley? Another drink?" Kirk asks. He's standing right next to her now, and she can smell his aftershave. She knows him well enough that she doesn't resent his nearness, and she smiles up at him.
"Another drink is probably a bad idea," she says. "Or a really good one? I don't know. I don't want to do this."
Gaila grabs her shoulders and gives them an affectionate squeeze. "Sweetie, you are being ridiculous. You are phenomenal and talented and sexy and a great public speaker. Where is all this uncertainty coming from? Before now I didn't think you had a nervous bone in your body, but I can practically smell the butterflies in your stomach right now."
"Could you please stop smelling my feelings?" Nyota says. It's supposed to be a joke, but she snaps it, and sees the hurt flash across Gaila's face. "Look, I'm sorry. It's just. I'm fine, okay?"
Kirk gives her a peck on the cheek, his arm wrapping around her shoulder and pulling her tightly into his side. "You sure you're good?" he asks. "Anything I can do?"
"One thing," she says.
"Anything."
"Plug your ears when they announce my name?"
He laughs and tells her to go get ready. As she's leaving, she can hear him stage whispering to Gaila: "I can't believe she lied about her name being Ashley Ermengard."
#
Her research project is a linguistic family tree of the quadrant, with the intention of using said map to prove the existence of a theoretical proto-Humanoid language.
"Reconstructing this ancient and bygone language on a syntactical, phonemical, and morphemical level is no more possible than recreating the exact conditions that led to the Big Bang, but by tracing the grammatical and sonic relationships between diverse languages, we set ourselves on the path to a true origin of the humanoid species," she says, pausing, conciously slowing down so that she can let them digest.
"I am talking about God or gods, of course," says Nyota. "Or if you want to play semantics—a physical entity so superior to any known being that it (or they) managed to plant the seed for billions of years of evolution on a number of planets, our similarities ultimately greater than our differences."
Nyota watches the audience, gaze flicking to Gaila and Kirk near the front, the both of them smiling and nodding—then over to Spock, who is, as usual utterly blank-faced. The woman next to him stares warmly at Nyota, face open, sweet, calm, serene.
"All languages—the thousands and thousands upon Terra, and the thousands and thousands elsewhere—are all constructed of nouns and verbs, subjects and objects, grammatical realities that we accept as necessary because they're so weaved into our psycholinguistic makeup. There are things. And then then there are what those things do, or what's done to them. Revealing a humanoid psychological fascination with power: who has it, who does not, wherein notions of power are constructed around who can do what."
She is quite sure she's losing everybody, but she goes on, anyway, trying so hard, and mostly succeeding, to avoid Commander Spock's unblinking gaze.
"My research is in its infancy, I will admit. There is little empirical data to support my hypothesis. But I believe it is only a matter of time before we, Starfleet, the Federation, and the entire galaxy, recognise a common ancestry, and in doing that, we will be that much closer to peace. Thank you."
She nodded her head and left the stage without flourish as the audience stood and clapped. Her face reddened and warmed as she saw Kirk and Gaila, both of them with their arms outstretched. "I understood approximately 12% of that, but of that 12%, 100% of it was awesome," says Kirk.
Nyota slaps him on the back and rolls her eyes, because she hates it when he does his whole playing dumb thing.
People come up to discuss the content of her speech, but Gaila manages to distract every single one with a pheromone bomb, and the three of them escape to their assigned round table unnoticed.
"Cadet."
It sounds like a reprimand, even though she knows it's probably not supposed to be. Nyota looks around to see Commander Spock with the same woman he's been with all night.
"Allow me to introduce you to my mother," he says. "I invited her here tonight because I predicted she would appreciate hearing about your research. Cadet Uhura, meet Amanda Grayson," he says. Nyota is beyond surprised but she tries not to let is show on her face.
"Lovely to meet you," says Ms. Grayson, reaching out her hand. Nyota takes it. "It was such a pleasure to hear you speak. Spock's spoken a great deal about your ideas, but hearing them straight from the horse's mouth is something else entirely. My own field of study is more on the side of learning, education, and cognitive neuroscience, but as you can imagine there's some overlap."
"Of course," says Nyota.
"Spock is very impressed with your work. He won't stop talking about—Cadet Uhura this, Cadet Uhura that."
"Mother," Spock says, then he looks at Nyota. "I assure you, Cadet, that that is not the case."
She has no doubt believing him. They've grown on each other in the last year since her transfer to Starfleet, but she's still not sure he respects her. Is doubly unsure after those comments on her paper.
"He's crazy about your work," says Ms. Grayson.
"I must admit I'm surprised to hear that," says Nyota.
"Don't let his curmudgeonly exterior fool you. I haven't heard him this worked up since a few years ago when he first got his hands on the Skeleton Scrolls."
Ah, yes, the Skeleton Scrolls, the reason Spock and Nyota ever met at all. She takes a moment to think about what her life might be like if he'd never come to Addis Ababa University to give a presentation about his 'Rosetta Stone" decoding program, if a friend hadn't bet Nyota to 'stop complaining to all of us and tell him how imperialist Starfleet's being.'
"Though my mother exaggerates, as she is prone to do, I must concede to the larger sentiment of her praise," says Spock. "I am curious if you yet have a supervisor for your dissertation or if you have attempted to publish any of your work. It is my understanding that your age might make some journals illogically hesitant to consider your writing—"
"You think my work is publishable?" she asks.
"Yes. I read your undergraduate thesis and also spoke to your supervising professor who saw over the work in your PhD programme at Addis Ababa before your transferred here. She allowed me to see much of what you have produced. She assured me she requested your permission."
Now Nyota remembers the email from Dr. Mehari asking if it was all right to share some of her research with an interested party at Starfleet.
"I wasn't aware you took such an interest, Sir."
He says nothing.
"I'm going to go visit the buffet table and relieve your father, Spock. I can sense he's distressed by some sort of emotional display on the other side of ballroom. Would either of you like anything?"
"Nothing for me, thank you," says Nyota.
"I do not require anything, Mother."
When Ms. Grayson leaves, Nyota prepares for her own exit.
"I'm going to go, Commander. I need to head home. Tell your mom it was great to meet her."
"I will accompany you, Cadet. It is late."
"I'm fine," says Nyota.
"And I would like to keep you that way. I will not attend thee if it is truly not preferred, but chances of violent crime increase significantly in the hours between 10 and 3, especially around university campuses where students are not on their guard."
Of course. Logic. Stupid logic.
"Fine, Commander. Just let me tell my friends, all right?"
She lets Gaila and Kirk know that Commander Spock is going to walk her back home, grabs her light jacket from the coat check, then leaves. It's cold out, that San Francisco Autumn chill, and she just wants to get home as quickly as possible.
The wind makes her hair blow this way, that way, strands of it weaved between her lips. One day, maybe, she'll cut it off. A cute pixie cut. Or a mohawk. Something sensible but funky.
She usually keeps it tied up tight. Brazilian blow outs, mostly. Cornrows are not allowed. Twists are not allowed. And the bitter, nasty, shitty part of her is like, green people, but no cornrows? What the crap, Starfleet? What the crapping crap?
"You are approximately twenty percent less talkative than usual," says Spock.
"Yeah, sorry. Kind of had a rough day," she says, wraps her hands around her arms to ward off the cold.
"I know I have caused you some distress in the past. Is my presence unwanted?"
She looks at him, thinks she detects hurt in his face but is sure she's imagining it. "No. I'm a big girl, Commander."
"I am unsure what that means."
"It's a colloquialism. Kind of tongue and cheek, I guess? It's what you say to little kids when you're trying to encourage them. Oh, you're a big girl, you did such and such all by yourself. Big girl meaning older. Adult. So when adults use it it's kind of sarcastic? Sorry I'm not explaining that well."
"I understand, Cadet. You are suggesting that you would not let the negativity surrounding our previous encounters prevent future interactions, a sign of maturity, and adulthood. Therefore you are a 'big girl.'"
She smiles at the ease at which he breaks down language. Even metaphors are equations to him, and it's beautiful.
"You're pretty good with nonsensical figurative language," she says.
"Many years among Earthlings have refined my skills in that regard."
She laughs at that. "Earthlings? Who says that anymore? I'll have you know that Terran is the correct term."
"I endeavoured to make you smile and calculated that using the antiquated terminology would do so. My estimations were correct." He doesn't look at her as he says any of this, but she can see a little twitch in his cheek.
"You were endeavouring to make you smile?"
"You expressed that you were ill at ease. It was logical to do what I could to relieve that emotional distress."
"Uh huh, perfectly logical."
She yawns.
"You are tired. You require sleep."
"Ugh. Never. I'll sleep when I'm dead."
"That is…true, I suppose."
She laughs. Again. He's on a roll.
It's cold enough outside that her breaths turn white. Lights from the skyline barely reach the block they're on. The streetlights are dim. She loves that about big cities. It's what she'd loved about Nairobi and Mombasa and later Addis Ababa. The way you can disappear.
It's the same reason she wants to go to space.
On the bridge, everything is bustling. People talking, working, running tests. And just outside, just beyond the glass, a frontier of black starry fields. So quiet she actually swears she can hear radio waves.
Nyota stumbles a little and grabs Commander Spock's arm to steady herself.
"Sorry about that. A bit woozy. I went for a run before the event and didn't have enough time to eat beforehand. Then I was too nervous to eat anything there." She doesn't know why she's admitting she'd been nervous. She must be really, really tired.
"Would you like to partake in sustenance together?" he asks.
The mess hall is closed. There's nothing but—what—Ramen back at the dorm?
"Might not be a bad idea," says Nyota.
He leads down the street at a quick pace, but slow enough that she can keep up without taxing herself too much in her heels. "Are you amenable to V'Tosh food?" he asks.
"There's a Vulcan restaurant around here?"
He says nothing for a moment.
"I had intended to take you to my flat."
Her arms cross over her chest, then slacken at her sides. Sometimes it's like that when she's with him, like she doesn't know what to do with her own body. Puberty redux—suddenly longer limbs, nowhere to put them. Taking up too much space.
She wishes she had a coffee to sip on coyly and cutely but she's sure she looks a damn mess. The wind blows hard and cold enough that her eyes tear, making her mascara run.
"If you are uncomfortable entering my quarters, I am confident we will find another solution."
"No. Let's do your place. Yeah."
He holds out his arm, she loops hers through at the elbow.
Spock's place surprises her. Between the Expressionist paintings on the walls, the throw rugs with elaborate arabesques, and wooden furniture, his living room feels antiquated and thoroughly un-Vulcan. Where is the stainless steel? The sharp edges and hard lines? So much for white walls and efficiency.
"You are alarmed," he says, as he removes his uniform jacket.
"No, not alarmed," says Nyota, pressing her palm against a book shelf so she can balance to toe off her boots. "Your place is really beautiful, Commander."
She means it. Despite what she considers an almost 19th Century aesthetic, she sees Spock in the details: the cleanliness, the smell of something lemony and caustic in the air, the selection of books on the coffee table.
Opticks, or, a Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light, also, Two Treatises of the Species and Magnitude of Curvilinear Figures, both by Sir Isaac Newton.
The Book on the Measurement of Plane and Spherical Figures and the Book of Ingenious Devices, the 9th Century texts by the Banu Musa Brothers.
Then there's one in Vulcan with too much technological language in the title for Nyota to translate with any accuracy.
"May I offer you tea?" he asks, eyes steady on her as she sizes up the living room. It's nervousness, mostly, that has her so nosy. Easier to look at the fire pot on a side table than meet his gaze.
"Tea's good," says Nyota, voice steady. She doesn't do flustered.
They eat and it's delicious. Kind of like meatballs, but obviously not. Falafel? Hushpuppies? Hoe cakes?
A savoury grain fritter, with spices and finely chopped vegetables, fried. She can't identify any of the exact flavours, but it's good, and the flour has a wonderfully intense aroma. She gobbles it up and isn't embarrassed to ask for seconds. She dips each cake into a sweet-and-sour-type sauce, though it's more spicy than anything.
Nyota uses the serving spoon to help herself to a large portion of noodles from the bowl Commander Spock has put on the table. The texture is different than what she's used to but they're good for sopping up the sauce. In the back of her mind, she wonders if she's eating too much, but she has learned now how to acknowledge those thoughts and then let them go, to recognise them for what they are: incorrect. More than anything else in her life, Nyota regrets all the years she wasted thinking there was something wrong with her for wanting to eat when she was hungry. "I was really surprised about your mom," she says. Nyota's not usually one to initiate awkward conversation, but it seems strange not to say anything to this man with whom she's sharing a meal.
"You were surprised about my mother in what way?" asks Spock. He holds his eating utensils so precisely and delicately. He is a man of decorum and rules. She likes that. She trusts people who follow rules because people who follow rules accept boundaries-her boundaries.
"I guess I was surprised you talked about me," says Nyota.
"I regret if I made you feel uncomfortable."
"I suppose I just thought?,I don't know," she says. Nyota no longer thinks it's ironic the way a linguist as accomplished as herself loses her verbal footing those times she needs it most. Words have always, always, always been little more than a stand-in, an approximation, thoughts and emotions transformed into something lesser, their essential components lost in the conversion process.
"I am willing to wait if you would like a few moments in order to figure out how best to articulate yourself," says Commander Spock.
"I thought you believed…that my thoughts were worthless. So it was surprising to hear what your mother said you said about me."
His face almost crinkles. It's the most dramatic facial experience she's ever seen him make.
"I do not understand, Cadet."
She tries to elaborate, letting herself find the words. "I've just been thinking about that grade you gave me. And the comments."
"I still do not understand. I apologise. I am not always an adept communicator. Nuances of Federation Standard frequently escape me. May we have this conversation in Vulkhansu?"
"Ha. Though I don't know that it will help."
He blinks twice.
"You have no discernible accent."
"Hm?" she says.
"I knew from your records that you speak Vulkhansu, or I would not have asked you to converse in it, yet I did not realise the level of your fluency."
"We're both full of surprises tonight, huh?"
"That is true. Will you elaborate on what you said before?"
Nyota takes a breath. Vulcan is a language that allows for massive obfuscation, but there's also a lovely, forced directness to it. There's something about verb-first languages that do Nyota in. The action of the sentence is right there at the front. Before the who there is the what, and the how.
"Puthrap-tor nash-veh," she says. She loves that she can leave out the subject—you. It's implied, of course. But omitting it lessens the impact.
It leaves the the sentence, literally, Hurt me.
You hurt me.
"Puthrap-tor nash-veh du uf?" Spockasks. How did this-one hurt you? And he doesn't leave out that I. It's a small thing, probably meaningless, but the unnecessary declaration of the subject surprises her. He is accepting responsibility. He doesn't even know what he's done.
"I was being illogical," says Nyota, backtracking.
"Cadet. I did not ask why you felt hurt; I asked what I did to hurt you."
Nyota takes a breath. "You said I was deficient. You said I didn't satisfy standards. I know you were talking about my research in your comments, but my research is me."
In Vulkhansu, there's no room for disclaimers. There's no way to tack "I guess," at the end of a sentence to soften the weight of the words. So she lets the statement stand.
"You are grossly misquoting me," Spock says. "I did not call you deficient. I said that your statistical analysis methodology was too deficient to support your argument."
"I know. I'm just telling you how I took it," says Nyota. Now she's playing with her food, what's left of it.
"Do you require validation?" Spock asks.
"What?"
"I know that humans frequently require external validation especially in the form of praise from their superiors despite obvious objective markers of their success."
"No."
"No?"
"No. I mean. I actually don't care about grades? Or what people think in general? I'm here to do me and that's pretty much it. I guess I wanted you to be proud of my work because I do value your opinion and insight. We've developed an interesting rapport since our first meeting, and even though you're my professor, I consider you a colleague. I guess it was an ego blow, too, because I am not used to being thought of as inadequate. I've always excelled. It's kind of my thing."
"You are not inadequate, Cadet. I did not mean to imply thus."
"I know. I know," she says, folding her hands into her lap.
"I should also say I am quite proud of your achievements. I…realise that my manner of interacting is considered quite harsh by people here. This is regrettable."
With a smile, Nyota tilts her head, looks him straight in the eye. "You're fine. I just have this way of taking everything to heart and assuming people think the worst of me. Comes from always having to prove myself. Weird stuff from my childhood, blah blah blah, you know the deal," she says, even though she's not sure he does.
"You do not have to prove yourself to me. I assure you that in my eyes you are always more than adequate," Spock says, standing up to clear the dishes. When he's finished, he calls her a cab home. She's sad to go.
Thank you for your continued support, everyone.
I wish that you various anons and guests would get accounts so I could reply to you personally!
: P
BUT IN SHORT STOP MAKING ME CRY OKAY?
This was a difficult chapter. Becomes very relevant later so needed to be done, however.
::hugs if you need them::