Hello again! Here's the post actually meant for yesterday. I fell asleep before I could upload it, lol. Over 1000 views, wow! Thanks for your continued support, everyone!

To guest reviewer babyblue3752, thank you so much! I hope this delivers!

5. Feather

He picks the quill up and twirls it in his hand before dipping it into the inkwell.

A sigh escapes his lips as he contemplates the task before him. Why on earth did he agree to this again?

Oh, right. Because Uhura assured him, with a smirk on her face, that completing assignments such as this one are considered one, respectable and two, diplomatic. Two qualities that he apparently (fine, he admits it, she's right) lacks.

Never one to pass up a challenge (as Chris correctly guessed when he gave him that life-altering dare several years ago), he nearly tripped over himself accepting this "assignment."

He sighs again and begins writing.

Cher Monsieur DuPont,

J'espère que cette lettre vous trouvera bien et heureux.

Darn, his French really is rusty. As the scratching sounds of the quill forming words on paper continue, he constantly has to consider his verb conjugations, whether a phrase must use the subjunctive or not, and certain cultural idioms, not to mention the structure of his sentences and...

Golly, the list of what he has to pay attention to just keeps growing.

It doesn't help that, in this day and age, fountain pens are obsolete, and that Uhura demanded he write in calligraphy.

He groans as he makes his first grammatical mistake. And so close to the end, too - he only had about three sentences left in the message.

Muffled laughter sweeps across the Bridge. At the sound, Jim looks up and glares at his senior officers.

"Don't you all have work to be doing?" he asks irritably, swearing to himself that Uhura will have to work double-shifts for two weeks afterward to make up for this horrible business.

Quickly, they all turn back to their stations, though an occasional chuckle is still heard.

By this time, he's already working on the second paragraph. The tip of his tongue protrudes from the corner of his mouth as he works.

Right after he reaches the halfway point of his message, the entire ship suddenly jolts to one side, making him screw up the letter stroke he just started.

He slaps his hand on the comm button.

"Bridge to Engineering. Scotty, what the frick just happened?"

"Sorrae about that, Captain! One o' these absolutely clueless ensigns - oy! You! Get away from that -"

He's cut off by a resounding BOOM! that shakes the ship once more.

Jim facepalms. "You'd think that, on the flagship of the entire 'Fleet at least, we'd finally get junior rates with some common sense," he mutters. Then he says, louder, "Spock, you have the conn."

His First Officer nods and gets up from the Science Station.

Jim doesn't see what happens afterward, as the turbolift doors close.

When he reaches Engineering, the place is a chaotic, smoke-filled mess. Coughing, he shouts for Scotty and is relieved when his Chief Engineer pokes out his head from behind a partially dismantled control panel.

"All right, Scotty, where's the offender who caused this mess?" Jim asks, rubbing his forehead. All this commotion is definitely not helping his headache.

"Ah," Scotty replies, "he had to go to Medbay." He chuckles. "Poor laddie's gonnae get an earful from the good Doctor."

"Poor laddie, my eye," Jim growls. "Which ensign was it?"

Scotty understands from his tone that he means business and so sobers up quickly.

"Ensign Anthony Raedder, sir."

Jim nods. "Thank you, Scotty. I'd stay to help with the repairs, but -" his eyes narrow - "I've got to have a nice little chat with a certain ensign."

By the time he finishes severely reprimanding the ensign, the constant throbbing in his head has become more than a mere nuisance. He estimates - Spock style - that approximately 21% of his concentration is currently focused on distracting him from his headache.

He wearily slumps back in his chair, back on the Bridge where he belongs.

With an exaggerated sigh, he lays out another sheet of paper, picks up the quill, twirls it between his fingers, dips it in the inkwell, and -

That's not his quill.

It's a testament to both how tired he is and how much his headache has grown that it took him this long to notice.

Jim turns his Death Glare from one officer to the next. "All right, very funny, everyone. Now, where's my quill?"

"Vell, Keptin," Chekov begins, looking nervous, "you know ze masquerade dance all ze ladies 'ave been talking about -"

"Yes, yes, the annual 'Fleet Gala," Jim says dismissively. "What about it?"

"Vell, sir," the Navigator continues, not liking the way Jim's foot is tapping on the floor, "Yeoman Rand came in vis a lot of reports. Ven she saw ze quill, she exclaimed zat it vould be ze perfect addition to 'er mask. Ve could not refuse 'er, and so..."

Jim facepalms again. Scowling, he comms Scotty a second time.

"Scotty here."

"Scotty, I need you to reprogram one of the replicators for me. Get me a feather. I don't care how you do it or what kind it is, but I need one on the Bridge, pronto."

He doesn't even wait for Scotty's "Aye, sir," before cutting off the connection.

Dang, he really should have swallowed his pride earlier and asked Bones for an aspirin or something. This headache is far more resilient than he first thought.

His Bridge crew take the hint - finally - and go quiet, though occasionally exchanging somewhat apprehensive glances with each other.

That, more than anything else, makes Jim stop and think. True, he's been more annoyed than usual today, but...

Oh. Now that he has a moment to reflect on the day, he remembers having to spend three hours rebooting and reprogramming all of their 1,027 computers in the aftermath of their latest mission.

That must have been when his headache started.

Then there was the massive replicator malfunction at lunch that took him and Scotty an hour and a half to fix.

After that, Janice - whoops, Yeoman Rand - forced him to waste two hours of his precious off-shift free time going through paperwork.

Later, when he finally escaped by having to oversee Alpha shift, Uhura sprang the dare, and... well, the rest is history, as they say.

No wonder he's been in such a bad mood.

Fifteen minutes later, when a panting Scotty delivers the feather, Jim makes certain that Chief Engineer sees his elusive "I'm actually happy" smile as he thanks him.

Scotty's shoulders slump in relief as a smile spreads over his own face and he returns to Engineering. Jim then whittles down the feather's pointier end until he has another quill.

Half an hour later, he smugly hands his finished product to Uhura, but not before spilling the remainder of his inkwell onto his personal PADD.

It's just one of those days.

As he dances with Janice (they're both off-duty, all right?) at the Gala two weeks later, he forces himself not to comment on the feather adorning her mask.

The beginning of the letter translated is "Dear Mr. DuPont, I hope that this letter finds you well and happy." When I thought of feathers, I thought of quills, and then I thought of calligraphy (I hand-write holiday and birthday cards), so I came up with this, lol. Also, the rusty French part reflects my own situation yesterday when I attempted to translate a sentence in a book I was reading.

Needless to say, it didn't work out to well. French-speakers out there, feel free to correct me if the translation is wrong.

Also, I really have no idea how many computers are on the Enterprise. I just made it up. xD If there is a confirmed number somewhere though, please tell me and I'll fix it. If it still makes sense within the context of the oneshot.

So, there's another lighter one for you! Hope you enjoyed; regardless of your opinion, please share it with me!