AN/ This story is truly impressionistic in nature. It is all about thoughts and impressions and moods and insights. Anyone here care for that kind of stuff? ))) And dreams of youth too. And nature, naturally. And some Vulcan telepathy. Still keeping to science and canon. This story has no plot, unlike the previous story in this collection, and provides relief from its tension. It also shifts back to Spock's young years – there's a collection here, so there are no time sequences.

Just feels good right now to wander around in the mountains and the desert with an adolescent Spock, to take in the austere beauty of the planet Vulcan and to listen to his thoughts… The thoughts of a young genius, who is very introverted and at the same time very curious about the world, as most young introverted geniuses are. (Extroverts see the world with just their eyes, but introverts also see the world with the eyes of their soul – so the wise men say). And who is "his own person", as many young geniuses are, not fitting into the rules and the dogmas of society. It's not just "the human half" – Spock was an exceptionally gifted child, and such children never really fit into any social norms. Even in an overall-introverted and knowledge-oriented society like Vulcan. And at the same time young Spock was just a boy dreaming of adventures. Spock had that adventurous streak since young age, and kept it all his life. Remember how Dad Sarek complained to Picard about this young rebel? Kid Spock used to run away into the mountains and roam there for days – and then escape again when his dad tried to lock him up for disobedience. Proving himself even more strong-minded than his (very hard-willed) dad and ultimately winning in this confrontation. Making even his overbearing dad admire him in the end. ("He never listened! Never listened!" ©Sarek). Escaping to be free and be himself without any society pressure or peer pressure, without all that duality imposed on him against his will.

This is what Spock actually did all his life: just went where his heart called him and did what his own mind knew better – even though it sometimes seemed to his parents and friends (including Kirk) and Starfleet bosses like "running away" or "stubborn recklessness" (reckless stubbornness?))) or even "mutiny". Spock was always "a silent rebel". But Spock always _knew_ what he was doing. And he learned it in his young years, by walking alone.

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Just Walk This Way…

Wise man said, "Just walk this way
To the dawn of the light.
The wind will blow into your face
As the years pass you by.
Hear this voice from deep inside -
It's the call of your heart.
Close your eyes and you will find
Passage out of the dark".

Here I am! Will you send me an angel?

Here I am! In the land of the morning star.

Wise man said, "Just find your place

In the eye of the storm.

Seek the roses along the way,

Just beware of the thorns".

…

Wise man said, "Just raise your hand
And reach out for the spell.
Find the door to the Promised Land.
Just believe in yourself.
Hear this voice from deep inside -
It's the call of your heart.
Close your eyes and you will find
The way out of the dark".

Scorpions, "Send Me an Angel"

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The sands in the great desert forever shift and run like the largest sand-clock ever invented. The tides and the wind, the eternally and slowly rising and falling waves of the great ocean of sand… The mountains standing majestic, solid in their million-year old strength, but forever changing too, just subtly, unless a great volcanic eruption suddenly speeds up the delicate work of erosion. The great lava-fields and smoke coming up from deep fissures and small craters… The glorious and intricate beauty of the wind-cut stone arches and bizarre rock formations of all possible shapes: geometric and defying geometry. Crystals of quartz, gleaming here and there under the sun, and jaspers suddenly colorful in the dull-brown gravel under your feet, and mica and volcanic glass reflecting sunlight in little sparks, and agates exquisitely revealing themselves inside big round pebbles if you pick them up and smash them...

And life all around - the sparse but vigorous animal and plant life of the planet Vulcan, always cautiously watching every passing traveller.

The desert is never "empty" or "barren" to those who know how to look at it and listen to it.

When one wants to understand himself, test himself, and prove himself – one must leave the comfort of one's home and go away into the wilderness. Go away into the desert, into the mountains and into the Forge itself.

He has done it alone even before his Kahs-wan (1), even though he risked a lot then. Now he is almost twice that age, knows more, is capable of more, and so nothing can keep him inside if the mood for adventure overtakes him. And certainly not his father's restraining orders or the locks his father tries to put on his room doors as punishment. Spock's ingenuity was way above average ever since he learned to walk.

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He looks up, into the brown-tinted night skies of T'Khasi (2), still dark before the rise of T'Khut (3), her sister-planet. The whole Nevasi system with it three suns (4) and with its large neighboring worlds seems so close, just raise your hand and reach it. And the stars are close and familiar and inviting. With the constellations bright and distinct, shining like handfuls of large diamonds scattered in the volcanic sands. Showing the direction as good as any navigational equipment if one can read them – and he can.

The astronomic charts have always held much more attraction to him than any diplomacy skills his father taught him. Not that Spock objected to diplomacy in general, but why can't his father see where his son's true talents lie? To be a scientist and a traveller combined, to see the world, the universe, to make discoveries of all kinds – so much better than all that etiquette and politics!

His father used to be quite a traveller in the wilderness himself in his young years; he even fought a le-matya one-on-one as his maturity rite of passage and killed it (5). And he used to explore vast regions around the city of Shi'Kahr and fly to other parts of the planet to take prolonged hikes there. How could Sarek forget it? How could he become so rigid, so traditional with the years? Do all grown-ups forget their younger selves and the dreams and wishes they had? How come they fail to see themselves in their children – their real selves! – and instead put all that pressure on their children, trying to mold them into some obedient, traditional, convenient shape?

Spock stares straight into the blazing orange disk of the main sun, shielding his eyes with the translucent third eyelids, and makes an oath: he will always be himself, he will never forget anything, even when he grows up. For what all his now rapidly developing eidetic memory is worth. He will follow his dreams. He will find a place for himself in this Universe, where right now he is the only one of his kind, torn between two worlds, two inheritances…

He has already visited his mother's home planet Earth, accompanying his father on an ambassadorial mission – and was struck by how black, distant and scarcely lit the Earth night skies were. How small and feebly flickering were the constellations visible from Earth, how distant those stars were. No wonder it was so hard for humans to start outer space travels… Even their Moon – Luna – was so small and distant when looking up from the Earth, even though astronomically it was Earth's sister-planet only slightly smaller in size, related like T'Khut to T'Khasi. But humans were inspired by their modest-looking celestial bodies anyway, throughout all their history. Humans were fascinated by their small and cold Moon and made so many songs and poems about it, and about the stars too. Some of these songs and poems seem actually more impressive to him than the actual sight of those small celestial bodies in the distant night skies of Terra...

On T'Khasi, the night skies are very close, especially when you are out in the wild. On T'Khasi, you are one with the Universe whenever you choose to step out of the city.

In the city he has his telescope and charts, and books on astronomy, and holoprograms about space – he already knows he wants to become an astrophysicist. His science projects at school amaze his teachers. His mother calls him a "science Wunderkind" - a word in an Earth language that some of her very distant Earth ancestors used to speak.

He is brilliant at science and he knows it. By and by, he is getting better at science than all of his classmates and even many of high-school students. He has already made himself a name in the school contests and city contests. No one can accuse him of any "intellectual impairment" or "slow development", impure blood or not. He is brilliant, and already not only for his age. Isn't this enough for his father to be proud of him? But his father says Spock puts too much passion in his science studies… If it helps him excel – then how is it bad?..

Sometimes it's easier to get lost in doubts, fears and insecurities than in any kind of wilderness…

He needs to leave the city now and then to not only test himself – he needs it to find himself.

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When T'Khut rises, it finds him walking all alone, energetically and surely, avoiding the carnivorous plants, looking out for animal and bird predators, correcting his course by the stars, putting his foot nimbly on any uneven surface, jumping over the crevasses in the stony ground, sliding on the sand dunes… He can see in the dark well – one more thing inherited from the ancient Vulcan nomads and hunters – and in the dim light of T'Khut he can see everything around him clearly.

T'Khut the Terrible, T'Khut the Watcher - looming menacingly over him, like some giant angry entity, fires burning on her rough uneven face… The evil twin of T'Khasi, even more harsh and unforgiving to all life than T'Khasi herself who is always so harsh on her children.

But T'Khasi, always harsh on her own children, seems to spare this half-breed adopted one. Every time when he leaves the civilized oasis of Shi'Kahr and walks away on his own across the ragged terrain, trying to get lost in the timeless beauty of the landscape – he never really gets lost.

T'Khasi, I am yours. I was born here. I claim my birthright.

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He wanders freely by night and by day, resting in the hottest hours, like te'Vikram (6) did in the old times, sometimes covering up to 30 kellicams (7) on a good day in the valleys, sometimes climbing up the mountains and exploring caves and ravines. He is now sure of his strength and endurance, way past his early childhood doubts when he feared to fail the Kahs-wan rite of passage because of his "human weakness". Physically, externally and internally, he is much more Vulcan than human, and is now learning to compensate for whatever influence the frail human genes have on his physiology by his mind training, sports and martial arts and by hardening himself in long journeys.

He is 13 now and beginning to gain in height and strength. Maybe he will never be the tallest or the strongest among his full-blooded Vulcan peers – but he is going to grow tall and strong enough, he knows it. He is no weakling. He may even have a good chance of growing up faster than his peers, because of his human genes. Whatever weaknesses he has are not really in his body – they are in his emotional sensitivity that is still so hard for him to control. And he is expected to – he is not a little child anymore…

But when he is alone in the wilderness, his sensitivity strangely doesn't make him as vulnerable as it does in the socium. Quite the opposite, here his sensitivity becomes his ally and his protector, alerting him of any possible danger and filling him with wonder at the beauty of his world. It helps him find his way by day and by night, helps him find the best places to rest, helps him sense dangerous predators from far away, and even at times in some inexplicable way helps his to find hidden water sources.

Even those street bullies, slightly older than him, who always walked around in a tight gang and tried to assert themselves at the expense of smaller kids, and who often tried to intercept Spock on his way home from school – even they were afraid to go that far into the wild. They, in all of their gang and for all of their bragging, never ventured out as far as he did on his own.

His practice of walking meditation – the concentration on mindfully taking steps and breathing evenly, and on keenly observing his state and everything around him – sometimes it gives way to simple curiosity, when he sees an animal or a bird, or an insect, or a nice-looking stone, and stops to look closer. And at nights the stars take his breath away.

His peers do not accept him. But the desert does. His relatives and neighbors doubt and question him. But the mountains and the stars do not.

Sochya – true peace inside and outside – is only here.

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He stands naked in the night fog, drinking it in with all his pores (8), breathing deeply and feeling vibrantly and acutely alive. Staying in the open even when the sands give away all the heat and the night starts getting cold, and even after that. He must be strong and he must endure everything, even the cold. He must be prepared, if he wants to go out there someday, to all those strange alien worlds…

His skin is thinner and more sensitive than that of an average Vulcan – but he stands his own against the cold of the night. He stands with no protection from the outside world but his keen and alert reflexes, his will and his pride.

Vulcans have no socially-induced shame of nudity and do not consider it obscene – nudity is only natural. Nudity is an aesthetic concept too; it doesn't always have to call for reproductive instincts - Vulcans control their animal passions. The aesthetic depiction of nude body in art is valued highly and doesn't raise any eyebrows even in youngsters. Youngsters are not forbidden to look at nude art – it is only natural to learn to admire the beauty of the body since young age. Dancing or doing sports nude is not frowned upon – as long as the movements are graceful and aesthetically correct. Little children in family houses often run around naked, older children wear scant clothes, and it is normal for families to bathe together. Groups of youngsters out on recreation, regardless of their gender, can bathe nude together in the Vulcan's few seas and lakes or natural water springs. Of course it is not appropriate for teenagers and adults to appear nude in public places, but it is a matter of cultural aesthetics and etiquette more than a matter of shame (9).

And out in the deserts and mountains the sun is mostly too scorching and the winds raise too must abrasive sand and dust to try and do without the protection of clothes. And the nights in the desert are cold – a stark contrast to the blazing scorching afternoons. If you go out into the desert – take a loose robe with a hood over your usual comfortable clothes, a thick woolen cloak and a blanket. Or two.

Only in those moments at nightfall and sunrise the air is sometimes tender and moist enough to enjoy bathing in it. To not only absorb those molecules of water needed for survival, but to allow yourself to be free and unrestrained by anything, even clothes. Where else can you feel that way?

Vulcans take no shame or awkwardness in nudity. He tells himself that nudity is only natural, that his growing body is developing normally and there is nothing to be ashamed of, but he finds it very uncomfortable being nude or half-nude around other people. He has been examined, poked and turned around too much when he was a toddler and pre-school – in labs, in hospitals, in private healer's examination rooms and by elder relatives too. Technically they were concerned about his health and well-being – a hybrid child, a genetic experiment; they didn't want him to be too weak to survive. He was a half-breed, but the son of a high-standing ambassador. But treating him as an experiment, a creation, and an insensitive material, scrupulously examining every inch of his body and always looking for weaknesses and flaws…

They started to respect his privacy more as he grew up into adolescence, of course – Vulcans are touch telepaths, and as the child's psychic abilities develop, his/her personal boundaries develop too. And as he grew into a pre-school child, it became clear that he was strong enough to survive. The scientists, doctors and healers at least had professional tact. He could hardly say that about some relatives…

And so he feels uncomfortable even just playing sports shirtless with his schoolmates. He is good at sports, he is just as agile as other kids – but they always stare at him, the weird hybrid, evaluating constantly, looking for flaws…

Here in the wilderness nobody stares, nobody evaluates him, nobody tries to find flaws in him.

When his thin, still-childish body finally begins to shiver uncontrollably, he runs into the cave where the fire-coals are piled ready, throws his desert robes quickly on and strikes a match. And holds his hands over the growing flames, now absorbing the energy of the fire…

In these moments alone, he really feels free.

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The wilderness of T'Khasi is beautiful, but very dangerous too. The cities are oases surrounded by harsh unforgiving environment. And, as civilized and pacifistic they are now, Vulcans don't want to become weak and lazy in body and irresolute in mind, as the over-pampered urban dwellers sometimes tend to. That is why, with all the advanced technology and modern comfort available in the cities, Vulcan children are still taught ancient survival skills and have the rights of passage that test their strength and adaptability. Kahs-wan is not the only one of them.

Spock now invents his own ordeals and tasks. He studies the animal life of the mountains and the desert with all the systematic scrupulousness of a young scientist. This mostly nocturnal life that mostly comes out at sundown and hides from the heat by day: the reptiles, the snakes, the rodents, the insects, the small omnivorous predators, the amazingly beautiful birds like lara (blue bird) and xirannah (silver bird), and the not-so-beautiful vultures that can be dangerous even to a grown man if he comes too close.

But there are nor-sehlats and le-matyas (10) too – the deadly ones, the ruthless hunters – and he learns to track their footprints and to listen to the sounds they make and to sense their presence long before they decide to track him. Then he climbs rocks and arms himself and waits till the large predators go away. Sometimes he almost wants to meet them face to face and fight – that would be a great way to out-champion his father!.. But logic and common sense take over: he is still too young for that. And whatever his father thinks he wants Spock to be – he absolutely doesn't want him to be dead.

There are other dangers out there too – the dangers of the climate. The tidal forces of the twin planets mightily and formidably shape and reshape the atmosphere and the surface. The incessant volcanic activity, the eruptions and earthquakes, the tides astonishingly great for the Vulcan's shallow seas… The shifting of great sand masses under the powerful winds. Sand storms, electrical storms and sometimes a sand storm and an electrical storm combined: the red lightning bolts blazing again and again in the middle of sandy tornadoes.

Wise man said: "Just find your place in the eye of the storm"…

Always be present, always be ready to go into alertness even from the deep relaxation or sleep. Be part of this world, move with it, never lose physical and spiritual connection to it as long as you are alive… This is what the planet has taught generations of her children the hard way, through the millennia.

He is still too young to know all about the universe and of the a'Tha (11) that is the root and beginning and end of all things. But here, out in the wild, there are moments when he understands it without knowing.

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Returning home, to everyday life, studies, duties, family … Planning the new hike and waiting to grow up. He was never meant to spend his life in one place, in one home, in one city. He is an explorer at heart. The Universe is waiting for him.

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Kahs-wan or kas-wahn (both words are pronounced with a long [a:]) – a rite of passage for 7-year old Vulcan children, surviving alone for several days in the Forge or in equally harsh environment. Spock's Kahs-wan is shown in TAS "Yesteryear".

T'Khasi – the true native name of Vulcan (even though upon joining the Federation of Planets the Vulcans adopted the Earth-originated Latin name for daily use too). As "The Starfleet Vulcan Manual" has it: "It is a hot arid planet with only 14% of its surface covered with water. (Compare that with Earth's 80% water). It has a high atmospheric pressure and relatively high gravity. Its oxygen level is lower than what humans are used to with 12.9% (compared to Earth's 20%) because there is so little oxygen-producing vegetation"©.

T'Khut – "the Watcher", the twin-planet of Vulcan, too large and too close to be counted as a "moon". It occupies one-third of the Vulcan sky when on the rise. Vulcan and T'Khut form a binary planet system. So Spock was telling absolute truth when he told Uhura that "Vulcan has no moon". Vulcan has a sister-planet. In fact, T'Khut has its own small moon.

Nevasi system with its three suns and neighboring worlds – as the Memory Alpha site has it: "According to the Stellar Cartography: The Starfleet Reference Library ("Stellar Cartography", pp. 22-24 & 34), the Vulcan system was the 40 Eridani A system. The 40 Eridani system was known to the Vulcans as Nevasi. The primary star, 40 Eridani A (Nevasi A), was class K. The innermost planet was a rocky class B planet named Ket-Cheleb. Vulcan (T'Khasi) was in a co-orbital relationship with the class G planet T'Khut ("the Watcher"), which had one moon named T'Rukhemai ("the Eye of the Watcher"). The icy planetoid Delta Vega was located in the outer asteroid belt. The two companions of 40 Eridani A, 40 Eridani B (Nevasi B) and 40 Eridani C (Nevasi C), were a white class A4 dwarf and a red flare class M4 dwarf, respectively.

Fought a le-matya and killed it – a reference to what was written about Sarek's younger years in Diane Duane's "Spock's World". Looks like Dad Sarek used to be quite a badass before he got himself too immersed in politics, rules and traditions ;). Definitely not just sitting at his computer all the time. Even though he was an IT expert before T'Pau (the matriarch of his clan and his grandmother) recognized his communicative abilities and innate curiosity and sent him to work at the Vulcan embassy on Earth, where he gradually rose to the position of ambassador – and met future wife Amanda. As one of my internet acquaintances said, Spock's got to inherit his badassery from someone. Older Sarek really did seem to forget a lot about his own youth… Or rather, preferred to forget, as all Vulcans have excellent memories which they train additionally.

Te'Vikram – the ancient Vulcan nomadic clans, known for their extreme survival skills and war-like customs.

Kellicam – the Vulcan measure of distance, about 2 kilometers.

In the fog, drinking it in with all his pores – an ages-old desert survival trick, taught to Vulcan children in preparation for their survival rites. Vulcan skin has a different structure from human skin, and is made to absorb moisture rather than exude it. So Vulcans can literally drink the fog, the dew and the rain with their skin. Sometimes it is the only way to get a drink of water in the Vulcan desert (and rains and fogs are rare, so Vulcans are genetically adapted to go without water for days or even weeks).

Just in case someone's mind suddenly goes in the wrong direction, as often happens in the Internet – there is NO sexualizing of kids here! At all. And even no propaganda of nudism ))). This is just about a kid experiencing nature, growing up and being naturally concerned with his body development and how others see him. Well, maybe only those who never bathed outside naked in their lives just for the fun of it will find "sexualizing" here, but still… I am familiar with the issues of the Western Internet public (both SJW and "woke"), and so it is better to keep it safe and explain things. Explaining … Even nowadays on Earth there are cultures where it is totally OK for little kids pre-school age to run around in the yards and streets naked, or in just underwear. And these are cultures that severely condemn pedophilia! Next: remember Ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans and their healthy attitude to nude body. Admiring the harmony of a healthy body, seeing nothing obscene in any part of it and not getting all sexually hyped up by simply seeing someone nude or seeing a depiction of nudity. The Vulcan attitude to nudity must (quite logically) be similar to this. (And don't forget that it is very hot on Vulcan too. And remember TAS "Yesteryear", what 7 year-old kids wore there. And remember ST: TMP and Lt. Iliya emerging naked from the shower booth: Kirk's blood pressure skyrockets and Spock is chill and just like "what, you've never seen a naked woman before?" This is _not_ because adult Spock is "asexual" or what slashers like to fantasize about him – he is _not_! He is a normal natural male. This is just because of a much healthier and more relaxed attitude to nudity in the Vulcan society. And Kirk represents the sexually-troubled modern Western society there in that scene ))). We can easily guess that no pornography is made on Vulcan in civilized times – there is simply no need for it. (And if Vulcans don't like to talk about the Pon Farr mating time – that's for totally different reasons, not for the shame of the body and its functions. All the taboos around Pon Farr center on the _psychological_ loss of control and temporarily falling into primal animal behavior – which is the only thing that Vulcans are ashamed of there). Nudity is natural and not obscene, no need to be ashamed of it. It is only someone's mind and religious/societal dogmas that make it obscene. It is of course good to know where and when nudity is appropriate and where and when it is not. This is a question of cultured behavior and of climate, not of shame. But the way modern Western consumerist society over-sexualizes and overhypes nudity, dashing back and forth between permissiveness and censorship, between indulgence and shameful condemnation – this is clearly unhealthy. I believe this is called objectification.

Nor-sehlats and le-matyas – the largest predators on Vulcan in times of Federation. Le-matyas are roughly like large yellow-green furred mountain lions with poisonous claws. Nor-sehlats are the wild variant of sehlats, bigger in size than the domesticated ones and man-eating (like wolves compared to dogs, though sehlats have traits of both grizzly bear and saber-toothed tiger).

a'Tha - "immanence", direct experience of the being or force responsible for the creation and
maintenance of the universe. Apparently all Vulcans possess this and many enhance it by their spiritual practices. Described in "Spock's Word" and other sources. To me it looks very close to the concept of Tao in Chinese philosophy and of comprehending Tao as the main force in the Universe and yourself as part of it.

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