Post a Scene

[Distracted]

Awww. A sweet little girl T'Pol! You should write a coming of age story, Bether, and post it in the "Library at P'Jem" section. Maybe something about her father's death and how she reacts to it.

[krn]

Here's a little scene from the sequel to 'Last Dance' I never fully wrote - mostly because it's just a bunch of little 'memories' that I strung together in the cliched mind-meld that's been done to death -- and the ending was never satisfying. But I always liked this little scene. This one, and another 'young T'Pol' scene I did. And it's Un-beta'd, of course.
---------------------------------
“My mind to your mind. Your mind to my mind. Our minds are joining. Our minds are…”

She does not finish the litany and they are joined. She brings them to neutral territory, her meditative construct.

Trip looks around, “looks familiar.”

“I thought this was a good place to start. From here we can access our memories.”

“How do we do that?”

“Focus on a memory; bring it to the front of your mind. We can be participants or observers.”

Trip gives a small nod, impressed. “Maybe I should start again?” She does not reply. “Right, let’s see… how ‘bout something good to get us rolling.”

Their joined hearts beat, and the scene changes.

They are on an Earth beach. The waves gently roll onto the shore, creating a soothing rhythm. It is dark, but light creeps over the horizon from the sun. He is sitting back against a log facing out into the ocean. She is in front of him, leaning back onto his chest. His arms are wrapped around her waist and together they are wrapped in a large quilt. A soft breeze plays with their hair.

“Where are we?”

“Anastasia Island. It’s on the Atlantic coast of Florida, just south of St. Augustine. It’s one of the few beaches left where they let you camp out. We used to come here on weekends when I was in college.”

“It is beautiful.”

“Sure is. I used to wake up before everyone else so I could watch the sunrise.”

On queue, the sun breaks the surface of the water. Ripples of orange, yellow and red color the sea and sky.

“I never get tired of this.” Trip looks down at her. She is intent on watching the display of light. The orange glow softens the features of her face, like it did when they were at the Fire Plains. The memory stabs at his heart, and she turns up her face to look at him. Within the meld, they cannot hide their emotions.

“I’d love to bring you’re here someday, for real.”

“I look forward to it.”

He reaches up to caress her face with two fingers, as he did last night. The gesture erases the pain of the old memory, with the promise of a new one.

[enterprikayak]

Nice one! Good work!

Here's my scene from TGTMD. Undelivered.

[evcake]

Nice one! Good work!

Here's my scene from TGTMD. Undelivered.

I noticed the lack of comments, so I left one. Just a thanks, really - no critic I.

[enterprikayak]

the big board dive wiped my comments from before. thanks for freshening them up!

[CX]

And for a ... different take on the same theme: "The Letter".

And my other short ones:

• "We'll Always Have Vulcan"
• "Observer Effect Revisited"

There's also my naughty one (rated NC-17), "Intimate Research".

Hopefully I'll remember tomorrow to share a short snippet from the next part of "Reconciliation" tomorrow, and maybe even something from an upcoming episode of Foundations.

[CX]

Here's the opening scene for the next part of Reconciliation. Unbetaed mind you.

Trip waited anxiously in his small cabin, waiting for T'Pol's arrival. It was their second day into their two week journey to Vulcan, and he was itching to have a chance to do more than simply bore her with his idle small talk in the transport's communal passenger area. At first the plan had simply been to not risk seeing each other like this, as her reputation definitely didn't need an illicit affair with a human in addition to all the other things her people seemed to have against her. The first day had been smooth sailing, but by the second day, well, temptation was just proving to be too much. After all, when they got to Vulcan it just wouldn't be proper. Add the travel time to that, and well… that was just way too long to wait.

His mind was buzzing with everything that was happening though. He'd made some real progress with T'Pol, got her to open up to him, got her talking to her mother again…

Deep down, Trip was a little sad that T'Pol had never brought him up, but he understood. Since T'Pol was only now getting back to speaking terms with her mother, so mentioning him might not be the best thing to keep that going. How would she even broach a topic like that?

"Oh, by the way, Mom, I'm involved with this human engineer on my ship," Trip sarcastically imagined T'Pol saying. Yeah, that would go over real well…

Plus, there was that somewhat prudish, Victorian attitude most Vulcans had about sex, not to mention a certain bigotry about humans in general. So he could live with having to pretend he and T'Pol were "just colleagues" and nothing more for the next few weeks. He was stoked just to be going to Vulcan. He'd done a lot of reading on it and had a mental list of all the places he wanted to see while he was there, which he hoped would be a shared experience with T'Pol so she could share more of her culture with him. Getting a chance to see where she grew up would be the icing on the cake. He just hoped that the heat and the gravity wouldn't get to him while he was there. Remembering the heightened sense of smell Vulcan women possessed, somehow he doubted he'd make a very good first impression with T'Pol's mom if he was all sweaty and smelly from the heat.

In the meantime, this was the deep breath before the plunge, their last chance before getting to Vulcan to be with each other. Well, may not their last chance, but these little meetings were sure to be few and far between. They had to be real careful about this, because while Vulcans claimed to value privacy so much, some of them had a way of sticking their noses where they didn't belong. That's why T'Pol was the one doing all the sneaking around. Even if their rooms were right next to each other, he just didn't trust himself, not with his luck.

The door slid open, and suddenly she was there. He heard the muted "beep" of T'Pol locking the door behind her before she approached him. Looking at her in the dimmed light, he couldn't help but notice the stark change in her appearance. He'd noticed her growing steadily thinner since they'd gotten back to Earth, losing what little body fat she'd had to begin with. She'd blamed it on her recovery from her recent addiction, but it still concerned him.

He stood up from his small bunk to greet her, taking her small frame in his arms even as their lips met. Their embrace turned into blind groping as they each sought to explore what was already well known to them. Their tongues seemed to fight each other in their frenzied kiss, T'Pol's fiery taste driving Trip wild. His heart pounded harder inside his chest, his skin tingling at the feel over her body through the layers of clothing that separated them.

He broke the kiss and looked down at her, into the enigmatic eyes that seemed to smile at him even if her lips couldn't.

"I'm glad you made it," Trip whispered to her, then teased her ear with his tongue, giving the back edge of it a lick all the way to the tip.

She gave him a surprised gasp. "That much is evident," she replied in her own hushed tone, and added, "one day I must teach you how a Vulcan displays affection, more ... discreetly."

He kept after her sensitive ears, giving them a playful tug between breathing back, "you mean… this… isn't… how… you… normally… do it?"

T'Pol's hands pressed firmly on his chest, forcing his tantalizing mouth away from her ear. She looked at him with amusement in her sparkling eyes. "No, but I enjoy showing it to you in a way that you'll understand."

It hadn't ever really occurred to him before that Vulcans would have different ways of showing each other they cared. He'd always assumed as prudish as they seemed to be that they just did it behind closed doors. It was just another reminder of how alien the stunning woman in his arms really was.

"Show me," he murmured. He tried to bend down to kiss her again, but her amazingly strong arms held him at bay.

"Later, perhaps…"

And here's a preview for an upcoming episode in FND season 1.5.

EXT. SPACE - XCV-330 ENTERPRISE

The SS ENTERPRISE, the ringship we’ve seen in numerous pictures, pulls away from an orbital station, presumably the same one we saw the two Archers and Soval in earlier. We can see the outline of North America as the ringship passes between us and Earth, its impulse engines glowing brightly.

INT. XCV-330 ENTERPRISE – CONTROL ROOM

Henry Archer looks over the massive engineering panel in front of him, giving all the displays one last look.

HENRY ARCHER
Everything looks good.
(beat)
Looks like we’re green for warp flight.

We focus on the unnamed CAPTAIN, framing Henry Archer over his (or her) shoulder.

CAPTAIN
Mission control, this is Enterprise. My flight engineer indicates green for warp flight. Are we a go?

MISSION CONTROL (COMM. VOICE)
Enterprise, Mission Control. We concur, green for warp. You are go.

The Captain smiles at the good news.

CAPTAIN
Okay, Henry, let’s see what this engine of yours can do.
(beat, to helmsman)
Take us to warp.

EXT. SPACE - XCV-330 ENTERPRISE

The spindly, awkward form of the ringship stretches and disappears in a flash of light.

INT. XCV-330 ENTERPRISE – CONTROL ROOM

Stars streak past the viewport at the front of the room.

CAPTAIN
How’re we doing?

HENRY ARCHER
Everything looks good so far…

Suddenly, the ship starts to shudder, just as an alarm begins to sound on the engineering panel. The shaking continues to grow worse.

CAPTAIN
What’s wrong?

The engineer looks over the flashing indicators on his panel with bewilderment.

HENRY ARCHER
(with growing concern)
I don’t know! I’m getting conflicting error messages.

CAPTAIN
(calmly, to helmsman)
Drop us out of warp.

The helmsman attempts to comply.

HELMSMAN
I can’t…

The Captain gives the helmsman a few more instructions that we can’t hear over Henry. The look on Henry’s face leaves no doubt as to what he thinks is about to happen. It’s heartbreaking.

HENRY ARCHER
(softly)
Sorry I couldn’t make it to Yosemite this weekend, Jonny.

Off his apprehensive expression we…

FADE OUT.

[krn]

I can't deside if I *like* getting teasers - or if they just make me too anxious for the real thing.

2 more months, eh? ...stupid hiatus.....grumble.....grumble......

[Asso]

This "topic" is a torture.
You read what's cooking, you look forward to the food with expectation and ... then you wait!

[enterprikayak]

I keep saying part 3 is almost done and it IS, but I've got this baby and this dog and these three cats, and then this husband who swings thru asking when dinner's ready or some such and suddenly it's July and I just am not churning out as much waste-of-time unpublishable Trek as I would like to, y'know? What I need is one of those ivory towers that other useless scholars seem to spend so much time in. But it is coming. And Rigil Kent's opinions on fraternisation notwithstanding, it shall be a saucy dish.


I wonder what the neverending story did with their ivory tower when it was done. Probably locked on the Paramount site underneath pieces of our ship's corridors.

[evcake]

there you go

[CoffeeCat]

Smeg - this thread grew. I'll catch up - I promise...

[justTripn]

Bether, KRN, THUMBS UP!

If I had read the others, I'd give you all THUMBS UP, but I only read two. NEED. TO. SLEEP. You are all so talented! I am honored just to be able to lurk here.

[krn]

Alrighty kids - here's another scene from afore mentioned unposted work. Note: ^^ denotes spoken in Vulcan. As before, totally un-beta'd.
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Trip looked around within the memory, “I know this place. It’s the garden at your house.”

“Yes, but many years ago.”

A young girl runs into the garden. She is petite, has large hazel eyes and a cap of brown hair. She hides behind a tall hedge.

“That’s you, isn’t it?”

T’Pol could feel his mirth. “Yes.”

“Weren’t you just cute as a button?” His playful smile tugged at her lips. Separating their emotions was proving difficult.

A male Vulcan walked out into the garden. He gives a quick glance to the hedge, but otherwise makes no note of it. He stops at a bench, and sits.

“Oh oh. Looks like somebody’s in trouble,” Trips smile has grown wider. It was fortunate that his attention was drawn to the memory; otherwise he might have noticed her loss of composure.

The Vulcan man sat patiently. At last young T’Pol emerges from behind the hedge, and looks wide eyed at the man.

^Are you displeased with me father?^

^Come here T’Pol.^

Young T’Pol hesitantly approaches her father and stands before him.

^You are aware of what you have done?^

Eyes downcast, young T’Pol whispered, ^yes.^

^And what would that be?^

^I displayed emotion in front of your guests.^

^This is true. But it is not that which displeases me.^

Young T’Pol looks up at her father with questioning eyes.

^You are nine years of age my daughter and emotional control is a lifelong journey. No, what displeases me is your fear.^

^I do not understand father.^

^After your outburst, you recognized your error. The proper response would have been to acknowledge it and apologize to our guests. They are parents themselves, and understand these things. Instead, you ran away to hide.^

^I am sorry father. I will not do so again.^

^I do not require your apology T’Pol, nor do you require my forgiveness. I seek to understand the nature of your fear. To help you conquer it.^

^I do not know, father.^ As she speaks the words, it is apparent she wishes to flee.

^Do you fear me?^

^No,^ she says strongly.

^Then why do you wish to flee?^

^I… I…^

^Come, sit by me T’Pol.^

She climbs onto the bench to sit against her fathers’ familiar form. He put his arm about her shoulders and the empathic bond shared between parent and child strengthens.

^Surak teaches us, we must cast out fear. We can do nothing, until we cast out fear. I can see how you struggle with your emotions. I too struggled as a child, but learned to overcome this.^

Young T’Pol listens intently to her parent, soaking up his affection through their bond.

^You must not fear your emotions. To control them, you must understand them. I know this is not the traditional method, but we cannot all be taught from the same discipline.^

The man looks down to his daughter approvingly.

^I will help you. Together we will overcome your fear and you will find the control you seek.^

^Very well father.^

The vision of the father and daughter faded from view. While Trip was delighted to have watched the interaction of his beloved with her father, the ache he felt overshadowed it.

“When did he die?”

“A year and a half later.”

His face holds deep affection and sympathy, “he never got to finish teaching you.”

“No.”

T’Pol did not look away from the bench where the memory had just sat. “He was sent away on business. There was an accident on his shuttle.”

“I’m sorry.”

She turns away to look at him. “I… miss him.”

“I bet you do. Seems like a great dad. I would’ve liked to have met him.”

“He would have approved of you.”

“Ya think?” questioned Trip, pleased by the thought.

“Yes. You hold many of the qualities he considered important.”

There is a slight teasing tone to his voice, “even though I convinced his only child to buck tradition and stay on a human starship?”

“You did not convince me; you showed me that I had the choice. And as you saw, my father was not strict when it came to tradition.”

Trip considers the memory he as seen. It was obvious that T’Pol and her father had been close, so what about her other parent?

“Why were you and your mom so distant?”

“After father’s death, she took solace in the clarity and order of tradition. I continued to struggle with my emotions, but she was unable to help me. Eventually, I learned to hide my struggle from others. Eventually I had convinced everyone, including myself, that I had total control of my emotions.” She paused and considered her relatively new knowledge.

“I was initially surprised that my mother had joined the Syrranites. But in hindsight, it is logical. By turning to tradition, she began looking deeper and deeper into our collective history. Very likely discrepancies caused her to seek out answers, which resulted in her contact with what was considered a nontraditional group.”

It was a plausible explanation. Perhaps it also explained why her mother had finally accepted Trip.

Trip softly broke the silence, “shortly before… the wedding… she asked me how long I had been in love with you. Took me by surprise, but moms always have this way of figurin’ things out.”

T’Pol looks at him curiously, “what did you tell her?”

“I told her how I had never enjoyed arguing with someone before. That the moment I realized I loved you was when we were at the Fire Plains, and I was loosing you.” Mutual pain bounced between them. “She told me it wasn’t too late. I could tell you. That you should have all the facts. But I couldn’t do that to you. You had enough to worry about.”

T’Pol knew she had chosen wisely. She took his hands in hers, “as I said, my father would have approved of you.”

They stood facing each other, hand in hand. Bits of emotions and thoughts swirled around them. She had a slightly confused look on her face. He decided to help her out.

“It’s called bittersweet.”

T’Pol tilted her head in question.

“The emotion you’re feeling. The memory of your dad is a good one, but sad at the same time. Bittersweet.”

“How very… apt.”
----------------------------------

[evcake]

Wow. Nice. Vulcan parental love. Vulcan parental wisdom.

Favorite lines:

^I do not require your apology T’Pol, nor do you require my forgiveness. I seek to understand the nature of your fear. To help you conquer it.^

^...we cannot all be taught from the same discipline.^