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FIC: The Old Ways (Spock, gen)
Title: The Old Ways
Author: tkp
Word Count: 1,500
Pairing: Spock gen
Rating: G
Summary: The old ways are gone.
A/N: Sorry for the delayed repost, for those of you who've seen this.
The Old Ways
On Vulcan, there was so little water.
There were no oceans, nor any seas. Spock heard tell of them in his mother’s tales, stories of home, “songs of sail”, she called them. We come from the water, she told him, and we return to it. The way the waves come ashore, and back out to sea, said she. Some people hear the sea—in dreams, so the story goes—calling them home.
Home to her blue planet, its face awash with water, fed with dihydrogen oxide. She herself heard a different call, she said. Her home was a different place. We come from dust, so the story goes on Vulcan, and as dust we fall. It wasn’t by a shore that she died. It was as sand, as one of them.
On land in San Francisco, Spock felt drowned. Water was in the air like dew, every day a new wash upon him, far too fresh. It was not familiar, not even familial. Mother’s tales had been of another life, beginnings foreign from his own, before she had chosen his father. Water, like the Starfleet uniform, was only wished upon, like stars. It was not home for any one of them.
After Earth was saved, Spock left the stars behind.
On New Vulcan, there was little water. There were no oceans, nor any seas. Even the wind on New Vulcan sang of his heritage, the hot whip without wet, the sting of sand. The few spices could never be the same, the stones striped with too much red, but no where was there blue. This was the land of his life—perhaps not the land of his forefathers, but this was of his father, and of his mother, after she had chosen him.
With the death of his mother, the laying aside of Starfleet, Spock fully thought that he would achieve the kolinahr, the purge of all emotion. His work on the new colony would cleanse him; the air there would crucify him. This was not a punishment. This was the weight of Vulcan rite. Spock could feel the flames of the ritual tapers burned beside him. He could hear the voice of Vulcan ceremony; it called like home.
So Spock went to new Vulcan. He held in his mind the Vok-Van-Kal t'To'oveh for Amanda Grayson. He wore the heavy, knitted tunic, the koma of Vulcan ritual. He smelled the smells of incense, and the slight too-tangy twinge of salt and something else—sweat, which once he thought must be what water was. He smelled her, and the hot, arid air of a world no water touched. He heard the tam-tam, kep, ring for her remembrance.
In waking hours, the Vulcans left held no ceremony for the Vulcans lost. There had been too many, and there was too much to do besides. They moved stones into the central square of the new colony, and strung the kep between them. It hung between its silent sentinels like a gate to their past. In dreams, the sound of it called them all.
They planted Vulcan plants and the planned new Vulcan edifices, which they erected with new stone not of Vulcan. They selected the high council—new elders, they called them, which should have been a contradiction in terms. The effort to rebuild was long and hot and hard. Sometimes Spock would stand still, waiting for the whisper of sand-stricken wind.
(As dust, she fell.)
Sometimes, in those silent moments, another Vulcan—Stonn, T’Pau, Sarek, the elder Spock—would suddenly stand as motionless as he. Between them strung a gateway. Between them, the call of the kep.
United in their losses though they were, their new nation was not without dissent. The issue was adaptation. The few plants from Vulcan died, while the new plants specifically engineered for this new sandscape thrived. Certain traditions could be transplanted, they all acknowledged, and other ways must be changed completely. They agreed on this: the arguments were not so simple as keeping everything the same versus forward motion. No Vulcans left were so emotional as to deny common sense because they were nostalgic.
But even kolinahr, the height of pure logic, was steeped in history. Mystery shrouded the final level, achieved only through mighty ritual, performed by a master swathed in koma, and the ringing of the kep. There was not time for such procedure, Spock reasoned. What was more: there was not reason.
What they faced now was not merely the grafting of long held ken to the face of this new planet. The stone tablets of tradition had all been smashed to sand; the granite was all gone. They faced reformation, recreation, the reconsideration of old behaviors, of the paradigm. This was a new time. Sand, when the wind swept, shifted like waves.
Spock’s grief was not the living fire it had been. It could be handled now, as if on a candle, small but steady—controlled, yet ever continued, as if of a rite. That flame fed the fire of their reconstruction; it fueled the new biology they must adapt to their new geology, the new technology they must fit to new meteorology. It should not be extinguished; it must not be. Kolinahr was a legacy of another land, the birthright of another people.
Spock found that when he meditated, he did not light the new candles modeled on the wax molded from an insect of old Vulcan. He did not wear the pelal which used to sing against his skin. He did not poise his hands in the posture of deep contemplation, the nahr position of subjugation of emotion. He did not smell the scents that used to bring him back. That space of silence became singular, a personal spirituality molded to himself and not out of custom.
So it was with all of them. The first kal-if-fee performed in the square was for two young Vulcans, surviving because they had been visiting other worlds; they knew less of their homeland than many of the dead. The bells of the procession were made with new Vulcan metal. The cloth of the female tu’ruth was of a fresh-made dye. The wind had a different sharpness, and the plak tow of the male looked more like young eagerness than anything. The kep, when sounded, took them not into the past, but to a new future—another generation, and another Vulcan.
The eldest of them, the elder Spock, had long been ready for this new Vulcan. He well knew how to be from them, but not of them, how to forge new fires in the ashes of those past. Even in his own world, Spock suspected, Spock the elder had heard a different call. His home had been a different place. Regarding the eagerness of the young male, nothing like blood fever, there was a way Tela’hat Spohkh’s eyes shone, as if entirely in favor.
That night, Spock the Younger went alone into the desert. On another land, this was the start of the kolinahr, the purging of the self, the oneness with the sand, the dusk, the dark, the dust. He knelt down on the ground, and called forth the vision of the symbol of fullara, the first ritual of kolinahr. He spake the sacred words, ingrained in him like the biting wind. He raised his hand in the Vulcan gesture of cleansing, and drew the lines down in the sand.
Spock waited in the night without dreaming, the symbol of all their past before him. The night was cold and blank, the sand pale. He waited for the wind to feel the same. He waited for the scent of spices, and the tang of her salt skin. He waited for the call.
All he could see were stars, singing songs of sail.
Spock returned to the square the next morning. The stones stood tall and straight, the kep hung silent between them. It had been several months since the saving of Earth. This was new, too—Vulcan had no moon, while New Vulcan suffered tides, in and out. On this planet, Spock saw now, he only was a satellite, circling something to which he never could return.
That day Spock told the high council of his plan to return to Starfleet. United in their losses as they were, his decision was not without dissent. In their discourse he could feel the heaviness of the hard-knit koma. He could remember standing before them before; he could remember the voice of Vulcan ceremony, and the ringing of the kep. He remembered, but they did not call. His elder self, he felt, knew what it was he heard.
After all, there were other songs, other tales, stories of home, she called them. We come from stars, another story goes, and we return to them. As stars we fall.
In his dreams, Spock the Younger heard new things. He could hear Captain Kirk. He could hear Nyota; he could hear the Enterprise.
They sounded like the sea.
Author: tkp
Word Count: 1,500
Pairing: Spock gen
Rating: G
Summary: The old ways are gone.
A/N: Sorry for the delayed repost, for those of you who've seen this.
The Old Ways
On Vulcan, there was so little water.
There were no oceans, nor any seas. Spock heard tell of them in his mother’s tales, stories of home, “songs of sail”, she called them. We come from the water, she told him, and we return to it. The way the waves come ashore, and back out to sea, said she. Some people hear the sea—in dreams, so the story goes—calling them home.
Home to her blue planet, its face awash with water, fed with dihydrogen oxide. She herself heard a different call, she said. Her home was a different place. We come from dust, so the story goes on Vulcan, and as dust we fall. It wasn’t by a shore that she died. It was as sand, as one of them.
On land in San Francisco, Spock felt drowned. Water was in the air like dew, every day a new wash upon him, far too fresh. It was not familiar, not even familial. Mother’s tales had been of another life, beginnings foreign from his own, before she had chosen his father. Water, like the Starfleet uniform, was only wished upon, like stars. It was not home for any one of them.
After Earth was saved, Spock left the stars behind.
On New Vulcan, there was little water. There were no oceans, nor any seas. Even the wind on New Vulcan sang of his heritage, the hot whip without wet, the sting of sand. The few spices could never be the same, the stones striped with too much red, but no where was there blue. This was the land of his life—perhaps not the land of his forefathers, but this was of his father, and of his mother, after she had chosen him.
With the death of his mother, the laying aside of Starfleet, Spock fully thought that he would achieve the kolinahr, the purge of all emotion. His work on the new colony would cleanse him; the air there would crucify him. This was not a punishment. This was the weight of Vulcan rite. Spock could feel the flames of the ritual tapers burned beside him. He could hear the voice of Vulcan ceremony; it called like home.
So Spock went to new Vulcan. He held in his mind the Vok-Van-Kal t'To'oveh for Amanda Grayson. He wore the heavy, knitted tunic, the koma of Vulcan ritual. He smelled the smells of incense, and the slight too-tangy twinge of salt and something else—sweat, which once he thought must be what water was. He smelled her, and the hot, arid air of a world no water touched. He heard the tam-tam, kep, ring for her remembrance.
In waking hours, the Vulcans left held no ceremony for the Vulcans lost. There had been too many, and there was too much to do besides. They moved stones into the central square of the new colony, and strung the kep between them. It hung between its silent sentinels like a gate to their past. In dreams, the sound of it called them all.
They planted Vulcan plants and the planned new Vulcan edifices, which they erected with new stone not of Vulcan. They selected the high council—new elders, they called them, which should have been a contradiction in terms. The effort to rebuild was long and hot and hard. Sometimes Spock would stand still, waiting for the whisper of sand-stricken wind.
(As dust, she fell.)
Sometimes, in those silent moments, another Vulcan—Stonn, T’Pau, Sarek, the elder Spock—would suddenly stand as motionless as he. Between them strung a gateway. Between them, the call of the kep.
United in their losses though they were, their new nation was not without dissent. The issue was adaptation. The few plants from Vulcan died, while the new plants specifically engineered for this new sandscape thrived. Certain traditions could be transplanted, they all acknowledged, and other ways must be changed completely. They agreed on this: the arguments were not so simple as keeping everything the same versus forward motion. No Vulcans left were so emotional as to deny common sense because they were nostalgic.
But even kolinahr, the height of pure logic, was steeped in history. Mystery shrouded the final level, achieved only through mighty ritual, performed by a master swathed in koma, and the ringing of the kep. There was not time for such procedure, Spock reasoned. What was more: there was not reason.
What they faced now was not merely the grafting of long held ken to the face of this new planet. The stone tablets of tradition had all been smashed to sand; the granite was all gone. They faced reformation, recreation, the reconsideration of old behaviors, of the paradigm. This was a new time. Sand, when the wind swept, shifted like waves.
Spock’s grief was not the living fire it had been. It could be handled now, as if on a candle, small but steady—controlled, yet ever continued, as if of a rite. That flame fed the fire of their reconstruction; it fueled the new biology they must adapt to their new geology, the new technology they must fit to new meteorology. It should not be extinguished; it must not be. Kolinahr was a legacy of another land, the birthright of another people.
Spock found that when he meditated, he did not light the new candles modeled on the wax molded from an insect of old Vulcan. He did not wear the pelal which used to sing against his skin. He did not poise his hands in the posture of deep contemplation, the nahr position of subjugation of emotion. He did not smell the scents that used to bring him back. That space of silence became singular, a personal spirituality molded to himself and not out of custom.
So it was with all of them. The first kal-if-fee performed in the square was for two young Vulcans, surviving because they had been visiting other worlds; they knew less of their homeland than many of the dead. The bells of the procession were made with new Vulcan metal. The cloth of the female tu’ruth was of a fresh-made dye. The wind had a different sharpness, and the plak tow of the male looked more like young eagerness than anything. The kep, when sounded, took them not into the past, but to a new future—another generation, and another Vulcan.
The eldest of them, the elder Spock, had long been ready for this new Vulcan. He well knew how to be from them, but not of them, how to forge new fires in the ashes of those past. Even in his own world, Spock suspected, Spock the elder had heard a different call. His home had been a different place. Regarding the eagerness of the young male, nothing like blood fever, there was a way Tela’hat Spohkh’s eyes shone, as if entirely in favor.
That night, Spock the Younger went alone into the desert. On another land, this was the start of the kolinahr, the purging of the self, the oneness with the sand, the dusk, the dark, the dust. He knelt down on the ground, and called forth the vision of the symbol of fullara, the first ritual of kolinahr. He spake the sacred words, ingrained in him like the biting wind. He raised his hand in the Vulcan gesture of cleansing, and drew the lines down in the sand.
Spock waited in the night without dreaming, the symbol of all their past before him. The night was cold and blank, the sand pale. He waited for the wind to feel the same. He waited for the scent of spices, and the tang of her salt skin. He waited for the call.
All he could see were stars, singing songs of sail.
Spock returned to the square the next morning. The stones stood tall and straight, the kep hung silent between them. It had been several months since the saving of Earth. This was new, too—Vulcan had no moon, while New Vulcan suffered tides, in and out. On this planet, Spock saw now, he only was a satellite, circling something to which he never could return.
That day Spock told the high council of his plan to return to Starfleet. United in their losses as they were, his decision was not without dissent. In their discourse he could feel the heaviness of the hard-knit koma. He could remember standing before them before; he could remember the voice of Vulcan ceremony, and the ringing of the kep. He remembered, but they did not call. His elder self, he felt, knew what it was he heard.
After all, there were other songs, other tales, stories of home, she called them. We come from stars, another story goes, and we return to them. As stars we fall.
In his dreams, Spock the Younger heard new things. He could hear Captain Kirk. He could hear Nyota; he could hear the Enterprise.
They sounded like the sea.
no subject
Just remember, you asked.
What I Want To Know About Fic Soundtraks
What are some fic soundtracks you have made? (lists, please)
What parts of those soundtracks match up to which parts of the fics?
Why did you choose each song?
Do you consciously set about to make a soundtrack for a particular fic you've read?
If it's conscious, what sort of fic merits a soundtrack?
If it's unconscious, do you notice any commonalities between the fics you've made soundtracks for?
7) How do you choose the songs?
7a) For instance, do you hear a song and then know it needs to go on such and such soundtrack?
7b) Or do you say, "I need a song about a roguish hero!" and then search for songs about roguish heroes?
7c) If 7b) is true, how do you think of songs about roguish heroes?
7ci) do you just wait until you're listening one day and say, "ah! This song is about a roguish hero!"
7cii) Or are you just able to come up with songs about roguish heroes off the top of your head?
Do you assign songs to a soundtrack by subject or by theme (or sometimes one and sometimes the other and sometimes both)?
Do you arrange songs in your playlist by theme?
Do you ever have notes about a song, such as "to be used when a roguish hero is encountered"?
Where do you keep your playlists?
What do you do with them?
Do you ever share them with the authors? (Well, I suppose you are, for me.)
Do you listen to the soundtracks while reading the fic?
Do you make soundtracks for fic you write?
Do you listen while writing the fic?
Do themes from the songs work your way into your fic?
. . .
I am extremely interested in this because I have a difficult time listening to music. I am a very single-minded person. I can really only do one thing at once. This means if I am listening to music, I can do very few other things. I can't read; I can't study; I can't talk; I can't cook; sometimes I can't walk. (Actually, I can do these things, but I stop hearing the music when I do them.) Thus, listening to music is a big time commitment.
Secondly, I find myself disassociated and lost inside music. When I was in highschool, mostly I listened to movie soundtracks and musicals. I have since realized I was most attracted to those because they were the most like stories to me. Now I like some albums which I realize really are stories; you just have to read into them to realize what the stories are. I have difficulty making myself do this. Perhaps I am creative enough, but I am also lazy. I just don't have the patience to construct stories around some songs that have very interesting narratives hidden inside. I feel this decreases my quality of life. Music is important and tickles parts of your brain other things don't.
This is why Stoney's "Connor" soundtrack means so much to me. It's a story I know and love. It also has some really cool music, which I just totally would have been too lazy to parse had it not come to me in this form. What I really really want is to have character soundtracks for the stories of many characters. (I did a post about it here.) But for some reason my brain doesn't work backwards like that. There are some cool songs that I know and like, but I can't make them fit to stories I know already. I could construct cool stories from them, if I took the time, but I can't bring them to stories which already exist. This frustrates me, because if I could do that, I think it would give me a way to listen to music in ways that would enrich me.
Anywho. You don't have to answer all these questions. But I am very interested in this, and I wanted to let you know why. Perhaps in case you thought I was just being perverse with all my questions ;o)
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lkreqwovp@gmail.com
(Anonymous) 2015-06-16 03:15 pm (UTC)(link)