it takes time to prepare meals by hand, a step most officers do not need to take in the day thanks to synthesizers ... but gestures should be made when a birthday comes around. t'palia has prepared a platter - foods as close as possible to those from their home ( the plomeek soup is her mother's recipe ). " happy birthday, spock. "
home has variable meanings when you reside upon a starship set to scale the stars. home doesn’t resonate when the planet you once knew is destroyed, its death an act of sanctified retribution by a man forsaken in his own time. home is no longer tangible ; a concept in an existence focused solely for comfort, for peace, for sanity. there is no home to return to. the sands he has scaled in youth are gone. the house he grew and learnt and aged in is only a memory coveted as if sacred. the vulcan people have little, yet they set to gain so much more in the years to come. he should be thankful as much had survived as it had. ( HE DOESN’T FEEL THANKFUL FOR FEELING THE PHANTOM ARMS OF HIS MOTHER WRAP AROUND HIM. HE DOESN’T FEEL THANKFUL FOR THE MOURNING HE HAD DONE. HE DOESN’T FEEL THANKFUL FOR THE EMPTINESS WHERE ONCE WERE HYMNS AND PRAYERS THAT UPLIFTED THE KATRAS OF SO MANY. ) he should be thankful. he should.he isn’t. yet time and energy, focus and resolve, are pushed to other things. there are monumental achievements ready to be completed, praised. there are new discoveries to document, find. there are new experiments to be done, explored. where there is death there is always life. ( A CONCEPT FORGED IN THE STARS THEMSELVES, IN THE VERY CREW WHO CONTINUE TO SACRIFICE FOR THE GREATER GOOD. ) vulcan’s demise took with it so much, letting ancients crumble and homilies go unanswered. even with their historical, religious sites gone ; the lives of their ancestors lost ; the lives of children fated to never grow old locked within memory, they rise. they rise and they rise and they forge themselves a path from endurance and strength and the resolve in knowing this is not their end. ( THIS IS NOT A MOMENT OF SORROW, BUT ONE OF ACCEPTANCE. ) they are a people burdened with a death that should never have been. he forgets that. he forgets that he and t’palia are two souls whom each carry their own weights. be it upon their shoulders, chests, hearts. he forgets that. he forgets she has suffered just as he.he forgets that she, perhaps, is thankful. he forgets that not all have lost hope. perhaps it is the loss of his mother, the woman who encouraged without haste, that hastens his own attitude of feigned indifference. ( OF REPRESSING THE SORROW HE STILL HEARS ECHO WITHIN THE MINDS OF THOUSANDS, MILLIONS. )forgive him, he thinks as eyes light upon the gift. forgive him, his lips almost say as he looks to her with astonished gaze, open with not only wonder, but with a thankfulness he had supposed too precious for a child such as he to hold.
‘ my birthday is hardly a means for celebration. ‘ so cynical, yet voice is softened, rough as it were in his moments close to death. this intimacy remains hard to navigate, yet there is an obstruction in throat as he gazes, lost and lost and lost and he swears, he swears, there’s no coming back from this.this is what finding home feels like. ( THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS TO FIND SOLACE. )lips quiver in slight, hardly noticeable yet present all the same. there is so much emotion, so many elements warring inside, swirling into some tidalic wave he doesn’t truly know how to control. he cannot cry, yet voice is thicker now, damaged by her kindness, her unrelenting understanding. he knows, then, that t’palia will be a woman he respects and admires for the rest of his life. he knows, then, that she will be known as the one who led the people to their salvation, who saved the lambs from slaughter. ( PROVERBIAL, YET PROFOUND. ) she will always hold a place in his heart. she will always be more than subordinate. and he is thankful. he is content. itar-bosh. ‘ th'i-oxalra, t’hai’lu. would you ... be interested in dining with me? ‘
