Star Trek AOS Fic -- "A Fresh Start"
Title: "A Fresh Start"
Author: originalpuck / Morgan O'Friel
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 458
Character: Madeline
Warnings: None
Beta: The amazing allie_meril.
Disclaimer: Star Trek, its characters, plot, and all related products belong to Gene Roddenberry, Paramount Pictures, Bad Robot, etc. No profit is being made from these fan creations. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Notes: This is a sequel to the story " Healthy Advice," though you don't have to have read it to understand this.
Summary: Starfleet has made its mark on Madeline, in more ways than one.
---
Madeline pivoted before the mirror in her chambers, examining her back to the best of her ability. Doctor McCoy had done a good job: the skin was still dark and raw, but it was beginning to toughen. She no longer shivered uncontrollably when she pressed against her back for longer than one standard minute, no longer felt the burning that would press the air right from her lungs.
She had mended skin, and Madeline was glad for it. She could not go around bleeding on others, and nobody managed to serve on the Enterprise without getting injured.
Still, she frowned as she stared in the mirror, feeling uncomfortably like the time she'd been trapped under an upturned console on the Bridge. Her breath couldn't fill her lungs quickly enough, and her head spun ever-so-slightly.
Her skin was fresh, unused. There were no memories attached to it, no scarification branding her as an active Sartemian of the Aris'non clan. Madeline no longer bore the raised and abstract shapes of her different disciplines spanning her back, clothing her in the marks of her loved ones. This skin was different, unfamiliar, empty.
Now when Madeline looked at her back, she had difficulty recognizing herself. It was as though she'd never passed her adulthood initiations; never bested four of her Elders in the art of active defense, after practicing and learning for years before the matches; never shared her first kiss with her betrothed on the night she had decided to go to Starfleet, Tea'lah's breasts soft as they pressed against Madeline's own.
Madeline's flesh wasn't torn apart any longer, but she was no longer who she'd been before. Biting her lip, she reached for her bed shirt. She supposed she could always accumulate new scars, new stories. Even if they weren't the same as the stories told around the hearths at her clansmen's homes.
And if she was lucky, in the future it might not become so unusual for a Sartemian to serve. Maybe someday they'd base a new scar after her marks, her stories. Madeline shook her head and readied for bed. She could only imagine the looks on the youths' fresh and naked faces when she explained the history of her body, pointing to the marks left by the conflict with the Klingons, the ship's majesty in the sky, the terror in her fellows' faces, and their bravery in the face of near-death.
It wasn't a typically Sartemian scar, but it was worthy, in its own right. And perhaps when she got back, she could take on the Elders a second time. It might even be possible that by then, she'd have the skills to beat all five of them, and earn the full set of sprawling, labyrinthine marks.
Author: originalpuck / Morgan O'Friel
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 458
Character: Madeline
Warnings: None
Beta: The amazing allie_meril.
Disclaimer: Star Trek, its characters, plot, and all related products belong to Gene Roddenberry, Paramount Pictures, Bad Robot, etc. No profit is being made from these fan creations. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Notes: This is a sequel to the story " Healthy Advice," though you don't have to have read it to understand this.
Summary: Starfleet has made its mark on Madeline, in more ways than one.
---
Madeline pivoted before the mirror in her chambers, examining her back to the best of her ability. Doctor McCoy had done a good job: the skin was still dark and raw, but it was beginning to toughen. She no longer shivered uncontrollably when she pressed against her back for longer than one standard minute, no longer felt the burning that would press the air right from her lungs.
She had mended skin, and Madeline was glad for it. She could not go around bleeding on others, and nobody managed to serve on the Enterprise without getting injured.
Still, she frowned as she stared in the mirror, feeling uncomfortably like the time she'd been trapped under an upturned console on the Bridge. Her breath couldn't fill her lungs quickly enough, and her head spun ever-so-slightly.
Her skin was fresh, unused. There were no memories attached to it, no scarification branding her as an active Sartemian of the Aris'non clan. Madeline no longer bore the raised and abstract shapes of her different disciplines spanning her back, clothing her in the marks of her loved ones. This skin was different, unfamiliar, empty.
Now when Madeline looked at her back, she had difficulty recognizing herself. It was as though she'd never passed her adulthood initiations; never bested four of her Elders in the art of active defense, after practicing and learning for years before the matches; never shared her first kiss with her betrothed on the night she had decided to go to Starfleet, Tea'lah's breasts soft as they pressed against Madeline's own.
Madeline's flesh wasn't torn apart any longer, but she was no longer who she'd been before. Biting her lip, she reached for her bed shirt. She supposed she could always accumulate new scars, new stories. Even if they weren't the same as the stories told around the hearths at her clansmen's homes.
And if she was lucky, in the future it might not become so unusual for a Sartemian to serve. Maybe someday they'd base a new scar after her marks, her stories. Madeline shook her head and readied for bed. She could only imagine the looks on the youths' fresh and naked faces when she explained the history of her body, pointing to the marks left by the conflict with the Klingons, the ship's majesty in the sky, the terror in her fellows' faces, and their bravery in the face of near-death.
It wasn't a typically Sartemian scar, but it was worthy, in its own right. And perhaps when she got back, she could take on the Elders a second time. It might even be possible that by then, she'd have the skills to beat all five of them, and earn the full set of sprawling, labyrinthine marks.