Fic: The Lion and the Unicorn
I mentioned something about falling headfirst into a new fandom? Have another fic, something a bit more substantial this time. I don't think it's going to be all Saru all the time here forever, but, well, I'm not out of ideas yet :-). I feel like I'm still getting to grips with their voices, and Trek is such a gigantic canon that I only know bits of - the only Trek I've watched all the way through is DS9 - so it's a bit intimidating to write for this, and writing for visual fandoms really isn't natural for me at all. But I have a whole lot of thoughts and headcanon about the mirror universe and Kelpiens and what was going on with everything to do with Saru in S1, and because I don't really do nonfiction meta, it's coming out in stories :-)
***
Title: The Lion and the Unicorn
Summary: Saru visits the Terran Emperor aboard Discovery. An extra scene from 1.14
Saru stood outside the door. Curiosity had been his driving force for all the long years since he had left his home, a curiosity stronger even than fear, and that curiosity was still driving him now. Michael had avoided talking about his people in the Terran empire, and he knew it was because she felt guilty about what she had seen, and about her lie. There would be no danger of guilt tainting this woman's answers to his questions. But it was a long time before he opened the door.
The Terran Emperor was seated by the window, gazing out at the blue warp-bubble they travelled in, her posture so exactly that of his own Captain that he had to stop and catch his breath. She turned as the door sealed behind him, and the illusion was gone. Her movements were all predator, the hunter stirring to take note of distant prey.
"Kelpien," she said, drawing the word out as slowly and deliberately as she moved. "And Starfleet officer. Do they also make their cattle and sheep into pilots and mechanics, here?"
"My name is Saru," he said, and advanced, one step at a time. "And I am the acting Captain of this ship."
Philippa Georgiou shook her head. "The Federation," she said, as if it were a curse. "I have seen how fast a Kelpien runs from a fight. How can you command a starship?"
"Better," he said, stung, "than your Captain Lorca, since he is dead and I am alive."
She gave a snort. "Gabriel must have worked with you for months. I never knew he had such restraint. Ganglia were always his favourite meal. They taste best cut from a living Kelpien, you know."
"Do you think you can distress me by telling me that my kind have been kept for food?" he retorted. "As if we were not farmed here too, as if I had not been told of my destiny from the day of my birth." He stood before her, and allowed himself to stand at his full height. He had thought her the size of a child, when he had first met her, first met the real Philippa Georgiou, the one who was real to him. He had always stooped a little, out of courtesy, so that she would not have to crane her neck to look him in the face. The Emperor would have to get a sore neck.
"I would like you to tell me more about my people in your universe," he said, not wishing to continue crossing swords with her to no purpose. "You keep us as your cattle, and your servants?"
"Slaves," she corrected him with a little smile. "And dinner. And so your people are farmed here too. How did you escape the cull? A Kelpien with your arrogance would not have lasted long, where I come from."
"I am the only one of my kind who has left our home planet, here. How did so many of my people come to live in your empire?"
"Ah," she said, "you are an aberration of some sort. I can always spot them. And you have come to me for a history lesson. Well, the view is not so interesting that I will fail to oblige you. Let them," let Michael, Saru heard as plainly as if she had spoken it, "let them not say that I have been unhelpful." According to Michael's report, the Emperor had intended to sacrifice her life for Michael's, and for that reason alone Saru had assented to her having comfortable quarters here rather than placing her in the brig alongside L'rell.
"You wish to know about Kaminar," she continued. "We conquered your planet almost a century ago. Pretty little place, and fertile, and not just for Kelpien. We farm it now. Your other halves, your keepers, the Ba'ul, they fought. We destroyed them. You--you bent your necks so meekly to us, we found another use for you. It would have been tedious for our soldiers to mow down rows of patiently waiting aliens, and a waste of weaponry. Kelpiens are not precisely loyal, as a dog might be, but they are obedient and accept their place and do not fight. And they are very tasty."
"Do you have no taboos about eating a species you know to be sentient, to be intelligent?"
"Intelligence? What is intelligence, without the spirit to fight for it? When you bow and walk meekly towards the slaughterhouse without even a prod of the whip, how can you be a truly intelligent species?" She stood up abruptly, and he controlled his flinch, but knew she saw it. "Though you make me wonder, Kelpien Saru, whether perhaps you are not the most intelligent of all. For the Ba'ul are all dead, the Betazoids are dead, the Klingons and Andorians crawl in the rubble of their homeworlds--but there are Kelpiens everywhere in the Terran empire, fed and guarded and bred and reared. No other aliens are so valued among us."
"And eaten. It seems our fate remains the same in your universe, for all that we have different masters."
"After meeting you," the Emperor said, "should I return, I would cull you all. Clearly, we are in danger, since you do not all lack spirit and the will to fight back. Perhaps one day you will revolt against us. Does that comfort you, Kelpien Captain? Perhaps you wish to return now, and spark the revolution yourself." She laughed. "Should they find a way to send me back, I will take you with me, just to see what happens. I did not think that Kelpiens could provide sport. I would give you a fair start, and it would give me great pleasure to hunt you down."
"There will be no way back," he said flatly. "You are here, and here you will remain."
"Hm. And yet Lorca found his way back. Tell me, did he pick you for his XO?"
He jerked his head in the human nod.
"Clever, clever. He knew a Kelpien wouldn't get suspicious, wouldn't stab him in the back the way Michael did to my counterpart here. He knew how docile you are. And of course we all know how to put a Kelpien at its ease, if we want to." Which she, clearly, did not. His ganglia tingled as she came closer. "I'm sure you never suspected a thing."
He hadn't, and ever since Michael had told him, that knowledge had burned within him. He had sat at the enemy's side, followed the enemy's orders, been proud and pleased to be his trusted second in command--and he had seen nothing of Lorca's plots. And to this woman--this alien woman who knew more about his people than anyone he had met in Starfleet--it was only natural that he should have been duped.
"You have said enough," he told her. His instincts screamed at him not to turn his back on her, but he did, and did not hurry to the door even by the slow standards of humans. "Thank you for the information. I trust you will speak if you find your quarters in any way uncomfortable."
She laughed, and he still did not turn. "Watch your back," she said, and he went out the door, sealed it behind him, and leaned back against it, trying to compose himself.
When he raised his head, Michael was there, and he felt a spike of outrage. She had taken delight in learning how to sneak up on him, back aboard the Shenzhou; nobody else ever could. But when he startled, she took a contrite step backwards.
"I was just looking for you and the computer said you were--are you all right, Saru?" She looked at the door, then averted her gaze as if it pained her. "What is it--did she do something?"
He controlled his body. "I am fine."
Michael gave him that intent look that meant she was annoyed with him for speaking an untruth. "What happened, Saru?" But behind the annoyance he sensed something else, a guilt that had been hanging on her since she had returned from the alternate universe, so strong he could almost smell it on her. She was not going to leave him alone with his thoughts. A captain should not unburden himself onto his crew, but in part of his mind Michael was still Number One to his lieutenant, a tension he had fought over the past months but which eased him now.
"I went to ask her about my people, in her universe. And she told me."
"Oh," said Michael quietly.
"She said that Lorca chose me because I am Kelpian, because he felt I would never rebel against him or threaten him or suspect him. And I didn't."
"Nor did I, Saru. Nobody did. He fooled all of Starfleet. He fooled Admiral Cornwell."
"I was at his side every day. I should have seen. But he knew a Kelpien wouldn't--and he was right. When he was too vicious... it made me feel safer, because I was standing behind him, and so I overlooked it."
Michael shook her head, as emphatic to dismiss another's guilt as she was to hold tight to her own. "It's no more on you than it is on anyone. He played everyone. And it's over now." She looked down. Whatever was eating at her, it wasn't his own failures. It would be hers. That at least was universal: Kelpien, Human, Vulcan, one's own failings hurt worse than anyone else's.
"What is it, Michael?" he asked, in a deliberate echo. "I asked her to tell me about my people there. But I think you know more too."
"Yes," Michael said, barely above a whisper. "I met you. I met you there. You were my slave, aboard the Shenzhou. I am sorry, Saru. I couldn't help you, I had to leave you behind. I am sorry." She looked up at him, then away. "You saved my life from--from Voq."
"Good," said Saru, trying not to let himself think about the rest of it. It was no more than he was expecting; he had feared Michael might tell him that she ate him, in the other universe. "Good." He did not force his mouth into the awkward shape that was meant as kindness and friendship among humans, but he let his eyes widen and his shoulders relax. Michael knew him well enough to read him, he had no need to mimic a human around her. "It's not so bad, Michael. Think of poor Tilly, discovering that her counterpart was a bloodthirsty monster. My counterpart was suffering, but he was not evil. That is... a comfort."
"No," Michael said, "no, you were not evil. But... she made me choose one of your people, Saru. I didn't know I was choosing who we were going to eat. I chose the one who looked most like you. And--we ate him."
"It was an evil and ugly world," Saru said, more firmly than he felt. "She is afraid that we will conquer her one day," he added, nodding to the door to the Emperor's quarters. "She thinks my people will one day rise up and slay them all. Perhaps we could."
That brought a glint back to Michael's eyes. "Yes. I think you could."
"Captain to the bridge," came across the loudspeaker. "Captain to the bridge."
"It's all right," he told Michael, even though it wasn't. Or rather, between them, it was all right. The war--the griefs of this universe--everything in the other universe--those were not. But they could only start by mending this, between them, and then work outwards. And neither of them could work well if they were distracted with guilt and grief. "You survived and came back to us, and we got home."
"Yes," Michael said, turning her eyes up to him at last. "You got us home."
"'We'," Saru corrected her. "We got the ship home."
She straightened then, and as the loudspeaker repeated its summons, she suddenly smiled. "That's you, Saru."
"I know." He nodded to her, then turned towards the turbolift, and for once he did not measure his stride to the sluggish speed that was all humans could comfortably manage, but extended his legs to the long rolling pace of a Kelpien.
Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/159265.html. There are
comments there.
***
Title: The Lion and the Unicorn
Summary: Saru visits the Terran Emperor aboard Discovery. An extra scene from 1.14
Saru stood outside the door. Curiosity had been his driving force for all the long years since he had left his home, a curiosity stronger even than fear, and that curiosity was still driving him now. Michael had avoided talking about his people in the Terran empire, and he knew it was because she felt guilty about what she had seen, and about her lie. There would be no danger of guilt tainting this woman's answers to his questions. But it was a long time before he opened the door.
The Terran Emperor was seated by the window, gazing out at the blue warp-bubble they travelled in, her posture so exactly that of his own Captain that he had to stop and catch his breath. She turned as the door sealed behind him, and the illusion was gone. Her movements were all predator, the hunter stirring to take note of distant prey.
"Kelpien," she said, drawing the word out as slowly and deliberately as she moved. "And Starfleet officer. Do they also make their cattle and sheep into pilots and mechanics, here?"
"My name is Saru," he said, and advanced, one step at a time. "And I am the acting Captain of this ship."
Philippa Georgiou shook her head. "The Federation," she said, as if it were a curse. "I have seen how fast a Kelpien runs from a fight. How can you command a starship?"
"Better," he said, stung, "than your Captain Lorca, since he is dead and I am alive."
She gave a snort. "Gabriel must have worked with you for months. I never knew he had such restraint. Ganglia were always his favourite meal. They taste best cut from a living Kelpien, you know."
"Do you think you can distress me by telling me that my kind have been kept for food?" he retorted. "As if we were not farmed here too, as if I had not been told of my destiny from the day of my birth." He stood before her, and allowed himself to stand at his full height. He had thought her the size of a child, when he had first met her, first met the real Philippa Georgiou, the one who was real to him. He had always stooped a little, out of courtesy, so that she would not have to crane her neck to look him in the face. The Emperor would have to get a sore neck.
"I would like you to tell me more about my people in your universe," he said, not wishing to continue crossing swords with her to no purpose. "You keep us as your cattle, and your servants?"
"Slaves," she corrected him with a little smile. "And dinner. And so your people are farmed here too. How did you escape the cull? A Kelpien with your arrogance would not have lasted long, where I come from."
"I am the only one of my kind who has left our home planet, here. How did so many of my people come to live in your empire?"
"Ah," she said, "you are an aberration of some sort. I can always spot them. And you have come to me for a history lesson. Well, the view is not so interesting that I will fail to oblige you. Let them," let Michael, Saru heard as plainly as if she had spoken it, "let them not say that I have been unhelpful." According to Michael's report, the Emperor had intended to sacrifice her life for Michael's, and for that reason alone Saru had assented to her having comfortable quarters here rather than placing her in the brig alongside L'rell.
"You wish to know about Kaminar," she continued. "We conquered your planet almost a century ago. Pretty little place, and fertile, and not just for Kelpien. We farm it now. Your other halves, your keepers, the Ba'ul, they fought. We destroyed them. You--you bent your necks so meekly to us, we found another use for you. It would have been tedious for our soldiers to mow down rows of patiently waiting aliens, and a waste of weaponry. Kelpiens are not precisely loyal, as a dog might be, but they are obedient and accept their place and do not fight. And they are very tasty."
"Do you have no taboos about eating a species you know to be sentient, to be intelligent?"
"Intelligence? What is intelligence, without the spirit to fight for it? When you bow and walk meekly towards the slaughterhouse without even a prod of the whip, how can you be a truly intelligent species?" She stood up abruptly, and he controlled his flinch, but knew she saw it. "Though you make me wonder, Kelpien Saru, whether perhaps you are not the most intelligent of all. For the Ba'ul are all dead, the Betazoids are dead, the Klingons and Andorians crawl in the rubble of their homeworlds--but there are Kelpiens everywhere in the Terran empire, fed and guarded and bred and reared. No other aliens are so valued among us."
"And eaten. It seems our fate remains the same in your universe, for all that we have different masters."
"After meeting you," the Emperor said, "should I return, I would cull you all. Clearly, we are in danger, since you do not all lack spirit and the will to fight back. Perhaps one day you will revolt against us. Does that comfort you, Kelpien Captain? Perhaps you wish to return now, and spark the revolution yourself." She laughed. "Should they find a way to send me back, I will take you with me, just to see what happens. I did not think that Kelpiens could provide sport. I would give you a fair start, and it would give me great pleasure to hunt you down."
"There will be no way back," he said flatly. "You are here, and here you will remain."
"Hm. And yet Lorca found his way back. Tell me, did he pick you for his XO?"
He jerked his head in the human nod.
"Clever, clever. He knew a Kelpien wouldn't get suspicious, wouldn't stab him in the back the way Michael did to my counterpart here. He knew how docile you are. And of course we all know how to put a Kelpien at its ease, if we want to." Which she, clearly, did not. His ganglia tingled as she came closer. "I'm sure you never suspected a thing."
He hadn't, and ever since Michael had told him, that knowledge had burned within him. He had sat at the enemy's side, followed the enemy's orders, been proud and pleased to be his trusted second in command--and he had seen nothing of Lorca's plots. And to this woman--this alien woman who knew more about his people than anyone he had met in Starfleet--it was only natural that he should have been duped.
"You have said enough," he told her. His instincts screamed at him not to turn his back on her, but he did, and did not hurry to the door even by the slow standards of humans. "Thank you for the information. I trust you will speak if you find your quarters in any way uncomfortable."
She laughed, and he still did not turn. "Watch your back," she said, and he went out the door, sealed it behind him, and leaned back against it, trying to compose himself.
When he raised his head, Michael was there, and he felt a spike of outrage. She had taken delight in learning how to sneak up on him, back aboard the Shenzhou; nobody else ever could. But when he startled, she took a contrite step backwards.
"I was just looking for you and the computer said you were--are you all right, Saru?" She looked at the door, then averted her gaze as if it pained her. "What is it--did she do something?"
He controlled his body. "I am fine."
Michael gave him that intent look that meant she was annoyed with him for speaking an untruth. "What happened, Saru?" But behind the annoyance he sensed something else, a guilt that had been hanging on her since she had returned from the alternate universe, so strong he could almost smell it on her. She was not going to leave him alone with his thoughts. A captain should not unburden himself onto his crew, but in part of his mind Michael was still Number One to his lieutenant, a tension he had fought over the past months but which eased him now.
"I went to ask her about my people, in her universe. And she told me."
"Oh," said Michael quietly.
"She said that Lorca chose me because I am Kelpian, because he felt I would never rebel against him or threaten him or suspect him. And I didn't."
"Nor did I, Saru. Nobody did. He fooled all of Starfleet. He fooled Admiral Cornwell."
"I was at his side every day. I should have seen. But he knew a Kelpien wouldn't--and he was right. When he was too vicious... it made me feel safer, because I was standing behind him, and so I overlooked it."
Michael shook her head, as emphatic to dismiss another's guilt as she was to hold tight to her own. "It's no more on you than it is on anyone. He played everyone. And it's over now." She looked down. Whatever was eating at her, it wasn't his own failures. It would be hers. That at least was universal: Kelpien, Human, Vulcan, one's own failings hurt worse than anyone else's.
"What is it, Michael?" he asked, in a deliberate echo. "I asked her to tell me about my people there. But I think you know more too."
"Yes," Michael said, barely above a whisper. "I met you. I met you there. You were my slave, aboard the Shenzhou. I am sorry, Saru. I couldn't help you, I had to leave you behind. I am sorry." She looked up at him, then away. "You saved my life from--from Voq."
"Good," said Saru, trying not to let himself think about the rest of it. It was no more than he was expecting; he had feared Michael might tell him that she ate him, in the other universe. "Good." He did not force his mouth into the awkward shape that was meant as kindness and friendship among humans, but he let his eyes widen and his shoulders relax. Michael knew him well enough to read him, he had no need to mimic a human around her. "It's not so bad, Michael. Think of poor Tilly, discovering that her counterpart was a bloodthirsty monster. My counterpart was suffering, but he was not evil. That is... a comfort."
"No," Michael said, "no, you were not evil. But... she made me choose one of your people, Saru. I didn't know I was choosing who we were going to eat. I chose the one who looked most like you. And--we ate him."
"It was an evil and ugly world," Saru said, more firmly than he felt. "She is afraid that we will conquer her one day," he added, nodding to the door to the Emperor's quarters. "She thinks my people will one day rise up and slay them all. Perhaps we could."
That brought a glint back to Michael's eyes. "Yes. I think you could."
"Captain to the bridge," came across the loudspeaker. "Captain to the bridge."
"It's all right," he told Michael, even though it wasn't. Or rather, between them, it was all right. The war--the griefs of this universe--everything in the other universe--those were not. But they could only start by mending this, between them, and then work outwards. And neither of them could work well if they were distracted with guilt and grief. "You survived and came back to us, and we got home."
"Yes," Michael said, turning her eyes up to him at last. "You got us home."
"'We'," Saru corrected her. "We got the ship home."
She straightened then, and as the loudspeaker repeated its summons, she suddenly smiled. "That's you, Saru."
"I know." He nodded to her, then turned towards the turbolift, and for once he did not measure his stride to the sluggish speed that was all humans could comfortably manage, but extended his legs to the long rolling pace of a Kelpien.
Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/159265.html. There are
comments there.