Tapestry - Spock Prime, Gen, G
Title: Tapestry
By: slwatson
For: noein9
Character: Spock Prime, Sarek, mentions of Sybok
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: All belong to Paramount, and not to me.
Notes: Noein9! I hope this is even remotely satisfying; I'm afraid I couldn't do much with science, and I'm afraid my character-author roots showed up regardless of my best efforts. I tried to fit in both Spock Prime's life, as well as Sybok's coup; it's open-ended somewhat, but I hope the heart is right, anyway. Thanks for the prompt.
When he pulled on the strings of his life, they unraveled before him.
The Vulcan High Council was in session, in a borrowed building, on a borrowed world. Spock was able to listen to them and consider their words, but he was also able to think about the events that lead to this, not across one universe and one lifetime, but two. Three. Perhaps even more.
Currently, they were discussing making contact with a colony they had not spoken of since about a year after the Kelvin incident. Unsurprisingly, the elders immediately began debating, most of them against it. The name was spoken: Sybok.
Spock's face never wavered above his steepled hands. He listened, but in the back of his mind, he pulled on another thread, unraveling a moment and memory -- Sybok, picking him up when he was four, smiling and being the only one Spock didn't feel ashamed to smile back at; Sybok, venting tears of rage and sorrow at their father, taking the disapproval, not as a logical thing to induce correction, but as a dagger; Sybok, saying goodbye to his much younger half-brother -- and when they asked for his sage counsel, he nearly wanted to laugh.
He was getting old. And all that he was ashamed of now had nothing to do with a smile.
"If you would explain the circumstances of Sybok's departure, I would be in a better position to add my voice to the debate," he replied, his face and voice calm.
"Sybok attempted to ursurp the Council," one elder replied, "by inciting a rebellion in Shi'Kahr amongst those who did not want to send aid to the Federation following the Kelvin disaster."
Compassion, albeit twisted and warped and sometimes bordering sickness, had never been Sybok's problem. It did not make sense to Spock that his half-brother, who preached that love and joy and sorrow were all things to be grasped, would condone suffering elsewhere. Regardless, this was not his universe. "Were his motivations ever determined?"
"They were not," Sarek replied, rigidly, from his right.
"Has there been any violence from this colony?" Spock asked, looking back over the group of elders, many of whom had found that position only more recently.
"There has not," Sarek replied again. Now Spock could hear a faint note in his voice, something that could only be described as regret.
Another thread: Amanda. The loss of his wife. Only Spock knew how deep that bond had gone; his younger self did not, and until now, perhaps even Sarek himself had not. Now, he had little choice but to look at the choices he had made. He had handled the younger Spock differently. Now, he bore regrets he never did in the other universe for his lost son.
Spock himself absorbed more knowledge, as it was presented; the retorts of Sybok's violence in his coup, and how he could destroy what little was left of them. The logical points that the very diversity of their species had been nearly put to an end, and that bringing back their lost would help. The debate went on, but Spock continued to pull the threads.
He was disturbed often by the weight his words carried in this universe. He was shocked by his own desperate actions, in trying to recreate what was lost, nearly by force in a manner of speaking. As though he was attempting to reweave a destroyed tapestry just as it had been, without regard for the natural progression of things. He thought of his own life, long as it was; the joys, the losses. His family; the blood kin, the chosen kin.
Inevitably, he thought of Jim, and the betrayal in his eyes that he had never spoken of Sybok before; just as inevitably, when he thought of Jim, he both wanted to laugh and cry and thought certainly that he was getting very old to have such impulses.
"What do you wish to add?" they asked him now.
Spock peered down the tips of his fingers to some distance undetermined and pulled the threads. Looked at the tapestries. The destroyed ones. The created ones. His life. Their lives.
He unraveled the threads, and then he spoke: "It is not my right to tell you what you should do. The wounds are deep, and I am not a healer."
The looked at him; he could feel their gazes. He thought of his half-brother. He thought of his father. His mother. Jim. Leonard. All of them. There were no melds nor words that would release this pain. Not theirs, nor his own.
The wounds were deep. And when he had spoken, he was just as much speaking of his own.
The Council contacted Sybok's colony the next day.
By: slwatson
For: noein9
Character: Spock Prime, Sarek, mentions of Sybok
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: All belong to Paramount, and not to me.
Notes: Noein9! I hope this is even remotely satisfying; I'm afraid I couldn't do much with science, and I'm afraid my character-author roots showed up regardless of my best efforts. I tried to fit in both Spock Prime's life, as well as Sybok's coup; it's open-ended somewhat, but I hope the heart is right, anyway. Thanks for the prompt.
When he pulled on the strings of his life, they unraveled before him.
The Vulcan High Council was in session, in a borrowed building, on a borrowed world. Spock was able to listen to them and consider their words, but he was also able to think about the events that lead to this, not across one universe and one lifetime, but two. Three. Perhaps even more.
Currently, they were discussing making contact with a colony they had not spoken of since about a year after the Kelvin incident. Unsurprisingly, the elders immediately began debating, most of them against it. The name was spoken: Sybok.
Spock's face never wavered above his steepled hands. He listened, but in the back of his mind, he pulled on another thread, unraveling a moment and memory -- Sybok, picking him up when he was four, smiling and being the only one Spock didn't feel ashamed to smile back at; Sybok, venting tears of rage and sorrow at their father, taking the disapproval, not as a logical thing to induce correction, but as a dagger; Sybok, saying goodbye to his much younger half-brother -- and when they asked for his sage counsel, he nearly wanted to laugh.
He was getting old. And all that he was ashamed of now had nothing to do with a smile.
"If you would explain the circumstances of Sybok's departure, I would be in a better position to add my voice to the debate," he replied, his face and voice calm.
"Sybok attempted to ursurp the Council," one elder replied, "by inciting a rebellion in Shi'Kahr amongst those who did not want to send aid to the Federation following the Kelvin disaster."
Compassion, albeit twisted and warped and sometimes bordering sickness, had never been Sybok's problem. It did not make sense to Spock that his half-brother, who preached that love and joy and sorrow were all things to be grasped, would condone suffering elsewhere. Regardless, this was not his universe. "Were his motivations ever determined?"
"They were not," Sarek replied, rigidly, from his right.
"Has there been any violence from this colony?" Spock asked, looking back over the group of elders, many of whom had found that position only more recently.
"There has not," Sarek replied again. Now Spock could hear a faint note in his voice, something that could only be described as regret.
Another thread: Amanda. The loss of his wife. Only Spock knew how deep that bond had gone; his younger self did not, and until now, perhaps even Sarek himself had not. Now, he had little choice but to look at the choices he had made. He had handled the younger Spock differently. Now, he bore regrets he never did in the other universe for his lost son.
Spock himself absorbed more knowledge, as it was presented; the retorts of Sybok's violence in his coup, and how he could destroy what little was left of them. The logical points that the very diversity of their species had been nearly put to an end, and that bringing back their lost would help. The debate went on, but Spock continued to pull the threads.
He was disturbed often by the weight his words carried in this universe. He was shocked by his own desperate actions, in trying to recreate what was lost, nearly by force in a manner of speaking. As though he was attempting to reweave a destroyed tapestry just as it had been, without regard for the natural progression of things. He thought of his own life, long as it was; the joys, the losses. His family; the blood kin, the chosen kin.
Inevitably, he thought of Jim, and the betrayal in his eyes that he had never spoken of Sybok before; just as inevitably, when he thought of Jim, he both wanted to laugh and cry and thought certainly that he was getting very old to have such impulses.
"What do you wish to add?" they asked him now.
Spock peered down the tips of his fingers to some distance undetermined and pulled the threads. Looked at the tapestries. The destroyed ones. The created ones. His life. Their lives.
He unraveled the threads, and then he spoke: "It is not my right to tell you what you should do. The wounds are deep, and I am not a healer."
The looked at him; he could feel their gazes. He thought of his half-brother. He thought of his father. His mother. Jim. Leonard. All of them. There were no melds nor words that would release this pain. Not theirs, nor his own.
The wounds were deep. And when he had spoken, he was just as much speaking of his own.
The Council contacted Sybok's colony the next day.