Fic: Living Roots (Gaila, Uhura, Spock, R)
Title: Living Roots
Rating: R
Pairing/Characters: Gaila, Uhura, Spock, implied Gaila/Uhura
Summary: Gaila learns sisterhood on Orion, sensuality as a priestess, hate as a slave, and friendship in the Academy. A life story.
Content Notes: References to rape (full warnings policy in profile)
Word Count: 7060
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and places belong to their logical and respective owners. I make no profit from this.
I.
Gaila has been many things in her life: daughter, sister, prostitute, insurgent, devotee, refugee. Now, she has two more titles to add to her list: Starfleet cadet, and, perhaps more importantly, friend. One is easy to understand, while the other is much more complicated.
Starfleet is simple. It's wonderful in all sorts of ways; there are the classes, for one thing, finally something other than cultural studies! There's one where they spent the day working as a group to come up with a huge equation to explain intergalactic warp - or it would have, anyway, if the displacement of matter caused by the warp wouldn't theoretically rip a hole in the fabric of space-time - but the best part is the mathematics. She has a gift with software and hardware both, but she never understood why her shortcuts and unorthodox repairs worked until the Academy; there is only so much science the clan-mothers would teach her, after all, though she did her best with what she knew. Plus, there's all the sex to be had - Andorians and Tellarites and Terrans and many more in all shapes, sizes, and flavors, and Gaila can sample them all, whenever she likes and however she likes. And though she misses her first-sisters and the life she had before, now she is free, and learning how to serve on a starship. She'll go on exploratory missions where no one's ever been. It's everything she ever wanted, blank space speckled with stars and strange, distant planets, and people to meet and love and fuck however she likes.
But there's a problem with Starfleet, too, and that problem is the other cadets. Oh, it's not entirely their fault, she knows. The vast majority of them are Federation since birth, born knowing what it's like to have legally recognized free will, most of them soft, pampered, even; all they know about Orions is what the newsfeed tells them, and the only news about the Orion Territories concerns the Syndicate. Still, after the nth time of being asked about her sex life, with all the Terran features of revulsion and fascination in their scent, and after dismissive statements by fellow cadets assuming she's just sex-crazed and ignorant, and after being asked, over and over again, by uneducated idiots about how she escaped slavery (as if they could ever understand) - it makes her want to scream. They don't understand the convoluted structure of Orion society, how one can be a priestess and a whore simultaneously, or how she can both feel nostalgia for her past and be overwhelmingly grateful she doesn't have to go back. They don't understand that the color of her hair and the poison-bearing fangs she keeps folded away in the roof of her mouth mark her as a member of the most influential caj in the Territories; they don't understand that she walked away from a relatively easy life serving her Goddess in the temple to fight a guerilla war against the Syndicate; they don't understand that she was a captive, not from birth, but from sheer bad luck; and most of all, they don't understand that she's green-skinned, and she's a woman, but she's sure as hell not a Green Animal Woman, and if they call her a slave girl she'll bare her teeth in what they think is a smile but she knows is a sign of aggression. The problem with Starfleet is that she's one of three Orions on campus, and the only one born outside the Federation, and no one really understands what that means.
Nyota, though, she almost gets it. She's a brilliant linguist, but she also has a passion for history, and she's told Gaila often about the bigotry her clan - no, race, that's the Terran word - has had to face over the years. Such petty discriminations are still fresh and raw in Terra's past, only a century and a half behind them; the United States of Africa still smarts, though it's now one of the strongest political powers on the planet. Gaila is unsurprised; such violence and bloodshed is not easily forgotten by the survivors. She can attest to that personally.
They are friends, now, carefully navigating the multiple layers of meaning the word has to offer: a pact, a promise to watch each other's backs, to play wingman when picking up people at clubs; it's a bond as close as one shared with a second-sister, perhaps someday elevated to the first-circle, though not sexual in their case - confusing, but Gaila respects Nyota's boundaries, even if she doesn't understand why. Terrans can be peculiar like that. At first, after several weeks of being scrupulously polite (only having sex when Nyota was gone, not asking her to cheat on her language exams to help Gaila, having the courtesy to invite her out to meals despite how little she liked Terran cuisine), Gaila had considered Nyota strange and standoffish. Intoxicants, however, are the great social lubricant, and over drinks and wissisu leaves, Nyota had confessed that she was having a hard time adjusting at the Academy; she'd grown up with a multitude of siblings and had never been away from home before. She didn't know how to make friends, saw herself as gawky and awkward, and envied Gaila her extroversion and likability - that was the exact phrase she used, word nerd as she is. They'd spent hours talking over lunch, missing their Intro to Xenobio class (a first for both of them), and Gaila had discovered the person behind Nyota's reserved exterior. She's glad of it; Nyota has turned out not to be only smart, but also funny, kind, loyal in a way not due to ties of blood or debt, but from choice, and of course, she is phenomenally gorgeous. But she does study too much.
Like right now, for example. Gaila's fresh off the shuttle, where she'd done a lot of thinking, and Nyota is completely absorbed in her PADD, a little frown scrunching her forehead. This despite the fact that they just returned from break; Gaila had literally just walked in the door, and Nyota had only said "Hi" and went straight back to whatever she was working on. Honestly. The semester hasn't even started yet, technically speaking.
"Hi yourself," Gaila says in reply, and strips out of her civilian clothes, flopping on the bed and rolling in the covers. Synthetic cotton is a wonderful thing, almost comparable to Orion silks; she relishes it every time she lies down. She waits much more patiently than she thinks is necessary for Nyota to speak, adhering to Terran custom, but her patience can only last so long.
"Wait until you hear about my summer," she prompts, and grins broadly at Nyota when the other woman glances up. Nyota's got a sparkle in her eye, clearly seeing right through Gaila's admittedly heavy-handed nudge.
"Can it wait until I'm done reading this?" she asks, with the tilted head and wide eyes that half the gynecophilic cadets drool over. If they had Gaila's sense of smell, they'd know Nyota only wears that face when she's teasing, kindly or not. They'd also probably be inclined to throw a pillow at her, as Gaila chooses to do.
"Hey - oof!" Gaila's aim is excellent; she hits Nyota in the face. Luckily, pillows are seldom dangerous objects to go flying across the room.
"I was taught in cultural studies that it was considered rude among humans to ignore their friends when they're talking," she says primly over Nyota's chortles. "Now give me back my pillow."
"Come and get it," Nyota taunts, and then quickly tosses it back as Gaila moves to make good on her promise, fangs out and scent playful. "Oh, fine, you win. I'm not in the mood to wrestle. How was your summer?"
"Oh, it was great!" Gaila says, leaping on the opening. "First I went to Colombia with this cadet I met in the greenhouses - he wanted to collect botanical samples - and we had such an adventure getting there, you have no idea, because see, first he had to go all the way out to DS2 to have an interview with some ethnobotanist so we could go into the rainforest - "
Gaila's made leaps and strides in her Standard pronunciation and vocabulary over the past few years, and she's developed a tendency to babble. Luckily, Nyota indulges her. Even if that means listening to ten minutes of her every sexual act and mountain climbing adventure (occasionally simultaneously) conducted within the past six weeks.
" - and then, after we bribed the border guard to let Hikaru through with his sword, I found us a cargo ship and talked the captain into taking us back into Federation space. It sounds dangerous, but trust me, I've seen worse! The best parts were by far the fucking. Hikaru is amazing, Nyota, and he was perfectly fine with the - " She falters momentarily, trying to remember the idiom. " - the no-strings-attached agreement. You really should try him sometime, I bet he'd love you, and you need to get rid of all that sexual energy."
"Uh - " Nyota lets out a brief snort, which Gaila has learned is her you're-ridiculous-sometimes-but-I-love-you-anyway noise. She'd gone back to her PADD midway through Gaila's recitation, but paid at least enough attention to be mildly titillated at her recounting of a memorable tryst on Risa. "I'll keep that in mind. My summer was great, too; I went back to Kisumu for my eldest sister's wedding."
Monogamy! Gaila thinks privately, still slightly appalled at the concept. She can imagine binding herself permanently to three or four people, perhaps, maybe even two, if they provided enough variety in both appearance and appetite, but just one lover, forever? She would go crazy with trying to contain herself. Still, she can't say that sort of thing out loud; Nyota would understand, but it's still rude.
"Wow," she says instead, attempting to sound congratulatory instead of astounded. "That's amazing!" Then she pauses, noting the way Nyota ducks her head, almost shyly, and the sudden shift in her scent. "Wait a second - you had sex with someone!"
"No! No one." She is blushing, Gaila can tell.
"You are so lying."
A pause, then Nyota admits, "An old friend from school."
"Knew it!" Gaila throws her pillow again, this time in the general direction of Nyota's bed. Nyota catches it and pummels it into shape, then curls up around it, clearly not intending to return it. Gaila doesn't care; she has, as the nonsensical saying goes, bigger fish to fry. "Did it get you out of your Vulcan craze?"
Nyota fluffs one of her other pillows and picks up her PADD. Sometimes she's so - closed, unwilling to share with Gaila, treating her as a second-circle relative instead of the first-sister Gaila so wants to be.
"I am trying to work here, Gaila."
Ooh, it's her snotty voice! Gaila arches an eyebrow and smirks. That means that she definitely isn't any less infatuated with her mysterious professor - mysterious to Gaila because he doesn't go to any nightclubs and she's never seen him in the mess hall, and Goddess knows she would never set a foot in a linguistics classroom.
"What would you even have to work on this early in the semester? And I want to meet him." Gaila gives Nyota a sunny smile when her roommate looks at her quizzically.
"My old boyfriend? I guess I could give you his number - "
"Stop being obtuse," says Gaila, exercising a new addition to her vocabulary. "Your Vulcan. Most of the teachers are back by now, right?"
"He's not my Vulcan," Nyota says in response, and Gaila can't help but roll her eyes. Terrans, always spending time mooning over the ones they want, becoming fussy, antisocial, and downright annoying, instead of doing the polite thing and simply asking if their intended wants to have sex, like Gaila does with species who don't understand scent markers. Although all those weepy vids that are so popular with teenage Terrans would have no plot at all, if everyone was just sensible like that.
"Never mind," says Gaila, and she turns to her bag, digging through the junk inside (flinging a bra over her shoulder, setting her work PADD lovingly on the side table, and tucking a vibrator into a drawer) until she finds the smaller PADD she uses strictly for fun. She feels driven today, decidedly antsy, and she's curious to know who has her normally level-headed friend all astir. "I'll find him myself."
"Good luck with that," Nyota says with a laugh as Gaila pulls on a tight blue dress and fluffs her hair; she's used to Gaila's larks by now. Her face grows solemn suddenly, and she adds, "If he's standoffish, don't be offended. He's just - Vulcan, you know?"
Gaila just tosses her a smile, and replies cheerfully, "I'll try not to seduce him, but no promises!"
She closes the door on Nyota's half-indignant, half-amused squawk.
II.
There is no sound in space, but the ship is shrieking as it's torn apart by gravitational forces beyond its endurance ratings. There is no sound in space, but the klaxons are howling as torpedos break through the shields and explode, weapons beyond the imaginings of modern science. There is no sound in space, but Cadet Chytensta is screaming at her, face lit up with horror. Gaila can't hear him.
There is no sound in space. All Gaila can hear is the beating of her blood in her ears, the harsh sound of her labored breathing. Metal girders fall before her, taking out vital systems: navigation, environmental controls, the replicator system. Life support. There is no way for her to fix them alone. She cries. Sparks fly.
One lands on the cuff of her pants. The ship shakes, and she watches the spark expand and burst into flame.
There is no sound in space. Gaila screams anyway.
. . .
Gaila emerges from the deep drift of unconsciousness into white-hot pain, flaring all over her body like a class O star, an ultraviolet ache concentrating on her legs, searing up her legs to her left shoulder. She tries to scream, gags instead at the visceral crumpling sound of the skin around her mouth and jaw tearing, and convulses - she can feel the IVs pulling from her arms, the oxygen tube carefully inserted into her throat sliding out. Across her body people are shouting, alarmed; someone jabs her neck with what she knows to be a hypospray but she doesn't care right now, oh Goddess she just wants the pain to stop - and it does, mercifully, she would kiss whoever helped her if she could (and do more besides) but no, she's sinking again, floating into mellow blue blankness. Calm. Numb.
III.
The room where Nyota's Vulcan teaches is actually quite small, compared to the other lecture halls on campus. His classes must be tiny, probably because they're so advanced. Gaila peeks around the door, which stands slightly open to allow a soft breeze. She'd thought he'd like the heat inside a closed classroom, but apparently Vulcans aren't immune to stuffiness. (There's a joke in there somewhere, she's sure of it.) Affixed to the wall directly opposite the door is a large, flat computer screen, a slim new model that Gaila admires before noticing the man standing in front of it. He's tall and straight-backed, holding his hands behind his back in a way that's equally prim and militant, and he's got straight shiny black hair in a ridiculous haircut that Gaila really wants to rumple. Gaila wonders how he'd be in the sack.
"Cadet," he says, without even turning his head, which makes her jump a little and squeak. "Do you require my assistance in some matter?"
"No, sir," she says cheerfully, throwing the door open and striding in confidently. She likes to project a certain image on first meetings. "Just curious about the class." Even though I don't know what you teach here, she thinks; the linguistics department is on the other side of campus. "What's your syllabus like?"
He taps the screen and it flicks to another page, this one full of equations that Gaila can't quite make out from here, and looks at her. She blinks, decides that Nyota really wouldn't like it if she made a move on him (and as a Vulcan, he probably wouldn't be too responsive anyway, if her xenobio textbook is right; were she willing to use her pheromones on him, he'd only get a headache and not the aching erection she usually aims to achieve), and settles for giving him a thorough once-over: a slim build taut with muscle hiding under that regulation uniform; uptight posture; gorgeous face, with clean angles and sweeping lines, even if his mouth is a little too stern for Gaila's tastes. She'd fuck him regardless; he looks like he could be wild once he really let loose. Nyota has a good eye for that sort of thing, she decides.
"The class itself is still being reviewed by the board," he tells her. "Should it be approved and the requisite five students register, it will cover in part the concept of space-time as a Lorentzian manifold and the quantum inequalities inherent in Minkowski space, with emphasis on the permanent warping of space-time into superluminal tunnels."
He's watching her closely - maybe he expects her to have no clue what he's talking about. Maybe he's testing her. Maybe he doesn't think that an Orion female would be capable of understanding temporal physics - she's run into that before. So she smiles and says, "Oh, like Krasnikov tubes? They've always interested me. I love things that violate the law of casuality."
His eyebrow arches. "Indeed, cadet? What do you make of these equations?"
She steps closer and eyes the scribbles all over the board, does several minutes of calculations while Spock watches her, stylus flying over the numbers and letters, giving her a kind of serenity; Nyota can keep her languages, mathematics is where true beauty lies. Then takes a deep breath, and begins to speak.
. . .
Three hours later, she rather thinks she's made a new friend, or at least been guaranteed a spot in one of the most interesting classes she'll ever take. But she needs to get out in the sun; she feels a bit wilted, which isn't anything harmful but definitely makes her hair less flamboyant.
"By the way," she says to Spock, pausing before she walks out the door. "Nyota Uhura wants to invite you to dinner Saturday night."
His eyebrows twitch. She definitely saw them. "Indeed?"
"Yes. She'd totally have asked you herself but she was working on a paper or something. Is Indian okay? She'll be at that place down the street at 1900 if you're interested."
He considers, then says, "Inform Cadet Uhura that her invitation has been accepted. I am interested in hearing the proposed topic of her thesis."
"Awesome!" Gaila grins at him and turns to go. Right before she leaves, she takes a chance (how likely would he be to report her for insubordination? The odds are lower than she'd have thought), and tosses over her shoulder, "I think you two should have sex. You'd really enjoy it, trust me."
She'll always be proud to be one of the few people to take a Vulcan entirely by surprise. And when Nyota and Spock really do start fucking - or dating, or seeing each other socially outside of a professional setting, or whatever they want to call it - she takes nearly all of the credit.
For future reference, she aces the class.
IV.
She likes the way the purple stones gleam against her skin, the way the saffron powder dusted over her eyelids shimmers and brings out golden highlights in her hair. She likes the crushed-coral balm painted over her lips, and how she looks like an exquisitely designed doll. A man couldn't resist her if he tried, no matter her age. And she's young, later she'll realize just how young she really is, but these are her traditions; the sway of her hips will honor the gods, the curve of her neck will serve as the canvas they will paint upon. And what is wrong with dance, anyway?
Gaila moves obediently into first position, swivels her hips, her arms floating languidly in the air. She peers at the world from under painted lowered lashes, allows her lips to part slightly. Seductive. She is nine years old and a perfect Orion woman.
Her first-mother clucks behind her and says, "Come here, there's something wrong with your hair."
Of course there is, it comes as no shock; all the clan-mothers hate her hair, unusually curly and difficult to manage, even when straightened and slicked back with oils to keep it as sleek as the red manes of her caj. Gaila drops her arms and moves toward first-mother. She loves her hair, secretly; she thinks it makes her an individual. Sort of like her ache for the stars, her childish declaration that she would captain a starship one day. Oh, Gaila, her clan-sisters say, laughing and shaking their heads. Such dreams, such foolish aspirations!
The twin stars of the colony burn whitely in the sky, and Gaila's skin prickles. Later, when she learns about the inherited fragility of her caj's skin, she'll understand sunburn, and take proper precautions when she triggers photosynthesis, but for now, she only grits her teeth and lets the sting continue. She can go in when she's finished her dance.
. . .
To be accepted as an acolyte in the Temple of the Fang is a formidable honor. One must pass a series of tests: memorize the thousand steps of the Songs, to prove her knowledge; spend a year in the Temple's pleasure-house, to prove her sensuality; poison a slaver, to prove her capacity for vengeance; slice open her palms, to prove her acceptance of sacrifice. Gaila rises to her feet, extending hands sticky with blood to the High Priestess. The Priestess takes her wrists and laps at the clear ichor pooling in Gaila's cupped palms.
"Sweet," she says, and hits Gaila across the face with all the force in her body. Gaila snarls, and before the Priestess can pull her hand back, Gaila has twisted her arm behind her back, and Gaila's fangs are pricking the skin of her shoulder. The Priestess smiles.
"Quick," she says. "Controlled. You do your clan-mothers proud."
"I do," Gaila says, and releases her. It is the truth, not praise.
Tilting her head, the Priestess regards her for a long, long moment. Gaila returns her gaze, and wonders what she sees.
"It is enough," the Priestess announces finally. Gaila exhales, but doesn't allow her posture to waver or her smile to push at her cheeks. It seems improper, somehow. Later, this will become a niggling thought distracting her from her worship - there is so little joy here - but this doesn't concern Gaila just yet. She has passed the final test. She is strong.
Gaila bows to the Priestess, and enters the temple, blood singing in her ears. This place is holy; she can feel it like a whisper against her skin. Beyond the soaring statues that create the temple's archway, all the rooms are open to the air, so the acolytes and priestesses can feel the sunlight, the stinging rains, can smell the fresh grass and the rotting fruit on the unpicked trees of the temple's orchards. Glancing up, Gaila looks back at the statues: the Goddess of a Thousand Teeth represented in her trifold forms. Creator, open-palmed and benevolent; Destroyer, with hooked fingers ending in claws and cold, unyielding eyes; Lover, standing braced on the shoulders of the other two, hands raised toward the sky and her mouth open in jubilation. These are only three of her multitudes, as Gaila well knows. Now she is one of them herself.
. . .
Gaila, Marta, and Meera become first-sisters in a sharing of blood and fruit, and give their prayers to the Goddess in a tangle of limbs and gasps of pleasure. This ritual isn't strictly required to form the bond, but when they plan their vows, they agree that the old ways fit their sisterhood in ways a simple declaration couldn't. Meera is dubious about that, but then, she has already created her first-circle, and is a progressive thinker as well, eyes always turned toward the future. Marta is adamant about the ritual, and as it marks the creation of her first-circle, Gaila knows Meera will eventually give in.
When they ask Gaila her opinion, Gaila shrugs and says, "The Goddess will hear us all the same."
"Yes, but what do you want to do?" Marta persists. Meera gives Gaila a long-suffering glance, and Gaila's lips twitch in an unexpected smile.
"I like the thought of a blood ritual," Gaila muses, and flops back on the grass. It rises above her head, and Gaila can hear the fine fibers covering their stalks quivering as they wait for smaller prey, soft plant-thoughts brushing against her senses. "It feels truer. Do you know what I mean?"
Meera makes a thoughtful sound, and Marta leans into Gaila's field of vision, her face framed by grass and sky. "You agree, then?"
"Definitely," Gaila says. Marta grins with the satisfaction of one who got her way, straddling Gaila and bending to give her a kiss. Gaila slides her hands along Marta's thighs, and says in a voice muffled by her questing mouth, "Now if only we can get the High Priestess to stop harping on us about interrupting the prayer hours with our unseemly giggles - "
Marta snorts with laughter, and Meera snaps, "Shut up! Someone could hear you, and then we'd all be in trouble."
But she is laughing too, and when they do enact the ritual, there is nothing but joy between them.
. . .
The slavers didn't expect the priestesses to fight back, a foolish act on their part. Some sects refuse to use much technology - one, a priesthood of a different god, eschews it entirely - but this colony's temple is not one of them. Marta is the only one of Gaila's first-circle not well-versed in one speciality or another, but she knows how to use a phaser and she is as vicious as the Destroyer when she's angry.
It doesn't save her. Gaila doesn't save her, or her other first-sisters and her second-mother, all taken; Gaila was ensconced in one of the few roofed places in the temple with the members of the upper order, doing her best with outdated technology to hack into the slavers' ship computers, when the first line of defense fell and the walls of the temple cracked open.
After everything is over - after her childhood has ended - Gaila knows she can't stay. The population of the temple has been decimated; even the hunters will be needed in the rebuilding. There is only one other way to track the slavers down, only one way to find Marta and the others. Gaila finds it ironic that this is her long-awaited chance to go to the stars.
Gaila leaves the temple step by step, and that is how she gains entry into the Syndicate's slave ring: step by step, tryst by tryst, whoring her way across the quadrant. It isn't the prostitution she despises, but the way her patrons try to own her, even before she is officially captured and made a slave. She thinks they can sense her defiance, and that is why they're so cruel with her.
Often, she has to pray while they rape her so she won't kill them.
V.
"No, wait, that's not right, you're going to fry it - Nyota!"
"I'm sorry! I thought you you said that data cube was supposed to go there!"
"I did not! That's such a, a, rookie mistake! I definitely said to put it here - "
"Nyota is correct, Gaila. You specifically directed her to insert the data cube into the incorrect slot, thus causing the unit to short-circuit. It may be a 'rookie mistake', but you did indeed make it."
"You're just saying that so she'll fuck you tonight."
"I assure you, I am not - "
"Come on, Gaila. Do you think he needs to hand out compliments to have his way with me?"
"I hope not. He could recite Klingon verb conjugations and I'd still hit it."
"I do not appreciate the topic of this discussion."
"What, don't you love me, Spock?"
"I must request a specific definition before answering that question."
"He does. I can tell."
"We should have a threesome!"
"Good idea. Take off your clothes!"
"I presume you are joking."
Laughter.
"I do not understand your predilection for hysteria at seemingly inconsequential moments."
Unrepentant laughter.
"I actually thought you were going to do it! Now I'm disappointed. I've always wanted to try you out."
"Ah."
"This study session is obviously over, guys. Want to go outside? It's a beautiful fall day."
"Sure! I need to sunbathe, anyway. All this inside work is making my hair limp."
"Spock, do you want to come?"
"I do."
VI.
"What do you mean, we don't have any Orion blood on the ship? We're supposed to have enough for every crew member on board!"
"Goddammit, I'm doing the best I can! Spock, go and - good. Here, Nurse Chapel, see if you can cauterize those wounds shut, our equipment's offline - "
"She's from another ship, that's why - Uhura, get out of sickbay, this isn't your post - "
"The Orion, it's her, isn't it? Oh god, Gaila, her skin - Is there anything I can do to help?"
"No, get back on the bridge! We need you out there - "
"If you know anything about her medical history, that's a start."
"I - she's allergic to kelotane, I know, and susceptible to sunburn - "
"Kelotane? Shit. Where's - Spock! Can you do it?"
"Doctor, Lieutenant Gaila's blood and skin are in the process of being duplicated, although her hemoglobin is proving difficult for our equipment to successfully clone."
"When will we get 'em?"
"Approximately thirty minutes. However, Orion and Lepian blood contain enough similarities that a transfusion of type I blood could prove helpful to maintain stability - "
"Yeah, doing that - shit, she's slipping, hand me that blood bag - "
. . .
No, she doesn't want to open her eyes. No. She moves, and her legs are on fire. Some noise in her throat. Moan. Sizzling sound of her skin fusing to the overheating metal of the ship - the sound of crumpling plastic. Too much sun. She is susceptible to sunburn. Not her words, though it's true. Whose? The Goddess of a Thousand Teeth whispering her name, Gaila, Gaila, my daughter/sister/lover, and she says please, the desert is inside me. Goddess touching her hair, goddess filling her veins with ice. Good, so good, but still the flames rage, sand grates in her muscles. Hand on her face, the Goddess is inside her. Mind to mind, we are one. Soothe, calm. Heal, she will heal. Past the worst. Dampen the fire. Be blank, the Goddess whispers, and her voice is deep, smooth rock. She clutches it. Down, away, submerge yourself. Pain is flesh; you are more. You are Gaila. Your bones will knit; your scars will heal; your katra is your only concern. You are Gaila. Concentrate.
Gaila.
Heal.
VII.
The plants don't speak to her, here.
It's the first thing she notices, touching down on Federation land. She has spent most of her life on her homeworld in the Territories, and the rest in space; there has never been a time when she couldn't hear the soft murmurs of the grasses, feel the swaying of the tree-thoughts on the breeze.
She is incredibly, powerfully lonely. She can't recall the last time she was without the company of others: the plants, first, then her clan, her fellow acolytes and her first-circle, and finally her fellow slaves and the members of the Resistance cell she fought beside. The cell she belonged to. Goddess, how she misses them.
Gaila shuts her eyes and leans her head against the window, one of many lining the huge hall where customs officials process families on holiday and refugees seeking asylum alike. She lets her fangs slide out, just the tips, and runs her tongue over them, a comforting gesture. There is a sharp gasp nearby, and she opens her eyes to see an adult Terran woman staring at her with wide eyes. She hadn't met many Terrans during her time in the Syndicate. They still look disconcertingly similar to her, as if all cast from the same mold, and their expressions are difficult to read, but their scents are easily interpreted. Fear, disgust, arousal; all the same emotions she elicited from the Terran men she'd encountered before. Immediate dislike floods her, and she bares her fangs at the woman without thinking. Her face pales and she hurries away, shooting darting looks at Gaila; her scent changes quickly from the mixture she'd caught earlier to simple fear.
Gaila slumps against the window and retracts her fangs, guilt and irritation washing over her. The point of coming to Federation space was to beg asylum and hopefully gain citizenship, and to do that she must show her willingness to assimilate. She is, in theory, entirely willing, but they make it so difficult! Sometimes she can't believe an entire body of people managed to be so naive. Even in the temple, the safest place she'd ever known, she had been twice as aware of danger and thrice as prepared.
Perhaps, though, that is why people come here. People, like her, seeking a way to live without fear. Gaila can't fathom it; she has spent so many years dancing on the edge of death that it's nearly impossible to imagine a life otherwise. It's hard to tame her defensive reflexes, but she must. Gaila makes a mental list and begins checking off the items she's achieved, the ones she's begun, and those she needs to work on.
Perfecting her accent and losing the formalized cadence of Orion speech: nearly there. She needs to pick up idioms and spend more time learning the vernacular of her age group. Learning to display Terran gestures and postures: difficult, but her research into the species will improve drastically once she has access to Federation libraries. Terrans may be the dominant species here, and therefore the ones to emulate, but information on them in the Territories is scant.
She wonders how Marta is doing, if her ship ever made it back to their homeworld. Gaila had meant to go with her, but there are some places you can never go back to, once you've been so far away.
Familiarizing herself with Federation equipment: she's most looking forward to this one, excited to have cutting-edge tech instead of the decrepit messes sold to the Orions by the Klingons. She's a quick learner, and exceptionally skilled. Her goal is to make it into Starfleet Academy eventually, and she knows she'll be good enough; if she can't find a way to pay, maybe she can get a scholarship. Maybe they have a quota to meet, one of born survivors with green skin, sexual knowledge to fill a thousand PADDs, and an infallible sense of humor.
Gaila laughs quietly to herself, remembering Meera chastising her and Marta, then the arm of her chair hums and a voice says pleasantly from a hidden speaker, "Please proceed to Processing Booth 103-A to receive form Application for Asylum and form Request for Entry to Federation Interstellar Education Program Epsilon."
Another item to add to her list: learn to adapt to endless bureaucratic nonsense.
Gaila gets to her feet and staggers a little; she's been sitting for so long her foot went numb. No one moves to help her. She glances along the rows of people and sees a sea of unfamiliar faces and unknown species. She is the only Orion in the entire building.
Some stare, but most simply look bored - at least, as far as she can tell. No one speaks to her. Is anyone kind in this place?
Gaila grits her teeth and wills away tears; she chose this (chose to survive), and she'll damn well see it through to the end. Limping only a little as the tingling leaves her limb, she makes her way to Processing Booth 103-A. Welcome to the Federation.
She hopes she can find something to love here.
VIII.
She digs her toes into the soft sod, savoring the squelch of mud between her toes. The doctors were wary of letting her out in the sun so soon, but the healing trance Spock had induced had cut her recuperation time nearly in half, and she needs a good dose of sunlight to stimulate photosynthesis; the hospital's lamps are shoddy mimics when it comes to the real thing, especially considering -
Well. She doesn't want to think about that now. (Still, her eyes flicker downward, to the mass of scars on her right leg, arcing from below her knee up the curve of her thigh to wrap around her waist - what will she do? How will she manage, without the strength drawn from the sun?)
The weather's beautiful, sunny and balmy with a bite of that San Francisco chill, and normally the air would be full of the chatter of just-graduated cadets moving out of their dorms and into the spacious quarters of their new lives. Not today, not this year. Gaila is one of four survivors off the Farragut; there were two from the Potemkin, and they're still finding cadets drifting in orbit, half-crazed from being stuck for weeks in escape pods floating just outside the gravitational pull of the singularity where Vulcan once was. Ninety-five percent of her graduating class, dead, ninety-five percent of her friends, all dead, and still the sun shines. So they always do, the suns of planets where loved ones die and others must live on.
Gaila flops onto her back, skin against earth, closing her eyes and inhaling the scent of mineral-rich dirt, feeling the shift of the soil under her fingers, sensing the little sprigs of grass stretching to the sky, tiny and frail but valiant. She feels abstract, as if she is a fixed point in space. Maybe, she thinks, a little distantly, this is grief. She's never really had much use for emotions like this, the aching sort that can't be resolved by action or pheromone release. It would be better if she was angry; she could train, or fight, or hack a database, or - the most fulfilling option - go into some bar with pheromones blazing and take a few poor Terrans out back and fuck her rage out on the gravel next to the trash, down and dirty like how she feels when something goes fundamentally wrong.
The raw new skin on her body tingles as it absorbs the sun, darkening from the palest green of new shoots to a deeper emerald. She concentrates on the sensation, uses it as a distraction. Someone sits down next to her on the grass, a graceful and quiet motion, and a cool shadow falls over her torso. She's not in the mood to deal with the questions now, always the damn questions - so she says, a bit sharply, "Sorry, but can you move? You're blocking the sun."
"My apologies," says Spock, and the shadow moves away, and Gaila opens her eyes to see him standing above her, observing her, and Nyota by her side, tangling her fingers in the grass, looking at her with dark eyes full of love and sadness. She touches Gaila's hand softly with two fingers before saying, "Hi, leaflet."
Gaila makes a noise that's both a laugh and a sob and engulfs Nyota in a hug, kissing her wet and sloppy and open-mouthed, probably totally inappropriate by Terran standards and Nyota's own comfort level but she doesn't care right now, she needs, and Nyota kisses her back, wraps her arms around Gaila's back, and holds her.
"I'm so glad you're not dead," Gaila tells her, and Nyota chuckles against her neck, a sad sound. Gaila looks up at Spock. His posture is stiff, his hands clamped tightly behind his back. He contains himself well - no flicker of a facial expression, no waver to his voice - but grief radiates out of his every pore, if you know how to look, and Gaila does. She extends her hand, inviting him to sit, brushing her fingers lightly against his. (She remembers Nyota telling her that's a violation of Vulcan privacy, but again - she just doesn't care.)
"The Goddess weeps a thousand thousand tears for you," she tells him, falling into the lush cadence of the sibilant Orion tongue, since that's the only sound that really encapsulates the sorrow and sincerity she feels. Nyota shifts on her shoulder and whispers, "Such a beautiful language."
Spock inclines his head and says, "I thank you," then joins them on the ground. Nyota pulls slightly away from Gaila and looks at him; they seem to have a conversation with subtle physical cues and maybe telepathy, Gaila's not sure how far the Vulcan talent extends in a mating bond, and she's torn between wanting desperately to be as close to them as they are to each other and marveling at the beauty of how well they work in sync.
Then Spock touches her face, lightly, and allows her to feel the weight of his emotions. Goddess, she doesn't know how Vulcans cope with this, how they keep themselves from exploding, the intensity of his grief alone is enough to make her want to take him inside her and comfort him in the best way she knows - and Nyota pulls her tightly and protectively close again as she cries, for him, for Marta, and for her dead friends, Federation and Orion both.
She laughs for the living ones, too.
Later, when they stand as one and make their meandering way to the hospital (Nyota's arm firmly wrapped around her waist, Gaila wincing as her skin complains at being overstretched, Spock on her other side, occasionally brushing her forearm with his fingertips), she feels more at peace, more...centered. She has a first-circle here on Terra, and their support gives her strength.
The grass where they sat is crushed in the shape of their bodies, but the little shoots keep growing; they're far from fragile.
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comments.
Rating: R
Pairing/Characters: Gaila, Uhura, Spock, implied Gaila/Uhura
Summary: Gaila learns sisterhood on Orion, sensuality as a priestess, hate as a slave, and friendship in the Academy. A life story.
Content Notes: References to rape (full warnings policy in profile)
Word Count: 7060
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and places belong to their logical and respective owners. I make no profit from this.
I.
Gaila has been many things in her life: daughter, sister, prostitute, insurgent, devotee, refugee. Now, she has two more titles to add to her list: Starfleet cadet, and, perhaps more importantly, friend. One is easy to understand, while the other is much more complicated.
Starfleet is simple. It's wonderful in all sorts of ways; there are the classes, for one thing, finally something other than cultural studies! There's one where they spent the day working as a group to come up with a huge equation to explain intergalactic warp - or it would have, anyway, if the displacement of matter caused by the warp wouldn't theoretically rip a hole in the fabric of space-time - but the best part is the mathematics. She has a gift with software and hardware both, but she never understood why her shortcuts and unorthodox repairs worked until the Academy; there is only so much science the clan-mothers would teach her, after all, though she did her best with what she knew. Plus, there's all the sex to be had - Andorians and Tellarites and Terrans and many more in all shapes, sizes, and flavors, and Gaila can sample them all, whenever she likes and however she likes. And though she misses her first-sisters and the life she had before, now she is free, and learning how to serve on a starship. She'll go on exploratory missions where no one's ever been. It's everything she ever wanted, blank space speckled with stars and strange, distant planets, and people to meet and love and fuck however she likes.
But there's a problem with Starfleet, too, and that problem is the other cadets. Oh, it's not entirely their fault, she knows. The vast majority of them are Federation since birth, born knowing what it's like to have legally recognized free will, most of them soft, pampered, even; all they know about Orions is what the newsfeed tells them, and the only news about the Orion Territories concerns the Syndicate. Still, after the nth time of being asked about her sex life, with all the Terran features of revulsion and fascination in their scent, and after dismissive statements by fellow cadets assuming she's just sex-crazed and ignorant, and after being asked, over and over again, by uneducated idiots about how she escaped slavery (as if they could ever understand) - it makes her want to scream. They don't understand the convoluted structure of Orion society, how one can be a priestess and a whore simultaneously, or how she can both feel nostalgia for her past and be overwhelmingly grateful she doesn't have to go back. They don't understand that the color of her hair and the poison-bearing fangs she keeps folded away in the roof of her mouth mark her as a member of the most influential caj in the Territories; they don't understand that she walked away from a relatively easy life serving her Goddess in the temple to fight a guerilla war against the Syndicate; they don't understand that she was a captive, not from birth, but from sheer bad luck; and most of all, they don't understand that she's green-skinned, and she's a woman, but she's sure as hell not a Green Animal Woman, and if they call her a slave girl she'll bare her teeth in what they think is a smile but she knows is a sign of aggression. The problem with Starfleet is that she's one of three Orions on campus, and the only one born outside the Federation, and no one really understands what that means.
Nyota, though, she almost gets it. She's a brilliant linguist, but she also has a passion for history, and she's told Gaila often about the bigotry her clan - no, race, that's the Terran word - has had to face over the years. Such petty discriminations are still fresh and raw in Terra's past, only a century and a half behind them; the United States of Africa still smarts, though it's now one of the strongest political powers on the planet. Gaila is unsurprised; such violence and bloodshed is not easily forgotten by the survivors. She can attest to that personally.
They are friends, now, carefully navigating the multiple layers of meaning the word has to offer: a pact, a promise to watch each other's backs, to play wingman when picking up people at clubs; it's a bond as close as one shared with a second-sister, perhaps someday elevated to the first-circle, though not sexual in their case - confusing, but Gaila respects Nyota's boundaries, even if she doesn't understand why. Terrans can be peculiar like that. At first, after several weeks of being scrupulously polite (only having sex when Nyota was gone, not asking her to cheat on her language exams to help Gaila, having the courtesy to invite her out to meals despite how little she liked Terran cuisine), Gaila had considered Nyota strange and standoffish. Intoxicants, however, are the great social lubricant, and over drinks and wissisu leaves, Nyota had confessed that she was having a hard time adjusting at the Academy; she'd grown up with a multitude of siblings and had never been away from home before. She didn't know how to make friends, saw herself as gawky and awkward, and envied Gaila her extroversion and likability - that was the exact phrase she used, word nerd as she is. They'd spent hours talking over lunch, missing their Intro to Xenobio class (a first for both of them), and Gaila had discovered the person behind Nyota's reserved exterior. She's glad of it; Nyota has turned out not to be only smart, but also funny, kind, loyal in a way not due to ties of blood or debt, but from choice, and of course, she is phenomenally gorgeous. But she does study too much.
Like right now, for example. Gaila's fresh off the shuttle, where she'd done a lot of thinking, and Nyota is completely absorbed in her PADD, a little frown scrunching her forehead. This despite the fact that they just returned from break; Gaila had literally just walked in the door, and Nyota had only said "Hi" and went straight back to whatever she was working on. Honestly. The semester hasn't even started yet, technically speaking.
"Hi yourself," Gaila says in reply, and strips out of her civilian clothes, flopping on the bed and rolling in the covers. Synthetic cotton is a wonderful thing, almost comparable to Orion silks; she relishes it every time she lies down. She waits much more patiently than she thinks is necessary for Nyota to speak, adhering to Terran custom, but her patience can only last so long.
"Wait until you hear about my summer," she prompts, and grins broadly at Nyota when the other woman glances up. Nyota's got a sparkle in her eye, clearly seeing right through Gaila's admittedly heavy-handed nudge.
"Can it wait until I'm done reading this?" she asks, with the tilted head and wide eyes that half the gynecophilic cadets drool over. If they had Gaila's sense of smell, they'd know Nyota only wears that face when she's teasing, kindly or not. They'd also probably be inclined to throw a pillow at her, as Gaila chooses to do.
"Hey - oof!" Gaila's aim is excellent; she hits Nyota in the face. Luckily, pillows are seldom dangerous objects to go flying across the room.
"I was taught in cultural studies that it was considered rude among humans to ignore their friends when they're talking," she says primly over Nyota's chortles. "Now give me back my pillow."
"Come and get it," Nyota taunts, and then quickly tosses it back as Gaila moves to make good on her promise, fangs out and scent playful. "Oh, fine, you win. I'm not in the mood to wrestle. How was your summer?"
"Oh, it was great!" Gaila says, leaping on the opening. "First I went to Colombia with this cadet I met in the greenhouses - he wanted to collect botanical samples - and we had such an adventure getting there, you have no idea, because see, first he had to go all the way out to DS2 to have an interview with some ethnobotanist so we could go into the rainforest - "
Gaila's made leaps and strides in her Standard pronunciation and vocabulary over the past few years, and she's developed a tendency to babble. Luckily, Nyota indulges her. Even if that means listening to ten minutes of her every sexual act and mountain climbing adventure (occasionally simultaneously) conducted within the past six weeks.
" - and then, after we bribed the border guard to let Hikaru through with his sword, I found us a cargo ship and talked the captain into taking us back into Federation space. It sounds dangerous, but trust me, I've seen worse! The best parts were by far the fucking. Hikaru is amazing, Nyota, and he was perfectly fine with the - " She falters momentarily, trying to remember the idiom. " - the no-strings-attached agreement. You really should try him sometime, I bet he'd love you, and you need to get rid of all that sexual energy."
"Uh - " Nyota lets out a brief snort, which Gaila has learned is her you're-ridiculous-sometimes-but-I-love-you-anyway noise. She'd gone back to her PADD midway through Gaila's recitation, but paid at least enough attention to be mildly titillated at her recounting of a memorable tryst on Risa. "I'll keep that in mind. My summer was great, too; I went back to Kisumu for my eldest sister's wedding."
Monogamy! Gaila thinks privately, still slightly appalled at the concept. She can imagine binding herself permanently to three or four people, perhaps, maybe even two, if they provided enough variety in both appearance and appetite, but just one lover, forever? She would go crazy with trying to contain herself. Still, she can't say that sort of thing out loud; Nyota would understand, but it's still rude.
"Wow," she says instead, attempting to sound congratulatory instead of astounded. "That's amazing!" Then she pauses, noting the way Nyota ducks her head, almost shyly, and the sudden shift in her scent. "Wait a second - you had sex with someone!"
"No! No one." She is blushing, Gaila can tell.
"You are so lying."
A pause, then Nyota admits, "An old friend from school."
"Knew it!" Gaila throws her pillow again, this time in the general direction of Nyota's bed. Nyota catches it and pummels it into shape, then curls up around it, clearly not intending to return it. Gaila doesn't care; she has, as the nonsensical saying goes, bigger fish to fry. "Did it get you out of your Vulcan craze?"
Nyota fluffs one of her other pillows and picks up her PADD. Sometimes she's so - closed, unwilling to share with Gaila, treating her as a second-circle relative instead of the first-sister Gaila so wants to be.
"I am trying to work here, Gaila."
Ooh, it's her snotty voice! Gaila arches an eyebrow and smirks. That means that she definitely isn't any less infatuated with her mysterious professor - mysterious to Gaila because he doesn't go to any nightclubs and she's never seen him in the mess hall, and Goddess knows she would never set a foot in a linguistics classroom.
"What would you even have to work on this early in the semester? And I want to meet him." Gaila gives Nyota a sunny smile when her roommate looks at her quizzically.
"My old boyfriend? I guess I could give you his number - "
"Stop being obtuse," says Gaila, exercising a new addition to her vocabulary. "Your Vulcan. Most of the teachers are back by now, right?"
"He's not my Vulcan," Nyota says in response, and Gaila can't help but roll her eyes. Terrans, always spending time mooning over the ones they want, becoming fussy, antisocial, and downright annoying, instead of doing the polite thing and simply asking if their intended wants to have sex, like Gaila does with species who don't understand scent markers. Although all those weepy vids that are so popular with teenage Terrans would have no plot at all, if everyone was just sensible like that.
"Never mind," says Gaila, and she turns to her bag, digging through the junk inside (flinging a bra over her shoulder, setting her work PADD lovingly on the side table, and tucking a vibrator into a drawer) until she finds the smaller PADD she uses strictly for fun. She feels driven today, decidedly antsy, and she's curious to know who has her normally level-headed friend all astir. "I'll find him myself."
"Good luck with that," Nyota says with a laugh as Gaila pulls on a tight blue dress and fluffs her hair; she's used to Gaila's larks by now. Her face grows solemn suddenly, and she adds, "If he's standoffish, don't be offended. He's just - Vulcan, you know?"
Gaila just tosses her a smile, and replies cheerfully, "I'll try not to seduce him, but no promises!"
She closes the door on Nyota's half-indignant, half-amused squawk.
II.
There is no sound in space, but the ship is shrieking as it's torn apart by gravitational forces beyond its endurance ratings. There is no sound in space, but the klaxons are howling as torpedos break through the shields and explode, weapons beyond the imaginings of modern science. There is no sound in space, but Cadet Chytensta is screaming at her, face lit up with horror. Gaila can't hear him.
There is no sound in space. All Gaila can hear is the beating of her blood in her ears, the harsh sound of her labored breathing. Metal girders fall before her, taking out vital systems: navigation, environmental controls, the replicator system. Life support. There is no way for her to fix them alone. She cries. Sparks fly.
One lands on the cuff of her pants. The ship shakes, and she watches the spark expand and burst into flame.
There is no sound in space. Gaila screams anyway.
. . .
Gaila emerges from the deep drift of unconsciousness into white-hot pain, flaring all over her body like a class O star, an ultraviolet ache concentrating on her legs, searing up her legs to her left shoulder. She tries to scream, gags instead at the visceral crumpling sound of the skin around her mouth and jaw tearing, and convulses - she can feel the IVs pulling from her arms, the oxygen tube carefully inserted into her throat sliding out. Across her body people are shouting, alarmed; someone jabs her neck with what she knows to be a hypospray but she doesn't care right now, oh Goddess she just wants the pain to stop - and it does, mercifully, she would kiss whoever helped her if she could (and do more besides) but no, she's sinking again, floating into mellow blue blankness. Calm. Numb.
III.
The room where Nyota's Vulcan teaches is actually quite small, compared to the other lecture halls on campus. His classes must be tiny, probably because they're so advanced. Gaila peeks around the door, which stands slightly open to allow a soft breeze. She'd thought he'd like the heat inside a closed classroom, but apparently Vulcans aren't immune to stuffiness. (There's a joke in there somewhere, she's sure of it.) Affixed to the wall directly opposite the door is a large, flat computer screen, a slim new model that Gaila admires before noticing the man standing in front of it. He's tall and straight-backed, holding his hands behind his back in a way that's equally prim and militant, and he's got straight shiny black hair in a ridiculous haircut that Gaila really wants to rumple. Gaila wonders how he'd be in the sack.
"Cadet," he says, without even turning his head, which makes her jump a little and squeak. "Do you require my assistance in some matter?"
"No, sir," she says cheerfully, throwing the door open and striding in confidently. She likes to project a certain image on first meetings. "Just curious about the class." Even though I don't know what you teach here, she thinks; the linguistics department is on the other side of campus. "What's your syllabus like?"
He taps the screen and it flicks to another page, this one full of equations that Gaila can't quite make out from here, and looks at her. She blinks, decides that Nyota really wouldn't like it if she made a move on him (and as a Vulcan, he probably wouldn't be too responsive anyway, if her xenobio textbook is right; were she willing to use her pheromones on him, he'd only get a headache and not the aching erection she usually aims to achieve), and settles for giving him a thorough once-over: a slim build taut with muscle hiding under that regulation uniform; uptight posture; gorgeous face, with clean angles and sweeping lines, even if his mouth is a little too stern for Gaila's tastes. She'd fuck him regardless; he looks like he could be wild once he really let loose. Nyota has a good eye for that sort of thing, she decides.
"The class itself is still being reviewed by the board," he tells her. "Should it be approved and the requisite five students register, it will cover in part the concept of space-time as a Lorentzian manifold and the quantum inequalities inherent in Minkowski space, with emphasis on the permanent warping of space-time into superluminal tunnels."
He's watching her closely - maybe he expects her to have no clue what he's talking about. Maybe he's testing her. Maybe he doesn't think that an Orion female would be capable of understanding temporal physics - she's run into that before. So she smiles and says, "Oh, like Krasnikov tubes? They've always interested me. I love things that violate the law of casuality."
His eyebrow arches. "Indeed, cadet? What do you make of these equations?"
She steps closer and eyes the scribbles all over the board, does several minutes of calculations while Spock watches her, stylus flying over the numbers and letters, giving her a kind of serenity; Nyota can keep her languages, mathematics is where true beauty lies. Then takes a deep breath, and begins to speak.
. . .
Three hours later, she rather thinks she's made a new friend, or at least been guaranteed a spot in one of the most interesting classes she'll ever take. But she needs to get out in the sun; she feels a bit wilted, which isn't anything harmful but definitely makes her hair less flamboyant.
"By the way," she says to Spock, pausing before she walks out the door. "Nyota Uhura wants to invite you to dinner Saturday night."
His eyebrows twitch. She definitely saw them. "Indeed?"
"Yes. She'd totally have asked you herself but she was working on a paper or something. Is Indian okay? She'll be at that place down the street at 1900 if you're interested."
He considers, then says, "Inform Cadet Uhura that her invitation has been accepted. I am interested in hearing the proposed topic of her thesis."
"Awesome!" Gaila grins at him and turns to go. Right before she leaves, she takes a chance (how likely would he be to report her for insubordination? The odds are lower than she'd have thought), and tosses over her shoulder, "I think you two should have sex. You'd really enjoy it, trust me."
She'll always be proud to be one of the few people to take a Vulcan entirely by surprise. And when Nyota and Spock really do start fucking - or dating, or seeing each other socially outside of a professional setting, or whatever they want to call it - she takes nearly all of the credit.
For future reference, she aces the class.
IV.
She likes the way the purple stones gleam against her skin, the way the saffron powder dusted over her eyelids shimmers and brings out golden highlights in her hair. She likes the crushed-coral balm painted over her lips, and how she looks like an exquisitely designed doll. A man couldn't resist her if he tried, no matter her age. And she's young, later she'll realize just how young she really is, but these are her traditions; the sway of her hips will honor the gods, the curve of her neck will serve as the canvas they will paint upon. And what is wrong with dance, anyway?
Gaila moves obediently into first position, swivels her hips, her arms floating languidly in the air. She peers at the world from under painted lowered lashes, allows her lips to part slightly. Seductive. She is nine years old and a perfect Orion woman.
Her first-mother clucks behind her and says, "Come here, there's something wrong with your hair."
Of course there is, it comes as no shock; all the clan-mothers hate her hair, unusually curly and difficult to manage, even when straightened and slicked back with oils to keep it as sleek as the red manes of her caj. Gaila drops her arms and moves toward first-mother. She loves her hair, secretly; she thinks it makes her an individual. Sort of like her ache for the stars, her childish declaration that she would captain a starship one day. Oh, Gaila, her clan-sisters say, laughing and shaking their heads. Such dreams, such foolish aspirations!
The twin stars of the colony burn whitely in the sky, and Gaila's skin prickles. Later, when she learns about the inherited fragility of her caj's skin, she'll understand sunburn, and take proper precautions when she triggers photosynthesis, but for now, she only grits her teeth and lets the sting continue. She can go in when she's finished her dance.
. . .
To be accepted as an acolyte in the Temple of the Fang is a formidable honor. One must pass a series of tests: memorize the thousand steps of the Songs, to prove her knowledge; spend a year in the Temple's pleasure-house, to prove her sensuality; poison a slaver, to prove her capacity for vengeance; slice open her palms, to prove her acceptance of sacrifice. Gaila rises to her feet, extending hands sticky with blood to the High Priestess. The Priestess takes her wrists and laps at the clear ichor pooling in Gaila's cupped palms.
"Sweet," she says, and hits Gaila across the face with all the force in her body. Gaila snarls, and before the Priestess can pull her hand back, Gaila has twisted her arm behind her back, and Gaila's fangs are pricking the skin of her shoulder. The Priestess smiles.
"Quick," she says. "Controlled. You do your clan-mothers proud."
"I do," Gaila says, and releases her. It is the truth, not praise.
Tilting her head, the Priestess regards her for a long, long moment. Gaila returns her gaze, and wonders what she sees.
"It is enough," the Priestess announces finally. Gaila exhales, but doesn't allow her posture to waver or her smile to push at her cheeks. It seems improper, somehow. Later, this will become a niggling thought distracting her from her worship - there is so little joy here - but this doesn't concern Gaila just yet. She has passed the final test. She is strong.
Gaila bows to the Priestess, and enters the temple, blood singing in her ears. This place is holy; she can feel it like a whisper against her skin. Beyond the soaring statues that create the temple's archway, all the rooms are open to the air, so the acolytes and priestesses can feel the sunlight, the stinging rains, can smell the fresh grass and the rotting fruit on the unpicked trees of the temple's orchards. Glancing up, Gaila looks back at the statues: the Goddess of a Thousand Teeth represented in her trifold forms. Creator, open-palmed and benevolent; Destroyer, with hooked fingers ending in claws and cold, unyielding eyes; Lover, standing braced on the shoulders of the other two, hands raised toward the sky and her mouth open in jubilation. These are only three of her multitudes, as Gaila well knows. Now she is one of them herself.
. . .
Gaila, Marta, and Meera become first-sisters in a sharing of blood and fruit, and give their prayers to the Goddess in a tangle of limbs and gasps of pleasure. This ritual isn't strictly required to form the bond, but when they plan their vows, they agree that the old ways fit their sisterhood in ways a simple declaration couldn't. Meera is dubious about that, but then, she has already created her first-circle, and is a progressive thinker as well, eyes always turned toward the future. Marta is adamant about the ritual, and as it marks the creation of her first-circle, Gaila knows Meera will eventually give in.
When they ask Gaila her opinion, Gaila shrugs and says, "The Goddess will hear us all the same."
"Yes, but what do you want to do?" Marta persists. Meera gives Gaila a long-suffering glance, and Gaila's lips twitch in an unexpected smile.
"I like the thought of a blood ritual," Gaila muses, and flops back on the grass. It rises above her head, and Gaila can hear the fine fibers covering their stalks quivering as they wait for smaller prey, soft plant-thoughts brushing against her senses. "It feels truer. Do you know what I mean?"
Meera makes a thoughtful sound, and Marta leans into Gaila's field of vision, her face framed by grass and sky. "You agree, then?"
"Definitely," Gaila says. Marta grins with the satisfaction of one who got her way, straddling Gaila and bending to give her a kiss. Gaila slides her hands along Marta's thighs, and says in a voice muffled by her questing mouth, "Now if only we can get the High Priestess to stop harping on us about interrupting the prayer hours with our unseemly giggles - "
Marta snorts with laughter, and Meera snaps, "Shut up! Someone could hear you, and then we'd all be in trouble."
But she is laughing too, and when they do enact the ritual, there is nothing but joy between them.
. . .
The slavers didn't expect the priestesses to fight back, a foolish act on their part. Some sects refuse to use much technology - one, a priesthood of a different god, eschews it entirely - but this colony's temple is not one of them. Marta is the only one of Gaila's first-circle not well-versed in one speciality or another, but she knows how to use a phaser and she is as vicious as the Destroyer when she's angry.
It doesn't save her. Gaila doesn't save her, or her other first-sisters and her second-mother, all taken; Gaila was ensconced in one of the few roofed places in the temple with the members of the upper order, doing her best with outdated technology to hack into the slavers' ship computers, when the first line of defense fell and the walls of the temple cracked open.
After everything is over - after her childhood has ended - Gaila knows she can't stay. The population of the temple has been decimated; even the hunters will be needed in the rebuilding. There is only one other way to track the slavers down, only one way to find Marta and the others. Gaila finds it ironic that this is her long-awaited chance to go to the stars.
Gaila leaves the temple step by step, and that is how she gains entry into the Syndicate's slave ring: step by step, tryst by tryst, whoring her way across the quadrant. It isn't the prostitution she despises, but the way her patrons try to own her, even before she is officially captured and made a slave. She thinks they can sense her defiance, and that is why they're so cruel with her.
Often, she has to pray while they rape her so she won't kill them.
V.
"No, wait, that's not right, you're going to fry it - Nyota!"
"I'm sorry! I thought you you said that data cube was supposed to go there!"
"I did not! That's such a, a, rookie mistake! I definitely said to put it here - "
"Nyota is correct, Gaila. You specifically directed her to insert the data cube into the incorrect slot, thus causing the unit to short-circuit. It may be a 'rookie mistake', but you did indeed make it."
"You're just saying that so she'll fuck you tonight."
"I assure you, I am not - "
"Come on, Gaila. Do you think he needs to hand out compliments to have his way with me?"
"I hope not. He could recite Klingon verb conjugations and I'd still hit it."
"I do not appreciate the topic of this discussion."
"What, don't you love me, Spock?"
"I must request a specific definition before answering that question."
"He does. I can tell."
"We should have a threesome!"
"Good idea. Take off your clothes!"
"I presume you are joking."
Laughter.
"I do not understand your predilection for hysteria at seemingly inconsequential moments."
Unrepentant laughter.
"I actually thought you were going to do it! Now I'm disappointed. I've always wanted to try you out."
"Ah."
"This study session is obviously over, guys. Want to go outside? It's a beautiful fall day."
"Sure! I need to sunbathe, anyway. All this inside work is making my hair limp."
"Spock, do you want to come?"
"I do."
VI.
"What do you mean, we don't have any Orion blood on the ship? We're supposed to have enough for every crew member on board!"
"Goddammit, I'm doing the best I can! Spock, go and - good. Here, Nurse Chapel, see if you can cauterize those wounds shut, our equipment's offline - "
"She's from another ship, that's why - Uhura, get out of sickbay, this isn't your post - "
"The Orion, it's her, isn't it? Oh god, Gaila, her skin - Is there anything I can do to help?"
"No, get back on the bridge! We need you out there - "
"If you know anything about her medical history, that's a start."
"I - she's allergic to kelotane, I know, and susceptible to sunburn - "
"Kelotane? Shit. Where's - Spock! Can you do it?"
"Doctor, Lieutenant Gaila's blood and skin are in the process of being duplicated, although her hemoglobin is proving difficult for our equipment to successfully clone."
"When will we get 'em?"
"Approximately thirty minutes. However, Orion and Lepian blood contain enough similarities that a transfusion of type I blood could prove helpful to maintain stability - "
"Yeah, doing that - shit, she's slipping, hand me that blood bag - "
. . .
No, she doesn't want to open her eyes. No. She moves, and her legs are on fire. Some noise in her throat. Moan. Sizzling sound of her skin fusing to the overheating metal of the ship - the sound of crumpling plastic. Too much sun. She is susceptible to sunburn. Not her words, though it's true. Whose? The Goddess of a Thousand Teeth whispering her name, Gaila, Gaila, my daughter/sister/lover, and she says please, the desert is inside me. Goddess touching her hair, goddess filling her veins with ice. Good, so good, but still the flames rage, sand grates in her muscles. Hand on her face, the Goddess is inside her. Mind to mind, we are one. Soothe, calm. Heal, she will heal. Past the worst. Dampen the fire. Be blank, the Goddess whispers, and her voice is deep, smooth rock. She clutches it. Down, away, submerge yourself. Pain is flesh; you are more. You are Gaila. Your bones will knit; your scars will heal; your katra is your only concern. You are Gaila. Concentrate.
Gaila.
Heal.
VII.
The plants don't speak to her, here.
It's the first thing she notices, touching down on Federation land. She has spent most of her life on her homeworld in the Territories, and the rest in space; there has never been a time when she couldn't hear the soft murmurs of the grasses, feel the swaying of the tree-thoughts on the breeze.
She is incredibly, powerfully lonely. She can't recall the last time she was without the company of others: the plants, first, then her clan, her fellow acolytes and her first-circle, and finally her fellow slaves and the members of the Resistance cell she fought beside. The cell she belonged to. Goddess, how she misses them.
Gaila shuts her eyes and leans her head against the window, one of many lining the huge hall where customs officials process families on holiday and refugees seeking asylum alike. She lets her fangs slide out, just the tips, and runs her tongue over them, a comforting gesture. There is a sharp gasp nearby, and she opens her eyes to see an adult Terran woman staring at her with wide eyes. She hadn't met many Terrans during her time in the Syndicate. They still look disconcertingly similar to her, as if all cast from the same mold, and their expressions are difficult to read, but their scents are easily interpreted. Fear, disgust, arousal; all the same emotions she elicited from the Terran men she'd encountered before. Immediate dislike floods her, and she bares her fangs at the woman without thinking. Her face pales and she hurries away, shooting darting looks at Gaila; her scent changes quickly from the mixture she'd caught earlier to simple fear.
Gaila slumps against the window and retracts her fangs, guilt and irritation washing over her. The point of coming to Federation space was to beg asylum and hopefully gain citizenship, and to do that she must show her willingness to assimilate. She is, in theory, entirely willing, but they make it so difficult! Sometimes she can't believe an entire body of people managed to be so naive. Even in the temple, the safest place she'd ever known, she had been twice as aware of danger and thrice as prepared.
Perhaps, though, that is why people come here. People, like her, seeking a way to live without fear. Gaila can't fathom it; she has spent so many years dancing on the edge of death that it's nearly impossible to imagine a life otherwise. It's hard to tame her defensive reflexes, but she must. Gaila makes a mental list and begins checking off the items she's achieved, the ones she's begun, and those she needs to work on.
Perfecting her accent and losing the formalized cadence of Orion speech: nearly there. She needs to pick up idioms and spend more time learning the vernacular of her age group. Learning to display Terran gestures and postures: difficult, but her research into the species will improve drastically once she has access to Federation libraries. Terrans may be the dominant species here, and therefore the ones to emulate, but information on them in the Territories is scant.
She wonders how Marta is doing, if her ship ever made it back to their homeworld. Gaila had meant to go with her, but there are some places you can never go back to, once you've been so far away.
Familiarizing herself with Federation equipment: she's most looking forward to this one, excited to have cutting-edge tech instead of the decrepit messes sold to the Orions by the Klingons. She's a quick learner, and exceptionally skilled. Her goal is to make it into Starfleet Academy eventually, and she knows she'll be good enough; if she can't find a way to pay, maybe she can get a scholarship. Maybe they have a quota to meet, one of born survivors with green skin, sexual knowledge to fill a thousand PADDs, and an infallible sense of humor.
Gaila laughs quietly to herself, remembering Meera chastising her and Marta, then the arm of her chair hums and a voice says pleasantly from a hidden speaker, "Please proceed to Processing Booth 103-A to receive form Application for Asylum and form Request for Entry to Federation Interstellar Education Program Epsilon."
Another item to add to her list: learn to adapt to endless bureaucratic nonsense.
Gaila gets to her feet and staggers a little; she's been sitting for so long her foot went numb. No one moves to help her. She glances along the rows of people and sees a sea of unfamiliar faces and unknown species. She is the only Orion in the entire building.
Some stare, but most simply look bored - at least, as far as she can tell. No one speaks to her. Is anyone kind in this place?
Gaila grits her teeth and wills away tears; she chose this (chose to survive), and she'll damn well see it through to the end. Limping only a little as the tingling leaves her limb, she makes her way to Processing Booth 103-A. Welcome to the Federation.
She hopes she can find something to love here.
VIII.
She digs her toes into the soft sod, savoring the squelch of mud between her toes. The doctors were wary of letting her out in the sun so soon, but the healing trance Spock had induced had cut her recuperation time nearly in half, and she needs a good dose of sunlight to stimulate photosynthesis; the hospital's lamps are shoddy mimics when it comes to the real thing, especially considering -
Well. She doesn't want to think about that now. (Still, her eyes flicker downward, to the mass of scars on her right leg, arcing from below her knee up the curve of her thigh to wrap around her waist - what will she do? How will she manage, without the strength drawn from the sun?)
The weather's beautiful, sunny and balmy with a bite of that San Francisco chill, and normally the air would be full of the chatter of just-graduated cadets moving out of their dorms and into the spacious quarters of their new lives. Not today, not this year. Gaila is one of four survivors off the Farragut; there were two from the Potemkin, and they're still finding cadets drifting in orbit, half-crazed from being stuck for weeks in escape pods floating just outside the gravitational pull of the singularity where Vulcan once was. Ninety-five percent of her graduating class, dead, ninety-five percent of her friends, all dead, and still the sun shines. So they always do, the suns of planets where loved ones die and others must live on.
Gaila flops onto her back, skin against earth, closing her eyes and inhaling the scent of mineral-rich dirt, feeling the shift of the soil under her fingers, sensing the little sprigs of grass stretching to the sky, tiny and frail but valiant. She feels abstract, as if she is a fixed point in space. Maybe, she thinks, a little distantly, this is grief. She's never really had much use for emotions like this, the aching sort that can't be resolved by action or pheromone release. It would be better if she was angry; she could train, or fight, or hack a database, or - the most fulfilling option - go into some bar with pheromones blazing and take a few poor Terrans out back and fuck her rage out on the gravel next to the trash, down and dirty like how she feels when something goes fundamentally wrong.
The raw new skin on her body tingles as it absorbs the sun, darkening from the palest green of new shoots to a deeper emerald. She concentrates on the sensation, uses it as a distraction. Someone sits down next to her on the grass, a graceful and quiet motion, and a cool shadow falls over her torso. She's not in the mood to deal with the questions now, always the damn questions - so she says, a bit sharply, "Sorry, but can you move? You're blocking the sun."
"My apologies," says Spock, and the shadow moves away, and Gaila opens her eyes to see him standing above her, observing her, and Nyota by her side, tangling her fingers in the grass, looking at her with dark eyes full of love and sadness. She touches Gaila's hand softly with two fingers before saying, "Hi, leaflet."
Gaila makes a noise that's both a laugh and a sob and engulfs Nyota in a hug, kissing her wet and sloppy and open-mouthed, probably totally inappropriate by Terran standards and Nyota's own comfort level but she doesn't care right now, she needs, and Nyota kisses her back, wraps her arms around Gaila's back, and holds her.
"I'm so glad you're not dead," Gaila tells her, and Nyota chuckles against her neck, a sad sound. Gaila looks up at Spock. His posture is stiff, his hands clamped tightly behind his back. He contains himself well - no flicker of a facial expression, no waver to his voice - but grief radiates out of his every pore, if you know how to look, and Gaila does. She extends her hand, inviting him to sit, brushing her fingers lightly against his. (She remembers Nyota telling her that's a violation of Vulcan privacy, but again - she just doesn't care.)
"The Goddess weeps a thousand thousand tears for you," she tells him, falling into the lush cadence of the sibilant Orion tongue, since that's the only sound that really encapsulates the sorrow and sincerity she feels. Nyota shifts on her shoulder and whispers, "Such a beautiful language."
Spock inclines his head and says, "I thank you," then joins them on the ground. Nyota pulls slightly away from Gaila and looks at him; they seem to have a conversation with subtle physical cues and maybe telepathy, Gaila's not sure how far the Vulcan talent extends in a mating bond, and she's torn between wanting desperately to be as close to them as they are to each other and marveling at the beauty of how well they work in sync.
Then Spock touches her face, lightly, and allows her to feel the weight of his emotions. Goddess, she doesn't know how Vulcans cope with this, how they keep themselves from exploding, the intensity of his grief alone is enough to make her want to take him inside her and comfort him in the best way she knows - and Nyota pulls her tightly and protectively close again as she cries, for him, for Marta, and for her dead friends, Federation and Orion both.
She laughs for the living ones, too.
Later, when they stand as one and make their meandering way to the hospital (Nyota's arm firmly wrapped around her waist, Gaila wincing as her skin complains at being overstretched, Spock on her other side, occasionally brushing her forearm with his fingertips), she feels more at peace, more...centered. She has a first-circle here on Terra, and their support gives her strength.
The grass where they sat is crushed in the shape of their bodies, but the little shoots keep growing; they're far from fragile.
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