Leaving Vulcan Part III

Posted on Sun Jun 30th, 2024 @ 9:49pm by T'lari

1,241 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: A Choir by the Bay
Location: Vulcan, Vulcan Forge
Timeline: Six Months Ago

ON:

=/\= Six Months Ago: Vulcan, Kir Province High School Academy Trip: Fire Plains – Day 2 =/\=

T’lari sat with several of her classmates. They mostly talked about the trip thus far and she added a word here or there but was not really in the moment. Her mind was still plagued by the future, her future and what it would hold for her.

After the rather heavy confrontation with her brother at the statue yesterday she had walked around and let her mind free of expectations. She had gone to the gift shop at the forge and had found a book, a transcription of T’Perim’s journals. She had purchased it as a birthday gift to herself and had spent the night on the hotel rooftop garden reading it.

She had asked herself the question that started T’Perim’s journal.

What do I want?

What did she want? She had asked the question several times. Its answer felt…wrong yet she’d pushed through it and come to one simple conclusion.


Since her youth, since she could remember that is, she had looked up at the night sky and had wanted to be amongst the stars. She had wanted to reach out and touch the stars, to be surrounded by them. Vulcan offered that, yes, but…it didn’t offer the contact with other worlds she craved. Vulcan was still very xenophobic although not as before but still.

She wanted to study history and psychology to understand herself better but also to help those who, like her, had been tossed aside and were finding their own spirit. She needed to find who she was apart from her family’s wants and her constat feelings of lack and unworthiness.

Starfleet

It had been the answer she had come back to over and over again.

She wanted to go into Starfleet. She wanted to study medicine and perhaps psychology or history…she wasn’t sure. She would have to throw herself into the research of it.

Lunch was consumed and she followed the group outside. Today on the second of four days the group would be allowed to wander the old ruins of the town that stood off to the right of the Forge path.

She had noted that many had opted to go back out on the path but she wandered letting her mind go to possible futures and possible outcomes. She would need to apply to the academy. She’d read, last evening, that for the Academy she needed good grades, she had that, she would need recommendations from her professors, she had that, all items needed for the Vulcan side of things.

She would also need sponsorship of a Starfleet officer. That would be something that would be difficult. She didn’t know a Starfleet officer…although perhaps she did. There was one that she’d encountered here not long ago. They had met at the museum, a Trill… Kai. They had spoken of Vulcan history and medicine. She had been a doctor! It was a long shot but T’lari had her contact information. Perhaps it was time to reach out.

She would also need to schedule exams. She would need one of her professors to do that and to supervise. T’Yari came to mind. She was sure the woman would not tell her family.

She had a plan now could she be bold enough to action it.

Her mind wandered again to her family’s reaction when she told them and to the year she would have between the start of the academy and schooling. All the doubts and fears and all that she would have to go through seemed to rush in on her at once.
There was a moment of pure numbness and then an explosion of pain her chest. She doubled over and bit her lip to keep from crying out. She looked up and blinked as dark spots swam before her eyes.

Absently as if outside her body, she wondered if she was dying. Her breathing became fast and shallow, something not good in the heat of the Vulcan sun. She fell to her knees the pain in her chest and the dizziness taking her.

Am I dying?

She briefly felt as if she was outside her body looking down on it as the nausea took hold and her body wretched an awful dry heaving.

She heard sounds but it was as if they were at the bottom of the lake. They were muddled and hard to understand.

She felt her skin go cold and wet and clammy; she was sweating…perhaps a heart failure?

She felt a hand on her shoulder and she looked to see T’Yari’s face and then Sodel was there by her side and he was speaking but she could not hear it. Feeling like all of this was too much she gave into the dark spots and followed them, letting them expand until she was swimming in a sea of darkness and nothingness.

=/\= Sometime later =/\=

Slowly sounds filtered through the blissful darkness that had come after a rather interesting…dream. It was the sound of T’Yari’s voice and Sodel’s and someone else she did not recognize. She kept her eyes closed and she kept still trying to listen. She wasn’t dead, she knew that but something had happened. Had she lost consciousness, yes, that was logical as what she’d experienced was a dream or hallucination that was the result of it. She was still putting things together.

“She requires rest. We have run tests and her heart is fine. We cannot explain what happened. We will do further tests when she wakes. Now we must let her rest.”

“Thank you doctor. Your frankness is appreciated,” Sodel said.

She heard the hiss of the door as it opened and closed.

“She’s not sick Sodel. She’s had an anxiety attack.” T’Yari’s voice filtered through. It was anything but the calm Vulcan way that she had about her. “Don’t you dare say anything. The amount of pressure put on her and the whole birthday fiasco, you admitted yourself what your family is like. By the Gods of Vulcan didn’t you tell them that she was in the hospital?”

“I did.”

“And what did they say?”

“Since I was here there was no need for anyone else to be here. They are confident that I can handle things.”

“Of all the inhuman…”

“We are not human.”

There was a silence followed by a loud crack. T’lari almost opened her eyes and had to fight not to wince but she recognized the sound of a slap. Had T’Yari slapped her brother?

“Do not use that excuse. Vulcans may not show their emotions but we have them. Some of us use them, embrace them, your family seems to weaponize them. How dare you defend them?”

“I was not.”

“Get out. You may be her brother but I have my doubt about your ability to make any decisions. Do one thing for your sister and leave her treatment and any medical decisions to me.”

There was a pause. “I will be outside.” She heard strain in her brother’s voice and then the hiss of the door opening and closing before T’Yari spoke.

“How are you feeling?”

To Be Continued…

 

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