T'nar Pak Sorat Y'rani, or s'up?

Posted on 05 Feb 2025 @ 11:15am by Lieutenant JG Selon Illialhlae & Ensign S'Ers-a M'Lyr'Zor
Edited on on 10 Feb 2025 @ 11:39pm

2,898 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Episode 21 - Helix
Location: USS Galileo-A - Holodeck One
Timeline: MD 02, 1200

[ON]

"Dakh pthak. Nam-tor ri ret na'fan-kitok fa tu dakh pthak."

Selon whispered the words of his ancestral tongue as he sat bow-legged on the warm stone floor. They were words, a litany, against fear and speaking to them in a primordial language granted the words an even stronger mystical power beyond their naked poetry. It was a reminder, a recrimination, a prayer, a common one on Vulcan but not one someone like Selon was often caught quoting aloud. Even more astounding was that he was doing it alone in this place, which he could never see in real life, but which the holodeck permitted him erstwhile entry hundreds of lightyears away.

Braziers all along the sides of the holographic cavern roared with flame while in front of him the single candle's flame danced and spurt ever so slightly as more of the wick was consumed. All light illuminated the caved walls, carved in situ from the red stone of Vulcan into elongated, featureless figures in an era long since past. Ornamented around them were inscriptions into the rock in Dzhaleyl Script, the speaking into the world of other prayers and axioms of the Surakian faith by those who came long afterwards. And then there was Selon, even farther removed from the latter than the latter was from the former. Both in time and in theological outlook.

None of this is how others would want it, but that was the beauty of the holodeck: making possible what was normally inaccessible.

Sera had received a work order for the holodeck; apparently there was something wrong with the control screen. She brought up the screen and saw that it was reading as ready for use, so she entered in her engineering code to access the space only to find as the double doors hissed open that were as active program running. Ah. A problem indeed.

She stepped in and looked about the currently running program searching for the occupant to apologize for disrupting their allotted time, but was taken in by the program running...this was...Vulcan?

Selon's thoughts were all too easily interrupted by the entry of anothers footsteps, perhaps the greatest sign that he would not normally belong here, and he turned around to see that it was one of his kindred, no doubt the face of the woman who more regularly made use of this program.

"La’pudor-tor olashan." Selon defaulted to hieratic Golic. Considering the location, however contrived the sacrality, he felt it was appropriate.

Sera halted. It was a formal dialect, and one she knew in a cerebral manner but had very little experience engaging in it. Instead, she responded in vernacular Vulkhansu.

"Na'shaya, Lieutenant...my apologies for intruding; I received a work order regarding an issue with the holodeck. The repairs should not impact your holodeck time."

The informality was certainly a shock to Selon, not so much to his sensibilities, though a part of him did balk at the familiarity, but rather the notion that such an ostensibly 'orthodox' Vulcan would use such a greeting to a superior officer and for the very first time. "Thrap-fam'es nufau,, Ensign, I was just trying my hand at meditating. I found this reconstruction of the Temple of N'Vaya, yours I assume?" Selon inquired brightly, defaulting to his normal, inquisitive self, easily forgetting the Ensign's earlier 'misstep'.

Sera, meanwhile spoke in the exact manner she had intended for some habits were hard to put away. She told no one of her origins--or her position--within her clan after leaving Vulcan to join Starfleet. No further thought was given to what she had said to the Lieutenant in greetings, for his inquiry moved her thoughts into a far different direction.

She felt rather cognizant that she had interrupted the officer's attempt at meditation. "My apologies for interrupting your meditations." Pausing for a moment, Sera considered whether to continue or not, but ultimately the need to correct set precedence over prudency. "However, you are mistaken. This program does not belong to me. I have never seen the Temple of N'Vaya. The majority of Vulcan's geographic sites of interest are as mysterious to me as those upon Earth." She quickly walked to the arch that had materialized and flipped open her tricorder to begin a quick diagnostic.

Parochialism was not an uncommon attribute in Selon's experience, especially when, during his late teens when home for a weekend he decided to play tourist in his own home town of Chatteris and realized how little of the market town he had seen in his youth. He had moved past shoppes everyday for years and never had once been in until it occurred to him to enter specifically because he hadn't. He had been to one end of the Federation to the other first with his parents and then with Starfleet and yet he had never been to the corner store on Markham Street. His own parents and foreparents had often said how they would make a trip of hiking the rim of the Forge outside of ShiKahr and yet now in his fourth decade, they still had not. His recent conversation with his second-forefather brought to the forefront of his mind continued thoughts that time was passing, if not quickly.

"Unfortunate, most of them are quite spectacular." Selon's words were somber but his tone was not and he regretted the implication that he was rubbing his worldliness and life experience in the Ensign's face. "Where are you from on Vulcan exactly?" Selon had earlier tried to clock and place her accent but without success. Zhir'tan? Yiliw? Her Golic was native but... informal. More fluid than he expected.

Ah yes. The Question. It was not logical to vacillate, and yet, previous reveals of her background only served as a metaphorical door slamming shut with other Vulcans. She hailed from the homelands of the most infamous, secretive, royal clans, with ties into all sorts of nefarious directions--if the tales were accurate. Better to get this over with. Sera still had to repair the holodeck and then there was the matter of clearing the workboard of the slew of work orders placed since going underway.

"Jia'anKahr, Lyr T'aya. Lyr'Zor lands..."

Vulcans were an insular people, and Clan Lyr'Zor was more... insular than most, for reasons Selon did not understand but with which he was instinctively sympathetic. "Ah, near the Vuldi Gorge! I've never been." Few had of course, Selon kicked himself for saying it and he was unsure if his blatant enthusiasm or his thinly veiled attempt to seem nonplused by the Ensign's revelation of her heritage was more offensive. He was hardly in a position to judge of course. Though of course his standing in Vulcan society was less a matter of lineage, an accident of birth, than a matter of personal choice. The paths his parents had chosen to follow and the transgressive ways he still clung to in adulthood. "My ancestral roots are in Gol and I lived in T'Paal as a small child for a bit." Selon cast his eyes around the temple interior, trying desperately for something to catch his eye. To his disappointment the only thing he caught was a calligraphic error that he was unsure if it was original to the temple or a mistake in the holodeck's recreation.

"Ah. T'Paal. I have heard of this city. On the Thanar sea." Sera considered his initial statement. That he was able to name a feature of her home was unexpected and...agreeable. It was unfortunate that he would never have the opportunity to see the Vuldi Gorge in person. It was a most captivating vista, however visiting the natural geographical wonder was all but forbidden unless one was clan member.

She noted that his eyes had seemingly focused on something on the wall, and Sera followed his gaze to engraved calligraphy on the wall. What was so...oh. "That is an unusual error."

"Indeed." Was all Selon could muster to say. The Dzhaleyl inscription was an obvious error that Selon was tempted to chock up to simple deficiency in the skill of the recreator but when read... generously, the inscription had a certain poetry to it. That the inscription was aping at formality, in the same hieratic fashion as Selon had offered his greetings to Sera, was clear but the use of the ancient, non-Golic word for 'sun', Da'Nikhirch was otherwise out of place for an inscription written in Modern Golic. Selon's interest in ancient languages, and his penchant for reading into things, had gotten the better of him.

"The desert magic gave way to the majority of the Sun." Selon read aloud. Maybe it was a poetic way to describe a sunrise? If read generously. Very generously.

It was a comparative statement possibly. Desert magic? Could it be an allusion to shadows? Shadows were important to her clan; a possible allusion to darkness giving way to the transparency of light? Or the darkness of the past where the Vulcan Heart was allowed free reign passed on to the majority who served Surak's dogma? "I am not a historian." She responded instead, revealing nothing of her inner theories.

A simple, honest answer and yet Selon couldn't help but think there was more left unsaid. "I'm not a historian of this period, though ancient languages have always been a passion of mine. I actually grew up speaking Traditional Golic in the commune." Selon's thoughts shifted back to his earliest childhood memories spent among his fellow V'tosh ka'tur and the stark differences between those communities and wider Vulcan society, and the painful lessons that the two were not one and the same.

Traditional Golic? An unusual choice for a primary language, certainly - although she had no room to broach criticality as she was raised speaking languages that would no doubt set some pointed brows quite high. "My people were known to place messages in such plain sight. Most overlook such things. Symbols...glyphs...although a grammatical error does not quite fit Lyr'Zorian modus operandi." She was uncertain why was engaging in conversation with this strange male, and during his holodeck time, no less. She would have his allotted time reimbursed given 'technical difficulties."

The insight Selon had just received into just what Clan Lyr'Zor's 'modus operandi' was, left him... disconcerted. He had heard stories, everyone had, about the clan, or 'cult' of spies and assassins that inhabited the ranges surrounding T'Khasi's southern pole. Sera did not seem like she fit any of those stories but then again, Selon hardly fit the typecast of the V'tosh ka'tur who needed to be hunted down and sequestered as an anti-social enemy of society. Whatever the methods of Clan Lyr'Zor were in actuality, Selon was confident they differed quite markedly from those of the conciliators of the Ansa-sen-tar.

"What would that be exactly?" His curiosity had gotten the better of him. "Just wondering."

"Knowledge." Sera responded serenely. It was the old adage that crossed species and times and places; knowledge equaled power, and knowledge that one did not want others to know was the most potent kind.

Selon intimated the nature of her reticence, her concise reply, though he still had to catch himself from asking a follow-up question. "Selon, son of Turak, son of Suran, son of Serevan. Child of the House of Sidak and the Ansa-sen-tar." He recited, shifting the conversation to the formal introduction he was now just realizing the two never had. Using four generations he was displaying his 'aristocratic' lineage and formal customs but considering he was also next to a member of Clan Lyr'Zor, he was also next to one of his 'peers' among the Houses of Vulcan.

Sera blinked. He...he formally introduced himself. Ansa-sen-tar. A noble clan. What an unlikely meeting. It would be the height of rudeness to not reciprocate in kind. "S'Ers-a, daughter of Reldai T'Rel, daughter of Matriarch T'Ael, daughter of T'Karik, Child of the House Lyr'Zor."

It was a testament to how isolated Clan Lyr'Zor was that those names meant almost nothing to Selon. Almost nothing. The name of the matriarch of House Lyr'Zor was known in polite society but rarely uttered with the reverence due other heads of their Houses and Clans. "A pleasure, Sera." Selon said, adopting a more Human gesture with a nodding bow of his head.

She gracefully lowered herself in a genuflection similar to a curtsy, but done in a meticulously controlled manner only a Vulcan could devise. They could be real masochists when it came down to it. His words, meanwhile, gave her pause...a pleasure? And yet, she somehow understood what the implication was in that particular word choice. The urge to point out Selon's faux pas was negligible. That was not logical either. With an internal sigh, Sera added more meditation time to this evening's itinerary.

"It is agreeable to make your acquaintance, Selon."

The corners of Selon's lips upturned. Yes, she would be typical in that way wouldn't she? "Did you find the problem you were looking for Ensign?" He returned the conversation to her original reason for entering the Holodeck, not out of desire to see her on her way, but wanting to make her more comfortable.

Problem. What? Oh...right. "The holodeck is not logging as being in use. It will require more technical troubleshooting versus mechanical." Sera did not elaborate. Most people did not find hearing about the minutiae of her job to be a stimulating topic of conversation.

The explanation... sufficed, though Selon had trouble telling if her reticence was willful obfuscation or merely a returning of his own polite inquiry. His expertise in technical systems was at once highly specific and very broad: those of civilizations more advanced yet long dead. "I regret that I cannot assist you in that, I've never been that adept when it comes to Starfleet technology." His infamous lack of proficiency with LCARS immediately came to mind.

"You are the second Starfleet officer to have endorsed such lack of adeptness regarding engineering sciences. A curious deficiency. Is it lack of experience or...is there an inherent ineptitude?"

Was it odd that such bluntness, such candor, was refreshing to Selon's ears? As neurotic as he was he knew Sera meant little by her words. The judgement implied was less than the one intended, by her verbiage at least. As much as he loathed Vulcan hauteur when it was turned against him to just feel it wash over him, in this place, did not feel quite so... wrong.

"I'm just used to civilian standards that's all, never quite got the hand of LCARS. It's odd I'm probably more proficient with Promellian or Progenitor technology than I am with most of what you'd find on a Starship. I can interact with it well enough it's just the... workings and more advanced features elude me." A tricorder, a PADD and a laboratory station were hallmarks of his trade but anything beyond that...? Selon struggled.

Sera's head tilted slightly to the side as he spoke. It wasn't what he was saying more than how he was saying it that was...curious. Not Vulcan. She had questions regarding this, however, she did not know Selon well enough to start interrogating him in the manner she desired. "I know very little regarding the two alien cultures you have named other than what was discussed at the academy. I must also...concur, that LCARS is an unusual system. The inordinate amount of 'free-time' at academy did prove useful during my advanced LCARS programming courses."

It would be logical to excuse herself, but it had been such a long time since she had engaged with another of her kind, and in a satisfactory way...she found herself procrastinating.

"Yeah I did other things with a lot of my free time." Selon reached behind his head nervously as he remembered all of the things he did instead of schoolwork at the Academy. Holodecks, parties, unauthorized uses of transporters... He certainly did admire being academic in others, even if he had been one to coast on his intelligence. It had not been until graduate school that he truly buckled down and "got serious", though only just enough to finish his dissertation. "Class of '82. What about you?" It went without saying that the two had not crossed paths at the Academy, Selon never forgot a face and the math didn't add up but he was terrible at math and in need of further topics of conversation.

"I graduated the academy in 2390..." It was such a random question...it was the sort of question that filled silence...ah. "Lieutenant, I believe I can completely my repairs at the outside control panel for now to allow you time to return to your meditations."

"Of course, yes, I won't keep you further." Selon nodded with a smile. He had certainly enjoyed their introduction, brief and immensely informative as it was. His mind would take some time to return to his meditative studies but he did not mind the interruption. Selon looked forward to their next encounter, whatever and whenever that might be.

[OFF]

=====

Ensign S'Ers-a M'Lyr'Zor
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Galileo-A

&

Lieutenant JG Selon Illialhlae
Anthropologist
USS Galileo-A

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