Return of a Champion (Chapter 4)
Jun. 9th, 2010 11:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akainagiReturn of a Champion (Chapter 4)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
akainagi (conceptual credit to chrismata1976)
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Star Trek: The Next Generation/Alice in Wonderland crossover
Pairings: Tarrant/T’Lara, Data/Tasha
Summary: Centuries later, the direct descendent of Alice Kingsley, now serving on the USS Enterprise, is called on to aid Underland. Unfortunately, a few other people get sucked along for the ride.
With all three Starfleet officers again seated around the queen, the discussion of the coming Uhrturm Day resumed. T’Lara did her best to reason with the monarch. “To be perfectly frank, your majesty, I do not have the training nor the ability to slay anything, much less a fearsome beast. I am an engineer, a scientist. A better choice would be Lieutenant Commander Yar, who is trained in combat.”
Tasha looked first at T’Lara, then the Queen. “If it would help Underland and get Q to send us back home, I will take on Time in T’Lara’s place.”
The Queen shook her head, and presented the Oraculum so all three could get a good look at it. “The Champion portrayed in the Oraculum is T’Lara. There is only one person in all the worlds capable of subduing time and returning Underland to its former state. I’m afraid no substitution would be accepted. Q did well to find you as quickly as he did.”
Tasha looked at the sharply Queen, her gaze immediately suspicious. “How do you know Q?”
The Queen smiled indulgently. Yar found the expression a little irritating. “In the past, Q has been a frequent visitor to Underland," the queen explained. "He has stayed at the palace on occasion, so when we asked for his help in finding our Champion, he agreed. And he did indeed deliver the Champion as promised.”
T’Lara was growing more than a little frustrated. “But I have not the skill for such a task, do you not understand?”
“My guards can train you in the art of the sword. Four days from now is Uhrturm Day, when Time must be subdued or the chance lost forever. And if the chance is lost,” the Queen said solemnly, “Underland will fall. You have four days to train and prepare yourself before the fated day. We will do everything in our power to ensure your success.” The Queen’s eyes looked meaningfully into T’Lara’s own. “But, in the end, the choice to fight is yours.”
T’Lara looked to Data. He was her commanding officer. If it was his will that she fight, she would do so as part of her duty as a Starfleet officer. Data noted T’Lara’s gaze resting on him, looking for a cue.
Data addressed the Queen. “If we may discuss this amongst ourselves, your majesty.”
The Queen rose. “Of Course. It is not a decision to be made lightly, but I needn't remind you that time is an issue. You shall find me in the throne room when you have decided.” The sovereign’s face was a blank mask. Clearly she was trying not to convey how badly she wanted – needed – T’Lara’s help. The Queen departed the dining hall, her skirts billowing gracefully about her ankles as she walked.
Now that they were alone, Data addressed his subordinate. “Lieutenant,” he began. “This situation may well fall beyond the scope of your duties as a Starfleet Officer. The choice to take on such a dangerous dangerous task is your own. I will neither order you to fight nor forbid you from doing so, although completing this task may be the only way Q will return us to the Enterprise.”
Yar shot the Second Officer a glare that went unnoticed by the Vulcan. For her part, T’Lara tried to counter the maelstrom of anxiety inside her with cold Vulcan logic. She had no explanation as to why she was the one chosen by these people to be their Champion. But the minute she had seen her exact likeness on the faded parchment of the Oraculum, she knew that arguing against her role was futile. When one has exhausted all logical explanations, then the remaining explanation, no matter how illogical, must be the answer. She was the one chosen to save this land and her people. The Lietenant Commander's blunt wording had been accurate; battling Time was most likely the only hope the Starfleet officers had of being returned to the Enterprise.
“I shall undertake the task,” T’Lara declared, her voice full of a resolve she was nowhere near feeling.
Data did not insult her by asking if she was sure, and Tasha merely looked on with concern.
The Queen received the news with visible relief. Then she set about to a flurry activity that made her resemble a force of nature rather than a sovereign. She called upon the court smith to have armor and a blade made to suit T’Lara’s exact needs. T’Lara’s measurements were taken, she was tried with several blades until coming upon an exact weight, style and alloy that fit her strength and the task at hand. Then the queen herself whisked the Champion away to introduce her to the Captain of the Queen’s personal guard.
The Captain was a tall, lanky young man who looked barely out of his teens. Hardly the figure one would expect from a Captain of the guards. It wasn’t until he explained to T’Lara that he too had been afflicted by time’s rampage that she understood. He was actually, he explained to her, the grandfather of two strapping boys who were training to be guards themselves. He went to bed one night a middle-aged man and awoke practically an adolescent again.
They set up practice in the courtyard of the palace, with Data and Tasha looking on. The weight of the sword felt comfortable in T’Lara’s hand, like she had used one before, although she knew that never in her life had she done so.
The captain taught her the basics: the proper stance, how to thrust at her opponent without overextending herself and exposing herself to counterattack. After she mastered the sword, he explained, she would be given a shield and taught to defend as well as attack. T’Lara had always been a quick study. Her half-vulcan physique, plus the training all vulcan youths, male or female, recieved in self-defense were to her benefit. Soon the two were facing off against each other in mock battle.
Despite all her Vulcan training, despite her ingrained controls, T’Lara felt the exhilaration of the moment. Her senses were heightened. The clanging of swords was like thunder in her ears. The weight of the sword in her hand was like an extension of her person. She could smell the musky scent of perspiration coming from her opponent. Probably for the first time in her life, T'Lara truly realized the necessity of the teachings of Surak; the subjugation of base instinct to order and logic. Without those controls, how easy would it be easy to lose oneself in the exhilaration of conflict?
By the end of the day’s training both parties were breathing hard, perspiration standing out even on T’Lara’s forehead. In all honesty, the half-Vulcan was reluctant to stop. To her shame she found that the match had not merely exhilarated her, but she had found it … arousing. The feeling was foreign to her, having yet to experience her first Pon Farr. She was decades too early to for her first mating season. Although if the only other Vulcan/Human hybrid in existence was any indication, such timetables could not be counted on.
Clamping down on her urges with every control at her disposal allowed her to make it though the rest of the day until she could meditate properly. She could tell that her silence at the evening meal had concerned Tasha. If Lieutenant Commander Data had noticed, he didn't let on. The security chief pulled T’Lara aside after the meal and asked her if anything was wrong. Besides the obvious, Tasha had added with a wry smile.
By rights she should inform her superiors of the nebulous concerns that were beginning to form in her mind. If what she suspected was true, it could jeopardize the success of this mission, as well as the safety of all concerned. But she was reluctant to air her concerns until she had something other to go on than vague, fleeting feelings and urges. So she sincerely thanked the other woman for her concern, but stated it was nothing. To her credit as a security officer, Tasha had looked unconvinced. She was trained to observe, especially for falsehoods.
T’Lara regretted having to lie to someone she considered, if not a friend, then at least a valued comrade.
The processed the evenings events, and the accompanying emotions and she flowed through the upper levels of meditation. She had experienced few meaningful friendships in her life, her childhood on Vulcan being largely filled with conflict. She had always been apart from her peers. On Vulcan, on Earth, in Starfleet. Such was the lot of an interspecies individual such as herself. She had never wanted to be Vulcan, never wanted to be human. She was neither of these things, yet a combination of both. She had spend much of her life floating anchorlessly between both spheres.
Underland, however, with its bizarre creatures and people, seemed oddly familiar and comforting to her. Perhaps because she had visited it so often in dreams. Even in her meditations, she tried to visualize the red sands of Vulcan, but the barren landscape of Underland appeared in its place.
Abandoning her meditations, she opted for sleep instead. After long day full of hard physical labor, sleep came easily. And as she drifted off a final thought passed through her mind. On the Enterprise she had dreamed of Underland. Now that she was here in Underland, what would she dream of now?
~*~*~*~
To say that Tasha was concerned for T’Lara’s well-being was an understatement.
It went against her nature, not to mention her position as security chief, to allow someone like T’Lara to go up against such a fearsome beast alone. As she had watched the woman train today it had truly sunk in. T’Lara, with only her Starfleet standard combat training, plus whatever could be drilled in over the next few days, would be expected to go up against Time and win.
Tasha was a protector by her nature. Deanna Troi had told her once that it was her way of expressing care of those around her without the messiness and risk and emotional vulnerability of developing relationships. Damned psychobabble.
There was nothing she wished for more than to be able to take T’Lara’s place. But in this one instance, she was helpless, and it pissed her off no end.
She expressed as much to Data that evening in the privacy of his room, not that she expected him to do anything about it. Nothing really could be done. But simply because she always felt better after bouncing her frustrations off his impartial ear.
“Your frustration at our current predicament is understandable,” he told her. “I would rather either one of us undertake the task, but that appears impossible given the situation.”
Tasha let out a curse that conveyed exactly what she thought of said situation. “She may have the strength of a vulcan, but the woman never held a sword in her life until today. And a few days from now she’s going to have to go up against a beast twenty times her size. I think the Queen’s being just a little unreasonable in her expectations.”
“The Queen believes she is fulfilling prophecy,” Data countered evenly. “She believes this course of action will benefit her land and her people. Her expectations may not be reasonable, but from her point of view, they are quite understandable.”
She scowled. “Dammit, Data who’s side are you on, anyway?”
He looked at her as implacably as always. “The side that allows us all to return to the Enterprise alive.”
Tasha’s anger deflated, replaced by a roiling sense of frustration. She could hardly argue with Data's logic. But it sill rankled her to see his serene expression when her own insides were in knots. Intellectually, she knew was overtired and stressed, and was taking it out on the wrong person.
It was time for her to call it a night before she said something she might regret. “You’re right, as usual,” she admitted, her tone only slightly snappish. “I’m going to bed.”
“Tasha?” Data called after her.
She paused at the door, not even turning around. “Hmmm?”
“Sleep well,” he said.
Tasha winced inwardly and left the room, closing the door softly behind her.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The heat was overpowering, it felt like she was burning from the inside out. Her blood was on fire, her mind stripped of any semblance of logic.
She searched mindlessly, through unfamiliar corridors, not thinking, merely feeling her way.
He was here. She could feel him. The one who would be hers. She could feel him calling to her. He was lost in his own madness, as surely she was lost in hers. She stumbled down the corridor, going from door to door, each of them yielding nothing. He was here, but where? Her blood sang for the release only he could provide. With each step she took, the lure of his mind calling out to her grew stronger.
Finally, at the last door, she found him, and they sank together to the floor, hands on each other, grappling with clothing and buttons and fasteners and finally simply ripping the impediment away in their desperation to get to each other and find fulfillment. And as their bodies became one so did their minds. And what she found was madness. Not the madness of the blood fever, but true madness. The madness of hundreds of years of grief and suffering and loss and anger. A madness that screamed its pain to the world silently, every day, for hundreds of years.
The kind of madness that could not be cured.
T’Lara awoke with a primal scream. Her heart racing, she was forced to acknowledge what she had thus far suspected but now knew for sure. It was her time. It was too early, but it was her time. Pon Farr had come upon her in the middle of a strange land, far from the sands of her homeland.
Their mission, already difficult, just got a lot more complicated.
Author:
akainagi (conceptual credit to chrismata1976)Rating: PG-13
Genre: Star Trek: The Next Generation/Alice in Wonderland crossover
Pairings: Tarrant/T’Lara, Data/Tasha
Summary: Centuries later, the direct descendent of Alice Kingsley, now serving on the USS Enterprise, is called on to aid Underland. Unfortunately, a few other people get sucked along for the ride.
With all three Starfleet officers again seated around the queen, the discussion of the coming Uhrturm Day resumed. T’Lara did her best to reason with the monarch. “To be perfectly frank, your majesty, I do not have the training nor the ability to slay anything, much less a fearsome beast. I am an engineer, a scientist. A better choice would be Lieutenant Commander Yar, who is trained in combat.”
Tasha looked first at T’Lara, then the Queen. “If it would help Underland and get Q to send us back home, I will take on Time in T’Lara’s place.”
The Queen shook her head, and presented the Oraculum so all three could get a good look at it. “The Champion portrayed in the Oraculum is T’Lara. There is only one person in all the worlds capable of subduing time and returning Underland to its former state. I’m afraid no substitution would be accepted. Q did well to find you as quickly as he did.”
Tasha looked at the sharply Queen, her gaze immediately suspicious. “How do you know Q?”
The Queen smiled indulgently. Yar found the expression a little irritating. “In the past, Q has been a frequent visitor to Underland," the queen explained. "He has stayed at the palace on occasion, so when we asked for his help in finding our Champion, he agreed. And he did indeed deliver the Champion as promised.”
T’Lara was growing more than a little frustrated. “But I have not the skill for such a task, do you not understand?”
“My guards can train you in the art of the sword. Four days from now is Uhrturm Day, when Time must be subdued or the chance lost forever. And if the chance is lost,” the Queen said solemnly, “Underland will fall. You have four days to train and prepare yourself before the fated day. We will do everything in our power to ensure your success.” The Queen’s eyes looked meaningfully into T’Lara’s own. “But, in the end, the choice to fight is yours.”
T’Lara looked to Data. He was her commanding officer. If it was his will that she fight, she would do so as part of her duty as a Starfleet officer. Data noted T’Lara’s gaze resting on him, looking for a cue.
Data addressed the Queen. “If we may discuss this amongst ourselves, your majesty.”
The Queen rose. “Of Course. It is not a decision to be made lightly, but I needn't remind you that time is an issue. You shall find me in the throne room when you have decided.” The sovereign’s face was a blank mask. Clearly she was trying not to convey how badly she wanted – needed – T’Lara’s help. The Queen departed the dining hall, her skirts billowing gracefully about her ankles as she walked.
Now that they were alone, Data addressed his subordinate. “Lieutenant,” he began. “This situation may well fall beyond the scope of your duties as a Starfleet Officer. The choice to take on such a dangerous dangerous task is your own. I will neither order you to fight nor forbid you from doing so, although completing this task may be the only way Q will return us to the Enterprise.”
Yar shot the Second Officer a glare that went unnoticed by the Vulcan. For her part, T’Lara tried to counter the maelstrom of anxiety inside her with cold Vulcan logic. She had no explanation as to why she was the one chosen by these people to be their Champion. But the minute she had seen her exact likeness on the faded parchment of the Oraculum, she knew that arguing against her role was futile. When one has exhausted all logical explanations, then the remaining explanation, no matter how illogical, must be the answer. She was the one chosen to save this land and her people. The Lietenant Commander's blunt wording had been accurate; battling Time was most likely the only hope the Starfleet officers had of being returned to the Enterprise.
“I shall undertake the task,” T’Lara declared, her voice full of a resolve she was nowhere near feeling.
Data did not insult her by asking if she was sure, and Tasha merely looked on with concern.
The Queen received the news with visible relief. Then she set about to a flurry activity that made her resemble a force of nature rather than a sovereign. She called upon the court smith to have armor and a blade made to suit T’Lara’s exact needs. T’Lara’s measurements were taken, she was tried with several blades until coming upon an exact weight, style and alloy that fit her strength and the task at hand. Then the queen herself whisked the Champion away to introduce her to the Captain of the Queen’s personal guard.
The Captain was a tall, lanky young man who looked barely out of his teens. Hardly the figure one would expect from a Captain of the guards. It wasn’t until he explained to T’Lara that he too had been afflicted by time’s rampage that she understood. He was actually, he explained to her, the grandfather of two strapping boys who were training to be guards themselves. He went to bed one night a middle-aged man and awoke practically an adolescent again.
They set up practice in the courtyard of the palace, with Data and Tasha looking on. The weight of the sword felt comfortable in T’Lara’s hand, like she had used one before, although she knew that never in her life had she done so.
The captain taught her the basics: the proper stance, how to thrust at her opponent without overextending herself and exposing herself to counterattack. After she mastered the sword, he explained, she would be given a shield and taught to defend as well as attack. T’Lara had always been a quick study. Her half-vulcan physique, plus the training all vulcan youths, male or female, recieved in self-defense were to her benefit. Soon the two were facing off against each other in mock battle.
Despite all her Vulcan training, despite her ingrained controls, T’Lara felt the exhilaration of the moment. Her senses were heightened. The clanging of swords was like thunder in her ears. The weight of the sword in her hand was like an extension of her person. She could smell the musky scent of perspiration coming from her opponent. Probably for the first time in her life, T'Lara truly realized the necessity of the teachings of Surak; the subjugation of base instinct to order and logic. Without those controls, how easy would it be easy to lose oneself in the exhilaration of conflict?
By the end of the day’s training both parties were breathing hard, perspiration standing out even on T’Lara’s forehead. In all honesty, the half-Vulcan was reluctant to stop. To her shame she found that the match had not merely exhilarated her, but she had found it … arousing. The feeling was foreign to her, having yet to experience her first Pon Farr. She was decades too early to for her first mating season. Although if the only other Vulcan/Human hybrid in existence was any indication, such timetables could not be counted on.
Clamping down on her urges with every control at her disposal allowed her to make it though the rest of the day until she could meditate properly. She could tell that her silence at the evening meal had concerned Tasha. If Lieutenant Commander Data had noticed, he didn't let on. The security chief pulled T’Lara aside after the meal and asked her if anything was wrong. Besides the obvious, Tasha had added with a wry smile.
By rights she should inform her superiors of the nebulous concerns that were beginning to form in her mind. If what she suspected was true, it could jeopardize the success of this mission, as well as the safety of all concerned. But she was reluctant to air her concerns until she had something other to go on than vague, fleeting feelings and urges. So she sincerely thanked the other woman for her concern, but stated it was nothing. To her credit as a security officer, Tasha had looked unconvinced. She was trained to observe, especially for falsehoods.
T’Lara regretted having to lie to someone she considered, if not a friend, then at least a valued comrade.
The processed the evenings events, and the accompanying emotions and she flowed through the upper levels of meditation. She had experienced few meaningful friendships in her life, her childhood on Vulcan being largely filled with conflict. She had always been apart from her peers. On Vulcan, on Earth, in Starfleet. Such was the lot of an interspecies individual such as herself. She had never wanted to be Vulcan, never wanted to be human. She was neither of these things, yet a combination of both. She had spend much of her life floating anchorlessly between both spheres.
Underland, however, with its bizarre creatures and people, seemed oddly familiar and comforting to her. Perhaps because she had visited it so often in dreams. Even in her meditations, she tried to visualize the red sands of Vulcan, but the barren landscape of Underland appeared in its place.
Abandoning her meditations, she opted for sleep instead. After long day full of hard physical labor, sleep came easily. And as she drifted off a final thought passed through her mind. On the Enterprise she had dreamed of Underland. Now that she was here in Underland, what would she dream of now?
~*~*~*~
To say that Tasha was concerned for T’Lara’s well-being was an understatement.
It went against her nature, not to mention her position as security chief, to allow someone like T’Lara to go up against such a fearsome beast alone. As she had watched the woman train today it had truly sunk in. T’Lara, with only her Starfleet standard combat training, plus whatever could be drilled in over the next few days, would be expected to go up against Time and win.
Tasha was a protector by her nature. Deanna Troi had told her once that it was her way of expressing care of those around her without the messiness and risk and emotional vulnerability of developing relationships. Damned psychobabble.
There was nothing she wished for more than to be able to take T’Lara’s place. But in this one instance, she was helpless, and it pissed her off no end.
She expressed as much to Data that evening in the privacy of his room, not that she expected him to do anything about it. Nothing really could be done. But simply because she always felt better after bouncing her frustrations off his impartial ear.
“Your frustration at our current predicament is understandable,” he told her. “I would rather either one of us undertake the task, but that appears impossible given the situation.”
Tasha let out a curse that conveyed exactly what she thought of said situation. “She may have the strength of a vulcan, but the woman never held a sword in her life until today. And a few days from now she’s going to have to go up against a beast twenty times her size. I think the Queen’s being just a little unreasonable in her expectations.”
“The Queen believes she is fulfilling prophecy,” Data countered evenly. “She believes this course of action will benefit her land and her people. Her expectations may not be reasonable, but from her point of view, they are quite understandable.”
She scowled. “Dammit, Data who’s side are you on, anyway?”
He looked at her as implacably as always. “The side that allows us all to return to the Enterprise alive.”
Tasha’s anger deflated, replaced by a roiling sense of frustration. She could hardly argue with Data's logic. But it sill rankled her to see his serene expression when her own insides were in knots. Intellectually, she knew was overtired and stressed, and was taking it out on the wrong person.
It was time for her to call it a night before she said something she might regret. “You’re right, as usual,” she admitted, her tone only slightly snappish. “I’m going to bed.”
“Tasha?” Data called after her.
She paused at the door, not even turning around. “Hmmm?”
“Sleep well,” he said.
Tasha winced inwardly and left the room, closing the door softly behind her.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The heat was overpowering, it felt like she was burning from the inside out. Her blood was on fire, her mind stripped of any semblance of logic.
She searched mindlessly, through unfamiliar corridors, not thinking, merely feeling her way.
He was here. She could feel him. The one who would be hers. She could feel him calling to her. He was lost in his own madness, as surely she was lost in hers. She stumbled down the corridor, going from door to door, each of them yielding nothing. He was here, but where? Her blood sang for the release only he could provide. With each step she took, the lure of his mind calling out to her grew stronger.
Finally, at the last door, she found him, and they sank together to the floor, hands on each other, grappling with clothing and buttons and fasteners and finally simply ripping the impediment away in their desperation to get to each other and find fulfillment. And as their bodies became one so did their minds. And what she found was madness. Not the madness of the blood fever, but true madness. The madness of hundreds of years of grief and suffering and loss and anger. A madness that screamed its pain to the world silently, every day, for hundreds of years.
The kind of madness that could not be cured.
T’Lara awoke with a primal scream. Her heart racing, she was forced to acknowledge what she had thus far suspected but now knew for sure. It was her time. It was too early, but it was her time. Pon Farr had come upon her in the middle of a strange land, far from the sands of her homeland.
Their mission, already difficult, just got a lot more complicated.
