Shining on the silver screen drabblefest

[idea-of-sarcasm.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the holiday season drabble prompt fest! Except. . . the prompts have nothing to do with the holidays :) Instead, this is a cinematic compilation, with forty-five prompts gathered from a wide variety of movies (the actual names of the movies having been omitted, because trust me, in some cases it would be more distracting than anything).

Adhere to the prompts as much, or as little, as you would like! Let's let the women of Star Trek come out to play.

The rules:

1) Prompts are not exclusive. There is no limit on the number of people who may write about a prompt, and there is no need to claim prompts.

2) Post responses in the comments and include the lead character and your prompt in the subject line. If you choose a long prompt, you may use just the first few words.

3) Responses may be any length from a proper 100-word drabble to a multi-chapter epic. If the story is too long for comments, you may post it elsewhere and comment with the link.

4) There is no time limit for this challenge. I will return to index the responses in a week or so.

5) Please leave feedback, respond to feedback, and pimp this post around.

6) If your response is rated NC-17 or would require a content warning (for rape, graphic violence, etc.), you may post it in the comments here but you must include the relevant rating or warning in the subject line.

Now, with that out of the way:


The Prompts

1) This one moment would decide for my whole life whether fear would rule or I would. I decided. Underneath I knew who I was. I promised myself never to forget.


2) She is not the one to use or need an alibi


3) I think you may be a kindred spirit after all.
Madeline by originalpuck


4) My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes .


5) I can't help flying up on the wings of anticipation. It's as glorious as soaring through a
sunset... almost pays for the thud. .


6) You've got to ask yourself one question, "Do I feel lucky?" .
Number One by igrockspock


7) It is much better to be the right hand of the devil than to be in his path .


8) Do you know what Top Secret means?" /"Yeah, it's the kind of mission where you get medals, but they send them to your relatives." ..


9) As we grow older, it becomes difficult to just believe. It's not that we don't want to, but too much has happened that we just can't .


10) You talkin' to me?'.


11) Either you define the moment, or the moment defines you .


12) Truth hurts. Maybe not so much as jumping on a bicycle with a seat missing, but it hurts .


13) Nobody leaves this place without singing the blues.
Chapel by tinmiss1939


14) You see us as you want to see us: in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions .
T'Pring by medie
Seska by florahart


15) Nobody puts Baby in a corner. .
Gaila by ashen_key


16) Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. .


17) No matter how hard you try, you'll never be as good as me.


18) Don't step on a crack, or you'll fall and break your back.


19) If you give off signals that you don't want to belong, people will make sure that you don't.


20) You look good wearing my future.
OFC by forthisreason


21) You always hurt the ones you love.


22) Love's an illusion/it's the only illusion that counts.


23) What we have here is. . . failure to communicate.
Gaila by florahart


24) Dreams die hard and you hold them in your hands long after they've turned to dust. .


25) Don't knock masturbation. It's sex with somebody I love.
Gaila by anodyna


26) Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops.


27) How do I look? .


28) His eyes have made love to me all evening.
Gaila, Uhura by forthisreason


29) I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.


30) I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse.


31) Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.


32) I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness and a little looking out for the other fella, too.


33) I could've been a contender.
T'Pring by helvidia_p
Number One, Janice Rand, T'Pring, Winona Kirk by idea_of_sarcasm


34) Chivarly is not only dead, it's decomposed.


35) A boy's best friend is his mother.
Winona Kirk by danahid


36) We all go a little mad sometimes.


37) I gave her my heart, and she gave me a pen.


38) Never apologize and never explain, it's a sign of weakness.
Mandana by izzyfics
T'Pring by snowlight


39) There's a lot to be said for making people laugh.


40) You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside his skin and walk around in it.


41) It's a hell of a thing, killin' a man. You take away all he's got, and all he's ever going to have.
Uhura by possibly_thrice


42) I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.


43) I have a head for business, and a bod for sin.


44) . . . "normal" is not necessarily a virtue. It rather denotes a lack of courage.


45) (Your scientists) were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.
Amanda by florahart
Saavik by saavikam77

Comments

45) (Your scientists) were so preoccupied with whether or not they could... (Amanda) 1 of 2

[florahart]

There are a hundred times in the first four months that Amanda wakes suddenly or startles away from some entirely unrelated task, suddenly filled with fear.

She's never done this before (obviously; there have been unsuccessful attempts made the old-fashioned way, but if this engineered attempt works, she will be the first). She wonders whether all first-time mothers feel so much dread when they consider the potential of failure. Whether that dread bleeds through into everything so that even when they are placidly translating a dry document that predates the oldest branch of their family trees, suddenly the topic intrudes.

Well, all human first-time mothers; she has been assured that Vulcan women do not experience dread, which she believes to be a special Vulcan brand of bullshit because it isn't possible that anyone wouldn't be aware of this life growing in her and not have some feelings, and given the records, worry, at least, would have to be on the table. Still, the Vulcan-wide assertion is persistent, and she doesn't ask about it.

Toward the middle of the fifth month, she is stirring broth and considering herbs when another such moment leaves her gasping, tears forming in her eyes. Sarek finds her sitting at the table, broth bubbling away un-herbed, half an hour later, shuddering and shivering, and is puzzled and concerned.

She can't explain herself; she can't tell him that his scientists were so sure and so pleased with themselves (no, no, Vulcans don't demonstrate gaudy pleasure like that, but still, they were pleased) and damn it, she wanted this too, but sure of theory and right in practice are not the same. They should never have done it. Having the ability doesn't make it a good idea.

For better or worse, the fact that she can't explain herself doesn't stop Sarek coming to be aware of her fear; when he has concluded that she is neither ill nor injured, that nothing is specifically wrong with the... fetus is still the correct word, but it's a baby now (and that's the whole problem), he draws her to stand with him and murmurs low words that are meant to reassure her and that utterly fail.

He is unable to understand why she is upset. The baby is forming perfectly, and--as any Vulcan mother would--she is feeling the stirring of its (his, she corrects; Sarek in return corrects that no fetus is aware of gender, but he is wrong and perfectly ridiculous)--she is feeling the stirrings, then, of his mind. He's humoring her with the 'his,' which is annoying, but this isn't why she wants to lie down and yet knows she won't be able to sleep.

Re: 45) (Your scientists) were so preoccupied with whether or not they could... (Amanda) 2 of 2

[florahart]

Vulcans are telepaths; she knows this in theory and in very intimate practice, and still, somehow it had never occurred to her that she would be aware--not like this--of the sober and inquisitive personality of her child months before his birth.

Which means if the lab guys were wrong, if they haven't solved the problems that have made previous efforts non-viable, she will lose not a fetus (she doesn't discount how difficult that would be at this point regardless; she remembers her aunt's three miscarriages (that she knows about) and is under no illusions) but a child she knows. Well. Personally. Every single minute.

Sarek draws back and regards her for a long moment, during which her teeth chatter and she expects he is reconsidering the wisdom of this union. Then he licks his lips, a learned behavior that is quite unVulcan, and tells her he had not considered that she might find this potential troubling.

She isn't sure what to say to that; how in the world would it be anything else? Then he surprises her, noting that he believes his failure to consider this is not because she is human, but because he always has the opportunity to feel or not feel the growing child on his own schedule. He pauses, then places a hand low on her back and walks with her into the living area, ignoring the still-bubbling broth and sitting with her on the couch. He pulls her to lean against him, another learned behavior that she likes, and says nothing for a long time. When he finally speaks, he says perhaps it would be possible to see whether a surrogate, possibly a Vulcan woman able to distance herself, could be found.

He doesn't say that this would increase the risk to the baby a great deal (she read the literature, for heaven's sake), nor that it would be politically costly to him (she lives here; this is something that would never be mentioned and would always be remembered). She starts to answer sharply--she doesn't want to risk the child they tried so hard to make, and doesn't want to harm his career either and she's not weak just worried--when she hears the actual meaning behind the words: despite those costs, it is his not-very-logical preference that she not be unhappy and frightened for months on end.

She shakes her head and suggests that perhaps now would be a good time to make another attempt at mastery of the meditation she's never been as good at as a Vulcan child of six. And to practice thinking positively.

His desire to point out that merely thinking all will be well is not a scientifically valid means of altering the outcome are practically visible in the air over his head, but he strokes her hair and agrees that these would both be excellent steps toward improving the situation.

After a while, she goes to try to salvage the broth.

45) (Your scientists) were so preoccupied with whether or not they could... (Saavik - reboot)

[saavikam77.livejournal.com]

Watching the new garden behind Grandfather's house come alive under her hands, the rock becoming soil as native plants, fungi, invertebrates, and other decomposers slowly take their place in this particular complex of organisms, Saavik thinks back on a particular part of the life she knows she has already lived, and yet, has not. Genesis. Life from lifelessness. Snow in the same sector as a lush jungle. Death and regeneration. So many wrongs, that never should have been allowed to happen.

Here, working side by side with David and Mother and Aunt Joanna as they all help to start the new patch growing at the start of the season, the hard way, there's no room for arrogance or compromised ethics to get the job done. No unstable substances will make the vegetables and herbs grow any faster, or accelerate the evolution of microbes into animals, or regenerate a deceased body.

One day, Grandfather will be buried not far away, and there will be no return from that grave.

In a way, Saavik is relieved.

* * *

Re: 45) (Your scientists) were so preoccupied with whether or not they could... (Saavik - reboot)

[tinmiss1939.livejournal.com]

Whoa...I...WOW. This! This little thing is full of so much! I can feel the soil in my hands and smell the plants and the life in it. I can also feel Saavik's relief at the end.

...there's no room for arrogance or compromised ethics to get the job done.
What you are saying here is really powerful, and a wee bit scathing of the Genesis project. It fits so nicely with the prompt and it quietly suggests a lot about Saavik's philosophy.

...working side by side with David and Mother and Aunt Joanna...
Awww! This is so sweet! I love the image of little Saavik and little David playing in dirt.

Short version? This is good.

Re: 45) (Your scientists) were so preoccupied with whether or not they could... (Saavik - reboot)

[anodyna.livejournal.com]

I love how you conveyed so much in so few words. This was very vivid and thought-provoking. I really enjoyed it!

38) Never apologize and never explain, it's a sign of weakness (Mandana--Nero's Wife)

[izzyfics.livejournal.com]

Her father had thought her weak when she entered the world, took one look at her squriming body and scrunched-up wailing face and had declared that she be tried, pushed, toughened. No child of his would have to prove herself to anyone but him—there would be no public combat to the death for his daughter’s worth.

When she was all of three, he dropped her into the river nearest their home to see if she could survive, could swim even though she had never been taught. She floundered desperately for a few minutes before she heard the clear tone of her mother’s voice. Seconds later, she was dragged to the surface, sputtering and crying and clinging tightly to the enraged woman.

“Why, Ranek? Why do you despise her so much?”

He wouldn’t answer though, and later, when she was older, her mother tired to explain it to her, saying that he was of the belief that you either sink or swim. You never explain, never answer to anyone but yourself.

When she met Nero, she was tough, she thought, an equal in all ways. Her years in the military and the years before that under her father’s tutulage made her that way and she was glad for it.

They literally ran into one another on the streets of Ki Baratan while she was distracted by the new sights and sounds of the capital city and he was distracted by her.

He eyed her up and down as they broke apart from the unintentional embrace, taking in her pressed uniform and meticulously clean hands, startling in the humidity of the day in their capital city of Ki Baratan, in direct contrast to the dirt littering his skin and the sweat dripping from his forehead.

Her father’s dictate echoed in her ear, warning her, but she didn’t heed it. Instead, she said it. “I apologize.” And then she smiled.

Re: 38) Never apologize and never explain, it's a sign of weakness (Mandana--Nero's Wife)

[igrockspock.livejournal.com]

I like this! In such a small space, you have added tremendous depth to the character.

Re: 38) Never apologize and never explain, it's a sign of weakness (Mandana--Nero's Wife)

[idea-of-sarcasm.livejournal.com]

I love the way you've fleshed out Morgana in so few words - taking somebody who isn't one of the 'main' characters, and making them so much more real, one of the endless possibilities for her. I really enjoyed this!

Re: 38) Never apologize and never explain, it's a sign of weakness (Mandana--Nero's Wife)

[originalpuck.livejournal.com]

Oh, I liked this a lot! I love the back story that you gave her, and how many scenes and curiosities are only hinted at. And her first meeting with Nero is awesome - I'm so curious about where things go from there (besides for the obvious ending, lols). Great story!

Re: 38) Never apologize and never explain, it's a sign of weakness (Mandana--Nero's Wife)

[sainfoin-fields.livejournal.com]

I love this slice of life for her. <3

28) His eyes have made love to me all evening. (Gaila, Uhura)

[forthisreason.livejournal.com]

Summary: When Uhura comes home floating, Gaila needs to know who is making her act like that.


She put both of her hands under her head and tried to hold back yet another sigh. Gaila sighed as well, but hers was out of pure irritation. (http://forthisreason.livejournal.com/370311.html#cutid1)

41) It's a hell of a thing, killin' a man. You take away all he's got... (Uhura, AOS)

[possibly-thrice.livejournal.com]

Nyota sits on their bed and draws up one leg, opening her hips, resting her bare foot against the inside of the other knee. Her fingers curl around her ankle like maybe it belongs to someone else. Spock looks at her, clearly drawn as she is in the heavy white light, and does not know what to say. He can still see the afterimages of her when she was shooting the ambassador down, if he closes his eyes; her fluid, meticulously controlled rage impossible to look at straight on, but ready for examination now, in slanting ghostly fragments. It is -- to use the idiom -- a side of her he had previously only guessed at, and is fascinated by.

But there is this side, also, immediate and frightening. He does not close his eyes. He notes that her other hand is still holding the phaser.

"This is unexpected," she says, slowly.

"Yes."

"I thought the simulations." She bites her lip, teeth white as a knife's edge against the dark purplish brown skin, denting the swollen curve.

He rises from the desk and goes and sits beside her when it becomes clear that that is a sentence that will always be broken. "Yes."

She leans, awkwardly, and turn her head at the last moment, and kisses him. It takes him six milliseconds to respond, to open his mouth and reach up and cup her delicate, impossibly sharp jaw. He can feel her carotid pulse in the hollow of his palm, and a second, nameless one beating through the wet membrane on the underside of her tongue, against his tongue. He thinks of the Terran hummingbirds.

"You were correct to do what you did," he murmurs into the kiss, conscious of his inadequacy, of the trembling in her whole face, and in her extended throat. For all her extraordinary aural sensitivity, he is not at first sure whether she hears him: then she sits back. She has not let go of the phaser.

"Yes," she says. He suspects that she is parroting him. An illogical suspicion, built on the basis that her eyes look bright and blind to him, eyelids pulled back so far by her raised brows, no visible distinction left between iris and pupil, and all that trapped liquid, on the verge of spilling. There was a time when he would have stopped the thought because of it but increasingly that is become difficult for him. Difficult and worthless.

Instead, digressions. It boils down to this: he wants to help her. He does not know how. He is not certain anyone can, but herself.

"I thought that this would get easier," she says. "In Starfleet."

"Do you want it to?" Spock says.

He does not get an answer. She falls back, throwing up her arms. The phaser spins away from her splayed out hand and clatters off the wall. "I wonder who the ambassador was," she whispers, as he tries helplessly to smooth the blue regulation covers, and slip one of the two pillows under her still, heavy skull. "Before I killed him."

"A dangerous fool."

She laughs, roughly. It is not a relief.

Re: 41) It's a hell of a thing, killin' a man. You take away all he's got... (Uhura, AOS)

[igrockspock.livejournal.com]

I am inarticulate, but I love this anyway!

33) I could've been a contender. (T'Pring)

[helvidia-p.livejournal.com]

When she was seven years old, T'Pring was performing her learning tasks in computations and physics more than adequately, and she intended, since she recognized this fact, to become a Senior Fellow at the Academy of Science. Her father-to-be remarked on her intelligence: with her composure, this quality made her a highly acceptable mate for his son. She had never engaged in the squabbling and illogical quarrels of other children; she had demonstrated calm-of-mind when she had not yet achieved the age of logic or been taught even the rudiments of self-mastery.

She was therefore unperturbed, or at least showed unperturbedness, when, the marriage witnessed, her parents and her father-to-be told her that her learning track must change. It was logical for there to be a division of labor within a household and tasks rationally apportioned to each member. A balanced family was necessary for the raising of children, and two parents whose special study was the sciences would be an illogical disposition of mental resources. T'Pring daughter of T'Verek performed more than adequately in Computational learning tasks, but the proficiency of Spock son of Sarek at the same tasks was rated higher by a consistent and statistically significant fraction. T'Pring was perceptive and could reason for her self, and she was proficient in other areas as well; she did not complain.

Later, she remembered that the mother of Spock had not spoken at that meeting, but that her look had been reproving and unhappy. That humans were ruled by passion T'Pring knew, but she would have expected illogical joy rather than doubly-illogical disapproval. She had not understood: the proof was being given of the lady's child's superior proficiency in an honorable field.

Since her husband-to-be had a human mother, it was only logical for T'Pring to become familiar with human customs and human history. Her knowledge of the customs of Spock's family would complement his genetic heritage, as her study of literature and culture would complement his scientific specialization. She found that humans had notions that were irrational: they founded their principles on emotional needs: the desire to avoid the mental disturbance of guilt and the pleasure and complacency in "feeling" that justice had been done. Human emotion was social and looked to the emotional satisfaction of the many. It pleased T'Pring to realize that her mother-to-be's race did not live by a selfish system of self-gratification, but when the Lady Amanda met her and inquired after her studies (at which she continued to perform to greater-than-adequate satisfaction), the lady looked at her with a sorrowful glance, and T'Pring did not understand why. She performed well, and in a field that was near to her mother-to-be's own specialization. Furthermore, she had acquired the virtues of a Vulcan wife and, as far as she could discover them, the skills of a human one as well. She and Spock had a respectful friendship; their meetings were made of polite and mutually-instructive conversation that would found their bond well. There was no cause for complaint.

And then Spock left. There were ten thousand, eight hundred and ninety-eight young Vulcans with high proficiency in the sciences who applied for admission to the Academy of Science in Shi-Kahr; he turned down his admission. T'Pring did not fault the logic behind her husband-to-be's decision. It was, as his life and hers had been, well-reasoned from correct assessments of reality. Involvement with gossip about an individual's genetics, moreover, showed low mastery of emotion and lower discernment. But she considered that she would have accepted the place, and she indulged, for only a moment, in the recollection of her childhood intentions.

She bade him long life and prosperity (she and the Lady Amanda were the only ones who saw him to the shuttle-launch), and she did not admit to herself that her studies of human culture had taught her to name the emotion that she suppressed. For resentment did not belong to her, whose life was composed and logical.

Re: 33) I could've been a contender. (T'Pring)

[possibly-thrice.livejournal.com]

This is absolutely marvelous. Every word is so in character it hurts, and that's not taking into account the general hurty, all that waste.

13) Nobody leaves this place without singing the blues (Chapel, PG for medical stuff)

[tinmiss1939.livejournal.com]

Title: Singing the Blues
Characters: Chapel, Tina Lawton
Rating: PG for medical jargon
Warnings: Nongraphic discussion of brain injury between medical professionals. I'm just worried that there are people who might be bothered or triggered if caught off guard.
Prompt: Nobody leaves this place without singing the blues.
Summary: Christine had a rough day in the infirmary, and decides to see if music and ethanol help.

Singing the Blues (http://tinmiss1939.livejournal.com/5529.html#cutid1)

6) You've got to ask yourself..."do you feel lucky?" (Number One 1/2)

[igrockspock.livejournal.com]

One peers lifts her head and peers cautiously over the rocky opening of the cave. The bodies of six soldiers are strewn across the sand, each with a neat black hole on the left side of their chests. In the distance, two figures shimmer in the late afternoon heat. The edges of her goggles are rimmed with sweat and dust; the back of her throat is hot and dry. The phaser rifle is heavy against her shoulder, but she doesn't put it down, not even when she turns to inspect the away team behind her.

Three of her crew -- Pike's crew, really, but hers now because she's in charge of keeping them alive -- lie supine on the floor of the cave, Boyce moving fluidly between them with tricorders and hyposprays. Stable? she asks with her eyes. Stable, he replies with his. She turns her attention toward the figures in the distance.

"Lower your weapon!" one of them calls.

She doesn't answer.

"Lower your weapon!" he shouts again, voice echoing across the empty desert.

She ignores him again.

"Lower your weapon or I will fire!"

She raises the scope to her eye. He has nothing, she knows. Nothing that can reach her from that distance, anyway. She will let himself scream himself hoarse to discover that he has no power over her. Pike would accuse her of enjoying this.

The figure in the front stumbles, and the man in the back -- the shouting one -- yanks him up. Her heart catches in her throat when they come into range through her scope. Pike lurches in front, standing as straight as he can, which right now is barely vertical. The man's jacket is open in the front, the insignia nearly covered by dirt and sand. Still, just from the way he stands, she can tell he's a mercenary from the same company as the soldiers she just killed. He jams a phaser against Pike's temple.

"I have your captain," he calls. "Surrender or he dies."

One would swallow if her throat weren't so dry. Instead, she calls his bluff.

"If you kill him, you have no hostage and you still can't get in here."

Her logic is sound, she knows; Pike is worth a lot of credits to a lot of people, but only if he's alive. She just hopes to god the mercenary is smart enough to figure that out.

A faint, high-pitched whine spreads across the desert, the sound a phaser powering up. He is trying to call her bluff, but she ignores it. A phaser that makes a sound like that has to be at least 30 years old. If she can get him to waste just one shot, he'll be defenseless for at least 10 seconds while it recharges.

Re: 6) You've got to ask yourself..."do you feel lucky?" (Number One 2/2)

[igrockspock.livejournal.com]

"You're going to let your captain die?" he calls to her, jamming the phaser tighter against Pike's skull.

"You're right," she calls back, her voice echoing across the empty space. "I'd let him die to protect his crew."

It's true. She would. But not today. Her spare phaser is still wedged against her foot. She kicks it back into the cave and hopes that Spock gets the message.

The mercenary changes tactics.

"He loves you, you know. Kept calling for you all night in his sleep. And you're going to let him die."

One does not answer until hears Spock's faint footsteps behind her, climbing carefully up the wall that leads to the second, hidden opening at the top of the cave. The mercenary doesn't want to kill Pike, that much she knows; if he did, he would've done it already and not bothered with all the shouting. She just has to keep him talking long enough for Spock to take him down.

"If you kill him, you're alone in the desert with no supplies. Your ancient phaser against Starfleet's top of the line phaser rifle."

It's a dangerous game she's playing; if the mercenary has any sense, he'll threaten to torture Pike next. Pretending to be cavalier about his death is already sapping enough of her energy. She doubts she would have the fortitude to watch him suffer.

One hears faint footsteps on the roof of the cave, but her shoulders don't sag with relief; she doesn't let them. A red dot appears on the mercenary's forehead. Another commander might have relaxed then, but One knows better than that. She grips her phaser rifle tighter, ready to charge if anything goes wrong. Involuntary, she counts the ways that Pike could die: he could get in the way, the mercenary could use him as a shield, Spock's aim could be off by a fraction off by a few centimeters...
She resists the urge to close her eyes in the split second between the shot ringing across the desert and finally striking its target. The mercenary falls to the ground, and she presses her head against the cool rock until the tremors leave her fingers. Then she gets up to retrieve her captain.

14) You see us as you want to see us: in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions .

[medie]

title: riyeht-o'noi
author: medie
rating: pg
character: T'Pring
word count: 1462
disclaimer: don't own it, not really. Not trying.
prompt: 14) You see us as you want to see us: in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions .
summary:To them, she is T'Sai T'Pring, Aduna Spock

riyeht-o'noi

20) You look good wearing my future. (OFC)

[forthisreason.livejournal.com]

When James Tiberius Kirk first arrived at Starfleet, he was cocky, blunt, and looking for trouble. I had heard that he found it often. He ran his mouth, took a different woman home each night, and rose to the top of the Starfleet totem pole faster than anyone else. I knew that if he wasn't fearless and a genius he would have been gone within a couple days of arriving in San Francisco.

During the middle of my second to last semester and his first, Jim crashed an off-campus party with a couple of his equally cocky and horny friends. I'm a bit shamed to admit that he was successful in seducing me. I was a couple of years his senior, but he had enough charm (and enough whiskey) to assure me that his youth didn't mean he was inexperienced. He praised me for everything I had on me that night; a beautiful smile, perfect toned muscles, a "too good to be true" ass...and this adorable shyness that he wanted to make disappear.

Little did he know that I could too play a game of acting. My shyness was just a ploy, a way to really rile up the men I very rarely decided to take home. He was completely blown away by what I had to offer and when he was still on his high, he told me he could fall in love with a girl like me. What a charmer.

The next morning I took my sweet little time getting dressed. His smirk was adorable and teasing at the same time; he wore only that smirk and a pair of black boxer briefs as he took up half of my bed. I was half inclined to rock him again, but I had way bigger fish to fry.

Panties, bra, boots. That was the order in which I dressed, and I was absolutely fascinated by how I could make this young, confident blonde boy from Iowa lose his guard. I could feel him hold back the urge to pull me back into bed.

It was when I told him I was having my Starfleet identification picture taken that day that his interest turned from the sexual kind to the competitive kind. I had purposely not told this captain-in-training what my focus was at Starfleet. He had never asked, I didn't plan on telling. His breathing hiked even higher than it had earlier, and I let my own smirk creep across my face as I strutted over to the closet. My closet was usually an array of dark reds, blues and greys, so one item stuck out. I took it off the hanger and threw it over my head. I heard Jim sit up quickly.

I took the smirk off my face as I turned around, straightening the tiny command yellow dress. Jim was partially in awe.

"Pilot?" he guessed. I shook my head and sat at the edge of the bed. I ran my fingers through his hair and clicked my tongue.

"Oh, darling. I'm on the same track as you."

His awe turned almost into a fire. I had heard he had a thing for competition. "Captain, eh? Well, now, now. Don't you look good wearing my future."

"Probably better than you do," I nearly sang before rapping his cheeks with my palms.

Although I never saw Jim in the flesh again (your final year in Starfleet robs you of any social life), he still managed to send me a holo of himself in his own command yellows, three years later. It makes me feel good that I jarred him to his core so hard that he could remember a small incident on a sunny Wednesday morning, and feel like he still would have to one-up me.

Re: 20) You look good wearing my future. (OFC)

[saavikam77.livejournal.com]

Fantastic! I love her giving him such a jolt in the right direction. ^__^

33) I could've been a contender (Number One, Janice Rand, T'Pring, Winona Kirk)(1/2)

[idea-of-sarcasm.livejournal.com]

In another life, she was an officer.

She served under a man she considered it a privilege to call a friend, and she eventually captained her own ship. She saved more lives than she took, but was haunted by every loss. She may not have been well liked by all, but she was respected, and it was enough to satisfy her. Especially since there were those small few she loved, and was loved by in return.

In another life, she led an existence of consequence.

"Quit daydreaming," one of them tells her, the women in white. She does not know their names. From the moment of her first remembrance they have been there though, passing in and out, never the same. They call her 'One', but to her the title holds little significance. One of what? Of many? The only? She has long ago learned to stop asking, because she will get no answer.

Admonitions to pay attention remain constant. They do not condone personal thought. She is to concentrate on bodily needs, and on the tasks they set for her - never anything else. She is forever left in her cube, an ever shifting world of scenery, but she is never left to her own devices. They have plans for her, and tasks - her time is never her own.

In another life she would have been sent off as a sale to a Klingons, a well trained tool they could utilize to their ends for the right price. In that life she would have escaped when the shuttle was damaged and rescued by Starfleet, made her own way, flourished.

In this life, a vicious attack on a Federation ship delays their plans. When they go, it is with another child, another number - the shuttle passes to the Kingons undamaged.

In this life, for the longest time she only sees the stars as simulations on the vast walls of her cube.


*********************


In another life, she would have been a yeoman - a stepping stone to bigger things in Starfleet. She would have been one of the best and the brightest, and she would have made her father proud - the man who always taught her to go for what she wanted, to aim for the literal and metaphorical stars, and who had instilled in her the love of space, of exploration.

She would have been part of the Enterprise, and to her, that would have been enough to justify almost any sacrifice or risk.

"If you can drag your attention away from the window," her boss says sardonically.

Murmuring apologies, she turns her focus back to the contracts they were discussing. She has a good job here, at Garwin Manufacturing - assistant to the company president, even if sometimes she gets a little distracted. Even if she knows the best she is going to achieve is going to be office manager, because they like their executives over-qualified and male at this company. They don't pay as much attention to the woman who got a safe and basic college degree at the strong urging of their mother.

In another life she would have done anything to see the vastness of space. She would have come into her own, become strong and self reliant. She would have lived her dream of serving on a starship, like her father before her.

In this life, her father doesn't manage to escape the attack on the Kelvin. In this life, she is raised by an overprotective single mother who cries every time she mentions wanting to see what lays beyond earth. In this life, she is guilted into a safe and mundane existence.

In this life, she is limited to dreams.

*********************

Re: 33) I could've been a contender (Number One, Janice Rand, T'Pring, Winona Kirk)(2/2)

[idea-of-sarcasm.livejournal.com]

In another life, she made errors in judgement. Her logic was impeccable to lead to her desired outcome, but when she thinks back on how she and Stonn were mated she does analyze whether or not it could have been done another way. It did not sit well with her, that the friend and bonddmate of her youth became estranged.

In another life however, she is more than that. She is a mother, with three offspring to her credit. She serves as a V'Shar agent, though most of her acquaintance do not realize it. Her name lives on in the memories of those whose lives she was a part of.

In this one, however, she has no life - she has no chance to make it something

The destruction of her planet took care of that.


*********************

In another life she was a good mother.

She had two sons that loved her, and were the centre of her life. For every birthday she was there, every Christmas - she was the one constant for them. She was there for every scraped knee, every success and failure, and she held them to the straight and narrow as best she could with two strong willed boys who were becoming men.

One of the proudest moment of her life was watching her youngest son take command of the Enterprise.

"You've got to come back," Frank says wearily over the comm.

"Soon, there's a lot to do here," she says without any time commitment, as she fiddles with the parts on the Excelsior shuttle. They both knew that by that she means next year.

In this life, she is an absentee mother. She is not a bad one, she is just not there. She cannot stand to see the father's eyes reflected in the sons, and her family has suffered for it. She is the occasional bringer of gifts and impersonal affection that never stays - citing another mission, another ship that needs her help. There are other engineers to be sure, but in her mind she pretends she is the only one of any value - whatever she needs to justify the absence.

In this life, in the official of transfer of command ceremony, she is not there.

She is not invited. It never occurs to her son to do so.


*********************


In this new existence, there are a lot of 'what might have beens'.

15) Nobody puts Baby in a corner (Gaila)

[ashen_key]

First two sentences adapted from page 154 of The Book of the Courtesans by Susan Griffin.

---

It is almost expected that those who have been deprived of a childhood will lack an ability to be playful should they make adulthood. And yet, just as often, they react like Gaila and retain an almost childlike joy in life, as if every moment is filled with wonder.

This makes people think her gullible, naïve, stupid; she isn’t.

James T. Kirk should have remembered that.

I need you to read it, he had said, it’s too hard for me to say in person.

Not until 3 o’clock tomorrow, he had said, will you promise me that, 3 o’clock exactly?

You’ll see why.

I’m sorry, the email says, presumably because it is too hard to say in person. The download finishes, the lights flicker with the screens; feeling something akin to panic, Gaila turns around, tries to find out-

“What is this? What’s going on?”

The screens and lights steady, the simulation comes back online and Jim goes back to smugly issuing orders. Orders that -

Oh.

That feeling she has is not panic. It’s hurt. Sharp, deep, molten-wire-around-her-chest hurt.

(I think I love you)

Jim had said, you’ll see why, and she did.

“How the hell did that kid beat your test?”

“I do not know.”

Gaila has a sweet smile and an easy laugh and the shining eyes of a country-girl. This makes people think that she wouldn’t hurt a soul, that she is helpless and weak; she isn’t.

James T. Kirk should have remembered that, too.

Gaila bites the inside of her cheek until she is sure the tears are gone, throws her chin up and spins around and says, “Commander Spock, I know how he did it.”

Re: 15) Nobody puts Baby in a corner (Gaila)

[izzyfics.livejournal.com]

This is a great additional scene to the DVD--really like how you characterized Gaila as sweet with a bite.

23) What we have here is. . . failure to communicate. (Gaila)

[florahart]

Cursing at the panel in Orion is unsatisfying because most of the words that adequately convey the degree of frustration refer to ways in which slaves annoy their masters, and Gaila doesn't want to give a smoldering bunch of wires that much credit for creative disobedience. Cursing at it in Federation Standard is problematic, however, because she can't learn to see fucking as a bad thing (raping, that's different, but inexplicably that's not the word used in cursing), and the concept of relegating melted wires to eternal fire, while possibly accurate if the amount of smoke is anything to go by, is just strange. Wires probably don't care about angels or demons or halos unless it's because the halos are made of shiny gold and are materially useful as a conductor.

She sighs, gives up on cursing at the problem, and yanks the cord which will dump a messy clump of flame-retardant on it.

Waiting until it's all cooled is irritating, but since she clearly won't be making any headway on this pod's communication system until it's cooled enough she can separate the wires and commence salvage and reconnection (if there's enough functional yardage remaining, which is doubtful but possible), she sits and watches the flares of gravitational anomalies (several small, one large and growing). She frowns and runs a one-handed calculation on the nav console. She's probably far enough away from it for the moment. She hopes. Unless--no, it's still growing. That's not good.

She spends at least ten minutes clumsily charting a course away from it without hitting any of the way, way too many derelict objects in the immediate vicinity. It's not great, and she wishes for the twentieth time that she wasn't the only on in this pod--she'd rather have someone else to keep an eye on this--because it's not like escape pods have the sturdiest shields in the galaxy (witness the fact that something hit the comm regulators, hence the problem), but communication will become a non-issue if she gets sucked into a singularity, and the shields definitely wouldn't survive that, so, priorities.

Actually, she thinks once she has a little autonomy as to areas of research interest, assuming she survives this mess (no point in planning for not), escape pods should have shields that would survive nuclear cataclysm; they are, after all, meant for use when one's starship has gone belly-up, and fairly often that means shrapnel. The shields do handle the hard radiation of a medium-range warp-core breach, but that's not very comforting if a pointy chunk of hull plating comes through the wall.

Naturally, there isn't enough of the comm system still usable for an easy fix.

Well... shit. That's clearly gross, if not particularly a curse, in any language. She considers her options. Nav is not currently in use (the course is charted, so it no longer requires navigation, just computer-aided thrusters), but it's not just possible but likely that if and when the singularity reaches the point at which it starts pulling things in, she will need to recalculate. Taking it off-line to scavenge any lengths of cord (or for that matter any chip sets) seems like a bad idea. Having manual thruster control is necessary for the same reason, and clearly proximity alarms are also vital. That leaves life support, and taking the chance on not being able to bring that back up is also undesirable. However, without at least a rudimentary communication diagnostic, she can't determine whether her beacon is functioning properly, and without that, she's definitely screwed (yes, also not inherently a negative word, but she likes the way it sounds).

She adds this situation to the list of research topics, then yanks open the panel to pull out the environmental control system's guts. The up side to being alone is there's enough oxygen for quite a while, so she chooses to maintain temperature if she can, and sets about stripping wires.

Re: 23) What we have here is. . . failure to communicate. (Gaila)

[saavikam77.livejournal.com]

I so love her ingenuity in the situation and her ability to keep calm, even if she wants to curse out the blown panel. :) Nicely done!

38) Never apologize and never explain, it's a sign of weakness. (T'Pring)

[snowlight.livejournal.com]

Title: 愛をするひと (Those Who Love)
Characters: T’Pring, Kirk, Spock
Rating: G
Summary: Kirk goes to Vulcan looking for Spock post TOS. He finds T'Pring instead.

http://snowlight.livejournal.com/714959.html

25) Don't knock masturbation. It's sex with someone I love. (Gaila/Spock Prime)

[anodyna.livejournal.com]

Title: The Un-Vulcan
Author: anodyna
Characters/Pairings: Gaila/Spock Prime
Rating/Warnings: R for language and suggestiveness; no warnings
Summary: Gaila and Spock Prime, shacked up together on the Vulcan colony world, have a chat about un-Vulcan practices. For the prompt, "Don't knock masturbation. It's sex with someone I love."

Guys it's my first time ever writing for a prompt! \o/

"I do not understand the query." (http://anodyna.livejournal.com/53344.html)

3) I think you may be a kindred spirit after all. (Madeline)

[originalpuck.livejournal.com]

First time posting in this fandom. Woot! Madeline's technically canon, though she wasn't given much more than a shot or two and a name. ^^;;

--------

"That should be about it." Dr. McCoy was still leaning over Madeline's right shoulder, scanning her with his tricorder. It was important to ensure that the dermal regeneration had done the best job possible, he'd said. The machines were created by humanoids, and so they had difficulty functioning properly when dealing with her species' tough, ridged skin. As it stood, healing her gashes had taken the doctor several rounds of expletives, and a few dark looks, for good measure. "Looks like you'll be fine."

"Thank you, Doctor." She reached immediately for the fresh undershirt a nurse had brought. There wasn't much privacy on the Enterprise, but she still had a very Sartemian need to keep her breasts hidden from public view. The scarring there was too private for just anyone to see.

"Next time, don't wait so long to come see me." He had turned to face her, his brows drawn. Madeline tilted her head, and tugged the rest of her shirt down to her hips.

"I could not leave the bridge in an emergency." McCoy winced as the nearest injured red shirt wailed over the end of her sentence.

"Yeah, well, bleeding all over isn't going to help anyone, either."

Madeline considered arguing that her bleeding had done little harm to anyone, but her help with the computer's fried coding and failing life support systems had quite possibly saved them all. Instead, she saw the circles under the doctor's eyes, and did him a favor. She didn't argue. "Of course, Doctor."

Sliding down from the biobed, Madeline stretched. The fresh skin on her back ached, the feeling tingling down to her belly, and resting there when she looked Doctor McCoy in the eyes. Glassy hazel, not too dissimilar from her own bronze, not really, not in the ways that counted. “Though perhaps I could make a suggestion?”

He sighed. “Go right ahead.”

Madeline leaned in, until the Doctor was mere inches away. He smelled like sweat, blood, and iodine. "Perhaps you should consider a rest. Falling asleep on the job won't help anyone."

His brows knotted together again, his eyes sweeping over her. His gaze examined her eyes before he launched into a lecture about the duties of a doctor, and how sleep wasn't anything more than a distant memory, anyways. “So don't go lecturing me. Do you know how many people are still hurting from that Klingon battle? Too many, and --”

Madeline let his rant fall onto her back as she walked away, a small smirk on her lips.

Re: 3) I think you may be a kindred spirit after all. (Madeline)

[saavikam77.livejournal.com]

Awww!! :D I'm so glad to see Madeline fic! And I just love that she matches wits with McCoy here. ^_~ Perfect turnabout.

You see us as you want to see us: in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. (Seska)

[florahart]

I.

It's conceptually simple and simultaneously complex, the concept of self. That's nothing new, and every society deals differently with the fundamental conflicts inherent in the tension between the parts of self (physical, spiritual, emotional).

None of that is apparent in the simplicity of the word: I. It is so short, so tiny, such a basic word there is no way to reduce it further. There is no other way to express any of it, and so it is the word I use here.

I am countless light-years from home, staring down the barrel of a more difficult conflict yet: the culture in which I was raised, and the culture to which I belong per the current physical characteristics of my skin and my body, do not behave the same way, and I am alone.

That has to change. I cannot continue in a charade that no longer has any possible good outcome for either myself or my people, but to end the charade is to court danger; I will be viewed as a traitor.

Actually, I am a traitor, under the definitions that will be most relevant to those in positions of authority, and regardless of the DNA that built me or the memories of parents and playmates to whom I am, in a manner of speaking, loyal, those definitions will be the only ones that matter. I don't have a problem with that, except to the extent it threatens me.

They (a construct which holds meaning only in opposition to I) will see me as nothing more, and nothing less, than a hated spy. One of them, who is conflicted in her own body in ways that aren't so different from my situation, will remember that we have worked together, and wonder how she didn't see it. Another will remember the taste of my skin and my body, and he will hate me more, despite that he holds dear notions of loyalty to a people, to a birthright.

Making my way into his bed made all kinds of sense when I did it. Now, it only makes everything worse. They--all of them--will see me in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions: spy, traitor, enemy, whore.

And for now, until I come to a better solution, I will continue to be all of those things, unknown (now, the labels are friend, colleague, lover, teammate, all of those sometimes preceded by 'difficult' or 'temperamental', certainly; these labels are the ones that are false). When I become true, they will see me as false; while I am false, they by and large believe me to be true.

This is what keeps me awake at night, watching the stars going by.

I don't feel guilty; I have had my reasons, and they have been sound. But I do feel the tension and the conflict in myself, and I wonder, sometimes, how I might have played my game differently.

Re: You see us as you want to see us: in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. (Se

[evilstorm.livejournal.com]

...I have never liked Seska before this.

35) A boy's best friend is his mother (Winona Kirk)

[danahid.livejournal.com]

This is my first post to this community, and a snippet of a much longer story that I'm trying to figure out.

***

Jim's mother is an orphan. Frank claims she was raised by feral librarians, and Jim can actually sort-of believe it. She's always poking around in the attic, digging through old book boxes, usually emerging with ink-stained fingertips and smelling like dusty old paper. She often looks disheveled, with her ragged jeans and her sandy hair twisted up in a knot that swallows styluses and pens. She tends to forget the pencils that she tucks behind her ears, until Frank has to remind her to put them away before they take out someone's eye. Jim likes that about her, that being around her is a little bit dangerous.

Jim's mother's name is Winona (Win to her friends), and she can be as quiet as a librarian when she wants to be, which Jim figures pretty much supports Frank's theory. She's quiet most of the time. Jim's older brother Sam is also really quiet, and sometimes Jim thinks that it's interesting or maybe weird that he's related to two of the quietest people he's ever met. Jim and his stepfather Frank aren't really all that loud, but compared to his mother and his brother, they're the loudest people in Iowa.

Jim's mother isn't really a librarian. She's an engineer (a “damned good one” Frank says when he's trying to boost her confidence), but Jim likes to think that she could actually be a secret agent. She's the kind of person who's really good at keeping things hidden. She's crazy good at keeping secrets. Jim thinks sometimes that she's a secret personified with messy hair and ink-stained jeans, and it's something else Jim really likes about her. He likes that she's a little mysterious. It makes life interesting.

Life is Riverside is hardly ever interesting, so Jim appreciates anything that relieves the relentless boredom, even if it's just him imagining a heroic secret identity for his mom.

Re: 35) A boy's best friend is his mother (Winona Kirk)

[igrockspock.livejournal.com]

I really like this! You've captured the child's eye perspective really well, and there's just enough for us to read between the lines about how sad and messed up the rest of the family might be.