Two Ficlets For Where No Woman Has Gone Before [Star Trek XI, PG]

[browngirl]

where_no_woman is having bimonthly drabblefests (soon to be monthly during the busy season). I've written three ficlets so far, two here and one in the next post.

Prompt: 4. I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be. --Douglas Adams

Gaila doesn't want to return to an Orion Prime she never knew.

Until she runs away, she actually never knows that her people still have a planet; she thought they were all pirates and slaves, clans and alliances loosely organized by the Syndicate which preys on the spaceways. When the Starfleet officers bring her to a starbase for primary orientation, they tell her all about her ancient homeland, now a civilized partner of the Federation (since all its renegades headed for the stars, or so they say), and they encourage her subtly, then not so subtly, to repatriate. They tell her she'll be at home there among other Orions like her.

Gaila thinks about the establishment where she worked, about the rainbow of sentients pouring endlessly through its doors, bringing stories and accents and trinkets and treats from all over the galaxy. She doesn't miss the work or watching her friends there wilt under it, the customers they never chose, the ones who hurt them. She doesn't miss living in a cage, even one the size of a space station. But she thinks she'll miss the galaxy if she turns her back on it now.

So she smiles as prettily as she remembers how, and asks the Starfleet officers to send her to Earth so she can apply for Federation citizenship. They blink, and their eyes glaze a little, and then they smile back and Gaila knows she's on her way.


Prompt: 4. [I] may have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.

Mandana dances a little as she stands before the console, swinging her shoulders and delighting in Oren's eyes. He has deep eyes, dark as space, and she has seen them burn with black rage at perceived injustices, at slights to his honor, but today she sees contentment welling in their depths as he watches her spin to display the progress of her expanding belly.

She whirls again so her hair flares, to show him she no longer feels ill, and he looks pleased and apologetic both. "I'm sorry for the delay," he tells her, "but the Borg cache is an incredible find. I hope the High Command will remember us well when they secure it..." He pauses, unblinking, regarding her for a long moment as he does sometimes when they're in bed, and she feels warmed all over. "I promise I will be home long before the child is born."

"I know you will." Then she remembers the news, leaked from mouth to ear despite the official silence on the matter. "If they evacuate us off-world I'll leave a note here on my destination, if I at all can spare the time."

"Wherever you go in this galaxy," Oren says, eyes dark as the night he travels through, "I will find you, my wife." Mandana smiles, pressing her hands to her waist, above her heart. "But I must go now. Be well."

"And you also, husband. Give Ayel my greetings." Watching his face fade from the console screen, Mandana finds herself squinting at the reflections, and glances up; there's a harshness to the afternoon light, and when she looks to the window the sky is growing incredibly, impossibly bright.

[A/N: the Romulan Oren became Nero of the Narada. Mandana was his wife.]

Comments

[sage]

Oh, these are lovely. I have no idea who the people in the second one are, but that's okay! And every time you write Gaila I love her MORE. It's amazing how you do that. :D

And...you inspired me to finally go find a Gaila icon. \o/

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

*blush* I adore Gaila, I really do. (I should use a Gaila icon, but I feel like I'd have to switch Elphaba out...) And I added a note: the latter two are Nero, back before he switched his name around, and his wife Mandana.

I'm so glad you liked these. *huggles you*

[leftarrow.livejournal.com]

ACK, I didn't leave you comments for these!! I'm still catching up on recent posts, random life is random, but I read these and didn't love them properly!!

But getting on with that: they're both every bit as lovely bright-painful as I expected.

From Gaila's, I especially love "But she thinks she'll miss the galaxy if she turns her back on it now." Structurally, it's such an effective focus point in the piece, and emotionally it's a perfect summation of the way she refuses to acknowledge rote dismissiveness, on top of everything else. I could write BOOKS about how much I love your Gaila and why.

And in the second one, you've painted Mandana so beautifully that I suddenly believed Nero's craziness at her loss a great deal more. And then promptly forgot about HIM because . . . *sobs*

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

*beams at you, a lot*

I have this whole Gaila in my head, and I know a lot of her is from igrockspock and so on, but some of her organically emerged. She's not me, I'm reasonably sure -- she's much awesomer. I may write her an Orion foil who is me, sometime, to show the difference. :D

And oh, Mandana. I just... not that I *approve*, but I can *empathize* with "I love this person so much I'd burn down the universe for them". So I wanted to show a little of her, a little of why.