A Feelings Emergency

"You can start by taking a look," Akhil suggested gently. "You are your own person, lieutenant. I am sure there will be something." He paused, "Perhaps even a plant." Plants as household object bewildered the half-Klingon, but they did seem to be popular - especially on stations, where the only nature to be had was on holodecks.

The half-Vulcan woman considered the counselor's words, pursing her lips slightly as she did.

Plants, she thought to herself, testing out the idea. Father kept plants in his studio. That might be nice.

She studied Akhil then, taking him in from his forehead ridges to the way he was seated on the floor with her. It required a lot of looking because there was a lot of him, but she made no effort to conceal her appraisal. Finally, she said, gently, "Please call me Pren."

Akhil bent his head to her, "Thank you. And you can call me Akhil." After a pause, he added, "You have done a fine job guarding against monsters with me tonight. Lucy Rainar will be grateful." His great shoulders moved, and a deep rumbling bubbled out of his chest - T'Pren realized the Klingon had chuckled.

The only thing to do, really, when a Klingon is chuckling, is to join in. And though T'Pren wasn't quite ready to do any kind of actual laughing, she did grin.

"My dad used to tell me scary stories sometimes when I was a child...about species he'd make up whose favorite thing was to eat little girls who didn't behave or ghosts of old starships that foretold of disaster. And I would inevitably have nightmares, which my father could not understand at all. He would try to reason with me, to tell me it was illogical for such things to exist, but it didn't help." Her grin turns nostalgic. "And then one day I guess he gave up convincing me and instead brought me a sculpture he'd made...a little statue that was this...sharp-clawed, scorpion-tailed beast with wicked tusks and multiple heads. He told me it was as logical to imagine that the statue was my guardian as it was to be afraid of ghost ships and thus if one existed, so must the other."

She paused appreciatively. "I stopped having nightmares after that." Well. Nightmares about scary stories, anyway.

"Your father was a wise man," Akhil remarked earnestly. He could sense the sadness in T'Pren, but he thought that this would be the kind of memory she could cherish, eventually, without being weighed down by the tragedy that intertwined with it.

For the most part, that was exactly how the memory revealed itself, and T'Pren, though it did stir up a little of that pain from the day's triggers, seemed no worse for wear at having shared it. In fact, she smiled her thanks at the Klingon.

"I've yet to meet a wiser Vulcan," she agreed softly. "He was also a remarkable artist. One day, when I have the latinum, I'm going to track down one of his works and buy it back."

Akhil thought of his father. The man's poetry was largely responsible for his own existence, and he grew up surrounded by it. He tried to imagine not having anything to remember his talent by, and felt very sorry for the young woman beside him. "What was his name?"

"Muroc," T'Pren answered simply, finishing it with a soft, sad smile. She didn't seem particularly overwhelmed by the emotion, though. It was a perfectly reasonable, healthy mixture of emotion.

Muroc was a Vulcan painter and sculptor of some renown, though he was never a household name. But those in the know about such things praised his combination of efficient, ritualistic, spiritual Vulcan aesthetics with a particularly deep and rich emotional wealth. Some of his best works had subtle references to his daughter and his most well-received was a life-sized sculpture of two men -- one Vulcan, one human -- each holding the hand of a wavy-haired little halfbreed. There was an incredible serenity to the piece at first glance, but on closer inspection it was clear the men were pulling the girl in two different directions. Some critics argue, though, that the girl seemed to be enjoying herself immensely.

"I do not think I know his work," Akhil said after some thought. "But I am not a great connoisseur of visual art," he admitted. "Perhaps when you recover some of his work, you could show it to me."

"It will be some years before I can afford any of it," the young lieutenant confessed, "and who knows what survived the war. But there are a few records of his work in the Starfleet database." After a moment, T'Pren smiled slyly. "I imagine they're probably linked to my file. So when you're pouring over that sizable tome, perhaps you'll see an image or two."

As the conversation lapsed into a momentary silence, T'Pren reached up to rub her temples and let out a sigh. "I'm going to have to convince Dr. Ozan to give me a sleep aid until I figure out how to sleep naturally in my quarters."

Akhil nodded. "It is too late for it now, but I advise you to get some sleep. You've had a trying day, and it's only been the first. Would you like me to escort you back to your quarters?" he asked with insinuating she needed it - just as a friendly suggestion.

"No thank you," T'Pren answered sincerely, before admitting with a helpless smile, "I probably won't go back tonight. I'll sleep when I go off-duty tomorrow afternoon. Vulcans don't need to sleep every night anyway, strictly speaking."

Akhil considered her. "Very well." He stood, unfolding his large body, and let her get up on her own. "I enjoyed talking to you, Pren. I look forward to seeing you again."

T'Pren took her time climbing to her feet and then dusting herself off and adjusting her clothing, mostly as a fairly obvious cover to give her the chance to work up the courage for what she was about to do.

There was no point in hiding from it forever, though, so she looked up (way up) at the Klingon counselor with great vulnerability and murmured meaningfully, "Thank you infinitely for doing this tonight. I don't have the words to tell you how much you've helped already."

"It is my privilege," the Klingon declared, inclining his head towards her. "Good night, Pren."

The counselor got a sweet smile in return for his manners, in part because T'Pren was perpetually delighted by Klingon speech customs. "Good night, Akhil." She bowed her head slightly, crossed her arms under her chest, and left the Klingon to what remained of his nightwatch.