#linesoficefromrollingwavesandsubtlevillains3

[tgai-spock]

Lines of ice from rolling waves and subtle villains

Silly stomaches on speechless mornings

Chapter 3

His father was up for breakfast the morning Spock came out of his bedroom. They had a large house on vulcan, and a small apartment in the town of  san fransico because of his fathers close work with earth, and because his mother often liked to visit Earth at least 4 times a year. She couldn’t bare the heat a lot, and if she was to go out on vulcan she usually did when the sun was rising or setting. It seemed peculiar to Spock as he often ignored warnings and would walk into the middle of vulcan’s forge during the heat of  the day. Amanda always said she loved vulcan, but she enjoyed spending a week or two occasionally on earth, to explore, visit friends and family, and stock up on her favourite foods or seeds.

Today there was a pit in his stomach that meditation didn’t seem to quell. His new school was not near any vulcan desert that he could sprint into, where people would eventually give up following. What if he wanted to be alone? He needed to be alone. Although meditation didn’t keep the pit away Spock instead reminded himself that he wasn't going to be at school long, as he’d find a way to leave. Whether it was with his parents permission, or without. He put his suitcase by the front door and walked over to the breakfast table of plomeek soup. It was his favourite soup.

“This is an unusual meal to have for breakfast” Sarek commented.

“It’s Spock’s last one, possibly for the year” Amanda said “and I thought he might appreciate it.” Spock nods his head once, he wants to say yes, he wants to say thank you, but he feared that each word he could say in front of his father might not correspond to the strictest set of logic, and this early in the morning was a time well before his rebellious attitude had a chance to wake. Amanda said nothing, put a hand on Spock’s wrist and smiled before going back to her breakfast. After breakfast Sarek removed the bowls from the table and began to wash them.

“Okay it's time to get going” Amanda said standing up and she and Spock moved towards the door.

“Goodbye son” Sarek said not looking up from his washing. Spock put on his shiny silver hat.

“Bye” he said walking out the door.

Amanda walked with him towards the school, she wanted to be with him for as long as possible.

“Why don’t I just live in the flat on earth and live off take out for a whole year?” Spock asked.

“Spock. Are you really going to wear that hat on your first day of school?” Amanda asked.

“I’ve already put it on” Spock said, he was growing very illogical of it.

“If you fancy spending half term in the flat, I could see that, but at least phone and let me know first. You’ll be safe in the school and thats where I want you to stay.” They stopped outside the school where the roads were packed with traffic, hover busses, hover cars and a few ships flying overhead. Amanda dutifully placed a kiss on Spock’s forehead.

“Good luck, and if you run into any trouble, if anyone says anything even slightly to you, phone me right away.” Amanda said. 

“Okay” Spock gave up “what am I to define as mean?”

“Anything that can be describe with the sound ‘phobic’ like xenophic.” Amanda said, both her hands on his shoulders.

“Claustrophobic.” Spock said.

“You’re doing it on purpose now. Go on, I love you,” Amanda said and pushed him off to follow the multiple signs placed around the outside of the school. The signs read ‘this way first years’. Several students of a higher year, wearing lanyards and ‘helper’ tags pointed and pushed the scurrying first years to the far end of the building. Spock was led to towards an area with a number of wooden picnic tables, where trees were growing apples along the side of the building, and a final arrow pointed to a propped open double door, inside of which were a lot of tables and chairs. The last sign read ‘take a seat in here’. Incase he couldn’t read there were more elder years with badges that said ‘prefect’ pointing them into the building.

The first years were all bundled into a huge cafeteria, mixed with square and rectangular tables, with wooden chairs placed around them. At the very end of the room, was a stage, with an empty podium and microphone. People streamed in from every angle, yelling and tumbling. Spock needed to sit at a table. He needed to do it fast, he needed to choose, square or rectangle. His immediate thought was square, but he didn’t want to be stuck sitting next to just 1 or 2 other people. If that happened he might be expected to make conversation, or he’d come off as rude. The more people at the table, the less likely they were to talk to him, right? He found an empty rectangular table that could fit six people along the sides,  and two at the edge if you really wanted to push your luck. He chose a seat along the side, at the edge. He pulled out his phone, and began to chew it, and then immediately stopped. He didn’t know what had compelled him to chew it, but he had caught himself hopefully before anyone else saw. He turned it on and off. He wanted to looked at his phone, but he didn’t want to do anything on it. Someone pulled out the chair at end of the table, which was next to him.

“Hello” they said sitting at the end of the table.

“Hi” Spock said. They had sharp angular features, a rectangular chin with a small dib, large round ears, and brown hair, cut in a shape of a bowl, with several escaping curls. They, also had a sticky label stuck to the centre of their chest which read ‘they/them’ underlined.

“Nice hat” they said.

“Oh.” Spock said, he had completely forgot he was wearing it “thanks. Erm, nice… pronouns.”

“Yah? Pretty neat right? No ones going to misgender me this year if I make it clear from the start, right?”

“That makes sense. I’m Spock, whats your name?” Spock said coming off as far friendlier than he intended.

“I’m” they pursed their lips and squinted.

“I’m? Spock asks wondering if that’s their name.

“Hold on I forgot my name.” They say.

“You forgot your own name?” Spock asked with his eyebrows raised, not that they could be seen beneath his hat.

“I had a dead name, and I chose a better name but lots of kids made fun of me for it, so I thought with this school I’d go in fresh with a new name since it wasn’t legal anyway.”

“Okay” Spock said, what they had said did make sense to him, he just found the concept of forgetting a name, chosen or not to be bizarre.

“You got to help me choose a new one, quick.” They said desperately placing their hands on the table in front of them.

“What?! I am sorry I cannot help you choose a new name. We have only just met” Spock said he really didn’t know what to do now. While this human was attempting friendly conversation, Spock had never had a conversation like this, at all. On vulcan if something was a personal matter, it stayed personal.

“I’m just nervous!” They said in a panic, as two others took a seat on the opposite side of the table. One girl with long blonde hair and a large squashed black mole on her chin, and a boy with spiked blond hair.

“Hey I’m Becky” the girl said with a long drawn out southern accent, and she places a hand on the boy next to her “and this is Jim.”

“Hi” Jim said with a slight tilt of his head and a tiny smile on the corner of his cheek “nice hat.” Was that sarcasm or not? 

“Thanks.”

“Whats your name?” He asks.

“Spock.”

“I’m” they said in a rush to introduce themself “I’m Moriarty?” 

“Moriarty? Thats a neat name” Jim says his eye lighting up.

Moriarty sweated “it sure is.” Spock was uncertain if Moriarty was their chosen name as he still didn’t seem very certain of it. There was still a scuffle going on at the other side of the hall, as though the doors had somehow become blocked and hundreds of people were trying to get indoors.

“Take a seat please” one adult yelled, or possibly a tall prefect. At the the other end near the stage’s podium was a man. His eyes searching the room from left to right, taking note.

“I’m going to start by saying it” Becky said almost yelling to be heard over the rumble of noise made from movement, and someones screaming “I don’t believe in magic, when I told my parents I wanted to go here because they ran a course on magic, I was under the impression they were going to teach me to be a  professional magician.”

“A magician you say? Did you know the first travelling magicians came from russia?” Moriarty asked leaning forwards.

“No. Thats cool.” Becky said.

“Can you do any tricks?”Moriarty asked. Becky took out a pile of her cards and shuffled them.

“Pick a card, and then put it back” she said leaning over to Moriarty. Mortality picked out an ace of spades, showed it to Spock and placed it back. Becky shuffled the cards and pulled out a king.

“Is this your card?” Becky asked.

“No” Moriarty said. Spock frowned his mouth opening slightly. He’d only been here a few moments but he already didn’t know what he was witnessing. Becky shuffled the cards and pulled out the two of hearts.

“What about this?” Becky asked.

“No.” Moriarty said grinning.

“So you agree I need professional training to be a magician?” Becky asked, her eyes reaching across the table to milk the words from him.

“I mean” Moriarty said nodding his head to the side “I guess.”

“Were any of you guys under the false assumption you were going to train to be a magician?” Becky asked “because I can’t be the only one who made that mistake.”

“I was not” Jim said “but, magic’s totally going to be a bonus of this shit-fest, gonna get a real nice kip in that lesson.”

“I didn’t choose magic” Moriarty said “they have really good science courses here, and I wanted to use them to get into starfleet.” Becky gasped and she went to say something but stopped when the man on the stage at the end of the room tapped a microphone.

“Ladies, gentleman, in-betweens and others, please quiet down, it’s time to begin.”

[Chapter 1]         [Chapter 2]       [Chapter 4]