#thoris is not a man anyone should ever want to experience boredom

[indignantlemur]

Hi!

First, I just binged Emigre during the week-end, and I love everything about it. It is truly fascinating how you came up with such a wide array of well-rounded characters and original lore.

Second, I hope you're doing well after the accident.

Third, Thoris is my favourite of the cast, these snippets of him in the last few days made me love him even more. Poor man, outliving his sons it's so terrible. However on a lighter note, there is something I found funny in your previous answers: he had a front row ticket to Shral pining after Dagmar, I wonder what he thought about it. Like being in his head is truly delightful.

Hey! I finally have an internet connection again, so I can actually get around to answering this! Hooray!

That's so sweet of your to say, thank you! And yes, I'm doing much better these days. I've officially graduated from physio and I've been released back into the wild once more.

As for Thoris... he absolutely did have a front row to about a year's worth of pining, and boy did he have opinions on the subject.

From Thoris' perspective, Shral had been remarkably stoic even by Andorian standards during his entire tenure as a personal aide prior to the Andorian contingent going en masse to their embassy on Earth. For his personal aide to suddenly have such an obvious tell was quite entertaining, even if his fixation on a Human was a little odd. Still, Andorians are an adventurous lot, and Thoris initially chalked Shral's behaviour up to a passing fancy of some sort. It would either be indulged or pass on its own in a few weeks, surely.

After three months, Thoris was forced to revise his opinion on the subject. Either his aide was remarkably determined, or it wasn't a passing anything.

Indeed, the first time Dagmar wore blue to the embassy, it took every ounce of willpower Thoris possessed not to break out into the most undignified snickering. It was Shral's faint but hopeful expression that nearly did the ambassador in, it really was. In fact, Thoris reckoned he may very well have strained something important during the whole ordeal. Truly, the sacrifices he made in service to Andoria were beyond counting.

After a few months without any change to the status quo, Thoris began to grow exasperated. He was starting to believe that Shral would never actually do something about his infatuation - or, Emperor forbid, just give up. The Human clearly had no idea what was being communicated, it seemed, and Thoris absolutely got a kick out of the notion that such a critical part of Andorian socialization just wasn't taught to Humans. (He'd have to get that sorted eventually, of course, but in the moment it was very entertaining indeed and he was ever so starved of entertainment these days.)

On occasion, Thoris would engage in some friendly ribbing, when he and Shral were alone and boredom struck - including infrequent reminders that even Vulcans had to declare intent at some point. Shral was never very receptive to Thoris' commentary on the subject, but he was particularly polite and professional whenever Thoris struck a nerve. (Which of course meant that Thoris did what he'd been trained to do, and prodded at that particular nerve until Shral found a reason to be elsewhere. Sometimes Thoris could drive Shral out of his office two or three times a day! Four, on the day Dagmar wore blue - a personal record.)

After six months, Thoris was maintaining an outwardly stoic mein whenever the subject or Human in question came up. Inwardly, Thoris was debating the pros and cons of sabotaging a turbolift just to get the pair alone in a room together. At that point, Thoris was firmly of the belief that nature would take the reigns from there, but his aide might never fully forgive him for meddling. Thoris had just about decided he could live with that, when the first few chapters of Emigre began.

So, in short: Thoris was alternately baffled, amused, exasperated, and frustrated by the field kabuki display of a courtship that he had front row seats for - whether he wanted them or not.

Now that it's underway and showing no signs of collapsing under its own weight, he's mostly just relieved. It's finally, finally not his problem anymore. His aide is content, his translator is secured, and as long as neither of them fuck it up he can leverage the whole ordeal as a one-up on the Tellarites for interspecies cooperation.

(There's no point playing that game with the Denobulans - that's a loser's game any day - and the Vulcans are a bit too sensitive on the subject after that Terra Prime incident to be any fun, so Tellarites are what he's left with. Besides, covert reports indicate that Ambassador Gral has been managing his high blood pressure far too well lately, and Thoris is bored.)