The Legend of the Bond Gnomes

Disclaimer: Star Trek and its associated names, places and personages are all registered trademarks and intellectual property of blah blah blah. Paramount Studios FTW.

Rating: R for language and sexual innuendo

AN: A fun piece for the New Year! Inspiration: Don’t even ask. I haven’t a clue. Probably seeing too many Travelocity commercials.

Prologue

Once, there was a white space. It belonged to a Vulcan.

For a long time, this white space was to remain empty. But one day, this particular Vulcan’s white space would be inhabited by a kind of creature – a gnome. Gnomes of this particular sort spring into existence when a Vulcan prepares to take a mate. Unlike their stolid, inexpressive hosts, Bond Gnomes are a boisterous, excitable, even downright rambunctious bunch. In fact, as each Bond Gnome passes through White Space Orientation, they are specifically acclimated to the particular Vulcan to which they are assigned. Each is imprinted with the inverse of their Vulcan’s disposition: The more logical the Vulcan – the more illogical the Gnome, in order to sufficiently drive the Vulcans to mate. The gnomes, quite proud of their vital role in the equanimity of the Universe, fancy their responsibilities of the utmost importance. As a result, when the host-Vulcan reaches sexual maturity, the first batch of Bond Gnomes passes through the Intrametaphysical Membrane of Transposition (which the Gnomes like to call ‘Surak’s Poop-chute’ due to the unseemly requirement that prior to Embarkation they must be forcefully relieved of all nutrition, including that in the digestive tract), and they throw a party of unparalleled proportions. The host-Vulcan, taken by surprise, is uncontrollably driven by the basest, even sometimes violent impulses to find a mate and – poof! – A Bond is formed. At the formation of such a bond, a Gnome configured as per the personality of the partner Vulcan is also summoned, and the two meet in the target’s white space. Soon after, a call goes out to the next wave of journeyGnomes to prepare for their next assignment, seven years hence.

Bond Gnomes are responsible for the very uncharacteristically emotional urges that bonded Vulcans experience – and repress – during the mating drive known to the Vulcans as pon farr, and once they have become bonded. Through the use of their exceptionally powerful mental discipline, bonded Vulcans enter their own white space several times daily to put down the ruckus that these obnoxious, free-spirited creatures effervesce around them. For several millennia, the Bond Gnomes enjoyed free reign over the subconscious psyche of their host-Vulcans, until a particularly crafty one came along and changed all that. To this day, the Bond Gnomes refuse to speak his name, except in reference to their most abhorred transportation process.

Eventually, however, like their hosts – Bond Gnomes must age, and eventually die. The eldest of them only hold out for seven years, their efforts to perturb their host-Vulcan’s emotional stability waning as the years wear away. When the young, virile new crop arrives, all hell once again, breaks lose.

Such were the rules during the days when Vulcans bonded with Vulcans. Such an assumption did not seem to be unreasonable. It made sense to the Founding Gnomes because there had never before been a Vulcan-non-Vulcan pairing, save for a few very minor perturbations of which the Bond Gnomes never speak.

One day, when the newcomer arrived into the white space of a particularly enterprising young Vulcan female, he found a very different and disturbing cousin from a distant clan, unknown to all the predecessors who had come before him.

Chapter 1: Chuck

“Who the hell are you?”

“I’m Chuck, put ‘er there!” The Gnome offered with a broad smile. The wrinkled old prospector-resembling Gnome was positively hooted to meet an unfamiliar face. His distant relative was not so amused.

“Wha—Wha… What the fuck is going on here, who the fuck are you, where the fuck is Barry? Oh, when the Bonding Affairs Councillory hears about this—” The Vulcan Gnome was absolutely livid.

“Whoa! Slow down, friend! What’s your trouble, ‘ere? We got ourselves a right unique si’teation don’tcha think? I’ve never met a kind like you b’fore! Ha!” Chuck cackled, slapping his thigh. “What’s your name, son?” Chuck clapped a hand on shoulder of the disconcerted young Gnome.

“Francis,” he replied emptily, shoulders sagging, staring into the whiteness beneath his feet and contemplating the destruction of the Universe.

“Well how ‘bout that? I’m the first of my kind to meet another of my kind from … well… another kind!” Chuck laughed heartily.

“What?!” The Vulcan Gnome asked in desperation, pacing in a circle. “I gotta get back! I gotta tell ‘em what’s happened! This is never going to work, a Vulcan and a Human?! How does that even, I mean they—and we—and they’re not supposed to—”

Francis looked pleadingly at Chuck in a desperate plea for an answer, arms outstretched. Several seconds went by. Chuck just leaned down and sipped a juice box that he had apparently been nursing when he was immediately called for Embarkation.

“He’ll get copper poisoning!” Francis yelled in panic.

Chuck seemed to stop and consider this seriously, his lips curling in thought.

“Ya know he seems a’ be doin’ alright so far!” he chuckled.

Francis rolled his eyes, slapping his forehead.

“My Gnome, I feel dizzy… I think I need to lie down.”

Chuck sighed gruffly, slurping the last ounces of Earthly sustenance he was to enjoy for seven years.

“Seems to me, son, that the only thing’s gonna’ destroy the Universe is a coupla GNOMES sittin’ on their collective asses not doin’ a damn thing!” the old timer yelled, his voice steadily raising. “Don’t we got a job to do?”

Francis sat up in alarm. “My Gnome, you’re right. You’re right, you’re absolutely right!” he jumped from his feet. Francis slapped his hands together and was about to go about creating the most awful noise he could muster when he suddenly realized something was amiss. His glance fell to the empty juice box at Chuck’s feet. His eyes darted from it to Chuck’s eyes. His stomach fell.

“How did you get in here with that?” Francis asked, sickly.

Chuck shrugged. “We do things a little differently than y’all,” Chuck nodded, smirking. Francis shook his head and furrowed his brow, demonstrating his confusion. Chuck turned around and dropped his zipper.

“Oh! No, you gotta’ be kidding me! That’s gonna’—” Francis took two steps as if to stop Chuck before covering his eyes and walking away.

“No wonder your species has the mean IQ of a sehlat… Un-fucking-believable! Real nice, Chuck. Real nice.”

“You jist wait and see, partner,” Chuck called over his shoulder while the trickling continued to echo in Francis’ ears with sickening vibrato. “It stirs ‘em up something fierce. Don’t understand it myself, but give it five minutes and they’ll be tradin’ fur like they think they’re Davy Crockett!”