Postby Enerdhil » Thu Sep 16, 2010 1:32 pm
Here goes my submission to the September 2010 Word Prompt! Anyone volunteers for beta-ing it?
The Education of T'Liz
by Enerdhil
Genre: romance, humor
Keywords: bond
Acknowledgements: I took inspiration from Misplaced's “Deal Breaker”, thanks!
“Vulcan,” - said T'Pol using her soft but firm voice.
“Earth,” replied Trip using a more emphatic tone - “she's my daughter and she will be more adapted to the Human environment.”
“Indeed,” - said T'Pol in cold voice - “for this argument she is your daughter, but when she destroyed her last given puppet she was my daughter, as you had said!” - she properly stressed the last sentence.
“Well, huh,” - he grimed to avoid open confrontation - “that was caused by her genetic inherited muscle's strength, which I believe came from your side, so it was natural to blame you for. And the problem is that Earth puppets are made to fit with human children strength; Jonathan should know that before handling an heritage one to T'Liz – what uncle would give an heritage toy to a two and half years old nephew?”
“Natural? I believe that natural is the fact that she is our daughter and, as her mother, I also have opinion on how to educate her. As you just said, she has strong Vulcan heritage and so she needs a Vulcan education.” - her voice was surprisingly icy, and Trip perceived the argument was contentious, he tried to compromise.
“She is too emotional to be accepted in the Vulcan emotion repressed society. She will be seen as an alien, other children will scorn her, she will not be happy. And she is fifty percent Human, she needs emotions.”
“Now you're the expert in the Vulcan society! Vulcans do have emotions, they only are able to control the associated feelings to not be overwhelmed by them. And – for your knowledge – Vulcan children are emotional. They rely on their parents emotion control – through the child-parents bond – until they are of age to control emotions themselves. But they will only learn that in a Vulcan oriented education. Have you perceived that I use my emotion control to keep T'Liz safe with her emotions, haven't you? Haven't you seen what happens when I am distracted and she loses her control? Like yesterday with the puppet, which you promptly blamed on my daughter?” – she accented the pronoun.
He was in a dead end. He would not win an argument against his logic minded wife trying to use logic. He had to think in a suitable bypass. He looked around only to perceive the young T'Liz happily de-assembling other of her large collection of toys by the brute force method – tear and ripe. “T'Pol should be distracted from her due to our argument, better say nothing about her daughter activities” - he immediately regretted of thinking 'her' instead or 'ours', but it was too late. She had perceived his thought through their bond and now she was really icy.
“See, even you recognize that she needs control of her emotions!” - her voice was sharp as a razor - “but you want let me to supervise her all the time. You don't have the mental abilities to repress her hard emotional feelings so you want to let all the hard work to me! That's a typical human response, put the stress on another person and let it go! Like one early-20th century father: let the hard work of educating children to the mother and let him go to enjoy work or a friend's evening at the 602 bar!”
She had given him a fatal hit. She had not forgotten the evening he came – without previous warning – late because he had invited the engineering staff for a round at the 602; only to be surprised by his wife in night gown dress with a now cold special dinner for two – the candles were already totally burned. “No way out! I need a diversion.”
“Honey,” - he tried to soft her - “couldn't she attend the school at the Vulcan compound in Sausalito? She would receive Vulcan education but she would still be in the Earth environment, maybe it could be a better solution.”
Apparently he had made a point, because she answered softening a bit her voice.
“I don't think so, I already visited the Vulcan school but they have very few children – consequence of the low birth rate of Vulcans. There is no other children at the same age as T'Liz. In fact, the school operates more as a tutorial place, instructors for each child because they cannot assemble a group of the same age.”
“That seems good, she will receive proper integral attention.” - he complemented to diverge the argument further from the previous line of reasoning.
“Vulcan children also need to socialize with other children of the same age. Entering a school class with ten or twelve other children is vital to their development. She needs a more traditional Vulcan education!”
His diversion didn't last enough. “Need more resources,”- he thought. But T'Pol followed her argument.
“I verified the Earth compound near the Embassy at Shi'khar. They have a kindergarten with seven children at T'Liz age. And they accept half-term enrollment. She might stay the mornings in there, and in the afternoon she would attend the Vulcan counterpart. We can share the mid-day meal all together and each or us can have a turn moving her from one school to the other.”
That's the best compromise his wife was offering him. Half-term education in each society. But, again, it would be necessary to leave Jupiter Station and move to Vulcan. He didn't know if he would like to take the move. But he couldn't find another alternative to present to her. And he was sure she probably had already questioned Starfleet about a two-person transfer to the liaison office in Vulcan, otherwise she wouldn't have presented the option. He would miss his fellow colleagues at Jupiter Station, but he will maintain the family united. “I lost this round. Better to give up.”
“OK darlin, I agree. We can start packing. I will notify the team.”
Surprisingly, she approached him and kissed him softly - “Thank you for agreeing to me. We could maybe celebrate tonight, after T'Liz sleeps.”
“Well” – he thought – “at least there are always side benefits of having a nice wife on my side.” He was sure she could perceive his thoughts through their bond; and that she would appreciate his appreciation of her. So, he was completely surprised when she complemented,
“There are other side benefits too, there aren't 602-like bars in Vulcan!”
(Curtain closes)
But if I recall, that very first one was late, too, so maybe it's only appropriate.
.
