After A Year Of Winter, Friends
Posted on Wed Jan 8th, 2025 @ 2:13am by Commander Jack Lashmore & Commander Arianna Frost
Edited on on Wed Jan 8th, 2025 @ 2:17am
5,128 words; about a 26 minute read
Mission:
Mission 0: Everybody Has A Story
Location: Medina, Marrakech, Morroco, Earth
Timeline: February 2389
It was going to rain today, she could smell it in the early morning desert air. The winter was nearing its end as echoed in the increasing days of sunshine and heat. T’Rama would never openly admit it, but despite being vulcan, she liked winters in Marrakech. The city was quiet and one could move around without much interaction and the desert looked bright and inviting. Moreso than usual.
As much as she loved the heat and the desert, rain brought peace and rejuvenation for both land and for her.
She was going to make plomeek soup today she decided. A walk to the Jemaa El-Fna Square was in order to buy supplies, and Mint tea. Mint tea was originally an acquired taste for T’Rama, when she’d first moved to Marrakech years ago, but over time she began to prefer it to the classic vulcan tea she’d been drinking most of her life. Its flavor reminded her of the constant vulcan struggle. The balance between emotion and calm. The tea invited the tantalizing possibility of success.
Dressed in long, loose pants and a comfortable tunic, T’Rama grabbed a dark, terracotta colour scarf and loosely wrapped it around her head, making a makeshift hood. Grabbing a bag that was next to the still hand-opened door, the vulcan headed out into the Medina.
Her path lead her through several souks. The lamp dealer Sufan stepped out of his shop, “Sabah alkhayr sayidat alraedu,” he said to her with a small wave and a bow. (Good morning, Lady Thunder.)
T’Rama nodded as she passed him, “Yuseiduni 'an 'arak hadha alsabah ya, Rufan. Kam faris yawmik?” (It is agreeable to see you this morning, Rufan. How fares your day?)
A smile lit his face as the elderly man watched her walk by, “La shay' lan yuslih alqahwat walshaay bialnaenaei. Sabah alnuwr lak ya Tirama.” He waved to her. (Nothing coffee and mint tea won't fix. Morning of light to you, T'Rama.)
“Sabah alnuwr lak ayda ya, Rufan.” T’Rama nodded again before returning to her path through the souks. (Morning of light to you as well, Rufan.)
Human tendency to constantly repeat the same exact greeting word for word, day after day, time after time both fascinated her and exasperated her. So much were they like her own people, yet so alien at the same time. Passion and balance always in flux, yet always in control.
It was partly why she had moved to Earth. To understand how they could ebb and flow between the two states so effortlessly in hopes of understanding her own inner flux and how to balance it out.
Sure, she had served with humans for a century and had come to understand them well as officers and colleagues. As private individuals though, as entities who seemed to incorporate the best and the worst of all the founding races of the Federation and yet still exist without losing their grasp on sanity - that was a feat she was hoping to incorporate into her own life.
T’Rama had made some progress in the past ten years sure. She was still Vulcan though and wondering if she would ever be able to attain this state of being or if she would have to find her own path? Kolinahr hadn’t been her path, v’tosh ka’tur seemed to be for a time, when she was trying to understand and keep a connection with the equally psychologically wounded T’Sen.
When none worked, she’d turned to the one people who seemed to have a grasp on it. In the past ten years she’d learned this about the human state. They didn’t know what they were doing at all time. They just tried their best and hoped it worked. It was an interesting revelation, which both explained her conundrum about them and not.
More work still needed to be done to fully understand this confusingly steadfast people she had made her home with. At first the locals of the Medina had been skeptical of the being who purely followed logic living among them. There were other races living in Marrakech, of course, but mostly the ones who employed more emotion in their lives. Very very few Vulcans were ever seen around this Morrocan city.
Soon though they began to accept and interact with the only vulcan in the Medina, allowing their curiosity and generosity to overtake them. T’Rama found herself secretly enjoying this aspect of her fellow Medinans.
It took her about half an hour to reach the Jemaa El-Fna Square, just as the lightest of rain began to fall. It was almost more of a mist than rain. Softly it touched cloth, wood and stone as T’Rama walked over to the stall of the quality tea merchant, Salah.
“Sabah alkhayr, Salah,” T’Rama greeted the young new proprietor with a bow. (Good morning, Salah.)
“As-salamu alaikum, T’Rama.” He greeted her back, with a solemn nod, “your usual today?” Salah ibn-Abed El-Salah motioned over to the fresh batch of imported mint. “I heff it fresh from Driaan V, straight off the loading dock last night!” He said in heavily accented Federation Standard. (Peace be unto you, T’Rama.)
“Wa-salamu alaikum, Salah. I will take the usual measurement, please.” T’Rama nodded, looking out at the slowly filling and slightly misty Square.
There was the snake charmer Zif, a Bolian man who became enamoured with this tradition, setting up his work space. The fruit merchant Ahmad was filling up the retro-style boxes. The Medina was waking up and it wasn’t about to let rain stop it from living.
“And houw are yoo, dis morning, my friend? Dooink enything interestink today? What food are we cooking today and do you want me to drop by when I get de next batch of dates from Fes II?” Salah ratted off as he prepared her batch of by picking an assortment of peppermint and a few other mint varieties and herbs and packaged it neatly for her, affixing the family seal upon the box.
T’Rama handed over a credit chit to Salah, “I am making plomeek soup for afternoon meal and will finish the batch of apples I have for dinner.” She replied to him, rising an eyebrow at the question.
He always offered to ‘drop by’ and always she refused him. Even after ten years, she could not quite tell if he was just being overly generous or whether he was attempting to…as they humans called it…flirt. Humans!
“I will pick up a batch of dates from you when I am available.” T’Rama replied, “I will be going to San Francisco for another lecture within the next few days.”
She wasn’t and she didn’t like to deceive, but sometimes the situation called for it.
“I should have dem tomorrow or de day after.” He offered with a big, toothy smile as he handed her the box.
“I will stop by if I need them. Shukran, Salah.” T’Rama countered as she put the box in her bag. (Thank you, Salah)
“Shukran, T’Rama. I am as ever, at your disposal,” he made an exaggerated, open handed bow.
T’Rama nodded, “good day to you, Salah.”
Without waiting for a reply, she turned on her heel and headed over to the fruit and vegetable vendor stall across the Medina.
“And to you, T’Rama!” She heard Salah call behind her before his voice took on the same saccharine tone as he greeted his next customer.
Something akin to relief washed over her quickly as she walked away, nodding to the odd person she would recognize as she traversed the giant square. She spent another half hour carousing the stalls and picking up the ingredients she needed. Today she would make plomeek soup from human vegetables as there was no fresh plomeek plant available and she would make the spicy version as the day was steadily getting more cold rather than warming up as it does in spring and summer.
As she headed home, she wondered if the weather would clear so that she could go to the Agafay and meditate, or if she would have to do it at home.
The Agafay desert was thirty kilometers away from Marrakech to the south. It was a rocky kind of desert, with a quaint little oasis in the middle. T’Rama would go there several times a week to meditate and to re-connect with the desert. She was vulcan, after all, underneath all of her imperfections and her heart belonged to the desert and its fire. Its stoney dunes were very reminiscent of the Saharan sand dunes, in colour and size, its only difference being consistency.
She picked up the pace as the fine mist of rain began to turn into droplets and arrived home in another twenty minutes. Quick work was made of the vegetables and herbs before they were put on the cook. She opened the windows to air out the house and so that the smells of the food would air out. It was a thing everyone did, as a way to show off what they were doing. Whilst she didn’t understand it, she was assured it was a cultural thing and she didn’t want to offend anyone by being overly different. This was, after all, their planet. She was a guest as much as she was a local by now. She wanted to show that she could adapt.
As the broth simmered away, T’Rama soon closed the windows as it was getting too cold and turned on the heat. She hadn’t written a letter in a while, T’Rama thought as she passed by her laptop display and walked into the bedroom where she retrieved a kaftan scarf.
Tap, tap, tap, the rain knocked on her window as a little alarm buzzed from the kitchen, indicating that the soup needed her attention. The vulcan woman walked out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. Tasting the broth, she decided it was of good flavor. T’Rama had come to appreciate spices sold in the Medina and surrounding souks and had developed her own version of the broth, what from the vegetable choice to the seasoning choice.
As she poured herself a bowl, she returned to the laptop display and opened it. “Computer, take down this dictation.”
“Ready.” Replied the machine.
She took a spoonful of the broth, scolding hot as it was, even spicier with the seasoning and sighed. She was late…something had changed this year and she couldn’t quite put a pin on it.
The computer indicated it was ready with a small beep as a reminder.
“Jack.
Apologies for the lateness of my yearly correspondence. I…” She paused for a moment, trying to put it into words, the reason. “Last year was the fourteenth anniversary of T’Sora’s death and I found myself needing to meditate and introspect a lot more than usual. Whereas this year marks the fourteenth year of our friendship, and this is very agreeable to me. Nonetheless, I apologize for keeping you waiting. I expect this letter finds you well.
How is the governing of your planet coming along? I trust that you have finally instituted Mister Flutto as the head of the Federal Police?” T’Rama began dictating, pausing to take another sip of the soup before continuing.
“Winter is nearing its end here…” The dictation came easier now and T’Rama began to tell him of her passing of time since their last letter.
Not soon after she had finished her dictation, her front door chime sounded followed by a low chirp from a more muffled device. A distinctly non-vulcan voice then quipped, “well, bugger me.”
T’Rama’s pointed eyebrow shot up, then the other. That tone of voice was one she hadn’t heard in ten years and she’d just sent him a letter. She stood up and wrapped her scarf around her shoulders and stepped over to the door. She pressed the unlock button, schooling her face into a neutral expression as the door opened.
“You still have not taught me what that means.” She said flatly, though her heart was glad.
The man in whom T’Rama had just moments prior corresponded with had perched a leaned upon elbow upon her doorframe and was in the process of reading a device in his hand. His features, longer hair, beard; all less crisp, clean. As he read his smile betrayed itself and he breathed deeper. He made eye contact once with her, only to continue reading before pocketing the padd into his jacket.
Taking a deep sigh, Jack took a step back from the doorframe and placed his other hand in his jacket and his shoulders slumped before nodding several times. “A little of column A….a, a LOT of column B.”
He’d perhaps not intended it but the tone of his voice betrayed the underlying emotion. She stepped to the side and motioned for him to enter. “I have made plomeek soup. It is very spicy, I can dilute it with some yoghurt, if you would prefer?”
Jack remained in place for a moment, staring upward taking a deep sigh despite the rain. He then forced himself to smile, also to honestly chuckle at the irony. “Sorry. Thank you.” The self mockery of a smile turned softer, and honest when he stared at her and entered her home. As he passed her, “...didn’t mean to be the human having a breakdown at the Vulcan’s door.”
“You are handling it better than my people would, old friend.” T’Rama said as the doors closed behind him and she locked it.
She reached up behind him, fingers lightly wrapping around the lapels of his jacket and tugging gently. As a vulcan, she would never be this personable and hospitable with another vulcan or a guest of any sort. T’Rama wondered at that moment when she had started acting as if she were a human of Marrakech hosting a surprise guest. Perhaps she had learned more from her humans than she had originally thought.
An easy instinct after so many years on Driaan, to step out of his assisted jacket, he masked his personal centering of himself by taking in her home. “You know…” he harrumphed lightly to himself and stared down, “...feel like a kid admitting this.” Back still turned to his host he bowed his head and shook it slowly. “Warmest place I’ve seen in years.”
A pointed eyebrow raised as if to query his point. “I am vulcan.” She said as if that answered the whole underlying message.
Without more said she turned to hang his jacket. As she turned back, “I will as for one thing before I bring you more heat. Shoes…” she pointed towards his boots. “I am told it is customary here to take off one’s outside shoes when entering a home.”
“Oh!” Jack immediately stood to an almost military-like attention for a split moment before making focused haste on removing his Driaan military-issue boots, taking them in one hand and finally turning to face T’Rama properly. “My apologies…” A quick glance near her location, “ah.” He made his way to place his boots next to her various shoes by the door.
She gave him a graceful nod, “Thank you, Jack.” T’Rama motioned over to the space that seemed like a mix of a dining and lounge area.
An assortment of red, brown, tan and beige coloured seating arrangement, mostly to make sitting on the floor easier was neatly packed in next to an old wooden work desk. Several PADDs were stacked upon it, an old leather-bound book, a standard civilian laptop display.
Beyond the seating was a wall with a large window looking out onto a small balcony, and what looked to be a small greenhouse to the side. The small house itself was on a light elevation, looking down onto the stream Oued Issil in the distance.
“Have a seat, I will return momentarily. My own soup has gotten cold, I will take a refill.” She said as she grabbed her bowl. “Do you take mint tea?”
“If I was interrupting, I…well I should have called ahead.” Jack caught himself, “mint tea would be lovely, thank you.” However, his eyes took in her small living area in more detail. Some photos of a few vulcans, two of which he guessed were her daughters, though more to his notice was a row of starfleet medals upon a small shelf, well, not quite as noticeable as how many pillows were on the floor.
T’Rama poured them each a bowl of soup before returning to the seating area. She placed the two bowls down before returning to the kitchen and emerging moments later with a tray on which there was a copper coloured tea pot, two clear glass cups, and a small bowl of sugar cubes and a side of rahat lokum, also known as turkish delight.
“Please…” she motioned for him to sit as she set the tray down, before wrinking her nose. “Though, perhaps…you should take your socks off first. I take it you’ve been moving for a while?” T’Rama said as she herself sat down, in a cross-legged pose.
“Oh yes, to both accounts.” Jack obliged and returned to his boots and removed his socks promptly, stuffing them within his boots. After taking a step back towards T’Rama he paused in reconsideration, turned, returned to his boots and stuffed the socks a might deeper into his boots.
Almost awkwardly, though in truth stiffly and with a repressed groan he lowered himself to sit upon a pillow cross-legged before accepting the offered bowl of soup. “Thank you again.”
T’Rama nodded and took another sip of her bowl, “it is agreeable to see you, my friend.” She said finally, hazel eyes studying blue. “Come to celebrate a decade of friendship with me?”
She knew that wasn’t the case, but it was a way to...as humans said, ‘break the ice’. That, and he was a talker, T’Rama knew. Once invited to talk, Jack talked. So, she would do as the humans did, invite.
Jack slowly tasted of the soup. It was spicy, yet not too spicy for his palette. As he swallowed he relaxed and simply stared at T’Rama in silence for a moment. “Your letter.” He tilted his gaze a little. “Are you okay?”
Another sip. A small pause. It wasn’t a question she was asked often. “I believe so. It was difficult, last year, remembering.” T’Rama admitted, “I managed to maintain my balance, however.”
He looked exhausted. Drained even, though by what, she couldn’t tell. She knew of the problems he had faced trying to re-establish his planet as a democracy and all the pushback that came from it. One could not change decades of crime and slavery and punishment in less than a three years. Not with it being planet spread as it had been. Some progress had been made, of course. It seemed as though progress took its toll as well.
“It will always be difficult, I imagine. The more time goes by.” She took another sip, “you appear as though your toils are harder than mine, Jack.” There, shot fired, as it were.
“I didn’t much get to know my daughter, not at first.” Jack raised the bowl of soup to his lips and slowly drank the entire bowl in one attempt. “As for the rest…” He cleared his throat, placing the bowl down between them. “I…” He sighed and shook his head again then stared at her. “I have no fucking idea.”
T’Rama still ate her soup slowly, using the time to analyze the young man she was seeing before her. Well, young to her. To his own kind, he was more in the place and time like her, old and getting older.
“You look like you are on the run.” She said finally, “I know no one is after you because my perimeter sensors would have gone off by now and there would be people knocking on my door. Logic dictates that this is then internal.” T’Rama followed suit then and downed her soup in the same manner. “Have some tea and loosen your tongue, my friend.”
Jack stared at her a little more evenly before his eyes squinted and he suddenly came more animated, leaning forward a little. “...you know I went home with the best of intentions. I don’t need to tell anyone that.” He straightened and looked more to her side with a frown in thought. “And yet, years in I’ve become the symbol to resist against even though I left the government directly nine months ago.”
He almost seemed to speak with disgust at the thought, “oh I could take the death threats, the slander or the false stories. But to….turn that into a political movement? Let alone all the crime boss’ just turned into long-time terrorist groups whose entire manifesto being entirely about taking me out…fine that's what you get yeah?”
He almost laughed, “that's just fucking fine. But…” this is where he seemed to break, staring directly into T’Rama’s eyes, a hand slightly outstretched but more towards his next question. “What about everyone else dying because of that?”
Ah, there it was.
She leaned her head sideways as she listened, before pouring them each a cup of tea. “That is a lot to deal with. For anyone.” T’Rama said and took a sip of the tea, “People are resistant to change, and it seems to cross species.”
Her mind went briefly to Zhi’rev, whom she hadn’t spoken with in over a decade, whom she hadn’t thought of in years.
“Yet, change is necessary.” She sighed, “You left to protect the good people. Your brother and sister still hold the power I assume?”
“Oh yes…” He sipped his tea lightly once. “The ministers precariously evenly spread on both sides of the isles, though? But hey, they’re all including my siblings voted in so…that’s better than the guy who so-called shot everyone into submission.”
A single inward ‘heh.’
“I set the board, they got the pieces to play democracy.” He waved a hand dismissively, “Enjoy! Don’t fuck the game up any further than we already have.”
He lowered his gaze and sighed before slowly whispering, “A conceit I suppose.” He raised his gaze slightly more. “I ran away, just, just that.”
T’Rama watched him as he spoke. He had performed along the highest standard a human and an officer of Starfleet, a citizen of the Federation should. He put the good of the many in front of the good of the individual. Yet still he felt inadequate and a coward.
Humans…
Astounding feats of logic coupled with befuddling bouts of self crippling emotion. Then again, she knew a little something about running away and finding one's own path. About logic and crippling emotion.
Humans had in the end helped her find her balance. Could she return the favor now?
She took another sip of the tea. “There is a history of that in my blood too. Running away. Though I’ve come to realize that running from ends in running to. You know what you are running from, but do you know what you are running to?”
Jack thought about that, visually so, and replied slowly. “No?” He stared at her a little more wide-eyed, “Alex and Sin? They’ve got entire quadrants on their shoulders…there’s no one left.” His shoulders seemed to slump further in the almost submissive cross-legged position. “I just ran to Earth, I suppose, where it all began in a way? Last time I ran away..” He nodded slowly. “New York.”
“But…” He tapped his chest and leaned back slightly with a face of almost a self-questioning disgust. “I didn’t FEEL anything this time..?”
T’Rama nodded, “I am attempting to follow your steps as you described them.” She began, realizing in the process that they may need another aid to unravel this situation.
He was resistant to tell her why he showed up at her door of all people. They had been friends for fourteen years, most of it through letters exchanged. Long, long, emotion-filled letters. Yet, they had never been…close in what she had imagined friendships would have been like for races that expressed emotions more clearly. So why choose her of all people?
“Yet I find myself stumbling as to why you sought me out of all people?” She decided to be honest. “Without a plan, without resources and without course. Please understand that this is not a complaint of any sort. But I fail to see the logic of seeking out a vulcan in your state of turmoil. Surely this Alex and Sin persons would be more suitable?”
T’Rama felt a bit bad for how her words came out, but they were honest and non-judgemental. Perhaps…hmm, the plant was ready as it was…perhaps that might help.
“I understand…I do.” He paused and as if one could stumble on words he stumbled on a slight inward laugh before staring towards her shelf of Starfleet Medals. “We’ve been dealing with our shit, you and I. Me and my little world.” He rolled his eyes, timed with a sigh at the thought before closing his eyes. Not yet opening them, “Alex and Sin, they’ve had full-scale racial evacuations, the Synth Rebellion…that bloody Protostar Incident let alone the rest. I couldn’t add myself to that…not like this. I’ve only ever helped them, I don’t want to change that.”
He then opened his eyes. “In your letters, you began to speak of this place. I kinda wandered here city hopping a bit blindly. In truth, I more wanted to see the place and not intrude upon you at all. Just…pass on by.”
He shrugged then smiled slightly, an honest smile. “Then I saw you being heckled in the street by the salesmen and…And I wanted to make a friend.”
“Aside from the somewhat disturbing notion that you observed me without my knowing,” T’Rama said with a shake of her head as she stood up, “I do believe that your friends would not hesitate to help you. I, however…” She motioned for him to stay where he was.
She stepped over to the side door and entered the balcony. She then walked over to the greenhouse quickly, the rain dampening her hair.
A few minutes later, she returned with a small, round metallic object and what looked like rolling paper. She sat back down and placed the object on the table, then the papers. Then she took the metallic object and began turning the top and a grounding sound began emanating from it.
“I have this!” She opened it up.
In it there were small chopped-up pieces of a greenish sort of herb.
“I managed to grow it finally. I think it is ready. There’s a lighter on the kitchen bench, can you retrieve it?”
Jack sniffed the air suddenly, filled with a sweeter yet musty scent. “You’re shitting me…” With a somewhat surprising spring in his step considering the state he appeared to be in he made his way to the kitchen setup in the corner of the living space and retrieved the lighter. Not returning immediately he took the kitchen in. Simple, archaic to some. But Jack…would love to cook with such raw simplicity.
He returned to sit opposite T’Rama and placed the lighter between them. “We stress you out that much?”
She raised an eyebrow at him as she dispensed appropriate amounts of the mixture into the rolling papers and rolled them up with ease.
“Humans stress me out less than my own kind sometimes.” She admitted as she handed him the hand-made cigarette. T’Rama then took her own and lit it up, taking a long pull, before expelling the smoke and handing him the lighter.
“A child dead, a child who disowned her parents and went off to join the v’tosh ka’tur and an ex-husband who could not take change, nor the fact that we wanted to be among the stars and not on Vulcan.” T’Rama added, “That stresses me more than human emotion. This…” she took another puff, “helps me balance out when meditation does not.”
“Add the benefit its been a long time…” Jack examined the joint in his hand before placing it in his mouth and lighting it. “Send me to sleep in no time.” He took a light drag of the joint and held it for a moment to his lungs before coughing lightly and releasing the smoke. “Yep.”
“I do not have a bed to offer, but we can arrange the seating and cushions for tonight until I can clear up my spare room,” T’Rama said as she took a sip of her tea then another drag. “And arrange for another bed.”
“I do have a bed…it just may need a change of parking, I only intended to be in and out.” Another drag followed by a slight restrain from the burn in his chest before exhaling the smoke. At first, he spoke with a light wheeze though his words evened out, “I should arrange my own lodgings if I’m staying for more than a night.”
“You should, however, I have made my offer.” She replied and took another drag. The effect was starting to settle in and the calm felt good. “Change of parking?”
“I may have taken up a bit more than my fair share of more than a few hours,” Jack admitted.
An eyebrow raised, “You may get towed to the impound lot or even stolen.” T’Rama said, “What type of vehicle did you come with?”
“Just an old toy of the family’s,” Jack reassured her.
In a garden district separated from the markets, an area usually reserved for hover vehicles and shuttles to land temporarily lay a single almost bird-of-prey style vessel occupying the entire space. Hull, colour, sharp angular edges all, however, indicating a Driaan Defence Force full retrofit.
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