psl: polychromatic AU | stargazers

[sleepingstar]

[On the top of the hill, Pai feels like she can reach up and touch the stars. Lying on her back, the grass scratchy on the back of her neck, she stares up at the sky.

She reaches an arm up and covers one of the stars with her thumb. Look, brother! I made another star fall! Except it's still there; all she has to do is move her hand. She doesn't have to kill anyone anymore. Neither of them do.

Hei isn't comfortable here. He's fallen into the habit of paranoia. He doesn't trust the peace, doesn't remember who he is outside of the Syndicate's control. He's so very human in that respect. Pai isn't bothered by the uncertainty. It's irrational to worry about something so completely out of her control.

Instead of making the stars fall, she can make them into stories. She traces shapes in the sky -- finding a bear, a swan, a man dancing. It's a silly exercise, but important. The mind is a muscle like any other; it requires a variety of exercises. It needs whimsey & rationality, exertion & rest.]

熊...

Comments

[mortemscintilla]

[ Pavel probably doesn't understand -- or perhaps he does? -- the close bonds that can form between people who spend each day and night on the battlefield, who fight and bleed and kill together. In Hei's and Pai's case, that closeness pre-existed the war. What resulted was an almost uncanny synchronization, a wordless communication almost akin to telepathy. ]

[ (That didn't, however, mean that the sibling shared everything. Even with their matter-of-fact intimacy, there were secrets between them. Like, for example, Pai's knowledge of the Syndicate's plans, and her own designs against them. Designs she -- and Amber -- hid from Hei right until the end.) ]

[ He doesn't want to think about it. Not at this moment, anyway. But by degrees, he finds himself leaning into Pai. Out of unconscious protectiveness, or remembered loneliness, even he can't say. ]

[ To Pavel, almost dryly, ] At least with her around, you have someone to speak Russian with.

[sleepingstar]

What about Spock? [Pai is interested to meet a Vulcan.]

[candothat]

[He doesn't know about those bonds yet, although the main bridge crew did feel a sense of closeness after the Nero ordeal. Nothing like a sibling bond, or the bond between soldiers trapped in an ongoing war.]

Terran languages are not her specialty. Her Russian is good, but I think she likes it less than more exotic languages.

Spock? Commander Spock is frightening.