Desert Snow

Posted on Mon Dec 30th, 2024 @ 8:03am by Captain Rovak

1,626 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Histories
Location: Vulcan, Shi'Kahr City Outskirts - Challenge Grounds
Timeline: 2388

The hot air was stifling, even as the sun set over the horizon, bathing the challenge grounds in the lurid purple of Vulcan twilight.

Rovak and his party approached. He was flanked by his extended family, nearly fifty Vulcans, with the notable exception of Rovak’s younger brother Retesk and his kin. His elder brother and sister stood either side of him, shaking the rack of bells that signalled the coming of a wedding party. His son Shurlok was, unfortunately, somewhere unreachable with the Freighter he apprenticed aboard.

As they entered the structure surrounding the ceremonial furnace and gong-bell, they saw a group of Andorians waiting, an atmogen box between them doing what little it could to ameliorate the air nearby into something less oppressive to those born on Andor. There were nearly twenty Andorians, the surviving members of the clans Zheishiotsu and Aitanovar, first among them a woman in the ceremonial thermoconductive silks of an Andorian kimono, her hair done up high.

Rovak stepped forward as the others stood vigilant, striking the central gong with the implement provided.

The two groups stood silently, the bells going quiet as Rovak struck the gong. From the distance, the entrance to the east, the sound of more bells. The party of the officiant. Flanked by guards armed with long blades, bellringers and the eight men that carried her palanquin, a Vulcan matriarch was brought to the center and placed at a vantage point. Rovak approached her.

“Thee would call the koon-ut kalifee for an outworlder, Rovak, son of Sotep?” She asked as he kneeled before her, and she touched his face to link their minds.

“I am permitted this. We are married by the laws of the Federation. Her clan is here to support this union, as is mine.”

“Thy family holds no objection or protest?” The matriarch asked, looking to the assembled groups for response. They remained silent.

The Matriarch gestured to Surtha, who approached as the gesture bid. “This is Shalsurtha of the Clans Zheishiotsu and Aitanovar." Rovak announced.

“It is an honour to be considered and countenanced, Matriarch Saavik. I humbly beg your permission to be considered worthy of this man, and a union between our families.” Surtha said as practiced. The ceremony had gone like clockwork, though the Andorians looked significantly more uncomfortable than when they’d practiced on the holodeck.

“Thee would name this Andorsu thy wife, and kin to thine great ancestors. How does thee pledge her behaviour?” The Matriarch asked Rovak.

“With my life, Saavik.” Rovak explained.

“And the behaviour of thy outworlder kin, Shalsurtha of the Zheishiotsu and Aitanovar, how does thee pledge?”

“With my life also, Matriarch.” Surtha responded with appropriate solemnity.

“What they are about to see comes down from the time of the beginning. This is the Vulcan heart. This is the Vulcan soul. This is our way.” She raised her hand.

“Kal-if-fal!” the matriarch announced, and Rovak moved back towards the gong. As he took the implement from it’s housing, a clear voice carried across the challenge grounds from the eastern entrance.

“Kal-if-fee!” From the eastern entrance came the face Rovak dreaded, the visage of his former wife T’Ret. She was wearing tactical active wear. She came for the challenge. Behind her came much of her family, bells were shaken by her half-Klingon nephew Korosk and her father, T’Guv. Would T’Ret try and kill him herself, or send her father or nephew to do it? The father wasn’t an opponent Rovak worried about, but Korosk served in the Klingon Defence Force, he was a mountain of a man, and by all T’Ret had told him during their short marriage, a superior blending of Klingon and Vulcan abilities.

T’Ret approached the ceremonial gong, placing her hand between it and Rovak.

“I appoint no champion. I shall enter combat on my own behalf.”

“I humbly object, Matriarch. This woman and I were married and divorced under Federation law. Neither she nor I have made the ancient claim on these grounds before.”

“My husband claimed and validated our union when he accepted custody of our son, a child of that union.” T’Ret countered, speaking to the Matriarch and all assembled.

“Custody you violated when you abducted him to a temporal experiment.” Rovak responded, to which one of the executioner guards approached with a blade, preparing to strike until Saavik raised a finger. “I can forgive such a display, only once. Though the circumstances of thy marriage were without honour and a perversion of our way, thee did acknowledge thy union as Vulcans to claim possession of thy son.”

Rovak remained silent, conscious of the blade only a few inches from his face, retracted now that his outburst had been addressed.

“T’Ret, thee has chosen the kal-if-fee, the challenge. Who would thy challenge?”

“I challenge the dishonourable insect that would steal the man who is mine, father of my only child, in violation of our way.”

The executioner’s blade moved then to T’Ret, stopped only inches from her by Saavik’s almost imperceptible gesture.

“Thee shall also find no more forgiveness for such outbursts. Name the being thou would challenge.”

“Shalsurtha Zhai.” T’Ret announced clearly.

“Rovak, thee are prepared to become the property of the victor?”

“I am prepared.” Rovak responded.

“Shalsurtha, T’Ret is within her rights, but our laws and customs are not binding on thee. Thee is free to refuse, with no harm to thyself. Know that though I am willing, I cannot join thee in the Vulcan way if thou refuses.”

“I accept the challenge. But I ask thee for dispensation. The air is thin and hot in comparison to my native climate, I would be at a disadvantage to fight on these grounds.” Surtha asked.

“The air is the air, what can be done?” Saavik repeated the old Vulcan axiom.

Surtha undid her kimono, then, and Rovak saw what he could perceive as shock on T’Ret’s face to see that Sirta, too, wore tactical wear under her kimono, in particular a Starfleet environmental suit designed to regulate temperature, with the addition of a modified Benzite breather device to keep her inundated with cool, moist air.

“There are no defensive capabilities, only those that assist in thermoregulation. On the honour of the Zheishiotsu and the Aitanovar.”

“Thy dispensation is granted. Here begins the act of combat, for possession of the man Rovak. As it was at the time of the beginning, so it is now. Bring forth the lirpa.” The bells rang out as two attendants brought out long, heavy lirpas wrapped in cloth.

“If both survive the lirpa, combat will continue with the ahn-woon.” Surtha and T’Ret both checked over their weapons and held them ready. “It has begun. Let no one interfere.” The ancient Vulcan battle hymn echoed from the musicians in the walls of the challenge grounds.

The lirpa battle was quick, T’Ret began by kicking a cloud of sand at Surtha, then striking wildly and without rest, as though the plak tow consumed her. Surtha managed to avoid the fiercest of her strikes, finally using her lirpa’s weighted club end to deflect T’Ret’s strike, shattering the blade of her lirpa. With T’Ret disarmed, Surtha threw her own weapon aside.

“Kroykah!” The matriarch cried out, and both combatants ceased. “The ahn-woon.” She instructed as long bladed strips of leather were given to each of the combatants.

T’Ret’s first strike was from a distance, the blade of her ahn-woon severing Surtha’s right antennae. Causing her to stumble and fall. T’Ret seized on the advantage, crossing the distance between them as Surtha lost her balance the way a human would if their inner ear was breached.

T’Ret wrapped an unbladed segment of her ahn-woon around Surtha’s neck, dragging her towards the central fire. The Andorian clansmen seemed ready to object, but Rovak stayed them.

T’Ret held her as close to the fire as she was able, though she was significantly stronger than Surtha, the Andorian put up fierce resistance. She seemed certainly doomed as T’Ret held her, strangled over the flames of the central pit. She shifted from side to side, feeling the coals searing her soft blue skin, unaccustomed to such extremes.

Suddenly, Surtha drooped as though unconscious, causing T’Ret to shift in her balance, giving Surtha enough time to throw T’Ret over her shoulder, face-first into the coals.

“Kroykah!” The Matriarch announced again, as T’Ret’s screams filled the arena. Without another word, her family rushed to her, determining that she was unable to continue, before the entire party beamed away.

Unsteadily, a battle-damaged Surtha made her way back towards Rovak and the Matriarch.

“Thee art victorious. The man is thine.” Matriarch Saavik announced.

Surtha offered her index and middle finger, in the way one might extend a hand to be held. Rovak repeated the gesture, matching his fingers against hers as they crossed the arena to the center, stepping over the shattered lirpas. Surtha reached down to pick up her severed antennae as they passed it, putting it in a cryogenic pocket in the eventuality they’d still be able to put it back on.

Rovak and Surtha stood before the gong. She struck it first, and passed the implement to Rovak, who struck it again. Each wrapping a hand around the implement, they struck it together.

“It is done. I pronounce thee wed!” The Matriarch announced, to cheers from the Andorians and dignified silence from the Vulcans, as the bellringers once again filled the arena with music. Rovak and Surtha touched their index and middle fingers lightly from opposite hands.

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