Space, the final frontier.
It has been completely wrecked in the Holy Worlds chatroom today. *laughs*
So... this is the story I wrote based very heavily off the roleplay that went on in the chatroom of a site called Holy Worlds today. It started because Abigail, whose nickname is Kirk, got splashed with a wave sent by Elusive Starlight, and suddenly turned into a cuttlefish. Caeli turned into Bones - her nickname is Bones - and then things just went from there.
I'd give a synopsis except there isn't a solid plot. Basically, Kirk is a cuttlefish, and there are disembodied voices making creepy Frozen references, bodies in closets, kittens, a Teimaro, and two men acting like children over a few disconnected wires.
Yeah. Enjoy reading this glimpse of our insanity, I guess. Don't say I didn't warn you. ;) But before we begin, here's a list detailing who played who in the roleplay; nearly all lines for the characters in this story were created by the people playing those characters. Credit where credit is due:
Lady Abigail Mimetes: Abi (and all cuttlefish), Kirk, disembodied voice(s), and Simperer.
Aris Annor: Anora, and the Teimaro.
Caeli: Bones, Kaylee, and the kittens.
The Dark Golden Dreamer: Spock, Scotty, and Jayne.
Elusive Starlight: Elusive Starlight
And now, without further ado, I present to you...
* Star Trek: Holy Worlds *
Season 1 - Episode 1
"Cuttlefish and Kittens"
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The Enterprise wasn’t quite the Enterprise.
It was, but it wasn’t. It was in an alternate universe created by writers from the Holy Worlds. As a result, chaos and insanity now reigned on the Enterprise as the crew attempted to keep things calm and failed.
A girl who called herself Elusive Starlight had appeared onboard, used some form of magic, and sent a wave of water crashing through a corridor—effectively splashing Captain James T. Kirk.
The water swept him away into another room.
McCoy noticed this from his vantage point in the sickbay at the safe end of the hallway and ran to check on his captain.
Kirk had hit the wall and was lying there motionless, staring up at the ceiling as water slowly drained out of the room and back into the corridor. McCoy knelt down, scanning Kirk with his probe before prodding his shoulder. “Jim. Jim, it’s just water for crying out loud.”
Kirk blinked, not saying anything. Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, Kirk was gone and a strange tentacled fish had replaced him. For all intents and purposes, it appeared the fish could breathe oxygen.
“What—” McCoy stared in shock. He carefully moved closer to the strange creature.
A baritone voice from behind McCoy startled him from his thoughts. “Doctor, it appears our captain has become what Earthmen typically call a ‘cuttlefish’.”
McCoy glanced over his shoulder to see Spock and blinked, one eyebrow raised, before taking a copy of the Starfleet Medical Staff Handbook out of his doctor’s bag. “Oh, is that what that is? Well, why is Jim…?”
Spock watched as the strange fish waved its tentacles around and changed colours. “It seems to be so. As for why, it would appear that the wave of water sent through the corridors by the young lady earlier possessed some sort of property that caused it to turn the captain into an aquatic creature.”
The wiggly sea beastie that had once been Kirk attempted to impersonate Las Vegas seaweed.
“Well, what am I supposed to do, Spock?” McCoy asked in frustration, scowling at the Vulcan. “I’m a doctor - a human doctor – not a veterinarian!”
Suddenly, an unfamiliar voice began to speak. It sounded as though it were coming from the fish.
“BAGEL!”
McCoy leapt away from the fish, eyes wide. Spock simply stood there with his hands clasped behind his back, regarding the fish calmly.
“Bagel?!” McCoy asked. “What about a bagel?”
Music started playing. It was recognizable as music from a very old Earth film that had been called Frozen. “For the first time in foreverrr…”
“And now there’s Frozen music. What is with this place?!” McCoy burst out.
“It appears to be the same as it always has been, Doctor, with slight changes brought on by the appearance of that girl from earlier,” Spock mused.
The singing started up again, still coming from the fish’s general direction. It was set to the tune of a song about snowmen from the same film as mentioned earlier. “Will you help me hide the bodyyyyyy… it doesn’t have to be in the closetttt…”
Spock raised an eyebrow, gazing down at the fish. “I do believe the captain is unwell and feeling uncharacteristically violent.”
“He’s also a fish,” McCoy stated dryly.
Spock nodded. “Indeed.”
~*~ \\// ~*~
Meanwhile, in the rec room…
Anora stared wide-eyed at the closet. Speaking to no one who was physically present, she said, “Abi! Did you wash the body of the prints? You gotta remove the prints so you aren’t a prime suspect!”
She dragged the body out of the closet and hosed it down with a hose that appeared out of nowhere.
Satisfied with her work a few moments later, she attached a rope – that appeared out of nowhere as well – to the body, and dragged it back into the hiding place.
And that was when Spock, who had left the room where the cuttlefish was, happened to show up.
~*~ \\// ~*~
Spock walked into the rec room. He stopped and crossed his arms, watching silently with one eyebrow raised as the girl attempted to adequately hide a lifeless body in a closet.
McCoy followed closely behind Spock, coming to a halt and staring in shock at the scene. “What in the world is going on here?!”
The girl ignored them and started pulling up boards inside the closet in order to hide the body under them. “Abi!” she called to no one who was physically present. “What kind of air freshener should I put in the closet to hide the smell of decay?” She used a push broom to shove the body into the hole made from the boards.
McCoy continued to stare with an expression of open-mouthed shock (that closely resembled an invisible facepalm).
Spock, his eyebrow still quirked, spoke to the girl. “If I might ask, what has occurred here?”
The girl paused. “… gotta hide a body.” She nodded twice and then put the floorboards back together.
“Hiding it without notifying anyone, particularly the ship’s chief medical officer, is an irrational plan,” Spock pointed out.
“Psh, that’s just more paperwork.” The girl waved a hand and then dragged a fuzzy rug – that appeared out of nowhere – over the spot the body had just been placed.
The aforementioned medical officer was still standing in shock, stammering but unable to form a cohesive sentence due to the bizarrely macabre scene in front of him. Spock raised both eyebrows now in an ever-so-slightly perplexed expression at the stranger’s words.
The girl repeated her question. “Abi! What kind of air freshener?”
A disembodied voice responded cheerfully, “Thieves’ oil. Use that.”
After a long few moments of stunned silence, McCoy turned to face his Vulcan friend. “Spock, there’s something crazy goin’ on in this ship and I have to tell you, I don’t like what I’m seeing.”
Spock looked at McCoy for a moment and then nodded once. “I, too, find it most… disconcerting.”
McCoy raised one eyebrow at Spock’s lack of indignation. “Yeah, well, you would.”
Spock glanced at McCoy with another raised-eyebrows look that seemed to say, ‘I think I know what you’re implying with that sentence, but since I’m a Vulcan, I couldn’t care less’. Then he unclasped his hands from behind his back and folded his arms across his chest. “I think that for now the best course of action is to place this girl in detention until the current dilemma at hand is solved.”
~*~ \\// ~*~
Due to yet another invisible being known as a ‘writer’, someone else had appeared on the Enterprise. A man with dark hair and hazel eyes appeared from thin air and began to explore, an air of idle curiosity about him.
Someone spotted the stranger and turned on the communications. “Warning. There is an unknown man heading towards the Bridge. I repeat, there is an unknown man heading towards the Bridge. What are my orders? Tikhonev out.”
There was no answer. Because, quite obviously, Captain Kirk was still a fish.
~*~ \\// ~*~
McCoy heard the warning, which had been broadcasted across all communication frequencies. “Well, great, now there are multiple maniacs running around this ship. You know, for a second there, I thought this was supposed to be a Starfleet venture for the sake of science and humanity.” He rolled his eyes heavenward, exasperated.
“If that is the case, doctor,” Spock replied, “Then taking care of one ‘maniac’ – as you say so eloquently – at a time is the logical course of action.” He flipped open his communicator, which gave a chirping beep in response. “Spock here. Send two security details; one to the bridge, and one to the rec room – we have an intruder here as well. Place them both in custody until further notice.”
As he issued the orders, McCoy stepped forward, staring at the closet thoughtfully. He opened it and started to pull the floorboards and the rug away. “I should make sure the man is really dead and not just unconscious. There’s no way of knowing, what with all the madness going on recently.”
Spock, after making sure the girl wasn’t going to run away (she wasn’t; she was simply standing in the corner and talking to the disembodied voice), went to stand next to McCoy, clasping his hands behind his back.
As soon as their backs were turned, the girl crept quickly away without a sound.
~*~ \\// ~*~
The darkhaired stranger – known as Simperer – sat on the Bridge, inspecting the control panel and wondering where the lights came from. Having come from a world without electricity of any sort, it was quite confusing.
After a few minutes, he figured out how to open the control panel. He studied the wires before deducing that the Enterprise must be a living thing of some sort – after all, it had veins, as he could clearly see here. Only living entities had veins.
Suddenly, a voice spoke behind him. “Watchu doin’?”
He jumped and turned around to see a girl standing there. (This is Anora from the rec room – the one who was trying to hide the body – in case you haven’t figured it out yet.) “Have we been eaten?” Simperer asked.
“Eaten?” the girl asked, surprised.
“Yes.” Simperer regarded her seriously.
She laughed. “No, dear. It’s a spaceship. Like… a ship that’s a house, in the air. Very high in the air.”
The door to the turbo lift slid open, and a man in a red shirt – Scotty was his name – entered the room. He halted abruptly, noticing the open control panel in front of Simperer. “’ey, what’s goin’ on here? Leave that alone!”
Simperer ignored him for a moment, talking to the girl. “How is it propelled?” He touched a wire. “Where does the polychrome luminescence originate?" He stared at the glowing buttons for a moment longer before turning to Scotty. “Who are you?”
“Uhh… I’m not sure. Some form of energy…” Anora responded. “Maybe gas or oil? Or… ooh! Like lightning!”
“I’m the chief engineer,” Scotty said. “Now what do ye think you’re doin’?”
Simperer tried to pry a button off of the panel. “How…?”
Scotty’s eyes widened. “Don’t do that!” He hurried forward and batted Simperer’s hand away from the button.
Simperer tilted his head. “An engineer?” His eyes widened slightly. “Lightning?” He backed away. “How do they trap it?”
The girl paused. “Uhh… with different metals and equipment. It’s controlled into energy, and powers the ship.”
Kneeling down, Scotty inspected the control panel for any signs of damage. “Trap what?” he asked absently, voice tinged with slight annoyance.
“The luminescence, in the hard knobs,” Simperer replied. He glanced at the captain’s chair and pointed at it. “Does the lord sit there?”
He noticed two levers on the control panel pointed in opposite directions and twitched. Reaching out, he fixed the levers and made it so they were pointed in the same direction.
An alarm rang out as Red Alert was triggered by the movement of the levers. Scotty sprang to his feet. “What in the blaze—what did ye do?!” He ran over to where Simperer stood and quickly shut Red Alert off.
Simperer cursed at the sudden unexpected noise and whipped around, drawing his sword. “What was that?”
 |
| Author's note: this is an actual photograph of a person who looks like what Abigail imagines Simperer to look like. This is not a random guy. It really is Simperer. |
“You set off Red Alert, is what it was!” Scotty retorted. He saw the sword and stared incredulously. “Are ya mad? Put that thing away!”
Anora got wide-eyed and lowered Simperer’s sword arm. “At ease! Easy, easy…”
Scotty took his phaser out of its holster just in case.
“What is a red alert?” Simperer asked. “Is it dangerous?” He scanned the area with his eyes before looking at the girl. He shifted to an ‘at ease’ posture, sword still drawn.
“It means you just sent a message to the entire crew sayin’ there’s a code red, or a dangerous situation happenin’!” Scotty explained, temper rising.
“Simperer, put your sword away, okay?” Anora asked. “So things don’t get worse.”
“Why isn’t anything labeled?” Simperer inquired. He told the girl, “If the situation deteriorates, I prefer to have it drawn.”
She rolled her eyes. “Simperer, the situation WILL deteriorate if you keep it out. They’ll all feel like you’re the threat. We don’t want that.”
“How many are in the flying house?” Simperer ignored her words, preferring to continue with his questioning.
“Lots,” the girl said, smiling. “They could probably fit a lot of Jaegar’s army inside.”
Scotty, finally finished with his inspection for damage, answered one of the man’s previous questions. “Nothing’s labeled ‘cause the only people legally allowed to work on a starship are ones that know what they’re doin’!”
“You.” Simperer motioned to Scotty. “With what weaponry is this flying house outfitted?”
“She’s a starship, not a house, ya nutter,” Scotty retorted. “Phasers… laser and plasma cannons… why d’ye want to know? And how’d ya get here anyway?”
Simperer ignored the question and turned to Anora. “You will translate.”
“Uhh…” She paused. “Lasers are like concentrated streams of lightning turned into energy. Plasma cannons are kind of the same, but only do it in spurts.”
Simperer’s eyes widened as he stared at her in awe, before they narrowed authoritatively. “Show me.”
Scotty, meanwhile, had turned on the communications. “Where’s the captain? For tha’ matter, where’s Mr. Spock? Why is the Bridge empty?”
He received no responses. He heard Simperer speak and turned. “Ye’re not goin’ to see the cannons, laddie, that’s for certain.”
Simperer looked impatiently at the girl, not acknowledging Scotty.
A disembodied voice rang across the Bridge. “Scottyyyyyyyyy. This is your Captainnnn speakiiiiing.”
The engineer looked in bewilderment around the room. “Captain? Where are ya?”
There was no response.
Scotty frowned, and then looked at the girl. “Under no circumstances are ya allowed to show him the cannons!”
Simperer, bored and frustrated now, returned to the control panel and disconnected a wire. All the lights blinked out as the control panel died.
“He just wants to see them—” the girl started. She stared. “Simperer, stoppit!”
“It bleeds sparks,” Simperer whispered in awe.
Scotty’s eyes widened. “Stop it! Ye’re gonna send us into lockdown if you keep it up!” He took his phaser out once again and pointed it at Simperer. “Stop right there, lad, and don’t ya move.”
“SCOTTY! PUT IT DOWN!” the girl exclaimed, stepping between the two men. “Don’t do that!”
“I’m not gonna shoot him, as long as ‘e stops tryin’ to sabotage the ship!” Scotty said.
Simperer frowned, looking at the phaser. His eyes narrowed again, and he moved for his dagger.
Scotty took a step forward, about to step past the girl. “Stop it right there, or I really will shoot.”
The girl placed her hand on Simperer’s arm. “Simperer, don’t.” She turned her eyes on the other man. “Scotty, lower the gun. Just… let’s all calm down. He’s only curious how things work. He learns by doing, that’s all!”
Scotty scowled. “His ‘doing’ is gonna end up cutting all our power, or worse.”
“Well, show him things he can work with that won’t harm anything! Give him spare parts or something!” the girl suggested.
The scowl turned into a frown. Scotty hesitated, and then nodded slowly. “… that I can do. If ya need to muck about with somethin’, come with me and I’ll take ya to Engineering, give you some doodads to examine.” He didn’t lower his phaser, however.
“What is a doodad?” Simperer asked.
“A doodad is just an expression for little trinkets,” the girl explained brightly. “He’s going to show you things you can examine without harming the flying house. See, you make him nervous when you pull those cords.”
“The house can be harm—” Simperer stopped when she mentioned Scotty being nervous. “Nervous…?” He scowled and whipped a knife at Scotty’s hand. “Nervous men should not have weapons.”
Scotty dodged out of the way just in time, the knife hissing past his shoulder. “Now see here, stop that! Tha’s your last chance; if you try anything again, you’ll be out like a light, mark my words.”
“Simperer!” Anora put herself between the two men again. “Stop it. You’re gonna make it worse!” She glanced over her shoulder. “Scotty, just wait! Holster the phaser.” She turned back to the other man. “Simperer, at ease. Put away your blades. Scotty will show you things you can examine that won’t damage the flying house, alright?”
Simperer glared at Scotty.
“Scotty… if I promise to keep an eye on him while he examines the doodads, will you put away the gun?” the girl asked.
Scotty hesitated, the phaser still in his hand, before slowly holstering it; though he kept his hand hovering nearby just in case he needed to defend himself again. “Aye.” He peered at the girl.
She relaxed. “Thank you.”
Simperer put the wire back where it belonged. The lights flickered on as the control panel came back to life. He rose to his feet.
“Thank you, Simperer,” Anora said, grinning. “Ready to go see the doodads?”
“Doodad is a peculiar word… but yes,” the man replied.
“Lead the way, Scotty!” Anora exclaimed.
The engineer cast another suspicious glance at Simperer and the girl. “Aye.” He led you both down to Engineering.
Anora tugged on Simperer’s hand to urge him along quicker. “C’monnnn.”
Simperer looked around. “What do the coloured uniforms mea—why are the dresses so short?” His eyes widened slightly.
“The colours indicate their rank,” Anora said.
Scotty elaborated idly as he walked on. “Red is operations, gold is command, and blue is science.”
“The skirts… I don’t know… Hollywood-issued, probably,” the girl added.
“What is Hollywood?” Simperer asked.
“A fancy place. They make a lot of money.” Anora nodded.
The parade came to a halt as Simperer stopped, distracted by an automatic door that had caught his eye. “It stays open for however long you need it to and magically closes exactly on time…”
“We gotta keep moving, Simperer,” Anora said, laughing.
He gave her a pitiful look that seemed to say ‘please let me stay, this is magical and I want to study it’. She frowned. “Sorry, buddy. Maybe we can come back later.”
Scotty watched them impatiently.
The two of them continued walking and Scotty moved on. Simperer alternated between watching doors open and shut automatically, and wondering about short skirts.
Anora paused, hearing a disembodied voice (or perhaps more than one talking to her), and halted. She patted Simperer. “I have to go do something. You follow Mr. Scotty and have fun with the doodads. I’ll catch up.”
Scotty did not look overly pleased as he watched the girl hurry away. He continued walking regardless, hoping that the man would behave in Engineering.
A woman in a red dress walked past. “How do they sit down…?” Simperer asked.
Scotty glanced over his shoulder. “They sit down just fine, now stop your gawkin’, laddie.”
Simperer ignored him and continued to stare at all the women who walked past. They began to look increasingly more embarrassed under his scrutiny.
They reached Engineering and Scotty looked back. “Either ya come on in here and stop having your head turned by pretty… faces, or I take ya to a detention cell.”
Simperer walked into Engineering and looked around at everything, a bored silence ensuing.
Scotty rolled his eyes and handed the man some old mechanical pieces and an empty phaser. “Have fun and stay put.”
With a contented expression on his face, the man began to mess with the phaser, dissecting it and attempting to build things from what he was given.
~*~ \\// ~*~
Meanwhile, back in the rec room a short while before, McCoy had finished examining the body. “He really is dead, Ji—” He turned to face Kirk before seeing that the captain was inexplicably elsewhere. Then he remembered that the captain was now a cuttlefish. “Dang it, Jim, don’t run off when I’m making pronouncements!”
The cuttlefish randomly scooted its way into the room. A disembodied voice came from the fish. “Sorry, Bones. You were saying?”
Before McCoy could respond, a loud commotion sounded outside.
Spock peered down at McCoy, then glanced at the cuttlefish that was Kirk. Before he could say anything, the sounds of chaos were heard from outside the rec room.
He glanced down at the body. “I am certain that he truly is dead, Doctor.” Without saying anything else, he turned around to go investigate the loud noises, leaving McCoy and the cuttlefish with the body.
The cuttlefish stared at McCoy and the body with its eerie-looking eyes that could stare into your soul.
He was silent for a short moment before calling after the science officer, “Thanks, Spock. I’d be lost without my Vulcan.”
He looked uncomfortably back and forth between the body and the fish for several seconds before shaking his head and standing up. He hunted down a redshirt and had the other man help him place the body in an appropriate place before placing the cuttlefish that was Kirk in sickbay. Scratching his head, McCoy took in the scene.
“Moisturize me.” The disembodied voice that seemed to come from the cuttlefish spoke again. The fish stared into McCoy’s soul.
The doctor blinked slowly before sighing and rubbing at his forehead with his fingertips. He left a pitcher of water next to the cot the cuttlefish was on. After a few minutes, he muttered under his breath and headed off to locate where and what the chaos was.
Meanwhile, Spock had realised that whatever had caused the ruckus was a living entity, a creature of some sort. (What he did not know was that this particular creature was a Teimaro, and Anora had summoned it in order to divert them, so she could hide the body again. Which she went and did as soon as he had left. She stole the body and hid it in a box in the cargo hold, stacking a bunch of other boxes on top of it.) Using his tricorder, he worked on tracking it down.
Spock continued walking down corridors, holding his phaser in one hand and his tricorder in the other. He alternated between glancing at the screen and watching his surroundings.
Then he saw it.
The creature was green, and about the size of a young toddler. Its veins bulged and black claws on all of its paws clicked against the floor at the opposite end of the corridor. Yellow eyes with cat pupils blinked at him.
Spock went completely still, regarding the Teimaro with a steady gaze. It snarled at him, drool dribbling from its teeth. Spock slipped his tricorder back around his neck and made sure his phaser was set to stun before pointing it at the animal; the entire time he never took his eyes off the creature.
Just then, the Teimaro charged at Spock, its steps wobbly because of the smooth flooring and environment conditions it was not used to. Spock fired his phaser at the creature just as McCoy ran down the hallway beside him. The energy connected with the Teimaro, stunning it.
“What is that thing?!” McCoy exclaimed, pulling his phaser from its holster.
“I am not certain,” Spock said to the doctor. “It seems to be—”
The Teimaro had not been stunned for long and dove for Spock’s legs in an attempt to mutilate. Spock stumbled backwards, trying escape the creature’s jaws.
“For crying out loud—!” McCoy fired his phaser at the Teimaro. It was undeterred by the stun setting, snarling as it bit and snapped at Spock, who was finding it increasingly difficult to keep even one step away from it. He managed to put just a few inches between himself and the animal and sets his phaser from stun to kill. He fired.
And the Teimaro scrabbled on the metal floor, its clumsiness causing it to just barely avoid getting hit. It shrieked in rage, temporarily confused.
Spock backed away slowly until he was standing next to McCoy. His phaser and eyes stayed trained on the Teimaro as he spoke. “I believe the correct response I am supposed to give is ‘thank you’.”
McCoy didn’t take his gaze off the creature either. “Well, if we get out of this alive—”
The Teimaro snarled and charged once again, this time at McCoy. The doctor ducked out of the way.
Spock fired his phaser again, hitting the creature square in the chest just as McCoy fired his own phaser – though narrowly missing his mark.
The Teimaro collapsed on the floor, dead.
McCoy recovered his composure, rising to his feet and going to inspect the creature. “Is it dead?” He huffed a chuckle. “I thought I missed.” He failed to credit Spock with good aim.
Not that the Vulcan minded, solely because of that fact – he was a Vulcan. And all Vulcans knew they were superior in general, so why bother trying to defend themselves to humans? He crouched down to inspect the Teimaro. “Yes, it appears to be dead, Doctor…” He examined it meticulously, tilting his head to one side. “Fascinating creature…”
McCoy knelt down beside Spock, poking the animal once with his phaser before gingerly turning it over. “Is it some kind of cat?”
Spock peered closer at the Teimaro when McCoy turned it around. “It would seem so, Doctor… it has more feline features, but in its behaviour, it acts as though it is a canine.” With an approving expression, he raised an eyebrow and proclaimed, “Fascinating.”
Suddenly, there was a flash of light and a laugh.
And then Spock and McCoy were no longer on the Enterprise.
Now they found themselves on the first floor of a mansion. In the centre of the room, there was a swimming pool. Sofas and armchairs were scattered around strategically, and large plush bags of what could only be foam pieces sat in the corner (they were beanbags, you see).
And in the room, there were three girls. One with wild brown hair that couldn’t seem to decide if it was curly or a tangle of birds’ nest material sat next to the pool. She was trailing her hand through the water and watching as golden and green designs appeared in the blue depths with each stroke of her fingers. She soon got bored and started walking aimlessly around the room, her trench coat shifting from the colour tan to the colour green at random.
The other two girls stood together near a sofa at the west end of the room, underneath an intricate chandelier. One of them had lovely long red flowing hair and purple skin, with green eyes. The other girl was a bit shorter than her friend, her hair styled in a brown bob that set her blue eyes off nicely. She wore a flowery shirt.
There was another being in the room – another cuttlefish. It was swimming around the water. An empty plate with only a few crumbs of pie left on it sat at the edge of the pool.
The girl with the bobbed hair remarked wistfully, “I vant a cat.”
“I have eight cats, Kaylee!” the girl in the trench coat called from the other side of the room. “Come to my house and I’ll let you have one.”
Instead of going to all that trouble, the redhead gave Kaylee a fuzzy kitten. Trench Coat girl shrugged and grinned. “Or Anora can give you one, that works too.”
Anora grinned at the girl in the trench coat. “I always have free kittens playing around here, Jayne.”
Trench Coat girl – Jayne – nodded. “That I’ve noticed.”
“No. Wait.” Kaylee pointed at three other kittens. “I forgot about Smaug, Tilk, and Pretzel…” She held the new kitten awkwardly while the slightly older kittens looked on with suspicion and jealousy.
Jayne trotted across the room and scooped up the three older kittens into her arms. She made her way over to Spock and Bones, handing the Vulcan the kittens before wandering away again. She stopped next to the pool and flopped down on her stomach to look into it. “Hey, Abi. How’s it going down there?”
The cuttlefish surfaced in response.
Spock blinked down at the kittens, fumbling with them slightly as he attempted to hold Smaug, Tilk, and Pretzel without letting any of them fall to the floor. He retreated to an armchair and sat down, awkwardly letting the kittens sit in his lap.
The new kitten, still in Kaylee’s arms, gave the other kittens a smug look. They gave no response, wandering around in Spock’s lap.
McCoy grinned, walking over. “Have some friends there, Spock?”
Spock raised an eyebrow at McCoy and said nothing. He glanced back down at the kittens, which were still in his lap and stumbling around. Smaug batted at Pretzel with one fluffy paw. Pretzel gave a quiet hiss, his little face showing all the ferocity a tiny kitten could possibly muster.
Spock absentmindedly began stroking Smaug’s fur in an attempt to soothe him and keep him from attacking the other kittens again. He watched as the kitten pulled away, staring blankly at the Vulcan who had dared touch the fur of the royal Smaug.
In response, however, Pretzel mewed and rubbed against Spock’s hand, begging to be petted. Spock obliged, still looking as though he wasn’t quite in reality at all – entranced by the warm, soft, furry creatures he had been handed.
McCoy covered a satisfied smile with his hand, rubbing his jaw as he watched Spock and the kittens bond.
Spock remained oblivious to McCoy’s amusement, scratching behind Pretzel’s fuzzy ears.
The girls and the cuttlefish spent the rest of the time chattering and exchanging candy. Spock kept petting the kittens and McCoy continued to be amused. They were not going to be replaced back on the Enterprise until the invisible entity that had brought them here allowed it…
So they may as well make the best of it.
