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ibtk · 3 years

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Book Review: Amber and Clay by Laura Amy Schlitz & Julia Iredale (2021)

(Full disclosure: I received a free ARC for review through Edelweiss and Library Thing's Early Reviewers program. Content warning for child abuse, animal abuse, and sexual assault.)

The children I spoke of before were like that. They weren’t alike, but they fit together, like lock and key. The boy, Rhaskos, was a slave boy. Unlucky at first. A Thracian boy—(Thrace is north of Greece) —redheaded, nervy, neglected. A clever boy who was taught he was stupid. A beautiful boy whose mother scarred him with a knife. The girl, Melisto, started life lucky. A rich man’s daughter, and a proper Greek. Owl-eyed Melisto: a born fighter, prone to tantrums, hating the loom. A wild girl, chosen by Artemis, and lucky, as I said before— except for one thing: she died young. This is their story. When it's over, if you like, you can tell me what it means.

"I want to tell you the things I never told anyone, in case this is my last chance. When I was alive, I didn’t talk much. So much of what I felt was a secret. I think that’s what I loved about the bear. Neither of us had any words."

Again we walked and talked. I never talked to anyone like that. No one ever talked like that to me. I talk to you still, Melisto. I’ve been talking to you ever since.

The red-haired boy variously known as Rhaskos, Thrax, and Pyrrhos is many things, though few of his masters care to know. He's Thracian nobility, with the scars to prove it - and also a slave, belonging to the wealthy Alexidemus and his soldier son Menon in Thessaly, and then to a humble potter named Phaistus in Athens. He loves horses and is as adept at handling them as he will one day become at drawing and sculpting them. He is a contemporary and friend of Sokrates, though he is powerless to stop his execution. He is an orphan, with a dolphin for a mother; a mother who loves him so fiercely that she curses a ghost to help set him free. He is like clay: common at first glance, but also not; capable of transmuting into creations lovely, clever, and full of value.

The owl-eyed girl called Melisto is seemingly as lucky as Rhaskos is not: the only child of a wealthy Athenian, Melisto wants for nothing. But she is a wild (read: untamed) girl child in a rigidly gendered society that has already predetermined Melisto's future for her: marriage, motherhood, a life of quiet domesticity. When, at the age of ten, Melisto is chosen to serve the goddess Athena as a Little Bear, her life opens up before her at Brauron; this is who she was meant to be. Like all good things, it cannot last.

Rhaskos and Melisto's destinies collide when Melisto frees a bear cub that is to be sacrificed to Athena. Or maybe their paths met even earlier, when Meda/Thratta was ripped from her toddler son. Perhaps the gods nudged them towards each other from birth. Alternately, the gods have nothing to do with it. Who can say? (Hermes, maybe. He has a lot to say and loves to hear himself talk!)

AMBER AND CLAY is ... not what I expected. Normally I'd steer clear of a contemporary (or any!) book styled after the ancient, epic poems (I positively labored through THE ODYSSEY and THE ILIAD in high school!), but the visual element sucked me in. I was under the (mistaken!) impression that AMBER AND CLAY would be heavier in illustrations than it actually is, almost as though part graphic novel. As it turns out, the illustrations - of archaeological artifacts - are a little sparser than I hoped, but they tie into the narrative quite nicely and add another layer of wonder and surprise to the story. The "exhibits" are really well done and do not disappoint.

Additionally, the synopsis had me thinking that this would be a supernatural romance; and while AMBER AND CLAY is indeed a love story, Rhaskos and Melisto are entirely too young to hook up, even by the time they finally meet near the story's end. (It's hard not to envision them - especially Rhaskos - as older than they are, both because the story seemingly stretching across years, and so much happens to these crazy kids to last several lifetimes.) Instead, this is a different kind of love story: AMBER AND CLAY tells of the love between a mother and her son; a father and his daughter; a teacher and his students; a girl and a bear; a ghost and her tether to the earth.

And despite my reservations about those epic poems, Schlitz both honors the form and breathes new life into it. While Melisto tells her story in prose, Rhaskos speaks in verse; and the gods sometimes address us commoners in turn-counterturn, occasionally using more complicated linguistic techniques like elegian couplets (which I barely recollect from HS English). This all sounds incredibly tricky and complicated (and undoubtedly is), but Schlitz pulls it off without a hitch. AMBER AND CLAY is fun and engaging, with a surprising sense of humor and expert sense of dramatic flair.

“Oh, Phaistus, look at his hair! He’ll be beautiful once he’s healed. We’ll call him Pyrrhos!” As if I were a dog. Pyrrhos means fiery. Half the red-haired slaves in Athens are called Pyrrhos.

It is, dare I say, exceedingly readable.

Honestly, I let out a little groan when I saw the "Cast of Characters" on page one, complete with various households and multiple monikers for the same people; but the story, the characters, their relationships to one another - all are easy enough to follow.

Schlitz's characters, both those based on historical figures and those spun from imagination and whimsy, are so full of life that they practically jump off the page. Rhaskos and Melisto; Meda and Lysandra; Phaistus and Zosima; Menon and Lykos; and, of course, Sokrates. Likewise, her descriptions of Greek life and customs left me hungering to learn more. Naturally, the most fascinating custom - that of the Little Bears of Brauron - is also that which we know the least about.

The scenes featuring Melisto and the bear cub are among my favorite in the book. In a story filled with animal sacrifice, this little slice of compassion and respect is life-affirming; to wit:

It turned in slow circles and collapsed with its rump pressed against her thigh. Melisto put one hand on it. It seemed to her that she had never touched anything more real than the bear cub.

For a moment her mind slipped back into the past. She recalled the bruises she had carried from her mother’s pinches, and the sore patches on her scalp from Lysandra’s hair-pulling. She remembered the loathing in her mother’s face that struck terror into her soul. She had never been afraid of the bear like that.

and

On the nights when she waded into the bay and watched the moon, she was barely conscious of the fact that it was she who saw, and the moon that was being watched. In the same way, she did not measure how much she loved the bear. She was the bear.

Likewise, Rhaskos's interactions with Grau/Phoibe are so wonderfully tender, my heart aches just to think back on them. From the moment he renames her (grau means hag) - a change of name that's much more respectful than those Rhaskos was forced to accept - Rhaskos treats his donkey charge with decency and kindness. The same kindness that he himself longs for.

Animals know when things get better. People might not know, but animals do. That very first day, Grau knew I was going to be good to her and I swear to you, she was glad.

Cue the "what is this salty discharge" gifs.

AMBER AND CLAY is such a beautiful story, and I'm glad I took a chance on it. Iambic pentameter be damned.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3861642614

#books #reviews #amber and clay #fiction #historical fiction #Laura Amy Schlitz #Julia Iredale #ancient greece #novels in verse #ghosts #animal sacrifice #child abuse

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chibisquirt · 6 years

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Celestial Navigation remix teaser

This isn’t even its final form.

No, seriously, this isn’t anywhere close to even a first chapter first draft. It will change! And I’m not writing it right now. (I would say “I’m not writing The Thing,” except that that would be true, and this would be The Other Thing.) I’ll probably seriously start work on this sometime in... April? May? Right around then. Definitely not during Remix Madness, not unless I can somehow work three work shifts and write *eyeballs it* 60-100k in two days.

Don’t hold your breath.

But @sabrecmc said she loved my idea, and I wanted to get it down before I forgot it. So this is... the start of an idea.

I had fun with it, anyway.

Tony stormed into the lab in a bitch of a mood, but he really didn't think he could be blamed. Fury's words were still ringing in his ears like a boxing blow.

“We have no problem with Iron Man; Iron man does damn good work. And we have no problem with Tony Stark; Tony Stark is revolutionizing every lab we got in this damn place. But Tony Stark and Iron Man being one and the same? Yeah, that we kinda have a problem with.”

In the wake of Afghanistan, Tony had been adamant that Stark Industries would no longer make weapons that could fall into the wrong hands. He couldn’t shut down every operation— SI was under contract for up to three more years, in some cases, and they couldn’t afford the fallout of breaking those deals— but all the contracts they were bidding on were dropped, and Tony had flat-out refused to consider any future deals making weapons.

But he wasn’t willing to just shut down the company wholesale, so alternatives had to be found. SI already made body armor and flight prototypes; Tony had ramped those categories up, adding green energy and communications to their list of milieus. He had SI producing with his usual high standards within months, and SHIELD was his biggest contractor.

Of course, once he had SHIELD clearance for those contracts— which weren’t being offered to the military yet— it made sense to bring Tony in as a contract engineer, too. For the last three months, he had been romping around as many SHIELD research departments as he could find, and been playing merry hell with all of them. (Except for linguistics; the linguists were a little weird, even for him.) He already had a helicarrier under development, as well as some prototype hard-light armors that no one other than SHIELD would ever be willing to pay for. He even had his hands in SHIELD’s perennially doomed efforts to create a super-soldier, not that he expected it to make a difference. SHIELD had been failing at that one since back when they were the S.S.R., Tony didn’t exactly expect it to succeed now.

The science division was about fifteen floors of the Triskellion (twenty-seventh to forty-second, in fact), but the central area of the twenty-seventh floor was its own little access way: if you wanted to get anywhere in the science division, you had to go through there.

Tony swanned into that science lobby like Alan Rickman entering a potions dungeon.

“Alright, kids, show daddy the good stuff," he said, and a dozen Beta scientists leaped to obey. Ten points to Ravenclaw, he thought, and sneered at the first project that came under his nose.

Well, okay, come on— that wasn’t being in character, it was just a really bad design! “Why did you put your damn rotors on the bottom, Evans?” As if Tony didn’t already have a migraine...

“I thought— it’ll make for less wear on the bolts to heave up the body than to pull, right? So—”

“First of all, no it won’t. And second of all, it’ll increase the wear on the rotors themselves—”

“No, but— it lands in water, right? I mean we’re not doing this from land, or anything—”

“ — and at those speeds, the water may as well be concrete! This isn’t grade school—”

Evans got the message.

Tony worked his way through them, the UAV’s and the phasers and the—

“Please don’t call it that.”

“Well, if you come up with a better name than the ‘night-night gun’ I’m sure we’ll be happy to change it,” the little Beta huffed.

— and slowly worked his way through to the back of the lounge where the scruffy-looking Dr. Banner was waiting.

“Done with the scrum?” Bruce asked. He sipped his tea.

“Mostly. Saving the best for last.” Tony pasted on an encouraging grin, just for him.

It wasn’t Bruce’s fault, it really wasn’t. Bruce was a good damned scientist, careful and thorough and painstaking, but with an effortless grasp of higher concepts of physics and chemistry that still seemed to elude some of his more decorated colleagues out there. It was Bruce’s bad luck, though, to be assigned to the shittiest project in the whole place. Seriously: if the projects were potions students, Bruce’s was Neville Longbottom. And it wasn’t fucking fair— but then, very few things were.

Plus, at this point, Bruce was contributing to his own relegation. It wasn’t like his good work had gone unnoticed— if no one else had tried to scoop Bruce, then Tony would have. But as Tony had been informed— repeatedly, and at a variety of volumes, some of which had not been necessary, thank you, Fury— Bruce had stubbornly insisted that he could crack his stupid Super-Soldier project, and had remained, slowly chipping away at it, for over a year after he could have been reassigned.

That was honestly the only reason Tony was even interested in the project. It was a bad idea; far too much potential for abuse, for one thing— what if you super-soldiered the wrong guy, and got a madman? So Tony jumped on board to help Bruce get done faster, and then he started screening the candidates, too— just to make sure they were all people he would trust with super-powers. It took up more of his time than anything else he did here, but it was also a bigger challenge: psych evaluation wasn’t exactly Tony’s strong suit. See exhibit one: Stane, Obediah, betrayals thereof.

“Got a new batch of subjects in,” Bruce said mildly. “I know you like to meet them.”

“Fabulous; something else to fail at.”

Bruce stopped and pivoted halfway through the door of his department, raising his eyebrows in surprise.

Tony sighed. “Nothing. Meeting with Fury went... poorly.”

Bruce tipped his head to the side, but didn’t push. Very restful guy, Bruce. Tony really did like him. “First one’s through there,” was all he said, pushing through and back to the exam rooms. Bruce’s department was set up so much like a doctor’s office that Tony suspected it had originally been intended to be one, and the decor didn’t help: muted tones and uncomfortably-padded furniture. He even had magazines in the waiting room, although, being for SHIELD agents, they were more Guns&Ammo than out-of-date US Weekly.

Tony snagged the file out of the holder on the back of the first exam room door. “Barnes, J. B., Level 3 SHIELD Agent,” he read off. “Fabulous, more spies; just what we need.”

Bruce nodded unironically and headed to the lab— ostensibly to run tests, but Tony knew that was where he kept his teapot, and his mug was suspiciously empty. Mark down another on the list of people who drink around me, Tony thought, although the thought was a lot fonder than it usually was. “Be nice to that one,” Bruce instructed. “I like him.”

“Good lord, why?” Tony opened the door.

“I’m serious, Tony; he’s on the short list.”

Tony blinked, and then without another word, stepped through, closing the door behind him.

J. B. Barnes was tall and fit, a Beta wearing a SHIELD uniform. So, they hadn’t pulled him off of an assignment for this, then. Closer examination revealed the cast on his left arm: a-ha. Benched, for now. His hair was brown, eyes pale— blue or gray, hard to tell at this distance— and his ears, apparently, were sharp, because he was grinning.

There was something familiar about that grin... Tony shrugged it off.

“Name and birthday?”

The grin barely faltered— no more than a sixteenth of an inch.

Okay, and right off the bat, that one was probably on Tony; they were required— stupid Bruce and his stupid scrupulousness about protocols— to confirm the identity of the people they were talking to before discussing any medical records. But Tony didn’t have to say it quite so sharply. He didn’t usually spit the words “name and birthday” like they were going to take out Gilderoy Lockhart, after all. So once Barnes had confirmed that, yes, he had been born March 10th, twenty-one years ago, Tony settled into the little doctor’s stool, did a full rotation because wheelie stools never got old, and apologized. “Been a long day,” he explained it, “people being difficult.”

“And by people you mean pirates?”

Tony almost didn’t get it for a second, because it was said so blandly it might as well have been asking his oatmeal preferences, and because it was so unexpected coming from a Level 3 agent. “You usually that irreverent about Fury? He might keel-haul you.”

Barnes grinned again. “I have a well-established pattern of snark,” he admitted. “There’s a reason I’m only a level three.”

Tony looked back at the chart again. “You’re a baby,” he said absently, “don’t take it personally—”

It was a pretty impressive chart, though. “You can shoot.”

“Yeah, a little.”

Barnes could probably win gold at the olympics and be set for life, given the numbers from his last round on range. Sure. “A little,” Tony repeated dryly. “Interrogation specialist, really? ‘Exceptional problem solver,’ what does that even mean? And you speak...”

“Five languages— well, okay, the Irish is mostly profanity.”

Tony hefted the file. “This says four. Counting the Irish.”

Barnes shrugged. “The Klingon’s more recent,” he admitted, “and it really shouldn’t count anyway, there’s only, like, three thousand words—”

“Closer to thirty-five hundred.”

“It’s not Chinese, though, right? I mean...”

Tony’s mouth twitched. “It’s not Chinese, no. Or... Russian, apparently. Huh; eclectic.”

“Thanks.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

“There a reason you’re busting my balls?”

Tony paused. More of the snark? Or was he really being too harsh?

“I mean, given that Doc Banner just told you he likes me. Either you’re trying to break me— which, good luck, chill out though because it’s not going to happen— or you’re in a legitimate shitty mood. In which case, I’d rather not be your punching bag.”

There was something about how he said it... The young man wasn’t saying it to push, like another Alpha would have. He wasn’t saying it defiantly, either; it wasn’t like he was daring Tony. That one was a standard technique in Alphas and Betas alike: the Alphas used it to start a fight, the Beta’s used it to make the Alphas look irrational and over-emotional. It usually worked pretty well in either case, too, although Tony had seen it often enough in boardrooms that he could handle it.

But that wasn’t what was going on here, and the difference was so obvious it set Tony blinking. The guy— Barnes— was just stating a fact, that was all. “Here’s what I see, and that’s how it is.” No bravado, no push— just truth.

Which neatly left only one possible response. “Sorry,” Tony said again, and meant it this time. “Pirates. You know.”

“Perils of the high seas,” Barnes agreed. “But it’s just us up here in the crow’s nest; you wanna talk about it?”

Tony laughed, impressed by the balls on the guy if nothing else. “No.”

“Could help.”

“No,” Tony repeated, struggling to keep down the simmering heat that had been resting behind the arc reactor since his meeting with Fury delivered his ultimatum.

“Look, we like what you do, Tony— there’s no doubt about that— but Iron Man is too reckless, too borderline suicidal, to also be the guy essentially running every research operation we have! Add to that, every analysis we’ve got—”

Tony had sent Natasha Romanov, sitting at the table with them, a dirty look, but she had just blinked slowly at him and Fury hadn’t checked his tide of words.

“ — has indicated that Iron Man is a dysfunctional personality— and that was even before we knew he was also you.”

Tony caught his breath. Iron Man was the best of him; hearing that even his best wasn’t good enough... that hurt more than he wanted to admit. And certainly not to Fury.

“He is headstrong, disregards the standard protocols of operation, twice he’s put our other agents in danger—”

“Point of order: he can’t put your ‘other’ agents in danger because he isn’t one—”

“I don’t care, Stark. Make a show. Be stable. Invest in the future—”

“What do you think the whole ‘green energy’ thing is about?!”

“ — personally invest. Hell, get yourself an Omega! Pop out a couple kids! We’ll all pray the brains are heritable and the personality isn’t. Just... don’t break things, for once in your goddamn life. Show me you can be a team player, and I’ll think about it. Show me you’re not an adrenaline-junkie mess, and I’ll welcome you back with open arms! But until that happens, Iron Man— and you— are barred from all aspects of the Avengers Initiative.”

Fury had almost made it to the door when Tony’s head snapped up. “You know,” he called, “if you don’t break things, you can’t put them back together with improvements!”

The only answer was the whisper-soft slide of the Black Widow’s boots as she followed Fury out the door.

“Unless you’ve got an Omega in your pocket,” Tony said now, his voice approximately as dry as a dead cactus, “I’m shit out of luck.”

Barnes froze. He blinked, and then blinked again. He looked around the room as if scanning for cameras before bringing his head back around to meet Tony’s eyes. “I mean...” He rubbed his palms along his navy blue trousers as if he were trying to rid them of sweat. “...You can’t tell Fury.”

Tony froze, thinking about it. It had been an offhand joke, a throwaway line designed to get the conversation back on course. But then again...

Tony was about to make a very, very, very large mistake. He tossed Barnes’ file on the counter.

“Tell me more.”

#celestial navigation #remix #steve/tony #stony #steve rogers not actually appearing in this snip #unless you count the phrase 'very very VERY large mistake'#in which case Steve absolutely does appear #whoops

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iamchrissi · 7 years

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Castles build in the air

So... Amanda and Winona. Because why not? Amanda is recently divorced from Sarek, in what I think is a similar situation to Uhura and Spock in STID, without the almost death, but with Sarek unintentionally making Amanda feel like he didn't really care for her, and the two of them never talking it out, and then him thinking that if she wants to leave him, it might be the right thing for her even though it's breaking his heart, and like... yeah. It's kind of messy, and they are both heartbroken. And then Amanda meets Winona, who is like, a force of nature, and so different from Sarek, and also all kinds of awesome. (I can't write Winona as an abusive asshole, so in my headcanon she didn't know that Frank was abusing her sons and after the car-of-the-cliff stunt she came home, found out, and kicked Franks ass so hard would have left the planet in fear of her if he wasn't in prison. And then, she stayed home for a year and was awesome with Jim, who adores her, until Jim decided he wanted to try out this awesome schooling program.)

Amanda Grayson meets Winona Kirk on a sunny Friday afternoon. Well, Winona runs into her, actually. Complete with spilled coffee and everything. It's a little bit of a mess.

“I'm really sorry about this.” The blonde woman says. Amanda thinks she's seen her before, somewhere, but she can't really place her. Which is kind of strange, because Amanda is really good at remembering faces, and she doesn't think she'd forget such a beautiful woman.

“Are you okay?” The woman asks, and Amanda realizes she has been staring for the past few moments. She shakes herself, takes stock of her skirt (only a few splashes on it, probably difficult to clean but that's what replicators are for) and her arm (there shouldn't be any burns, the coffee was already half cold), and then nods.

“I'm really sorry, I didn't look where I was going. Seems I got too used to people standing to the sides when I'm going somewhere. I'm Captain of a Starfleet ship, you know, so usually I don't really have to watch where I'm going. I'm Winona, Winona Kirk, by the way. May I buy you a new coffee?” The women, Winona Kirk (the Kelvin widow, and now Amanda remembers watching the memorial, with a young, defiant Winona Kirk and her baby son, the picture that is still shown sometimes when people want to feel patriotic) says with a breathtaking speed. For a moment, all Amanda can do is stare.

“It's alright, fine.” She finally stutters, and curses herself in the next instant. She's a linguist, a famous, respected one, she speaks dozens of languages and has PhDs in seven of them, and yet, here she is, stuttering in the language that she grew up using.

“Oh come on, it's no trouble. You look like you could use something. Maybe a drink? I could use a drink.” Winona (or should she call her Captain Kirk? She'd said that, before, that she is a Starfleet Captain, and most Captain's Amanda knows are extremely proud of their titles) says, handing Amanda a napkin to wipe the coffee of her arm before taking Amanda's hand and pulling her with her.

For a moment, Amanda can only stare at where their hands are joined, shocked at the casual contact. On Vulcan, this would have been a punishable offense, and Amanda wonders if it's the years on her ex-husbands planet that have made her skittish. But then she shakes herself. No, this is not normal, she thinks, not even on earth. This seems to be something that is entirely Winona Kirk.

“A coffee would be nice.” She says, finally, and Winona grins. It's a pretty grin. A very pretty grin, mischievious and clever and with bright blue eyes that only barely hide old wounds.

“Sure you don't want a drink? A drink would help you relax. And I know this awesome bar...” Is Amanda imagining it, or is Winona Kirk flirting with her? She must be imagining it. To little adult human contact in the last few years. She just needs to have a little fling with someone, preferably without Spock ever knowing, and she'll be able to handle situations like this much better.

“I can't. My son is coming home from school soon, and … I don't think having a drink before discussing his homework would be beneficial.” She almost, almost blushes. But maybe the years on Vulcan did her good, after all, because she doesn't.

“Beneficial?” Winona snorts. “Interesting word choice. But I know what you mean. My Jimmy is a freaking genius. I mean, both my boys are, but Jimmy is on another level. When he really starts talking about something that interests him, if that something isn't engineering and/or machines, I'm very lost very fast.”

They've reached a cafe. Winona pulls Amanda in, and Amanda can't help but notice that Winona still hasn't let go of her hand. It should be disconcerting, she thinks, but it's actually kind of nice. Different, but nice.

There's a table by the window, and the moment they sit down a waitress materializes next to them and hands them the menu. Winona doesn't even bother looking at hers, just smiles at the waitress.

“Just a black coffee, dear. But wait until my friend here, wait, what's your name?” It seems that Winona has only now noticed that Amanda has not introduced herself, yet. She looks at her expectantly, and this time, Amanda does feel herself blushing.

“Amanda. Amanda Grayson.” She says, and she's proud of herself because at least she's not stuttering. Which is a really low bar, because she remembers people being terrified of her on Vulcan, and she decides that this is definitively on Winona, and not on her.

“And I'll take a black coffee, too.” Amanda says, and hands the waitress the card back. The waitress, whose name tag identifies her as Sara, nods, and leaves.

“Amanda Grayson... I think I've heard that name before.” Winona says, and scrunches her nose a bit. It should not be this adorable, Amanda thinks, but it is. “Weren't you then linguistic genius who revolutionized the way Vulcan is taught to Earth students?”

Well, at least Winona doesn't remember her as the ex wife of the Vulcan Ambassador who must be the only woman who's ever managed to have a truly ugly divorce with a Vulcan. Small mercies.

“I wouldn't say I revolutionized it, but I did work on it, yes.” Amanda says, and Winona grins again. That grin is totally unfair. And Amanda really needs to get that pend up energy out of her system, because she is pretty sure Winona is not intending to flirt with her.

“My Jimmy really liked the new way it's taught, anyway. He likes Vulcan as a language, says it's just as logical as machines. Which, honestly, I don't really see, but to him it apparently makes sense, so I assume he's right.” Talking a mile a minute is apparently normal with Winona. It's kind of charming, Amanda thinks.

“He sounds like a special little boy.” Amanda says, and thinks of her own special little boy, probably buried in his PADD right now, studying all sorts of things. She should make him plomek soup tonight, she knows he missed it, no matter how much he insists that preferring one food to another, equally nutritious one to be illogical.

“He is. I miss him quite a lot, to be honest. He's not here, currently. He's with his aunt and uncle on Tarsus IV. That's one of the small colonies, with an amazing schooling program. He begged me to let him go, and he seems really happy there, but by the stars I miss him.” That would explain why Winona can be Captain of a starship despite having a son that can't be older than twelve, Amanda realizes. But Tarsus IV is quite a distance from here, too far for personal com calls. Amanda doesn't think she could stand to have her son so far away from her.

“I've heard of the program. My son considered it, but in the end he chose to continue study as he does now. It's probably because of the divorce, to be honest. I feel bad, because my son shouldn't have to accommodate my life, but...” She usually isn't this open with strangers, or near strangers, anyway, but Winona just shared something incredibly personal, and Amanda can't help but return the favor.

“Oh, divorces are ugly. Even in the best case scenario, and I think we both know how often that happens. What did your ex do to give you full custody? Do you need me to beat him up?” Winona sounds absolutely serious about it, and for a moment, Amanda amuses herself with the mental image of Winona Kirk, armed with a Starfleet issued phaser, attacking a completely bewildered Sarek. Then she shakes her head.

“We just... didn't fit. And I don't have full custody, but my ex decided that it is more logical for Spock, that's our son, to visit him on Vulcan for three months at a time every year than for us to travel the whole time or for him to move here indefinitely. So, yeah.” Amanda holds her breath, waits for the judging to start. She just admitted to having married a Vulcan. She remembers very well the amount of shit her friends gave her for that, and how even her parents had to force their smiles at the wedding.

“Better to end it than to let it harm the kid, is what I say.” Winona tells her, and there's compassion in her eyes, as well as something like... grief, or guilt. Amanda considers asking, but decides that they probably don't know each other well enough for that.

“The divorce is recent, I guess?” Winona asks as their coffees arrive. The cups are very nice, Amanda notices, and the coffee smells amazing. She'd forgotten how much she missed good coffee.

“Not that recent. I mean, our split is not that recent. But it was finalized recently, and things are a bit chaotic right now. I have a flat in the city, but I want to move away from.... some people here, so I tried to get a place to live that's not here, but there are a lot less fitting places then I thought there'd be. That's what I was doing this afternoon, meeting with a potential landlord, but I honestly wasn't impressed.” The man had tried to tell her that the house he offered was the best she'd ever get, when in reality it was little more than two rooms and a kitchen that would need immediate fixing.

“You could go to the farm.” Winona said. “My farm. Not that there is much farming to be done, but George's grandparents were farmers, and the house is nice. It's rather remote, so I'm not sure how you'd like it, but Sam goes to a school on Mars, Jimmy's on Tarsus, and I ship out again on Monday. You could live there at least until you found something more permanent.”

“I … I can't...” And great, Amanda is stuttering again. It's definitively Winona, not her. Who offers a person they've known for all of ten minutes to go live at their home? Even if it is empty?

“Oh bullshit. Of course you can. It can't be easy here in San Fran, with so many expectations on being the Vulcan Ambassador's ex wife, and in Riverside nobody would know that. Nobody knowing you means no expectations. You can figure yourself out, and then think about how you want to go on.” So Winona had figured out the whole Ambassador thing. But without judging. That is... kind of awesome.

“You've known me for ten minutes.” Amanda says, but she can't help but imagine it. Riverside sounds very rural, and maybe Spock would have problems in school, but he'll probably have those problems everywhere. The curse of being a child of a Vulcan father and a human mother. And for nobody to bother her about her ex.... that sounds a bit like paradise.

“I'm a good judge of character.” Winona says, then immediately winces. “Usually. And it's not like I'm giving you custody of my kids, just the empty house.” Something flashes over her eyes as she says it, something dark, and guilty, but Amanda doesn't ask. Winona is not shy, if she wants Amanda to know, she'll tell her.

“It's... an amazing offer. I'm honored. I don't want to impose, but...” She's only sort of stuttering now, and at least this time she's remembering her manners. She's definitively blaming it on Winona, and her incredible presence, but maybe Amanda is getting a hang of how to deal with it.

“I could show you around this later? Or no, you said your kid comes home. Tomorrow? We could beam out, no need for a shuttle, that would take ages. I hope you don't mind beaming, my ma did. It was terrible, she got sick every single time.” Winona is grinning again, and Amanda does absolutely not hold her breath.

“Beaming is not a problem.” She says, thinking. “I think I'd like to bring Spock, if that's okay? He should have a say in where we live. And of course we'll have to discuss rent and all of that.”

“You don't have to pay rent, Amanda.” Winona says, rolling her eyes fondly. “Nobody lives there, you'd be doing me a favor if you made sure the place is still in one piece, really.”

“I will pay rent. I like you, but if I live at your place, we should do it the right way. I want to get back on my feet, and that includes not relying on everybody else.” Amanda's voice is firm, and this feels more like her, more like the woman she likes to think she is.

Winona cocks her head, and looks at her. Then she smiles. “Okay. But I'm not having you pay an unreasonable amount, and we'll definitively count the fact that you'll basically be keeping the house for me while I'm gone in the whole thing.”

Amanda considers arguing, but a part of her that sounds suspiciously like Sarek says that Winona does not seem like she's going to be swayed further on this topic, and anyway, it would be more logical to discuss this after Amanda has seen the house, given that it is no use to discuss something that might never be relevant.

She drinks the last sip of her coffee, just as her PADD pings to remind her that Spock will be home within the next ten minutes. She hadn't realized that it's that late already, but then again, she thinks that Winona is someone who can quite literally make one forget time.

“If you give me your com number, I can call you tomorrow. Would ten in the morning be okay for you?” She asks, pulling out her PADD. Winona does the same.

“Ten is perfect. I warn you: It's not going to be all that cleaned up, I never really got the hang out of housework, but it shouldn't be too bad. I don't know how important cleanliness is to you, but my ma was really stuck on it, and I guess I just kind of unconsciously wanted to be the opposite of that.” Amanda saves her com number, and the waitress comes back.

“Do you pay together or not?” She asks, smiling pleasantly. Amanda reaches for her card, but Winona shakes her head.

“I'll pay for both of us. No, Amanda, don't argue this, I spilled your coffee, this is only fair. Here's my credit information.” Winona says to the waitress, who Amanda realizes is the same one as before. Sarah.

“Will you be home in time?” Winona asks her. Amanda nods. She lives rather close by, but she'll need to go now if she wants to change before Spock arrives. She stands up.

“I'll com you.” Winona says, standing up too, and before Amanda knows what's happening the other woman hugs her. She smells like engine oil, Amanda thinks, and then Winona's pulling away again. Amanda is definitively not flustered.

“I'll see you tomorrow.” She says, and Winona smiles blindingly. Amanda can't help but smile back. And if it takes her a bit longer to come home than usual, well, that's nothing anybody needs to know.

The next morning, Amanda wakes up at eight am. She always does. Her son is already up, as always. She can hear him walk around in the kitchen, probably preparing breakfast for them. He's sweet like that.

After a quick sonic shower, she stands in front of her drawer and wonders what to wear. None of her Vulcan robes, of course. Maybe that nice green dress? It's old, back from before she was married, but it should still fit. Then again, this is not a formal meeting. This is going to see a … well, friend? … and looking at the house. And possibly making arrangements to move in there for a bit.

Maybe the blue skirt? It's a long one, swishy and with a nice, bright blue pattern on it. It makes her look young, too young? But no. She's not old, and anyway, she'll be there with her fourteen year old son. There's no possible way for her to seem too young.

… And now she's obsessing over her cloths. Maybe it's just the adjustment, after all, on Vulcan, she just wore robes, and never truly wondered what they looked like. Definitively just the adjustment.

She finally puts on the skirt and a nice, black blouse, and goes to meet her son. He is wearing the jeans she bought him, and is trying very hard not to look uncomfortable. It is a bit of a strange sight, but she thought that this way, he might not be bullied as much as he was on Vulcan.

“I wish you a good morning, Spock.” She says, laying her hand on his head for a short moment. It's as close to a kiss on the forehead as she is going to get, and he gives her a small smile that makes all her worries seem inconsequential.

“A good morning to you too, Mother.” He says, offering her a coffee. It's not the Vulcan kind, she notes, and thanks him. The table is set with lots and lots of fruit, including a nice red apple. Amanda smiles, and takes it.

“We have about one and a half hour until we have to depart to meet Winona.” She tells her son. You don't have to come if you'd prefer to stay here, but as the point of the meeting is to determinate whether the house is sufficient for us to live in for a few weeks or months until we find something more permanent, it would be useful to have you there to see if you consider it acceptable.” She's talking Vulcan again, even if she uses Standard. She knows her son likes it that way, when everything is clear and there are as little ambiguities as possible.

“It is logical to accompany you, Mother. It would be interesting to meet this woman that's offered us a place to live at at such short notice.” Translation: He can barely contain his curiosity as to why she is considering to accept this offer when she has shot down the last ones. She can understand that.

“You can wear Vulcan robes to the meeting if that is more comfortable for you. I know you dislike jeans and sweatshirts.” Amanda tells him. Spock looks at her for a moment, then shakes his head.

“As we will live on Earth for quite some time, it is only logical for me to start getting used to the typical attire here. And given that I, too, am half human, it would be illogical for me to prefer Vulcan clothing.” He sounds too old for his fourteen years, but Amanda has long since accepted that.

“Alright. But just know, I'm proud of you no matter what you wear, or how you choose to act. You are my son, and I love you very much, okay?” Sarek would have considered this an illogical statement, given that a mother loving her son is only logical and therefore unnecessary to verbalize, but Amanda is human, and she thinks that Spock definitively needs to hear this. And the way Spock looks at her, she is right.

Amanda makes sure they are perfectly on time. Actually, she makes sure they arrive at the meeting point she and Winona discussed over coms yesterday five minutes early. Spock says nothing. He is wearing a cap that covers his ears. Winona is reminded of the scarfs she used to wrap around her head on Vulcan, always making sure that her human ears aren't the first thing people notice about her, and suddenly, she feels guilty for taking Spock to a planet where he feels the need to cover his ears. But then again, she thinks, it's not as if Spock was really accepted by the Vulcan children either.

Winona is five minutes late, hurrying down the streets and shouting an apology before she is even properly there. Then she pulls Amanda into a hug, her blonde hair brushing over Amanda's cheek, and offers Spock a near flawless taal. Spock, after a moment of surprise, returns the gesture, and Winona grins at him.

“It's nice to meet you, Spock. I hope you'll like the house.” She says in a soft tone that makes it impossible not to remember that Winona is a mom too, and something warm blossoms in Amanda's chest.

“Let's go!” Winona says, and starts walking towards the public transporter. There's thankfully no queue, and within few seconds they stand on a small town square. It's noticeably warmer than in San Francisco, and Amanda is glad she chose the skirt instead of the overly formal dress.

“It's not that far from here, we can walk. And I can show you the city while we go, so win-win.” Winona says, and starts talking about Riverside. Amanda had looked it up yesterday, after meeting Winona, and learned that Riverside is one of the big construction sites for Starfleet, and that apart from that, it is a rather rural place, with mostly construction workers and farmers living here.

Winona points out the school (which Spock most likely won't attend, given that he is following the Vulcan syllabus instead of the human one), the post office (which Amanda probably will get to know well, if she moves here, considering her translation work and the often physical copies of the books she likes), a couple bars (Amanda already knows she won't go anywhere near those after dusk) and a the only local restaurant that serves offworld food. Spock looks around, curious but restraint, and Amanda thinks he could like it here.

At least it's warmer than New York, where Amanda grew up.

Then they leave the town, walking over a deserted road between the fields. It's peaceful, almost like in some of the old movies Amanda watched when she was younger. Winona has a sort of wistful expression on her face, as though she is recalling better times, and Amanda wonders if she is thinking of her late husband.

“There it is!” Winona says finally, pointing towards a nice looking little house a bit off the street. It looks kind of sweet, in that old movie way, and very human. Amanda shoots a look to her son, but Spock just seems intrigued.

“It looks nice.” Amanda says, because she suddenly realizes that for the last twenty minutes, Winona has more or less exclusively done the talking. It's not her smoothest compliment, but Winona smiles.

“Jimmy and me renovated it a bit before he went to Tarsus. There's a couple places where it's obvious it wasn't done by professionals, but it's way better than before, and Jimmy loved it.”

After a short walk through the house, which is clean but slightly untidy, in that typically human homey kind of way, Amanda looks at her son. Spock is staring at some holos. She wants to tell them that humans consider it impolite to stare at private holos, even when they are displayed like this, but her breath catches when she actually sees the holo.

George Kirk, the hero of the Federation, beaming down at her, his arm around a young, obviously pregnant Winona, a little boy of maybe three years sitting in front of them. It must have been taken shortly before the last journey of the Kelvin.

It feels very, very private, and Amanda turns away, to find Winona looking at her. There's grief shadowing Winona's eyes, and Amanda thinks it should feel wrong, to see someone as vibrant as Winona this sad, but somehow it doesn't. The grief was there the whole time, she realizes, just overshadowed by charisma and a determination to be alive, to be okay.

Neither of them says anything, but Amanda takes Winona's hand when they leave the room.

They see Winona of when she has to report back to her ship. She won't be far, she says. Apparently, Starfleet Command likes having a number of ships close to Earth and Vulcan, it's main worlds, to scare of any glory seeking Klingons and Romulans.

“Just com when you have any questions about the house.” Winona says, already dressed in her gold tunic. She's wearing the less used female variant of the uniform, the one with the pants. Somehow, Amanda can't even picture Winona wearing the dress.

“We'll be fine, Winona. You do us a great favor.” Amanda says, but she's smiling. She has a feeling that Winona likes knowing that the house isn't empty, even if it's not her own family that's living there.

“Indeed, Captain Kirk. It is very kind of you to allow us to stay at your home.” Spock says, his hands behind his back. He is still wearing the jeans Amanda got him, but the cap is gone. Maybe he will adjust better than Amanda had thought.

“It's my pleasure.” Winona says, smiling. She gives the taal to Spock, who returns the gesture solemnly, and then goes to hug Amanda. This time, Amanda is somewhat more prepared for it, and hugs her friend back.

“You can call even if everything's okay, you know?” Winona says with a wink, and then she's gone, disappearing into a crowd of other Starfleet officers.

Amanda smiles. She has a feeling that there is somewhat of an adventure ahead.

#star trek #winona kirk #amanda grayson #winona x amanda #spock #my writing #i don't even know where that came from #but i guess i just wanted the moms to have the spotlight for once #and yes tarsus is absolutely a thing here #if i get around to writing the rest of the story as i've planned it #then that's going to be a big thing #and it's going to be heartbreaking

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ablanariwho · 6 years

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English Medium, Indian Middle Class And The Story Of A Blast Furnace - Part II

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Something changed after I joined the school. A lot of things, actually. One day, I was playing with the other children of my building. We were busy chattering in our mother tongue, planning our dolls’ wedding. One of my friend’s fathers, stopped while passing by us. He heard us talking in Bengali. He started scolding his daughter and the other girls. They were all enrolled in English medium convent schools. He scolded them for speaking with me and among each other in our mother tongue, Bengali. He warned that if he found them again speaking with me in Bengali, he would lock them in a dark room. That day he sowed the first seed of discrimination in the minds of innocent children. It took my childhood friends away from me.

Illustration by: Amit Shanklya

School is the most important institution responsible for dividing people on socio-economic inequity. This leads to many unfavourable situations. They affect people's physical safety, mental and intellectual growth and access to opportunities. This problem is born out of new-age socio-economic class differences. Capitalism and industrialization drive this difference in society. Let me share with you my experience of this further. On one hand, I was from a comparatively upper echelon of society. My father was an Engineer and an officer. But most of my co-students in my school came from a so-called lower-middle-class background. I was going to a school, meant for non-officer ranking staff of the company. Another discriminatory thing in an industrial township was the houses we lived in. In industrial townships, the “Type” of the official houses where people lived, instantly identified their social and economic status. It varied according to the hierarchy of professional positions of people.

A mismatch happened in my case. The type of staff quarters where I lived and grew up was a little better or higher in the hierarchy than the type of staff houses most of my classmates lived in. But their houses were not located in my area. Most of the children in my neighbourhood were going to English-medium, convent schools. Going to such schools was perceived as a step towards upwardly mobile social status. My school was looked down upon as it represented the lower strata of the industrial society. But, as I mentioned, very few or almost none of my school classmates lived in my area. So I was living in two worlds - one in my school and one in the area where I lived.

It was a couple of years since we were all going to our respective schools. Once, I was sitting in one corner of the room at a friend’s birthday party in the same building. By then my friends learnt from their parents that I was someone they should avoid interacting with much. I had started feeling that change in their behaviour. But I didn't know why and the child in me was not yet ready to accept the situation. I was trying hard to blend into the gathering, though no one spoke to me. The birthday girl’s father - a fat and stout man in his lungi (a wrap-around dress for men) and bare-bodied, came in the room. He was looking for a place to sit. All the couches in the room were occupied by the guests. He noticed me sitting in one corner. He pointed out at me and said, “You naughty kids. look at her. She goes to a Bengali medium school. If you all speak in English, how would she understand what you are talking about? You all know she can’t speak or understand English. Poor child.” Everybody laughed at the way he said all that. I squirmed inside. I didn't expect what he did next. Once everybody stopped laughing, he said,” But you know what? She is a good child. None of you offered me a seat. But she would let me sit.” Before I could realize it, he came towards me and plopped on my lap. All the children and adults in the room split into loud laughter. I was almost dying out of embarrassment, trying hard to hold my tears. The father of another friend I spoke about at the beginning of this post, would go to another level of mental abuse. One day we were all playing. Though they were speaking in English, I somehow managed to take part in the play with them. All of a sudden they abandoned me and disappeared somewhere when they saw him coming there. I was disheartened and going back home when he caught hold of me and said,” What happened? Aren’t you playing with them?”Before I could say something, he said, “ Oh, I understand. You must be scared of them, right? I know. You can’t speak in English, right?”As I was trying to wriggle out of his mocking, I froze when he did this. It was a very sadistic thing, any adult should do with a child. He suddenly stuck out a false tooth on the tip of his tongue, rolled out his eyes and made a face that almost made my heart stop in my little chest.

This continued whenever he found me alone.

Today, I have learnt to analyse the experience and the trauma it caused me then. The bullying, shaming and ostracising by these adults kill a child's natural confidence. They dent her sense of self-worth by such a message that she was not good enough and acceptable. Such erroneous treatment by adults did injustice not only to me but also to their own children. They rob them of their inherent goodness and authenticity. They pollute it with ideas of discrimination, snobbery, arrogance and pride. All that feed their ego. It is a subject of social conditioning. Much such social conditioning makes a person's ego grow into gigantic proportions.

Much later in life, I understood why the parents behaved like that. Because they had their own unresolved psychological issues and lack of self-awareness. Almost none of them studied in English medium, convent schools. Neither was proficient in speaking English. They must have had experienced discrimination and a sense of inadequacy, inferiority due to lack of this skill. That made them leeching on their children's convent education to compensate for that lack inside them. They attached their identity to it. It boosted their ego. They were super eager to see their children speak in English like a pro. It uplifted their vernacular status to great socio-nautical heights. As if it would para-drop them on the terrace of Buckingham Palace. I was not able to converse in English then. So speaking with me in Bengali looked like a worrisome deterrent for their children. It got them anxious. They warned their children of dire consequences in front of me. The dire consequence was putting them in my school if they failed to do their homework. Or if they were found doing something as obnoxious as speaking in Bengali with me! I started dreading people asking me which school I go to. They would often prompt the names of the two prominent English medium schools in our township when they asked me this. The moment they heard me naming my school, they would find it hard to hide the abrupt change in their expression. It would be a surprise for them. They didn't expect an officer's daughter to go to that school. After an awkward pause, they would try to replace it with the pretence of a nice, approving one. The most ill-mannered among them would not blink an eye and comment,” Oh, that one, where these lowly people’s kids go?” These people even started snubbing my parents. The rest would divert the topic to something safer like weather or ever-escalating market prices. My parents had no idea how my non-English medium, non-convent schooling was playing havoc with my early life. They neither had any past reference point and the knowledge nor the foresight to know that.

But like every sad fairy-tale story, my story of Macaulay’s ghost haunting me, also had a happy ending. Please read the following post to know how I discovered the silver lining in my story of socio-linguistic trauma - known as English Medium.

Click here:

English Medium, Indian Middle Class And The Story Of A Blast Furnace - Part III

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#Education #Child abuse #Bullying #Social shaming #Buckingham Palace #Thomas Babington Macaulay #classism #discrimination #privilege #vernacular languages #influence of schooling #parental guidance #parental neglect #awareness #compassion #acceptance

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