Prodigal Soul-- Chapter 5

Finally another chapter! You can read the first part here and chapter four here.

Disclaimer: Paramount owns the characters. All creative content, plot, original characters belong to me.

The Prodigal Soul

Author's note: Plak`matya is derived from the Vulcan words plak, meaning blood and matya, meaning feral animal. Vulcans do not claim what Terrans would call a ‘vampire’ in their mythology. Vulcans do not admit to much of a mythology at all.

Summary: Brotherhood, friendship, love and a vampire.

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When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows.

~~

I have shot mine arrow o'er the house,
And hurt my brother.

--William Shakespeare “Hamlet”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~In the Walls

Vulcan engineering was a both a blessing and a curse to Suvan. Even after two millennia, the stones that built the castle’s interior walls were still joined seamlessly, admitting no light and very little air into the maze of passageways behind them. Secret doors remained secret, perfectly balanced, disappearing into the walls and floors, completely invisible if one did not know of their existence. There were chambers and chutes, stairs and trapdoors; and in the old nursery, a cradle hidden behind the wall was attached to rails and counterbalances that could whisk a child up five stories to the keep or drop him quickly down into the depths beneath the castle. There were also blind alleys and traps that could leave an enemy searching for an exit until he either starved or fell to his death down shafts dug deep into the mountain.

Maps detailing this intricate system were meticulously filed away in the castle library, deep in the clan archives, seen only by one set of Vulcan eyes in a thousand years.

Suvan watched the Enterprise party carefully as they walked to the Great Hall. Interestingly, there was a Vulcan youth with them. He blinked in surprise at the formality with which Stonn greeted the Vulcan. Was this the son of Sarek? Surely this boy was far too young to be an officer in the Starfleet, let alone old enough to leave the house of his father. Sarek would never allow it. But upon closer inspection, the boy’s resemblance to T’Pau was unmistakable and his accent held the refined lilt of L’langon Mountain clan nobility. Suvan heard the blue-eyed human call him “Spock”. Grief tightened Suvan’s heart. This was the son of his brother’s son. Yet another child named, grown and gone while Suvan slept in his exile. Well, half-grown at any rate.

Suvan returned his attention to the humans. They were fascinating. Aside from his brief glimpses of she who was Sarek’s wife, Suvan had no opportunity to observe them. And Amanda was so self-contained to be as nearly Vulcan in her bearing. There was one book about Terrans in the palace library, a slim volume with perfunctory descriptions of human physiology, culture and history and that, hardly enough information to warrant publication as a journal article. There were no details about their technology except one sentence on the last page about a person called Zephram Cochrane that, were it not written by a Vulcan, Suvan would have thought it condescending. There was however, some detail about a contemporary of Cochrane, an engineer named Lily Sloane. Surprisingly, there was also a long paragraph about a comestible called “chocolate”.

The Starfleet party entered the Great Hall. Suvan did not dare to linger. He was confident that he would not be discovered--these passages were built to conceal--but he had taken too many risks, and the intelligent and empathic Golan was already uneasy. At any rate, Suvan was tired, still weakened from the effects of his Awakening. He sought succor in what small animals he could capture during his short forays to the other side of the mountain, but they provided meager sustenance. He needed to feed on much larger prey tonight and that meant hunting in the open desert.

The very thought of the hunt wearied him. Even the smallest of prey animals on Vulcan were difficult to catch. The night before, he saw a small herd of jarel picking delicately up the mountain side. At only twenty kilos they were fast and still dangerous, their small sharp horns and spurred hooves, deadly. But he needed blood before his hunger grew beyond the tenuous control with which he held it in check.

The need. The hunger. It would burn in him hot as the molten rivers of T’Khut--the blind madness of pon farr a trifling, childhood fever in comparison.

Suvan rose to his feet in the passageway. The dog

(motley!)

looked back at him one last time before disappearing into the Great Hall with the others. Suvan inspected the scrape on his elbow. He caught a tiny drop of blood on a fingertip and brought it to his mouth. It burned his lips and tongue. His breath hitched in his chest. His penis hardened. His eyes flared amber in the darkness.

“My heart is flame,” he whispered.

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girl6
12/14/08