Encore

Posted on 03 Jan 2013 @ 5:13am by
Edited on on 05 Jan 2013 @ 12:12am

7,916 words; about a 40 minute read

Mission: Episode 02 - Resupply
Location: USS Galileo LTjg Panne's Quarters
Timeline: MD15/16 0000 Hours

ON:

The halls of the Galileo were much barer than usual, perhaps because it was the last day before they left Vega IX, and everyone was getting in their due rest.

Not so for Liyar, who was walking absently through the corridors, studying a PADD in hand. The confrontation with Nicholas over something that child clearly couldn't understand had only served to get more under his skin. He knew, of course, his own reaction was more than likely due to the very Vulcan familial protective instinct. He should have, no doubt, been more cordial, but in his anger, he couldn't be bothered, even in his thoughts. On Vulcan, a child kept their silence.

It occurred to him rather suddenly, with all the brilliant logic of his forebears, that he shouldn't be wandering around in public in his reduced state. Unfortunately, these thoughts were easily distracted upon hearing the sound of what sounded like music wafting through the hallways.

Curiously, he inched closer to the sound, only to discover the door to someone's quarters left ajar. He halted in front of them, realizing they were Maenad Panne's. Looking in, he saw she was perched in front of some instrument (piano, his brain supplies). He didn't recognize the music, but it sounded interesting. "What is that?" he asked, as if it were an everyday thing to stick his head into someone's quarters unannounced. (They are open, okay!)

Maenad was pounding out Stravinsky's Russian Dance from his ballet, Petrushka, with all of her might. It was late and she wasn't tired; she'd been playing for nearly three straight hours without even realising it, but that was because she was now quite drunk and in an absolutely wonderful mood. Three empty bottles of wine she'd procured from some place she'd found in the city that day stood empty on her kitchen counter, and a half glass of whatever sweet Merlot it was stood on the side of the piano waiting to be finished.

Yes, she was quite thrilled with herself. She had played, no she had performed, exceptionally well, if she did say so herself. And, yes, she did say so herself. Don could piss right off, she thought. Who was he to tell her that she couldn't play it? In all actuality, however, it was Maenad who had said that she couldn't play it at all - forget well. It was far from stunning but at the moment and in her mind, she played it excellently. She would have given herself a standing ovation, in fact. And she almost did. Not only was she pleased with herself, though; Kiri was better, at least she was almost better. Her department was one hundred percent operational, fully staffed, and more than qualified. Everything that she had ordered was now fully stocked, even the extra parts for the navigational deflector she had wanted. And it all went without a hitch. And, she liked her captain. She liked her a lot, even. Maybe too much. She liked Commander Holliday as well, and she liked her staff. This was a first for her. Except for maybe Sergei Petrov, perhaps she didn't like him all that much. He was always bothering her with inanities. And he tried to speak in French to her once, which she could have done without, but she laughed thinking about it. So here she was, celebrating the stress of the past week being evaporated into thin air on the eve of her first real mission on the Galileo.

But when she heard somebody say "What is that?" from behind her, Maenad's smile disappeared and her heart came to a stop as she was gripped with a sudden terror. She spun around on her piano bench to see who was there, but she smashed her awkwardly long legs on the piano itself, and she held her arms over her chest because she was only wearing underwear. She thought she was alone, after all; this was her bloody home and it was in the middle of the damn night.

When she saw that it was only Liyar, she heaved a heavy sigh of relief and stood up. The liquor stopped her from shouting at him, instead she smiled brightly, and merely grabbed a quilt off the back of the sofa and wore it like a shawl. Actually, she limped to the sofa because when she had hit her legs, she had banged her knee much harder than she had realised. "Mister Liyar!" she greeted him excitedly, walk-limping over to the door. "Do come in and sit down!"

Liyar looked owlishly at her, before recognizing the smell of alcohol in the air and figuring that accounted more or less for her behavior. He was only part-way in the threshold, likely due to the fact that Lieutenant Panne was only wearing... a quilt... for a shirt. And no pants. He was fairly certain she was also not wearing pants. But she walked straight up to him, though he leaned back like a cat with tinfoil placed on its head when she got right up in his personal space, he spoke nonetheless, perfectly straight-faced. Good old fashioned Vulcan emotionlessness. "I did not intend to intrude. The music. It was interesting," he said and it was honest, since he probably wouldn't have stuck his head in otherwise. A little more upbeat than he was used to, but the way it was played did apparently make him walk all the way down the hallway to the opposite end of where his own quarters were. (Curiosity, he files away for future reference, gets him caught in half-naked half-drunk women's quarters. Curiosity is Not Really Logical. He should Stop That.)

"Thank you," Maenad bowed for him, almost losing her grip on the blanket. "I play it well," she had to admit that she did. "And it's too late for you to insist on not intruding because you already have," she said seriously. Maenad went from pleased to scolding in an instant, but then she switched back to pleased equally as fast. "I will play an encore. First, however, I think I should change. Now, sit down." She walked away from him over to the sofa where half of her day's clothing had landed when she had undressed earlier, and tossed them away so Liyar could sit. Then she trotted into her bedroom and found a white button-up cotton pyjama top from her dresser. She couldn't find the pants, so she tied the quilt into a skirt and returned to the living area. "Tea?" she asked Liyar from the kitchen. But she wasn't listening or paying any attention to him.

"Wait a minute, how did you get in here, anyway? And how could you hear me playing?" she demanded before he had a chance to refuse.

"Your door," he explained. "It was open."

She walked over to the door, seeing that it was still open. She pressed the button to close it and it did without any trouble. Was there something wrong with the sensor? If there was, she paid it no more attention and brought Liyar his cup of tea. "I hope you like Earl Grey. It is my favourite, so I am sure that you will enjoy it without milk or sugar as I do," she sat down next to him with her legs together, her own tea held in her lap, watching him with her shining green eyes. She was such a gracious host, she thought. And to have attracted the company of Liyar, of all people! It was truly an honour to have him come to her in the middle of the night on his own volition. And not for any reason, either. He wasn't here to criticise her writing or point out the flaws of her arguments. Perhaps he knew she was right, now. Or maybe he didn't care; maybe he liked her company and that was it. Well, if he did or didn't, she enjoyed his.

Liyar took the tea, because he didn't have a choice since it was thrust into his hands, and took a careful drink. It wasn't as strong as theris bar-kas sas-shava, but it would do. He felt the random wash of her thoughts, which took the haphazard stream-of-consciousness he'd discovered in the bar on Vega IX. She was correct in part, at least. He hadn't really came to see for any other reason than he'd never heard anything similar before. "What is an encore?" he asked, sitting down on the couch a little warily, as if he had been overtaken by a random tsunami and simply bobbed along with the currents.

"An encore, Mister Liyar," she said with a tilt of her head, surprised to learn that he had never heard this term before, "Is when a musician or a performer of some kind performs a piece over again because the audience enjoyed it so much the first time." She took a long sip of tea, then quickly set the cup down and hurried over to the piano.

"I see," Liyar said. "Ashenau," he repeated in his own dialect of Vulcan, drawing his hand upward as though that explained something significant.

"Someone told me recently that I could not play this when, clearly, I can play it just fine. It is from Stravinsky's ballet, Petrushka," she explained. "Stravinsky was an interesting character," she turned around from the keys to indulge him in her personal knowledge of musical history. "Depending on who you ask, he was either Russian or American, or both. I tend to say that he was both. He was born in Russia, but the Soviet Union was no supporter of his music and they repressed him extensively, so he left and became famous, mostly, for the music he wrote in America. He might have been born Russian, but he became American and swore to never return. He died having never gone back. It is sad, really," she faded off for a few seconds. "But, anyway, he is dead and we are not. I suppose that perhaps he may not be dead if he still lives through his music, and one is never truly dead for as long as he is remembered," she considered aloud. "And he lived in France for some time too," Maenad added quite proudly.

She turned around to face the keys, fixed the pages of music so that she could read them properly, and burst into the music. It took her about two and half minutes to fire it out, and when she was done she instantly twisted around to read Liyar's approval, but she only saw the stoic Vulcan sitting as he always sat. It offended her, but she laughed on the inside to herself. It was then that she realised the ache in her hands, feeling how stiff and sore her fingers had become. She reached for the wine still on her piano and finished it before returning to the couch with Liyar. "Well?"

"Intriguing," he said with a nod. He watched her performance with his usual bearing, which as always was rather bland, but seemed interested. If Looking On Dully could be classified as interested. He was tapping the fingers of his left hand in a peculiarly familiar way, pausing when he thought he'd made a mistake and then re-doing again. After a few moments of this it was clear he was copying her movements on the piano before, completely unconsciously, while he drank his tea with the other. "I have never encountered another individual who plays that way."

"No, probably not. He was quite unique, despite his many influences." She got up and returned to her spot beside Liyar on the couch. She studied his face and features curiously like he were specimen of some kind. "Mister Liyar, why is your hair wavy?" she asked him. "Almost curly. I have only seen Vulcans with straight hair, like mine," she said. "I think my hair might be more Vulcan than yours."

Liyar stared down at her. He was realizing, that the more time he spent with her, the more strange things seemed to happen to him, but he answered her question mildly. "It is a genetic variation," he said in a very anti-climactic way. "This variant is more prevalent on Vulcan's Eastern hemisphere, and where I grew up in Miran. Several of my peers exhibited similar traits."

"Hm," she said. "I was not aware of that; it is very becoming on you," she reassured him. "I would like to visit Miran some day. I have spent a lot of time on Vulcan," she said to him. "As you can probably tell by my wrinkles," she smirked at him, thinking that she was very funny. She actually had very few wrinkles at all. "But I have never been east."

"Becoming what?" Liyar asked, keeping track of her separate trains of thought. "You do not appear to possess wrinkles," he addressed the second, and finally, "I would not be surprised. Most Eastern provinces covet highly conservative ideology. For Vulcans, this means a highly insular society. Miran is one of the last to adopt more common values. We do not even teach Federation Standard in our schools, as it is highly incompatible with our language," he said.

"Becoming," she said, "As in complimentary." Maenad smiled some more when he had said that she didn't have wrinkles, even though she knew that already, but she decided not to make him feel uncomfortable by saying more about it. "I would still like to visit where you grew up," she insisted. "I think it would be a fascinating and very interesting experience." Despite thinking that, she wondered what kind of reception she would get by the locals. "Are they xenophobic in Miran? Would I be received very well?"

"I do not believe there are any permanent outworld residents in Miran now, aside from the Romulan settlements," Liyar said, unsure if that was answer enough. "I do not believe it is necessarily xenophobia, so much as it is general unfamiliarity. You would likely be viewed with a large degree of fascination in turn. I think that you would find yourself very confused, or very angry, after not too long." He recalled his own first meetings with her wryly. "Not many of them are facile with non-telepathic language. It is this, more than anything which separates us."

She sipped her tea and then set the cup on the coffee table. "Yes, you are probably right," she conceded, sinking into her seat with a deflating yawn. She closed her eyes for a long moment, realising suddenly how tired she was. Something about having Liyar there comforted her, though.

The Vulcan looked over at her, and wondered if she might fall asleep sitting up. He pondered that while he drank his tea. "You appear to be fatigued," he said, and he was interrupted with a long yawn on her part, which really only proved his theory. He arched his eyebrows pointedly.

"No, I'm fine," she lied, opening her eyes back up. "I'm sorry, I'm just comfortable is all." She yawned again and wiped her eyes. "Remember when I had to explain to you what a yawn was?" she grinned, showing her teeth. "What about you? Are you tired?" Before he could answer, another thought suddenly jumped into her mind, and it was long overdue. "What were doing wondering the halls after midnight, anyway?"

"I am not," he answered her first question. Whether or not he was lying was an entirely different game, since his demeanor didn't alter any at all. "I was bored," he answered completely straight, picking out one of several colorful new words he'd learned. Well. Colorful for a Vulcan. "I decided to go for a walk. It was a rather pointless endeavor." Pointless wasn't really the word for it, more like semi-infuriating, but live and let live.

"Bored?" Maenad asked him, arching a bit. "Why not go to bed?" Had she ever heard a Vulcan say that he was bored?

"Bored," Liyar confirmed. "Vulcans require less sleep than Terrans. I do not find use in remaining idle," he said. "Lack of sufficient activity is an undesirable state for any Vulcan. After an encounter in the Officers' Lounge, I thought it best to return to my quarters."

Maenad tilted her head at him with an accusing smirk. "Is that your way of that saying that you got into a fight?" She held up her hands gestured with her fingers toward herself. "What did you do?" she asked drawing out her long vowels.

Liyar shook his head. "I did not do anything. I was approached by an individual who is familiar with one of my kinsmen. Ensign Nicholas attempted to engage me in a debate on this person's merits. We apparently disagree on the matter," Liyar concluded dryly.

"Ensign Nicholas?" Maenad asked with a curious frown. "The new language specialist? Who does he know?"

"One of my cousins," Liyar answered. "Rhiell commanded a private vessel for several years. The Nen-shu-pal," he said the name of the vessel somewhat resignedly. The Nen-shu-pal wasn't exactly unknown to Starfleet, especially because it belonged to a moderated class of Vulcan civilian ships usually attributed to the V'tosh ka'tur: Private Civilian Transport. It wasn't a glowing review, either. More like suspected interstellar pirates, and supposed Romulan defectors and likely responsible for unnecessary hostilities with the Orion Syndicate... Though he supposed he could let that last one go... It was the Orion Syndicate, most of their hostility was unnecessary. Liyar suppressed a sigh. His family was irritating.

Maenad watched Liyar, expecting him to say more than his cousin commanded a private vessel. Big deal, she thought. What was there to fight over that? "So?" she asked, not understanding what the problem was.

"Rhiell is V'tosh ka'tur," he said, in the same tone that one might use to say Rhiell is a registered sex offender or, Rhiell just finished 20 years in a maximum security prison.

"So what?" Maenad asked. She was still smiling and watching Liyar with glistening, attentive eyes. She wasn't at all trying to be confrontational in a self-righteous or malicious way. She enjoyed arguing, but she wanted to communicate that this wasn't a fight she wanted for personal bragging rights, like she would if she were discussing her academic work or politics or something. She knew exactly why it would bother Liyar, but she also didn't understand why it irritated him so much. What his cousin did with his own life shouldn't have mattered to Liyar, and she thought that logic covered that line of thinking somehow. "What difference does it make if he's more like me than you?" That might not have been a good question to ask, she instantly realised, and quickly tried to recover (she really didn't want to make Liyar unpleasant and have them start fighting). "What sort of merits were you arguing about?"

"The V'tosh ka'tur..." Liyar started. He wasn't sure why he was talking about this, it was personal, but he went ahead anyway. He weaved his fingers through one another while he spoke, taking on a more impersonal tone to distance himself from it. "Normally you would be correct. Rhiell is an adult and what he chooses to do is his own business," Liyar granted with a nod, touching his fingertips to his chin and resting his head on them. "I have spent time with these people. They are violent, frenzied, psychotic. Abusive. I handled his brother after thirteen years of it. He was adopted by my father. I was the one who went into his mind and tried to weave it back together. That makes it my business," he said in a more flinty tone, though not toward Maenad, he looked like he was staring at an internal world. He came back to himself with a brief shake of his head. "Perhaps Rhiell gained more control once he left Kari'shol. Nevertheless, I do not appreciate him defended to me."

"Ahhh," Maenad slowly reclined herself backward, putting her feet on the table. She looked out through the top of the window above her, thinking that it all made sense now. "And I take it Ensign Nicholas likes Rhiell, which offended you because he basically turned his back on you and all that you had done for him?"

Liyar blinked, and shook his head again. "No." He paused to take a drink of tea. "His brother was the individual I assisted. My brother. Rhiell was responsible for harming him."

Maenad had to wrap that around her brain for a minute, trying to figure out how Liyar's family worked. She thought that he had said Rhiell was his cousin; would that mean that in order for his brother to also be Rhiell's brother, his uncle would have had to have produced a child with his mother? Making Rhiell Liyar's cousin and step-brother? And then Rhiell must have harmed Liyar's full brother? Maenad's head was spinning. "I see," she said through narrowed eyes, but she wasn't sure that she really did. "So what is Ensign Nicholas' connection with this Rhiell?" she asked, but interrupted before he could get anywhere. "And let me just say, Mister Liyar, that anyone who's done harm to you or your family is no friend of mine," she held up a finger as she said that.

As if Liyar could almost see the confusion playing out in her head (though for once this was a guess) he clarified, "Adoptive brother. My parents took him in after he managed to cross the desert into our city lines. Vulcans generally do not make the distinction, once familial bonds are forged." He nodded at the rest of her assessment. "Your comments are appreciated," he said, and was surprised to find it was true. "As for Mr. Nicholas, I believe he may be one of Rhiell's former crew. Why he is in Starfleet, I could not say. The Nen-shu-pal has a noted lack of appreciation for the Federation."

She frowned at that. "He has impeccable records, Mister Liyar." She yawned again, wiped her eyes. She held her tongue about thinking that he was weird and socially awkward - she had only met him once, and he admitted that he was nervous. And, she had a tendency for social awkwardness too, so who was she to hold that against him? But, she remembered, Liyar very well could have been right; maybe his cordiality with her, she recalled the way he had said that he had made an ass of himself, was from service aboard a civilian ship. She wondered whether it was worth looking in to. Probably not.

"Indeed." His comment hadn't been meant to cast suspicion on Nicholas, more a curiosity as to why Rhiell would even spend time with someone who had enough Federation sympathy to eventually join Starfleet. He watched her yawn yet again, pondering to himself how they had went from somewhat antagonistic to being comfortable enough to discuss something personal with her. He decided not to ruminate on it. He could feel the sleepy vibes wafting from her direction. "It is my understanding that most Terrans fall asleep lying down, rather than sitting up," he offered his brilliant scientific analysis with barely detectable dryness.

Maenad laughed to herself. "Very astute," she said back to him sarcastically. "If I were to lie down I think would pass out," she mumbled. "But I don't want to sleep yet."

"Why not?" Liyar asked.

That was a good question, Maenad blinked. Sitting upright, she turned to face him. "Because I enjoy your company, Mister Liyar," she whispered. "And I think it would be rude to throw you out," the second part was an excuse that she didn't realise. She really just didn't want him to leave.

The Vulcan finished his tea and leaned over to place it on the table. If he understood her motivation, he didn't show it, but didn't go to leave either. "Can you teach me how to play this?" he asked, eying the piano across from them.

Maenad smiled brightly at that. That was the second time in two days that someone had asked her to teach them how to play an instrument. That wasn't entirely true; Maenad had offered to teach Kiri how to play the violin, Kiri didn't approach her. "I would be happy to," she told him. "I don't know how effective a teacher I would be, though. Instructing people on how to play an instrument is very different from giving a seminar; I didn't know you played music."

Liyar stood and walked over to the piano, eying it curiously. "I do, since I was very young. I am unfamiliar with Terran harmonics, but I believe I will be capable of discerning them with sufficient exposure."

"We could play a duet," Maenad said, watching him without getting up. "I could try to teach you," she offered. "What do you play?"

"The ka'athrya, fereikek reh-bikuv-sayek and vluhn t'naem." He spit out the alien terms completely unhelpfully and only then realized how not-helpful they were. "The ka'athrya resembles a lyre, though it possesses more range, and vluhn t'naem, war drums. A duet would be practical," he agreed, still standing over the piano without touching it. He looked as if he were studying its make-up.

Maenad was not very familiar with Vulcan instruments beyond the lute. She had heard of the war drums that he had mentioned, her vast knowledge of ancient Vulcan history had provided her with that. She stood from the couch, and her blanket skirt came loose and fell off. She crouched to pick it up and retie it, making her way over to Liyar. "I would like to hear you play some time," she said airily. She moved around him, resisting the urge to move him gently to the side by putting her hands on his waist. Last time she had touched him, he heard all of her thoughts. All of them. She wasn't ashamed, but she didn't want to experience that again. He might run away and never speak to her again, but then again he might not. It wasn't worth the risk.

Maenad pulled out her piano bench a little bit, enough for him to sit down. "All right," she said, "Go ahead, sit down." She knew that mathematics were Liyar's thing, so starting with numbers she thought was the best way to begin. "The white keys are naturals. The black ones are flats and sharps. There are a total of eighty-eight keys, which make up seven and one-third octaves." She depressed the first and lowest key on the piano, ringing out the deep C note. "This is C," she said. She hoped that Vulcan notation was the same as Earth's, that translation had at some point standardised. "Every white key to the left of the two black keys is a C." She then read and played off C to G in sequential order until she reached A. "So, Mister Liyar, if you know the order of notes to any piece that you know, you can at least play them now on a piano." It was a hell of a lot more complicated than that, because playing the piano was a matter of coordination, using one hand independently of the other to the detail of using all ten fingers. She had been playing piano all her life and was still no expert at it, she thought.

"The pedals," she went on, her voice precise, "Put your foot on on the right pedal," Maenad instructed, pointing with a finger. "Now push a key." The note sounded out loudly, with forte. "Notice how much louder the note is than usual; the right pedal prevents dampers from softening the note as when the pedal is not being pressed." She nodded. "Now press the middle one and push the key again." The note this time played incredibly softly. "Each note is played by a hammer striking a set of two or three chords. My piano has three chords per note, but when the middle pedal is pressed, only one chord is struck, hence the softness of the note." She nodded again, and once more pointed to the final pedal, unaware that she had placed her hand on his shoulder. "Now press down the left pedal and press a key." The final note rang out but was sustained until he removed his foot. "That is the sustain pedal, which sustains the note and prevents it from dissipating immediately after releasing the note."

Liyar reached out to press the indicated notes, a look of concentration on his face as he attempted to transliterate the mechanisms of the piano, and its notation in relation to the way he had learned. He replayed from C, rapidly forming a map of how the piano should look internally with the assistance of her narrative, organizing it in his mind. Damper mechanism, sostenuto rail, pedal mechanism, rods, (sustain/damper), (sostenuto), (soft/una-corda), bridge, hitch pin... he learned from her, and then began translating that into composition math. V = f, = 2L, L, L/2, ... = 2L/n, f = nv/(2L), he devolved, testing his theories while he pressed the keys lightly.

Random snatches of his thoughts Maenad could likely pick up due to her hand on his shoulder, and the fact that he was concentrating too much to notice, but they were mostly unintelligible math and a sense of odd fuzziness while his brain computed various things. 4 ms... to less than 2 ms, he pressed the keys harder and longer. 52 w 36 b keys, 88, minor third, A0 to C8... "Is this the full range of what you can hear?" he asked, "This is inharmonic," he said, but it didn't sound like he was necessarily talking to her.

"No," she replied even though he wasn't paying attention. "Most of us can hear up to 19 or 20KHz. Younger people can hear up to about 22KHz. These notes don't even come close to that."

His eyes moved back and forth while he thought, and then he carefully tapped out a random catch with his left hand. "440 Hz... one F 440 hertz N equals one fundamental tone, first harmonic, whole number multiples of the fundamental frequency," he finally worked out how that looked on a Terran instrument, nodding to himself. "Two F equals 880 hertz, N equals two, first overtone, 2x, 6x, this is periodic, yes," he rambled, and settled his other hand on the other side, playing random catches while he worked it out. This was universal, that was good.

The difficult part was translation in musical composition. He realized with some dismay that a psionic element was probably involved in his original learning, because where he looked for a modifier chord, there was none, when he attempted to play a basic melody, there was something missing that he was unable to account for on the Terran instrument. He tapped out quite a few notes once again. "f, 3f, 5f, 7f... Long-sustain, do Terrans possess the..." he shook his head and continued. "Weakly coupled, three... two polarizations... that is 16 hz, 20.000 hz." He nodded to himself again and pressed the pedal down with his foot, producing a short, somber melody. On the last bit it sounded ... "Flat. Too flat. The lowest partial is stretched... least. C? D, E...1 9/8, 5/4, 4/3, 3/2, 5/3, 15/8, 2..."

He went through the piece again, playing it 'fully' rather than with one hand. He took a few seconds to adequately translate each refrain, but the result was a quiet, haunting melody clearly alien in origin. "This occurs at around 343.2 m/s..." He adjusted his hearing perception to account for the differences in ambient temperature. "I believe I understand the basic properties," he finally concluded, looking up again.

Maeand did not know what he was doing or exactly how he was doing it, but the Vulcan finally prepared himself over several minutes of contemplation, and what she would have called perception tests. He was talking to himself, which she thought was very unVulcan of him, but she was beginning to learn that Liyar was no ordinary Vulcan. Maybe that was why she liked having him around. That, or it was alcohol. She paid it no attention, and when Liyar finally played a tune, albeit a sombre one, she was impressed. He even used both hands. For someone who'd never touched a piano before, that was incredible.

"Well done," Maenad rubbed his back gently. "I think," she added with a frown. She had never heard what he had played before, so she didn't know whether it was any good.

"Simplistic," Liyar agreed. "A child's tune. But effective." He seemed to either be unaware of her touch, concentrated as he was on the task in front of him, or not bothered. He played the order of notes in the opening part she'd been belting out earlier, albeit much more slowly. He messed up after a while, and frowned at it. "Flat," he repeated. "There should be another register here..." He tried again and shook his head. "No..." He stilled his movement. He reached up and deliberately placed the tips of his fingers against her forearm for a moment. "There," he agreed to himself, before returning to the song, adjusting his hand positions and managing a much less horrifying (if slow) version.

Maenad laughed quietly. She had no idea what he was trying to do now, but after he made a few attempts she realised that he was trying to play the Russian Dance that she was playing earlier. The tempo was much slower, even she had difficulty with the proper tempo, but that he could remember the order of notes, when they were played so fast, impressed her. No, it warmed her. "You're trying to play what you heard earlier," she beamed.

"Affirmative," Liyar agreed. Though, truthfully, it was the only song he had ever heard designed for the piano. Falor's Journey, while simple (and long... and tedious...), hadn't been written for piano at all and the result, while arranged in an order that didn't sound ear melting, was far from satisfactory.

"Here, let me show you."

She motioned for him to get up so she could play it for him. "Watch carefully," she indicated, perching herself over the keys. It's ripping start was crucial. She first played the beginning few measures as quickly as she could while still sounding good, but still not quite the tempo it was supposed to be. Finished, she turned around to look at him. "Now at half speed," she repeated the same measures for him but much slower, so that he could watch her more easily. She stood. "Want to try?"

He kept two fingers on her shoulder while she played, studying both the manual configuration of it and whatever something he was looking for but couldn't find in the instrument itself. Liyar moved and sat himself down once again. His version was still much slower than normal, but it began sounding less like a repetition of something he had no idea about. After several more gratingly repetitive tries, he managed to lock many of the opening sequences, though every once in a while he would pause when he came to a part he hadn't yet memorized. "Fascinating," he said to himself. "The way that this instrument is played is somewhat similar to the fereikek reh," he noted aloud to himself.

"Yes, I don't know what that is," Maenad smiled, pleased that Liyar had taken such an interest in her greatest hobby. She would have liked to see or hear or play whatever it was that Liyar had said, but she was too excited with his progress to pay it much attention. "You learn very quickly," she told him. "You have impressed me, Mister Liyar," she was still smiling and was probably more pleased than it warranted, but she was quite drunk. She wasn't lying or exaggerating; only her inhibitions and emotional suppression were lifted. What she said was true, she simply didn't stop herself from saying it. She would never admit it, and she would reject it if told, but like Vulcans she suppressed a great deal of her emotions. As human, though, that suppression became a deep source of her misery. "I think that we could make this a regular occurrence," she suggested. "If you want, I mean. Would you like some more tea?"

"It is a holographic synthetic harmonizer," Liyar explained the first term with a small shrug. It was something he had developed on his own, though, and the only versions of that specific make-up to exist was the one in his quarters and the one back on Vulcan. He once again answered the train of her thoughts in order while he tapped out the next bit to be memorized. First slowly, and then individually fast, before backtracking to replay up to what he'd learn again at a faster tempo. "I would not be averse to repeating this experience," the Vulcan said next, in Vulcan-speak for this is mega interesting and totally. He blinked and looked up. "Tea..." and realized that he'd somehow drank his entire cup without realizing it. "Indeed." He played out another tune, different from Russian Dance. He would pause, then alter a set and re-do it to sound better, before replaying the entire thing from the top. "How long have you practiced the piano?" he asked, stopping while she went over to get the tea and turning to face the other side.

Maenad replicated the tea, another two cups of Earl Grey, and she returned to the piano bench where Liyar was really starting to enjoy himself. "Here you go," she passed him the cup, holding the brim between her fingers so he could take it by the handle. She sat on the floor beneath him, pulling her legs into her chest beneath her blanket-skirt, and took a sip. Finally she answered him.

"For a very long time," she said, sitting back a bit, holding herself upright with her arms stretched out behind her. "I became interested in playing piano through ballet. I am quite the dancer, Mister Liyar. I have perfect form for ballet, which should impress you," her modesty was still far from home. "And while I danced, I wished that I could perform the music that made the dance. I thought that music was more important because without it there would be no dance, but there could be music without dance." She did think that now, but whether or not she did when she was a child was another story. She wondered whether she had that sort of mental capacity as a child of about ten. "I had few friends after I was sent to a boarding school on the other side of the ocean, and my French was different from theirs." She hugged her knees, it not occurring to her that Liyar probably didn't know that she was sent to a boarding school in Quebec at the age of twelve, where she would remain until her transfer to teach at the Academy. "My French was better, in fact," which felt good to say. "So, I was always very lonely from then on. I played my music, instead. And studied, of course. I won many awards, participated in recitals and orchestras. I could have become a professional, but I chose the stars instead." Her eyes looked suddenly distant as she considered what that other life might have been like.

"But, I am glad that I am here. If not, we never would have met and you might never have had the opportunity to play a real piano with the likes of me," she smiled up at him again, her eyes glistening. She could have cried then, but she didn't. She shook her head at herself for being so emotional.

Liyar, meanwhile, had absolutely no idea what ballet was. He slowed his playing down enough to listen to her, and took the tea with both hands, peering at down her from over the rim of his cup, though he could only see the top of her head. Her hair really did resemble most Vulcans', he thought curiously. Liyar settled into a much more somber, slower tune, though whatever it was remained elusive while she spoke. He didn't say much in response, but it was clear he was listening and processing even while he played. "What is boarding school?" he asked, satisfied with his contextual understanding of everything except that. "Do you regret entering the sciences?"

"Oh," she said. "Boarding school is a school where children both live and learn. My teachers lived at the school also; my parents thought it was a good idea for me to learn how to speak English, Standard, whatever you want to call it, so they sent me to a boarding school in Montreal, in Canada's French province of Quebec. Montreal is a very English city compared to the rest of the province, so there I was not totally inept and could learn English without having to compromise my French. Except that Quebec's French is very different from mine." Maenad sipped her tea. "And no, I do not regret going into the sciences. I am able to both learn and practice music as a hobby. Being a professional musician, however, would prevent me from exploring space and expanding my learning in the fields I do now. Being a scientist allows me to do both whereas being a musician would not."

"I see," Liyar said while she spoke. He knew that different parts of Terra spoke different languages, though for it to be so widespread was uncommon to Vulcans. Vulcan was a rather homogenous planet, though they had separate regions and languages, they had generally been replaced with Modern Golic, though places like Miri'kahr existed, they were considered, well, backwards. "That is logical," he agreed through several more verses. "How was..." he frowned, and attempted to repeat, "Quebec French," he said rather terribly, "Different than yours? What is ballet?"

Maenad laughed girlishly at that. It was rare that she made much noise while she laughed, but Liyar's ignorance of everything that she took for granted was refreshing. Make no mistake; a few days ago she would have been infuriated with him by now, having lost her patience the second he stuck his head through her malfunctioning door. "The Quebecois will tell you that there is no difference, that their French is just as French as France's. I find it to be less romantic; it is more rigid, it does not flow as easily off the tongue. It is prone to Anglicisms. They use different words for the same things that we do," she shrugged. She didn't say that it was a bastardisation, but she had always thought that it was.

"And ballet, Mister Liyar, is a very old form of European dance. It is very graceful and elegant when done properly. Many of Earth's greatest musical compositions were written for ballets, in fact. You might appreciate it if you were to see it." She sipped some more at her tea, looking up that Vulcan who was still playing away at the piano. She didn't know what he was doing, whether he was actually playing anything or just making it up as he went, but she thought that it was nice and that she liked hearing it. She moved from her position so that she was now beside him, though still on the floor, her shoulder against the bench and the side of her head gently pressing against his side.

"Ah. Like kahr gen-lis," he compared, whatever that meant, though he appeared to understand what she meant. "They speak with what they view as more precision," he ventured. "They take the instinctive meaning away, so they can identify it exactly." For kahr gen-lis Miran, that usually meant verbalizing psionic elements. "But there is something lost." He paused for a moment and shifted slightly, but didn't jostle her away, merely made their positioning more comfortable. "Perhaps you will demonstrate in the future," he added, nodding to himself as if that were definitely going to happen.

"Yes," she yawned quietly. "That would be fun," she smiled faintly. Her fatigue was coming back to her now. She thought that if only she closed her eyes, just for a rest, she would be fine. She didn't want to ask him to leave and she didn't want to go to bed, but she was exhausted. "You are welcome to stay the night," she whispered to him, like it was some kind of secret. Another yawn. "You can sleep in my bed, even. I can sleep on the couch, I don't mind." Without thinking to do it, she snuggled her head against the side of his waist as though it was a pillow. The sombre notes comforted her in a way that nothing else could, or was it Liyar and not the music that she liked? She felt as though she were lightyears away, back on Earth on a warm summer's evening, with a best friend or someone that meant a lot to her, and that she too meant a lot to to them. She smiled, or at least she thought she did, as the weight of of sleep began to cloud over her.

The Vulcan continued playing, though he did so more quietly as he realized she was dropping off, feeling the edges of her consciousness begin to ease out. Rather than leave and risk waking her, he let himself be used as a pillow, irrational as it was. He was, in fact, many lightyears away from anything resembling normalcy or comfort, but the night had turned out much better than he had originally expected it would. After a while, it was clear that she was out cold. Rather than leave her on the floor, Liyar carefully dislodged himself from her and moved her to the couch, pulling the quilt and blanket over her to cover her up and taking their used teacups to the reclamator, and the wineglasses, and the several messy piles of odds and ends strewn about...

By the time she awoke in the morning, he had left, presumably to get some rest in his own quarters.

OFF:

Lieutenant (JG) Maenad Panne
Chief Science Officer, SCC
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (JG) Liyar
Diplomatic Officer, VDF/SDD
USS Galileo

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