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star trek xi - pavel chekov

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This is Ensign Chekov, Pavel Andreievich, navigator of the USS Enterprise.

[You can trust him; he's currently in uniform. His uniform tunic has been too short in the sleeves for several months now. Oh, the woes of being a still-growing teenager!]

I would request a response from any Starfleet officers or allies who receive this message. Thank you.

If you have only just arrived, you may have questions. I have attached a text file to this message that may, I hope, be useful. If there are other questions or if anyone would like to speak with me, I would be happy to talk.

Captain Kirk? Uhura and I have the communicators working. They can pick up local transmissions, and we have connected all four to a secure channel. I think that is the best that can be done.

[attached file: City_brief]

[ooc: Fourth wall post! Everyone (duplicates, face twins, and so on) is welcome and anything goes. If you don't fancy network communication, action just about anywhere in the City is fine by me. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The best kind of cleverness. What are their fields? Not alien plants.

Yes, see--you would get along very well! Mr. Scott is the ship's chief engineer, but I have never asked what he studied. Hikaru specialized in astrophysics at the academy, if I remember correctly. Xenobotany and interstellar navigation, also.

[The Enterprise: where everyone is a genius.]

[Clearly a prerequisite before joining the crew.]

Astrophysics. [She recognises that word.] Did you ever know Amory Felix while he was here? He studied all that. Physics and astronomy, right? The, er, laws of it all as applied to stars.

[See, she listens. Even when science and magic don't really mix.]

Yes, I did! He was very intelligent. I have some of his books still.

Ah--not that you aren't intelligent. You are, but in a different way.

I just have his cats.

[God, she misses him. He arrived a month after she did. Then she laughs, touched.]

Well, coming from you, that's quite the compliment. Thank you.

They take more care than books; he would be grateful to you for taking care of them.

But do you believe me?

If he ever comes back and actually says thank you, I might die from the shock.

[Wry, for the most part. She and Amory had an unusual friendship but she's still fond.]

Yeah. I was an alright student back home. [Just as brilliant as the rest of her brothers, actually, but.] If that's what you mean.

Stranger things than that have happened.

[He shakes his head in response.] Academic intelligence only counts for so much. No, what I mean is a more useful cleverness that concerns people and conduct.

[She starts laughing again, pushing her hands through her hair on her end.]

Thank you, Pavel. You're brilliant too.

Thank you, too, but I know that.

[Cheeky.]

[Her laughter picks up, louder.]

I'm sure you do. Youngest on your ship, right? Am I remembering correctly?

Yes, yes, yes--youngest on the ship, youngest in Starfleet. I didn't feel so young here when I was mostly alone, though, because the City doesn't consider anyone's age.

No, it doesn't. Especially when you're here alone, you just sort of... carry on by yourself. We've definitely done loads of growing up. How old were you when you arrived? I was sixteen.

Some growing up has been unavoidable, yes. I was seventeen... recently seventeen.

[Pause.]

Did I miss your birthday.

Not yet, no.

You traded to be the right age, didn't you? After you returned home?

I—yeah.

[She exhales, shrugging.]

It didn't feel right. I mean, maybe it's weird, but I lived the years here. I felt like I didn't match up.

No, that makes sense to me even if, logically, physiological age shouldn't matter. I would not want to be seventeen again, even if only physically.

Well, you know... people treating you like a child when, for all intents and purposes, you're anything but.

How long has it been, Ginny, since you felt like a child?

[The war. The final battle at the school. Before she started Hogwarts with being possessed. Fred's death. Coming back to the City and crying on Bucky Barnes' shoulder.]

No one's ever asked me that before.

If you would prefer not to answer, you don't need to.

It's not that. I just don't know how to.

Do you?

Yes. It has been five years. The first time I saw my father cry--that was when I stopped feeling that I was a child, even though I know that growing up was a series of events and not just that one.

I'll bet you miss him.

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