crack_van | On Restless Pinions by what

Fandom: STAR TREK REBOOT
Pairing: Kirk/Spock, Spock/T'Pring, T'Pring/Stonn
Length: 23,055
Author on LJ:

what_alchemy
Author Website: AO3
Why this must be read:

For her amazing characterization of T'Pring and Stonn and description of Vulcan culture.

Summary: When Stonn goes into pon farr, T'Pring must break her bond with Spock, which has unforeseen consequences. But that's not where their story starts.

I can't even express how much I adore this fic. Gorgeously written, switching between when Spock was younger to present day where he's suffering from the break in the bond with T'Pring. There is so much subtle detail and beautiful imagery that it almost felt tangible. The portrayal of the relationship between a younger Spock and T'Pring to T'Pring's and Stonn's relationship and then Kirk and Spock...it's just perfect. It's easy to paint T'Pring and Stonn as the enemy and very few writers are able to write them as normal individuals with their own thoughts and dreams which is exactly what

what_alchemy does in On Restless Pinions. Just fantastic characterization all around. I also loved Vulcan in this story, where it makes its presence quietly in the background as if it's part of everything that it's like almost a living presence. IMHO, this is one of the best stories to come out of Star Trek Big Bang 2011.

Excerpt:

T’Pring was uncharacteristically silent as they made their usual way back to the House of Sarek after school on a torpid mid-year day. Spock was content to be in the company of his intended though they shared no conversation. Once in a while, he felt her cast a speculative gaze at him, but hers was a consideration he did not object to.

When they arrived, they greeted Spock’s mother and made their way to his wing of the house. Spock took his usual seat in his study and began to arrange his textbooks in the order in which he intended to work from them, but T’Pring did not do the same. He felt her move up beside him and he looked up with an arch in his brow.

“Did you forget one of your school books?” he asked. She was close enough that he felt the heat of her on his side. He could smell the fragrant blossom he’d put in her hair that morning.

“T’Biran asked me an impertinent question during the midday meal.”

Spock cocked his head. He had grown accustomed to tucking away the small hurts, the taunts from his peers for which he could find no logic, but T’Pring, who benefitted from her family’s status as well as her own ethereal desirability, was rarely subjected to such harassment, and thus was less prepared when confronted with them. As they neared the end of their secondary education, she seemed to bear more and more the brunt of their classmates’ prejudice against Spock.

“Cast it from your mind,” he told her. “T’Biran is known to speak and act without care to logic. She should not trouble you.”

T’Pring pulled a chair over to sit beside him. She placed her hand near his on top of his physics book, their fingertips mere millimeters apart. Spock’s lips parted.

“It is not she who troubles me,” she said. “She is low-born and beneath my notice. Yet her query has merit, and I find I must assuage my own curiosity on the subject.”

Spock curled his fingers into a loose fist and drew away from the temptation of T’Pring’s. He straightened around his wariness.

On Restless Pinions

On Restless Pinions by what_alchemy (NC-17)

no subject