Title: The Oak Queen (1/6)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek TOS
Characters: Kirk, Spock, McCoy
Summary: Sequel to The Desert Children; Kirk, Spock, and McCoy reunite, but they soon learn an otherworld, while easy to enter, is impossible to leave – particularly when it is conspiring to keep one of them forever.
Parts: Foreword | Where a Tale Begins | A Quest for Three | A Quest for Two | A Quest for One | At the Heart’s End

Foreword

I’m not good at abandoning stories. In fact, over the past week or so, the continuation of The Desert Children has been brewing in my mind. Now I have some idea of how this strange story ends. It will be told in five parts, as noted above. However you label the story’s genre (i.e. supernatural, otherworldly, fae, fantasy-driven or horror-esque), the prose shall remain slightly surreal, with a dusting of reality. I cannot say at this point if we will see much of what is going on outside of this “other realm”, only that what happens there is dependent on the journey of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. Who knows… maybe there will be an happily-ever-after for everyone! (Which, if I may say this, was not the original intention – and was part of the reason why I had to step back and re-evaluate the plot.)

Questions and/or suggestions would not go amiss. I would love to know how the readers are interpreting the story! Feel free to send me a private message or simply leave a comment. Also, I will work hard to be timely with the updates.

Now that you’ve had enough of my promises and warnings (did I mention the Otherworld is dangerous for our beloved trio?) here is a snippet of what is to come!

___

excerpt from A Quest for Two:

Leonard’s eyes skip across the room, almost catching on the small creature, insubstantial as air, observing the three of them. His gaze immediately floats past it as if it is a thing too familiar to bother naming. “Spock,” he says absently to the Vulcan at his elbow, “where do you suppose we are?”

Jim has wandered away to one of the narrow windows angling upward along a wall like a set of stairs. There he surveys a picturesque bird’s eye view of trees and snow-capped mountains. Leonard wouldn’t be surprised if Jim is disturbed by the lack of seascape, especially since they had been so near the ocean only minutes (or days?) ago.

Spock removes his attention from the oddments, like a mounted boar’s head, adorning the spacious area. His answer is slow and thoughtful. “I cannot suppose, Doctor. The most rudimentary of navigation skills and geographical disciplines do not seem relevant in this world.”

“Nor is time,” Leonard mutters. It’s as though time is a being all its own, and quite mischievous too. He has long since given up trying to determine how many minutes or hours or days pass from one moment to the next.

“Bones,” Jim calls.

The creature plucks that single word from the air and cradles the warm glow of it. Leonard bites down on his bottom lip and pretends not to notice the scavenging of his name. He joins Jim at the window, followed closely by Spock. Together they watch a tiny winged shape dance across the treetops.

“There’s a story I’m reminded of,” Jim says, brows pinched in concentration. “I can’t… remember it that well but…” He briefly presses his mouth into a thin line. “How high up would you say we are?”

“Considering I can see above the clouds, Jim, higher than I’d like to be.”

Spock’s silence might mean he is attempting to extrapolate their distance from the ground. Leonard doesn’t know.

“A home in the clouds,” Jim murmurs. “Who would live here?”

Leonard frowns.

“Much of Ardana prefers floating cities,” Spock points out.

“Of course the entirety of Ardana wants to live in the sky, Spock, but not everybody is considered privileged enough to step foot in a city like Stratos,” Leonard counters, thinking of thousands and thousands of Troglytes dying in the planet’s mines each year. He wishes they could have done more for Ardana’s minority, but it isn’t their place to force societies to live peacefully and respectfully with one another, only act as intergalactic role models and hope others have the good sense to follow their example.

Jim’s response is interrupted by the first rumble of the floor beneath their feet. Leonard hears the words within the quake of the stonework, and his heart sinks. Once, he had read his daughter a bedtime story with those same words.

The floor rumbles again. The curious creature holding Leonard’s name shrinks in fear and slinks away into a shadowed corner to hide.

Fee. Fi. Fo. Fum, shakes the room’s ceiling and walls.

“Jim,” Leonard says, dry-mouthed, “did that story by chance involve a beanstalk?”

“Jack and the Beanstalk!” Jim exclaims. “Jack climbed the beanstalk and encountered a—” Jim’s sentence breaks off.

Of the three of them, Spock is the only one who doesn’t suddenly look sick to his stomach.

“I vote we let Spock handle this one,” Leonard says, hands not quite trembling. The glass of the window rattles ominously at their backs.

Jim is already searching for a weapon. “Spock, do you see an exit?”

“Negative, Captain.”

Leonard puts a hand over his eyes, wondering if he too can slink into a shadowed corner and disappear. When he drops his hand, Jim is holding a broom. An unexpected laugh bursts out of McCoy. “Jim the Giant-Killer,” he half-giggles, half-sobs.

One of Spock’s eyebrows angles sharply at the word giant-killer.

Leonard punches down a fit of hysteria and gives the Vulcan a shaky but brilliant grin. “I guess this is what y’all get for coming after me.”

Oddly, Spock looks away. “Do you expect we would have acted otherwise had we known the nature of the peril involved?”

Do you believe we could have left you behind?

Sobering, Leonard shakes his head. “No,” he says, his voice both grateful and firm. “No, I don’t, Spock.”

The Vulcan glances at him. Relief is unmistakable in the science officer’s eyes but Leonard says nothing. If they’re going to die, he figures they both would rather do it without an awkward embarrassment coloring their last few seconds of life.

“Spock! Bones!” Jim hisses as an overly large door winks into existence at the opposite end of the room.

They crowd in on either side of Kirk, and the door begins to open, a foul-smelling chant of words pouring forth from the other side: “Fee-fi-fo-fum…”

Where a Tale Begins

Related Posts:

• The Oak Queen (6/6) – from June 29, 2012
• The Oak Queen (5/6) – from June 19, 2012
• The Oak Queen (4/6) – from June 17, 2012
• The Oak Queen (3/6) – from June 13, 2012
• The Oak Queen (2/6) – from June 4, 2012