Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Trek TOS
Characters/Pairings: Uhura, Chapel, OCs. Kirk, McCoy, Spock. Maybe hints of Uhura/Chapel.
Summary: It's girl's night, and Uhura loves telling stories.
Prompt: brag
Notes: for
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lady_krysis Wordcount: 845
It's girl's night in the rec room, and for some reason talk's turned from homelands to the myths people have grown up with, and to what amounts to telling ghost stories in the dark. Sitting sprawled around the warm room, some of Engineering's best moonshine doing the rounds, the vast vista of stars and emergency lighting the only illumination, the women of Enterprise spin tall tales in the dimness, and laugh and shudder together.
Given the diversity of the crew of the Enterprise, that means a lot of really tall tales.
"Oh, I've got one!" Uhura calls, sitting up a little in her seat. "True one, too. Happened to a friend of mine, back on Earth." She grins, and coughs pointedly towards the bottle. Yeoman Birch passes it her way cheerfully, and gestures for a little speed, if she pleased. Uhura chuckles around her mouthful, and happily obliges.
"Back in England, I think," she muses, passing the bottle to Christine. "A beastie called a brag." Snorts of laughter, and she waits regally to continue. "Shapeshifter, you know. Takes the form of a horse or a donkey. A kritin to you, Ypsi. Wild, treacherous things, the brags. Like all goblins, fae folk. Remember tales of them, when I was young. But Cathy told me this one herself, like she was still stirred up over it. Took her for a hell of a ride, she said."
"Hey!" one of the girls near the window calls. "We talking fairies or men, here?" More laughter, and Uhura snorts.
"Oh, well, either or," she allows with a grin. "But in this case, it was a brag. Walking home one night, you know. Full moon, the whole story, and then she sees something glowing in the moonlight. A horse, the most beautiful animal she's ever seen, proud and graceful and strong, watching her from the roadside. Gorgeous thing. Really gorgeous thing." She trails off for a second, eyes a little distant, as if she was remembering seeing it herself. Then she shakes it off, and continues.
"The horse bows to her, a little arch of that neck, bend of those powerful legs, and she's enchanted, moving to touch. They do that. Make you want to touch them, to be near them. To ride them. And she couldn't help herself, Cathy. So she climbs up, stroking its mane, and it's so gentle with her. Right up until she's aboard, and it's standing. And then, well, it does what a brag always does."
A hush fills the rec room, women leaning forward to listen, eyes alight and smiles distant and eager. Uhura looks around, seeing her audience, and smiles a little. Damn, but she's missed telling stories.
"It started to run. Fastest things in existence, the brags. All that supernatural muscle, and it bunched under her, rippling as it moved, running and running under the moon. She screams, Cathy, clings on before she can fall, fists tight in the thing's mane, and it keeps running. Never stop, once they've started. Tears away, over hill and hedge and road and rock, diving through woods, not caring about branches that catch and tear at the rider, not caring about the wind that whips tears from their eyes. The brag just runs, wheeling and laughing, delighted with itself, and the rider just clings, terrified, exhilarated, nothing to do except hold on and hope. All night, the brag runs with her, chasing shuttles overhead, bucking and jinking, taking her along for the ride. And then, the dawn comes ..."
A moment of silence, and then Christine speaks, voice husky and warm. "What happens at dawn?" she asks, eyes glimmering at half-mast, mouth curled in a secret smile. Uhura smiles languidly back, sharing the secret.
"At dawn ..." she purrs, enticing them all into the story, watching them all caught up in the ride of the brag. "At dawn, the brag, shining in the new sun, all power and beauty, turns once more to where it started, taking its rider back, exhausted, adrenalin and fear and pleasure buzzing in their veins, and then ..." That eager, listening hush, and Uhura has to grin, has to hold the laugh. "... And then the wretched thing tosses her in the nearest damn pond!" she finishes, triumphant, and Ypsi falls off her chair. Christine throws her head and laughs, sheer power and delight, like the brag itself, and Uhura just has to grin. "Laughing the whole time," she notes, grinning fiercely. "She's sitting there, wet and stunned and furious and tired, and the thing runs off into the dawn, laughing its head off the whole while."
The laughter rings the room, gasping from throats burred by the moonshine, and then Christine speaks up, barely able to breathe. "You sure it's called a brag," she manages, and Birch just looks at her, confused, until Christine pulls herself together long enough to say ... "It's not called James Kirk, is it?" ... and the room just falls to pieces.
Uhura sits back, bottle once more in her hand, and meets Christine's smug smile with one of her own. Damn, but she's missed telling stories
Epilogue:
Sitting at breakfast, Kirk looks up uneasily as the second group of female yeoman that morning pass him by, blushing furiously, only to break into giggles as soon as they've passed him. Looking across the table at his CMO and first officer, he considers what to say.
"Uh, Bones?" he starts. McCoy looks at him seriously, with what he could swear was a smile hiding behind his eyes. "You know that saying, that when a man laughs he's laughing with you, but when a woman laughs she's laughing at you?"
McCoy nods slowly.
"Am I just being paranoid," Kirk goes on, "Or are a lot of women laughing at me, here?"
McCoy looks at him, then at the group of women still snickering in the corner, then at Spock's very, very expressionless face, and finally back at Kirk. "You're just being paranoid, Jim," he says, with a perfectly straight face.
Spock, on the other hand, declines to say anything at all.
