Subtext by Jewels (Fairy Tale Challenge)
Title: Subtext
Author: Jewels (bjewelled)
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
Summary: Fairy tales are a peculiarly Human thing, and they deal with particularly Human emotions. What’s an Asgard to do?
Notes: I have no idea what possessed me to write this. But Hermiod just doesn’t get enough love, in my opinion.
Word Count: 3,261
It was, Hermiod would later decide, entirely the fault of Doctor Lindsay Novak’s niece. The fact that the girl was barely nine years old and wasn’t even aware of Hermiod’s existence was no excuse whatsoever.
It had started one day, late into what was referred to as the Daedalus’ “night” cycle (really it was nothing more than a dimming of the lights to replicate some sort of diurnal cycle for the benefit of bodies unused to a spaceborne existence - Hermiod, possessing a cloned and artificial form, had no such problems). He was delivering Lindsay a copy of his recommendations regarding alterations to the fusion initiators that the Earth engineers had asked him to make, for her to look over and give final approval on, and had forgotten the lateness of the hour. Thus he was rather surprised when she answered the chime to her quarters in garments he was unaccustomed to seeing.
They were softer than the standard shipboard uniform, the colour pink, and he was struggling to understand what the significance of the change was when he realised that, most importantly, her hair was loose and free-flowing, not tied back into its usual neat style.
Hair styling was something that Hermiod had possessed no knowledge of before he had come aboard the Daedalus. When he had finally broken down and confessed (although he would never phrase his questions on the matter as such) that he did not understand what the length and arrangement of hair in females meant, Lindsay Novak had taken it upon herself to prove an education of sorts.
It was this brief course in Human habits that allowed Hermiod to realise that he had disturbed Lindsay during a period of relaxation, perhaps even sleep. He raised one hand in an apologetic gesture, an Asgard one that she could not understand, and said, “I am sorry, did I awaken you?”
Lindsay smiled, and shook her head. “Oh, no no. Not at all, Hermiod. Is something wrong?”
“No,” Hermiod held out a small data-receptacle, a flatter version of an Asgard control stone, for her to take. It would interface with the Daedalus’ systems, and was much easier to carry than the hefty tablets the Humans preferred. “I was merely bringing you a copy of my notes. I did not realise the time. My apologies.”
“It’s alright,” Lindsay said, taking the stone, the brush of her fingers seeming feverishly warm to Hermiod’s skin. She jerked her head to the screen on her wall, which was frozen on some colourful picture of small Humans in bright clothing. “I was just watching a video my sister sent me. It’s a play my niece was in, a school play based on a fairy tale.”
And then Hermiod asked that fateful question. Genuinely confused, he pressed his fingers together in a plea for explanation. “What is a ‘fairy tale’?”
**
Fairy tales, it turned out, were a peculiar form of Human storytelling, limited to one group of cultures on Earth. The small Humans were infants of the species, although Hermiod quickly worked that out for himself when Lindsay invited him to join her in watching the video, and he saw the unpractised motor and linguistic skills on display. They were clumsily recreating a story in a manner that Hermiod decided would have been fascinating to Beyla and her team of ethnologists (he quickly attempted to forget the recollection of Beyla, as he then could not help but recall the Replicator attack that had destroyed her team and the colony that they had been studying).
He found the situations implausible, and the stark perception of the world as being composed of moral absolutes to be immature, but he still found himself fascinated, against his better judgement, as the character named “Prince Charming” (in an overestimation of his own attributes, Hermiod thought) cut through streamers of green paper to reach a girl in a bright pink dress (Lindsay’s niece and apparently portrayed a Princess) to give her a clumsy and embarrassed pressing of the lips to her face.
When Hermiod asked what he was doing, Lindsay giggled and said, “He’s giving her a kiss to wake her up. One true love and all that.”
Hermiod’s confusion must have been apparent in the way he stared at her, because he bit her lip and looked at him with a tightening of muscles around her eyes that Hermiod had learnt meant ‘anxiety’ or ‘nervousness’. “Do you… know what a kiss is?”
Hermiod cast his mind back to the anthropological database he had been given to study before taking up residence aboard an Earth ship, and the examples of such behaviour he had witnessed amongst members of the crew when they believed they were unobserved. “A sexual gesture,” he said, “A prelude to intercourse.”
Lindsay stared at him, her eyes unnaturally wide for a moment, then giggled, pressing her fingers to her lips to smother the sound. “Erm, not always,” she said.
Hermiod shifted to face her. They had been sitting on her bed, watching the video on the wall screen, and now he folded his legs underneath him in a position approximating the Human manner of kneeling. “Please explain,” he said.
“Well…” Lindsay licked her lips, another ‘nervous’ signifier. “It’s not always a sexual gesture. It’s also one of affection, of friendship. Parents kiss children, friends might kiss. Generally kisses not on the lips are less… sexual.” She shook her head, gave another anxious giggle. “I’m not the best person to explain this. It varies between cultures as well.”
Hermiod nodded, thoughtfully. “Physical contact as a way of emotional expression has not been a part of the Asgard for many centuries, since the perpetuation of our species by cloning rendered such things… extraneous.”
“Oh,” Lindsay reached up, pulling on her hair. “Then, you’ve never been kissed?”
“Does that…” Hermiod narrowed his eyes in mimicry of the Human expression of frowning, “Does that matter?”
“No,” Lindsay said, quickly, “Just kinda sad is all.”
Before Hermiod could make a response to that, Lindsay leaned forward, pressing her lips to his head, just above the eye folds. Her lips were dry, and warm, and he could feel an afterimage of her touch even after she leaned back, as quickly as she had moved to touch him.
“There,” she said, grinning, “Now you can’t say you’ve never been kissed.”
Rather lost for words, Hermiod reached up and rubbed the spot on his head where she’d kissed him.
**
When Hermiod, a technician of not inconsiderate standing in the Asgard Ministry of Science, was informed of his new assignment, he was not at all pleased.
The fact that the order came from the Supreme Commander of the Fleet made it all the more difficult to express some sort of pleasure. It was quite clear that there was to be no real way of challenging this assignment, and Hermiod resented the fact that Thor had invited him to his home on Hál and sprung the unwelcome news in such peaceful surroundings.
Thor was sitting patiently on the bench outside his low-rising home. Thor was unusual amongst the Asgard for having created a dwelling so far from their fellows. Hermiod had wondered if he found the overwhelming abundance of nature soothing. Hermiod only found that the pollen in Hál's atmosphere irritated his upper respiratory tract.
Hermiod clutched the juice bulb in his hands tighter in frustration, stopping only when some of the tart liquid spilled out and over his hands. "Why me?" he asked, thoroughly miserable.
Thor took a calm sip from his own bulb. "I believe that you are best suited to the task."
"With respect," Hermiod said, tightly, looking past Thor at the tiny iCi birds flittering around some of the nearby blossoms, "I believe you are in error. I am the worst possible person to become a liaison with Humans."
Thor made a sound that nearly approached laughter, but unfortunately, their endoskeletal structure had lost the flexibility to create a large sound long ago. Hermiod distantly wondered if Humans could understand such subtleties, wondered if they knew that the only way the Asgard could form vocal words was with small enhancing implants and doubted it. He thought of the assignment Thor had just informed him of, to become a permanent liaison to the Humans in the operation of Asgard technology interfaced in their ships, and suddenly felt very depressed.
"On the contrary," Thor said, "I have thought about this a great deal."
"Then perhaps you would care to share with me your reasoning." Hermiod attempted to give Thor a withering stare, but the Commander either did not notice or did not care.
"You will be going to teach," Thor said, his continuing patience with Hermiod's ire irritating the technician, "And also, you will be going to learn."
And to Hermiod's great disgust, he refused to elaborate much further.
**
Hermiod had almost managed to put that rather surreal evening in Lindsay’s quarters out of his mind, until the point where he had been staring at his console, attempting to get some sense out of a system diagnostic, and a thin book, with bright pictures on the front, was slid in front of his field of vision.
He put a hand on it to stop it from knocking interface stones out of position, and looked up to see Lindsay standing on the other side of his console, an smile on her face. “You seemed interested,” she told him, “I thought you might like a copy of some of the better known fairy tales. They’re sort of the sanitised Disney-ish versions, but if you really want to read the gory ones I can probably find you some copies of those on eBay.”
Hermiod just stared at her for a moment, blinked, and looked down at the book, then back at her.
“You er…” Lindsay’s face took on an uncertain cast. “You do read English, right?”
Hermiod straightened, glowered. “Of course,” he said, as if his knowledge was due to hard study and work, instead of an aggressive RNA-patching that had tweaked the language centres of his current clone to include comprehension of Earth languages.
If Lindsay was offended by his tone, she didn’t show it. “Great,” she said. “Let me know what you think.” And before he could call her back and object, a junior technician had called her away for her opinion on the weapons systems interface.
Hermiod looked at the colourful book as if it had personally slighted him. He decided that it was foolish nonsense, and slid the book underneath his console to forget about. He certainly didn’t intend to find himself in his quarters that evening, when he should have been resting, reading about the girl with the long golden hair that had sufficient tensile strength to be used as a ladder for a Human male. Implausible, and yet… entrancing.
**
“There are many elements to this cultural medium I do not understand,” Hermiod told Lindsay during a late lunch. He had been persuaded, after months aboard ship, to take his meals in the crew mess, even if the Humans found the scent of his food to be unpalatable. His food was almost untouched, the book of fairy tales lay open on the table in between himself and Lindsay.
“Like what?” Lindsay asked, drawing shapes in her mashed potato with her fork.
“The obsession with royalty for one,” Hermiod said, tapping the picture on display, that of a Princess wearing a crown. “I was under the impression that Earth was under the governance of a democratic assembly.”
Lindsay bobbed her head. “Er, well.. The United States is a democracy. Other countries have kings and queens and some have them and democracy as well.”
Hermiod smoothed out the page. “This splitting into nation states that you insist upon is most peculiar.”
“I think so, sometimes,” Lindsay said, and drew a smiley face in her food. “But I think you get princesses and princes in fairy tales because it’s… well… magical, and romantic.”
“This is another matter I do not understand,” Hermiod said, leaning forward, “Literature apparently aimed at children is replete with imagery of romance, and sexuality, however, as you have informed me, your culture finds it distasteful to associate children with these things.”
“I…” Lindsay twirled her fork distractedly, destroying the smile of the face she had drawn. She didn’t even seem to be aware she was doing it. “You’re right, I suppose. I guess we just don’t expect children to get the subtext.”
“Ah,” Hermiod nodded, “I believe I begin to understand. Then hidden meanings are laid within the text. The discernment of them signals the development of a more adult mental and sexual development.”
Lindsay gave a small laugh, interrupted by a hiccup. “I don’t think that’s what Disney had in mind.”
“I disagree,” Hermiod said, shrewdly, patting the book, “I have watched the copy of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ you gave to me, and believe I see a perception of adult sexuality as represented by the ‘beast’ character to be-”
“You know!” Lindsay abruptly stood, “I just remembered that we still haven’t realigned those lasers for the core initiator. We should do that.”
Hermiod glanced down at his food. “You wish to do this now?”
“Sure.” Lindsay hiccupped again. “No time like the present.”
Confused, Hermiod took a handful of foodcubes with him as he followed behind Lindsay, uncertain as to why she had responded so surprisingly for no apparent reason.
**
“You always call me Doctor Novak,” Lindsay said, a few weeks after they had started working together in the Daedalus’ engine room.
Hermiod still found Humans impenetrable at this point in his interaction with them. Their body language too subtle and relied on tiny muscle groupings in the face, and were thus too incomprehensible to him. Likewise, the voice was hard to understand, though the lower timbre suggested approachability, or gentleness. It was frustratingly difficult to decode, however, and Hermiod decided that the best approach was honesty. “That is your title and name, is it not? I was informed it was the correct mode of address for you upon our introduction.”
Lindsay’s mouth changed shape, revealing teeth, and Hermiod would later learn that this was a smile, not a mode of aggression, as she said, “But I’m not military. You’re not military. You can call me Lindsay. We have to work together a lot, right? I’d like to think we can be… erm… familiar enough for that.”
Hermiod stared at her long and hard.
“If you like,” she said, her voice less clear and words less audible than when she’d started.
“Thank you,” he said, “I appreciate the gesture, Lindsay.”
That smile returned, and she turned back to her own console. After a moment, she swivelled her chair to face him again. “Are you just called Hermiod? Or do you have a first name?”
Yes. “No,” Hermiod said, flatly, and that ended the conversation.
**
“Is it the romance?” Hermiod finally asked, after he had gone through much of the materials he could gather regarding “fairy tales”. It had been rather difficult. He had been forced to requisition data discs of cultural material from the SGC, and the majority of it had been in hand-drawn animated form. “Or perhaps the inclusion of musical elements?”
Lindsay was sitting on the floor of his quarters, where they had been talking of engineering matters, before moving back onto the fairy tales that Hermiod was still struggling to comprehend. None of the furniture was sized for Humans, so Hermiod had taken to keeping several large cushions for any Human guests to sit upon.
Lindsay sighed. “I don’t know why my culture likes it,” she said, shaking her head. “But I can tell you why I like it, if you want.”
Hermiod nodded, and gestured for her to speak.
Lindsay was silent for a moment, turning her cup in her hands. She’d been drinking an Asgard tea (completely digestible by Humans, although Lindsay called it ‘peppery’) that she’d persuaded Hermiod to let her try, but seemed to have forgotten she was holding it. “I remember being a little girl,” she said, “And reading stories about Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. And I wanted to be these girls. I wanted to be the beautiful princess. I wanted the palaces, the beautiful clothes. I wanted to be pretty and loved. And the Prince would come for me, and sweep me off my feet. He would make me feel special, and be kind and gentle.”
Lindsay sighed, “I think maybe it was because I didn’t have the happiest home life. Fairy tales were an escape. They were far away from a pokey little house where my parents were arguing all the time and we didn’t have enough money to make ends meet. When I got older, maths and machines were an escape, and I think I buried myself in those for years.” She paused, and laughed softly. “I think I’m still buried in them. It’s not like I’ve had a date in… well… since I can’t remember, it’s probably been too long.”
Hermiod watched her as she turned the cup around and around in her hands, refusing to look at him. “I do not recall my childhood,” he said, “Perhaps that information was lost in repeated conversions to data, and download into cloned bodies. Ideas of ‘romance’ are unnecessary, when you spend your time as little more than pure thought.”
Lindsay raised her eyes. “But you do reside in a body now. Surely something of biology affects you.”
“Remnants and echoes, and little more,” Hermiod admitted, “Strong emotion is lost to the Asgard, and I think perhaps we are less for it.”
Lindsay hesitated, then said, “Perhaps that’s why you like the fairy tales. It’s something you remember, vaguely.”
Hermiod nodded slowly, bowing his head, an inexplicable sensation building with him. It took a long moment to identify it. It was almost a shadow of uncertainty, of nervousness, perhaps. He felt a reluctance to speak the thoughts in his mind, but found himself speaking anyway. “One of your fairy tales,” he said, “Tells of a small man who challenged a girl to name him. A secret, private name that had the power to undo him.”
“Rumpelstiltskin,” Lindsay said, with a smile.
“Yes,” Hermiod said, hesitating again, and forcing himself to continue, “Asgard have something similar. We have so little that is personal, and private, but our names are one of these. They stay with us through the iterations of physicality, a marker that we are still unique and alive. Those who forget themselves, and become no more than recreated data we call ‘nameless’.”
Lindsay had set her cup down, hands in her lap and her attention focused sharply on him. “I didn’t know.”
“There is no reason that you would.” Hermiod said, “But you did once grant me the privilege of using your name, and I wish to offer you a similar gift. For I believe we are… friends… are we not?”
Lindsay nodded, so Hermiod leaned forward and spoke, quietly, in his own language, and told her his name.
“Well,” She said, after she had heard it, and repeated it softly to make sure she had the correct pronunciation, “You didn’t split in two.”
“Fortunately no,” he said, then thought about it for a moment. “Would giving such personal secrets be a gesture considered… romantic… by your definition?”
Lindsay’s skin, fascinatingly, changed shade, becoming a shade redder. “Maybe,” she murmured.
“Ah,” Hermiod said, “I believe I understand now.”
- End
Author: Jewels (bjewelled)
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
Summary: Fairy tales are a peculiarly Human thing, and they deal with particularly Human emotions. What’s an Asgard to do?
Notes: I have no idea what possessed me to write this. But Hermiod just doesn’t get enough love, in my opinion.
Word Count: 3,261
It was, Hermiod would later decide, entirely the fault of Doctor Lindsay Novak’s niece. The fact that the girl was barely nine years old and wasn’t even aware of Hermiod’s existence was no excuse whatsoever.
It had started one day, late into what was referred to as the Daedalus’ “night” cycle (really it was nothing more than a dimming of the lights to replicate some sort of diurnal cycle for the benefit of bodies unused to a spaceborne existence - Hermiod, possessing a cloned and artificial form, had no such problems). He was delivering Lindsay a copy of his recommendations regarding alterations to the fusion initiators that the Earth engineers had asked him to make, for her to look over and give final approval on, and had forgotten the lateness of the hour. Thus he was rather surprised when she answered the chime to her quarters in garments he was unaccustomed to seeing.
They were softer than the standard shipboard uniform, the colour pink, and he was struggling to understand what the significance of the change was when he realised that, most importantly, her hair was loose and free-flowing, not tied back into its usual neat style.
Hair styling was something that Hermiod had possessed no knowledge of before he had come aboard the Daedalus. When he had finally broken down and confessed (although he would never phrase his questions on the matter as such) that he did not understand what the length and arrangement of hair in females meant, Lindsay Novak had taken it upon herself to prove an education of sorts.
It was this brief course in Human habits that allowed Hermiod to realise that he had disturbed Lindsay during a period of relaxation, perhaps even sleep. He raised one hand in an apologetic gesture, an Asgard one that she could not understand, and said, “I am sorry, did I awaken you?”
Lindsay smiled, and shook her head. “Oh, no no. Not at all, Hermiod. Is something wrong?”
“No,” Hermiod held out a small data-receptacle, a flatter version of an Asgard control stone, for her to take. It would interface with the Daedalus’ systems, and was much easier to carry than the hefty tablets the Humans preferred. “I was merely bringing you a copy of my notes. I did not realise the time. My apologies.”
“It’s alright,” Lindsay said, taking the stone, the brush of her fingers seeming feverishly warm to Hermiod’s skin. She jerked her head to the screen on her wall, which was frozen on some colourful picture of small Humans in bright clothing. “I was just watching a video my sister sent me. It’s a play my niece was in, a school play based on a fairy tale.”
And then Hermiod asked that fateful question. Genuinely confused, he pressed his fingers together in a plea for explanation. “What is a ‘fairy tale’?”
**
Fairy tales, it turned out, were a peculiar form of Human storytelling, limited to one group of cultures on Earth. The small Humans were infants of the species, although Hermiod quickly worked that out for himself when Lindsay invited him to join her in watching the video, and he saw the unpractised motor and linguistic skills on display. They were clumsily recreating a story in a manner that Hermiod decided would have been fascinating to Beyla and her team of ethnologists (he quickly attempted to forget the recollection of Beyla, as he then could not help but recall the Replicator attack that had destroyed her team and the colony that they had been studying).
He found the situations implausible, and the stark perception of the world as being composed of moral absolutes to be immature, but he still found himself fascinated, against his better judgement, as the character named “Prince Charming” (in an overestimation of his own attributes, Hermiod thought) cut through streamers of green paper to reach a girl in a bright pink dress (Lindsay’s niece and apparently portrayed a Princess) to give her a clumsy and embarrassed pressing of the lips to her face.
When Hermiod asked what he was doing, Lindsay giggled and said, “He’s giving her a kiss to wake her up. One true love and all that.”
Hermiod’s confusion must have been apparent in the way he stared at her, because he bit her lip and looked at him with a tightening of muscles around her eyes that Hermiod had learnt meant ‘anxiety’ or ‘nervousness’. “Do you… know what a kiss is?”
Hermiod cast his mind back to the anthropological database he had been given to study before taking up residence aboard an Earth ship, and the examples of such behaviour he had witnessed amongst members of the crew when they believed they were unobserved. “A sexual gesture,” he said, “A prelude to intercourse.”
Lindsay stared at him, her eyes unnaturally wide for a moment, then giggled, pressing her fingers to her lips to smother the sound. “Erm, not always,” she said.
Hermiod shifted to face her. They had been sitting on her bed, watching the video on the wall screen, and now he folded his legs underneath him in a position approximating the Human manner of kneeling. “Please explain,” he said.
“Well…” Lindsay licked her lips, another ‘nervous’ signifier. “It’s not always a sexual gesture. It’s also one of affection, of friendship. Parents kiss children, friends might kiss. Generally kisses not on the lips are less… sexual.” She shook her head, gave another anxious giggle. “I’m not the best person to explain this. It varies between cultures as well.”
Hermiod nodded, thoughtfully. “Physical contact as a way of emotional expression has not been a part of the Asgard for many centuries, since the perpetuation of our species by cloning rendered such things… extraneous.”
“Oh,” Lindsay reached up, pulling on her hair. “Then, you’ve never been kissed?”
“Does that…” Hermiod narrowed his eyes in mimicry of the Human expression of frowning, “Does that matter?”
“No,” Lindsay said, quickly, “Just kinda sad is all.”
Before Hermiod could make a response to that, Lindsay leaned forward, pressing her lips to his head, just above the eye folds. Her lips were dry, and warm, and he could feel an afterimage of her touch even after she leaned back, as quickly as she had moved to touch him.
“There,” she said, grinning, “Now you can’t say you’ve never been kissed.”
Rather lost for words, Hermiod reached up and rubbed the spot on his head where she’d kissed him.
**
When Hermiod, a technician of not inconsiderate standing in the Asgard Ministry of Science, was informed of his new assignment, he was not at all pleased.
The fact that the order came from the Supreme Commander of the Fleet made it all the more difficult to express some sort of pleasure. It was quite clear that there was to be no real way of challenging this assignment, and Hermiod resented the fact that Thor had invited him to his home on Hál and sprung the unwelcome news in such peaceful surroundings.
Thor was sitting patiently on the bench outside his low-rising home. Thor was unusual amongst the Asgard for having created a dwelling so far from their fellows. Hermiod had wondered if he found the overwhelming abundance of nature soothing. Hermiod only found that the pollen in Hál's atmosphere irritated his upper respiratory tract.
Hermiod clutched the juice bulb in his hands tighter in frustration, stopping only when some of the tart liquid spilled out and over his hands. "Why me?" he asked, thoroughly miserable.
Thor took a calm sip from his own bulb. "I believe that you are best suited to the task."
"With respect," Hermiod said, tightly, looking past Thor at the tiny iCi birds flittering around some of the nearby blossoms, "I believe you are in error. I am the worst possible person to become a liaison with Humans."
Thor made a sound that nearly approached laughter, but unfortunately, their endoskeletal structure had lost the flexibility to create a large sound long ago. Hermiod distantly wondered if Humans could understand such subtleties, wondered if they knew that the only way the Asgard could form vocal words was with small enhancing implants and doubted it. He thought of the assignment Thor had just informed him of, to become a permanent liaison to the Humans in the operation of Asgard technology interfaced in their ships, and suddenly felt very depressed.
"On the contrary," Thor said, "I have thought about this a great deal."
"Then perhaps you would care to share with me your reasoning." Hermiod attempted to give Thor a withering stare, but the Commander either did not notice or did not care.
"You will be going to teach," Thor said, his continuing patience with Hermiod's ire irritating the technician, "And also, you will be going to learn."
And to Hermiod's great disgust, he refused to elaborate much further.
**
Hermiod had almost managed to put that rather surreal evening in Lindsay’s quarters out of his mind, until the point where he had been staring at his console, attempting to get some sense out of a system diagnostic, and a thin book, with bright pictures on the front, was slid in front of his field of vision.
He put a hand on it to stop it from knocking interface stones out of position, and looked up to see Lindsay standing on the other side of his console, an smile on her face. “You seemed interested,” she told him, “I thought you might like a copy of some of the better known fairy tales. They’re sort of the sanitised Disney-ish versions, but if you really want to read the gory ones I can probably find you some copies of those on eBay.”
Hermiod just stared at her for a moment, blinked, and looked down at the book, then back at her.
“You er…” Lindsay’s face took on an uncertain cast. “You do read English, right?”
Hermiod straightened, glowered. “Of course,” he said, as if his knowledge was due to hard study and work, instead of an aggressive RNA-patching that had tweaked the language centres of his current clone to include comprehension of Earth languages.
If Lindsay was offended by his tone, she didn’t show it. “Great,” she said. “Let me know what you think.” And before he could call her back and object, a junior technician had called her away for her opinion on the weapons systems interface.
Hermiod looked at the colourful book as if it had personally slighted him. He decided that it was foolish nonsense, and slid the book underneath his console to forget about. He certainly didn’t intend to find himself in his quarters that evening, when he should have been resting, reading about the girl with the long golden hair that had sufficient tensile strength to be used as a ladder for a Human male. Implausible, and yet… entrancing.
**
“There are many elements to this cultural medium I do not understand,” Hermiod told Lindsay during a late lunch. He had been persuaded, after months aboard ship, to take his meals in the crew mess, even if the Humans found the scent of his food to be unpalatable. His food was almost untouched, the book of fairy tales lay open on the table in between himself and Lindsay.
“Like what?” Lindsay asked, drawing shapes in her mashed potato with her fork.
“The obsession with royalty for one,” Hermiod said, tapping the picture on display, that of a Princess wearing a crown. “I was under the impression that Earth was under the governance of a democratic assembly.”
Lindsay bobbed her head. “Er, well.. The United States is a democracy. Other countries have kings and queens and some have them and democracy as well.”
Hermiod smoothed out the page. “This splitting into nation states that you insist upon is most peculiar.”
“I think so, sometimes,” Lindsay said, and drew a smiley face in her food. “But I think you get princesses and princes in fairy tales because it’s… well… magical, and romantic.”
“This is another matter I do not understand,” Hermiod said, leaning forward, “Literature apparently aimed at children is replete with imagery of romance, and sexuality, however, as you have informed me, your culture finds it distasteful to associate children with these things.”
“I…” Lindsay twirled her fork distractedly, destroying the smile of the face she had drawn. She didn’t even seem to be aware she was doing it. “You’re right, I suppose. I guess we just don’t expect children to get the subtext.”
“Ah,” Hermiod nodded, “I believe I begin to understand. Then hidden meanings are laid within the text. The discernment of them signals the development of a more adult mental and sexual development.”
Lindsay gave a small laugh, interrupted by a hiccup. “I don’t think that’s what Disney had in mind.”
“I disagree,” Hermiod said, shrewdly, patting the book, “I have watched the copy of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ you gave to me, and believe I see a perception of adult sexuality as represented by the ‘beast’ character to be-”
“You know!” Lindsay abruptly stood, “I just remembered that we still haven’t realigned those lasers for the core initiator. We should do that.”
Hermiod glanced down at his food. “You wish to do this now?”
“Sure.” Lindsay hiccupped again. “No time like the present.”
Confused, Hermiod took a handful of foodcubes with him as he followed behind Lindsay, uncertain as to why she had responded so surprisingly for no apparent reason.
**
“You always call me Doctor Novak,” Lindsay said, a few weeks after they had started working together in the Daedalus’ engine room.
Hermiod still found Humans impenetrable at this point in his interaction with them. Their body language too subtle and relied on tiny muscle groupings in the face, and were thus too incomprehensible to him. Likewise, the voice was hard to understand, though the lower timbre suggested approachability, or gentleness. It was frustratingly difficult to decode, however, and Hermiod decided that the best approach was honesty. “That is your title and name, is it not? I was informed it was the correct mode of address for you upon our introduction.”
Lindsay’s mouth changed shape, revealing teeth, and Hermiod would later learn that this was a smile, not a mode of aggression, as she said, “But I’m not military. You’re not military. You can call me Lindsay. We have to work together a lot, right? I’d like to think we can be… erm… familiar enough for that.”
Hermiod stared at her long and hard.
“If you like,” she said, her voice less clear and words less audible than when she’d started.
“Thank you,” he said, “I appreciate the gesture, Lindsay.”
That smile returned, and she turned back to her own console. After a moment, she swivelled her chair to face him again. “Are you just called Hermiod? Or do you have a first name?”
Yes. “No,” Hermiod said, flatly, and that ended the conversation.
**
“Is it the romance?” Hermiod finally asked, after he had gone through much of the materials he could gather regarding “fairy tales”. It had been rather difficult. He had been forced to requisition data discs of cultural material from the SGC, and the majority of it had been in hand-drawn animated form. “Or perhaps the inclusion of musical elements?”
Lindsay was sitting on the floor of his quarters, where they had been talking of engineering matters, before moving back onto the fairy tales that Hermiod was still struggling to comprehend. None of the furniture was sized for Humans, so Hermiod had taken to keeping several large cushions for any Human guests to sit upon.
Lindsay sighed. “I don’t know why my culture likes it,” she said, shaking her head. “But I can tell you why I like it, if you want.”
Hermiod nodded, and gestured for her to speak.
Lindsay was silent for a moment, turning her cup in her hands. She’d been drinking an Asgard tea (completely digestible by Humans, although Lindsay called it ‘peppery’) that she’d persuaded Hermiod to let her try, but seemed to have forgotten she was holding it. “I remember being a little girl,” she said, “And reading stories about Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. And I wanted to be these girls. I wanted to be the beautiful princess. I wanted the palaces, the beautiful clothes. I wanted to be pretty and loved. And the Prince would come for me, and sweep me off my feet. He would make me feel special, and be kind and gentle.”
Lindsay sighed, “I think maybe it was because I didn’t have the happiest home life. Fairy tales were an escape. They were far away from a pokey little house where my parents were arguing all the time and we didn’t have enough money to make ends meet. When I got older, maths and machines were an escape, and I think I buried myself in those for years.” She paused, and laughed softly. “I think I’m still buried in them. It’s not like I’ve had a date in… well… since I can’t remember, it’s probably been too long.”
Hermiod watched her as she turned the cup around and around in her hands, refusing to look at him. “I do not recall my childhood,” he said, “Perhaps that information was lost in repeated conversions to data, and download into cloned bodies. Ideas of ‘romance’ are unnecessary, when you spend your time as little more than pure thought.”
Lindsay raised her eyes. “But you do reside in a body now. Surely something of biology affects you.”
“Remnants and echoes, and little more,” Hermiod admitted, “Strong emotion is lost to the Asgard, and I think perhaps we are less for it.”
Lindsay hesitated, then said, “Perhaps that’s why you like the fairy tales. It’s something you remember, vaguely.”
Hermiod nodded slowly, bowing his head, an inexplicable sensation building with him. It took a long moment to identify it. It was almost a shadow of uncertainty, of nervousness, perhaps. He felt a reluctance to speak the thoughts in his mind, but found himself speaking anyway. “One of your fairy tales,” he said, “Tells of a small man who challenged a girl to name him. A secret, private name that had the power to undo him.”
“Rumpelstiltskin,” Lindsay said, with a smile.
“Yes,” Hermiod said, hesitating again, and forcing himself to continue, “Asgard have something similar. We have so little that is personal, and private, but our names are one of these. They stay with us through the iterations of physicality, a marker that we are still unique and alive. Those who forget themselves, and become no more than recreated data we call ‘nameless’.”
Lindsay had set her cup down, hands in her lap and her attention focused sharply on him. “I didn’t know.”
“There is no reason that you would.” Hermiod said, “But you did once grant me the privilege of using your name, and I wish to offer you a similar gift. For I believe we are… friends… are we not?”
Lindsay nodded, so Hermiod leaned forward and spoke, quietly, in his own language, and told her his name.
“Well,” She said, after she had heard it, and repeated it softly to make sure she had the correct pronunciation, “You didn’t split in two.”
“Fortunately no,” he said, then thought about it for a moment. “Would giving such personal secrets be a gesture considered… romantic… by your definition?”
Lindsay’s skin, fascinatingly, changed shade, becoming a shade redder. “Maybe,” she murmured.
“Ah,” Hermiod said, “I believe I understand now.”
- End