Fic: Intermediate Astronomy
Here's that Winona Kirk fic I started over a week ago and forgot to finish. Oops.
i.
Her mother blows out the stars with her dying breath.
Winona sits on the porch in the rust haze of the creeping evening, cricket-song in the long grass. She is waiting for the doctor to pack his bag and the pastor to close his book. She's growing impatient to watch their straight-backed forms retreat into the dusk.
Tomorrow will be a day of strained politeness and empty conversation. Her squalid-looking aunt, the one with dirty fingernails and too many children, will bring her more food than she will ever have use for; it will sit on a gingham table cloth looking pretty as a picture and she will eat none of it. They all will ask her how she's managing, if she needs anything, if there's any little thing they could possibly do to ease her suffering. The thought makes her grit her teeth.
The dark house will be filled with more human life than it has been in years. She hopes they trample it to tinder.
The recruiter arrives in three weeks. Winona looks up at the empty sky and knows she will find them.
ii.
If no one pays much attention to the skinny farmgirl from Iowa, well, she doesn't mind.
Her grades are good but not extraordinary. Her Andorian roommate talks too much. Most days she spends her free time in the observatory, charting constellations her peers have never heard of. Some of the newer techs give her sideways glances, but most of the professors simply ignore her and carry on with their own studies. She does the same and continues her search.
She still recieves transmissions from Iowa occasionally. They are largely neglected, but the tally of the months until her assignment is always with her.
There is an affair with a professor in her third year. She'd never tell him this, but the cadets were beginning to bore her. He is a tall man and solidly-built, handsome enough. He's nearly balding as well, and she finds his cringing attempts to please her pathetic though she has enough restraint not to mention this either. He should know better. After five months of sordidness he says he'll leave his wife for her. "No need," she says, and presses the apartment key into his outstretched palm.
iii.
The Kelvin is beautiful. Winona's eyes trace the silvered edges smoothing to the shell of the hull. The glow of the reactor bathes her in burning blue as she circles its perimeter, gazing up at its looming sleekness.
George Kirk winks at her as she boards the ship. She smiles ever so slightly, just a twitch of her cheek, really. It's not entirely for him.
Soon they will be shot into the silent void and she'll have come home at last.
i.
Her mother blows out the stars with her dying breath.
Winona sits on the porch in the rust haze of the creeping evening, cricket-song in the long grass. She is waiting for the doctor to pack his bag and the pastor to close his book. She's growing impatient to watch their straight-backed forms retreat into the dusk.
Tomorrow will be a day of strained politeness and empty conversation. Her squalid-looking aunt, the one with dirty fingernails and too many children, will bring her more food than she will ever have use for; it will sit on a gingham table cloth looking pretty as a picture and she will eat none of it. They all will ask her how she's managing, if she needs anything, if there's any little thing they could possibly do to ease her suffering. The thought makes her grit her teeth.
The dark house will be filled with more human life than it has been in years. She hopes they trample it to tinder.
The recruiter arrives in three weeks. Winona looks up at the empty sky and knows she will find them.
ii.
If no one pays much attention to the skinny farmgirl from Iowa, well, she doesn't mind.
Her grades are good but not extraordinary. Her Andorian roommate talks too much. Most days she spends her free time in the observatory, charting constellations her peers have never heard of. Some of the newer techs give her sideways glances, but most of the professors simply ignore her and carry on with their own studies. She does the same and continues her search.
She still recieves transmissions from Iowa occasionally. They are largely neglected, but the tally of the months until her assignment is always with her.
There is an affair with a professor in her third year. She'd never tell him this, but the cadets were beginning to bore her. He is a tall man and solidly-built, handsome enough. He's nearly balding as well, and she finds his cringing attempts to please her pathetic though she has enough restraint not to mention this either. He should know better. After five months of sordidness he says he'll leave his wife for her. "No need," she says, and presses the apartment key into his outstretched palm.
iii.
The Kelvin is beautiful. Winona's eyes trace the silvered edges smoothing to the shell of the hull. The glow of the reactor bathes her in burning blue as she circles its perimeter, gazing up at its looming sleekness.
George Kirk winks at her as she boards the ship. She smiles ever so slightly, just a twitch of her cheek, really. It's not entirely for him.
Soon they will be shot into the silent void and she'll have come home at last.