Title: Raspberries
Fandom: ST TOS
Characters: Spock, Starek
Rating: G-
Warnings: None
Notes: I just watched the season premier of Numbers, which reminded me of something I once knew, but had forgotten.
Spock raised an eyebrow, bemusedly, at the bowl of fruit reverently cradled in Starek's hands. "Raspberries. It is a bowl of raspberries."
"It is so much more than that, k'diwa." Starek raised his gaze from the bowl, catching Spock's eyes. "Before Surak, before your blood and mine were apart, before the first Vulcan gunships launched, in the Imperial Age, there was a researcher who studied the chemicals that floated loosely in the void. Veren, as I recall. And the first chain he identified was ethyl formate."
Starek paused, smiling, faintly. "Years — centuries — later, contact was made with Earth. It took my people longer to learn, but your people learned the relative nature of ethyl formate, at last. The Terrans said it smelled like rum and tasted of raspberries."
He reached out and grabbed a small bottle from the table, upending it into the bowl. "The beginning and the end of all things smells and tastes like this." Plunging his fingers into the bowl, Starek brought up two fingers dripping with rum, a raspberry caught between them. "Come and lick it from my fingers, while we gaze out at the stars."
