Esse Nuquerna by AdmirableMonster

Esse Nuquerna (Name Reversed)

The mists shimmered, but Captain Corda did not halt.  Fearless as ever, he rowed vigorously onwards.  The storm had died down now, and the howling of the winds was quite gone, but the strange iridescent mist that had appeared everywhere around the little rowboat seemed to go on forever.

“Captain.” Fairië leaned forward, her dark eyes glittering with interest.  “What do you think it is?”

“Should’ve brought the Elf,” grumbled Fëanárion, the ship’s doctor.  “He’d have five theories by now.”

“Why, doctor,” said Captain Corda, with an amused lilt to his voice.  “Is that something positive I hear you saying about our esteemed Mr. Nimruzimir?”

“Pointy-eared bastard at least knows his anomalies,” muttered Fëanárion.  “And if you tell him I said so, I’ll—”

“Ye’ll sulk fer a week,” supplied Norno, his accent tinted as always by his Dwarvish origins.

There was a low, thumping noise, and the little craft halted abruptly.  The four occupants looked up to see the hull of the Verië herself looming out of the sparkling mists before them.

“Well, I hope we haven’t dented my ship,” said Captain Corda, trying to maintain a lightness to his tone.  He had the spine-prickling sensation that she had not been there just a moment before, that they had felt the impact before being able to see her.  But even as he thought this, a red-shirted crew-member leaned out and tossed a rope-ladder down the side, beckoning for them to climb.  At least they were expected, even if they had failed in their mission of obtaining resources from the local inhabitants and had tried to return a little early, thinking to outrun the storm.  Unfortunately, they hadn’t succeeded, but that hardly mattered now.

Fëanárion—a man with no sea legs, which made his chosen profession particularly surprising—went first, follwed by Fairië, then Corda himself, and finally Norno.  Corda would have preferred to be the last one up, but Norno was sometimes a little self-conscious about being slower than the others.  

They were helped onto the deck near the bow, where Nimruzimir was standing with his back to them, in close conversation with the ship’s pilot.  “Ah, Captain,” he said, as Corda started towards him.  “Were you successful in your negotiations?”

“I’m afraid not, Mr. Nimruzimir—the Council was most vociferously against allowing us to mine in their caves.”

“Such defiance cannot be countenanced, of course,” said Nimruzimir’s dry voice .  “We will have to make an example of them.”  That voice—as familiar to Corda as his own father’s—calmly speaking words that his gentle, logical first mate would have died himself rather than uttering.  He turned, and the queer light of that shimmering mist played across his sparse, angular features, emphasizing the lights and the darks, and in particular, a short-cropped black beard that had most certainly not been there when the landing party had set out that morning.

A chill ran through Corda.  This was not their Verië.

Nimruzimir’s breathless perusal of the newest Menel Mentie novel was interrupted by his father’s voice calling for him.  He sat up irritably, blinking as the world around him reasserted itself.

“Really, darling, you’re going to make us late.”  His father leaned into the bedroom—still new, still strange, even after three weeks of living in Andúnië.  “This is a very important dinner, and—” He paused, his eyes going from the novel to the lamp on Nimruzimir’s bedside.  “Did you make that?”

“I was bored,” Nimruzimir shrugged.  The lamp made a glopping noise, and another bubble of wax melted off from the main body and slowly floated toward the top, through the colored water above it.

“That’s—extremely impressive,” said his father, with a slow smile.  “My brilliant little girl.”

The praise warmed Nimruzimir’s heart, even if—as always—there was something slightly slantwise off about it.  But his father loved him very much, he knew that.  And there were, obviously, all sorts of perfectly scientific explanations for people to see things different, as Menel Mentie’s Nimruzimir was fond of saying.

His father shook his head slightly, like a man resurfacing from a dream.  “We do have to go, I’m afraid,” he said.  “It’s crucial for us that I establish my place here, and that means introducing all my new business partners to my family.”

He meant Nimruzimir, of course.  Not all his family—just his child, because Nimruzimir’s mother had walked away and left them behind and never come home, and as far as Nimruzimir could tell, his father had decided that this meant she had never existed at all.  But he was here now, and he supposed he must make the best of it.  “Yes, F-Father,” he said, with a sigh and a longing glance back at the book.

“Oh, bring it,” his father said, after a moment, indulgently.  “I don’t imagine they’ll mind if you spend most of the dinner reading.  Just promise me you’ll answer if you’re asked any questions, all right?”

That would make things substantially easier.  “Thank you, Father.”

“Anything for my little girl.”

As he got off the bed and glanced back at his lamp and his book, Nimruzimir reminded himself that one day, he would be grown, and then he could follow in his namesake’s footsteps and have great adventures beneath the stars.  And no one would mind that his mother was Dunlendish—for Fairië was of the Druédain—and no one would mind if he called himself a man—for they didn’t ask such silly questions on board the Verië.

Chapter End Notes

Very loosely inspired by Wheel of the Sky by Journey, and I threw in a lava lamp just to make sure it was sufficiently 70s.  The idea of Esse Nuquerna as the in-universe version of Mirror, Mirror was delightful, because I'd been desperately seeking for something to write to Esse Nuquerna.  And of course, Star Trek is one of my old faves.

For those viewers at home who are interested--Captain Corda is from "Corda," the Quenya for "Temple" to play on "Kirk/Church," Fairië means "freedom" in Quenya, much like Uhura, but I decided she would use a Quenya translation to avoid me headaching over figuring out a language to represent that of the Druédain.  "Norno" means Dwarf, and he IS--much as Scotty is a Scot.  The one that amuses me the absolute most is that McCoy derives in part from the the Irish Mac Aodh, "son of fire", so you can see I've played around with some real punning in these parts ("Feanárion = son of Feanáro, which means "spirit of fire")  Spock is Nimruzimir not for any name reasons but because I made the determination in some of the earlier-written fics in this series that Nimruzimir had to get his name from somewhere, and it amused me to have him name himself after Númenorean Spock, but that one doesn't have any special meaning in the context.  "Verië" means "boldness" (ie Enterprise) and "Menel Mentie" is Quenya for "star journey" -- with thanks to Calimë for the translation.