Klingon Tea Ceremony

[Jennifer Braggins]

==

[Artemis d'Tor'an]

== To help, I rewrote/revamped the wiki page! ==


They had survived. The team from the Philadelphia had gone into the Cardassian ship, shut things down from Engineering, and then moved on to the Cargo Bay and had saved their people. Federation hostages, all Starfleet officers, with one psychotic Cardassian guarding them. He had shot, Jensen made sure he was obliterated, and Art had stood by his side through it all. Almost offhandedly, Art made mention of the Klingon Tea Ceremony to Commander Jensen, and thankfully, even in the heat of the moment, he had understood what that meant.

“Death is an experience best shared.”

The rarely-spoken-of Klingon Tea Ceremony was a sacred ritual in the Klingon culture. It represented death, and facing the inevitable, and the hope of every Klingon warrior: to die in battle. The ceremony was only even done between two people, usually not long after a shared battle experience where death was all but certain. It was an intimate ceremony between two people who were more than friends, and family not by blood, but whose bond was battle-forged. And this experience with the Cardassians had only been the latest.

Artemis, daughter of Tor’an, had invited Peter Jensen to partake in this ceremony today. On board her new quarters on the USS Yeager, which were still sparsely decorated, a serving tray was the only dish on a table. Next to it, a winding branch sat, covered in large, sharp thorns. Feeling as if everything was now set up and ready, Artie checked the time: her friend should be here any minute.


==Tag Jensen!==

[Peter Jensen]

Peter realized the immense honor of what he had been invited to. He had tried to prepare as best he could, obviously securing and taking the antidote that would allow him to survive the experience, but also working as much as his duties allowed on his Klingon pronunciation. He wouldn't want, after all, to accidentally call someone's mother a hamster - or the Klingon equivalent - by mispronunciation.

He had put on his dress uniform for the ceremony, the finest he had. If it was suitable for welcoming self-important brass to the ship, it was suitable for this too. Even more so, in fact.

When he entered the room, he felt the solemnity of the moment even more so than when he had been proceeding there. He smiled as he saw her. He had come to depend on her more than he realized. When he'd taken command of the Philadelphia to hunt down the Yeager, there had been absolutely no doubt in his mind as to who he'd wanted as XO. Peter trusted d'Tor'an with his life, and she had stood by him in one of the most crucial moments of his life. A moment he thought back on with trepidation and bafflement of having actually done that.

Yes, it had turned out to be a massive waste of time in the end, but that had not been his fault, he realized that quite clearly. And regardless: D'Tor'an had stood with him when he had needed it the most. And the mission to the Cardassian ship had been a repeat of that. As a DH she could have politely suggested that he take someone else. There was certainly no lack of capable people in Security. But...she had stood with him again, without question. He appreciated that more than he could put into words. And he couldn't imagine anyone else he'd rather have had by his side at that point.

"Thank you for inviting me, Leftenant", he said softly. "I...I almost tremble at the oppressive honor of taking part in what I have understood is a sacred ceremony. I have tried to prepare as best I could.", he assured her, and then nodded his head ever so slightly with his hands slightly moved forward, turning the palms upward, in a gesture that was meant to say "Please take the lead.". He had tried to do his homework the best he could, but he also knew that he was a stranger here.

== lupDujHomwIj luteb gharghmey! ==

[Artemis d'Tor'an]

Opening the door to her friend in a full dress uniform caught Art by surprise. She was in uniform herself, but aside from it being a brand new uniform (along with her not-brand-new official title), she almost paled in comparison to the First Officer.

“Welcome!” She said brightly, grinning at him. One of us is going to have to change! It was a half-joking thought, and she wondered if putting on some Klingon armor would be too much. It was just tea, after all, no matter the ritual. It wasn’t that she didn’t consider it important; she was more thinking how hard it might be to drink said tea with plated armor on.

He thanked her for inviting him, and his tone was solemn. It was so enlightening to Artemis to see Peter so humbled and emotionally vulnerable. She could count on one half-hand how many times she had even called him by his first name; they had always managed to stay professional, even in their familiarity. Asking this human to partake in the Klingon Tea Ceremony was an almost-unheard of honor, and Jensen certainly understood that.

To anyone uneducated, it would be educational to know that by participating in this ritual, Peter Jensen was taking a great risk. Even with an antidote, the poison tea was not kind to one’s system. “Well,” Art started, “we start by sitting down, and acknowledging the plainness of the pot and cups.” She moved the cups more towards each chair, and explained why they did so. Surprisingly, she found her voice shaking, if just a little. “Life, like the cups, starts out plain…” she motioned to the tea pot full of steaming water, her voice steadying as she continued, “and it’s what you put into it that makes it matter.”

Once they were both seated, she continued, “The vine in front of us is to be stripped of its thorns -which represent the initial pain of battle- and placed into the pot of water. Then the other takes the petals off of the flowers of the vine, and places them in each of the cups.”

She stopped, not wanting to get ahead of herself. Taking a deep breath, she stopped to look at Peter, to see how he was taking this all in.


==I suddenly feel like I’m doing Passover dinner! ==

[Peter Jensen]

Peter followed her carefully, doing his best to not do something that might be considered offensive, though of course he had to admit to being somewhat in the dark on that subject. He didn't know a whole lot about Klingon culture, but what he knew, he admired greatly.

Yes, there were...shall we say....less than admirable parts of it too. The slavery. The subjugation of entire worlds. The Klingon Empire was definitely something of a mixed bag as far as Peter was concerned.
But he deeply admired Klingon culture, especially the value it placed on honor, loyalty, and sticking to one's word.

Of course he wasn't so naive as to think that this meant that all Klingons were honorable, even by their own standards, or kept their word always.
But this was true of everyone. He knew that well enough. And still, the dedication, loyalty, honor, integrity, and martial prowess which the Klingons valued, resonated deeply with something inside him.

He followed her movements and her words vis a vis the cups and teapot. He was under no illusion as to how the aftermath of this was likely to be...unpleasant. But he was fairly certain that he wouldn't die. And that, at least, was something. Not many humans were allowed or trusted with this honor, and he took it deadly seriously.

I just hope that doesn't mean literally the little voice in the back of his mind said - even as another part of him thought At least I'd be in good company - as he looked as he felt: Humbled, honored, nervous of doing something wrong. So he listened to her instructions carefully, and then proceeded to try to strip the vine of its thorns as she'd said. It was easier said than done. Both because...well, this was not something he was used to doing, but also because his hands were shaking a bit from nervousness. Meaning that he pricked his fingers quite badly more than once and let out hisses of pain. A few droplets of blood fell from his finger to the table, which he didn't notice as he was so entranced in managing a simple task like putting the thorns in the pot of water. He held the thorns almost ceremoneously in one hand, while using the other to drop them in, indiviually.

He had no idea if this was the right way to do it, but he trusted that Artemis had spent enough time around humans by now to realize that this was reverent by Human standards, and Peter was doing it as well as he could. He was feeling all sorts of things he couldn't really put into words right now but he was unquestioningly here. Now. In this moment. Sharing this moment with someone who, he realized, mattered to him much more than he would have thought when they'd first met.

[Artemis d'Tor'an]

At Art’s pause, Peter picked up the thorn-filled vine, doing his best to pluck the wood of its offensive parts. Art wanted to smile at him as she watched him prick himself again and again; it was almost like watching a child navigate through their first bramble bush in the woods. If she had been unsure about him taking the human-needed antidote, she would have also worried about the bacteria that the thorns would deposit into his bloodstream. But the tea, if anything, would do its best to kill that bacteria as well as it would try against their bodies’ healthy cells, as well. Small drops of his blood fell onto the table, and that did make Art smile; it would be very soon that both of their blood may be spilled, and the blood spilled now served to further honor the ceremony.

With the thorns now stripped from the vine, they sat in the tea pot, coloring the water as their essence gradually seeped out. It was a combination of the thorns and the petals that made up the poison: separately, they were not pleasant, but together, their chemicals combined into something lethal or near-lethal, depending on the strength of the warrior (or the medical bay). When Peter placed the top back onto the pot, Art tried to make her small smile into something that resembled reassurance. She didn’t want him to think she was laughing at him, or his pain.

The flower petals, which were as white as a metaphysical new soul, were now supposed to be picked off and placed at the bottom of the drinking cups. If she had beer steins, perhaps it would have been easier to just plop the whole flower in, but Art felt as if that would take away from the point of the ceremony. She found herself holding her breath as she took the individual petals and placed them, only realizing she had been holding her breath for a period of time when she went to blow out a thin strand of hair that threatened to fall in her vision. She scolded herself for not having better control over something as silly as her hair, but did her best to just tuck the hair behind her ear and move on.

Art poured the thorn-infused tea over the flower petals, soaking them and causing them to release even more flavor (and poison) into the liquid they would be drinking in a matter of minutes. It occurred to Artemis only then that as much as she liked to say that she was simply Klingon, her mother’s strength and human genetics might now be a bit of a downfall. She sighed, realizing too late that she might feel this a little harder than she had meant.

“batlh qo' mIw'a' neH ghaH.” She spoke in Klingon, raising her cup. “Hail to the glorious dead.” She nodded to Jensen to indicate that this was a direct translation. “We honor those warriors who have died in battle before us… and we honor each other today, as two warriors who have fought side by side.” Suddenly there was a lump in her throat. To avoid cracking, she fell back to her native language of Klingon.

“matay'DI' matay'DI' maQap… As we have shed blood in battle together, we are blood-bound.” That was a rough translation, but truth be told, it sounded better in English. “And now we test the bond of our blood - not with each other, but within ourselves.”

Bringing the tea cup to her mouth, Artemis raised her eyebrows at Peter, in a silent comment of ‘here we go!’ She brought the liquid into her mouth, surprised at how it tasted both sweet and bitter. That in itself was poetry: the sweetness of the liquid, chased by the bitter aftertaste, could easily be seen as a metaphor for life itself. She took a bigger sip, her heart beating perhaps a little bit faster now as she wondered how long it would take for the poison to attempt to seize her heart’s muscles.

[Peter Jensen]

Peter observed her carefully, trying to figure out when it was time for him to do something. He looked at the way the water changed color as the thorns did their thing. It was..beautiful in a strange way.

Like the changes to the courses of the river of life, he thought for a moment before smiling slightly at his own hidden poetic talent. And, suiting the action to the thought, he met her eyes, and...there was something in that moment that he had both not expected at all, and had felt for a while now. He didn't know how to put it into words.

"The changing of the color", he said softly, "reminds me of the changing stages of life. It starts out clear, but soon gets muddied, and changed, and difficult, and...well, full of thorns", he remarked.

Not all that poetic after all, are you? he thought to himself with his usual bit of self-deprecation coming in to sabotage him again. And then he smiled as he saw her blow a strand of hair away. This was indeed a serious affair. This was, as far as he could understand it, a borderline sacred ritual. But in that moment of her blowing hair away from her face - an everyday normal thing - she looked...different to him. He blinked a bit and tried to force his mind back to focus on the ceremony in front of him.
It was all..beautiful. The liquid changing colors. Even though he knew what it was, and that he would be dead in a few moments if it hadn't been for that antidote he'd taken.
The surroundings, the utensils. It all had a stark, spartan kind of beauty that he felt in his soul somehow.

He kept his eyes on her throughout her preparations for the decisive moment. He, frankly, had trouble taking them off her. And a million different conflicting emotions welled up in him like an orchestra of many instruments. He blinked again as he took his own cup in his hands, but didn't raise it yet. He felt his hands shake ever so slightly, so it was partly to not spill any of the liquid - though that could have been poetic as well, in a way, resembling the spilling of blood and the unpredictable nature of batte.

He looked at her.

"We have indeed both shed and spilled blood together", he said solemnly. "And there is no one I can think of that I would rather have by my side in battle. You stood with me when it mattered the most. When everyone else opposed me, you were there by my side", he said. "I could not have done what I did without you."

He looked down at the cup and sighed.

"Hail the glorious dead", he mused, then looked back up at her. His fear of doing something not usually done in the ritual had momentarily gone. He was definitely "living in the moment" now. Something he very rarely did. And what he was about to do was something he had never thought he'd do:

"I come from a long line of soldiers, and warriors. The Captain recently said that I am a cop, not a soldier. She is wrong. As far back as my line can be traced, almost 800 years, we have been soldiers. First in the Danish navy and army back on Earth. Then in Starfleet. Though I am the first officer in the family.", he paused before going on. "I have lost people under my command. I'll never forget the first. You can get the full story later, but to make it short, I didn't stick with my guts. I let my superior goad me into making a decision I shouldn't have. And it cost someone their life. I am haunted by that.", another small pause. "I have killed people. On the megasphere, another member of the away team was assimilated in front of our eyes. I had no choice. I would do it again in a heartbeat. But killing another Starfleet Officer....", yet another pause, "It sticks with you. I know I saved the team there. I know I did what I had to do. But I still see his face sometimes when I close my eyes", he finished. For a moment pondering whether all this was not exceptionally inappropriate at a solemn moment like this, then reasoning that while mentioning killing or dying would likely be inappropriate at any other ceremony like this, the Klingon Tea Ceremony might be the one such occasion where it'd be appropriate.

"I...haven't told anyone this before", he said softly. "I...I told you because....because your opinion matters to me", he looked her in the eyes. "I need to maintain an image. But I...I have come to rely on you. There is no one on this ship I trust more. Not even the Captain.", the words escaped his lips before he'd found a way to stop them. "The word "honor" is used among humans entirely too often for the significance it holds", he went on. "People talk of "duty and honor" without realizing the Marianas trench depth of those words. I doubt I even fully comprehend them to the bottom myself. But....and I have thought about this...", he added with a slight smile, realizing the irony of what he was about to say, "I am honored to serve with you and to call you my friend. You are a bulwark. A fortress. A loyal comrade in arms who's as solid as a mountain", he finished, once again showing all too well that his emotions were a lot deeper than his poetic talents.

Then he held out his cup in front of him, almost like a pastor holding the chalice before raising it during the communion-ritual he had observed during his - very - infrequent visits to a church and echoed her statement. This part of the ritual he had practised long and hard until he'd gotten the pronunciation as right as it was possible for a human to get:

" batlh qo' mIw'a' neH ghaH. " he said solemnly, then put the glass to his lips, tilted his head slightly backwards, and then did the same with the cup so the liquid flowed into his mouth.
The taste of it was both yes and no at the same time. It was sweet like candy and bitter like the world's most intense grapefruit. He quickly forced himself to swallow all of it, then put the cup down slowly, ceremoneously and looked her in the eyes. He was waiting now. Waiting for the inevitable backlash from his body. He was fairly certain he wouldn't die.

But if I die, I die well.