Firewalker

Fanfiction
Title:	Firewalker
Author(s):	Scott Hunter
Date(s):	1997
Length:
Genre(s):	slash
Fandom(s):	Star Trek: TOS
Relationship(s):	Kirk/Spock
External Links:
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Firewalker is a Kirk/Spock story by Scott Hunter.

It was published in the print zine Scattered Stars #10.

Summary

"Kirk visits Arizona on medical shoreleave when he is unable to forget Miramanee, and meets a Vulcan archaeologist who he ends up spending all his time with."

Reactions and Reviews

1998

Kirk is in need of rest after the Miramanee (spelled in the story as Miramonee - presume because it's an A/U story) incident. McCoy suggests that he go on shore leave and Kirk chooses a desert survival camping trip by himself. McCoy contacts Spock who's an anthropologist at the Academy to watch over Kirk.

An Indian boy comes to Kirk's camping spot and tells him that he's doing a rite of manhood and that Kirk is his prisoner. He drugs Kirk and takes him to his tribe. The tribe offers him hospitality and Kirk tells them about Miramonee.

Kirk and Spock meet and they fall in love which is fine except this all happens too quickly - not in length of time, but in the writing. The loss of Kirk's wife and unborn child and then meeting Spock for the first time could be a wonderfully rich story - it's an excellent idea. But here it's just a slight story.

Fire Walker moves up and down, meaning that parts of the story move slowly and some fast. That's okay as long as the whole connects without having that different tempo disrupt the flow, which it does. The ending is too hurried. To watch their growing awareness is always a delight and that is missing. Kirk's decision to leave Starfleet and take on a position of an exploratory vessel is being dealt with in a few sentences, startling me by its abruptness. Granted, he gets Spock too but nothing prepared me for their closeness, their wish to remain together. There's too much which needed some in depth exploration crammed into a few sentences.

1999

James Kirk visits a wilderness preserve on Earth to recover from his loss of Miramonee and their child. Here he meets Spock, a budding anthropologist sent by McCoy to watch over Kirk, and a band of Native Americans who continue to live as their ancestors did. That Kirk would seek out the type of life he had with his wife to ease the pain of his loss made for an interesting scenario, I thought.

This story had some nice turns of phrase, including "And with you, we can take on forever." Also a few glitches: "least" for "lest," "Vulcan’s" for Vulcans," etc. Perhaps the reader was taken a bit too quickly from the pain Kirk was feeling to his new relationship with Spock. A few more details of their time together would have made the ending flow better and be less abrupt.

I do, however, like the ideas this author comes up with, and would like to read more of her work in the future.

2005

In this story Kirk and Spock have not yet met, but Kirk is suffering nightmares after the loss of Miramanee, and his unborn child. We are not told how or why. McCoy is sufficiently worried by his condition to order shore leave, and Kirk decides to visit an Indian reservation, or wilderness preserve in New Arizona, and live with the people so that he can try to come to terms with his loss. Worried by the lack of technology there, McCoy gets in touch with a Vulcan student called Spock who is studying ‘Earliest Americans’ and asks him to keep an eye on Kirk. Kirk is soon ‘captured’ by a young man undergoing his right of passage and taken to the camp, bound, on a donkey. Soon he meets Spock, and they spend three weeks together talking, visiting sites of interest, and falling in love.