Like a dandelion up through the pavement, I persist

If it was difficult to lay your hands on recordings of Klingon opera on Gault, it was next to impossible to find sheet music of the same. Unless, that is, you happened to be in the home of Sergey and Helena Rozhenko and knew the right floorboards to prise open in the second story room that was the first on the left after the stairs.

Handwritten on real paper was a neat pile of sheet music. If it tended towards what a snob might consider the more overplayed arias, then that may have been explained by the fact that their transcriber had only a limited selection to work from. Largely material that appealed to humans, or at least to those humans who enjoyed Klingon opera.

Working with a small keyboard on his lap and a pencil gripped between his teeth, Worf listened to the piece again at one-quarter speed.

"Computer, pause audio file," he said, voice muffled by the writing implement.

He retrieved the pencil and scribbled down a further few bars and then looked it over, humming the notes and comparing it to the air in his head. He frowned and added a flat next to the second to last note.

He didn't know Klingon musical notation, so he wrote in the system that he was familiar with, feeling a little uneasy seeing those Klingon notes trapped by human staff lines. But he worked with what he had and what he had was six months of piano lessons and a lot of perseverance.

A knock startled him out of his thoughts.

"Your mother has made dinner, bubbeleh," Sergey Rozhenko's voice came through the door.

"Tell her thank you, but I'm not hungry," he lied. He was ravenous, but he was too occupied by his task to be able to even think about leaving for food.

He heard a sigh and the sound of his father's footsteps going back down the stairs. A twinge of guilt twisted in his belly. He didn't like to appear ungrateful, and he certainly wasn't comfortable mouthing off to his parents like his brother occasionally did, but something in him prevented him from going downstairs and politely eating his dinner.

"Computer, resume at one-eighth speed."