... ain't that just a monkey in the wrench?

Well... buh-bye Calican II. We'd love to help but, y'know, Prime Directive and all that.

I kid! We're heroes, for frill's sake! Peregine al rescante!!!

Yeah, I'm good for that kind of thing!

Feel that funny little tingle do no reason? That's Eol muckin around with your reality!

Shhhh.... Don't fight it... Everything is going to be... Weird.

Had to have Megan perched on the front edge of the Big Chair... I'm not sure her feet would touch the deck, otherwise.

I feel a Kennedy/Tochi/Zhay-la collab coming in the near future, too.

Stardate 2365.05.15
USS Peregrine; Deck 1, Bridge – 1504

Turning his attention to the helm, Silas continued.  "Tochi, if you are planning to stick around for a bit, you have the Conn.  If not, I believe that Ensign Owen is the scheduled officer of the watch?"

“Aye, sir,” Tochi returned, glancing over his shoulder to regard Silas, “She’s on her way. We told her to put her studies first given today’s circumstances, but she should be arriving straight away.”

"Very well," Drake nodded, prompting Tochi to return his gaze to the viewscreen and the helm where PO Amai had already relieved him. The Trill had just started backing toward the Big Chair when Drake’s receding voice called out and snatched at his attention, once more.

"Lieutenant Taissud, it appears that your station is well in hand for the time being.  Would you mind joining me in my ready room, please?"

Tochi’s brow furrowed and he flicked a quick glance at Zhay-la… Did we miss something? he wondered as the Orion woman acknowledged the Captain’s request and, dutifully, fell into step behind Silas. Nothing too serious, we’d imagine, he mused, his eyes following the pair for a moment longer before returning to the activities on the bridge, nothing she can’t handle.

For a short while, as he stood before the Captain’s chair, he simply watched the goings-on in silence. After a time, though, Lt Reid’s earlier call to Engineering echoed in his memory…

"I may be a bit paranoid,” the Security Chief had hailed, “but please be sure the beacon is scanned for any anomalies before it is pulled into the bay. See to it there are no nanites detectable or other oddities. We are still not sure where the nanites originated and we don't need to be infected again."

…at the time the call was made, Tochi had agreed with the man’s own assessment that the request might have been borne of little more than a survivor’s paranoia. As the time had lapsed, though, and Reid’s request worried at the base of Zai’s skull, the XO could see where such a thing might be a valid concern. They, along with Starfleet Command, had assumed that the threat of the Chimera Nanites had ended with the scuttling of the Serapis and the Peregrine’s subsequent scrubbing, quarantine, and refit… but, what if???...

His gaze swung toward TAC. “Petty Officer,” he called to blonde Terran who manned the station, now, “What were the results of the scans that Lt Reid ordered?”

“Those scans were completed as part of updated Chimera protocols, Commander,” Tabitha Wright responded following a quick scan of her console, “No indication of nanite infestation; just a serious pelting by debris, sir.”

Tochi nodded his satisfaction with the answer; “Thank you, Tabitha.”

“Aye, sir.”

With a faint sigh, Commander Zai clasped his hands behind his back and turned his attention back to the viewscreen; content to lose himself in the serenity of the planet dotted starfield there for a time. His gaze only broke away when the turbolift doors squelched open and, at last, spit Ensign Owen onto the deck.

The tiny woman briefly cast a disdainful eye at the still glitchy lift before ensuring that the tight plaits restraining her hair were still in place. “When’re they bloody well gonna fix that?” she grumbled under her breath as she made her way to the bridge’s center, her eyes scanning the faces that populated the various stations as she went. When she reached Tochi’s side, she took up a similar demeanor to the Trill XO’s and, on the back of a sigh breathed; “Sorry I’m s’late, C’mmander. Go’ tangled in m’ studies an’ ‘elpin’ Kennedy wi’ wha’ she were doin’ on th’ Angel.”

“Quite alright, Ensign,” Tochi smiled faintly, “We did tell you to take your time, today, after all.”

“Aye, sir,” she returned quietly, “ya did. Still an’ all, if ya don’ mind me sayin, this distance lairnin’ business es fer th’ birds! Comman’ courses’ve nothin’ on th’ hands-on I get, here.”

Grinning, Tochi glanced sideways at Megan and acknowledged her assessment with a scant nod. “There’s nothing in that statement I’m inclined to disagree with, Meg,” he said, “Ready to take the Conn?”

“Yessir,” she nodded, her eyes sparkling as she tore them from the viewscreen and turned them up to meet the XO’s, “What’ve ye got fer me, sir?”

The next few moments were consumed by Tochi briefing Megan on the day’s activities and feeding her the reports she needed to start her turn in the Big Chair. The copper-haired ensign had only a few questions in the whole proceeding and, at the end of it, she simply offered that brilliant smile of hers and bobbed her head in final acknowledgement. “Got it, sir,” she beamed, “Thank’ee.”

“Of course,” Tochi grinned back as he gestured to the command seat, “Your chair, Ensign. Enjoy your shift.”

“Thank’ee, Commander,” she repeated taking a step toward the chair, “I hereby stand as your relief, sir.”

“I stand relieved,” the Trill tipped his head and winked discretely before stepping away and making for the lift.

“A’right,” he heard Megan call out behind him, “Gimme some updates, people!”

He glanced back and saw the waifish girl wriggling herself into a comfortable position on the edge of the big chair, her enormous eyes dancing expectedly from station to station as the reports she’d requested started coming in. Something of a proud smile danced across his lips, then, and, with a nod, he stepped onto the turbolift. “Deck Two,” he commanded as the doors whispered shut.

The computer blipped in acknowledgement and set the lift in motion and, as it did, he found his thoughts turning to what Zhay-la might have prompted Silas to summon her to his ready room. “Computer,” he called before the lift doors opened again, “extend an invitation to Lt Taissud to meet me for a drink when she becomes available.”

=/=Acknowledged,=/= the computer said, =/=Location?=/=

“My office,” he returned, “or the Aerie, at her discretion.”

The computer beeped, again, and then responded; =/=Invite sent.=/=

Stepping off the lift and striding for his office, Tochi tugged his jacket open and considered what he might do with the rest of his waking hours.

... where both Tochi and Megan are concerned, I can easily imagine Tochi having told Meg to "tend your studies and take your time getting to the bridge" in advance of their arrival in system. I can also picture Megan taking that to heart to an extent but, at the same time, wanting to make a good impression/keep her commission and showing up on time if not traditionally early.

*shrugs* Got something started, anyway... We'll see where it goes. 

Yessir! 1500 it is!

Edit: I apparently misread or overlooked the timestamps on your last post. Megan should already been on the bridge - or at least - en route. Got a post in mind anyway... I'll get it sorted.

Yessir! 1500 it is!

Uh oh! I've done did it, now!

Yeah! I'll keep Tochi on the Bridge and hand over the Big Chair come shift change. Megan can benefit from the hands-on-learning, after all.

Who knows where ol' Spot might end up after that?

Also - can someone please launch a full spread of photon torpedoes at the PM inbox, please? Maybe that will jar the somonobatch into actually loading!!!!

We'll get those wounds patched up before the nav-beacon causes us to crashland on Calican and...

...oh... wait... I might have said too much!

"It looks like the mission is going entirely acordign to plan."

Translation - This is where stuff is gonna start to go sideways!

Gauzy hues of pink, yellow, and blue haloed the peaks of the mountains that rose in the east against the dawn sky. Inspired by the steady rising of the sun, birdsong lilted into the air and, carried on a light autumn breeze, resonated through the branches of the small copse of trees beneath which Nyx had made camp for Cayrimisa and himself the previous night. Sitting cross-legged at the edge of the camp’s meager fire, the mith’ganni gently stoked the embers and lifted his moon-colored eyes to the boughs when a discordant quorking imposed itself over the more melodic twittering of the songbirds. Roosted on a branch that reached out high above the tent in which Cay still slumbered, a  large, black-eyed raven peered down and croaked at the elf.

“Sal’kaima re,” Nyx told the inquisitive bird, “Her newly awakened power taxes her.”

The raven quorked again, beat its wings and then, preened at the ebon feathers on it’s chest.

“Sinta’amin,” the mith’ganni nodded, “It is still several hours' ride before we reach the Imperial Highway, but I shan’t wake her before she’s ready. The road will be demanding enough…”

The great black bird squawked out a protest, ruffling its feathers as it hopped further out on the branch.

Nyx scowled and, after giving the coals of the fire another poke, chuffed out a breath and rose to his feet. “What followers,” he challenged, “The two that were set on our heels were dealt with and sent back to Drasnia last night.”

The raven replied with a jerky tilt of its head and something of a peeved croak before it launched itself from the limp and, with a pop of feathers, flew off to the west.

“Crazy korko,” the mith’ganni smirked, eyeing the bird as it winged away. As nonsensical as the raven had been, though, Nyx did agree that he and Cay should get back to the road before much longer, especially if they hoped to catch up to Olsta and his entourage before they reached Ellis East. Discarding the stick with which he had been tending the fire, Nyx flicked a quick glance in the direction of the tent before he set about tending to the horses. If she still sleeps after I have them fed and watered, he decided, I will wake her and see to it that she gets something to eat while I strike the camp. 

At his approach, both the colt and the filly nickered and snorted in affectionate greeting. “Yes; quel amrun, meluinea amin,” he smiled, stroking the necks and scritching withers of each in turn, “breakfast for you both and then we ride, yes?” Each animal was offered an apple to chew on while the Twilight elf set about readying their feed bags; they would need the extra energy given by the supplemental feed mixture given how hard he planned to push them today. 

He had strapped on the filly’s morral and was in the process of cinching down the strap of the colt’s when a strange sensation tickled at the base of his skull. Nyx gave a flick of his mane, trying to dispel the feeling but it wasn’t shaken easily. He finished snugging up the feedbag and patted the colt’s neck once more before padding toward the far edge of the camp and letting his suspicious gaze pan the dawn-lit countryside. As his eyes slid toward the western edge of the panorama that stretched before him, the tingle at his neck flared hot and prickly. Suddenly, his own vision seemed overlapped with the sight of another’s, and the initial shock of it caused him to suck in a sharp gasp, stagger back a step or two, and clutch at his head.

The superimposed vision was hazy, at first, and bled-out toward the edges but, Nyx found that the less he struggled against it the sharper it became. After a moment, his hands dropped from his temples in the wake of a calming breath and he let his own vision fall out of focus. The other’s vision resolved to a much finer focus, then, and Nyx got the sense that he was flying, seeing the world from a much higher vantage point than he ever had before. He shuddered in his own skin, vaguely unsettled by it at first but, once he began to concentrate on the details of what he was seeing, the acrophobic feeling dissipated quickly enough.

The ground sped by beneath him and, after a short spell of watching it go, Nyx realized that he was seeing the road he and Cay had travelled, yesterday. The fringes of the forest fell away behind him, giving way to rolling pastures dotted by humble farmhouses at their edges. Sweeping fields of corn came into view, then, and, with a soft caw, the flyer swooped closer to the earth, still following the rutted track that snaked through the stalks.  A blood-soaked patch of road captured the vision for an instant but disappeared behind him just as quickly and the flyer focused, instead, on a driverless cart a few miles farther west… then, beyond that, a knot of riders appeared - half a dozen, maybe more - all of them armed better than the corpses in the cart’s bed had been and more of the faces in the troupe than not were, at least, vaguely familiar to Nyx.

“Ed’ i’ ithil ar’ elenea,” he whispered as, following a quark and rustling of feathers, the vision disappeared. He shook his head as he found himself suddenly back on his own feet and, the weight of what he had just seen heavy on his mind, ran back toward the tent.

“Cay,” he called even before he found himself pushing through the flap and reaching out to shake her to consciousness, “Wake up, melamin! We need to go! Quickly!” He waited only long enough for her eyes to open and blink at him in drowsy bewilderment; at that glimpse of wakefulness, Nyx scrambled back out of the tent to set about saddling the horses and hurriedly striking the camp.

“Password,” the burly doorman growled in response to the knocking at the door.

“Horseshoe,” came the muffled reply.

With a faint nod from Dmitrova, Warton thumbed the latch and swung the door open to admit Kylo Bensington.

The tall, brown-skinned man cast a glance around the room, taking note of the others who had assembled in the Hellkite Captain’s presence. Aside from the usual pair of bodyguards who flanked the door, the wizard known as Mouse lounged in a chair that was nestled in one corner of the room, and the assassin, Tselika (who had become something of a permanent fixture, there, of late) perched on the edge of Dmitrova’s desk, absent-mindedly toying with a slim, curve-bladed knife. Good, Kylo nodded, coming to a stop a respectful distance and offering Vadim the customary salute, figger dey’ll be wantin’ ta ‘ear dis, too.

From his side of the desk, Vadim pinched one end of his mustache and curiously eyed the Lieutenant who oversaw the Nest near the Governor’s Gate. “What news from the eastern edges of town, Kylo,” he queried having taken note of the vague look of concern etched into the other man’s bearing. He flipped the ledger he had been working in closed, leaned forward, and rested his elbows on the desk.

“Nuttin’ good, I’m ‘fraid, Cap’n,” Bensington answered, “an’ I ain’t sure it’s ‘zactly news, I reckon, but I figgered ye ought be tol’. We done spied Nyx Shyndyn headed outta town!”

“What?!” Vadim’s face wasn’t the only one in the room to register astonishment - it had suddenly become a very palpable thing in the room, in fact - but he was the only one to bring it voice. “How in the f*** is that even possible?!” he demanded, rising from his seat as his narrowed, disbelieving glare sweeping the faces that surrounded him. “With the pains we put on him, that horse*f***ing son of a bitch shouldn’t even be able to sit up, yet, let alone walk!”

“I told you we should have killed him outright,” Tselika muttered, casually scraping the tip of the blade under a fingernail and feigning interest in whatever she had dug out from beneath it.

“He weren’t walkin’, Cap’n,” Kylo said as Dmitrova glared a warning at the assassin, “he were ridin’ - him an’ some woman - fresh ‘orses, dey seemed, loaded fer wha’ looked ter be a fair haul. I set Cres an’ Pet after ‘em an’ come ‘ere ta tell ye, m’self, straight after.”

“What woman?” Vadim demanded, his seething glare snapping from Tselika to Kylo.

“Can’t say’s I know,” Bensington shrugged, withering a bit in the face of the Hellkite Lord’s glower, “din’t reco’nize ‘er proper. Me an’ da boys were tryin’ ta figger it when I realized it were Nyx she rode wit’.”

“It was Cay,” the words were carried aloft on a somnolent sigh from where Mouse lounged in his corner.

Kylo turned eyes over his shoulder, regarded the wizard for an instant and, then, with an emphatic shake of his head, turned his gaze back to Dmitrova. “I don’ tink it were,” he said, “dis were a fine woman; done up proper an’ pretty nuff ta’ve got da lads arguin’ o’er who’d bed ‘er first. Dat lady wadn’t no fish-stinkin’ slitch, fer sure.”

“If you say so, lieutenant,” Mouse tutted softly, brushing at the front of his robes as he straightened himself in his seat, “far be it from me to argue with someone of your obvious intellect.”

Vadim’s burning eyes turned on the wizard, then; “Something you want to share, Mouse?”

A languorous sigh saw the wizard to his feet and, smoothing the wrinkles from the lap of his robes, he glided toward the carpet upon which Kylo stood. “I saw them together, Captain,” the fondant cooed, “in the afterglow of their lovemaking...”

“They’re f***ing?” Tselika snorted and then made a retching noise to emphasise her amused disgust, drawing another admonishing glance from Dmitrova. Her blade skittered into its sheath as her eyes rolled a bit and, with a shrug and a sigh, she ran a hand through the pasted-up crest of her hair and mumbled; “Given his usual preferences, I suppose even the Wharf Witch is a step up.”

The Hellkite Captain had ignored the comment before she made it; his eyes had already turned back on Mouse. “And this is something you didn’t think to tell me until now,” he snapped, pushing away from his desk and storming around it to draw to an expectant halt before Mouse and Kylo, “Nyx Shyndyn and Cayrimisa Ettelenya - who, by all accounts, would just as soon kill one another as be in the same room - are humping, you saw it, and didn’t think it was worthy of so much as a mention?!”

The grey-robed mage lifted a hand to forestall Vadim’s ire. “I didn’t see it up close, Captain,” he assured the fuming man, “It was in a vision that I experienced after she had those whores ambush me. And given the condition in which the mith’ganni last left here, I wasn’t sure that it was entirely accurate. He should have been at the edge of meeting his god, for all I knew. Fleeting as it was, I know what I saw but I had yet to determine the when of it.

I had hoped to ruminate on it a bit longer and bring the vision more clarity before I brought it to your attention, but…” Mouse shrugged, tipped his head toward Bensington, and sighed ruefully, “...apparently, mundane sight has done away with the need.”

“Apparently so.” An irritated growl rumbled in Dmitrova’s chest and, with a dismissive wave of a hand, he sent Mouse back to his seat.

His irritated gaze snapped back to Bensigton, then. “How long ago was it that you saw the horse-pacher making for the gate?”

“Lemme see...” Kylo’s eyes rolled to the timbers that held the room’s ceiling aloft, “...Nabbed me a ‘orse... whipped ‘er ta a lather…” His eyes came back to fix on his captain’s, then. “...Twenny, t’irty minnits a’ da top en’?”

 Vadim pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, grumbled under his breath, and started to stomp back to the otherside of his desk, snatching up the wine bottle that sat on the corner behind Tselika as he went. “Gather some men,” he commanded Kylo, unstopping the bottle, “send them out after your others. If Nyx and Cay have left the city together, I want to know where they’re going and what they’re up to.”

“Aye, Cap’n,” Kylo saluted, readying to turn and take his leave.

“Bensington,” Vadim called over the sloshing of wine as the bottle came from his lips and threw himself into his chair, “If you can catch them, bring them back, alive if possible, I’d like to kill them myself. If dead is easier,” he shrugged, “so be it, I suppose. If you can’t catch them, I want regular reports in regard to what they’re up to.”

“O’ course, Cap’n,” Kylo returned, “Anythin’ else?”

“No,” Vadim rumbled, “Go. Get my answers.”

“Yessir,” Kylo finished his turn and made for the exit.

Dmitrova flicked a glance at the bodyguard at his left flank, then. “Send out Hawks,” he commanded, “I want to know everything. If someone in this paching city has so much as smelled a Shyndyn since last night, I want to know if that smell was blood or shyte!”

“As you say, Captain,” the muscle nodded, turning to follow in Bensigton’s wake.

“Pach!” Dmitrova took another angry pull from the bottle and, after wiping his mouth on the back of his sleeve, thunked the thing back down onto his desk just as Warton hauled the door open for his retreating men. “Gods damned, point-eared, sons of bitches and filthy whores!”

Tselika reached for the bottle, then. Her mouth fell open and the word “I” escaped her lips before Vadim jabbed a finger in her direction and growled; “Don’t say a word!”

“Whatcha want, Ruun,” Warton grumbled as the door came open and the Hydra’s bartender was revealed on the other side.

“Uh,” Ruun droned, “I got this ol’ fart out here, says he’s got some information Tselika might be interested in but didn’t know the password ta get in.”

“What old fart,” Tselika asked from around the neck of Dmitrova’s bottle.

Ruun turned and relayed the question to someone out of sight behind him. Then, as the barman’s eyes swiveled back to the room; “Says his name’s Skjorn an’ he knows ya from the Albatross.”

Vadim spiked a brow in the lady assassin’s direction and she nodded in reply. “Let him through, Wart,” he grunted.

Warton let Kylo and the bodyguard exit before he motioned for the ‘old fart’ in.

Skjorn tottered across the threshold, scratching at his beard and letting his eyes wander curiously about the place before settling on the mohawked woman who slid from her perch on the desk that served as the room’s focal point. “Evenin’, Sister Tselika,” the ancient sailor croaked, hobbling deeper into the room, “Got ye sumpin’ ye migh’ be int’rested ta hear, aye? Might be warth a coin er two?”

“Might be worth your thread, Brother Skjorn,” Tselika replied with equal measures of sultriness and threat on her voice as she met the man halfway across the floor and the latch on the door clicked shut.

At the woman’s words and the almost ominous clicking of the latch, the scraggly mariner cast an uneasy glance toward the door before his neck creaked and he found his eyes on Tselika, once more. “I… err…” he swallowed, “...Uh… Edge o’ th’ Axe an’ his Lady come inta th’ Albatross, las’ night inna wake o’ th’ starms, lookin’ fer jobs. I poin’ed ‘em ta a marker on Olsta’s ‘ead an’ it seemed th’ two of ‘em were keen on it. Got th’ feels as sumpin’ weren’ quite right wit’ Nyx, though, afore he run me off, an’ seein’s how you had a word out on ‘im… I… uh… figgered ye should know?”

Tselika raised her brows at that and glanced over her shoulder at Dmitrova who wore a similar expression, though his bore a faint bit more concern.

“Sit down, old man,” Vadim waved at a bench that stretched at the far edge of the carpet before his desk, “you give me the details of this meeting and this contract and, should they be of the value you think, I’ll see to it that you get your coin. Perhaps a meal and a bath, as well, eh?”

“Aye,” Skjorn grinned somewhat nervously as he tottered for the bench, “Sure. Thankee, m’lord!”

Once he’d gotten himself settled, the ancient adherent of Prien began his tale; “Welp! As’s often ‘appens followin’ a starm, ol’ Shydyn janders inta th’ Albatross. Ain’t jus’ ‘im, though, he’s got ‘im this bird a’ ‘is side, which ain’t usual ‘t all…”

The name she breathed in answer to his question simultaneously brought a look of surprise to his face and a smile and contented sigh to his lips. His eyes, lit by both the stars and the fires that burnt behind them, turned to regard the woman’s face for a long moment and his fingers slithered up her body to stroke a spill of hair from her cheek. “Cayrimisa Shyndyn, is it, now,” he purred, his lips pressing to her head, “I rather like that, melamin.”

She closed her eyes at the feeling of his lips on her forehead, and she cuddled up closer to him.  Lazily her fingers moved possessively over the scars on his chest.  “Good… not that I was asking permission…”  

“Not that I would have expected you to,” he chuckled softly, his hold on her tightening a bit, gathering her closer, “I believe I told you that you were welcome to it when we were at the Albatross, yes? You are welcome to anything and everything I have, Cay, and there will never be a time that you have to ask.”

Another satisfied sigh blew past his lips and into the heavens, then, and his eyes returned to their contemplation of the stars that glimmered there. “I do have a thing or two to ask you, though, elen en cormamin,” he murmured after a moment, “Are you rested enough to answer or shall we wait until morning?”

She kept her eyes closed, fingers continuing their sweet gentle explorations as she listened to his heart beating in her ear.  “I know you do… I’m rested enough to talk at least…” she whispered softly but did not volunteer any of the answers that she knew were forthcoming.

His own eyes fluttered shut as her breath whispered across his skin and a soft moan welled in his throat at the continued attentions of her fingers. “What I saw you do… back there on the road…” Nyx murmured after a moment, turning his head her way but not yet opening his eyes, “I’ve not seen anything like that from you before.” His eyes did open, then, though they remained heavy-lidded as he peered at her. “Even before the road,” he continued softly, “the thing with the horse… Where has this all come from, my love?”

She couldn’t help smiling a little bit at his mention of the horse, that little bit had been rather enjoyable, she had to admit to herself.  At first she did nothing else but smile, contemplating her words carefully before she spoke.  “I think it’s always been there… it’s… us…”  Finally she opened her eyes and turned her face so she could look up into his own.  “Did you notice?  Earlier?”  Her eyes moved from his and drifted down her body until they fell upon her hip, the blue horse riding across her skin, the pale outline of a second already appearing to join the herd.  

Us? An ebon brow crept higher as he tried to make sense of that. Then, as her eyes trailed meaningfully toward her hip, his own gaze followed. A smile danced on his lips at the sight of the horses and his fingertips moved to feather over the blue-inked steeds. “I was preoccupied looking at other things earlier,” he admitted with a wicked little grin, his touch playing at the outlines of her tattoo. “These are like my tree, yes?”

Shudders ran through her body as he caressed over the new images.  “Yes…” she muttered a bit breathlessly.  Forcing her thoughts to return back to the conversation and not what he had done to her under the stars and what he might be capable of doing again, “yes.  It’s us.  I’ve studied magic for years, struggling for each spell… I spend a few nights with you and I don’t even have to think about it.”  She laughed lightly at the absurdity of it all.  “If only I had known before… I don’t fully understand it yet… and it’s… overwhelming.  The power of it.  It drained me.  I hope I’ll get better at controlling it, I wasn’t expecting to feel like this after.  Although…” her thoughts drifted to what they had done on the road, “I honestly don’t mind…”  

“Hmm,” he droned, considering her words and his own, “I do…” He shifted slightly beneath her, his hand abandoning the horses and trailing back up her side as he brought his eyes to meet her’s, once more “...to an extent, anyway. After all it has taken to have you, melamin, I shouldn’t like to see you destroy yourself for the sake of spellwork, hm?” His fingers had made their way along her ribcage, across her shoulder, up her neck and, now, entwined themselves in her chestnut tresses. His eyes opened a bit wider and he fixed her with a serious stare. “Promise me that you’ll be careful, yes?”

Her lips pressed together as he expressed his thoughts on her use of spellwork.  When he looked back into her eyes hers were a bit cooler than they had been a moment ago.  “I understand how you feel Nyx.  It pulses off you, and I feel the same way.  We’ve come so far, alone, and now together, even though it has been but days… life without you already feels like it would be meaningless… but…” and at this she sits up, starlight dancing along her naked curves as she looks down at him.  “but what we do is dangerous, Nyx.  For both of us.  You have to figure out how to allow me to do what I need to do and I must let you do what you need to.  You cannot protect me from everything.”  Her heart thudded and she looked at him, knowing that there was more she needed to tell him but still unable find the words she simply bit her lip.  

His yellow eyes came fully open as he followed her up and offered a faintly resigned nod. “Amin hiraetha, melamin,” he offered, propping himself up next to her, “It was not my intent to…” Nyx seemed to struggle with finding the proper words, here, “...to tell you what to do or what not to do, for that matter. I just… I do want to protect you from everything and…” he pressed his hand to his chest “...it pains me to know that I cannot despite that want.”

His hand came away from his heart, then, and moved to caress her cheek. “It is not my place to impose my will on your magic, Cayrimisia Shyndyn,” he smiled softly as the name spilled easily from his lips, “My place is at your side and in your heart, nothing more. I simply ask that you try to protect yourself from those things I cannot so that I can stay in that place until the stars fall from the skies.”

As he spoke of protecting her the image of his dagger dripping in his own blood rose back up into her mind, she knew all too well what he was feeling.  When he touched her cheek she leaned into it and pressed her own hand atop his.  Her eyes fluttered closed again.  “I have no intentions of doing anything to disturb this…”  she took a long breath and licked her lips, the time had finally come to be fully honest.  “Nyx… he came to me… last night in my dreams.  Prein… he had… he tricked me into taking your life.  You aren’t the only one who fears losing this.  I was shaken.  Taellyn saw it…”  She opened her eyes again and looked at him.  “He’ll never get to me like that again, and like you I will do what I must to protect us.”  

At the mention of Prien a scowl threatened the corners of Nyx’s mouth and, as she related the dream he had visited on her, his gaze narrowed a fraction and he gave a slow shake of his head. “The Executioner is angry at my having forsaken him,” he rumbled, “Angry that I no longer look to his stars for guidance…” A defiant smirk replaced the scowl on his lips, then. “...When last I heard his voice in my head,” he confessed, “he promised to set the world on my heels and he may well yet do so… or try at any rate… but if wants me, he’ll need to come for me himself. Anything less is but a feast for crows.”

His other hand reached for the cheek he wasn’t already touching and, cradling her face in both hands, now, he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers. When, after a moment, he let go of that sweetness, he situated himself so that he was sitting beside her and wrapped his arm around her again and, smiling, turned his eyes to the stars. “ There,” he nodded after a moment of scanning the skies, and his finger pointed to an array of stars that matched the sigil embroidered on his new coat, “you see those stars?” 

He felt her head come to rest on his shoulder and, after she had picked out the constellation he had indicated, felt her nod in reply.

“I first discovered them the night I waited for you on the Grey Arm,” he said, a nostalgic timbre tinging his words, “and, as far as I’m aware, that particular constellation had no name. It captured me from the moment I saw it and has been my guide since. Before the day-star chased them from the sky the next morning, I gave those a name; Quenat en Ettelenya.

I suppose, now,” he chuckled softly, “since that name is no longer, I shall need to change it to Quenat en Cayrimisa. When I can’t look directly upon you, melamin, I can always find you there.”

A truly serene sigh escaped him as his gaze fell from the stars and back to Cay. “The morning I found you waiting for me in the cemetery,” he murmured, “after you’d spent your day watching the Bolstoii girl and I was... busy elsewhere… I allowed myself to sleep after you left and I dreamed of those stars.

I’m not accustomed to dreams,” he admitted, then, “and so I took my dream to Taellyn so that she might tell me what it had all meant. By the time she had done so, I knew that you and I were fated to be, that none of this was folly…”

“Atta’llie tengwe elen…”  Cay whispered as she lay against him, watching the stars and listening to him.  “That’s what she said to me…” 

“Written in the stars,” Nyx whispered, turning to brush her hair back and press his lips to the scarred top of her ear, “indeed. That old nag is as wise as she is irritating.”

Cay nodded and laughed a little.  “She slapped me... called me foolish.  But… I can’t say she was wrong.”  

“Sounds like something she would do,” Nyx laughed in return, gathering Cay up in his arms, now. “You sound as if you are ready to sleep again, melamin,” he murmured, nestling his face into her hair, “shall I take you back to bed?”

“Yes…” she nodded and then added.  “I love you…”  

“And I love you,” he purred, scooping her into his arms and getting to his feet in the same motion. As her head settled against his chest, he rained soft kisses on her face and carried her back to the tent. “Quel kaima, elen en cormamin,” he whispered, situating her in the blankets, “I won’t be far.”

Nice work!

Yeah, don't worry C2P, I imagine TAC will have an opportunity to perform some "percussive maintenance" on some Calican heads at some point. Or, you know, something along those lines.

Sounds like you might want to add a flamethrower to your arsenal of snow removal tools, buddy! 

I'm in much the same boat as Meri... Similar amounts of snow and cold from the recent storms but expected to creep up into the 40s or 50s today. Which means that beautiful blanket of white stuff is gonna melt and turn the yard into a sloggy muddy mess all too soon. Blech!

I'll follow your lead where shuttles and such may come into play.

Taking a sustenance break, now, but am hoping to get going on a post, soon.

 “...For you, elen en cormamin,” he smiled wickedly, “And yes, let’s go do this before I take it to mind to see how easily all of that comes off, yes?”  

When he broke the kiss she gave him a light push back with her hands on his stomach and stood up fully herself, taking the reins in hand.  

“Ohh… it won’t be easy.  It’s quite the assemblage.”  She ran her hands down the front of the bodice.  “You won’t be disappointed after the effort, however.  I’ve even got a surprise for you underneath off of this, but… yes, let’s go, that can all wait until later.  It’s time to get out of this city... for now.”  

Nyx desperately wanted to argue the point that it could all wait for later. If there was the option, he would have been more than happy to try and solve the intricacies of that particular puzzle; the promise of a surprise to be found underneath made it all the more intriguing. She was right, though, were they to complete this contract on Olsta and, thereby, garner further information on the puzzle they were trying to piece together, time was not a thing with which they could afford to trifle. “You realise, of course,” he snarked to her back as she took the reins and turned to the horse he’d bought for her, “it has become entirely too difficult to argue with you, of late, yes?”

Cay pretended to ignore him and studied the filly and considered the saddle, in particular. After a moment, she turned to glance over her shoulder, a frown on her face that seemed to indicate that she wasn't quite sure as to how to mount the thing. He chuckled to himself, recalling the skittishness she had regarding the horse that had carried them from the Blue Dove to the Albatross, and imagined that the first bit of this journey might be consumed with teaching her how to ride. Just as he started toward her in order to deliver the first lesson, though, she tapped her lip with a finger, the hand on her hip moved to gently tangle itself in the filly’s mane, and, then, leaned in and whispered into the creature’s ear. When the piebald pony bowed in answer, lowering her forequarters enough that Cay could easily slink into the  saddle, the mith’ganni’s mouth fell open in utter shock…

What?!

“Diola lle,” Cayrimisa cooed, taking the saddle, as if this sort of thing had suddenly become second nature.  At the cluck of her tongue, the horse brought itself fully upright again, leaving a dumbfounded Nyx to do little more than blink in wonder.

“I’m going to leave you behind if you don’t get on that horse, Nyx,” she quipped lightly, turning her mount toward the road with a tug of the reins and trotting away.

WHAT?! He shook his head in disbelief, gathered his mane back into the clip she no longer needed, and then swung himself into the black’s saddle. An uttered word and a tug on the reins turned the colt and set it off in pursuit of its sister.

“Who are you,”  he  smirked sarcastically as he reined the colt to a canter at the witch’s side, “and what have you done with Cayrimisa Ettelenya?”

Her head turned in his direction and winked at him  from within the shadows cast by the brim of her hat, an enigmatic smile playing at the corners of her mouth, but said nothing more. Instead, she simply turned her eyes to the tangle of Drasnian streets ahead and maneuvered her steed, almost expertly, through the traffic she encountered.

“Slitch,” he chuffed teasingly, turning his attentions toward scanning the crowds ahead and behind. 

Despite this situational awareness , which had embedded in him long ago, and a nagging feeling that, despite how well their preparations had gone, their taking leave of Drasnia would not be the simplest of matters worried at the base of his skull, Nyx couldn’t keep his eyes from returning curiously to the woman at his side every few moments. He couldn’t quantify it, but there was something very different about this  Cay than the tentative, worrisome, and even scared one he had left with Taellyn just hours ago. As long as he had known her… as long as he had ghosted along behind her in Drasnia’s shadows… Cay had always been confident, even single-minded in her determination, but, with the Cay he had left at the Dreamweaver’s, there had always been an underlying trepidation to it. The Cay he had found awaiting him when he returned, though, seemed almost casual about the confidence she wielded. For some who claimed to know the Wharf Witch, the distinction might have been subtle enough to have gone unnoticed. To him it was an almost jarring transition, though not in any sort of negative fashion…

“...the power you have now could truly be beyond containing should you choose to embrace it rather than continually try to purge it from your withered heart…” 

...The words he had hissed at her through clenched teeth those few nights ago echoed in his mind as he gazed upon Cayrimisa, now. What did Taellyn say to you, ellen en cormamin, that I did not? he wondered, a curious grin on his lips and glint in his eye.

A question for later, he mused when a wolfish whistle issued from the crowd and he realized that their passing drew a bit more attention than he might have liked, when there is less to worry on and more time for distraction, yes? His eyes skimmed back to the streets ahead and fixed the source of the whistle with a reproachful and, perhaps, threatening glare.

So he had passed the time between then and the time they reached the Governor’s Gate. Even after that, when Drasnia’s walls were at their backs and they rode through the smattering of buildings that spread beyond the gate, the stares and calls continued. Few of those truly bothered him until they passed by a small, somewhat dilapidated house that Nyx had come to know as a frequent nest of the Hellkites and eyes there turned toward them. Words he couldn’t quite make out at distance were exchanged and, in the wake of their passing, a flurry of activity transpired that he wasn’t truly concerned with until the small cart appeared behind them, following at a safe distance for longer than he imagined was proper. Had the thing turned off onto one of the better maintained trade routes or even veered off toward one of the many outlying farms they had passed in the hours since Drasnia had diminished behind them, it might not have troubled him so but, when it dogged their tracks even after they had veered onto a lesser traveled route, Nyx’s suspicions heightened.

When Cay slowed her horse’s canter a bit and asked; “So… think we’ve let these guys live long enough,” the assassin’s shoulders slumped in what could only be called relief.

“I have only been awaiting your word,” he replied, that razor-edged grin toying with his lips and a hand falling to the pommel of a blade as he turned his golden eyes her way, “my Mistress.”

“Well,” Cay grinned back, “let’s make this fun.” Turning in her saddle, then, she worked a spell he had never seen her utilize before. At the end of her conjuring, a green-grey fog manifested before her outstretched hand and spread quickly to envelope  the track between them and the trailing cart, the tendrils of it creeping even into the browning fields of corn that flanked the road.

“Now we get to find them,” she winked playfully,  “I think we’ve got the upper hand though.” 

“I love you,” Nyx purred, wheeling his colt around as alabaster fingers closed purposefully around the haft of his kukri and dragged it free of its sheath, “Keep them busy for me, melamin, yes?”

“So busy that they’ll never see you coming, morieramin,” she replied, punctuating those words by kissing them into the air.

Nyx grinned, spinning the black toward the edge of the road. “The likes of these wouldn’t see me coming were it a bright summer day,” he winked, “but, diola lle, melamin. I may be a moment…”

Cocky bastard. Cay snickered to herself as Nyx disappeared into the rows of stalks on her left, You’re not doing it alone, this time. With that, she whispered to her pony, gave a gentle tug on the reins, and slipped silently as she could into the stalks to her right.

-------------------------

“Where’d dis f*#!*in’ fog come from,” Crestar groused as he swiped irritatedly at the grey-green mist that stole his vision and choked his senses, “It f***in’ stinks!!!”

“I dunno,” Petrick responded, his gaze anxiously sweeping the roiling mists that had suddenly surrounded them, “but I don’ like it. Seems like summa that creepy shyte tha’ ya ‘ear about right afore Shyndyn guts somebody... “ he tugged on the reins, slowing the pair of horses that hauled their cart, “Keep a weather eye.”

“Yeah,” Crestar answered, doing his best to squint through the fog, “I’ll try,”

A sharp but indecipherable whisper sounded from somewhere amongst the rows, then, and both men’s heads swivelled frantically as they tried to resolve the center of the sound. The source wasn’t easily identifiable, though. In fact, the soft, alluring murmur seemed to emanate from an entirely new direction each time they thought they had pinned it down. As the cart creaked and clattered deeper into the roiling fog, the pair of Hellkites began to catch fleeting glimpses of something or some things moving through the mists that surrounded them. Like the whispers, the strange silhouettes were elusive and erratic, appearing on the road ahead just long enough for the men to catch sight of it and then vanishing before they could fully resolve what they might be looking at. A whisper or distant, disembodied giggle would follow and the shadows would reappear, rustling through the corn stalks that flanked the rutted road.

“Mebbe we should turn ‘round,” Crestar suggested after the third or fourth time the phantom shapes had teased their vision. A sweating palm worked on the hilt of the longknife he had drawn from its sheath and his head swiveled around to warily regard the road behind them.

Petrick wanted to agree with his partner and was sorely tempted to point the cart back toward Drasnia but, as of yet, he hadn’t brought himself to do it. “You wanna explain’ ta da Cap’n how we let th’ Shyndyn slip us jus’ cuz we got freaked out by th’ fog, does ya? It’d be our skins.”

“Might be,” Crestar swallowed, squinting at the shadow that flitted through the mist behind them, now, “but we’d be like t’ survive it. I’s gettin’ less an’ less sure same could be said, here.” A shiver shot through him as the shadow disappeared. “This were a mistake, followin’ tha’ Twilighter s’ far from th’ city.”

The fog swirled, stirred by those phantom whispers, and the sound of tinkling laughter preceded a languid clopping of hooves ahead of them. The laughter and the hoofbeats drifted away only to be replaced by a rustling of stalks and the strains of an eerie lullaby being sung in a child’s voice…

~Out of the night, the Dark One does call,
Black nights herald red days in which the chosen shall fall,
Death for each one, it has been ordained,
And with their red blood, the world will be stained~

...A small elven child wandered out of the fog and into the road before them, the ominous lullaby spilling from her lips in an all too cheerful sing-song voice…

“Naxir’s nuts,” Petrick cursed, hauling hard on the reins to bring the cart to a halt, “Wha’ in all da hells?!”

“Warriors and wizards, none will be spared,” the child crooned to the ragged doll she cradled, “Salvation for none when the steel is bared.”

“Whaddya doin’,” Crestar protested, his knuckles going white from the too tight grip he had on his knife, “Run dat li’l point-ear down! We gotta get outta here!”

The child had stopped in the road, her yellow eyes lifting to peer through a spill of tawny hair at the men sitting on the cart’s buck. “Hi,” she smiled, “Wanna come play with me?”

Petrick and Crestar blinked at one another and then turned their gawking gazes back to the creepy kid that blocked their path. “Get outta da road, ya li’l shyte,” Petrick admonished, drawing his own blade, now.”

“Mama says I shouldn’t play with boys,” the child chirped, ignoring the threat as if it hadn’t even been aired, “but Papa’s gonna kill you anyway, so I guess it doesn’t matter.” She started walking toward them then, holding the tattered doll aloft so that they could clearly see the brown hat and sack-cloth dress she had dressed it in. “If you wanna play, you better hurry,” she giggled, “Miss Witchy says you don’t have long.”

Petrick spit because he found he couldn’t swallow and, rising from his seat, glowered at the little girl and her doll. “Oh, I’m comin’ ta play, ya li’l slitch,” he growled, waving his blade menacingly as he jumped down to the road, “an’ when yer mama an’ papa fin’ ya bleedin’ in da road…” He rounded the nervously nickering horses, fully prepared to give the girl a proper working over, only to discover that she had disappeared, leaving behind only a giggle and her tattered doll.

“Where’d she pachin’ go,” Crestar croaked as Petrick bent down to retrieve the doll that, he realized, looked an awful lot like the Witch of the Wharf. “C’mon, Pet,” he pleaded as the other man rose back to his full height and turned his horrifically confused eyes his way, “we gotta get outta here.”

“Oh,” a strangely accented voice murmured from behind him, “it’s far too late for that.”

Crestar leapt to his feet and swung his knife in a wide arc as he whirled around to face the voice.

“Hello, Cres,” Nyx hissed, a savage smile on his lips as he deftly avoided the Hellkite’s wild swing and brought his own blade to bare. A pale hand lashed out, caught a fistful of Crestar’s tunic, and hauled the man across the bench and into the bed of the cart. “Goodbye, Cres,” the mith’ganni snarled over the croaking grunt Crestar made as the khukri was slid, excruciatingly slowly, into his belly.

“Sonofabii…” Petrick exclaimed, dropping the doll and turning to run as Nyx proceeded to open a squealing Crestar’s guts. He’d only managed a step or two before he found himself frozen in place.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Cay chastised as she cantered into the road before the petrified Petrick, “No, no, dear. You stay right there and watch.” The hand she had stretched out toward him twisted a bit and he found himself turned back toward the cart where his partner was being butchered. “You’re next and I really want you to appreciate what’s about to happen to you.”

Nyx’s blade had unzipped Crestar’s flesh from belly to breastbone by this point and, as the mith’ganni’s hateful yellow eyes turned to glare at the frozen man, he gave the khukri a vicious twist and then jerked it free. The murdered man gurgled and reached out to clutch at his killer but, with an almost casual kick from Nyx, was sent toppling out of the cart and into the road.

“Hmmm,” Nyx murmured from behind that razor-edged grin of his as he climbed down from the cart on the opposite side of the road from where Cres had fallen. Flicking the gore from his blade, he strolled casually to where Cay had Petrick paralyzed. His head canted to one side as he amusedly regarded the wide-eyed Hellkite, then, as he wiped his khukri off on Petrick’s shirt, he turned to where Cay sat astride her horse and smiled sweetly.

“Let him go, melamin,” he purred, “it doesn’t seem quite fair to not give the breeder at least a chance, yes?”

“If you insist, morieramin,” Cay sighed, her amber eyes gleaming in the shadows cast by the brim of her hat, “I suppose it is only fair.”

Her hand fell to her lap, then, and Petrick found that he had full and free control of his body again. His fingers flexed on the hilt of his knife and he blinked at Nyx who stood, waiting expectantly, before him.

“Well?” Shyndyn sneered when the man spent too long apparently considering his options.

Petrick dropped his knife, whirled on his heel, and bolted for the fog-choked stalks lining the roadside.

“Tsk,” Nyx sighed, flicking a glance in Cayrimisa’s direction, “why do they always run?”

Cay offered a shrug and a smile in reply, then turned her eyes to follow Petrick’s terrified retreat.

Nyx chuffed, hefted his khukri and, with a fluid motion, sent the blade spinning through the air.

Petrick howled as the blade embedded itself in his back. His knees buckled as he tried to turn around but he found himself spared from falling to the road when the assassin’s hand took him by the hair of his head and held him up. 

“Please,” Petrick whimpered as the twin of the khukri in his back materialized in Nyx’s hand, “Merc…”

The mith’ganni smiled, the khukri flashed, and the weight of Petrick’s body fell from his neck and thudded into the road. Nyx regarded the severed head he held in his hand for a moment and then, with a shrug, dropped it to the ground next to the body to which it had belonged.

“You really are quite good at that whole head taking thing, melamin,” Cay cooed from her saddle as Nyx reclaimed his blades and returned them to their proper places.

“Well, you know,” Nyx smiled coyly as he moved to pick up the tattered doll, “eye level and all of that.” He looked the effigy over and, strolling toward Cay, held it up; “This was cute.”

“Hmm,” she smiled weakly as the fog dissipated around them and the doll disintegrated in Nyx’s hand, “glad you approve, my love.” She slumped a bit in her saddle as Nyx reached her. Before she could swoon completely from her seat, though, Nyx had swung himself into the saddle behind her and held her in place.

“Lle tyaya quel,” he asked, as she melted into him.

“Just tired,” she nodded weakly.

“Let us find you a place to rest, then,” he nodded, dipping his head beneath the brim of her hat to brush his lips over the scarred tip of her ear. He whistled for his own horse, then, and the black trotted obediently from the corn and into the road.

“Wait,” Cay yawned, her heavy-lidded gaze turning to regard the corpses of Petrick and Crestar, “I want to do one more thing.”

...I think Peregrine was simply scrubbed of any lingering nanites and restored to "factory condition," Ody. Aside from a few glitches that might need to be worked out, she's pretty much loaded out with what she had at the start of EoD.

I defer to Olan as to final say on this, of course, but that would be my educated guess. 

Loving all the posts, folks!

Hoping to get a scene from flgith control going - clearing space in the shuttlebay for the beacon and suchlike...

Speaking of which - Olan, are we planning on tractoring the thing aboard or should I have the FC folks haul it in with the workbees?

"...we had a reservation!!!"

Besides...

"Well... we didn't start out naked! I mean... we, uhhh... that is to say... wellll..."

*points an accusing finger at Zhay-la*

"She started it!!!"

Nyx skulked from the Dreamweaver’s shop with, perhaps, a longer glance back than he would have normally afforded and, had anyone seen it, there was, also, a somewhat comforted smile gracing his lips as he did so. There was a certain reassurance that he felt leaving her in Taellyn’s care…

That old crone has been a constant burr in my saddle, he thought, swinging his head to secure the strange looseness of his hair into his cowl as he drew it over his head, but, if I trust anyone near as much- if there is another cursed soul in this world that I would call family - as I have come to trust Cay, it is Taellyn.

...In the negligible span of time it took him to blink, Nyx considered returning to the shop’s door and engaging the lock, just to ensure the safety of both women while he was out about his planned business. He shook the thought away, though. Between the two of them, they would certainly manage any trespasses that might occur in his absence. “Besides,” he murmured into the shadows cast by the hood that now covered his head, “I shan’t be long.” He shrugged himself deeper into the drape of his cloak, hitching the weight of his duffel to a more comfortable position as his gaze turned from the door and to the streets before him, striding with determined purpose toward Drasnia’s eastern gate and the swath of liveries and stables that sprawled along the city’s inner walls there.

Even with the efforts he had taken to avoid the gazes that probed the interior of his cowl, it took him less time to reach his destination than it would to complete the transactions he had planned. The twists and turns of Drasnia’s thoroughfares spit him out, soon enough, into the broad plaza of horse peddlers and tack and harness dealers that he sought. He paused for a moment, watching the early morning throng that milled about the cobbles, mud, and muck, taking in the scent of hay and leather and freshly mucked stalls. The sights and sounds took hold of him and, lingering at the mouth of the alley from which he had emerged, the mith’ganni took a moment to, first, ponder the massive arch of the Governor’s Gate at the far edge and, then, turned his gaze west to where the rest of Drasnia sprawled its way toward the harbor.

Namaarie, you festering s#!thole, the mith’ganni smirked darkly, I cannot say that I am sad to leave you behind. Besides, I take the best you have to offer with me, he added, tearing his moon-colored eyes from the vista and redirecting them to the market before him, a razor-edged smile forming on his lips as he began to work his way through the thickening throng. 

We will be back, though, he promised, picking his way through the crowd to a particular livery, and the screams in the night will begin anew, yes?

-----

 The sun had crept considerably higher in the sky by the time Nyx began making his way back to the Dreamweaver’s, and his business in the markets had left his purse considerably lighter, as well. 

The horses had been easy enough to pick out from the stock he’d found available - a piebald filly and a velvet-black colt, both young and spry and both very obviously descended from Shanurdirian ponies - and the merchant from whom he had purchased them seemed to know better than to haggle overmuch with a Twilighter so Nyx had gotten them at a reasonable price. 

The tack and harness for the mounts, however, had taken far longer to select. There had been no saddles that came close to being of mith’ganni-made quality, of course, and very few elven-wrought saddles of any sort which were not ridiculously overpriced. Even though he had deigned to look at a few, Nyx couldn’t even bring himself to consider human wrought saddles; they gave no consideration to the comfort of the horses that would have to bear them, only to the fattened arses of the riders they were designed to carry. In the end, he had selected a matching pair of dur’manni manufacture and the remaining tack to go along with them. Negotiations for those trapping had resulted in more than a few not so veiled threats, as well, so he’d managed to purchase them below their asking price but, still, Nyx felt he had overpaid.

Now, with the saddlebags of the horses laden with the other supplies he had purchased - rations, waterskins, bedrolls, blankets, and a small tent - Nyx cantered up to the seamstress’ shop astride the colt, leading the filly beside him, her reins looped to his saddle horn. An almost apprehensive scowl worked onto his pale features, though, when he spied the dark-garbed figure leaning expectantly against the shop’s facade… I knew I should have locked that door behind me… and, his itching fingers fell to the hilt of the blade at his hip as he reined the horses to a stop. As he slid from the saddle, the figure lifted its head and, from beneath the brim of the black felt hat, Cayrimsa smiled up at him with a playful affection gleaming in her amber eyes…

Cay?! His mouth fell open and moon-yellow eyes slowly devoured her as they took her in from head to toe and back again. This was far from what the Witch of the Wharf’s ensembles - even the finest he’d ever seen her wear - looked like but, pach, did it suit her!

“Let’s go do this Morieramin…” she said in a sultry voice when his eyes met hers, again. 

“Lle ma vanima, melamin,” he breathed, his smile appreciative and hungry all at once. His ravenous gaze travelled over her, again, and he could scarcely tear it away long enough to loosen the filly’s reins from his saddlehorn, “Nesamil Taellyn has truly outdone herself this time… Damn!”

Clucking his tongue and with a gentle tug on the reins, he beckoned the piebald filly to follow as he closed the distance between himself and the vision that was Cayrimsa Ettelenya. His free hand slithered around her waist, pulled her to him, and he kissed her eagerly before slipping the horse's reins into Cay’s scarred palm. “For you, elen en cormamin,” he smiled wickedly, “And, yes, let’s go do this before I take it to mind to see how easily all of that comes off, yes?”

Eol makes lots of mistakes... he typically doesn't leave witnesses, though.

As long as that got, I'm even more glad that I posted Tochi's nightmare as a standalone post...

That was a fun post to write, though. Thanks C2P! Always a pleasure!

 Stardate 2365.05.15
USS Peregrine; Deck 5, CTO’s office - 0340

An eventful day it was not for the newly minted Tactical chief. Aside from standing on the bridge for launch, Zhay-la had been wholly uninvolved in the proceedings of the day. Reid had impressed with his efficiency at the console for alpha shift, and surveying Brooks and T’Darin’s reports from her office had proven their track records for dependability truthful. She had no complaints of her officers’ performance, no distress calls to answer to the bridge, and no extenuating circumstances to intervene in.

In other words, a boring day.

To that end, it was a mystery to the Orion herself why she was still awake at this hour. Rotations for guard duty had gone off without a hitch hours earlier, and it wasn’t as though there were prisoners on launch day - even if having some officers to throw in the brig would be entertaining for such a low-intensity day, in Zhay-la’s opinion.

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Zhay-la let out a sigh. She was up-to-date on reports, had logged her hours on bridge, spoken with officers as they became available, even had time to polish her knife collection and arrange them by creation date; little left to be done besides sleeping at this point.

And to think she had all this free time tomorrow as well…

Cursing whoever thought launching on her off days was a good idea, the Orion stood in a huff, gathering a PADD and powering down her office’s lights with a command. She nearly collided with the door in her stormy escape, nodding curtly to Tabaek and Domms outside the armoury, before B-lining it to the holodeck.

“Computer,” she called out to the disembodied voice, “rez up program eighty from Taissud Alpha Nine, and increase the difficulty.”

=/=Program eighty, difficulty: deadly. Attention: Lt. Commander Zai has reserved the holodeck from Zero-Four-Hundred to Zero-Five-Thirty.=/= the synthetic voice replied.

“Put a timer on for twenty minutes then,” the lieutenant replied. “I need to beat my personal best anyways.”

Forgoing returning to her room for activewear, Zhay-la made do with stripping off her uniform, leaving her in shorts and a sports bra. Any more clothing than this and she would be suffocating, with how thick Starfleet insisted on their fabrics being. Not to mention the reinforced shoulder pads restricting movement. What she wouldn’t give for some decent armour plating to be added to her uniform.

Stashing her clothing and phaser in a locker, Zhay-la could already feel her nerves dissipating as she stepped onto the holodeck. The program made quick work of transforming the sterile room into a lush jungle. Wildlife squawked, rainfall pattered on the canopy above, and Zhay-la immediately felt more at home amongst the tropical humidity and plant life. She never could say she missed the Orion homeworld, but for all its faults, it still was her birthplace. And humidity agreed more with her constitution.

She strode to the centre of the room, focusing her breathing and mind into what would come next. Eyes closed, she drank in the sounds of the forest around her before picking up the footfalls to her left.

Forty feet…

Rolling her shoulders, she planted her feet firmly into the ground, enjoying the synthesized feeling of dirt between her toes.

Thirty feet…

Breath evening out, she fell into a defensive stance.

Twenty feet…

Zhay-la didn’t bother with suppressing the smile on her face, adrenaline shooting through her.

Ten feet…

No thought save for combat flew through her mind when Zhay-la turned to meet the beast of the Orion jungle, using its momentum to fling it across the clearing. All irritation with her day melted away as she watched the beast right itself, growl low at her. The bridge, launch day, all concerns bled from her mind when she joined the beast in circling the clearing, roaring in tandem for a good fight.

Stardate 2365.05.15
USS Peregrine; Deck 5, Holodeck - 0359

Drawing up to the holodeck, Tochi took note of the fact that, despite the computer’s assertion to the contrary, a short time ago, that it was unoccupied, someone was currently engaged with a program within. A sigh puffed past his lips and, for an instant, he considered abandoning his initial plan and backtracking to the gym but, following a second glance at the console mounted beside the door, he took note of the name of the program currently running… Taissud Alpha Nine, he read, Program eighty. Difficulty: Deadly.

His brows lifted in curiosity and his hand came up to stroke the stubble at his chin as his gaze turned to the door. From inside came the sound of a bestial shriek and roar which was overshadowed only by a nearly feral scream. He considered letting the program run uninterrupted to its conclusion but, in the end, inquisitiveness got the upper hand and he keyed in an override sequence that would allow him entrance to the currently running simulation without disrupting it. Once the code was entered, the door squelched away before him and he stepped into a lush and humid jungle which Odia’s memories immediately associated with Orion’s rainforests. He tugged the blade from his kit, slung it over a shoulder, and dropped the remainder of the duffel by the door before venturing further in toward the sounds of conflict.

After a few moments of navigating through the underbrush and weaving around the dew-laden limbs that reached down from the canopy, he found his way to the top of a boulder that huddled on the edge of a clearing in which Zhay-la and a truly monstrous beast he couldn’t readily identify did battle. He sat there for what seemed like a good while, his chin resting on the pommel of his rapier as he watched, in rapt fascination, the fight ebb and flow. One minute the monster seemed to have the Orion woman on her heels but, an instant and a practiced maneuver later, Zhay-la, armed with little more than a dagger and, clad in perhaps less than her underclothes, had turned the tables on the creature and was opening up wound after wound in it’s leathery hide, spilling it’s blood into the already oversaturated jungle floor. When she had, at last, dispatched  the beast and knelt, clutching her blade and breathing heavily beside the fallen form, Tochi began clapping slowly in appreciation of her skill and effort.

“Well done, Lieutenant,” he nodded when, with no small amount of surprise, she took note of his applause and her seeking gaze found him atop the rock at the edge of the clearing, “Quite impressive! Do you always battle beasts for breakfast or is it just an end of week thing?”

Zhay-la could barely hear Tochi over the pounding of her heart in her ears, and it took a moment to catch enough of her breath to speak. “Sentimental reasons, sir,” she retorted. “I miss beast blood beneath my nails.” Standing to her feet, she sheathed her dancerknife and swiped awkwardly at digital blood on her abdomen. “I believe you reserved the holodeck for… now, I’m guessing? Allow me to get out of your way.”

“You’re not in our way, Zhay-la,” the Trill responded from behind a dry smile as he slipped down from his perch on the rock, “In fact, that was quite something to witness. I should have known, when I first saw your collection of blades, that they were for more than just decoration.”

He strode into the clearing, paused briefly to get a closer look at the felled monstrosity, and then continued on toward the winded green-skinned woman. Stopping at what he hoped was a respectful distance, he spiked a brow inquisitively. “Do you only fight holo-beasts, Lieutenant,” he asked, “or would you entertain the notion of sparring with a flesh and blood opponent?”

“You’re joking,” Zhay-la deadpanned.

“I’m not,” Tochi smirked, tapping at the ground between them with the tip of his blade, “It was a serious inquiry. It’s been quite a while since I’ve tested myself against more than a hologram or three.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re odd, Commander?” she replied, gesturing to her surroundings. “It’s four in the morning and you find me wrestling a pak’henda in my skivvies and challenge me to a duel?” Eyeing him suspiciously, Zhay-la crossed her arms and retorted sardonically, “Is this some kind of test?”

Tochi chuckled at that first question and nodded in response. “Odd, glitchy, strange,” he confirmed, “and likely worse, to be honest.” Absently, he carved a line in the jungle floor between them with the point of his rapier and met her gaze levelly. “And, no; no test, just a genuine offer.” He shrugged, then, a somewhat weary smile playing over his features. “It doesn’t have to be right now, of course,” he suggested, the tip of his blade gesturing at the pak’henda,  “We’re fairly sure that that took quite a bit out of you. The offer stands, though. Consider it an open invitation.”

A scoff was the response Tochi received. “Don’t count me out just yet, Commander,” Zhay-la challenged, moving to stand in front of the Trill, separated still by the line in the dirt. 

“The thought never crossed my mind,” he grinned.

“Even if this isn’t some kind of test, you’ll find that I’ll surpass your expectations in combat.”

“And, we’re sure that you’ll find we have no expectations,” Tochi quipped in return, his fingers flexing around the rapier’s hilt, “nor do I ever underestimate an opponent.”

She unholstered her dancerknife, giving it a once over. “So, what are the terms of this ‘duel’ to be?”

A slow rolling of his shoulders passed for a shrug. “Well, when I initially reserved the holodeck, this morning,” he confessed, “my intent was simply to… work through some ‘frustration’, shall we say? So, I didn’t show up with any particular terms in mind. What do you propose?”

“Something minus that fancy poker you’ve got,” the Orion replied. “What even is that good for? Moving logs in a fire?”

“Or roasting marshmallows over one, perhaps,” the Trill laughed.

He considered his blade for a moment, then turned his eyes to the smaller weapon she held in her hand before framing her face in his sight, once more. “You’d prefer I consider a smaller blade, then,” he asked, “or are you suggesting we forego weapons altogether and make this a hand-to-hand affair?”

Cracking knuckles reverberated through the jungle. “Sounds good to me,” Zhay-la said. To make her point further, she tossed the knife out of the clearing and raised her arms in a guard position.

With a bemused grin and a scant nod in acceptance of the ‘terms’, Tochi turned, rested his rapier against the boulder upon which he had sat, watching her fight the pak’henda, stripped off his own shirt and tossed it, too, on the rock, before turning to stride back toward the waiting woman… Why do we get the feeling we just asked to have our ass kicked? a chorus of voices sounded in his mind even as he grinned and, shaking blood into his hands, jandered back toward the line that Zhay-la had yet to cross… Drawing up to that line, his fingers curled, not quite into fists but almost, and, he bounced on the balls of his feet for a moment before settling into a ready stance. In the wake of a grin and a playful wink, Tochi extended a hand, palm up, and made a gesture to beckon her forward. Come and get some…

At the sight of her superior officer shirtless, Zhay-la’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. Not bad, she surmised, following the trail of purple spots down Tochi’s torso, taking in the correct positioning of his stance and the eagerness in his dancing feet. She rolled her eyes at his cavalierness with the baiting gesture and wink, while smothering a smile of her own.

“First to three,” she proposed. “If you’re knocked on your back, that’s a point.” She smoothed down some flyaway hairs, balled her hands into fist, and took a step towards the line, waiting for Tochi’s response.

“Sounds reasonable,” Tochi acquiesced with the scantest bobbing of his head. “Shall we dance?” he grinned just before his gaze slipped away from her eyes and focused, instead, on a point just below her collarbone; the subtle muscle movements, there, would telegraph a planned strike long before it might register in her eyes. “Ladies first,” he smirked.

You’ve done it now, Zhay-la thought to herself, eyebrows furrowing at the XO’s seeming flippancy. He was charming, she’d give him that, but she wanted to see how serious he could take things, here and now.

At the drop in eye contact, her impression of Tochi improved a bit; tactical choice to look at that telegraphing spot. Here’s hoping he learned to look lower when it came to her…

Zhay-la ran for it, diving feet-first across the line, aiming to get her legs around Tochi’s and to drop him.

Frill! Zhay-la’s attempted sweep was an aggressive opening maneuver and, admittedly, not one he had been entirely prepared for. As her legs sought to sweep his at both knee and ankle, Tochi skipped backward, managing to avoid the full effect of the move but, still, it had consequences. She had missed her goal of entangling both of his legs but still managing to snare one.

He fought the instinct to resist the buckling of that knee, though, and, instead, allowed himself to roll into the momentum. His free leg swept around in a wide arc as he fell, his foot whispering past her face as he spun and threw out his hands to keep from ending up on his back so soon in the fight. “Nice,” he breathed, working now to free his trapped leg from between hers.

A grunt was the reply he received, as Zhay-la put all of her core strength into dragging Tochi towards her, aiming to knock him off balance.

She’s a strong one, Tochi thought, struggling to keep from being forced onto his back as she tugged and twisted at his leg. 

The slickness of the jungle floor didn’t help much where maintaining his balance was concerned, either, and, between that and her efforts, he was left with very few options that wouldn’t involve actually hurting the hard-hitting Orion… or dislocating our own knee… and, so, he relented. His hands let go of the underbrush as he wrenched himself around, delivering a light tap of a kick to her buttock in mock defiance before his back thudded against the floor.

“That’s one for you,” the Trill chuffed.

 Confidence shot through Zhay-la at Tochi’s surrender, flaming out the indignation at the contact with her ass. She released his leg, standing back to her feet with a smirk. “You talk too much,” she offered in constructive, if lighthearted criticism. 

“So we’ve heard,” Tochi chuckled before kicking himself up to his feet, “Mostly from you, but we have heard it.”

Settling back behind the line, arms at the ready, Zhay-la looked to the Trill. “Ready?” 

He paced his side of the line as he dusted himself off and shook the tension from his leg. Once again, he bounced on the balls of his feet before settling into a ready stance, albeit with a slightly more aggressive posture… Are you?

There was no self-confident smirk or coy quip from him, this time; only the settling of his gaze on that nether-point on her chest, once more, and the measured release of a breath. Then, perhaps, far more suddenly than she might have expected, Tochi was in motion. 

He feinted a low-line kick that, for a split second, caused her stance to narrow. As she sought to reclaim her center of gravity in the wake of that feigned strike, his lead hand lashed out toward her face; the flicker-jab slipping past her guard and culminating with his fingertips flashing just before her now wide grey eyes.

Unsettled at the quickness of it all, Zhay-la simultaneously batted away the hand before her face and tried to backpedal in an attempt to open the gap between herself and the Trill. It was then that she realized, following the ruse of Tochi’s first kick, his foot had come down atop hers and had it pinned to the jungle floor, preventing any sort of strategic retreat. Her mind had yet to completely register the maneuver and adapt a tactical response before Tochi had twisted his hip forward, releasing her foot, and the heel of his trailing hand had come around to land a solid (if somewhat restrained) blow to her solar plexus. 

The breath whoosed from her lungs, Zhay-la staggered back a step or two, and then registered that the Trill had disappeared from her sight. She understood why when she felt his leg sweep her’s from under her, though, and, just that quick, found herself looking up at him from the jungle’s undergrowth.

“Less talking,” Tochi grinned, a hand extended, offering to help her back to her feet, “Good advice. 

That’s one for us. Yes?”

This time Zhay-la let out a curse in her native tongue. “Disarmingly charming,” my ass, she thought. This one’s dangerous.

Innate Orion stubbornness had often been the deciding factor between failure and victory for Zhay-la; her species as a whole had explored the stars and continued to plunder and pillage their riches as much because of tenacity as technological innovation. It had been no different for her between the training she underwent on Orion in this exact scenario - naked and fighting for her life against pak’henda in the jungle - than when she pushed her application through for the Peregrine’s roster, and both times it yielded if not optimal, then at least satisfactory results. Why that mattered now was simple; Zhay-la felt the urge to grit her teeth and dig her heels in this fight, whether it was a friendly spar with her XO or not, and she would be obeying that survival instinct.

Hauling herself into a sitting position, Zhay-la matched the friendly air Tochi exuded naturally, extending a hand to his outstretched one. She allowed him to pull her to her feet, mildly surprised at his strength, and gave him a split second to watch her expression turn from smiling into something dangerous.

Reaching around with her free hand, Zhay-la grabbed the waistband of Tochi’s pants, gripping his forearm with the other. Then she threw her full weight into a controlled fall, leg slipping between the Trill’s, effectively putting her momentum downwards into all the right places; as she landed on her back and released, Tochi sailed over her, landing a couple feet to her left, sprawled on his back, thoroughly dazed.

“Two to one,” the Orion declared smugly, rolling to her knees.

By the Ancestors, Tochi groaned inwardly, blinking up at the lush canopy of the holographic Orion jungle, that stung a bit. I think we may have upset her. He lay there for a moment, trying to reclaim the wind that had been forced from him by the impact. Did she say best two out of three, he pondered, or was it first to three? Please, let it be the former.

Finally, with a soft grunt, the Trill got back on his feet and turned his gaze to the haughtily grinning woman. He offered an appreciative nod and, rolling his shoulders to ease the ache in his back, padded back in her direction. “We weren’t expecting that,” he smirked, “Well done.”

“You left yourself wide open, sir,” Zhay-la commented, keeping a respectful distance in case he was planning a recourse attack. “Continue to leave your guard down and you can expect more from where that came from.”

Maybe she was toeing the line here - heavens knew she rarely could tell in social situations - but even a sparring session like this was something Zhay-la took seriously. Being an assassin taught her better than Starfleet ever could that not just expecting, but being prepared for the unexpected could mean the difference between life and death.

Being an assassin also taught her to place her trust carefully. Even if Zai wasn’t testing her intentionally, Zhay-la knew that there was some kind of judgment going on here, at the very least on her part, certainly.

Twisting his head from side to side to crack his neck, Tochi retook his side of the line and lifted a brow. “And here we were thinking this was a friendly competition,” he grinned, “I’ll be sure to keep the lessons you’re teaching me in mind for the next time. Less talking,” he ticked off the points on his fingers, “and never offer a hand up after a fall.

Now, remind us,” he chuckled softly, “what were the terms of this contest? Was it a total of three or have you had enough?”

She shrugged. “Can be either, but I intended it to be whoever reached three points first won.” Grey eyes flicking between his inviting smile and the line they somehow returned to putting between them, Zhay-la worried her lip for a moment, arms crossing over herself defensively. “...I apologize if I took this too seriously, sir,” she said after a moment. “Combat is one of the few outlets I have and I treat it with utmost seriousness, for better or worse. You’re a worthwhile opponent in your own right, but holo-beasts usually are better for taking my beatings.” Eyes finally meeting his once more, she hoped he took the apology.

Once more, Tochi lifted a hand by way of dismissing the unnecessary apology. “Quite alright, Zhay-la,” he reassured her, meeting her gaze evenly, “As we've had encounters with your people before, we should have known better than to take this as lightly as I have… and, please, leave the ‘sirs’ at the door; unless we’re on duty, it’s Tochi.”

The mention of her people caught Zhay-la’s attention rather quickly. She couldn’t keep all of the worry out of her voice when asking, “You’ve dealt with the Syndicate before?”

Her concerned tone snatched at his attention, prompting him to approach the subject with all due caution. “We have,” he nodded faintly, “A long, long time ago. We dealt mostly with the Free Traders, of course, but, we did have a few unfortunate run-ins with the Syndicate. Far from the most honorable of people and, most definitely, not the sort we would ever have willingly done business with, even in those days....”

When was that, he found himself wondering even as he spoke, 2198? 99? Frill me, it has been a while!

“...We actually went out of our way to try and avoid the Syndicate when and where we could,” he continued, Odia’s memories of his many trips to Orion flooding through him, now, “but, as we’re sure you’re aware, that’s never an easy thing to do.”

“No,” Zhay-la’s voice darkened, “it’s not.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling a pressure headache coming on. But something that had been catching her attention since meeting the commander piqued Zhay-la’s curiosity in the moment. “‘We’?” she questioned, looking at the Trill. “Has the Peregrine dealt with the Syndicate before? I thought the previous postings had been far from Orion space.”

Tochi’s eyes blinked slowly... So, he realized, she’s picked up on our ‘glitch.’ Observant, this one… Then, with a slow shake of his head and a marginal smile feathering across his lips, he answered; “No. They didn’t build ships like the Peregrine back in those days.

In fact,” he continued, “Starfleet wasn’t even fifty years old, at the time, and your grandparents, maybe even your great-grandparents, probably hadn’t even been born, yet.” 

When he noted the baffled expression that played on her features in the wake of his reply, he offered something of an enigmatic chuckle. “By the look on your face,” he said, “you’re, perhaps, a bit more interested in my explaining that, than you are in continuing this?” He waved vaguely at the holo-emitter induced landscape that surrounded them. “I wouldn’t want to have my butt handed to me because I was talking too much, after all.”

Zhay-la went from staring at Tochi intensely to rolling her eyes at him. “Yes, I won’t drop kick you while you explain,” she said, while sarcastic, still taking a moment to gesture to the rock he had perched on earlier before taking a seat there herself.

He tilted his head in acknowledgement of her gesture and padded toward the rock and, as he went, wrestled with how best to explain this to her. “We are older than I look,” he started. He lifted a finger to tap at one spotted temple. “Inside here are some four hundred years or so worth of memories and experiences that are not solely my own.” Settling himself on the rock and resting his elbows on his knees, he turned his eyes her way and smiled. “There is me, of course, but there are also Kasru, Dirven, Odia, and Isri… and we are all Zai.”

The Orion woman still looked more than a little perplexed.

“A small percentage of Trill exist as a joined species,” he explained, “sharing their lives and experiences with what we refer to as symbionts. The symbionts live far longer than a humanoid Trill could ever hope to imagine but due to certain, shall we say, physical limitations, the symbionts could never hope to explore our world, let alone the galaxy, as beings who could walk, or build ships, or even interact in a meaningful way with any other species beyond their own. So, long ago, someone on my homeworld got the bright idea that we could help the symbionts do those kinds of things by playing host to them....”

Something in Zhay-la’s stomach twisted at the mention of “playing host,” reflected by her face screwing up in mild disgust. “You’re carrying a parasite?”

Tochi’s brow very nearly furrowed at that but he managed to stave off the reaction and, instead, offered another slow shake of the head. “Not a parasite,” he said, somewhat insistently, “a symbiont. There is a difference.”

No matter how many times he had tried to explain the unique relationship to others, he never seemed to get it to come across quite right except in a handful of instances - Drake, Vaela, and Asovil being notable exceptions - and the almost frustrated sigh that blew past his lips, then, may very well have captured his own difficulty in trying to quantify the intricacies of it all to non-Trill. “We can see how, to other species, this may all seem strange,” he said, steepling his fingers together and pressing them to his forehead as he tore his eyes from her and, instead, studied the ground framed between his feet, “and, to be honest, it was never my intent to be joined… That was always my sister Myrri’s dream…” His fingers came apart and feathered past his temples and through the close-cropped hair at the sides of his head before he turned to regard her, again.

“Let me start at where it began for me,” he smiled faintly, his hazel eyes seeking out her grey ones, again, and trying not to react to the disgust he saw reflected in them, “yes?”

The Orion gathered her knees to her chest, eyes intently on Tochi.

One hand came away from the back of his neck to scratch at his stubbled chin and he heaved another, thoughtful sigh. “When I served aboard the Perseus, my name was Tochi Tiaghen,” he murmured, “I had a mother, a father, and two sisters. Then, on stardate 31587.5, everything changed…”

Over the course of the next thirty minutes or better, he related to the Orion woman the exact circumstances of how he came to be joined, the consequences and complications of those actions, and how, precisely, it had changed both him and the Zai symbiont - for better and for worse.

“...the tack of my career improved,” he shrugged, coming to the end of the tale of his joining, “but, aside from Nizrri, my relationship with my family all but disappeared. We were something else to them, by then, especially to Myrri, and she’s a Guardian with the Commission, so, you can see how that might be uncomfortable…” He chuckled softly, almost sadly, and shrugged again “...or, maybe, you can’t. It’s a complex thing that very few can truly accept or truly understand outside of the Trill. Even to them, though, I’m not quite right. We are intended to be a seamless blending of past and present, after all, and, as I’m sure you have noticed, I don’t quite live up to that ideal. It’s only because of Zai’s insistence that Tochi is still here, really.”

Another soft, maybe even weak, chuckle escaped him at that and his eyes peeled away from hers to study that point between his toes, again. “I haven’t told that story to many,” he veritably whispered after a moment, “and most of those had figured bits and pieces of it out, before, they dragged the details free… Vaela, we think, was the quickest. Dirven spent a lot of time with her grandmother, after all. Silas… Captain Drake, well, he had access to our records and, as he’s become my closest friend, I just told him everything… And, Asovil…” another heavy, almost longing sigh came, here “...She deserved to know, because… because I’m fairly certain that I loved her and…”

He let the statement and the thoughts fall, there, and offered another faint shrug as his gaze turned, once again, to the jungle floor. “We may have said too much,” he confessed quietly, “and I’m not sure why; but I feel I can trust you.”

Breathing became hard underneath the Trill’s open, dare she say trusting gaze. Zhay-la had listened attentively, morbidly fascinated with parts of the XO’s story, but it was the lingering vulnerability he expressed that caught her off-guard.

Zhay-la had seen vulnerability. When you’re at the mercy of slavers, a witness and participant to the completely skewed power dynamics between master and slave, you see the epitome of powerlessness. As an assassin, you have access to the intimacy of a person’s final moments, the witnesses’ knee-jerk reactions, pure grief and panic. She was not a stranger to vulnerability; she had been at the mercy of it, had ripped it open in others, and been its master and victim countless times.

She just had so rarely had someone be this vulnerable with her by choice.

“Tochi…” she started, mouth suddenly dry. Slowly her knees fell, one by one, so that she could lean towards the Trill. She hesitated at first, but then a hand dropped to rest on his forearm. Her mind was a roiling sea of emotions, thoughts she wanted to express but lacked the words - or the freedom - to share with him. Times like this made her curse her training; having the empathy beaten out of you rarely made you a good communicator, nevermind Zhay-la’s own lackluster emotional intelligence.

Racking her brain for any semblance of comforting words nearly induced a headache. So Zhay-la finally went with what she knew best; action.

Removing her hand, the Orion turned her back towards Tochi. She lifted the sweat-slicked bun of hair from the nape of her neck, allowing a full view of the tattoo there. It was a simple barcode, depicting Orion digits based on an old dialect of their mathematics system, done in faded black ink. In comparison to the more vibrant and colourful symbols running amuck over her shoulder blades and back, this tattoo appeared old, for how the ink had lightened to a bluish-black. It was slashed and marred by several scars; the edges were worn away by deep gouges in her skin, looking to be done by fingernails, while there was a long stretch of scar tissue through the numbers, meticulously crossing out the digits.

“You’ve read my file,” she said simply, glancing over her shoulder at Tochi. “You know I’m barely Starfleet material and turned my back on my people.” She let her hair fall back over the tattoo, a few strands falling to frame her face as she turned to the Trill again. “I do not understand what - who Zai is, nor the distinction between you and them, or what this ‘joining’ has cost you.” She met his gaze, grey eyes flashing with that stubborn pride once more. “But I know sacrifice, and can tell that you’ve made many.” She offered a small, wry smile, “Perhaps it is that misery we both carry that makes you think I’m trustworthy.”

He had meant to protest her assumption that he was miserable or even that he thought of his joining with Zai as a sacrifice. Quite the opposite, in fact; to be joined was an honor, just not one he’d consciously sought out. His misery came from the loss of crewmates… friends… family. Those objections were silenced, though, when she turned, lifted her hair, and revealed the faded and scarred tattoo at the nape of her neck which marked her as a former slave.

So that’s why she became so defensive when I first asked about her past, Tochi scowled. He hadn’t truly considered, then, that her almost angry rebuffs might have anything at all to do with that. Now he was mentally kicking himself for having thought to broach the subject to begin with, especially without having done some research of his own, first.

“Oh…” Resisting the urge to reach out and touch the brand by lacing his fingers together, he offered a slow, sympathetic shake of his head, instead. “I’m so sorry, Zhay-la,” Tochi muttered, “I can’t begin to imagine what you must have endured. I…”

A soft chime from the computer interrupted him, snatching his gaze from what surely must be a hated reminder of the Orion woman’s past.  =/=The time is oh-five-hundred hours and twenty minutes,=/= the gentle synthetic voice said, =/=Commander Zai, your reservation of this holodeck expires in ten minutes.=/=

“By the Ancestors,” he said in the wake of a faint chuckle of disbelief, “has it been that long, already?”

He turned his eyes to the emerald-skinned woman beside him, then, and grinned. “This is certainly not the way I envisioned the morning starting,” Tochi said, rising from his place on the rock and offering a hand to her, “but, we have to admit, it’s been entertaining and… enlightening. We’ll have to do this again, sometime, Lieutenant,” he suggested, “and see which of us wins that third fall, hm?”