Chapter Ten--Aspects (Epilogue)
by D'Alaire
Aspects
"It has been said among us, that there is a use of patience, of prayers, and of love... "And yet there lies hope, promise and the unavoidable, the product of all life which has been before..."
"Do you want me to bring your tracha now?"
"Gye. My thanks, Kes. It can wait."
Kes smiled as she nodded to the unmoved lady; then she took herself back to the other tables to remove the dinner vases.
It had amazed them at first, the view of the stars.
Even in the height of the Unar War, when their days were mostly spent in the Irllae fields dodging through the barren and twin systems there, they never saw as many stars since they left the people of their birth.
Of course, that was Irllae, and they had become rather accustomed to it--an understatement, as even walking outside at night on Cezia, or even out to the fields surrounding Desal when they ventured farther, they had rather pointed at moons or nebulae or asteroid strings in their skywatching. They knew every plasma stream, each spot of radiant haze and, yes, the few stars that were visible, mainly Ivlisa's, a beautiful, blue star which lit most nights on Desalia with a lovely, violet hue.
It was Anai's favorite to watch, in its turns and frequent eclipses. Ara liked to lie back with his lady on the grass by the commune gardens and watch the shimmering Pashill Zi'ihar, which was the "neck" of the Desalian territory. A few lone, tiny stars lit it beautifully most nights, creating a golden scarf, waving slightly in the sky. They would watch those phenomena and recall the many times they flew through them, during the war, or later in their travels.
But most often, they simply enjoyed the quiet there, holding hands or in an embrace, and they often kissed as though they were but lovers.
It was odd, that they had never really thought about the vaster starfield, not until they saw it again.
It still drew her eyes as she sat in the messhall, her feet tucked up under her on the couch, leaning on a hand, listening to the clinking noises behind her, her bondmate procuring their tray. So dear, he would not allow the good-natured but terribly misguided Talaxian man to meddle with their choices.
She watched the points of light pass at warp speed, from blue to red, streaming by, each star a piece of life in that galaxy among countless other galaxies. So many discoveries, still to be had, lives lived and still be to be lived and all those stars they left behind, how many lives they would never know until their true passing would take them, and they would be one amongst it all.
Just then, however, they preferred to consider what they were approaching and place hope in that direction. It was easier that way. It always had been.
And yet, they would always remember...
"It is ever-turning, that which is meant, taking us in what directions nature would require of us, and we are all a part of that. We all, as one, create the whole, even when this is not realized..."
Certain that all the precautions had been taken, that he would be reactivated should his patients have any difficulties or--with the first two, asleep again--tried to leave, the Doctor made a final round of his sleeping sickbay and nodded to himself. Standing straight, his eyes pointed towards the wall.
"Computer, set reactivation program EMH-beta-three and deactivate emergency medical holographic program until oh-five hundred hours."
"*Reactivation program activated.*"
A slight whish in the air followed, then the room dimmed further.
Several moments passed, where only the steady hum of the ship's internal systems could be heard, the light beeps of the medical sensors on the walls, the little buzz of the stasis generator...
Two sets of hazeled eyes opened upon each other's.
"I cannot imagine why he bears such meager trust," clucked Anai. Her bondmate's lips turned up slightly as his gaze darted over her features yet again. It was as much an appraisal as an examination.
With good reason, they had been staring at each other since first awakening. Not that their appearances were terribly foreign. What was strange was that they appeared much as they knew each other in their spirits, younger and without injury. Seeing it and knowing they were in the living world was what would require adjustment.
Unexpected as it all was, stressful as it all had been, the peculiarity earned her a nervous grin. Ara did not miss it.
With another look around the plain-lined room, he pushed his covering (he would not have called it a blanket) aside and slid his legs over the side of the biobed, and then the rest of him. A little dizzy, a little unsure, he still managed to find his footing. He drew a breath to steady himself, to be certain that his knees were going to hold up.
His limbs were strong, however--young, he reminded himself yet again. Even moving, like breathing, smelling and seeing, was something he would likely come as a surprise to him for a while. And he wondered why he first felt discouraged about it. Probably for the newness itself, Ara thought. Seeing what awaited him, however, lying on her side, her head rested on her little hand, eyeing his motion curiously, almost cautiously, he felt somewhat better about making the three step trip between the beds.
"The Doctor shall not approve," Anai warned him, though her lips turned approvingly up as he steadied himself further.
"The Doctor may drivel to Prihar on sleeping arrangements," he replied, light despite his efforts. "I have shared your bed since our first moon upon Uillar and a learned projection shall not change it, regardless of our locale."
Anai's smile grew. "Then bring yourself to bed--granted your ability to climb up."
"Continue to speak to me in such a manner and I would ensure we were extracted from this public room."
"That would be most pleasing," she said, serious in her turn. Neither of them had been comfortable there, particularly with crewpeople wandering in and out with their own maladies--and acquiring another sort of shock to see the resurrected forms of their former officers. "This as well would require our survival, however."
"A risk which might bear worth, I should think."
She snorted softly, moved her covering aside as he neared.
Despite their wit, too easily recalled, her grin faded as she managed to sit herself up and scoot back, nearer to the wall. He climbed carefully up, hardly making noise doing so, nor in pulling his legs onto the thin mattress, cocking one in front of himself as he looked at her once again.
They both released a small breath.
He reached out to her, swallowing a bit, anxious to feel her warm skin beneath his fingers again, though still slightly hesitant. They knew they were still bonded--knew that perfectly upon awaking in that cold, grey room. Likewise, with but a glance, they knew their markings had not been altered.
But there were certain peculiarities to be had in sharing the feel of the kraja.
Not to mention, seeing Anai as she was in that physical world was quickly beginning to remind Ara precisely of his youth. Even so, the long afternoon, directly following their last memories of their blessed spirit-children taking their memories and adoringly praying for their journey, and before that all the goodbyes, from their family, their children... All of their day had also reminded Ara of his own tiredness. Only the sight of Anai and their shared stunned state had kept him awake at that point.
Leaning into the approach, Anai locked her eyes to his and prepared to take his hand. But her fingers stopped in mid-air when the felt the soft of his fingertips brush against her temple.
She felt every nerve within her light up in a way they had not since they woke. Her lips fell apart for the sensation, his energy, his spirit, meeting hers. She felt his relief, too, washing into and through her--blending with her own. Among those not bonded, it was a friendly show of social and spiritual community. Between bondmates, it was a publicly practiced intimacy.
A long, mutual sigh escaped them both, and she turned her head to kiss his wrist as her fingers found his temple in return. He closed his eyes briefly at the contact, exhaling slowly to feel her lave his tender skin, feel her fingertips draw into his nerves, waking his consciousness while equally relaxing him.
Indeed, that much was well.
Her shoulders, small but strong, fell slightly. His steady, tender gaze, his presence, even his arousal--an understandable response she could also admit to--all reassured her. Those things with their kraja being undamaged were enough for the time being.
Their fingers fell gently away, floated down to each other's laps. Ara's hand found her knee, squeezed it tenderly. She glanced down at the strange cloth of his sickbay attire.
"It may well have been predicted, that fate would see us as we are," Anai finally said, "for conniving to make ourselves know our spirits' truth regardless of what occurred." The thought drew a curl upon her mouth, not a smile nor any sort of derision.
His nod that time was slow, thoughtful both for her and for him. "Perhaps fate simply saves us the time and inconvenience of rediscovering ourselves."
"And it cannot be said how we might have been affected had our memories not been as apparent," she agreed, "as our spirits would have remained whole and untouched, I would believe."
"Though guessing about this matters no longer. What we bear is done--by our own allowance." He shook his head to consider that further. "We two and our risks, Anai. It is little wonder we have always achieved some measure of trouble, iva'e? --And yet it lends no surprise that we have procured again more than our own stubbornness could fend off."
Her lips flicked up again, and she opened her arms to him as he leaned forward. She reclined with his guidance, gladly letting his long, warm body cover her for a moment, smother her with his scent and the feel of his heart, strong once more, beating against her. Pressed to the pillow, he kissed her, gently assessing, then again with more assurance. Her fingers returned to his temples, stroking softly there.
Wrapping his arms around her, he turned them onto their sides and held her. She tucked her head under his chin, slipped her foot over his calf. She shuddered at the warmth and feeling between them.
"I feel such age, Ara," she breathed. "Here, in this body, so ready for movement, my spirit would wish I might only remain here with you, as we were when we awaited our passings."
He squeezed her again, nodding. "Then that is what we shall do for this moment," he told her, closing his eyes when he felt her lashes flutter downward. He pressed his cheek to the crown of her short, dark hair. "In the next moment, another thing to do may be found. There shall always be time while we are among the living, my spirit."
At that, Ara felt her little smile through the cloth he wore, and then the light kiss she pressed to his chest before succumbing to sleep.
"I guess I wasn't prepared for the current. I'd never been in that holoprogram before."
"And so, like most of the crew, you decided to get a crash course, hmm? --Kes, bring me a tissue regenerator."
"Yes, Doctor."
They awoke to those sounds, a byplay which continued with the Doctor's rather chipper treatment of a Mr. Chapman, injured while trying to drive a gondola, for what they could make out.
"Think of it this way, Mr. Chapman, you gave new meaning to the 'bridge of sighs.'"
"Very funny, Doc--ouch!"
"Remain still and try to relax. The realignment will only take another moment."
Furrowing their brows, they did not look despite the temptation. In a small way, they did not wish to know.
Instead, Ara happened to glance up and see Kes' kind smile. She had been watching them, that oddly wise girl who had taken on their little favor with an earnest they should have expected, who had begged they reconsider living as they were and insisted it would not be as bad as they thought. When he first saw her, she looked anxious then relieved to see them awaken.
It is almost as though they think we can simply disappear should they let us go again, he silently noted, stroking Anai's hair as she drew a fuller breath, stretched a bit in their undisturbed warmth.
Peeking over to the other side of the sickbay, Kes came close to them.
"I asked the Doctor not to disturb you," she whispered. "Stay as long as you like there. --Shh, I'll replicate you something to wear as soon as we're done with Mr. Chapman. Then we can see about your release. Your former quarters are still available, but if you want something new..."
Anai shook her head, still tucked into Ara's neck as she peered up. "It is well. His previous arrangement was closer, should my memory bear worth. We shall take ourselves there."
"I'll talk with the Doctor, then."
"Our thanks, Kes," Ara said. "We are indebted."
"This is partially my fault," Kes told them, "so I think the debt is mine. It's the least I can do."
"You have done more in truth than in selfishness," Anai replied, "and none to your need of repayment, Child. We shall be well enough in time."
Kes looked long into the lady's eyes at that. "I'm glad you think so," she said sincerely. With a pat on their entwined arms, she moved away, smiling wisely to approach the Doctor and his patient.
"It is known that the past--in conventional temporality, of course--cannot be changed. The same, of course, is known of the future. And yet, it is molded in what ways we may manage, act upon the present while we can and as we can."
"Torres, B'Elanna: Born at the colony of Kessik-Four, .731, 2344, FSD. Mother: Miral. Father: John Torres. Parents divorced. No siblings. Graduated high school at the Central Secondary Education Facility at Kessik with honors in calculus and physics. Attended two years at Starfleet Academy, ranking above average in her concentration. Terminated enrollment after fourth semester. Left Earth in late 2367, whereabouts unknown. 2371: Listed in a manifest of known Maquis offenders."
That did not appear promising.
Thankfully, Anai knew what had followed it.
Not ten minutes after Kes had managed to have the Doctor release them, they arrived at their quarters--Tom Paris' quarters--only to think first that they should eat. Without another word, Ara moved to procure their meal while Anai casually inspected the flat.
It did not take long.
Then again, they had shared much smaller spaces.
After setting away the cases containing their bonding clothes and ornaments, she paced another circle around the main room. Finding a portable terminal, Anai moved it to a side table she could kneel at, meaning to look at some engine statistics. Ending up in her personal file instead, she translated the record, slim as it was, into Desalian, before peeking through. Anai could remember Standard English characters, but feeling no desire to translate, she defaulted the system to the intermediate Desal dialect, which had been nicely programmed into Voyager's systems.
It was all true, and it took her but a few seconds to read that empty file of facts. There was little sense in taking that record and what she knew of herself at that time too seriously, however, except as a reminder of what she indeed had forsaken before she had even heard of the Voyager--a mother and father, her very legality, any peace of mind she might have had with herself...
Still, it was what had built her present being in that time and place. There was nothing to regret or mourn, nor truly had there ever been. She also could not regret that she had another chance to right all that she had abandoned. It was only that she--Anai--hadn't expected to have to.
Fate had corrected them both. They were as guilty as their childish selves for trying to avoid the inevitable.
She turned the monitor off.
Ara would have their meal finished soon. A good thing that, since her hunger had intensified after their brief walk from the sickbay. They had not taken "real" food yet, and the bodies they now possessed did not know the lean diet they had been both mentally and physically accustomed to since the nutritional nuggets at Uillar.
Not yet.
He was not appreciating the replicators, however. Not trusting the voice commands after the first dose he had tasted, Ara set into the computer from the molecules up, determined to prevent the machine from wasting another rapol. Truly, their present frustration was not all that had him cursing the box in the wall to Prihar. He had come to dislike replicators for all but medicine and supplies. Bala had spoiled him with good teaching in the kitchen too long ago.
No, it was for that he was too spoiled in tongue...in more ways than one, Anai grinned to herself.
Respectful of his involvement just then, however, she chose to leave him to his duty.
Standing, she wandered to the lavatory. It was moderately colored, the lines much in tune to the theme of the entire ship--grey and blue with touches of metal or white. Peering aside to a stall, she noted the dry shower, the redundant towels by it. She was clean enough for the time, she decided.
Turning again, Anai jumped a bit at her reflection, but then drew a breath to steel her nerves and remember what had happened. She had already seen her visage--had asked to. What she saw was nothing too shocking, only that her mind had naturally been trained to the elder.
This is myself, of course, Anai knew, tilting her head a bit to see that youthful, unscarred face, her full yet clever mouth and high, arching brow. She was prettier than she remembered, more pleasant somehow, even fascinating--her bondmate's idea of how she had looked at the time. She knew from his memory that he had always thought her beautiful. It was she at the time who tended to be dissatisfied.
It was a body with clothes that felt foreign to her despite Kes' effort to style them familiarly, with straightened hair cut short and skin with little more than a warp core's light and the remnants of nature to color it. Only her eyes and temples looked right.
Without thinking, Anai's fingers dipped into her fresh, dark locks and began to braid a side, wondering as she did it what to make of that mass.
Be'i shall bear some style in it this sun, Sashana'i used to say on Uillar. At the time, her sister's slurred tongue had not translated. Only years later, after Sashana'i's passing, had Anai been enlightened. It is too pretty to let hang like clumps of gask fur--and how glorious it would be at her knees!
Anai smiled. It had taken Sashana'i six years to convince her of that; even then, she had not grown her hair to the traditional length until she was past forty-five. It was simply too impractical for her.
She felt bare without her scarves, she sighed to herself as she expertly plaited the strands to pull the weight from her face. When early at Cezia, she, but a child, had resisted them, only bringing out that old faded gold cloth and her blue styeval gown on those first tsaborrs to give their family and friends a thrill. Four years later, Anai did not leave the loft without braiding at least a portion of her hair with a long, airy cloth, never gave it the slightest thought to don them like any other piece of clothing. It became a part of her wardrobe, like any other free Desalian lady.
Anai had almost finished when Ara's frame appeared in the mirror. So tall, she thought, handsome. His eyes and his little smile were knowing and casual, thoughtful and plain. Age had never changed that mix of expression, nor had experience. A very long time ago, that look had mystified her.
How she wished she was among the spirits with him then; a moment later, she was ironically glad they were there together, known perfectly to each other, in what was named Tom Paris' quarters, two ancient Desalians in children's bodies, homeless and bound in their wishes to assist the crew in their plight and bring closure to their very early lives.
Compared to what they already done, it seemed...simplistic. Certainly, they would not be regents there--and there was both good and bad to that. Their presence might well mean more to others. It would not surprise Anai if that eventually became the case, as most of their life had been spent serving others' needs, giving and teaching. That was one thing they were experts in--that and creating things that worked well.
In those things, they would at least have something to do, which was utilitarian, yet truth. Though, it had always brought them satisfaction, the great reward of hard work...
Obviously, they had not done enough work already to warrant a true passing.
On the other hand, Anai did realize the root of her pessimism. She disliked working with no knowledge of her place and plan. She was still weary from their recent experiences and for an age she keenly felt. Nor could she deny that she missed her children and family, her gentle people and good-willed neighbors.
Another thing they wished to avoid in remembering their lives, Anai knew.
Also, their status as outsiders had been bluntly returned to them--and that time to a people she would not have necessarily trusted had they been strangers to her. Worse was that Anai knew what they were capable of, in act and in thought. She came from those bloodlines, after all, but had lived so long in peace...
By the spirits, when did I become so much like Dalra had been towards us?
Or perhaps it was because she had left Voyager when she was too young, insecure and angry, and the impressions she recalled were rather biased.
Drawing her gaze back up to her bondmate, she hoped their purpose would be clearer in time. She knew she would give herself a headache should she continue her route of thinking.
"Zh'vi," he said quietly. His look had not changed.
"Zh'va," she whispered, casting her stare down again for a moment, knowing he knew the meaning.
Ara moved to her, stopping her from turning with a touch to her shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her from behind, pressed his lips upon the edges of her temple markings then whispered, "The wall unit has at last managed a decent meal."
Anai's lips turned up; she placed her hands on his, caressed them. "Dov? And what do we take this evening?"
"Soft flatbread with jita springs, nidoev--your preference, of course--and spiced mial. There is also dirrirt wine." Hearing her hum her approval to that, he embraced her more warmly still, nuzzling her ear. "It is inconceivable that the one who might have put the selections in the computer could not have given the recipes proper translation. I have reprogrammed them and shall add more as time permits. Yet this meal, you take your favorites."
"You are good to me, my spirit." Closing her eyes, Anai leaned her head back to stroke his forehead with her own. She breathed a small laugh at the feeling of her ridges as they rubbed against his very smooth brow. "I should hope I shall not bruise you with this thing for not thinking on it often enough."
He chuckled, raising his chin to place a kiss on the thin bridge of her nose. "It shall be forgiven should it occur, Anai...my Anai..." Ara breathed her scent, so sweet and stronger than ever on that sterile ship, with those uniformed people and cubicle rooms. It was everything he had realized in his comfortable library, with all he loved still around him. Selfish as it might have been, he did miss it, as he knew she did, too.
It was likewise difficult to know the uselessness of mourning what would have been passed to them no matter what had happened. Fate had not turned such a curve for them in a long time. They were bound to experience discouragement...
Anai rubbed her head against his again. "You are felt, Ara," she whispered.
"As are you." He paused then said softly, "Such a difference within us, as when we awoke to our beings past taking on the legacy, yet they are much the opposite of what they had been then. They remain so clearly, yet lie so quietly." She nodded. "I do not know how this should be presently interpreted."
"A disconcerting relief," she told him, "and a gift of the spirits, much as the Doctor would take credit for it with what resequencing he attempted."
"Ka."
Her eyes opened. She saw her own thoughtful expression and a part of his face buried in her short, thick hair. She felt his soft breath and touches, the warmth of his lean body and his scent, which all inspired her natural senses with a quickness she had not known in years.
At first, she could not believe she would think such a thing when their concerns were so far elsewhere. Yet Anai knew as she had the evening before that her arousal was natural and inevitable. More, they were as able to pleasure and be pleasured as they had been when they were children--aside from the Doctor's orders to resist the temptation...of Ara's frame, all his curves pressed against her, so warm, heating her inside as well as out...
"Vaa, do not do that to me," Ara breathed, though he was already grinning at her mischief.
Her own mouth turned briefly upwards. "Bring your eyes to the mirror," she said. "Look at us."
His gaze pulled away from her hair, and he blinked at what greeted him: Chiseled features, a short blond covering of hair above fair skin, dark bluish hazel eyes, strong shoulders covered by a dun coat. The lady before him seemed far more familiar to him, though "outside her own skin," too. Anai was staring intently at their reflection as she pulled their hands up to her ribs.
"This is what we are now," she whispered, "what we must grow to bear knowledge of again, Ara."
"Who are they?" Ara asked, not as troubled as sincerely curious. It indeed would take a good deal of looking to convince his old eyes not to jump a bit at that boy, to believe it was himself while not among the passed. "Those shells bearing our spirits?" He drew another deep breath, smelling her deeply, trying to associate it with senses naturally poorer than her own.
His hand turned on hers. Without words, Anai rotated her kraja-marked finger into his same-patterned palm; Ara returned the touch with a simple shift of his wrist.
The next they saw was a plain far more familiar, pure and white and beyond that ship, those clothes, that artificial environment and replicated food. They saw upon each other their bonding clothing, their properly dressed hair and all their ornaments--all that they were and saw of themselves. It was more than appearance. In that pure light, they were complete, weightless yet grounded, free yet full in all that life had given them, even in their conscience, where the long line of memories had burrowed themselves.
This is our truth, my beloved, was her first thought, lightened already to be there, to see it, too feel those familiar waves of awareness around them. And it is not too unlike what we have just left--only that this is eternity and the other is life.
Beyond, they felt the love of their own, surrounding and lighting them, all within their memory and experience, within their true lives, even the prayers of those still among the living.
That would never cease, they were assured. It would always be theirs.
She laughed and turned to face him, reaching up to touch his temple with soft fingers. His smile grew. As elder as you grow, you are yet such life, my Anai. Little wonder no technology could bury it.
Nor your charms, she knew as she turned so they could see the open field where they ran like joth, laughing, teasing and challenging each other with every swoop and swerve.
She had felt so free that day, in that place and at that time, with the wind catching her gown, her hair bouncing wildly. His face shone so brightly, laughing, glancing back. She knew she loved him--and he loved her utterly. She knew she was happy. She chased him in complete abandon and jumped fully into his arms but a moment after he turned to her, wrapping her legs around his waist to tackle him into the soft grass. They rolled together down the hill, kissing and giggling like the children they were. Finally, ending up on top, she caught his wrists, thrusting them up over his head. Growling happily with the victory he'd essentially given her, she bent down and captured his mouth again...
Smiling, he took her hand and turned her in a circle and they saw themselves walking across those same fields with Ba'ela, Mirai and Kyerani when they visited one week, just past the rains. Her belly was slightly full with Kela, and she skipped up a bit, wanting to run, giggling as if she was truly with them. They waved to Susik, also there with Gatra and Marise for the holiday, the consecration of the new Institute at Azlre. As Marise, a lovely, wild Antral girl of fourteen, ran ahead with the other children, the adults met, embracing on the road from Dviglar, in the warm, clear sun. Soon they would find Kurt and Yasis with Novedor, Kasre and Ridis, their adopted children. Together they would take good food and company, celebrate the day.
A fond memory, often to be repeated over the years, as the children grew, bonded, put forth their own upon the fruitful plains of Desal, and as their region and lands were increasingly restored to all their dreams and legacies had envisioned. Three of their six children took their oaths as scholars in that city, ever beloved by the regents; two chose to remain, to build their own houses and families at Cezia. It pleased the parents well, to know their seed populated that world still, and always would.
They watched Kolana dart out into the field with his sweet Sisji after their boy I'orlla. Pe'atla was close behind, stuffing his book into his coat pocket to enjoy a diversion. In their mid-sixties then, they remained behind to walk and talk with Baki and Iserra, only young lovers, who were yet working up the topic of taking a day trip to the sea--alone. It would be at that sea four years later that Osna--Iserra's name of being--took their fair Babaki as his true mate, putting her with child. Two days before their bonding, Be'otala to his great surprise had ascended into the position of First Council to the Prime Minister. Some years later, he would be elected to the ministry itself, a position he held for twelve years before retiring to return to academics at the Institute.
Only a year ago, the two had treaded that same old path, elders of Desal, frail and shuffling, holding their robes in a fist lest they trip. And yet, their spirits were alight to be on their homeworld and to see their descendants playing among the grasses with their own children, as free and quick as they had been. For all they had done in their lives, all the places they knew and loved, it was that simple pleasure they had always returned to and would always remember for the stages that their lives had shown that path.
Their eyes met again and the gentle light brought them back to the plain they shared. It was all still there, all that they had seen, so much more yet to come beyond that present...
All that was, all that is and is yet to be...all one, in life.
With patience and faith, time would have no meaning someday, and in the present, their children would be there, waiting for them, always, and watching their parents touch the worlds of their birth, a blessed journey. It was a part of their heritage, too, and there were ancestors yet to be rediscovered and accepted by the elders in truth.
They had moved so far beyond their birth, and yet there had never been a true acceptance, a true balance.
It was time to change that.
Fading from the plain for the time, they saw again their reflections in the small lavatory mirror, their bonded eyes locked together still. Those eyes had not changed, nor had the nature of his embrace when she turned within it and pressed herself against him.
That was what was real. The shell did not matter, but the air, sand and water that formed its crevices did. They should take it all, all that experience and the blessing of having lived and thrived, to the spirits who would celebrate it along with them...someday.
Again, Anai's thoughts turned to Ara's tender warmth, knowing they could live and should to the best of their ability, aware of all that life could be and produce...
"Our meal, my spirit?" he grinned wisely.
"It pleases," she whispered, laughing softly when she felt that shell's belly rumble with agreement.
"This is the blessing of being among the living which we must grasp, each sun, in action, feeling, thought and true care of all of that which surrounds us. In this, we may sincerely hope to steer below the sails of fate, always full with the sweet air of our blessed spirits..."
She growled softly when he accidentally set the cups on the table a bit too hard. Looking quickly over, he chuckled to see her dark, mussed head thwap into the pillow and snuggle in.
Like a little bear, Ara thought, certainly not for the first time as he admired also her thin back, smooth and bare, and how her slight yet muscular arms wrapped around the pillow, bundling it to her face as she grasped still at memories and imaginings.
So much to remember, so much to do and think upon, put into some tangible plan for development. Over their evening meal, they had discussed beginning projects to get Voyager home more quickly. Though Irllae was such a relatively small region, there had long been study and discussion of subspace pockets, trans-dimensional windows, generated wormholes, methods of shipless travel and temporal physics. There was no reason why they could not continue that research there. In fact, there was even more reason for them to on that ship.
It was certainly something they would discuss with the captain. That in combination with their spiritual reassurance had improved their outlook on living there during the evening, where they spent more time than they expected to at the short, otherwise quiet table. Without a family there to listen to or speak with after, they made their own business, drank the wine and eventually wore themselves enough of that day to retire.
Somewhat.
Ara took another long glance at his bondmate. For their excess energy alone, Anai had been...very much herself the night before, a thing Ara had not been lucky enough to enjoy in some years, and which they both had desired so dearly.
Despite their situation, he would have been the last to deny his wish to make love to her since he first peered over to her in the sickbay and realized their bond and his heart were fine. When they were finally at the edge of the bed and agreed between their warm and lengthening kisses that they were not tired, Anai finally gave in to their mutual desire, telling him in no uncertain terms that they needed to join to each other. A moment after he smiled at that, she proceeded to bare him for her tasting with learned hands. Without hesitation, Ara likewise put aside all his present concerns to take his mate properly once again.
Consequently, the collar of her dress required mending for his forgetting where those people's seams were. Not that Anai minded at all how that happened, or his eagerly reacquainting himself with her taste and her feel, her appearance and musculature. With adoring vigor, Ara gladly took in again every reaction to his well-practiced methods, every sound he could procure from her sweet throat, which even age had never ruined for him and returned youth had only made...interesting, particularly in her.
Without thinking--he rarely if ever thought much in their passion as it was--he had entered her as surely as his memory had him do. But they both froze when he did not find the internal walls of an elderly lady who had once borne six children, but a twenty-six year-old who had borne none--and hadn't had a man inside her for over three years.
"Zhall ye'a," Ara gasped, surprised, concerned and feeling the pleasure of it all at the same time.
Anai, too, had to collect herself a bit, staring up to his wide gaze even as she shuddered and tightened her legs around him. Allowing herself another moment to relax, she welcomed him within her with a little squeeze.
"Gy'i onich," she whispered, her lips flickering upwards as he pulled slightly out. "Zha me'alled i'o nich." Indeed, there was something to be said about that much.
Ara purred low in his throat to hear it, and to feel her so expertly milk him as he partook of the lean muscle of her shoulder, "Mes va'i ka..."
With that, they silently decided to see what other surprises awaited them.
As a result, both their shells had taken quite a bit of etching in waters and air--breaking every rule the Doctor had given them as a condition of their release. Only when they finally settled into that hard, crumpled bed did they realize the extent of their accepted state among the living and their living instincts. The strangeness of it all returned, leaving them somewhat thoughtful, quiet, but ultimately sated, relieved and finally tired.
Also belatedly, they wondered if the bulkheads were any lesser quality than the five ficha wide organic plaster used commonly in Desalian architecture, and what sort of show their neural monitors, crooked on their napes, likely had projected to sickbay.
They fell asleep not really caring, however.
It was a good place to begin living again, Ara knew with a small grin, with his lady by him, within his spirit and then in their bed. Naturally, those aspects were very important to their stability as Desalian mates; as that was secure, they at least knew they had a base to work from.
Ara still thought it terribly ironic that the last time he had inhabited that space, those quarters, he was rather much alone and seemed destined to remain largely that way, as was she. Only two months later in Voyager's time...
He breathed a small laugh as he picked up a flowerless vase from the table and set it aside, and then fluffed the cushions they had placed on the floor. Quite ironic. Little wonder the crew stared so at them.
Perhaps it would be best, he mused as he took himself to dress, that they should simply continue trusting the unplanned and allowing fate its path while merely acting on their consciences. It had always been their way, between the struggles, their mental and emotional challenges and the mass of their learning and society. They had been blessed in outcomes then, even if at times they did not think it would be. This time would likely not be different. It had appeared negative from a distance, but perhaps would improve upon acquaintance.
He sincerely hoped it would turn out well, at least, with what they had been dealt that time. Ara had known from the moment young Kes came to debate their decisions and all their comfortable assumptions that something close to their present state would occur. It was a feeling, and Anai had sensed it, too, to her dismay. For all their plotting, that one alternative--already considered--frightened them deeply.
In all the years that he and Anai survived and for all their lives had made of them, he was not afraid to pass as a truly realized and educated Desalian. It had taken much to bring him to that sentiment; when he did understand the extent of his belonging and devotion to Desal and Irllae, he took it most seriously and wished no other life. Anai had stated the same on several occasions. They neither wished to return to Voyager feeling their years and being so alien. Missing their family and chosen homeland, too, knowing how time might still be flying by in Irllae while their lives trudged on, was no easy thing to consider.
Slipping off his lounging robe, he pulled on the trousers and light tunic he had replicated earlier and brushed the hem over his thighs. Running his hand against his freshly cropped hair, he walked out of the closet. There, he stopped again to see Anai still crunched stubbornly into the pillow. Sighing through a grin, Ara knew he would get over the uncertainties.
In the end, beyond all the theories and theologies and ethics, lack of community and inner struggles, he knew he had his lady there and loved her too much to care where he loved her--or in what form. Fate chose Voyager for the present, so Voyager it would be until their path turned again. It was that simple.
For that matter, they had survived far worse.
He took himself back to their table, placing the napkins, tea kettle and morning tray just right, as he had always done before his illness took him--and he did not miss the opportunity to be grateful for that much, too. Though not a one had considered him any less a man for his inability to perform his usual duties, it was certainly a privilege to Ara at that point to be an able mate again, right down to procuring Anai's early tea and bread and helping her to her morning.
When he lit an incense to rouse her, though, his silent thanks were interrupted by an odd sound from the computer. Hearing it again, he looked up to see if perhaps the slight smoke had set off some sort of alarm.
Anai stirred only enough to be heard. "The children should be given another place to take play with their puzzles, my spirit," she mumbled and burrowed her face farther into the pillow.
Ara laughed, slightly bittersweet. Instantly, he could hear the little ones playing their puzzles on the patio below their window, laughing like squirrels amongst each other, before the morning meal. Neither elder had ever directed the babies elsewhere, having decided they rather liked the sound of them. She always said something when it woke her, however.
The sound came once more, and the memory finally hit him. Blinking, Ara looked at the entrance. "Ki'ab?"
The doors of the quarters opened, revealing Commander Chakotay. Upon seeing the pilot's familiar face, he offered a moderate grin as he peered cautiously around at the room. He immediately noticed the coffee table, set with a tray of bread and thinly sliced fruit, two thick glass cups, a teapot and a smoking bowl. Two chair pillows sat neatly on the floor before that table; the small couch had been set by the rear wall.
"I hope I'm not disturbing you."
"Gye." Regardless, Ara moved himself closer to the door even as he let the man in. "Anai sleeps, yet soon shall find the sun."
Chakotay jerked a glance over to his old friend, lying on her stomach, clearly undressed, halfway under the thin blanket of the bed. Her hair was but a thick clump of sable on a pillow. After taking a required moment to bring himself back up to date with her status as Paris' wife, so to speak, the commander cleared his throat. "I won't bother you, then."
"Yet you bore a reason to bring yourself here."
"The captain wanted to invite you to an informal meeting today, ten-hundred hours in the briefing room," Chakotay told him. "We thought you might like to start making yourselves familiar with things here. Meanwhile, we can start getting used to you again."
Ara considered that quickly then nodded. "This would please, as apparently we shall remain for some time."
Chakotay furrowed his brow slightly, wondering suddenly if they were considering going back. But he didn't ask. "I'll tell the captain."
"It would be appreciated should you also tell her we have planned to propose fitting work for ourselves. Adjustments to particular systems may be required, yet we bear the ability to configure them--and build new systems which would suit our requirements."
"Build? For that you'd need some personnel."
"This would be unnecessary," Ara replied. "A 'team' might be procured should this bring you comfort, however. Our former 'ranks' here have not been forgotten; I would think we are thought of as civilians now, ka? Thus, our thought was to labor independently on technology we may share with you and accept volunteers should they wish to assist."
Chakotay nodded, understanding. "I guess you are a little out of sorts that way, too. It's obvious you can't jump right back into what you did before."
"Nor would this be wished," Ara said truthfully. "I find great enjoyment in navigating crafts; mechanics are Anai's main trade. Yet we are more than a pilot and an engineer. We are better used in our research."
Though the man was purely Cezian in his speech, looking at Tom Paris' plain but pleasant expression as those words were spoken made that hard to believe. "You're sure you want to stay in a lab? It doesn't seem right to hold you back."
"I have not suggested I be buried there," Ara grinned. "Yet I do bear great knowledge in my trade. My scholarship was completed in astrophysics and cosmological engineering, and my specialty lies in alternative propulsion. Several of my theories and projects may be shared and should be of interest. Anai bears equal qualification to propose and build in her many engineering specialties--and to labor to our expertise would be greatly wished. Please mention this to the captain when you speak with her."
"I'll let her know," Chakotay said, pausing appropriately to change the topic to one he knew he should also mention. "Also, I stopped by sickbay. The Doctor plans to revive Susan and Kurt today, if you'd like to be there."
That took a bit more consideration, which ended with a small tilt of his head. "It would lend more ease for them to wake to the familiar, I would believe. They should be given time to understand the exterior of what has happened to them. Then, we would see them. Susan, in particular, shall bear much to manage in her acceptance. It would be a kindness were we absent."
Chakotay nodded. "We'll take care of them."
Ara bowed his head slightly. "This is not doubted. My thanks."
After several seconds of silence and with a quick nod in return, Chakotay had almost started out. Ara had almost let the uncomfortable man go. But on second thought, he reached out and took his arm. He had recalled quickly that as a boy, he had not got on well with the former Maquis captain. He had not considered that when he had met Chakotay again in his library and teased him so cleverly.
That could easily have been a part of the man's unease, if seeing Anai as she was was not enough.
Chakotay had frozen at Ara's move, not harsh but with a firmness that surprised him. The look on the man's face--too, was...different in intensity but strangely familiar, while at the same time utterly open. But it's not fair that you have to keep divining for people who no longer exist, rang into his head, B'Elanna's voice in one of the vision quests that never really left him. You don't know us anymore.
It was hard to remember when he only looked at them--until he looked into the former pilot's darkened gaze just then. More, when he felt that look.
People can be replaced, Tom had said in the quest. Chakotay hadn't really believed that as plainly as it was put, but just then, he was starting to.
"Something else?"
"Ka," Ara said, his mouth twisting up at a corner. "Have you read it yet?"
"Read what?"
"Thall'rrab a'i Mashirr."
Broken from his deeper thoughts as he remembered, Chakotay snorted. "It's that good, is it?"
"Let us say great imagination is employed by Odri'a," Ara answered, pleased to see the commander respond well to his humor. He drew a clever look upwards. "Excellent descriptive passages...scenery. I would recall that you bear a great love of nature, the woodlands and the like. It is employed to excellent effect by those protagonists."
Before Chakotay could respond to that, Ara blinked, bowed his chin then touched his temple in a friendly dismissal. "Until later."
Seeing the lady in the bed shift, breathing as if to awaken, Chakotay gave the man a look then left without more words. Outside, as the door closed behind him, he grinned again, shaking his head.
"Not the same--worse," he muttered and started for the turbolift.
Ara had already seated himself beside his bondmate when she finally decided to turn over and greet the day--the relative day, as it were. But it may well have been a true sunrise to him, watching her bronze-flecked eyes open to his own as she stretched her arms, arched her back to loosen it. To assist her, he placed his hand upon her flat belly, running it slowly up to stroke at her ribs.
"Have you taken great enjoyment, torturing the commander?" she queried, her own mouth curling deliciously aside. "I heard you just now."
"I would not call it torture," he shrugged, casually sliding his hand to her breast, toying with a nipple as he leaned down to kiss her. As he took her lips, he smiled at her little purr, tempting him to continue were it not for the day they had ahead--a long one, they knew. So, he pulled softly from her warm, easily plied mouth, drew a cooling breath. "I would say it is...maintaining interest."
Anai snickered. "For all your wisdom and elder's nature, you truly are but a boy at times, Ara."
"Yes," he whispered, planting a soft kiss upon her brow before looking to her again. "Yet you like that about me."
She reached up and stroked his temple, her gaze holding steadily to his, her crooked smile warming to see the light in his eyes. "Among other things," she said, and then rose to embrace her mate for the morning.
"This, yes, we may do, rather than--as some beliefs in their right own--pull destiny to where we wish it to go."
There was a children's story, about Bihla and Sa'alli's first entry into the stars, when they made the eternity that the spirits shared thereafter. It was said that the elders, freed unto their spirits and in their everlasting forms, crossed through all the stars in the sky to find a home for their children, who would someday follow. But seeing its vastness, they could not decide on which star to choose.
Only when their children did begin to join them did Bihla and Sa'alli realize that it was they who were vast among the universe, for their life forces had spread beyond space and time. Physical life was completed and now they were that which created new life--Tsa'aitsa, or spirits unto new spirits. That was the meaning of eternity and perhaps, Bihla and Sa'alli had thought, that was how they came to be as well, and so, in their new form, they began to search among the stars for their own parents.
Yet that was another tale.
Anai and Ara had hardly been thinking of creation stories when they took themselves to the ship's top deck for the meeting. Rather, they themselves as they were accustomed, prepared for the necessary awkwardness of their situation and to make their proposals they saw fit.
However, they didn't get three steps into the briefing room before they froze to see the view. Suddenly, they might as well have been those elder-children, returned to the stars that had borne them, seeking their initial creation after passing from Desal.
Janeway smiled at her former officers. Obviously, it was something the captain took for granted, considering the childlike wonder in their eyes, their slightly parted mouths and stilled breath. Only for a moment did Ara press Anai's arm, softly resting on his forearm, against his side. She squeezed his hand slightly. Otherwise, they were spellbound.
It amused the captain as much as it endeared her. There they were, two elder Desalian scholars, retired regents, technicians and instructors learned in at least four schools of thought and practice, veterans of the war with the Unar--not to mention the parents of six, which should have precluded most other forms of shock. Belying all of that, the mere sight of the astral plain, which they both had known in their young lives, had stopped them in their tracks, rendering them utterly oblivious to everything else in the room.
Glancing at her equally wordless staff, and then to the elders again, Janeway cleared her throat.
They didn't hear her. Or maybe they didn't listen.
Well, she thought, might as well give everyone a minute.
She couldn't blame her staff for staring, not even Harry for paling when he turned to find everything he'd heard about present itself in reality. It was enough to know the elders were Tom and B'Elanna--a hundred and eleven years and over forty lifetimes later--but only a couple days after waking, they had also repossessed their former bodies with notable adaptation.
They looked normal--normal in a Desalian way. He had cut back the hair the Doctor had kindly generated for him to a centimeter or two and did away with his sideburns altogether. He had also made himself a beige coat to fit over his long tunic, lightweight trousers and cloth shoes. In her turn, she had left her hair to curl, weaving a few thin braids at her temples to keep it off her face. Her airy gown, coat and leggings were varying shades of moss; those with flat-heeled linen shoes made her look quite petite, particularly beside her bondmate.
More than that, Janeway thought in that moment she examined them, was their posture, proud and relaxed at the same time, seeming to fit where they put themselves while not trying to blend in, much as one might expect of their rank. Even their expressions were different; their age and experience were showing through. Likewise, they seemed completely oblivious to the fact that people stared at them, but rather held themselves as what they knew they were.
Very different and yet not too much so, Kathryn knew, even in their childlike wonder, as they stared at a depth of space that may well have been wholly new to them. They drank it in, seeming to name each star in their eyes, maybe from memory--though it almost seemed they were renaming them themselves.
"Ara, Anai," Janeway said, taking another step towards them.
Finally, the couple gave her their attention, grinning a bit for their display.
The captain offered them another warm smile. "I might have said it before in sickbay, but I thought I should officially: On behalf of the crew, welcome to Voyager--or back to Voyager, as it were."
Escorting Anai around the table, Ara touched his temple then the captain's. "Captain, zharab'llar," he said with a small bow of his head then stepped aside so his bondmate could take Janeway's hands and meet her eyes. Anai moved their fingers to her temples and then hers alone to Janeway's in the proper greeting.
"Va'os zhra rylloj... Our thanks to you for meeting us this sun," Anai said, trying her hand at her birth tongue for the first time since Derra passed, "in spite of our distraction." Drawing her eyes past the captain's shoulder, she pointed with her chin. "Ara and I have thought this is...it's more expansive than we have recalled."
"It seems we have not seen everything yet," Ara added, also glancing to the curtain of stars beyond them. In but a moment, he was engaged by it again. "In the Desalian belief, our spirits are borne of energy made by the stars and must always return to the same upon passing from life. It's good to see so many...again."
"I'm glad you like it," Janeway said sincerely. "I was hoping you would, considering how things didn't turn out as you had planned."
Anai was the one to grin at that. "We are Desalian, Captain. Our tendency is to be accepting...of most things."
"Most things bearing questionable meaning in our history," Ara noted, and then led his lady to a seat. She took it, her posture straight as she readied herself to turn to the others there.
Anai immediately saw Harry's shifting gaze and Tuvok's plain stare--this aside from Chakotay's friendly but stiff expression. She had to struggle to not call them all children--except perhaps the Vulcan--had to call up her memories of when she was a peer, not an elderly lady too hesitant about the course of her future to remain pure-spoken with them.
She could still see their faces as she sat upon her dais and told them the story of her and Ara's lives. How differently they had looked at her then, when they thought her but a stranger. How much more pleasant they had been, so open and trusting--to some degree, at least. In many ways, she and Ara remained strangers to them, aliens who bore a few similarities to people they had known recently in their time.
It would remain as such if they did nothing, she knew. So, Anai took a breath and decided to simply tell them her mind.
"I should like to thank you all for your patience," she began. "We would understand were it to take much time to earn again your trust and, more, friendship. We realize the faith you perhaps deserved was not shown by us, and so for any feelings made hard in this, my bondmate and I offer our sincere apology."
Ara's brow rose to consider the staff just then. If they had been planning to speak, Anai had successfully rendered them mute.
Janeway offered an understanding gaze. "Anai, I don't think it was a matter of you intentionally--"
"Gye tetso'i," Anai cut in, continuing in Desalian, "Your forgiveness, good lady; however, in this, it should be understood that we take full responsibility for feelings slighted in our deceptions, regardless of our purpose or intention. This was a wrong act; the fault is ours to claim. Allow us our rights, please."
The captain blinked. B'Elanna Torres might have been an outspoken young lady, but the tone of voice Anai had used was rather an assured order. Then again, Janeway knew, Anai was speaking on her own behalf--trying to apologize...as a regent taking on the burden of any possible negativity due to sins she and her bondmate committed and allowed to be supported--as Sashana'i did at Cezia.
They were doing what they thought was best for themselves, too, she knew. So, the captain gave a nod. "If you insist."
"We would," Ara said sincerely. "Should Anai and I bear our place among you, our own faults and history would be borne as well--much as before and including that which was indeed left behind unfinished. This is part of our purpose in returning, and we intend without hesitation to meet it."
He looked over to Harry, and the corners of his mouth flicked to see the young man's eyes point away. Still trying not to stare, Anai's directness and his own further explanation seemed to have found a nook of dissent behind the young man's facade.
"This wish is keenly felt," he continued, quieter, "mainly for thinking to be kind, we instead brought pain to those of you for whom we cared. This was seen, and we suspected our mistake. Still, our silence was maintained for the doubts within us, in the case you would be required to continue mourning. Some of you have continued to mourn, whether or not it would be your inclination and despite what words would pass within this room."
Harry looked up, but met Ara's steady stare without more reaction. When he nodded and averted his attention again, however, Anai sighed and pushed herself back to her feet. Walking around the table, she moved to Harry's side and met his eyes in her own right, and in a way that he would not dare break it again.
"This is meant, Harry," she told him. "Your friendship, your forgiveness, is wished. --Gye ak." She held her hand up when he tried to speak then placed that same hand, marked with kraja, upon his cheek.
"I am a girl," Anai told him, smiling understandingly at his expression--not quite fear, but surprised to feel she truly was real to the touch. "Yet for what youth is outwardly borne, a rather old spirit remains within me always, elder still by the day and enjoying much company. More knowledge of your manner than you would care to consider is known by Ara and me. Regardless, your acceptance would not be desired from mere kindness--though this, ka, might be your way. Acceptance should be truth, which perhaps requires us to begin anew. We would have no less...'Starfleet.'"
Janeway's smile grew to see Kim snicker as he acknowledged Anai's "demand." She had made her own plans to talk to Kim again, maybe assign him to work with them for a while. Leave it to them to jump on the problem themselves, she thought, thanking Anai with a tiny nod when she turned back for her seat.
Anai blinked her acknowledgment then dipped her hand into her pocket. "So then, shall we take ourselves to business?" she asked.
"Agreed," Janeway said, but before she could take over the meeting again, Anai had already pulled the PADD from her pocket and set it down before her. "What's this?"
Ara's face lit as he leaned back in his seat. "Fun," he replied.
Janeway looked up as Anai raised her chin. With a wise grin and a twitch of her brows, the captain took the PADD. Chakotay had already told her that the two wanted some work--and she had agreed they should be as content as possible while getting used to Voyager again. She owed them that much, at least, for bringing them back.
But when she clicked on the PADD, she blinked at the wildly scrolling calculations and parameters...then the header. "A few thoughts?" she read and gave them both a look.
Anai returned to her seat, lowering herself as if it had always been her place to sit and grinning at Janeway's reaction. She and Ara had thought the young captain would enjoy their scribbles.
"From whom would you imagine the Institute nursery children learned their many theories?" she smiled. "Their knowledge was not pulled from the sea. Past the war, many of the recovered archives were explained by Ara and I to our friends and students."
"Past our making sense of what had not been known to us," Ara added as he pulled his own PADD out for the others to review.
Looking at the data again, Janeway couldn't tell exactly what it was at first, but she recognized enough that reading it drew a slow smile across her face. She peered up to the two again. "Fun, hmm?"
"Pulling a thing stubborn as fate is a tax upon the spirit. Fate shall maintain the course it wishes regardless of our frustrations and arrogance.
"Its *alignment* in the path, however, is another matter, and yet is liberating when accepted..."
It had turned out be as long a day as they had expected, Anai knew as she sat patiently, watching the stars. Leaning on her hand, she dipped her fingers into her hair, massaging the ridge that extended above her temple. It was something she had always done, usually unconsciously.
When she had woken from her infection upon Uillar, Ara, then but Tom, her friend, had massaged her scalp, discovering the ridge at first to his surprise and slight discomfort. He did not know how she would react to it. But she liked the sensation and bid him continue. Bakali later told her that she had a set of nerve endings there that made it a sensitive area. At the time, though, Anai had simply liked knowing it was still there. It was one of only two ridges that had been undamaged.
All that time, in fact, and she had always liked knowing that small piece of her birth remained, even if she had willingly put aside the rest. One way or another, she knew she would get it back--again.
In sickbay, when Ara nodded her way and gestured up with his eyes, she realized that her youth was not all that had been restored. "Beautiful," he'd said simply, his admiring gaze hinting at the rest.
Reaching up, she felt herself laugh to feel beneath her fleshy fingers her cranial ridges, just as they had been before Hychar destroyed them. She fell back onto the headrest of the biobed to place both of her hands on her forehead.
Smiling at Chakotay, she said, "Who might have thought there would be relief in me to feel these upon my skull?"
"It's good to see," he'd responded sincerely, his own smile crinkling his dark eyes.
"Ka, this would be pleasing to you, as you knew a rather opposite reaction. How I was then... She is so distant to me, that child, and yet I wonder whether its truth has been resolved, that childhood difficulty."
Chakotay's grin grew wistful there and rightfully so. He remembered the downcast conclusion to one of her experiences all too well. "They say time heals all wounds," he offered.
"Some matters," she allowed, "and yet bearing no less importance."
So many things to rediscover...to know all over again, and yet to learn and do... Many uncertainties, many questions yet to be answered, far away.
But she had the comfort of knowing she was secure in her present self that time.
Her eyes had not once left that glorious view. She and Ara had been fascinated by it since the briefing, finding all sorts of excuses to go to or stop by a viewport. They were like children on holiday, pointing at the many wonders as though they had been personally served those delights.
Indeed, it was compelling, she knew, to be a Desalian among billions of stars. Many traditionalists would have believed they were crossing the realm of the spirits, bringing themselves among the ancestors in their living forms--a thing Sashana'i and Aratra had both considered. For them, the idea of traveling far away through the vastness of space would be a miraculous spiritual adventure. In many respects, the elders would agree with that assessment.
However it was, the Voyager was doing so as quickly as possible, mainly at present so they could get out of Kazon space. Ara and Anai had advised the captain and the others that it was a wiser course of action, particularly with the ship's traitor continuing her hunt for them like a dungwater snake, jumping out at any chance of food with far harder eyes than its prey. Voyager now had supplies and substantial power. The ship was in better than perfect condition. They did not need to stop and risk losing any of that. They should not until they were at least assured of a good distance from anything the Kazon were known to inhabit.
Ara and Anai had learned such caution, had learned a care of survival and safety above all other considerations--and how to concentrate on a goal to achieve it among other aspects of living. Such a way had become their life. That habit would not pass with Desal, they assured.
Even so, they understood Kathryn Janeway when she noted they were also on a ship of exploration and would probably pause from time to time for matters that interested them.
"We simply advise you find Kazon space boring," Ara finally said with a shrug, "for your own sakes. Anai and I bear no fear of passing--but you might like to get home in one piece."
Janeway did know that all too well.
They were to begin their new projects in a couple days, the Cochrane project being set aside for finer research. Anai was anxious for that labor, also for Ara to begin a series of ba'akull sessions with Harry, who had agreed to learn the practical side of the game Ara of Cezia had been famed for, if not anything else...
"It is a child's game," Ara said as they filed into the turbolift, giving Anai a wink before Harry could see her reaction to that. With the briefing over and some work to be planned, his mood had lightened somewhat. Better still, one object of their concern had been assigned to assist them. "As in answering questions from your most forward mind, so that your instincts are preyed upon in combination with your earned knowledge--instead of only the latter. How is it said? Brainstorming?"
Harry shrugged. "If you think it'll help. But don't you think we should start on the specifications first?"
Ara sighed and put his hand on Kim's arm. "Harry, this is a method of devising those specifications. Ka, a game, yet discipline is its lesson. To open your mind to all possibilities so to narrow them, the ba'akull we would play would be technically oriented, without question. I should believe you would excel most quickly. You bear a fair amount of knowledge."
Thankfully, Harry's back was to Anai and Tuvok, who shared a glance, one wisely amused, the other doubting the actual merit of the game.
Ara held his face well despite them both. At the same time, he did honestly wish to begin again with the ensign, and he knew that was one good way. So, he gave the boy's arm a squeeze and added in his tongue, "You'll like it."
Anai patted Kim's back, not minding his little jump when he glanced to her. "Listen to your elders, Child," she quipped. "And you need not bear immediate worries. My bondmate shall wait a few corners before your answers are driven into the flat points."
"Ah, but Harry is not Desalian, mes va'i."
"When has that stopped you?" Anai laughed. "Until a week before his passing, your dearest hobby was utterly disgracing Novren Pridalar."
"Anai, you know well he was given every chance. For that matter it was Novren."
"Vya! His point line was scuttled at your every convenience great enjoyment."
"As you loved to witness this, more with each game," he returned.
She twisted her upturned lips. "This is not my point, as is known."
Ara held up his palms. "I gave Novren every chance available to him...for the first third. I thought to wait five corners with our good man Kim." He turned a raised brow toward the ensign. "I am in possession of some patience, after all."
Without expecting to, Harry laughed, shaking his head. "I didn't know about it at first, but..." He paused to look at them, their fond grins, both aimed at him and as genuine as they had ever been, teasing him and each other like they used to, in an upside-down way. Harry's smile warmed in return. "It's good to have you here."
Ara bowed his head in acknowledgment then asked, "Thus you shall play the ba'akull?"
Harry eyed him again, and then Anai's curious stare. Finally, he gave a nod. "I don't know what I'm getting into, but okay."
Ara's smile grew inward. "Rarely is it known what we are 'getting into,' Child. Yet progress finds us regardless, compliments our spirits with a worthy path while amongst the living."
Harry froze at that shift of topic--and to one he didn't feel ready for with them. A moment later, he grit his teeth to think he'd started recognizing them again.
Ara noticed that. "Your forgiveness. This is new for me as well."
"It's not your fault," Harry said.
Ignoring that--it would take far more than a ba'akull game to regain the boy's unguarded confidence, he knew--Ara returned his hand to Harry's shoulder. "Might you say that again after the ba'akull, so Anai shall not bid me cleanse the floor with my tongue until I have finished explaining myself?"
"I would not bear such concerns, Ara," Anai smiled. "There are better uses for your able mouth. --What now, Harry? Of what do you think I speak?"
When Harry flushed and looked away, they both laughed.
They couldn't help themselves that time.
Poor Child, Anai grinned hours later, as the smell of boiling tracha began to permeate the messhall.
Letting the aroma fill her, she gave her head another rub, careful for the beads Havetsi had sent and she had immediately woven into one of her braids. Her gaze turned down as her lips turned up when she fingered the small, carved surface of the ca'id stones, in amber, her favorite bead color.
Her spirit-child had remembered even that in her collection of items and information. It had definitely helped to prepare her for what came later, after they had so gratefully taken what had been sent....
"The spirits bless her," Anai smiled once they were left alone in the cargo bay, digging eagerly into the well-packed capsule their spirit-child had sent to Voyager.
Ara moved forward a bit more slowly, almost hesitant to be so near to that which he so missed. He had to relent and join his lady, however, when she extracted a portrait of Havetsi and Cera with their daughter and son, among others. Then he spied the rubric case--his rubric case, given to him by Miztri at a tsaborr some years after their arrival at Desalia-Four.
"Should I not be a most selfish man," he breathed, "then I would be the most thankful."
"I should think no other could use such a heavy stylus, which you and Miztri so insisted upon," Anai quipped then laughed as she pulled out another package. "Nido'ev seeds! --In the event Neelix destroys the present store, I should think."
Ara grinned. "We shall keep these very safe."
For nearly an hour, they breathlessly prayed over all the wonderful letters and items, the memoirs and images, several sets of scarves, clothes and comfortable shoes, all of which Ara was thrilled to pull out. Havetsi had also sent them a proper floorcloth, two dining sets and a scrap blanket the family had made for them, full of all the colors and patterns known of Desal and the Allanois house.
Seeing it, Anai hugged it up to herself, rubbing her cheek against the soft knots, blinking away the water in her eyes without shame. It even smelled of home, their beautiful house and loving family. Looking to Ara when he touched her other cheek, she leaned directly into his waiting arms, half wrapping the blanket around him as they embraced.
A way to let go and yet to hold on, they knew, a way to miss them and yet be near--a way to have some of their selfish yet natural longing eased for the time being.
Some time later, they asked the items be transported to their quarters so that they could go through them at their leisure. They knew they could not stay there the rest of the day, though they were compelled to.
Their timing was good, though, as Chakotay was already calling to ask them how much room they needed in the science labs and what equipment they required to start. Before they could begin to head back to the shuttle bay to help Harry with some of the parts they named, they received yet another call--from sickbay.
Over breakfast, when Ara spoke of Nicoletti and Bendera's planned waking, they had expected to be called by Kes or the Doctor eventually. After their friends digested a mere fraction of what the captain and Chakotay would likely supply, they certainly would be curious, doubtful or simply in shock. Minutes after the contents of the capsule had been transported out of the cargo bay, the Doctor opened a channel.
Their mutual stare did not break, even when they agreed to come.
"Lieutenant?" Nicoletti said blankly, weak-limbed and sallow, only to pale further at the sight entering the doors. Sitting up on the biobed, she unconsciously drew back a little as they neared.
"Ka...yes." Though the title had almost thrown Anai, it was little compared to hearing the very familiar voice of her very old friend. She could not help but remind herself that it had been nearly twenty years since Susik's passing...and many more since seeing the lady in her youth, with her neatly trimmed hair and serious facade.
Then there was Bendera, an older friend, still, who had passed in his sleep some years after. He was once again graced with those boyish looks and a small, friendly grin, which Yasis had always admitted was the basis of her initial attraction to him.
Both of them were the visions that she and Ara had held of them while on Cezia, those nine years where they did not know what had happened to their crewmates. That time, it was like facing the Voyager crew again in their garden, knowing so much more, knowing they knew nothing...
"Susan," she said carefully, reminding herself that it all was to be expected. Nicoletti was staring at her with a combination of surprise, dread and discomfort, everything Susik Kichyrn had pictured of herself. As converse as it was equally predictable, Bendera, still unable to sit up, was merely alert and curious, crooking his head to watch them approach. "Kurt. It is good to see you awake."
"We have been hoping the remainder of your procedures would proceed well," Ara added with a nod.
It was bland and formal, he knew. He and Anai planned that "reunion" only on their walk to sickbay, having not thought that they would be consigned to be the ones doing the explaining--and on Desalia, convinced that they would not be able to or not there at all.
Anai was even unsure of how to even begin with them, an unusual state for a woman of her experience.
"Torres," Bendera said with an appraising nod. "You and Tom...look good."
"My thanks," Anai said, "as I should say, you yet appear among the passed."
He furrowed his brow.
"It was meant...you look tired," Anai clarified, both for him and for herself. She had been speaking Earth Standard a little that day and did, of course, know how to. In Irllae, Kurt had chosen to speak it when they came together until he passed. Susik, too, had indulged in their native language during those times. But those brief usages had been discontinued nearly sixteen years ago, and presently it only added to Anai's unusual awkwardness there. The pronunciation, syntax and contractions all felt wrong--for more than a century had not been native to her, not even in her thoughts. Koba would roll off her tongue more readily.
Thankfully, Bendera was as accepting of the unusual as ever, shrugged off his stare to answer her. "Doc says we should be all right soon enough, in a few days."
Kes, passing by, leaned a bit up to Ara. "The Doctor also said you shouldn't stay too long yet, though. They need to rest."
"This appears so," he nodded and looked at Nicoletti. "You wished to speak with us?"
Nicoletti paused, considering the floor again. "I didn't want to do this at first," she admitted. She looked as though she still didn't.
"It was my idea," Bendera told them.
"But we wanted..." Nicoletti finally sighed, shifting her legs off the table. "I... We needed to talk to you before believing any of this."
Ara gave a nod. "We would understand why. It's...complex."
"But we do want to know," Bendera told them, still looking them over. "Especially now. I mean, you're about as different as Chakotay said. I can't imagine how we must have been."
Ara grinned. "In truth, there was less change in you during your time in Irllae. However, you enjoyed full lives there--as did we, only more obviously."
Bendera seemed glad to hear him admit it. "Must have been weird over there."
Anai snorted despite herself, shaking her head. "This is the strange place for Ara and me, Kurt. Yet we are here--as are you--again. For us all to become accustomed to our situation shall require--will take--some time."
"But you remember everything," Bendera said, frowning slightly, "even our memories, the captain said."
Anai nodded. "We bear your memories--which have not been publicized but for what was approved by you." She noted Susan's raised brow to that bit of information. "This will be explained later."
"So why don't we remember?" Bendera asked.
"You agreed it would be best to commit to the resequencing. Ara and I planned to as well. Not to carry our lives here would be easier. You were not Desalian, thus the procedure was successful. As Desalians, the neural composition and chemistry Ara and I bear cannot be altered. --This, too, can be detailed later. This is merely the simplest explanation."
"Sounds simple enough," Bendera said, an obvious lie.
As Bendera had spoken, Nicoletti had also been examining the two, their positions by each other, the blue tracings on their temples and hands, their very strange aura of control, awareness--a thing she was feeling the very opposite of at that point. The last she remembered... She could not pinpoint when that was. Yet within it all was an eerie feeling of...more. There was definitely more inside her than she was aware of and she didn't like that.
Again, Susan released her breath and steeled herself for what she knew she'd have to know sooner or later, particularly as everyone else on board probably knew--another thing she hadn't liked to hear about from the commander.
"Would you tell us what happened out there, then?" she asked.
"Zhra'o tsa," Anai said and gave her hand to her bondmate so that he could escort her up onto a bedside stool. "This requires more time than we're allowed at present, but we can begin. You had wished to be informed of the memoirs."
Nicoletti's brow drew up. "I did?"
Anai placed her hand on the other woman's, smiling warmly as she met her eyes. "Ka, my old friend. You did."
Feeling a particular energy in the former chief's strangely gentle contact, Susan tensed and nodded jerkily as her eyes turned to something else. She definitely didn't like the stalling. "I see," she said.
"Patience, Susik," Anai grinned and giggled at the woman's reaction to that. "What would be your last recollection? We will attempt to complete the details from that place. It has been made clear that Ara and I must begin anew here. So would you both."
At the same time, Anai knew she would have to start over on her approach.
Nicoletti thought for several seconds, furrowing her brow. "It's foggy."
"Do not force the thoughts," Anai advised her. "It would come naturally or not at all. If meant to, it will return."
Another moment of silence followed. Finally, Bendera said, "I remember loading the collection canisters into the Cratow. Tom...you and I were talking about...my date with Annie, right? But we were going on an away mission, because we'd gotten hit by the Kazon."
Susan blinked. Her stare then drew downward as she tried to pull the memory that had tricked at her. It was forming, just an edge of a memory...
Ara nodded. "We were taking ourselves to collect raw plasma so to restore the Voyager's damaged systems."
It was so strange, Susan thought, it couldn't be right...
"That's right. We were hiding in a nebula, right?"
"Ka," Ara said, a bit softer that time. "The nebula housed an unusual plasma field, from which we would collect the energy."
She didn't even recognize the voice...
"Have you remembered?" Anai asked, curiously peering at Nicoletti's effort.
"A requiem," she said quietly and looked at Ara. "I was humming a requiem--at you."
Ara chuckled at the memory of his starting that long-standing joke between the four of them. "Ka. However, you whistled." Pursing his lips, he blew the tune he knew all too well. Susik Kichyrn had remembered that melody for the remainder of her life--particularly when he was up to mischief.
"That's it," Nicoletti nodded, a little unnerved to hear him echo her mind and imagining a deep-voiced man humming it, warm, familiar, chuckling gently. That was the humming, she thought, feeling an odd quiver in her chest for it.
Seeing her old friend seem a little lost in that thought, Anai patted her hand. "Then perhaps you should be told of Irllae first. This might assist your understanding of why you fell into alien ways, were you to understand how the temporal variance is created by the plasma field. It was a point of study for Ara and me for many years. --Moreover, there is time to explain this much."
Shaken from her reverie, Nicoletti turned a quicker smile to her. "I'd like that. I remember a report from Ensign Wildman on some long range scans you asked her to do..."
She would ask about the humming man some other time.
Anai nodded, seeing the woman's curiosity replace her musing all too easily. If she had not guessed correctly already, she would find out what Susan was thinking on soon enough.
As would Susan.
It was a legitimate procrastination on both sides, Anai knew and easily accepted. Indeed, she and Ara would need to take care in how they revealed it all, and she required time to construct a proper history. More, Susan and Kurt did not even know the ways of those people they had aligned themselves with, much less the fact of their parenthood--particularly Susan's--and mates. They all needed preparation for the rest.
"But two known suns upon this vessel and our list is long," Ara noted after they left their friends, who had easily--or perhaps gladly--fallen asleep after a lengthy explanation of subspatial temporal acceleration as induced within natural streams of nebulous particle plasma.
"With growth awaiting, I would think," she nodded, relieved to see the shuttle bay approaching. They both were remembering the ship's layout well, considering, though the monotonous corridors remained rather confusing--this aside from continuing to mull over the format for her telling, where to begin and how neutral a narrator she should be, among other details.
"Our method shall be developed this moon, Anai," Ara assured her. "One matter in the moment, ka?"
"Indeed, a much prescribed manner of ours," she quipped.
Upon reaching their destination, Anai immediately engaged herself with Tuvok, organizing and setting aside what parts they needed. On his end, Ara agreed to oversee the salvage work that several of the crew had already begun. The shuttle Cochrane, namely, was to have its experimental drive dismantled, its parts converted for another drive system the elders had toyed with in their errant moments at the Institute.
It was surreal to see it, sitting quiet and pristine, off to the side of the bay. As Anai went to arrange for the transports, Ara found himself unable to jump into his work at first. Instead, he let his eyes roam over the smooth, angular lines and the pleasant colors, remembering with unusual clarity the last time Tom...he had touched the cool hull. Upon exiting it, in fact, he had given it an affectionate pat.
A time when that shuttlecraft was a key to so many feelings, of ability, of worth, he knew. So long ago, it and the dreams that went along with it, plus the thrill of attaining such speeds, had been so important to him in the rebuilding of his life--a way to attain some esteem while not letting go of his most simple pleasures.
How little he had known as a child, he mused, how little he had in himself then. How empty his plotting in life had been, seeking answers in the inanimate and all the while avoiding those matters which had created his and his lady's fate to return.
In a way, the boy had loved the project partially because of those memories of his father, so insecure and immature then and now only ignorant of truth. Though, hopefully that would cease to be the case someday, sooner rather than later. He did wish to see his birth parents again. To some extent, he always had wished to, yet he was hesitant to want too dearly, feeling as he did. Now, so long ago having all but forgotten that boy, Ara could not help but wonder what their reaction would be should fate allow them to meet. Thankfully, he was many times a father, too, and understood that he may well be accepted, albeit with some initial discomfort. Though it was yet to be, Ara could see the possibility of a successful reunion, with some patience and a good deal of honesty on both ends.
Surreal, for certain, it was to look upon that ship again and know how far beyond it he was.
It was a lovely craft, though nothing like his blessed Azallis....
"Is there a problem, Lieutenant?"
Ara realized belatedly the ensign was addressing him and shook his head. "No, good lady," he said quietly, examining her features and concentrating on them. With less of the usual traffic in his forward mind, it came to him sooner than he expected--a pleasant surprise. "Your forgiveness. --Ensign Kaplan, ka? I simply reminisce."
She almost turned back to the access panel, but then she looked up to him again. His straight face was hard to interpret, and his eyes didn't look like his own--and not just for the color. His fingers, protruding from his casually crossed arms, rubbed softly over his sleeves, thoughtful. He was otherwise very still, watching and waiting. Without his meaning it to be, his presence was very strong, unnerving somehow in its undeniable awareness.
Taking a moment to think again on it, she finally said, "I'm having a little trouble with the junctures. They look like they've been fused. Maybe you can look at it?"
Ara's gaze dropped down to the panel and he blinked a couple times before recalling why she might need to ask. "The connections had been reworked for the expected stresses on the systems," he said as he moved gradually to her side. "This much may have worked."
"So, with all your experience now, you don't think it's a good idea to try to break the warp barrier?"
"Further consideration is required to justify this method," he replied, "should it bear any use. Anai and I plan to dismantle and reconfigure this drive differently."
Nodding, she looked back to the panel again. "So you remember the inverter junctures being fused like this?"
Lowering himself to his knee, he took another look at the section in question. "Ka--and this would be Harry's working. A joint would never be sealed with vertical alignment on my lady's part, even in childhood. Was this not looked into when Harry--Ensign Kim--was here?"
"I don't think he had the chance," Kaplan told him. "He had to go to stellar cartography after he assigned our unit."
"Va." Ara gave her a nod. "With standard equipment, these cannot be removed without a drain upon the power nodes. A preventative method exists, however--a tactic learned at Cezia, with our...with the Desalian systems." He glanced to a nearby tool case. "Bring me a gipra'il afisarru'o jis."
Kaplan turned, but furrowed her brow when the words hit her. "A what?"
Ara grinned, rolling his eyes, then replied in Standard, "Bring me a manual diagnostic kit, a laser, a diffusion emitter and a radiometric spectrometer and you'll find out."
As Kaplan went to retrieve the items, his smile weakened. He had not yet touched the components, still feeling the chill of awareness within him to think of digging apart what he now considered a rudimentary layout pattern, to feel his years all over again to know how many systems and engines he and Anai, among others, had created since copying that one.
That ship, that ancient work, left as stuck as he and others had made them... He and Anai had nearly left it, too, for others to bear, to deal with their past's handiwork. Now they were there, with better ways to take it apart, make it into another thing, something more useful, more aligned with their well-earned knowledge. It was their work again to do--and to share.
Reaching out, he placed his hand on the main relay grid.
The aura passed. He nodded to himself. Better.
By the time Anai caught up with him, running her hand along the silvery hull with an inward smile of her own, Ara was up to his elbows in diffuser dust, his coat folded aside and his long shirt sleeves rolled, the various parts of different devices in a small pile behind him and the ensign. She paused at the sight, so familiar and gratifying to her.
His eyes pinned on the task, he still knew his lady had come. "This presently shall be completed, Anai."
"I take myself to inspect the interior of the shuttle," she acknowledged. Disassembling that old haunt was a good thing for him, too, she observed. "Some suns have passed since it has been seen."
"Ka, many sun have passed above us both. I shall follow you soon."
She remained a moment longer to watch him begin to explain the procedure as his agile fingers expertly maneuvered the connections out of the juncture. Not sixteen years ago, Ara had made similar efforts with Havesti, then a teenager, who stared at her elder father's work with rapt attention, not too unlike Ensign Kaplan just then.
Her smile remained with her long after she turned and entered the shuttle.
"And upon this acceptance, that we may act and yet may not, and in both, practiced wisely, we may live freely within nature's blessing. It is the gift of the spirits, this freedom, which we procure for ourselves."
She blinked slowly. The stellar display had lulled her somewhat; it was a welcome thing considering her body was still recklessly alert. It had barely tired at all that day, but the elder who inhabited it welcomed the time to collect herself a bit, recall the day so that she could record it later.
It was a daily practice of scholars to reserve times during the day for that purpose. Anai and Ara in addition spent a good portion of their scholarship also writing Sashana'i, Aratra, Aneschi and Dulla's memories, among others, and completing Yusi's memoirs when the bulk was discovered in the catacombs. So the practice of taking a little time here and there during the day was normal; the regents had been well known for carrying their styluses and small tablets in their robe pockets, puling them out at random, even during conversations, to jot a note or take a half-quarter under a tree at the Institute to detail the recollection. Though sequestered to a starship and flying at warp speed away from the catacombs, Anai had no intention of neglecting her memoirs after such a lifetime of practice, or the many other scholarly practices that were like instincts to her and Ara.
The clinking in Neelix's kitchen grew steadier and, inhaling, Anai could tell Ara was warming their bread. It would be good to take food again, as she realized it would take some time to find a healthy medium between her mind's preference for less food and her body's need for more.
To balance it, all, in truth.
"But why don't you give it a try?" Neelix said cheerily, mysteriously persisting with the man who had essentially invaded his workplace and set aside his usual ingredients.
"Lull rrolv jyashib a'izl va'a," she heard him mutter, too tired and increasingly annoyed to bother speaking a translatable tongue. Considering what he'd said, that was a good thing.
"Er, well, I don't what that means, but... Oh, I guess you wouldn't like that, either."
"Ibri'e Priharoj ascho'err gyor medrusk."
"No tamar stick, either, hmm." The Talaxian sighed. "You always were a picky eater."
"My 'picky' nature bears little weight in comparison to Anai deserving a meal she wishes to eat rather than is required to," Ara finally told him in a pleasant and translatable ultimatum. "Please indulge my desire a few minutes longer, good Neelix."
Finally, she heard Neelix sigh.
She grinned. It was indeed helpful to possess a protective mate. A distant and reluctant memory knew what tamar might taste like.
"Uh, Anai?"
She looked up a moment after hearing the man who approached. "Carey, zha'anek," she said with a slow blink.
With a nod to her, and then to Kes, who passed by with the last of the dinner vases, he moved a couple steps closer. "I have those diagnostics for you."
Anai outstretched her hand to accept what he held out to her. "My thanks," she said quietly, tucking the PADD into the low pocket of her coat. Then she turned her eyes back to the window.
Carey furrowed his brow. "I thought you said you wanted to see them. Captain Janeway approved it."
"Ke'aht," she replied. "Yet the ship should survive our meal and rest." Looking again to his discomforted expression, she queried, "Another mess has not been made, I should hope?"
He snorted. "And have you scare the hell out of me again? I don't think I'd dare."
Anai chuckled softly. Poor Carey and the others had not expected her visit, she knew...
They had come straight from the shuttle bay upon Ara's suggestion they build a better toolbox--with instruments that had not been thought of at Ivlisa. Anai agreed for more than the practical reason, however. During their work in the cargo bay, hearing mentions of it, she found herself tempted to see her old "lair," as Ara once called it, to see the warp drive she had adapted, re-imagined and improved many times during her career on Desalia. More, she was curious to feel the aura of that place, where once she had been in charge.
Yet despite anything time might have taken from her in rank there, she certainly made her presence known when they arrived to find the new plasma inverter in the middle of the deck and in pieces.
To think she had been feeling rather old when she and her bondmate had left sickbay, a little tired after working on the shuttle...
"By the dung dust of Prihar! What crimes do you commit with my Havetsi's fine labor, Child?!"
Chief Engineer Carey snapped his head up from the new plasma output grid to see two fire-lit eyes glaring at him above an open frown and a small, crossed-armed body, all lit slightly blue by the thrumming warp core behind him. Her back arrow straight, her feet poised apart and her stare all but burning a hole through his skull, her mere stance screamed the very meaning of his still being on his knees.
He was a Starfleet officer, he knew, able in his position and rank. But for that very familiar glare and challenge, he felt like a cadet caught playing a prank in the engine lab by the commandant.
"Lieutenant--or it's Anai now, right? We were just starting--"
"The conversion levels in this grid have already been drawn beyond comprehensible excess," she cut in, her fingers drumming on her ribs. "Should you install it at half the rapol, the warp core would certainly and immediately cry for its freedom!"
Carey had to give her that. "I know. We were just running a few tests to see its limits. In case of emergencies, we need to know this. We're still not too familiar with this technology."
"Yet I am," Anai responded and sighed. "Equipment need not be abused in order to know its capabilities, Child. --Ara vrall mjarr i'avtihad rripaz a'i."
Ara snickered, more than satisfied to see his lady so nicely in her element--angered to arrogance among a pile of parts and a group of wide-eyed pupils. "Anai zhu'a ka volle'o," he replied.
"Better we would be on Voyager," she told Carey, "else your spirits flung from your natures would find your birthworlds rather than your forms. --Now, bring me a spectrometer before the entirety of the deck is torn to Gahahol. A more rational satisfaction of your curiosity shall then be provided."
When the tool met her outstretched hand, she blew a breath, shook her head and dropped to her knees before the main component to pop off the correct hatch.
Though it was no longer her place officially, she had been aghast to think that the old system was trying to compensate for the fresh plasma supply she had personally ordered. Even Ara had shaken his head with the idea of all that good power being wasted. Quietly, he went to work putting the grids back in place and bringing the ratios down to a safe level, gesturing a few of the staff down to watch him do it. Meanwhile, Anai began to instruct the others more about the new inverter, which she knew down to the molecule.
Leaving engineering a couple hours later to finally return to the cargo bay, they were at least assured they would have some work outside of research on that ship, even if they were overstepping their bounds.
In that case, they thought it should be their responsibility.
"Ara," she said, their doings still alive in her voice, "I should think perhaps there a place for us exists after all." Her lips curled up again with but the memory of the consternation in Carey's face. "This has been upon our minds thus sun, yet I would think without doubt now that we are needed among them."
"We might find some occupation," he mused, "with all these children and such an abundance of toys."
She turned up a stare for the lilt in his tone. "That meaning was not intended."
He squeezed her hand and bowed his head to a young man they passed. Ara couldn't recall his name and ignored the confused blink he got in return for his manners. "This is known, Anai. Yet it must be said, I bore wicked pleasure watching you. How might Dalra have seen your behavior, I should imagine?"
She had to laugh at the first answer that came to mind. Even into her nineties, their beloved friend took pains to lecture her when he felt the need to. Not that she would have had it any other way.
Perhaps they--she--had been too strident. The engineering crew could not be blamed for being curious and simply doing their jobs in running those tests, even if it could have resulted in the destruction of the unit and the waste of good plasma. The staff there was doing what they knew as best they could--a familiar act.
Anai was still thankful that she and Ara had arrived when they did....
"We finished the rest of the conversions," Carey continued, breaking the silence Anai had left with him. "It's in the report. I thought you might like to read them over, since you do have more experience with those systems."
Again, she nodded. "It pleases. However, sunrise shall find it well enough," she told him. "Your information shall be reviewed at that time. "
Carey forced his grin to remain that time. Ironically, the patient and quietly assured Torres put him less at ease than the pressure valve did. Then again, he had learned how to predict the pressure valve. "Thanks...Anai."
"Zretse ye'o," she replied, drawing her eyes back to the view.
The man nodded and turned to leave.
Anai did not look back to him. It was mischievous, then, her temperance, even if was a part of her learned nature. Then again, she had to remind herself that those people were still trying to decide her place as much as she was...
"Carey?"
He had not gone far. "Yes?"
Anai drew a small breath to pause, rubbing unnoticeably at her scalp again. "Your forgiveness for my presence in engineering, before your people," she said. "I want for repentance, however, for a change in my manner cannot be promised. By nature, I and my bondmate remain rather outspoken ashna'o, whether or not we may claim this place by right--and of us I am the worse."
She turned to see his face again. A gentle man, she could tell. A father, she recalled, far away from his children. An officer who labored with dedication and confidence--something she recalled being ignorant of in their beginning work together, which he had respectfully forgiven in time.
"This is not anger nor disrespect as much as protectiveness...and pride," she finished.
Carey smiled, truly that time. "So some things don't change. Anything else, Chief?"
A slow grin pulled at Anai's lips. Most certainly a good man, she decided. There might be more hope for them than she had remembered.
"At this mention," she said offhandedly, "it occurs to me to ask whether you would desire to offer your thoughts to our upcoming projects." She peered askance at him. "I would believe you bear potential."
"I wouldn't miss it," he said with a nod. "See you tomorrow."
"Rellisch," she replied.
Indeed, until the next day, and then the next, she thought, and that perhaps they would be good days. Sashana'i had hoped for it, and that they might enjoy the fruit as well.
...Completed in eternity, having tasted the soil and water...
The bread was almost done, and the sweet smell of the eblav sprouts marrying with the ts'mull wafted through the long room. Her stomach growled in expectation of its needed meal, but Anai continued to ignore it for the streams of light before her.
In the stars, our spirits are born, and there we find completion upon the final balance of being...
"Still counting?"
Anai nodded, her little smile returning to hear the warm tones of the lady's greeting. "Ka, Kathri, and could still for some time. --Your forgiveness. I bear many habits in familiarity."
Janeway walked around to the seat across. "To be honest, it's sort of endearing," she admitted as she sat, "the way you say it, at least. It brings good memories."
"As it does me," Anai agreed softly.
"I just finished with the daily reports," the captain said. "You two have had quite a busy day."
"We have been reacquainting ourselves with your ship. Some early progress has been made, I would believe."
Janeway peeked up at the kitchen, where the other Desalian among their complement was preparing what apparently was their dinner. Though his movements seemed casual, his face looked serious, his dusky stare was set upon his task alone, and his mouth straight and closed. "I hope Ara is adjusting well, too. He was relatively quiet at the briefing once we got to business."
"He is no longer a child, Kathri," Anai said. "Ka, I might easily say how he can behave, yet his preference is to be the 'observer' you hired him to be--and he is now far better practiced at it."
Kathryn laughed. "I can't believe I'd almost forgotten about that."
Anai merely grinned then continued, "When our work takes him into his expertise, you shall hear more of him."
"I'm interested to see it. His theories on sustaining a stable subspace pocket are remarkable."
"Those are not theories," Anai corrected. "On three occasions at the research station at Eydres this was managed with modulators of my design. This can be found in our memoirs of..." Anai paused to think for a moment. "...sixty-four years past. The matter of employing it is theoretical, as it bore limited use in Irllae at that time."
"Regardless, I'd like to see more on that. The science of it alone is fascinating to me, much less the potential."
"More of this particular technology shall be seen to some degree. At present, however, he would enjoy your curiosity should you truly bear interest."
Janeway gave a nod. "I'll ask ask him then," she said, leaning back into the couch and crossing her legs, regarding the lady across from her. "And you?"
"I should think I have borne enough of my outward self this sun."
"Yes, I passed Lieutenant Carey in the corridor just now." She laughed to herself at the memory of her short meeting with the rather pained Carey earlier that day, too. "You really stirred things up down there."
"I am in possession of that manner," she apologized, knowing how Janeway probably heard of it. "As I have told Carey, my habits are old."
"Actually, I've missed the occasional bee's nest," Janeway said and nodded to confirm it when Anai looked at her. "I missed you--both of you, regardless of what became of you."
"Our memories likewise held you dear." Her little smile returned, turning decidedly wry. "However, should you find enjoyment in challenges on your eleventh deck, I would believe they could be procured."
"I don't doubt that," Janeway replied dryly.
Anai snickered, but then shook her head to continue more sincerely. "The laboratories we develop now should keep us occupied and be beneficial. Yet we would maintain a place of authority among those new systems, as the staff bears no experience with them."
"Well, it would be good to know they've learned from experts. Lieutenant Carey is anxious to see all the 'tricks.'"
"Then he shall be taught, among the others," Anai replied.
"Take whatever time you need," Janeway encouraged. "But don't think that because you're here you have to do everything in a day. Allow yourselves the time to adjust. The work can wait, and any extra assignments can, too."
"Ka," Anai agreed, peering kindly at the captain's expression, motherly in its care yet a step away, as it had often been. Anai understood it completely. Being a fellow captain and a regent, she knew well on both counts that necessary poise and appearance of control.
"You've been good to us," she commented in Standard, "upon the moment of our waking. Welcoming us as you have, offering the crew preparation and granting us work within our skill--being a commander with great conscience and effort."
"But I've meant it," Janeway told her, holding the lady's eyes to make her know that.
Anai returned the stare--a wise, old stare. "We know. We're grateful for your friendship."
A mother who knows the child all too well, Kathryn mused and wondered again exactly what she'd gotten them into, how very strange it must be for them, though they admitted little about that. Of course, the elder mother spotted that thought as soon as it wrote itself upon the "child's" face.
"What, Kathri?"
Kathryn sighed. "To be honest? I've been thinking that maybe I acted too rashly," she said then quickly added, "Don't get me wrong. I wanted you all back, and I'm grateful you and Ara allowed us to bring you. But I might have thought it over more carefully."
"No time was reserved for thinking," Anai pointed out, again in Desalian, "only instinct. Ara and I bore awareness of this and allowed you only those moments. --This was meant, Kathri, more so that your mind had not been given allowance to consider too well, as Ara and I had thought too much, made the fruit of Sashana'i's desires rot in too much sun. Simply see how matters were complicated for the proof of that."
"You did everything you could to protect us," Janeway said, letting the sincerity in her tone thank her for that. "I just think if it could have been handled differently--"
"Except that it is done, Kathri. Little use lies in 'could have.' This thinking outside science and literature perpetuates only regret."
"True. But it doesn't make my part in it any more fair to you."
"Dov?" Anai asked, staring at the captain's face, finally allowed its conflict. "How different are my bondmate and I from what you and Kes have done? The whole of a society turned away from their few comforts and notions of belief; for our cries for justice, Desal followed our word to the cause of peace through war.
"We had upset Desal's belief that the need for contrition would fade naturally, that they could fight without a sacrifice of their spirits--as Kes upset our notion that we had grown too far away from you to belong here again without doing the same, without giving away our beings. So much contentment was ours in our way upon Desal, feeling any peace among such difference could not be imagined by us. In this, we showed much selfishness and allowed our discomfort drive us to protect ourselves in what ways we could. --That we are elders does not mean we bear immunity to our weaknesses, you should know.
"Yet how can the possibilities be judged? How could others who had likewise given up their security in order to chance a blessing within a life already largely decided upon? Susik and Derra, Cali, even Gychak, Aratra and Sashana'i...Ara and I, as well, have done this. In all, we may only act as we feel is meant and hope for good to manage its way into the scribbled plan. Fate's course cannot be scrutinized until the moment is past. It was wrong of us to do so before.
"In truth, Kathri, Irllae shall always be missed; it is our home. Within our spirits, we walk upon the fields of Cezia, our beings' birthplace. To walk upon those fields again is our most treasured wish." Smiling inwardly, Anai's fingers touched the beads in her hair. "Many times we had been told, however, by our friends, our family, that our youth could never fully forsaken; our physical origins would need to be faced to attain a complete peace. Fate has brought us here with our spirits in good order, so this shall not be avoided again. This chance we have been given shall not be wasted."
Kathryn nodded, believing it--and glad to hear it. "I just hope that'll be enough for you, after everything else you've been through, everything you've done..."
She did not finish--could not, recalling how much Ara and Anai of Allanois had accomplished. Indeed, thinking of it left her without more to say. For that matter, she was sure they were well aware of their doings.
"I would not think the spirits blessed this fate so that we would be miserable," Anai said and grinned to add, "However, the wiser one would allow Ara and me to remain busy. Within these fresh shells, we should be impossible were we unoccupied rather than miserable."
Kathryn laughed. "I'll see what I can't do."
"There is do doubt you shall."
Snickering softly, she stared outward again, to the window, the lights of stars, passing by the hundreds in every moment. She did not add anything else.
The captain shared the quiet, satisfied with Anai's careful optimism. In those seconds, passing long between them, Janeway suddenly realized that they were sitting in the same place they had the last time she had spoken in length with B'Elanna. Oddly, that same, soft determination and thoughtfulness had come through Anai's heavy inflection, even while lighthearted and certainly more comfortable with herself and her conscience. More, Kathryn believed her this time; she also hoped that they would do as they were intended.
Anai was wise enough by then to know, however, that it was all yet to be seen, and that she couldn't expect anything, only try to do her best in the face of those challenges. Janeway was anxious to see the results of that, in her and in Ara. There was, after all, still a great deal for them to do, much to face and overcome, only that they would be doing it from another perspective now.
Once again, she wanted to see them succeed.
Still in that thought, she happened to glance up and across the messhall. There, she caught Kim's curious gaze, which almost turned back to the door. "Ensign, good evening."
"Captain," Kim said, wary to see the back of Torres' head, still resting on a hand; her marked fingers were half-buried in her thick hair. He looked around to the business in the kitchen then back to the captain, suddenly stuck on where to go.
Janeway motioned to an extra seat. "Would you like to join us?"
Feeling his pause at that invitation, Anai glanced around. "You are welcome to, Harry. Zhras ye'a."
"I wouldn't want to interrupt you," Harry immediately said.
"Why should you think you disturb us?" Anai said, sighing at the child's fumbling. "It is you who avoids now, ka? It is known you must speak with Ara. Bring yourself and wait for him."
Harry gave her that one with a nod and shrug. "Sorry. You just looked like--"
"Grrikal shast yo'a," Ara scolded from the kitchen. "Food shall be brought for you, as well, Harry. Seat yourself."
Anai laughed lightly when Kim finally lowered himself in the chair adjacent to the captain. She pressed her amusement down to regard him sincerely, however. "You would not be invited when it was not wished, Harry. Or is it for that you yet feel discomfort? This would be understood, even while you held yourself more comfortably when last we spoke."
He had to give her that, too. In truth, he was starting to feel better about them, first with reading a few of the logs the captain left with him; then in the turbolift, they really had been open with him, had seemed a little like his friends again. But when he came in a minute ago and saw B'Elanna thoughtfully rubbing at the beads in her hair, heard Tom mumbling in Desalian as he arranged food on a large plate, and then reminded himself all over again that they weren't Torres and Paris--but had been them, once...
"I guess it's still a little..."
"Unreal?" she offered. Then she nodded, thinking quickly. "Then what on the familiar? Is our workspace plotted out? The systems configurations are ready to be installed."
That worked for Kim. Blinking, he brightened and leaned up a little. "I just came from deck six."
Hearing that, Ara cocked his ear and peered over from the counter. "Zha, and what news there?" he asked. "Do the new nodes progress?"
"We've finished inputting the new parameters for the intake relays," Harry nodded to both of them, "and reconfigured the room's sensors for your holo-simulator. In a few days, we can start installing the new equipment." He looked at the captain. "I have the report, Captain, if you--"
Janeway waved her hand. "I'll see it later. Good work."
"Should there be further adjustments needed," Anai said, "we shall take that duty. Ara has already configured the simulator itself and we should finish programming it within the following two suns."
Harry furrowed his brow at that. "Already?"
"Our fingers work quickly," she replied. "You shall find enjoyment in it, Harry. It is simple and compact, yet bears great precision and intelligence, far more than the standard simulation. It was used by Ara and I with great success in our work and in teaching. It may be installed when the remainder of the area is complete and its location is decided upon." She looked at Janeway's widened stare. "Its frame lies in the cargo bay, should you like to inspect it."
The captain blinked. "I look forward to it."
"Chakotay, hello. Here for a late dinner?" It was Kes, behind them.
"No, I found them," he answered. "Thanks."
Anai's lips curled up. "Monrrit di'arr oll Ara shinall," she called behind her then peered up to the commander, who did not need to be asked to join the small party there. She met his attention with a raised brow. "You have discovered our addition to your night's work?"
Chakotay gave her a smirk. "I'm not surprised you had six kids if you spent your downtime reading that. Next time, warn me before you stack it inside the crew reports?"
Anai snickered. "Then it would be read not but for the portions Ara marked for you to find? --Ka, his doings are known to me, Chakotay. Do you forget so easily my bond with him?"
"Frankly? Yes."
"Considering your last memory of us, this would not be surprising," she said and shrugged, her most politic method of asking him to continue getting used to it. It certainly was not an issue to her; he would bring it to her if he needed. She recalled all too well that manner about him without regret. Just then, however, she gratefully saw him take her meaning and tone well enough. So, she returned to the topic. "It is a fine piece of literature--however, ka, imaginative, even for a Desalian."
"So I've gathered."
"Perhaps when you are completed," Ara said as he approached, "our good captain might like a turn. She enjoys literature, to my recollection--or was this 'holonovels?' Tsid ka'e, a program may well be written by us...and tested to assure its accuracy."
Anai laughed aloud. "I'eva tsa! Ara ne kina'otull a tyrr motrach meso'escall!"
It did not translate. Janeway gave them both a look. "Considering the two of you, I don't think I want to know."
"We shall see whether this is truth," Anai replied cleverly and bent her head to the side to accept her bondmate's lips upon her neck. "Zh've mes va'a."
"Mes va'i zhra," he said softly to her, and then to the others--all conveniently looking elsewhere--as he moved around, "I have procured additions to the tray, as we have properly collected ourselves." He put the large oval plate in the center of the table, turning it so everyone could reach it easily. "Anai and I have quickly learned that a quiet table is not our preference."
"Glad to be of help," Chakotay said, mainly glad to have another topic. "I could use a bite."
Ara wisely said nothing--though he snorted when Anai's gaze shot to his with a warning grin. To their side, Harry rolled his eyes.
"So could I," Janeway joined, oblivious to the byplay. She leaned up to see the selections. "I'd almost forgotten about dinner with all the reports that came in this afternoon."
"Little surprise you bear exceeding thinness, Child," Anai commented, her mouth pursed.
As Neelix and Kes came with the other two trays and a few carafes--"Tracha," Ara smiled and reached for the first cup--Harry watched intently as Anai nimbly plucked up a piece of the brown flatbread, wrapped it around a chunk of cheese and a spray of herbed greens then rolled it under her palm, all without looking. Examining the selections as the others got their tracha, Kim saw his other friend's hand come down over the piece of bread he'd spied.
"This way, Harry," Ara said, taking Harry's hand, grinning at the ensign's hesitance. He and Anai had both forgotten precisely how young he was--and easily recalled how their own sons had found such an age: mature, and in other manners yet to discover a unique way.
Yet they knew well--reminded themselves--that Kim was not their son, but a very old friend who had once helped them from but the goodness of his youthful spirit.
So, Ara returned the favor, guiding Harry's bread-filled hand over a piece of cheese, and then to a slice of pibret he suspected would be enjoyed. "Now, securing the center, ease back your palm..."
Watching them, Anai allowed herself a wistful sigh, seeing so clearly Dalra, on Uillar, showing a similarly basic practice to the dirty, tired pilot that she had soon after fallen in love with. One hundred and eleven years after those first lessons, that same man leaned over another, teaching in friendship, just beginning, and that with as simple a thing as preparing a morsel.
She continued to observe the scene before her as she nibbled throughout the meal. Chakotay subtly filled Janeway in on the "plot" of the novel, successfully amusing her with his omissions and even giving Harry a chuckle as he nodded to the taste of his bread roll.
One day onto the next, building anew, yet again but with everything once familiar...
At the end of the table, Kes drank nearly a half of her cup as she and Ara discussed the proper care of marlai root, among the other seedlings already sprouting in the airponics bay. Taking in Ara's descriptions, Neelix devised some new recipes aloud. Hearing that, Harry was the first to suggest that maybe Ara should make the Talaxian more familiar with the "unique produce" before consigning it all to creative pursuits.
Anai prayed a small thanks to the spirits for that--and Ara breathed it audibly.
As she sighed her smile away, she realized that she had no memories of such meetings among them on that ship, not outside the comfortable facade of the holodeck, if even that. It was a surprise, having somehow always recalled them together. Having become so accustomed to meals amongst the family...
Janeway laughed with a wry look towards Kes and Chakotay subtly pretended not to know. Neelix had missed a beat in all of it and looked around for an offer to fill him in...
It made that meal all the more enjoyable.
The tray grew steadily empty and the carafes were tipping horizontally. The chatter rose and fell in that corner of the night-lit room, but did not stop, even after Chakotay had long leaned back, stretching against the couch with a comment or two made under his breath. Harry smilingly explained it to Neelix again and Kathryn pursed down her smile at the brim of her cup when she overheard the commander...
Perhaps it would be well enough after all.
Finishing her food and tracha, she leaned back into Ara's arm, tucking her feet under her hip again when he pulled her more warmly against him. Anai leaned up to kiss his jaw before nestling her head into his shoulder.
Chakotay glanced at that move, but then grinned, shrugged. She smiled in thanks for his effort. Then, she turned to watch them all again, quiet as the conversations, the words and the expressions, the sounds and gestures and feelings shared, poured into her senses, into her finely-tuned Desalian memory.
A memory which would be written, one she would share someday with those wishing to know about those times, those people and that place.
It was quite possible that one might ask.
The night grew, and comments about the morning shift were met with as many comments about not being tired. The blame went to the tracha they still sipped. Ara and Anai nodded to the need for rest, knowing they were expected back in sickbay for another treatment, where they would also talk with Susan and Kurt again.
"Tsiva ki," Anai thought aloud, unmoved from her bondmate's side, "perhaps the telling should begin as it had with you."
"Except this time, you'll finish it?" Janeway teased.
Anai smiled. "Ka. This time, it shall be finished as I had first intended."
Kes looked at her, the lady's inward facade, her stare at Ara's fingers, which stroked her wrist in small, deliberate circles. "How were you going to finish the story, Anai, when you first planned it?"
Ara's mouth turned up and he gave Anai a squeeze. "It was planned to end where our life's paintings to our family began," he said.
"Where was that?" Harry asked, also curious.
"At the end of the war?" Chakotay guessed.
Anai glanced up, seeing the captain's warm yet wondering smile. When she looked at him, Ara's expression was unchanged below his tender gaze. She knew well enough what he felt behind it. Still, he left the matter up to her with a slight flick of his brow, the tiniest shrug.
Certainly, it was her choice, though he would not mind sitting by her for it. He had always loved to hear her paint the words, he knew without reservation, had taken his place by her with great pride in her most honorable practice, akarr tiras.
It was happenchance, really, that she had begun to paint as she had. It began simply, with Miztri's mentioning at a public meal after a long day of toil in the rubble of Desal Anai's tale of the owl and the mouse, how it had stirred the whole of Azlre and inspired many still. Wishing a story to pass the time, they asked Anai to tell it. Exhausted from her pregnancy and the the many restoration and administrative duties she had taken on within their newly adopted house, Anai almost declined, but Ara pressed that it might be a good story for Desal to hear, particularly then, with the grave discouragement they were trying so hard to overcome while others were so hesitant. It might be a helpful lesson.
So, leaning back into her bondmate's arms, their hands resting on her full-term belly, Anai collected herself and then the memory. Weaving in more details and leaving out the occasion that had inspired the tale first to be told, she began to tell the story, and then expanded on it. She decided that the animal tale itself would provide enough meaning, but there far more "animals" in her experience, now all with unique instincts and purposes. To her pleasant surprise, the words flowed from her quite by nature, and for over an hour, she spoke. Later, she learned that her tale had been heard well, and their citizens began to refer to it when they set upon a task they might have questioned before. Thus, she continued to tell it--and then told more like it, and tales from the war and the vast experiences from the Allanois memories she carried.
It became a source of esteem and enjoyment as well as purpose--for her and for Ara.
From the first night, they had always loved to see the wonder in the listeners--as it was written in Kes' face when she said, "I would love to hear it sometime, and your other histories, if you want to tell them. There's so much."
Anai straightened as she looked once more at her audience, who seemed in wait of her response. It was not too long a painting, she knew, only a segment that began the cycle. And they did seem curious...
When her bondmate placed his kraja-marked hand upon her thigh, she softly covered it with her own. Her smile grew more inward still as she bent her head, touched her temple markings with her left fingers then held her hand out to their friends in a gesture of regard.
With a breath, she whispered, "Zha hevrra," her voice rich with age despite its youth, full with the echo of countless memories, her own and the others, who understood the phrase's full meaning.
It was good to hear. It felt like herself.
More, her audience seemed to have accepted that, accepted her and Ara in what ways they could. A tiny smile met her mouth to know it--to finally know it truly.
Ara's fingers caressed her leg and she nodded slowly, drawing an even breath.
"One hundred one rallkle past," she began, her stare drifting off to the stars beyond them, "I entered through the Arch of Azlre and was accepted into the novitiate. At that threshold, I left behind the remainder of my girlhood. Beside me stood my spirit's partner, who similarly would consecrate his status as a man. It was at this place we would be given, truly, to the beings our fate had molded for us, which we had chosen to take, from which we would never turn."
"Again, it should be said that in youth, it can be a way to move with the wind without turning into it, content to allow fate its every will. Other times, they walk into that current, recklessly unaware that the shift is not of their control.
"With time and knowledge, we learn to walk among it, not fighting nor drifting. This is a task of the strong, for perfection cannot be achieved as much as it is desired; rather, balance alone offers peace within the ever-moving universe..."
"We prayed for our transformed spirits, for the journey we would soon embark upon. We prayed for peace. We prayed for what we nourished in my womb and for the one already set forth. We prayed for Desalia. We prayed for Bakali, our elder-mother who had led us, for Bala, our gentle elder-father who had supported us. We prayed for Susik and Gatra, Derra and Yasis, our siblings, finally returned to us as the war began its closing. We prayed for Dalra and for Miztri, who had borne our way upon Uillar and long after. We prayed also for the peaceful deliverance of Be'i and Toma, our childhood spirits, whose necessary sacrifice had finally brought us to that altar."
Anai's head drew back down to Ara's shoulder, and she caressed his hand, which warmly embraced her knee. She listened to his heart beating as her own and watched the stars pass as she continued...
"For those many blessings, we prayed and dedicated ourselves to our children, to the future of Desalia and to the promises we swore, yet to fulfill to our blessed siblings, Sashana'i and Aratra, who with fate's turn allowed us to procure all we so cherished.
"It was for their dear memory, as well, that we have given ourselves to our present beings, and made of our lives all which has been granted. Ka, for our lives and all the blessings within it, our prayers were most thankful..." She drew her gaze across her audience. "...and continue to bear gratitude, I should believe."
"Yes, there are those who learn to seek their fate, in spite of all they do not see yet are meant to someday know. This future is desired with open spirits and hungry minds; they thrive in love and experience, desire and purpose--and this, Children, is the truest gift we may enjoy while among the living..."
Beneath a blanket of tied scraps, scented with marlai essence, the two lay entwined, their bodies sated and cooling to their desired warmth. On the bed table, a few candles steadily burned. There was no breeze to make them flicker, but their scent had combined with the others in the room, a rustic scent, even though they had been replicated.
In the living space just outside the sleeping area, a floorcloth had been laid before the coffee table. The latter made an adequate shelf, they thought, for condiments and other items. They had moved the furniture again after returning from their dinner and sent the unnecessary pieces to a storage space. That moon's meal and painting had been greatly enjoyed; however, it had done little to wear down those still new bodies. They had agreed they needed to do more to tire themselves for the day.
Harry had suggested the holodeck for some "outdoor" exercise when they mentioned it, and upon that advice, they reserved a block of time for three days from then. They had yet to choose a locale, however.
Not that they minded their usual route to expending their remaining energy.
On the floorcloth lay stacks of reconfigured PADDs and a tablet of paper with scribbled designs and Desalian calculations upon it. Some of it included copies of the Barrier research projects Havetsi had continued for them and included among her letters for future consideration; the remainder was of their own creation for Voyager and for future use as well. But the latter indeed was for later. Having gravitated into speaking of each other again, they had decided to save the mass for the morning, when they would start yet another day.
They were curious to see the space Harry had found. Kathryn was to come for breakfast, also, to discuss with them their projects personally and in more detail. They planned for that--and to ask if the captain might procure quarters with a viewport. It was a selfish little thing, and yet they did crave a view, felt a bit trapped without one.
The next evening, if nothing interceded, they would take Chakotay and Kes for dinner and talk. When saying their farewells that night in the messhall, the commander had at last remembered to query about their spiritual journeys and their memories. In turn, Ara asked about Chakotay's spiritual quests. Hearing the topic, Kes showed her interest, too, and so Chakotay suggested they make a night of it. Ara and Anai gladly offered to be the hosts.
They felt a particular need to invite them, in fact, and to share their beings as they knew each other to be, a part of their daily scholarly life they certainly did not wish to hide away among those people. Also, they were curious about the commander's practice. They had only a dim, embarrassingly negative memory of Anai's experience with it as a child--not nearly a useful assessment.
In the turbolift, Anai had also promised to finally teach her very old friend how to write his name in the proper way. Ara wondered aloud if she would use the Cezian dialect, earning Chakotay's unsure laugh but a genuine bid of goodnight to them both when the doors opened.
They shifted their legs. Her fingers explored his strong back as she snuggled herself against his chest. He caressed her hair, nuzzling her hairline to kiss her brow.
On a table by the entrance to the quarters sat several data files they had "borrowed" from the collection given to the captain. They still planned to give the appropriate files to Susan and Kurt after telling them themselves, however.
They had a feeling they would be restoring a few of their friends' memories someday. Not everything, and perhaps only a journey with her would do it, but Anai suspected that Susan might indeed need the service. It was yet to be, but they could see it happening.
His lips moved to the soft of her temple as he breathed the scent of her hair. She pressed into it, rubbed the arch of her foot on his calf. When he pulled away slightly, she looked up to accept his lips upon hers, tenderly, several times more until they naturally parted. Then she burrowed her head into his neck again, felt his cheek rest upon her crown.
In the corner sat a pot Kes brought for them not long before they retired. She had planted some of the daknal sva seeds she had taken from the garden, and now wanted them to have it. Anai embraced her as Ara took it to a visible corner, making a mental note to get a proper lamp for its growth. After Kes said good night and left, Anai readjusted the climate and lighting controls to emulate a typical Desalian springtime.
They were anxious to see it develop, to train the vines and to smell the flowers that would bloom someday soon, perhaps make a proper nectar balm. With the proper care--which they knew how to give--it could grow, even there. For the mean time, it was just a flat of dirt. Yet all earth-bound seeds grew from such a unappealing sight. It only required care, time and perhaps prayer to the spirits that it might thrive.
They had made many gardens grow in such a fashion. With fate's blessing, they would tend them again in peace. They required only patience.
She sighed. Her eyes were still open. His were too.
Their bodies were finally sated but their minds had decided to wake again. This was not uncommon. They had always been like that.
They would sleep eventually, they knew, just as the day would come eventually, and then another night, perhaps more easily than the one before. Perhaps not.
It was their time to be had and anything was possible.
They had hope.
"Two of these such blessed lives shall be painted this moon, my beloved family, for Desalia and for our future. There was one, born on a faraway place called Earth, and another, not two years later, was brought to life nearby on the planet called Kessik. There was where their adventure, unbeknownst to them, began and where it shall, with the spirits' blessing, continue, before we are called by fate to meet again. Yet at present, let us speak of what is known."
After her quiet introduction, Bana'i of Desal paused.
The torchlight flickered beneath the violet night sky, and Bana'i gave Tasila's hand, resting warm upon her thigh, a light squeeze. As a breeze shifted through, warm and sweet with daknal sva, she pulled aside an errant scarf and smiled gently at her family.
As always, the family, young and old alike, had gathered in the garden, relaxed yet attentive, pleased to have a painting of the former regents that moon. Equally glad to relate it, she was yet new to the telling, which her blessed mother had always so faithfully painted all the years Bana'i had been among the living.
Clearly, she recalled how, during her girlhood, she would crawl into her bed with dreams of her blessed ancestors and their full and amazing lives. Her nali's words were so clear in her ears, coloring their every detail within her spirit, even during their greatest challenges. She came to know their every moment and, as so many others, had always been inspired by them. Somehow, recalling them and taking their lessons into action did a great deal in pressing her forward, strengthening her resolve through school, the novitiate, her bonding, scholarship and motherhood.
Of course, it had always been the way to follow the lessons of one's ancestors, but these ancestors were truly a part of her being as well as her blood.
So now it was Bana'i's turn to bear that inspiration, or so insisted her parents, elder regents well worn by their sun's business. Her mother's anxious rechecks of the Barrier's sub-radionic modulators, which effectively equalized the temporal variance caused by the subspace inversions within Irllae's faithfully dangerous plasma field, had taken up five full days and nights after its activation--not to mention the bulk of her scholarship and both her and Cera's regency. Simply, Havetsi was too fatigued to tell the tale that evening and Cera was all too sympathetic.
For that matter, it was well time that Bana'i spoke the tale the family had clamored for of late. It was no secret that she had an expressive, melodic voice, and had taken to the ancestor's lives, among others, in her scholarship and trade. Still it truly was her honor to speak on her line, to bring forth the words first painted in full but fifty-one rallkle past on that same dais, in that warmly scented garden, filled with the blessed love and curiosity of the elders' own.
Even in times of change and growth, Bana'i mused, how strange and beautiful it was that there was yet such continuance.
Such was the way. A good balance.
So, calling into her memory the roots of her subjects, those blessed elders whose lives had been so honored among all Desal and Irllae, her smile grew fonder still as she touched her temple, held it out to her family and whispered, "Zha hevrre..."
(fin)
December, 1999 to January, 2007
© D'Alaire M.