The Word Painter
Chapter Four--Cezian Ascension
by D'Alaire
Cezian Ascension
"There is a use of prayers, and of patience...and of love."
A swirl of blues and greens, dotted with brown...like a paisley, and a sharp, hazy ray of white sunshine shone straight through it. It was hard to look at. Pain met the light.
She heard voices, familiar and foreign, but she couldn't speak. Not just yet.
The air was warm but comfortable, dry but not terribly so. Her skin felt...clean. Somewhat, anyway.
Her head hurt like hell, like nothing she'd ever known and so much so that her mind instantly worked to blank out the sensation. The native skill hardly touched it that time.
She breathed--then thought against doing that too much. A cough and the headache would probably explode. Her lungs were as heavy as ever. Why does my head hurt so much? she cringed. She couldn't find it in herself to reach up and check it out, though. Instead, she exhaled, half-growling, half moaning. The voices ceased.
"B'Elanna?" came a voice, seemingly far away but intent and warm, anxious, hoping. The sound swirled in her memory and stopped as it came to her. There was a shuffle on the hard floor, then his scent found her nostrils. "That you, Chief?"
"T-to...m?" She exhaled the rest of that effort. Her eyes fluttered, warding away the light. "Hur-hurts."
"I shall draw the shade, good man," came another voice, heavily inflected. "Light should not be beneficial at present."
As the room darkened, he appeared above her, grabbing her hand in both of his and gazing down to her. Everything was blurry, but she did not mistake his smile--the big, joyful, relieved smile that mixed with a breathed laugh of relief. She weakly bent her fingers around his.
"About time you showed up," he said, thick with emotion.
In the darkness, she managed to focus a little. Blinking to see him, she scowled at first, then realized, That scar was there, he had circles under his eyes, his skin got tan from the sun.... In her delirium, she'd forgotten for a moment what her closer memory knew about him.
"W-w-wha-t h-hap...p-pene-d?"
And why can't I talk?
"After the attack?" Tom asked and she blinked again. "Dalra and Miztri--yeah, they're okay--they managed to get into the base and contact a couple relay ships to get us out of there." He paused to breathe a small laugh as he touched her hair, looked her over. "Koban cargo vessels barely fit to fly, from what they've told me about them, but enough. After the Unar were out of the system, the traders picked up the survivors and brought us here, managed to keep us alive until Bakali could get her hands on us."
With that sentence, he turned a wink to the other side of the bed. B'Elanna didn't look. She didn't dare shift her eyes.
"You're going to be just fine, by the way," Tom added, stroking her hand with his thumb. "Bakali pulled a few strings and fixed you up. Unfortunately, the Unar took everything from their own buildings when they pulled out. We've already used what they dropped. But that's okay. We're on Cezia now, where Sashana'i and Aratra were born."
B'Elanna blinked again. "S-sash-shan-na'i?"
"Oh, she'll be hovering as soon as she gets a whiff you're up," he grinned.
She felt a hand on her head--another hand--and she stiffened. "Wh-ho...?"
"That's Bakali," Tom told her, glancing up.
A tall, elderly lady with bright, crinkled eyes and a crown of silver braids on a white-scarved head appeared in B'Elanna's line of vision. "Your spirit, Be'i of the Allanois House, has held to the living world," she whispered, a warm, motherly voice in an oddly trilled inflection not unlike Gresbri's. "A sign of your strength and conviction--and, ka, the benefit of frozen Uillaran darkness, as well. I had yet to see injuries such as yours survived. Yet you shall recover." She reached carefully down and touched B'Elanna's cheek, closed her eyes for a moment. "Truly, my sorrow that I may not assuage the pain, Child. We bear little relief, less still past the purging of Uillar and its prisoners."
B'Elanna said nothing, took another small breath as an acknowledgment of the woman's apology. She hadn't even thought to ask for a painkiller, not expecting one in the first place. The headache was becoming intolerable, however, and finding she couldn't move was almost as disturbing. She flexed her toes, her legs and arms, and knew she should be able, but also that if she tried, it wouldn't do much. It was worse than before, when she woke up the last time...
"H-how loh-long has it b-b-been?"
"A few weeks," Tom told her, still very soft. "We've been on Cezia for just over two."
"W-weeks?" B'Elanna took another breath to ease her surprise. The last thing she remembered was...She couldn't remember the last thing she... "W-we w-were r-running. Th-the a...at-t-tack."
Tom nodded, watching her expression darken as she pieced it together. "Yeah."
After a few more seconds, she it came back to her... "H-Hych-char," she whispered; then she shuddered.
"He's dead." Tom's statement was flat and sure. His hand squeezed hers warmly.
A sigh was her first response. The Unar commander's demise, however that came about, made her far less mindful of the lances and flares inside her skull. That pain was little in comparison to the moments that now rained through her memory; moments when she had been sure she would die, when the glowering white face above her had finally gotten what he wanted, had destroyed the abomination and would likely kill its companion, too. The grated wall and his grunts of effort reverberated in her.
But he didn't succeed. She was alive, and Hychar lost.
"Th-thank y-ou," she breathed. That knowledge digested, she drifted back to sleep. She'd heard what she needed to know.
Seeing Bakali's reassuring smile, Tom didn't try to wake B'Elanna up again. It'd take time, he knew, after the substantial injuries she'd survived, to get back on her feet.
He'd had a week of doing the same--getting back on his feet without doubling over or passing out. He'd only just begun to think about when he might try to find some housing in that already overcrowded place. Taking in eight hundred and thirty-one more refugees certainly hadn't eased the situation in Azlre. According to Aratra, the capital city was even worse, so it was a good thing they'd landed where they did. Either way, being just two more among the squalor didn't make them anything special, so he'd wanted to wait until B'Elanna was awake to commit to any idea, figuring out where she in particular should go, considering the care she would need in the beginning.
B'Elanna probably wouldn't like it, but she had awoken at last. It was a start, and he could start thinking on where to go from there...or at least about how he should broach the subject with her.
For the mean time, he just held her hand and watched her sleep.
B'Elanna stared down at the tray Tom set on the table beside the bed. There were vegetables on a plate. Vegetables. They were cooked a bit too much--not that she felt like chewing just yet--and accompanied by some small pieces of thin flatbread. Beside the plate was a steaming white earthenware mug. Bakali had been careful to administer enough nutrient during her unconsciousness that she would not awaken feeling starved. B'Elanna had woken thrice by then without an appetite and fell back to sleep not even thinking about how long it'd been since she had last eaten. But now, she felt her mouth begin to wet at the sight of real food and hot tea.
"It's not Bixel's," Tom told her, tossing a casual grin her way, "but it's definitely better than Chez Uillar."
B'Elanna did not resist when he came to sit her up and tuck some pillows behind her back. With hands that barely still felt like they were attached to her body, she smoothed down the soft gown she'd been dressed in sometime during her unconsciousness. She hadn't thought yet to ask about her uniform--what was left of it, anyway. At her last recollection, she'd been wearing her trousers and undershirt under her cloak. She noticed that Tom didn't have any of his uniform on, either, but rather the airy trousers and long, rustic tunic typical of the Desalian men. Maybe their old clothes couldn't be--or shouldn't have been--saved, when they got there. The dirt was considered poisonous. They had probably been burned or were buried somewhere.
When Tom handed her a cloth napkin, the concern moved out quickly of her mind. She was starting to smell the food and spicy tea. "Th-thanks," she muttered. The flow of blood from her steadily throbbing skull made her head loll, but she held on, concentrating on the choices before her.
As if he'd read her mind, Tom pushed the little table up very near to her then sat on the side of the bed. "By the way, it's still finger food mostly. Desalians don't use utensils. The trick is to pick it up by dipping or bending the bread, or wrapping the bread around it."
"C-cute," B'Elanna smirked and reached out tentatively for a piece of bread, and then one red, round vegetable. Before she ate it, she watched Tom dig into his half. "Y-ou look like y-ou've g-got it down."
"Trust me, I learned the hard way," Tom grinned. "But yeah, I've been up for a while now. Go on. Give it a shot."
She did, easing the food between her teeth. Chewing it, she gave a nod. "N-ot bad," she said, snorting quietly at herself. "Com-pared to Ui-llar, it's a f-east."
Tom smiled as she went for another.
From there, they ate quietly, enjoying the warm solace of the darkened clinic front room and heavy rain pattering outside. The rain season, as it was called, had begun the day after she first awoke, and it would last a couple of months.
As they gradually emptied the earthen plate, Tom's eyes stayed on her, watching her reactions, seeing how weak her hand was as it gripped the bread, then each morsel, how it shook slightly. Outside, the sounds of other Desalians passing in front of the doors to the clinic mixed with the rain. Tom knew that on the front patio, Sashana'i and Aratra were talking to Bakali and Bala, arranging a place where they could have a bed after they both were released from the clinic. He'd also asked them to stay out of the room until he could talk to B'Elanna. He knew she wasn't well enough to know everything, but she'd get curious eventually, or reach up to scratch, do something.
She seemed to sense that, too, as she looked up to him again. "Wh-at is it?"
To his credit, he remained casual to some degree, picking up another vegetable. "We do need to talk."
She eyed him. "A-bout?"
"A few things," he said, meeting her stare. "One thing is housing. Remember how Aratra once described what things were like in Sacezia? How crowded it was? Well, Azlre's no better. It's just another refugee camp as far as the Unar are concerned--in other words, packed. I hope you don't mind, but we'll probably have to live together a while longer."
"Y-ou don't s-nore. I can t-take it." She didn't add that like many other things, she hadn't even thought about that changing.
"I'll make sure you get your own bed, though," he added offhandedly. "I'll bet you miss that."
She grinned briefly in reply.
"Good news is that the weather here's much better. No more frigid nights."
"Th-ank God," B'Elanna breathed, coughing slightly behind it as she picked another piece of food. It was more satisfying than she'd imagined--tasting food again, and food that really was good. "Wh-at else?" she queried.
Two down, one to go, he thought. "Well, you might have guessed you're in pretty lousy shape." She glanced up again at that in mid-chew, blankly, then resumed. Tom took a breath, decided which way to go first.
"Bakali's not a real doctor--not a Federation-type doctor," he told her, poking a vegetable around on the tray. "When the Unar took over Desalia, she was about your age and she was just beginning her practice in the homeopathic sciences. She's had plenty of biology and exobiology, and she's had to practice it a lot since the Unar took all their technology away. The medical equipment they do have was bought off their version of a black market. Anyway, Bakali knows how to handle alien physiology and studied ours as much as she could about us while we were out, when she was treating us."
"Ob-viously it w-orked," B'Elanna ventured, watching his motions, squinting in a futile effort to focus on his expression, on his eyes, which evaded hers just then. She could see that much.
"Yeah," Tom said, "five transfusions and four surgeries between us in a seventy year-old biobed that wasn't Desalian to begin with--and that using a laser scalpel with barely enough power to close a seam. The laridium only goes so far, which isn't much. She did all she could to save our lives, which was a lot, trust me."
B'Elanna drew a breath. "But?"
Tom's lips flicked upwards, his grin attempting both comfort and preparation. "We're pretty banged up. You... You had some pretty serious injuries."
"They s-till hurt. E-veryth-ing's foggy, and m-my head..." She stopped as he noticed his eyes move up there briefly, his little grin fade completely. "Wh-at?"
Tom finally sighed. "You're going to be out of it for a while," he told her. "Your vision's going to be pretty bad until they can scrape up an optical scanner and regenerator from their black market. Hell, even mine's messed up--but in my case it's the dust and it'll clear up. By that rule, yours should get a little better, too, just not as much as you'd like. You'll probably have some bad headaches until it gets fixed. Sunlight will probably bring them on, too, so you'll have to avoid it hitting you directly in the eyes."
Her head hurt already, but she remembered what she felt when she first woke up. "Okay."
"You'll probably be tired until you get your strength back and really start healing--and only time can do that. You're also still recovering from that infection. The head injury on top of it wasn't any help. You lost a lot of blood."
"I c-can tell," B'Elanna said, still squinting at him. As always, he was trying not to be so gloomy, trying to spare her, even when he was telling her the gist of it--which wasn't good. "Wh-ere did the b-lood come from?"
Tom snorted. "A little bird."
B'Elanna smirked. "Th-at p-pokes her b-beak into everyth-ing. A-nd it was okay?"
"There wasn't much to it, really," he said. "Very few rejection problems according to Bakali. She took care of it with some sort of root--don't ask me what or how. You'll need time, and I guess you'll get pretty stir-crazy in the middle of it. There's not much to do here."
She was not surprised.
"Not yet, anyway," he continued, his lips turning up again. "There happens to be a little depot of ships and some parts in a gorge outside the city. Junkers, really, but something we might be able to play with."
B'Elanna's hand stopped in mid-air and she forgot her remaining hunger momentarily. "Oh?"
Tom's grin grew. He had a feeling she'd like to hear that. Still, he deflated it appropriately. "It's nothing to cheer about, being that they're about as put together as those scraps we were separating on Uillar. But it might be interesting. Bala--that's Bakali's husband--says that since the Unar make it a practice to hold on to anyone with technical skills, Azlre could use a lot of repairs, especially the sanitation system and solar units. There are parts in the ships we can use for a little of that."
Though that work wasn't what she'd had in mind at first, she gave a nod. "I'd l-ike to s-see them."
"When you're strong enough, we'll go."
The conversation lulled at that, and B'Elanna had almost finished her meal before another voice was heard, which came just after a soft rap at the doors.
"Toma. Is it well?"
"We're fine," Tom answered, chuckling at the ginger tones he'd easily become used to in the past couple weeks. He shook his head when B'Elanna looked curiously at him.
"It may be wise to cover our good lady's eyes, for I mean to enter."
Tom glanced back at B'Elanna, who sighed and closed her eyes to wait. Tom put his hand in front of her face anyway. "Okay, Bala."
She saw behind her lids a bit of the greyish light and felt a stab of pain at the change. She opened her eyes again when it darkened, only to see Tom's hand pulling cautiously away; then she saw a tall form in clothes much like Tom's and framed by a floor-length, lightweight robe.
An elderly man approached, his steps like shifting sand as he crossed the long front room. Placing a single red fruit on the table with a wink, he bowed deeply to her, reaching within the dangling ends of his well-wrapped white headscarves to touch his wrinkled temple markings. In that position, his robe and headdress looked twice as big as he was, he was so thin.
"Be'i zha lastnya," he said, very quiet but equally cheerful. "Cost'a inic la'a fro'utisla. --My calling is Bala, bondmate to Bakali, elder of the house of Na'ihaj. I bear you welcome to our home at Azlre, Cezia, and thank the spirits for the blessing that makes our acquaintance."
Even B'Elanna, feeling like she did, couldn't help but smile a little at the old man's gracious introduction--and suddenly knew why Tom had, too. Like Bakali, she could feel his gentleness in his sparkling hazel gaze and the smile that creased into his strong, tawny cheekbones. She knew without knowing him that he was genuine and kind--a rare thing for her. Such was what his facade projected.
"Nice to m-eet y-you," she said, trying to pull her words together and forcing herself not to growl at her failures.
Bala paid little attention to it. "And you, Child. Ka. It is good we meet." He looked at Tom then both of them in turns. "Good man, my bondmate and I have found a solution. It is known...the condition...?"
Tom drew a quick breath. "I've told B'Elanna that she'll need some time to recover."
"Ah. This as well is good." Bala reached over the table and touched B'Elanna's arm, meeting her gaze. "Good lady, our sorrow that we cannot bear our known technology and procure your health with greater speed and completion. We have been in truth a finely advanced people, with all our needs and desires at our disposal. I should think you bear awareness that this has changed. The Koba underground, well known for their clever procurements, is yet unable to acquire the equipment required by us. Medicines--at times. We accept our fate as impoverished, yet we strive for the needed, to heal and comfort. This too, is meant."
B'Elanna shook her head. "Y-ou've done a l-ot. Th-ank y-ou."
Bala nodded. "It pleases us to see the effect, good lady." His gaze drew to Tom again. "Toma, as our good lady Be'i requires prolonged tending, and you observation, Bakali and I have endeavored to keep you both close. In this desire, we have recalled our roof area, where once we would hide scholars to be smuggled from Unar's sight, above our living space. The mantel stones run through it, so it would be warm in our moon and require no separate heating. We may procure the floor and bedding materials with some dealing, yet with speed. Aratra shall endeavor to find milkstone to freshen the plaster. It shall require effort, yet there would be privacy, and it shall be yours without need of repayment."
Listening to all this, B'Elanna suddenly realized what they were getting into that time. Her old quarters on Voyager popped into her mind, how well she'd lived in comparison to Uillar and what was to come there. An attic. She was going to take up living in an attic. Still, it was better than a shack.
Hearing the way Tom agreed to that, with a breath, then his thanks--though sincere--she could tell he'd already considered that change, too. From son of an admiral to refugee was quite a switch for the worse--prison experience or not.
"That sound okay to you B'Elanna?" Tom asked.
She shrugged. "F-ine," she said quietly. But returning her attention to the elderly man, she tried to be more welcoming to his generosity. After all, once again, she and Tom were being taken into another person's house--that time literally--at their cost and responsibility. "Th-ank you, Bala. Y-ou and y-our wife are being v-ery ge-nerous."
But he did understand, seeing her wide brown eyes, so pensive and yet intensely emotional behind the fog of Uillar, still apparent. "Good child," he said, smiling gently upon her, "This old body was borne in Desal when all upon our homeworld was lush and fruitful, when our technology well surpassed Unar, a time which saw our people enjoying every pleasure--in excess, we have learned. It is known my house is not of the standard known as your own. I mourn your loss as I have my own. And yet we survive, ka? Pray for strength and our forward beings to bear truth?"
"I didn't m-ean--"
"This is known. Yet we feel as any feels. It is a good practice in healing." He touched her arm again, bowed to her and to Tom respectfully. "You may cover your eyes again, good lady, as I mean to leave you. I shall bring myself again soon and the building of your chamber shall begin. We would endeavor to make it sufficiently pleasing. This I promise, by my spirit."
Moments later, he had slipped through the door again, and when B'Elanna opened her eyes, she saw Tom grinning thoughtfully at the door, then turning his gaze back to hers. "These people are so nice," he said, "it makes it hard to know them sometimes."
"Th-ey are," she agreed. Pausing, she blinked with an entirely different thought, shamefully unasked. "B-bendera, Nico-letti--did y-ou...?"
"I've already sent word out to look around," he told her. "Bala says it might be hard to find them. Their names were most likely changed by the Unar if they ended up in service. If anyone spots them, it'll be the underground, granted they weren't taken to a secluded place."
B'Elanna closed her eyes. "I hope th-ey're all r-ight."
"Everyone I talked to said they were probably lucky to be sold. Not free, but preserved, especially if they're in training--and a hell of a lot better than we got. Bakali asked the Koba and Iaskeb traders she deals with to poke around, see if they find anything."
He'd tried to make it less ominous than they both knew it was and returned to his food soon after she nodded, accepting he'd done what he could--as usual. Patting her leg with his free hand, he offered her a smile as he chose another piece of bread. "Maybe if you're up to it tomorrow, we'll talk some more? There is more I need to tell you about...well, everything."
She shrugged back. "Why n-ot now?"
"I think you've had enough for one day," he grinned.
She wasn't amused. "I'm n-ot a b-baby, Paris."
Tom didn't shrink at her changed tone or her hardened stare. He did, however, bite his lip and kill the grin he'd tried to blow off the topic with. Then he wondered why he thought it'd work with her.
"B'Elanna, you..." He sighed, gently took the food out of her hand so he could hold it. "You have no idea how bad off you were when you got here. When I woke up, they were still operating on you. I was watching them..."
She shivered at the feel of his warm fingers, gently squeezing hers as she tried to focus on his dead serious stare. She saw enough to know he was definitely uncomfortable but trying to be straight with her. But she knew she wanted to know--would have to know sooner or later...
"Wh-at, Tom?"
His blink was slow and his facade fell away from the casual one he'd held up the whole time they'd been talking. "When I saw myself in the mirror the other day," he said quietly, "I didn't know who I was looking at at first. I mean, I knew it'd be bad, but...I don't know how you've even looked at me without cringing."
"M-aybe I got u-sed to it," she said, turning her eyes down to her lap for lack of anywhere else to look. "W-e've al-ready talked a-bout this, on Ui-llar."
"Yeah, I know," he whispered, giving her fingers another light squeeze. "And I'll admit, you're not as swollen up as you were before. Still, you'd better not look until you're healed more. Bakali didn't have enough power in the laser to seal the wounds all the way and, well, you really look rough. I mean, you don't look frightening--you aren't at all--just... The damage might be pretty hard to see right now. Without the right equipment, there's nothing they can do but let it heal."
She took that without response at first. The way she felt, the pain she was having, remembering her days and illnesses and her last memories on Uillar...and Hychar. She could only imagine what she looked like. Though she'd never really praised her appearance, she knew she'd always been somewhat vain about keeping herself neat looking, making herself look like she had enough pride to keep herself up and present herself well. Even in the Maquis, she tried to look in control of herself.
For Tom Paris--the one man who had seen up close and personal every way she could look--to feel the need to prepare her for a mirror...
"Okay, Tom. I'll w-ait."
Worse than the rest, he sighed with relief.
"Bwuh-ke," said Sashana'i as she scooted up to her knees behind her friend and carefully took the hairbrush to the mass of short umber and ochre locks she'd unbraided.
"Y-ou think it's n-o trouble," B'Elanna said, shaking her head.
"Be'i wuwh ka'i."
"Wuwh?"
"Lull," Miztri supplied with a little snort.
B'Elanna bit her lip. Between the men banging and drilling two floors above them and the woman pulling the skin on her well-beaten skull, she wasn't exactly in the mood to have anyone telling her she was being stubborn. "L-ook, I n-ever asked to h-ave my hair b-br-- Ah! Damn!"
"Ywus e'eki w-haw," Sashana'i replied and sunk the brush in again.
"Y-ou're doing the p-pulling--not me," B'Elanna choked, her excitement having welled another cough, which she willed down unsuccessfully. "Wh-at's the big deal, a-nyway? It's n-ot like I'm going to the em-bassy. --Ow!"
"Be'i tsu ye'i." Sashana'i went about her work undeterred.
Miztri, who stood aside helping Bakali with her equipment, giggled. "This is their way. Become accustomed to it now, my good elder."
Bakali peered back to the young ladies, who still tossed jabs back and forth in two difficult to understand tongues. She was unaccustomed to Sashana'i's slurring, and Be'i's half-functional translator only did so much to weed apart her people's confusing syntax. More was the force behind it, too. Though it was good to see such spirit after so many years among a humbled populace, the elder's brow rose as their conversation became terse. "My gratitude for your warning."
When it was over, however, the Cezian native leaned down and embraced her alien friend, kissing her cheek from behind in a close, sisterly fashion, and the umber-haired lady broke into a grudging smile and gave her hand a pat. This too was good to see, Bakali decided, for their sakes and for Desal's. Their young blood regent had a good deal of youth to go along with her weather-beaten features and rough manners. However, while certainly no match for her grandfather, Dulla, she did possess some charm and sincerity, and she was complimented by a well-spoken bondmate. Combined with the sense of conscience Dalra of Maha'aje professed of her, Bakali felt more encouraged by the girl. Time and full recognition of her place among them could improve her, the elder hoped.
They were finishing upstairs just then, and a blessed silence filled the clinic at last. Bakali sighed her relief. Though the banging and shuffling had been kept to a minimum for her patients' sakes, it had been a constant thrumming above those past three days. Aside from that front room, she had a half-full ward of ailing in the adjoining hall. Likely, none had found sleep in the day in spite of the men's efforts.
Minutes after the silence, they appeared, flushed with effort and gladly accepting the water Miztri procured for them.
While Dalra and Bala found seats near the window, Aratra snatched his woman up from the bed she still kneeled upon. "You must learn not to tend to Be'i too well," he chuckled. "She shall be left raw with abrasion."
"Awatwa!" Sashana'i laughed, squirming in his awkward embrace.
B'Elanna smiled. "Th-anks, A-ratra."
More than a little stiff and sore from the little work he'd been allowed to do, Tom pulled himself up to sit on the end of the surgical bed--then promptly winced at the grind of pain that flared through his side every time he remembered he wasn't supposed to do that. Of course, he knew he'd only forget again once the pain dulled. Rubbing futilely at his waist and lower back, he distracted himself with the sight of B'Elanna fussing her fluffed hair down.
"I see she's already got you groomed," he grinned. "Not bad. A few more inches and she'll have a proper ground for sculptures."
B'Elanna just shook her head. "Sh-ut up."
He snorted and took another swig of water.
Dalra took a deep breath. "Odd that I have found longing for this."
Aratra had brought Sashana'i down with him to sit on a stack of blankets in the corner. "As I, good man--yet it would be more pleasing to find our talk here."
"Ka," Sashana'i breathed with an emphatic nod, looking over at B'Elanna again. "Be'i twe-hsah Ceh-sin pwis-ka'is."
Aratra caught the woman's glance. "She says you shall heal with greater speed here, at Cezia."
"I can't i-magine anything being w-orse," B'Elanna returned.
"Ah, yet not all was accursed upon Uillar," Dalra noted, "for it was a place we did remain among the living. The plain of Prihar, it may have been, good elders, and yet should the elements be overcome, we bore permission to live by our Desalian nature without interruption aside from our work..."
Tom said nothing on that, slipping down from his perch to get himself a refill of water while his friends continued to explain to Bala and Bakali the companionship and community in the camp and tell them about the two who had come to Dalra's overhang a half-year ago. The way they talked about it, Dalra and Aratra seemed sentimental about that place.
Tom had no such illusions. Uillar was a hell that rightfully brought a pause to every person he'd seen witness the name. More, in the sect scourge that had liberated them, they'd lost many friends there--namely Kepli and Naja, T'lleka, Vadni and O'ysya, among nearly two thousand other victims. Others they knew, like Latsari and Bolmra, Gihetra, J'vishi, Plicta, among many others and including him and B'Elanna, were still nursing wounds earned in the sect attack. Something small and desperate in Tom made him know he was damn glad he and B'Elanna had made it to Cezia no matter what the cost had been. Or maybe it was just gratitude with a conscience. That wouldn't be the first time.
But the point stood, they weren't prisoners anymore. Refugees, sub-class individuals in territory the Unar claimed as theirs, certainly. But they weren't in prison. It was crowded as hell, but the people did maintain a community where they been all but ignored completely by the Unar for the last ten years. According to Bala, Antral and Brijan traders came to enlist and drop off laborers, a stable operation not needing supervision for long enough that the Unar did not have a reason to return after a sect scourge reassigned the unit at Cezia. Certainly, that was fine with Tom. Azlre also had some commune gardening, wheat in the fields around the city, a woman who called herself a healer, dirt that wasn't poisonous and weather that wouldn't leave them to bake in the day or freeze at night.
It was a big improvement--and he forced himself to remember it at least a few times a day.
He would've killed and died to get himself behind the conn of a ship, though, or just do something that made him feel halfway competent. At the same time, he feared it--feared his more thoughtless impulses catching up with him, getting bored there, getting itchy and careless. He remembered acutely how he'd done so before in his life. Like on Uillar, he couldn't afford that stupid kind of thinking. Problem was, there was so little to do in Azlre. Most of the other people there seemed content with that, but he knew he wouldn't settle as his Desalian friends had.
He had to give the Unar that much. They'd kept him and B'Elanna very busy, too busy to think much about anything but staying alive.
Now what? When B'Elanna's better and we've settled into this place, what do I do with the rest of this...survival?
Sighing silently to himself, he decided not to think about that yet. Instead, he watched Dalra, Bala and Aratra rise and don their cloaks to go procure their dinner--from the east commune garden, they said as they discussed what to get. Unable to join them for that long a trip, per Bakali's orders, Tom moved to help B'Elanna shield her eyes from the bright grey day when the men filed out.
For the present, B'Elanna needed his help, and that would take up enough of his time, considering. It was time he didn't mind spending.
He looked at her again as shade enveloped the room once more. Especially now.
She looked back, noticing again how he tried not to let his gaze waver anywhere, but stuck to her eyes maybe too well. Since she'd woken up, they all looked at her so directly, she'd conversely felt confronted by the mystery her appearance now was to her.
She also didn't like that no one was saying anything about what was wrong with her--even Tom. She remembered such "politeness" from her childhood--when they bothered to be polite--and hated that, too. Now she felt like that Klingon girl again, knowing they were all staring behind her back. But this time, she didn't know why they were staring. Even before that thing happened to her, when they were on Uillar and seeing the changes in Tom, B'Elanna had been grimly curious to see herself. She'd wondered how the conditions had likewise affected her. But just then...
Seeing her mind working behind her shifting stare, Tom lowered himself to sit on the edge of her pallet. "What's up, Torres?" he asked.
B'Elanna rubbed her lips together, raised her chin a bit to look at him. "I w-ant a m-irror."
He blinked, and she spotted the expression that followed it. Beyond him, Bakali and Sashana'i both stilled.
"You sure?" Tom asked, feeling his heart slow a little, and then thump. She looked determined.
"Y-ou've prepared me en-nough."
He didn't look like he agreed with that, but turned a look back to Bakali, shot another to Sashana'i before she could disagree with him. Seeming to examine and decide for herself, Bakali wrapped her robe sleeves up on her arms and went to bring the desired object. Tom turned back to B'Elanna.
"Just remember," he said, "Klingon blood or no, you need time to heal the most recent stuff, okay? Once you've healed more, Bakali's going to start you on some balms to take care of the scars. But that'll take time, too."
B'Elanna sighed shortly. "I'll m-anage, Tom. God, wh-at's so damn b-bad?"
Tom paused then just shook his head as Bakali came back in. Taking the old, framed mirror, he handed it to B'Elanna, hoping silently her vision was worse than Bakali said it would be.
Increasingly impatient with his caution and everyone else's tiptoeing--the whole of it--B'Elanna quickly decided just to have it over with and flipped the mirror up.
Her breath stopped.
It wasn't her.
Even in the dim light, Tom saw B'Elanna's face drain, her full mouth fall open. Again, he looked back. "You mind?" he asked their friends. "Give us a minute alone?"
The women left without complaint--and swiftly. Sashana'i paused at the door to the other room, though she did not look back before she finally slipped away.
B'Elanna's hands began to shake, further blurring the wreckage before her. Tensing, she managed to keep it still. She took in everything. There was a lot to see. Too much...
This isn't me, this can't be me, this isn't...
In her reflection, she saw her fog-coated eyes start to glimmer, but fought it back, gasping against it.
"T-tom...Th-ey...m-m-mutilated m-me," she managed without breaking down, without slinging the mirror against the nearby wall, without breaking the glass between her iron gripped fingers. "Th-th-they..." She caught her breath.
Tom didn't know if he should even touch her at that point, but did, slowly, then put his hand on her leg. She tensed at that, too. "I'm sorry."
"Th-they m-utilated me," she repeated, softer, hoarser, turning her head from side to side in numb disbelief of what... Her heart continued to drop in her chest.
Somehow, naively, she expected to see herself thinner and dirtier, but still her.
Instead, a set of dysfunctional, red-fogged eyes and a gaunt, sunken face she barely knew stared back at her. Her skin was deep sallow and blotched; her lips were pale and chapped. Her hair, though freshly brushed, stuck out in ugly, sun-bleached, wavy tufts. Her nose bridge... She might have expected a little bending--she'd felt that before--but when she turned her head, she could see how angled her profile had become, though it still lead up to...
She tried not to look, but couldn't not look, examined with squinted, nearsighted eyes how the Unar had battered her over the months...what they had done to her.
She was horrified to think she had ever been, even though a child, ashamed of her ridges.
Hychar had wanted to destroy those, too...
Her skull had been crushed, crumbled. Fragments of her once arching ridges under scarred skin swam randomly on the right side, one piece here, another piece a little farther up and skewed to the side; a third about a centimeter higher than that was bent precariously then continued its original path. The center ridge was discernible, but looked more like a dotted line with skewed fragments dipping slightly into her eyebrow, meandering to the right at the top. Across from there, the highest left ridge was bent upwards into her scalp. In between there and her left eyebrow laid...nothing, really. It was smooth, sunken slightly, and the skin that covered it seemed to have been sewed on, as she didn't mistake the thick red line framing all that patchwork...
In her horror, she wanted so much to touch it, if only to disprove what she was seeing. But her fingers stopped short of her skin, dropped lifelessly to the blanket.
Tom watched where her stare traveled. "Bakali had to put a donated graft there because she couldn't repair the bone," he explained quietly, very gently. "She did everything she could--and it was a miracle you even survived."
B'Elanna was still staring in disbelief.
"I know this looks really bad, but you still need to heal. Bakali says--"
"What h-ealing is g-going to c-c-correct this?!" she gasped, finally relieving herself of the sight to glare at him. "Lo-look at m-me!"
"I have," he replied firmly, taking her eyes directly. "I have been for a while now."
"How c-c-could you t-tell me I'm n-not...? I..." She choked--coughed, then again and harder, leaning forward to expel whatever was caught in her lungs that time.
Tom instantly leaned up to pat her back, even when she shrunk away and shook her head to ward him off. Nevertheless, he whapped a few more times to help it out, even as she groaned in pain. Finally, she leaned back again, cringing and growling at her promptly returned headache.
B'Elanna didn't address it. With an effort, she turned onto her side, away from him. "G-g-go aw-away."
He understood. He would have likely asked the same in her position. Nodding, he touched her shoulder, forcing his hand to stay even as she tried to pull away. She waved him off, even then. Were she stronger, she probably would have hit him.
The weaker move made Tom stop, however, change his mind as soon as he had thought he'd made it. There was just something about her...shrinking, natural as it might have been for anyone in her predicament. He squeezed her shoulder, making her know that he was still there.
"I'll come get you for dinner."
"N-o," she muttered. "L-eave m-e a-lone."
"B'Elanna..."
"I don't wa-ant to s-see a-nyone."
He pushed himself to his feet. "Okay," he said. "But don't let them win, B'Elanna. Hychar would've liked that."
"Wh-at do y-ou mean by th-at?"
"I mean," he said, knowing maybe he shouldn't be saying it, but feeling a firmness meet his tone that he couldn't help, "you have every right to feel as lousy as you want. God knows you've earned it. But they wanted to do this to you--to us. I know I'm in a better position to say it, but I'll be damned if they win in the end. We've got nothing else to do here but get past this."
"Th-ey did w-in, Tom," she growled. "Th-ey k-killed the abo-mination--m-me."
"The hell they did," he returned in a growl of his own. "I didn't survive this long to see them get the better of us--and neither should you." Bending closer, his voice was soft and pressing. "We're still alive and now we're free. There's no Hychar, no guards, no barricade, no goddamned detail lines. Now, I might have wasted a lot of chances in my life before, but that life's gone--and so is the mentality that made me do it. If the Unar killed anything, it'd be that. We have a chance to fight this now and I'm not about to forget it. And I know you feel the same way. You'll heal, get your strength back and then we'll see what's out there. You'll want to, when you start healing."
When she turned and saw him again, she squinted to see his words written in his narrowed, intent eyes. Closing his lips, he sighed out whatever else was in there through his nostrils. He touched her hand, gave it a pat then moved to follow Bakali and Sashana'i. Even beyond the doorway, B'Elanna didn't hear him, only the thrum of his steps up to the second floor of the clinic.
B'Elanna lowered herself onto her side again. The mirror, still leaning on her lap, slid down onto its face, and she suddenly wished Tom had taken her up with him. She didn't want anyone else to see her like that. Not yet, not like that--half blind, scabbed, scarred and broken, barely able to get out of bed, much less do anything useful.
She hugged the blanket tightly against herself, shutting her eyes against the remainder of the light, clinging to the hope that she wouldn't be like that forever.
"You should eat, Child."
"I'm n-ot a child and l-eave m-e alone, M-iztri."
The older woman sighed hard and placed the meal of the side table. "Your forgiveness. It is known your pain is great."
"I n-need to be a-lone," B'Elanna replied, not bothering to turn over. "P-lease."
With a touch to B'Elanna's hair, Miztri did go, speaking only to warn B'Elanna that she was opening the door.
B'Elanna could hear the sounds outside rise and fall with the opening and closing of that door, the sounds of pattering rain and children playing in the puddles, people talking, walking past. It muffled again upon the click of the door latch. Everyone was getting on with their own lives outside that door.
How the hell can they do that, knowing what's out there, suppressing them, torturing and raping their people? Damned pacifists.
At the same time, she knew that quite of few of those pacifists had become her friends, saved her life and protected her and Tom...
She wasn't hungry. Not only her mood was bad but her head was killing her. It was like fire at the base of her brain stem rising into her temples and circling around her brow; the white-hot hammering it fed forced her to keep visualizing the day-after battleground that laid there.
A battleground she'd hated and hidden, had been so ashamed of and finally stubbornly determined not to care about. Her face. That which she liked was blotted and abused, and that which had marked her as part Klingon was now the hateful ruins of her stupid, useless insecurities.
She didn't know how to accept that--that violent replacement--nor the pain, which was like nothing she had ever experienced.
"Any other should have found their ancestors from your injuries," Bakali had told her earlier that day. "I have learned from Toma that you are like the tree in the gale winds, to bend but not be broken. Speaking with you, this I find is truth."
B'Elanna didn't care. When the lances returned, flared and made her curl inside, had even made her vomit a couple times for the nausea that coupled it, she had wished Bakali and Tom and all the rest of them had just let her die and get it over with.
In those swings, B'Elanna passed the time, turning away from those who came in, refusing to leave the bed except for the latrine--a disgusting, makeshift contraption in the back court that she didn't want to know any more about. It was even worse than the facilities at Uillar. She picked at her food, but didn't eat much of it and wasn't sorry if it was wasted. She'd told them already she wasn't hungry. Over and over, she willed herself to get out of that bed, away from that room and everyone's attention, but she simply didn't have the strength to make the move. A couple times, she thought to look at herself again, but decided against it. With the additional days of consciousness, her eyesight was a bit better.
She didn't want to see it any better.
Days had gone by, in and out of pain, seething and consciousness. Finding all three, she rolled over, moaning aloud from the pressure in her skull, feeling her eyes swelling, her nose bridge pounding, her stomach churning. By then, night had come again, and there was no one to call for, except maybe someone in the next room. She knew there were children in there, though, could hear them coughing or calling to Cali, Bakali's assistant, who was busy at best. Aratra had mentioned there'd been some influenza lately.
How can these people lie here in the Stone Age? she fumed to herself as if she never had before. With Unar walking over them like trash? If it'd been the DMZ, the colonists would've made mincemeat of those hairy bastards...
Instead, the Desalians took it. So she and Tom were stuck in that nightmare, being beaten down for some ridiculous prejudice and watching others disintegrate in Unar crossfire, their friends prostitute themselves for easily replicated medicines and listening to so-called sages rationalize all of it to some stupid fate that had nothing to do with them personally.
She rolled over again, hearing her own strangled growl and knowing she was unable to stop herself. It was too much, the pain. She finally knew that it was too much. She could feel the incisions in her skull ripping apart and tearing bloodlessly down her ears and eyes, down her neck and back. She was hurting too much to even cry at that point.
The Vidiians once made her believe they'd stolen her courage after they split her in two. Likewise, she was nearly convinced the Unar had taken every ounce of her resilience.
Thankfully, Tom--who a year ago she'd have accused of trying to duck out of such a fight--had implanted the hope of revenge in her. Better, he was right. They were not on Uillar anymore. Though she looked like the proof that the devil, Fek'lhr and Prihar all existed, she and Tom were still alive, would someday be able to fight back, for themselves, for the others, all of them. That was something she definitely knew how to do.
It was a hell of an incentive--granted she survived that long.
She groped at the table without looking at it, feeling for the commbadge Tom had left for her. Feeling the smooth cool and familiar shape with her fingers, she whacked her half-powered receiver until it beeped.
"Tom!" she gasped and heard only static behind it. What was left of his badge was in worse shape than hers. "Tom!" she repeated, choking on it. "Wa-wake up!"
A minute later, he shuffled into the room, rumpled with sleep and tying on his shirt. A moment after that, he was leaning over the bed, touching the very top of her head, looking her over, and then helping her to sit. Before he could ask, she clutched his arms.
"They did this to m-e. I w-want t-t-t...T-tell me how Hy-char died. Y-ou're sure he's d-dead?"
"I wasn't conscious," he told her, not flinching at her grip. "Aratra told me what happened. Believe it or not--and not a word to the others," his voice lowered to a whisper, "Sashana'i killed him."
B'Elanna's eyes opened again, though she didn't look up. "What?"
"Hychar left us for dead and she made sure he didn't go back," he said, soft and simple. "Only the four of us know about that, by the way. We don't think Dalra or many others would take it too well."
"Sh-she k--" Her voice softened when his fingers touched her lips. "Sh-she killed Hych-char? She's De-salian."
"She's also someone who had just as much right to hate the hell out of him--and Maghet. Yeah, him, too." He rubbed her arms comfortingly, even if he knew it wouldn't help. "Frankly, I'm just glad he's gone. I don't care how. He didn't get what he wanted. That's what matters to me."
"But the Unar are st-till in power," she pointed out.
"Can't do it all in a day, Chief," he returned, telling her the rest with his stare.
He really was serious about fighting it someday, she knew and didn't doubt at all anymore.
He felt her grip recede a bit, though her trembling hadn't ceased. Her eyes were nailed on his chest, not daring to move anywhere for the strain. But the information had relaxed her a little. Thinking quickly, he glanced back at the door.
"You think you can walk? It sounds like the rain's stopped for a while, and it's pretty warm. Maybe if you walk a little, you'll get some of the tension out? We can keep talking."
"I don't kn-ow," she muttered through her teeth.
"I'll help you," he said. "B'Elanna, we don't have the right medicine here, and you're wound too tight to get any worse. We might as well try everything. I think I need to walk, too, since I wasn't really sleeping, and you're probably going nuts not moving around."
Unwillingly, she snorted. "Th-at's a m-ild word for it."
Her grip finally slid away, and she willingly let him help her sit up completely. He left for a moment to grab one of Bakali's cloaks, hanging nearby. He helped it on her, helped her up from the bed then took her around the waist to ease her across the room. Sliding her bare feet over the smooth stone floor, she held onto him stiffly, hesitating when he opened the clinic door. Closing her eyes, she leaned her head against him as they passed through it.
"You okay?" Tom asked, readjusting his hold on her.
"Y-es," she breathed, drawing her head up to feel the misty, tepid air. She opened her eyes slightly. She was already exhausted, but now that they were there, she didn't want to go back. "Keep m-oving."
Gingerly helping her across the rounded patio and down the short front step, Tom turned them onto the flagstoned street and into the foggy moonlight; then they went toward the middle of the square. She barely remembered anything she managed to see.
Her head still throbbed, but the air and movement did help, if anything then to distract her, tire her nerves. With only a slow, shuffling stroll towards the ruins of a large building Tom said was a temple, she was more than ready to return, feeling her blood rushing in her ears for the exertion. She heard herself groaning a little from time to time as they slowly made their way back, much as she tried to stay quiet. Her eyes remained planted on the waterlogged street, blobs of shiny marble that even in the night was too bright for her to bear too long. But she couldn't make herself look forward anymore or pull her head up straight. So she narrowed her eyes and tried to breathe regularly until Tom maneuvered her up the clinic step again. Inside again, he sat her by the window and brought her some leftover bread and tea from dinner.
Not an hour after they had begun, she let Tom lower her onto the bed and cover her warmly. She heard him whisper something to her before he left, but barely heard it. The walk had indeed helped her work off some of the tension, even if she fell to sleep wincing.
...at the grate floor, as the corridor grew thinner and thinner. She turned each corner, hearing their breathing become louder, feeling her heart beat, gloriously unafraid. The phaser in her hand, she looked down to set it to kill, her manicured fingers quick on the small panel. Below, a glint of black, her boots, covering careful feet that had gotten her in that far... Feeling herself smiling, she went on. She knew her duty.
She passed a mirror then stopped at it. She looked like she always did--presentable, strong, neat, with a little bit of lipstick. Rose that day. She noticed the old, turning designs on the frame...Were they Desalian patterns? Didn't matter. Pretty, though.
Around another, thinner corner--the breathing was louder--was another mirror, and in it she saw... She turned away quickly. That wasn't her.
There was a window, and she looked through to see Tom playing pool with Chakotay and Aratra. Tom hit the two ball with a crack and all the balls flew into the holes. He smiled jauntily. "That one's for B'Elanna," he said.
She turned back to the corridor when he said it, not knowing when he'd said it, just knowing that he had...When? But it didn't matter.
"Who is she to make the decision for all of us?!"
"...I want you to know how very deeply you have disappointed me."
"That doesn't sound like you. You've changed."
"It must have been difficult to destroy what you created."
"It was necessary."
Around the corner and into the last juncture she heard them, smelled them. Raising her phaser, she took the last step and saw Maghet.
"Looks like you finally got what you wanted..."
"I'll try not to break any noses..."
Nicoletti was whistling the requiem somewhere far away.
He was pushing up against a form in robes against the walls, pumping like an animal, grunting with the pleasure, drawing blood from his brutal grip on the pale, thin leg wrapped around him.
"Sashana'i, get away from him!" she ordered, aiming.
Someone took her hand, eased it easily down and turned her. She looked up to see Hychar's ruthless smile. His hands found her breasts and her back found the wall as he leaned down and kissed her, opened her mouth with his serpentine tongue.
"B'Elanna, he would take you and you may not fight," she heard Dalra say.
"I don't want him," she moaned, feeling Hychar's cold hands pulling away her tunic, yet not resisting him, feeling the pleasure, seduced by the cold radiating from his body, his hands arousing her against her better will...submitting. "I want to kill him."
"Abomination," Hychar whispered, sinking his teeth into the skin of her neck, cool and sharp, like a slow cut. She felt her blood drizzling down her bared shoulder from the bite. "I will have you."
"You can't," she breathed. "Ye'i a'o tsa ta'ich." He squeezed her breasts painfully; his smile was stained with her blood. "But you can kill me. Please kill me--Trras ye'i zhra'i warn..."
"Looks like you finally got what you wanted."
Lazily opening her eyes, she saw Tom, filthy in Uillaran robes, turning around and walking away, back to the detail lines with the others.
"But I'd rather have had you, Be'i," he said softly.
Her uniform became her Uillaran robes, and Hychar lifted the skirt of them to access her all too easily. "You wish this?" he asked her.
"No."
"But you enjoy this." He moved into her. She didn't feel him there but knew he was there and she couldn't move away. Her legs wrapped around him; he struck her thigh with his gloved hand, raising welts. "You would have me," he grunted.
"No." She felt him pressed against her, his rough hair, cutting her skin...She turned her face away, her head hurting, her heart pounding in dread...And yet she did not pull away. "You can't have me. I will never belong to you."
"You already do."
"I won't let you."
"He shall take you, Be'i," came Sashana'i's weeping. She was huddled in the corner, pale and trembling, speaking only slightly slurred as she pulled her hair from her eyes. "It is the way. He has taken my voice, my people's voice, and he shall take you as you would have it..."
"Hychar would've liked that--"
"They won't have me!"
B'Elanna's eyes shot open as she jolted awake. Her heart had sunk while still hammering and her throat was swollen. She could feel the tracks where her tears were drying. Her hand, trembling slightly, reached up to smear them away. Turning onto her back, her stare fell upon the blur of painted patterns on the ceiling, barely lit by a tiny footlight somewhere in the room. She stared numbly at it for some time; finally, she blinked and calmed her breath again.
Eventually, not thinking to, she fell back to sleep.
"Be'i?" Sashana'i jerked up from her hip to her knees.
Tom looked up from his breakfast to also see B'Elanna clutching at the door frame on the top step, her ghoulish face staring blankly around at them all, squinting a little for the light. He had to force himself not to jump up--and definitely not to smile too much.
"You hungry?" was all he asked instead and saw her nod slightly.
She had woken only a few minutes ago; hearing the voices on the floor above, she found herself going up the stairs at last. Upon seeing her, Bakali moved to close the shutters, thanking the spirits along the way. Bala saw her nod to the offer of food and moved to his feet to the mantel, where another plate laid. Sashana'i reached over and squeezed Aratra's hand.
By her own effort, B'Elanna climbed up the last step and moved into the hazily lit main room that sat just above the clinic. Pausing to catch her breath, she let her eyes wander, curious to know where they and Tom had been when not outside or with her.
In all, Bala and Bakali's house was a wide galley with a sandstone tile floor and dingy beige plaster walls. Being right above it, their main room was the same size as the clinic's front room, about four-by-eight meters, but rather than the hodgepodge of equipment, hutches and cots that populated the clinic, the upper level was partly for sitting and eating, its only furniture a collection of pillows and a few small wall tables. The back half was made for cooking, with a wide, half-circle stone fireplace and neatly organized cookware at the center. On the same wall as the entrance was a long storage chest, open to reveal a collection of linens. If Bala and Bakali had any other possessions, they were not on display. The other room, an afterthought adjacent to the fireplace, looked more like a closet, though inside she could see a small bed on the floor and a tall cabinet beside a couple thin windows. In a nook behind the fiery mantel was a small cubicle--storage, it seemed--and a heavy, leaning ladder that B'Elanna correctly suspected led up to her and Tom's space.
Thinking on its plainness, she recalled Aratra saying the elders bore the finest home in Azlre. Though it was tidy and seemingly organized, it said a lot about what else was out there.
B'Elanna moved near Tom, who had smoothed down an old, oft-mended pillow for her. She put out her hands. He took them and helped her to sit. She tried not to stagger down, but she realized in the process of the act that her knees gladly weakened with the promise of sitting. Tom supported her well, though, and lowered her to the pillows without any trouble.
She closed her eyes, catching her breath again and checking her humiliation.
"Water?" he asked and got another nod. He served her some; soon after, a plate arrived. Tom was wise enough, she noted, to let her go at it herself. Sashana'i looked ready to jump across the floorcloth.
Before the other lady could decide to, she picked a piece of flatbread.
"It pleases to see you moving of your own will again," Aratra said kindly. "Your strength shall be regained in but suns"
B'Elanna didn't look up, but nodded as she folded her selection around a mysterious blob of something.
"Be'i ahw-eht wowhp aizh'is," Sashana'i added. "Ka, Toma? Ma'owh ta Be'i me'itsa paw-buh."
B'Elanna only caught half of that, but didn't care. It was enough that she managed to get herself into that room and to a meal like a somewhat normal person. "I don't w-ant to talk a-bout it," she said slowly, trying not to stammer, even if her mixed-up brain was still telling her to.
Bakali sighed. Done with her meal, she could only watch her young patient eat with a sinking heart. She had been told much--and witnessed herself--of Be'i's passionate spirit, of her and her companion's fight for survival. To see her those past days had made them all feel their new friends' losses more.
"Ka, Be'i, there is yet regret that I could not procure the full healing you require, which ails you now."
"Ba-kali..." B'Elanna warned softly.
"My rights are equal to yours, Child," scolded the old woman, though she spoke more for them all. "May a healer's sorrow also be expressed? No bone regenerator can be claimed this sun, nor bear I the means of procuring one; rather, scanners and the surgical bed bear as many years as our occupation. The tissue regenerator we possess was corrupted by the laridium-based cell, thus it as well requires repair. Natural antiseptics and some synthetics are available, yet so little more. This heavy fate is borne by me with every child who must be left to nature. Your pain would not be could I prevent it, Be'i. It is not acceptance, yet it is my honest being which feels this."
B'Elanna took a bite of food while the elegant elder spoke, discovering that the blob was in fact a piece of mild cheese. Not bad. Did the job. When she swallowed it, she nodded, again and without looking up. "You did what y-ou could. It's en-nough. Y-ou can't do m-ore. I don't blame y-ou."
What she blamed was that brutal system that let the Desalians rot and had kept her and Tom there. The monster race that had essentially destroyed what little life she had, one she had been finally feeling she'd started to make some difference with...
If they'd been on Voyager, she knew, she'd be back to Engineering by then. The Doctor would've gotten impatient with her and she'd have left him in sickbay with a sure strut and not looking back. Maybe Chakotay would have caught up with her, making sure she was sure about getting back to work--or at least making sure she was ready. But she would've insisted, likely with some impatience.
She'd have been returned to normal, her brow put back together, her eyesight fixed, her bruises and scars nicely healed. She'd have gotten a shower and clean clothes and a comfortable bed...She would've even complained about those damned rations or Neelix's food before sneaking off to put in some off duty hours on the Cochrane project...
But there was no use in thinking about that impossible thing. Voyager was long dead or gone. That life was over. Just another hat to wear, another stage in her life, like Kessik, like the Academy, her freight work, the Maquis... Now she had Tom Paris, Cezia and a smashed skull, and she had to make what she could of all that now. At least Tom had been a good friend from that start, one that hadn't balked or shirked the strain of their situation yet. She wouldn't have to start from scratch like before.
Like Voyager, she sure as hell hadn't chosen to come to that place. But it didn't seem to be getting away from her too quickly that time. So, it was time to just get on with it, hope Tom and the others were right and she wouldn't look so damn bad after the incisions and bruises went away, try to do something in that place for the mean time that might make a difference. Screw the rest.
She was too sick of being sick and tired for the rest.
Tom had been watching her eat--or more, watching her eyes dart and blink with her thinking about something then finally settle as she let out her breath and chose another portion of bread from her plate. Meanwhile, her expression faded into something more...familiar. He decided to take that as a good sign.
"B'Elanna?" he asked quietly and she jerked her head, not looking up. "How about after breakfast I take you upstairs? You haven't seen it yet."
"I'd...like th-at," she answered. "I'm a l-ittle tired." She wedged a soft green vegetable with the bread that time then briefly turned her lips up, thanking him with that before continuing her meal.
He saw it, nodded, took a sip of water. Only when she turned away did he allow himself that smile.
Torrents, swirls, spinning up from the ground into small tornadoes rising into the air like fire, spitting beads of black death. Red poison, blinding in the scorching sun, and its dirt filled her lungs in every breath--she could feel herself coughing, the swelling, the scratching pain...
Hychar appeared within the dust vacuum, his black hair floating in the hard wind, Maghet at his side, surveying her, awaiting his order...
Over the hard earth, she flew at them, screaming, crying out, ready for murder. Her calloused fingers clawing before her, she wanted their blood, focused on their throats. Then she was in battle, striking them both down and waiting for more, a noble battle that could only be praised by her mother's people, two against one for the sake of her honor, a thing she hadn't cared much about in the past. But it was honor--survival, hatred, terror--her vindication.
Bludgeoning them, ripping at them, making them fall beneath her blows, her blood was pounding, her eyes were everywhere, she could do anything. She bloodied them with bloodier hands, doubling them with her kicks, laughing evilly as they shrunk at her warrior's yells, kicking them again and again, feeling the thrill of seeing them spew their poison on the hot, cracked earth.
But every time she put one down, the other would rise and come at her again, as though she'd never touched them. She fought on anyway, sinking her fists into their bones, breaking, yanking out their organs, glorying in their shock and pain in a way she never had--had reeled from. But it was vindication--it was revenge. They would never win. She would have victory--she would be freed. She had to be freed...
But they still came at her, over and over, and her hands began to shake.
No! she cried inside herself. You can't get tired! Don't let them win! Don't let him have you!
She was coughing, unwillingly sucking in the tornadoes of dust, which flew straight to her gaping mouth as if intent to go there, even though the thought to close it. She felt the strain in all her muscles, but she couldn't give up. --But then, she couldn't move, she was being lifted...
Then she felt the ice cold grip of Hychar at the back of her neck and his breath on her jaw.
"You have brought this scourge--and in your companion's curse--you disgrace only yourself."
To her horror, she felt her body go flaccid, all her muscles relax and wait...wait...not rise against that certain defeat as his gloved hand reeled up and back, then, as if a spring had been released, whipped around--
"You are DEAD, abomination!"
B'Elanna's woke, her heart fluttering.
She was in a cold sweat. Breathing, she suddenly tried to catch her breath so not to cough. She could feel her lungs rumbling in protest. She swallowed it down. Above her, the rain pelleted the metal roof in waves in time with the thunder. At the foot of her bed, the stone chimney creaked with heat, radiated its dry warmth into the thick, knotted blanket covering her. There was breathing near her and she could smell him. A stabbing in her temples faded to a steady throb.
The dream was fading off as she realized she really was awake. Instinctively, she tried to recall what had woken her--then she didn't want to remember the visions, flashing back in snapshots with the feelings followed them. She forced her eyes to lock on the smooth plaster wall she faced. She heard another breath, a shift...
"Tom," she whispered.
"You okay?" he asked. He hadn't been asleep.
She didn't feel him behind her, and she suddenly recalled that he was on a flat pallet beside her bed. He had asked Aratra to get him one, thinking she'd prefer to have the bed to herself. She thought she would, too. But there they were on her first night out of the clinic room and she didn't want to go back to sleep, knowing what awaited her there. She had expected to feel him behind her, but instead lay alone in a warm, soft bed.
"Had a...dream."
"Yeah. I know how that goes."
"I w-as on Uillar, and...w-ell, it..."
He breathed what sounded like understanding. "You're awake now, though. You're okay."
She knew that, but it was still good to hear him say it. Oddly, it made it more real. Even so... "Come up here," she said then swallowed, still feeling the cold clutch, shivering despite the heavy blanket...her skull swelling with the pain of what... "I...I don't w-ant to s-sleep alone."
Her request was toneless--trying not to show her embarrassment for asking. Tom understood. He hadn't had the courage to ask her if he could join her. For some reason, he thought she might take it the wrong way, even after everything they'd been through together. He tried not to make noise when he breathed his relief.
Respecting her effort, he said nothing as he crawled up onto the pungent, scrap-stuffed mattress behind her. Lifting her covers, he scooted himself into their old, usual position, lowered his head behind hers. She reached for his arm, pulled it around herself and hugged his hand to her chest. Coughing slightly, she tried to draw a deeper breath, relax again.
She felt him sigh against the back of her head, steady...and there. She shivered again.
When the hell did I get so needy? she asked herself, glad he'd come up and annoyed with herself at the same time. But she knew she'd gotten used to it--to him--and that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. It shouldn't have been all that humiliating, needing him by her, needing him to be the good guy he'd turned out to be, her friend...
"You need another blanket?" he asked, warm upon her hair.
If she'd been weaker...and a lot healthier... "I'm f-ine."
He nodded slightly. "If you need to talk about it, I'll listen."
"I know," she whispered. She did know that he had always been a good ear--whether or not she'd asked for one. "It's...c-lose."
"Okay."
"Th-ank y-ou, though," she added. "For e-verything."
She felt him grin slightly. "I'm just glad you're okay."
"I don't kn-ow if I am or n-ot. It's a...l-ot to deal with."
"Yeah." He hugged her warmly, seriously, wishing--as usual--he could do more. "I'd have taken it instead any day."
She paused at that, letting her eyes fall a bit. "I w-ouldn't have l-et you have it," she finally told him.
Again he offered a small breath of a laugh. "True. But I would've tried."
"You did try." With that, she closed her eyes. Minutes later, she sighed; her muscles loosened. Her breath slowed as his warmth matched hers, his breathing, too. Still and silent, she finally began to drift off again.
Likewise, Tom's eyes finally began to close, fluttering a bit when he realized that they were no longer dressed like bears in winter, but draped in loose, airy bedclothes. He could feel her body perfectly.
He fell to sleep trying desperately to ignore that.
It really wasn't much, she knew as she pulled herself out of the bunk.
Their "quarters" was just a plastered roof space with a slanted ceiling, three vents and a small shuttered window at the end. The corner of the chimney acted as the foot of the bed, which was tucked into a two by one and a half meter alcove-like space. Always warm, the soapstone blocks radiated a peculiar odor, a sweet sort of mustiness that wasn't unpleasant, but noticeable.
At the end of the room was a flap in the floor, which opened to go down the ladder into Bala and Bakali's flat. Not two meters across from the bed sat two small trunks with a few shelves above that, sparsely populated with tending items, as they were called. Below the shuttered window, beside the head of the bed, an old, rectangular bench that opened into a crude, cubby-like desk sat.
It wasn't much, but it was a lot more than they had before, and more than most people in that city had. She'd been told a few times how most families there--entire families--slept in a single room with no privacy but what they could make from their bedrolls.
After Tom had politely left her for a while, making the excuse of continuing to bend to Desalian ways and collect her breakfast, she carefully moved to the trunk and opened it. Sashana'i had told her she'd found some "proper" clothing for her. Again, it wasn't much: A couple of typical Desalian outfits and a second nightgown, two pairs of "wrap" shoes--soles with wide cloth ribbons which were wrapped around the feet and tied at the ankles--a shin-length tailored coat, bronze-colored and silky to the touch, a dark but lightweight cloak and an embroidered blue gown she knew she wouldn't wear. Gazing at the last article, she wondered what in the world Sashana'i was thinking in getting something so formal.
Having heard all of the stories about short supplies, there, it almost seemed like too much. It was too much. But of course, it was Sashana'i who'd done the "procuring." B'Elanna didn't want to know what she'd done to get them.
Sighing to herself, she chose a beige, calf-length gown with blue embroidery on the skirt and long sleeves, and then a pair of loose, brownish leggings. (She wondered briefly who died that she would get them, but then she pushed the thought away.) On the other side of the trunk, she found a couple of stiff halters with sheer straps and flat front clasps that B'Elanna deduced were brassieres. Shrugging to herself, she picked the lighter-colored one, noticing there were no other undergarments. She shrugged again.
Carefully, she pulled off her nightgown. Her neck and upper back were still aching, even when she was lying down, so she was careful when she slid the halter on, fastening the ties and clasps in the way she guessed was right. She blinked at the effect. So much for leaving things to nature, she thought with a small smirk. It really did hold everything upright and in place. That would take some getting used to.
Of course, she knew everything there would, though she had little complaint about the soft leggings and the airy, long-sleeved gown. Even the shoes--when she figured them out--were like walking barefoot on crisp sheets. They weren't her clothes, but they were clean, they were comfortable and easy to move in. She would get used to it. All of it.
She knew she had to.
She'd be damned if she let those bastards win. She knew she'd heal, she knew she and Tom would eventually get themselves to work, do something...
Tom knocked and lifted the flap to find her carefully brushing her hair, and he had to steady himself to look at her. She's healing, was his first silly thought, followed by a few more that might well have earned a few smacks. Scars, grafted skull, bruises and all--she was a sight for his sore eyes in those clean, graceful clothes and straightening herself up as she was.
It was good in itself to see her caring for herself, especially after what she'd had to look at in the mirror. He'd expected her to take longer to deal with that. At the same time, he knew she still was. But the look she gave him, the tiny grin...
"Bakali got some antibiotics," he told her and he climbed all the way up. "She wants you to have a dose. You up for a walk?"
"If I th-ought I could," she said, slowly lest she stammer, "I'd run l-aps around this whole place."
He grinned. "Not even a week and you're getting cabin fever," he teased; then he nodded. "I know the feeling. You sleep okay?"
"Better," she said, putting the brush back on the shelf.
Slipping her commbadge into a generous pocket on the leg of her "new" gown, she glanced back to Tom, who upon being noticed, grinned again and went to busy himself with straightening the bed. "Th-ank you, by the way, for coming up in-to the bunk with me."
"Thanks for asking me," he said, without any pretense and still fiddling with the blankets. "I guess I've gotten used to being with you. We've been sleeping together a while and..." He snorted softly. "Well, you know what I mean."
"Yes."
Turning, he saw her eyes dart back down to the floor. Her face had flushed. Her lips pressed together, parted, looking for something else to say.
He drew a smooth breath. "How about those shots, then? Maybe breakfast after?"
"I could eat," she said, relieved that he'd ended it first.
As he eased her down the steep ladder, she felt his long, firm hands on her waist, not gripping, but ready to secure her. She barely even thought about the effort she was making in remembering the feel of him behind her the night before, after that dream. She'd fallen straight to sleep holding his arm close to her...
But she didn't have time for that, for those kinds of imaginings. It was no time or place to start lusting...even if she had come to expect having someone to talk to at night, expect to have him him nearby--something she'd never really had time to enjoy with previous boyfriends.
Not that he was her boyfriend, but a good friend, a close friend.
That alone was an irony to her, much more the question of how long could it would stay platonic without them either losing each other or having a complete falling out. At the same time, she still couldn't believe he could even look at her. Or maybe he was already used to it?
Or maybe he was just crazy.
Maybe she was just thinking too much about it. That was probably it.
"Zharab'o llar!" From her work within a small line of children, Bakali smiled as the two, one squinting, entered the front room of the clinic. She patted a rake of a girl into the next room before reaching for another to inoculate. "I greet your morning in peace--and what lovely colors you have chosen to grace this sun."
"Th-anks," B'Elanna said, not feeling it, but letting it go to see the children there. Small and sickly, with big eyes and wet clothes, they each took their shots silently and moved to the next room at the elder lady's kind command. Despite the sight--or relieved by the distraction--she managed a grin when she noticed Sashana'i was already darting to the windows to draw the shutters. B'Elanna hadn't even thought to complain. Her head throbbed and eyes stung, but even the hazy grey light had been nice to see.
As Sashana'i closed the last one, Tom moved to peek through the first, though he was careful not to open it too far. "Where is everyone?" he asked.
"Procuring bread from Rahna, whose cart ails," Bakali answered, finishing the last of the children.
"What happened to it?"
"The solar unit on his cart suffers during the rain season, for less power gained and for shorted connections. He often is tardy, yet today is detained." Walking to the other room, she giggled at the commotion going on in there, said a few words to Cali then drew the curtain. She then returned to the wall table, where she prepared two more vials. "Toma, you shall be inoculated as well. Seat yourself."
"I'm fine. Get B'Elanna first."
The old woman sighed. "Sashana'i, bring your stubborn brother to me."
Sashana'i shook her head. "Gy'a aw-hutach Toma whuh."
"Nevertheless, infection is a danger for him and his lady needs him."
B'Elanna's brow rose. "It is?"
"I'm fine," Tom said, waving a dismissive hand behind him.
"Past my sealing your internal organs into their present patchwork, you bore wellness," Bakali corrected. "Bring yourself, Child. The sun yet grows in our sky."
B'Elanna just shook her head, frowning at him. "L-et her get it o-ver with, Tom."
Glancing back to the three women's similar stares--knowing he was beat without even fighting it--he gave the window up and went with smirking obedience to Bakali's side. "Yes ma'am."
As Bakali gave him his injection then loaded the second, B'Elanna's mind suddenly started working elsewhere. The glint of the hypospray caught her eyes just as "ma'am" caught her ear and...She could practically feel steam running through her long-neglected mechanical expertise. Thankfully, it all came back like instinct, the piecing and conversions and calculations.
Her eyes went to the table, where she spotted something that looked like a regenerator. Her hand rested on her pocket and her brain turned again, more quickly. Starfleet power casings were usually duranium based...
As the old woman came to inoculate her, she asked quietly, "Bakali, y-ou or Bala said that the la-ridium corrupts the com-ponents in your e-quipment. It's not du-ranium, is it?"
"We both may have mentioned the corruption," she said with a sigh then pressed the injection into her neck and wiped the spot with a treated cloth. "They are Iaskeb equipment, which is composed of dichromide ores. --Va, the injection site must remain untouched for a quarter, Child, to allow its healing."
B'Elanna barely heard her, though she did obey. "L-et me see the tissue re-generator," she ordered, her stare darting across an unseen pattern on the floor.
Tom looked at her. It seemed like a hundred years ago, the last time he'd heard that tone in her voice. "What's going on, Chief?" he asked.
She held her fingers up to him--meaning, "don't interrupt my train of thought." He obeyed, settling on moving to her side. When she had the squarish object in her hand, she turned to the surgical bed and set it down.
"Sasha-na'i, open the w-indows," she said. "I'll take the headache for n-ow. I n-eed to see. Bakali, I n-eed a small mag-netic probe and any tools you m-ight have for maintaining your e-quipment."
The elder considered it for a moment then went into the other room. A minute later, B'Elanna had chosen from a small pile of them. Once light filled the room--and she had adjusted to what came with it--she opened the back of the regenerator.
"Tom, check that ex-tractor, see if it w-orks."
With that, she pulled her commbadge out of her pocket--and Tom knew where she was going with it. "B'Elanna..."
"It'll only kill the l-ong-range comm and the beacon," she told him. "Not like it w-orks all that w-ell anymore. The la-ridium charges the cell, but it's ea-ting it up. It n-eeds a n-ew crystal." Making a couple more adjustments, squinting hard to see, she nodded. "This'll only give it a f-ew minutes, but it'll be better than n-othing. I'll see w-hat I can't do w-ith some of the other parts a-round here."
Sashana'i returned to the table to see what B'Elanna was doing. Though she didn't understand it from her own experience, the memories of such work were still fresh within her; the impression alone was enough to make her smile. But before praising her friend, she moved around to finish B'Elanna's gown properly, yanking decisively on the ties before pulling them together.
B'Elanna coughed. "You don't qu-it," she said, picking into the front components of the communicator as she felt her gown meet the halter she was still getting used to. "I thought y-our people liked the f-low of n-ature."
Bakali laughed. "And the flow of a woman's frame would be a pleasing example of nature's gift as well, Be'i."
"Score one for Desalia," Tom chuckled and did so again at the narrowed glance B'Elanna popped up to him.
But then she was back to work, setting the tiny dichromide ring into the regenerator's degraded power cell. When she reconnected the laridium chip, the device whirred to life. "It'll on-ly be a few minutes w-orth, Bakali. I hope you don't n-eed much time."
Bakali smiled, shook her head. "It shall be used efficiently. You must now seat yourself on the table, however."
Done with the ties, Sashana'i hugged B'Elanna from behind. "Ye'i kawh-szha Be'i moko'ow. Ak yewhan buszh wi han."
B'Elanna stilled to feel those warm, thin arms embrace her, though, closing her eyes as she felt Sashana'i's excitement. She didn't get all of it, she pieced out enough: "I bear anxiousness, Be'i, deserved, again, pretty, being." Me--deserved of getting back a face I never liked that much to begin with, when all these people have had a hundred times worse than I ever did in my selfish little life...
The memory of her nightmare flashed into her head again: The submission, Sashana'i's bloodied leg, then the disgrace put upon herself. Her heart shrank only to recall it.
Opening her eyes, B'Elanna stared up at Tom. Still, she spoke behind her. "N-o, Bakali. U-use it on S-ashana'i."
Tom's brow rose. The other women stilled, too.
B'Elanna shrugged. "A tissue re-generator w-on't fix my cranial ridges," she said truthfully, "which is wh-at I r-eally n-eed. I'm sick of n-ot being able to under-stand her, and she's been m-ute longer than I've been ug-ly."
"You're not ugly," Tom said, his eyes still bound to hers.
B'Elanna broke it to look behind her at Bakali's shocked sigh. "U-use it on S-ashana'i," she repeated without a trace of doubt.
The woman in question, realizing what was being said, could only stare up at her in shock. Looking to Tom then her elder hostess and finally back to her friend's grudging smile, she suddenly flung her arms around B'Elanna. "Be'i!" she cried.
B'Elanna squeezed her back. She'd expected her friend's emotion as much as she'd decided so quickly, and she fought back her natural impulse to change her mind. She knew what was the right choice. "Just so l-ong as you stop p-pulling my hair and d-doing too m-uch. This m-akes us even. Okay?"
Sashana'i, of course, did not promise anything, only hugged her harder until Bakali gently eased her away.
"Little time remains with this cell, Child."
B'Elanna gave her friend another nod. "Th-is is wh-at I w-ant."
Sashana'i almost looked as if she'd protest, her eyes darting over B'Elanna's expression. With a more insistent look on the engineer's part, the young Desalian woman quickly moved to another raised pallet and reclined. She asked B'Elanna with her stare one more time before Bakali arrived by her.
B'Elanna was sure to return her bravest grin. It faltered, though, as soon as the elder moved between their view. Slowly, she let out her breath. She felt Tom's arm move around her, give her shoulders a hug.
"That's one hell of a generous thing you just did," he whispered to her.
She reached up and touched his hand. "Like with the U-nar," she said quietly, "w-e'll take care of it s-ome other time." She blinked when she heard the regenerator activate. With a glance to him, she drew a minute breath, sighed it out noiselessly.
He nodded, understanding. As Bakali began her work, B'Elanna turned to put the remnants of her commbadge back together.
But before she could survey the pieces, Tom touched her cheek. She looked up again, annoyed that time. She really wanted to just get her badge back together and the tools sorted out. She wanted to see if anything there might be of some use of later, and to keep busy for a while, while she had the strength.
Without even blinking but to let his eyes naturally close, Tom leaned down and kissed her forehead. "You're a good person, B'Elanna Torres," he told her and let her go.
She turned back to the components, feeling her cheeks warm with a blush that time. Worse, as she pulled the small parts back together, snapped them back into place with unnaturally clumsy fingers, the pain in her head had worsened for the light and she knew she was already getting tired. The regenerator's hum and Bakali's quiet talking was a little distracting, but she managed to put her communicator together and back into her pocket. She also managed, during that time, to convince herself that Tom's gesture was just a friendly one. He really did like to touch...too much sometimes, even while she knew she hadn't backed away.
"Want to help me with th-ese before the others come f-or breakfast?" she asked.
He smiled at her--at all of her that time, she noticed. But his regard was just as respectful, so she knew she didn't have to address it. He was just being a friend.
"You bet," he said.
Good enough, she decided.
"I am a word painter, and suns have set upon my life for eighty revolutions. Ka, many rallkle have passed me, yet I bear youth. My spirit, pure, has lived forever, yet shall live forever. The spirit is eternal. Nothing preceded it but the wish if the joy of bodily life. It is but the body that bears nature's turnings.
"Here it is seen, in our people, around us always. It is seen in each crevice and every light, the truth of Desal...and my past as well. As a girl, I danced in clothes of the sky with silver scarves around my lithe body, full of the joys of living in jewels and scents so enticing, one should truly believe the stars created our living world. Every pleasure of the body was mine, every fulfillment of the mind; I carried myself with the air and water, always moving, sweet in scent and rippling over the pebbles of my girlish experience. This would entice my lover, No'yfra, who like the earth drank my water and bloomed for my gentle breezes in his ear.
"Yet the waves of fate and the Unar swept over Desalia and my pure white hands were set into the stone of labor, bloodied with humility and knotted with strain it had never known. My sky gown quickly clouded and tattered with the storms of that sea change; the wind that carried me shackled me with oppressive heat. And in a short turret, for pride remaining and in illness, No'yfra was taken to meet again our ancestors. Bound to him in word alone, I took lovers in bodily desire, but joined to none. Within my spirit, flight could only be to him.
"Yet I danced within myself on the days we celebrated our spirits and our ongoing redemption. I danced to never forget, to always live purely, to someday see my true mate once again..."
"In neighborhoods in Azlre as it had been upon Desalia since ancient times, they gathered all--elders, children, parents, youths and all else of name. All brought themselves around the fire, and as one in spirit, they spoke of lands or times or histories. Some among us had heard the words painted many times, some were just that time blessed--yet all would hear the words gladly. At times, the evening's portraits bore complexity and required much time. Some claimed simplicity. All were responsible for binding us, retaining the knit of our cloth.
"As it came to be known in the echoes of Azlre, Be'i and Toma were more...reserved--or better, I should think, reserving."
Tom bent his head, nearly touching B'Elanna's shoulder; B'Elanna shook her head slightly.
He was holding her in front of himself, as they often had sat at Uillar. It was an old habit that they'd easily gravitated back into the first time they were invited by their hosts and friends to come into the square one misty night and listen to the stories being told in its center. Dozens of people in their close neighborhood came to sit around the low, coaly fires and speak of their lives ad the stories of their families. Dozens more came to merely share the company and listen. It was a universal Desalian tradition, they learned, particularly on Tsi'omad, the last day of the Desalian week.
A few rows away from the fire, Tseshydi still spoke, her dark, wrinkled eyes shining in the flickering light, alive with memory, her lips turned up in both contentment and hope, satisfaction with her spirit, a dream to see her lover again soon. She spoke for nearly an hour, with gentle gestures made with bone-thin hands and a soft, yearning voice, entrancing all around her, even the two who in the past du'ave had grown restless in their recoveries--and ready to start taking advantage of their relative safety.
Bakali jumped at the crash.
"Who the hell do you think you are to tell me what I can and can't do?!" echoed a fierce snarl from the rodent's nest the elders had so gladly pooled above their living space.
Sashana'i, Aratra--plus half the remainder of the Uillaran survivors--had mentioned such temperaments about the two...
"What the hell's your problem, Torres?" the companion snapped back. "You sit there and moan about your skull coming apart and then you start screaming. You'll just use about anything for an excuse, won't you?!"
Bala could feel his intestinal track knotting up more with every lance and saw his bondmate's pale expression. Neither had ever heard a two on their own world bear themselves with such violence.
"What's that supposed to mean?!"
"I mean that I couldn't give a shit about your ridges, your scars or your headaches. So stop trying to pass off your hostility on me 'cause you can't take someone giving a damn about the rest of you!"
"Screw off, Paris! I never asked for your sympathy, and I'm sorry you've got to be everybody's hero--"
"Yeah, that's right, B'Elanna--push it right back on me since you can't handle yourself."
"Leave me alone!"
Bala could bear no more, feeling with certainly he would not relieve his bowels until he met the ancestors should he permit them to continue as such. Setting down his cooking, he stood for the steps.
Bakali hurried to his side and took his arm. "I should not think you would wish to place yourself in this storm."
He patted her hand. "This is our house, and they bear much youth. Youths require guidance to know a correct path, as is known." Turning a firmer stare to the ladder, he rolled his robe sleeves up on his bony arms and made his way up.
"Guess nothing's changed after all, then! You said you always made yourself alone--congratulations! You've done it again, 'cause I'd rather sleep on the street than deal with this shit every other day."
"Don't forget to take your crap with you, too, Paris!"
"Oh, I won't! Consider it--like me--no longer in your majesty's way!"
"You son of a--"
"Oarrgask asri'im!" announced the elder, his turtle eyes buried in both the fire-eyed children as he popped his head through the flap in their floor. "War shall not be brought into my house!"
"We're just finishing!" B'Elanna snarled.
"Be'i grrikal shast yo'i!" Bala returned, coming up the rest of the way and moving in close to her. "Nor shall my person be disrespected in my house, which from my truth and as my gift became yours. Your dishonor tears my spirit and blackens your own, already at the mercy of Unar."
B'Elanna reared her head, blinking at his insult. Hearing a Desalian elder raise his voice was...effective. "I wasn't disrespecting you," she said shortly, though quieter.
"Gye. You have," Bala told her. "It is this behavior which has borne upon us the debt we live, our present contrition. More suns shall not be given to our suffering--nor my or Bakali's ears. It is not wished your own healing suffer for your hostile behavior, as well." His plain, heartfelt words seemed to take the proper effect. The shoulders above her tightly crossed arms fell with her chin; her parted lips pressed together. Bala turned to the other man there. "Toma, your shame for your treatment of your lady should flood you now. For her pain and frustration, she speaks."
"Plus some," Tom muttered, gnawing the inside of his frown. "And she's obviously not my lady."
"Then perhaps she should be, so that your energies under this once peaceful roof would be directed more effectively." Turning back, he saw B'Elanna still staring at him. "Unar enough beyond our worlds would wage such aversion to peace. Should you require war between yourselves, you shall remove it from this place. It shall not be heard here again."
"Yeah right," B'Elanna hissed below her breath. "Like Bakali's ever going to let me out of here."
"I shall speak to her, Child," Bala replied. "It is plain your people should not be still for long. I have been warned of this. This sun, I see the extent of its truth. Your scars speak of more than your misfortune at Uillar, however. Your pain had been well trained before Uillar's suns scorned you. You shall need to learn not to require it."
The elder saw how those points reflect upon their faces, pull them down another step from their tempers. Then, he knew better of the cause, and that it was not a matter of their latent genome, as they were bearing his correction. Just then, it was simply the two's frustration and unspent energy. His and Bakali's own care had encouraged the latter, he realized, which only added to the remainder. For nearly the entire rain season, they had been convalescing indoors.
"For all you have borne together, Toma, Be'i," Bala gently continued, "do not allow your inaction to make you weaken to the scourge and curses that our true enemy would have of you. So many searing suns have passed over you, and each was faced with such courage and resilience that the resolution has given you the freedom to feel what you dared not before." That time, the two's eyes met. The lady truly did look to think of that. The man, realizing, melted into unspoken regret. "It is known you fight not each other, but yourselves and your injured bodies and spirits in this. Your inactivity calls it forth, not your despise of each other."
"I don't despise her, Bala," Tom sighed. "We just sometimes need to let off steam. That's all. Right, Torres?"
She nodded, dropping her gaze. "I guess so," she replied quietly.
"This should mean you wish not he leaves you?" Bala asked.
B'Elanna let her breath go. "He's still here, isn't he?"
Tom snorted softly, shaking his head.
"You have not answered me, Be'i," Bala stated. "Wish you not to lose this companion, your friend who has stood by you in every dire moment? Remained by you in every danger?"
She closed her eyes, turning her head down as her tightly crossed arms fumbled with each other. "No," she finally told him. "I don't want him to go."
"Toma, you do not wish to sleep on the street like a hu'irra rat rather than bear your strength and be the man you appear to be? Run from the duty you assumed?"
"Is there a class for old people on guilt trips?" Tom complained, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
"Answer me, Child. This lady has been your friend and confidante, has stood for you as well, you have said. You need not hide from one who has placed her trust in you and has shown this grace. --Answer me, Toma."
Tom drew a deep breath, holding it. "I'm not going anywhere. --No, I won't leave her."
Bala gave a nod, satisfied that their ire had nicely dissolved into mere embarrassment as he turned to leave them. They would tend the rest themselves.
"I shall speak to my bondmate on your required activity," he said, offering them a fatherly smile of approval. Sure they both had seen it, he descended the ladder, closing the flap quietly on his way.
Corrected and chagrined, the two "children" stared at each other, though grudgingly at first. Finally, in unison, they said, "Sorry," then quietly returned to what they'd been doing before they decided to rip into each other.
They said nothing more.
Returned to the main room, he first found Bakali's desperate attempt to keep from giggling, and he pressed down his own grin as well. Truly, it should not have been as satisfying as it was. Once he was far enough from the flap, she moved to take his face in her old hands and kiss him. "I find myself impressed, my spirit, for that we have never been required to discipline children until this sun."
Bala chuckled and took her hands. "We shall continue to be impressed, I should think. They yet require care and much guidance, though these spirited children should now be set free unto Azlre."
"May our blessed ancestors guide us," she replied archly, squeezing his fingers before returning to her floorcloth.
The dark hood B'Elanna was required to wear when the rains finally ebbed for good and the dry, white sun of Cezia reasserted itself did little to mask what she first saw when she slowly moved with Tom into the Azlre's square. People--a lot of people--dressed in clothes older than hers and Tom's, milled around with little direction but in their soft chatter. Many watched after their children, wisps in stained clothing that was either too big or too small. Though certainly not as much as the prisoners of Uillar were, the majority of the city's citizens, both young and grown, were gaunt, dusty and listless.
They had survived, however, did something with themselves from day to day to earn their way, took their meals with their various hosts or outside among their neighbors, did what they could to maintain their families and their community.
For nearly a month after B'Elanna's release from the clinic, they spent their days walking among those people, slow and quiet at first but gaining more conversation as they saw nothing but the same sort of congregation in every street they wandered through. B'Elanna was surprised to find out there wasn't an unpleasant person among them. Every denizen they met welcomed her and Tom, bowed and embraced them as their own, invited service to their house and waved to them when they crossed paths again.
Though that was nice at first, it wore out its welcome rather quickly. Street after street of happy, hungry people was sometimes more than she wanted to deal with. As her strength continued to improve, B'Elanna asked Tom more often to take her to the scrap yards he'd mentioned. Not surprisingly, he was glad to hear her pester him. He put it off all the same, correctly suggesting they get more of their health back before making that journey. Grudgingly, she agreed and continued to go out with him not long after each morning meal.
The clinic, she learned when they first began their explorations, sat on the northeast end of the square. The square itself was a rounded rectangle about a kilometer long and a few hundred meters wide, more like a large mall with over-wide avenues exiting on the east, which led to an intersection of three main avenues, and the west, which stopped a couple blocks later at a set of large open gates. Outside of that stretched a rolling savannah that lead to foothills on the horizon.
Before the occupation and subsequent city crowding, Cezia had been a resort colony and the relatively rural home to about sixty thousand denizens in Azlre and about the same in the coastal capital, Sacezia. The planet had no other towns--and purposefully so. It had been carefully left to nature for vacationers, students and scientists. In Azlre, the square had been the main entry place for visitors and housed the "official" Desalian business. Thus, that neighborhood had been the most accommodating, with versatile, multi-roomed, white stone and sandstone buildings three to four stories high, generous meeting halls, the silag, now half-crumbled, and its own institute, likewise stripped and marked with disruptor blasts and also residence to about twenty families. Sashana'i and Aratra had taken up living in what was once a guest chamber in an ambassadorial building, between the former institute and the silag's ruins. Miztri and Dalra had made their home in a basement room a few buildings away, sharing a common space with several other couples on that half-underground floor.
The Adavill district occupied the northwest corner of the city. The square sat in the middle of it. They could only go south and east from there, they figured, so soon they journeyed in increasingly large circles, spending greater parts of their days exploring Azlre's other eight districts. Much of the city consisted of wide, two-floored houses, built usually in semi-circles with open terraces in the center. In their day, those "blocks" were family estates with gardens between them. More than a few of those prospective dwellings were unlivable now, with entire facades blasted away or sides crumbled from some other force. Without irrigation, the gardens had withered into long cakes of amber dirt.
The streets being built largely around those graceful circles, there were notably few straight paths in Azlre. Little wonder, they realized, the elders had been careful to explain the position of those districts in relation to the sun. It was indeed the best guide to finding anything there if one didn't know the buildings and its many residents. Regardless, they walked without thinking about direction too much until one or both of them needed to rest. Finding a shady stoop, they took a seat, examining the neighborhood and the architecture--or what was left of the ornate stone facades after sixty years of occupation--before setting off again to find something different, even if that wasn't always a good thing.
B'Elanna's hand tightened on Tom's steadying arm as she started back at the approaching throng. "What the hell are those?"
When he looked, he grinned. "I'm guessing they're something like goats. Aratra calls them 'joth.'"
Her eyes squinted slightly as Tom easily led her toward the thick procession of leggy white creatures, who mewed loudly as they trundled past, through the crowded street at the direction of their herder.
"Goats," she said blankly--annoyed, even, that he was so cheerful about seeing livestock hopping through the middle of a city. Not that it should have taken her off guard.
"Well, what do you think you've been eating?" he asked her.
She shot a sickened stare up at him. "You don't mean--"
"The cheese, B'Elanna," he laughed, even if, friends or no, he knew he'd pay for making fun of her disgust. "If our predecessors could do it for a few millennia, I think we'll survive on milk curd."
"As long as there's no gahk involved, I guess it's all right," she conceded, only slightly ill with the knowledge that she'd been eating the product of those smelly creatures. And then, there was her cloak, the blankets and their shoes, among other things. She screwed her mouth downward. "And as long as we're not eating them."
"They're not nearly stupid enough to kill their food and cloth source," he told her.
"Well, that's a relief," she replied. "What else have they been feeding us?"
"Sometimes eggs from some kind of bird they keep on the east side of the city--you don't want to visit there, trust me. And the bread and crackers are ground from the grass fields outside the city walls--something like that, anyway. And then there's the gardens."
B'Elanna laughed ironically. "I feel like I'm in some twisted holodeck history lesson."
"Yeah, I know the feeling," Tom nodded. "They had to get back to basics when the Unar decided to 'borrow' their replicators and drop them on a planet without farms. Only a few people had been quick enough to grab seeds and roots. Dalra told me that the surviving elders called up their distant memories and taught people how to live off the earth again--literally. Those green sweet potatoes you like so much? Cali said the original Cezians passed them off as weeds until someone got hungry enough to dig a meter for the tubers."
B'Elanna put her teeth together at that. She really did like those potatoes, but... This is my home now?
Tom saw the change in her face as she considered it. "I think we're near the bazaar, if you're up to it."
"I wouldn't have come this far if I wasn't up to it, would I?" she responded, moving with him into the crowd again. Still, she groaned a little when she saw Tom's hand drift down and scratch one of the "goat's" heads. "Don't pet the food," she mewed, her eyes narrowed with disgust.
"Aw, come on, B'Elanna," he returned, grinning in just the way he knew riled her up. "They're friendly and actually pretty soft. You should try it."
She sighed, shaking her head and speeding their pace, if only to get some distance between them and the goats. "I don't think so, Paris."
Tom chuckled. "Have I told you yet how glad I am you're awake?"
She cracked a short laugh. "Not today, you haven't. Come on, let's get going before we're out past dinner again."
His lips pulled into another crooked grin. "Hungry, Torres?"
"Shut up."
He cheerfully relented, turning instead to stop one of the neighborhood people and ask which road they should take to get to the bazaar. Answering with a bow, the wiry young man pointed towards a crumbled, white facade with a smaller street wrapping around its side. Thanking him, Tom led B'Elanna across the avenue and into that next neighborhood.
"Pretty soon, we'll head out to the south wall," Tom told her as they wove though the dust-swept back street, tucking to the side to avoid an oncoming group of children and the women who followed them. "It's on the other side of the city, so we should both be ready by the time we can't resist going out to the scrap yard--which is a long hike in itself. Trust me, I know. I was idiot enough to sneak out myself one time."
B'Elanna nodded to another smiling, bowing native then looked back up at him. "I don't remember you leaving."
"Before you woke up, I had to get out for a while." He shrugged then added, "Aratra and Dalra had to carry me back."
She grinned. "Sounds like you." Deep in the shade of the street, B'Elanna looked up to see nothing but tall stone walls with windows on either side. "Where are we now?"
A few streets and two main avenues later, they entered the oft-mentioned bazaar. Not the difference she'd expected, it was just a busier version of the square, similarly surrounded by multi-floored, cracked stone houses, dirt-brushed streets and thin children followed by sickly looking parents. More than the square, the once popular resort market had chipped and weathered with age and weapons fire--and probably had no right to be standing at all. In the center of the wide avenue, too, those below the beaten facades were wandering about outside for plainly different reasons.
The vendors there, all of them alien, bargained for workers, labor being an acceptable form of payment from the Desalians. The Desalian merchants who claimed a space in the thick mall had only a few offerings. Those who traded cloth explained when asked that they had woven it in their flats with their family and brought it for trade. The stone and ceramic bowls and trays for offer seemed to have been made in the same way. Others traded plants, foodstuffs and medicines, for which they had traveled kilometers to harvest and drag back to the city on half-functioning, solar-powered carts and milled on the premises. Some people sat on grain flats, crushing tiny pods with large pins--making flour, B'Elanna guessed. For those unsanitary conditions, she wished she hadn't found out where her bread had come from. Then again, nothing could be worse than the germs she'd had at Uillar.
On the other side of the bazaar, some Azlrelians were applying for the lower trades--arranging to work for a day or a week to pay for their purchases. Their obvious poor health likely prevented them from doing much else. The alien dealers seemed to show some genuine pity and gave them work on their ship or in their temporary quarters at Azlre, cleaning, laundry or running errands. Both parties knew there was little other choice, as labor was the Unar would tolerate of the Desalians. Miztri had explained as much already.
Those Desalians just paid for their labor took most of their earnings to a neatly dressed vendor with a long, burgundy mane and deep-set cheek ridges--a Koba man, one young lady told them when Tom asked. Since the war's onset, many Koba had been black marketers, necessarily expensive but able to procure medicine and supplies. They did not purchase labor. That was the business of the Antral and Sureshan.
That fact was made evident when Tom and B'Elanna passed a water stand to see some other Desalians arranging their work leases through the Antral. According to Aratra, the Antral had worked most closely with the Unar--yet despised them the most openly, too, and disliked their roles as slave traders as much as they accepted their role. People did what they could to survive in Irllae.
To pay for their family's needs, Desalians often sold themselves to a year in an Unar household or base. Untrained workers sometimes sold themselves into a half-year of service in an Antral house, and then were traded to an Unar facility. Many of the prisoners at Uillar had served such leases. Usually the arranger of those deals was an Antral agent, who would keep the records of that worker and handle the worker's pay when the lease was served--either giving it to the individual or to the family if that worker remained in service--or died there.
In either case, their earnings usually ended up in the Koba's hands--or the Desalian merchant's, who likewise paid the Koba for supplies. So, whatever was earned by the Desalians did not stay with them. Worse, nobody seemed to mind the arrangement, but accepted the necessity. In the center of the bazaar, the Desalians removed their headscarves and held out their arms for inspection, turning when the agent asked, their pale, indigo-marked temples plain and pleasant in the white sunlight.
B'Elanna turned away, growling to herself.
Tom had grown silent at the sight, too, remembering their inspection at Uillar. Pulling a long breath through his nostrils, he turned them easily away only to see a procession of covered carts and rows of people following slowly but singing cheerfully.
"What's that?" Tom asked one of the vendors.
The man was not bothered in the least to tell then, "The burning procession, good man, the passing ceremony for our honored spirits."
"Honored spirits?" B'Elanna said then realized. "Those are dead people?"
"Our last sun's passed are collected," the man told them, looking over both their reactions. "Why should you pale at mere corpses? Our blessed ancestors have met their spirits in peace, friends."
Feeling B'Elanna's arm tense and shake, Tom eased her away. "Yeah, we know that much. Thanks...friend."
Stiff-faced, they found an exiting side street. Dirtier but thankfully emptier, the buildings were a few stories tall, too, with front doors open to the air save the hastily hung curtain. Some of the residences had people sitting on those thresholds, usually unoccupied and notably less healthy, yet as generous in every greeting. Several blocks of the same pattern met them before the street opened onto a end row, which was bordered by a slightly crumbling white stone wall. Beyond that north wall, in the distance, the sharp rises of the Mecrisop mountain range stood out gloriously against the clear cobalt sky.
Just inside the walls, one of the few working irrigation wells sat in the center of a commune garden that stretched down several blocks that they could see--the north communes, which Bala, Dalra and Aratra spoke about gathering from when they went out. B'Elanna's eyes fell over the nearby vines and stalks, neatly kept together with what looked like scraps of ducting and shaft supports. Despite or because of such rigging, there was a good amount of fruits and vegetables growing, carefully tended by a flock of older people. It smelled wonderful even from several meters away, the soil combined with the products of it. She could imagine what it must have been like on a Desalian farm before the occupation.
Something besides the aroma touched B'Elanna, though, and even Tom set his hand on her shoulder to watch. It was oddly beautiful, the simplicity of that quiet edge of a crowded, cracked city with its greyed citizens keeping and collecting from a garden they made of need and came to treasure. Their weathered hands were so gentle on the stalks; their hunched backs and their pleasant faces proof of their dedication to their toil.
It was horrible, that their lives had been so consigned, but they were still endearing.
Beyond the wall, the singing continued; then smoke began rising in brownish white puffs somewhere in the field, staining the view of the mountains, obscuring the sky. Realizing what it was a few seconds after first noticing it, they turned to go back into the city.
Tom told her that the gathering of crops only meant that there would be the evening meal soon, and so they decided to head back for the day, even if they weren't hungry. She and Tom had picked up their own duties in that too--mainly, peeling, cutting and preparing the pans with gargu seed oil, which he had also learned to press. For that matter, the walk tended to wear them down and both of their moods suffered from overdoing it as much as they did from inaction, more so when Bakali saw the need to lecture them--gently, as always.
One night, they'd laughed about that. They felt like they were living with their grandparents.
Several days later, studiously avoiding the bird roosts, Tom led her as far as the southeast wall of Azlre. Down the increasingly narrow and plain weave of streets, between the thick tenement blocks and through a relatively dingy avenue, they found a gate far simpler by design than the west partitions. There, just outside the walls, at the edge of the tall grass, he pointed down to a rocky rise, slate grey against the silvery green savannah. "It's inside that range, in a gorge in those rocks," he told her.
She tried futilely to focus on something in the distance, but corrected herself before she could get frustrated with the attempt. Relaxing a little, she did manage to see a discernable rise beyond the fieldworkers and joth. There was no glint of metal, no dark hole of a gorge.
Just knowing it was there... She could feel herself stir with things to do. Already, she was putting together a tool kit from Bakali's spare pieces and making lists of what they might collect from those junkers. If anything, it was a way out of that depressing, overpopulated, crumbling city, and to do something beside remain yet another helpless witness to the Unar's successes.
On the contrary, she wanted to be anything but that.
"How much is out there?" she asked in a breath, itching to get her hands in one of those engines, pick it apart and put it back together, even if the systems were old and probably not much to look at. If she hadn't already tired herself with their walk that day, she'd have asked him to take her that minute.
"I was pretty out of it once I got there," Tom admitted, "but there were quite a few hulls that I saw; some of the ships were dumped there not too long ago. Mostly, it's just a lot of scraps lying around--a land-bound junkyard, really." He grinned down to her, happy to finally see her brightening with their shared idea. "So, what do you say, Chief? Tomorrow sound good?"
She smiled. "How could I say no, Lieutenant?"
Chuckling, he held out a hand with a little bow, gesturing back to the city. He broke into a full laugh when she pulled up her head and chin, and then turned to lead the way.
The hazel stare beneath Dalra's peppery brow was such that Miztri began observing the lovely sunset through the window's louvers, her fingers slowly stirring a maize tea that wasn't too hot to taste.
Bala and Bakali, meanwhile, remained propped back on their pillows, curiously impassive. Behind them, the freshly stoked fire popped, loud in the hazy gold room just then.
"I know what you're going to say," Tom started.
"You have been spared," Dalra said quietly. "Our shared fate has spared you to make use of your survival, yet you wish your passings served to you again?"
B'Elanna rolled her eyes. "Dalra, we've argued about this a hundred times."
"And we shall again, it would appear."
"Yeah, you're right about that," Tom said. "We're free, Dalra, and we can do something, now. Even you said the underground needs ships." He leaned forward, looked at their hosts as well, intending to make his point understood. "B'Elanna and I both know how undergrounds work, and, more, we're good technicians. She was the chief engineer on a starship that could've blown away half the Unar fleet in a few shots. And I flew it."
"Tom knows his systems, too," B'Elanna added, seeing Dalra's face screw up at the mention of violence. "We're good at improvising, making due with less. Not that we've worked with this much less, but we know how to get by."
"You may do so without your passings," Miztri said. "You yet recover from your injuries, Children, and shall for several du'ave."
"I know I'm not in peak condition," B'Elanna responded, "but we need to do more."
"Your more surpasses what we are able to maintain," Dalra pointed out. "It is known, your different ways. You were not born to Desalia's sins, the retribution borne for our ancestors."
"Oh, don't go into that again," Tom moaned. "Just because your grandparents made mistakes doesn't mean your people have to die of simple viruses and wear clothes ten other people died in when you had the technology to prevent it--and could get back with a little help. What kind of payback is it for you to suffer like they had to in the end when you shouldn't have to?"
"Toma, your being bears goodness, yet again, you reach too high, wish for action we do not yet deserve, will only bring us harm, nor may sustain."
"So does that mean that B'Elanna and I can't sustain anything?" Tom asked the elders, who properly and pleasantly had continued to watch the conversation. "We can do something now. We want--we need--to try."
Bakali was the one to smile at that. "You speak as one who has lived this life since birth, Toma."
"I'd might as well have," he countered, "'cause I'm not going anywhere now--and neither of us are doing what we were trained to do and love, like you have healing and Bala has teaching the kids. We consider this contrition for every last one of our own sins coming back to haunt us, as if Uillar wasn't enough punishment."
B'Elanna looked at Bala, knowing well by then to whom she should plea. Like Tom, she'd learned quickly on Uillar that the head of households, particularly elders, were the ones who would settle anything, were it to be settled at all. The older one was, the more weight they carried in their word. At eighty-four and eighty-three, respectively, Bala and Bakali were the oldest Desalians in the city--the elders of Azlre. To cross them would be to cross everyone else there.
Of course, if Bala said no, she and Tom had agreed they would sneak out anyway. But they'd agreed to be good "children" and try him first.
"Bala," she said, "please give us a chance. We need to feel like we're doing something that'll make a difference."
"What use shall you be in Unar prisons?" Dalra asked, his eyes begging them individually. "I would not see you taken again--nor bear your loss easily. Your dreams of resisting them in the way you wish seek only misfortune."
"Maybe," B'Elanna said. "But it'd be worth it rather than not have tried at all. Tom and I have both said it before--we'd rather die than let them control us for the rest of our lives, to let them just put us away when we can do so much. On Uillar, we knew we couldn't do anything. Now we have the chance. We will take it."
"What of those left behind?" Miztri asked. "And would your actions bring Unar to us again? Those who do not resist must be thought of as well, my friends. You shall incur their rage against us, when we have indeed been diligent in our desire to outwardly bear our purer spirits."
"You stole from them once, Miztri," B'Elanna pointed out.
"We stole in desperate times," she agreed, "yet we laid no waste, harmed nothing. For this crime as well, however, we bore grave punishment. Would you command as well a ship, what crimes shall you be punished for--and thus all Desal as you too would spring from our giving?"
Neither answered her at first, but turned their question to the elders again.
"I could lead them to believe we weren't from here," B'Elanna said.
"We know the tricks," Tom joined, confident in that thought, if anything. "We'd never let them believe you had anything to do with it."
"This often is not a matter with Unar," Miztri said sadly.
"Nor with our spirits," Dalra said, "which know and see all into eternity. Your crimes would bring our punishment regardless of what the Unar believe."
They would seek it in stealth should we deny them, Bala grinned to himself, seeing the bright, passionate stares of the children who had begged audience with them before their meditation with Dalra and Miztri that afternoon.
He and Bakali had seen them as introverted despite their outward natures, keeping much between each other or to themselves; at the same time they were forward-moving and indeed passionate, likely to counter their inner turmoil, their many losses and pains--and not only those earned in Irllae. Dalra had said as much, too.
Likely the two wished to return to their beloved trades both to feel more as their better known selves and for an escape of their present situation--not that the elder man would ever deny such diversions. He understood too well what it was to be denied one's talents, to feel one's potential go untested above great knowledge and skill. For several years after the Unar deposited them in Azlre, Bala had been forced to work in the fields, returning too exhausted to think of maintaining a second occupation, despite the mass of knowledge he possessed and dearly wished to share, as he was trained to do. So many others, scientists, writers, physicists, among so many other good people, were consigned to cloth weaving, cart hauling or joining Bala in the fields, with no hope of performing their trade again. They journeyed to the ancestors in sadness and despair--some delivering themselves by their own hand. Bala and Bakali had considered the same at one time.
It was certainly no curse to bestow on another. Also, Azlre needed technicians more desperately than any other trade, even with the wealth of the other surviving Uilaran prisoners working in various trades throughout the city. B'Elanna's brief work on the tissue regenerator alone had healed Sashana'i. Tom's idle time with a makeshift solar generator had repaired and improved the clinic's lighting, leaving the usually circumspect Bakali praying fate for more. What they both might do with the pieces at Dviglar might indeed procure far greater gifts. Useful as they were, there were too many needle workers and servants in Azlre.
Why add to that? More, perhaps their inner healing could come from a clearer sense of worth and progress, and they might enjoy sharing their skills with others....
Yet he also knew that they could reach too far, wish for too much. Even Miztri would concur with her bondmate on this trait. The ships had been brought to the Dviglar Gorge for a purpose: They had indeed been broken or used unto their collapses. To attempt their revival without use or success would likely only frustrate the children's dreams.
More, he too suspected that, were they successful, the young couple could commit far more sin than their own spirits could pay. Desal's retribution, served so mightily by Unar, could well be compounded by his allowing those youths the vengeful aggressions their impulses craved--though even that would be little in comparison to the risk to the two's spiritual and bodily health.
Still, a balance might be reached, he thought.
Bala closed his eyes slowly, opened them again. Glancing at his bondmate to see her nod, he patted her hand and looked again at the children. "The ships shall not be rebuilt," he told them and held up his fingers to stave off their facial protests. "However, you shall endeavor in your chosen labor. Perhaps when the energy sources required for farther reaching goals blesses our sun, you shall be directed otherwise in Dviglar, and your good-spirited offerings to Desal and our neighbors of Irllae shall we welcomed. For this time, Be'i, Toma, you shall yet assist us. The knowledge you have been blessed with and hold rightfully dear is required at this time."
"How?" Tom asked, trying to will down his disappointment. Reminded of the power problem alone, he had to give in to Bala's sensible point. It wasn't as if there was a ready store of deuterium in Bakali's medicine cabinet. "What can we do?"
"You have traveled this city," Bala replied. "It is plainly seen and felt what has been stripped from us: replicators, water recyclers, proper sanitation, medical equipment, power links. Solar grids and buildings require much repair. Many of our people suffer a bodily life of illness without the blessing of meeting our ancestors. More to maintain this city in its health is required, and there are others who would learn your work as their own. Sacezia must be considered, as well, and all that is left of Desal. For this sun, Azlre shall be enough toil for you, I would believe. This is our compromise, Children. We ask humbly that you accept my offer to you."
Glancing to her nodding bondmate, Miztri's lips creased upwards. "To merely imagine fresh water and more healthful children is most pleasing," she said hopefully. "There would be so much to be procured from such giving work."
B'Elanna turned her eyes to Tom's steady gaze. Though both bit back their first responses to their curtailed ambitions, neither would have thought to turn down what they were offered in the interim. The elder man was definitely right about Azlre's needs, and it was something--it would be something.
Bala smiled when they simultaneously returned their attention to their elders. In return, he and Bakali touched their temples with a bow of sincere thanks.
"Yet we shall bring ourselves, Be'i. You and Toma bear more knowledge than we of these matters, which Aratra and I shall learn with great interest and dedication. --And matters are to be learned by you as well, as you are to work on the Desalian systems Aratra and I shall assist you with. Much is yet unknown to you."
If there was one thing B'Elanna was sorry about after Bakali healed Sashana'i's tongue, it would be for her discovery that though her friend possessed a lilting soprano that might have been called "sweet" on Earth, she could be unflinchingly single-minded and talkative. Worse, the woman was likewise so good-tempered in her streams of chatter, she could easily distract her listener from their train of thought while pressing whatever point she had to make.
That in particular annoyed B'Elanna. Sashana'i did know how to work on people when she chose to, and she chose to with B'Elanna a great deal, sometimes with a purpose, other times just to tease her. The freedom of going beyond the walls of Cezia had lifted the engineer's spirits, though, so she merely smirked and hiked the strap of her makeshift work bag onto her shoulder, gave Tom an incredulous look. "I have some things to learn? When was the last time you worked in a engine room, Sashana'i?"
"Perhaps you speak truth, good Be'i," she replied courteously.
Sashana'i shared a glance with Aratra, but rather than telling her friends presently what she was thinking about, she decided to enjoy the walk through the rolling savannah she remembered from her girlhood. Of course, she was brought up on the northern part of the main continent, in Sacezia. Twice the size of Azlre, the seaside city was also twice as crumbled from the initial invasions by which Desal so easily was devastated. That outer territory was much the same, though, even the field workers, toiling in the grasses that would become their bread. The joth passing nearby mewed with the same song as they were herded to the wastelands to feed. In other fields grew a popular supplement, nido'ev tubers--or 'sweet potatoes,' as Tom and B'Elanna's memories said resembled in all but color.
"Zha llast'o'a ye'o," said each laborer as they passed, bowing low.
To them all, she and Aratra bowed in return, their fingers to their temples as they accepted their deference. Though rank truly should not have given them any reason to pay homage, and though the story of her relinquishing it at Uillar had quickly spread through Azlre, Sashana'i was well aware of its potential, knew she would need to call upon it someday in order to rouse her people as her grandfather had planned so many years before. Thus, she reclaimed the influence her family name afforded her as willingly as she had sacrificed it to Hychar. Uillar was gone and that horrific time in her life had become but another step within her fate and the fate of her people. Gladly, she consigned that accursed place and the punishment she bore for her predecessors' poor practices to the past.
After all, there had been so much good to consider of late. The blessing of B'Elanna's generosity had restored her speech. She and Aratra had found themselves a recently vacated room on the west side of the square, near to the shamefully destroyed silag. She again had the freedom to move as she pleased. Her own nightly incubus, too, which she had shared with Aratra since her final acts on Uillar, had finally begun to settle into her far memory, allowing them both to heal.
So she thought not on those past horrors, the pain and shame, but on their home, on the temperate and thrillingly clean air, how beautiful her Aratra now looked, away from Uillar and dressed as finely as a Cezian might have been, his golden tan skin, his short, bronze-colored hair accentuated by his clean, light blue headdress. Then she noted also and again how pretty her adopted siblings were with some recovery, in their new clothing, how his flowing tunic and her gown and cloak turned together in the wind, how his hand instinctively went out to support her arm when she needed it.
It was much worth the week of labor she and Aratra served in the wells to clothe them properly and bring them new antibiotics, not to mention everything else she had done to preserve them. It would be even more worth her efforts as they continued at Cezia.
B'Elanna's incision marks had faded nicely into scars still being treated with balms. Though her "ridges" had been terribly "mutilated," as B'Elanna put it, and while the pain she bore had trained a particular tension into her features, her skin was growing fine again and her eyes had begun to clear. Tom, too, looked healthier as he gradually recovered from the loss of a kidney and the other internal damage he had suffered. The jagged scar on his cheek was too deep to be anything less than distinguishing, but his improved color made it less severe in good light.
In all, they were healing, regaining strength and reclaiming their passions and even their arrogance, which Sashana'i and Aratra were both thankful to see. Someday, they would utilize all of that and more. Not immediately, but someday, when they were all ready to make that fate a possible one.
The young woman knew, by their survival alone, that it was meant. Her prayers would continue to bear fruit. She need only be patient.
So pleased was Sashana'i to see their spark, though, she was likewise curious to see Tom and B'Elanna's reaction to the lesson she had been withholding. Through their interpretations of their adopted siblings' memories, she and Aratra had discovered that their birth people's numeric system was like the Antral's, a fact she reconfirmed during the less stressing parts of their journey with a few offhanded questions and calculations, which Tom easily corrected for her. Sashana'i knew she was correct, however--in Desal.
Mischievously, she retained that detail until they came upon the first ship, which sat just outside the mountain gorge, and when she was certain B'Elanna was not too drained or in pain from the sun.
"Base twelve?" B'Elanna snapped. "Everything is in duodecimal mode?!"
"Be'i ka."
"Damn," Tom muttered, turning an angry little glare to Aratra's chuckle. "Are you telling us we need to learn how to count--how to think--all over again?" He felt his stomach churn at the thought. He was naturally very adept at mental calculations in all the standard modes--could calculate a course in his head without much effort, translate trajectories, figure astrometric conversions and quantum figures, all in a blink...
Just in case I started thinking I'd stopped losing things I had. "Why couldn't it at least be hexadecimal? Damn, I could've handled that."
"You bear education," Aratra grinned. "Learning seems moderately quick among your birth--and reading and writing, as well, should be begun. Working with these systems shall be increasingly difficult without this. We and Bala shall teach you well, as you already begin to grasp the children's language."
"I hadn't even thought..." B'Elanna shook her head tersely. "Fine. Learn all that, too. Thanks."
Sashana'i skipped up to open the door for them. "Kle, eta, kle'eta, eta'a, eta'yt, kleta'a--"
"Ka'ekle, a'etak, yta'ete, yta'e, ytaklete, a'ave," B'Elanna finished shortly. "I know that much. But you never said..." She growled and shook her head. "Oh never mind. We'll figure it out as we go along."
Sashana'i's smile remained bright, even as Tom sighed and followed B'Elanna into the darkened hull, lighting a glowglobe as he walked. It was good even to see them angry, she snickered to herself.
That too, she knew, was a part of their true beings.
To B'Elanna's surprise, the old, battered Desalian ships were...excellent.
Or at least at one time they had been. Years of rigging, Unar memory core confiscations and alternate power supplies had been their ruin. But looking at their basic components, she could tell those ships, from their version of a warp generator to their high-powered transporter buffers and slick data transfer systems, were once damned efficient--notably better than Federation technology in several aspects. Her sore brow rose and stayed that way throughout her stroll in the engine room and beyond to realize that.
Even Tom had praised the junkers as he ran his hand over the sleekly designed conn and operations terminal, peering down into its open base then nodding at the comfortable couches. Desalian ship hierarchy began with the rank co-captain; one was in charge of operations, the other navigation. Four equivalent lieutenants reported to them from their flanking stations, and their consoles were as well-appointed. Examining those, he saw that the shields were also rather good once, the maneuverability likely enviable. The weapons were minimal--but people thinking that they would remain at peace wouldn't arm themselves heavily just to knock around the high population of asteroids in the region.
In fact, that was about all their weapons could probably do.
Through the memories given to her by her grandfather, Sashana'i explained that they were once presentation ships--comparable to ambassador-class, Tom guessed, just much more compact. The region Desalians called Irllae was relatively small, so its peoples had never needed large crafts. That first ship had once been clean-lined and extremely efficient. It had taken a lot to wear them down.
Obviously, the Unar had seen to that.
Looking at the ship, sighing over its smooth lines and former capabilities, Tom and B'Elanna silently knew each other's expressions when they met again. It would be a shame to scrap it, yank what was left of its components. It might yet be able to be fixed.
If they scrapped it any more than it was already, there would definitely be no way to fix it again. It had potential even at that point...
Peering over to Aratra and Sashana'i, who were still busy stacking some loose parts they would eventually take back to Azlre, Tom drew a silent breath, opened his mouth even as he thought up what to say. "Why don't we check out the next hull? See what all we have before collecting anything."
B'Elanna thanked him with a blink. "Good idea."
"Yet good components exist here," Aratra frowned. "Why take ourselves elsewhere for the same?"
Grinning, B'Elanna folded her satchel as quickly as she'd opened it. "You're our assistants this time, right?" she said. "First thing's first--inventory. Then we'll decide what's worth taking back."
Setting down what she'd picked up, Sashana'i shrugged. "I shall follow you," she told them. She offered her bondmate her hand as she lifted her robes to climb out of the rubble.
"Hzi'a ye'i," she said quietly. "Me'aje tol gyillr vets yosh."
To that, he nodded. The other couple certainly would have more difficulty in their venture if they wanted to save everything. Of course, he and Sashana'i certainly would not argue with them--and were gladder still that they hadn't included any others in their "tour" that day.
Unfortunately, though it looked worse on the outside--just a patchwork of hull with corroded landing gear sticking out--the next ship was even nicer and had more original capabilities, which drew silent sighs to both the pilot and engineer. Meanwhile, Aratra started ticking off the list Bala had given them and that B'Elanna had revised with him. Finally knowing that they couldn't skip every ship, that they should get it over with before they got too tired, Tom suggested they get to the main power relay, which Sashana'i told them was in engineering. Agreeing, B'Elanna finally pulled back her hood in the semi-shade.
"I still can't believe we have to go back to grammar school," she muttered as they left.
"Iv, Lli, Av, Rri, Tsi, Mi, Ish," Tom said, smirking. "Can't sing to it, though."
She snickered, shook her head as they started down the corridor together. She swerved at Tom's direction to avoid any of the smaller rubble there. "I don't know about you sometimes."
"Frankly, sometimes I don't know either," he replied and helped her around a fallen bulkhead.
"I was in my youth when Unar took us from Plekiza Ra'ezh, at the labor camp I found my first breaths of life. My parents were known to me only in memories; when I found breath, they found their blessed spirits. For my life, they gave theirs. It was my teshalla, M'lozha, a fine artist, who saw me nursed by kindly inmates, given warmth and protection. With his hand around mine, he led me and guided me."
Kra'alba laughed. "Teshalla appeared more like a tyrr cat, with a great mane of thick, golden hair, unshed with age, and golden skin on his wide-boned face and body. When I first saw a tyrr cat, this immediately became clear.
"It was he, in our travels between camps who taught my present mind and all its worth; I was given knowledge of our great ancestors, of the purity of our spirits in our struggle to bear life--yet not in words, as is our custom, but in images. His labor was to design their new structures, which he did with great respect. My work in that youth was to assist in building these blessings of his art. Yet in our few restful moments, I would be taken aside and taught a more beautiful trade, and he drew for me his memories of Desalia, lush and fragrant, clean, most glorious. Every house of every family, grand and simple, was a monument to their grace and spirit. 'It is the passion of an age which may never be again yet must be remembered for our future, when we are resurrected,' he would tell me. 'We yet must always know passion, Child.'
"I began to draw the memories and more.
"When I bore thirteen years, Unar came to bring us to our work; in our pallet, they found my etchings, the entirety of my imaginings and memories given me, the dreams of my spirit, my youthful exaltation. For this, M'lozha was taken away. Frightened and alone, I sat upon my pallet, upon all my doings, praying for my teshalla.
"The sun had grown to its peak when they came for me, too. I was put into a ship. I bore no wish, of course, to leave M'lozha. Querying after him, they suppressed my body and silenced me.
"I awoke upon Cezia to good Bakali's gentle hands and to the girl Samsi, who brought water to my quivering lips and food for my life-shrunken stomach. With time and her attendance, my strength grew, and in many passing suns, the spirit my teshalla had inspired in me recovered as well. His beautiful trade would not be lost; in time, it was rather discovered, again and again, and blessed in his name.
"And so passion remained mine, as well as memory--and Samsi." Smiling again, Kra'alba pulled Samsi closer to him; she rested a gentle hand and her head on his chest. Her eyes were dreamy with her own memories, staring deeply into the fire around which they all sat.
"M'lozha was never heard of again," Kra'alba continued. "Yet he is brought to life each time I close my eyes and dream of passion then let it flow onto a pallet all may see. I have been granted a blessed life, for all these gifts."
"I think what bugs me most is that that's all been there that long and nobody's done a damn thing with it." Finished with rubbing away her usual headache, B'Elanna slid under the covers and scooted near the wall. "They accept everything--which is nice when it comes to us, and maybe with the death rate...their spirituality helps them there, too. But it just goes to prove why those ships are out there rotting and nothing changes."
Tom closed the shutters, picked up the glowglobe to hang by the bunk. "Without anyone who could do something with it, why would they?"
"Hmm." Though it wasn't what she wanted to hear, it made sense.
"All the people who ever did have any technical ability were sold off to the Unar or killed long ago." Tom lowered himself down behind B'Elanna, pulling the blanket up onto his chest. Lying on his back, he watched the glowglobe patterns on the ceiling. Somehow, it always relaxed him, despite the memories it brought sometimes. "If there's one thing the Desalians don't do, it's waste their time on the impossible. If they know they can't change something, they don't try. You've got to give them that much."
"I guess. But it also shows how confident the Unar are--leaving all that here."
"It's a hell of a reminder, in case anyone here bothered to forget."
B'Elanna let out her breath slowly then turned onto her back, resting her head in her hand to watch him watch the ceiling. It made her head hurt again. She'd had a bad headache that morning and was still a little nauseated on top of her returning cough. Even so, she sometimes got sick of lying on her side.
"We've got some work ahead of us," she said, "if we're to have any help in this. Miztri is the most experienced around here--and even she doesn't know much more than maintenance and spot repair."
Tom grinned, cut his eyes over to her. "I think we've had tougher challenges."
She cracked a laugh at that. "I guess we have," she said. Clearing her throat, she shook her head. "I don't know Tom. When we're out there, I can't help but think how useless it is sometimes. I don't want to say I hate it here. I don't--not as if I'd choose this... I guess I care about the people here now. I want to do more than collect scraps so we can help them keep getting by. Good as replicators and medical equipment are, it won't change the real problem."
"Which we can't do much about until we're able to power those ships up anyway," Tom said. "I know. Now that we're in it, it does seem to be a lot more than it did at first."
Feeling a slice of sensation in her neck, she turned onto her side again. Sick of the position or not, she didn't feel like going to sleep with that kind of pain. "Either way--replicators or ships--we're going to need more help. Some trainees or something."
"Just say the word and I'll help do some enlisting. I still can't do much lifting, which is lousy. I've always at least had some strength. But it won't heal if I keep being stupid about it."
"Last thing you need is to rupture...whatever it is Bakali called it," she agreed. The patterns on the slanted ceiling were just a bunch of greenish blobs to her, distorted at the angle, bobbing slightly when Tom readjusted himself against the pillow. She remembered what they looked like, the little diamonds, how they danced on the ceiling of the shack, on those cold nights, with the wind...
"I still think about it there, Tom...Uillar."
He nodded, he eyes moving down to the stone mantel. "Me too." Blinking slowly, he turned to her. "I have to remind myself sometimes that we're not there anymore."
Her lips had remained inclined to the ironic. "I have to remind myself I'm not in a lot of places--especially there. I still wake up expecting to have to go to detail, hearing them calling us."
"I can still see Hychar in the line, waiting for us to do something," Tom mused. "When I think about it...God, if I could tell you everything I've imagined doing to that son of a bitch, we'd be up all night."
She paused to hear that, following the gentle sway of the globe light above them; then she tried not to look too much at it. "I dream about killing him," B'Elanna whispered. "I used to dream about him...killing me. Now I just think about...doing to him what he did to me, to Sashana'i--to all of us. I never used to think like that."
"I still wish I could've done more, that night," he confessed. "I had him there, but I was tired, coughing, my lungs felt like bricks." He paused, laughed humorlessly. "He didn't have that much competition, and I wasn't all that sorry for it. I thought he'd killed you, after everything else, everything we'd gotten through."
Hearing the crack in his voice, she could imagine how that must have affected him, especially as he'd never said so much about it. She recalled instantly how tired and relieved he'd looked when she woke up, after that infection that she still had twinges of to that day. He'd been so sweet and protective, only to see Hychar smash her face against a shack wall.
"Well, like you said, Tom, he didn't get what he wanted. We're still around."
"Still waiting, too."
"True," she conceded. "We've got Dviglar, though, so I guess it isn't all that useless. It could be worse. It was worse."
"It does make a difference, doesn't it?" he said softly. "Nice to feel like we have some purpose."
"Like not getting in trouble instead?" She looked at him, watching his fuzzy little grin, his chest bob slightly with a breath of agreement. "Things keep going like this--if it gets a little better at a time...I hate to say it, because I know I'll just end up regretting it somehow, but...I could get used to it here, if it keeps on like this. We might be able to make it work, Tom."
"Yeah. I think so, too...even if it's weird."
"How so?"
"Well, look at us, B'Elanna."
"Look at what? You said yourself we're surviving, getting by, right?"
He turned onto his side, propping himself up on his elbow. "We're stranded Starfleet officers. For the most part, anyway, it's still what we are. We're waiting for word on Bendera and Nicoletti, but we're settling in and trying to adjust, learning how to read and write--"
"And count," she added dourly.
"--We dress like them, eat their food with our fingers--we even go to the elders for permission."
B'Elanna grinned. "At least Bala doesn't peer up from a PADD like Janeway did--with that stare."
Tom laughed, seeing it again as soon as she'd said it. "You would remember! --Well, I remember it pretty well, too." Then, he thought about that and looked at her again. "I wonder if they think we're dead, or just missing in action. Or if they're okay and the Unar were just screwing with our heads when they sent us the shuttle. I hope so."
"I like to think they've moved on, too."
He drew another breath, deciding not to press her for the rest of that thought, regurgitate that old, grim topic, as it didn't really matter. One way or another, Voyager was long gone, and however that came about, they couldn't do anything about it. Even so, he couldn't help but muse, "I wonder if they held a memorial--what they might have said if they did."
B'Elanna's crooked brow rose. "That's an interesting thought. I don't know what they'd say."
Tom grinned. "Captain Janeway... What would she talk about?"
She was curious, too. "What do you think she'd say?"
"Hmm..." He squinted upwards with the thought, picturing the sad scene with a dispassion that oddly didn't bother him. "She'd probably talk about how she picked me up at Auckland, what a smartass I was. No, I guess she'd talk about how I tried to start over, make things right again...how much I loved being a pilot." He quieted again then said, "That seemed to be the only thing that gave me peace of mind sometimes, made me feel...alive."
She offered him an understanding shrug. "Well, I'm just as guilty. Engineering was the one place I felt at home."
"It was a nice security blanket wasn't it?" he commented. She nodded. "Hmm, Chakotay... He'd probably talk about how he met you."
"He'd better not," B'Elanna returned with a touch of threat. "Another time I'd gotten myself in more trouble than I could handle. That's the last thing I'd want the whole crew to know about."
"Don't feel so bad. How he came across me was much worse. Let's see...Carey would recall his broken nose." B'Elanna snorted. "...and the Doctor would remind everyone how much we always enjoyed getting on his nerves--during your exams and my stint as a medic."
"And Tuvok would call us irrational and impulsive," B'Elanna added. "And I think the Captain would remember how I told her off in her ready room, before she chose me for her chief engineer. Or maybe she wouldn't--but she'd probably think about it. God, I was so..." She shook her head.
"Young," Tom supplied and saw her still at that. "I know. I feel a lot older than... How long has it been now? Nine months?"
"Something like that," B'Elanna sighed. She hadn't really thought about it yet--exactly how much time had gone by. With her bouts of unconsciousness here and there, she had trouble piecing it all together. The Desalian calendar, with nine days in each week, moon cycles instead of months and six seasons of differing lengths didn't make it any easier. "It does seem like it's been longer. We really were...young."
Tom paused, drew another breath. "I could see the captain knowing that. She seemed to, anyway, even when she said nothing--especially if she smiled."
"She probably did." Suddenly, another memory popped up, and B'Elanna couldn't help but giggle at it. "I'm willing to bet they all remembered the night I called you a pig at Sandrine's."
Tom's lips pressed at that. "Yeah," he said, trying to laugh but failing.
B'Elanna glanced up at his change of tone. "What?"
"Well, I guess I was being a pig. But I didn't want you telling me that in front of everyone there." With a shrug, he looked upwards again. "Of course, at the time, I was enjoying myself--being out of prison, getting my rank back, having privileges, all that. It'd been a while since I felt good about anything. I don't think I was that bad, but I was probably annoying as hell." His lips pursed as he paused with that memory. Then he continued, "You telling me that, getting ribbed for it.... I guess it stayed on my mind. You made me think about what I was doing. I still did stupid things, but every time, I could hear you saying, 'pig.' I didn't want to be like that, especially to myself."
She was surprised and didn't try to hide it. "I didn't know it'd bothered you that much."
He shrugged. "It was a good thing in a way. I was never angry at you for it."
"But maybe I was hard on you," she offered. "You made me nervous--and a little...I don't know. I just couldn't believe you got away with what you did--mostly on charm, I thought. I didn't trust that."
"No, you wouldn't, would you?" he said, his grin reappearing.
"But I think I misinterpreted you, because I tended to push issues even when they didn't need pushing. You always did what you needed to do--and with that damned smile on your face, making it look like it was nothing and things came out okay." She shook her head to herself. "I sometimes wished I could do that, just relax and not take it all so seriously. I admit I tried. But I guess I was just made to get through things the way I do, just going at it and getting it done and to hell with what people think. God, I must have been scary."
"I didn't think you were all that bad," Tom said sincerely, staring down to her. "Actually, I thought you were pretty cute when you were all worked up and ready to take on the universe with your pinkie finger."
"Thanks a lot," she returned with a snort.
"Well, I mean it. You seemed so unconquerable. Confident. I liked that."
"Well, I didn't think you were a hotshot pig for that long, either. And I didn't always mind that you joked around--you knew when to shut up, most of the time." He chuckled again, good-naturedly taking her point. She was glad he did. "You think they remembered that about us?"
"I think so. They probably laughed about it, too. I hope they did. --I even hope Chakotay told everyone what I pain in the ass I could be--on purpose, sometimes--and that Neelix nailed me about my bugging him about his rotten cooking--"
"--And Carey talked about how every time I started assigning new staff projects, he'd flinch," B'Elanna continued in her own right, "and that Kes told them how she practically had to sedate me to keep me in sickbay."
"The few times you ever let anyone get you in there," Tom noted. "Or the grudge match between Neelix and I over Kes. That was embarrassing."
Her eyes narrowed cleverly to hear him put that so casually. She remembered on the ship it had been a raging gossip--and was surprised to find that she was still curious about what really happened. Leaning up a little, she asked, "What was that all about, anyway? Did you go after her?"
"I tried to avoid her," he corrected with a chuckle. "We were good friends--she was so nice, totally non-judgmental and willing to know me, unlike a lot of other people at first." Feeling her silence at that, he decided not to address it or defend her. By her own admission, she'd been one of those other people. "Anyway, we were spending some time together--totally platonic--and as it turned out, I got a crush on her. I knew that was trouble as soon as I realized it--I mean, I knew she loved Neelix and I wouldn't have done anything to hurt that. Well, of course, Neelix sniffed me out like a hawk spots a limp. I can't believe I'm telling you this."
"I'm glad you are," B'Elanna said honestly, meanwhile suppressing the unexpected pick of jealousy that had met his explanation. Then again, she could see why any man would be attracted to Kes, pretty, sweet and intelligent as she always had been. "I asked, after all."
"Anyway," Tom continued, quickly moving through his explanation, "Neelix and I finally got it out of our systems and I told him I wouldn't do anything with her. We ended up friends in the end. We all did. But that was all that happened."
She believed him, and believed his embarrassment; she could easily see that vulnerability that she'd always wondered about. He'd been lonely too, looking for a way to move away from the past only to find more trouble. B'Elanna knew the feeling.
"Maybe that's what he talked about, then, how you became friends," she said then drew a cleansing breath. Knowing the truth, she didn't need to hear any more. In a way, she didn't want to. "So, what else did they remember?"
Tom hummed a bit to think what else there was and snorted behind a quick smile. "There was when I met Harry at Deep Space Nine, saving his ass from that snaky Ferengi. Harry had almost sold off his body parts by the time I decided to say hello..." Tom's voice faded off at that.
B'Elanna knew why as she watched his smile dissolve as hers did. She could see--probably as well as Tom could just then, their friend standing in the mess hall, trying to talk about losing them both... "Poor Harry."
"I hope he didn't take it too hard."
She nodded assuredly. "I'm sure everyone helped him out."
Tom nodded, too. "Yeah. I'm sure they have. Harry's a lot stronger than he appears. I hope he was able to get past it."
"I do too," B'Elanna said, drawing a slow, steady breath as her gaze floated askance. "It's so strange..." she whispered, putting the words she hadn't wanted to say together in her pause. But since he'd been good enough to confess as much as he had... "I sometimes have to think to remember what some of them look like. I can remember all the things that happened, images, but..." She cut off, shaking her head.
"I know," Tom said. "I sometimes do too. It hasn't even been that long--though we weren't on Voyager that long, either. But things are so immediate here, more so than there, that I guess we..." Pausing, he stared down into her dark eyes, a sad smile of acceptance crossing his lips. "Maybe we're letting go? Maybe we're getting over it?"
"Maybe that's it," she answered quietly.
They said little after that, their mutual memory fading quickly as they felt their blankets again, smelled the Cezian air. Once again, Voyager was gone, and they now lived in Azlre.
B'Elanna rolled over onto her right side, facing the wall as she always did. Tom usually woke up before she did, so it worked out well that he stayed on the outside of the bed. As she settled, Tom did a double check of their coverings then reached back to turn off the glowglobe, making his usual mental note to hang it in the window the next day to recharge. Then, he settled himself down behind her as usual, sighing out his day at last.
Breathing in again, he could smell her hair, not very clean but a scent he was well used to by then. He felt her small hand take his; he closed his eyes in the dark.
"I wouldn't have wished this on you if I had the power to, B'Elanna," he whispered, "but I'm glad you're here--that you're still here.... You know what I mean."
B'Elanna was sure her temperature rose at least a few degrees as he said it. Silently, she trapped down her breath to try to keep her pulse from reacting to that, too. "You say that as if it was your doing," she said softly, squeezing his fingers. "I'm glad you've stuck around, too."
"We'll make something out of this. Or at least we can try. Like you said--if things keep moving forward, we might be able to do more than just get by."
His gentle words confused her slightly, but she decided to take that in the most obvious way. "Yes," she said and pulled his hand close to her, feeling him adjust himself, get more comfortable. She could feel the outline of his strong, thin frame very clearly, but said nothing more. They had a long day ahead of them.
Or at least that was what she finally fell to sleep telling herself.
"Core breach?"
"No. Tachyon ionization. Look at the patterns in the core spikes. They used this one until it just dropped--way past its dilithium supply."
"Too bad. It was damn good ship."
"Ka."
Tom and B'Elanna both looked over at Sashana'i, whose eyes ghosted over every detail of the bridge they stood on.
"You know about this one?" Tom asked as B'Elanna plugged in a temporary laridium generator to get the panel working.
"This ship is property of my family," Sashana'i told them, staring around at the lush but stained, formerly white interior, lit by a large, clover-shaped ceiling port. "Its calling is the Azallis."
They had seen themselves through two weeks of blissfully exhausting scrap collection, and had brought Dalra, Miztri and several of their other friends from Uillar to help them with their project, having inventoried and set aside everything Tom and B'Elanna had carefully chosen to use.
As they dug farther into the gorge, however, they had come across another discarded ship, brutally overused, yet once even more beautiful and capable than the others were. Walking into an open port unaware, Sashana'i had paused, as did Aratra. Instantly, they knew where they were. She had tried to ignore it, though, leading B'Elanna and Tom through the darkened corridors and up the access staircases to the main bridge, where she would translate the complex controls there, teaching them more Desalian writing as she did. She and Aratra had been doing so from the beginning of their ventures at Dviglar. Having such quick students and objects that meant something to the two, Sashana'i looked forward to each opportunity to continue her siblings' education.
But when they stepped onto the bridge and the memories rose in her, circled between her and Aratra, stubbornly not letting go, she had to voice them, give them life...
"In the last suns of the Allanois, this ship carried my great-grandmother, Iserri...Yusi, as she is known in scholarship. This ship carried Yusi to her bonding ceremony, to be bonded to Troka. His life had brought corruption to his spirit, yet she resisted him. The boding was desperately against her wishes; she had been forced to part with her intended mate. Nor bore she any desire to claim such a position of responsibility."
B'Elanna looked up from the panel. Having already set her mental schedule so efficiently she knew exactly when they would get back to Azlre without a timepiece, she had wanted Sashana'i to read her more of the panel, to get through the ship before she herself could get sentimental. Then, better, they could start designing those replicators and devising decent power sources.
She had been brainstorming with Tom over all of it since their first trip to Dviglar. It almost felt like old times--though that time, it was just them, sitting up together in their bunk after breakfast before they left, or later, at night, thinking and scribbling with red ink and cramping hands on paper bookpads, shooting off ideas, letting their brains work as they'd once been trained to.
The goal was simplistic by their standards, but effect was the same. It was exciting and creative, something both of them seemed always to have in common and desperately needed there, else go insane with boredom.
Still, she couldn't help but stop at the sadness in her friend's voice, and she found herself even more distracted by Sashana'i's admission. "I thought Desalians chose their own mates."
Sashana'i nodded. "Ka. These were corrupt suns, when spirits might be raped by the desires of blood continuance. Families consumed by greed sought to breed to each other, not share their blessed union. It is said for this alone Desal is punished, for abusing spirits and the eternal realm so. It was Yusi who was forced to share her spirit with one for whom she felt nothing, and recoiled from more when she discovered in full his disregard of Desal's proper way. She accepted her fate and made use of it, yet never again was he allowed to access her spirit again; in their thirty years joined, her despise for him never faded."
Sashana'i stepped around the console, down onto the center of the oval bridge. "Here she submitted to Unar. She and my blessed elder, Dulla, of whom they were ignorant by her design. Ka, they were told he was a servant, to protect him and all she knew he soon would bear. I bear sight of it here, of them.... She is beautiful, with stitched robes and a gown of silken thread. Her hair is like a moonless night. She suffers...bears great sadness..." Sashana'i blinked, jerked herself into the present then continued, "For her son, for Desalia, she submitted after months of evasion. Hearing of the terror she had left behind, only that way to redemption was left to them. At the drifts of Gozhor Jihap she let them take her and her only child. It was but three du'ave later, in Unar enslavement, where she passed in sickness and exhaustion, her hair desecrated by jealous Unar women... When Troka's passing was sensed, she took her son's hand and passed the Allanois legacy onto him. She met the ancestors but an hour past it. Dulla buried her...nearly insane himself for the storms of memories, all she gave onto him."
B'Elanna felt her body chill at the story and could only watch as Aratra enfolded Sashana'i in his arms. She touched his temples in that embrace, sighing shakily, warding off tears. "Your forgiveness," Sashana'i whispered. "I have not yet stood here. These histories within me, so close...."
B'Elanna unplugged the generator. "Maybe Tom and I should have a break?
Aratra nodded for his bondmate, his own face haunted by the recollections. "Five decks of equipment are left to examine, I should believe."
Tom found the door before B'Elanna did, feeling equally intrusive and anxious to get out. "Maybe the next ship would be better for scraps?" he whispered as they left.
B'Elanna looked back at Sashana'i and Aratra. "We'll hunt around in the yard a little more, meet you out there?"
"Zhra'i ka," Sashana'i said, not looking.
With no further delay, B'Elanna followed Tom back out into the sunny, dry scrap yard, not minding the blowing sand they stepped into and trying not to think too much on Sashana'i and her family's story. Some of the Desalians' stories could be chilling even without meaning to be, but knowing Sashana'i was literally reliving it before their eyes made it doubly discomforting.
Thankfully, the present tense at Dviglar easily changed the topic. In the distance, they could hear Miztri organizing with the others what they'd be bringing back that time. She was obviously relishing the work, as were the others they managed to bring out of the city. Working together without so much as an anti-grav platform, they had already managed to clear a wide path in between the rubble at the base of the gorge and were slowly but steadily plowing through its depths. At that rate, they'd work that path all the way through to the similarly littered slate plain on the opposite end of Dviglar in only a few months.
But that was later. There was plenty to do right there in the center.
Looking towards the south gorge wall, Tom touched B'Elanna's shoulder. "How about over there?"
Squinting across, she saw another haphazard collection of discarded components. "Sounds good. You want to eat something while we're here?"
"That sounds good, too," he answered, helping her down one rubble pile to the sandy ground then across to the heaps of junk. He whistled as they rounded it. "Compressor, relays...looks like a power junction--"
"We'll take those," B'Elanna said briskly, kneeling by the last to check it out with her own hands. It looked pretty clean. "Let's take this, too."
"It's definitely useable," Tom said, opening up his bag and spotting a shady place for them while he tucked a node into it.
Seeing her follow, he ducked under a long hull scrap and brushed off a space for her. She joined him, holding one of the relays in her gladly dirtied hand. She put the part aside when he handed her some cleaning rags. As she did, he rolled out a small floorcloth and then their morsels--two medium pieces of pressed bread that he rolled up with cheese, kabo grass and a sprinkling of orange berries that tasted more like green peas. Opening a small decanter of water mixed with mivllo root juice, which they would share, he finally relaxed onto a hip and picked up his portion. It didn't taste like much, but it was filling enough to get them to the evening meal, which wouldn't be much more.
But they were well used to their limited diet. They ate quietly and slowly, passing the decanter between each other from time to time without commenting on it. Instead, they stared out to the field of scraps, almost numbly as their friends' voices continued to echo in the distance, interrupted on occasion by overhead birds en route to the lakes beyond the grass plains, and the breeze brushed the sand in little turrets on the gorge floor. In that way, the little nook allowed them to relax for the duration of their meal.
Some time later, they returned to the compressor, agreeing it could come in some use for parts. The head casing alone would house a platform replicator nicely. Leaning halfway into the old unit, they passed tools back and forth as well as words, grinning from time to time at each other with one quip or reply, or a stray comment and response, passing the time.
His glances remained longer, though, caught on the thought that it was strangely familiar, but different. How many times, after all, had he found her on Voyager, head first into something or another? There on Cezia, they were sharing their work again, but that time, in such a greater way, a more important way. They'd come to share a hell of a lot. Seeing how things were going, it seemed pretty clear to him that they'd continue on that route.
He didn't have any problem with that, of course. She was broken, sure, but she was getting better. For that matter, so was he. During those respective healing processes, they'd put back on some of the weight they'd lost on Uillar and had likewise regained a good deal of their energy, not to mention some hope for the future, both day-to-day anticipation and longer range desires. Someday, they would also get back to what they'd agreed they'd wanted, to fight off the Unar, so unseen on that world but so much the cause of everything that they now worked to reverse, even then. They also still had to hear word of Nicoletti and Bendera, though they'd gotten pretty patient about that, knowing how things worked around there.
For the mean time, though...Tom looked again at B'Elanna, crouched down and venturing aloud for another tool, which he placed in her hand a moment later. He knew months ago that he'd come to need her, to want her with him, to...
She put the wrench-like bar aside. "Hand me that demagnifyer," she said, quiet and intent on her task of removing the main power unit.
Feeling his fingers brush her palm as he placed the tool in her waiting hand, she drew a cooling breath as she continued working, not looking back. Damnit, I know something's wrong with me if Tom gets to me that damned easily, she thought, gnashing her teeth a bit. She did want to get that core emptied enough that they could get it back to Azlre, but never would if he kept distracting her as he was.
Problem was, she minded his distracting her less and less lately. Sometimes, she would catch him gazing at her from across the room, like one evening when she was helping Bakali spread their dining cloths. She'd brought up her head to tuck her hair behind her ear and caught Tom looking at her as if...as if he were doing a hell of a lot more than undressing her with his eyes.
Though that intent stare managed to make her blood rush from her head to her toes, B'Elanna flicked a quick smile before he drew a breath and turned back to the stove and the dinner he was helping to prepare. That time, B'Elanna was the one to stare at his lean body, handsomely draped in an earthy green knee-length tunic and beige pajama trousers; his soft blond hair cut short and curled against his tan skin. He was as dust-swept and dirt-stained as she was, but he was looking pretty good otherwise.
Something was going to happen there. They were together all the time, and though they did exchange some of their mind now and again, she knew they both were making an effort at accepting...what?
B'Elanna realized that her hand had dropped--that he'd distracted her once again. Grinning to herself, she unlocked the unit and turned it out of its bearings. "Set this aside for later," she said, handing the part back to him.
"I required her closeness as nothing I had known. Her being, her spirit, her body, all of her swimming in my mind like the fish in warm water, I took Suoti into our shack, warmed with fired stones that evening--a gift of our hosts. In the steamed air, the golden light, her eyes welled into my own, a beginning to the blending with my own, as is the way.
"I knelt to her and unlaced her beautiful gown, pulling it down from her blessed frame, then drinking the sweetness of her love and need of me. Finer nectar I had never tasted and never shall. And within me, her pleasure was felt..."
Sitting nearby, B'Elanna had been holding her breath, swallowing as Jabra gladly related the night of his bonding. The tales had turned rather...Desalian, that night, all those bondings--and they proved to have no compunctions about discussing the intimate aftermaths of "spirit joining." Rather, she would have accused them of bragging if she didn't know them better--if she couldn't admit, if only to herself, that they were starting to make her want to take Mister Thomas Eugene Paris up to their bunk and...
She shivered hard in her cloak, thinking of some reason to get up. Then again, she did want to hear the rest of it. Jabra did speak well...too well.
"She knelt to me, pushing away my robe and untying my other coverings. My love of her tasted, my desire for her assured, I cried for her joy as for my own. Soon, rippling with wishing, she bid my earth join to her waters, so we made share completely the sanctity of our union. Our great spirits heard her call to them, in my arms as I put myself to her; I too called out to them and sought their calling further..."
B'Elanna shivered again and heard a shuffle behind her. Raising her arms slightly, she felt another strong, warm set reach around to hold her. She leaned back and Tom's scent filled her nostrils; his breath warmed her hair. A little relieved and a lot more frustrated, she closed her eyes, tried to breathe it off. And then she wondered why in the world she was bothering to.
She didn't know why at that point. Stubbornly, though, she didn't hold his arms, but willed herself to relax. It was just a story, after all.
Jabra patted Suoti's round belly. "We had truly become one in each other..."
"What does it matter?" B'Elanna asked. "You said it was a casual dinner."
"It would matter always how we present ourselves, Child," Bakali wisely told her. "Our meal is to be taken with the parents of Gyrrja, Ciala and Willgi this moon, to ease the premature celebration of their children's passings."
B'Elanna released a breath, nodded. "I'm sorry."
"For what purpose, Child? No power or prayer might have preserved their bodies. This is, and thus it was meant."
"It shouldn't be, Bakali," B'Elanna sighed. "Frankly, I don't know how your people have done this so long, lived like this--especially when you knew how it had been."
"Yet that one's life ending is not an utter destruction has long been accepted," the elder replied, turning an eye the girl's way. Politely, she had not pried into either of the children's personal matters, expecting she would learn them well enough without such efforts. But now the topic had been opened and B'Elanna seemed to need to express her feelings about it, rather than brood. "This is not so with your birthpeople? Claim you no belief in one's spirit?"
"A lot of people have some kind of belief in an afterlife. Most Federation races do, anyway."
"Yet you bear no belief?" Bakali asked.
B'Elanna shot her attention back to the elder, but shrugged it off a moment later. "I don't believe or not believe. Either way, I don't think it's cause to celebrate when children die from influenza or diarrhea because of bad wells."
"This is truth," Bakali conceded, satisfied enough with the other part of B'Elanna's answer. "Sorrow has borne my way as a healer these past sixty rallkle--and perhaps this has trained my acceptance of one's final fate despite my constant care. Yet it is truth that little may be done now but trust our blessed ancestors shall find these spirits well and embrace them. Ka, there is sadness, yet equal faith, so mourn them not too zealously, Be'i. They wait without pain and in peace, now." Patting the young woman's shoulder as she came around, Bakali knelt beside her. Then she touched B'Elanna's temple. "We are all one in life and hereafter. Our life forces are bound in eternal continuance; my belief in this is unshakable. You may not believe this in spirit and proudly maintain yourself in this manner. I shall not press seeds into stones. Yet I would wish you understand the faith of Desal and bear some comfort."
B'Elanna flicked a smile and gave her a short nod. She wasn't about to argue religion when she didn't really have one.
Likewise, Bakali did not make further points. Instead, she bent a little to guide B'Elanna's hands with the old, faded cloth napkin. "The corners are taken here, then are folded as so...now turn."
Despite her mood, B'Elanna's lips pursed upwards. The lady's wrinkled hands were otherwise as soft and graceful as they might have been in her youth, as they showed her again how to build a pretty placement. No matter who came for evening meal, friends, mourners or scrap collectors, Bakali always made her welcome as beautiful as her meager life could afford. "A remaining trait of an opulent time," she often called it.
The napkin done, Bakali handed her another one. "Now you. I trust you may. --And this tale should be borne well, for all your native skill. It is but angles and abstractions."
"That's Tom's domain, Bakali," she replied lightly. "I'm an engineer--algorithms and reaction parameters."
"Then perhaps your hair and mouth shall be engineered as well. A certain male in this house bears observant eyes. Allow me..." She rose, gesturing for B'Elanna to continue as she went to the closet for a small jar. Returning, she smiled. "You have succeeded! Very pretty!"
B'Elanna put the napkin in place, snickering to herself as Bakali knelt by her again. She was opening the jar, then. "What's that?"
"Sibra nectar," the old woman answered, smearing the tip of her thin finger in the thick vermilion juice. "It is not common, yet not an indulgence. Grown upon the hills of Mecrisop, the fruit is refined and given as payment to me by Madrida. Allow me." To her pleasure, the young woman, seeming to consider the idea, did not move as she brushed the balm on her full mouth, which plied easily under her touch. Bakali, thinking more on that and before the girl could turn away, smeared a bit of color on the young woman's cheeks, blending it with an expert's simplicity in her strokes. "Without the glory of sun, your color is assisted by it."
B'Elanna rubbed her lips together then nodded with a small grin. "Thanks. It even tastes good."
"Take yourself to judge its work. It befits you, I should think."
B'Elanna turned back to the napkins. "I trust you."
Bakali turned her chin up to peer at her. "Be'i, you must not hide from yourself always. You have healed with excellent result. The very lines are nearly unseen."
B'Elanna shook her head. "Not yet." She looked at the elder, sighed. "You did more than enough to save my life, Bakali. I'm grateful for that."
"Yet you bear no gratitude for that which makes you feel shame, your markings, how they appear?"
"You don't understand," B'Elanna said quietly, considering how to put it. "There was a time where I used to be ashamed of what I looked like--and there was another time I'd lost it but had to get it back to survive. I mean, it wasn't just how I looked but...Oh damn, I don't know what I'm saying."
"Simply speak," Bakali advised. "You shall be heard with open ears."
B'Elanna eyed her for a moment then decided to get it done with, since she was the one to bring it up. "It wasn't just my forehead, but everything else that came with my Klingon side. --I won't get into all the reasons behind it. I went through some...experiences, that made me see more into that. So, I'd finally started accepting that I had to be what I was, how I was born. --I thought I was dealing with it, anyway. Then I had some madman come after me time and again to leave me looking like this." She shook her head.
Bakali nodded slowly. "You attempted to betray nature and thus discovered it repeatedly, until it proved itself worthy of you. Your nature is just that, Be'i; you are yet what nature intended of you, and you remain in a state of growth. Fate has given you numerous challenges, so that you might find your spirit's truth. Ka, its purpose is this, in our belief. Your struggle lies in what is truth in your eyes, however, your desire, as you struggle against all else in this present."
"Oh I accept it," B'Elanna responded. "But...I don't think I'm ready to look at it."
"Acceptance may not be achieved without willingness to see truth," Bakali countered gently. Touching her arm, she found the girl's dark gaze. "Be'i, readiness shall come, I would think. Do not be perverse with nature and claim acceptance when it is not so. Only unhappiness is discovered when you are reminded of your self-deception. Allow your unrest to walk alongside your healing; allow truth into your life and contentment eventually shall be borne. You need not be more nor less than what you truly are with us. You shall be adored and respected in your nature--whether or not this nature is desired."
B'Elanna grinned. "You mean no matter how lousy I feel about it, that's okay?"
"Tsid ka'e," Bakali said. "Unease is natural, Be'i. Your acceptance shall balance this present someday as well, should this be wished. Yet for this present, it is well, your feelings, your lack of acceptance and belief. It is a path in your youth which must be tread upon first in order to reach your spirit's ultimate destination, your truth."
"As long as I don't raise hell with Tom," B'Elanna added.
"Between feeling unease and driving Prihar through the floorboards, there is a fine difference, Child," the elder grinned.
B'Elanna laughed, nodded. "I guess you're right," she said. That time, she was the one to reach out, placing her hand on Bakali's soft, embroidered robe sleeve. "Thank you. Everything you've done for me and Tom, it means more than you know."
Bakali smiled back, caressed the girl's fingers briefly. "Shall the setting be completed now, Be'i?"
"I still don't see the point in all this folding if we're just going to take them apart again," B'Elanna teased, picking up another napkin. "But I will."
"Stubborn girl," Bakali replied, rising to her knees. She leaned over and planted a kiss on B'Elanna's head. "Yet a good girl. That fate has guided you and Toma to us, our thanks to the spirits are many. We shall greet our guests in peace and community this moon."
B'Elanna grinned again, but didn't reply, instead concentrating on how she'd folded the silly cloth the other time.
"Be'i, Toma!"
B'Elanna reflexively steadied herself as the little girl bolted across the square. The child had taken--probably for the novelty alone--the habit of greeting them every afternoon when they came back from Dviglar. Spotting them from her perch behind the rickety door next to the clinic, she would spring out to "surprise" them despite her mother's protests.
Taking that same liberty that day, the three-year old dashed a circle around the tired pair and threw her skinny arms around B'Elanna's legs. "M'ves al Dviglar i'o aliche yi!" she announced, embracing B'Elanna's thighs tightly enough to trip her--while B'Elanna shot a smirk back at Tom's chuckle.
"Hi, Haviki," she said patiently, patting the girl's brown head as she tried to keep her balance. They'd had a long day in the gorge and despite her fighting it, she was tired and a little dizzy from the hours of close work. Unfortunately, the child--like most Desalian children--was just too cute to ward off. Then again... "Why don't you say hi to your teshalla?"
"Toma!"
But Tom was quicker than the girl was, plucking her up to his hip with only a slight wince. The waif wasn't nearly heavy enough to give him trouble--a fact he liked. Tapping her fair brow, he squinted at her dirt-brushed face. "I know grabbing Be'i's legs like that is fun, but it's not really good for her. What if she tripped and fell?"
"She shall not fall!" Haviki responded with a chirping laugh. "She is strong and stubborn! Bakali has said this."
B'Elanna rolled her eyes. "Don't worry about it, Tom. I don't mind that much." Looking back towards the clinic, B'Elanna waved a hand to Haviki's harried mother, who pulled her scarves into place around her coaly hair as she hurried across the square to them. "It's okay, Cali."
Cali sighed and bowed to both her neighbors, brushing her pale, calloused fingers over her equally fair temple. "For all your toil, good lady, I should think her morning greeting would be enough," she replied as she straightened. Looking down to her child, however, she had to work to retain a straight face. Tom and B'Elanna had quickly learned that Desalians were indulgent parents who delighted in a child's spiritedness and mischief. "Haviki, you shall bring yourself and remain," Cali told the girl, mustering as much firmness as she ever had. "Your tola would have it so. Too many tales of your misbehavior should not be borne upon his return to us."
The little girl slid willingly down Tom's legs to return dutifully to her mother's side. Seeing the comely woman tug at her child's simple braids, Tom suddenly remembered. "Cali, we brought something for you."
"That's right," B'Elanna said. She gave Cali a quick grin then nodded to Tom. "You go in with her and get the space settled. I'll go back to the lot and get it." She tipped her head to his quick stare, crossing her arms at what she just knew he was thinking. "I can go get it without permission, I hope?"
Tom laughed, more at himself than her challenge. He really had a bad habit with her, he knew, and he could tell that it annoyed her when he followed through on it. Still, even on her good days, she could become dizzy and tired without as much cause, and the bench they'd brought back wasn't exactly a lawn chair. "Yeah, but at least get someone to help you."
She rolled her eyes. "Always the gentleman, Paris. I'll handle it."
"I didn't doubt that, Chief," he returned.
"You'd better not."
Turning, she hurried back across the square to the south Prevach street then into a thin and sharply twisting alley. Through the shady, cracked stone corridor, she hardly had to look as she turned onto another, and didn't think of her direction as the old, vine-coated buildings grew thicker, the air musty in the cool shade. Instead, she offered a grin and a casual, "Zh've," to a few of the people she met along the way, who replied in kind for seeing her and Tom almost daily by then. Several blocks and an underpass later, the alley opened to the oblong lot where they'd been putting the parts brought from Dviglar until they could build a better place to work.
Arriving, she grinned to see several of the denizens of that neighborhood had come out, as they often did, to peer about the scraps, easing their very curious children back lest they "injure" the pieces. It was both quaint and sad, B'Elanna thought.
"Further harm to these is impossible," B'Elanna told them lightly in their tongue as she swerved around one piece, then another chunk, and then returned more greetings as she made her way through another section. She had come to know many people in the Techam district personally by then.
She and Tom had looked through a few of the more beat-up buildings there to see about reinforcing them; consequently, they had been invited into the squalor that was the residents' living conditions. It made them know all over again how much better she and Tom had it. Several families lived in one-floor flats, crunched together with unstable plaster walls between them, if that. In many of these places, the walls had jagged blast holes from "Unar inspections." Others lived within moldy caverns of plaster and whitebrick, rooms leftover from past years' rains dripping through cracked roofs. The occupants had only pallets to sleep on that they rolled up in the day, their "kitchens" consisting of bowls stacked on short tables and supplies of water. Though they did make every attempt at keeping the spaces clean and livable, it was little wonder they meandered around outside all day and took their meals in public gatherings.
Crossing to the back of the lot, she left them to continue staring at the piles and turned her attention to Dalra, who rested on a wall at the end of the row. She gave him a little smile and nod as she approached. "Where's the bench we brought back?"
Though Dalra had likewise been working through the day--and that after a shift on the grain trailer--he pushed himself up without complaint and hopped down to his sandaled feet. "Ah, Be'i, my sorrow that I have forgotten. I shall bring it."
She shook her head. "That's okay, Dalra. You don't have to do anything. I am able to carry it, and I'm feeling--"
"Be'i, let one be good to another," he scolded affectionately. "My Miztri shall not arrive for another quarter and it is not for you to take such burdens onto your shoulder--even as you believe you have the strength for that. Life is not in your own universe; rather it lies in the company of ones who care for you."
"Where I come from, everyone pulls their own weight, does their own work and when it's needed. I'm used to that and you know it."
"You are not there and your labor has been well served--too well served, Bakali would believe. Yet your doings at Dviglar shall not be broadcast by me, should you earn no further mention." He patted her arm with his hand. "Allow us the joy of assistance, good lady. You must learn to allow others to give without assuming it is for your failure."
She let out her breath. Arguing with them--especially Dalra--was pointless, even while she hated that she wasn't being permitted much physical work and hated even more the lectures. Still, she did know what she'd feel like if she did overdo it. Stubborn as she might have been, her memory certainly hadn't been imploded by Hychar. "Fine. Thank you."
A simple nod was his only reply, and he moved to find the object in question.
Despite her giving in, she still tensed to grab a side as Dalra lifted the short, padded bench onto his robed shoulder. Dalra might have survived Uillar for over a decade, but with his angular features, prematurely aged by the sun, poor diet and hard labor, he didn't look like he needed anything else to tire him. Nevertheless, she kept her mouth shut, crossed her arms and followed him back through the alley, watching him shift the bench in his arms so not to scrape it on the stone walls. Crossing the square in the same fashion, she moved ahead and rapped lightly on Cali's open door before walking in.
A minute later, little Haviki was bouncing on her knees on the generous bench as Cali breathed her humble thanks. With her lover sold to service for another revolution, she had come to enjoy sitting in the window of her tiny, one-room flat, waiting through her days when she was not working in the clinic. Her long, thin fingers descending from her temples, she covered her smile with them, shaking her head at her daughter. "It is too fine a piece for this house," she breathed and turned a shining smile up to her neighbors. "And yet my spirit is filled with gratitude, with much joy, for this gift, dear friends."
"Fits perfectly," Tom grinned, putting his hand on B'Elanna's shoulder as they watched Cali pull up her sewing and lower herself onto the short plush seat, softly telling Haviki not to ruin the cushion when it was new as she tucked her small, sandaled feet under a hip. "Not bad at all."
"Looks good," B'Elanna agreed, enjoying both the view and the distraction Tom was yet again providing. She felt the warmth of his hand radiate deep into her. She drew a smooth breath, taking in that sensation.
As if he'd sensed her reaction, his hand slid down, a little unsure of where to go. In the corner of her eye, she saw his head dip slightly. She thought suddenly that maybe she should lean closer, to let him know she didn't mind it, that she liked feeling his hand there.
But then it fell away, and Tom moved up to ask Cali if there were anything else she'd like them to look for, venturing for something else they might need.
"Maybe some better storage spaces?" B'Elanna suggested. Cali--of course--was sweet about it, bowing her head and shaking both her hands in a weak protest, but B'Elanna was already measuring the beaten up shelves with her eyes, moving around Tom to get a better view. Then she stared back to him, her chin rising with her query. "The Nara'ill's mess had some decent shelves, right?" she said, matter-of-fact and holding his attention without a blink, as if to insure he wouldn't break away that time. "Very nice ones."
Tom was the one to blink at that, taken by the look she'd thrown at him without preamble. "Yeah. I remember them, too."
"Good. We'll get them when we go back."
"Sure, B'Elanna," he said, not yet recovered even after she turned away. He couldn't recall ever being appraised like that. For a moment, he tried to figure out what in the world brought it on, but put it aside to go thank Dalra, whom he heard talking outside. He couldn't divorce himself from the impression, though. That was quite a look.
They set themselves back to the lot for a last, brief visit after leaving Cali to her sewing and checking in with Bakali. In an hour, Tom would go with the other men to help collect food, prepare and cook it into whatever Bala wanted for the night. The elders had invited some people for the evening, they learned, including the regents, whom their other guests wished to personally meet, Cali and Haviki, and Dalra and Miztri. So, they would be bringing back more food than usual with their combined allotments and spending more time preparing it. Meanwhile, B'Elanna was asked to return early as well to help the other women set up the room--a duty B'Elanna claimed she didn't really enjoy but didn't complain about anymore.
"Tomorrow's a tsaborr," Tom said casually as they moved through the alley, slowing their pace to a stroll to enjoy the cool breeze pouring through and tossing his loose clothes, drying him off. Bowing to a few of the people they passed, he said more softly, "Since we're not really into the meditative thing, you want to go down to Dviglar and hunt around some more?"
B'Elanna lit up with the thought, chewed a lip in anticipation as she mentally jotted down the day. "We won't be able to bring much back without the help. --But yes, I think there's more we can do down there," she turned a smile up to him, "like check out those ships' capabilities?"
Tom snorted, turning a look of mock correction down to her. "Now you know we're not supposed be fixing up hopeless ventures."
Her posture and expression was as crisp as her tone. "We're not fixing, we're just looking."
His hand found her waist as they rounded the corner. "Nothing wrong with a little research," he replied.
"Glad to hear we're in agreement," she said, leaning into him that time while she had the chance, then straightening with a satisfied smile when his arm moved completely around her.
If something was going to happen, she decided, it would probably be a good idea to let him know it, too. God knows I have the time, she grinned to herself as they entered the lot, meeting every eye that found them upon entry, just in case they hadn't figured it out, either.
In another breath, she wondered what in the world had possessed her.
He has.
Tom squinted against the dim light he'd activated as he rolled away from B'Elanna's warm body, tucking the blanket in behind her when she stirred in protest. As she often did, she settled, absently grabbing a section of the cover and pulling it around herself as though it were his arm. Tom watched her and sighed.
As he leaned over to pour himself some water, wet a small cloth while he was at it, he thought, as he'd been thinking for a few months by then, that maybe it would just take one of them making a move.
Tom could tell B'Elanna had begun to change her way about him--or at least it seemed so. She was responding to him--never in words, but in her gestures and her tone. Even in her "busy" mood, when they were working all day and night on rebuilding or remaking one piece of machinery or another, and even during their meals or errands around the city, she seemed to encourage his proximity, return his glances with one of her own, which could be called...possessive.
No, it was possessive--and he liked it.
In his turn, his glances and touches had become familiar, casually suggestive, even teasing. He knew he couldn't help it or his imagining all the things he'd been wanting to do to that smart and lovely chief but just couldn't bring himself to.
He chuckled quietly to himself. There they were, two adults sleeping together for nearly a year and both of them were as shy as pre-teens. Countless mornings, she'd lain still and said nothing but a quiet, plain "good morning" when they awoke together, when he knew she could feel him hard as a rock against her. A few times, he could have sworn she'd moved into it, too. --But just in case it was accidental, he found himself catapulting out of the bunk with his cheeks on fire, and he'd wonder over and over why he kept doing that.
He wondered if they hadn't been stranded out there, if he'd ever have come to feel about her the way he had. They'd worked together before, come to get along pretty well for two people naturally prone to verbal whiplash. Would it have been more--or, more, would she have welcomed it? Probably not, he thought with a familiar stab of regret. Not the way he had been then, not with their lives as they had been.
Even so, that didn't really matter, since they were there together, he wasn't that same man, they did accept their predicament and she was his closest friend, his companion...and he really did think she was...
He knew he wasn't feeling what he was just for loneliness' sake. He knew without a doubt after his first look around Azlre. There was a good amount of attractive Desalian women there--underneath the dirt and hollow cheeks, at least. Maybe it was because, aside from always having liked her, B'Elanna knew him better than any of them would--and accepted him? It sure wasn't her natural trait, as it was with others on Cezia. That made him appreciate it even more. Maybe it was because he'd come to understand her pretty well, too? Because as possessive as she was becoming, he'd been as watchful for her, been as attentive to her as she would allow?
Tom swallowed his glass of water in a few gulps, washed his face with the rag, wondering how long he'd wake up needing to get away from her for a while, get his brain and his body in control again. Looking back to the small, unmoving form in the knotted blanket, he had a feeling he'd be the only one to know how long that would last.
Returning to the bed, he pulled the blanket aside and carefully lowered himself onto the mattress. She rolled onto her back, otherwise undisturbed, her small hand tucked up beside her ear. Unlike their first couple months there, B'Elanna had taken again to that deep, angelic sleep he so envied.
He touched her hair, ran a finger through a dark lock. It was dry but thick and sat nicely on her slim, untanned shoulders. She'd probably cut it soon. She never liked it to grow too long--and it grew quickly.
Tom grinned. It was a fight with Sashana'i he wouldn't want to miss.
Carefully, he touched her cheek, not knowing why he was doing what he was. If in the slightest negative mood, B'Elanna would take every bit of it the wrong way. He continued despite it, tracing the line of her face to her jaw, where he lifted another errant curl of hair.
Even in her sleep, B'Elanna could feel some sort of presence by her, feel a light breeze, it seemed, a slight tickling on her skin. She sighed a breath, felt the presence leave. She almost woke up. Taking another breath, she noted the scent and smiled slightly, relaxing. She faded off again.
Tom's lips turned up to see her grin like that, felt his heart beating a step faster. Again, he knew he shouldn't, wondered why he'd decided to torture himself all the sudden, but she was, to him, so...
Leaning down, very carefully, he pressed his lips to her cheek, softly enough she might not have felt it had she been awake. Closer, and then he kissed the corner of her full mouth, which, to his initial surprise, parted at the contact.
"Tom," she breathed, leaning slightly into him.
He backed away, not knowing if she was really asleep, much as it was frighteningly pleasing--not to mention exciting as hell--to hear her say his name like that. He settled on touching her cheek again, stroking it warmly, watching almost in fascination as her mouth moved, as she breathed deeply, as her eyes moved just slightly behind her lids. Even the most mundane detail he committed to memory just then.
"Look what you've done to me, B'Elanna," he heard himself whisper from deep in his throat. "In this place, of all things to happen to me..." He could suddenly feel his body and heart waging war with his mind and coming to a stalemate only to watch her like that and wonder...
Her eyelids fluttered, opened partly to squint against the newfound light. Seeing Tom above her, the clear shadows of his face outlining his very serious expression, she felt her warmth stir. More was the feeling, still present, where he'd touched her lips--or had he kissed her?
She didn't speak, but waited, wondering, steadily watching him. He looked as though he would speak again, but closed his mouth into a small, warm grin. Her lips briefly turned up, too; then below, her fingers caressed the blanket against her chest, pushing it down a little. Her stare did not waver.
That ceased the conflict in Tom, who leaned down and pressed his mouth to the place he had before, lingering when he felt her lips open. He parted only enough that she could turn her face to him. She drew a deep breath of relief as he kissed her again, pulling her lip slightly into his own. Once more, and he tasted it, tenderly, sighing.
B'Elanna's eyes opened and closed again as she felt every nerve in her body awaken to him. Moving a hand to his side, running it along his length to his chest, she could feel him tremble in their kiss. "Tom," she breathed again.
He reached down and found her other hand, taking it gently into his long, slim fingers. Reverently, he spread her fingers up with a thumb, kissed her palm. She moved it to his cheek as he found her eyes, slightly glazed and unmoving.
"We work together," he said, his throat caught on his sentiment, "every day, B'Elanna--live together. We sleep together, and I wonder how the hell I've resisted you this long. Maybe because I didn't know if...if you'd want me to or not...then."
"We've been busy and I've been sick," she whispered, almost dazed with the reality that he was actually doing it, that she was hearing that admission--finally. She caressed his lightly whiskered jaw, let her hand slide to his shoulder. "I'm not sick anymore, Tom. I do want you."
His hand returned to her cheek, tracing upwards to her temple as he shifted against her, leaning closer as he directed his touches around her face. He kissed her cheekbone, just under her eye, and then just above it. When he moved higher still, she almost turned away, but he gently held her still.
He pressed his mouth upon her brow ridge, breathed, "Let me."
She didn't want to, but shuddered as his mouth pressed against what was left of her forehead, warming each part he made contact with. The heat remained, and was oddly comforting. Maybe it was his acceptance of it--of both her heritage and the damage done to it? Or maybe it was the attention, the feeling of his warm mouth on that sensitive skin, or how long it'd been for them both.
"Tom, please..." She moved her head, both deflecting and encouraging.
He nuzzled the crown of her hair as he tasted her skin, moved down to her temple, down to her jaw, before slipping back to her mouth again. He felt his whole body pulse at her response, wanting her thrice as much as he had before he'd even begun, not knowing how to contain the joy he felt that she was there, accepting him, letting him. He wanted suddenly to touch every part of her, learn every curve and taste and sound she could make...
She pulled him closer, tasting him fully as he maneuvered her towards him on the small bunk. His hand slid up again, his thumb reaching to trace her breast through the thin, soft cloth gown.
She moaned aloud, grasping at his lean back as her leg moved over his. The feeling of his erection against her alone drew a low purr of anticipation from her. She'd felt it so many times pressed up against her as they woke, but she knew it wasn't for her, just a natural thing he was quick to pull away once he awoke.
That time, then, it was for her, his arousal, his kisses and touches...finally. Finally, in that lonely, difficult, alien place, her friend, Tom, her companion, did what she'd been only working up the nerve to do.
Yet now they were, kissing and tasting, touching each other, half for love and half in relief, then yet needier as their warmth met and grew. She rocked up against him and he rewarded her with his full attention to her mouth, pressing deeply as one hand held her hair; the other caressed her gown over her upward bent leg. She shuddered at the desire flaring in her, pulled him tightly against her. Then, her head bent back as he pulled gently at her hair, seeking her neck then nibbling it.
"Tom," she growled. "I need you."
"I know," he breathed and opened his mouth upon the strong muscle of her shoulder, grazing her with his teeth. He slid her gown over her hip, smoothing around the thin bone to her center. Brushing from behind the moist area there, he thanked whatever gods there were that she was letting him do it. Her response was to grind against him again. He groaned aloud and eased his touches deeper into her.
Her fingers threaded through his hair, holding them steady as her rocking and his explorations left them both gasping and seeking more, driving their bodies impossibly together.
Finally, Tom sat them up, discarding their blanket as he pulled her other leg around so she could straddle his thighs. Finding the hiked up hem of her gown, he pulled it up and off her thin arms then whisked his shirt away as well. They stared at each other for a moment, taking in each other's wiry yet strong bodies, catching their breath in the dim light. Her small, warm fingers drifted down his ribs to the knotted scar that ran across his midsection. Catching her wide, wondering eyes, his lips turned up. Her touches were tender, her eyes understanding as her fingers finally dropped away to caress his hip. Her other hand pressed against his chest, moving softly over the fair hair and lean muscles there. She smiled. He was beautiful.
Reaching out to her, he brushed his fingertips over her breasts, holding her gaze as she shivered. She moved herself instinctively against him, stroking both herself and his arousal, earning his throaty moan. Her nipples hardened as he teased them and gently pulled her closer to him so to capture her mouth again. The kiss was deep, searching, moving as their fingers traced each other's bodies, memorizing, increasing intent with every turn and gesture. Slipping a hand around her soft, bare back, his other hand drifted down to stroke her. Gasping loudly against his lips and nearly biting his tongue when she crushed against him again, her hands flew to his waist, seeking out the ties to the loose pajama-like pants he wore. She nearly ripped them once her fingers got what they wanted.
"Get these things off," she said breathlessly when she'd loosened the waist as much as she could and grasped him firmly, feeling his life pulse there. "No more waiting, Tom."
He groaned at her outspoken want--equal to his but for the fact he couldn't put together an intelligent word at that point. Instead, he eased her back, his stare not breaking an instant from her as he removed the garment and tossed it away from the bunk. That done, he moved his hands to her open thighs, sat on his knees while he stroked her soft skin, then found one of her nipples with his lips and tongue.
B'Elanna grabbed his head in both her hands in surprise. By then, she could feel her heart hammering, her legs trembling, as he caressed between her thighs, drifting his freshly trimmed nails around to trace her flexing buttocks and between her thighs again. She moaned, and might have turned them around and taken care of it herself if she wasn't savoring the treatment he was giving her. It was unlike anything she had had before...like he was doing the savoring of her.
When she accepted his advance only minutes--How many?--before, she'd expected them to have sex, relieve the tension that had been growing between them since they'd gotten to Cezia. They'd been getting steadily closer since they'd gradually recovered from their injuries and the rest of Uillar, found a purpose and some work, adjusting to that dusty, crowded city, starting thinking in other directions. She knew someday it would come down to them making love. But not...
B'Elanna almost fell back against the plaster wall. His fingers had taken on a will of their own between her as his lips tightened, his tongue quickened. She held on, running her nails down his back, arching into him only to feel him tug at her breast, humming contentedly.
"Ohhh...Tom...wha--"
"I've waited a while for this," he whispered, brushing his lips, his cheek, his tongue and teeth again over her painfully erect flesh. "All these months...everything. I want more...than just to be with you. I want you."
She did not mistake his tone, sifted her fingers through his soft, wavy hair. "You do have me." For that, she saw him grin against her. She smiled, too, tenderly. "You do, Tom."
Taking her hip in a hand, he guided her down, just enough that she could place her hands on his cheeks and lower herself to his waiting mouth.
His fingers became busier. In her own turn, she reached down and found his penis, which thrummed at her first touch, surged when she grasped it. Devouring his mouth, she sucked his hard gasp as she felt herself begin to twinge and shudder with the orgasm his hand was expertly teasing along. She even felt her head begin to hurt and didn't care, totally ignored it for the more powerful feelings overtaking it, building and tensing and building again...
Her hand clutched his side as it hit her, washing through her core and outwards. Tom groaned only to see and feel it overcome her, her head fall back while her body bucked and her nails dug into his ribs.
Just as she began to ebb, he removed his hand and guided himself into her. He felt tears in his eyes as he pulled her down, released a slow, pining moan as he filled her completely. Her cry echoed in his ears as she grabbed him close to her. Her parted lips crushed against his collarbone, cringing in either pain or pleasure, or both. For a moment, he felt dizzy with the feeling, the relief. His breath was coming in labored gasps, and he could feel and smell and taste nothing but her. It was unreal and yet incredibly real, that completion.
Her legs clamped him on either side. She ground herself against him, rubbing away the last of her previous orgasm while inspiring them anew. Then she felt his hands clutch her hips. Smiling with that promise, she crushed her breasts against him, wrapped her arms around his shoulders as he guided her up, just enough. Directing her hips to grind him, they fell naturally into a slow, undulating rhythm. B'Elanna almost laughed aloud at the delicious friction inside and outside of herself. She'd never felt so much--and so much less since they'd found themselves in that region. Arching hard against him as Tom began to strengthen his momentum, she wove her fingers into his hair to hold on to the back of his neck.
Then she caught his eyes.
Her parted lips were slightly upturned as she breathed in gasps and half-voiced moans. Her dark gaze was misted, blinking slowly. Her head rocked, her mouth trembled with each breath. If he hadn't recently taken care of his need, Tom might have lost it, might have come right then for the pleasure they were giving each other, finally allowing themselves in that place where they'd known so much pain.
She no longer needed direction, but rocked her hips into his own, drawing him out before taking him in again, hearing her own moans mixing with his and growing into growls and pleas. He filled her again, whispering hoarsely into her skin words she barely heard, but felt. Her head fell against his collar, her fingers pressing into his flexing shoulders, breathing and tasting his scent, nibbling his skin blindly as the pressure built between them. She heard herself whispering, "Tom, I'm..." She sucked a shaking breath, her head tilting up. She tasted the underside of his jaw as his pelvis crushed against hers, rocking there, tightening the knots inside her, tensing her entire body. "Oh God, I'm almost there...I'm almost...ohh..."
"Let me have you," he said through his clenched teeth. He could feel her muscles quivering, still holding on. He ground against her, almost crying for it. He wanted to take her over more than anything he thought he ever wanted at that moment. "Let yourself go... Let me take you..."
"I am...God, I am," she wept, feeling herself teeter at that edge with every stroke, nearly insane for his keeping her there so long, her legs shaking, her skin slick from their heat. "Harder! Please, Tom...please, harder, take me over...make me--Ahh!"
Crushing her hips in his hands, he shifted them backwards, pushing her up against the wall. There, he thrust into her with all he had left, driving a keening cry from her throat. Her legs clutched around him, her feet braced on his waist. Her nails dug into him, holding on as he bucked into her small body. His head dropped, gape-mouthed as he dragged each breath against her cheek, moaned aloud...
"Let me have you, oh God, B'Elanna, I can't hold on--"
"You have me... Oh god--"
"I'm--"
"Just... Ah!"
B'Elanna tensed and convulsively grasped at him as her head fell back against the wall, rubbing against it as he pushed even further. She cried aloud, tightening reflexively around his surging erection. Finally, she felt him let go, felt his release mix with hers as he groaned, heaving, shuddering and pulling her tightly against him. Of their own will, his hips pumped against her a few more times, but then he and B'Elanna slid down the wall, whimpering incoherently, clutching to each other in shock.
Tom felt his tears, but he couldn't think but to taste her wet skin as he gulped for his breath in sore lungs and willfully ignored the steady ache in his side. He kissed her blindly, ran his palms and fingers over her trembling muscles, whispering to her as her own murmurs and relieved kisses met the hollow of his throat, his collar and shoulder. He felt himself gradually soften within her still quaking muscles, and he pulled himself slowly away from her, silencing her quiet moan with his lips and then, "Lie down with me, B'Elanna," in a hoarse breath.
She nodded. He carried her back down to their blankets, still kissing her as he pulled their cover over them. At last, he released his breath. In his embrace again, she closed her eyes, nestled in his neck as he rubbed his cheek upon her crown and entwined their legs. Her temples thrummed as her own euphoria drifted down into a pleasant sleepiness. Again, she didn't mind the pain in it, and she definitely didn't mind her strained legs or the warm, sated throbbing between them, his steadily beating heart echoing in her ear. There was nothing but that, nothing but them, just then. The rest, for the moment, was very far away.
They had each other, and for the first time, it was more than just enough.
"What in the world have you done to me?" she whispered after several minutes, tracing his back with her soft fingers.
"I loved you," was his reply, breathed upon her temple. "Still do, and will." His thumb stroked into the moist curls above her ear. "I have a long while, B'Elanna."
If she'd ever doubted that Tom had already captured her heart, B'Elanna was certain he'd won it outright with that tender admission.
"I love you, too," she whispered, her own words rising from the very place he'd touched her.
Tom stumbled through the cabinet, grabbing a tray and the cups and barely thinking about what he was doing. Twice he grabbed the lichida leaves instead of the pahjar, and he had to turn back and go through the shelves of bagged herbs again after belatedly reading the characters written on the labels.
"This dragging and clinking," Bala commented, tying his robe high on his thin waist as he came through his bedroom doors.
Tom sighed, grinned. "Zharab llar. --Hope I didn't wake you up."
"I have risen with the sun, as always, Child," Bala told him, furrowing his heavily wrinkled brow almost as soon as Tom spoke, taken by what he thought he detected. He shook the thought aside for the moment, however, so to prepare his own tray. Joining Tom by the mantel, Bala saw that the water had already been set to heat, and he found himself impressed at how adept the younger man had become at the morning duty. Tom had stocked the fire and set the sustaining plates back correctly, a tactic of conservation that took some practice.
Pleased as he was to see Tom adjusting, however, he couldn't ignore his observation, now confirmed--nor resist comment. He took another breath and pursed his mouth.
"Toma," he stated, "you bear the scent of your lady on your lips."
Tom nearly dropped the tray, cups and all. He felt a mortal blush drown his face.
Bala suppressed his grin to see that. "You have spent this past moon copulating with your good lady Be'i?"
"Uh, well--"
"Have you?"
Tom cleared his throat. Never that shy about sex since he was a teenager, he suddenly felt like an adolescent again to be confronted by Desalian frankness about it. "Well...yeah. I have."
"Good," Bala returned with a curt nod. "When your morning tea has been taken, you should make love to her yet again. In first joinings, there is much release yet less relishing--though it pleases to know you have already practiced variations."
"Huh?"
"I would believe you should take more pleasure, discover each other's preferences. Having grown to know you both, it should be expected you would both enjoy a multitude of desires and arousals, methods." He nodded again, that time to himself. "Our friends shall be informed to leave you undisturbed this sun so that you may experience each other more thoroughly. Food shall be left for you, as to partake her passion's food should yet leave you both hungrier for exertions following."
Tom might well have been discussing the same with his father, Captain Janeway, Dr. Grisham and his Grandmother Helen all in the same briefing room. He found himself unusually speechless before the plain old man, who crouched in his dressing robe and tapped at the kettle as if he'd been discussing weaving joth fur.
"We have been anxious for you and Be'i to embrace this part of your natures. You have shown great patience. Yet now, you must reassure yourself of this, fill yourself with her taste and pay worship to her body so to remember it completely--as should she with you. At present, your other matters shall remain."
"Uh, well, we thought we'd start working on the new replicator casings we've been building."
Bala squinched up his nose. "There is much strangeness in your sort. The casings may wait another sun should your lady bear your pleasure again. It is shocking to me that you have brought yourself here, as you may yet taste her far more than I detect her womanly scent with this elder's nostrils." He sighed quietly, turned the kettle on the plates. "In the quarter, I shall leave food on your top step. Take your tea, yet remain with your lover, Toma. It is natural you should wish to be inside her again, ka?"
Tom licked his lips, popped them as he desperately found something else to look at. "I'll ask her what she wants to do."
Satisfied that he had again been a good guide for the young man--and barely hiding the curl stuck to the corner of his lips--Bala bent to pour the tea for Tom's service.
She was asleep again when Tom, still feeling a crawling sensation inside him, carried the tray across and set it on the bench. Despite the cultural naturalness of it, and as much as he might have agreed with Bala, discussing sex with a man he considered a long lost grandfather wasn't anything less than awkward.
At least he didn't go into the finer points of Sa'alli and Bihla doing it on the beach, he thought, not discounting the possibility.
His unease easily faded, however, when he dropped his robe to the floor and crawled back into the bed with B'Elanna, warmed as his skin slid against hers once again. He felt a deep smile well within him as she turned and took him into her embrace, snuggling her sleep tangled head into his chest like a little bear--even growling like one. His hands on her back, he kneaded her smooth muscles in big, slow circles.
"How early is it?" she both breathed and moaned--an intoxicating sound, Tom decided.
"About carash past sunrise," he told her quietly. He felt her grin against his skin. "Want some tea?"
"In a bit," she said. Looking up to him, her smile grew. "Good morning."
Leaning down, turning her onto her back, he brushed his lips against hers. "Sleep well?"
She blinked slowly. "You could say that."
"Your head okay?"
She nodded. "The usual. Nothing I can't handle." She laughed softly when his hand immediately slid up to rub her neck, loosening it. "You sleep all right?"
"Better than I remember sleeping in longer than you'd think." He continued to rub at her neck until she rolled her head around, gave a nod. Reaching down and taking her hand, he pressed a kiss to it, smelling her deeply. He then regarded her fingers against his own. "How did you ever manage such tiny hands?" he whispered, almost in awe.
B'Elanna breathed deeply when he kissed her hand again, watched as his lips gradually found the soft of her wrist, still holding her fingers. I wonder if he has any idea what that can do to a Klingon woman--or if he read that somewhere, she thought, her blood thrumming as he continued to lave the tender spot. Well, of course, he does seem pretty...instinctive, too... "Aren't we expected at breakfast, Tom?" she whispered. "We'll never get there if you keep doing that, you know."
Tom's mouth turned wryly to the side. His stomach wasn't the only thing to shrink a little at the reminder. "Bala is a very wise man, you know," he said, forcing a shrug from his shoulder as he looked down to her. "He said we should stay here, not worry about work, just enjoy ourselves today."
Though the thought that their hosts had been listening--she knew Tom wouldn't have told him, so they must have heard them--was a bit embarrassing, she accepted it with a sigh and a shake of her head. She recovered when she looked up at him again, however. He did, after all, feel very nice, soft and naked and lying halfway on top of her equally nude body; his sleepy eyes and wandering hands were doing quite a bit for her, too.
A day in bed was sounding less and less boring as her mind played with that.
"I see," she said softly, stroking the back of his knee with the ball of her foot. "So, shall we obey our elders, my good man?"
His brow rose. That reply was a pleasant surprise. "Only should you prefer it, good lady," he replied in Desalian, kissing her wrist again, sucking at the fair skin a bit to savor it.
Closing her fingers over both his hands then stretching them above her head languorously, her smile returned. "I might," she breathed, "should you wish it, too."
He groaned low in his throat at her chosen posture. Well, if we're going to acclimate ourselves to our many preferences... Kneeing apart her legs as he moved on top of her, giving her fingers a squeeze, bearing his weight down there, he looked her over with an appraising grin, caught her gaze again.
"Far be it from me to neglect such a sacred tradition."
"It was at the silag, offering prayers to the spirits of the Schi'achku, my bloodline, that I met my bondmate. We had brought ourselves to the north of the city from the west partitions when my mother was offered to give her skills to the upkeep of the silag, presided over by Watsha, a prichava of guarded acumen, as we might say in these times. When first I entered what he had both protected and restored, I bore but five years, too much life for my diet and a head hardly large enough to hold a crown of scarves. Yet when first those earthen eyes found me, I forgot the fine altars and halls and the prichava's regal robes and informed my parents with most devout seriousness that the little girl should give me her name.
"I bore knowledge of her lines. My family had been ministers to hers long before Unar were more than interesting pedagogical debates. As is yet the way, several took their higher place among her family as bondmates. To think I should wish the same, to give my name, my house, for hers, was pleasing though we lived in great poverty. Of course, so did we all.
"When prayers were ended that sun, I took myself to our flat, shared by my parents and I, my five uncles and their families. At midgate of Sacezia, she took herself to be as well with her parents and elders. We did this for many revolutions, with little more than social meetings as reminder of my initial statements. I yet courted her, with my eyes, with my smiles and bitten lips. She was beautiful to me and impossible to misplace in my mind. In truth, I believe I attempted to make myself less forgettable to her, as well, in gestures, manners and other outward shows of my person I never attempted elsewhere. Our families found great amusement in this, I would think.
"Yet when my age was proper for first courtship, I bore none of my own to present my claim for her. All of my blood was taken to the ancestors but the youngest for a fever that had flooded the city. I yet thought it was for her I was meant, for in years she had grown into such loveliness and cleverness, she became all the more desired by myself. How I prayed to all the spirits of my blood and memory that I should be completed by her. Her closeness became so needed by me as much as I bore so little else. To feel her spirit in mine became my most blessed desire. I felt arrogant, passionate, yet I, without regret, wished her as my own, and stared deeply into her eyes as though to bond through that alone. I saw her in my prayers, in my gathering, in my trade, in my sleep. Within my spirit, I saw her by me.
"A blessing, then: Fate answered. My call was heard and under the setting moon, we met, and again on another, and then more over the du'ave until there was not an evening we did not find one another. We spoke, we laughed and played, spoke through the moons both complimenting and challenging--found ourselves indeed meant for each other as we took our association into the sun. Then, another blessing! Again, I was accepted--now by her astute elder-parents, who brought my cousin and me into their house. Our good tola quickly set us to our present education, I in particular to spiritual training, as though I were a pre-novitiate. Blessings, indeed! --And I learned well and served him as would his son of birth. Yet how difficult to resist his grandchild in our schooling time, honoring his goodness with my spirit but a reach away! My only joy then was to learn that the challenge was hers, as well.
"When our finest elder passed, giving forth in desperation the legacy onto her, I, witness to the passing and transferal, sat on their pillows and held her trembling body against my own, brought soothing caresses to her day lit nightmares following. She spoke from the spirits in her torment to me; great humility found me in listening and in knowing that were I to bear my wish, the same torrent would follow me. Ah, little surprise our elder had taught me well, to assure our future bond.
"Yet this responsibility was not a difficult choice. When she begged my spirit, I promised it without hesitation. When the sun next rose, I brought myself to the silag where I first saw her to bequest the city's elders for her further examination. They knew of my family, my strength and dedication to her house and well being, as had been the way of the ministers in the age of the Allanois Regency. It was the way to be continued in us, as her entire being had captured mine and mine hers. Had this not been seen by them, I made it so.
"In the succeeding rallkle, our intention was publicized intended. Two more and we were bonded upon Uillar against the setting sun, never to be separate, her house my own, our lives to be lived and passed as one, in hope for Desal's future." Aratra embraced Sashana'i in an arm when she leaned up to kiss his cheek. "As is the way."
"I have to what?"
"Are you serious?"
"It is the way, and this way must be followed to attain what you wish."
B'Elanna was buried to her waist in disassembled parts. Tom was covered with perspiration for being the disassembler. Nothing was unusual about this arrangement except that both now dumbly stared at Sashana'i, who only shrugged and nodded. Miztri reactivated her laser and put it back to the juncture notch, thinking nothing was out of the ordinary. Dalra hadn't stopped in the first place. Aratra hopped up onto a wall of discards, chuckling to himself at their reactions.
"It is the way," Sashana'i reiterated.
"By ancient tradition," Aratra finally explained, "all requests of your sort--demands, complaints and suggestions, as well--are in public fashion put forth. Your break from Dalra's care and adoption into the Allanois house was made through my own call for hearing, at Uillar. This way is your only acceptable method."
Tom grimaced, squinting at him. "You just couldn't wait to tell us that."
"Your home remains among us and you require a favor of our citizens," Aratra smiled. "The request must be made properly."
They couldn't argue with that. Cezia being their adopted home, the Desalians now their adopted people, it was about time they started accepting more of those traditions they'd previously been able to bend--or avoid altogether. Sighing to each other, they shrugged then nodded.
Some time later and like grudging lambs for the sacrifice, Tom and B'Elanna stepped into the square of Azlre and moved through the usual denizens milling about in their usual way.
"Who here would want to, anyway?" B'Elanna hedged. "They've known about the lot for ages and never said anything about it. Maybe this is a bad idea."
Tom forced his posture straight and took B'Elanna's hand. "Guess we'll have to find out. We need help, B'Elanna. Even you said it--more than once. We've got a whole lot of junk, no place else to put it and a lot of close work that neither of us can do right now. Gihetra, Bolmra, Latsari and the others who want to help are already committed to day labor for another season. We have to at least ask."
She growled. "But what if no one says anything?"
"Then I guess we're going to feel really stupid."
"Oh, well that helps," she returned, rolling her eyes. "I'm serious. What am I going to say?"
"I'll be there, too, Chief."
"Damn right, you will."
Just off the center of the square was a familiar sight they'd never paid much attention to before that day, an oblong dais, fashioned ages ago with white and grey carved stones and about two and a half meters high. One side hosted a wide flight of steps that went up to the flagstoned platform. It was still solid, despite the cracks in the binding cement and an old blast hole in the opposite corner, but to their memory, few people ever went up there. They personally understood why that could be.
They did need the extra hands on a daily basis, though, which seemed like it should be an easy enough thing to find, considering the usual opportunities open to Desalians and the lack of occupation among them otherwise. With that in mind, and lifting the side of her cloak as she slowly but surely approached the steps, she outstretched her free hand to let Tom help her up then slowed in mid-step as he passed her.
Suddenly and much to her surprise, she recalled the first day she stepped into Voyager's engineering as the chief of that department, freshly promoted and nervous as hell--even if she wasn't about to show or admit it. She wasn't even used to that uniform yet and Chakotay was there to greet her, so proud, even vindicated, to show her "her staff." Taking a deep, unseen breath, she thrust herself into the engine room, her head held high and ready for the challenges bound to happen...
How long ago was that? she wondered, briefly calculating a year on Voyager, about a half year on Uillar, around three quarters of a year on Cezia, maybe a little more... Another life ago, she answered herself, knowing she'd worked the math before. She still thought about it sometimes, even while she'd accepted that they were remaining on Cezia, accepted that Voyager was long gone....
"Ready?"
B'Elanna blinked, looked up.
Her lover was gazing down to her, stroking her hand and grinning, understanding the nervous determination they shared, which could either screw it all up or make the outcome that much better. They'd both been there several times already. At the tail end of that unexpected remembrance, it seemed suddenly ironic that his smile filled her heart as it did then. Still, their months together, finally sharing more than the space and the blankets--plus having more than enough time and encouragement to do so--had given them plenty of opportunity to improve upon their knowledge.
Smiling inwardly and then to him, B'Elanna took the final step up, replaying her friends' directions over n her mind. She knew damn well she couldn't treat those pure-spirited people like Starfleet officers--and certainly not like Maquis. But she and Tom were up there and people were slowing as they noticed. They couldn't get down now.
Tom, meanwhile, was thinking quickly. Glancing down to B'Elanna's attempt to hide her nervousness with a proudly raised chin, he stuffed his own queasiness and took a step forward, his hand still clasped to hers. Oh well, here it goes...
"Zha'ibrille!" he announced, consciously making himself pronounce it correctly, not be lazy with the trilling. He knew too well by then that even minor errors of the tongue in Desal could be cause for downright humiliation--or at least a good deal of laughter that would persist in many a fireside tale. With that in mind, he decided not to submit to either possibility--not there. "Please forgive us. We are still poor speakers of Desal, so please be patient with our translators today. This is all new to us and... My companion, B'Elan...Be'i and I need to make a request of anyone who is willing." Aside, he pressed, "My good lady Be'i might join me now?"
"Sorry," she said quickly, licked her lips to speak to the smiling, curious people who had gathered and hushed their children to give their full and loyal attention. At that point, B'Elanna would rather have found a nice corner to throw up in. "Well, as you probably already know, we've been working on the recovered parts from Dviglar and..." Humble. Sashana'i said be humble... "We require assistance, from any who are willing to learn and to help. I suppose what we're asking for--requiring--are trainees."
"Apprentices," Tom prompted.
"Apprentices," B'Elanna said aloud then looked up to Tom. "I'm no teacher."
"We're both going to have to be, considering what we've got to work with."
Closing her eyes for a moment, B'Elanna turned back to the onlookers, still gathering, peering up to them through their headscarves and hoods. They seemed glad for the mere diversion. Their curious expressions helped a little, though, B'Elanna had to admit to herself. Their disinterest would have made her angry for bothering. "We're willing to teach anyone who is willing to help us how to make and maintain the replicators, sanitation systems and power conduits we're designing or repairing now--plus whatever else we need to build. There's a lot we need to do and six people just won't do it."
"I beg a question," said one man, who instantly got B'Elanna's stare. "What is the sale for our labor?"
"Ka," said a woman. "And for what period are we sold into a venture?"
B'Elanna stared at them. "This isn't service," she told them flatly, forgotten of her humility at the very idea of her being some sort of...employer, "this is school--like your ancient novitiate, but a lot more basic. It's like...technical training--apprenticing."
"In other words," Tom told them, finally getting his wits about him, thinking up more even as he spoke, "we have only our knowledge, our experience, to use here in Azlre,, and now to give to you, which you can pass on, too. In the end, if we're lucky and find the energy supply we're still working on, you'll all gain reliable power, safer food and supplies you won't have to bribe for, a lot of the medicines our elder Bakali misses and plentiful water for washing and drinking. Had we any bread, we'd give it for payment. But that is what we're working for--for all of us and for the children here, who have nothing but what their elders can give them. What we need, as Be'i has already said, is apprentices to learn our trade and help bring about the...blessings we want to build, for Cezia's future."
B'Elanna had to push down the smile that might have preceded a laugh in any other situation. "Where'd you get that, Tom?" she asked under her breath.
"Helps to have a long-winded Admiral for a father sometimes," he grinned. "I didn't ignore him all the time, you know."
The woman who queried before was nodding slowly as she took in the artificially translated words and reorganized them to herself. "Ahh, students," she said. "It is understood, my friends." Then she turned to explain it to the others.
From what Tom and B'Elanna could understand of the more complex Desalian tongue, her recounts of their request made sense enough, though they both noticed Sashana'i and Aratra snickering at the side as they listened along.
Not two hours later, Tom and B'Elanna were buried again in their original work, having said good afternoon to their still amused friends and now wondered to each other exactly they'd gotten themselves into that time.
They found out.
A young man, hardly sixteen, stood staring placidly down at them--and for some time without moving until they noticed him there. When they did, they looked beyond him to see two girls--likely sisters by their dress and appearance, maybe a year or two younger than the first. Several other boys and girls were looking around at the scraps, asking each other curiously what they might do with such items. All of them were scraggly, as though only their hair and scarves had been tended. A few of them bore sunken cheeks and eyes for lack of food. Eventually, all of them turned expectantly to her and Tom.
B'Elanna felt her temples begin to pound. It had already been a long day.
Like an angel, Cali skipped into the lot, little Haviki's hand in hers. "Toma, Be'i, words of your duty have reached me. I shall endeavor to assist with these children."
B'Elanna let out her breath, moving to bring the lady closer to her and Tom as she gestured for the others to wait with a palm and a frown. "Cali, why are all these kids here?" she whispered.
The lady blinked at the question, but was otherwise unfazed. "You did request, Be'i, for students, ka? As for the novitiate. Our elders have taught us that children guided by their placement for the novitiate must enter a school of preparation at sixteen years."
B'Elanna sighed a tight breath, shook her head. "Damnit."
Haviki below her giggled and tugged B'Elanna's gown skirt. "I shall be your student, too."
Though cute as ever, that was the last thing B'Elanna needed. Slumping as she felt Tom's hand rub her back, she brought her head up again. "Cali, we got ourselves into this. You've been ill, and you still have your clinic hours."
"My suns bear little occupation outside my duties there and my health is increased in the air," Cali insisted. "More, I would believe it a blessing of our ancient ways that my Haviki would be brought to awareness among a place of learning. I humbly ask I assist, good lady, good man."
They are just too nice, B'Elanna thought for the umpteenth time. "Okay. You're in." With a look up at Tom, she took a step closer to the curious teenagers. "Zha llastnya'o," she said formally, bowing slightly and brushing her temples with her fingers, and then waiting for them to return the gesture before straightening herself. "Well, first things first. What do any of you know about this technology?"
Were there a Cezian cricket, Tom would have sworn he'd heard one loud and clear. "Well, at least they don't have anything to relearn."
She turned a scowl back at him for that one. "Excuse me, Professor Paris, but you're in this, too, you know."
"Sorry, Chief," he chuckled; then he addressed the 'class.' "You've all seen a spaceship, right?"
"Ka," answered most of them, some just returning a short bow. "The transport ships," one said, "take and return laborers."
"You ever wonder how they work?" Tom asked them. "How they have enough power to break through the atmosphere and cruise through the stars?"
That time, the nods were more reverent--and Tom suddenly realized that his translation turned a bit religious for them. "The stars" was the place of their spirits' creation and return, he knew--but also knew that theology was not exactly his strength. He switched gears as smoothly as he could. "Well, we've passed through space a lot in our lifetimes and know how to live there--in ships, I mean. That means replicators and reclamators and power assemblies of all sorts. All that and more, not to mention our personal favorite: Propulsion. But we...well, we can't have that right now, so we'll teach you the rest. I'll warn you, though, it won't be easy."
"We shall endeavor to study with great diligence," said one straight-backed young woman. "It is our preparation in a trade of our choosing."
"When we were queried by our elders and parents," the young man beside her added, "your knowledge inspired us for its benefits to all Desal. It is for our future."
Despite her initial disappointment, B'Elanna felt a deep relief to hear those words. She almost didn't believe it at first, but it was undoubtedly confirmed in their bright and hopeful faces. That kind of hope was almost alien to her. Unlike how the adults seemed much of the time, those nine kids out of a city of a hundred eighty thousand wanted something different, were willing to make their future better.
She wasn't about to let that opportunity get away from her. The Desalians got it right in one respect at least: Even if it was a small blessing, it was still a blessing.
Crushing a grin that wanted to be bigger than she would show, she gave them all a nod. "Well, then, we'll get started. Though, I admit, I've never really trained anyone this fresh."
"We shall learn together, then, good lady Be'i." One rather dirty but pretty, brown-haired girl came forward and bowed deeply. By the wrap of her scarves and the nature of her bow, B'Elanna could tell her family was once a proud one. "I am called Mazji, daughter in Frohada's house. I greet you and yours in peace, Be'i, Toma. My intended, Yorlla." She gestured, and the dark-skinned young man who had spoken of the future bent deeply before his instructors. Following suit, each of the other "trainees" introduced themselves.
Tom gave them all a short bow then offered B'Elanna an encouraging grin. "What do you think we should start with?" he asked quietly.
B'Elanna shook her head even as she looked around at what they had. Sighing resolutely, she grabbed the first thing she could pick up and displayed it to the curious group with a solid stare and a firm jaw. "This is a laser drill...relatively. Let's take it apart and I'll show you how it works."
Piles of pulp paper coated the floor; all of it was marked with deep red ink. Naturally, their supply of such items had been procured by Aratra and Sashana'i, who, though faithfully amused, promised to assist when they could, help with the basics they already knew and also to begin teaching Tom and B'Elanna the intricate and mechanically untranslatable advanced Desalian dialect, for their own sakes and so they could teach their new students more efficiently.
On the bench under the window sat a tea tray and a few bread crusts, mostly neglected as the unwilling teachers began scribbling their lesson plans--as best they could, anyway. It was more like remembering on paper their own educations in physics and engineering, which would be accelerated exponentially in their students and set side-by-side with practical work so they could still get some of the physical labor done. They had become distracted from that work, however--work which in itself was a distraction from everything else in the city. They didn't mind so much neglecting the less familiar one for the while.
Having some unspent energy, as was often their case, they retired to each other for a time, pleasuring away their nerves and long day. Some time after that, they found themselves side by side, he by the wall, she on her back, stretched out without needing a cover. Nights in that attic room were still comfortably warm enough, warmer still with the rain season approaching.
Both glanced over at the work they would awaken to. Their "class" would begin a quarter before high sun and end at ninth quarter, approximately five hours later. Despite what they knew they needed to do, though, they didn't feel like sleeping just yet, nor wanted to return to their writing. Though it was nice to know they could get something written down, with cramping, ink-smudged hands they'd added "PADDs" to their list of items to build before putting it all aside for the while.
As the first moon of evening began to crawl past the building next door and throw its white shadow across the length of the small loft, Tom caressed B'Elanna's bare skin, from her womb and around her ribs, sometimes delving a little farther, casually, familiarly. She responded with a little breath, a little smile. Both their eyes became heavy with the view of their mess.
"I don't think it went all that badly," he told her when she mentioned their day again.
"I guess not," she sighed, finally pulling her eyes back to a far more pleasant sight, scars and all. "But it should take years to train them."
"Maybe not years, but I know what you mean."
"I guess I was thinking I'd get some people like Miztri, who knew at least a little about...something. Guess they're all in the black market or in an Unar prison somewhere, or in day labor like Bolmra and Latsari. Least of all, I didn't expect children to come crawling out of the woodwork."
"They're smart," Tom said, "and you're smarter." His warm hand traveled slowly over her again, and then dangerously downward. "You always had a knack of knowing what you were doing, Chief," he murmured, low and teasing.
She instinctively arched into his hand a bit, purring contentedly as her eyes narrowed possessively into his. He returned the look, along with that jaunty, seductive grin that suited him so nicely. She laughed, shaking her head at both their responses.
"If somebody told me two years ago I'd have nights like this..." she started and didn't need to complete it but with a satisfied sigh. "What you can do to me, and when you look at me like that. Sometimes it's like..." She let her breath go again. His fingers stroked her lightly, dipping in just enough to entice.
"Like?" he whispered.
A little rumble emanated from her throat, and her lips turned up wickedly. "Like I can feel your teeth and tongue all over me," she said softly, running her hand softly over the length of his arm, "under my clothes, where no one else can see."
His brow flicked upwards in regard of her frankness, that aside from the rush those words and her tone had sent though him. He had to admit, though it was sort of strange at first, that brand of openness hadn't been all that difficult to get used to--especially when it was coming from B'Elanna.
"Like this?" Bending to her neck, he raked his teeth and tongue over her pulse, which jumped at the attention.
"Mmm." Her nails stroked softly over his shoulders, driving a shiver up his long frame as he nibbled at her, still toying with her below. Opening his jaw at the soft corner of her collar, he closed his mouth again, then his teeth, pulling slightly at the muscle before increasing the pressure.
She gasped and held his head there for a moment, shuddering through the wash of arousal his attentions caused; then she turned her head to kiss his jaw. "I never thought about it so much until recently," she said against his skin. "I probably tried to avoid the idea...but I love it when you bite me like that."
He inhaled slowly, still at work on her shoulder, tasting the slight mark he left there. "That is rather Klingon of you, B'Elanna. I like it."
"You do, don't you?" she smiled, not complaining as he paused his ministrations, letting them ebb for the mean time. He liked to take his time when they weren't tired and they had the whole night to themselves. She stroked his hair, soft tufts she'd recently cut for him, felt his erection fade off slowly as her own body relaxed.
Her thoughts still turned on their mention. "It's strange," she whispered. "Being so far away from people who even know what a Klingon is, I don't think about it as much anymore, dwell on it, you know? I sometimes wonder if that's right of me or not."
"Maybe you don't have to think about it," Tom said. He had risen enough to prop his head back on his hand, his other hand warmly resting on her ribs, his thumb stroking one distractedly. "If it means anything, B'Elanna, I don't think you've changed in a lot of ways--your strength, your determination, in your clear-mindedness, your sense of honor, honesty." He nodded to her gaze. "I don't know if it's necessarily Klingon or not, but yeah, it's all there--you. Maybe it's a good thing you don't dwell on it."
"Well," she admitted, "I do sometimes, just not like I used to." She grinned ironically. "Sometimes I think I'm just going to burst. Things can be so ridiculous here. Nothing is done the way we were used to and they're peaceful to a fault. On the other hand, I've never felt so accepted--as long as I don't show my teeth around Bala, anyway."
Tom chuckled. "It is nice that way, isn't it? Having nobody know what you came from, letting them make up their own minds."
"What we are?" B'Elanna queried. "Do you really think we're the same people who landed here?"
"You have a point," he agreed. "But at the same time, we haven't forgotten it--or that they really don't know."
"True. But it does help to not have to prove it to everyone else."
"No kidding. Still have to prove it to ourselves, though."
She shrugged. "I think we've been doing okay."
"Yeah," Tom smiled, "me too." But a moment later, his smile twisted slightly then faded. "I still don't like that we can't hit the Unar where it counts, though. I keep feeling like we're letting it go by--even if they need so much here. Bala and the others are right about that much."
"Yes. Still, if I hear one more time about how retribution has to fade through the generations for a natural solution--tso'ach nibrli'o sab ralbrreda--I know I'll scream."
"The idea that they'd pass this crap on to their children..." Tom shook his head. "Every time I look at Haviki or Dygala or Brymare'i... No, we have to do something."
Thinking on that a step further, she peered askance up to him. "When I didn't know you so well, I had always thought you let everything slide off. But you really are involved here."
"Trust me, the Unar earned it," Tom told her, "and on the other side of things, so did the Desalians. Seeing how they live, then how they welcomed us when they had every reason not to, I'll never let it go. This is our home now. I want to make it better for all of us." His eyes turned down inwardly, and then found hers again. "Maybe I finally found something I really want to be loyal to, take care of. --I know, I'm saving my own ass, too, but it's more than that. They talk about how things used to be, and I'd like to see them have the good parts of that back someday."
B'Elanna drew a full breath, feeling her smile in her eyes to hear him then. It wasn't the first time he'd said something like that, but it was no less gratifying. "Well, if this means anything to you, I think you always had it in you."
He chuckled. "Yeah, I just had to grow up and see it, right?" Touching her cheek, he sighed deeply. "What's really crazy is that sometimes I don't regret it. Even if we really have nowhere to go, I'm not sorry for being here."
She returned his smile. "Sometimes, neither am I. It is crazy, isn't it?"
Stroking her full lip with a finger, feeling its warmth, his grin turned aside. "It's worth it."
"I think so, too," she whispered, reaching into his hair to guide him down to her again.
The air had become perhaps too dry and the warmth too steady by the time talk of the upcoming Desalian new year--properly, the Ancestors' Moon--became a diversion in Azlre. Like most of the Desalian holidays, there was some certain spiritual significance behind it. Ancestors' Moon was a celebration of the spirits' desire to continue the living world, the decision against, as some interpretations had it, ending the need for bodily experience--deciding not to end the world, as it were. Though they had come to appreciate the meaning of the holidays to some degree, Tom and B'Elanna politely ignored the spiritual aspects, rather focusing on the idea of enjoying the music, some different food, all their friends around them and a little excitement for a change.
If anything, the anticipation broke up the long, hot, post-harvest days; it inspired people to talk increasingly about the rain season, yet to come to that central part of the continent. Azlre was known for its temperate weather, mostly dry but for two moons of mostly rain, which filled the ground wells and lakes and fed the savannah for the year. Sa'alli's milk, they called it, and it was still another season away.
For the mean time, their work at Dviglar had come to a stop--their scavenging had finally found its limit when it was decided there shouldn't be any more brought into the lot. It was crammed full.
Naturally, B'Elanna immediately took it upon herself to begin moving it. Tom did, too. Both knew well they shouldn't with their various and still troublesome injuries, but with only a few people aside from their four closest friends and apprentices available, they had little choice. Not that they minded such a good excuse.
B'Elanna still hoped that sometime very soon they'd be able to build a box over it all or find a secure shelter. The coming rains would necessitate both a storehouse and an indoor area to continue the lessons to which she and Tom were devoting the better part of their daytimes. They were at least glad to know that the Desalian teenagers were indeed dedicated students who lived vicariously through their lessons--as if they had anything else to do.
"This is a trait of our young," Aratra told them. "Information is devoured by hungry minds. Our ancestors were once most learned, as is known. This is bred into us. Diligence must be used, however, in giving the correct information initially. For us to relearn once taught is quite difficult."
That wasn't surprising, when they thought about it.
She and Tom were also working their days away without another even more necessary component--a viable power source. Ferranide, photonic energy, plasma, iogenic particle matter, even dilithium and deuterium were all plentiful sources commonly used in ships and space-bound stations until the Unar sought to control it all, along with the technology and information to create and maintain it all, and thus control the populations they dominated. Laridium, a permitted substance, was both unstable and short lasting. Worse was they didn't even have much of that.
Over the months, though, she and Tom had come up with ways to maintain the few alternatives. With the help of their "staff" and with the public encouragements of the city's elders to welcome the improvements, they repaired and upgraded solar arrays from the ships they rummaged through to service or rebuild the near-ancient units and solar storage facilities throughout the city, long degraded with neglect or poor repair. They replaced old power conduits, planned, built and installed new generators, revamped some environmental relays to collect the scant humidity and supply a few small irrigation systems for the public gardens, and then began thinking about practical uses for Cezia's geothermal energy.
The problem was, still, how to power the rest. Solar energy could maintain lights and heat, help cook food and boil water, and the sparse laridium could run higher-end equipment like translators and medical equipment for a while. But all their efforts weren't nearly enough to repair the whole city, much less help them to their more ambitious goals. Tom and B'Elanna still planned, however, much to some people's doubt, which was in turn doubly frustrating.
"Why can you not use what is at Dviglar?" Dalra asked them--not for the first time--as he maneuvered the last of the relay grids onto a cart they had built. "Why must the soil and rock now be torn into? There yet exists sparse power far better lasting with the lessened functions."
"What the hell are you saying, Dalra?" B'Elanna demanded from her own pile of junk, punctuating her disgust by throwing a fried power node into the mess. "You're just as bad as Migla and Chorsa--and they don't know a plasma relay from a seed plow. Now you--and you do work here."
"And yet I see the need as well as you to see this labor become a blessing," Dalra told her.
"I am not dragging an unstable, seventy-five year-old impulse matrix up here to flush a toilet!"
Nine Desalian heads bent straight down to their separate tasks as Tom leaned back on a power assembly shell.
Dalra visibly slumped. "Be'i, the duct sanitation recycle system you have designed bears much potential--"
"It has more than potential," B'Elanna countered, squinting not only for the noon sun. "It's a standard and sanitary reclamation device that would work just fine with some everyday planetary thermal plasma, which one of the word painters did say is down there. For now, we have the solar arrays to at least generate some reserve energy and get it started."
"Yet to continue it shall take more," Dalra reminded her. "This is known, Be'i. And it is known that you hesitate to remove essential components from the ships."
She rose instantly to that challenge. "You're damned right I won't. Bala said he might change his mind about fixing those ships someday and Tom and I aren't about to forget that. But that still has nothing to do with the fact that a starship's engine has no place in a planet-bound reclamation unit." Prowling around to another pile of components that didn't work, she shot the man another stare. "What is it with you people that always want to go about things backwards? No wonder you sit around like sheep waiting for the Unar to pick you off. You'd rather shoot your waste to their homeworld--along with half of your ass--rather than do something the right way."
Dalra breathed through her insult, knowing well she had not intended a personal affront, but was as without answers as he. And in her territory--the lot--she did have dominion, even when his point had weight. "Be'i, there are few alternatives to procure. The remaining laridium would need to be used, or you must reclaim the remaining dilithium particles from the ships. These produce power, which is what is required."
Throwing up her hands, B'Elanna looked at Tom with unbound frustration. "Why do we bother?"
"Because we know better," Tom replied, crossing his arms as he regarded Dalra again. "One way or another, we're not going to radiate the whole of Azlre for shit, much as I wouldn't mind shooting it in Unar's direction. We'll leave our asses here, though."
Dalra snorted, breaking the mood between the three as B'Elanna too cracked a grin. "Perhaps this would be preferable," he chuckled.
"We're getting nowhere arguing about this," Tom added. "I think we can do more than settle for what's already lying around if we really tried."
"Toma ka. Yet I would only be able to procure more laridium. It is not desired; this is known, and yet this is all I can do."
B'Elanna sighed through her nostrils. "I can't use it with the replicators. I wish there were just one other option."
"By your nature, you would always wish more, Be'i, yet find disappointment eventually."
"Better than nothing," she replied and turned back to her work. "Just tell us what it costs before you get it. No weeklong labor. We need you here."
Dalra's eyes crinkled with his grin as he bowed and touched his temple respectfully. "Toma rehaj ce'i: 'Yas, ma'em.'"
"Kin Toma lerr a'a brris," she snickered then shook her head as she regarded the older man. "I might disagree with you--a lot--but I appreciate your help and your point of view."
"This is known, good Be'i," he replied warmly, his fingers waving around his temple again before he turned to leave.
Passing her bondmate as he went back to help Tom with another case of parts, Sashana'i stole up to B'Elanna, who determinedly resumed her organizing upon accepting the compromise. Her eyes were nearly shut for squinting, her was hood pulled nearly to her nose as she separated and put aside pieces then pulled up another crate to start all over again.
"Be'i," she said quietly, so not to pain B'Elanna's head further, nor surprise her, "perhaps a solution shall yet be found. I would ask of those in Sacezia were transportation not a burden. Yet our answer shall come in time."
B'Elanna nodded, releasing a bundle of wire to touch Sashana'i's hand. "We've been planning this for a long time--over half the year. I knew we'd come to this, but..." She sighed, looking longingly out to the lot of junk. Junk intended to become more than what it was designated to be because of the Unar, the only fight she could have at that point. "I need this to work, Sashana'i. I need something positive in all this mess to work."
"You have provided regular power to housing which had borne little or none," Sashana'i corrected her, "reinforced buildings when many might have been left homeless by the time of rain. Water has been brought to soil once struggling to grow food. Children who may never have known have been taught great things by you and Toma; their minds hunger more for knowledge and change and others see and feel your influence. This so pleases, I sleep with such joy. This might not bear greatness in your view, yet to those whose lives are benefited by it, who have borne so little and suffered in their acceptance of our plight, you and Toma are blessed to them." Smiling gently, she added, "We are a people of simple wishes, Be'i. And yet we wish and are thankful to find truth in blessings."
"You can't tell me you don't want more than that, too, though. You were the one to tell me you wanted Desal's contrition to end."
Sashana'i laughed--a quiet, thoughtful laugh, almost not her own. "Tsid ka'e, I wish of the very stars for change," she promised. "Yet empowered by experience belongs to you in these tasks. On Uillar, I bore such power to procure and tend. --Terrible things I accepted, ka; yet my conscience is at peace, Be'i. Here, I am freed of that burden for my present inability to employ the knowledge I bear but in legacy. Here, but a young regent gains a trade with the hope she might influence others, as is the way. Here, I must and gladly follow."
B'Elanna grinned. "Give me some time. I'll change that."
"This already has been," Sashana'i confessed, more honestly than she meant to at first. Quickly, she continued, "Yet I would gladly bear your wisdom. My dream in life and my predecessors' passing desires are to see Desal returned to its nature--and not only that preceding the Unar's occupation, but preceding the sloth which degraded our society, poisoned our spirits and sent us into the contrition you now live, too."
"Tell me about it."
"One desire is shared between us, Be'i," Sashana'i said, more quietly, then. "I shall not be well in my spirit until I bear assurance that the balance of our nature has been returned to us--when Desal bears its freedom and all which joins this once again." Her stare turned briefly away. "To see behind these eyes all that our people and our worlds once bore... To smell the daknal, all but touch the clean, soft cloth, hear the door chimes as I enter buildings fine and full with nature and joy, feel Desal's contentment and also their dreams...Ka, I have desired of the stars a great deal, to see these memories become truth once more. Then, I shall bear contentment as once my ancestors had.
"For this, my good sister, I bear full willingness to sacrifice my purity, my body's cleanliness, my history and all others I bear within me to guide this fate to my people." She shook her head to B'Elanna's repeated reaction. "Uillar is past, Be'i. Only on the possibilities in our fate resulting from our suffering there fill me now. Thus, what small regent's pride I carry is sacrificed to the learning of your trade in truth and shall share the hope you and Toma have inspired in more manners than yet is realized." Placing her small, dry hands atop B'Elanna's, she added, "My faith is borne in you."
Feeling the weight of that oath, B'Elanna accepted Sashana'i's warm touch, her supportive smile. "Thank you. That means more than you know."
"I should think I do. We are not too dissimilar spirits."
"Maybe." B'Elanna looked down to the ball of isolinear wires beneath her fingers and grinned despite her mood. "Even so, you'll still rip my hair out of my head whenever you get the chance."
Sashana'i laughed. "And tomorrow sunrise shall be my next opportunity should you bring yourself to the tsaborr in knots! You shall bear much beauty at our celebration of our blessed ancestors' moon, my sister, in your fine gown and leggings--and perhaps a fine cloth for your pretty hair?"
B'Elanna didn't answer her, but snickered to herself as she began pulling the wires apart.
Moving away, Sashana'i gave Aratra a satisfied nod before returning to her own sun's duties.
"You're not up?" Tom asked as he came up the ladder with a tray of tea and leftover bread. "I got us something to eat already and--"
"I'm not going," B'Elanna said curtly, her back to him and curling away from the light coming in the window.
Tom grimaced. He knew exactly what that tone and position meant. So much for the tsaborr. "Another headache?"
"What do you mean 'another?'" she growled. "I always have a headache, Paris. I can't see for shit, I'm tired all the time, and my brains feel like they'll explode all over these goddamn walls that are too bright. Who the hell was thinking when they plastered this damned place, anyway?"
He drew a long breath, set down the tray.
"Damnit, don't make any more noise! Just get the hell out of here!"
His eyes narrowed. "You're the one making the noise," he said quietly. "But I'll go. Sure you don't want me to--"
"Just leave. Okay? I don't want anyone up here."
Must be a killer, he thought correctly, seeing her trembling with the stress. She still got bad migraines from time to time, and aside from incapacitating her, they erased her patience--not that he blamed her that. But he knew she was refusing the sedatives, too. Though she hated them, they did help.
"--And don't even think you're going to get Bakali to knock me out," she added, knowing his train of thought all too well. "You keep that woman and everyone else away from me."
Tom sighed. "Anything else, ma'am?"
"Yes," B'Elanna snapped, pulling the blanket over her head. "Close the goddamn window. You know I'm supposed to live like a ghoul the rest of my life and you open it every morning. --This is your fault!"
"I'll make sure to remind you of my forty lashes next time you're up to it," he replied, crawling up the rest of the way to close the shutters.
"Don't tempt me," she snarled then groaned as she curled up on the bunk. "Now get out."
Tom opened his mouth, but pressed it shut before he only made things worse and said something even more useless. He knew damn well she liked the window open in the morning and that was why he cracked it--but never enough to let the sun shine in her face. She knew that. She just didn't--couldn't--take those migraines with the strength of a Klingon, by her own admission. She did take them with the bad mood of one, however, which he was more than willing to avoid when she started on him.
"Fine. See you later."
He left even as he spoke, trying hard not to let her mood kill his own, though he knew it already had. For that matter, he'd left his tea up there. Deciding against making her more miserable by returning, he crossed the second floor to the staircase. He descended into the clinic's main room, where he found the public flask on the front table and took a couple long swigs from it. The water was warm and tasted a little of soil, but he didn't think much more about it.
Outside, he could hear the first songs for the Desalian new year beginning. Mostly children, probably all dressed in the best they had. B'Elanna would've looked great in that gown, he mused with a sigh, feeling the water roll into his empty stomach. He'd been anxious to try out that full robe Aratra had brought him the week before, walk with B'Elanna into the square, relax for a day with their friends...
Odd as the very thought of him wanting it so much was, he also knew there'd be another year for that. Hopefully, she'd be well that time.
As he wiped his mouth, Sashana'i came into the clinic, already prepared for the day. Parts of her thigh-length hair were braided meticulously in strings or with light yellow scarves that were pinned around the top of her head like a crown or draped around her heart-shaped face; her long, formal gown and full coat and robe were crisp with pressing. The handed down regalia looked good on her, Tom thought idly. She seemed as relaxed in that array as her day gowns. In more ways than one, it was good to know.
"Toma, zharab llar!" she said cheerily. "Have Bakali and Bala made their presence? They would be expected to pray for us soon. And where has Be'i taken herself?"
"I guess Bala and Bakali are still getting dressed," Tom told her, his mouth pressing down to answer the second question. "And B'Elanna is having one of those days."
Sashana'i's eyes widened. "Dovk'lla--this is now known. Then you shall sit with her."
"Oh no. I'm not going back up there." Tom gave his friend's first response a stare and a wave of his hand. "Sashana'i, I know you always mean well, but when B'Elanna wants to be left alone, I'm going to leave her be, let her deal with it. It's how we've always done it before."
"Then she shall be neglected," the lady replied. Gathering up her robe's sleeves, she took Tom's arm then took it more firmly when he turned out of her guiding. "Toma, this has pained our good Be'i so many moons. Shall we not assist her when her needs are greatest?"
"Have you ever thought that what she needs is solitude?" Tom countered. "Since I met her, I always knew her to need her space, especially when she's not feeling well."
"That was a time past," she responded. "She is changed--and so are you. You are her lover, part of her existence and spirit, as is she to you. Now bring yourself. I believe you bear enough closeness with her now to help her with my assistance. Ab, Toma. Bear trust, please."
Against his better judgment--and mainly because he knew Sashana'i would only become more insistent--he followed her back up. If B'Elanna wanted to yell at something, he could always say it was their friend's idea--which it was.
"I thought I said I wanted to be alone," B'Elanna snapped as soon as she heard the flaps creak open, which successfully ground another searing pain through both her temples. She groaned as a result, but more for the added tension of realizing Tom hadn't listened to her.
Sashana'i entered despite the growl that met her, steering around the tea tray on the floor with her long gown and robes and sitting upon the edge of the bed. "Be'i," she whispered.
"You! Shit, did he send you up here!?"
Sashana'i removed the blanket from the other woman's head. "Nivni ye'i gye. I have brought him back to you."
B'Elanna glared up to the blur above her. "Listen, I'm not exactly in the mood for socializing or being comforted and I damn well don't need anyone right now."
Sashana'i sighed as B'Elanna's dark-circled eyes turned away with the rest of her and she yanked the blanket back up. "Shall you always wish for pain," she whispered soothingly, "for the lack of better for you to procure by your own hand? Permit me to assist you."
"I am not getting sedated," B'Elanna growled.
"I would not suggest this." Licking her lip, she tried again. "Be'i, in the memories given to me, I bear knowledge of a way you may help yourself, with Toma's assistance. I must officiate its beginning and it is a method without medicine. Or shall you choose this suffering instead? Lose your day and night yet again? Be'i, zhras ye'e."
B'Elanna seethed in a breath, formulating her own second try, but feeling Sashana'i's gentle hands around her shoulders, a kiss on the back of her head, she froze. "What the hell do you have up your sleeve this time?"
"Zherr lya'i, Be'i," she whispered soothingly, "it does bring us pain as well to know you suffer. --Toma, ab. Feel no disdain for her hurtful words. She speaks in torment."
As she felt herself sitting up--the last damn thing she wanted to do--she turned her glare out to Tom, who didn't look happy to be "assisting." She had to give him that. He did respect her enough to listen to her...most of the time. As for Sashana'i, B'Elanna figured she wouldn't listen. But of course, the sooner she just let her "sibling" do what she wanted, the sooner she'd go away and let Tom go, too.
Sashana'i moved aside, holding B'Elanna upright. "Toma, you shall sit behind her." After considering it one last time, he did, and with her gesture, he moved his farther leg around, too, straddling her from behind. Sashana'i then took his hands and directed them to B'Elanna's temples. "Within your minds, create in your memory, a lake."
B'Elanna's head was bent forward, ice cold blood shooting even more easily into her skull much as she cringed against it, and more so when she felt herself bending more forward still. "A what?" she ground through clenched teeth.
The other woman's eyes closed as she felt with Tom's fingers beyond B'Elanna's sore, swollen eyes. "A crystal lake...ice in blues and teals, reaching as far as the eye's path..." she said softly. "Cool, clear water, peaceful, blue..."
"This isn't doing any--"
"Oarr," Sashana'i commanded then drew another breath. "You are joined but in body, so it is required you think in unison. I should hope you bear memory of water lakes. This has been recalled, a crystal lake of deep blue...shining as it ripples in a breeze, which may not be felt by the body, though its air lifts you..." Her voice became even softer as she gave Tom a small nod. "Close your eyes, Toma, and feel most that place you touch her, feel the clear water in your sight. See it moving, dancing with the breeze. Be'i, find it in your memory, the cool, deep water, like blue ice...."
She continued to describe the water in a steady whisper as she probed B'Elanna's alien nerves, calling up her own memories of home, many years past. Then, she found it, their memory and the nerve, pressing Tom's fingertips at the spot a moment later as she combined it all, blending their images into an expanse of blue and a faraway rise of fair orange, misty on the horizon...
"See the lake, floating, smooth, casting itself onto the horizon, and you are moving over it, gliding, drifting. Its surface lies just below you; you fly without noise...without fear...without pain...over the water...."
B'Elanna wanted to move but suddenly realized she couldn't, not even to open her eyes--and then she didn't want to. Speech was gone as well, but she didn't wish for that, either. She found herself indeed over that water, 'hearing' Sashana'i's voice showing them, escorting them into that other realm. It was a strange daze, weightless, like a dream, though she knew she was awake; perfectly conscious and yet not thinking.
She felt Tom behind her, warm and strong, his own presence half-entwined with hers. His fingers, soft, molding without pressure to her skin, were absorbing the pain, pulling it out and away from her. She could feel the pressure lifting, lightening in waves, left behind in their wake....
She then felt Sashana'i leave them. Yet they were still there...gliding together over the water.
Tom was completely still as he curled around B'Elanna's bent over body, while also, within himself, flying over the smooth lake as he held her near, the ripples passing under them...passing quickly with the pain that streamed through his fingers then away from them both.
So strange, especially when he felt Sashana'i go... They became even lighter. He felt B'Elanna's body practically lifting him.
More, he felt B'Elanna's wonder and her clearing mind, her love and thankfulness, and.... No, he somehow knew he wasn't close enough to feel the rest of what was within her, only knew it was there: memories, emotions, all the pieces of her being.
She could sense his curiosity, his concern and his love for her, his wanting to be there. But she couldn't get beyond that, though she wanted to, being curious herself. So many little mysteries inside of that hidden place... But the lake was so clear, and their feeling...their passing over it all...it was...liberating...
Aratra glanced up as Sashana'i came out of the clinic doors, adjusting her scarves and bowing deeply to Bala and Bakali before moving her arm onto her bondmate's. "Your forgiveness, my good elders. I was taken away a moment in need."
"Your presence blesses us now," Bala smiled. "Have Be'i and Toma not dressed yet?"
"As Be'i recovers from her usual duress, they celebrate our holiday differently--in lying together, my tola," Sashana'i answered, choosing not to elaborate how for the time being.
Bakali was pleased despite the lack of reason. Her unwilling patient was usually more prone to demand seclusion during those times, a fact that had worried the elder. "We shall allow them their convalescence, then."
Following the elders into the festivities, where the music was being prepared and the foods were being cut, Aratra leaned down to his bondmate. "What have you devised this sun, my good lady?" She explained quietly to him and he stared at her. "They bear no preparation for the bonding. This has not been their intention."
"No affect shall touch them, but cure her pain with his assistance." Sashana'i looked up to him. "Bear no doubt, my spirit. They have not seen beyond their required task, which was healing. It appeared successful as I left them. There shall not be any permanent consequence."
Aratra smirked. "Ka, my spirit. You have always spoken the voice of personal experience," he teased then spotted Miztri and Dalra approaching them.
"Our own needs as well are spoken for," she added just before their friends could hear her. "Left to nature, they shall continue to grow in Cezia's dear sun and find their being among us all."
"Sashana'i ka," Aratra whispered, his secret smile still upon his lips as he touched his temple and bowed to their elder friends.
Hours later--he could only tell by the way the light was hitting the shutters--Tom awoke entwined in B'Elanna's limbs. They had remained on their sides after they had drifted down from that precarious position of earlier, when Sashana'i had...
What *did* she do to us? he wondered, feeling B'Elanna breathing normally within his arms.
"I might have known she'd sedate me somehow," she said quietly, though not with the hostility of earlier.
"I'm sorry," Tom said. "I had no idea what she was doing."
"I know," B'Elanna breathed, still a bit in awe as she remembered what happened. She didn't move a muscle, almost afraid to for the thought that the pain might return. At the same time, she could still feel him in her, around her and holding her all at the same time. She was almost dizzy with the otherwise pleasant...awareness. "She...joined us somehow, didn't she?"
"She may not be a scholar, but she does have some telepathy," Tom said. "I wouldn't be surprised. Did it work? Are you...No, you are better, aren't you? I felt it going away, when we were in that...trance."
She nodded slightly. "I do feel better. Thanks." Taking another breath, she tempted fate and opened her eyes. To her great relief, pain didn't greet her; her eyes adjusted to the room's dim glow with relative speed. Suddenly, the world--the real world--came back to her, the dizziness faded, and she then felt only his physical presence, curled up beside her.
Then she remembered more.
"Tom..." She sighed. "I'm sorry for before. I blamed you. It was...stupid."
"I understand, B'Elanna," he said, hugging her. "It's hard at the time to deal with, but I always know you're really hurting. I hate it."
"I know," she said.
Outside, she heard an old familiar song, a lilting waltz with Eastern overtones played with a melodic percussion and singing translating into something vaguely passionate... Suoti and Jabra's bonding ceremony, she recalled and grinned mirthlessly at the memory of her and Tom's witnessing it. Beat up, angry as hell and still holding onto the string of hope that Voyager would come for them. Frustrated and scared.
"Maybe I've been thinking too much about that power source," she said quietly, feeling for Tom's hand and taking it. "Maybe I have been doing this to myself."
"You get them no matter what you're thinking," Tom said. "It's not your fault."
"I shouldn't take it out on you."
"True. But I try not to take it personally. In any case, it's no one's fault."
"We need a solution, though. If I could just get past this damn power problem, then maybe I wouldn't have to hate the sedation Bakali's forced to use. She would be able to replicate better, among everything else we could make."
He'd thought of that before. Then again, they'd both thought of quite a few things--too much, he sometimes believed. They had both agreed under no circumstances would they sell themselves for term labor for what they needed, but that was before they had rebuilt or redesigned several replicators, two communication assemblies, several consoles and power generator arrays, some medical tricorders Bakali had let them have, a selection of hand-held scanning and maintenance equipment. They had almost everything they'd originally planned to rebuild upon Bala's request--and no power to run any of it.
Not to mention the little surprise for her he'd been working on when B'Elanna was out with the other women, which likewise wouldn't get done without the components he knew he needed.
That time, he was getting the headache. Then, it hit him...
"What about the black market?" he asked, caressing her rubric-stained hand with his fingers as his mind began to turn with his idea. By the time she spoke again, he'd already refitted half of Azlre.
"What about it?" she replied with a sigh. "We have nothing that we can trade off to them. They don't take workers; they take capital. Even so, Bakali can't even trade her beads with them. You know that."
Tom smiled crookedly, bent to kiss her neck. "But we might have something, with their help. The Koba likes to trade for practical items, too, right?"
"Oh?" She couldn't help but smile, too, if only at that jaunty tone of his. "You are just determined to get in some trouble sooner or later aren't you? Trying to make an ally of that Koba marketer? Okay, then, tell me. I'm in on it too, you know."
"You sure?" Tom asked teasingly, nuzzling her neck again. "I would not wish to corrupt your innocent kini'isitsa, after all, mes va'i."
"I was a Maquis for a year and I am your mesvli now," she snickered, feeling better just to hear him alive with an idea. "I think I'm pretty broken in, mes va'a. Tell me--and then let's see about that tea over there. Maybe get dressed, go out and see what all that singing is about?"
Tom pulled himself to sit, watched her eyes follow his as she rolled onto her back. "Already? Are you sure?"
She smiled, nodded. "I feel pretty good, actually." Her hand reached down and stroked his thigh. "But first, tell me what is in that wicked brain of yours before I force it out of you."
His grin grew properly seductive. "My pleasure, Chief."
When they stepped down from the front of the clinic step, just after sunset, not a few people stopped to bow graciously to the couple that approached, but also to gaze upon them.
Her embroidered blue gown, old, oft mended but elegant, was simply accented by the sheer gold cloth she'd finally let Tom tie around her curly brown hair. It flowed around her head, draped over one of her shoulders and drifted to the ground. Revealed beneath the gown's calf-length hem was a pair of sheer yellowish leggings, which partially covered a pair of dark wrap boots. They didn't match and were a little too big on her, but they'd wrapped them tightly enough that she wouldn't trip and thought nothing about the rest.
On her arm was her chosen, draped in a russet robe, which partially covered his long, gold tunic, sash belt and dark pajama trousers. Below that, his simple shoe wraps were a bit too snug. He'd even let B'Elanna convince him two was company by making him wear the traditional men's headdress, which Aratra had wrapped for him the evening before. It was a series of scarves turned and wrapped above the brow then braided down the back left side to form a squareish hat, the tail ends of the cloth and bead ties hanging long over his shoulder. She liked it. He felt silly. They left it at that.
Not bad for a couple of dead people's clothes, B'Elanna couldn't help but think as she caught the many stares turning their way. She didn't even think to be self-conscious at their appreciative looks. She had already admitted to Tom that it was nice to celebrate something, look nice for change instead of dusty and tired. He had agreed, his eyes never leaving her complimented frame.
Gladly, they embraced their friends from Uillar, then the respected elders who had cared for them, taken them into their home, then their neighbors and their apprentices and their parents, others from Uillar and Azlre whom they'd come to know. They took some sweetened water and tasted some of the pretty breads made for that night. They even let Aratra and Sashana'i take them aside and speed them though the finer points of the 'dancing' that would come later. After a couple minutes of that, they decided they could wing it if that all failed.
Meanwhile, the music poured through the square, and the sounds, ancient and pure, began to emanate from each celebrant's throat:
"Ivl'err dys keyed, mas cost on ha'itsa
So'ell kar tull la, brrai siid bralla
Tsa'ik ye'o yavnya, zhall ye'o mirr la'o
La'aivye, zhall ya'o..."Even the alien couple could understand some of it, having become a little familiar with the advanced dialect. Nevertheless, Aratra happily translated it into the children's tongue for them, "Peace of the world meets the sky at ascension, as our lives reach out to the heavens, sharing the gifts which only our spirits may grasp for a time, bear fruit of our promise and grow old in the sun. This song, given life, shall bear it with gratitude among us all."
Hearing it a few times, encouraged by their friends, Tom quietly joined in, less willingly joined by B'Elanna, who rolled her eyes when Tom smiled at her efforts. Yet they did manage, and then gravitated with the others to hear their elders, who had climbed onto the dais, dignified yet smiling, hand in hand. When the song finished, the proud elders bowed deeply to all their "children."
When all had come around them, they solemnly blessed the passed year and prayed for the new one. They prayed for their peoples' togetherness, the maintenance of their traditions, their continued purity and community. They blessed the additions made at Azlre and the hope for their future to be one of health and peace.
"We, one in this life, shall move and grow as the sun from and to each horizon. Here, in our ascendance, in our truest beings, let us recall our blessings. Let us be thankful to our ancestors for bringing us to what joys we bear and pray for our perseverance and humility through our lives' challenges. Let us take our lessons of the past unto our future, and let us live today. Zha hevrra'o mi al!"
With grin and a shrug, and utilizing their birth people's traditions, Tom and B'Elanna kissed as the response echoed back happily throughout the square. The singing rose again, accentuated by claps and laughter and lit by more wood on the fires. They did not notice until the song had reached the third chorus that their friends had come to welcome them personally into the seedling moon.
The hope of finding a certain Koba black marketer the next day was gladly forgotten...for the while.
Tom had dressed in the pre-dawn light, into his usual beige kneeshirt and pajama trousers, his sandals and the dusty green robe that really could stand for a washing. He barely bothered with his hair but to run his fingers cursorily through the short tufts as he pocketed a slip of paper.
Leaning over the bed, he kissed B'Elanna, half awake and watching him. "Be back soon."
"Be careful," she told him. "And take your commbadge, just in case."
"The RF transmitter doesn't work anymore, B'Elanna."
"I know. I took it out when I put the new crystal in." Her stare was sober. "Just indulge me, okay? You might not be able to understand him. Take it with you."
"Be'i ka," he grinned. "The tea is right there when you're ready for it." Kissing her once more, he straightened, pocketed his communicator and wrapped up his cloak on an arm so to go down the ladder. "Should I meet you at the lot later?"
"See you then." Turning onto her side, still looking at the place where he'd disappeared, B'Elanna rubbed at her temples, her eyes naturally closing as she prayed it would work.
Tom had quietly descended the ladder, was about to grab a piece of stale bread to stave himself off for the time being, when he turned and saw Bala slipping through his bedroom doors as well.
As usual, the old man greeted him with a kind smile and greeting of morning. "Where do you take yourself to be at this sun's birth, Toma?"
Tom straightened his robe, adjusted the shoulders. "Have some errands to do. Nothing much."
Noting Tom's fumbling, Bala moved closer to the youth. "Which errands, good man?" he queried. "Why does Be'i remain in your bed during this work?"
Tom rolled his eyes. "Bala, can't I go out in the morning without--"
The elder held a hand to Tom's evasion, feeling all too well the guilt preceding the act itself. "Confess your plans, Child. Your actions are ever to reflect on this house. No crime is planned, I should think, and yet my awareness would be undermined. Speak truth and it shall be heard fairly."
Tom sighed a hard breath, not liking being treated, indeed, like a child, but also knowing the elder would have to know eventually if it worked. "I am going to talk to the Koba marketer, try to get something of a trade going with him, maybe...do some repair work for him in trade for plasma and some ferranide battery cells...maybe more."
"For a mutual benefit, you shall trade with him, hmm?" Bala asked.
"You could say that."
The young man's worldly tone silenced Bala for the moment. He was not ignorant of the children's ultimate goals--which were not alien to any Desalian's. Not one of his people truly wished the Unar to have dominion over Desal and the other races in Irllae. They all wished for peace, even while they suffered with purpose. Bala agreed that someday the Unar should be overcome. In the ultimate balance of nature, it should be meant.
There were some who wished to speed that balance. Though such voices thrived only in the shadows, Bala was well aware that Be'i and Toma were not the only ones among Desal who desired Unar to be returned to their natural place as soon as could be done. It was only that Be'i and Toma could affect a change, with their fresh educations in technology and experience with resistance--this aside from their passion for just action and loyalty to Desal, which they had begun to call their own.
He and Bakali spoke nothing of their feelings on the matter for good reason. Affliction had taught them great reserve, loss had taught them how to sacrifice their desires without complaint, but in truth the elders favored a quicker completion of their contrition, had not changed their view on that particular matter since being exiled to Azlre in their twenties; they desired greatly to see Desal's restoration before their passings. Yet their charges' radical methods...could perhaps be supervised?
"All B'Elanna and I really want is to start powering up these systems," Tom promised. "We're not looking for trouble or trying to undermine you. I mean that, Bala. I would never break my word to you or Bakali."
"This is known, Child," the elder nodded, and then decided. "Allow me to dress, Toma. I shall accompany you. I bear acquaintance with Padan. He may not be trusted, yet he shall deal equitably should benefit be apparent in the trade."
Tom bit his lip. "Well, okay. But let me deal with him when it comes to the trade itself. B'Elanna and I sort of have this planned--and I dealt with people like him before I came here."
Bala smiled. "This is not a surprise, Toma," he said. "And yet now, such dealings need not be committed to alone. We are of the same house, a Desalian house. We shall work together, as is proper. Take yourself to the closet and bring a six-portion of kiksja tea to share with our host. I shall inform Bakali of our duty."
Padan was by birth and careful presentation Koba. His long, burgundy hair was pulled back from a low hairline and neatly braided down his back. He wore but a long, brown robe laced to his slim neck. His narrow feet were dressed with soft slippers. His ruddy face, full lips, dark, oval eyes and thick eyelashes could have been considered feminine were it not for the well-tended goatee that seemed to stop the flow of his deeply set cheek ridges.
Each of his moves were carefully concerted: He met Bala's respectful bow with a flourish and invited the old man to his grate hearth with a slow swoop of his long hand when Bala offered to make tea. This left the marketer to greet and examine young Toma, who by word alone was little secret in Azlre.
To finally see him, Padan quickly noted that the man's watery, squint-lined eyes and tan, dry skin were not the only aspects apparently steeled by his imprisonment at Uillar. The deep, hook-shaped scar along his cheekbone--a trademark Unar glove swipe--also leant a certain severity to his otherwise youthful facade. Entering the flat, his gait alone showed he was equal to an Antral in posture. That young man also bowed, not as deeply as the elder, but with a quiet simplicity that could belong to none but a Desalian were it not for his lack of kraja markings. The trader understood all the curiosity and talk with but his first look.
"Yes," Padan said, his smile more a purse of his mouth, "indeed, it is for your desire Bala is here. Or Bala has offered to come, so you would not stand alone to ask whatever it is you wish."
Tom's lips crooked to the side. "I would think being in your business makes you rather perceptive," he said, choosing basic Desalian for their conversation. All but fluent in that simpler dialect, he and B'Elanna had come to speak their adopted language often in public and always with their students, so to be clear with them. Similarly, he wanted the Koba man to understand him perfectly.
"Experience, Toma of Allanois. --Yes, I know you are of a noble's house, while not born to Desal. Please, sit."
Tom did, taking a stool at the plain stone table and glancing to Bala, who kept himself busy--though attentive, Tom could tell. He looked at Padan again. "Should you be so aware of my business, then you should know my purpose for coming here."
"You seek plasma," Padan said, not a guess.
"Plasma and ferranide cells, or the ferranide to make them ourselves."
"You and your mate--a small lady, yet possessed of much strength and worth, as is told around the market. Be'i, is it?"
Nice, Tom thought, feeling me out. "Yes."
"You and your own should be commended for surviving Uillar--and the Commander Hychar. The pride of your birth must have been an impediment to you among Unar."
"The adaptability of our birth assisted us, however," Tom returned.
Padan leaned back in his chair, saying nothing at first. The water had brewed and the old man Bala prepared their tea, dipping the long leaves expertly in the steaming water, stirring them back and forth until the perfect steep was attained. Finished with that, Bala set the cups on a tray and served the other men. Then he sat, giving Padan a small smile.
"It would be cool enough to drink, friend," he said.
Padan gladly did so, sipping at the edge of the cup. He hummed at the taste. "Your tea has always been a welcome refreshment, Bala."
"This pleases," Bala replied.
Tom forced himself not to tap his foot, but to sip his tea with his most casual mask in place. Idly, he thought perhaps he'd gotten rusty at the con game after dealing so long with Desalian kindness. He'd gotten used to expressing himself, knowing that he could. In another moment, he wondered if B'Elanna was up yet, if she and Bakali were taking breakfast with Cali and Sashana'i that day. Aratra was probably serving them, hearing B'Elanna tell them what was happening that day. Sashana'i and Aratra would enjoy the news...
"Plasma and ferranide are precious commodities," Padan finally stated between sips.
Tom pressed down a smirk. "Yes, they are."
"You bear little to give."
"We would bear more to trade should you assist us," Tom said.
Padan's brow twitched to the side. "Hmm."
Tom leaned back in his seat, mirroring Padan's posture. "What rather shall you gain with functioning replicators, designed not but for food or medicine?"
Padan thought about that for a full minute. Interestingly, the other man said nothing, flicked his brow carelessly then sniffed the tea, blew on it. Then, Padan decided to explore the possibility the young man had offered. "I might find interest in such equipment--as would a number of my acquaintances."
"Communications, sensors..." Tom took another sip.
"Shielding?"
"Deflection devices could find repair, among other matters aboard ships."
Padan smiled at this. "I would think you would like to see the effect of such repairs as well?"
"The Unar have made no friend of us," Tom told him honestly. "For respect of Bala and Bakali, we tend the necessary within Azlre at present--and shall continue to. Yet to see some effect of our dealings would be pleasing."
Bala peered up at that point. "Toma, I would bid you caution."
Tom grinned. "We say nothing but that it would be pleasing to see some ships not Unar able to function well."
"You would wish me to believe such," Bala said wisely then sighed and gestured for Tom to continue. It was the child's dealing, after all, and he had only wished to be a monitor. He did trust the youth, who had not yet disobeyed him or Bakali.
Tom set down his cup. "My mate and I wish to trade with you. We possess technical ability and more than adequate experience to perform tasks wished by you. You possess the ability to procure the power required by us to make our technology functional. The advantage is likewise yours, and you shall bear much gain should you allow us to assist each other."
Padan was almost amused--and knew better than to be truly. The adopted Allanois had the inflection and the politeness of a native Cezian and he was deferent to his elder. Toma had stood back properly, even, when they entered, and he let Bala speak with great patience. Yet the man was indeed educated--according to what he had heard about the west Jihnfrad lot. This would make the fair man's assertion not a boast.
Toma and his mate were also survivors of Uillar, had survived Hychar's particular scorn and taunting, so had been reported by their fellow Uillar refugees. They had strength and character--and Padan saw a healthy despise of Unar flickering in the young man's eyes with but the mention. No adoption of Desalian standards would rationalize inaction, it seemed.
Indeed, Padan liked that.
"I would see what you have built," the Koba said.
"There would be little use in seeing a replicator which does not function."
"The power you require might be brought."
Tom reached into his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. "These materials are required."
Padan looked at the paper handed to him, the extremely neat Desal characters. "For each replicator I receive, two would be powered by you." He turned a look to Tom. "This is not an even trade."
"It should be more pleasing when you consider what you may procure with the industrial model we could build for you. The two for Azlre are food and medicine replicators, simple compounds in comparison."
"With what would mine be programmed?"
"Bring your requirements to us," Tom said simply.
"You bear this much ability?" Padan said skeptically.
"Yes." There was no doubt in Tom's reply.
Padan looked at Bala, who still did not interfere. He would regulate that extension of his household only where necessary. This thought made Padan turn his examination. To Tom, he said, "You should be more satisfied in the Antral resistance."
Tom stuffed his initial reaction, tried hard not to look at Bala, who he knew had straightened at the suggestion. "Our debts reside here, as do our friends and family, and as Desal is claimed as home. Perhaps when Cezia is cared for, my lady and I would consider such a course. Yet that is another time."
"I understand," Padan said quietly, pleasantly. It was not a lie. He would not have made his own living among those people were gain his only concern. He had come to appreciate the Desalians, too. But like all his people--like most people in Irllae--he had a higher objective.
Toma of the Allanois house did too--and wanted to act on it. Even Bala had not fought the word of resistance, seemed only slightly uncomfortable. This was interesting to the Koba. Certainly, the elders had always been liberal, had been among the exiled well-born of Desalia-Four and publicly blessed the fate that had made Unar leave Cezia to its own care several years ago, but there was a time when even they balked at the mention of resisting their people's contrition.
Perhaps the adopted ones had spread their seeds of advancement into the minds of the pacifists somehow. Perhaps the Allanois house itself, those well-regarded young regents and those in their circle, were more progressive than he and his associates had known. This had potential.
"I shall bring myself to your place of building, friend, meet your mate. There, we shall speak."
"We bear students until three quarters past mid-sun," Tom said. "Yet we remain until a quarter before sunset."
Padan bowed his head, smiling thinly; then he sipped his tea again. The young man, he knew, must have had much pride, long ago. He had nicely controlled the conversation, the entire deal, offered something much of the underground had been waiting for years to acquire.
The tea was certainly delicious that day. Padan savored it.
Noticing Tom's subtle signs of relief, Bala thought back on the possible consequences of helping the Koba. He knew well that if they gained strength, the Koba would someday find a way to strike back at the Unar. They were not a very intelligent or advanced race before the occupation; they bore no binding responsibility to their spirits as Desal did. More, they had once been somewhat xenophobic until the Unar implanted themselves on their world and sold many of their women to servitude for their prettiness. Dark Koba women were much sought after, like rare gems.
Bala also knew that Padan's wife was a dark Koba woman.
He did not know if relating these things to Toma before the meeting had been wise or not, though the young man had used the knowledge well.
He shuddered slightly within his robes. He knew he had assured Tom he would not interfere, would let him make his deal with Padan. With it done and accepted, he could see what peace that brought to the young man. It had brought Tom hope on his terms. There was good and bad in that, Bala knew.
For the time being, however, he decided to say nothing. Tom would have come alone, after all. The deal would have been made one way or another, with or without the guidance of an elder. Yet as it had happened, it was apparently fated. What was meant in result, of course, was yet to be seen.
In a fleeting rush of desire as youthful and arrogant as his charges', Bala hoped dearly that it would be what he likewise wished.
"My friend Toma!"
Tom gave B'Elanna a look, rolled his eyes with a shrug when she peered out from her organized mess. "At least he brought the plasma," he said.
Through the crooked rows of equipment, the Koba man strutted and hopped, his clothes catching the air as he lifted two handfuls of glowing canisters. His smile was generous, though his eyes found every bolt and bracket in the lot as he passed through.
"Good thing I didn't go," B'Elanna said, letting Tom help her out of the nest within the piles. "I would have screwed the whole thing up."
Tom chuckled.
"This must be Be'i," Padan said, bowing graciously.
B'Elanna gave him a nod. "A pleasant sun."
Her plain Desalian greeting met him unaffected. He looked at Tom. "A beautiful lady of good business sense--it is little wonder you mated with her."
"There would be more to our joining, of course," Tom said, likewise in their adopted tongue. "Should you like to see our trade?"
"I have arranged for the ferranide and sarium. I have brought you two disuh of plasma particles, in good faith."
"Might I take them?" B'Elanna asked and gave him a more polite nod when he handed one of the canisters to her. "You shall excuse me."
Tom grinned as she went back to one of the infuser systems. "Would you take a tour?"
"I would watch your lady work. Yet I would walk a time should you insist."
"Permit her a minute to prepare the raw stock and consider the power transfer," Tom suggested. "It is her preference to think alone."
Padan nodded, peering back to the young woman, buried under her hooded cloak and carefully removing a panel on one of their pieces with small, dust stained hands. "She bears caution with me. I displease her, though we have only met this sun."
"She bears caution with all new persons. It is not unkindness."
Padan looked around while Tom walked him around the rows. He was surprised to find himself so impressed. They had taken a good deal of equipment and built some rather efficient looking devices. What could be done with such pieces and more... "The storms shall bring themselves soon, Toma. You might wish to shelter this."
"It is planned."
"I could find a place for your items in the Trisjorr District."
Toma shook his head. "Trisjorr lies across the city. B'Elanna--Be'i--carries reminders of her injuries, as do I. We would prefer it remain in this neighborhood. A shelter here is planned; it shall be built in that area."
Padan looked where Tom pointed, the skeleton of an otherwise wrecked two-story building, probably once a markethouse. "You work should begin soon. The rain would slow your work, if not harm it."
"This is known. We shall settle it."
They came around to where B'Elanna was buried in her immediate task, making the necessary modifications to the port injector column so she could directly transfer the plasma. Jerking her head towards Tom, she nodded as he took the canister for her.
"It'll take a minute," she told him, glancing at Padan as she moved around to another panel. "It would have been preferred," she said in Desalian, "were a ferranide cell brought. I would use our laridium composite for the present."
"As a temporary measure, it would not be harmful," Padan said.
"A man ignorant of true engineering matters would speak as such," B'Elanna replied.
Padan crushed his grin at her arrogance--another valuable commodity--wondering what they were powering in the first place. The configuration was foreign to him. Still, he did not ask. Whatever it was, Padan knew, it was likely much better than anything his own people had, and with help, it would be superior to any of the undergrounds' technology. They would indeed be useful.
Unfortunately, they were also under the debt of Bala and Bakali--which was perfectly understandable. They were well worthy of the couple's deference and respect. Padan would truthfully admit he much respected all of Desal--aside from their stubborn pacifism, which had helped the entire region, not just their own, remain in the trap the Unar had slapped shut too long ago. Desalia had been a leading power, by far the most advanced and enlightened race, in the days before their incredible defeat. Without their assistance, their fine, latent learning abilities and superior numbers, Padan knew, there would be little hope.
They were kind and very patient, which was certainly no crime. But they all needed more than kindness there....
Without warning, the device being powered whirred to life, snapping Padan from his thoughts. His new contractors were smiling, too, in relief to see their creation working. But instead of celebrating immediately, they instantly began to check its systems, making certain everything was running correctly.
After several minutes, B'Elanna's smile turned to the smarmy man who had brought her the refined plasma she'd so desired. Though her instincts leaned against him, his supply made the machine work. It was enough for her.
"Would you care to view the result?" she asked and gestured to the other side of the unit.
"Yes, thank you, Be'i," Padan said and moved around the device.
"Additional programming is required," Tom told him, "yet some elder files have been preserved."
B'Elanna drew up her robe and knelt before the front panel to tap in a few commands. "This unit may be considered our initial payment," she told him and placed her hand on the keypad. "Bring us the specified parts, raw material and ferranide to us and the remainder shall be programmed. Then we shall begin work on the larger model."
It was a replicator, after all, Padan saw, as an open space in the front of the unit (an odd place for it, he thought) lit and materialized another piece of machinery--a relay chip, ready for input.
Looking at them in turns, he smiled and handed them the other and larger plasma container. "This trade is well served, my friends. Well served, indeed. Again I mourn you may not work more completely with our movement."
B'Elanna's eyes returned to the replicator to check something else upon it, solid and sure. "We shall not break our honor."
"For the present," Tom added, "we would do this much for those we claim as our own."
Padan grinned and bowed. "Yes, Be'i, Toma, you are honorable members of a most respected house and belong to a regent's house as well. I would respect your duty and love for them. Another time then, perhaps? For the present, shall we care for Azlre?"
B'Elanna's glassy stare found him. "We shall," she said then turned back to the more pleasant business there.
"We'll still need the ferranide cells and the sarium bromide to make all of it work. But for now, we have enough plasma to power the reclamator."
Bala served the tray around the floorcloth. "How many replicators shall be procured for Padan before our needs are met?"
Tom and B'Elanna exchanged a shrug. "We aren't certain--yet," Tom told him.
"Once we see how pure the ferranide is," B'Elanna said, leaning forward to choose a piece of bread, "we will try to get what else he has. But it won't be everything. We went to Triachra at the trading bins, and he told us that no matter how much Padan seems to look like he has everything, that is not always the case. The other vendors say about the same."
"He has his own people to work through, as you know," Tom joined.
"And even then, it won't be as if we can replicate anything we want. Some of the chemical compounds we need can only be mined or collected in space. But it will help supply the things most needed--clothes, antibiotics and water--and run some of the systems we've fixed..." she pointedly grinned at Dalra, "including the waste units Dalra has been so anxious to try out."
Dalra took it in good humor. "Be'i, tsid ka'e. This is labor much required and befits you well. We shall bear joy for every child who eats and feels warmth for this blessing."
"They will get everything first, of course," Tom said.
"This is much agreed upon," said Miztri as she handed Dalra his portion, peered to a brightened Sashana'i, then to B'Elanna. "Yet I would not believe you should sell your spirits to this blessing, good Be'i."
"We won't," B'Elanna assured her. She leaned back into her pillows as she folded her bread around a morsel of cheese. "We know Padan should not be trusted."
Tom nodded. "He's audacious and clever. B'Elanna and I have both known the type."
Aratra chuckled at that. "In consideration of how you procured the arrangement, it would be known by Padan that you were once of such a breed."
Tom looked at the tray to decide on a starter. "You could say that."
B'Elanna detected instantly his tone. "Sashana'i," she said as casually as she could, "I do want to show you those new transfer procedures and get you all used to handling this kind of power. Miztri and Dalra remember a little of it, but I'd like us all to be understood on it. We cannot lose a gy'irapol of it because of poor handling."
Sashana'i nodded, also noticing how Tom was intent on the selections, then shooting a sharper glance at Aratra for his slip before addressing B'Elanna. "I shall wish to know, Be'i. There is much anxiousness in us all to see the product of this grace. Yet do you see now your blessing upon us?"
She smiled. "You said we would find a solution. You were right."
"Yet I bid you bear caution, Children," Bakali warned. "Padan bears fairness in dealing, yet never acts without selfish purpose."
Tom nodded. "As I said, Bakali, we know the type. We'll be careful." His expression was still darkened, though he did smile when he felt B'Elanna's small hand touch his thigh supportively. Letting his breath go, finally relaxing, he reached out to a bread slice and continued his meal.
The hazy, white moonlight threw long shadows on the ground and softened the breeze that caught the light robes of the two who walked along the dirty street. A nightly walk, a habit they'd formed, their pace was slow and casual. For some months then, their wanderings had taken them to a common place, however.
In that light, the chipped mortar between the stones in the buildings were thrown into milky relief. The ruined corners, the deep cracks in the flagstone pavement, then the dust swept walls in the alley they treaded through, all seemed to have new lives in the night, though not a pebble of it was unfamiliar to them by then.
At the lot, they stopped for a moment, smiling to the place where a few lights were still active, blinking quietly, blue and violet. The sight brought quick breaths and slower, silent sighs. Their projects. They quietly moved through the rubble and pieces, glancing down at their trainees' unfinished assignments. Some of the pieces were missing. The teenagers liked to work on the smaller units at home.
Passing that, they found their few working units. Their smiles grew again--and seeing that in each other, they laughed.
"It is about time, huh?" Tom said, taking her into his arms, holding her close.
"Yes, it is," she grinned. "And by the way, you did it again."
"What?"
"Dropped your contraction."
Tom rolled his eyes, laughed at himself. Surrounded by nothing but Desalian, speaking it more often, too, they knew they were bound to pick up what their translators output. "Well, it's the truth. It finally seems to be working--all this time we've spent."
B'Elanna rested her head on his chest, still in his embrace, looking out to their creations, their first practical successes there. "It feels good," she said softly.
"Yeah. It does." Tipping her head up, he stared down to her deep, dark eyes, which shone with satisfaction. He felt it too, he knew, as he bent to kiss her, simply, quietly, there in the back of their lot.
The breeze picked up, dallying with their robes, but neither reacted but to deepen their kiss and press to each other more closely. Her hands moved of their own volition under his robes for warmth, but her lips didn't miss a beat. They countered his, took in his taste willingly, and she moaned softly as he approached again, and his touches found more precise direction.
"I think," he whispered between kisses, "we might go inside now."
She nodded, catching her breath. "I think so too," she responded, meeting his gaze. "We have walked enough."
"We have," he agreed, turning them around again as he pulled her warm against him. "And you dropped your contraction."
With a laugh and a gentle spank, she walked within his arm as they swerved back through the rows.
Just in time, it seemed, the Azlreian rains arrived.
The group of various technicians, both experienced and well into their training, were nearly finished hanging the shelves on which their nicely covered supplies were to sit. But as they moved to heft another plank up to the brackets, a crash of thunder rumbled the entire frame of the storage building. Though it did not so much as flicker their lighting, it made every head turn to the door, where the droplets could be seen starting, and then increasing.
Hot and sweaty with their work, the first pattering of the coming downpour simply could not be ignored. Rather, they all looked in awe of it at first. Rain.
Tom and B'Elanna followed the others out and down into the delicious, warm water, and they laughed to see the neighborhood's children scampering from their tenements to play and splash in the pools that quickly formed. Their parents and elders quickly followed.
Feeling the dust and grime rolling away from her aching hands, B'Elanna gladly pulled her hood off and let the water hit her face, then smiled up to Tom, who grabbed her up into his arms and kissed her, spinning her in a circle. Another quick kiss and he ran out to catch up with little Haviki, rocketing her up off the ground then catching her securely in his strong arms. The child squealed with delight.
B'Elanna laughed and tossed her cloak back onto the steps of the storage before joining them. She met Sashana'i immediately, giving her long, soaking braids a decisive tug. The lady squeaked and tossed a handful of water into her friend's face. From behind her, Miztri gave B'Elanna a quick embrace and peck on the cheek before joining Dalra in their play.
It was a blessing, that rain, and they all celebrated it as eagerly as every child. It was the way, every year in Azlre.
Later, as the rain barreled down over the roof, two of those celebrants finally found their warm attic room, soaked again when they decided to have a stroll after the evening meal. Again, they didn't mind the drenching one bit. The rain was lusciously tepid in the evening, too, welcome upon their dry skin. B'Elanna in particular loved the storm. Having the opportunity to enjoy it properly that year, she felt cleaner than she had since she left Voyager a year and a half ago.
Watching Tom sliding out of his rain-washed clothing in the dim light with the rumbling storm continuing outside, she felt her belly quiver. Completely naked, he was oblivious to the fact that he looked fantastic unclothed, his lean-muscled body glistening wet. Their improved diet, still sparse but healthy enough for them, had redefined the fine lines of his frame, the curves of his shoulders, his firm buttocks and strong legs.
Drawing a slow, full breath, hanging her leggings on a hook to dry, she slid sinuously onto her knees while Tom shook the water out of his hair, rubbed at his scalp vigorously.
"Come to me, Tom. Help this off me."
He looked around to her as she stretched herself near to the mantel stones, which crackled with heat. Seeing her bent over the side of the bunk, knees on the floor, her soaking wet gown plastered against her, her dripping curls hanging in her eyes, Tom licked his lips and complied. He knelt behind her, found the hem and pressed it upwards.
She mewed to feel his cool hands peeling the gown up her thighs and over her hips, his curious fingers trailing behind his palms. At her hips, he stopped to knead his touches against her pelvis. "You know what I want, hmm?" she teased.
His lips turned up as he reached up to yank her laces, playfully rough as he pressed himself against her. She coughed an animal laugh when his hand shot inside the top of her bodice to grab her breast.
"I think I might," he said, sultry in response to her throaty growls. Cold or tired, wet or hungry, that posture and mood in B'Elanna Torres could bring him back from the dead. Bending, he ran his teeth up her back, biting her gently through the fabric as he progressed with her unlacing.
She raised her arms; the gown came off. His hands moved down in front of her and unclasped her bodice with several hard tugs. Tossing aside the garment, he took her small, firm breasts in his hands as he pressed behind her. She arched into his grip, rubbed against his healthy erection.
"Show me I'm yours tonight," she purred, shuddering in time to another rumble outside, the pattering against the roof building momentum, echoing through the room. "I want you to take me like the rain is beating down and the thunder's shaking the house...I want you to claim me."
"This storm is inspiring," he grinned, teasing her erect nipples with his fingers. She pushed herself against his hands. He bent to nuzzle a kiss, a little bite, under her ear. "And how shall I claim you, lady?"
"Any way you like," she replied decidedly, her own smile parting with a delighted gasp when he decided.
The thunder crashed down again. The rain was falling in turrets around the roof, pouring off the eaves.
Another hard thud on the ceiling and another squall echoed down into the main room where two elderly Desalians fiddled with the sensor equipment the children had finally been able to repair. Bakali idly pointed the medical scanner up to where the sounds were coming from, making her bondmate laugh.
"Tales from Dalra," Bala said, "speak of how our lady Be'i has enjoyed the thunder and rain."
"I should believe him," she said dryly. "Were her physiology not of a complicated nature, I should think they would have been with child twelve times by the present."
"They are possessed of more youth and health than I suspected when I advised Toma first," Bala admitted without complaint. He shrugged, grinned to her. "We were as young once, my lady."
She smiled, showing her teeth. "We still may be, my spirit."
Chuckling, he moved near to her as another round of thumps and shuffles sounded above, coupling with the increased pattering outside. "By the ancestors, there is learning to be gained from the young."
"Or perhaps memory," Bakali returned, holding her bondmate's eyes as he inched closer. "Yet I should think this...reminder might be reciprocal."
"Dov?" He raised his hand once near enough to stroke the markings on her temples.
"It might be a right of ours to understand with better clarity what we have cavorting above us," she whispered, returning his soft touches with her slender fingers.
"Yes," Bala breathed. "I would wish to know of this...later."
"Then I shall speak of it la..."
"Shall you and Toma join us now?" Bala asked, kindly as ever, after Tom had cleared away their plate and cups to a tray to be taken outside later and B'Elanna had rolled the floorcloth and placed it in the wall chest.
B'Elanna looked back to the elders, who had already begun to prepare for their nightly meditation. "Oh no," she said, polite but quick. "We wouldn't want to disturb you."
Tom nodded. "We'll just go upstairs."
Bakali smiled at that. "Good Children, we pray not to be alone. You have never partaken in our practice. Please honor us this once, in faith of community. In our house, we have grown to adore you. The storm days breed loneliness. Let us be together a while longer."
The elders' sweet-faced requests drew guiltily unwilling looks between Tom and B'Elanna. With a few seconds of patient silence, however, their expressions eased, wordlessly reconsidered, and they slowly turned again to rejoin their hosts. It was the least they could do, their faces seemed to say as they knelt again in their usual places beside each other. Forming a square between the four, they offered two slighter grins to their well-pleased hosts.
"Little needs to be done," Bala said. "My bondmate and I have enjoyed this meditation since we were first season novitiates and have shared it with guests to our house."
"In the exaltation of our spirits and their progenitors, we have shared our bond with each other..." Bakali explained, but stopped to see their remaining nervousness, and more, B'Elanna's blank stare. The elder had come to know it well. Reaching across, she placed her hand on B'Elanna's cheek--and felt her jerk instinctively. "Why fear you yourself, Child? Nothing you do not believe would disturb you, should you believe only a life-force lies within you."
"My life-force," B'Elanna said, frowning, "might surprise you."
Bakali smiled, patted the girl's soft skin with her wrinkled hand. "You bear youth and much energy--and like Toma, bitterness--or is it yet this part of yourself you do not seek? Be'i, it is well known you bear goodness and conscience, as does your partner. Why should you think yourself a one to be feared?"
B'Elanna's eyes turned to Tom's, and then away. "Well, it's a little more complicated than that."
"The matter seems always more complex when one thinks of oneself," Bakali told her gently, understanding B'Elanna's meaning then. "Yet we are all one--from one source of life. When the universe brought itself from the void, it made consciousness. From that miracle, we all came to be, in all our countless forms. We are all of that same great force which made the stars and all things beyond it, and our spirits--our energy, should you accept that meaning--are as everlasting and as eternal as that same force.
"As Desalians who believe completely in our oneness, without condition, we would accept your nature without prejudice. Though we may not always accept your way, we yet accept you. Thus, you may trust we shall not be hurt by any manners not Desalian by nature. Rather, we would likely embrace it far more readily than even you do yourself."
The woman had spoken, simply and her gentle touch unbroken. Though, at the end, her hand dropped to take B'Elanna's.
"Maybe you are right," the younger woman allowed.
"We shall but share what you wish to give, Be'i," Bala said.
"But you would be able to see inside of our...thoughts?" Tom asked.
"Should you wish to call it such," Bala nodded. "Yet we shall not open doors you close. It is a crime among us to pry at them."
"As in our conversations," Bakali added, "your memories are yours to share. We have noticed at tellings that you rarely speak of yourself. It would not be asked, nor suggested now. Only what you give is seen, and what we shall show you. There shall be nothing but the memory of the experience."
B'Elanna finally shrugged; Tom merely blinked, relaxed a little. Pleased with their tacit acceptance, Bakali took B'Elanna's other hand, pulling both of them gently to the center. Bala took Tom's hands in the same fashion. There, they adjusted the younger couple's right hand fingers to rest upon each other's palms.
"Look upon your mate," Bala quietly instructed them, "and recall our pure sun nestled within the blue sky..." He touched his bondmate's palm, and she his. Then both elders touched the children's temples, then their left palms....
Firelight flickered in the plain, pillowed room, yellowed with dirt and more with age. The rain outside the shutters steadily fell, the wind rattling the panels with each breeze. Four lightly robed individuals knelt, utterly still, each couple gazing, locked, into each other's eyes. They were all rain clean, though their clothes were rumpled, and upon two grey heads were fair-colored scarves, one pulled back at her fan-marked temples, the other wrapped neatly with the ends trailing low over a shoulder. The other two, younger, alien, had in turn short blond hair and the other wavy brown, both uncovered.
They grew smaller, these figures, moved away. They yet did not move, even as the stars tunneled around them, spinning and...
A light surrounded them, and he embraced her fully in his first thought on that plain, making her laugh and hold on, kiss his willing mouth. He thought they might share a place; she agreed. She stared all around her. She could see perfectly there, in the light with no pain.
No pain exists in this place, came the elders' "voices" as they joined the two on that plain and all is as it should be. It was suggested they journey to gardens and that they suggest one they knew.
Then, all around them appeared a lawn of green and a careful, colorful garden, stretching beyond neatly kept paths and clean people walking upon them. Their steps were like flying, out to a sea of rich blue and small crafts above them. The park outside the Academy, they knew, a place where they had both found some relaxation while there.
It was there they had their people's novitiate; the elders looked around in wonder of its simple beauty even in that very organized state, its same dressed people and curving paths leading to straight ones. They tended their gardens to appear as nature, it was noticed.
That was not denied. There, it was an art, as was the art of the discipline they taught.
Life was regulated; nature's facade was controlled. It could be seen why that would be.
Sometimes too much. It didn't suit everyone, especially if the individual wasn't ready or wanting to be like that.
This was truth. They did not remain in that organized place. Both sought other desires for unvoiced desire, pain well hidden...vindication as well?
Fear, anger, redemption, need of security, of freedom, of contentment... Their movement ceased, the sea grew grey with clouds above. This weather was common. So many needs, different but similar...
This was understood.
The sea flew below them then drifted away... A ship among the stars and a woman at the head of a table, speaking with care but confidence; men flanked her on either side, her subordinates...friends, now, or at least comrades. They too sat at the table, neatly uniformed, healthy and tended. There was promise in tragedy, freedom there, a chance--yet another chance. They were to begin again, whether they wanted it at first or not. That curse--their curse in life--had become a blessing. But that too was lost. Many things were lost.
And yet acceptance has been borne beyond it. Not by your choosing, yet you have found promise at Azlre, too.
It's been longer ago as the time we spent there, but we have accepted that loss.... Their hands clutched and they saw each other there...in the light again. The fear, the pain, the ache...the whole of it...it was memory.... They stared at each other and saw how they were, once were. Her glorious arched ridges rose high into her crown, her thick, umber curls lying around her face. Her lips bore a touch of rose lipstick, her sable eyes shone with both her intelligence and her pride. His dark blond hair was freshly cut, his light golden skin was unburdened by sun or scars, his blue eyes, clear and clever, held far more than he admitted to. His expression was as bright as hers was, and as searching. They bore casual attire, vests and shirts and trousers, boots, all clean in muted, earthy colors.... They knew of their love without speaking it. They indeed had come to love each other, need each other, trust each other. For them, this was both a blessing and an irony. Yet this was how they knew themselves to be, seen also by the other--and the others there.
They touched, and their ancient smiles grew in awareness....
The young turned and saw their elders now quite young themselves and wrapped in regal dress. Her mane of hair was golden brown, rolling down her back and over her shoulder, reaching her knees. There were tiny braids and golden beads woven into it. Her ankle-length gown was like burgundy satin, embroidered finely. Her coat, teal velvet tied with open stays at the front, was embedded with jewels and fit snugly around her long, slim frame. Framing her head were gold-laced white headscarves with more beads pinned in to hold another mass of her hair. Her bondmate stood taller and proudly behind her in his long, amber tunic and trousers. His robe, deep red, was as rich, with an indigo sash heavily embroidered. His tightly curled brown hair was crested with scarves of white and beaded tassels. Their smiles were cultured, loving, kind--the same smiles of the elders. They were beautiful....
Their bright hazel eyes had grown as one in their bonding, and they were lit with welcome into their garden... A rich terrace with generously bent trees with fruit and undulating walks of white stone, encrusted with design. It was there where they took each other's being as one, a courtyard within a lush field of heavy rose-like flowers in blue, violet and arbors of coral blooms, heavily scented. Waterfalls trickled down to little streams, lit with flecks of gold. Fences around it were set with precious metals and the people there were as opulent in dress and posture, eating deeply colored foods, taking wine, laughing, embracing each other, their parents, their siblings, their friends and the deep, rhythmic music, a blessing for the bonding, all around them...
Ki'all shost ali va'i sull;
Daknall ra jirr Tsi'eharr.
Tsa'o kle wi ja'hall;
Eta ti'e brri re'ir...It was a lavish event with no detail spared. They could feel the joy and laughter, the contentment.
It was yet too much--overindulgence in every manner and corruption in imbalance... Beyond the garden, Antral desperately pleaded for Unar cooperation, Koba, Brija and Suresha had been overtaken viciously, crying out for help while those in the garden did not hear, but drank wine and laughed in their deafness to all. From that they were freed.... This is not agreed upon?
The balance is more like overcompensation. Excessive indulgence to too much poverty is too high a price to be paid for too long. The suffering of people who did nothing wrong is no payment. It is injustice. There is no argument to this. More citizens suffer now with no means of practical improvement.
The smiles grew reflective. The work at Azlre would perhaps bring greater balance.
Freedom and peace will bring the most.
This, we would all feel joy to see. The garden filled with laughter again then faded, became distant. Yet a heavier weight will wrap around us should we bring it to the sun without regard for the lessons we have taken. And still we love and pray, hope for someday our suffering to be assuaged and for fate to permit our full redemption, as do you wish your own vindication. You work as we pray--wishing for the same?
Maybe the result of our work. Maybe to get something done--to make a difference. There is nothing left of that past but to not repeat it. We live not wanting to have it again.
It is yet a part of you. Desires you once bore are yet remembered.
Yes. But it's still in the past. Uillar killed it. Hychar.... His white, ghoulish face appeared, raising his gloved hand above them. She found herself, thin and wet with heat, shielded by her companion.... The glove swooped down and her body smacked the red dirt. More red poured from her and he was rushing to Hychar to grab his throat...
They watched the violence and the lines of Desalians walking slowly past. Dalra, Miztri, Aratra...Sashana'i, scarred and unable to speak, joined a guard, pleading for medicine. She disappeared into the barricade. The struggle continued as all the others moved into the shacks, looking back with sad, hollow eyes.
He lost the struggle, spitting blood upon the dirt, crawling towards her, and they all heard Hychar speaking of their curse, walking slowly away and holding a hand out to a friend upon reaching the barricade. The elders came at that, touching away the wounds and pain of the gasping couple. They were old again, plainly dressed again, yet their gentle smiles still radiated from their true spirits. They lifted the youths from the poisoned dirt, away from their poisoned spirits, left there to Uillar.... Hychar taught you humility in too great a measure. And yet, it was taught well.
Or maybe just enough. We still want change, if not for our past, which is impossible now, then to never let this happen again, to us or to anyone else. This kind of corruption--we won't die in peace without some justice. Someday, we will have to redeem what happened there.
It was understood. They lived with such equal need but no power.
And so you wait.
For the cleansing of our people, for their readiness for rebirth.... And in the fresh squalor of Desalia was a congregation of people; there, her hair was tightly braided and they were stripped of ornaments, their rich robes torn and dirtied, their once untouched hands bloody with labor. They had one bag by each of them, all they were permitted. They waited; a small infant wailed and a mother tried to press her milk with a bruising grip. Older children clutched to their fathers, hollow and shaking. Elders and scholars, coughing and pale, were taken from the crowd and the mother tried to follow, only to jump back in deference to Unar. With tears, cries to their beloved, they were transported away.... We next saw Cezia. The infant had passed, having not yet known life. Some hundred thousands more met the same fate upon Cezia alone in the years passing, millions upon other colonies, and many more shall pass in Irllae before our fate is completed.
It doesn't have to be. It shouldn't be! They shouldn't be allowed to continue!
Our dearest hope in life is that it shall someday be past and never be again. It seems hope has again grown through your actions' effect on us. Yet it may not be brought with the infliction of hate and greed and the other poisons Unar breed, not the selfishness we had bred into our way. They shall not endure, and Desal shall be present for their fall to resume their true way.
You can't be so certain of that. You can't just expect them to decline and think their destruction will take care of your sins. That isn't realistic.
Again, truth. Yet our sacrifices have built a fate that shall not easily allow us our former transgression--as this is with yourselves.
But how many children will be cursed because of your crimes before you're free again?
As few as possible, we would wish. And yet, yes, we wait. This truth truly humbles us: There is little more we may do, children, which is the root of our acceptance. Bore we more power to build change, we would have effected it long before this moon.
...And the white light surrounded them, filling them with freedom from the pain once there, having shared it. In that peaceful realm, fading to deep blues and a place in the depth of space, far yet existent, with life unbound as they, waiting, expectant...
For the present, Children, we shall continue to live and hope to better the life we were blessed to keep. This is our prayer, for peace. The outcome is not of our control in this moment.
It could be, if you wished it enough.
Any thing may be one's own with sincere prayer and nature's allowance...and yes, action as well brings fate's attention. We are both correct. Someday, a balance shall suit us both. It is not believed you were brought to us in vain. You and your influence are now a part of Desal's fate, and know this is welcomed by us. Yet this fate too is in the waiting, as are all things before us. We shall someday see what was meant.
And they saw the room, and themselves, hands joined, kneeling in the square, staring deeply into each other's eyes. They grew closer and warmer, and the rain could be heard pattering on the shingles....
Bala placed the old, knotted blanket Bakali had brought over the young couple that had collapsed onto the pillows upon the end of the meditation.
"Perhaps this had been too great a journey for them, who have not known such travels," Bala whispered.
"They bear wellness," Bakali said, touching B'Elanna's hair, gently turning her thin fingers through the curls. "Much pain lies within them, much need, purpose and youthful arrogance. Their determination inspires me, yet it has drained them in life, blessed spirits."
Bala nodded, his mouth creased into a tiny smile. "Yet the sun and waters of Azlre assists their growth from a worthy root, I should believe. They shall continue well. Perhaps we all shall be so blessed by fate."
"Yes, my spirit. I would wish it be so."
Some time later, they awoke partially, only enough to find themselves entwined, still in the main room and covered with a spare blanket. Their eyes met, held to each other's for several seconds. Their breath caught as they both remembered...
Tom pulled B'Elanna closer into his embrace as she buried her head against his chest, breathing deeply, calming. They fell asleep again moments later.
Their eyes reopened to the same sounds of rain and the filtered light in the windows. It was though no time had passed, though they knew they had slept. They looked at each other, smiled slightly, nervously at first, remembering more with every blink. Seeing it reflecting in each other's eyes, it filled them all the more, what they'd seen, which made them laugh quietly, shake their heads as they pulled themselves to sit.
"Last night..." he said, distantly as he slowly put all the images together in his mind, "that was incredible."
B'Elanna let her stare roam the room, still in that world, too, not really knowing what to think about it, except, "I can only imagine if we decided to show them everything, what that would be like."
He shrugged, drifting his fingers over her hand. "You think someday we might try it?"
Her eyes widened. "You would want to?"
He was a little surprised at himself, too. He'd spoken off the top of his head, and yet he knew he was curious in spite of everything he knew he could be faced with in that kind of awareness. He knew without thinking he would never see their elders or Desal in the same way, having now seen their past, all they had and had been. Considering what they had experienced already of their own psyches, he nodded. "I liked it there, how we could see it all, from the outside--everything so clearly. It was easier to look at it like that."
She thought about that for a moment. A small smile crossed her mouth, wary yet wondering. "Well, it is interesting to see ourselves like that, so completely, I mean. Though I'll admit, I'm not too anxious to dig in my closet, so to speak...not that much. I don't know what I'll find there."
He rubbed her hand again. "I don't know, either. Maybe sometime, we might be curious enough to find out."
She shrugged, though her lips were turned pleasantly up as she considered it. "Maybe."
With no more words, they stood and folded up the blankets, rearranged the pillows. B'Elanna went downstairs for the latrine, Tom opened the shutter to take a bowl off the ledge for a pot of fresh water to boil, looked outside for a moment to the rows of storms approaching before locking up the window again.
It was strangest to him that even his indecision was all right, and that even the strangeness wasn't troubling. B'Elanna came upstairs again, running her fingers cursorily through her wavy hair, scratching to loosen up her scalp, then stretching her arms upwards, turning to him. Tom smiled. He could feel his heart beating just to see her as she was there, rumpled and uncombed, her slightly unfocused eyes finding him with a smile of her own.
Last night I saw her soul, her true being, as she knew herself, he mused, and she was precisely what I knew, too. I saw her spirit...
She lowered her arms, regarding him in turn. Her grin did not fade. Settling on her own unspoken thoughts, she held her hand out to him, raising her chin a bit, pulling her posture straight. They had to get dressed, breakfast to start and work around the clinic to get to after their morning meal, Tom knew. But just to see her expression, so familiar, so beautiful to him. It was good to see it there, in the real world.
Without a word, he took her hand and escorted her up the ladder to begin their day.
"The last Unar took themselves from this world eleven years past, when the sect scourge distracted the cause here, and they were needed in the campaign. With them, they took the last of my born children, whom we had smuggled from Maha'aje to be near us and away from the plagues. Their taking was learned not five years into our incarceration at Uillar, when Sashana'i and Aratra, children themselves, likewise came to us. In my sorrow and denial, I brought them in as my lost own and with Dalra bonded them in spirit. We touched their life forces with our own, only to know as rallkle passed that they could never be my children. I knew this always, yet saw it only years later."
Within the ring of Tom's arms, B'Elanna sighed to watch Miztri tell the sad tale as Dalra held her close at his side, his downward stare wise and wistful. But then, the woman smiled, looked over at them.
"This was when Be'i and Toma came to us, on first sight beaten by a man Prihar would have gladly put to ashes. --It is known this is not humble speech, my good friends. Yet any of Uillar would know the Unar penance Be'i and Toma paid, for but their beings...and perhaps for their passions as well, though that is of their truth. They yet withstood throughout and so I took them--as I had Sashana'i and Aratra--into my spirit, watching their life, their pride, thinking always of my children, now among our blessed ancestors. --Or to my base knowledge, they are among them.
"It is not known, the depth of my regret for the spirits taking Y'dri and Me'ekra, sprung from my giving womb and nursed past three rallkle each. I bear a mother's longing, a mother's natural desire I may not have outlived them, and that they would be by Dalra and myself now. This is not meant, it seems.
"Past ten Uillaran revolutions and a single one here, nothing of them is known, not of their spirits' liberation or of servitude. It is wished as well whether I must await or celebrate them. My motherly nature dreams to vindicate their memory, longs...longs but to touch their spirits once again. They are yet missed in my selfishness. My bondmate and I, however, have neither knowledge now, as Unar are ever taking as their own, and those in their depths are obscured so completely. Thus, we work and we pray, someday, for either word. I pray now particularly...that they do not suffer."
"You show unusual determination with this equipment," Padan noted as they shared tea, waiting for one of his people to transfer down his part of their trade. "Should I bear interest?"
Tom shook his head. "No. This is personal."
During the rains, B'Elanna had continued to infuse what plasma and ferranide Tom got from Padan. Within a du'ave, they had managed to build an entire toolkit of maintenance equipment, repair much of the equipment that Bakali had on hand, and then rebuild three functional replicators, powerful enough to supply simple, needed materials. The basic transporter they had put back together would be able to send equipment to Sacezia, too.
It still was a matter of getting there--more, getting the equipment there. The transporter was a low-resolution model, not for biological transportation, and it required another full system at the destination. That problem had put a tick into Tom's mind between all the other work he and B'Elanna had. Then, discovering some very different scraps at Dviglar one afternoon, he decided to put that tick to some better use than the initial one. For the two du'ave of rain, when B'Elanna was out with the other women or working on her own projects, he used his time well, in an large, open basement a few blocks south of the square.
As usual, it was a matter of powering his clever solution. He did know where to go for that, however. Once the rains began to clear, Tom moved swiftly to that now familiar venue halfway across the city. He bowed to his fellow Azlrelians en route, chatted with a few children and their parents, answered some questions about the ongoing power system repairs and replicators, and good-naturedly waved off a mischievous offer of richala--a meaty rock vine known for promoting fertility--from the vendor who usually offered their nido'ev. Despite the many stops, Tom soon strode into Padan's flat with a clear intent and a parts list.
"Personal? Not to be shared?"
"All may use it--yet only two at once."
He had dealt with Padan for the graviton inverter and the extra jolt of liquid infused plasma for the drive--and a little galacite for the initiators. Padan sat back wisely for that, pushing little pieces of equipment for Tom to fix upon each request.
Tom repaired them without asking.
The Koba was being rather generous, Tom knew. He wondered where that would cease, when a higher price--as he and B'Elanna had often been warned--would be exacted. But Tom decided to worry about that later. He hadn't been ingratiating himself that long just to duck out because of his worthy suspicions.
With another look from the marketer, Tom turned up his palms with a small sigh. "It is a gift for her day of birth."
"For your mate Be'i?" Padan was pleasantly surprised.
"Yes. I have added the time and learned her day of birth should be at Ninjen of Ellalloj. --In another du'ave. This is greatly wished, Padan. Few have recalled her day of birth since her maturity and she has worked throughout her life."
"This indeed means much to you," Padan nodded. "My gift to her shall be this galacite, then."
"No. Your offer is appreciated. However, to earn payment for my products would be preferred. Please allow this."
Padan peered down at the firm man's tone, his lips curling. "You bear little trust in me."
"Yes," Tom said and grinned. "Yet this does not mean we cannot maintain our friendship."
"I do like you, Toma!" the Koba marketer laughed and looked around for another component for the man to fix. Having another infuser before he went through with the plan and left that place would not be a bad thing... Or perhaps he might wait just a while longer. Just a while.
He had nearly enough to earn him five years worth of living. He and his child, with his sister on Koba, would need it when the time came. The two outsiders would need what graces they possessed when all was completed, too. Someday soon, it would all come back to them. They would see.
Soon enough.
"A hovercraft." She crossed her arms and aimed a squinted smirk at him. "You got me a hovercraft."
Tom shook a finger at her unvoiced accusation. "I made us a way to get the communications array and transporter parts to Sacezia," he said. "But I got you a tour of Cezia. Wherever you want--oceans, mountains, the lakes the vendors travel to; when we can find the right way, we'll head to Sacezia."
She had to smile fully at that. She'd wanted to go outside the Azlrelian Plain for some time, had always looked at the mountains in the distance, wondering what lay beyond them. Tom had too. Of course, she also knew how much he desperately missed flying... Then again, he had remembered her birthday, however he'd figured out what day it was. She knew she'd never told him what day it was in Starfleet time.
So she moved from her place at the edge of the field he'd run into to uncover his big surprise, smiling at her as if it were his birthday. Wading into the grasses, she let her hand drift over the smooth white metal, warm to the touch in the Cezian sun.
"You always knew how to give a girl a proper ride," she quipped, moving close to him. Bending her head up for a kiss, he gladly gave her one. "Thank you."
He took her around the waist, hugged her. "Want to take a spin?"
"That is my part of the gift, isn't it?" she replied.
He took her hand as she lifted her cloak hem, stepped over the side panel of the diamond-shaped craft. Though Desalian in design and color, she could instantly tell Tom had refitted the inside. An easily accessible panel stretched around the entire seating area. There was even a mapping console, sensors, a retractable wind guard and some other systems--definitely upgrades--she recognized from Dviglar. She snickered to herself. It was just like him to be sure it would move swiftly and yet have that anachronistic "charm" he never seemed to mind and was all too easy to achieve on Cezia.
Tom came around and jumped into his seat. Immediately activating the lifters, the cruiser rose about a half-meter off the ground. Feeling that sensation under her again, B'Elanna laughed aloud. It'd been so long since they'd been around technology that just a simple anti-grav field tickled her nerves.
Looking over, she saw that look come over him. She had known it of him every time she saw him fly, a centeredness that was similar to any amount of concentration on his part, but with a particular contentedness as he squinted out to their destination. It was nice to see it again.
She remembered it from the last time they sat in the front of a craft together, staring out into the starfield, and how she'd settled on just being amused with the cocky pilot and his near constant need to joke around and annoy people. She couldn't take him too seriously after a while--unless he did get himself to work, where he almost always meant business.
He was a pain in the neck, but a nice distraction, an okay guy, a good technician--though he tried to hide it, probably to avoid having too much responsibility, she'd thought at the time. Only days later, he'd taken on every ounce of responsibility and hardship that his life might have offered him, showed the colors she had seen only occasionally in him before and held onto since. Rising to the challenge, he had stubbornly refused to be defeated, as had she.
As such, they survived.
Gazing into his eyes, she wondered if they would have been any better off stuck in the Delta Quadrant rather than stuck on Cezia, considering what they were making out of their lives there and getting back in return for their hardships. They had declared as much before, but she was truly starting to feel glad she was there.
When Tom opened his arm, she leaned into it then watched the wind guard rise halfway up as he initiated the simple propulsion drive.
"Ready?" he asked, giving her a squeeze.
She nodded, her eyes out on the horizon. "Let's go."
From the first time her stomach shot back with the forward motion, B'Elanna loved cruising in the hovercraft. In little time, she would find any excuse to get them out, even geological surveys--though she knew damn well she knew nothing about geology except what could be mined for a ship's engine. But the excuse was a good one.
Over the grassy fields, they veered over the seemingly endless rolling hills east of Azlre, lit with bright white flowers and swarms of feeding insects, then turning sharply northwest to pass into wetlands, full with the residue of the rains. It was a beautiful place, Cezia, having come alive again after the "winter" storms, out in the undisturbed wilderness. It was little wonder the Desalians revered nature, those graceful trees, the thrush of the lowlands, even herds of wild goats and taller, deer-like creatures scampering into a tall forest near the west rise of the Mecrisop Range, visible from Azlre and yet farther and taller than they had expected.
Seeing the wild nature made them speak again on their wish to improve things at Azlre--if not elsewhere.
The warm sun brought every sense alive, as did the velocity as they climbed up the hills, looking for a pass, finding one only to climb higher and higher. The exterior temperature quickly chilled, but they ascended despite it, wanting to see how high they would have to go, looking for a gorge to pass through and enthralled by the motion as Tom arched through tighter passes.
After many trips out, they did find that pass, to the south instead of the north, within a deep green hollow and a great river, rushing white down the steep inclines.
Tom easily guided them through, thrilled through his core with the rush of motion, the warmth of B'Elanna by him or watching her lean up to tap at a scanner when they saw something new. But mostly, she leaned back and watched where they were going. He meanwhile easily recalled his pure love of flying, the travel and the company. Even that patched-up, old-fashioned hovercraft was a joy. Not that he was being picky about things like that anymore. They were lucky as hell to have that much, and luckier still to be able to enjoy it together.
They came to take those trips often. At one point, Tom took Bala out to help them find a better route through the ranges. While not a native of that world, he did have some memory of maps and had lived there since shortly after the Unar overtook Desalia. The old man, in fact, reveled in the return of such travel as much as Tom did, thanked him profusely for the opportunity to have it again.
Then came their friends and their trainees and whoever else had been as curious to ask got a "spin" in the craft. The thrill and the sights of their world beyond the city only served to make them more anxious to continue their work and expand on it.
B'Elanna couldn't be more pleased. Her birthday present was turning out to be as much of a blessing as the new replicators were being for the rest of the city. They had already been well-used for supplies--though all selections were prudently made. Food was limited to basic un-growable nutrition. Bakali's medicines were limited for some time to antibiotics and inoculations, with which she, Cali, Yaricha, E'ildra and Suoti, hurried around from tenement to tenement for over a du'ave. Clothing, books and similar products were replicated only for children and the neediest of citizens.
Even so, Tom and B'Elanna--upon Sashana'i's insistence--did finally replicate a decanter of tracha, the traditional breakfast drink from Desalia that by its description was much like coffee. On their first sip, they decided they could definitely use another replicator--one only for foodstuffs.
Padan got the sensor grid he'd wanted soon after. He took it with solemn thanks and his usual smile.
With that extra hope and promise infused into Azlre, there came a definite stirring in the city. With the improved nutrition--if only via Bakali's vitamin supplements--the inhabitants' energy was increased, as was their mood. The chatter in the square over the "new blessings" was its own source of excitement, even if many were yet unsure of the nature of those improvements. Thus, their increased activity also brought on several philosophical debates on the matter of Desal even deserving so much. The outcome of that issue was never concluded definitively, however. The Azlrelians did not mind. It was livelier talk than they had enjoyed in some time--if ever in their lifetimes. With their elders' ready encouragements, they soon thrived on it.
Also as a result of their witnessing the positive effects of that "simple" technology, there yet came other people wishing to assist in making it, including many of their old Uilaran friends, who had been having to make their livings through other labors. B'Elanna and Tom gladly taught them some basics to start: Wiring, repairs and power infusion. With some, they soon moved on to general engineering, systems management and operation. As the teenagers had, the adults learned quickly and asked few questions, obeyed their teachers' wisdom when they explained the processes well enough.
"Just how you like them, good and humble," Tom quipped one night when she commented on that, only to find himself flung onto his back by an evilly grinning half-Klingon pinning him to the rag-stuffed mattress.
"That's right," she told him playfully. "I do."
By then, the elders downstairs barely noticed it.
It would take years to get the entire city re-powered properly, considering, but a few key buildings like the clinic, the commune halls and the silag, which they had begun to rebuild, had permanent power. Slowly but surely, the rest would come. Their thoughts now turned to Sacezia, which according to Sashana'i and Aratra was in serious disrepair nearly nine years ago, when they were taken away to Uillar. Plans to share their good fortune and hard work with their sister city soon followed, and so they began to make the necessary arrangements.
Hearing of this, Padan had assured them that they would have their supplies. The Koba and the Iaskeb alone were much gratified by the repairs they had sent to Padan. They naturally wanted more. Padan needed only ask the usual. Tom and B'Elanna easily provided him with what he requested, not minding at all by that point their trades.
Each night, when they did finally lower themselves to rest after their usual long day, their eyes knew it.
They were finally making a difference.
Several robed Desalians came through the north gates of Sacezia to peer curiously at the arrivals. The two were foreigners, apparently, traveling in a land cruiser--an item previously assumed to no longer be a part of a Desalian's complement. They knew the traditional arrival place and procedure, however. They also were outfitted as handsomely as any Desalian could have been in those times. These details brought stillness to the reception. These guests should be treated with respect.
The tall young man in a pale blue headdress rolled up a robe sleeve and strode around to help the well-appointed lady down the rest of the way. When she turned, they immediately noticed her high, unusually scarred forehead above an intriguing pair of eyes and regal mouth; her short curls were barely hidden by her cursory scarves and cloak hood. The man bore scars of his own, yet was handsome, strong. Looking again, the group that met them noted then that they did not bear temple markings. Still, taking the lady's hand, the newcomer bowed properly; she followed in an echo. His words, however simple, flowed properly, too.
"We bring ourselves at the wishes of Bakali and Bala of the Na'ihaj house, our hosts and elders of Azlre, and with respectful greetings from our good regents, Sashana'i and Aratra."
An elder Desalian with short, salty hair, orangish scarves and faded brown robes met them in the middle of the path. "We welcome your blessed news of their wellness," he said, touching his temples solemnly, "and you into our city. I am Zepra, of the Mahor House, assistant to Lledri, prichava of Cezia."
Tom bowed again. "Toma. My mate, Be'i, of the Allanois house."
The elder man's brow drew up. "You are of Allanois?"
"By his right," B'Elanna said, catching the man's gaze, "Aratra, bondmate to Sashana'i of Allanois, adopted us into his house at the Uillar labor camp, with the blessing of Sashana'i."
Zepra seemed well enough impressed and bowed again. "You will be taken to the silag for your residence."
B'Elanna blinked at that. The silag, temples to the ancestors, were a common part of any Desalian community. But it was also a temple, which was not quite the lodging she had considered when they planned their trip to Sacezia. "It is not necessary to show us such honor," she told the man.
"To house you properly is customary," Zepra replied simply, not an argument.
"We would rather take company with elders of Bakali's status and wisdom."
"Few elders remain here, good lady, and none of fair status but our prichava. Please bring yourself in peace."
B'Elanna knew better than to argue further, thanks to Aratra's stories about his birthplace. When she had been recuperating from her illness on Uillar, he told her how the Unar divided portions of the "refugees" coming from Desalia-Four. Sacezia's population was immediately tripled with the addition of well-born but provincial citizens from the west central region, as Azlre had been packed with both the cosmopolitan and elite from the capital city of Desal. Other regional populations were similarly shipped to the larger cities on Saha'aten, Maha'aje, Llatso'a and other planets within what had been Desalian territory. It was not known how many were kept on the homeworld. Bala guessed the more modestly educated peoples and agricultural workers were retained to maintain the planet's farms and basic systems, half a billion, perhaps.
Later, B'Elanna learned that the only scholars to survive and relocate with the refugees were well hidden and later smuggled away, undetected like Bakali, Bala, and the prichavas of Sacezia, or trained in secret, as Dulla and others after him had been. While these scholars and others likewise trained some able youths in the spiritual practices of the scholarship, such as had been done with Miztri and Dalra on Maha'aje, none of them could present themselves publicly as an organized body of knowledge and counsel. Thus, the population had no government and little guidance, and so they had to rebuild their way of life from what they knew and what they were permitted. When B'Elanna and Tom planned to make the long journey northwest across the mainland, Aratra reminded them of the result on Cezia: Sacezia's populace was far more strongly rooted in Desal's ancient traditions than Azlre.
Neither found that easy to believe until that moment, when they saw an entire row of hooded individuals bow to a knee, allowing them to pass, whispering reverent greetings and prayers to their high-ranked guests. Their breaths were a steady hum as they began their journey into the city.
"You shall now be taken to her, honored guests," Zepra said.
Bowing again, the man gestured for them to walk by him. Shrugging, Tom offered his arm to B'Elanna and moved beside Zepra, meanwhile taking in the difference of that city.
The capital was not unlike Azlre architecturally except perhaps in its layout. Built in a crescent along the shoreline, it had but one main avenue with cross streets and some open spaces. They appeared to have once been gardens and perhaps meeting squares. It was difficult to tell for the rot that had claimed those areas. Despite the welcome humidity, it was rather hot, and the substantial rains came not in a yearly downpour there, but in regular sea-driven storms that etched the city, taking a little back in the wash each time. Indeed, only moss seemed to grow there, well within the cracks. The old flowerbeds were nothing but cracked dirt and no commune gardens existed that they could see.
The tall, jury-rigged buildings were more corroded than the ones in Azlre, the salty, wet air having eaten into the stone without repair. Others lay in plain ruins, big hunks of stone unmoved for sixty years, with shanty-like rows built up against them. It amazed them that half of the housing was standing at that point.
The denizens were just as thin and poor--if not more--with thinly clothed, scampering children and purposeless people strolling around to one place or another. Seeing the strangers, they bowed humbly with kind smiles, all, but their gazes were otherwise vacant. Moving farther into the city, several of the citizens there seemed to have protracted illnesses, coughed hard or wiped their reddened eyes. Zepra quietly told them not to worry, that the contagion had passed and they witnessed only the recovery. Tom sighed at that admission, knowing they hadn't brought nearly enough medicine for a full outbreak of what was likely influenza, the most common disease in Azlre.
It all looked familiar to Tom and B'Elanna, though. "I feel like we did the first day we left the clinic," she commented. He nodded to that. With an effort, they simply returned the greetings politely then turned their eyes ahead to keep walking.
"Replication devices? Planetary transporters? Power units and communications?" The well-ornamented woman in her mid-sixties, mindful of her rank as elder and example, bent over her fresh tea. The leaves, braided into sticks and tied with sweet root, were a gift sent to the prichava from the youths' elders--a noble custom that easily proved the identity and status of their Na'ihaj family. Despite the compliment, however, she still had the children before her to examine. "This I should think would be more than what is considered deserved of Desal at this time."
Tom bit his tongue, got more comfortable in the deep pillows of the dark, musty, but thankfully cool temple, where Lledri, its watchful, quiet-voiced keeper, had found them a chamber. The rest of the building loomed several stories to its arched roof, making their voices echo in contrast to the occasional rush of waves, just outside the west altar. In its day, that silag must have been majestic, Tom thought.
"Yet," the woman continued, "it has given benefit to the ailing, which is a blessing."
"More equipment has been planned, good Lledri," B'Elanna explained. "Yet we would require transportation for your replicators to be brought. For your children and ailing here, this would not be too great an additional blessing."
The elder woman nodded slowly, sipped again at the fine tea. "You are not of Desal by birth."
"This is correct," Tom said. "Does this trouble you?"
"No. Yet it is unclear if you can truly speak for Bakali and Bala, or for the house Dulla left, upon the debt of Desalia. This would be a thing not born of you, yet rather learned."
"We speak for them with our voices," Tom replied wisely.
"As you take Cezia as a home, Desal into your spirits."
"Desal has been ours since our incarceration on Uillar," B'Elanna told her, "its people our only family. We desire no other and wish to be among Desal as it regains its honor and health, wish to see its long hoped for future. Bala and Bakali, Sashana'i and Aratra, among others, share this desire--granted it is in accordance with their continued pure-spiritedness, of course."
Tom nodded to that. "It is believed in Azlre we have not overstepped our wishes, but attempted to ease the desperation and bitterness of our poverty. Thus, we shall continue."
The woman smiled. "You bear ambitious dreams--yet this is not criminal. I would feel more confidence in your beings would you choose to claim our community entirely, to bear the kraja upon your temples and thus be citizens in spirit and not but within your good beings."
"We bear no preparation for such a commitment at this time," Tom said politely, though caught a little off guard. They hadn't thought about it yet. They had been so welcomed in Azlre that citizenship simply never came up. That more traditional population might want it, however. "This has not been discussed. It shall be."
"This is understood." Lledri drew another drink of her tea, finishing it, then looked over to Zepra and his assistant, Eraja. "Carry the word that their offer offer shall be accepted. --Be'i and Toma of the Allanois and house of Na'ihaj, you would be sufficiently weary from your travels. You shall now be left to take rest. I shall bring myself again at sunset, to save our lady Be'i's sight. Past our prayers to the blessed ancestors, we shall take food and speak again among others."
Moving to her softly booted feet, she bowed. "I hesitate at your gifts, yet there is acute awareness of great need among our own. Unar own quite possessive beings and it is believed that our debt to Tsa'aitsa is not yet paid. We may pay more for our kindness to our own than is expected. Yet I shall not risk the opposite, do nothing and risk refusal of the spirits' blessing. We shall see which credit is truth in time, what fate's response shall be."
"Much is understood in this," B'Elanna said, training neutrality into her syntax and tone. The debt to their history, she could understand--but not to that enemy. "Yet it would not have been at all should it not be meant, yes?"
Lledri smiled. "An easy reasoning is your position, Child, which is considered," she replied and turned to draw a curtain for their privacy.
B'Elanna lowered herself into the bed of pillows with a long breath of relief. She looked over at Tom, who looked as glad as she was to have that much done. "One down, ninety thousand to go," she quipped and rolled over into his open arm.
"Nothing to it, Chief," he grinned and closed his eyes against her.
Outside, Lledri took Zepra aside with a soft touch to his arm. Looking up to him, her red-brown stare moistened with awareness, and a smile curled her lips.
"My good lady?" Zepra asked, wondering at her emotion. The prichava was not often affected, and he would not have expected the two foreign-born representatives to make her so.
"I stand as full as a blessed child," she told him, her voice crackling with excitement. With an effort, she controlled herself, though she continued to allow the joy. "The Allanois house is not forsaken. These two, siblings to Sashana'i by claim, bring news of life and progress. The sanctity of our spirits, certainly, must be guarded, yet I believe the way remains. Allanois yet remains among our living spirits, my friend; thus we shall be delivered."
"Their purpose is truth?"
Lledri gave a single nod. "It is. We shall accept their pains for us and this fate they bring, for our better or worse. Through this, we shall continue to protect the house of our people's fate."
He considered this. "Sashana'i is of a nine-year past the age scholar's bonds are traditionally taken. She bore no desire when she last saw Cezia, even while bearing the legacy's disarray within her and much in need of stability. Aratra having indeed taken her as bondmate may affect similar distance--yet potential."
"They shall choose when it is meant," she dismissed and squeezed his arms lightly. "Zepra, the House of Allanois must thrive in any status--for Desalia, for our children and theirs, the line must continue. No redemption may be found without completing the circle and restoring the balance of our own. Oh, Zepra, they remain among the living; the blood and the memories of our blessed regents Sharana'i and Mi'ejara are strong and vital and more proud than we shall ever rightfully be, and they bear adopted siblings of good measure and wit. My very spirit floods to know Allanois thrives again at last."
The sentry took the elder lady into an embrace, so full he found her with relief. But soon, she broke off, moving again to the entrance to alert her novitiates to send for food and prepare the chamber for prayer. For their honored guests, they would take every pain. Fate would return her efforts well, had she any power to affect it.
When they hopped out of the cruiser at Azlre six days later, their smiles were such that Sashana'i clapped her hands, knowing instantly their success.
"It is a blessing on all our houses!" she enthused, hurrying from her work to embrace them both. "How appears Sacezia? I assume it remains standing?"
"Surprisingly enough, yes," B'Elanna told her, "and it practices twice as zealously the customs you warned us about. We were kept at the silag the entire time and attended four meditations each day."
Dalra, nearby, laughed loudly. "At silag so long? You and Toma? I find surprise the silag yet stands!"
B'Elanna gave him a wearied look. "We're not complete heathens, you know. I can take it--to a point. And it wasn't all that bad. I am surprised we got anything done, though, with constantly needing to stop and praise the ancestors and give thanks to the weeds for growing."
"By whom were you kept?" Sashana'i asked, furrowing her brow. The prayer sessions were no surprise to her. She remembered her birthplace well, had dearly missed the temple's grandeur and solace after she and Aratra were taken to Uillar. "The custom to treat guests with great honor is known, yet a full visit's stay at the temple is unusual. It is a grace that this remains possible. Who keeps it?"
"Lledri of the Stiga'a House," Tom told her.
Aratra smirked as he leaned on the storage wall, cutting a wise look to his bondmate. "Ah, Watsha's former assistant. She is the prichava now? Vya! A fine spirit, truly, though I bear certainty she wears her status well."
"As I am yet more surprised she would bear you," Sashana'i agreed. "Watsha was of a traditional school--traditional even among us--and she found great approval with this. Your foreign status would not necessarily qualify you as Allanois without citizenship."
"She asked about that, actually," Tom told her, "if we were considering the kraja."
"She would bear curiosity about this, ka. They sought my scholarship when I bore but sixteen rallkle, when my good Dulla passed the legacy to me. To desire such honors are first required, and thus I resisted. Scholarship they pressed, however, for its proper place with a regent. Being you are adopted into the regent's house and close to Aratra and me, your citizenship should bear great importance to Lledri as well."
Dalra chuckled, coming forth to pat Tom's well-robed arm. "It is for your dressing of your siblings, good Sashana'i, I first thought they would have been taken."
She shrugged. "Be'i and Toma are dressed as befits their station, and yet humbly. Lledri likely sought their minds as they are related to my house and our people at present." But a moment later, she shook her head of it. "Aratra soon takes himself to procure food and I must bring our floorcloth to our elders this moon. Would you wish to assist Bala and Bakali before our evening meal and assist the preparations? Cali's intended shall be delivered at the west gate at sixth quarter."
B'Elanna smiled at the mention. Their friend had received her lover's payment a week before she and Tom left for Sacezia. Payment was notification that a drask's release would come within the next du'ave. "How is Cali handling the anticipation?" she asked.
Sashana'i's eyes hardened at that, recalling instantly how her friends felt about such matters. As quickly as she had spoken, too, she regretted her cheer of only moments before and her casualness with such fated matters. It was a grim reminder of how seasoned she and others were to the passings of Desalian laborers. A wrong attitude, she scolded herself. With her ambitions, her bearing should have been the very opposite.
"Zhall ye'o," she said. "Your forgiveness for my error. It is reported he has passed onto our ancestors, Be'i. His shell is to be returned for the ceremony--a gift of...Unar."
B'Elanna blew her breath as Tom turned back to the craft. A gift of the Unar, all right, she growled to herself and stared back to Sashana'i. "Was he beaten?" she asked.
"No details were offered," Sashana'i admitted. "It would be suspected his neck was broken, however. It is the usual method, as is known."
Tom had pushed a small cart under the land cruiser to pull it to its storage space. "It's funny," he muttered tightly. "Every time we start thinking things are going right and it starts getting comfortable around here, we're reminded of what's really going on--as if we had the right to put it aside."
"Easy enough to do when they're not breathing down our necks," B'Elanna agreed, but willed away the rest. She knew well there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it--not for Cali's intended, anyway, not for the present. "Sashana'i, I would like to start the inverter coils tomorrow morning. --Aratra, do you think you could take a trade to Padan this evening? I have that dilithium infuser ready. He would probably like that."
Still in the door, Aratra nodded. "It would please to do this."
Sashana'i smiled to B'Elanna, touching her arm supportively. "And I shall join him. Our market visit remains this evening; it shall be good to walk."
B'Elanna nodded and joined Tom in setting the cruiser away. "Thanks."
They dressed for dinner--changed their dusty clothes--quiet and expecting a gathering like ones they'd had before. Comfort for the "mourning." On the floor below, Cali and little Haviki were assisting Bakali in setting up their eating pallet.
"At least Cali's taking it all right," Tom said without much emotion, pulling on his dark tunic, running his fingers through his hair.
B'Elanna pulled her gown laces behind her and tied them off. "Haviki's still without a father and Cali's got to keep going on her own," she frowned. "They have friends around them, but it'll be hard. I could see it at the ceremony. She's being accepting, but she knows, Tom."
"Yeah. She was quiet."
Shaking her head, B'Elanna went to sit on the side of the bunk to wrap her shoes onto her feet. As she she finished the first, she dropped her foot on the floor.
Tom turned after several seconds of silence and saw her reach tentatively up to touch her face, to feel the remaining bridge of her nose, trace its inward slope. Her fingers lifted, immobile a moment before she placed them upon her forehead. She stared numbly ahead as her touches drifted around the wasteland of her brow, the nook that dug into her left eyebrow where a piece of a ridge had been displaced, then up into the flat where the smooth bone had been grafted. Her hand shook slightly. Her fingers spreading to the right, she touched the scattered remains of her ridges. B'Elanna's stare lowered with her hand.
Tom took a breath against his sinking heart. Nearly six seasons on Cezia and she hadn't done that, cared to explore her own face, to know what she looked like. To his memory, she had never even looked in a mirror. He was used to her appearance and honestly never thought her unattractive for her injuries. He knew he wasn't the one wearing it, though.
"They don't have the right to do this to us, Tom." Her voice was soft yet plain.
His was, too. "I know."
"But we're sitting here, just like we swore we wouldn't." She looked up to him. "We keep busy, fix and build things to help people--and that's all fine and worth our time. But Bala and the others might never see it's not enough, and we'll just keep doing it to keep busy. We're not really accomplishing anything permanent."
"It isn't the swift takeover we had planned, is it?" Tom agreed, his mouth screwing down.
"No. It isn't."
"Do you want to leave here, then?" He wanted to know.
She considered that a moment. It wasn't a difficult decision. "No," she said. "We might have to, to do what we need, though. You still want to fight back, don't you?"
"Yes. I do." There was likewise no doubt there, nor when he softly added, "But I don't want to leave, either."
She drew a thoughtful breath, blinked slowly. "Bala said that once Azlre was on its feet, he might reconsider. We need to discuss this with him and Bakali."
Tom nodded. "How about tomorrow?"
"It's as good a time as any."
Their gazes still locked, Tom moved to kneel before her, barely creaking the floorboards as his knees found them. Then he was looking slightly up to her, unblinking, and he reached up to touch her forehead. She did not resist, though she closed her eyes, stilling herself with the feel of his warm, tender fingers pressing against her skin. She inhaled. His scent filled her nostrils as his touches circled her brow's displaced rises, over the fragments that once was her center ridge, around to her crooked temple, back to her hair. It didn't hurt at all anymore, but the skin was still sensitive. A little chill brushed over her neck and back.
When she opened her eyes again, slightly misted, his deep, unblinking gaze warmed her immediately. She felt his look beat in her heart, twinge deeper still within her. She drew a small breath. It still amazed her sometimes, how powerful it could be...
"Tsi'a tsu yets me abrro," she whispered. She knew he did. She knew his true self, too. They had not forgotten Bala and Bakali's gift to them, the sight of their beings. They never would.
He eased her down and kissed her brow, soft and fair with healing and shade. "Tsi'i tsujis yeta'o mes vi'a ye'a," he responded softly, and then choked a sigh when her small hand touched his neck.
"Ah, I bore nineteen years, dear kinisi'i, when I took my chosen name, one cycle of Tb'rras before I took my steps in the silag, consecrated my union with my bondmate by entering the novitiate.... My name of birth? The name my parents gave unto me was only lent by their blessing; it is no longer my own. The scholarship is a great responsibility; in it, one humbly gives away all things of youth and dedicates one's self to the honor of knowledge and dedication to sharing that knowledge with others.
"Not all of Desal was fit for this journey. Known were we as scholars, yet only a fifth of our population took their vows as students at the institute. Less than a sixth were truly scholars.
"Yet enough years are yours that you may bear this explanation. In the lush days of Desal, stretching thousands of years into our history, the scholarship was a great body among the citizens. Our noble regents had been in state; in a glorious time, all its realms were cared for beneath their loving eye, and yet these honored regents were yet a center to all things Desalian. They bore advice from the scholarship--were nearly all scholars themselves--and were enlightened by our blessed word painters, who, like our good lady Tseshydi, wove the words of our ancestors and their own, deriving meaning from them as teachers of our most minute histories.
"In the provinces, however, in the land surrounding each institute, the scholarship was a place of knowledge and guidance, of fair advice and public contest when there was an agreement to be sought. Each scholar had a trade--a special place of their work--in which they were trained to their finest potential. I had found fine training in teaching our youth. Bakali's trade found natural medicine. Others trained in physical medicine, the histories, the psychological practices, technological arts and physics among the many sciences, agricultural development--many, many trades.
"In the span of six thousand revolutions, through fifteen great houses of the Regency, Desalia grew and thrived in this manner. The true regency bore the weight of its world and was a symbol for our oneness. When this degraded, all others followed.
"Ignorant of this change, our indulgences continued. Many bore eyes so blinded by pleasure our future terror could hardly be seen, even as it sat just upon us. Most in our highborn houses were no exception, even while some of our neighbors were consumed by the consequences of standing against the poor policies of the time. My graduation to the novitiate was a lavish event, my robes like spun bronze so soft they barely made weight upon my shoulders. My hair was tied in beads of t'vi'usad crystals and my blessed bondmate looked as though every grace in creation had fitted her array, dressed in the morning sky and shining like sunlit water. We stepped together in the ancient dance, consecrating our journey to be taken together; we drank sirril wine and sang of our love and youth.
"Sobering at the rise of our next sun, we took ourselves to our parents and guests and humbly asked their blessing, and chose our names of being. Our parents proudly touched us with gentle words and kissed us in their joy for our spiritual maturity. We rose and turned for the silag, where we would be cleansed and reclothed, then led to the altar to pray for our great ancestors, our families and our own spirits. Deep in meditation, we would discover our truest spirits for the first time and be permitted at the threshold of eternity, as would be done when we soon would bond. Yet, again, our entry into that threshold was withheld; we could only be made aware of what awaited us when someday we would pass. This was the way, and awakening, we were inspired to follow in the path of those we had spied in our journey.
"The great scholarship of our people has not been destroyed, dear children. It is merely relegated to hidden places in our people's midnight--some burrowing among us upon Cezia, or the south ranges at Saha'aten, or within the vast tunnels of Maha'aje. Many of our good elders remain in hiding in the rocks of Trisk Rojis and in the crystal gorges of Brija-Three, where Unar are blind. Our knowledge is passed to those who may bear it well as we await the day the sun shines warms Desal once more. Then we shall again glory in our people's most ancient blessings."
They watched the others smiling at the thought, though Sashana'i's and Aratra's stares grew inward with Bala's, likely for the memories they knew too well.
"Why had Unar left you among us?" Haviki asked. "You as scholars are not hidden."
Bala's gaze turned wisely toward his bondmate, who bent to collect the napkins. Her eyes briefly closed. Then he looked again at the child. "Those words would be painted another sun, kinisi'i."
The present sun was beginning to set, its ruddy rays slipping through the cracks in the shutter. Tom moved to the mantel to stoke the dimming fire. Adjusting the coals, he added a few more shales, and then replaced the grates. B'Elanna looked across at a sedated Haviki, who fumbled with her braids, satisfied with Bala's answers. Holding the child, Cali's smile was gently sad.
"I should hope to meet them someday, our hidden scholars," she said, very softly, as she stroked her daughter's shoulder. A fragment of a thought, it was all she said.
B'Elanna smiled slightly. "Maybe you will...someday."
Another moment of silence passed before Aratra picked up his bondmate's hand to kiss it. "It is time," he said. "Padan shall be returned by this quarter."
Sashana'i nodded, slipping up to her knees then giving Aratra her other arm so he could lift her. "We shall be diligent, Be'i and Toma, in our trade."
Tom looked up at them. "Don't take anything less than thirty grams of that Mihoran crystal. It only has a quarter the capacity of a good shot of photonic plasma and he knows it."
"He shall make his attempt regardless," Aratra grinned as he pulled on his coat. "We shall be wise."
She would have difficulty bearing children, should she grow with child.
Bakali, with the aid of the newly repaired equipment, could easily make this diagnosis. One simple scan and her eyes had darkened with a knowledge she knew all too well for herself, long ago. She did not have the equipment to treat the remaining damage-- "As yet," the gentle elder assured them both, her smile a well of strength as she touched their joined hands. "I shall procure your treatment, Child. This is promised."
Sashana'i and Aratra took it well enough. She in particular had faith in the future. There was a time nearly nine years past when all seemed as bleak, and bleaker still when she nervously offered herself to Maghet in trade for desperately needed medicines. At the time, she was completely ignorant of Unar physiology--more ignorant still of their practices with alien women. She became accustomed to it. It was not as painful as it was uncomfortable and humiliating. The trades were worth the cost, she convinced herself, and worth the small dose of power it afforded her. The sickness she often suffered afterwards was temporary. Likewise, when her time at Uillar was ended, she had gratefully put that time away as generous payment for her people's sins.
She did not anticipate that her choice would follow her so far--and did not wish to believe her presently barren state was fate's balance for the murder of Hychar. A demon of his viciousness had the right to join what had spawned him, if only by the hands of the house he had so brutally attempted to make suffer and destroy. Her own weighted conscience was the balance. She yet had faith in Bakali's dedication and her healing. Aratra did as well. They needed only be patient, as always.
For that matter, she had far more to wish for than children just then.
The sun had nested into the hills, though the dusk shed more than enough light to navigate Azlre. The warm breezes wafted through and around the alleys into the main street where she and Aratra, her hand on his arm, walked steadily east, towards the bazaar. They greeted friends and acquaintances, allowed the bows to be lower than their own. It had become a comfort to her there, their respect and willingness to follow, another source of hope. She would require their compliance.
Coming to the first vendors, where work was still traded even after dinner, Aratra cheerfully greeted Tahinka, a boyhood friend of Sacezia, who after a service in an Antral house had been deposited back to the wrong city. He had been there since, weaving joth and crissij fur for his bread.
"Remain and speak with our friend, my spirit," Sashana'i said easily to her bondmate as he and Tahinka laughed over the latter's child's first taste of sirril. "I shall bargain the trade."
Aratra touched her, giving her a quizzical little grin as he regarded her. "Bear you certainty, my lady? You should not be left to the claws of Koba currency."
"I am well able to procure our trade," Sashana'i scolded him. "It is well known you are far less able at it than I."
Aratra chuckled. "Then I shall await you while you stir your laundry with Padan and prove that knowledge."
She rolled her eyes with a knowing smile, but bowed to their friend, took the infuser and left a moment later. She worshipped her bondmate without question, he who had stood by without jealousy or ire during their dark years at Uillar. It pleased her more than ever to see his natural mischief return to him upon their return to their birthworld, even if he did pick at her traits like a playful bird.
She turned into the nook leading to Padan's flat, a large space in comparison to the corners and crevices that Desalians lived in; idly, she admired the remnants of the murals painted long ago on those once rich entry walls.
That we might see it again, she mused with bittersweet reflection on memories not her own, running her hand along the faded colors as she neared Padan's ajar doors then brought it down to pull the latch. Then--
"Ulllosk mik bawajopkreek ohkragerratus is."
Sashana'i stilled at the dialect.
It was Unar.
Her stomach fell and her hand impulsively clutched on the long handle of the door. The Unar words came again and she instantly heard speak of coordinates. Mindlessly, she opened the door, a natural impulse to hear more.
"Only the Trisjorr district," the voice continued. "As part of our bargain, you will only do this much. They will find their lesson in it."
Padan stood before a nicely repaired communications system, his long robe and burgundy hair hanging neatly down his thin back. The remainder of his house was...unfurnished. Sashana'i's chest fluttered and pounded as her eyes took it in, and her brain turned the sight into a comprehensible conclusion.
Padan finished his words, clicked off the comm. Then, he paused, taking in the slightly moved air. "Who has entered?" he calmly asked.
Sashana'i could not speak. When he turned, he seemed at first annoyed to see her--perhaps not someone else. Otherwise, he showed little emotion.
"You have heard," he said.
Sashana'i moved only to speak. "Why, Padan?" she asked dumbly. For all her experience and memory, she could not see a Koba in line with Unar. "Why court your enemy, who has stolen from you as generously as us? Who bears your wife as a slave?"
"It is the only way," he replied.
She shook her head. "To what? --Padan, this must be stopped."
"It shall be the only way to stir your frozen blood," he told her and stepped closer. The lady did not move, not afraid of him yet trembling with her knowledge. "And yet, good lady Sashana'i of the Allanois house, of your blessed regency, I know your desire, too. You wish Toma and Be'i to fight the Unar--to cleanse the plague that has raped your people. This cannot be denied. Your blood cannot lie to me."
"Not through the passings of my own people," she responded, feeling tears sting her eyes. "I would fight. This is truth. Yet to employ such mercenary manners cannot be. Our trades, your equipment--you would seek to destroy it? For our passionate revival?"
"No resistance in Irllae shall be successful without the passion of Desalia. We have tried to stir you and found only failure. Your former dominion was vast, your people powerful. Though you live like peasants now, you bear wisdom and cunning, and numbers within Unar walls far beyond all others. Without your dedication and technology, we only try in vain. As for the equipment, I have carefully instructed my contact."
Sashana'i felt her blood spinning in a way she hadn't felt since her last acts on Uillar as she glared at the man above her. "You cannot do this--not in your good conscience!" she told him.
"I already have--and with a greater conscience, for not only my Iblas, whom Unar do hold in servitude and misery, but for my people, and even yours as well. Yet think I find cheer in my only choice? I would not have remained at Cezia were I not pleased with your kind. Regardless, your people have become too comfortable in their guilt. Through this tragedy, there shall be change." Padan held the young woman's wide, gold-lit stare, leaned a bit towards her as if to make his point clearer. "The hope you have sewn in this city shall be desecrated. If this does not anger your people, then Unar have already taken what is left of your blessed spirits and eaten it as candy. You would already be dead, and so the destruction shall not have mattered. Yet, either way, Toma and Be'i shall be incensed. They should make fine members of the resistance."
Sashana'i's eyes hardened immediately to know the gist of his plan. "You shall not take them! They are of my house and their own fate! Your attempt to manipulate them is complete arrogance!"
"They are outsiders," he corrected, pleased to see the passion emanating from the young Desalian's face. Indeed, it was very good to see, even better than Bala's acceptance of the trades. "And their truest selves are disposed to the fight. They admit this in your own tongue. And you encourage this."
"They yet would never wish the destruction of Desal to secure their aims!"
"Desal shall not be destroyed," he assured, stepping back to his console. Taking a small component into his hand, he turned again and aimed it at her. "And nor shall the Allanois. You are needed in your rank among your people, who require its regents. Rather, you shall be saved."
"Yet it is inequitable!" Sashana'i insisted.
"It shall be regardless," he replied simply, bowing his head. "My regards to your friends and bondmate, Sashana'i of Allanois, and to you. We shall not meet again, I should think."
"Please!" Sashana'i pleaded, holding her hands forward. "I beg you, good man, do wait. Allow us-- Gye!"
With a press of his finger, she was silenced.
Padan lowered the stun pistol as the Desalian lady collapsed to the floor in a pile of hair and robes, her small body lost beneath. The last of the current trickled out through her outspread fingers; examining her a moment, he saw her taking tiny breaths. A few minutes was all he needed, he knew.
Quietly, he assembled his gear, sure that he left nothing of importance. Reactivating the comm system, he called for the ship he had arranged for just before making the final deals with his Unar contact. When he passed over her body to put himself in position to transport, he noticed the dilithium infuser half exposed in her pocket.
She had brought it in faith, he knew, just another trade for another replication power source. In good, Desalian faith.
Padan's lips curled up into thin grin as he reached into one of his duffels and found a canister of pure photonic plasma. It was enough to recharge a ship's main generator--and then some. He knew at Dviglar, there were ships that could be brought to health, so his choice was practical, he thought. He placed the canister beside her.
He did not take the infuser. In as good of faith as hers, he left it where it belonged, where it would likely find better use. He walked calmly to his gear again, closed his eyes to his room and waited.
Moments later, he dematerialized.
"Bakali!" Aratra screamed, feeling his lungs burn with the exertion. His bondmate, limp in his arms, jostled carelessly with his frantic pace.
When he had felt the crush in his chest at the bazaar, Tahinka had to steady him as he recovered. It took some time and his wildest thoughts nearly knocked him down again. But he did stand, stumbled through the bazaar and into the back row to Padan's flat. The door had been locked, but with Tahinka's help, they managed to get it open, only to find the flat empty and his bondmate on the floor in a heap.
His feet pounded on the stone streets as he ran, his breath puffed hard in the dry air. Though she was of little weight, her unconsciousness made her feel like a fo'aj of lead. But he ran anyway, passing people he barely noticed, smelling with every gasp the burn on her shoulder, crying out for their elder even though he was only halfway through the Kikull District.
He had waited with her, suffered, starved and stood again with her, followed her willingly to horrific Uillar, bore the excruciating weight of her legacy with her upon their bonding, felt her sacrifice to Unar each and every time she had to go to Mahget, held her as she expelled the curse of it and cried weakly in his arms. She had convinced herself that it was just payment, and he had given his sad blessing to her chosen suffering. He had resigned to suffer, too, for what he had come to believe through Dulla and through her. He had faith in their plans and hope for Desal's freedom. He had no other choice but to trust their union and all that would have to come from it...
"Bakali!" he shouted again, his voice cracking. He had finally come to the east entry of the square, and not a few shutters opened to see the source of such terrified screams.
But then a rumble sounded behind him, to the southeast--familiar thunder not of nature's making. His memory knew that atmospheric disturbance...
Why should Padan disable Sashana'i? his mind began to turn. Take his belongings and himself away from Cezia without warning? The rumble sounded again, closer, above and beyond in the evening sky.
Aratra felt his blood drain and he turned back towards the clinic again. "Bala! Bakali! Toma, Be'i! All Desal! We are under attack!"
Three stories above the street, Tom stirred at the echoes of voices and commotion and drowsily wondered what thunder was doing at Azlre that time of year. Pulling his head from the mattress, he heard the rumble again, and then...yelling? That much was coming from the square below, so he couldn't quite decipher it. But something wasn't right... Then the thunder steadied...
It wasn't thunder.
"B'Elanna, wake up!" he whispered loudly, shaking her. Her eyes opened then turned upon hearing the same thing her mate had.
"That's not a transport ship," she knew immediately. She then paled when she heard the screams--"Jorrabki'o! Gabikych!"--to vacate--to run.
"I think--"
"I'brrelo!" The floor flap opened and Bala's head popped through. In the light pouring up from the main room, he saw they were awake and nodded quickly. "Toma, Be'i, bring yourselves. There is trouble."
They needed no second request.
They scrambled down into the clinic just as Sashana'i clutched at her elder's robes, crying openly. "They shall destroy the Trisjorr district!" she wept. "This is my doing! My doing! I could not sway him! My words would not be heard!"
Coming around the table, Tom moved to catch her desperate stare. "Who, Sashana'i?" he demanded. "Who's doing this?"
"Unar!" she cried. "They are brought here by Padan!"
"What?!"
"He wishes to bring fury to our spirits," she told them, reaching out to grab the sleeve of Bala's robe, "as we have lived in peace and you who have honored us. His desperation and my curse...my curse!"
Tom and B'Elanna's eyes locked as Sashana'i buried herself in Bala's arms, begging forgiveness. But the old man was thinking quickly despite her sobs and their shock. "Take yourself to Miztri and Dalra and Latsari and Bolmra!" he told Aratra. "They have just taken themselves to Cali's flat.&nbs; Send them and others among you to evacuate the east and south districts. Let the word spread like floodwater! Sashana'i bears wellness. Take yourself! --And use care in your action. Little time remains."
Aratra punched the door flying out of it.
B'Elanna was shaking hard as her mind put the pieces together. She knew well what she and Tom had been repairing for the marketer. Releasing her breath as Sashana'i wept aloud her guilt again, she went to the table and gave the people there a solid stare.
"This is my fault, Sashana'i, not yours," she said. "Tom and I were the ones to deal with Padan. We were the ones who fixed his comm system and everything else. He used us--and we knew he was up to something, just not what."
"B'Elanna's right," Tom said, not liking having to admit that, but damned if he'd let their friend take the blame for something she was barely involved in. "Their deaths are on our hands--mine really. I made the deal."
"And this was permitted by me," Bala told them both. "I likewise welcomed it, both in word and in my spirit. We all bear responsibility, Children, for procuring a man of twisted intentions an inspiration. Yet the fate he has put into action was truly his own action, not ours. We know this in our good spirits. What is of importance now is not our guilt--a thing we all share and cannot reverse. Rather, the preservation of Azlre should concern us at present."
The rumble of ships' engines steadily became louder and the elder steadied his nerves, if only as an example to the others, who looked ready to bolt from their very skins if to take themselves, too, to Trisjorr. "Bakali, remain with Sashana'i. Toma, bring the glowglobes and our cloaks. We cannot retain those meant to pass, yet our share of the remainder shall indeed be ours."
Tom ran for the stairs, but a sudden roar of fire and a crash deep into the ground threw him forward against the hard steps. "Damn!" he cried out, both in pain and at the heightened horror being realized in the city. Outside, a wave of screams rose and echoed through the clinic as Bakali jumped to secure her patients in the other room, telling them to remain. Tom scrambled to his feet and continued forward.
B'Elanna rushed to the window at the crash, but she could see nothing, not even a ship, though its thrusters rattled the entire house and she could practically smell the antimatter waste. People were scattering toward the west gate, out of Azlre's perimeter. She could understand. They didn't know.
Then, a burst shot out from the black sky, a bright red phaser beam planting itself into the southeast side of the city. She pressed her fingers to the window.
Suddenly, she couldn't move, though she grasped the shutter when the reverberations from the hit in the Trisjorr District rumbled through the floor again then grew stronger, making her knees shake. Her heart beat harder, fluttered with dread as she realized what was happening, and she swallowed the horror for all her inability to do anything otherwise.
There wasn't a damn thing she could do but watch.
As much as she hated it, she could only hold on and hope that those poor, helpless, unsuspecting Desalians would go quickly. Their friends, people they had chatted with, bowed to and smiled at--apprentices...children... She hoped they were right and their souls really would go to their ancestors. She hoped whomever survived district wouldn't suffer.
But she knew from experience that there would be suffering--and not all would die well.
The Unar fired again, a long, rounding shot in the same vicinity as the last. The panes rattled; the floor shook. Somehow, the ceiling didn't come down on them. The buildings never looked as though they'd withstand as much, but they creaked and quaked, and stubbornly held on.
She still couldn't do anything--wouldn't. There wasn't any use in it. She had no ship, no weapons--no defense at all. If the Unar beamed down and decided to use them all for target practice, she could fight them a little, but they would win. She would die just like any other there.
She knew that shamefully well and hated it the most.
She jumped when she felt Tom drape her cloak over her shoulders. She then glanced up to his pained face, now aimed at the terrified people, still running in the light of the phaser fire.
They watched from those windows only a moment more. When yet another hit came down, Tom grabbed her hand.
"Where do you take yourselves?" Bala asked. He was still pulling his robe over his thin shoulders.
"Outside to do something!" Tom returned and pulled B'Elanna out to the front patio. She jerked back before he got to the step. He spun around. "What?!"
"It's not safe, Tom!" she insisted.
"What the hell's safe in Azlre right now!? Come on!" But for his yank, she yanked him back twice as hard.
"Tom, it's no use." She turned her head up to him, taking his arm in her hand. "What can we do? We can't stop it. We have nothing here that'll defend us."
He choked a breath to hear it. Her tone was as sure as ever, but her words were telling him exactly what he didn't want to admit at that point. "But we can at least go out there--warn them," he told her.
"By the time we get there, it'll be over," she returned, holding his stare. "Tom, we have to wait until they go away. It's not safe to go anywhere."
"Bullshit! We have to get out there!"
"For what?! They'll still be gone! Tom, it's already over!" Another blast and she gripped his arm for support, choking out a tearless sob as the people on the street stopped a moment to brace themselves. A child somewhere cried out and a mother swept him away. Another man grabbed his frantic woman, dragging her towards the west gate. B'Elanna's head dropped, and she shook it from side to side in frustration. "Damnit, don't you think I want to do something? But we can't! There's nothing...nothing right now."
Tom stilled, watching her try to compose herself. He too was shaking from head to toe, ready to act, knowing that on the other side of the city, a whole district was being plundered. A single Unar ship still loomed in the atmosphere, shaking the entire city and likely terrifying every citizen in it. He could only imagine the sight at every gate...
But B'Elanna wouldn't move. More, she was holding him there, trying to keep him from wasting his time and safety on something against which they were powerless. They wouldn't stop the people from running, or save anyone in the district from anything already done. They surely couldn't stop the Unar. They'd have plenty of time to act after, in the aftermath.
She was right. He felt his blood drain, felt himself shaking his head, even while he knew...He knew it before but had convinced himself otherwise. It was an old instinct neither had wanted to give up.
That night, they would have to.
Disengaging her grip, he pulled her to him, embracing her firmly on the step of the clinic, closing his eyes against the rest. There, they trembled together, perhaps not in fear as much as the strain of remaining unmoved in the chaos, reminding themselves over that to move would be more foolish than their inaction would he hellish. So they waited, and they hated every second, every jostle and noise.
The smoke was making its way into their noses, blew around and through their cloaks. An acrid odor, probably for the composition of the stones being burned black...and the people...Meeting their ancestors, he told himself over and over, forcing himself to believe it.
Bala found them there. Tom didn't address him. He bent his head into B'Elanna's hair, further blocking out the view, filtering his nose from the dust and smoke, feeling his tight chest stubbornly hold back from breaking.
I can't even cry anymore, he thought, burrowing his face more deeply into her thick curls. That edge of tears, combined with too many senses and feelings assaulting him, dissolved into a strange numbness and stranger stillness. The sounds on the street and in the distance faded away, the smells were gone. His eyes closed, so he saw none of it for the mean time, either, and there would be another time to cry for it all. All he knew was that he was holding a small, shivering body against his own, waiting desperately, silently, for their enemy to leave them.
Just like the Desalians had been doing for over sixty years.
Of their sixteen students, only Mazji, Yorlla and Rrebna survived. They lived in the north district.
The bazaar, a natural separator between the east and central districts, was rattled and weakened but otherwise unharmed.
In the fire that raged after the initial attack, not only Trisjorr, but several neighborhoods around it were damaged beyond livability. In all, approximately twenty thousand citizens perished, most in their sleep, when the Unar fired upon their buildings; thousands more perished in the fires that followed, when they did not or could not evacuate quickly enough.
People were still dying, in the clinic and around it; the replicators were put into full use to treat the equal numbers of wounded. It simply wasn't enough for some, however.
In the rubble that remained, Tom and B'Elanna helped to uncover the bodies trapped there, and to salvage any materials to be passed on to others in need. Silently, they bent to their chosen work, side by side with hundreds of others in the same sacred duties, pulling with callused and scraped hands the stone and metal away.
They remained near Miztri and Dalra, who were far better able to maintain their labor. B'Elanna arranged that, as their friends knew when to stop them from overexerting themselves, particularly Tom, who had to wrap his torso to hold his weak ribs steady and stave off some of the pain. Later, they crawled into their bunks, into each other's arms, silent lest they scream and completely exhausted.
They had worked to be certain they were exhausted.
The bodies they found were in pieces or burnt beyond recognition, though the robe of one looked familiar, and they had seen that toy rolling around on the street at one time. They tried not to think of the child that had played with it, tried not to recall the blankets that one aired outside on lines, or were shaken on the streets, or the etched water pail they'd seen some man carrying. They pushed it all out and continued to work.
They even recognized their own labors in recently repaired solar units. They were useless, though, after that much damage.
The stench would have been unbearable had it not been for the seasonally cool breeze pushing away the worst of it. After a couple days, it was sickening despite that relief. It would be many months before the rains would come and wash whatever remained away. Until then, it would take several more suns for the rot to fade.
In respect for all their people, Bala had postponed the ceremonies for the passed until the population was properly calmed after that horrific violence in their city. After nearly twelve years of non-interference, the return of Unar had shocked them all--and the elders and regents wisely did not publicize the cause of it. More, for the improvements in the city of late, their better health and sanitation, many found it discouraging, in the least.
Bala had heard the comments in passing; others had brought their troubles to him and Bakali while offering their service to the overburdened clinic. They spoke of hopes they had never known and the pain of being crushed, worried for their spirits that they had wished more, wished a reprieve of their terrible fate. Bala gently told them all that progress might yet be meant, and that hope and improvement was never a vain disposition in moderation. Faith had need to be tested. Only time and strength would show their true path.
It was odd to find in their once compliant people, Bakali thought, but good. Her fellow citizens truly did not wish to return to that darker time, when Unar loomed over them in constant threat and demand; they sincerely desired to better their lives, had begun to grow past Desal's redemption with but a little impetus, without relinquishing their humility. It may have seemed selfish to some to strongly desire continued progress, but the elder knew it was far more natural.
"And yet, it is likely that our improvement was not meant. Our weakness for desire has been tested; the answer has been given."
B'Elanna glanced up from her water and vegetable wrap to the man sitting near the clinic steps. Dusk having descended upon the city, the salvagers had set aside the rest of their day for their dinner. Yet instead of eating inside, since the attack, they, like many neighborhoods, had chosen to eat outside among others, even if Tsi'omad was several days away. The Desalian community had a tendency to gather themselves more closely than ever when conflict faced them. The square was unusually crowded.
Tom looked up too, catching Bakali's sharp stare for the man's pointed and insensitive statement. Nearby, Dalra and Miztri hadn't reacted, but had certainly heard. Across, Sashana'i just shook her head, not surprised, as the man had often been among those who had long spoken against change in Azlre. But finding Tom's attention, Bakali begged his silence with a slow nod. Tom breathed against his reaction, but only for her requesting it.
To his relief, B'Elanna spoke up. Still staring at Chorsa, she had not noticed the elder's silent request. "Testing by whom?" she asked, training whatever neutrality she could into her tone.
"By our spirits, corrupted still," he answered simply.
That time, B'Elanna bit her lip. She knew if she started, she wouldn't stop. She knew if she opened her mouth...
Tom couldn't obey that time. "The only corrupted spirits here are the Unar," he said.
B'Elanna let out her breath.
"You may assert this," Chorsa said, "and yet it is your gift for which we pay."
"Gye ak tra'ol," Bala said firmly. "Chorsa, you may not blame Be'i and Toma for actions permitted by me. Their labors offered no addition of debt."
"I bow humbly to you, my good elder, yet I would disagree."
"I bet you would," B'Elanna muttered and finished off her meal. Drinking the rest of her water, she scooted to her feet. "I'm tired. I'm retiring for the night."
Tom stood, too. He could tell B'Elanna wasn't about to listen to Chorsa--or anyone else--accuse them of something they'd already thought of, that they were to blame for what happened there. They had been working four days straight with that on their minds, twisting "what ifs" in their consciences with a force they'd almost forgotten in their time on Cezia. It was just as troubling to know that their penchant for overly critical self analyses came back so well. They'd thought themselves somewhat over that.
But they both knew they hadn't caused those deaths; they'd said so several times by then. It brought little comfort to either of them.
"No addition of debt would be truth," Chorsa added, "would Be'i and Toma bear no inclination to actions much like Unar, in violence and selfishness."
Tom spun around, pinning his glare onto Chorsa's, whose responding look was expectant. "At least we don't sit around and thank the Unar for blessing us with a life of pain."
Bala sighed. "Toma, little sense lies in this debate."
"You're right about that," he returned. "None of this makes sense. People like Chorsa will hold Desalia in chains until you're all wiped out."
"While you earn our debts in threefold," Chorsa countered quietly.
"Who the hell are you to say who earns the debt?" B'Elanna finally responded.
Dalra knew immediately where that was going. "Be'i, this ancient argument--"
"Is beginning again," she cut in. Her blood had already begun to rise, after too long of holding it back, of feeling that powerlessness, of trying day after day to accept their situations there--not to mention working all day under a hot hood, pulling body parts out of the rubble of an Unar attack.
"Answer me, Chorsa--Ak tsau ye'o," B'Elanna demanded. "Have the ancestors granted you--a lowborn, uneducated joth clipper--the right to say who makes things worse around here?"
Her seething insult did mange a blink in the man. "No trouble preceded your presence," he told her.
"There was trouble for over sixty years before our presence! And you still just let them roll over you--for what?" B'Elanna gestured around to the others there. "So Bala and Bakali could watch their baby die? So Sashana'i could get her tongue sliced and have the Unar screw her for hyposprays? So Cali and Haviki could get I'efa back in five pieces after waiting for three years to get him back whole? So Dalra and Miztri could lose all their five children? So Tom and I could get the crap beat out of us by an Unar maniac? So all of your people could starve and drop dead of simple diseases? What the hell kind of balance is any of this insanity? What kind of payment is it to watch your own people suffer year after year?! You earn your own debt by not honoring your past--by making the same damned mistakes over and over!"
Dalra had moved to his feet during B'Elanna's tirade. Indeed, he had not seen her so upset since Uillar, and it had caught the attention of nearly the entire square.
"Be'i," he gently reminded her, hoping she would hear him, "the crime of our past must be paid for."
"For how long?!" she responded. "And you haven't learned anything. You gave up on everyone around you, just like your forebears did!"
Sashana'i straightened, feeling a wash of vindication to hear her adopted sibling's perfect point find the their people's piqued attention. She squeezed her bondmate's hand as she worked to suppress her otherwise inappropriate smile. "How, Be'i, has this not been learned?" she queried, loud enough for their audience to hear. "Please, tell our people how." She might have told Chorsa herself, but she wanted it said--publicly and with the passion B'Elanna was so adept at conveying.
B'Elanna didn't disappoint her. "Your grandparents and great grandparents turned their backs on everyone crying out for help, ignoring every threat and crime around them to keep living in their comforts and indulgences. I have seen this through Bala and Bakali." She looked at Chorsa again. "Aside from having everything your heart desires, you live without a care for anyone but yourselves--the suffering on all those other worlds who desperately still need help, your own children, your families--everyone--because you're too used to not doing anything but walking around in circles all day and wasting away your life without any purpose. You're just as lazy and irresponsible as they were! You've learned nothing but how to be poor and victimized!"
With her completion, the silence of the area around them was painfully noticeable. Every eye was turned to the clinic and the strong willed couple standing there. The dark woman, confronting outright a humble man with her mate standing by, would not sit again. And her accusation, echoing through the square, paled even the heartiest facade.
The elders, too, felt this clearly. "Be'i and Toma, Chorsa, all," Bala said with a calming breath, "this is a matter of public debate and--"
"Then we'll make it," Tom interjected, moving forward to take B'Elanna's hand. Looking out at the curious gazes, he took a deep breath. "Zha brrile! Ak me'o Desal a'o lluas!"
Chorsa finally stood and moved on the other side of Dalra, who seemed to have already positioned himself as an intermediary. Sashana'i gave her arm to Aratra, who helped her to her feet. Bowing formally, she took a place by Dalra, her back straight and brows raised. She was anxious to hear their exchange, indeed.
It was time.
Bakali closed her eyes and felt her bondmate's hand squeezing her arm gently. Taking a deep breath, she reminded himself that some challenge was bound to happen with the understandable discouragement of late in the city. Her charges, too, had grown quiet and short-spoken since Trisjorr, a sign of deep anger, she knew of them by then. She gave a solemn nod. "Speak your minds, good children, and know they are conveyed to a proper audience."
"By the right of a citizen," Chorsa said immediately, "I would contest your additions to this city and to our people. Your ambition clouds our minds and sets hope for that which cannot be--should not be. We were born unto our sorrow and taught by our parents to believe in our contrition. In their honor, we obey and live humbly, in the debt of Unar, who freed us of our hedonism.
"The balance of our nature shall be returned to us when this debt is paid off and the Unar have spent their depravity to its limit. Yet your crimes and your undue influence of our humbler ways to fall back into our unnecessary pleasures must not continue. You increase our debt in causing us to regress to that other time, which we have endeavored to cleanse ourselves of."
He bowed to Bala, and then to Bakali. "I am a man of few words, yet I believe my argument is sensible. It is also well known in our own teachings. Thus, this is all I may say, and this view shall not be relinquished."
B'Elanna shook her head. "I've heard that argument so many times, I could throw up," she snapped. "I pulled a five year-old from a pile of sandstone out there. Do you think I'm going to say or feel nothing about that? Well, I won't. That little girl never even had time to live."
"It is not for us to decide the fate of a child," Chorsa said.
"Bullshit!" B'Elanna shot back. "You heartless bastard, how can you say that? She was crushed to death! How can you rationalize that as some blessed fate?!"
Dalra hadn't even wanted the conversation to go so far--and suddenly he couldn't help but wish he were in his rickety overhang again, speaking around the quiet fire in the cold air. "Be'i, you speak for your sorrow," he said.
"I speak for justice!" B'Elanna bellowed. "Justice--which is in all fairness, balance--and you've got none of that here! They didn't pass to the spirits--they were sent there! They didn't even pass--they were slaughtered! Children slaughtered in their sleep! Your friends and family, burned and mutilated and smashed by people without enough honor to show their hairy, white faces when they murdered your people. How can you dare say you adore life, worship experience to feed your spirits with, when you would let those monsters take those lives whenever they wished it?! You are all hypocrites, just rationalizing away your own fear to act."
"You needn't insult us all, Be'i," Dalra scolded quietly. "We have lived in purification. This argument has already been made."
"And I challenge it!" she returned. "For all you know, you're just twisting yourselves up even further! You say it is your fate to suffer through this life--what about your children? And their children? By the time your debt is paid off, Desal will be so diluted it won't even exist anymore! You can't just lie here like your parents and your grandparents and pass your responsibility to pay off that debt onto children who are just as innocent!"
At that, Tom took a step forward. "And exactly what right do the Unar have to make you pay in the first place?" he demanded. "The Unar are not Desalian. They're the spit of Prihar that you invite to keep you under their heels and make a whore out of the remainder of your regency. They have dishonored and manipulated everything about your people they could touch. And it worked: You have yourselves in so tight a theological knot you're afraid to break yourselves by fixing it. It won't stop, as much as you think they weaken with their own corruption. They have you right where they want you, convincing yourselves that you deserve this. They won't give that up--ever--and it will only get worse with time."
The square fell silent again. For several long moments, barely a breath stirred the air around the challenge and the watchful elders. Meanwhile, at Dalra's side, Sashana'i tried down her grin Tom's argument sunk into the horrified faces of her citizens.
For her part, Bakali nodded slowly as she raised her hand to them all. "Your arguments shall be heard as befits tradition, yet not at the expense of Sashana'i's heavy sacrifice."
"Zhall ye'a," Tom said, echoed by B'Elanna, who drew a slow breath, paced a few steps, willing her energy down. It had been too long since she had voiced her frustration and pain. The head of it gone, however, she began to think again. Then the oddest thing that could have come to her mind did just that, and she surprised herself to think it might just make sense to them.
Then she wondered why she hadn't thought of it before.
"Fine," she said, noticeably contained and that time looking out to the very observant onlookers: Her and Tom's surviving students, their neighbors, all their acquaintances and friends. Their people, she knew, and suddenly she knew her real purpose there, too. She was speaking not to challenge Chorsa--as if she could convince the likes of him, anyway. She was speaking for the people who had responded to their work there, their desire to improve things there, who wanted change and a future, and whose hope and faith had been tested.
For that matter, she knew it was well past her turn to tell a story.
"When I was girl," she began, thinking of how to put it even as she spoke, "I used to run off alone to play in the woods. I was...unhappy; I liked to be alone because it was easier that way. I never let people near me, even if I wanted them to be near at the same time. I was so scared that they wouldn't accept me that I prevented the trouble by secluding myself.
"I used to imagine all kinds of things, things I'd do when I grew up--getting away from my homeworld, mainly, having adventures, meeting all kinds of exotic people, all that. Looking back, I guess it was sort of normal for a lonely little kid. I pretended I had invented all sorts of things, climbed trees, dreamed I was anywhere but there.
"One day, when I was embroiled in some fantasy, I saw a mouse eating a mushroom--a little field mouse, nibbling away. My mother used to tell me that mice were dirty and not worth their meat--don't ask. But I was fascinated by it, especially since I had never seen one sit still for so long. I wasn't near enough to scare it away, so I watched it. I remember wanting to touch it, play with it, even if it might have bitten me.
"Well, while I was deciding what to do and before I knew it was there, an owl flew down and pounced on that mouse. I jumped back. It'd surprised me, coming out of nowhere like that. Before I could think to scare the bird away, it had already turned the mouse onto its back. And the mouse just stayed there. It hadn't been injured. It could have run away. But it didn't do anything, just sat there with its legs straight out, waiting for the owl to kill it. And it did. The owl opened its beak and tore the guts out of the mouse then grabbed it by its hind leg and carried it off to eat it. The mouse was still twitching when the owl flew away, squealing a little, too."
She looked around again. She knew from the various animal tales she had heard around fires in Azlre that her story was a somewhat grisly one. Several people who had been curious at first had paled at its concluding imagery.
"But you know," she said, pointedly casting her stare at Chorsa, "any biologist would tell you that it's only the food chain and the owl feeding on the mouse is just an act of nature. The mouse was destined to be slaughtered. Of course, it's also in the mouse's nature to run, to try to preserve itself. It didn't do that, though.
"I never went back to that part of the woods after seeing what I did. I couldn't stand to think I'd see that owl again. Even when I was a teenager and a lot thicker skinned about things like that, I still walked around that place--probably out of habit. But I never forgot what that mouse looked like, what it sounded like. I always wished the little thing would have at least tried to run away."
She looked at Dalra. "Do you remember at Uillar, how I used to say that you were like frightened sheep, just herding by because you were too scared of consequences?"
"How would I forget any of our spirited debates?" he answered, lightly as he knew he hadn't truly regretted them.
B'Elanna laughed quietly, but let her grin fade as she looked out once more, holding for a moment every gaze she found. Drawing a firm breath, she continued. "Well, you're not like sheep. --You're like little mice that Tom and I just happened to find. But we don't want to play with you or watch you from a distance. We have made a home with you, at first because we had nowhere else to go, but now because we want to be here." She felt Tom touch her back.
"But we can't stay like this," she went on, her voice strong and sure, rolling off one voiced thought after another. "You say you don't want improvement because you don't want to go back to those old ways that got you here in the first place. I can understand that to a point. You also say you resist taking your own steps because you're afraid of accepting the Unar poison--the violence and the hate. I can understand that, too. Trust me, you are the purest souls I have ever had the luck of knowing. Things could have been so much worse for Tom and me. We could have not had Dalra and Miztri's help when we were deposited at Uillar. We could have not had Sashana'i and Aratra's friendship and acceptance--or Bakali and Bala's, for that matter--or any of you. Your kindness and generosity saved our lives, and I think we've learned a lot from you.
"Even so, the Unar haven't poisoned you--they've paralyzed you, just like the owl pounced and waited while the mouse sat there, twitching and crying but doing nothing. The Unar have let you get so buried in your own reasoning that they could do just about anything to you and you'd explain it away to your debt. Do you think they don't know that? Haven't capitalized on that? Tom said it first: They have you right where they want you. They're using your spirituality against you.
"From day one at Uillar, Hychar trained Tom and me how to be more Desalian--humble and passive, just follow the line, turn your eyes down. And we did it. For the others, we did it, so I can understand why you came to do it, too. Here, the only thing that kept us from rebuilding those ships at Dviglar was the elders' asking us to make things better here, with replicators and better power and sanitation. We did that, too, because we knew it was for the best. And we don't regret any of it.
"But we need more. We look at this kind of devastation--the murders of all those people, our people now--and we can't just say, 'Well, it was meant to be' and move on. That's an excuse, just like the excuse your regency used when it shrugged off its own duty to protect their people and their friends, everything you had.
"You're obeying the wrong lessons of your ancestors--you're doing as much to help your people and sacrifice your comfortable spirits as your so-called blessed elders did. And you will keep going in circles until the Unar have destroyed everything you know. Your technology is gone, your histories and databanks are confiscated, your regency is down to two, your word painters are suppressed and hidden--even here--and your scholarship is no more than vocational school. You barely even pass your memories down anymore.
"The Unar aren't teaching you humility, they are slowly destroying you. A few more generations and you will be nothing more than slaves with a distant memory that won't matter because your grandchildren and great grandchildren will be too busy to care and too empty to regret it.
"Well, Tom and I won't join in that. We refuse to lie here and let them do that to us, too. We've gone through too much to survive to let it go to waste. We need to make more of our lives than that--and we deserve to. So do you."
She was done. She offered her palms then let them fall; then she turned back to Tom. She had said her peace and more, and by the stunned and saddened faces she spied among her audience, she knew they at least had understood her. Giving her a small grin, a single nod, Tom took B'Elanna's hand again and looked at the elders, who also stared up at the woman in frank regard of her words.
"Bakali, Bala." He bowed to a knee, offering B'Elanna's hand in the proper way as she also bent in respect. "My mate and I humbly request you free us from our promise to you. Either allow us to leave Azlre and Cezia, or allow us to build ships that will be a real resistance. It doesn't mean we must be merciless. We don't have to destroy life as much as weaken their defenses, disrupt their works--maybe dirty them and reclaim some territory in the mean time.
"One way or another, though, we need to fight back. As Chorsa said, we weren't born here. We can afford whatever sacrifice to our spirits is necessary--and we're willing to make that sacrifice. We could sit around, stay comfortable, but that would betray everything we believe in and feel is right. And it would slowly kill us, especially now, as we've made this decision. You are family to us--you've earned our trust, which is not an easy thing to do. At the same time, we also have our needs, for our spirits' health. We have been very patient."
"Ka," Bakali said. "This is truth. You have borne great patience, as well, taken peace into your spirits, opened your minds and accepted much. Azlre's sun has seen much growth in you. Yet I bear fear for you."
"Trust me, we've both done worse than we would ever do to the Unar," Tom said with a slightly careless quirk in his voice. "We don't have the equipment for that."
B'Elanna couldn't help but snicker at that one, though she didn't touch it further.
"My honored elders," came Sashana'i's clear, formal voice as she stepped forward, "before your answer to our friends is made, may I now speak? As sister to Be'i and Toma, and as the blood heir of the Allanois house?"
Bala and Bakali looked at each other before nodding. "It is an ancient right," Bakali said.
Taking a deep breath, bowing her head in thanks, Sashana'i held her hand to Aratra. "Assist me in addressing our people," she said with a quick breath of preparation.
Aratra grinned, glad to know at least one of them would speak. He might well have stood up and cheered for their adopted siblings during their argument. On Uillar, he and Sashana'i had long planned how to spread those same words among their people, even if they must begin it in that camp. Thus, it was indeed gratifying to hear it all voiced for them in not a slow change of minds, but a passionate public debate by two known for their wit and force of feeling. Bringing her hand to his temple, Aratra proudly led Sashana'i to the nearby dais and watched from the top step as she moved forward and looked out upon the people in the square.
"For lack to add to Be'i and Toma's words," she began, increasing her volume as she spoke, "I shall be brief. To public I bring this wish that you publicize this evening's hearing--with fairness to both parties concerned. I respect our good man Chorsa's mind, though I find favor with Be'i and Toma. Yet each end of the spectrum must be known, else it shall be incomplete. We are true Desalians should we give honor to all the views expressed here, in goodness and regard of our kind."
She paused, seeing their compliant nods, then thought carefully. Despite her outer calm, well practiced for years, she yet felt a dizziness come over her as generations of desire, of impressions and pains she bore with herself, finally promised some fruit. She yet knew she needed to take care in her presentation.
"I bring myself before you as Sashana'i of Allanois, spirit-child of Dulla, the last born within the halls of our once great regency. My tola buried his mother, our great and gentle regent, Yusi. She had already taught him in some measure her graciousness and watchfulness and bore into him the spirits of the Allanois legacy as well as her own. My tola took to the life of any ordinary laborer of Cezia with such heavy conscience. He endeavored to live purely, yet with the future embedded in his desire.
"It was Dulla and Aneschi, as well, who bore unto me their teaching when my blessed parents found our ancestors after an epidemic at Sacezia. Their sense of duty and wisdom was bestowed unto me, as well was their mission, that in my time among the living, I should find peace at Desalia. Yes, they knew this could be truth.
"They also believed it would require the sanctity of all our present spirits to achieve this end. Unlike his terrible father and others like him, Dulla believed it was for us to cleanse the way through our own sacrifices. I, a naturally impressionable child, learned of him well, and took far more when upon his deathbed he gave unto me the same Allanois legacy, among his own and Aneschi's. Their desire is utterly embedded in me.
"The regency is mine to give or claim. You have returned this right to me after I relinquished my family name at Uillar. And it would pass upon my word should I wish it. Yet I do not wish this: I and Aratra do claim our rank and know our place among you as Regents of Desal. Thus, should you bear truth and believe in our responsibility for you, know that it is keenly felt, that we would accept every sacrifice to find Desal again fine and strong and blessed. My life's purpose is our resurrection and my spirit is for the taking in this desire. It shall gladly be given.
"For my blood alone, you might better despise me. Yet this is not our way. So I shall place myself instead in the position of the despised and bear any burden of conscience and spirit that might suffer in achieving the restoration of Desalia.
"My sister and brother in spirit, Be'i and Toma, should have freedom to act. Living in nature among us, the seed of their beings has been accepted by them, and they would show us loyalty in their choice to make change. I shall not deny them my family or my love for their desire to fight for Desal, yet rather bless them as they have blessed us. They have redoubled my goals and inspired hope in us all. For this alone, my gratitude shall never fade.
"We need not accept the poison of Unar into our beings to engage them, to resist their dominion over all, both innocent and guilty, within Irllae. We need not be selfish in order to procure our people's truest beings again. Active hope is not necessarily an arrogant assumption of fate's duty to nature. Rather, it is likely as meant that we assist in that balance, put into thoughtful motion the ideas and blessings our spirits have developed and preserved in us.
"Even in war, my good people, we may find balance. Even in the struggle for freedom, we need not be monstrous. Even in sacrificing a share of our purity for the future of Desal, we yet may certainly be blessed--should we make our struggle a pure thing and respect those who have forced our contrition upon us, mutilated nature's gifts by taking it into their own dominion for gain.
"Thus, whatever fight Be'i and Toma join, I shall join as well in Desal's name, should the blessing of our gracious elders be given. Whoever should bear it within their spirit to follow, I shall grant it be their right and my responsibility, as I shall both absolve the crime and personally absorb the sin for any citizen among us who chooses to follow my desire. This, I swear upon my eternal spirit. I am your regent in all propriety and accept my duty with Desal's oneness and humility in my own spirit, as is the true way.
"I have completed."
With a deep bow to her people, Sashana'i removed herself from the dais, taking her smiling bondmate's hand tightly in her own.
"You were glorious," he whispered into her ear.
"I bore more nervousness than I ever thought possible," she breathed then smiled for Tom and B'Elanna, who stood staring at her, plainly taken by her new policy. She took them both into her arms and embraced them. Feeling their hands touch her back, she drew a happy breath. "We are all one," she told them, "and you are in truth my family now." She kissed them both, touched their temples before she stepped back a pace. She looked at Dalra as he unashamedly dabbed at his eye, and then to Miztri, who wrapped her arms around her former charge.
"I shall stand by you as well, my little kini'isi," she said softly into her ear. "And my spirit need not be claimed by you. I commit myself of my own wishing."
"I shall not fight," Dalra told her, but then offered an assured smile. "Yet I shall support your desires, good regent, as I have always."
"More could never have been asked of you," Sashana'i said graciously.
That settled between them, all six turned to Bakali and Bala, who had remained seated on the sandy curb of the stone street. His soft wrap boots planted flat on that surface, his robed arms crossed easily on his knees, Bala continued to observe them with well-taught eyes and slightly raised brows. Bakali scanned the crowd, taking in the heavy buzz of translations and reactions.
"Well?" Tom asked.
The elders looked at Chorsa, who turned to his regents first. "Sashana'i, Aratra, of Allanois," he said, stiff but respectful, "I would beg your forgiveness in dissent."
"Your good and honest way is accepted by me and my bondmate, Chorsa of the Decazull house," Sashana'i replied formally then touched his temple in friendship.
Others who had gravitated near to Chorsa added nothing. They would not bend, yet they would not dispute. They had said their peace. They knew their disagreement was respected. Chorsa finally bowed to his elders then took one step back.
Bala looked at his bondmate again, placed his fingers upon her markings, took in her gaze, and then parted. He and Bakali agreed. With her nod, they returned their attention to the children there. For the first time in his life, Bala wished he still bore his youth but with his present wisdom. Selfish as Bihla, perhaps, yet truth, he grinned to himself.
They all waited as patiently as any might have expected. This, too, was pleasing. In thanks for that, he put it simply.
"You bear our blessing."
"Not all within the square that moon found oneness with the ambitions of Be'i and Toma, and yet under Azlre's suns, there had always been acceptance and more for the choices given to a people once convinced they bore none. In one's nature, after all, one wishes freedom and hope, while others find contentment with less, yet still hope. In the least, they yet paid respect to their elders and to their rightful regent. Were there a belief shared among all, it was a particular patriotism: Desal's survival was meant.
"And so it was in Azlre for many suns following, an animated discourse of how that wish would be fulfilled. Those more impassioned spirits moved forth to begin the infant preparations of their desire, and some others followed. Few technical matters and far fewer thoughts of war were known among Desal, certainly, though they did now bear knowledge of what truly would cleanse them: The sacrifice of their purity and safety for the future of their own. These new ways, therefore, became a necessary step in their restitution.
"Much was to be learned--by Be'i and Toma, as well. Yet this was already known by them all."
"Bala?"
"What are you doing here?"
The old man chuckled as he led Bakali by the hand into the once regal craft with which all six were quite busy. Nine, he then counted, seeing the wisps of the apprentices, one slipping by and into an access hatch, the others taking out wasted components. Looking around, Bala gave an appraising nod. "What nobility we bore in our tastes and abilities," he said without conceit. "I had all but forgotten how beautiful our travel once was."
Sashana'i, black up to her arms with conduit soot, had blinked at the mention of his name and straightened from her own work in a bulkhead. "I should think you were a neutral party, my tola," she said.
"I yet bear the right of guidance over your spirits," he replied. "The responsibility is mine as elder to you all. As Desal makes its claim against Unar, it shall yet be made in accordance with fairness and pure intention. I bear my duty as well, my regent."
"Bala ka," Sashana'i smiled. "We would of course welcome your generous wisdom."
"There would be that," Bakali grinned. "Yet we were reminiscing of our former travels during our peaceful youths. Ah, and this craft bore much greatness. One of the regent vessels, I should think."
"The Azallis," Sashana'i nodded. "Yusi of Allanois' private transport. It bears the finest hull and remaining systems, thus it was decided to begin here."
"A fitting choice," Bala said. "We shall witness your work for a quarter, should it not be an inconvenience."
B'Elanna shrugged and dug into the navigation cluster. "Make yourselves at home."
Tom snickered. There was something about B'Elanna at work on a ship. Invariably, she forgot everything but her plainest manners and just got down to business. It was a side of her he found irresistible--or at least amusing.
Bakali neared B'Elanna and peered down to what she was doing. Deciding she likely would never know, she offered the young woman a smile. "Think, Be'i, that with some success and more effective trade within Irllae, more equipment might be procured; perhaps your cranial wound could be treated."
"Actually," B'Elanna said, not taking her squinted eyes off what she was doing, "Tom and I made a sort of oath. Until this fight ends, it stays as is. I want to wake up and see it now. I don't want to forget what they did to me..." She glanced up to the elder woman, "...or how I have lived with it."
Bakali was pleasantly surprised as she looked at Tom, whose lips turned up, accentuating the jagged crease in his cheek. "Think of it as an outward sign of our humility."
"I should think it rather an outward sign of your stubbornness," Bakali replied wryly, moving off to see what Aratra was disassembling. Again, the inner workings of a ship were certainly not her trade, but thankfully, the young man was much more willing to explain it.
They remained some time, watching the busy people, curiously examining the components and the procedures they used to work on them. With the nine of them laboring together, it took little time to clean the bridge of stray parts, wires and non-functioning equipment then pull in some prepared replacements, which would be the truer challenge--replacing all the systems they needed and making them work.
Then, just as they were beginning to discuss what was to come next, the bridge hatch creaked and rolled open, revealing the bright day outside.
"Could you close that?" Tom called, stepping in front of B'Elanna as she shielded her eyes.
It was Cali, holding Haviki's hand and carrying a large satchel. "I would of course continue biding my days in this fruitful labor," she said, smiling upon them all. "I humbly beg forgiveness for my lateness. My blessed Haviki was all of the sun this past moon and yet this sunrise, I was alerted to a salvage of some interest."
B'Elanna pulled her hand down and smiled as the door closed again. "Welcome aboard," she said, genuinely pleased that Cali had come. They had barely even seen each other since before the public hearing several days before, not even at the storage. For that time, B'Elanna had feared Cali might have been among the dissenters, but couldn't bring herself to ask. "It is good to see you."
"My thanks, good lady. There shall be others to arrive and assist you, I may warn you."
Tom and B'Elanna looked at each other then back to their friends. "Others?" Tom asked.
"How many?"
Cali smiled again. "I did not count. They waited at the storage until I finally took myself there, curious of what they may do to aid in our shared desire to claim our debt as paid. They follow me closely." She lifted her satchel to a console. "I have brought this as well. It has been discovered at Padan's flat, when we scavenged there."
When she saw the canister, glowing bright orange in the shallow light of the bridge, B'Elanna knew the shot inside her was guilt, particularly when she noted by the indicator how much plasma was crammed in there. Tom's breath behind her made her know his agreement to that sentiment. By the look of it alone, she knew it would help them get a good start. Until they had were allied with Irllae's other resistance groups, she knew just having the means to sufficient power would again be a prime concern for them all.
The Koba marketer had called the Unar to Cezia, asked them to slaughter an entire section of a city without provocation. The Unar had happily complied with him. And yet, Padan had left that trade knowing they could use it--would need it.
The trade: Power for their self-empowerment. He wanted them to fight.
The plan worked.
B'Elanna nodded, willing up her nerve again with a little effort. "Aratra, would you like to show Cali where engineering is? Store it down there until I can come down and take care of it."
"I shall..." he began then turned a wicked grin back to her, "Chief."
She just shook her head as they left, dipping her hands into the panel she'd opened a minute before. Feeling a set of eyes on her, she looked up again and frowned at what met her. "Now what, Dalra?"
His expression was as judicious as ever. "This rebuilding of ships has brought recollections of Unar's envy of technology. They shall employ more diligence in their task to rid us of it when it is learned we are any more than nibbling mice."
"Are you telling me you've changed your mind?" she challenged as she held two bundles of optical wiring in her fists above the panel. "You have that right, you know."
"I have not decided anew," he told her. "Yet I would warn you they would endeavor to surpass what they discover."
B'Elanna laughed at that. "Well, I wouldn't give them that much credit."
"They may earn it with time," Dalra countered.
She sighed shortly. "There is something I don't think you understand about me yet," she said, "that being, I'm an engineer. If it becomes a problem, I'll deal with it. In the meantime, I have a fleet full of problems that need to be taken care of first. Okay?"
Tom felt his grin well in his heart. "That's my B'Elanna," he beamed, though he ducked back into the main navigation grid before she could get on his case, too.
Mate or no, all was fair when B'Elanna was in her element.
He couldn't have been gladder to be there with her.
In the greenish light of the glowglobes, late that evening, they held each other, warm and naked. They stared up at the little patterns on the slanted ceiling of their attic room, still basking in the journey they had taken with Bala and Bakali after dinner, another journey into themselves.
They had not yet shown their elders all that was within them, but they had wanted to slowly open their minds to them--very slowly, as neither wanted to overwhelm those gentle people. Still, they had been curious to return since the first time.
Their elders gladly took them; in return, Tom and B'Elanna showed them more of their birthplaces, of their lives before accepting their new homes at Cezia, before accepting their fight for a people they had claimed all but officially as their own. They showed them Earth and Kessik, Starfleet, the Maquis and Voyager, and they even recalled their previous camaraderie to the elders, who were much amused by the difference, but gratified by it, too.
They parted that evening in good cheer, with hope for hard work, continued progress in the morning and continued hope and faith.
It indeed would take time. It would take their entire hearts and spirits. But they did dream and plan, and they wanted to make the best of all possible worlds in their fight...for their home, their adopted people.
Turning away from the soft swirls of light on the ceiling, they looked at each other. Their fingers still traced each other's skin, softly, comfortable in the dim light and easy warmth of late evening. At the same time, their lips turned upwards, and they moved closer still, pressing to each other again, sharing their warmth completely. Tenderly, he raised his chin to plant a soft kiss upon her forehead. Her arms slid around to hold him gently there.
It was finally starting to work. All of it.
And it was only beginning.
(continued)
Chapter 5 | WP MainJuly to August, 1999
© D'Alaire M.