Enlightenment II

Posted on 30 Apr 2013 @ 5:12pm by Crewman Neo & Naskisem

1,230 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Episode 03 - Frontier
Location: USS Galileo: CIV Naskisem's Quarters
Timeline: MD7 1000 Hours

ON:

She allowed herself to calm, fixing the hair by her temples. One of her hands played idly with the point on one side. "I have been patient for fifty-three years," she said lightly, tilting her head. "I can be patient for a short while longer." Her eyes glistened in a smile. "It is comforting to know that you can see my value," she told him truthfully. Naskisem had felt discouraged and shut down from the second she materialised here. That she was dancing to human ballet could attest to that. "I fear, however, that no matter what I do he will push me away as he has already. Liyar no longer wishes to see me. He threatened that to speak out of turn would result in putting me off-ship. He will not see me again unless he makes it so."

Neo blinked slowly. "I will speak with him. It's about time I do. You are not going to be put anywhere," he shook his head. Ridiculous. Honestly, he thought Liyar was more than insane. Naskisem knew his problems and still wanted to bond with him. Neo couldn't understand the reticence. Naskisem was pleasant, intelligent, pretty and peaceful. He supposed he would never understand his brother. Instead, the fool had to focus on a Terran he could break like a twig, who knew nothing about their culture. The idea of love and emotion was foreign to him. It wasn't a justification. Romeo and Juliet loved one another too. The lesson of Terra's most epic romance: love a stranger you just met, and die tragically. Hopefully they could cut the stem before the thorns grew. "If we had known about this situation beforehand, things would have unfolded differently. Now we know. I'wak mesukh-yut t'on," he added. Neo sounded a lot like Liyar when he spoke Golic, but he spoke it colloquially and without any semantic errors, due to his many years living in the West. "If anyone has a chance of helping him, Naskisem, it's you."

She had moved her eyes to the floor again, but looked up when he said that. "During meditation yesterday," she spoke up, "he showed me the chaos of his mind. I allowed him to explore mine. He believes that I am naive, that I am ignorant, that I am not intelligent. That I am pretentious. He sees me as a prisoner of my own." She sighed. "I have never shared meditation with anyone. The experience disturbed me. Only with Liyar have I felt emotions as powerfully as I have." Unbeknownst to her, Nakisem's voice was rising. "I do not like the way I feel. I do not like having these emotions," she almost yelled in shrill and frustrating cry, emotions sounding like the most abhorrent word ever spoken. She looked at her hands which were beginning to tremble. She gripped her thighs to stop them, and then fixed her hair again once she was satisfied she had returned to calm. "I am not inadequate," she said aloud. "I wish to help him. I do not understand why he resists me."

"Why does anyone resist?" Neo pointed out. "It's fear, that's it. Self-preservation, and fear." He drew out his vowels unconsciously, uncertain. "Same as I stated before. He felt threatened. Don't let his crazy fuel you." Neo tilted his head. "He meditated with you, yeah? Just breathe. That kind of mind contact can sometimes stay with you." Neo thought it sounded pretty familiar. Liyar had always been one to make an impression.

Naskisem slowly took in a deep breath. She had just had an emotional outburst. Ever since coming to this ship she had not been herself, and undercurrents of feeling had been guiding her. Logic was strenuous here, and she did not know why. Before it was natural, but no longer. She was now prone to emotion in ways that she had never been before, like she were a stick on stream, following a current she couldn't fight. "As you say," she tilted her head and looked at him sideways, "I will try. If he will not, I will resign myself back to Vulcan." What she did not add was that she would live in shame, as a reject.

Neo nodded. He wasn't very good at emotional comfort. His sense of duty and determination to fix this disaster was almost enough to make up for it. "I don't think he's lost yet. Do you? Think it's pointless? Or is he still there?"

Naskisem thought for a long time before responding. She was frightened by what she had encountered before. She thought he was violent, she thought she was going be struck. She remembered the feeling very vividly. There was a tingling sensation and lightness that went with it, she recalled. The threat of uncontrolled violence. Fear was something new to her that she, at the time, was uncomfortable with. Now, she wondered about it. It was the most potent emotion she had ever felt. She back to the moment. "I do not know," she sounded far off and confused, like she was trying to convince him that she'd been paying attention. "I do not know how attached he is to the q'omi," she said. "Nor do I know him as you do." She raised her eyes to meet his. "He is in grave danger of becoming V'tosh ka'tur. I know that I can help him, if he will let me. Once he lets me in, he will see me for what I am. I want to help him, Neo."

Neo scrutinized her. "V'tosh ka'tur," he said the word a little flatter than usual. "I know V'tosh ka'tur." Sharivok flashed in his mind. Veren unchecked, unaccounted for. Irresponsible. As much as Neo didn't want to think that Liyar could turn out that way, it would be foolish not to get all the information he could before choosing a course of action. He also had to think about Naskisem. She was Vulcan. Stronger than a Terran, but Liyar could easily kill her just as well. "What did he do that makes you think so?"

"His instability," she said. "He was quick to lash out. Unpredictable. He stopped the turbolift to lecture me. The death of his bondmate and child have affected him deeply. He spoke through gritted teeth, veiled threats, raised his voice to me. His eyes were devoid, disconnected. His defense of Maenad Panne. He was highly emotional. He is nearly only Vulcan by physical condition. He tries to hang on, but he chooses not to do well." She raised her eyebrows. "If he is not helped soon..." she trailed off. "You must make your own judgement."

"All right," Neo said. "I'll talk to him, talk to his crewmates, find out what he's like here. If he's stable enough to be helped by you, then I'll convince him to give you a chance. If he's sincerely a threat, I'll have to take him in," he warned. "If he's that bad, if he's violent, then he can't stay here."

OFF:

Crewman Neo
Support Craft Pilot, FCON
USS Galileo

Naskisem
Alien Archaeologist/Anthropologist, CIV
USS Galileo

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