Fifty Shades of Green

Posted on 08 Nov 2015 @ 9:45am by Ensign Miriam Kallan

1,972 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Episode 09 - Empires
Location: USS Galileo, Deck.. Garden
Timeline: MD5, 1630 hours

ON:
The gardens looked so peaceful.

Wintrow carried a small bowl of noodles in one hand, and a pair of chopsticks in the other. He did like the quiet of the garden, the smell of the flowers and the sense of serenity that hung here. He liked spending time here, and more often than not, even came here for his meal breaks. But today he had a second purpose; he had run out of the leaves of the flower Arandon had given him, and since he couldn't find the scientist, he had to go find the plant on his own.

He knew well the warning Arandon had given him, but he was beyond that now. He needed this to relax and sleep, especially after the incident with the Galileo bumping into another vessel. His nerves were frayed, and he was desperate for some relax time.

Miriam was feeling a touch better. The dizzy spells were becoming fewer but she was hoping to find something to help with the nausea. While medicine was well and good, nothing was quite as good as a Vulcan herbal remedy. Besides, she wasn't too keen on another discussion about ham. She just wanted a good natural tea.

She wasn't certain if she was allowed to just take the herb she wanted so she moved into the garden looking around for someone that might be in charge. When she spotted the back of a man she moved toward him with a light smile, "Excuse me, do you work in this area?"

Startled, because he'd been very absorbed with his dinner, Wintrow looked up. "Oh no ma'am," he exclaimed, nearly dropping his chopsticks, "no I don't work here, I'm just having dinner...but...maybe I can help if you have a question? I'm no botanist though..."

Miriam laughed lightly, "Dinner? An odd place indeed to have dinner." The El-Aurian female tilted her head, "Well, I'm just looking for a specific Vulcan herb. It's best fresh. It's called tri'hla, and it's normally used for tea."

"I could probably help you find it ma'am," Wintrow replied, though he had bowed his head down, so he wasn't really looking at her anymore. His interest was in his dinner, and he was too shy to just continue to talk and look at her. "And it's quiet here ma'am, I do like quiet because the mess is so loud." And it just kept barraging his senses and it gave him a headache. "Would you like me to help you? What does it look like?"

Miriam laughed when he called her ma'am, "Oh, please, I'm not old enough to be called ma'am. Call me Miriam when we're off duty, please." She tilted her head down, trying to look at his face, "You can look at me, you know. I don't bite." She chuckled to herself. "I'd love a bit of help, certainly. It's a small, three pronged, leaf with blue edging. Careful, though, the stems have micro-needles. It shouldn't be touched without gloves."

"Maybe not old enough, but you do outrank me. By several grades..." He looked up and set his bowl aside, slowly rising to his feet. "Blue edges," he mused as he looked around, while also scouting for the plant he needed for himself. "What happens if we do touch the needles?" he asked, "is it poisonous?"

Miriam laughed lightly at the question, "Well, not poisonous, per say. I mean, it won't kill you, but it will give you a rather painful rash, for certain and extracting the barbs is rather difficult even with our technology." She smiled brightly then, her voice sounding cheerful and unphased by her own news, "Just don't touch them and you'll be just fine." She turned then and began moving about the area, "So, what is it, exactly, that you're eating?"

"This?" The boy gestured towards his now abandoned bowl as he followed her, "noodles, in a sort of chicken soup I guess. More noodle than soup and a few vegetables. It's what the replicator turned up when I requested it." He shrugged. "I'm not really a picky eater but well...my favourite is something the replicator can't produce a palatable version of." He smiled as his sharp eyes scanned the area. "Blue you said right? Is it the one over there?" He pointed to a blue-ish flower near a small pine.

Miriam smiled kindly, "That sounds delicious. I'm always keep t to try everything I can at least once. It's too bad the replicator can't make your favorite though." At his questions her head turned toward the flower and she shook her head, "No, it doesn't have any flowers, it's like a half herb, half cactus-like thing." She laughed at her own description, "Sorry, I'm not helping much, am I?"

"No flowers...." Wintrow scanned ahead then smiled at her. "How about we stroll around a little? I'm looking for a plant too...but mine does have a flower. It's large and yellow, but nothing like a sunflower."

"Oh!" Miriam began a bit louder than she intended, "A stroll is always nice." Her voice returned to a normal volume then, "Yellow flower. Oh, this is exciting," she giggled lightly, "It's like a scavenger hunt." She looked sideways at the young man, "So, Cadet, how long have you been on board the Galileo?"

"A couple of months by now," Wintrow answered, though the exact length rather eluded him. It wasn't that he didn't have a good memory, it was just that he really didn't keep track of it. "Please, call me Wintrow, I'm not on duty at the moment." He smiled at the woman's enthusiasm, it was quite infectionate. "And you?"

"Of coarse, Wintrow. It's much nicer to be less formal off duty." She smiled sweetly. "I came on board shortly before the war games. So, not long, really." Miriam let out a light sigh, her eyes searching over the plants. There were lots of pretty ones here. It wasn't unlike Starfleet Academy's vast gardens. She'd spent many an hour under one tree or another, just enjoying the ambiance. "Oh," She perked up suddenly, "There's a yellow flower over there. Is that the right one?"

Following her gaze, the boy shook his head. "No, the leaves are too pointed. They're fairly round leaves, that actually is a sunflower. The seeds are lovely though but it's not what I'm looking for." He scanned the ground around them, looking for a blue-leaved plant. "Is that yours?" he asked, pointing towards something he was about to step on.

"Hmm she hummed lightly, more rounded, okay," Miriam positively beamed as she spotted the planet he referred to. "Oh! Yes, thank you." She knelt down to carefully look over the leaves, "Do you think I'd be alright for me to take a few leaves? I didn't read anything against it." Her bright green eyes looked up at him, smiling, "What do you think?"

"It'll regrow if you leave the roots," Wintrow suggested, "I doubt anyone'd mind someone taking some herbs or plants from the garden so long as some remain to repopulate the patch they were taken from?" He shrugged. "Or maybe you could cultivate it and replant it later?"

Miriam chuckled lightly, "Nah, I don't need to cultivate it, I only need a small palm of leaves and I should be good." The red-head, bent down to very carefully pluck a few leaves from the plant. It was lucky that only the stems had the spines, otherwise, plucking the leaves without gloves would have hurt. Once she had enough she placed them in a small cloth bag of Vulcan design that she had previously had stuffed in her pocket. "Okay, let's find yours now. Yellow flower," She repeated softly, "Let's go."

As a gentlemen ought to, he offered her his arm as they walked. "I don't really remember where Arandon got it from, he was just there...I had been walking around the grass. Have you ever walked barefoot through grass? It's such an amazing feeling, until you stub your toes on a rock though. Anyway, I'd hurt myself on a rock I hadn't seen and well, then he was suddenly there and he gave me that flower to help me sleep. I have trouble sleeping you see, and the leaves of this flower, they really help."

Miriam wasn't sure why, but when he held out his arm to her, her stomach fluttered a bit. It wasn't really something a guy had ever done to her before. She offered a friendly smile before slipping her arm into his obligingly, "I do love a good stint outdoors. And grass it amazing. There's no grass on Vulcan. That's where I grew up. It's very barren." She giggled slightly, "He sounds like a good person. People who have the patience to tend plants tend to be very kind. I'm sad that you have trouble sleeping though.

"I used to have that problem often as a child. But on Vulcan they have many different methods of assisting people with sleep, so it didn't last very long." She didn't want to mention that she sometimes still had nightmares, not often, but still. It wasn't something she liked to bother people with.

"Could you teach me?" Wintrow asked seriously. He didn't mention that he already used more than the one leaf Arandon had instructed him to use. "I mean....you don't have to, and I understand if you can't, but I'd be grateful if you could, or would." As he led her across the path, he suddenly pointed. "There, that's the one."

"Teach you?" Miriam questioned idlely, "Yes, I could teach you a few things." She paused in thought for several moments. She knew many different methods, some were more...personal than others. But she could easily teach him the simpler ones first. It would be a bit awkward to start out with the more personal ones with a stranger. As he pointed out the flower her eyes shifted to it and she smiled, "Oh, it's pretty. Which part of it do you eat?"

The boy laughed as he carefully picked one of the flowers, leaving the others where they were. "Eat? Oh no Arandon specifically told me not to eat them, but make tea out of them. One leaf at the time, and he warned me not to use it too much." He stopped laughing. "I use two leaves for a mug of tea, and only these leaves, just before I go to bed. They help me sleep, and stop the nightmares." What he didn't say was that he used more than just two leaves and that he was becoming a little dependent on the leaves to sleep or even get some rest.

Miriam couldn't help but smile when he laughed, she was rather fond of seeing other people happy and considering how shy he had started out, she was happy he was comfortable enough to laugh in front of her now. "Hmm, two leaves, huh? That seems simple enough. I'm glad it helps you." The young El-Aurian smiled gently, "Well, anytime you want to try a Vulcan method, do, please let me know. I'm happy to help." She glanced around briefly, "So...What now?"

"I don't know..I need to go see my department head about something.." Wintrow hesitated. "I don't want to seem rude and leave you here but it's important to me that I do."

Miriam smiled warmly, "Oh, no worries at all. Work is important. Contact me sometime when you'd like to hear about those sleep assist methods. I'm happy to help."

[OFF?]

(small conflict of time...my jp with Jynn is set at 1800. Assuming they walk for about an hour or so, can we set this at 1630 instead?

No worries, it's all good.)

Ensign Miriam Kallan
Xenobiologist
USS Galileo

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