Stay II

Posted on 10 Jan 2013 @ 5:13am by

3,262 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: Episode 02 - Resupply
Location: USS Galileo: LTjg Panne's Quarters
Timeline: MD16 1620

PREVIOUSLY ON 'STAY' PART I:

Maenad was still watching him as he spoke. "Yes well," she said began, "Not all humans fully understand it, either," she said, a tone of regret somewhere in her voice. "It is very hard." Had Maenad ever felt love, she didn't know. She had had affection. She thought that she had loved, but she didn't think that she had ever been loved back in the way that she had given. It pained her to think about it and at that moment she wasn't sure whether to pity or envy the Vulcan.

"Yes," Liyar could only concur. "It is." He let that fall silent, apparently content with simply sitting and observing their surroundings. He thought, for a moment, that he could understand the ghost-edges of it, but it had only come after a rather terrible price.

AND NOW, THE CONCLUSION:

ON:

"Nevertheless, what is done, is done. My mother was capable of intervening, assuring him that I would ascend in my own time," Liyar continued.

"Agreed," Maenad smiled a bit. But she didn't know what it was that Liyar had promised to do, or why it was such a big deal to either of them. "Ascend to what?" she asked.

Liyar blinked. "Severen is the clan leader of Miran. As his heir, it is my responsibility to take his place if he steps down, or dies."

It was Maenad's turn to blink. Leader of Miran? That was Liyar's home, she remembered. He had told her about it the night before and how it was more conservative than the western territories, where she had spent many months. He didn't mention anything about being an heir to anything. "You're an heir to a province?" she asked him. She wasn't sure if she could believe it.

He arched his eyebrows and nodded. "Yes," he answered simply. "You appear confused."

She was confused that he wasn't confused by her confusion. She was smiling in disbelief now. "Well, you could have mentioned it last night. Inheriting a whole province is a pretty big deal. I had no idea you came from such a significant clan."

Liyar processed that for a while, still a little confused. "The few individuals I have informed have reacted similarly. I was unaware, until recently, how very secular Miran truly is," Liyar said, honestly. "I am accustomed to it simply being a fact."

"Forgive me," Maenad said sarcastically, but far from maliciously. "If you are from a family of such prominence, how did you wind up here among the likes of me?" In many ways, Liyar might have been a prince. The idea amused her more than it should have. Had he been human, he might have been an arrogant prick. But she didn't find Liyar to be that way at all, even for a Vulcan. She found him to be, well, she didn't know. He wasn't more human, but neither was he more Vulcan.

The sarcasm sailed right on over his head. "I do not see anything to forgive. I was assigned to the Vulcan Embassy on Terra, by my clan elder. The Galileo was set to launch from Vega IX and you did not possess a qualified diplomatic officer," he said with a mild gesture. The one they had, left, as far as he knew. He pondered that for a while. "I do not really know if I qualify," he added almost as an afterthought. "However, I am told I was the best candidate for the job." His eyebrows drew together as he thought how best to word his inability to understand her last comment. "What is 'the likes of you'?"

Maenad grinned as it all went past him. "People like me," she said, setting her hand against her chest. "We lowly plebeians." He probably didn't get that either. she realised. "Which means we who are not prominent, not royal. Plebeians were the lower classes of ancient Rome on Earth, the regular everyday people." She didn't want to get into whether he was qualified to be a diplomat; she had no idea. If he worked in an embassy, then he must have had some kind of skills that he hadn't perhaps. His first few days on this ship ran through her eyes, giving her some doubt, but she suppressed it. A Vulcan diplomat could easily become one for their ship.

Liyar's eyebrows shot up. "Lowly..." he shook his head. He recalled similar comments from Athlen, though, they had much more of a mocking bent to them. "Vulcan does not have royalty," he pointed out. Though it didn't really seem to matter how many times he pointed that out to Athlen. "It is simply the way that things are. We do our duty." He watched her while he spoke, and... felt amusement. "I am missing something," he considered curiously.

"What?" she asked him. She still wasn't sure he got it; old royal families thought they were just doing their duties as well, though duty in a Vulcan sense was probably very different from a human sense.

"You feel... amused," Liyar said, obviously not getting the joke. "It is not about prominence, versus otherwise. It is only a matter of what must be done. Were it not me, it would be someone else. Every person's place in our society is valued." He really wasn't making himself look much better, though he obviously had no idea there was a necessity.

"I am amused," she said to him, silently laughing. "Okay," she had to recount it all to make sense of it to him. "You said that you were basically a Vulcan prince, I asked how if you're so prominent you wound up here with such lowly people like me, but I was only joking when I said that. I don't actually think that I'm lowly and that you're... uppity, it's just something that some people sometimes say to be funny." She looked at him squarely in eyes. "Don't worry if you didn't get it, I'm not a very funny person," she said with a smile. She was feeling a lot better than she had when Liyar had first run into her, and she was grateful for it. Maybe he was picking up on that instead?

"Crewman Athlen made a similar assertion," Liyar said dryly. It had involved a lot of hair-flipping and an incredibly bad version of his manner of speaking. "Vulcan does not have princes," he said. "The closest approximation would be my mother, rather than myself. She is the clan elder. When I bond again, that title will pass to my bondmate." He remained completely unaware that he'd actually spoken of that without pausing. "I am told I do not possess a particularly enthralling sense of humor. What is uppity?"

"Your sense of humour is just fine," she was still smiling, not fully believing herself. "Well," she narrowed her eyes. "It's just that you are funny without meaning to be, and I think that's the best kind. Like asking me what uppity means," she said with a slow shake of her head. "It's the opposite of lowly, so if you're uppity you think that you're better than everyone else." She looked at her hands in her lap.

"I see," Liyar pondered, though he wasn't truly certain he did.

"Did you say when you bond again?" Something inside her flicked. It was like her heart had skipped a beat, or like something had caused a spasm. In the middle of her collar she felt a sinking feeling, but it equally could have been a rise of excitement. It was too brief to know what had happened. "I was unaware that you belonged to someone else," she told him matter-of-factly. Like a Vulcan.

The Vulcan shook his head. "No. I do not," he corrected quietly. For a Vulcan at his age, that was more than a little unusual, in fact it was probably the most unorthodox thing about him. (Or perhaps weird, as Coleman states.)

"Oh," she looked away from him. "Then," she faced him again, "You were?"

"I was bonded, yes. As is traditional. However," he paused at that, for probably more than was really necessary, and rested his chin on his fingers blankly. "She was killed. Along with my son." He remained unaware that a small frown was forming on his face. "Three months prior, aboard a vessel called the Lykan." He delivered it bluntly, and without emphasis or emotion.

Maenad's jaw fell as her eyes slowly widened. She tilted her head, now thoroughly depressed. She always managed to ruin conversations. She never failed; if she talked to someone long enough, she always killed it. What was she supposed to say to that? What could she say to that? And no matter how Liyar tried, he frowned anyway. He had emotions. She wasn't telepathic, but she could feel his pain somehow. It might have been her pain, really, but she preferred to think that it was his.

She pulled her leg off the table and set of her feet flat on the floor. It was probably a bad idea to ask him how old they were, how long ago, what had happened. She was curious, but she wasn't totally insensitive. She moved closer to him and set a hand on his knee. "I'm sorry, Mister Liyar," she cooed. "I didn't mean to. I mean, it must have been, it must be very difficult for you."

Whether or not he was tense as a result of her touch or simply that way in general couldn't be determined, but he jerked his head forward in a reasonable facsimile of a nod. "It can be," he acknowledged, swallowing and pressing his lips into a thin line. "Kaiidth, as we say." (It isn't very convincing.) "You ruined nothing," he added, unaware that she hadn't spoken the thought aloud. "It is, an uncommon status on my world. Forgive me. It was not my intention to," he rose a hand, "Disarm you. I believe that is the phrase."

Maenad withdrew her hand into her lap, but she didn't move back to her side of the couch. After a long few seconds, she laughed quietly under her breath. "What a sad couple we are," she observed upon reflection of the past twenty minutes, perhaps longer.

"Indeed?" Liyar asked, looking up and re-folding his fingers through one another. "Sad couple?" he predictably asked in a completely unshocking twist.

"Yes, you know," she said, trying to force a smile in light of all the sadness. "Two people make a pair, a couple, and we are sad," Maenad insisted. "A sad couple."

Liyar tilted his head. "Vulcans do not get sad," he said, Perfectly Logically, of course.

"I saw your frown," she insisted. "My understanding is that you do get sad, but you deal with the emotions later. During meditation. So, in a sense, if you deal with sad emotions frequently you could be called sad."

Liyar blinked, and cut himself off just before he was about to argue that no, he was not-frowning, because Vulcans did not frown. Except that, upon reflection, he realized he had been frowning. He cleared his throat a little. "Perhaps," he relented a little. "However, these emotions are typically... dissolved." Did that sound convincing? He harrumphed in his mind. Of course it was convincing. He was completely and totally emotion-free. Zero sadness. Ever! The Frown threatened to return.

Maenad was still watching him with her own saddened eyes, but she was still sort of smiling. So she was right and had an admission. That had to mean something. She wondered how he coped with such a loss. She had neither been married nor had a child, so she thought of her parents and of their inevitable deaths. Natural aging and dying was not something she was concerned about for them, but if they were to have been blown up on some ship in space, she would be incredibly distraught. "I won't tell anyone," she reassured him. "I am sure that you miss them very much. They would be very proud of you and what you are today, and if ever you would like to tell me about them, I would love to hear your stories."

"Perhaps," Liyar said quietly. "Eventually." While the Frown did not return, mostly out of his own self-awareness, he still found that the idea of discussing them at this point was simply too raw to attempt. "We were bonded for forty-seven years," he finally admitted, with an almost-shrug of an eyebrow upward. "It is still..." he trailed off, waving a hand dismissively. "In any case. Kaiidth," he repeated, as if that explained it all.

"Ohhh," she just wanted to cuddle him. He was so strong, she thought. It was admirable if not frustrating as all hell, but she had to appreciate how Liyar carried himself. Forty-seven years, she thought, her eyes stinging. That was a marriage sixteen years longer than she had been alive. There was nothing that she could ever hope to say to that. She couldn't understand, and she knew already that she never would. She could only put her hand on his knee again, and she gave it a gentle squeeze. She would have found it easier to handle if he'd broken down, but since there was no chance of that she would have to hold herself together - for his sake.

Liyar turned to face her, struck by the odd sensations that flew through the air, made further pronounced by the connection of her hand against his knee. He asked the only thing that came to mind, then, oddly all right with having admitted anything in the first place. "What is cuddle?"

Maenad jerked her hand away. She had forgotten that he could hear almost everything that went through her mind when she touched him. "It's like a hug," she said, her cheeks a little red. "It helps people feel better," she rubbed the back of her neck and played with a strand of her hair. "Sometimes," she corrected. "Well, it's just nice sometimes. You probably wouldn't like it."

Liyar didn't look very enlightened. "I assume this is a Terran ritual of some sort?" he asked, Very Seriously.

"It is not unique to Terrans, no," she said. "It's emotional, it helps bring people together. Cuddling makes people feel loved, relieved, relaxed. Sometimes people use it as foreplay," she added, again thinking aloud without thinking. "Cuddling is done by lots of species for many reasons. Even animals cuddle."

Nodding a bit in only slight understanding, Liyar said, "I see. And you wished to engage in this activity with me?" he asked, a completely neutral look on his face as if he were genuinely curious.

"Well, I," Maenad stuttered, which was exceedingly rare for someone who usually found words quite easily. "No," she said flatly, but hard from convincingly. "I mean, yes, but," she felt her cheeks get even redder. She hated then that there was nothing that either or them could do about Liyar's psionic abilities. "What I meant was-- I meant that if you were going through emotional difficulty, I would... I would like to help alleviate it." She was fidgeting with her hands. "I didn't mean that I wanted to," she sighed, finally looking at him with her eyes again. "I'm sorry," she said, resigned to whatever she had unwittingly revealed.

"I... see," Liyar repeated himself, burying whatever response he apparently had in a conveniently well-timed cough. It wasn't really what she'd said, or what she'd meant, as he could quite easily sense that even from their separated distance. Maybe it was how awkward the entire situation was. Or maybe it was how bizarre it all was, how utterly depressing it was. At this point, there was just no more room for sadness, maybe, but suddenly he had to convince himself how completely irrational and insane it would be to... he wasn't sure what exactly it was. Laughing? It didn't feel very happy. It felt strange, suddenly, like being held in a vice grip. He blinked and shook his head, holding a finger up while he pressed the edge of his fist against his lips, looking rather stone-faced. After that, he stood, shaking his head again. "No. There is nothing to apologize for." He took a deep breath, folding his hands behind him and maintaining a perfectly Vulcan demeanor. "I apologize. I am apparently in need of meditation. You have done nothing wrong."

Maenad stood too. "Are you leaving?" she asked him. "I didn't mean to," she paused. Had she inspired an emotional response? Why? Why did she always do this to those she liked to be around. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable," she was almost pleading at him. "Are you all right?"

"You have done nothing wrong," Liyar said again, haltingly. There were reasons for suppression. He knew he was being more than unwise. He could not explain why, or what caused it. He barely even knew what it was. Was it empathy? Was it, whatever was wrong, with his abilities? Was Sekhet right, was he really having an episode. "I am, unaccustomed, to discussing such things. My family." He had not discussed it. Refused to, except for when it had necessarily been pried out of him. "The fault is mine. There is no offense. I am fully functional." Except, for a clearly dire need of meditation. And medication the annoying-part of his brain filled in happily. "You appear unsettled. Are you well?" He paused for a long moment and then resigned himself to a last display of clearly unvulcan behavior, placing his right hand lightly on her shoudler. She had told him hugging was a sign of comfort, though as a Vulcan, that was simply not a good idea. A compromise would have to do.

Again, Maenad felt that sting behind her eyes with Liyar's touch on her shoulder. She smiled as best she could; it had been a rough day. She didn't know what was going on anymore. She had in some way invoked something in Liyar, but what that was she did not know. If he were unwell, though, she knew that he would not lie to her that he was fine. She brought a hand up to her shoulder, on top of his. "Thank you," she said to him. "Enjoy your meditation," she said to him but then laughed because she thought it sounded ridiculous. "I will see you again soon?"

"Yes," he agreed, straightening and walking out, shaking his head to himself. What a bizarre day it was. He set it aside, deciding he would have to deal with the whole encounter as soon as he could properly meditate on it. He knew at that point, however, that he was gratified that she was not leaving.

OFF:

Lieutenant (JG) Maenad Panne
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (JG) Liyar
Diplomatic Officer, VDF/SDD
USS Galileo

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