Posted by Commander Shara Calloway (Executive Officer) in Sweat Lodge

Posted by Civilian Micah Pikelsimer (Federation Security Agent) in Sweat Lodge

Posted by Commander Shara Calloway (Executive Officer) in Sweat Lodge
Posted by… suppressed (19) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

Wind Weaver had watched Micah and noticed the small changes in his demeanor over the past few moments. “You, too, have dark moments in your past. Events that have scarred you in more ways that you are aware of. I hope this meditation helps you, as well, come to grips with your dark experiences and if not, at least allow you to accept them and live with them so as to not come to bear in your daily life, and your dreams.”

When everyone was comfortable as they could be, considering the stifling heat, Wind Wearver began by asking each to focus on what they hope to achieve from this ceremony:
healing, purification, requesting help for life goals, prayers for others, balance, peace . . . . .

“This will give your mind something to focus on other than how hot it’s getting—although that will happen sometimes, too,” he said.

Shara wasn’t entirely sure what she was looking for, but as she mulled over each option she felt a twinge in her gut at the idea of peace. Healing, that was what she had been working on but there always seemed to be step in the process that she was missing and she simply didn’t know what it was.

Micah was silent, staring at the fire. But in his mind he began to focus on one thing… Sharah; and the tranquility he wanted for her.

“Bring in the Stones,” he ordered. An older Sioux woman with graying hair brought in seven rounded rocks, one at a time and placed them in the dirt. Wind Weaver picked up each with a pair of antlers and placed them in the fire pit. He then offered the chanupa, a ceremonial pipe to Kohana who tapped each rock with the pipe.
The woman then sprinkled herbs onto the growing pile that popped and crackled when they hit the piping-hot surface, releasing an earthy scent of sage and occasionally causing the eruption of a small flame.

If you have brought an offering of your own, this is the time to add it to the fire.”

Kohnan took a handful of the earth dirt he had and sprinkled it into the fire. . . .

OOC: Taking a pause so you all can reply if you’d like to.

Lieutenant Kohana Black Wolf
Chief Intelligence Officer/Helm USS Asimov

Shara pulled out some tobacco and hoped the replicated version wouldn’t offend. Then again, they were on the holodeck, so she knew it would be fine. As she held her hand over the fire and closed her eyes, silently saying an invocation her late Bajoran friend had taught her. Her relationship with higher powers was circumspect, at best, but Shara had seen and experienced too much in her life to discount things she could not fully comprehend. The Universe was mysterious enough that she could accept that perhaps there was more she did not see or experience.

~Shara Calloway, XO

Pikelsimer reached into the robe and pulled out piece of wood. It wasn’t replicated, and Sharah would recognized it if she was watching… it was a small wood carving of a bird. It wasn’t great by any stretch, but it was what he had whittled the last time they were in Tennessee. He took it and tossed it in the fire.

Wind Weaver nodded in appreciation of Shara’s offering as the scent of the tobacco began to fill the inipi. He took a handful of herbs from bowls set in front of him, sprinkling these into the fire as well.

The tobacco and herbs mixed together in an almost euphoric smell. As the small became stronger, Wind Weaver began to chant in a low voice.

The chants and prayers spoken in the ancient Lakota language, along with rhythmic drums from outside the tent had sent Kohana to swaying with the beats. He began reciting prayers in an almost inaudible whisper. . . . . .

Lieutenant Kohana Black Wolf
Chief Intelligence Officer/Helm USS Asimov

Pikelsimer, FedSec Senior Agent

OOC: I’m going to post this in pieces since it’ll be fairly long and then you can both add responses as well.
IC:
Intelligence agents were trained to be resilient in the face of all sorts of conditions. Shara knew that Black Wolf understood this, but she wasn’t sure if he had factored that training into how this quest would unfold or her ability to let herself go where her mind was pulled. He had the benefit of not only being raised with these beliefs, but openly embracing these practices. Not only was this not true for her, but especially in the last decade she had had to double down on keeping her true thoughts and feelings locked deep inside.

However, she came into this willing to be open to a new experience in whatever form it might take. She believed enough in the mystery of the Universe to know that she couldn’t be certain about anything and that left room for mystical experiences. Did she expect to have one here? Perhaps not, but she was open to possibility and in the end that was all that was required.

The heat and the heady scents created an overwhelming heaviness that settled over like a weighted blanket. Shara reached out to Micah and took his hand, letting him both ground her and give her a sense of protection. He, of all people, understood how unpredictable and difficult this process might be for her and could be on the lookout for signs of distress. She trusted him and had known she could do so since that first official date on the Manhattan, where there had been such ease and chemistry between them. Now, married, she let him give her the reassurance she knew she needed.

Micah held her hand in his right and he watched the flames intently; the flickering light reflected in his eyes. Micah was human, every bit of him save for the metal arm, but there was something in the way the light was bounced back from his eyes that made him seem more like an animal than a man. To most who knew of him, it would simply seem a reflection of his predatory nature… but to those who knew him? They would know that his protectiveness of those he cared for was what the fire was bouncing off of… and no fire was stronger than that.

---

Between the heat, the scents and the sounds, somewhere along the way, her eyes fell closed. She was not asleep, at least not as she knew it, but everything went quiet and then dark. In what felt like a moment later, Shara opened her eyes.

The setting had not changed, but Micah, Black Wolf, and the healer were no longer there. The fire was out and it was light inside the inipi. Instead there was a beautiful grand piano and a woman seated on the bench. From behind, her hair was a dark blond that bordered on brown, and it hung in two braids that wrapped around her head and merged into one half way down that ended at her waist.

If the person didn’t feel familiar, the tune she played was the key that made Shara rise from her place on the ground. She was still wearing the ceremonial garments and padded over in bare feet.

“It’s about time,” the woman said, turning her face halfway to Shara.

Tears sprung to Shara’s eyes and she drew the rest of the way, coming to on the bench with the woman, watching her fingers move with precision and passion.

“Mom,” she whispered, swallowing. “I don’t understand.”

Tanis smiled, focusing not so much on the notes she was playing, but on how she created each phrase of music. “No, I don’t suppose you would. This doesn’t fit nice and neatly into your system of trained responses. What do you do when someone shows up who should be dead? It’s quite the conundrum.”

“This isn’t real,” Shara said, both a question and a statement.

“Does it matter?” Tanis said.

Shara smirked. “Perhaps not.” Her smirk shifted into a smile. “I’m glad you’re here though. I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you every day since you died. And your music.” And a great deal of other things that she couldn’t quite express in this moment.

“I know my daughter. I know.”

Tanis kept playing and Shara just listened with all the contentment that she used to feel when she was little and her mother was practicing for the various concerts the orchestra would perform during the season. She loved seeing her this way. Free. It was how she felt when she played as well. “Why are you here? Why now?”

Her mother did not answer, at least not immediately. The piece shifted into a softer section and at last Tanis answered. “Because you asked me to come here.”

Shara frowned and shook her head. “I don’t see how. I don’t understand.”

Tanis laughed and Shara couldn’t remember the last time she had heard it. It had definitely not happened in those last years before the Terrellian plague swept through Midos. She loved hearing it though- it was so beautiful. Bright and happy; both of which had been missing those last few years as her father’s drinking got worse.

“Oh, my girl, you’re thinking too logically. You always were the one to work through things systematically.” Tanis stopped playing. “In this case, you did not utter the words my dear, your heart did. Your spirit did. It called and I answered.”

She didn’t know what to think about that. Did she believe her mother’s assertion? Could she? Rationally, no. But if she thought back to certain moments in the last couple of years, she could admit that she had wished her mother had been there to give her advice. To soothe the hurt a little. But something else sat uneasy in her stomach, something she didn’t know how to assess. It wended its way through her and made her insides hurt as it climbed up through her throat until it hit her mouth. “You left us alone with him!” Oh, huh. Guess that was anger.

Tanis’s expression shifted, her mouth downturned as her eyes shimmered with tears. “Yes, I did. I wish it hadn’t happened that way, but it did. Oh, Lainey, I’m so sorry.”

---

Back in the inipi, Shara has been relaxed until that building started and then her fingers tightened around Micah’s hand as her breathing shifted. It was not unlike the nightmares he had witnessed her have, but unlike those, she was not asleep. Whatever has happening for her was something else

~Shara Calloway, XO

Micah set his metal hand on hers and moved closer to her. She wasn’t in distress, so he remained silent. But his gaze moved from the fire to his wife, and his eyes narrowed as he kept his attention focused on her.

Pikelsimer, FedSec Senior Agent

OOC: Great post, Linds!!! Having lot my mom just two years ago, I’ve yearned for a moment like this to talk to he argain!

IC: Almost as if sensing Shara’s journey beginning, Wind Weaver continued to chant, the words now barely above a whisper. The idea was to coax and guide Shara along the path this journey was taking her. . . . .

Lieutenant Kohana Black Wolf
Chief Intelligence Officer/Helm USS Asimov

OOC: Thank you! I lost my dad a couple years ago myself and I’m finding this process with Shara rather cathartic right now.
IC:
Grounded in reality that was the holographic sweat lodge and supported by the ones that were surrounding her in the conscious plane, Shara’s mind continued. The heat of the inipi caused her skin to glisten.

---

That name. Lainey. Her mother was the only one who ever used her middle name with any affection. Shara wasn’t overly attached the the name Elaine, but it had been her maternal grandmother’s name and she had learned at one point in her childhood that her mother had been close with her own mother and she chose the name because it meant something to her.

Shara rose from the piano bench and took three angry paces before she spun back to face her mother. Her angry expression fell as she gazed at the woman she’d give anything to wrap her arms around for real. It wasn’t her fault, but in that moment it felt better to blame someone. The reality was that the only person who could truly take responsibility was on Midos and the chances of her alcoholic and terminally-ill father taking any responsibility for any of his actions and choices over the years was so minuscule as to be laughable.

“It hurts to play,” Shara whispered. “I do play, especially for Micah, but even when I do it hurts. I even bought a beautiful piano for our home in Tenneessee but I’m rarely there. It feels by design.”

Tanis smiled and nodded at her daughter. “Touching the pain too often and feeling it too deeply means you can’t run away from it. I can see how before that was too much of a risk. You’d be taken down by it all if you did that back then. But what about now?”

Shara sucked in a breath and gazed at the woman who appeared exactly as she remembered her before that plague took her away. She had dealt with some it, especially where it was connected to either of her daughters. But she knew there was a lot more buried in there that a part of her just accepted would always be there. The question now was, did it have to be? Before, as a covert agent, that crap kept her hard, impenetrable. Now? It was becoming a weakness and she knew it. It was why she had accepted Black Wolf’s offer in the first place.

Words lodged in her throat, Shara didn’t know how to reply to her mother. Instead, Tanis rose and joined her daughter, reaching out her arms and pulling Shara into a deep embrace. “It’s too much,” Tanis murmured in her daughter’s ear as she held her. “It’s time to let it go.”

Wrapped up in her mother’s arms, and never mind the fact that in this scenario she was far older than her mother, Shara sank into the comfort offered and let out a chocked sob. Tanis just held her tighter. Suddenly the pressure around her disappeared and Shara opened her eyes only to find she was somewhere else.

No. Not here. Not now.

She stood in the living room of her childhood home and moved towards the prone figure on the couch. Unlike the vibrant woman who had just played the piano moment ago, the Tanis lying there looked like a shadow of herself. Her skin was sweating and red, eyes sunken, and her breathing was laboured. Tanis opened her eyes and she smiled, though it was clearly a struggle. “My Lainie,” she said.

“Mom,” Shara said, coming to the side of the couch and kneeling on the floor. She touched the back of her hand to her mother’s forehead. “You’re really hot. You have a fever.”

“Oh, I’ll be okay. I’m more worried about you and Gavin. How are you both doing?”

She forced a smile. “We’re okay,” she lied. Shara had a mild headache and was feeling rather warm too. Gavin said he was feeling really tired. She had wanted to call for a doctor yesterday but their dad refused. Of course, he was drunk and paranoid about having any outsiders in their house. But he wasn’t here right now and she was really worried about their mom who looked bad. She knew there was an illness going around and school had been cancelled- she could draw conclusions.

Suddenly she felt really hot at the same time as her mother cried out in pain, clutching her abdomen. “I’m calling for help!” Screw her father’s ‘orders’ She’d deal with the consequences later, even though she knew it might be devastating.

But the Shara present in this iteration of events already knew the outcome, already knew it was too late. Not for her and Gavin, but definitely for her mother who would die from seizures and cerebral inflammation within twelve hours. Her father would be drunk at the bar when she died in the hospital and would come home to an empty house. Shara would hate him from that moment on. Not just be disappointed in him, but deeply loathe.

The very ill Tanis reached out a hand and placed it on Shara’s cheek. “It’s going to be okay, Love. I promise. I can’t promise anything else but that. And now you need to take care of yourself. You can’t stay here. You can’t live here anymore.”

Tanis’ hand fell limp and draped over the couch. Shara felt her heart beating hard and the heat of her own body.

---

Back in the inipi and about half an hour later, Shara was sweating profusely and her eyes flew open. She tried to focus on anything but her eyes wouldn’t see and the world felt like it was spinning. “Nom… too… back,” she murmured, entirely unaware that she wasn’t making any sense.

There was pressure on her hand that she could no long distinguish as Micahs’s hand, but it felt soothing. Enough that she tried to turn towards the sensation, only to sway in his direction as she promptly passed out.

~Shara Calloway, XO

Sensing Shara’s distress,, Kohana opened his eyes to see her pass out.

Micah had watched his wife’s face as she went through an emotional crucible. When her eyes opened, finally, he started to speak but something was… off. When she started to speak, he knew something was wrong. He moved closer and when she started saying gibberish he moved to her; close enough so that when she passed out she fell into his arms. Micah looked at Black Wolf and simply said “Water. Now.”

Pikelsimer, FedSec Senior Agent

Limp in her husband’s arms, Shara was hot to the touch, as if feverish, and sweating, but it was less than it was earlier. He also could feel that her heart rate was abnormally high.

~Shara Calloway, XO

“Computer, pause program”, he ordered and the simulation stopped with flames from the fire frozen in place. He turned to the side and reached into the color he had placed inside the inipi. Pulling out and ice cold bottle of water, he handed it to Micah and helped position Shara where he could get some water down her throat.

“Computer, lower room temperature to 23 degrees C.”

Lieutenant Kohana Black Wolf
Chief Intelligence Officer/Helm USS Asimov

Micah took the water but didn’t give it to her immediately. “This isn’t just the heat. There’s something’ goin’ on in there…” he said touching her forehead with his finger. “Not really uncommon in her family, to be honest…” he added with a soft and resigned shake of his head. He waited a few moments before picking up the water and, lifting Shara’s head slightly, poured a thimble full in her mouth.

Pikelsimer, FedSec Senior Agent

Given her state of unconsciousness was light and there was nothing stopping her body’s natural reflexes from functioning, Shara naturally swallowed the water.

For several moments, nothing happened. Then, Shara murmured something incomprehensible before drawing in a slow breath. As the air around her changed, she blinked her eyes and found herself gazing up at Micah. “Pickle?” she whispered. “Where are we?”

~Shara Calloway, XO

Kohana’s face turned quizzical. “Pickle,?” he questioned.

“Pet name. Leave it outta your mouth.” Micah said with just a hint of malevolence. He looked at Sharah and said “I’m here, hun. Don’t you worry none.”

“Shara, you’re in the holodeck, a sweat lodge ceremony I have, a meditaion to help get some answers and peace. Are you okay?”

Lieutenant Kohana Black Wolf
Chief Intelligence Officer/Helm USS Asimov

Pikelsimer, FedSec Senior Agent

Her skin glistened from the heat, even as the holodeck had returned to a more reasonable temperature. She was still hot to the touch. “I… think so,” she said, closing her eyes briefly.

She didn’t try to move from Micah’s arms, feeling safe there as she tried to process what she had experienced. “She was there,” she whispered. “It was so real. It wasn’t a conversation we could have ever had, so it wasn’t rehearsed or planned. It wasn’t me making things up,” Shara added with some urgency. It had been a wonderful and painful conversation, but it had also been left unfinished.

~Shara Calloway, XO

Kohana reached out and placed a sympathetic, yet reassuring hand on Shara’s arm. It is a common belief among the Sioux that during the ceremony we can inteeract and converse with the spirits, especially if you have a strong link to that spirit. It’s something that is as real to you as the conversation we are having right now. I’m not prying, but it must have been someone that was special to you. . . .”

Lieutenant Kohana Black Wolf
Chief Intelligence Officer/Helm USS Asimov

She still felt weak so Shara just focused on trying to breathe more deeply. “My mother,” she said softly. The simple words carried a weight to them, as if her voice could not even begin to sum up their importance. “She died when I was a teenager. There was a plague. My brother and I got sick as well, but we got treatment sooner. She didn’t get it in time.”

~Shara Calloway, XO

“Focus on her words, her actions in your dream, Shara.” Kohana offered. “The messages our spirits send us are not always clear. They can often be very cryptic.”

She bobbed her head slowly, repeating the conversation with her mother in her head. Good thing she had an excellent memory.

“I don’t mean to push you, but it’s best if you can focus on her message while it’s still clear in our heads. If you wish, I can leave the two of you alone, to discuss this in private. I do suggest that you take in plenty of fluids, and electrolytes, perhaps an IV?”

Lieutenant Kohana Black Wolf
Chief Intelligence Officer/Helm USS Asimov

“I can make that happen. No problem.” Micah said and patted Shara’s shoulder before standing up and walking towards the door to the holosuite. He walked out, but said “Be back in three minutes.”

She gave a disgruntled snort. “It’ll be fun telling the doc about this one. I can’t even make it sound cool other than I passed out from the heat.” Shara was assuming that was why, since she had never done this before.

~Shara Calloway, XO

“The intensity of the visions can also play into it as well. It’s much like a very intense dream, except your mind is in an altered state of consciousness.”

Lieutenant Kohana Black Wolf
Chief Intelligence Officer/Helm USS Asimov

Pikelsimer, FedSec Senior Agent

Sitting upright now, she felt a bit more stable again, if still really tired. “I think it’s going to take some time to process what happened. The first part was nice actually, interesting. But it shifted and took me back to a time I definitely have had no desire to revisit. I have an excellent memory, I didn’t need to revisit it to know what happens. But I guess when I add the other things my mother said to me it makes sense.” She sighed, knowing that unravelling the deep rooted pain and finding ways to let it go would take time.

~Shara Calloway, XO

Seeing that Shara was becoming more stable, Kohana sat down cross-legged next to her.

“Hopefully, you can take this experience and figure everything out so that you can find some peace. Do you think it helped at all?”

Lieutenant Kohana Black Wolf
Chief Intelligence Officer/Helm USS Asimov