Daveyla, Debrenn Division - Two Months Ago

The giant trees towered overhead, but her gaze was fixed below her. The pupils of her gold eyes had dilated in the dimming light of day, allowing her target to come into focus. They moved casually but stopped, their head tilting. She wasted no time and leapt off the wide branch that was her perch.

Arms out, she snagged the person and rolled them onto the walkway. The person grunted and they turned, each suddenly trying to gain purchase on the other. But as often happened, she prevailed, pinning his arms. “Do you concede?” she said playfully.

“Never!”
She pressed her knee down, just a bit.
“Okay, okay! I concede.”

She rolled off him. “As you should, Little Brother.”

He scoffed. “Please, I’m fifteen centimeters taller than you, and only two years younger. I think calling me ‘little’ is offensive.”

Crossing her legs on the wooden walkway, she grinned. “You’ll always be my little brother, Lakall. Always.”

Fine,” he said with a grin, shifting to sit beside her. Together they looked down at the lower levels of the kajia, listening to music, chatter and laughter of the community that raised not only them, but generations of their maternal line. “I’m going to miss you,” he said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

She didn’t dare look at him, knowing that she would start crying in an instant. “I’m going to miss you too. And Mother. Hell, everyone. It’s hard to wrap my mind around the fact that I might not return home for many, many years. The Delta Quadrant is a long ways away.”

“Are you scared, Sor?” he whispered.

Ka’sora forced herself to turn her face towards him and meet his sad gaze. She nodded. “More than a little. It was scary enough when I first left for the Academy, and then went on my training cruise. But this is where I’ll be truly tested. I think I would be a fool if I wasn’t at least a little afraid. Certainly I’d be lying to myself.

He gazed at her at length and smiled softly. “But you’re also excited, right?”

She beamed and nodded. “So very excited! The places I’m going to go, and the people! Oh the people, Lakall. So many different people. It’s like a dream. All of this has been. It’ll be hard, this I know, but I also know how lucky I am.”

He turned to face her fully and set his hands on her shoulders. “I am so proud of you. My sister, Ensign Ka’sora, the second Zaharan to live on a Federation starship, and the first Zaharan in Starfleet. You’re making history.”

A shiver crept down her spine. Yes, she knew that intellectually, but some days it still had not fully sunk in. Well, it had better pretty quickly because there was no turning back now. She was a commissioned officer in Starfleet!

She gazed back at him, pulling her shoulders back. “I’m pretty proud of you too, Engineer Lakall. Don’t let all this excitement around my assignment do anything to diminish what you’re doing. Zahara needs you if it’s too keep growing the way it is. It needs smart, dedicated people to be thoughtful about how to develop our kijias.”

They leaned forward, resting their foreheads against each other. “Take care of her, promise?” Ka’sora said

“I promise, Sor. I’ll come back regularly, though I wouldn’t worry too much about her. They have her.”

As they moved apart and looked down at the sheer joy of living that permeated upwards into the canopy, the siblings smiled at each other. “Come on, let’s go enjoy the feast. Don’t know where you’re going to get roast gosa in the far reaches of the galaxy.”

With a grin, Ka’sora rose to her feet and headed down the walkway to one of the main stairwells of their modest sized jungle kijia.

A few days later, Ka’sora donned her uniform and exited the family dwelling, running a hand over her haphazard hair. It was neither curly or wavy, but some special weird state in between. She wore it shorter, given it really had a mind of its own, and long hair had always been such a pain to deal with. She envied Lakall and his long fine straight hair that he clearly had gotten from his father since their mother and grandmother had the same hair as her.

Ka’sora had resisted wearing her uniform, not only because it wasn’t entirely appropriate given she wasn’t on duty yet and nowhere near her duty post. Nor was she even in the Federation. But everyone had asked her to, and the conversation with Lakall had reminded her of the importance of this moment, of her people seeing her represent them to the galaxy beyond. The uniform wasn’t just about her achievements, it was about her planet moving forward and taking risks. She was, as her brother reminded her, making history with each step she took and she was proud of that, truly. Maybe a little embarrassed by the attention, but she was proud. She had damn well worked hard to get to this point and she was going to go forth as the proud first Zaharan in Starfleet that she was.

Heading across the kijia to and down two levels to the community centre, Ka’sora stood and watched everyone for a moment before saying, “You do realize that I will be able to send messages back here, right? Like, I know it’ll take longer and someone is going to have to monitor the comm system, but you’re not going to forget to check, right?”

Her comments earned her chuckles and her mother, Pru’moa stepped up to her. Slightly shorter and more roundly built than herself, her mother oozed knowing. She was a Healer after all. Cupping her daughter’s face in her hands, Pru’moa gazed intently. “We won’t forget you, we promise. So long as you don’t forget who you are, where you come from.”

“I won’t!” Ka’sora vowed, tears blurring her vision.

“Be yourself, cas’moada. Your whole self and nothing less. They deserve to see that and you deserve to live that.”

She nodded and pulled her mother into a deep embrace. “I’m going to miss you so much!” she said into her mother’s ear. “It felt temporary before, but this…”

“You will be okay. I know it.”

Pulling back, Ka’sora nodded and then was hugged by her brother. “Come, sister of mine, let’s get you back to Labriiss. The first leg of your journey awaits.

Nodding again, the new ensign took her time wandering through Deveyla before they hopped a boat down the river to the fringe kijia that was connected to the light rail system. She took in every detail of her home that she could and wondered if she’d make it back this way any year soon. It was far away from Earth, let alone the entrance to the wormhole to the Delta Quadrant.

Fear, excitement, pride, love. She was feeling it all and more. Before she boarded the light rail system, Ka’sora Pru’moa Deveyla crouched and placed her hands on the ground. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to feel her world. Having been to other places, she knew there was a difference and she wanted to imbed this particular sensation into her memory.

Rising to her feet, she and Lakall boarded the train. In Labriiss, she took a shuttle to their small orbital station where she boarded a Zaharan ship that would take her into the Federation where she would make her first of several transfers.

The Delta Quadrant seemed so far away and yet right now Ka’sora felt she had the whole galaxy at her fingertips and knew without a doubt this was all meant to be.

~Ensign Ka’Sora