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Nytha’rae did not interrupt.

Not when Orrin spoke.

Not when the weight of years settled into his voice.

Not even when Skye answered him.

She stood still, her presence quiet but unwavering—bare feet grounded against the deck, tail resting in a gentle curve behind her, the faint bioluminescent lines along her throat pulsing slowly in time with her breath.

Nytha’kae remained perched on Skye’s shoulder.

Watching.

Listening.

As Nytha’rae did.

When the last of Skye’s words settled into the space between them, Nytha’rae took a single step forward.

Not to take control of the moment.

But to stand within it.

Her gaze moved first to Orrin.

She inclined her head slightly—not formal, not distant. Something older than Starfleet protocol.

“I will not stand in her way.”

Her voice was soft, but carried certainty.

A pause.

Then—

“I will stand with her.”

Her eyes held his for a moment longer, allowing the meaning to settle.

Not a promise made lightly.

Then her attention shifted.

To Skye.

The softness in her expression remained—but there was something else now.

Recognition.

Understanding.

“You have always known what he fears.”

A slight tilt of her head.

“And you carried it.”

Her voice lowered, gentler still.

“You do not have to carry it alone anymore.”

The faint glow along her cheekbones warmed.

Behind Skye, Nytha’kae adjusted his footing slightly, his tail curling lightly as he settled more comfortably against her shoulder—as if confirming her place there.

Nytha’rae continued.

“You speak as someone who has learned to endure the storm.”

A brief pause.

“But you are no longer inside it.”

Her gaze held steady.

“You are standing after it.”

The distinction mattered.

She let that sit.

Then, quieter—

“Your path was never meant to be shaped.”

A faint echo of Orrin’s words.

“It was meant to be walked.”

Her tail shifted once behind her, slow and deliberate.

“And now…”

A small pause.

“…you choose where it leads.”

She did not ask a question.

She simply acknowledged the truth already forming.

Then, after a breath—

“You are no longer returning to something.”

Her voice softened further.

“You are beginning something.”

Behind them, the terrarium’s soft glow filled the lab with quiet, living light.

And for the first time—

Nytha’rae did not look like a superior officer.

She looked like exactly what Skye needed in that moment.

Someone who understood where she had been—

…and was willing to walk beside her where she was going next.

LT.JG Nytha’rae

Skye let out a silent sigh before leaning against the back of a red and heavily padded chair. A few strands of loose hair hanging over her face as the Lieutenant spoke. _Strange, both officers seemed to know one another,_the hybrid thought. Being recruited to Starfleet once more was a strange occurrence, especially under a new Commanding Officer. Being rewarded with a new commission to start over. It seemed as. though she had run out of words when Commander Castel spoke.

The ensign placed her PADD against the surface of an LCARS console, lighting control it seemed. Those moments of tense silence became eternal, searching for the right way o provide an answer for both of them at once. That shifting from the small reptile perched against her shoulder seemed to bring back some of that confidence which had been lost many cycles ago. Life on board the New Jersey wasn’t exactly something the ensign had been excited about. Two different posts in a six month span had been brutal to her. But currently, here they stood. Those officers who would be shaping her path towards the future.

“You speak as someone who has learned to endure the storm.”

A brief pause came from Nytha’rae, interrupting whatever thought cycle she had been trapped in. Making the hybrid lift her head for the first time since reaching that seat. Her attention had gone from the Lieutenant, to the PADD’s screen and back to the dragon perched on her shoulder. Black boots planted. against the ship’s decking, for she belonged here.

“But you are no longer inside it.”

She stared at the viewport in front of her as stars began streaking past, they had gone into warp. Her gaze was unfocused but the Vaelari was right, and so was her dad when speaking an honest truth. That beginning path had been rough at first, but just as the beginning of every story… the main event had yet to unfold.

“You are standing after it.”

For a moment, she said nothing.

Then—

“I don’t know if I believe that.”

Skye’s fingers curled slightly against the armrest, grounding herself in the present as the stars stretched into luminous lines beyond the viewport. The hum of warp filled the silence she hadn’t realized she’d been holding onto.

Orrin’s voice softened, just a fraction. “You don’t have to prove that you can endure, Skye. You already have.”

Her jaw tightened slightly, but she didn’t look away this time.

“I know,” she said quietly. “But I need to prove that I can do more than just survive it.”

That earned the faintest hint of approval in his expression.

“Then stand where you are,” he said. “And move forward from there.”

The Trill seemed to lean forward only for a hint of a nod making its presence known. Right behind him was a viewport from their shared quarters back home (the U.S.S. New Jersey), indicating that her old girl had just entered warp into the Khionian sector. Papers were scattered over that wooden desk, for Castel could be considered what Skye jokingly called a Traditional Man.

“Right,” she muttered. “Next you’ll tell me to ‘trust my training’ and ‘adapt to the situation.’”

Yet, the Lieutenant Commander appeared unimpressed at his daughter’s snarky remark. Gray eyes following the resentment she felt for Starfleet. Finding a ship that would be willing to take in a troubled ensign had been already a difficult task. For a moment, that gaze fell to the carpeted flooring beneath his feet. Reflection came from the symbiont which he had been joined with. Of course, Castel didn’t hold all answers to her questions. Neither did he. There was something he had been holding onto in his right hand, from which a leather string hung. Skye immediately recognized the necklace, just like hers. The fang of an old Ina Raptor.

“Your path was never meant to be shaped.”

Shepherd was about to make a comment when Nytha’rae interjected her father’s words. But it was that same principle that followed. Those words had been the ones spoken by her mother before taking a transport shuttle leading from Mak’ala to San Francisco. Where the supposed greatest adventure of her life would eventually begin. She hadn’t yet met the rest of the crew, this being her first day spent on board the Chimera. Turning towards the Lieutenant Junior Grade, she quietly nodded, giving in to every piece of advice mentioned. Nytha’rae’s demeanor was so similar to her mother’s. No wonder Orrin had put his faith on this young woman to turn those tables around.

“It was meant to be walked.”

“And now…”

Her voice tone was low. Yet it had been the first answer which the ensign had provided in over an hour of tense silence. “Now I finally understand what that means.” When they turned to the PADD’s screen all that was left on the floor happened to be a white sock with Starfleet deltas on the sides that had been torn to shreds. The. chair was empty, as though he had allowed the junior officer take the lead on this dance. Claws clicking against the carpet could be heard from far away, probably inside her room. Skye would guess. Both science officers stood in that awkward silence which had now filled the atmosphere inside the lab. Though she hadn’t been paying much attention to the tiny dragon whose tail had loosely wrapped halfway around her neck and over her shoulder. Finally, Nytha’rae continued…

“…you choose where it leads.”

You cannot walk it for her.

He knew.

That didn’t stop the instinct.

He had given her space. Deliberately.
Stepped away from the PADD, from the screen, from the instinct to step in.
But that silence… stretching past minutes, into something heavier… had not been easy.

Not for him.

When Skye’s voice finally came through, low and certain in a way that made something in his chest tighten, Orrin closed his eyes for the briefest moment. Relief came first. Sharp. Immediate.

Then something more complicated followed.

Pride… yes. Unmistakable.
But braided tightly with it, concern.

Because he recognized that tone.

He’d heard it before, across lifetimes not entirely his own. The moment someone chooses their path, fully, without looking back. The moment hesitation dies.

It was the same tone Zenith had carried before walking into negotiations that could have sparked war.
The same steadiness Vex had worn before surgeries no one else would attempt.
The same quiet resolve Saskia had held before stepping into fire.

It was courage.

It was also risk.

Orrin exhaled slowly, opening his eyes as he finally stepped back into view of the call. His expression, as always, was composed—measured, steady—but there was something behind it now. Something softer. Heavier.

His daughter wasn’t just learning anymore.

She was deciding.

And that… that was the moment a parent both hopes for and dreads.

His gaze flicked, just briefly, to the empty chair on her side of the feed—the torn white sock with the Starfleet deltas lying abandoned on the floor, the faint echo of claws somewhere in the distance.

He didn’t comment on it.

Didn’t interrupt.

Didn’t reclaim control of the conversation like every instinct—both paternal and Starfleet—quietly urged him to.

Instead, he let the silence sit a moment longer.

Let her have it.

But his voice, when it came, was quieter than usual. Not authority. Not instruction.

Something closer to truth.

“…Understanding,” Orrin said carefully, “isn’t what concerns me.”

A small pause.

“It’s what comes after.”

His eyes held on the screen, not searching, not correcting. Just… present.

Watching her.

Measuring not her answer—but her readiness to carry it.

“You are no longer returning to something.”

“…No,” she said at last, her voice louder now, but not uncertain. Just… stripped of something it used to carry.

Her hand rose absentmindedly, brushing lightly against the dragon’s tail where it rested across her collarbone, her touch instinctive, grounding. The small creature shifted in response, its presence steady, uncomplicated, real.

“I’m not.”

“I think… that’s what scared me,” she admitted, though the steadiness remained.

Her eyes held on the screen, on him, but there was a difference now. Not distance. Not detachment.

Independence.

“…because it means I don’t get to follow where you’ve already been.”

Her shoulders straightened just slightly, not in defiance, but in quiet resolve.

“But it also means…”

For so long, that had been the shape of everything. Every decision, every doubt—it had always bent back toward something familiar. Toward home. Toward expectation. Toward him. The quiet urge to check herself against Orrin’s presence on the other side of the screen. To measure. To align.

“…I finally get to go somewhere you haven’t.”

Yet that conversation came to an end when the small dragon chirped, the Lieutenant speaking up once more. Causing the Lieutenant Commander to grow silent.

“You are beginning something.”

Skye’s hand lowered back to her side.

No reaching back.

No anchoring herself to what had already been.

Only forward.

“…then I’ll see where it goes.”

[[Ensign]] [[Skye Shepherd]]
[[Science Officer]] [[U.S.S. Chimera NCC-98730]]