Posted by Lieutenant Casela Synthi-er (Counsellor / RTF) in Counselor’s Office - Nakuto drops by

Posted by Civilian Kara Nakuto (Engineer (Consultant Researcher - Yellow)) in Counselor’s Office - Nakuto drops by

Posted by Lieutenant Casela Synthi-er (Counsellor / RTF) in Counselor’s Office - Nakuto drops by
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻
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Posted by… suppressed (2) by the Post Ghost! 👻

“No bother at all. I can only pretend to work at crew evals for so long before I get bored of staring at the screen.” Casela grinned. There were other things she could have found to do, but after the last mission she had tried to stay near her office to be readily accessible. A lot of nightmares and sleepless nights for the crew after Sandman. Herself included. “I would love some friendly conversation. Have a seat.” She took in the tone and slight sound of anxiety. And apparently Cobb was rubbing off on her. She turned to the back of her office and opened a panel revealing a safe. She opened, took something out, closed it up and walked over to her desk. She poured a large glass of Klingon Blood Wine for Nakuto, and picked up her own cup of coffee from her desk. She moved about the office and to Kara’s side and handed her the glass. Then she casually took a seat in an adjacent chair and relaxed back into it.
Lt. Synthi-er, CNS

Kara accepted the glass with the attitude of a woman being handed water after a week in the desert. Settling herself onto the couch, she remained in silent contemplation of the red liquid for several seconds, before taking her first, long drink.
“Counselor,” she declared as she wiped at her lips with the back of a hand, “if this is how you conduct your therapy sessions then I shall have to attend them more often.”

Casela raised her glass in acknowledgement of the compliment and an indication that Kara is welcome at any time she would like. But Casela sensed that silence was the better part of encouragement right now.

In a heartbeat her expression grew serious, brown eyes misting over with the pain of tortured memories. “It has been a while since I have been offered such open kindness. I am…more grateful than I could put into words.”

“Then, I am happy to be able to offer it.”

Would she also fail to lend words to the reason for her visit? Did she retain the strength to revisit her darkest moments and describe them anew for another? The bloodwine was doing much to increase her confidence, but only speaking aloud would reveal if it was enough.

“Does it appear strange to you, Lieutenant, that a woman who once commanded a starship would transfer to you as a nondescript researcher? Or that one with such obvious Klingon heritage would come to you now with such weakness?”

• Kara Nakuto (Consultant Researcher)

Casela sat in silence for a brief moment, contemplating. “No, it does not. Some of us need to change who we are, in order to find…well some of us will never find peace, but at least a less violent existence.” Casela motions around her office and the stores of weapons hidden there. “would it surprise you to find an operative turned counselor? Or that a Betazoid would have a life so full of blood and battle it would make a Klingon warrior jealous?” That last part may be an exaggeration since Klingon’s don’t like subterfuge, but close enough.
Lt. Synthi-er, CNS

Nakuto smiled broadly at Synthi-er’s response, having expected no less from this seemingly kindred soul.
“Ordinarily? Yes,” she replied with a grin, “but having spent several minutes now in your company, I already have the impression that nothing about you would surprise me, Counselor.”

Casela smirked, “Why thank you, Kara. That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

But there was a truth to Casela’s words that she had not previously considered. Some of us need to change who we are, in order to find a less violent existence. But at what cost to those around us?

“It was meant to be the pinnacle of my career,” she risked tentative exploration of the subject aloud, eyes lowered to stare into her bloodwine and the familiar dance of fluid shadow. “My own command. My own vessel. I remember the night of my arrival, how the shuttle’s pilot had been furious at his orders. I presumed, at the time, it was the area that seemed to terrify him. Bad business in that sector on a previous voyage, perhaps? But then I saw the ship with my own eyes.”

Thick, sticky heat against her lips. The familiar course of flame along her throat and down to the pit of her stomach. She had hoped for a tranquilising effect to soothe the constant churn within her core. But the blood of Kahless himself would have been impotent against this tsunami of harrowing recollection.

“Have you ever had that feeling, Counselor? You are walking, perhaps, through a crowded room, minding your own business. Your thoughts are on trivial matters, what to have for lunch, or who to meet for drinks that evening. Nothing about the room, or the people within it, seems out of the ordinary. But then suddenly, you feel it. Impossible to express in words, maybe, but the sensation is etched all over your body. The stiffening of the joints. The shiver as tiny hairs ripple across pimpled skin. The tightening, like a vice, around your guts to induce almost destabilising nausea. And an immediate, and irresistible, need to flee. You can not pinpoint why you feel these things and yet you know, with every atom of your being, that something in the room is very, very wrong.”

Nakuto sighed and swallowed the remainder of her wine in one gulp.

“Good instincts. You learn to live or die by them. That’s what makes you feel that way. It’s like an itch that won’t stop. It makes you want to tear the skin from your body just to get some relief. You think you hear and see things that don’t exsist, that you’ve lost your mind. That you’ve cracked under some unforseen pressure you weren’t aware you were under. And then…” Casela shrugs a little. “Then you realize the truth. You aren’t crazy.”

Unnerving, to hear one’s most primal fears launched on stranger’s lips. It was as if Synthi-er was inside Nakuto’s head, bearing witness to every moment of shame and of torment etched indelibly within. You aren’t crazy. Did she have strength, at last, to believe it?

“That is how I felt when I first saw the Viking. My ship.”

• Kara Nakuto (Consultant Researcher)

“Ah. The Viking. Well only a few every came off that ship sane. Count yourself lucky.” She’d heard the stories. Seen the reports that came across her desk. She’d always wondered, what was going on on that ship. Who had done it and why. But she wasn’t assigned to the same sector as Viking and had never had the chance to ease her curiosity. She was sure, with Kara now on Leviathan and what she knew about anomalies. Someone was having ‘fun’ at the Viking’s expense. She’d keep that to herself though, till she had evidence to the contrary.
Lt. Synthi-er, CNS

“Lucky?”

A singular blink of time. Almost wholly imperceptible. But that was all that it took for Kara Nakuto to be up on her feet, her now-empty glass hurled to the floor beside her, face painted in a terrifying array of confusion and anger and shame.
“Lucky?!!!” she roared in self-targeted fury. “A crew tormented. A ship crumbling. A partner tainted and torn from my arms. A friend banished to the void and me released without her. Tell me, Counselor, what moment in that tale of failure and cowardice do you consider me to have been lucky?”

• Kara Nakuto (Consultant Researcher)

Casela didn’t even flinch, though most would have. Kara Nakuto still had the fire within her to do something about it. “Those who are unlucky have no sanity left. They don’t recognize their families, friends, themselves. They can no longer perform their duties or favorite hobbies.” Slowly, with great ease and not an inch of fear or self doubt about her, Casela stood, toe to toe, eye to eye, with Kara. “So yes, lucky. Lucky for them that you survived to avenge their deaths. To see the truth of what is going on and DO something about it. You are lucky Kara Nakuto to have the brains, brawn, and resources to put a stop to it. Now the question is, is there enough fire left in you to follow it through?”
Lt. Synthi-er, CNS (Not putting up with pity parties)

“My crew are not dead.” Eyes locked with the Counselor, the half-Klingon remained solid in her own stance, even as brown eyes began to flood from years of unspilled tears. “Death would be a blessing I could accept, to have roared them into Sto-vo-kor a profound and glorious honour. But there is no closure to be found here.”

Nakuto relented, collapsed back onto the seat and fixed her gaze on a point beyond the confines of the opposite wall. “When I tell you that I lost them it is not avoidant wording but a literal statement of facts. It always amazed me how quickly the horrors of the Viking became commonplace. When drowning in a vast body of water, it can be difficult to find something to drink. On any other ship, the appearance of the portal would have been alarming. On the Viking it was merely a curiosity.”

She snorted a dry laugh, her focus returning to the immediate surroundings, the bare room no longer comforting but starkly lacking places to hide.
“I should have been more careful. But after the pyramid I…a combination of exhaustion, continued survival and pure, unrestricted ego saw me plunge headfirst into that portal as easily as one might step onto the bridge! But I had not expected the others to follow. Or for me to be the only one who made it out.”

• Kara Nakuto (Consultant Researcher)