Posted by Lieutenant Casela Synthi-er (Counsellor / RTF) in The Pied Piper
OOC: Trickster folks. This takes place on Delotha but has nothing to do with the Trickster thread. No clues/events/etc that affect that will happen here. However you are welcome to join in if you wish.
IC:

(snip)

Karra arrived a little while later without Terul. Pimola got up and ran inside with her, grabbing Karra’s hand and skipping a little. Casela let out a soft sigh and smiled slightly happy at the sight.
Casela Synthi-er/Zanya

The village bell rang and soon the screams and sound of stampeding children could be heard across the village. Lunch time. The smell of Karra’s signature stew was wafting through the house and out into the yard. On cool days like this, right before the weather started to stay cold, everyone loved Karra’s stew. In a week or so, Karra would make enough for the whole village and they would all eat together in the large yard of the orphanage. The littles toddled their way back into the house, holding hands, or picked up, by the older children. The oldest children, those who survived the mines were old enough now that they spent their afternoons in apprenticeships. Vetad, although only 12 was really closer to 20. Orions aged faster and he was no exception. Of course he had grown up away from the gender conflicts of his people. She knew Karra had tried to explain it to him, but he just couldn’t understand it. Of course after he’d been abandoned by ‘his’ people Casela wasn’t surprised he didn’t care for their ways or customs. He had a love for the earth, the dirt, of his home and making things grow. He was steady and patient. He was going to make a fine agricultural engineer by the time he was done with his training. Casela and Karra had been looking to find him an apprenticeship somewhere off Delotha where he could learn more, or go to school to refine those skills. Vetad had no desire to do it. He wanted to stay here with his family and his people, is what he’d told Zanya when she’d offered. Lanshay, Casela sighed. She was a spitfire and had the natural instincts to do well in security. She’d spoken to her about joining Star Fleet, but she wasn’t sure. She wanted to stay and help protect her village. Lanshay needed training though, and she’d take to it well. Delotha was a Federation colony. Casela considered having her go into the Federation marines. They could use a contingent out here to help, but she had to get all the village elders to agree to it. It wouldn’t take much of a favor to let Casela hand pick the people to come and make sure Lanshay got to return. But Lanshay needed to find her own way. Petal, the sweet Tellarite girl, was a conundrum. She was determined and worked hard. She liked mechanical things but had no talent. She could follow the instructions, she could decide from a list of choices how to fix something, but she couldn’t see outside that box to come up with an original solution. It could be age, or it could be the way her mind worked. Casela hoped helping Bog might help her see things from a different perspective. Those three, Vetad, Lanshay, Petall, were already gone helping out.

But Alyssa, Casela still hadn’t seen her. Alyssa was hard. Casela felt her presence before she saw her. Of course Zanya wasn’t a telepath and wouldn’t react to the girl quietly entering the yard, pain and hope on her face. She desperately wanted Zanya to adopt her and take her with her. It just wasn’t possible. Casela loved her desperately, but she had no way to provide a life for her. Not running from those after her, and now serving on Leviathan with monsters that actually looked like monsters.

12 Years Earlier

Alyssa shuffled through the prison calling to those lost to the darkness. “The bars are gone, come, come wif me! We can get out!” Slowly over several days she coaxed even the older children from their fear and the darkness of the labyrinth. Zanya appeared over and over again to guide them. She made Zanya promise, they’d saved her from the rock slide. That was how magical creatures worked, the stories said so. If you saved them, captured them, they owed you a favor until you were repaid. Finally the blonde hair turned dirty brown girl could coax no more children out. She sent Zanya to look, but Alyssa was so tired, she stumbled and fell. Tired, hungry, and so thirsty.

Zanya awoke with her last charge tucked safely in her arms to the face of a small woman with strange ears. A Karra! Karra beckoned Zanya to follow, follow the path once more. The road was blocked, they couldn’t follow the other path but skirted the road to the left this time. Zanya wouldn’t give the girl up to Karra even when she stumbled and almost dropped her. Zanya was bound by her promise. They slipped deeper into the dense woods as the first straight away in the road appeared. They moved south and west, away from the village. The sounds of men moving down the road echoing off the hills as they came. There was an open clearing, filled with small stone markers. Zanya shushed Alyssa and set her down in a large patch of soft moss. Zanya and Karra kneeled at each marker, crying soft tears for whatever was hidden there. Karra gave Alyssa and Zanya water and soft bread. Alyssa ate and ate, swallowing it almost whole. Making herself sick. She screamed and yelled and cried, Karra had hurt her, and Zanya wasn’t helping! She was carried then as she sobbed, her tummy hurting and cramping. Zanya sang to her, soothed her, carrying for her little mistress. They walked with the sun on their left until it was a warm blanket right above them,and they came to a pond.

Alyssa, with the help of her captured Zanya washed the dirt and mud from herself. She was cold, but the only warmth was a small shawl that Karra gave to her. From the pond they skirted the shore North East coming back to a road, but turned following a hunters trail into a small valley between hills. On the other side were open fields. Alyssa looked struggling to get down. There were people working, farming. She recognized them, she had seen them in her home before the evil prince took her away. She stumbled and tripped looking for any face she might know, but her family was gone. Zanya, having delivered her and keeping her bargain, disappeared, but Karra was there, and took her to the other babes.

Present

Zanya looked up as Alyssa stepped in front of her. Over the last couple of years Alyssa had become more and more distant. Casela knew she was hurting her by returning, but she couldn’t abandon the rest of the children, Karra, and the village. They simply looked at each other. Alyssa made no move to hug Zanya like the other children. Alyssa was bitter, and it stung like a slap to the face. “So, there’s trouble, and here you are. At least, if you can’t love us, you protect us.” And Alyssa moved away and out of the room. Zanya closed her eyes against the sting. Alyssa was right, in a way. Zanya loved the children desperately and did what she could, but Casela - Casela didn’t have that luxury. But she would come, if they were in trouble. Karra walked out of the house and put a hand on her shoulder. “She’s a kid.” Zanya nodded, “I don’t blame her, Karra. She has every right. I’m going for a walk.”

Zanya walked around the back of the house and through the back gate. So easy was it to follow that path from 12 years ago. The orphanage wasn’t here then. But how quickly it had been built. The signs of fires, heads on pikes, blood, and fear were gone. Only those who had been there that night, those that had lived it would see the signs. The crack in the wall of the last house on the northside from the heat that cracked the stone. The rain barrel that covered the spot where she and Ch’otok had set a warning for those that had betrayed the village. The memories, so close after her encounter with Alyssa reminded her of what this place used to be. And it never ceased to amaze her how the village had remade itself. She continued to wander, out of the village and following the path towards the mansion, but 3 kilometers from it she took an old, what could only be described as a deer path. She followed it, her shoes making no sound in the leaves, dirt, and sticks. Until she settled into a blind, still natural and still of great use. It gave a great advantage to watch the mansion. It was here that she and Ch’otok had planned the destruction of an evil man. They had no idea, that night, how far it really went. Back then she was too broken to care of the ethics or morals of what she did. It was all black and white, and she defended the good, the white with all the blackness in her being. Was she so really different now? She didn’t think so.
Casela Synthi-er/Zanya