Posted by Lieutenant Casela Synthi-er (Counsellor / RTF) in The Pied Piper

Posted by Lazol (Chief Science Officer) in The Pied Piper

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)
Cobb had said the same thing to her. That Ryder knew what he was doing and that he was strong enough to stop them both from sinking. She didn’t doubt it, but should she....she turned a serious gaze on Ch’otok. “If you knew before hand, what it would be like, the risk she would be taking, would you have made the decision for Rutresh or let her make her own decision? Honestly Ch’otok.” They were both in the business of protecting others and that was a hard concession to make. It wasn’t the same as asking if he would do it all over again. Would he give that control to someone else.

Ch’otok just looked out at the spot where the governor’s mansion once stood. The building they destroyed with the first fireworks display that the village of Caspian had ever seen. He didn’t look in her direction as he let the question hang heavily in the air, the full weight being felt by both. “Casela do you know why I settled here?” He asked as he waved towards the ruins and the land behind it, “I had a wonderful home on Qo’nos in the heart of the capital city. Rutresh wasn’t happy there, she wasn’t someone to live the life of a warrior’s wife and we both knew that. She was a refugee from a war torn planet who had moved to a planet of warriors. It reminded her every waking moment of what she had escaped. To answer your question Casela I have once already let her make that decision. Delotha is not a safe place and my face and name are known to many Cardassians who would have revenge on someone such as himself and his Bajoran wife. We were to move to a planet close to the Cardassian neutral zone that was a hot bed for Maquis activity during the war. She and I went around and around but I knew that I needed to trust her in making the decision to transplant our soon to be family to a new world of peace and harmony. Do you know what that decision cost me Casela?” He asked, fully knowing that she had a very deep understanding of the question. “And if she and I were back at my home on Qo’nos having these conversation again. And I knew what it would involve, would I make it again?” He thought as a tear formed in the corner of his left eye silently, “For the time that we were here raising Tonja it was the happiest that Rutresh had ever been. The end of their lives was something that drove me to commit heinous acts, showing you and the rest of Caspian what I am capable of. But that was but a brief time in their lives, and I would want them to be happy for the time they had, than live a miserable but safe life, jumping at every turn. as Rutresh is reminded of the occupation and Tonja is constantly wondering why her mother is never at ease.”

There wasn’t a lot Casela could say to that. She could feel his sorrow, his heart break, and like always it weighed heavily on her. She could feel his loneliness and his wish to be, now, with Rutresh and Tonja. He had told her once before that Rutresh had been unhappy on Qo’nos. She had never pried further, respecting his need to protect her memory and his family; to keep them close and their memories intimate. She often wondered if the decisions her father and uncle had made would have been different. Had she made the right choice in waiting for that patrol to move on instead of risking running ahead. She could have saved them. Saved Uncle Jo’nar, Aunt Oliva, and Juliet. Her Sorellina. It had been her job to protect her, to keep her safe. She should have insisted on going back sooner. Put them before others. But deep down Casela knew that her uncle and aunt would have looked down on such a selfish decision. In the years since that loss had turned her into what she was now, and the demons, regret, and soul crushing grief had eaten away at her. She had decided long ago that she could not stand to go through it again and so she had formed no close relationships. Ch’otok was the exception. He’d fought beside her, killed beside her, corrected the wrongs that they found together. And he was a dear friend. And now there was Ryder and she wasn’t sure she could let go long enough to let him make that decision. She’d always lived her life allowing others to decide what they wanted. She didn’t care about them in a personal way so it didn’t affect her. Now, with Ryder, life was no longer so simple. She reached across and squeezed Ch’otok’s shoulder and then looked out at the ruins. “You are stronger than I am.”

“Strength is allowing yourself to live. Find that through this Ryder, as you once found it with me.” Of course their relationship had been different, but they made sure the other kept going and had relied on each other a great deal in the past. Ch’otok was seeing in Casela what he had longed to see in her, and just smiled knowing that he was right all along, deep down it was truly there.

He sat there looking at Casela, the wonderful woman that she was as he said softly, “Let me ask you one more time Casela. Let me take that old Bird of Prey and find out of Mad Man is truly gone. I know it’s risky, I know I could meet my end, but I would do that for you and more to make sure that you can have what you so truly deserve. Perhaps even then you can even let the man who doesn’t blink into your life.” He wanted to mention Alyssa, he wanted her to know that deep down under her loathing teenage exterior was that little girl who wanted to be loved. But it was one step at a time.

Ch’otok

At the mention of Mad Man she looked away, haunted, always haunted. As a counselor she often wondered why. She, and she alone, had gotten herself out of his grasp, had snatched her freedom from the jaws of the demon. No back up team, no rescue, no pity. Casela, and Casela alone had fought her way out and to freedom and back to safety. It was something that T’Jal and Ch’otok had told her repeatedly to carry pride in. But the mere mention of the man had her freezing in place like a rabbit that suddenly hopped out of hiding and into the wolf’s waiting mouth. She picked up a stick, tracing idlily into the dirt. “I would never ask that of you Ch’otok. But,” she sighs. “I have received reports that he’s looking for me. After all this time I can’t imagine it’s just stories. He’s offered a reward for me, Casela Synthi-er, to be alive and brought to him. I can’t believe that at this point, 13 years later, after absolute silence, that there isn’t some truth to it. I don’t like leaving my problems for others to solve.” She stops drawing and begins to snap the stick into smaller and smaller pieces. “And there is no way I can get away, alone, to do it.” She nods towards the direction of the village. “I couldn’t even get here without all of them.” Though she’d been able to pick who she wanted, she’d known Cobb would never let her wander off alone. “I can not ask this of you, and I can’t refuse your offer either.”

“I know you would never ask, and that is why I offer. Consider it done, the price I ask is that you set off the fireworks this year in the village.” He said with a smile, patting his old friend on the shoulder. “Consider it not that you are leaving your problem for me to solve as I distinctly remember you once telling me during a diplomatic mission that ‘I have the tact of a Targ, the manners of an Andorian Frost Lilly, and the subtlety of a Vulcan during Pon Farr’ and as such I don’t plan on infiltrating or trying to sus out the reasons or motivations. I will do as much fact finding as I can, and I will report to you what I know.”

“You will have to make them for me. I’m no good at making them. I’ll be back for it this year. Hopefully by then the adoption for young Neltus will have gone through and he will be going home.” She laughed remembering telling him that. Of course, the irony of it was that Ch’otok was actually very talented as a diplomat. Or at least pretending to be one. He, like her, was much better at more unique forms of persuasion. She had often fancied though, during that mission, she had seen in Ch’otok what Rutresh had seen. “I will set off the fireworks, but you will be back before I leave, or I’m coming to find you. I’ll track the Opaka the whole time. I mean it. He’s twisted Ch’otok.” Did she doubt Ch’otok’s ability to kill Mad Man? No, but if fate should twist and not go in his favor, the ‘life’ Mad Man would make Ch’otok live was not one Casela…”Maybe not. It can wait.” As always the scars began to throb, then weep and burn. Her gaze became further and further away. It was purely psychological, but it was a living nightmare that she could never forget. “You’ve earned your peace Ch’otok. I’ll not take it from you.”

Taking a deep breath he chuckled a hearty Klingon chuckle as he said, “Yes Casela I will make them, you know demolitions explosives and fireworks are not too seperated at the principles. One just makes a boom that people can enjoy, the other levels a building.” He had heard Neltus had been chosen by someone and was going through the process. “I’m glad to hear that Neltus will be adopted, he’s always been such a good boy but quiet and reserved, I think he would do well.” Shifting his weight a little Ch’otok looked at her with a grim seriousness that she knew all too well. “Casela you did not come to this ridge to just catch up, and I know you did not come to ask me about doing this for you. Just understand that I will be going. I will be looking for him. If you can manage it you are welcome to join me however I care deeply about you bangwI’. Nothing will change that and I know that you cannot live a life with this Ryder knowing that Mad Man is still out there. You told me that if you had known about the governor before, if you could have changed the past to affect my present so that my Rutresh was still alive that you would. I feel the same sentiment and this time I can help you. I can prevent something in your future. I will depart in 4 days, I owe it to the village to let them know I’ll be out for a little while.”

“As for Alyssa, I know. I love her and I’m not angry at her. But even if I could convince my captain to let me have a child on board, what would that do to her to find the woman she loves so dearly is nothing more than a fictional figment of someone’s mind? And not to mention to throw a ready made family at Ryder. And no I’ve not discussed it with him, what’s to discuss. I can’t do anything about it.”
Casela Synthi-er/Zanya

Ch’otok simply nodded at the comments about Alyssa, that was far from his business and he wasn’t one to impose when it was clearly out of his league.

Ch’otok

Casela sighed. Her life was no life for a child. She loved Alyssa deeply. And what would she do if she knew about Gen? Another complication she didn’t know what to do with. “One day, Ch’otok, I will find some abandoned moon and build a hut and farm my food, and wait for the demons to consume me.”
Casela

“And one day that moon will be populated not just by you, but a small family that you deserve.” Ch’otok said softly as he too sighed.

Ch’otok