Posted by Captain Dira Myqian (Commanding Officer) in Deck 9 - Shadows Are Not Immune To Light

Posted by Commander Dr. Royal Sinclair (Executive Officer) in Deck 9 - Shadows Are Not Immune To Light

Posted by Captain Dira Myqian (Commanding Officer) in Deck 9 - Shadows Are Not Immune To Light
Posted by… suppressed (8) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

She looked away, surveying the room and her hands tightened around her knees, knuckles paling. “Maybe,” she whispered. Determined people could make anything happen. Just look at what he managed before, and look at what she managed to do to escape. Anything was possible. “I just know William better than you or anyone else does. If there’s even a slim chance he can make good on his promise, he’ll find a way. He’s not the smartest man but he knows how to get others to help him.” She suddenly whipped her head back to Sinclair, her dark eyes intense. “But know this, it’s the same as before, the ship and crew come first. It doesn’t matter what happens to me, so long as they are okay.” But as those words came out, her face contorted into a level of unexpected anguish and she buried her head in her arms.

Captain Myqian, CO

“Of course it matters what happens to you. Don’t be daft.” Sinclair said and shook his head as he rose to his feet. “If what happened to you doesn’t matter, then nothing you do matters. And if nothing you do matters, than nothing that comes from your actions matter.” He looked down at her and said “And you know for a fact that that is false. If it were true, you would have been content to let him do whatever he wanted. And you didn’t. You actively combatted him and his agenda because you knew he was an active threat to the ship and the crew.” He looked around for a moment, speaking as he did so. “You matter, Captain. If you didn’t… none of this would be important. And if it wasn’t important, you wouldn’t be in here with me trying to work through it.”

Sinclair, XO

Head still buried she squeezed her her hands tight, the nails digging in deeper than before. Her stomach churned more. Dira looked up, her eyes alight. “Don’t you get it?! If it was between me and the crew, I pick the safety of the crew. So would most people. But the thing is I knew what that would mean. He told me his whole vision. All the anguish shifted and it was still there but now it was fuelling and intense mixture of fear and rage. “He wanted children!! THREE OF FOUR! Three or four…” Dira gasped, her head spinning. She couldn’t breathe! But she was also stuck in this spot on the floor. She had known the whole time once the situation became clear that she would have gone willingly and lived that horrific reality to save the lives of others. Because William Franks would easily kill those that got in his way and she cared too damn much to just selfishly let him to protect herself and her future.

Captain Myqian, CO

Sinclair looked at her and said calmly but very firmly “Don’t you get it? What he wanted or wants or planned for or prepped for doesn’t matter anymore.” He took a breath and then sat down hard on the floor in front of her. “Whatever he wanted. Whatever he planned. It’s done, No, it’s not a simple snap of rhe fingers and it’s over for you. But it won’t even start being over until you accept the fact that he lost. And if you can’t acknowledge that fact with your whole being… you aren’t doing yourself, this ship, or this crew any favors.” He looked around the cramped space. “It started here, Captain…” and he looked at her with resolute understanding.

“It needs to start ending here, too.”

Sinclair, XO

It didn’t feel over, so she didn’t know how to even begin. He was in her head in a way she was still trying to understand. He made her doubt her telepathy, made her afraid of it. It was also the dream. The one that struck such deep fear in her heart that it often drove her from her bed. The one that had sent her careening into Maria because she had been confused and unintentionally found herself on this damned deck. Dira braced her elbows on her knee, held her head, and sobbed.

Captain Myqian, CO

Royal leaned back, propping himself up against the wall and let out a breath. “I hope this is cathartic crying, Dira. Because if this is a psychotic break, we are going to have a much different relationship if I have to drag you out of here. You know how small that tube is.” and he mov3d to sit next to her.

Sinclair, XO

She snorted even as she sobbed harder. But she forced herself to take a breath and though it shuddered she was able to lift her head again. “I’m there, every night, whether I want to be or not. I open the door to a house and step out onto the porch. I look over this verdant landscape and think how beautiful it is. The door opens behind me and he steps out, comes up behind me and wraps his arms around me. Me and my giant belly. And the. I wake up in a cold sweat and sometimes I throw up in the ‘fresher. And then I carry on with my day because it’s as you say, it’s over. It didn’t happen. But I can’t convince my body of that.” She looked at him, weary and with tear stained cheeks. “He stole something from me, as a woman, as a telepath, as a confident person, that I can’t quite articulate. And I don’t know how to get it back.”

Captain Myqian, CO

Sinclair thought for a moment and then said “You have to take it back, Dira. Which I believe you did when you kicked him in the face and ruined his plans and had him thrown in prison. But you have to let yourself believe it, too. But that will take time. Right now… you just have to accept it. Tell yourself ‘He doesn’t have control over me. I am all of me.’ He tried to take something from you. But that doesn’t mean he got to hold onto it.” and he chuckled slightly and set the back of his head against the wall. “And honestly? From where I sit? I have absolutely no hesitation in not believing that anyone could take something from you that you didn’t want them to.”

Sinclair, XO

A visceral pain swept through. “So it would have been my fault if he had done something more? It’s my fault I let him manipulate me and convince me my telepathy was messing with my sense of reality?” She fixed him with a dark glare. “Good to know.”

Captain Myqian, CO

Sinclair looked back at her unflinchingingly. “That’s a load of shite and you know it, but I’ll let it slide this time. And he didn’t do more, Dira. ‘What if’ yourself much more and you’ll talk yourself out of the command chair.” He looked ahead and paused, then got to his feet. He offered her a hand and said “So what’s it to be? ‘What if he had’ until you fall so far into the rabbit hole we cannae pull ya out? Or do we stop with ‘what if’ and start in on ‘now what’?”

Sinclair, XO

Wasn’t she already in a deep hole? And now he was asking her to climb out of it. She didn’t know if she could. Certainly her command was quite the carrot he thought it might or should be. She had already been full of doubt from the first moment and through different conversations she could check her negative beliefs. But that hadn’t fully gone away. Maybe it never would but right now sitting in this hellish space wasn’t making her feel any better. She reached up and set her hand in his.

Letting him help, she pushed herself to her feet and held his hand tight. Very tight. “I’m so afraid of everything. And I hate it. I’ve tried just focusing on the ship and the good things around me but it’s not enough to quell the fear. It’s maddening some days.”

Captain Myqian, CO

He didn’t release her hand, but set his other on her shoulder. “It’s okay to be afraid. If you weren’t, we’d be havin’ a whole different conversation. But what you have to try and remember… to internalize… is that you aren’t alone anymore. You don’t have to face this by yourself. You have literally hundreds of us with you. And where you go… we go.”

Sinclair, XO