Rende walked through the door of the lounge holding one very very old insulated coffee mug. She’d dug these up out of the crates at the estate before she and Eldorin had left on this round of service. Tabris had made them when he was a freshman in high school. He had a thing for working with textiles and was very very talented. Rende wasn’t artistic but she’d spent hours sitting with him, using a small lap loom learning how to thread it and keep the weave tight and then take it off the loom and then moving on to the bigger standing looms at the school’s vocational building. The cup, that she held was a beautiful mini tapestry inside the mug of a winter scene and an artic fox hoping through the snow. There was a second cup, packed away or with Eldorin, had a mini tapestry inside the mug of the edge of a wood with a baby pudú on it. Tabris had designed and made them himself. And with much care, Rende had managed to keep them safe. She had it filled with coffee, by habit it was filled with Eldorin’s favorite blend. She took a seat at a table and stared out the window. She really should find her own blend now. Despite her separation from Eldorin, he was still very much a part of her past. The good and the bad. She wondered about him often, but when he’d never answered her, she’d known it was over. Today, of all days, she just wished she could talk to him.

She lifted the mug and sipped. It was the only small piece of Tabris she could carry with her. She couldn’t even talk about her son. He’d lived and died in the past. One of her stipulations for serving in Star Fleet was to keep who and what she was a secret. Which meant she couldn’t even mourn her son openly on his Birthday. Just sit and watch out the window and drink from the cup he’d made her almost 200 years ago.

Cpt. Asam, CO