Posted by Civilian Kara Nakuto (Civilian, Former CO) in CNS Office - Nakuto looks for a friendly face

Posted by Lieutenant Ta’lahali Akera Beveres (Counsellor) in CNS Office - Nakuto looks for a friendly face

Posted by Civilian Kara Nakuto (Civilian, Former CO) in CNS Office - Nakuto looks for a friendly face
Posted by… suppressed (2) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Snip
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻

It was undeniably pleasant to catch a glimpse of a long past shadow to a woman who seemed to have been changed. But, once more, questions arises. Was this because of her choices? Or because of an environment whose unforgiving tendrils has successfully trapped the woman in their dreadful embrace? Stop. The more you question, the less you’ll hear. Tal hastily remindined herself, shaking her head to alleviate the thoughts.

“You too, Kara. Part of me thought something had finally been able to get to that durable heart of yours. It is wonderful to know, it hasn’t found you, yet.” Beveres, as much of a psychoanalyst she was, could hardly comprehend her own emotions. Ah, the irony in the dreams keeping people awake at night, was that of the irony of the healer without an idea of their own sickness. “To be honest, I don’t know.”

Impossible to miss the slight hesitation in the Counselor’s reply. The doubt. Had Kara the strength in that moment she would have seized her bat’leth and fixed herself at Beveres’s side, ready to vanquish each and every shadow that dared to threaten the young woman.
“Not this one” she silently commanded her former vessel. “You don’t get to take this one. The crew need her more than you will ever know. And so do I.”

Sensing that she had caught the Counselor in transit, the half-Klingon glanced down the dimly-lit corridor. “Might I walk with you for a moment, Counselor?” she asked hopefully. “I have great need to talk to you.”

Kara Nakuto

“Please,” Tal quickly stated, realizing her thoughts had briefly removed her from reality, replacing her with the hesitation of a surreal environment. As though Kara’s words were jumpstarting the wires of her mind, Tal removed herself from the office, listening to the distinctive, albeit screeching hiss of the doors rejoicing behind them. Gesturing with a slim, scarred hand, she made her way down the hall, choosing to keep an air of silence, until they had been walking for at least a moment or two.

The silence was comforting. Reassuring. A portend that dared to hint a return to the old days. To the old life that Kara had once known.

“What did you need to discuss, Kara?” The question emitted from her jaws, finally allowing her to overcome a portion of the blatant surprise caressing her features.

Lt. Beveres
CNS

The half-Klingon deliberated the question, examined every word and syllable as she might a rare specimen under the microscope. So much she had to tell, to ask. But the logical beginning was mired within the maelstrom of her thoughts and Kara had not the perseverance to break it free. No choice, then, but to open the floodgates and allow the deluge to simply spill from her lips.

“The corridor,” she stated as if those two words explained all. Were the scars from the incident still present in the Counselor’s mind? Or had they since been wiped out by a new and even more terrifying trauma? A doorway to another realm at the very heart of their vessel. A passageway, stretching infinitely away from them in a sickening perversion of every known law of physics. And then a tsunami of confusion and panic as, one by one, the crew became infected by the dark. Hallucinations. Hysteria. The Viking’s sickbay lain under siege by the echoes of previous nightmares, coming for each and every man and woman onboard. And in the eye of the storm, Ta’lahali Akera Beveres had stood strong, had fought bravely with her crewmates at her side. Kara still had no idea how many of them had survived.

For while the rest of the Viking’s inhabitants had charged into battle, their Captain had slipped away, had plunged headfirst into the abyss with Majandra Guerin at her side - to rescue the stolen engineers. To keep the promise she had once made, in the bowels of a great and terrible pyramid. A promise that she would never, ever leave anyone behind again. But she had failed. The two engineers, Navidson and Parker, remained out there, somewhere, in the dark. And now Majandra Guerin had been lost along with them. And she, their honourable and noble leader, had somehow found her own way back to the ship. Alone.

She dared a glance at the Kenyan by her side. Did she already know the full details of Kara’s failure? Did she judge the half-Klingon for it? Look down on her for her inability to protect those under her care? Pity her for her pathetic lack of courage? It was more than Nakuto could bear to meet the other’s eyes, lest she see reflected in their depths the shame, the humiliation, the regret crushing her very soul.

“I should not have gone,” she stated finally. “I should not have left the ship. I thought I could save them, those who had been taken. But I was wrong.”
A sigh, as if with the simple exhale of a single breath she could dissipate the stain of the previous year. “I was wrong about so many things.”

Kara Nakuto

OOC: I’m not sure if you remember this side sim, Trinity, or if my post just seems all kinds of confusing? Let me know if you don’t and I can always email you a recap so you know what the heck I’m on about, hehe!

OOC: Your post made perfect sense! If anything, it easily helped with recalling what happened. Lol! It was a rather interesting sim, to say the least.. Oof. The question is, how many of those people actually did survive?

IC:
Agony. Torment. Torture.

Whatever it was desired to be called, Tal could not forget the nasty tendrils that had wrapped themselves around the Sickbay of the Viking, sending those poor creatures into a state of mass hysteria. Creatures from beyond the grave, poking back into the lives of officers who had only recently been able to shake their elder itch faces from their pensive thoughts. Dangerous adversaries to practices they had long forgotten, threatening to spill every last secret finally buried beneath the calm exterior, as if it were nothing more than another ploy in the larger game of life. The night rested fresh upon her mind, as the sound of the simple phrase ‘The corridor.’

That evening had been nothing short of a time of change within the young soul of the Kenyan woman. It took only the torture of another to shake one of their assumptions, resulting in the true being that rested beneath those facades of delicate skin all creatures seemed to hold. It was the defining factor, as to whether or not the strength a person portrayed, was truly the variance that rested beneath, flooding their souls win the waters of perseverance and the ability to stand against the winds of adversity, a smile forced to paint across their lips, until they left being the strength, even if nothing short of feigned.

Many might have found Tal to have been strong whilst the hysteria of fellow officers threatened to consume her into their eldritch claws, but she had been portraying nothing more than a skilled facade. The face of a mother who had no desire for their child to know the pain they truly felt; that of a dog’s companion, who did not wish the canine to witness the heartbreak behind their eyes, as they witnessed their last sight. It was a wonderful act, a skit put together by the skilled hands of a broken playwright, whose pen could only allow so much ink to caress the paper beneath.

It was a night nobody could forget, from the people tormented by their own minds, to the souls hellbent upon assisting them. And Kara.. Kara had leaped headfirst after them, seemingly doing everything within her power to pursue the others, in efforts of saving those ripped from the crooked fingers of Viking’s precarious embrace. She had departed the ship, her mission unknown to the young Kenyan, who found the following months to be difficult, adjusting to the vast changes the Viking went through. Of course, change was the essential process of all existence, but that didn’t mean it was desired.

Tal need not have asked the question struggling against her mind, determining whether or not Kara had been successful in her endeavors. It was evident within the conscientious words spewigform her lips, that any and all efforts had resulted in nothing less of the original empty-handedness they had all found themselves experiencing. Albeit, was it wise to pity Kara for her failed attempts? Should Tal judge her, condemn her for leaving her ship in search of a few souls? Judge her, for a decision Tal could not begin to imagine what it must have been like to make? Had she had right? That worth, to judge what she did not understand? No.

Releasing the breath she had held within the confines of her imprisoned lungs, she shifted her gaze from the ground, beholding Kara, with a gentleness she had not expressed prior. “Life has a funny way of making certain you don’t get what you want, and only what you need.” Beveres rolled her shoulders, relieving the tension that had built up along her spine, from sitting back in that hard chair for far too long. Once at the turbolift, she awaited its arrival, inclining her head to the NE who dared to pass the Klingon civilian and her much smaller companion.

“Did you find anything you were looking for, Kara? Anything in the madness you chose to follow, in all effort to save those souls?” There was no judgement in her words, only hope that Kara had learned. However, she found she did not like the terms she had chosen to use, as she stepped into the turbolift, awaiting to be joined by her old friend, as the door slid shut, before them.

“What happened out there?” The soft question breached the silence of the air, once unbreakable, only to be shattered by a single, gentle question. “What happened to you?”

Lt. Beveres
CNS

What happened?
The question was a simple one at its surface, the calming ripple of Tal’s voice too professional to betray the unease swirling in the depths below. And yet for a time Kara found herself overwhelmingly incapable of providing an answer.

Moving into the turbolift, her focus on the shifting of her weak and heavy limbs was an addictive distraction from the chaos in her fractured mind.
What happened?

“I…am not entirely sure,” the half-Klingon confessed eventually, the admission filling the silence enough to buy her some time. But deep down she knew that eventually, the Counselor would require a full and honest answer. She deserved nothing less. None of them did.

“You’re not sure?” Tal repeated her statement, articulating her words, and reciprocating them in a manner intended to encourage her mind. It sounded between the sonorous hum of a welcoming smile and the stern chide of a motherly figure.

“It was…featureless, at first,” Nakuto continued, her subconscious attempting to view the events of the past year from a safe distance, as if the tale were merely a fictional re-enactment, a holodeck adventure from which release could be sought at any time, with the simple thumb of a button. But to remember was to return and as Kara continued her monologue the pull of the event horizon grew stronger and more potent in its malevolence.

“It was as if someone had bored a hole into time and space itself. Plain grey walls stretching out endlessly. Unchanging. Unending.
We walked for what felt like days. Time became…transient. Unpredictable. Occasionally we would hear a call, from Navidson or Parker. But the source proved impossible to pin down.”

Tal knew that there were several psychological barriers her mind could have created, in efforts to block out the trauma that could have come of her situation. Part of her wondered, what did the woman experience during her time away? Her mind, it seemed hazy, but the broken words she spoke, hardly capable of remembering anything with the vivid clarity of a normal person. Her eyes, while burning with that same glint, seemed different. Perhaps it was a newfound sense of drowsiness, a sudden bout of exhaustion from the length of her infinite travels. She couldn’t be sure.

“It’s okay, you can work as slowly or as quickly as needed, I’m not here to pressure you.” Tal hadn’t ever been the type to lie, yet her honest words felt deceitful to her mind, despite the integrity she had mustered behind them. She wanted answers, almost needed answers from the woman who had up and left on the whim of saving those caught in the tendrils of insanity. And she felt horrible, despicable for requiring all this information from her, when she likely had not been back for a vast amount of time.

Was this even Tal’s place?

A pause. Her features wrought with the strain of concentration, as if the release of words from her lips required a gargantuan effort.

“It was not a conscious decision, by any of us, to split up. It was almost as if we were compelled to do so by an outside force. The tunnel, it…changed, appeared differently to each of us. Where I saw a deviation to the left, Maj could only view a path straight ahead. It took no more than a second for the shift - from a Captain, in control of an experienced and competent away team. Into a victim, alone, scared…and hunted.”

“The world has a fascinating way of tearing even the most valiant of men, women and all between, into nothing more than the infinitesimal remains of a quiet murmur, which was once their voice.” A sigh escaped its cage, her ears paying attention to every word falling from her lips. However, she was mildly distracted by the thoughts ravaging her mind.

“I wandered then. I wandered endlessly, forwards, backwards, north to south and east to west and every infinitessimal course inbetween. But there was nothing. It became so dark that I presumed my eyes to be blinded. So cold that I thought my blood frozen within my veins. I stumbled, over and over, the floor crawling with lifeforms I could not see or hear or feel or smell…but they could bite. My flesh became a welcome meal, their feeding frenzied and desperate, their hunger and thirst mirrored by my own except…there was nothing for me the to eat save the dank and putrid air.”

“You were trapped?” Tal inquired, soft eyes raising to meet those of her dear friend, a friend whom she hadn’t been in contact with for wel over a year. “These creatures.. how come they did not destroy you? Did they offer a sense of metaphysical existence, one where their hunger was far more effective upon the mind than the body— I’m sorry, I should not be asking these questions, so soon. Forget I asked that.”

She swallowed dryly, her own hunger suddenly immediate and demanding.
“Gods, I am starving!” Nakuto gasped, her tale broken by the deep and cavernous rumble of her empty stomach. With a glance towards Tal and the glimmer of a smirk curling across her lips, she asked, “Do you mind if we eat while we continue our talk?”

Kara Nakuto

Her smirk was worthy of a smile, and the gentle shake of her head, indicating the amusement having suddenly perked from their dire situation. Removing herself from the turbolift, her sole meeting the hardened ground beneath them, she led the way towards the mess hall, which had always been her only shot at getting her meals, each and everyday. Ah, one day, she was going to have to fix that replicator herself. Otherwise, she couldn’t deny the fact it wouldn’t be done.

“I’m not going to stop you,” Tal glanced at Kara, the entertainment wild behind those mysterious eyes. Motioning towards the replicator, where a few Ensigns had meandered about it, she sauntered over to the machine, trusting Kara was more than aware of how to operate this. Placing in her order, she slid her hand into the retrieval, pulling out a hot mug of straight black coffee. “On a better note, how are you feeling? Mentally speaking?” She was a counselor, here to be a shoulder to lean on, and a sounding board to listen.

Lt. Beveres
CNS

The Heorot. The Viking’s unique mess hall had always represented, in Kara’s mind at least, the true emotional heart of the ship. She was acutely aware of the impromptu bars and makeshift social spaces that had been created on the lower decks, but, conscious of the need for the crew to have an escape from their ever-present Captain, she had been notable there only by her absence.
But the Heorot had been her domain, a place she could drink and feast with her crew without the formalities that duty demanded. A place where, in contravention to the rules dictated by Starfleet, the alcohol had flown freely and the cheeseburgers stocked high, courtesy of barman, chef, carpenter and jack-of-all-trades, Preston David. She missed the man immensely, missed the candour with which he always delivered the plain and simple truth, ‘called a spade a spade’ as the saying went.

Kara found a great measure of comfort in the thought of stepping once again into that hallowed space, of planting herself at the head of the banqueting table to eat and drink with abandon. And as the turbolift doors creaked open, thankfully on their desired floor, Nakuto barrelled out into the corridor and almost broke into a run in her eagerness to reach this destination.

Once inside, the warming sight of those blood red walls; the huge longship bar and singular, heavy oak table was almost too much to absorb. Moving quickly around the space, reminiscent of a small child on Christmas day, she eventually paused at the head of the table and reached down into the seat of the throne-like chair, her chair, to extract the glistening object beneath.

“Hah!” the half-Klingon exclaimed as she placed the strange object on her head. “There. Now I am beginning to resemble my old self once more. Don’t you agree, Counselor?”

“Just as dangerous as ever, Kara.” There was a wink subsequent to her teasing words, a twinkling nature assuming the depths of her ambered eyes.

So proudly she stood with the shiny, double-horned Viking helmet on her head. Although the moment was fleeting for, mere seconds later, she was marching towards the replicator in search of a meal.

“Why, I am so ravenous that even the sludge from this replicator is appealing,” she remarked as she punched in her order. A customary groan of protest was emitted by the overworked machine and then Nakuto was heading back to the table with a mountainous plate of something that vaguely resembled gagh.

A faint chuckle escaped her lips; the great Kara Nakuto, ravenous enough to succumb to the inferior mush of the replicator. What a sight this day would come out to be.. what a memory elicited by the force of an ever-present reality.

Settling into her throne-seat, Kara leaned forward and squinted as she examined her food.
“It appears to be wholly deceased. Shame. Still, the starving have no time to wait for a gormet dish.”

For the next few moments the only sound made by the former CO was an animalistic chorus of slurping and chewing as she practically inhaled the pile of dead worms. Then, as if only now becoming aware of her dinner companion, she turned to Tal and attempted a belated answer to the woman’s question.

“I feel…” she began, between mouthfuls of worms, her mind performing frantic assessments in a silent attempt to formulate an answer, “I feel…disassociated,”

“For months on end I dreamed of nothing but this moment. Of finding myself back on the Viking with you and Stone and Akorem and…all of you. But now that I am here or…I appear to be here, at least…Oh Counselor,” her voice fell to a whisper, her eyes frantically scouring the walls, as if they had ears to hear her confession, “I…I am terrified at the prospect of waking up and discovering that all of this was no more than a dream.”

Kara Nakuto

Situating herself beside the Klingon civilian, Tal found herself growing into a perpetual state of endless thought. Ideas popped from place to place, threatening to derail the train of her mind, until it was left in flames at the deepest cavern produced by her ailing psyche. It stunned her, the simple fact of Kara readmittance into the lives of those harbored behind the metaphorical bars the Viking held them, ever dearly, within. Kara spoke of this all reminding her of the possibility of this event being nothing more than a heinous night terror, intended to shake her to her core. Unable to escape her thoughts, Tal could not help but wonder the same of the idiosyncratic woman, whose name was once the bane and beauty of the USS Viking.

Eyes scaling the scarlet walls of their surrounding prison, Tal noticed how similar they had been, since the departure of Kara and those following after her. The distinctive areas making up the Viking remained unchanged, their eerie composition living on to scar another Ensign into a state of near cardiac arrest. These similarities rose flags in her skeptical mind, allowing her to question further the authenticity of this conversation. How much of this was truly happening? And what was the telepathic disassociation caused by, who knows, another Space Kracken?

“It is all right to fee perplexed or even remotely fearful of your place here,” Tal, when speaking, had the voice of a mother gently assuring her child of the day’s vicious outcome. “You have every right to doubt what is around you, what is before you.. every right to question even the tiniest details crossing your mind. It is all quite common, Kara, never be afraid to fear what you cannot confirm. Especially, not in a state such as your own.”

“I remember a time when I was afraid to fear,” Kara interjected, some distant memory jostled fleetingly to the surface by the Counselor’s words.
“In those days before I had ever set foot on the Viking, I used to believe that fear was the denizen of the weak, that to show fear in any situation was to reveal onesself as a shameful, snivelling coward.”
She snorted out a humourless laugh. “Ironic, is it not, how fate likes to twist our most primal beliefs until they are a peverted inversion of their original forms? For the moment I entered this vessel, I knew that I would have no choice but to become comfortable with my fear. Embrace it, accept it as the natural way of things. In truth, Tal,” she admitted, locking eyes with her dearest friend, “I have forgotten how it feels to be afraid of fear.”

“Fear is demeaning, but it is necessary for each and every one of us. It is heinous and cruel, snipping at us with ambitions that we, as people, cannot begin to comprehend. But it teaches us to be cautious and attentive, it teaches us to think before we barge out into the unknown, gallivanting about like a pair of teenagers, without a single idea as to what monstrosities might await us.” Tal shook her head, “It might be ironic, Kara, and some might even view your lack of fear for being afraid to be a blessing. But if you fear nothing, how can you appreciate anything?”

She was simply cautious for her dear friend, if the woman was not afraid of fear itself, was there anything she could truly be afraid of? This question crossed her mind, despite an answer coming in Kara’s proclamation of being afraid during these heinous events. “I’m not saying your cold, I’m just saying.. be cautious. Acting without fear warrants admirability, but if done too much, it can become a dreadful reality.”

Silence befell the young counselor, words of wisdom fleeting her trained tongue, until replaced by the endless dry of the Vulcan landscape, which her mouth was in competition with. Placing a hand out, she tentatively reached out to rest it over Kara’s, as if attempting to assure her of her own existence. Beveres was not stranger to the dangerously lethal ways of the mind, especially within those whom had experienced a trauma enough to wreak havoc within the logical centers of their broken subconscious. She hoped, if such a word was even possible upon the ship they found themselves serving upon, Kara’s mind would be able to register touch as something exquisitely real.

The touch of Beveres’s hand on her own was jarring in its intimacy. For so long had she been wandering in the void, all alone. It was as if she had forgotten the sensation of physical contact. Forgotten that she was not the only living, breathing, solid being in existence. The gesture did much to ground Kara and she curled her hand around Tal’s slender fingers in response.

Tal ran her thumb over the top of her friend’s hand, burn otherwise left it limp before her. She hoped her tangibility was enough to begin the descent of Kara’s mind, back to ground control.

“I am here for you, Kara.” Motherly word’s turned to the gentle hum of a fearful friend, a companion who was concerned of the consequential response of anything Kara had been through. “Whatever you need, I’m here.”

She knew not the value of her pledge, nor the volume at which it would be heard. The only thing she recognized, was the presence of a promise. She had not lied to her friend, nor exaggerated any truth. Whatever the young Klingon hybrid required, Tal would do her damndest to assist within. Although, she was but a single, weak woman. There was only so much she could do.

“You have no idea how much that means to me, Tal,” Kara whispered in reply. “Thank you.”

“Have you slept at all?” It was a useless query, but she found herself required to ask, to solidify any assumptions that had come to mind. “Even if so, rest might be the key to appeasing your mind, of even in the slightest and most obscure of ways.”

She wanted to help, but even the Counselor was presently dumbfounded, as to how to assist a woman in Kara’s predicament.

Lt. Beveres
CNS

But now Nakuto’s eyes grew wide and she retreated a little into the solid confines of her chair.
“No.” It was more a declaration than a reply. A definitive statement of intent. “No sleep. Not yet. If I truly am dreaming right now then I…I am not ready to wake yet. I…I dare not take the risk. Not until I feel more convinced of my surroundings.”

Tal rose her eyebrows in the slightest of ways, but tried not to allow the surprise to seep further into her features than it had already made its home. “Okay. Just don’t hurt yourself. We don’t need you in the Sickbay, after being home for a few minutes.”

As if to punctuate her statement, the half-Klingon moved quickly to the replicator, returning nanoseconds later with a large mug of raktajino. Sipping it eagerly, the anxious creases on her brow began to soften and she offered Ta’lahali a smile.

“So,” she attempted to shift the course of their conversation for a while, suddenly eager for something, anything to distract her mind from its present tangle of confusion and prevent her from seeking out slumber, “I have been gone for a year, perhaps longer than that, even. So much must have happened in my absence. Tell me, my friend, how are things with you? What has fate presented you with while I was away?”

Kara Nakuto

“Me? Oh.. the usual. Mass delusions, computers wil relatively malicious minds, crew members being tormented by.. clowns- I think it was. A myriad of things that have only added to the sinister character of this lovely ship.” There was sarcasm within her tone, her hands reaching up to present the ship, as if playing some kind of Vanna White, and the Viking was the prize for the Wheel of Hell.

“There hasn’t been anything too defining, really. It has just been a mixture of stresses upon stresses with crewmmbers coming in and out like soldiers in warfare. I swear, my time has been divided between taking in new psychological evaluations and then counseling those people about a single event, before they determine themselves unfit and completely drop from the face of existence. I can only hope they were in place at some starbase, or on a shuttle.” She pinched her nose.

Sighing, Tal rubbed her hands against her face to alleviate the drowsiness that had seeped into her low-lidded eyes. Only coming up on the eve of her twenty-seventh birthday, Tal seemed almost as if she had aged several years. Her smile was painted with the same genuine kindness, but her eyes were tinged with exhaustion and the stress of the world around them. Being a counselor on a ship like this.. it was hell. She had been warned by Kara herself, that fateful year or even two years prior, when she had chosen to take a place on the Viking. Warned of what she was capable of, warned of what might come of this.

But she still took the job.

Tal would not give up her position for all the credits she could have been offered. She would not give it up for a higher rank or for another assignment, no matter how luxurious it might be. By now, she had devoted herself to the Viking, even if she was going to slowly kill her, like she did to every other officer that thought they had a home here. Vaguely recalling a conversation Kara and her experienced, when she had once been the Captain of this ship, she remembered the pressing question: ‘But who counsels the counselor?’ Even now, she didn’t have an answer to that.

“At least, in all of this, they chose a competent woman to continue your legacy, on Viking.”

Tal