Snip

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

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.”

“Cold?” Kara laughed, a sly grin curling the edges of her lips. “Oh, I have been called far worse than that before now.”

Her expression grew serious as she considered the Counselor’s words. “But I think perhaps you misunderstand me, Tal,” she ventured to suggest. “This is no boastful claim that I make. I do not suggest for one moment that I have conquered my fear. More that I have allowed my fear to become one with me. But make no mistake, I feel it. All the time.”

Her eyes scanned their surroundings once again, nervously, darting from one shadow filled corner to the next before pausing momentarily at an area to the left of the bar. And frowning. As if something more than mere darkness lingered there. Something tangible and…unpleasant.

With a shake of her head, Nakuto brought her focus back to Tal and leaned in as if about to impart a deep and conspiratorial secret.
“I am scared…of everything,” she whispered. “I am scared when I close my eyes to sleep. I am scared when, awoken suddenly by some indeterminate noise, I am forced to open them again. I am scared of the things that lurk in every darkened corner, around every dimly-lit junction; of the things that churn in the air above our heads and skitter along the walls at our side; of the voices broadcast from empty space; the hands that reach out from vacant rooms. In all the time I have been on this vessel, the only thing I have conquered is my shame at being such a coward. But a coward I am and…I have learned to live with that. There are forces at work here far more immediate and more dangerous than my own reputation.”

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.

Another laugh from Nakuto at the animated performance of the Counselor.
“Clowns? Now that is one thing I have yet to…”
She stopped abruptly, smothering her remaining words with an intake of air. No point in tempting fate, as her father would have said.
“It sounds as hellish as always!” she declared instead.

“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.

Loss. Of friends. Of family. Of brothers and sisters and lovers and companions. Every man and woman onboard this ship had seen someone torn from them in the murky still of night, left isolated and alone as their friends made an escape, be it physically on a passing shuttle or…by other, more permanent means…

There had been a time, back when Kara still held command, that she had stubbornly refused to view the morning and evening roll calls, could not bear to see yet another name scrubbed from the ever-diminishing list.

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.

Ta’lahali looked exhausted. No small wonder when one considered her unique position on this ship. She was the one all others ran to when scared. She was the one expected always to hand out empathy and reassurance and sage advice with as much ease as she might dispense a cup of coffee. What toll must that have taken on her over time? To be the rock this entire vessel was moored upon and yet feel the waves lapping with ever-increasing ferocity at her own feet?

“You know,” Nakuto began to talk, moving once again to the replicator and returning this time with two mugs of the steaming, heavily-caffeinated drink of her people. Placing one infront of the Kenyan, she sipped slowly at hers as she continued to speak. “There was a time when I had given up on securing a Counselor for the Viking. The second one actually made it a week before fleeing. The first? He didn’t even see out our initial meeting.”

Once more she joined hands with her friend. “But you…I knew the moment you came onboard that there was something…special about you. Oh, I could see that you were scared…just like the rest of us. But still, the calm and tranquility and the hope that you managed to project was…unlike anything I had ever felt before. And right then and there I knew that you would stay. And that, as long as you did, my crew would be okay.”

She smiled then, her brown eyes shining with deep admiration, boundless respect and…sadness, that this hellhole was where fate had decided to throw them together.

“Ta’lahali Beveres,” she declared, “You are the bravest and most noble warrior that I know. Do not ever change. And don’t ever be afraid to seek out your own support, should you ever need it.”

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

Tal

Impossible not to bristle at the Counselor’s final words. In her primal core there grew a sense of gratitude for the woman who had taken command in her absence, had steered the ship and tended to the crew when their former CO was no longer present to perform the task. And if the latest engineering reports were any measure then indeed it seemed that Captain Ravenfall had done an outstanding job.

But still, to see another in her seat on the bridge, to defer to another when discussing matters on the ship, to be preparing to beg another for a position, any position on a crew she used to lead…it was simply too much for Kara to face directly just yet.

“Good,” she murmured in reply, staring sullenly into her coffee. “I am glad.”

Kara Nakuto