Posted by Civilian Kara Nakuto (Civilian, Former CO) in Mess Hall - Nakuto Looks for a Friendly Face

Posted by Lieutenant Ta’lahali Akera Beveres (Counsellor) in Mess Hall - Nakuto Looks for a Friendly Face

Posted by Lieutenant Ta’lahali Akera Beveres (Counsellor) in Mess Hall - Nakuto Looks for a Friendly Face
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Snip
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“Living, undeniably, is a far better outcome than dying. Then again, dying is easy, living is harder.” She paused, choosing to change the subject.

Another nod. To die was indeed easier than to live. For those warriors heralded with open arms into the hallowed halls of Sto-vo-kor, nothing less than an eternity of toasting their noble deeds awaited. Had Kara proven herself yet worthy to drink and feast amongst them? For the halfling, the pledge was required to be twice as sincere, the evidence of her victories twice as compelling, her reputation twice as reknowned. Had she yet woven a tale sufficient to secure her seat at the table?

She shook her head. The hour of departing was not upon her yet. So many things still remained to be done. It was not the destiny of Kara Nakuto to die alone, weakened and suffering in an impenetrable void, where no other soul lingered to roar her on her way. No. When her end came, it would be surrounded by a crew who knew that she would fight for them until her very last breath. Only then would her place amongst the great fallen be assured.

“I do believe you once mentioned having a sister, yes? For the life of me, I cannot recall her name, but she was the executive officer of the.. Magellan? Yes, Magellan.” She only knew the base due to the precense of the woman she had attended medical school with, a certain Odraavi. “Anyways, perhaps she should be on your list of contacts. I have no doubt she might be eager to know you live.”

“Mirai.”
For two halves of a soul so entwined, their paths over the last few years had drawn the Nakuto sisters ever further from the others reach. It had been almost two years since Kara had last spoken to her sister, the older woman revelling in her position commanding a large army on Magellan. There had been whisperings back then, of a monster from the Dominion preparing a return. She wondered now if they remained as mere rumours of solidified into a tangible and terrifying foe?

“I should contact her,” was all she offered in response, reluctant yet to share such fears until they had taken undeniable form.

Tal nodded. “Take your time on that one. I’m sure she can wait a few more days.. weeks.. however long it takes for you to feel comfortable in talking to her.”

Tal would not force Kara into anything, that was not a basis in their friendship. She merely put out ideas, hoping her dear friend might take them or a least endeavor to take care of herself. That was all Tal could ask for: Kara’s health.

A body leaning back into the chair, legs crossed at the ankle, arms folded over her chest where dainty fingers wrapped themselves around her biceps, she sat across from Kara in something comparable to content. “I have missed you,” Tal finally said, admitting the truth she had been trying to put to words. “Your smile, your thunderous laugh, even your brash actions whenever you were highly for or against something. But most of all, just your company. There isn’t anyone quite like you, Kara. You somehow managed putting together ferociousness and a respectable, albeit certainly peculiar, ambience.”

She paused.

“Even if nobody elses does; I have missed you and am more than happy to know you are safe and back with us. Only can I imagine it will last longer this time, longer than your memory that flickers from time to time.” She winked, adding a playfulness to her sincere words.

Tal

“You can imagine it for as long as you can bear my company,” Nakuto replied with a grin, before assuming her customary seriousness once more and adding, “And I have missed you too, Tal. We make a formidable team, you and I. And now reunited, I find my confidence growing that, whatever the Viking throws at us we will be ready.”

Kara Nakuto

“That we will,” Tal agreed with a smile towards her. “This ship never fails to test every one of us, proving to ourselves just how persistent or how weak we truly are. This last year had been more than enough to test the fates of time and, more specifically, the fates of those who walk this ship’s ashen halls with enough bravery to allow themselves a place out of bed, each more, instead of falling prey to the fear that might keep them bound to those quarters.”

“I’m sure, whenever you see anyone that you might know and even those you don’t, you may be proud to see where they are. This crew is strong, and they are resistant to whatever comes their way. Just as we will be prepared by the strength of each other, they have been prepared for all that has come their way, every moment since you left. Admirable of them, I must say.” She smiled, a professionalism about her words as she leaned towards the Klingon woman, hands clasped before her.

“This is a singularly brave and noble crew,” their former captain agreed with a nod. “Starfleet might remain under the misguided opinion that they sent only rogues and scoundrels to serve onboard this vessel but truly the joke is now on them. For never have a served with so honourable and competent people as I find myself amongst here. But,” she added with a wink, “perhaps that is a fact best kept to ourselves.”

“Did you return alone?” The question had plagued her mind as she had never actually found a viable answer.

Tal

Understandable, to harbour questions and a bountiful curiosity on Nakuto’s experience of the past year, still shrouded in mystery as it was, even for her who had experienced it fully. But the Counselor’s words settled upon her like a shroud, the effort to recall and to examine her return gargantuan in weight.

An intense frown took form upon her ridged brow, brown eyes awash with unspilled tears as Kara cleared her throat in an attempt to speak with full and unbroken voice.

“No. I was not completely alone. Although we were long separated in the dark, I believe that NE Loki also made an escape.”

She had been fastidious in her avoidance of the Norwegian security officer since her return, the mere thought of him sufficient to cast her mind back into that impenetrable void. It was a meeting that could not be held at bay for long, the need to discuss and dissect their shared experience growing more urgent with every passing hour. But her courage remained, as yet, too intangible to embark upon the task.

“I…do not know about the others,” she confessed finally, her head bowing with the labour of such a confession. “Parker, Navidson, Akirel and…Guerin. I am yet to find any evidence of them onboard the Viking. They remain…lost. Alone.”

Almost unbearable to think of the others, held captive by a force so dark, so malevolent in its intent, that mere comprehension had almost entirely escaped her grasp. Almost unbearable…but not quite. She was a Klingon! And by Gre’thor she would not abandon her people when they needed her the most. She had already lost Declan, but the tragic Romulan would be the last.

Her fist connecting with the oaken tabletop, Kara rose to her feet and roared, “I will find them, Tal. I will bring them back. If it takes every ounce of strength I still possess to do so.”

Kara Nakuto

Tal, despite having hardly known the peace which Kara hadn’t named, still found an underwhelming sadness regarding the notion of their failed return, of any attempt had been made in the first place. A soft frown of acknowledgement and consideration came across her dark, youthful features. She pondered whether or not these people would be able to survive much longer, on their own, if they were even alive to being with.

However, despite Kara having more answers than Tal may ever, she saw no need in pressing the Klingon for further information that was likely not her own to ask. Recognizing the sense of defeat, of one were to call it that, which passed over Kara, she easily found there was no place for such questions that would only worsen the thought she for the woman she considered one of her only true friends.

Pushing away the tantalizing thoughts of these people, she forced herself to focus her energy primarily upon Kara. It was pleasant to know that Loki had managed to find himself out of his prison they had only just recently escaped, but the others were a series of misfortunate events, which would be only damning to bother dwelling upon. She did not blame Kara, not at all, for the result of this outcome. She cared only for the fact that some people DID make it out alive, even though the thought of the others was perhaps equally as depressing an idea.

Nodding, she returned her expression to one of a limitless calm, incapable of being penateayed by the strongest of hurricanes, yet easily shattered by the revelation of information so sweet, it effortlessly burnt her skin. It was an oxymoronic thing, this trainer serenity which most Counselors had discovered the secret to. So visibly strong yet unknowingly weak, how they were as much liars as those who held facades to them. They treated people whom found themselves lying to the only person that would remain consistent: themself; yet the counselor equally found themself hiding from their own issues— as if treating a problem in another, but never address their own, who’s ever detrimental impact was akin to their patients’. It was an odd and perhaps hypocritical thing, but that was a conversation for another time, a time where such foolishness truly mattered.

Shaking her head, Tal rose her gaze to meet Kara’s, once she had risen to her feet, shouting out her own hopes in finding these people. No, it was not a hope, it was a full blown proclamation! A promise to locate and tug them from the depths of their morbid hell, allowing them, yet again, a chance at living, where their previous damnation had hardly been deserved.

“Not everything can be reveresed,” Tal remarked, allowing the rationale behind the situation to come forth. “You have already managed to save yourself, and going back would result in the high plausibility of you losing yourself and the others, for good. Your chances of bringing them back are slim, and you must be careful. One wrong move, however you approach this, could result in detrimental disaster for you and for them. If you are going to attempt to locate these poor people, you won’t be able to do it alone, not safely. So, please, be careful and don’t tread fully into these waters until you know exactly what you’re going to do. I don’t think this ship could risk losing you again..” there was more to that last sentence, but she didn’t say it.

Beveres
CNS

As always, Ta’lahali Beveres spoke the truth, irrespective of how painful it might be for the ears of the listener to accept. There was no masking the critical danger inherent in the mission Kara suggested. And yet still, the weight of guilt at abandoning her people remained, in her own mind at least, the more acute horror.

“It haunts me, Tal,” she admitted, one hand running through her hair, as if with a press against her skull she could force such thoughts back into their cerebral containment. “Those I have left behind. Those I have…abandoned. Not a minute goes by that I don’t find myself wondering…where are they? Do they suffer still? The end of a life is not always so terrible a thing, when the alternative is crafted from primal horrors. Were I to discover them dead then truly it would be a relief, for I would know that their suffering was ended.”

Once more she thought of Decius. Tal had not descended with the away team, had not seen the inverted pyramids with her own eyes. The counselor knew not of Nakuto’s final order before descending with her team…that they each take a single capsule of cyanide in their kit. Had Kara the power to influence thought, to transmit telepathically across time and space her desires to others, then one single order would have been given to all who had escaped from her grasp. Swallow the capsule. Escape your suffering and I will roar you into Sto-vo-kor.

The half-Klingon laughed dryly. “Do not worry, my friend. I have no intention of returning to that dark place alone and unprepared. But…tell me that you understand? My duty to rescue them, if such rescue is even remotely possible? Would you not do the same in my position?”

Kara Nakuto

Would she have done the same? Yes, of course. But was she in the right mind in telling Kara of that truth? She could not lie to the woman before her, knowing the trust bestowed on each side of their relationship. She had never lied ..intentionally.. no reason to lie, not to someone she knew she could have placed her full trust into. There seemed to logical reason to break that trust, should such a simple thing be able to in these precarious times. “Yes,” Tal submitted, finding that admitting with such a mundane answer was harder than it seemed. Would she be advocating for Kara returning to somewhere that would likely kill her? She didn’t wish to see Kara leave again, but she knew how selfish that was. Sighing, inwardly, she pushed it away.

“You were their Captain, you have every right to feel the need to go after them, to feel the drive to do the same. It is admirable of you, Kara.. and I don’t claim to begin to understand what you’re going through, right now.” Tal was clueless, as was the next person, trying to help where she was as ignorant as anyone else. She wished, oh how did, that there was a way to remove this pain from Kara’s shoulders, that there was a path that could be solidified to help her and those people lost with her.

Kara was right before her, yes. However, Tal felt as if she was not fully there. As if a part of her was still trapped in that void with the people she was hellbent upon saving. Their rescue seemed her top priority, and Tal did not have the heart to blame her, not the hypocrisy in her veins to be so stupid as to. It was understandable, it truly was. But at what cost would Kara be able to help these people? At what cost would they be saved?

“As long as you’re going to return with others, to assist you, then I suppose there’s no reason to nag you about it.” Tal managed a smile, “But until then, try to relax some, all right? You’ll only be risking your mind and your body even further by going in as drained as you are now. It anything at all, promise me you’ll take some time for yourself. Whether that is resting or doing something you love.”

Lt. Beveres
CNS

Bump, to keep on boards!
Trin

Kara nodded. “I will try to relax, I promise,” she pledged, before adding, “although it is not a natural state for anyone on this ship to feel relaxed.”

“As a counselor, I wish the crew would be more apt to relaxing and taking time for themselves.” She paused, a faint smirk curling her dark lips. “As an officer on the Viking, I know that is impossible.”

In truth, the half-Klingon could not recall the last time she had been at peace, engaged in simple but enjoyable pleasures, her mind uncluttered by work and problems and the various demands of continuous duty. Had she ever been dedicated to a hobby? Had she ever identified that singular pursuit that she could indulge in for no grander reason than enjoyment of the thing itself?

“I am not one for idle passtimes,” her shrug punctuated with the bark of brief laughter. “I always found my mind to be best occupied by tinkering and fixing. But engineering onboard this vessel brings only frustration. Where a success is gained it is quickly swallowed by a swarm of new defects, always.”

“Idle passtimes are for the feeble mind, eh?” It was a proverb her father had always told her, when she was but a child. She wasn’t certain where he had got it, never able to find it anywhere else. Thus, she assumed he made it up, in order to force her to go outside. Regardless of its authenticity, she found that it could be true. “That is part of the amusement.. You are never bored here.”

As if to prove her point, a cluster of overhead lights at the top right corner of the bar gave out, the area immediately consumed by a heavy and impenetrable darkness.

Nakuto laughed once more at the irony of their lot, before leaning forward and presenting Tal with a mischevious grin.
“How are the holodecks faring these days? Perhaps you might suggest a program for me. Something to distract me from all of…this. Perhaps,” she added, her smile now reaching almost to her forehead, “you might even join me?”

Kara Nakuto

Chuckling, glancing up as if cursing the Viking for being so apt to proving the Captain’s point, she shook her head. “It seems the ship would have to agree with your insult of terms,” Tal wore a grin that met her dark eyes, turning them into a smile, themselves.

“The Holodecks? Oh.. Just as defective and sentient as they always have been.” For a second, there was a pause in her voice. “Although, I’m sure there are a few suggestions I could offer you.”

A small smirk warped her smile, “For old time’s sake,” She hummed, regarding the memory of the time they had spent together, all that time before.

Tal
The Reminiscent