Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Reia Shandy (CIO) in Quarters of Reia and Dagen (Open RP op)

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Dagen Thor (CE) in Quarters of Reia and Dagen (Open RP op)

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Reia Shandy (CIO) in Quarters of Reia and Dagen (Open RP op)
Posted by… suppressed (18) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Reia was tucked up on the couch. She had pulled the blanket from the back of it and had a mug of tea in front of her on the glass top table. Several PaDDs were spread around her on the cushions and she seemed to be deep in thought.

The nice thing about living in the time she did was that, technically, one could work from anywhere. This time she wasn’t actually working, per se, she was putting together the collage of her wedding in hopes to send it to her family when communications allowed for it. It was a project she had be promising herself , and them, for quite some time.

• Reia

It was later when Dagen got in. It was Bat’s birthday and he had received some Bolian drink that was itself a viscous, blue concoction that should have tasted like (to him) a berry flavor, but was instead closer to licorice, an earth confection. Dagen wasn’t sure that he favored it; it left a rather lingering aftertaste and was potent. The ‘quad’ of Bat, Deeg, Angel, Sebastian and himself. Not quite a ‘quad’ but Bat was insistent that everyone try it. Apparently it was some kind of social Bolian custom or so he said. They had a cake too. Angel brought that. It was a Vulcan spice cake that had pretty intense flavors too. his taste buds even now felt like they had done battle and lost.

He saw Reia surrounded by PaDD’s as though she were under siege. His eyes trailed over her and the hints of her feminine curves partially hidden by the blanket. “Hey,” he said softly, wondering if he should disrupt the formation of PaDD’s of which he was feeling no small way jealous of. Slipping over he leaned down and softly kissed her nape. He noticed her tea but who knows how old that was. “Can I get you anything?”
- Dagen

Reia rearranged the PaDDs on one side so Dagen could sit next to her if he wanted to.

“Maybe just you.”

“I think I …” was all Dagen managed before he was tugged down. In his relative state it felt a bit surreal and out of body as he landed with a soft thud.

An arm protruded from the blanket and pulled him down next to her. Leaning in, she kissed him and lurched back a bit.

“I guess I don’t have to ask how Bat’s birthday was… Honey, some Bolian drinks stay with you longer than they should. Do yourself a favor and have a cup of very strong hot tea.” she said wrinkling her nose.

• Reia

It took a moment for him to register the reason for the sudden retreat by the look on her face. “That bad eh? And to think I turned down the Centauran nachos thinking that would help. Um, I’ll do one better. Hang on.” He squeezed Reia’s leg as he stood up, wavered slightly before heading to the lav. “What do you make of that planet we are approaching?” He pulled out the toothbrush. For all the advances in tech nothing really beat the old tried and true. “Not sure what they are doing,” he said, words a bit muffled. “What do you think?” he asked, poking his head out to see her as he talked. This kind of stuff was her wheelhouse after all. With the brush stuck in his mouth he bent over to undo his boots, letting out a sigh of pleasure from kicking them off.
- Dagen

Reia kicked off the blanket and reclined on the couch. She had faced the fact the project was over which was actually fine by her.

“I think I’d like to be boots on the ground this time to tell you the truth. I enjoy being able to gather intel from on high but I find myself starting to change my outlook a bit. I want to experience more direct contact. They seem to be at an interesting stage of their development and I would love to be there to observe it even if just for an hour.”

• Reia

As if on cue Reia could hear the soft thud of a boot hitting the floor. His head poked out again. “That would be fun. That last away trip was interesting. They had really efficient nuclear generation systems.” A moment later another boot hit the floor. “I guess seeing what is there can be as effective as sifting a lot of information. Guess it gives you context for what you gather.” The sound of rustling was heard for some moments.

When Dagen came out he had changed into a pajama like set of trousers and a pull over shirt. His hair was more ruffled than when he had entered and he was barefoot. Stretching as he moved across the room he smiled at his wife, PaDD’s scattered like toy tanks defeated on the field. He picked up one that had slipped off the couch and set it with a clink on the table. “Three nations each working on different things. Seems like a bit of a race to me but for what I don’t know.” Squeezing in on the edge of the couch next to Reia he kissed her softly. “Kesh do okay on the bridge?” he asked.
- Dagen, CE

Reia moved about on the couch to make room for Dagen and then suddenly realized how hungry she was.

Before coming home she’d had an intensive work out then showered and pampered herself a bit before setting to her project.

Standing, the blanket slipped from her to reveal a white silk nightgown she usually wore after such endeavors. The top third was lace with a cherry blossom pattern that covered her breasts and back.

“Kesh is doing quite well actually. A bit of nerves, but she’ll find her feet. I’m starving and I need proteins.” she said walking across to the replicator.

He sat down and she got up. Oh the differences. He had offered earlier but then Reia did have her own mind. And appetites. She quite liked a higher protein diet than Dagen. As he watched her move, and that nightgown did show her move .. he recalled back in his high training times with the Olympic hopefuls that he had a much greater protein intake than he did now that was modest by most standards. “Mmmm,” he said, liking how she struck that pose at the replicator with her back to him. “She has a pretty good record but seems to struggle with confidence. Figured a bridge schedule would be good to ease her way in. Just didn’t expect there to be anything that happened. Most of the time engineers on the bridge report deathly dull shifts of parroting status reports on this or that system. But maybe this is a good thing. Gets the blood going.”

“I thin the nations are fighting for dominance of some kind. It always comes down to dominance on a planetary level. Didn’t anything happen like that on your home world love?” she asked walking back with two steaming bowls of spicy lamb stew.

“Regional issues yes, but technologically we were pretty boring compared to these people. Between corporate espionage, trade and tech we pretty much followed a similar path of experimentation for the space program.” However that was about the only similarity to Earth. They diverged in their ‘luck’ where Cochrane ran his program and flight that happened to get the Vulcan’s attention. Trill didn’t have that luck. They ran things the hard way, using their faster than light drives mostly in system as they took a lot of time to break into viable interstellar travel. “Three different paths there. That is unique. And really interesting.”

Reia set them down on the glass table and sat next to Dagen, her head immediately going to rest on his chest. She was hungry but, the food could wait, at least for five minutes.

• Reia

When she turned with the food Dagen caught her profile and bit his lip. She always took his breath away in more ways than one. “Bet that shift was more interesting than running diagnostics on replicated air flow units.” His arms easily enfolded her. It ever surprised him as to how soft she felt against him. He wondered how he felt in return, but he wasn’t complaining. Fingers slid through her hair. “Smells good,” he said, merging his olfactory senses between her and the stew. Both had their own spice.
- Dagen

Reia looked up and laughed at her husband. She caught his eye and knew the scent of the food wasn’t the only thing on his mind. She hoped that it would always be this way between them. She hoped they would always be able to be playful and serious at the same time. Her minbd had a tendency to wander decades down the road when it really should never do such a thing.

“Um… Sorry. What? Damn, daydreaming again.”

• Reia

Dagen still had shop on his mind as well as the here and now. It could hardly be helped. Reia had a way of taking him out of himself. Admittedly he silently thanked her pheromones. Even days when he was frustrated with work and what happened on shift those pheromones had a way of clearing the work cobwebs from his mind to focus on what mattered in the then and now. However he was still in that intrigued moment, and with fingers absently playing through her soft hair that he could tell was freshly washed, he smiled. “I said, something smells good,” he said, then, “Those, I’ll call them, alien satellites are interesting. Someone else is watching them. I wonder why. Energy not far off from Klingon tech at least in an outward scan. Can’t tell much without taking one of them apart. Did you get anything from the transmission?”
- Dagen

Reia sighed and sat close to Dagen so that he could keep one arm around her if he wanted to. Pulling one bowl of stew onto her lap, she began to eat voraciously. Strenuous workouts always mead her terribly hungry. There would be time for her daydreams later. Truthfully, they were heading down a dark corridor and she really didn’t want to go there right now.

“We’re working on all of that. I’m really interested to find out what it’s all about to tell you the truth but, think of it this way Dagen, why do we watch other races that are less developed than we are? Couldn’t another species have the same thought for better or worse? Whomever these satellites belong to might want to kow how technologically advanced this race is for a variety of reasons. The list is endless don’t you think?”

As the list of reasons played out in Reia’s mind she sat in silence, leaning against her husband. He felt good and solid against her, one of the few constants in her personal universe.

• Reia

Dagen had on occasion felt that it was not a wise thing to get between his wife and her food lest one become that, rather than dessert. He appreciated the down time too like this. No pressures and could just let out the stresses of the day. He stretched his legs out and wiggled his toes while rotating his feet at the ankles. As good as boot tech was it was always good to get out of them. He smiled to himself thinking that Reia had mentioned a similar thing with certain undergarments. His eyes strayed along the ceiling, his head resting on the upward curve of the couch; Reia was comfortably settled. Her question intrigued him.

“Surrel, Thor’s first host was in science in Starfleet. They had come upon a first contact situation that never happened. The initial scans that they thought were warp trails in the system were in fact trails from a comet that had passed along the atmosphere. Between the contact and the composition of the tail it mimicked a warp trail. The Euripides hung around for some time afterward taking scans.” He put his feet up on the edge of the glass table away from Reia’s mug. “He thought much the same thing. Why this infatuation with eavesdropping on developing cultures? He figured that it was because Earth had such a time of it that others needed to be watched and protected like some parent clandestinely watching their child do something. Surrel thought it was patronizing to do that especially if it was within the territorial area of the Federation.”

“Why watch with satellites like these?” is a good question. “If it was insidious what is the purpose of watching when they could just invade? Unless,” Dagen mused, a thought coming to his mind, “three different technologies so different in development. What if they dropped in that tech concept to each of the nation states there to see what happens and how they work and what they develop? A kind of cultural technological experiment as it were.”
- Dagen

Reia finished what was in her mouth which gave Dagen’s words a chance to settle as well. Turning, she looked at him.

When she turned Dagen’s eyes slid over her at this new angle. Well, new for the evening. The thing about her Orion pheromones was that it gave him a slightly buzzed sensation like he’d had a couple of quick drinks. Which, when added to what he’d already had it was not unlike the waking of a grizzly after a season of hibernation. In seeing the soft curves of her body in profile there for that moment Dagen knew that if his senses were given to ‘stomach growls’ one would have come unbidden. However, for the moment he stayed focused. Was he getting somewhat more ‘used’ to her pheromones?

“Now that’s just creepy. I would love to say that we are beyond such things but look how far out we are. I guess I wouldn’t put anything past anyone out here. Damn… We could be looking at someone’s science experiment. I don’t know whether I’m sad or angry.” Reia trailed off.

Hmmm. Maybe bad news thoughts weren’t the way to start things off there …

Looking back down at her nearly empty bowl she became ravenous again and finished the stew. Reaching for a chunk of break on the table, she began tearing at it and wiping up the gravy in the bowl with it.

Dagen watched her go for the gravy. He was never that way with that. The idea of ruining a good piece of bread by making it a wet soggy mess then eating it just never sat right with him. His mother did that and relished it, as it seemed Reia did. Give him a good slab of bread with lots of butter and he was a happy camper.

“Assuming this is some type of sick science experiment, that begs another question… If I were living on that planet below, would I really want to know it?”

• Reia

“Right now we’re looking at conjecture on every basis. I mean we have been given the opening page of a book and are just guessing. That would be mine, but on the other side of the coin it could as easily be a way of this group helping the world by leaking tech, initiating a race for interstellar space flight that would result in a unification based on need to pool resources to promote the ‘winner’ of that space race.” He gave her a quick, soft kiss at her shoulder that was nearest him. “Hey, we just don’t know. I guess the cynical brain cells scamper out for a run first before the optimistic ones get out of bed.”

“Not for us to tell really. They’re doing their thing. They’re well within the Prime Directive at least for us so we can’t steam in there on a white horse to save the day, if they need or want saving.” His fingertips trailed along the top of the opposite shoulder that he had just kissed. “Did you find out anything interesting from their news feeds and such? Any good sitcoms they have going?” He leaned in to nip her neck. “Any good racy shows?” he said with a wink.
- Dagen

Reia giggled when he nipped her neck.

Inwardly Dagen smiled. He liked these little sounds she made and the way she said them.

“I guess that would depend on what they consider racy now wouldn’t it? As for sit coms, haven’t you noticed that my humor is kind of dry? No. The whole thing’s a mess, kind of like a spider web but, we’ll get at it. It’s like putting a puzzle together you know? I was pretty good at puzzles as a girl so this is kind of my thing.”

“Dry? You? I’ve seen you catching ancient humor from some guy named Python now and again.” Indeed, even with a good AI - and the Genny had good AI - it took time to assess an entire worlds’ culture. It could make rapid comparisons between hundreds of cultures and more but in the end it took a person to make heads or tails out of what it suggested or even filtered for a being to assess. “Are you focusing on any particular areas? Taking in a world culture must be .. huge.” It would be like him trying to take in their whole technological network in a few hours. Couldn’t be done. It would be guesswork.

Reia looked down to discover her dinner was gone and she felt nearly full. Picking up the mug of tea, she downed most of the rest of it before cuddling up with Dagen to kiss him softly several times. It was time to be done with the day’s bad news and conjecture.

Dagen waited patiently, quietly pondering the day. The approaching ships were quite something and reminded him of an era of space exploration that was now considered ‘bygone’ days in the Federation. What would it be like to travel in those times? Even going back to Thor’s first host, the technology was even older here. Some look to the pioneering days of in-system flight. Dagen thought where these ships were was more perilous and adventurous, being far from home. Her soft kisses took him out of those thoughts. Quickly.

“How about some dessert and then, maybe, some more dessert?” she said glancing first at the replicator then at the bedroom.

• Reia

He had not precisely had dinner beyond the snacks and drinks with the team. He wasn’t hungry but neither was he full. A dinner was out of the question - far too much - but dessert could work. He went through a range of options, mildly enhanced from his previous drinks. “Sounds perfect,” he said. “What about some of that apple .. stuff. Um, crisp?” He had to fight for the words. Sometimes earth recipes were lost on him. He knew the things he liked, but had rarely paid much attention to their names. Recipes no. Devices and toys yes. Though both could come into play here .
- Dagen

Reia looked at Dagen in mock surprise, reached up and playfully slapped his cheek.

“You are a bad bad man and I will leave you if you ever stop.” she said rising from the couch.

This completely had Dagen wondering what he had actually done or said

She quickly cleared the dishes and came back with the apple crisps and two large mugs of their favorite tea.

Dagen took the opportunity of Reia’s movement to stretch. He was keenly aware of how much she was keeping him warm by virtue of her departure and the light chill that he felt there. It afforded him time to watch her and wondered whether she was aware of how amazing she looked dressed in that very slight bit of sheet cloth. As she approached he quickly took the mugs from the platter; that must have been a balancing act there in bringing it over. They looked quite full and it must have upset the balance considerably; the spices there tingled his nostrils.

For some reason, she didn’t feel like alcohol this evening and, if he wanted more, he knew exactly where to find it in their quarters.

“So what is a Bolian birthday party like anyway?”

• Reia

“Chatty. Apparently it is an opportunity for the Bolian of honor, as in Bat, to gather with his friends for a celebration.” He shrugged, welcoming her back close to him as he took up the bowl of the crisp. It was spicy too; Dagen liked that. He shifted the spoon in the mix watching the viscous apple mix shift. “That is not any different from many, but the tradition is, apparently, that at some point the birthday Bolian gets to hop on his soap box and talk about all the noted events of the past year of his life and his opinion on many of them. The rest of us are supposed to cheer, toast him and, depending on his opinion the nachos and finger food is to either eat or throw at him. I think the Bolian alcohol is so that the listeners’ aim is bad and he is missed more.”

He savored a bite, talking at the tail end of his chewing, “I see your birthday is coming up, love.” His comment was more one of fishing than anything.
- Dagen

Reia looked at him in slight surprise. She had nearly forgotten her birthday.

“Oh right. Yeah… Well… Please don’t feel obligated to throw food or anything like that. I really didn’t do much for birthday parties growing up. Throwing them for my grand parents, going to them as a young one, or having many for myself. Although when I turned twenty one, which is a right of passage among Humans, a few friends really wanted to take me out so, after talking me up for at least a half hour, I let them.”

She paused and stirred her crisp intently taking several bites before continuing.

Dagen ate and listened. Reia was unique and he had experienced the ‘effects’ of her natural pheromones so he could well imagine that. It would be like someone unknowingly spiking the punch.

“It was a complete disaster. The club we went to was absolutely packed and I drew the type of attention that I don’t really like. Luckily my room mate’s brother happened to be there at the time. He worked as a bouncer or something. I haven’t had a birthday party since.”

Images of waking up the next morning with Sam flashed through Reia’s mind. There was nothing wrong with him but, she had never been interested in him and he did not make a good birthday present.

• Reia

“In a packed room, how do they find you?” he asked, which had always been a wonder. “I’d expect something like a general orgy to erupt more so,” he commented. “You know, the bees going to the closest flower rather than just one.”

He changed tack. “My family was into parties and events. Dad more so. He seemed to eat it up to make things special like that. With myself and two siblings there were ample chances. It would often be a gathering of friends in the yard or park. Sometimes it was a disaster too, but in other forms. One day I’ll tell you about the great kite fiasco. But dad always took it in stride. I’ve not done much at all since leaving home.” His tone was wistful tinted with regret. He turned to his wife and leaned in to give her a soft, if crisp-lip-sticky, kiss. “I think it is high time for something then for you,” he said with a widening smile, “My sweet flower.” Already his mind was thinking.
- Dagen

Reia set her bowl down on the table and just leaned into her Husband. That sweet sticky kiss had been delicious and lifted her out of her tangled mood.

Dagen paused in his eating to relax with Reia. For someone who liked activity, this he found was unusually peaceful in his life. With the bowl balanced on his thigh and his free hand that was not around Reia keeping it balanced he let himself drift in memories of the old parties. His sister had loved bubbles at one point and dad had brought in a bubble machine among other more manual means of producing them. But, like was usual, something went wrong and the machine began to spew them out of control. Dad was flummoxed. Deela was thrilled as were her friends who ran around to collide and pop them. It was Dagen who had found the off switch, but coincidentally or so he said, not until his sister had exhausted herself in the chase. He smiled unconsciously. Those were fun times.

Sam had been her best friend’s brother and she had never seen him as anything more than a good guy. He had sworn that nothing had happened that night even though they woke up in bed together. She wanted to believe him but, a woman knows when a woman has had sex. The whole crowd parted company three days later so Reia had basically left the whole thing alone because she would probably never see any of them again. Now, to hear Dagen talk about his family’s traditions made her think there could be a better way to do things.

“Oh, I love you so much sweetheart. I just want something simple. Just show me how your family does it. Kites… That sounds fun. And some of that strawberry mango cake with all the whipped cream on it like we had the first time we attempted to watch movies together.”

Mentally he captured those thoughts and wondered about the bubble machine. As for the movies, attempted was the key word. “It has been a while but I think I could come up with something, my love,” he said with a small smile as thoughts started to bubble up in his head. At least the main food was not a mystery.

She smiled and kissed him again.

• Reia

This time when she kissed him he captured her at her nape and held the kiss much longer than needed. Or so, as he might tell himself, as much as he needed. The bowl came close to tipping, with him blindly catching it at the last moment even with his head pleasantly spinning.
- Dagen