Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Reia Shandy (C Intelligence -Comm Officer) in Side Sim - His Quarters - Ancestor’s Day

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Dagen Thor (CE) in Side Sim - His Quarters - Ancestor’s Day

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Reia Shandy (C Intelligence -Comm Officer) in Side Sim - His Quarters - Ancestor’s Day
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻
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“Must be nice,” Dagen said with a chuckle. “I had a subsystem cascade loop in the environmental. If that had been in the primary it would have had it snowing on the bridge. Software updates. Always a horror show.” He helped himself to the beef and chips and cheese and an assortment to heap onto a plate. “Ancient Bolian? As though today isn’t hard enough with multiple alien cultures to navigate?” He shook his head as he chomped a chip. “Bat would be happy to help. More than. You know how he gets when he gets on a roll though. That may drive you more crazy. I have no idea how Angel puts up with it. You know that she is actually softening up to him? Can you imagine it? Bolian and Vulcan? I see liberal use of the nerve pinch happening.” He reached out and squeezed her leg. “Hey, if you are in need of crazy intervention I’m here too.” He took a bit of the beef and thought that even with it replicated it wasn’t bad. He just didn’t like how it ‘followed the nutritional guidelines’ of the user .. seemed cheating and not right to him.
- Dagen

Reia laughed at the thought of the Vulcan neck pinch being used on Bat. Perhaps she should study up on it before asking for his assistance in this matter.

“All of this talk reminds me, there is a local as in country, holiday, celebrated in Australia in the calendar month of January and my grandparents kind of like to do it up right. Bonfire on the beach with real beef and all the like. I guess we’re trying to do a family thing this year and if we’re in the area what say you and I put in an appearance? It’ll be the first time you’ve actually met them in person and if there’s any extended family I think they would love to meet you also love. What do you think?”

• Reia

Dagen paused only momentarily in his touch of Reia’s leg, then caressed if a caress might be considered thoughtful .. January .. where where they might be on mission then? Could they be totally tens of light years away from that? Her leg was warm to his touch. She was a very warm woman, he noted, but then it could just be his cool hands, or her Orion nature, or both. His mind snapped back to where he was. It was very easy to be so distracted by Reia .. her pheromones were a constant presence (most of the time fine) .. but so too was it easy to be distracted. This was a start of those times which his mind recognized. “I think that would be great,” he said. Truly, family and extended family was a big thing for Trill, and to not have had such a meeting before now was unheard of. “You can parade me about and I can be the idyllic creature to them,” he said with a wink. “Well then there is the spots, but you can say they are yours.” He was curious totally though. “How many will be coming?”
— dagen

Reia pretty much knew where dagon’s mind was and it wasn’t exactly on ancestors day. She smiled and snuggled in a bit closer to him.

“Well, they are mine aren’t they? I mean the spots of course. I don’t know how many will be coming it varies from year to year. Some of my family is getting on a bit in yours so maybe dwindling a bit but I really hope not. I’m really looking forward to you meeting a lot of them. I will arrange with Magnus for the leave so don’t worry about all of that bit love.”

• Reia

Dagen slipped an arm around Reia’s shoulder. “Well you know, we can always pull some rank. Deeg doesn’t go very far when we’re about Earth. We could ask if he could work the transporter and for those who aren’t thrilled to travel because of age or distance, well, we could remedy that. What’s the point of being a engineering chief if he can’t engage a perk or two.” He hooked his arm that was around Reia to pull her closer where he kissed her softly behind the ear. “Tours of non classified areas are allowed too. Maybe some might like to see where we work.” He chuckled. “Can you imagine Bat or Angel as the tour director?”

His mind twirled about in thinking of how he might dress. Not an alien to social settings, Dagen was cool with being around people. That was fine. To be the focus of attention, at least at first, would be a trick. He suspected that the gathering would be outdoors. Everything Reia had mentioned about the land she grew up with suggested an outdoors theme. That would diffuse any of her .. natural .. traits. Which was okay. Over the short time they’d been married Dagen had found he was more possessive of those pheromones. Long had he battled over whether that was a factor of his own character or a subtle symptom of the pheromone effect. It was a mystery to him, but it was one that he didn’t mind. Again, something he wondered about ..
Dagen

Reia had to laugh at the thought of Bat being a tour guide of any kind. She was wondering how many restaurants he would try to fit into the whole thing.

“I’m sure it will all work out in the end. My family is going to absolutely love you.”

• Reia

“The new kid in the family,” Dagen said, “They’re always popular until the shine wears off.” He winked at Reia. Plucking up a bit of the finger food he chewed on it thoughtfully. “Does going planetside ever make you feel strange? I’ve been in space longer now than I’ve been on world.” He shook his head and let out a single laugh. “I have no idea where that thought just came from. Unless the subconscious touched on it with your reunion. I wonder if counselors have that kind of visit by old spacers.” He playfully emphasized the last two words.
Dagen

Reia shook her head, his comment didn’t make much sense to her but she felt at home pretty much everywhere she went. As she had listened to him speak and spent a bit of time with her own thoughts, she wiggled around on the couch a bit. Somehow, she wound up with her right foot on his lap and her left leg on the floor.

He saw her pondering that and as she wriggled about he gave her a playful spank. “Hey, I’m not about to go hiding under a picnic table with a sever case of agoraphobia,” he said .. “Well, unless we’ve had enough time there and need to get away for a bit. Sure it would be a dramatic exit but they’d not forget it.” With an automatic motion he took up her foot in his hands, hoping they weren’t that cold for her feet, and started a massage. He knew he sucked at it but at least she knew he tried. No matter how much he tried to fathom the where’s and what’s he was always just going by feel more than any sense of knowledge. He totally missed the bracelet there.

“Speaking of ancestors, because isn’t that what this little event is all about? My Aunt Sandy was the first one who introduced me to these.”

She pointed down to her right ankle adorned with several small chain ankle bracelets. Each one contained tiny stones but they were all different.

“Oh nice,” he said, really only seeing them then. His fingers traced along the chains and leaned in to look at the stones. “Were these polished or natural?” he asked, turning one in the light to better see it. This had flecks of dark and what looked like planes of a cream colored mineral. But it was roughly rounded.

“She used to wear them at the beach all the time and when I was very small I used to chase them because they were shiny things and well, I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, I love shiny things.”

Reia laughed at her last sentence a bit embarrassed.

• Reia

“So you played a kind of tag?” he asked, just to clarify the image he had in his head and winking at her comment about shiny things. “Was your aunt around much? She sounds very special to you. What connected you two?”
- Dagen

Raya wiggled around a bit and tried to suppress her laughter. That only lasted several seconds until she was laughing so hard tears were streaming down her face.

Dagen was actually enjoying hearing her laugh and, on another side, watching her wriggle about because of the evident tickling - something he was not trying to do. Perhaps he should take in a holo-training course on massage. This one was having unexpected results. Dagen had changed up his ‘technique’ from the last time where Reia was wincing here and there but trying to encourage him.

“Hey hey, that tickles and you know it! Aunt Sandy was kind of like a mother to me. My own basically wasn’t in my life after 3 years old and Sandy never had kids of her own. We spent a lot of time together. I think people thought I was hers and she never really told them any differently. Yes, tag or something like that. She made herself easy to find most of the time but damn she could hide very well a lot of times. Tell me more about your grandfather.”

• Reia

“Well I do now,” he said and let his hand off the base of her foot and instead ran it along the bridge of her foot part way up her shin and back. “His name was Burle. Trill had large family gatherings which were important as a people who hold fast to clans and family. These gatherings tended to be on grandfather’s land. I suppose that is now dad’s. We called it Burle’s mountain where the cabin was and the land we have there.” He paused in thought. “Ancestrally, it was more aptly named Treve’s Mountain, for Treve first settled there long ago. But everyone called it Burle’s mountain. He loved that place. The cabin. You remember the holodeck date we had there some time back?”

“Well, Burle retired early and more or less lived in that cabin as long as he could when the seasons were fair and sometimes when they weren’t. He was one who loved the land and living on it. But we visited there as much as we could. I did a lot of my training along its trails and he helped me in my studies. He was sure that I’d be joined. Dad was more … pragmatic, more level. He was encouraging but always let in that life held little certainty on an outcome. Grandfather was all in. If I or my brother or sister wanted to do something he was always saying to do it. And he wouldn’t leave it alone until we did, always asking us how it was going and at naming day his gifts were related to these passions.”

“When we were small and throughout our youth we would camp there, us guys, me, my brother, dad and granddad and we would stay there. He said that we needed that time to just get away from the ‘usual’ and step out of it. He said that we can’t think right when we are in the middle of life and trying to figure out life and what might be next. And so we would camp there, hike, swim, and learn. I learned the birds names and the trees and animals there, what I could eat and how to cook. I always thought that grandfather could do anything, and he made us - including my dad - feel like we could do anything.” Dagen paused and stifled a sudden sob but pushed away a tear from the heel of his hand. “I miss him, Reia. By all the ancestors I miss him.”
- Dagen