Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Marishka (CIO) in Lounge

Posted by Ensign Valleea (Doctor) in Lounge

(snip)

“I think it’s more than when the people around you have been also through difficult things, and even shared in one of those experiences with you, you can understand the pain of another person that much better.” Valleea shrugged. “I don’t know. Back home, to talk of one’s struggles was just not done, and it if was, it was best gotten over quickly. I can only imagine my parents’ reaction if they were to find out I had Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. They’d look at me like I had grown another head and quickly move to another room,” she said with a laugh. She drank more from her glass, though it was disappearing more slowly than Marishka’s. then again, no one was ever about to claim she was an impulsive person who let loose.

Ensign Valleea, Doctor

Marishka set her glass down and poured a bit more from the bottle.

“I’ve been taught to turn my troubles into triumphs, to wear the scars on my heart, soul, and body with pride. That doesn’t always work. Everybody’s path through their own personal catastrophe is just that, personal. My father would be proud of the way I’ve handled some of the things in my life. My mother would have been upset that I did not handle them with more grace or vice versa.” she finished.

• Marishka

“Parents are always so hard to please,” Valleea said with a sigh before finishing off her glass. She eyed the bottle for a moment, thought about the potential consequences and decided she’d deal with them. She poured another glass. She just wouldn’t be able to be on call tonight, it was as simple as that.

Picking up the glass, Valleea eyed the colour of the liquid as the lounge lights moved through it. “They had my life pretty much planned out. I was going to get a good education and join a respected profession, then I’d marry very well in a way befitting someone of my social station. We’d have children and then repeat the pattern and pass all the expectations of centuries of nobility onto them. No care about whether they wanted any of it, or even cared.” She peered beyond the glass at Marishka. “It was amazing they even let me study off-world, away from their control. My goodness, I mean what would they do with a daughter with a mind of their own? Appalling thought, that.”

Ensign Valleea, Doctor