By Warren Dalca and Zanh Liis
80122.2
Following Meet and Greet. . .and Some Sparring, Too
--=Arboretum=--
80122.2
Following Meet and Greet. . .and Some Sparring, Too
--=Arboretum=--
As the doctor moved away from her, Liis found her thoughts once again drawn back toward the discussion she'd had with February Grace earlier, which had been unsettling, to be sure.
She was not surprised that Jariel had been through so much when it came to the mission that saved her- but she was shocked that he'd played such a pivotal role in the actual rescue itself on Aertok and neglected to mention it.
Also troubling, the conversation she'd just had with the ship's new doctor. An exchange during which the Andorian had referred to Doctor Mckay as "it" and "a valuable tool". She clearly stated her belief that McKay wasn't a man.
Knowing that with two ships to oversee -and the fact that Terasha couldn't be in two places at the same time- they would still need Dr. McKay, Liis wondered how this would all work out. She hoped that as time went on, perhaps Terasha would begin to see that the Doctor was as much a part of the crew as anyone else, as far as Zanh was concerned.
Liis sighed, and accepted finally that she had guests waiting. She had no time to brood over these things now.
She was actually hoping to catch up to TC Blane. There had been something about his mood during the actual dinner that seemed off somehow, and she wanted to ask him if he had anything that he wanted, or needed, to talk about.
Zanh slowly began cutting across the grass toward the tables again, when she happened to walk past the crooked rows of Bajoran violets that she'd planted earlier in the day while she was meeting and greeting some of the new crew.
She didn't notice the rows now because they were crooked.
She noticed them because there was a young man in a gold uniform whom she did not recognize- and he was straightening them.
The man had a thick head of dark hair, long enough that it was in danger of breaking regulations, and a taut, muscular build with broad shoulders. It seemed strange to watch him continue the delicate work of a gardener, but his every movement was confident and deliberate, wasting no motion.
His head turned slightly, perhaps feeling her eyes on him in the quiet garden, and he stood up and turned to face her, brushing some of the dirt off of his bare hands. Then he recognized who she was and stood at ease, hiding the dirty hands behind his back.
"Good evening, Captain," he greeted politely, trying to hide his surprise.
"Good evening, mystery gardener." She extended her hand to shake his, ignoring the dirt. "You must be one of the few new folks I haven't had the pleasure of meeting yet. You are?"
"Warren Dalca, Sir. Security."
"Well, you'd better be careful." Her expression was deadpan and he didn't know where she was going with this.
She stopped short of telling him that he had actually corrected her own misaligned attempts at flower planting.
"If the Vedek sees you working here with that much skill and technique, he'll want to put you to work during your off hours."
Dalca laughed quietly. "Oh, I'm no gardener. I just see a problem, and I fix it." He shrugged. "And the violets, well... they were bent."
"Ever seen a problem yet that you couldn't fix, Ensign?" Zanh asked, attempting to draw him out and get a feeling for his outlook on life.
She was in the habit of asking deceptively simple questions, because no matter how simple or complicated the response it elicited, it always spoke volumes to her about the person she was asking.
"All the time," Warren said, without missing a beat. He took a step back and looked down at his handiwork. "It's why I take pleasure in the ones I can."
Zanh was taken aback by his response, but more so by the expression in his eyes. This was obviously a very thoughtful young man, one who had been through a lot, somewhere along the way.
This was highly unusual, for the department that he had chosen to work in, Zanh thought.
Most young ensigns in security were all brash recklessness. Charging in where angels fear to tread, phaser in hand, ready to blast any perceived threat into oblivion come Hell or high water.
This Warren Dalca was something else- and something very special, if her first impression of him was on the mark.
Her first impressions were never off the mark.
"Did you know," he ventured, his voice dancing like a song in its precision and timbre, "that the wild violets on Earth are considered weeds?"
"Are they really?" She pondered this. "Do they look like weeds?"
Warren smiled, and looked sideways at her. "Honestly, Captain, labeling something as a weed is trying too hard to control a universe that won't be." He nodded toward the Bajoran violets. "Even if they didn't have their beauty, they'd still be resilient, and you have to give them that."
"Resilience is a very important quality," Zanh remarked thoughtfully. Warren noticed that her hand seemed to gravitate upward, toward the chain on her earring, and she twisted it between her fingers. He wondered if this was something she did often, a glimpse into the fact that her mind was elsewhere. "In my previous line of work, resilience made the difference between sanity and madness at the end of the day."
He studied her for a long moment, the sharp angle of his eyebrows giving him an almost fey quality... part of the Deltan heritage he kept so tightly under wraps. "Did you plant these?"
Zanh hesitated. "Yeah, um, I did. I was. . .conducting crew interviews at the time you see," she shuffled her feet. Then she looked up at him from beneath her bangs. "Oh, who the hell am I kidding? I could have been doing it completely uninterrupted over the span of a month's time and they still would have come out crooked."
"Oh, I wasn't judging. . .!"
Zanh laughed a little. "It's okay to judge inanimate objects, or, in this case, the alignment of plant life," she said. "It's when we judge each other too harshly that we run into trouble. You can't know a man's life until you've walked a kerripate in his boots, so the old Bajoran saying goes."
He nodded. "I prefer my boots anyway."
"I can relate. Zanh replied. "You know, a crew mate of mine once told me a story about a small village in ancient Greece where it was the custom every year, for everyone to write their problems down on a scroll and put them in a big...thing. I don't know, I'm paraphrasing. I should probably look this up before trying to tell it, but what the hell, here I go anyway."
She drew a breath and continued. "Anyway, after picking a different scroll, when they'd read about what other people's problems were, every one of them wanted their own scroll back. They wouldn't trade their problems for anyone else's, the man told me. Each one took his own problems back, to the man."
She pondered the story a moment and then she laughed a little. "Of course, I'm Bajoran. Once a year we write our problems down onto paper and set them on fire. What do I know."
"I like rhetorical questions. No pressure." He smiled, and adjusted his collar. "But seriously, I'm sure four pips have got to be worth their weight in trade."
"The pips are only worth the salt of the captain who wears them. Now I am really mixing my metaphors aren't I?" Zanh shook her head a little at herself. "A captain is only as valuable as their crew, and this crew?" She smiled at him approvingly at the thought of adding him to those she already knew aboard. "You just can't quantify its value. It's priceless."
Warren shook his head. "This is, by far, the most open conversation I've ever had with a commanding officer." He scratched his temple. "It's been an unexpected pleasure, Captain, but the adrenaline's kicking up in hindsight... and I feel a little light-headed."
Zanh held up her left hand and gestured toward the elaborate spread of food with an open palm. "The pleasure was mine, Ensign, and I think I know just the cure for that light-headedness," she offered. "A big, huge plate full of consumable distractions."
"Just as soon as I wash my hands," he said, holding up his dirt-caked digits. "By your leave, Captain?"
"By all means, Mr. Dalca."
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Ensign Warren Dalca
Security Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
-=/\=-Captain Zanh Liis
USS Serendipity NCC-2012