172: Ebb and Flow

by Ensigns Dalca and Andraste
Time: Almost Four Years Ago


= Unknown Planet =

Nimue Andraste had never really fit in on Stratos. She liked adventure, excitement and danger. Most Ardanans, on the other hand, preferred quiet meditation, good books and classical music. Their entire city had been designed to further pursuits of the mind...and there really was no place in it for as physical a being as Nimue.


Despite these differences, however, there was at least one quality of her mother's people that she had inherited. She did not care for nature, and was not comfortable in it. She had grown up, after all, in a city floating on the clouds where everything was constructed and mechanized. There were very few plants and certainly no bugs.

So it was that for the first time in perhaps her entire life, sitting on the ground beside a crashed shuttle and swatting at giant bugs, clad only in a bikini, Nimue felt homesick. Fires had broken out all over the shuttle after they had crashed, and most of the systems had been fried. Including the replicators. And the hideous jumpsuit that Warren had picked out for her was also ash now, which meant she did not have a change of clothes. Or shoes. And she was stuck on an uncharted world, surrounded by fallen trees.

With a weary sigh, she looked up at the dim orange sky of this world. "I hate you, Mom. I really do."

Warren Dalca laughed at that. He was lying prone on one of the fallen trees, with room to spare. This forest had to be millennia old.

"I don't have warm and cuddly feelings for you either just now," Nimue informed him, punctuating her sentence with a withering glare.

"I'm just... appreciating the irony. And realizing something." He turned to look at her. "Something I hadn't realized before."

"That I'm as cute as a button?"

He laughed again. Unlike her, he seemed to be far more comfortable in this godforsaken wilderness. Despite everything that had happened, he still managed to appear calm. She didn't completely buy it, either, but if it was an act, it was a consistent one. "The reason all of this has happened... the real reason, is that your mother loves you. Her love just manifests in a very unhealthy way."

Nimue looked away and smiled, "Right. You know," she added, turning to face him again, "I don't think she could tell you what my birthday was with a phaser to her head. Mom loves politics. She loves the idea of being a good mother because it looks good in print." She shrugged, "There isn't like a law that parents have to love their kids. Some people don't get to be loved. And that's fine."

"Maybe." He sat up and swung his legs over the side, looking like a kid. Except for the swimsuit, and his golden shirt, which remained intact throughout the whole ordeal. "What I realized is that I didn't just come to get you because I was scared of your mother. Sure, that's part of it. Nothing worse than starting out your Starfleet career poorly because some sussed-up royalty got their nose in a bunch. But I... my mother, she... can't express herself that well... and, here was one who was trying to."

"Does your mom love you?"

He stared at Nimue silently. His eyes searched hers, and then he looked around, through the canopy above, the shadow-covered forest floor, and finally back at the downed shuttle. "I don't know."

Nimue chuckled. "Then I guess we're both pretty pathetic."

Dalca jumped down from the tree, deftly bending his knees as he landed and standing back up. He checked on Gregson, who had cold beads of sweat on his forehead. He was wrapped in emergency blankets and still shivering, even on this humid, hot moon. "Everyone's pathetic. It's just something we have to accept and keep going."

"Right." Nimue agreed with a feigned sage nod, "Like you said. Be the pee."

Warren smiled and tried to hide it. He picked up the tricorder on the ground near Gregson, turned and walked over to her. "Be like water." Putting his fists on his waist, he shook his head at her. "All it means is you need to be supple, adapt to things as they come. Be honest with yourself and simply act. Of course, it's easier said than done." He stood a heartbeat away from her. "We need food. I'm going to try and find some."

"I'm going to steal Steve's shoes. At least then I can walk around without getting splinters in my feet." Nimue glanced at the size of the man's boots and sighed, "I could swim in those things."

"I thought you'd prefer to stay here."

"Why?"

Warren laughed, made to offer her a hand, then thought better of it. "Have it your way, Silver Spoon. Let's go." Dalca trodded off into the shade.

"I'd really preferred it if you called me something else. Silver Fox, maybe. Or Silver Swan."

The corner of his lip curled. "It bugs you?"

She scowled as she swatted another vicious looking insect away. "I have bigger problems."

"Gotta love perspective," he acknowledged her, looking at the large boots now on her feet. "You're going to cover more ground without those."

"Shut up."

= Later =

"I heard you the first time," Dalca sighed. He didn't really care to tell her he enjoyed hearing her say it. "But those boots do look a little ridiculous on you. Don't worry though... ridiculous, cute as a button, same difference, right?"

They had reached a clearing, and there was a small lake ahead. On its shore, small feathered creatures darted around, drinking from the lake and chirping at each other. None of them paid the two newcomers any heed; they simply walked around, causing Nimue and her newly acquired boots to nearly trip more than once. Dalca moved more deftly with his bare feet, but he was too tired to gloat at this point.

The waterfront was a shimmering orange-golden paradise in what felt like a late afternoon. It was too difficult to say, with another planet looming in the sky and the system's sun beating down on them from the same harsh angle.

Nimue whistled softly, "Nice."

Dalca lifted his tricorder at the lake. "It's real. And it's water. A 98% match to Earth's freshwater, and free of contaminants. I think." He glanced in her direction. "I'm not exactly a scientist or anything."

She rolled her eyes slightly and turned her back to him, "Yeah. Not exactly. You fill up the canteens," she told him as she began to undo the strings at her back keeping her top in place, "I'm going to clean up."

He tossed the emergency sack to the ground, watching her hands move while he groped about blindly for the canteens. "I thought you enjoyed being able to out'rank' me," he teased, then looked at the water wistfully.

Nimue shook her head at the joke as she stepped out of her bikini bottoms, perhaps a little more provocatively than was absolutely necessary. She turned her weltering brown gaze upon him from over her shoulder, "I'm sorry. You were saying something about me being a little ridiculous?"

His chest seized up, and whatever his next remark was going to be was lost on the droning soft waves of the lake. Standing up, he followed her into the lake, carrying a canteen in each hand, not bothering to remove his own clothing in kind. The shirt clung to his chest as the water beat against him, until he felt as if he were drowning. He couldn't break his gaze, or bother to breathe, and he remembered what it felt like to be completely devoid of all the cares of the universe.

When waves were up to her shoulders, she turned to face him, an impish grin on her face. "Tell me again how much you want to be the water."

The canteens floated up to the surface and he closed the distance, hovering a heartbeat away and finding a sliver of resolve in the space between. "I... am the water," he explained, lips curling into a half grin.

Nimue drifted closer to him, inches way, until their lips were almost touching and their breath was one. "I like water," she whispered softly.

On the shore, the small creatures scattered about, then fell quiet. The waves stilled, and his lips moved to form a soundless word, 'Prove...' they brushed hers, and he pulled away slightly.

The words, like the waves, were lost to the tide.

Closing what little distance was left between them, she kissed him gently, tentatively, burning the water.

The golden lake swelled and pushed them to the shore, hands clawed at the wild grass and shapes alien to this world were impressed into the moist earth, until the orange glare of day passed into darkness.

Ensign Warren Dalca
Security Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012

and

Ensign Nimue Andraste