Post 5 - Through a glass, darkly

Posted on Thu Feb 4th, 2021 @ 4:04pm by Lieutenant Irynya

Mission: The Waiting Game
Location: Resort Kitchens
Timeline: Day 56

[The kitchen at the resort]
[Risa]
[1430 Hours - Shoreleave Day 56]

Being back on Risa as a guest rather than a resident was a bit like looking through a darkened glass. In the days and weeks that had followed the Adelphi’s return to the Alpha Quadrant and subsequent assignment to extended shore leave, Irynya had found herself back in the rhythms of home, able to see life as it was before she had enlisted in Starfleet. And yet that view was also changed, some of its naivety and innocence replaced with the experiences of the Adelphi's last foray into the Delta Quadrant. She found the rhythms of home both comforting and incredibly dissonant.

“You know you could make yourself useful and update the first aid kit,” Irynya’s mother, a tall woman with hair that, when not held up in an intricate series of braids and twists, fell down her back in a waterfall of dark brown that ended just below her waist.

Irynya rolled her eyes and instead popped a small pastry that was set out on a platter into her mouth.

Her mother swatted at her hand, deliberately missing, but making the point all the same. “Those are for guests Iry!” she exclaimed in mock annoyance. Truthfully the Risian woman was relieved to have her wandering daughter home and even more so that she was up to the type of low key mischief that characterized much of her youth.

“I am a guest here,” Irynya smirked, swiping another pastry and popping it into her mouth.

Technically this was true. Captain Kodak along with a cabal of Adelphi officers, the second stringers amongst them, had been sent to Risa for shore leave. She had even been assigned a room at the resort even though her family’s own home was just off the property and it would have been just as easy for her to stay there.

“Guest, shmest,” her mother quipped back at her. “Your home is here even if you do happen to have a room on the resort--unused as it is.”

The younger Risian chewed her pastry thoughtfully. Though she had not suffered the jarring violation of being captured and examined by the Vidiians she had endured the lengthy cat and mouse game that, in some ways, amounted to a siege designed to deplete their supplies and destroy their morale. It had nearly worked, too. That was until after hours of baiting and maneuvering a Vidiian vessel had finally misstepped and she had piloted their shuttle, a modern Trojan horse of sorts, right up to the ship disabling it beyond repair and dooming its inhabitants to breath in the blue nebula until…

She shook her head lightly tyring to dislodge the memory she knew was about to replay in her head. The figures of the Vidiians from that vessel had floated across the view screen slowly, as though the were swimming in a wide ocean. Various states of alarm, fear, and pain, were etched into a rictus of rotting features on those that came close enough for a good look. It had been the first time that her actions immediately resulted in the deaths of others and she hadn't been able to look away from the destruction her actions had wrecked. Truthfully she was having a hard time shaking it still.

“Iry…” her mother’s voice, insistent, cut through the image of dead Vidiians in blue mist that played in her mind’s eye. “Iry, are you listening?”

“I’m sorry mama,” she mumbled, using the childish name she had called her mother as a small girl. “I was,” she paused, tears pricking the corner of her eyes, “I was distracted.”

“Oh Irynya,” her mother murmured, setting down the basket of items she had been collecting to restock their low altitude shuttle.

The tears were insistent now, leaking down her cheeks despite her best efforts to prevent them. Angrily she swiped at them with the backs of her hands. Her mother closed the distance between the two, wrapping her up as though she were 5 rather than nearly 30, and resting her cheek on top of her daughter’s head.

“It’s ok little love,” she murmured as she ran a hand up and down Irynya’s arm. She hadn’t used that nickname for years.

For a moment Irynya let herself melt into her mother’s arms, relief that she was being comforted mingling with grief at an innocence lost. And then, after her eyes had stopped leaking and her heart had bled grief as much as she could take, she straightened, plastering a small smile on her face, and stepped out of the safety of her mother’s embrace.

“I think I have a few minutes to look at that first aid kit before I need to go work on decorations for the luau. Is it still behind the pilot’s seat in the shuttle or have you pulled it out already?”

A sad knowing look crossed her mother’s face, nearly threatening to send the younger woman back into a fit of sobs. But she couldn’t spend all of her time crying in her mother’s arms. She wasn’t a little girl anymore, able to run to a parent and have her woes magically cured. She was a Starfleet officer and eventually she was going to have to figure out how to live with her woes herself.

For now, though, she would take the child’s route and dive into the familiarity of the family business--even if it was as simple as updating the first aid kit.

=/\= A mission post by... =/\=

Lieutenant JG Irynya
Flight Control Officer
Unassigned