Joining Aboard

Posted on 08 Jul 2015 @ 9:59am by Jynn & Commander Norvi Stace

2,431 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 09 - Empires
Location: Deck 2, Mess Hall, USS Galileo
Timeline: MD 01, 1730 hours

[ON]

Trill. The thought of two species in union had always excited Jynn. He was never sure what he experienced when he was in their presence. Was it the thoughts of one, two, or many? So many lives lived in so many bodies. Incredible! Upon hearing that the executive officer was one of these most fascinating unions of the mind, he practically had no choice but to request her company. He had even referred to it as their 'joining.' Perhaps the offer would affect her on a more personal level, he thought.

Stace walked through the Mess Hall doors as they breathed open before her. She took a tentative step in and looked around the rather small room. It was bustling with familair faces (and some new ones) but she quickly spotted the bald Deltan, smiled a silent hello and then made her way over to the table. "Commander Stace," she introduced herself as by way only as confirmation of her attendance to the introduction and then offered her hand out. "May I grab you something from the replicator before I sit down?"

Stace so rarely was summoned to any meeting other than with the captain, but the new Chief Flight Officer was someone that she wanted to meet with so she gladly accepted.

"Certainly. Surprise me," Jynn practically exclaimed as he took the hand of the lovely Trill before him. He certainly already felt surprised. He shook her hand with a firm grasp. "Oh, and Jynn," he interjected before she could retrieve their drinks, sure to introduce himself before the conversation moved along.

She flashed him a smile and then headed over to the replicator, allowing the wash of blue hue to bathe her face as she leant in a little too close to retrieve the items. In her two hands, she sauntered back over placing a glass before Jynn before sitting down and allowing the other to rest before her. "It's an old Earth drink, apparently. It's called a cream soda." She lifted the glass up in a motion to cheers the helmsman and nodded. "Welcome aboard, Lieutenant."

Jynn raised his glass to contact hers before speaking. "Thank you, miss Stace. I do believe I will be a most welcomed addition to your crew." He took a sip and closed his eyes as the fizzy fluid rushed down his throat. It was certainly more soda than cream, but he could see why it was called that. "Delicious," he said with a smile.

She took a draft of her own and then placed it down before her. "In truth," she admitted, the creamy, sickening fluid filling her senses, "I'm more of a fan of these impromptu, less official meetings. Somewhere where you can get a feel of the person before you in a more social context. So thank you for suggesting it." She paused and then took another drink. "But with the mission and the recent personnel re-shuffle, I haven't as yet been forwarded your service record or managed to peruse it. But I don't necessarily think that that is a disadvantage." She decided to elaborate for the new officer with a ringing smile. "Your service record can only tell me what others think of you and what your career has afforded you. But I like to make up my own measure of a man."

Jynn became noticeably happier with her last statement. He was used to those in command basing their assumptions and expectations of him off of his record. Records where so static and uncaring. To Jynn it was probably the worst medium to express anything at all. Besides, records weren't perfect and his certainly had some blemishes, but he still knew how to get the job done and, more importantly, he was a good person. At this point he felt about ready to completely open up to his new Trill companion. "Measure away," he said with a smirk. "What would you like to know most about me?"

"An open invitation?" Stace pondered whilst bringing her hands up to her lips in consideration. "A dangerous idea." She smiled but stared upon him evenly. "How about how you got into Starfleet? What made you want to join?"

"Love," he said matter-of-factly. "The love of everything. How am I to experience everything in the universe when I am confined to one planet?" He hesitated for a moment. He was aware that of all the things he could love, he was not allowed to love most intimately the things he wanted most to: other beings. Continuing, he spoke while keeping his upbeat tone, "Starfleet is the perfect organization for me to be able to do this. Always seeking out new life and new things. If I am ever to be able to love everything, it's going to be on a faster-than-light ship soaring through the cosmos!"

His smile was beaming. His urges where starting to coalesce. His left foot had started tapping on the floor. Deflection! He needed to turn the focus off of himself, if at least for a moment. He looked at, almost into, the commander. "And what made you join?"

Stace broke eye contact as she looked to the middle distance with a familiar and warm smile breaking across her face. She inhaled and then returned her gaze back to the Deltan. "My mother was Joined. And it's held in such high regard in my society that one feels almost pressured to at least try for it. If you're deemed compatible then it's almost like turning down one of the most advantageous and rewarding gifts you can be offered." She fell silent for a moment to counter her own sentiment.

"It's not for everyone; to have your experiences and your memories live on once you die. And that is what changes you. As single beings your time is much more finite. Closed off. You experience what you can and learn from it. You choose a path and start upon it one foot at a time. But when you're Joined with a sentience that has journeyed on four or five other life-paths, your perspective alters. As do your values and priorities. Take love for instance. Some races hold the pursuit of it above all else, but for someone like myself it takes such a backseat that I barely consider it. And I can't even imagine what it would be like to take such an oath as to swear from romantic interests. How do you manage with that?"

With a soft sigh Jynn thought for a moment. It was truly the heaviest of weights that he had to bear. "It is very difficult. I, myself, still do not understand it sometimes. To protect others from our most beautiful of gifts? It's rather selfish, I think, but the oath is there to protect, I suppose.

"In truth I want to share my gifts with everyone. Because I want to love everyone, and to not be allowed to is very difficult, indeed. My relationships must remain no more than platonic, which is quite hard for someone as passionate as myself to do. But it is the price I pay to experience all the other joys of the universe," he spoke as he started to become more upbeat again. "And perhaps maybe some day those rules will change," he said, knowing that the probability of that was all but impossible.

"How do you do it, miss Stace? You must feel love. It's impossible to suppress. How can you barely consider our most wonderful of gifts?" He barely understood his own motives sometimes. How could someone non-oathbound make such a difficult choice?

Stace widened her eyes and drew in a breath to hold in her lungs for a moment. It was odd to her that someone should hold something in such high regard and yet yearn from its absence. To be sworn from something so primitive - and to her seasoned mind almost a nuisance - but to ache for it as Jynn seemed to was a foreign concept. She blinked a few times and then smiled genuinely.

"It's not a conscious decision that I have made; to steer clear of the passions of the heart but more of an ideology that I have discovered works best for me and my lives. And having met several other Joined Trills throughout my time I appear not to be alone in its confines." She paused and then changed tact. "To write it off as child-like or trivial would do companionship and true, deep love such a disservice. But it is something that I have experienced and felt in many guises and over many lifetimes throughout the years. You reach a saturation point and a mind-frame that moves away from its necessity.

"I biologically don't need to breed as my legacy lives on when I pass, and as the tempestuous tooing and frowing of other people's feelings become easier to predict and less of a new experience, you grow weary of it. I have yet to see those I have left behind after re-Joining with another host but they do play on my mind from time to time. And as such, I try to limit the collateral damage I cause by selflessly committing to another soul."

Jynn had not considered the lack of a biological imperative, but to him it was far more than that anyway. Jynn had felt love for everything and everyone. How could this be simple biology?

"I find it hard to believe that the experiences have grown old, especially for yourself. So many lives and personalities. I doubt anything could ever grow stale with so many variables in just one body. Forgive me when I say this that I believe you are truly missing out on what living is all about, and that having so many lives without love is simply a waste."

He didn't want to sound harsh, but he simply could not understand how anyone could go through life loveless. The loss of love being just one of the many emotions one should experience in life, how could it have been experienced without love in the first place. He was more curious than anything, and was eager for her reply, whether positive or negative.

"I think you misunderstand me, Lieutenant," Stace replied warmly. "I have experienced love. Multiple times and over many lifetimes. But I have not cast it off in favour of a lifetime without it. But how do you convince a fish of the importance of lungs when they have evolved to breathe without them? What love has taught me will remain in my soul until the Stace Symbiont perishes within a future host. When my own legacy ends and my memories and experiences fail to continue I will look back on what I have fought through and I won't be the worse for my opinions on emotional dependence. I know how important it is, but I also know of its limitations."

Stace scrunched up her nose at the Deltan and then sighed. Not out of frustration or pity but out of a failure to connect her own thoughts with Jynn. "Have you heard of the Earth story of Tithonus, Lieutenant?"

"I have not," Jynn spoke in an eager tone that at the same time seemed to ask her to tell it.

"Tithonus was a mortal man who Aurora, the Greek titan of the Dawn, fell in love with. Depending on which version you are familiar with, because of her love she could grant him one wish. To which he wished for immortality. But in his haste he neglected to ask for eternal youth and as Aurora's love for him waned along with his virility, his wizened face would stare up at the sky as her chariot of fire horses drew the sun out of the blackened night." Stace paused and allowed the point of her story to settle between them. "A human poet of old wrote his story as the aging man, peering up into the sky as he was forced to watch his love cry for him, unable to take back her gift of immortality. As he lay there, he prayed for the sweet release of death with which he would never be granted. His immortality redefined his human nature. The want to survive. When you've lived for as long as I have; and as long as I hopefully one day will live to, your priorities and necessities shift. I don't value love any less than Tithonus valued life. But for him, it is death that defines life. You can grow weary of the gifts you are afforded. It just might take a couple of hundred years before they fall out of favour."

Jynn thought for a moment, it was hard to imagine love ever getting old, but perhaps what she was feeling was still love, perhaps even love more in tune with what he experienced.

"Love in the physical sense has gotten stale, so you have turned your senses to other experiences. I seem to have misunderstood you, miss Stace," he said with a smile. "You seem to have turned your love to pursuits other than that of the flesh, much like I have. You may have another word for it, but I still call it love. It is why I left my home to be amongst the stars."

"I have all the love I need right on board this starship," Stace concluded. "It is my life, as I hope it will become yours. How can you ever feel solitary when you're surrounded by such wonder and exploration?" She now smiled warmly, feeling that they now understood each other, if from different sides of the fence.

At times he did feel solitary, still yearning for a more physical love, but Jynn agreed with Stace. "Of course. I love it here already! There is so much on this ship alone to experience, let alone on all the planets and places we encounter. And to have hundreds of years to do so must be amazing!" Every time he met a Trill he just wanted to jump into their heads and sift around to see the many facets of a centuries old being that had lived so many lives, but he knew he couldn't.

"To new experiences," he said as he lifted the fizzy drink.

The Trill nodded and lifted her glass up to meet Jynn's. "And to the memory of old ones."

OFF:

Commander Norvi Stace
First Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant JG Jynn
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Galileo

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