Let's Dance in the Graveyard

Posted on 29 Aug 2017 @ 7:11pm by Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant & Ensign Mimi

1,853 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Episode 15 - Emanation
Location: Earth - San Francisco Bay
Timeline: MD 17 - 1340 hours

ON:

The music pulled him towards the water. He was dragged along the way by his pointed ears. The middle-of-nowhere trail snaked through the Marina District, leading him to San Francisco Bay, and out onto a nondescript jetty. Hiking across the jetty, he feared he’d reached the raggedy end of the trail, and then he spotted a staircase leading further down. At the edge of the water, he found a ruin of an amphitheater made from sidewalk slabs and cemetery stones. Organ pipes made from concrete and PVC protruded between multiple levels of terraces. Overcome by the music singing out of the organ pipes, Lake ir-Llantrisant strode down the steps.

Lake's black eyes were drawn to a sense of exquisite movement atop one of the terraces, two levels up from the water. At first glance, the movement almost looked like a sheet of elegant fabric, caught in the elemental interactions between the Earth and the Moon. Looking closer, Lake could see it was a young woman wearing a summer dress. She was dancing on her toes, on the balls of her bare feet. Following the steps down to the water, the longer Lake looked, the more he noticed the athletic way she moved. Not to mention how the plainly feline features of her face were striking to behold.

With her own eyes closed Mimi didn't pick up Lake entering the grounds of the wave organ, she continued her dance, moving her body in long elegant sweeping motions to the unusual music generated by the waves.

The bay was at high tide and the space had been designed to keep no clear boundary between the water and the solid land. Lake meandered along the perimeter, along the uncertain edges, engulfed in the orchestra of sound coming from the wave organ. The music from the organ pipes was activated by the waves, evoking a striking sense-memory within him. He closed his eyes to embrace that memory and then he opened his eyes again.

He snaked a hand inside his hooded jacket and withdrew a Starfleet tricorder from within. The sensor device felt smooth and slim in his hand. He interacted with the interface controls with a swipe and a double-tap or two. Once the process was started, he looked up from the interface and lowered his hands by his sides. Lake's focus returned to the dancer on the gravestones. Taking small, quiet steps, he moved closer to keep watch.

Mimi's ears twitched when they heard a different sound, someone walking nearby. Stopping her dance but not yet turning to face the voice she greeted it. "Hello there."

Even though Mimi didn't look in his direction, Lake nodded at her. Custom was ingrained in his muscle memory. "May your day be filled with peace," he said, using the traditional Romulan greeting of jolan tru. While Mimi kept her back to him, Lake glanced down at the display on his tricorder. The shape of the waveform graphic caused him to frown. Considering Mimi, he said, "Erm, don't let me intrude..."

"How long have you been here?" Mimi asked turning to face the owner of the voice who turned out to be a tall romulan.

Pursing his lips into a frown, Lake remarked, "Hmmm, now?" He shrugged helplessly. Setting his jaw with greater certainty, he said, "I arrived here now. Have you been here long?"

"Only a couple of hours or so." Mimi replied, she shifted from standing up on her toes to planting her feet on the ground. "I like this place, it is very unusual."

"I love it here," Lake said, but he was looking at the tricorder in his hand again. When he looked to Mimi again, there was something far more wistful in the way he spoke. "This place means the world to me," Lake said. His words held both the ecstasy, and the sharp pain, of nostalgia. He glanced at his tricorder one more time and then he raised it to the level of his eyes. Shaking the tricorder for emphasis, he asked Mimi, "Would you happen to know anything about calibrating a tricorder?"

"I do. What is the problem?" Mimi asked stepping closer to Lake.

Turning the face of the tricorder in Mimi's direction, Lake explained his dilemma. He sounded equal parts frustrated and bored by what he considered to be recalcitrant behaviour on the tricorder's part. "I was recording the music produced by the wave organ," Lake said, "but the tricorder isn't registering the full range of the sound. Too, the filters I've activated would appear to be cancelling out more of the music than the interference?"

"Let me see." Mimi took the tricoder and tapped at the controls, her large ears twitched several times as she listened first to the music of the wave organ then to the tricorder playback and back again.

For a solid thirty seconds, Lake attempted to follow Mimi's ministrations on the tricorder's interface, but his eyes moved of their own volition. His dark eyes twitched to follow the movement of Mimi's ears. "I appreciate your consideration," Lake said. "I hope I didn't interrupt--"

"Your filters are set too high, too much of the sound is being taken out by them." She adjusted it a little and handed the tricorder back. "that should be better."

Automatically, Lake said, "thank you," as he accepted the tricorder in one hand. He turned it round to study the display. After watching the waveforms of the recording, he said, "thank you," again, but more genuinely. Looking Mimi in the eyes, Lake said, "That dance... from before... was it representative of a particular style of movement?"

"It is a Nekomi dance I have not done in years." Mimi replied. "The music is not quite perfect for it but it is close enough."

Placing his tricorder down on a stone ridge, Lake set it aside to record the songs of the wave organ without any more of his ineffectual interference. "What's that word you used?" Lake asked, turning his curious eyes on Mimi. He shook his head to express his confusion. "Nekomi. What does it mean?"

"It is the name of my species." Mimi told him. "You will not have heard of them before." She said anticipating what he was likely to say next if it followed the usual pattern.

Nodding once, Lake said, "Yes," and then he nodded twice, and he said, "Yes, you're right." He twirled his finger through the air, pointing at the spot where Mimi had been dancing. "When did you learn to dance? As a child?" he asked.

Mimi had to think a little. "When I was around 10 I learned that dance but I could dance well before then."

Lake perched himself on a stone ledge, trying not to tower over Mimi. He stretched his legs out ahead of him, crossing his legs at the ankle. "Clearly, you can dance well now. You must have had plenty of practice," Lake said effusively. Squinting into the middle distance, his mouth gaped open as he became lost in considerations. Putting his question into words, he asked, "Who taught you to dance?"

"My mother mostly." Mimi said, she started to look around for where she'd put her shoes, the dance had taken her some distance from where she had started. "All my species are good at dancing, well mostly the females."

Pivoting his head towards Mimi, Lake remarked, "I don't understand." --He clicked his teeth together and shook his head-- "Is there a physical impairment that prevents males from dancing or something more of a gender role expectation?"

"A bit of both maybe. Most males are not as.... bendy as us." Mimi smiled slightly remembering her friend Riket try and fail miserably at keeping up with her dance, the smile quickly faded as she also remembered the last time she saw him; getting shot in the back by a disruptor as he ran.

With his curiosity beams pointed directly at Mimi --this seemingly one-of-a-kind being in the Federation-- Lake took notice of the way Mimi's focus had shifted. He didn't know what Mimi was thinking about, he couldn't possibly know, but he did know that Mimi wasn't remembering dancing at this precise moment. Lake turned away from Mimi to watch the sound recording on the tricorder, out of respect. He didn't care much for what what he was looking at, but he wanted to allow Mimi a moment with her thoughts. "Yes, I understand," Lake said. "Lack of flexibility would make it harder to dance."

"It is a little role based too." Mimi said after regaining her composure. "When I was growing up I learnt to dance and sing and later things like computers. While the males learnt how to build, farm and work the big machines."

"Is that why you searched out the wave organ?" Lake asked. He folded his hands behind his back and he angled his head towards Mimi. One eyebrow popped with curiosity. "To reject your elevated nature and immerse yourself in dance?"

Mimi thought for a few seconds. "I did not plan on dancing when I first came here but the music from this unusual machine is amazing."

"How did you find your way here," Lake asked, sweeping a hand towards one of the organ pipes protruding from between stone slabs, "If not because of the music?"

"I was walking down the beach and I saw this in the distance." Mimi replied. "I have never seen anything like it so I came to have a look."

Looking 'round at where they stood, Lake practically spun three-hundred-and-sixty degrees on the spot. "This place is remarkable. It truly is," he said. His eyes narrowing, Lake looked out at the water. He couldn't pull his eyes away, not even when he reached behind him to stop the recording on his tricorder. Then, quietly and wistful, Lake said, "I was married here."

Mimi sat down on one of the concrete blocks. "This does seem a good place for things like that, unless a big wave comes." She chuckled slightly imagining the scene.

"I can assure you," Lake said, "we all got wet. Soaked through, in fact." As he tucked the tricorder back in his jacket, Lake shook his head slightly at the memory sitting at the forefront of his mind's eye. In a you would be surprised timbre, Lake said, "The holographic records were gorgeous."

Mimi laughed "I have been lucky so far, the sea is not too.... busy. I do not like getting wet."

Clasping his hands behind his back, Lake tilted his head to the right. His pointed ears practically dropped to his shoulder. "Then I suppose it's for the best you weren't at my wedding," he said. "I didn't know you then." Straightening up, he asked, "Can you show me how Nekomi dance at weddings?"

Lake stood up and he took two steps back, making way for Mimi to sway, somewhere between the moon and the earth.


OFF:

Lieutenant (JG) Lake ir-Llantrisant
Chief Counselor
USS Galileo

Ensign Mimi
Operations Officer.

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