The Beach; Words (Part 1)

Posted on 27 Dec 2012 @ 3:26pm by Lieutenant Kiri Cho

3,231 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: Episode 02 - Resupply
Location: Vega Colony, Puam Digh
Timeline: MD9 1620

[ON]

Kiri had been dozing again for half an hour, hanging between sleep that wouldn't come but unable to do much of anything else. She was very hot and uncomfortable but getting changed seemed to be so much effort that she couldn't even think about it for very long. Having listed for so long she finally clambered to her feet and knew she'd had enough. Slumping slightly at first she walked towards the waters edge taking slow steps, at least a paddle might cool her down somewhat. Dark hair loose she looked very pale in the sun, made more so by the liberal application of sunscreen to stop herself peeling like a banana.

Maenad was wandering along the beach by herself, looking out toward the water when suddenly she heard "Look out!" Instinctively, and half-terrified, she ducked her head and shielded her face in the pit of her elbow. There was a skidding sound followed by a quiet thump by her feet. She looked down and saw that a frisbee had buried itself in the sand. "Sorry!" She bent over and picked it up as a man jogged over to collect it.

"Sorry about that!" he smiled. "It almost hit you right in the head!" The man was wearing a white t-shirt that was probably three sizes too small. Over his breast, or, by the looks of him, on what he probably called his pecks was a yellow and orange sun wearing sunglasses and sipping some kind of drink from a red and white striped straw. His shorts were much too big and he was bare-footed.

"No apology is necessary," she smiled back to him, passing over the frisbee.

"Woah," he said, holding up his hands. "Woah, no way," he was shaking his head. "No way, Jose."

Maenad frowned, withdrawing the frisbee to her side. "Excuse me?"

"Dude," he exclaimed. "You know how it is; whoever picks it up's gotta throw it to the next guy."

With a laugh Maenad rolled her eyes, but they were hidden behind her sunglasses. "Very funny," she held it back up to him.

"No joke, babe," he said, starting to walk away. "I'll go long. I bet you got a wicked throw," he smiled at her, and then winked.

Babe? A Wink? Maenad's smile hung for a moment before fading away into an unimpressed line. "Take your frisbee," she insisted.

"Dude, I just--"

"Okay, don't call me dude," Maenad was starting to get short with him. What was wrong with this man, she didn't know.

"Well, babe, if I knew your name then I wouldn't have t--"

"And don't call me babe, either," she snapped. "Now, just take it,"

The man sighed heavily. "Listen, I told you; the frisbee code dictates that the frisbee must be passed among players by throwing only," he made a gesture like he was tossing the frisbee back to his other friends, who were starting to call for him... Steve-O they were shouting.

"There is no frisbee code," Maenad said dryly. She took off her sunglasses to narrow her eyes at him. She just wanted to leave.

The man shrugged. "It's out of my hands," he said. "No pun intended," then he erupted into laughter. "Get it, babe?"

Maenad nodded her head a few times to herself, realising that 'Steve-O' probably needed new friends. She wasn't going to be one of them. With all of her strength, she wound back her arm and released the frisbee forward in the opposite direction. It rose high and it glided beautifully, but it would land maybe fifty to a hundred metres away. "Don't call me that," she said, then put her sunglasses back on. Meanwhile, Steve-O's face turned from smug to betrayed, like a beaten dog or something. He didn't say anything, but just ran off in the direction she'd thrown it.

It was then that Maenad spotted Kiri heading in her direction, walking toward the water. "Hi Miss Cho," Maenad smiled as she intercepted her.

Somehow the small woman seemed to stalk angrily for a moment before smiling at Maenad's greeting. Coming to a stop Kiri meekly raised her hand, "Good Afternoon sir." She was still covered almost entirely in black bar her hands, feet, neck and face and that was swaddled in a large silky blue wrap. Swallowing a yawn that almost made her throw up she wobbled slightly before deciding that walking on would be better, changing course to meet the other woman. Sunglasses, Kiri didn't own any, should she? It would cover up how tired she was, maybe.

"How have you been? You must be awfully hot in that," she smiled, forgetting the fact that she was wearing a long dress herself, and a cardigan. Her dress, though, was nearly see-through and the cardigan was made of a very thin fabric, but still.

"Yes," Kiri nodded. That was the reason she had come down to the water yet so far it had only made her hotter. Maybe she should have worn a long robe like Sellen would have done. That might just make her stand out more though. Being too odd wouldn't help her make friends, at least that had been the thought, "I am okay, a little tired though." She might well have broken a record for understatement there.

"The sun will do that to you," Maenad told her, like she didn't know already. "I think I'm starting to burn," she thought aloud.

"I have some sun cream if you would like," It helped counteract and heal the damaged skin as well as block the sun, it just smelled rather chemically.

"I'm actually coated with two layers already," Maenad sighed. "So, what have you been doing all day?

Not a lot true be told, she'd squandered time not working but not really making social progress either. Forcing a smile Kiri recounted, "I got early and," Best not seem too childish, taking of running and playing by herself, "Played a game with Crewman Athlen and Lieutenant Liyar, I met a few new people," Most of which worried her or confused her. Then there was the crab and then what had she done all afternoon, just sat and wasted the day. "That is about it," She added negatively, "How have you been?"

"Fine," Maenad said. "I spent most of the afternoon with Liyar," she told Kiri. "What game did you play with him and Athlen?"

"Um, Pid-nahk I think he said, or it might have been shaya-zehl, it wasn't exactly clear," Kiri rubbed her wrists she should have known really, "I also played a game of Tri-chess with him as well."

Maenad knew very little of Vulcan games, so she didn't even try to guess which Kiri had played. 3D chess, though, she was quite familiar with. "Did you win?" she asked her.

"Yes, I did," She blushed and looked fairly modest, "But I was just lucky."

"Congratulations," she beamed. She didn't know whether she was lucky or not; Vulcans tended to dominate chess. "Somehow I doubt Liyar would have let you be just lucky, Miss Cho," Maenad told her. But, she thought, Liyar did seem more pleasant today than he usually did. He made an uncanny drinking companion, that she never in a million years would have thought possible.

That made Kiri smile, Liyar did say he didn't play chess very much and the way they were playing it in the sand was rather complicated. Never the less it was nice to have a compliment from Maenad, it helped her feel much better about herself. Clenching her eyes for a moment she shifted course to walk slowly closer to the sea, "What did you do with Liyar?" It was prying but what else was there to talk about other than work?

"Oh, we, uh," Maenad fidgeted. "You probably can't tell," she said "But we spent an hour or two at the bar. I guess he was feeling sour after your win," she nudged her jokingly.

"Oh," Kiri looked surprised before flinching into worry, "Have you been drinking then?" She got the joke but didn't find it funny, even if it was unlikely she didn't like the idea of someone being unhappy to lose to her.

"Yes," she admitted. "But you might be surprised to learn that, despite my physique, I can hold it quite well. I would trust myself to fly a shuttle, even," she said with a little bounce to her words. While it was true that Maenad could hold her liquor quite well, and she showed few outward signs of intoxication, she tended to say things that she normally wouldn't, and she seemed infinitely more pleased with everything. That, and her confidence was usually higher. The fact that she had nudged Kiri was, to someone that knew her quite well, a sign that she had been drinking - but to someone like Kiri, it probably just seemed odd. She had had three or four doubles of Tom Collins with Liyar, but that had been more than an hour ago. If a doctor were to judge her condition, she might be called 'buzzed', but she really felt and looked totally fine.

Kiri didn't have the same trust that she could fly a shuttle having drunken anything like that but she didn't say so. Instead she just remarked, "I can't, not really," Somehow ashamed of it. She didn't drink on her own choice but sometimes when it was put in front of her she did. She didn't like the taste though neither did she like the fact that it tended to make her feel very upset. To that end she had never been drunk nor had more than two glasses of anything. There wasn't that much understanding for why anyone would want to put themselves through that.

"It's probably for the best, Miss Cho," Maenad told her. "I remember when I was your age," Maenad relished that she was older than a lot of people, it made her somehow feel more experienced and more of a somebody, forgetting that she was still quite young herself. When fully sober, the thought often scared her because it reminded her that she was halfway to being old, and possibly halfway to death. "I probably should have drank much less. You should be proud of yourself," she explained. "You're not prone to the vices of youth, as I was. You are focused, Miss Cho, and that is something to be celebrated, not regretted."

That was true but, "I don't think I'm very prone to youth at all," She thought that drinking was generally a bad idea, socially maybe it was okay but she never found anything she liked. As for anything else that might be a vice, she didn't really know anything about them. Sex was a concept that seemed so alien that she didn't think about it very much, first she would need to actually talk to people, to get married for that matter, right? The others though, she could take pride in that but not too much, that would be a vice too.

Other than how she acted alone Kiri had never really been a child since she forced herself to grow away from everyone her own age. So she was stuck between someone that had never really had a childhood and someone that lacked so much she could hardly be an adult, she was tired. Talking to Maenad her CO about this might well be a bad idea but her defences were crumbling, her mind abandoning them to try and just keep her upright.

"At all?" Maenad asked her, frowning. "What do you mean?"

Kiri bit her lip, she had already said too much. To leave this unexplained though, that might seem worse, reluctantly she answered, "Did you have friends when you were a child, did you play games with them?" That would at least provide her with some context as well as time to try and think of a better reply.

"Yes," Maenad laughed quietly. She was a very playful child, she remembered.

"Um, well," That was too short, it didn't give her any time for anything better than, "I didn't really." She didn't really have a friend until she was almost fourteen and even then she generally felt an outside to most of the group, they had all known each other longer. Sellen was the only one that she really felt she fitted in with and a strict Vulcan didn't provide very many childish things.

Maenad sighed. "Miss Cho, how old are you? Twenty-two, twenty-three? Not having friends when you were a kid, a decade ago isn't something that you should dwell on anymore. You have friends now, and if you consider who they are, and I happen to think I make an excellent friend myself, then you have nothing to worry about." The part where she called herself an excellent friend, she placed her hand over her heart as she said it, was the liquor talking. Maenad's modesty virtually disappeared with every drink she had. "But when you say you don't succumb to the vice of youth, that means now. I don't think children have vices, unless we're talking chocolate and candy. What don't you do that you would like to be doing, or think that you should be doing?"

Not having friends froze her emotional development, not having friends then was the reason she struggle and desired it so much now. It was a big part of what made her what she was, Kiri didn't know if she really liked that person though. Changing that thing might well have changes everything about her present state, be a person who was actually able to act like everyone else did. That lack of development meant she never had the chance to develop vices, or social virtues. It might have been nice to be popular or cool because of something silly like that. Regardless she couldn't tell Maenad what she wanted, that would be terrible. It was childish and stupid and any adult, anyone over the age of twelve would laugh at her. Even if she did think of Kiri as a friend, something that made her smile.

She made one massive childish mistake and that was the only one. She didn't drink, but maybe if she had ever gotten to go to a party. She didn't deal with relationships but maybe if anyone had ever shown her an interest. It wasn't really about childhood, Maenad had cut her down before she could explain, "Sorry, its silly I know." Then she fell quiet, pinching the inside of her lip in her teeth and stepping into the swash over a tiny wave.

Maenad shook her head to herself when Kiri wasn't looking. She was really hard to talk to, but she thought she shouldn't press her. "It's not silly," she sighed. "You just seem a little lonely to me," Maenad drooped. "There are lots of people who care about you, Kiri," she used her first name without thinking. "I know I do, that's why I keep asking you about you." As they walked in the ankle-deep water, the frill of her dress' long gauzy skirt grazed the water, but Maenad didn't really care.

That she was. It was also nice to hear someone say they cared about her as well, Brayden was the last person to say that to her. After a long silence she answered, "Thank you, that means a lot." Should she do something, she wanted to do something, what though?

Hm, thought Maenad, that entry didn't work either. She continued following Kiri, walking at her side, hoping that her own silence might urge Kiri to some opening up without the need to be prodded. Sometimes in order to get a person to talk, all it took was silence.

Kiri tried to put that line of thinking behind her, Maenad just, no it was her fault. If she was able to explain it better then it would be easy to understand, she wasn't able to do that right now. Coming to a stop in the water and hoisting up her wrap so not to get it wet Kiri started to feel a little uncomfortable. Trying to pick at the situation she asked after a long pause, "What did I do that meant you think I was a friend?" This was a puzzle that might help her make more friends, or at least feel more comfortable with it. Right now the uncomfortable part was, for someone not physical she wanted to reach out.

Maenad stopped with her, turning to face her. "Nothing," she said after a moment. Now it was Maenad's turn to be reserved. She didn't want to tell Kiri that even though they were different she somehow reminded her of herself at that age. "I don't know, Kiri. I just knew."

That was nice but it wasn't exactly useful with helping her make more friends, "Okay." She was starting to be able to repress herself more now, still to have a friend standing next to her, "Is there something you would like to do?" Being amenable seemed like the best idea to maintain and improve that.

"I like just walking," she replied, knowing that her answer wasn't particularly useful. "People just like people who are nice, usually," Maenad told her. "And I think, Kiri, that we're not unalike in many ways," she observed casually.

"Okay," Kiri made sure to start walking again, taking them back towards the shore slightly, "That is nice of you to say, thank you." Letting her wrap drop a little bit she rubbed her hands together, "I like walking with people as well." The urge was back again, unable to hold back any more Kiri let her right hand reach out a little way, parallel to Maenad's hip.

Maenad smiled and took Kiri's hand in hers, pulling her close as they walked. She did it naturally, as if she were taking a breath or another step. "I like your wrap," she said a few moments later, looking at her.

This was new, it made her rather nervous. Kiri didn't normally sweat but she was starting to feel that she would, her hands remained as cold as they almost always were. Smiling she blushed, "Thank you, I don't really like dressing like this."

"Why not?" she asked her. Maenad didn't like to, either, but she didn't think of that. "It looks nice on you."

That was a nice thing to have said but it still made her uncomfortable, "It's rather exposing." Speaking about a swimming costume that covered all but her hands, feet and neck. It still fitted tightly around her petite frame, small chest and slender legs. Her body wasn't something she wanted to show off but showing her skin was even more difficult for her.

Maenad shrugged, but didn't say anything because she understood. She caught herself from asking if any guys had come after her, but thought that Kiri might not like that. With a relaxed sigh, Maenad was enjoying the feeling of the waves against her feet and just being in Kiri's company.

[TBC]
-------

Lieutenant (JG) Kiri Cho
Assistant Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (JG) Maenad Panne
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

RSS Feed