A Rose By Any Other Name...

Posted on Wed Oct 27th, 2021 @ 4:15am by Lieutenant Myne Redal & Lieutenant Commander Rin
Edited on on Thu Dec 23rd, 2021 @ 2:34pm

Mission: Season 5: Episode 3: CAPETOWN
Location: Deck 16, Room 11W-O (Rin's quarters)
Timeline: Current
2407 words - 4.8 OF Standard Post Measure

//ON//

'Did I add enough battery cells to it?' Myne wondered as she looked back at the large plant behind her. It was taller than her, but it was only tall enough to reach the ceiling without scraping it. Because dear Rin was a former Borg drone, Myne kind of had no idea what to give her new friend as a gift. Everyone loved flowers, right, especially girls? This was her second female host so she had a strange series of memories on this topic from a different perspective. And Borg did like machinery, gadgets, and the like, right?

So Myne had spent the past few days in her cabin, gathering, stealing, and misplacing items in the inventory to do what Myne does best: tinker, build, and experiment. And hey, on the bright side, she only got zapped, burnt, and blown up only three times. Her eyebrows were still a little crispy, but hey, it worked!! What Myne had painstakingly built over sleepless nights, shown by the deep, dark circles around her eyes, was her finest work yet.

The plant was not just modular, but adaptable. It had its own power source, it had its own gravity stabilizer, making sure it would not tip over and fall no matter how large or tall its shape was. It could change colors, it would expand upwards or laterally, it could cycle flowers and leaves to different positions, it even had a system to store music and sounds in it as well.

Though in all honesty, it wasn't exactly the Myne's host creation. This was a concept that belonged to a host from two centuries ago, but it had remained in a prototype phase due to technological restraints. Myne went over the schematics and had to update it, make changes, and test with various Starfleet and other pieces of tech to make it work. The reality was she would most likely have to return to do some software updates and mechanical tweaks for a while to make sure nothing breaks down or the components do not start to glitch or conflict with each other.

Gathering up all the inner strength she could, to quiet the trembling of her hands and beating of her heart, she pressed the button to the side of the door, hearing the soft chime. Looking down at her t-shirt, her eyes admired Super Garrett trying to draw strength from her favorite superhero, starting to hum the theme song nervously.

"Enter!" Sitting on her couch, Rin looked up from the PaDD she was reading as the door slid open. And there was Myne and, well, she wasn't 100% sure what the giant thing with her was, but it definitely looked interesting.

"Hello. Um...how are you?" I mean, what else do you say when your only friend shows up with a giant robot plant?

Myne waved eagerly, nervously. "Hi there Rin!!" Entering the cabin she looked around curiously, taking in her surroundings before she remembered the plant. "Follow!" The plant, well the container/large vase thing the plant was in moved inside the cabin and stopped in the center next to Myne.

"I am, erm, decent. I think! Erm, I kinda made this for you Rin. Actually, I have no idea what Borg, well xB's like, but I thought flowers are universal, right? But I also have no idea if the Borg keep normal flowers or mechanical flowers or... do they even assimilate intelligent, sapient plant life?! No idea! But I made you a flower!!" Myne explains anxiously, choosing to simply let her mouth keep talking and talking and talking to cover up how nervous she is. Did she screw things up again? Mooooost likely...

Rin reminded herself that Myne was trying. I mean, really trying. Overthinking, but trying.

She walked over to better examine the plant, watching it respond to her presence and the colors shift over the variety of metallic surfaces.

"It's absolutely exquisite," she said, sincerely, gaze never leaving it. "Thank you. I mean, really, thank you, but....um....I'm sorry if I gave the wrong impression. I'm not interested in a romantic relationship right now."

Myne's cheeks went to a furious red all the way up her ears. Her smile turned to very very very nervous and embarrassed one as she raised her hands defensively and took a step back. "No no no no, nothing like that. Wow, no, sorry wow, no no no no no. Why do I keep saying no. Erm, crap, this sounds bad, sorry Rin. I am bad juju, really really bad and more. like I am not relationship material and anyone who thinks otherwise really needs to go talk to a counselor to fix whatever is wrong with their head."

Taking a deep breath, Myne exhaled and rubbed the back of her head and brushed some stray strands of hair aside. "I, erm, I am not good with friends, making friends, having friends or anything like that. So, I know people give each other flowers, I thought I would show that I have value and potential to be a friend so I made you this."

Desperate to stop digging her hole even deeper she continued. "You know what, ignore me, just give it orders. Tell it where you want it to go, what colors you want, what kind of plant you want it to be. I programmed the subroutine to respond to your voice so it should only take commands from me and you."

She gently led Myne farther into the room. "You don't need to prove yourself being worthy of a friend. If I needed that, I wouldn't be a very good friend. It's a lovely gesture, Myne. Thank you. Can I get you something? Tea? Soda? something to calm your nerves?"

"Erm, okay." Myne replied fidgeting with her fingers and letting Rin lead her further in. "Can I have a Ferengi Black Hole? That usually helps me calm down. So do you... really like the plant? I made it as modular as I could, like a hundred or a thousand potential flowers all rolled into one. And it will never wilt, nor do you need to water it!"

"Computer, one Ferengi black hole, one hot oolong tea." Rin took the drinks from the replicator, handing one to Myne. "I really do like it. I promise."

She looked to the plant. "Reduce size 50%." The plant's pieces folded around itself into a more compact display, so that now it was more like a large bush than a small tree. She directed it into a bare corner of the room.

The room was minimalist but not necessarily sparse. An actual potted plant sat on the window sill, a hearty thing with thick stems, tiny, dark red flowers and iridescent purple leaves. Several holographic pictures were on display. A battered, antique communicator badge sat on her desk embedded in a block of acrylic. A ceremonial blade hung on the wall behind it.

Accepting the drink, Myne sipped from it and closed her eyes for a moment, savoring the flavor. "You have a lovely cabin Rin. I like it, it is not clouded with stuff. Might be a bit decorated than mine though. Oh... erm, can I ask what is the blade on the wall for? Or the significance behind it?" Looking around some more she saw the badge too. "Is that, what is that actually?" She pointed at the badge.

Rin picked up the acrylic block and handed it for Myne to examine. "That was the first communicator assigned to me, back in 2361, after I graduated from the Academy. It was under my implants. The Borg technology had just grown over it, so I had carried it around the whole damn time. Took me years to find out what that symbol meant, because I escaped far outside Federation space, but that was how I found my way back here."

The Trill didn't touch it, actually, she actively avoided touching the precious item. She even avoided breathing over it, instead being happy to look at it and admire it carefully from a safe distance instead. "Wow, it really does look like it has been through a lot. You should take great care of it Rin. I believe this counts as a very lucky charm. Those are hard to come by you know."

"Don't know about luck, but I wouldn't be here without it, so it's earned itself a prominent spot."

Rin set it back down on the desk and looked toward the short sword. "Before I found the Federation I was part of the retinue for a high placed official on the world of Tavara. That was a mark of my position."

"Well, it kept you alive and brought you back, did it not? I think that counts as lucky." Myne says sagely and turns to look at the sword as well. "Tavara? I am sorry, I have never heard of it. Would you tell me about your world? Is it a nice place to live? Also, it sounds kind of awesome thinking of you as a valiant warrior and knight."

"It's the closest thing I have to a homeworld. Most of it is incompatible with humanoid life, but the parts which are inhabitable are beautiful, although I can appreciate that more now than when I was there. It's an isolated world. Beta quardrant, approaching the galactic core, other side of the Romulan Empire. Mostly keeps to itself."

"It does sound lovely. A mixed blessing, both the beauty and the danger. I think it sounds like a place that would give the galaxy wonderful warrior poets. Bred by a hard place and also inspired by the beauty that is so precious." Myne says dreamily, trying to imagine the place in her mind and sipping from the Black Hole drink.

Rin decided not to deter Myne's romantic notions. No point in clarifying her life was nothing like the valiant knight Myne had already envisioned, or bringing up her work as a bodyguard in a culture that tended toward assassination, or how alien she had felt there, of how limited her life had been, or how part of her worth was simply her ability to survive the climate.

And she definitely was not going to paint a mental picture of a Borg graveyard in the middle of one of the great deserts, where a ship of half-mad drones had crashed and tore each other apart, cannibalizing the losers for parts.

Nor the screaming. She wasn't going to tell Myne about the screaming either.

Instead, Rin replicated a small, blue plant pot and took it over to her real plant, putting on gardening gloves. She scooped some of the sandy dirt into the little pot, then started trimming off a portion of the plant, down to the roots, and planted that fragment into the pot, carefully but firmly pushing the soil down around the stem to anchor it.

All this time, she explained bits of Tavara: the climate, the six moons, the degenerating ring which caused particles to regularly shower down on the planet, mostly burning up in the atmosphere but periodically turning into meteor strikes.

She carried the little pot back to Myne and offered it to her. "For you. It's the first thing I aesthetically appreciated. I saw this flower in the desert and it fascinated me, and it fascinated me that I was fascinated, because it was of no use to me, it had no purpose, but it still...appealed. It became a focus. It reminded me that life was about more than functionality, even if I wasn't sure what that "more" was. It's a rin shrub. Careful, the leaves are sharp."

Myne listened rapt with curiosity and wonder. Her eyes wide and her ears perked as Rin worked on the plant. Of course she could not help gasp at the idea of six moons, nor pester Rin with questions about how they orbited the planet, how they looked, how much light they gave at night and so on. The ring around the planet and the meteor showers really had Myne most impressed, her mind racing to build an imaginary view that was truly romantic and beautiful.

Looking at the offered flower she reached out with slightly shivering hands to accept it. "Thank you Rin. It looks really beautiful." Taking the advice of not touching the leaves, Myne looked up at her friend. "Wait, rin shrub? Did you take your name after this plant? If so, that truly is sweet. Thank you for telling me about your homeworld Rin, I am really really really happy you accepted to be my friend."

"Seemed as good a name as any," Rin answered, nodding. "You deserve friends. You don't need to buy them. You don't need to prove yourself worthy of them. Does your symbiote not tell you that?"

There's a moment where Myne visibly glitched at the mention of her symbiont. Her right eye twitched while the left corner of her smile trembled slightly. But she did catch herself, restoring her happy smile, and nodded. "Yes, of course, he does. I meant told me, yes totally. Hehehe, I am just such an airhead I must have forgotten." Said the Trill with the memories of several lifetimes inside of her. "Yeah, you are right, thank you Rin again, this is a wonderful gift."

Rin openly studied Myne's face, trying to understand what had just happened. Clearly, the topic hit a nerve, but she had no idea on the specifics. And then Myne waved it away and Rin let it rest for the moment.

"Well, I should go back now. I don't want to overstay my welcome. Need to clean my cabin anyway. I guess, erm, I will see you around? Do tell me if you ever want company to just talk and stuff." Myne said timidly as she was ready to more or less bolt just in case Rin wanted to talk more about Redal.

"Alright, I will. Thank you." Rin walked Myne to the door, watching her face for any further clue what was going on, but never catching any.

It was probably nothing, probably just Myne's typical flightiness, right?

Right?

As Myne left and the door closed, Rin dropped down into the seat behind her desk. "Computer, bring up information on the Redal symbiote."

//OFF//

Lieutenant Rin
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Elysium

Lieutenant JG Myne Redal
Assistant Chief Operations Officer
USS Elysium