Don’t look up into the sun it burns our eyes out

Posted on Mon Dec 6th, 2021 @ 5:58pm by Lieutenant Commander Rin
Edited on on Mon Dec 6th, 2021 @ 7:06pm

Mission: MISSION 0 - History Speaks
Location: Observation Lounge
2323 words - 4.6 OF Standard Post Measure

ON:

Settling into a paramilitary ship was a different beast altogether. It wasn't like driving your stakes into the earth or laying bricks, the shrug of work and testing the bounds and learning the routes and walking the fences to learn your neighbors. Nor the sun blazing overhead. The razor-whip of sandstorms and electrical pulses ​that charred the air in ozone, that had become common to him in Shi'kahr and which had melted into stunning humidity wafting off of the San Francisco Bay.

It was an ecosystem, diurnal, existent in flickering lights. The slow dim from day to evening to night. The clockwork shift-changes. Pressed corners, Starfleet-issue. Jet-lag was a very real phenomenon, and it might explain why Dr. Rael was out of his quarters at the crack of what would otherwise be dawn planetside.

The door to the observation lounge hissed open softly, alerting its only other occupant to an interloper-but Rael didn't seem to notice Rin as he made his way to the window, eyes unfocused, fingers wrapped around the rail as he stared out at the stars and planets shooting endlessly by. Still decked in his casual clothing; a heavy-textured sweater from Talara city in Thanar Port with streaks of gold and green blazing fiercely together through micro-filamented fragments.

Sensibly Vulcan, except the casual manner to which his sleeves were rolled at his elbow, (revealing a large quantity of tattoos and circular scars with barely-legible slashes of words and symbols through them; dark and porous and twisted)-and the fact that his pants were blue jeans. His hair was tousled, like he'd just crawled out of bed, but he didn't make an effort to smooth it down.

A noise from behind him alerted him that he wasn't alone and he turned on his heel-fast-before his eyes caught onto Rin and he offered her a smile. "Rin-my apologies, I didn't see you were in here. I hope I'm not disturbing you."

"Of course not. This is a public space."

That was all Rin felt necessary to say. But then she remembered their conversation about socializing skills, and she tried finding something to share.

"My quarters do have a window, but it's not the same as the panorama view here, even if we are mostly staring out into nothing."

Rin sighed. "See? Failure at starting conversation. My relevant experience with the multitude of things out there will go to topics that upset most people. And, no, this isn't where you need to say 'please, go on, it won't upset me.' Because the matter wasn't particularly important. It was just a failed attempt at conversation."

Rael blinked a few times and held up his hand to create a space in the silence for him to gather his thoughts. It took longer than normal, because he didn't seem all-there for a second, but he rallied fast and the gears in his mind clicked into whirring life. "I do not doubt that you have experienced many encounters similar to the ones that you just described," he validated softly. "But for the record, I thought that was a fine conversational starter. I would have inquired as to your interest in stargazing, or perhaps directed the topic to how you prefer to decorate your quarters," he laughed a little.

"It is fairly surface. I'll admit I'm not particularly interested in surface conversation myself. But most people are not me. Most people are inexperienced, and when they hear details of atrocity, it can cause limbic responses in them that result in hostility and irrational behavior. But between you and me-" he gestured across with two fingers. "I very much doubt you could say something that would shock me. It might upset me. I'm a sentient being and I have affective empathy-but I'm also highly trained in how to manage those responses, and I believe it's more important to consider you rather than focus on my own reactions. And I do have some relevant experience."

He didn't offer precise details. This wasn't therapy, and he had to walk the line very carefully, between colleague, friend and therapist. He wasn't opposed to offering a very small level of relationality, though-after all, people responded better to a counselor that they felt understood them. Rael wouldn't claim to understand it fully, there were some experiences that were unable to be replicated in anything but their very specific and narrow constraints, but he'd been friends with Hiram for a long time. These concepts were not obscure to him, at the very least.

Rin paused, unsure where to go from there. His comment of relevant experience intrigued her, but that seemed overly personal. Then again, he did share. Or, he had just offered two other topics. The first one was problematic, although he insisted it would be fine. But then he had added he might be angry with the topic, and isn't that exactly was she was trying to avoid? Then there was room decoration, a truly trivial conversation.

Damn it, conversation was hard.

"I marvel at the complexity of the universe. That it is so big and so varied and yet, ultimately, united in a balancing act: moons around planets, planets around stars, stars around galactic centers, all of those pieces holding everything together. Black holes are the great boogeyman of astrophysics, swallowing everything that approaches too close, bending the fabric of time. But without them, this galaxy would not exist. There would be no quadrants to explore. We'd be free-floating systems, if, indeed, we were able to form at all without all the forces that exist in this monstrous accretion disk spinning around a force of annihilation."

"A topic of interest to me as well," Rael murmured, listening to her with singular focus. "Black holes are some of the most mysterious structures known to exist. The Einstein-Rosen bridges theorized in the 20th century-even then, we had an inkling that things weren't always what they seem on the surface. Time travel, different universes, four-dimensional existence-it's an incredibly fascinating topic. And it calls into question the greatest of existential questions: what could have been? What if you took a left, instead of a right? I'll admit I have only a layman's knowledge of it," he laughed a bit, self-deprecating without condemnation. "What draws you to studying such phenomenon?"

"I like the patterns. For all the grandness, it can still be broken down to numbers, like a universal computer code. If you move the Earth, all the other planets will shift, and we can calculate that, easily. It's like a lot of music. Certain tones of specific frequencies played in a particular order and a particular rhythm. Some appealing, some not, but always quantifiable. You could spell a symphony in math."

"And quantifying things is important to you," Rael gathered, inclining his head. He huffed a bit through his nose, another small expression of amusement, and his gaze flicked back out the window. "I apologize-that was a bit-insufferably therapeutic," his eyes crinkle up at the corners. "Do you play any instruments?"

"I do. Violin. For myself. Apparently I used to as well. Before assimilation, I mean. A Borg playing the violin would be terrible." Rin delivered it so casually one might miss she was joking. "Do you?"

"Really? I'd expect the Borg would be great at it," Rael laughed. "You know, always have to do everything perfectly. Never miss a note," he shot a finger-gun at her. "Regrettably music is not among my repertoire. I received some lessons as a child and it was overwhelmingly agreed that I should stick to my strengths. I can dance, though!" he slid his feet back in a surprisingly adept imitation of the robot.

"I've wanted to learn how to dance. Maybe not the robot, though." She smiled. "I'm not sure I've ever heard a Vulcan laugh, where did you grow up?"

"I was raised aboard the OSS Khadri," he said easily, his tone light. The prefix said it all: Orion Syndicate. "I've lived in the vicinity of Vulcans for about twelve years now, but I haven't assimilated all that much, regrettably. My philosophy is more akin to tu-Jarok, which is more permissive with regards to emotional expression, but I believe in regulation, not denial."

She nodded, not sure where to take that.

Actually, if she just backed the conversation up a few seconds....

"Why do you regret not having assimilated much with other Vulcans?"

"I suppose I don't regret it-it's a choice I stand by even now-as much as it is regrettable that I don't find a lot of kinship with my species," he explained the difference as best as he could. "That being said, of course, I found most of the Vulcans I encountered to be very kind, if alien. But if I have to hear one more person tell me that compassion is illogical, I'll rip my eyeballs out, ugau nash-veh bath'paik Arivne," He practically grinned. This was, as Savar had advised, Rael the person and not Rael the therapist.

"Ripping your eyeballs out in order to stop hearing something is illogical," Rin replied in her best stoic Vulcan tone.

"Well, we cannot have that," Rael returned dryly. "I'll have to rip my ears off, too. I did not need them anyway." He tapped his right ear, which poked through somewhat lengthy hair, playfully.

"We tie concepts of culture too closely to genetics. My parents were human. I was originally genetically human. People assume in order to be whole I need to return to that previous state. But I'm not merely "not human." I have an identity. I'm not merely "not human." I am xB. It's why we don't say "ex-Borg." We don't define ourselves by the things we are not. We define ourselves by what we are. We share history, experience, language, all aspects of a distinct culture. It's just hard for others to comprehend because we don't have a homeworld or a government."

"I think people have a lot of irrational responses when the Borg come into the picture," Rael said softly. "They're the cause of a lot of trauma and suffering for many people-yourself included-and when topics like that get brought up, people get very reactive. They want to distance themselves from the weight of it, from the meaning. They'll insist that you need to become less Borg, and more human-something that ultimately isn't very helpful for you to hear, and it denies your agency and your wellbeing as you currently are. Do you talk to other xBs regularly?" he wondered, making it clear that he wasn't such an individual that found it distressing to talk about.

Rin frowned, trying to figure out how to convey what she meant.

"No, no, I get all that. I'm a terrifying reminder of things. But people think in order to be not Borg, I have to be human. They try to fit a Rin-shaped peg into a human-shaped hole, and they keep being surprised when it doesn't fit. I'm happy as an xB, but people have trouble seeing that as its own distinct identity. It's like calling a Bajoran human and then being surprised when they object."

"It's distinct. It's not Borg, it's not human, it's something new. You know Vulcans bond, right? Psionically." He wiggled his fingers at his temple. So far it seemed to be a totally random switch in topics, but Rael continued softly. "And we can actually quantify this. When you have two separate minds join together, it creates something new." he added, because she'd mentioned liking the numbers. "The vector space that's produced from the convergence of two minds is a Hilbert-space. (X1, X2, X3) * (Y1, Y2, Y3) is equal to X1Y1 + X2Y2 + X3Y3. Symmetry. X & Y: X*Y=Y*X. Two objects come together in one space, superimposed-those two objects are no longer distinct. They make something else."

"Then I hope you can understand. And to answer you previous question, I don't speak with them often, but I do occasionally. I didn't form a lot of bonds with my first community. A few more have left since I have. No easy way of contacting them. I know one of them has died since then."

"I'd wager you'd have more success now than when you first tried," Rael estimated. "Bonds like that, between people who struggle with the same issues, I imagine that can go one of two ways: very well, or fucking terrible." He laughed, but it was more of a warm huff in the back of his throat. He'd learned since his own reintegration into the Federation that most people found his laughter unnerving-some to the point of questioning his sanity.

She sighed. "I don't mean to drop this on you outside of our sessions. What brought you here to the observation lounge?"

"Oh, to yammer your ear off about math. Drink some haisha. Maybe watch some of my soap opera." It was a cop-out, obviously. He looked exhausted.

"Well, I can yammer about math, but, to be honest, you look like either you want to be left alone, or you need to get something off your chest."

Rael turned over what to do with that in his mind like a Rubik's cube. "I'm grateful for the company," is what he settled on, giving the railing in front of him a squeeze within his palms. "And you're more than welcome to stay," he added, his eyes crinkling in a genuine smile.

OFF:

Lieutenant Rin
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Elysium

Lieutenant JG Rael
Counselor
USS Elysium