The Audience

Posted on Fri Mar 25th, 2022 @ 8:23pm by High Priestess An'Dalus & Sovereign T'handu & Lieutenant JG Miraj Derani

Mission: Season 5: Interlude: Darkness Abounds
Location: Ambassador An'Dalus' quarters
Timeline: MD02 1930
3124 words - 6.2 OF Standard Post Measure

Miraj followed T'handu through Elysium, letting the thrum of Elysium beneath her bare foot soothe her nerves. She remembered the conversation about her hair that had got very personal, and a sudden panic gripped her, maybe she should have S'hib here, just in case she offended them by not saying the right thing, or something.

"May I ask a question?" T'han asked, turning somewhat to glance at Miraj. his tone was polite but reserved... as if expecting the request to be denied.

"Sure."

His ears perked at her response, as did his tail. lifting slighting as they continued walking. "I have noticed everyone contains their feet with a hard material, but you do not... why is this?"

Miraj looked down at her toes, the nails painted in a mix of pastel shades. "I like to feel the ship. I can tell how she feels, how hard she's working, if anythings wrong. It's easiest with no clothes on, but people look at you funny, so I normally just go barefoot. But I'm supposed to wear boots on duty."

“I have experienced many of those funny looks, even while clothed… though perhaps the crew just needs more time to adjust to our presence.” T’han sighed, reaching the door to the VIP quarters.

Miraj wondered how to phrase it so not to give offence. And gave up. "A bit more time I think. Most people will adjust. its just... different from what we're used to seeing. Or not seeing."

“Perhaps you’re right…” T’han replied, shrugging his shoulders in indifference as the door opened. “High priestess, I have returned.” He called out as he stepped inside.

“And what did she say?” Anne called out from the far side of the room, tending to the many plants that had started filling their quarters. “Oh.” She added once she had turned, instantly spotting the bright-haired ensign.

“T’handu… you did explain to her that it wasn’t urgent…” She frowned, glaring at the young Sequus whose ears had already folded back.

“Yes, Mistress. Miraj insisted on coming back with me…”

“Well, go get us some drinks and let the poor girl in,” Anne snapped back, her scolding tone reverberating around the room. “your tail is blocking the door!”

T’han simply bowed and hurried off, leaving Miraj standing inside the small cradle that kept the vibrant red sand back from the corridor.

“Come come… make yourself comfortable.” Anne insisted, beckoning Miraj over with a gentle wave of her hand.

"Yes, Ma'am," Miraj obeyed instinctively, not wanting to incur the same irritation her guard had just endured. The sand was warm underfoot and she scrunched her toes into it. She was relieved to see that the Priestess wasn't nude, having wrapped herself in some sort of ornate long wrap that wound around her, establishing far more modesty than T'han had managed. She looked around, for somewhere to sit, and not seeing anything in particular, she settled herself down on the sand, crossing her legs and hoping nothing got stuck in her tights. "You wanted to see me, ma'am?"

“I did, wasn’t expecting you to come so soon but it's not a problem,” Anne replied as she gently padded over, her hooves thumping in the deep red sand. “He did tell you there was no rush right?” She added as she stopped just shy of Miraj and sat down in a similar fashion to how T’handu had earlier, a motion clearly practiced countless times. “He is young and new you see… easily distracted.”

Her eyes floated over Miraj to T’han in the background, reminding him not to stare as his attention snapped back to what he was supposed to be doing.

He hadn't told her. She hadn't really given him a chance, too busy babbling questions at him. "It's going to get really really busy around here for the next few days." She wasn't sure how much she could say of the briefing earlier that day. "This is probably the last time off I'm getting for some time."

“Ah, Yes. I was made aware of upcoming events by your Commander S’hib,” Anne said as though the very topic bored her immensely. “But, that is not why you’re here, so let's not sully the mood.” She snorted, giving Miraj a gentle bow that did nothing but emphasise that this was no request.

"No ma'am." Miraj decided agreeing was safest. "So what would you like to talk about? Your guard said something about S'hib?"

"Mm... I wanted to talk about you, but. more specifically, the rest of the crew. I need to get to know everyone and you are far more familiar with my kind, so I thought you would be a good..." Anne paused for a moment, waving her hands as if trying to waft the word into existence. "Vessel... of sorts." She added, finding herself hunching over to be more level with the much smaller humanoid.

"Especially since you are so young and unassuming, I imagine you to be well-liked and privy to many ears..." The priestess said, her words soft and dripped in honey despite being sincere.

"Would you like me to get anything else?" T'handu interjected with a hushed tone as he knelt down, placing an ornamental try down beside the two, its curved legs keeping it high off the sand.

"Not for the moment, thank you." Anne replied, waving him away before reaching down to the steaming porcelain pot.

Miraj wasn't sure the Sequus woman's assessment of her was correct. Commander Vaii absolutely hated her. And she got on okay with the other junior officers, mostly. She was in a weird position. To low ranked for the other senior staff to bother talking to, but too highly positioned for the junior staff to be properly comfortable. "I know a lot of people," she said eventually. "I don't know I'm privy to ears though."

"Knowing people is all I require of you my dear... tea?" Anne asked, moving the spout of the pot over a small but thick bowl.

"thank-you ma'am." Miraj wasn't sure she knew anyone either, not knew-knew them. But the ambassador would figure that out quickly enough. Beneath her, the ship buzzed, the thick layer of sand laid on the deck plating magnifying the sensations rather than muffling them. She felt a bit like she was tip-toeing across a minefield, waiting for something to blow up in her face and even that comforting rumble wasn't helping. "Who would you like to talk about?" Please don't say Colonel Azhul.

"There are a few that come to mind..." She replied cryptically as she gently poured the dark red fluid, the gentle stream of steam rising from both cups fluttering the rich and fruity flavour into the air.

"You and S'hib for example, I was surprised to learn that despite the obvious love he has for you it is purely platonic... instead of pursuing you to be part of his herd he is engaging in monogamy with another none Sequus." She concluded, sounding almost offended if she wasn't genuinely impressed at his constraint to wrestle in his own culture.

Sink me Miraj thought. "Of course he is." She began, determined to defend S'hib. "He's head over heels about Colonel Azhul, doesn't even look at anyone else. And she thinks the world shines out of his.. uh... hooves."

“Mmm.” Anne agreed while sipping at her fruit tea, savouring its sweetness for a moment. “Might as that may be, however.” She started, slowly resting the cup in the palms of her hands, settling it between her legs and letting the steam rise up against her.

“Your bond is far more than some mere friendship.” She added softly, a gentle smile on her face.

"Well, yes." Miraj started to twist her fingers in the end of her bunches. "He's like another brother. He'll play pirates with me, and he's funny and kind." She missed her older brother so, so, much. He'd grown up and left home, and even though he kept coming back, there was a Mal-shaped hole in her soul. And going to the Academy had just made that hole deeper and deeper, and then S'hib had volunteered to join her in the holodeck and it had eased her heart.

"And I know he misses his family, and I can't be a whole herd for him, but I can try. He looks after me, and I look after him. We... fill each other's holes."

“Little filly… my dear, you already are his herd,” Anne replied, amusement in her words as her smile grew. “The size of it means very little in this case.”

"I know." Miraj looked down, fed the sectioned net through her hands. "But I think he'd like a bigger herd. He's used to more people than just two, it's not quite the same."

“No… it’s not.” Anne agreed, her tone appreciated the sadness of the topic. “But, as a child of two worlds that is something he has come to terms with.” She added with an encouraging smile. “He will, of course, find others… eventually… those he can love at arms length without harming the heart of his dearest.”

The Priestess fell silent after this, taking time to slowly sip at her tea while letting her words sink in.

"I'm sure he will. Everyone loves S'hib." which was true. She didn't know of anyone who didn't like the security officer. Miraj reached out for her own teacup, trusting it would now be cool enough to handle. "Is there anyone else you'd like to talk about?"

"His mate, the Colonel... For while I don't object to their relationship... I am duty-bound to see that she is worthy of having a stally such as Commander S'hib all to herself."

Miraj kept her eyes on her tea. If the Ambassador thought that was going to go down well, she was going to get a rude awakening. "I don't think S'hib will thank you for that," she said.

"Little filly, I'm not the villain here. If he had never left Sequella... it would be expected of him to have sired many children with many different mares by now." Anne retorted, her words firm despite understanding what Miraj was getting at.

"However, he is here... something other priestesses and heard mothers are against... they wish to recall him and I have the power to do so." She said, shrugging with indifference to her own statement

Miraj gasped, her teacup falling from her fingers, bouncing on the sanded floor before her and slopped the red hot liquid over her legs and she squealed with the sudden pain, though she'd be hard-pressed to say if that was near boiling water or the thought of losing S'hib that did it.

“Oh!” Anne snorted in panic as she quickly placed her cup down on the tray to her right. “My dear, hold still…” She added quickly, her voice motherly but commanding as she scooped a handful of sand and gently poured it over Miraj’s legs. “This is going to feel cold.”

With this she closed her eyes, keeping the palm of her hand above the burn until a few moments had passed. “There we go.” She smiled, pulling back and slowly opening her eyes.

Miraj shivered as a ripple of ice ran through her burning ankle, the frigid sting buried the burning rasp in her nerves, and then both pains faded. She peeled up the ankle of her leggings, expecting at least a red mark if not a full blown scar, but there was only cream pale skin, smooth and unblemished. "Blow me down!"

"Is everything alright Mistress?" T'handu asked with concern, bowing from a polite distance.

"Yes, she will be fine... nothing a little essence transfer couldn't fix." Anne remarked as she gently gathered the spilt cup and placed it on the tray.

"How did you do that?" Miraj breathed, prodding at her leg, fascinated.

“Hm?” Anne replied as though it should be obvious, obvious to a Sequus she quickly realised. “Oh, right. yes. you’re… not used to magic.” She stated more as an open thought than an answer, pausing to sip at her tea

There was no such thing as magic, she knew that. She knew there was telepathy and telekinesis and technology that looked like magic, except when you let the engineers talk about it they started using words like quantum entanglement and Heisenberg frequency synesthetics and her eyes glazed over and her brain went back to thinking about flying. "It probably has a technical term here. An engineer could tell you."

“The technicalterm is Essence transfer.” Anne snorted firmly. “And I assure you, little filly… there is no scan or technology aboard this vessel that can define the life magic practised by the mortuary cult.”

Miraj doubted that very much. Elysium was the current pinnacle of technology and just packed with sensors. But it would be rude to contradict a foreign dignitary. She wasn't really sure she wanted to go down this road. "Soooo. you said you wanted to braid my hair?"

"Well, actually. now that you mention it," Anne said as her eyes lit up. "This will be good practice for the wedding..."

Miraj tried to imagine Colonel Azul's hair in braids. IT seemed wrong for the hardened warrior to be in something so soft. She'd have to ask S'hib how well that conversation went when it happened. Keeping her smirk to herself, she held up the small net attached to the hairband. "You'll have to give me a second, I've not got the longest hair at the moment." And while her bunches were not short, her hair only hung just past her shoulders. She guessed that the Ambassador would want a lot more to play with, being more used to tails than people.

She pulled the ties out of bunches and gathered all her hair up into a loose twist to get it inside the net, settling the sectioned hair band it was attached to into the right position, and switched on the follicle stimulator. "Shiver me timbers, this is the weirdest feeling." She could literally feel her hair growing through her scalp, like an army of ants marching out of every pore. She could feel the weight of her hair in the net as well. She may not have the thickest hair in the worl, but after a minute or two, there was more than enough.

When the device reached terminal length, it turned itself off, and Miraj pulled the net off, letting her new hair, shining and pink, cascade out of the loose knot and cascade down to her hips. "All yours."

The Priestess didn't say anything at first, struggling to understand what she had just seen as her head hung to one side. "Hm." was the only sound she made, and at a slightly higher pitch than she meant it to be.

"That is most certainly a rather... interesting device, to say the least." She added, too busy admiring the mane Miraj had just grown to notice T'handu doing the same.

Miraj shifted round in the sand so her back, and hair, was facing the other woman. "I don't use it very often. It feels weird, and I don't like it that long. Its a pain to keep tidy enough for regulations. But every so often I need something longer for the holodeck, so out it comes. I can always chop it off again later."

Anne visibly winced at this, taking a moment to gather herself. For while she fully understood the cultural practices of many off worlders, the casualness of demaning still struck her just as hard as the first time she learned of their ways.

"You probably don't know this, but... cutting off such large quantities of hair is rather taboo on Sequella, usually reserved for severe punishments." The Priestess said as she began to idly run her eight digits through the long pink curls.

"Yet you do it all the time..." She laughed at this, slowly parting strands of pink hair between her fingers before continuing. "which I must admit I find amusing, as well as terrifying."

Miraj sat very still in the sand. When she was very little her father and brother had occasionally put her hair into plaits. And then she'd gotten older and was expected to do her own hair and she'd never had the dexterity or the patience to learn to plait her own, so she'd stayed in bunches since she was seven years old. And if she needed anything more complicated that single three strand plait, she got a wig. It had been a very long time since anyone had touched her hair with care. "S'hib cut his hair off once. For stuff that happened. But no-one thinks it was his fault, so I don't think people here really understand."

"No, I don't suppose they would... you see on my world, to be demaned is second only to a death sentence. Something that is so rare I can't recall the last time it happened." Anne said with a sombre tone, the weight of the topic not lost on her translated words.

"Regardless, it is a punishment that is seen by everyone... exiling you to a torturous and lonely existence until it regrows, if it is allowed to regrow at all... in which case the poor soul is normally given the opportunity to be banished into the Red Sea... so they may die with dignity." She finished, her words dark and stemming more from memory than simple fact

Miraj didn't think dieing alone and away from the people who loved you was very dignified. So she focused on the rhythmic soothing tugs on her hair as An'Dalus worked. If she wasn't careful she'd drift off like this, head resting on drawn up knees. "He didn't need to do it. Other S'hib wasn't his fault. And I know he thinks it was an awful choice. But I don't. I was proud of him. He kept to the code."

"Head up." Anne snorted, gently tugging the many lengths of entwined hair carefully wrapped around the digits on one hand. "He is from what I've seen a man of his word, stubborn even for a Sequus..."

"Stubborn?" Miraj had never seen him being stubborn. "No. He's a complete softie."

"I imagine he is with you..." Anne smirked as she overlapped pink lengths of hair into intricate patterns. "Just as he will be with his child." She added, sounding more as a statement of fact than anything hypothetical.

Miraj's eyes went wide as she blurted out in disbelief, "His what?"