Surprise visit

Posted on Fri Mar 24th, 2023 @ 4:52am by Lieutenant JG Miraj Derani & Sovereign T'handu

Mission: MISSION 0 - History Speaks
Location: Surface of Class P Planet
Timeline: Episode 1, MD 17 2030 (Back post)
2754 words - 5.5 OF Standard Post Measure

T'han stomped through the snow that had fallen over the camp, a weird sensation compared to the sand he was accustomed to.

And the cold was something else, forcing him under the warmth of a large thick poncho that he gripped tightly against himself.

"Think it's this one... seven tents down." He mused, glancing back, flicking ice-specked mane out of his eyes.

"Miraj?" he questioned, leaning down and tapping on the exterior of the tent. "Is this tent yours?" He added, his thick native accent carrying itself inside.

Miraj was huddled in her bed, fully dressed, hating the cold, and unwilling to brave it to find warmer quarters. She still had an hours or so before she had to begin the next wave of feryying people up to Ely. She wasn't expecting company. Even though she nominally shared it with Lietenatn Morrison, Carly had shown no interest in sharing space with her and she was left trying to heat a space meant for two with just her own resources and it wasn't enough.

T'han's voice was one she hadn't expected to hear at ll. "Uh, yes." She contemplated getting out of bed, but was just too cold.

"May I come inside? I uhh... I don't know anyone else and Mistress An'Dalus has asked for some privacy."

"Oh. erm, yes. But its a bit cold in here. You might regret that."

Though the air the rushed over his face when he parted the padded sheets was cool, it was still far warmer than the chill of the open air he had been wondering around in.

“Cold or not, its the company I am after…” T’han smiled sheepishly as he quickly stepped inside, his awkward and tall frame ill suited for the far shorter structure.

“I trust you are well?” He continued as he knelt and sat down, his hot breath condensing inside the cool air and slowly steaming from both nostrils.

"Cold" and to emphasise the point her teeth chattered for a moment. "You and the ambassador must be freezing. Isn't sequella supposed to be hot?"

“It is,” T’han said fondly, already imagining the red sand beneath his hooves. “Most of it anyway… though it is a lot colder towards the end of the tropical months, it rains for weeks on end.”

He sighed happily, staring at her from behind loose mane still covered in frost. “You don't seem too used to the cold either?”

"Born in space." She replied. "Live in space. Work in space. Everything is climate controlled, constant and filtered. Don't do heat. Don't do cold." She shivered again, and contemplated stealing Carly's blankets. She obviously wasn't using them. But she didn't want the fight if Carly did show up. "I'm going to start sleeping on Ely. Queen Anne has central heating."

“Its the humidity i miss the most…” T’han replied, he could tell Miraj was cold, watching her eye up the other blankets. “The air is very dry aboard your starship, and even more so down here…”

“But its not so bad, the herd is still together and that is what matters the most.” He said proudly as he sat up, feeling far warmer now. “But that does not mean you should still be cold...”

Then without saying another word he lifted the thick poncho off and over his long neck, shaking it free of ice that had melted into droplets of water before shuffling over and casting it over her bedding as an improvised blanket.

"No, T'han, you need that, its too cold!" Miraj protested feebly, making absolutely zero moves to throw it off or pass it back.

“I am warm enough in your company…” He smiled, tugging the Poncho further up before sitting back down beside her. “Though i may have to enquire about what clothing is available…” He mused as he folded his legs, brushing snow and ice off his hooves before looking back over at Miraj.

She wasn't looking. Just in case. She was miserable enough without having to deal with naked sequus. "The EVA suits have heaters in them. If you go to one of the Danube classes, they should be able to make a sequus sized one for you. Maybe ask Lieutenant Gregory. He's in fabrication. He'd be good at helping."

"Oh... no, I wouldn't want to trouble anyone... you all have enough to deal with." He sighed, still idly picking at his hooves. "Besides," He added suddenly excited as he looked up.

"I found thicker fabric to wrap myself in, what do you think?" T'han asked, sitting up straight with his arms wide open to show off the thick panels of greyish-brown linen that were wrapped around his prominent frame.

He looked like all the other wounded in the Runabout, wrapped in bandages with hair sticking out through gaps. Still, he had at least tried to make it look fashionable, with little trinkets and accessories hanging in abundance.

"It's just like the way S'hib showed me how to dress, just a lot warmer thankfully."

Miraj risked a peek, and realised it was perfectly safe. He was probably wearing more clothing than he'd ever had to in his life. "Very pretty. Not sure grey is your colour though? Have you ever thought about something brighter?"

A puzzled sound left his lips as he looked down at himself. "I didn't really think about it at the time, but I uhh... I like blue."

"Blue is good. You can match it with turquoise and orange. it would really pop!"

His eyes lit up at this, finding himself scooting closer to her makeshift bed. "Back home we used to use a lot of complimentary body paints, o... o-obviously everyone was a little bit different because of our coats... but I never really thought of clothing being like that."

"Most species do things with their clothes. In some cases, they get really detailed. Like, if you were part of an out group, or a secret society, you might have subtle things that they used to recognise each other. And there's plenty of examples about identity. When LCARS comes back up, you need to search for goths, beaus, macaronis, flappers and punks. lots of different styles."

He sat there, staring at her with wide eyes, listening to every word and burning it to memory. "From what I've experienced your kind tends to assume we don't have a personal identity... we all look the same, is what I've heard mistress An'dalus say."

He paused, looking a little dejected from the fact. "But It's probably because you look away so quickly, even you did earlier when I gave you this..." He paused, clearing his throat.

"Phh... Pohhnchu." T'han snorted, trying to speak the Terran word in his natural tongue before turning and smiling at Miraj.

Miraj groaned. How did she explain it. "It's not you all look alike," she began, picking her words like she was stepping through a minefield. "It's that you... that we...I don't...." She buried her head under the blankets as if it could make the whole conversation go away. "we're not supposed to see naked people. Or look at naked people. Naked is for very specific occasions that are absolutely not in public, and you and S'hib. Well, I'm used to you forgetting., and I don't want to see by accident because its .... not done"

He was silent for a moment, his eyes looking down at the side of her bed in deep thought. another moment went by before a slight gasp left his lips as realisation struck him in the back of the head like a stray hoof. "Oh!" he exhaled at the tail end of the gasp.

"That explains a lot... n-not that it's a bad thing," He quickly added, ears pinning back out of defensive reflex. "just that... you're reactions had been more visceral than others when mistress and myself first came aboard."

Silence crept in again alongside the cold as he found himself staring at her.

"But, what I was going to say... is we all look the same because you don't know how to read us... like this for example." He exclaimed excitedly, gripping one of many knotted and decorative braids in his mane.

"We call these Manedu, every Sequus has them and where they are worn signifies very specific things... this one, for example, is to show my bondage to a priestess of the mortuary cult... this," He continued, a stubbed hoofed digit moving to another dreadlock. "This my mother's mane, and the beads her status in our society."

His hands fell back to his lap, cupped inside one another.

"With a quick glance, people know who I am, what I do... like your uniforms but more... social."

Miraj couldn't help herself, and sniggered like a thirteen year old boy when T'han mentioned bondage, then clapped her hand over her mouth, remembering the horrible conversation she'd had with him on their flight across the Russian Steppe, and her stomach twisted.

“Whats so funny?” T’han demanded behind a frown that was clearly doing its best at hiding a smile.

Miraj curled up a bit more with guilt. "Nothing, nothing at all," her voice was low, heavy with sadness at her thoughtlessness. She glanced at the beads woven into his mane just behind his ears. The thin matted strand of chestnut hair was embedded with a series of pretty beads, a couple made from a glimmering crystal, others were pale. Bone? she wondered, deeply etched with a graphic pattern, and others seemed to be smooth dark wood, one topped a pair of small white feathers, another was flanked with smaller round beads in shades of red. It seemed too eclectic, too mixed to signify anything to her. It looked more like a collection of stories, the tale of a life.

"So, what does your mama do? I don't know what those beads mean."

"She's a priestess... I, like most sovereigns, are born in service of the mortuary cult... and any sisters I have would be inducted as acolytes, eventually, if they are skilled enough they may become fully fledged priestesses."

While he spoke he untangled his mane, singling out the braid in question and tilting his head closer to Miraj. "The topmost bead shows where on Sequella we are from, where we were born... hers is yellow as is mine because we were born in Ba'fan, our capital province."

He then scooted closer, leaning against her bead with his head tilted down close enough for her to touch and see the finer details.

"The next one," T'han continued, holding the more rectangular ivory-coloured piece between his fingers. "signifies her role in our society. We use bone for this as the mortuary cult tends to the needs of the living as well as the dead, and yes it is Sequus bone."

"Eww," she said, but with enthusiasm rather than any disgust. She wiggled a bit to get a closer look without getting out of her cocoon. "Do you know whose?"

"My great grandmare, she was a priestess too... well-liked and loved, or so I'm told, she was gone before my time."

"That is so weird. Do you like, extract it at the time, or do you wait, you know, for her to go... squelchy."

T'han sniggered at this, his top lip curling in amusement at her naivety. "No, we drain the deceased of any fluids... dry them out essentially, the sand mites do the rest. all that's left in the end is bone."

Miraj reached out and pulled the bead closer to look at it, oblivious to the fact it was still attached. "And are these markings meaningful or something? Or are they just to look pretty?"

T'han blinked as he was tugged closer, her question lingering for a moment as he slowly looked towards her, inadvertently pressing the side of his long face against her forearm. "You saying I look pretty?"

Miraj dropped the grandma-bone bead like it burnt her and she suddenly felt a lot warmer, as all the blood in her body rushed to her face. "No!" Oh god, that was worse. "No, that came Out wrong. I wasn't looking at you." Miraj, shut up! "I mean I was, but I wasn't- I didn't mean - It was your bone er thing -" Real smooth. Real Smooth " Bead." She pulled the blankets over her head. Maybe if she couldn't see him, it would all go away.

T'han stared at the Miraj shaped mound under the blanket, a coy smile on his wide lips. "But yes, to answer your question it is purely decorative... as since I'm a Sovereign I am generally expected to look good for Mistress An'Dalus."

"So she likes to decorate you? Or do you decorate yourself?" There wasn't room under the blankets for Miraj to facepalm herself. What was wrong with her?

"Yes and no." T'han started, shuffling in his spot beside her bed to get comfortable once more. "You see, back on Sequella... our morning routines would have had us both surrounded by chamber maidens and acolytes of the cult, pruning and washing us both, decorating us for the day... but," He continued, pausing slightly to smile at a faint passing of memory.

"Since it is just the two of us... we have had to adjust, and help one another... though we don't decorate ourselves to the extent we used to, we simply don't have the time to do so every morning."

He hadn't seemed to notice her slip, and she relaxed a little, rolling over so the lump she made under the covers was closer to him. "To be honest, right now, a whole bunch of people willing to play dress up with me sounds good. A proper warm bath, not a sonic shower. With oils and salts and you can soak, not just standing there shivering. I'd miss that too right now."

"We could do that right now, the bath I mean... there's a natural spring nearby that mistress An'dalus found a few nights ago," T'han said excitedly. "She did tell me not to tell anyone though." He added with a sheepish grin, his ears folding back at the thought of what might happen if the High Priestess ever found out.

She wanted to. She wanted to so badly. But she also wasn't ready to To go skinny dipping In the freezing air. Or any air, especially when she could guess at how naked a Sequus would get. "It's late. And I have to get some things from elysium first. A swimming costume, some soap, decent shampoo. Towels. Can you sneak away from the Priestess in a couple of days?"

It wasn't a no, T'han thought as he silently celebrated with an involuntary flick of his tail.

"I could do..." He smiled as he reached over and gently tugged at the poncho not wanting to leave without it. "Shall I come see you again or?"

"You'll have to, I don't know where this spring is." She pointed out. "I can probably do it in..." she trailed off thinking of her shifts. "it will be about four days I think before I'll have much time, there's some stuff I've got to get finished, and then I'll be back on morning shifts, so I'll have more spare time later."

Four days!? T'han yelled internally, suddenly finding himself oddly frustrated as his ears slowly folded back.

"That gives me time to figure out how to sneak away from the Mistress..." he mused softly.

In truth, however, he already had that part figured out. He just didn't want to sound needy or pushy.

"You won't - " Miraj began, suddenly thinking of the ...complicated relationship between the two, and sequus gender politics. "you won't get into trouble, will you?"

He shrugged, looking down at the poncho until he found which end went over his head first, suddenly feeling rebellious as he slipped it on.

"If I do It would be worth it." T'han smiled before leaning down and nudging the top of his head against hers.

Miraj laughed as he nudged her with his head. It was like being shoved sideways by an overgrown puppy. "Yeah, I'd mutiny for a hot bath too."

He chuckled as he got up on his hooves, patting down his poncho and fixing the straps around his midsection. "Guess it's a date then... see you in a few days."

T'han then bowed deeply and left, almost hurrying as if not to let her say otherwise.