Carpe Deum - slowly?

Posted on Fri May 5th, 2023 @ 6:23pm by Lieutenant J'airesh Mora-Heath

Mission: Season 6: Episode 2: Survival
Location: In the Caves
Timeline: MD2
1420 words - 2.8 OF Standard Post Measure

J'airesh Mora-Heath had been assigned the rank of Lieutenant and had been proud and passionate about her new Ship and Crew. She was already getting a little bit better, each day, with the task of leaving the past behind her and settling into a new chapter in her life. So far so good.

Now, with a slight hesitation in her memory, due to a couple of mild but painful lumps on her head, bruising all over and general exhaustion - all common symptoms of every survivor down here on this planet of Ice, Snow and .... desolation? J'air was grateful that she wasn't more injured or affected by the major tragedy the Elysium and her crew had suffered.

She looked around her survival tent and could clearly remember the traumatic events one by one as the whole disintegration of the new life she was just coming to like - a lot - had been happening, but after that, she was struggling to recall how they had got to the surface.... she shivered instinctively but it might have been the cold.... ?

Nestling back down into her bedding she pulled the edges up to her chin and began to drift off into her thoughts again. She really *must* see the Counsellor soon, but there were so many others who needed that service more than she did. Similarly, the analgesics for this seemingly constant headache were short in supply and so many others were in greater need.

Suddenly there was a beautiful, grin - directly above her - tugging at the covers she had just pulled up tighter.

"Hey...."
::tug::
"I saw that...."
::bigger tug::
"You're awake, I *know* you are....
::such a huge tug that both combatants and the disputed covers all fell backwards, sideways or down, whichever combination was inevitable!

"OUCH... my head!" J'air protested, frowning fiercely as the pain in her forehead shot around further.

"well, if you had got up when you *should* have, we wouldn't be on the floor!" laughed the blonde, blue eyed human Intern-Doctor who was one of the four single medical personnel allocated to share this particular habitation.

"AND......" Penna continued, returning to the attempted removal of the aforementioned sleeping chrysalis of weather resistant materials.

"If you didn't frown so much, you're head would hurt less.... Grumpy!" she continued to joke.

J'air retorted instantly "and IF you weren't such an invasion on my personal physical *and* mental space, I wouldn't feel so grumpy about you! My frowns started when I met *you*"

She tugged hard on the covers but Pen had a firm hold and the result was further cold air getting in to J'airesh's little formerly warm 'nest'.

"That's *so* not true and you *know* it *Doctor More-Cross* Penna teased, poking a finger into J'air's upper arm surprising her and making her reflexively let go of the current combat trophy.

"HEY" J'airesh began to get more annoyed as the last covering was wrenched free and she began to feel very cold as it left her.

Penna laughed and J'air jumped up and ran around her newest friend with the other end of the covers, wrapping her colleague up and escaping to grab some outer clothes quickly. The next protest heard then came from Pen as she struggled to disentangle herself and this whole friendly contest and accompanying protests now woke the other two occupants of the four person tent.

Sattolia added her own protests to being "so rudely awakened" and Mag'Sethita grumbled to them to "grow up".

This was the point at which J'air and Pen suddenly stopped being adversaries to each other and now became the-two-on-the-same-side, with new opponents in the other residents. Penna picked up a pillow and lobbed it with very little force but great accuracy at Mags who batted it away reactively but as she had been caught awkwardly the pillow then spun erratically towards Sattolia instead.

"That's *IT*" Satt exploded and leaped out of bed, stopping - pillow in hands- to try to decide whether to retaliate at Mags for the sending it over, or at the other two for the whole disturbance.

Her frustrated splutter of "You... no *YOU TWO*" as she spun from one direction to another, to another, was so funny to see and Satt's own realisation of this as well, made her have to fight away an attempt by her disobedient mouth to try to curl into a smile.

This in turn reduced J'air and Penna to hysterical laughter, leaning against each other for support as they let all the tension out in a wonderfully bonding belly-laugh which was contagious, as they usually are. Very soon all four medical staff were rolling around, batting one another with pillows and friendly banter which just fired the laughter more.

When they all four finally lay spent and warm in a huddle, a small muffled voice from within the group-hug suggested that it was getting cold and shouldn't they all get dressed?

So, agreeing as one, they all got up, retrieved any and all displaced bedding and got washed and dressed. They sat together over breakfast and continued to banter and laugh until it was time to set off for their allocated shifts in the Medical Tent, each bringing their own special set of skills and a new air of cheerfulness that was more than helpful to their patients and colleagues alike.

It was a new but special feeling for J'airesh. She had grown up an only child and had never had a trauma-bonded team-feeling like this before. It lit up her aspect onto the frozen world around them and the protective caves they were all inside together.

CARPE DEUM - a phrase she had heard - and even used herself - quite a lot of late - suddenly actually seemed more to her than the shallow quote she had become used to it as. It now seemed to have become a new and comforting, much needed and happily adopted 'battlecry' - or at least, on those less passionate days when a *life-affirmation or incentivisor* were more needed and more appropriate than a flaming sword - this was now to be meaningful at last.

*Together* Seizing a New Day had become not only possible but *very* much what her new ambition was forming up into. It worked! *It* was iconic and perhaps a bit 'corny' and cliche, but she was sure now that it was what she needed and more.....*who* she wanted to be from now on.

*It* seemed an ideal way to respect the lives that had been lost and it would no doubt, help with any feelings of 'survivor's guilt' if such were to creep in on bad days. *It*was welcome in the fact that she had been lucky enough to become that very thing: *a survivor*, in the first place.

*It* was an epiphany moment and even if it didn't last - even if she had to strive to revive it sometimes? *it* was *her* - Lt J'airesh More-Heath (and no longer 'More-Cross') so she set about her day and resumed the job she loved. She felt so euphoric about *it* all that she did get herself a non-sweetened, non-caffeinated drink to counteract any sugar-rush that might have brought this on!

She also pinched herself to see if she were dreaming, as it seemed so unreal but, with a small round bruise on her wrist and a flat kind of tiredness that had been there yesterday before she drank her morning 'ratajinho' - she had generally reassured herself that she was just having a reaction to a life-threatening and tragedy-ridden trauma and long may this positivity remain with her!

There followed, a long day, with many, many casualties to help but even when J'airesh got back to the tidied bed she had left this morning, she was thrilled to find that *it* wasn't going to just fade away as soon as she got tired but before long, she was waking up the next day with the lovely face of her friend Penna there, telling her it was time to get up (even though it *was* a bit earlier than it needed to be - Pen was a notorious earlybird!) and J'air, for once, wasn't in the least upset about being awake too soon.

The two seemed to both share the same (*it*) feeling and both went out to start the next day more quietly this time, leaving Mags and Sattie to sleep on a little bit.



Lt. J'Airesh More-Heath
Aspiring ACMO - USS Elysium