A Bunny & an Ice Queen Walk into a Camp Site...

Posted on 31 Dec 2023 @ 2:14pm by Commander Lucsa Myan & Lieutenant Callisi Veera

2,383 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Miranda

Lucsa knew that most of the crew and departments had plenty to do, even for their short stay down here. To herself, she had to admit that she did enjoy being on a planet again. She'd been in space for a while now, and that wasn't common for her people. She handled it easier than most, but this world--being a little more extreme and not as pleasant as Earth--reminded her a bit of home. It made her a little...well, not cheerful, since she wasn't really ever that, but perhaps a little more energized.

After several of the crews broke for lunch, she found her way to one of the groups and the chief of operations. "Lieutenant Veera?" she greeted politely. "I'm sorry to interrupt your lunch, but I wanted to see if I could be of assistance once work resumes." As a "mission advisor," she rather just...floated around anyway.

The rabbitess had taken the easy approach to lunch, and perhaps returned to her roots a bit as well. The rustic simpler life was theirs for the time, but for Callisi this was just another assignment. Just another planet. Another. She had been on plenty. At least this one wasn't some fetid bog. For her today, lunch was a can of beef stew. Well, the label said 'Beef Stew' on it, so that's probably close to what it was. She wore a glove to handle the can so she wouldn't burn herself holding it, but that was about all the precaution she took.

As Lucsa approached, the rabbitess turned to look. One eye, beautiful and pristine. No shine, no light glare, nothing. Just color and depth without shine.

The other eye, hidden behind a patch and a scar. A tiny blue dot shined through the fabric, a dot that said it all. Synthetic. Artificial. Wrong.

"I've never turned down advice. Seems a bad habit to start now." she offered, "And no interruption. A little more time and maybe what's in the can will match the picture on the outside." she offered in mirth. Field rations were designed with nutrition and longevity as focus points, not aesthetics. "They say if you close your eyes it gets better. Lucky me." she scoffed, but motioned for Lucsa to join her at the misfit table. Seemed most of the table were in similar gold. Maybe they were all Ops as well...

"Thank you," Lucsa said, taking a seat and offering a spare smile. "I actually find Starfleet food, even these rations, a little...rich. I've gotten used to them, during my time, but my people do not worry much about their food. Most of it is simple mixtures with all of the nutrients we require. It has little taste to it, but it keeps us healthy."

"During my deployment during my Three, rations like this were my toast and spread. Came in three flavors: Ham, with a question mark. Chicken, with a question mark, and meatless, with a question mark." she offered with a smirk. "If you weren't looking, it tasted just like what it said. Had everything you needed to keep you alive. Alive and fighting." she shook her head. "I liked the Ham. This..." she held up the can, "...reminds me of home. Most of the team thinks I'm nuts for enjoying the taste of food from a can." she shrugged, "Maybe I am... but anyway, a pleasure to make your company. Please, eat. Enjoy. The work begins soon enough."

The Sal'kiiran woman listened to the lieutenant speak about food from her own home. The reminder of home that Veera found in this meal seemed to echo how Lucsa felt about being on the planet itself. She had a very minor meal in hand, as the Arrkuns required little to keep them going. "The food brings little memories, but the planet itself gives me some feeling of home as well." Her icy blue eyes looked around. Anyone looking long enough might notice that she blinked far less than most similar races. "Not in appearance but in the feeling of it. The...extremes. The air is thinner as well, which reminds me of the high mountain cities where my people live."

Fellow Blue-Eyed ladies unite! Callisi's remaining eye had no shine to it. Not that the life had drained from her, or that her soul was hollow from the atrocities of perhaps being thrown into the war machine at perhaps too young an age and scarred for life. No, no her eyes lacked shine simply because Ts'usugi eyes didn't shine. Not to mention that she blinked half as often, by virtue of having half as many eyes. "I remember every planet I stepped foot on. Even if my boots didn't actually touch the ground." she remarked, "So, memories of planets is something I can relate to. I just hope that your memories of worlds are happier." she tried not to sound like a Downer Dokuchan, or a Debby Downer as the Terrans would say. "We did high altitude march training, so thin air... I don't have fond memories." she finished off the can, setting it aside to deal with once the chow hour was over.

"It's not for everyone," Lucsa agreed. "You should see when the others of my people try to come to Arrkun cities." A faint smirk curved one side of her mouth. "Particularly the Chaarans. They do not handle the thin air and the chill well at all. As if anything could make them more temperamental than they already are." She paused for some amusement, given the Arrkun and the Chaarans rarely got along, and then continued, "What sort of environment did you grow up in?"

"I grew up in a prefecture. That's, a region of the world run by a prefect. Like a governor, I guess. They have a small army of advisors, overseers, and the sort. So, honestly, very much like a governor." she giggled softly. What a round-about way to say that. "I grew up in a city. Summers were mild but when the winters came it snowed. I'd dress warm, father would puff up my fur for me. Showed me how to do it myself, told me mother would have wanted it that way. The snow would leave everything soft and quiet, fresh snow crunching under boots, perfect for packing into snowballs. I remember the local authorities would sometimes join us for a few tosses of snow, and we all knew which officers would play with us and which wouldn't. We'd go play in the snow by the park, and sometimes it was so deep that you could jump into them and just vanish." a soft smile crept onto her features. "In the summer, sometimes it would thunder. The sky would be black, but no stars. Just a heavy dark cloud. A flash of light, and the crack of thunder behind it. It used to scare me when I was a little so father would sit with me by the window whenever a storm rolled in."

"He'd explain to me what was happening, because he felt that the only reason I was afraid of it was because I didn't understand it. He explained to me the difference, and that they were one in the same. He, of course, used myth and legend in his explanation, calling them twin beasts from the heavens, one that everyone saw but couldn't speak, and the other invisible but spoke for his brother. When I was eight, I learned what Lightning and Thunder really were, but I appreciated it none the less." the smile remained. "Everytime I'm on a world, and there's a storm, it fills me with the wonder of a child again. Nevermind that I know exactly how it works, it's no less magic."

Lucsa listened, somehow a little surprised at how garrulous the other officer was. Why had she expected otherwise, she didn't know. "We Arrkun describe nothing as magic. It's not even a concept I knew much of until I entered the cities. You find more of that about the Qaiin and Hylcin. But when we reach the Kiir System, you should visit an Arrkun city in the mountains. We have a lot of storms, and we don't do much to control them. Instead, we've learned how to use their power in our own inventions, but I imagine it may remind you of the magic of your youth to see them."

Valeria gave a nod, "I could use a little childhood magic after all this." she admitted. "So I'll take you up on that suggestion." truth be told, Valeria herself didn't even realize she was such a chatterbox right now. Maybe it was just the notion of isolation on a planet that loosened her tongue. Maybe she just wanted to talk to someone who wasn't an alien AI. She wasn't sure.

"Controlling the storms? Now that sounds a bit like Dalacari techniques to me." she smirked. "They try to control every aspect of their environment. Scheduled storms, accurate to the minute weather forecasts." she shook her head. "Fantastic people, but that stuff worries me."

"Understandably," Lucsa said. "The Arrkun love technology but we respect the intense extremes of our home world. We know that we could develop something to control the weather, but as a group have chosen not to. We try to work with them instead. It has worked out rather well for us, being able to utilize that energy to our benefit. We work to protect ourselves from it, which is better than the Chaarans, let me say. They just let themselves burn."

"You can't save everyone." Valeria said softly, "No matter how hard you try, some people just don't want saving." a pause, "There was a time I didn't mind it. Take it or leave it. After my Three, I saw the extremes. Systems where everything was nearly automatic, and systems where it was farmers and torchlight, because they wanted it that way."

"I saw worlds threatened. I saw armies march." she paused, "I got hurt, and then I saw again."

"So, I guess I can see both perspectives. I take it their desire to, as you say, "let themselves burn" is a choice they made?"

Lucsa shrugged, though the gesture was economical with its energy as all of her gestures and expressions were. "They are free to live as they choose. We all do, and that is why we are all so different. The Chaarans choose to be more primitive, they refuse to cooperate with anyone--even each other--and are very impulsive. No one would force them to change, but one can't help but wonder why they resist even simple things to improve their lives."

Callisi thought about that for a moment. "It sounds like they're concerned about losing their cultural identity. There are a few remote rural villages on some distant worlds in the empire that would rather keep their rustic appearance than allow advances to consume them." she offered. "Mind you, advancements required for the sanctity of life are required, but not everyplace has everything. There's a moon in the empire that entirely grows tea. By hand. The natural way."

"I've had ONE cup of it, and I cannot tell the difference, and yet the legacy families on the home moons swear by it. Luxury foodstuffs cost a koku to fabricate, but they'll spend upwards of fifty koku a box for the so-called privilege of actual tea." she smirked, "So, I can relate to that mindset. I don't agree with it, but I relate."

"I might too, if the Chaarans actually had culture," Lucsa said with a spare smile. "I think they resist more because it would require some sort of group agreement to change the dangerous environment they live in and they can't agree on anything. They are nomadic people, tend to isolate themselves except to fight or create more Chaarans. Parents frequently abandon their children as early as possible. That's basically before birth for the fathers and around eight of your Earth years for the mothers."

Something about that didn't sit well with Callisi. Her ears dropped, her entire expression soured into a scowl. Everything just said 'No' about something in that..

"A child should never be abandoned. They're born innocent." she mentioned. Turning back towards Lucsa, her expression softening as she did. After all, being mad at the messenger was pointless. "I am who I am because of the diligence of my parents, no matter how little time time was that I shared with my mother. I... I can't conceive of a situation where a parent would abandon their child, nevermind before ever meeting them."

"I'm far less interested in helping this offshoot." she proclaimed. "And for that, I apologize."

That elicited a dry chuckle from Commander Myan. "You have nothing to apologize for. The Chaarans have few friends among the other sub-groups of my people. The Qaiin tend to be more tolerant in general and the Hylcin tend to not worry much about the others. The Arrkun, having embraced technology and the wisdom of community, have purposely chosen to have little interest in our more...fiery kin, except when they are a part of the whole that we work to better." She paused, considering. "We are usually considered cold by our fellows, and the Chaarans live in deserts that gout fire. So one might say we have always been entirely opposite."

"That is a lot of diversity." She offered back. "Your homeworld must be crowded. Though, still, must be beautiful. So many different approaches to architecture. So many different ways to spell Home, Library, School."

"As for being cold, don't worry, thick fur. Also, for a time I was pretty distant myself. Times, though, they change."

"They do," Lucsa agreed. "More so, or more quickly, for some than for others." She tilted her head thoughtfully, feeling a warm breeze slip through the almost translucent fur that lined her own skin. It was almost invisible to most eyes except when it moved and appeared as a glimmer on her skin. "When we reach Sal'kiir, I'd be glad to show you some of the sights of my world. It is indeed a very...diverse place."

Callisi took a breath, and smiled softly, "I'd love to see a world like that."

 

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