Holodate

Posted on Wed Apr 12th, 2023 @ 9:50am by Lieutenant Kevan Dash & Ensign Ziahli Lorel

Mission: Wrath of the People
Location: Holodeck
Timeline: MD-05
3791 words - 7.6 OF Standard Post Measure

Kevan being Kevan, always being the one who wanted to impress, had gone a little overboard.

The holodeck program he had mustered was taken directly from the Sequoia National Park in California, on Earth. It reminded him sufficiently of home without actually being there. Home would be distracting. Similarly, it wasn't right necessarily to pluck a location from Betazed. So, he opted for Earth, since both he and Zia would have at least visited there to attend the Academy.

The trees, gigantic and ancient, towered almost as much as the enormous rocky mountain range they belonged to. The views were honestly quite breathtaking.

He'd arranged to meet Zia outside, but had made enough preparations so that they had a little clearing set up overlooking the valley, including a small campfire and a single tent. He was perhaps being presumptuous on that point, but given it was a holodeck, if things went badly it wasn't difficult to come up with a solution.

"I promised we'd camp out," he said, waving Zia in through the large doors and into the virtual forest recreation. "Shame we didn't get a chance to try the real thing, but this is the next best, right?" he said.

Zia hadn't honestly known what to expect of the Trill's initial invitation. Unlike Kevan's previous suggestions regarding ways to 'get to know each other', this one had been rooted in something that had seemed quite personal at the time and Ziahli had almost expected that the plan would eventually shift away from anything even vaguely resembling an emotionally vulnerable setting and devolve into garish frippery. The fact that the campsite was a representation of a mutual home-away-from-home and not anything actually as poignant as the memories he'd delved into during their conversation wasn't necessarily disappointing. Clearly he'd put effort in, and that showed promise in itself.

"Well, depending on how realistic you've attempted to make it, there's also a chance I might get out of this without being covered in bug bites." She was susceptible and, it had to be said, probably partially allergic to a few. Enough that the days of itching that followed were a genuine deterrent. Still, clearly the Betazoid had believed his claims that he had the outing set up because she'd worn sensible boots and pants that fit closely enough to tuck directly into them. Lifting her gaze to the canopy, Zia wandered a ways into the program and slowly turned. "I'd honestly forgotten how big they were."

"I could always ask the computer to delete the bugs..." Kevan muttered, pondering that for a moment. For the sake of authenticity, however, he left the idea alone. "They live for hundreds of years," he spoke up, responding to her observation. "The real ones do, anyway." He trudged ahead a little bit towards the clearing and began unpacking some equipment to set the fire going.

Zia took her time in following, genuinely astonished by her own immediate rapport with the location. Betazoid was a planet of varying geography, much the same as any other, but the vast tropical forests that circled the coastal area of her home were similarly full of monolithic cathedrals whose giant frames lent their own cadence to the psionic network that linked the entire planet. Every living thing had its own resonance, it was something even non-telepathic visitors were wont to comment on despite not really having a way of explaining the primal thrum. Reaching out a hand, Zia settled it gently against the trunk of the closest redwood and stroked her thumb across the bark as one might soothe a restless child. Holograms weren't the same but some memories ran deep.

"So, what do you make of this new CO?" he asked, making conversation. "I heard she went crazy after her last command got blown up or something. Spent the last few years in psych rehab." He sat back from the now crackling fire. "No idea how she got given command of a ship like this one, though."

"I haven't met her yet," Zia replied, patting the tree as if offering a parting farewell to a friend and then moving towards the campsite to take stock of his preparation. "I assume she was given command because she got treatment and passed her psyche evaluation." The speculation in Kevan's tone had already started to burrow in, however, and the brunette's investigative zeal took the prodding in its stride. Sitting down on an upturned stump set close to the fire, Zia frowned into the flames as she considered the likelihood of her reasoning. "It's a warship and they're currently in the process of accusing the former Commanding Officer of being a terrorist. Surely they wouldn't put a flake in charge."

"Who knows what they would do. I'm just calling it how I see it. Maybe she's a plant, to see how we all react. Whether we all mutiny and go after the Captain or something." He just shrugged, opening a nearby cooler. Grabbing a couple of containers, he placed them in the small gap between himself and Zia. "I know a few people that would."

"He's not exactly the warm and cuddly type." Zia had only observed the Captain from a distance but he had a mind like steel trap and genuinely seemed distant and detached from interpersonal intricacies. Moralistic, yes. Dutiful, yes. Liable to thank anyone for running after him like it was the final act of a ridiculously bad action movie? Questionable. "They'd be better off not compromising their careers pulling a stunt he's not going to thank them for." Whilst she wasn't necessarily like it herself, Zia at least understood the mentality of career officers. Bucking the system, when their entire life was the system, was tantamount to insult.

"It's the old question: loyalty to Captain and ship, or to Starfleet?" he mused, taking a seat on the log next to her, bearing an open packet of marshmallows. "Human tradition is to toast them," he explained, offering her the packet, "But honestly it's a lot less messy to just eat them as they are."

"And since when have we balked at a little mess?" She knew the custom, had even participated once or twice. It involved sugary items that often got combined with chocolate; of course Zia had found a way to indulge. She spun on her seat, surveyed the ground and then rose to go forage for a suitable stick for roasting. "So are you in a hurry to defend the Captain's honour?" Snatching up a likely one, Zia examined the end of it and broke off pieces to fashion a prong. "I don't even know enough to judge if we should be assuming he didn't do it."

He just shrugged at that notion. "He always seemed pretty straight-down-the-line," he answered. "Honestly, though, I don't think it matters. We're in a different situation now with someone else in charge. I've been around enough to recognise that Starfleet is a big old beast. One man - or woman - is just a tiny little piece of it." He watched her with the stick and offered a marshmallow.

The stick was waved precariously close enough for him to skewer it for her, after which Zia took up her perch again and plunged the whole thing into the flames. "It is somewhat frustrating," she eventually admitted, slowly rotating the stick until all sides of the marshmallow were pretty much alight. "This was such a perfect opportunity to watch an actual capital offense charge play out and I'm stuck all the way over here." Her dark eyes flicked up to meet his. "Not that here is a terrible place to find oneself." Her lips twitched. "It's just not going to to necessarily look good on my dossier one day."

"Hey, don't worry. Once I get that big promotion and a command of my own, I'll be needing a perfectly disarming and distracting First Officer." He grinned at her. "What do you think, want the job? Comes with a lot of perks."

"As long as one of them is my own desk in central Security where every major investigative case in the sector becomes my problem, I'm there." It was, of course, not a likely scenario. Zia's aspirations didn't involve a conventional command track, though she would eventually require the pips for the access privileges alone. Pulling the stick up out of the fire, the Betazoid blew gently on the charred blob of molten sugar to douse the flames. "I'm not sure protocol would allow you to take your First Officer camping though. Something something conflict of interest."

"Just call it...team building?" he mused. "I bet Captains and First Officers get up to all sorts when people aren't looking." Kevan poked at the fire with his own stick. "I'd keep it exciting enough, anyway," he winked.

With a brief glance cast around their surroundings as if accepting them as proof of his word, Zia raised her eyebrows and dipped her head in agreement. "You've certainly managed so far." It was a genuine remark, fuelled by just the slightest element of surprise regarding the time and effort he'd put into this particular excitement. Camping, she'd already filed away, was clearly important to him.

Turning back to her marshmallow, the Betazoid started peeling the goopy mess off the end of her stick and struggled with the effort to transfer it to her mouth without coating herself in sticky strands. Messy fingers attempted to catch one that clung to her chin, and Zia grinned, finding the chaos to be half of the fun. "So is this somewhere you've actually camped?"

"Nah. But it's similar to the forests back home. And you don't have to worry about the giant forest cats." With a little grin he scooped a stray strand of melted marshmallow from her cheek and sucked the remnants from his fingertip. "The views are a little better, though, I'll admit," he added, eyes on Zia rather that the huge valley that stretched out beyond the campfire.

There was a brief moment, and she hoped he revelled in it because she intended to make them rare, where Zia nearly missed his intended meaning and veered sharply towards the mistake of taking him literally. A glance to the side permitted her own consideration of the view, though as the penny dropped, her wry gaze settled back on her companion as her head dropped to the side in delayed realisation. Several seconds into pinning him with droll disbelief saw the Betazoid's features succumb to a smirk, smothered somewhat by the roll of her eyes. "And that's the appeal, is it? The view?"

"It's one," he said, laying on the charm. "For some people that would be more than enough, but not me." He picked up the crackers and marshmallows, as if mansplaining. "Too many shallow people out there just looking at the crunchy, plain outside. Me? I'm more interesting in the soft, warm interior..." He tossed a marshmallow up in the air, making to catch it in his mouth, only for it to bounce off his nose and end up in the campfire, where it immediately melted.

Whatever mixed metaphor he'd been hoping for, it was somewhat lost on Zia, who was mesmerised by the combination of his psionic bravado and absolute abuse of s'mores privileges. She had taken no pains to hide, at least from herself, that a good portion of her interest in the Trill stemmed from the disparity between his emotional ebb and flow and what came out of his mouth as an attempt at communication. Up until now, it had been fleeting glimpses, odd little moments that didn't quite align but more or less still qualified as possible ignorance on her part because she really didn't know him that well. His demeanour in this setting had been different from the onset, however, and the sudden swing back towards flirtatious swagger was jarring because it involved not just his mouth but his mind too. There had been a forceful, palpable shunt from one state to the other and, to the telepath, the resulting backlash was the mental equivalent of a door slamming. Zia blinked at the fallen marshmallow, not so much lamenting its loss as using it as a focal point to gather her own wits.

"The inside is important," she eventually agreed, nodding at the fire as her tone took a sharp veer towards something softer than he'd clearly intended to provoke. "Though I'm not sure it's always guaranteed to be soft and warm."

In Kevan's mind he flicked back to his history with women; particularly the most recent one in his life. The ice queen marine herself. "Yeah, ain't that the truth," he noted. Some people were just cold and hard no matter how deep you were able to reach. He looked over at Zia. "That's why it's important that when you find someone who isn't, you make sure you treasure them all the more."

Zia vaguely remembered once, during a conversation she probably hadn't paid close enough attention to , where her grandmother talked about the psionic traits of Trill and how intricate their minds felt to those with the capacity to witness what went on beneath their surfaces. This was more or less a normal mealtime conversation for the diplomat, who tended to dissect her interaction with other species and cultures with such regularity that Zia was known to tune out. It occurred to her now that a conversation with the old matriarch might be in order if she was ever going to fathom the complexities of Kevan Dash. In the span of a minute, he'd managed to surprise her in two entirely different ways.

"Appreciating what people bring to the table is a good place to start," she agreed, eyes still studying his for hints as to how the heck to interpret his mood even as she reached out with grabby fingers for another marshmallow. "That sounds like an opinion with a story behind it though."

She was fishing. At least, that was what he felt like she was doing. Kevan pulled the bag just slightly out of her reach, maintaining a sense of playfulness but in his mind going to a more serious place. And if he was indeed serious about making something of this casual flirtation, then he recognised the need to give her a sneak peek of what lay beneath.

"Her name was Korra Ymir," he said, voice calm and controlled. "She was a marine on my former assignment. The Arcadia. We had a lot of...fun..." It felt weird explaining it in those terms. The 'fun' wasn't anything like camping out in the holodeck or anything. It was actually a lot more chaotic, now he remembered things more clearly. "But she was cold, not warm. All marine steel; rigid and regimented." In other words, the polar opposite to the young woman he was now sat next to.

In the face of other's discomfort, many tended to soften the intrusion by averting their gaze, or adjusting their actions to provide a buffer of preoccupation. Entirely a product of her culture, Zia rarely placed anything between herself and other people emotionally, entirely intent on studying his face as he spoke. And whilst boldness had not presented as much of an issue to her so far, there was a stillness to her posture that allowed him room to express without interruption. Each word contained a momentum that, under more heightened conditions, would have punctured a decent hole in her shielding. Zia wasn't sure if Kevan himself realised it but his mind was powerful. Probably a Trill thing.

Definitely her thing.

At the end of the explanation, the Betazoid slowly nodded, not so much an expression of mutual understanding as it was just simple empathy. "Goodbye was less difficult for her," she guessed, eyebrows raised gently.

"I wouldn't know," he replied, finally pushing the bag back in her direction so she could reach it. "I didn't hear a word from her after the transfer." There was finality in that silence, despite the sense of something unfinished. Unspoken closure, maybe. Except for the whole thing with Mason, which he wouldn't talk about, Korra hadn't been on his mind until this point. "What do you think?" he wondered, trying to work out how a Betazoid might feel about sudden break-ups.

As much as she reached out to take a marshmallow, Zia made no move to eat it, allowing it to rest between fingers coated with powdered sugar whilst she fixed him with a quizzical frown. "About what? Her lack of communication, or the fact that it still bothers you?"

Did it still bother him? He wondered about that. Probably. But then, it was normal to wonder about the 'one that got away', even if the relationship hadn't been the healthiest. "About how easy it is to move on," he answered, sliding up the log. He locked twinkling eyes with her a moment, then leaned down and took the marshmallow between her fingers into his mouth.

Whilst it was clear the question still perplexed her, Zia succumbed to the subtle change in mood against with a pointed deadpan. Reaching forward, she swiped what remained of the sugar on her fingers against his cheek. "I think it's possible to spend so long mourning the past that you miss opportunities in the present." A direct challenge, perhaps, though entirely indicative of her upbringing also. "I'm not sure I'd use 'easy' to describe it though. If a relationship is built on healthy communication, it certainly shouldn't come as a surprise." She popped the last of the powder onto the tip of his nose. "Emotions don't turn on and off like a faucet, though."

"Communication comes in many forms," he teased, brushing the sugary dust from his nose before it got up his nostrils. "For instance, I heard that Deltans can spend days just spending intimate time together without even speaking. Honestly though, I think I'd get bored of that." He shrugged. "I'm a simple guy, with complex tastes."

"Deltans have a psionic register," Zia pointed out, aware that she was talking to a member of another race with similar traits. "Lack of verbalisation is hardly lack of communication." A finger prodded him in the arm, as if to remind him who he was speaking to. "There are still pockets of Betazed where adherents to historical preferences rarely speak out loud. Some of our monasteries are entirely silent, for example. Then there are other places, like my family dinner table, where it's hard to get a word in edgewise."

Her smirked deadpan was not for him, though it was aimed in his direction. "My grandmother is a diplomat, she's built a life around talking." The twinkle of black eyes regarded Kevan. "She loves Trill, actually. Says it's her favourite place that isn't home."

"Then she has good taste too," he noted. After a beat, he added, "Maybe I'll get the chance to take you there for real someday. If you'd like that."

As frivolous as he presented himself to be, Zia didn't necessarily perceive the offer to be entirely disingenuous. That being said, there was still the sensation of being hooked, as if promising her the world was somehow a ploy in clouding her better judgement and thrusting her headlong into his arms without second thought. It was entirely unnecessary, of course; she was decidedly more direct than any mind games provoked and taking big risks wasn't entirely outside her normal capacity.

"Is that right?," she teased, reaching out with a finger to catch a smattering of powdered sugar from his chin. "Well, it's definitely on my list so I'll have to hope the sentiment remains true once opportunity presents itself."

Kevan grinned. She was playing a little hard-to-get, but that was all part of the fun of the chase. And if there was one thing he enjoyed it was the thrill of the hunt. "Sure. I think my mom would really like you." There was a subtle hint behind that, in the way he said it. More than just a simple introduction, but rather a 'meet the parents' one.

"I bet she and I would have some very insightful conversations," came the cryptic answer, complete with direct eye contact. At this rate, she was going to hold him to every one of these outlandish insinuations, if only to observe how much he squirmed under pressure.

"Eh...maybe not such a good idea then..." Kevan shrugged, thinking about how that might go down. "For real, though. You should come visit Trill properly. With me."

For real. Something about the necessity of that clarification, coupled with the tantalising ripple of deviousness that shimmered through the Trill's thoughts like a slippery silverfish, gave Zia cause to wonder just how real the offer would ever turn out to be. Thankfully, she'd never been overly concerned with premeditated caution, not beyond the usual amount required for sanity-checks at least. There seemed a moment where she pondered the possibility by staring into the flames and then, swivelling away from him to use her feet perched on the log to pull her the rest of the way around, ended up sitting next to him but faced entirely in the opposite direction.

It made looking up at him far easier.

"Just say when."

And though it was still likely calling his bluff, there was enough daring in the Betazoid's direct gaze to challenge authenticity. Certainly it was enough to promise that, should he hold up his end of the bargain, she was bold enough to go through with it. Just impulsive enough to render herself a stranger at someone else's mercy. Zia leaned her weight onto her elbow, dug into his leg, and peer at him as if over the rim of invisible spectacles. "There are places on Betazed I think you'd enjoy too."

"I can think of a few." It wasn't hard for him to immediately think about bedrooms and the like, and he let that little quip go unsaid behind a grin. "You'll give me the full tour? The highlights of a young Ziahli Lorel's life growing up?"

Zia considered him for a moment, another attempt to gauge his motivation, and then smirked faintly. "That will depend," she declared, "On your behaviour in the meantime." With that declaration, she kissed the tips of her index and middle fingers and pressed them to his lips for a brief second before extracting herself to rise to her feet. "Come on you," she extended him a hand, "You have a forest to show me first."