Star Trek: Theurgy

USS Endeavour: It's ... Complicated

February 21, 2018, 06:50:05 PM

[LCdr Blue Tiran | Counseling Session #364 | Counselor Office | USS Endeavour]
@patches

It was that time again.

Mandated, regulated, shit spilling.  Going into the small office that was owned by a cat-woman no less, and spill all the shit that had happened to her since her last visit.  There were some hard nos, in Blue's life.  Things that she didn't talk about.  Her parents, her sister.  She would talk about her brother from time to time but only some of the things.  She didn't talk about the bag, she didn't talk about his death, and she most definitely didn't fucking talk about what happened after he died.  Of course, that didn't stop the Doc from trying, almost every damn fucking time. 

Blue had a theory, one that was probably close to the truth.  That the Doc hoped that at some point, she would catch Blue unaware, or mentally elsewhere causing her to spill a secret.  Something that she held tight to her chest, something she didn't want known, it would be out there.  The flood gates would open.  Blue was smart, though, and heavily guarded.  There weren't many counselors that could handle the woman. 

She wasn't completely unsure if Ducote wasn't paying her under the table or something to deal with her.  That way when she had an incident she could be shown as in counseling and striving to be better rather than shrugging her shoulders and reminding the fuckers that they deserved it.  Blue trudged down the corridors; every step taking her closer to the office that she couldn't stand.  It wasn't that the office was terrible, it was just that she had never had good experiences with counselors in general and she kept waiting for catwoman to decide to push her on something and get an actual mouthful of Blue anger and rage. 

Thus far, she'd been lucky.

Since it was her appointment time Blue palmed the door panel and it swished open reading her biometric code and cross referrencing it to the doctor's appointment schedule for that day.  She stepped into the all familiar office, her messenger bag slung across her chest over one of her shoulders as she crossed to the all too familiar couch.  She tossed her bag on the center cushion and plopped down. 

“Sup Doc.” she said as she put her Starfleet issue boots up on the small table in front of the couch and opened her bag.  She took out a small module that she had been tinkering with.  An upgrade for Albert, not quite exactly what she wanted him to end up with but it was an upgrade from what he was now and every step was better than the last.  She brushed her curls out of her face as she fished out a small hydrodriver and began to twist one of the screws into the panel.  She had to keep her mind and body moving or she would fall asleep. 

They had both found that out the first time that she had come in here.  She had been told not to mess with her work, and promptly, had fallen asleep.  It was a great nap though, she remembered it fondly, though it could have used more blankets.  Always; more blankets. 

“I know I know.. Blue you shouldn't punch people in the mother fucking face..”  Blue adopted a high pitched tone as if she was imitating the doctor's voice.  “Well Doc sometimes they deserve to be reminded that they are fucking idiots, and I'm all too fucking happy to dispense the service.  I mean someone has to do the fucking job right?”

Re: It's ... Complicated

Reply #1 – February 21, 2018, 08:15:14 PM

[LT R'Rori | Counseling Session #364 | Counselor Office | USS Endeavour] @Blue Zephyr

"Well, I'm glad we got that out of the way then, Blue." R'Rori replied, a tinge of amusement showing in hir voice. S/he put down the PADD she had been reading over as Blue entered, the contents having served their purpose in telling hir about the most current incident, and grabbed the two cups s/he had recently replicated. One remained in hir left hand as she approached the table, and the other was set gently down on the table within Blue's reach. It was coffee the way R'Rori recalled Blue liking it. Sometimes she took it, sometimes she didn't.

Blue's casual use of profanity had initially thrown the counselor for a loop, even as experienced as she was, and similar to idle hands prompting a nap, s/he had simply come to accept it by the third session. Third mostly because Blue had slept through the entire first session despite an attempt to wake her up and in the second session after hir request to tone down the language, Blue had simply continued on. Much like what was becoming almost a biweekly session, there were things about Blue that didn't change and became routine.

"Really, though," R'Rori continued as s/she relaxed into a chair across from Blue with a small tug on hir Starfleet uniform tunic. "We have discussed this. Violence is not the most effective way to solve your issues with people. The man whose nose you broke again is in Sickbay now getting that fixed. I'm afraid at this rate, the disfigurement might be more permanent."

S/he took a sip of her chamomile tea and looked inquisitively at Blue and the gadget she was tinkering with. There wasn't much s/he could get Blue to talk about that wasn't surface level. The engineer was impressively guarded about her personal life, more so than anyone else R'Rori had counseled. The sessions were mandatory, though, and s/he was nothing if not patient. Everyone had their own pace and triggers. Truth be told, s/he was also just starting to genuinely enjoy Blue's visits as a welcome relief from the stilted professionalism of other officers.

"So, what did he say this time?"

Re: USS Endeavour: It's ... Complicated

Reply #2 – February 26, 2018, 07:02:02 PM

[LCdr Blue Tiran | Couch Sessions for the Constantly Pissed | R'Rori's Unfortunate Office | USS Endeavour]

Ahhhh, it was always nice to start a session off with a smiling cat.  Blue was pretty sure she wasn't a cat person but at least this one talked, and probably didn't shed.  And if she did have hair balls that was her own issue and nothing that Blue had to deal with or step in.  There was just something about animals and all their messes that somehow turned Blue off of them all together.  Not to mention she would be shocked if she could keep something alive for a full week.  She hardly remembered to feed her fucking self, she highly doubted that feeding something entirely dependent on her for such things would go well. 

R'Rori came over with a cup of liquid sugar which Blue studied for a long moment trying to decide if she was actually interested in drinking it this time or not.  Moments later, Blue put her project to the side on the couch with it's tool for a moment and leaned forward to collect the warm cup.  Wrapping her slender scarred digits around the cup she slowly and carefully took a sip.  It was smooth and almost gritty with the amount of sugar and additives but it would be a great pick me up.  The sugar and the caffeine content would keep her going for a while so long as she had something to keep her body and mind busy.

The Doc sat in the seat across from the ever angry Engineer, and began to do her doctor thing.  Blue sat back into the cushions for a moment her fingers fiddling with the cup so that she wasn't completely still.  Ahh, she started her 'we don't condone violence on this ship' thing and Blue gave a chuckle.  It was the same, always the same, but she wouldn't want it any other way.  R'Rori was the only one that Blue didn't usually feel like punching at the end of every session.  Which in the world of Blue Tiran meant something.  She wasn't sure that they would ever be friends but then she wasn't particularly the sort that excelled in that area.  Maybe they would though, R'Rori was nice enough and probably understood Blue well enough, a lesser extent than Ducote though.

“Yeah well.. maybe.. just maybe that fucker has a penchant for pain?  Did you ever think about that? Maybe he has.. like.. body dismorphia or something and hates his fucking nose so bad, and really wants me to rearrange it for him.  Thus he constantly pisses me off to the point where my fist and his face have a casual accident and then he's all oh fuck this hurts!  I forgot how bad it hurts when Blue fucking Tiran breaks my nose because I said something amazingly stupid to her fucking face again.  If I didn't want a broken nose why the fuck would I say that?  Maybe I should watch my fucking mouth before she makes sure that I don't have teeth left sometime later!”

Blue took a deep breath.  She knew... knew deep down that she needed to quit punching people but they didn't exactly make it easy.  She had made strides though.  She had only been in the Brig for violence once this whole fucking month!  She had been trying so hard to be good she didn't yell at people.  She didn't belittle people.  She didn't call them fuckwits to their face when they were being fuckwits.  She had learned to internalize a lot of her insults. 

But some fuckers deserved what they got.

R'Rori asked her what the fuckwit had said this time and Blue sighed.  Taking another few gulps of her coffee she put it down on the table in front of her returning her attention to her project.  “I mean you can pull up the video feed but it was something along the lines of 'Fucking your way to the top eh' Tiran?'” she let out a long sigh.  When it came to her relationship with Ducote, her Ranaan, she was even more sensitive.  Mostly because people didn't know the buttons they could push that would probably fly her into a more murderous rage.  Things she had never talked about, not even in all the sessions with the woman across the table from her.  But, they knew one of her triggers and it was her relationship with the only good thing she had in life.  She had two good things, she supposed; her job and her relationship.  But Ranaan was above all of that.  He was everything to her and she hated when people cheapened something that she had never thought she would find.

“The usual.  Why.. why doc.  Can't people keep their fucking mouths closed?  Like.. fuck!  I mean, you can think this shit and not say it out loud right?  I fucking do it all the time!  I haven't fucked anyone off in a while!  But here we are, a daily grind of pissing Blue Tiran off.  It's become a fucking sport at this point.  Shit!”

Re: USS Endeavour: It's ... Complicated

Reply #3 – March 03, 2018, 09:36:47 PM

[Lt R'Rori | Wishing for a sniff of catnip | R'Rori's Confessional | USS Endeavour]

R'Rori smiled briefly at Blue's rant. S/he knew the officer that was being referenced, even outside of Blue's rants. He was one of the ship's troublemakers and always managed to find a way to escape serious consequences, except when it came to Blue. Mostly because she made sure he paid for his insults. R'Rori might have been a pacifist, but even s/he had to admit that one crossed or toed lines with troubling regularity and s/he intended to write a recommendation to Ducote to have him reassigned when they got back to base.

S/he winced at Blue retelling the insult that sparked her furor.  The Caitian hybrid wasn't a big fan of relationships, both personally and professionally between the crew, but they were common enough that one of the other counselors had a specialty in relationship therapy. Thankfully for a person that preferred to stay aloof, the only relationship R'Rori dealt with regularly was Tiran's and Ducote's during these sessions. S/he never asked about it, Blue rarely mentioned it, and both were happy enough with that arrangement. They were adults.

Unlike some people.

The counselor took a sip of her tea and shrugged at Blue's last question. "I took a lot of psych classes. Strangely enough, the only talk about filtering what you said was either in reference to our practice or to help train others in developing that filter. I can only guess, with you, it's to spark a reaction."

R'Rori studied Blue's face momentarily before continuing. "You are one of the most private individuals on the ship, but simultaneously also one of the more controversial ones due to your ... forceful personality. From what I hear, you demand a lot from your people down in Engineering and you have a reputation as a, uh, person of exacting standards."

Hardass. What I want to say is hardass. Gods damn it, Blue, you're a bad influence.

"You're doing much better lately, but people are always going to look for your triggers. It's hard to disarm those triggers enough to let it roll off you. Have you tried the breathing exercises I gave you last time? They are supposed to help manage that initial burst of anger."

Re: USS Endeavour: It's ... Complicated

Reply #4 – March 05, 2018, 05:27:23 PM

[LCdr Blue Tiran | Curve Ball Time | R'Rori's Comfy Couch | USS Endeavour]

Blue, sort of, but not really, felt bad for R'Rori.  The woman was consistently saddled with having to talk Blue down off a ledge.  She was highly intelligent and thus a boon to the ship, she supposed that had something to do with why her Brig stays were only momentary.  That, or perhaps it had something to do with Blue never usually did anything truly bad unless she was provoked.  Blue picked up her coffee again and took about half of it down.  It wasn't scalding anymore and Blue could always use the caffeine.  She knew once she got to her shared Quarters with Ducote she would probably pass out the moment that he made her sit down and eat dinner.  He was pretty used to it at this point though she tried to hold off for after she had at least eaten whatever he had replicated for her.

Maybe I'll replicate today, peace offering.. or something... maybe some kind of pastry or something... home-ish.

R'Rori spoke and Blue's striking eyes returned the cat that sat in the chair across from her.  Leaning forward, Blue deposited her nearly empty coffee mug on the table and went back to fiddling with the small upgrade that she wanted to get Albert to work with.  R'Rori mentioned something about how the guy, Lieutenant Crawford, who was being a dick, all the fucking time, probably deserved it but was doing it to get a rise out of her.  “You know.. Doc... I could be the bigger person and not fucking rise to his bait but you know something … he could just quit being an uber dick, and it would benefit every fucking body on this fucking ship.” she shrugged her shoulders as if it seemed like a simple situation with a simple answer.

She could feel the doc's scrutiny on her for a moment, but Blue refused to look up, she was currently tightening a small micro screw that was holding the casing of her nodule closed.  When the Doc finally spoke though, Blue's eyes flashed up, as if she was caught.  Not many people picked up on how much shit she actually held back from those around her.  Ranaan knew, and he was the only one she had ever told her story to.  Sometimes she felt that she was a baby, hung up on the pain of the past, that she should be able to get over it.  But she couldn't, it was hard to get over something like that when the pain was such a deep and searing pain on the most basic level of a still developing child.

Blue's eyes went guarded and then relaxed again as the Doc moved on and didn't press on things that she didn't need to be fucking with.  Blue doubted that it would ever be easy to tell anyone what happened.  It hadn't been easy for her to do it to Ranaan either, but he had told her the horror story of the Starbase that had been attacked while he was there.  Thus, she had told him about her own story, and why she was abrasive like she was.  Why she held such a stiff and hard shield around herself.  Why she guarded herself against everyone and everything and hardly let anyone get close enough that she could actually trust. 

She mentioned how Blue handled her department and her brow rose on her face slightly arching.  “Should I run it more loosely?  I trust the fuckers down their to do their jobs, if they don't do them right, I don't belittle them but they need to know they fucked up and the problems that could arise from that.  If they can't handle the job, I don't want them on my deck.  I need to be able to count on my engineers when I'm not there.  As much as I would like to, I can't spend my entire life down there chugging away at our engines.  So yes, you're right, I run a tight ship, but I trust my people to do their jobs.  It's a two way street.  Respect gets respect, down there, we are a team.  My standards ensure this fucking ship keeps running, the day we fall down on that job is the day we're space debris.”

Blue did not apologize for how she ran her deck, everyone knew her, they knew what she was like.  She was brash, blunt, and could be in your face.   Her anger was unparalleled for the most part, but it was because she cared.  They all did, and most of her Engineers were used to working with her.  Used to the snark and sarcastic attitude and seeing past that to what she was actually saying.  It helped that they had been working together for a good while now.  But even still, there would always be people she would rub the wrong way.

Then.... she mentioned breathing exercises.  Blue chuckled, but it was one of those dangerous sarcastic chuckles.  “Right like.. counting to ten?  Because you know Doc, I don't think the people who created those shit-tastic methods of 'calming' yourself down had ever run into someone like Blue Fucking Tiran and my amazing anger issues.  Because, by the time I count down to ten I'm just as fucking mad as before, and what the fuck is breathing going to do to me.  I breath anyway, I breath every fucking second, I'm breathing now, but I'm not calm.. am I?” 

Blue put her project down and leaned forward.  Elbows resting comfortably on her knees, fingers loosely laced in front of her.  “Does that shit actually work on people?  Or is it just built to make doctors that don't actually know the answers feel a bit better?” she asked as she gave a bit of a shrug.  “Because, like.. hey lets not figure out why the fuck you're so angry, lets just put a bandaid on it eventually the fucking thing will quit bleeding right?  Is that what it is?  Bandaid solutions?  Well I'm going to let you in on a little secret Doc.  Baidaids can't do shit for some wounds.  They just get bloody, and soggy, and fall off like all the other fucking bandages in the world.  Some wounds need stitches, but even then they fucking seep around the edges because they're that fucking deep.”

As Blue spoke, her voice was not angry.  It was very level, informative, but as she went on her words grew softer, and her eyes.. changed from the fierce guarded woman to the one that was a bit vulnerable and speaking from heavy experience. 

Re: USS Endeavour: It's ... Complicated

Reply #5 – March 14, 2018, 08:33:21 AM

[Lt R'Rori | Count Selling Sesh | Cat Cove | USS Endeavour]

The responses from Blue were about what s/he expected before the last bit. There was that brief guarded reaction from the recalcitrant engineer when s/he mentioned her being a private individual, a tantalizing glimpse at the depths of the woman sitting across from the feminine half-Caitian. It was following a reaction s/he hadn't elicited before, though, one that suggested surprise.

Is she surprised that I can tell she's keeping a lot to herself? It seems obvious to me.

Maybe because I do the same. What's hurting her so deeply? I'll check to see if it's in her profile. Maybe I missed it.

S/he simply nodded to Blue's response about her deck. S/he understood the need for Engineering to be run well like the machines the department maintained. It was a complicated web on a starship that ensured everyone's survival and engineering was a huge part of that. Personally, R'Rori approved of it given the context. S/he was also aware of the psychological stresses it placed on the crew under Blue's command as it could lead to a perception that nothing less than perfect would do. One of hir patients was actually a crewman who was struggling with that and who apparently refused so far to actually let anyone other than R'Rori know.

It was the response to the breathing exercises that took an unexpected turn. Blue ... softened after that initial bite. R'Rori expected the skepticism. Hir career was built on convincing trauma survivors to follow hir therapeutic routines and recommendations, to open up enough to hir that s/he could help them integrate and move past their trauma in the best cases or to properly compartmentalize it and cope with it in the worst. Usually, though, just the discussion of them didn't bring up the particular kind of response. The words seemed familiar, though, with that sense of resignation threading its way through the seemingly calm response.

It brought back memories, unbidden and quite frankly, unwanted. The face of hir mother as she broke the news to hir, the shared tears with hir twin sister R'Rala, and the oppressive sense of grief and fear in San Francisco as news of the Battle of Wolf 359 spread.  The Borg seemed omnipotent and unstoppable and the grief was not merely for the incredible losses at the hands of the Federation's new enemy.

It had, appropriately enough, rained recently on the day a counselor visited hir dorm in the Academy, offering to talk to any of the new Academy cadets there. There were announcements of their services that filtered through through the campus net in the weeks after, it seemed like, offering salves for the psychological wounds inflicted by the Borg. Starfleet needed people to fill the gaps torn open by assimilation and exotic weaponry, after all. S/he had said something very similar to Blue during hir first session. There was very little soothing about the rain anymore for hir. It brought bad news and too many half-memories of what should have been.

My father would be proud of me, I think. R'Rori mused, hir eyes unfocused but wandering over to hir desk. Neither could see it from this angle, but there was a picture there of the last time R'Rala and R'Rori saw their father alive. It was only after taking a deep breath that s/he realized hir hand was shaking slightly, the liquid in hir cup swirling in time with the movement. Mentally willing it to stop, s/he closed hir eyes to recenter hirself, wondering how it was that Blue triggered this response. Perhaps R'Rori's own guard needed reinforcing. When s/he reopened hir eyes, s/he forced down the rest of hir cup and set it down on the table near Blue's own nearly empty mug. Hir voice was softer as s/he spoke up again, R'Rori's years of self-control and training taking away the edge a part of hir wanted so much to apply to it, instead keeping the calm s/he worked so hard to project at all times.

"It does help some people. Some things you don't really heal from, Blue. No bandage is enough to staunch the wound and no set of stitches can completely close it. Instead, scars form in its place. It seems easier to push it aside and leave it at that, accepting the price of trauma because who wants to look at the blood anyway?" S/he leaned forward slightly, resting her elbows on hir legs as s/he crossed hir arms in front of hir. "All we can do sometimes is minimize the scarring and with that, hopefully the pain. Maybe there's a different balance to be struck, a better balance."

S/he shrugged. "Maybe there isn't. I won't claim to have all the answers. The breathing is simply a way to give yourself that space when you need it so that your response can be more measured. Safer." A slight smile revealing a canine tooth accompanied by a wink. "Both for you and the other person."

Re: USS Endeavour: It's ... Complicated

Reply #6 – March 20, 2018, 04:08:08 PM

[LCdr Blue Tiran |  Doing Your Job For You Doc | Sessions for the Incensed | USS Endeavour]
@patches

The thing was, that Blue had always been extremely guarded so there would be nothing in her file about her past.  She had parents, she just didn't like to admit it.  They were on her files but there was little to nothing about them.  They worked, they lived in Houston, Texas where Blue herself had been raised and lived the entirety of her life until she left.  Her brother was deceased, apparently when she was about nine years old, and her sister had been missing since shortly after that fact.  There was nothing out of her ordinary though the psyche eval that had been done on her before she entered the Academy had remarked on the way that she held large chips on her shoulder but that no one could get any information out of her regarding what it was that had turned what seemed like a normal childhood (on paper) into someone that was so angry.  Though, she in general didnt let the anger control her, she was just not someone that held back at all.

Sure, she completely believed that counting backwards or heavy breathing would help some people.  It was no doubt that was true.  Her problems and pain were a lot deeper than your average people didn't like me as a kid, I had acne, kind of problems.  Blue rose a hand and it slid through her mass of curls until it stuck in one of the tangles that populated her hair because of the curls and because the only time it was actually brushed out was after a shower.  Otherwise her hair would be too big to get through the doorways.  She tilted her head at the doctor as she continued about how some shit couldn't actually be stopped with a bandaid, that there was nothing that could staunch the blood flow of a wound that cut deep enough.

“Good of you to know that.  You have no fucking idea how many fucking doctors think that there's a fucking bandaid that fills every fucking wound.  But there isn't.  That's shit.  You can't fix me.  No one can fucking fix me.  I'm the person that I am and I really wish people would quit trying to fucking fix me.  I'm not a broken dish, you can't glue me back together, and even if you could there would be a shit ton of cracks.  There is shit no one fully comes back from.”

Blue sat back on the couch and crossed her arms over her chest for a moment.  She didn't like opening up it made her feel vulnerable and even though R'Rori had no fucking idea what she was hiding it didn't matter.  Only one person on the fucking ship knew about her past and he was the only one that needed to.  When he had told her about his own past she had decided .. that he could understand her pain and she had spilled her own past to him.  He was the first person that ever just .. understood the kind of mark that could leave on someone. 

Blue let her tongue sweep across her upper teeth as she watched the doctor as they leaned forward and began to tell her that sometimes the scars could not be fixed but sometimes they could be lessened by talking or by having some other way to cope with the anger.  A dangerous grin crossed her face, the ones that her engineers knew all too well.  The one that said, step a few hundred feet the fuck away from the blast zone because Blue Tiran was about to go nuclear.  It wasn't quite that bad on the couch it was only a touch of that.  Because she wasn't actually mad at the Doc.  They were trying their best and she knew that the Doc's job was literally to try to fix Blue or at least make her less volatile.  Something that Blue did not envy her for.

Because, Blue herself knew that she was no easy nut to crack.

Blue looked at R'Rori.  “Sometimes, Doc, there's too much blood to clean up.” she admitted as she gave a shrug.  Another, slight insight, without giving a damn thing away.  R'Rori was going to have to catch her on the right day to get any kind of information on her.  That or poke at her with the wrong question, the problem was... Blue was highly adept at shutting herself down.  She was quite gifted at it.  A as a young girl she had to make sure that she could protect herself and move forward.  It wasn't easy, but compartmentalizing was something that she was very good at when it came to certain topics.  However, that meant that she had none of the patience left to deal with the every day frustrations which is why it tended to bubble over.  Though honestly, she had found herself better than she used to be.  Ducote had done wonders with her, he had softened a lot of her edges, and helped her find a good home base.  A foundation that she had never had before.

Had R'Rori met her just a year or so ago, this would have been a very different Blue.  Far angrier.  At the comment that if she could find a way to cope with people pissing her off then it would be easier for herself and others Blue rolled those lovely eyes of hers.  She gave the doc 'that look' that said she was bordering on the territory labeled fucking stupid.

“No, people need to quit being fucking half-baked cupcakes.  That's what they need to fucking do.  Oh no you didn't do your job right and I called you out on it, how fucking terrible for you.  Fucking people coddle their children far too fucking much.  You can't just be like.. hey fuck head you did this shit wrong.  Without them needing some kind of fucking vacation so they can soothe their little whimpy emotions.  Like.. fucking hell.  Take it like a man, grow some hair on your balls, pop your adams apple out and go get the fuck to work.  Hey here's an idea.  Maybe you could do it right this time?  Huh?  I mean.. clearly we've trained you right?  You got on this ship because you were supposedly an ace in the Academy and you made all the pretty grades and went through all the fucking training that was necessary to do your job and keep a ship moving in the direction it's supposed to... so maybe when you fuck up you could just own it like a fucking adult and quit being a baby.  I don't have time to change diapers doc, we're running a fucking ship here.”

She took a breath but she wasn't done.

“You think I don't do shit wrong?  I'm not fucking perfect, first fucking person to admit it too.  But you don't see me going into the corner to cry to someone because I fucked up.  That's on me, and you know what, you pull your fucking pants up and you get the fuck back to work and fix your fuck up.  I don't need tissues and cuddles, I need shit to work right.”

Re: USS Endeavour: It's ... Complicated

Reply #7 – March 18, 2019, 01:23:28 PM

[Lt R'Rori | Count Selling Sesh | Cat Cove | USS Endeavour]

Sitting there, R'Rori was quiet throughout the tirade, and she didn't even make any real notes. That wasn't needed. Hearing Blue unload her feelings, the Caitian hybrid knew she was on the right track with Blue.

The import lay in how Blue could vocalise her thoughts, and let her hear them for herself. All the bile boiling inside her couldn't get a proper outlet in the line of duty. There were protocol and regulations, things set to prevent disruption of the chain-of-command. Here, alone with her, Blue would be able to unpack anything she wanted, and once did, and continued to do so, R'Rori could weather that storm. It was her task and obligation, and what made her and her other counselors important.

In a service tied up in Starfleet doctrine, there were few other outlets. Some took to sports, to hobbies and other means to vent their aggression, but for some, that might no be enough. There was never any judgement placed upon the people R'Rori saw, the stigma of seeing counselors gradually lifting over the past centuries. Therefore, she sat there, nodding, and agreeing, smiling at the small jokes that laced the tirade of ire and resentment. She was there for Blue, and would continue to do so, until she chose to see someone else.

Eventually, after some more questions to let Blue detail her other latent or open resentments, the time was up.

And hopefully, Blue would feel a bit liberated. She might not be "fixed", but what was that anyway? R'Rori knew that no other person was another's equal.

- FIN