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Efrosian Matters

I Was Wrong

There was snow indoors. It was not tracked in by the dozens of dozens of visitors and family, nor did the wind manage to jostle the window by the hearth in the front room again. When Suq looked down at his standard-issue boots, they were stepping in the kind of soft, delicate snow that comes from a gentle hunting season night. It covered every surface in his childhood home. He looked up and saw the hearth, a fire burning but snow gathered around the mantle as if it was welcome here—he was born at that hearth. They said the fires welcomed him into the world.

He saw the assortment of soft, comfortable chairs that his mother made during her first few years of her carpentry apprenticeship. Her very first creation, a dark wooded rocking chair, was rocking back and forth, powdered snow gently falling at the end of each arc but it never lost it’s dusting. It was silent here, but warm. Empty, but he was supposed to be here.

His boots crunched the snow underneath, the sound echoed off the walls that were laden with so many pictures and framed audio recordings. He grew up thinking that the wall was bent and bowed because of the weight of so many people and stories in one place. Past this wall and to the left, a hallway that curved left, doors wide open, snow claiming all. Footsteps wore the genuine wood floorboards down so much that there was a distinct double-trail where everyone’s feet would tread. He felt the age of his home in his feet, even with boots and socks on. He remembered the nick in the wood that he ought to avoid, a few paces just beyond his own room, just in front of his destination.

He leaned in the doorway, like he always used to do. His shoulder made the wood frame creak, but the doorway wouldn’t fail until long after everyone he knew and all of their grandchildren were dead. Inside the room was more snow, covering the masterful work of the flooring beneath, where so long ago his mother created a mosaic using a combination of woods and varnishes. No rug, no blanket, no dirty clothes were ever allowed to cover the work that earned his mother the title of master of carpentry.

Her bed had also been covered with snow. So much so, that when Suq saw the frail old woman who sat up in bed, he had thought that she pulled the snow up to her like a blanket. No, he thought, mom did not warm herself with snow. Her eyes met his, the same color eyes he saw in the mirror every morning and evening. Her hair had not gone grey, but rather stayed the same black it had always been for as long as he had remembered. Her face had new wrinkles that had not been there when he left, he could clearly see her cheekbones and the caverns of her cheeks made his heart ache. His mother smiled though, flashing pearly white teeth and the sienna lipstick she loved so much.

“Suq’ala, baby boy. You took so long to get here. Welcome home.” Her voice rang in his ears. The silence of the snow lent her words power they did not need. Her very presence gripped him. He found himself responding without needing to think.

“I’m sorry mother. It was hard to get here, and I was afraid.” His voice, in fluid Efrosian, spoke. The beginning of a song, or maybe a poem. No, an old child’s rhyme, that was what he was reciting. He found himself singing to her the old rhyme he learned when he was a toddler, when he came home from playing and was cold and needed to be wrapped in her arms and covered in kisses. His body took him to his mother’s bedside, his arms wrapped around her, he was back where he was supposed to be. In her arms, breathing in the smell of sawdust and exotic flowers, feeling so tired and ready to fall asleep happy and safe…

“But you cannot rest yet, Suq’ala, my son.” She added, breaking him from his rhyme. Her fingers brushed his pale-yellow strands out of his face, her thumbs gently pushed his eyes open. “I am dying, my child, my son.”
“Surely, no, Mother. You’re too loved. Too young. Don't leave me  yet.” He whimpered, because he was not ready. He’d never gotten to say the things he wanted, all those things--

“Then tell me what makes your chest so heavy you crawl on the dirt.” She looked down at him. He felt so small, even though she was just as tall as she was. He felt so powerless.

“I’m sorry for leaving this place. I’m sorry for making this choice. I didn’t want to upset this family, this world with the things I did. I never wanted to lose my Reylin Efreya-Xan.” He mumbled, as he did sometimes, his eyes looking away as tears formed and hung from his near-white lashes. Her hands brushed them away, smearing them on his cheeks.

“Suq’ala.” She cooed, her smile appeared again. So much like his own, so much a troublemaker in her own way. “You never lost me, and you will never lose your people. So long as our hearth burns.” She pressed her lips to his forehead, the middle of his crest. He hiccuped, he couldn’t stop the tears, and why would he try? This was his mother. She was dying. They both knew it.

“Mother, you disowned me, before I left. I shouldn’t be using the names Reylin or Efreya-Xan.” He whispered, no longer able to keep his voice steady enough to talk. He expected a justification, an explanation, a reason...

“I was wrong, Suq’ala.” His eyes turned up towards her, and he didn’t see the world around them anymore. Just his mother’s face, no longer sick, no longer old. Young as the day she had him, full of fire in her belly, and he understood. The touch became cold and unreal, the winds blowing her out of his arms, his tears and his sobs erased. As she faded away, he knew.



He lurched forwards in bed, eyes wet and his first exhale sounded like a broken accordion, his chest felt like it would not move unless he forced it. The shelf above his temporary bed in vector 01 held his inhaler. He groped in the dark for it, gasped in the precious mist that would allow him to breathe.

A glance over at his clock showed that he had slept a total of four and a half hours, the most he had slept in weeks. The snot running into his facial hair made him wish he had slept less. He kicked the blankets off, cool air greeted his naked body, and he dragged himself to the bathroom. He would clean himself up, find some clothes to be presentable in, and find something to do. Anything that would wash away these dreams that his hurting heart tortured him with.

He wished his mother was like that dream. He wished she’d forgive him. He knew it’d never happen. Even if it did, she was dying and everyone knew it, everyone knew it. He'd only just gotten the word a few weeks before the Resolve was spirited away. By the time he'd get to come home, she'd be dead, dead with all those words unsaid.

He just had to find someone else on this blasted ship to make him feel less alone and frightened and hurt, for just a few more hours, until his shift started.

Efrosian Matters

Reply #1 –
To Breathe Easy

The little town of Efreya-Xan had a skyline defined by a staggered hill and bountiful plant life for a tundra climate, with trees and brush an un-earthlike near black and a single towering watchtower planted right at the top of the hill, marking the old Durn/Efreya-Xan boundary. The buildings were both old and new, built and repurposed. A winding path of mosaic bricks and lined with proud plant life and gentle, warm lighting defined the town’s main avenue. The sky was painted blue and purple and green with the stars dotting the planet’s view of a distant nebula. A biting breeze rustled the trees…

The same biting breeze blew down the main road, brushing powdered snow off the colorful bricks of the main avenue, curling down a side road and off a lesser used path, around a modern, wooden-built home with green scaled tiles on the roof. It wrested it’s way into a tiny crack in a window, dared to tease the fire in the fireplace, and brushed across the face of a woman in the midst of a powerful dream, her face beaded with sweat and carved by the hands of age.

Reylin shot up in her bed faster than her aching bones had ever done. The movement forced her to gasp for breath. Her sickness was so far advanced that she had not left her bed for almost a year now. She expected to die this night. Her bony back heaved with each breath, her lungs never fully inflated, she suffered this way for what felt like an eternity.

Reylin Tal Efreya-Xan was the mother of five. She was not very old, but she accepted her illness as her fate, her punishment for her constant battle against nature. She was not meant to have children. Born infertile, she sought out treatment at a medical center in her later years and had thee boys, two girls. She was not meant to leave her mother’s home as young as she did, but she did anyways, striking out on her own to become a carpenter. She was not meant to survive the birth of her second, and yet with great medical intervention, she did. Now she was here, alone. Her youngest, dead, and all her others had joined Starfleet in between the announcement of the Resolve’s vanishing and Suq’s funeral just three weeks prior.

After all this, she’d finally come to realize that fate would happen, whether she liked it or not. To fight it was futile. When she received the diagnosis of lung cancer, a positively ancient disease, she decided to allow herself to be consumed. Despite having at least 40 more years in her, she knew when it was time. She rubbed her eyes. Her face, and indeed her whole body was burning up with fever. Breathing was harder than usual. She knew with certainty that her death would be tonight. After this latest vision, she had come to realize something that was far more important.

She was so bitterly cold and far too warm all at the same time, and she wanted nothing more than to huddle under her blankets and pass peacefully, alone in the house she built with her own two hands. Instead she ripped them off, swung her legs over the side, and stood up before weakness would convince her to stop. Yes, she would die—but she had one last task, given to her by the spirits to redeem her damned soul.


The early morning hours were an unusual time for Tadyn Yul Efreya-Xan to be awake. Though her position as priestess required her to be up before dawn for meditation, she was several hours too early. She sat in her bed staring down at her feet, her hands idly braiding a section of her wavy brown hair. Something filled her with a sense of unease.

She figured it was the pending Matriarchal meeting. Her region’s shaman-priestesses would come together twice a season to discuss problems plaguing their provinces and make formal requests for supplies or assistance. She was the newest shaman-priestess in the northwest region, having only been appointed after her mother’s death just two months ago. On top of that, her only daughter had run away from home shortly after.

Moreover, the town was in a state of unrest. One of their own, young Suq, son of Reylin recently had a funeral held in his honor. He was missing, presumably dead at this point. Starfleet had claimed one more life. Though Suq had never been popular—indeed, he was something of a misfit, he had suddenly become a poster boy for the customary hatred of Starfleet. The people were angry, anxious for their government—her-- to take some sort of action.

It was definitely stress. Stress was what had her whole body tensed. She wondered if any of the men were up and about at this time of night, because she could use some relaxation. She decided she’d go and check, so she stood up and looked for her sark and stockings, so she could be at least presentable.

No sooner than she had her casual Gohayi-dress on did she begin to hear the frantic screams of a woman she knew far too well. Reylin, the pity of the town. She’d clung to her children so hard, they all ran away, and she now let herself suffocate on her guilt till her death. Tadyn knew all the children very well. She said farewell to each as they began their own journey across the stars, excluding the eldest daughter, who had a freight business to run.

Thinking that she would be performing the woman’s last rites very soon, she ran out the door into orange-lit streets of Efreya-Xan.



“He’s still here!” She screamed, and gasped for air in the next breath. Reylin was in the nude, stumbling through the streets, the exertion causing her to fall over face-first onto bricks, but she would not stop. She cried out as she fell, and turned her pain into words once more. “The spirits have told me! He is still here!”  Lights came on as concerned and frightened neighbors stirred, peeking through windows and opening up doors. “They have not taken him! He’s still--” She gasped again. This time, she could not force words out. Her vision was blurry, all she could think about was air, and she just couldn’t force enough down her accursed throat.

“Reylin!” Cried out another woman’s voice. The dying woman recognized her; Tadyn. She had watched her grow up by Suq’s side. This woman was the one who took her son’s virginity. She could have been her own daughter, if she had not become a priestess first. The priestess ran to her side. Reylin saw blurs of the beautiful, colorful robes that were traditional of the rank. A hand touched her face, the priestess brought her into her lap and wrapped those sacred robes around her. She was gasping, but her mouth still formed words. It was important, so damn important. “He’s still here, still here” she mouthed.

Tadyn did not know what was going on. The woman had not walked for such a long time, and now she was running through the streets awaking half the town like a mad woman. She had something to say, something so important it compelled her to shout it through the streets.
“Reylin, daughter of Efros, what is it? Who is here?” She spoke, her voice commanding as it had to be, but she was afraid. She didn’t want to officiate Reylin’s death. She wished the woman would just seek medical help. She was very, very afraid of holding a dead body.
“Suq--” She coughed out, her breathing becoming frantic gasps. It sounded like she was drowning. Tadyn wanted to throw up. She didn’t want to hear that boy’s name.
“Suq, here?”
“Still with us—alive—the spirits--”
“Breathe, daughter, breathe--”
“Suq! My child--” She spasmed with the force of her gasping this time, tears flowed down her face. Her weak little hand gripped onto the collar of her gohayi, as if she clung onto life itself. She had never seen this old woman so...full of fire. Suddenly, it was like she wanted to live. She had half a mind to run her to the hospital. She was suffering, obviously—but not mad. As people filled the streets, Tadyn understood she must’ve had a dream, one that she believed was a predictive vision. She thought her youngest was alive. These were the words of a mother suffering from grief, she believed.

But she heard the voices of those around her. They muttered and whispered, and she knew she couldn’t tell Reylin that she was just dreaming anymore.

“By the spirits, a vision…!”
“Is he really still alive?”
“It must be true, I felt it on the winds”
“Spirits bring us truth, he’s alive...”
“The winds, it’s on the winds tonight...”
“They’re holding him against his will!”
“Damned, filthy Starfleet...”

She glanced around at the many voices, watching her, expecting her to do something. Something, damnit. She felt Reylin fading in her arms, her grip weakening, her face growing blue and purple. She wanted to run her down to the hospital, but she had formally submitted her request to die. She couldn’t bring her to the hospital. She wasn’t allowed to violate her duties to her people. She didn’t want to do this, she didn’t.

Reylin bent over the woman and prayed, out loud and with a quiet, wavering voice. In the streets, silence prevailed. All they heard was gasping, and the sound of a lone woman chanting a song, over and over, until finally the gasping came to a complete stop, and Reylin took her last breath in this world.

Re: Efrosian Matters

Reply #2 –
Matters of House and Home

Dawn broke over the horizon, but Tadyn had been up for hours already. The body of Reylin was being prepared by her acolytes. She had finished sending out the notice of death to all of her children, and had already received two replies back, with a third one pending as her sorely outdated computer tried to work through the long distance interference. To add onto that, she had no less than thirty six audio messages sent to her from her own people. She sat at her desk in full funeral regalia, a pure white setup. Her headdress was on the floor, set aside. Her hands were folded. She was ignoring the messages for a moment while she thought...

Funerals with a body are held as soon as physically possible after death. Reylin’s body was being removed of it’s toxins and cut to cubic chunks, for a traditional sky burial as she had requested. The chunks would then be placed on a towering platform off a klick or two from the town, used for a variety of rituals and during the hunting season. The funeral would be attended by the spirits, and no visitors. After this point, her name was forbidden to be said out loud for ten years, on the off chance it would summon her spirit by accident.

The actual funeral ceremony would be held in the town a few months later, when the next of kin and the priestess of her home town have decided on what to do. Her ceremony would resemble Suq’s in all of it’s major rituals. The difference was that everyone knew Reylin was dead. They had seen the body, they knew she was gone. Already, the town had been abuzz with Suq’s name, where he could be, what horrors Starfleet put the boy through.

Tadyn knew she would not be needed for the original processing, save for the spiritual cleansing of the mortuary when the body was done, though she had been asked to preside over the draining of the blood. The funeral ceremony, however, was fairly intense and she’d likely be without sleep for about three days while she and the family fasted, depending on whether or not the family requested her to fast with them. That wasn’t even to speak of the ritual itself, which would take three hours straight of nonstop prayer...

Tadyn bowed her head and dug her hands into her hair. Suq was MIA and had been for a long time, but he had been dead to her for even longer. Even if he was alive, she didn’t want to think about him. She hadn’t seen him since he was fourteen Efrosian years old, just barely an adult. They had been friends, but when he was fourteen and she was eighteen, she ruined it. She fucked it up real good. He went out of his way never to see her again, and now that she was an adult, she couldn’t blame him.

But here she was. Thirty eight messages now, most of them requesting that she do something. Formal investigation was said many times. She didn’t know how many curse words had been applied to the Federation, she lost count.

She glanced up again and played the next message. A diatribe from one of Reylin’s great aunts. She was kind and thoughtful with her words, but she repeated many of the same ideas. Do something, Tadyn. Do anything but ignore this.

She pushed herself up from her chair and walked to the window, frosted over as the warm season was starting to come to an end. In a few weeks, they’d kick off hunting season with the festival of Tumu-nin-san. She would not be presiding over the festival, she wagered. The Matriarchal meeting would likely spend at least a whole week going over her failings as a priestess so far.

“You have one new urgent message!” Her computer spoke, ever so cheery about drowning her in voice messages. “You now have thirty nine unread messages.”

“Who is the message from?” She sighed, expecting it to be from one of the townspeople. If she was lucky, it’d be from one of the Reylin children.

“Message is from Ralar, of the house of Durn. Marked Urgent. Would you like to say it?” The computer asked, and Tadyn’s eyebrows went up. Ralar, the head of house Durn, a citizen of Efreya-Xan, and the one man who hated her guts more than anything else in the world. That he would reach out to her is...worrying.

“Computer, say message...” She commanded, but with hesitation. Hopefully this was just something simple. Maybe a formal request...

“Accepted. Message is as follows,”

Quote
Tadyn.
I will be visiting you. We need to talk.

There were a lot of swear words in the Efrosian language and absolutely none of them described the feeling the shaman-priestess had right now. She did not want to see Ralar, she didn’t want to hear more about Suq the stupid martyr, she didn’t want to preside over the funeral of Reylin, or talk about the Federation dogs, or meet with the unofficial leader of half of Efreya-Xan.

She bent over and grabbed her headdress, tied the ribbons under her chin, and went to find her funeral staff. The mortuary definitely could use her help, she decided. Draining of the blood was a tedious process. They could use the morale boost.

She shoved her feet into her boots, but still couldn’t find her staff after searching the ceremonial closet, so she thought she’d walk out the door without it. She swung open the door, the little decorative bells on her wreathe rang, and before her stood the tallest damned Efrosian this side of the equator, his hand prepared to knock.

“...Tadyn.” Seethed the filth-blood.
“...Ralar.”

She was so, so fucked.

Re: Efrosian Matters

Reply #3 –
To Lead

Ralar had two names. When he was on the east side of the old klingon watch tower, he was Ralar, son of Karth, of the house of Durn. When he came around to the southwest side where the town proper was, he was Ralar Freyan Durn. There were few people who knew him as just Ralar.

Before him stood one of them. Tadyn, who was once a friend, knew him as just Ralar. It made his stomach roil to think that she may still think of him as that. She didn’t deserve to even speak his name. If he didn’t have a goal here, he’d not have thought twice about instigating a fight just to torment her.

No, today was not the day he reclaimed his honor.

He crossed his arms and stared down at her. His crest looked Efrosian, he had the sandy-yellow hair and his skin was lighter than a klingon’s, and he certainly didn’t smell like a klingon. He even had the trademark double voice box of the Efrosians. If it wasn’t for his height, nobody would’ve ever known. So he stood up taller, making himself feel more and more klingon.

“I don’t know where you think you’re going, but you’re going to go right back inside and we will talk.” He spoke, his voice low and controlled. He hated this woman. He hated what she’s done, and that she never owned her mistakes, and that she hurt Suq so badly. He blamed her for his leaving this forsaken Rura-Penthe-lookalike.

Her eyes glared back at him. They were a shocking ice blue and if she weren’t so detestable, he’d have like to stare into them a little longer. He picked up disgust, hatred in her gaze. At least the feeling was mutual, he thought, as she removed her ceremonial headdress and stepped back inside. Ralar stepped in without invitation and wiped his snowy boots off on the entry mat.

This building was the back part of the town hall, and for all intense and purposes, served as the shaman-priestess’s personal residence, even though the word for it translated to ‘office’ in both standard and klingon. It had a living room and kitchen that extended just past the small office area. Tadyn kicked off her boots on the way there and stood in front of one of her couch segments.

“I guess whatever you had to say was so important you couldn’t just message it to me.” She rolled her eyes and threw the sacred religious headdress on the couch like they could just synthesize another.

“I had no way of knowing you’d actually read it.” Ralar followed her to the living room and took a seat, being sure to keep the exceptionally short tea-table between them.
“So you sent one to announce you were coming anyway?” She sat down in a huff, her arms crossed.
“To be polite.”
“I never knew you were one for politeness.” The venom dripped from her words the way vinegar would. He had a hard time keeping his own hatred down, but he did. If he were younger, he would’ve fallen to her level, fought back and twice as hard. He was mean when he was a boy. Now he was a man forced into the mantle of leadership. He merely offered her a look of disdain and a moment of silence.

She shifted in her seat. She’d grown comfortable with the hateful banter they used to communicate, but it had been a long time since they last spoke in person like this. Ralar didn’t look much different but...here, today, he felt different. Older, maybe. He had changed.
“What did you come for?”
“It’s about Suq.” He spoke and her stomach dropped. Of course it was. She didn’t want to hear about him any longer, damnit, but with the halfie here, in person, she was forced to listen.
“What about him?” She asked, and laced her fingers over one another. “He’s been declared MIA by Starfleet for three years. Surely you haven’t come here to ask me to put in another investigation request? Do you know  how many the Matronship gets in a day?”

Ralar grimaced. He knew she had done what she could, as determined by her position, but if she continued to give that excuse to her people, she’d find herself in the middle of a chaotic uprising with a swiftness. If that happened, Durn would find itself in the middle of the very same uprising. She was a weak leader in a position where weakness could not be tolerated. It was in his professional interest to prod her to action.

But beyond that, something was different. He was never one to believe in visions, and his fractured “klingon” family didn’t believe in fate or spirits or any of the things the Efrosians did. For as much as he had come to hate the Efrosian culture,  he just couldn’t let go of all of it. His teenage self held up the broken heart Suq left behind, and he wanted to believe with all his might that the little weirdo was still out there.

“I’m not asking you.” He began, his voice controlled and no longer sounding as sing-song as the language required of him. “I’m demanding it.”

“Or you’ll what.” She crossed her arms and sat back, obviously unimpressed. Klingons, she had come to understand, were more often than not full of hot air. To survive in this desolate world where they are not superior, they turn to bluffing and intimidation, as Ralar was doing now when he leaned in and bared his teeth in something that wasn’t quite a grin, but not quite his usual scowl either.
“Do you really want to know?”
“Hit me.”
“If you don’t go to the Matriarchs and put in a request, I’ll let everyone know what you did.”

“What I did?” She laughed, but it wasn’t very joyful. She seldom had a joyful laugh these days. Worry weighed too heavily on her chest to chuckle. “Everyone already knows about Suq and I. They know I took his virginity, and that he wasn’t very good at it either. Between your story and mine, who will they believe?”

Ralar stared at her. He knew she was right about that one topic. He had threatened to, and actually did gallivant around town telling everyone shortly after Suq and Tadyn’s encounter. He was met with indifference at best, disdain for his actions are worst. Her words would’ve once ignited anger in him as she continued to tarnish Suq’s honor, if he were younger, but he had long since surrendered that battle. In fact, he had not come to talk about that at all today. He found it interesting that her mind went there first. Guilt, he hoped.
“Not about that. I will tell them what you did to your daughter.”

“M-my--” She hiccuped, her heart seized up in her chest. Her daughter, her baby girl, she’d run away not too long ago. She found herself standing up, her legs shaking with fury, and a dose of fear too.
“How do you know what I said to my daughter?!”
“Because I know these things.” Ralar answered, a more genuine smirk beginning to grace his awful, hideous face. Tadyn hated that face more than anything right now.

She thought about the situation. How did he know? He knew because her daughter made friends with people Tadyn couldn't stand. Ralar was one of them. She confided in them instead of her mother Tadyn. It was her understanding that she used her social network to leave Efreya-Xan, and indeed the whole planet of Efros too. She wasn’t too surprised that other people knew where her daughter went, but she was surprised that it was being used against her. Had she really made that many enemies?
“How dare--” She began, outrage making it hard to control her voice well enough to form words, “How dare you keep me from my daughter like this! If you know where she is, you must tell me! Am I not her mother--”

“I dare because I have respect for her!" He stormed to his feet and the sudden movement startled Tadyn. He was just so tall, and his words were starting to cut like a blade in her chest. Ralar was angry, angry for the little girl who had run away and the man who had been wrongly given a funeral. “I respect a young girl who could live with an incompetent, stupid mother like yourself and come out as strong as she did! You only think you’re her mother. You only wish to have that name. You’re no mother! You’re just a girl--”
“Stop it!”
“--who has no clue what she’s doing--”
“Stop it!!”
“--And hurts everyone in her path--”
“For the spirits, STOP IT!” She screamed, her voice rattling the windows, and in her rage she flipped the tea table over, off to the side. Her tea set shattered into pieces on the floor, the corner of the same table embedded in a brand new hole in the wall. Her shoulders heaved, her eyes were filled with tears.
“What do you know about being a mother?! What does anyone know?! Doesn’t—Don’t any of you over the hill talk about how hard it is?! Don’t you know how much pain it puts you through?! How you never know whether any decision you make is right or not?!” She continued to scream. She was sure people outside could’ve heard her and was thankful that her ‘office’ had some walls between it and the town hall proper.“Nevermind being the priestess! That’s obviously an easy job, isn’t it?! You could do it with your eyes closed?! Do I look like I want to pray over drained blood and dead bodies?! Do I want to do a funeral? No! No no no! I don’t want this, I don’t want any of this!! I don’t even know what I’m doing! I don’t know what to do!”

Ralar stood in silence. This was not the first time he took devilish delight in tormenting Tadyn, but this was the first time she reacted like that. Admitting that she was under great stress. That she didn’t know. That wasn’t Tadyn as he used to know her, Tadyn as a young adult. He had changed...but he hadn’t thought that she had. Not since they were children.

“...I’ll tell you what to do.” He began again, his voice notably quieter. “Go to the Matronship. Tell them what Reylin told you. Rattle some chains. Stand up for yourself, damn you. Find something to believe in! Put some fire in that heart. Do this, and I will tell you where your daughter is right now. Or don’t, and find yourself relieved of your position for good. No more hard decisions, at home or at work.”

“You choose.”

Re: Efrosian Matters

Reply #4 –
Dead Talking

The sun was about to rise on Efros, but Ralar had risen long before it. In fact, he had not actually slept, so there was nothing for him to rise from. How could he sleep? He marched straight into Efreya-Xan and threatened Tadyn just last week, coercing her into bringing up the issue of an unjust death in front of her superiors. He was supposed to be klingon, brave, not worried and anxious. But he was a shitty klingon, and so was every single ‘klingon’ in this damned ghost town called Durn.

The old tower on the hill called to him in times like this. It used to be an old guard post, but just as nature reclaims the abandoned, the Efrosians reclaimed the formerly Klingon building, repainting and rebuilding and adding on and taking away. The whole building was tilted after a particularly melty warm season a few years back, the walls were painted and repainted and repainted again and all three layers chipped off to make a stunning multicolor mosaic. The wraparound porch built after freedom day long ago lost it’s screen and the pillars have long, severe cuts made by blades, maybe bat’leths. The roof sagged with the weight of snow. In the center of the building, poking out of the roof like an unusual growth, a rusty, thin tower that everyone said had ghosts in it loomed. Old dead plant life hung off the metal girders. Ralar spent so much of his time here as a boy. It’s dilapidated, aging charm offered him peace.

In the dead of the night, that’s where he went. He trudged up the steep hill, the trees looking like spears in the black night, leaving his footprints in the old dirty snow behind him. When he finally got there, he was greeted with a familiar scene. The wrap-around patio still had three, sun-faded, stained, unraveling foldable camp chairs. They were all the same size, all used to bear Federation logo once. He took his place in his chair, the leftmost one, and sat most of the night, bathing in his worries and the bitter, cold wind that blew right through his skin and into his bones. As the sun rose, it’s first gentle rays hit his cheeks, lit up his eyes, but not his thoughts.

He was alone in this little, worn out, aging antique of a building. Alone, but the spirits were said to live here too. Privately, he hoped for one, just one particular spirit to be here today, even though he knew that was a silly thing to hope for.

“Unta,” He spoke, hearing his voice travel past the doorway—the door had been torn off once and never put back in—and bounced around the now-empty building, “Unta, I don’t know what to do.”

“It’s Tadyn, again.” He sunk into his chair, a hand rubbing his temples. “Her girl, Kamirra...of course, Tadyn chased her off. Her stupid, bitter personality—but Kamirra, she’s just as angry as her mother. You know she calls me most nights and wants to know how her mother’s doing. She likes it when Tadyn’s upset.”

He let his head fall back. The frigid air blew over him once again, but he was too Efrosian to feel it much. He knew, too, if he got too cold, his old blanket still lay there, just inside, folded up nice and neat in a cabinet, right under Suq’s blanket, right under old Unta’s. He closed his eyes, imagining for a moment what Unta would say, but he had nothing. The old man, a former mentor, role model, and friend to him when he was young. He just couldn’t imagine what the old man would say to him, what advice he had.

“...and Suq. They say he’s still alive. They say he spoke to his mother before she passed. That his spirit is still out there and we can all speak his name again.” He folded his hands in front of him.

“...I wish it were true, Unta. I hope it’s true. Or I sent that bitch out on a quest for nothing. I guess she deserves it though.”

Another pause. He heard nothing, felt nothing. He never did though. In the early mornings, with the snow around to absorb the sound, all he ever heard was his heart beat and his thoughts thrum.

“...Things used to be so much simpler. You know, when we were kids. Suq was just Suq and Tadyn just Tadyn and me just...me. No Federation, no klingons, no efrosians, just...us. Us and you.”

The sun continued it’s slow march into the sky. The whole building was bathing in bright yellow light, lighting up the faded hues of the chipped paint and the old beat up red roof he so knew. He’d been up there before, and no spirits ever pestered him up there. It was silent.

“Unta, am I a bad Klingon?” He asked, his voice becoming small, quiet. He was only 13% klingon, he knew. He was never raised in the culture. He never knew honor. The house of Durn had been dishonored long ago. None of the small family that dwelt in the old Durn housing had a chance of entering Sto’Vo’Kor. He was destined to burn at birth.

But he couldn’t stomach the Efrosians. As he turned his head towards Efreya-xan, lit up by the sun, with little speck-sized people wandering about starting their business, he felt sick to his stomach. He hated them. He hated all of them. He hated what they thought and believed. He hated the shaman priestesses. He hated what they did to him and Suq and Unta.

Unta, he thought. Unta’s was a story only the adults remember these days. He was once a strapping young man who traveled all across Efros, who sailed the seas, who dreamed of seeing the stars—but he would take no woman. Of course, to take no woman is an insult to womanhood. So no woman took him—he was denied residence, employment, medical care, and basic kindness whenever someone heard of his deviance. His discrimination, it was called.
He tried not to let hatred sour his heart, but they say the ocean is only healthy when we do not pollute. On one of his youthful adventures, he came back. He was different.

Nobody talked about the incident. Nobody ever spoke to Unta again. Ralar never got to find out what happened, but he knew it must’ve been bad. And he knew nobody else would talk about it because they were afraid of admitting how badly he had been treated. Afraid of owning the guilt. So Unta spent the rest of his life angry, hateful, residing among the old, vengeful spirits that lived in this tower.

“I guess I’m a better Klingon than I am an Efrosian, at least...”  He sat back in his chair, raising his eyes up to the sunlight. The silence, the bitter cold, it cleansed his soul…

The silence didn’t last long though. He heard a ringtone go off in his pocket. His regularly scheduled morning call. He knew exactly who it was. She always made his mornings that much brighter, even if she probably wanted to murder him most days.

“...Hey Unta, would you like to see Tavana again?"
 

Re: Efrosian Matters

Reply #5 –
Angry Efrosian Women

“RRRRALAR!” Came the trilled roar of an Efrosian woman only four feet tall and some change. She was stocky, “stacked as hell” were Ralar’s words, way back when he had a crush on her. “If I have to spend one more day with this child—one!! You know why I went through with a sterilization, Ralar? SO I WOULDN’T HAVE CHILDREN!”

The woman sat at a chair in an unusual bridge. Once, it was a Klingon G-3 cargo ship. Now it was heavily modified, all to meet Tavana’s needs. It was the E.S. Blue Sky. Her very first ship, and now that she owned a freight company, the flagship of her (admittedly tiny) fleet. Her bridge was cluttered with little trinkets of every port she’s visited—and it was clear she visited many.

The woman herself was just as visually interesting. Her hair was partly braided on one side, and falling loose down to her shoulder on the other. She dyed it a deep indigo and bright hot pink. She had some facial hair, like Efrosian women do, her sideburns long and braided and dyed the same way. Her skin was darker than her younger brother’s, her eyes so brown they were almost black. Ralar was lost in them, almost as much as he was lost in that gigantic rack. The unfortunate placement and angle of Tavana’s communication console gave him an excellent view.

“And quit starin’ at my chest, you little twerp! You just wish you’d get some of this. After you saddled me with this little pain in the ass? Keep dreaming!”

“Oh, I will.” He smiled, the wind blew a cutting cold across his face and he hardly felt it. “How is Kamirra? Sounds like she’s well.”

“She’s fucked up my warp drive!” Raged the woman, her face twisted with rage. Ralar felt his old crush stir. Shame she would never look his way twice.

“How did she do that?”
“I don’t even know! I can’t figure it out!”
“You? Can’t figure it out?” Ralar’s eyebrows raised, his smile beaming, “You practically built that thing. Damn! She must’ve got it from your side of the family!”
“As if! I always knew what I was doing!” She huffed.
“Of course,” He nodded, knowing better than to put the prideful Tavana down, “But Suq, remember, he did the same thing once. Stopped the whole warp core up. Remember?”
“He did.” She grimaced, hating to hear his name. Tavana knew he wasn’t dead. She adamantly refused to accept his death under any circumstance. The reason? She ‘just knew’. So she would say his name, and would accept hearing it. “Took the whole system down when he...put snow in the conduits. Damnit! That’s it! She put something in the conduits, didn’t she?!”
“I mean, she could have, did--”
“That stupid brat! Rrrralar!” She resumed her rage with his name trilled on the tip of her tongue. Spirits how he loved it when she did that. “Remind me! Why do I have to carry this nuisance around?! Why can’t I just space her?!”
“Because,” He sighed, always smiling for his first love, “She wants to run away from her mother. You know her mother--”
“I couldn’t give two shits about her mother, but I can give many shits about my ship! Why should I keep her!”
“She’s your niece?”
“And? I hate children.”
“She’s looking for her dad. So are you.”

Finally, this brought Tavana to a resigned sigh. “I’m not looking for him anymore. I’ve given up.”
“Given up? You’re not finally going to say he’s dead, are you?”
“Never.”She frowned at the psuedo-klingon, “But you know where the Resolve showed up, right?”
“...No, actually.” Ralar leaned forward, his device in his hands. Now he could get the inside scoop.
“Right, well the news is the Resolve showed up by some starbase on the edge of bum-fuck nowhere. Guess the crew betrayed the feds and sided with the rommies. Doesn’t make any fucking sense to me, but I’m not a fed captain, just the CEO of an intergalactic business.” She shrugged.
“Anyway, after that the headlines have just been fucking flooded with this stupid bullshit Theurgy crap. I couldn't care fucking less, honestly.” She rolled her eyes, “But the news feeds have been so flooded I can’t find anything about the station. The Resolve’s probably fucking trashed, but if I know that little slippery bastard, he’s somewhere over there. Maybe clinging onto some wreckage or switched to some Romulan ship halfway through. Either way, he’s still fucked off into nowhere, so no point wasting energy stalking his online presence...” During her talk, she’d come to turn her whole body off to the side. Ralar couldn’t see what she was doing, but likely just keeping an eye on the ship’s systems. “...’sides, I’ve been busy as hell lately. What with this little [i]brat[/i] running amok. You know what she did a few days ago?”
“Probably something troublesome.” Ralar smiled, but not all the way. He reached up to scratch his chin, his eyes averted as he thought. “Sounds like she’s just bored Tavana. Give her something to do. Give her Suq’s profiles and make her stalk him.”“No way. She’s a fucking creep. Thinks lil bro is some sort of superhero or something. She’ll be crushed to find out he’s such a dork.”
“She’s 14, an adult now. She’ll get over it. And she’ll at least be out of your hair.”
“Is that worth the heartbreak though?”
“I didn’t know you cared.” Ralar grinned, and Tavana sputtered. She was a spitfire, like many Efrosian women, but Ralar saw how soft she could be if she wanted. He spoke again before she had the chance to dominate him with her fury.
“Look, just give it a go. Maybe it’ll keep her busy while you fix the conduits. If it doesn’t work, you can blame me.”
“Hmph! Some comfort that is.” Ralar saw her frown—but there was a smile there, hidden behind the waterfall of her multicolored hair. Her anger was only there to keep up appearances. As to why she wanted to appear so angry, Ralar could only guess. Maybe to seduce him, and run away with his heart all over again.
“Wish I was there.”
“Glad you’re not. Talk to you later, klingon.”

The screen shut off, and Ralar wondered if his crush ever fully went away.
 
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