Posted by Lieutenant Casela Synthi-er (Counsellor / RTF) in Holodeck - A Captain, a Counselor and a Campfire

Posted by Captain Zachariah Cobb (Commanding Officer) in Holodeck - A Captain, a Counselor and a Campfire

Posted by Lieutenant Casela Synthi-er (Counsellor / RTF) in Holodeck - A Captain, a Counselor and a Campfire
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻
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“Saved her for what? The life I condemned her to, wasn’t a gift. There was no hope there. I abandoned her. I’d already defied orders, what would have been 1 more day? She was SO close and I didn’t even know it! The darkest demons I faced to get these old wounds, that Doc Fey is so worried about, are nothing compared to the plight of that little girl. I did that to her.” The firelight glints off her face, that is now damp, and to Zachariah’s dismay, she’s crying.

Moving onto his knees before her, Cobb took firm hold of Casela’s shoulders in an attempt to channel some measure of reassurance and strength.
“It is not for you to decide where hope lingers for another,” he whispered on an exhale of whiskey-laden breath. “Sometimes the only thing left to offer is existence itself, as torturous and accursed as that might be. You may think the seeds crushed to dust beneath your boots but still find them blossom into a fruit-laden tree. And while with every bite that fruit will be ash upon your tongue, still who is to say it has less worth than no fruit at all?”

There is a type of rage, that starts deep, in the soul. Where the soul connects to the other souls around it. Once ignited that rage draws to itself the rage of all the other lost souls in existence, and those long gone. It builds and smolders in the nether waiting to be tapped, waiting to be let out when one unsuspecting soul reaches it’s breaking point. And once let loose, there is no locking it back up. Like a wild fire, almost out, and then one gentle breath of fresh air sends it roaring into an inferno that kills everything within reach and begins to spread.

He could sense it then, in the barely-perceptible tremor of her body, the almost undetectable quickening of breath. On this beach the seas were receding, a final measure of sinister calm before the seismic flood of her rage. One single word or thought upon this scale and all parity would be lost. And freed from its containment, even Zachariah Cobb would find himself powerless against the beast buried deeply within her.

That type of rage turns on itself. The pain of the initial rage burns and needs fuel. And it finds that fuel in the tumultuous memories, regrets, and recriminations of the self.
One regret, feeds to the next and the next, until all one can do is see every choice, every motive, every event as feeding the monster, until there is no salvation left for the one who never asked for it, but is in such great need of it. In the flames of the fire, Casela can see the demon she’s become, the monster. A Balrog, a fiery demon that can only destroy everything in it’s path. It does not matter how many lives she’s saved, how many innocents protected, or Star Fleet officers. In that moment, the demon feeding on that rage convinces her none of it matters compared to what she did to the little girl. “Four years later, the section found that little girl,” her voice is harsh as if she’s breathed in too much smoke, raw and forced as if her vocal cords have never been used.

And then the rage erupts, finding an outlet in her voice as she unleashes it towards the fake heavens of the holodeck. The rage so hot that the moisture of the body escapes as tears down her face.
Casela Synthi-er

Immediately he pulled her close, strong arms locking around her both for comfort and for restraint. For in that moment they had reached a familiar precipice, crumbling tightrope between the light and the void. And for the first time that evening, Zachariah found himself doubting his strength. Not strength to pull her away from the dark, but strength not to pull her towards it.

Casela stood on the edge of that abyss ready to jump and allow the flames of her own rage to consume her. So ready was she, in that moment, to end the torment that was her existence. The strong unbreaking embrace of Zachariah shocked her and momentarily fed her rage. Who was he to attempt to restrain her? He could feel the retaliation building teetering on a tight rope waiting for the slightest breath of wind to tip her one way or the other. And then the contact brought his thoughts to her. The possibility that this man, this man who was the only father figure left in her life, would end his own life to help her end her torment shook her, to the core of her being. She was okay being alone, okay with no one to rely, it was her way.

“Shhh,” he attempted to soothe her, his own voice carrying a desperation he had no more desire to hide. “It’s okay, lass. You’re safe here. Safe from yourself.”

She shook her head, hard, denying his claim, “But who will keep others safe from me?” Fulfilling Roebuck’s request had brought her under the attention of Shadow Man again. She’d tried to stay off his radar. And now, by default, the whole crew would pay, if the section saw fit. If they knew how she felt about the members of this crew, they would all be used as leverage, to get her to cooperate. It was okay when it was just her, but now there were others that would be hurt, and it would be her fault for letting herself care.

He expected a physical rebuke and would accept it without protest. For while his care and concern for Casela were true, so too was the thought echoing like a torment around the cavern of his own blackened soul - that some small, perverted part of him was eager to welcome the carnage head on. And the end it would bring for them both.

• Captain Zachariah Cobb

The rebuke did not come. Such is the ability to see others as more than the sum of one moment. It is impossible, when a single moment so defines the self to see past it. As Zachariah is unable to see past the moment of watching his second officer beg him to pass on his final thoughts, so Casela can not see past that one moment where there was a child she could not save. Those who are tormented are often the first to forgive others for circumstances that could not be controlled. To see how another made the best choices, the smartest choices, the most compassionate choices, and then offer the forgiveness that they, themselves, need so badly. But also is it true that they can not accept that forgiveness for themselves. They cannot allow themselves to rest. And so Casela would not make the choice to dive into that abyss because there are debts to repay, and she cannot allow Zachariah to make that leap either. She sees the choices he made and the sacrifices it demanded, and knows that forces outside of himself took any other choice and paths away from him. She will not let him dive into a death of eternal torment for crimes that are not his to pay.

“No Zachariah, today is not that day. But if that day ever does come, you will not make that leap alone.” But then no one has cared for her, held her, in that way since she said good bye to her father, the day she graduated. The last day she ever saw her parents. And then in that moment, Casela is again 14, in the medical bay held in her father’s arms, sobbing for the horrific things they did to free their planet. Horrified at the choices she made. But instead it is Zachariah, the man who has come to replace her father, and she sobs anyway.
Lt. Synthi-er

He held her tightly as her body was wracked by seemingly endless sobs, his face pressed into her hair to mask the deluge of his own tears. Still so young and yet the suffering and hardship she had endured could have filled a hundred lifetimes already. Zachariah could only marvel at her strength and feel shame for his own parallel weakness.

Held there by each other’s arms Casela wept the rage and the grief and the loss from her soul. Oh, it would soon refill for those injuries never seem to heal, but for the moment those wounds were empty of anything bleeding from them. A temporary respite found in the companionship of one who understands the price paid for surviving. Zachariah might marvel in her relative youth and strength, but she could not fathom the loss he had. To loose his wife and child, not to death, but the demons that hounded him. It was cruel and unfair to him. Casela had never made any such commitments to anyone. She didn’t scoff at them, she marveled, but she was unwilling to make a commitment she didn’t know if she would be able to keep. She held a great contempt for Zachariah’s wife who had made those vows and not stayed by him during the worse in order to get back to the better. You did not commit your life to someone to walk out when life was dark and tormented by the devils that plagued existence. She did not feel as such towards his son, children learn from the lessons taught by their parents. If she could, she would show him the man his father was, but was it her place?

“Aye, today is not that day,” he murmured when he could once again trust his own voice. “It is a punishment we have both earned to know that the end will not come easy. Or quick. We lack the ability to change the past, the people that we’ve hurt, the lives we’ve left devastated in our wake. And in truth perhaps they would remain unaltered even if we could.”

It was a harsh and cruel truth Zachariah was giving her. To have such skill, such strength, such resilience as that made up what was left of Casela, and to be told that she could not alter the fate of another-that she could not fix the wrongs she had committed. No matter how much she might try. It was not lost on her that she had spoken those same words to so many others, trying to give comfort and more importantly reason and rationality back to a scarred and fragmented soul. She took a deep shuddering breath as he stepped back, and then another.

Stepping away from her slightly, Cobb placed a hand gently on her chin and raised her eyes to his. And as the firelight caught those fragments of cerulean blue behind the tears, she would glimpse his soul laid honest and bare for all of the world to see.
“The truth, Casela, is that we are uniquely formed to operate within this hellish environment. For only someone who dances on the edge could carry out the tasks we are ordered to do. And if not us, then who? Would you swap places with another and have them endure all of your suffering so that they could then take on your role? I already know that you would not. And neither would I.”

“The void is a lonely place to walk all alone,” he sighed into an affectionate smile. “And while I would never drag another down here to accompany me, since you fell by your own doing, then I am glad you at least landed by my side.”

• Captain Zachariah Cobb

Casela looked up at him as he held her chin, the steel returning to her gaze. She stood when he finished speaking picking up the knife she’d been using, palming the handle the blade tucked safe against her forearm. “Aye, but it won’t be lonely anymore.” With her empty hand she grabbed his forearm in a strong grip, as so many warriors had before them, no matter the species, no matter the conflict. She held him firmly in solidarity and locked her gaze on his. “You are my brother to the left and I your sister the right. Together we stand together we shall fight.” Then she hugged him, still feeling a little lost from the release of the rage and heartache.

From wary colleagues to genuine, heartfelt friends, this evolution of their relationship, as signified poignantly in the tenderness of this shared embrace, meant more to Zachariah than he would ever dare to express. It had never been his intention, at the commencement of this mission, to seek within his crew anything more than collegial co-operation and respect. It had certainly not been within the scope of his plans to nurture an emotional connection to another. But then he had also not expected to meet, amongst the Leviathan’s inhabitants, his soul’s mirror image.

Casela knelt down building the fire into a huge blaze and then stood and began to walk across the clearing, “Come with me.” She walked over to the lightening burned tree. “On Norda III this tree is still alive. Oh the top is burned and looks barren, but there is still life in it and small branches that grow a bit each year.” As they got closer to the tree carvings can be seen in the tree, hundreds of them. The oldest: Garland, Anna, Haiylee, Raymond, Ocet, Garland-C, Jake-C. Moving around she points to two names: Shane, Hollis. The team mates she lost. She takes the knife and peels the bark loose on an empty section and then hands the knife to Cobb. “On this tree, they will live forever. Even if this trunk falls, their names, their essence is inside of it, and will grow in the seedlings dropped from it’s branches.” She points down at them on the ground. “And we will go to Norda III, you and I, hell we’ll take the whole damn crew, and we will carve their names on the real one.”
Lt. Synthi-er, CNS

He followed her at a leisurely pace, the burning heat from the fire diminishing across his back as he continued his retreat. This tree had caught his eye from the very moment of its synthesised conception, this riveting tale of suffering woven openly amongst the charred and blackened branches and deep, hollowed scars. But even here, life sprung forth anew, each green bud teasing the promise of another reason to exist, of momentum to continue, of courage to prevail against insurmountable odds.

Cold steel thrust now against his open palm, Cobb approached the tree’s canvas and fell to a knee in reverent genuflection. His left hand reaching out, his fingers traced a leisurely course along each tattooed name in turn, the unique pattern of every letter a lament for those released from the misery of existence, a farewell to those passed on to brighter shores, leaving the rest of us behind. His right hand raised, the knife stood poised in preparation for the scoring of his own name, the physical embodiment in letters of a lifetime of disappointment and abandonment and loss. The first mark did not come easy, Cobb’s reluctance to injure this tree further as surprising as it was sudden. But this was a tree as proud of its wounds as Cobb and Casela of their own and his mark would be brandished with pride for the remainder of all days.

The only question now was, what name to give? Which piece of his soul torn to ruin could encapsulate so neatly all that he had squandered over the years?

He carved with focus, his eyes following the blade as each letter took studious form. And once finished, Zachariah rose to his feet, handed the knife back to his companion and, without a single word, allowed the darkness of the surrounding forest to swallow him whole. On the trunk, he had left a single word, a single name for so many decades of grief.

“Humanity.”

• Captain Zachariah Cobb