Posted by Lieutenant Commander Akirel Ros (Consultant Researcher) in Flames of Fate - A Reunion in the Shadows

Posted by Civilian Kara Nakuto (Engineer (Consultant Researcher - Yellow)) in Ros’ Quarters - Settling in

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Akirel Ros (Consultant Researcher) in Ros’ Quarters - Settling in

Original Post - https://www.star-fleet.com/core/stf1/leviathan/posts/113966/

The door slid shut behind him, the barest hiss of a well maintained piece of equipment announcing the joining of the metal settling into the slides that served to block his quarters off from the corridor outside. Five walls. Three of metal, one of transparent aluminum and one of the mind. Slowly the lights rose revealing the barely furnished room that was to be his. A small pile of bags inside the door showing the crew assigned to unload the cargo of various ships had done their jobs quickly and efficiently.

That was to be expected, as was the reception they had received on board this particular ship. The Viking this ship was not, though the crew he had met so far certainly could have inhabited the decks of the Viking while he had been there, there was a certain ingredient missing from the walls of this ship. No, he checked himself. Not missing, different. This ship tasted different, to use an unusual term. The people here subtly different in ways that fate, destiny or luck, whichever one may believe twisted the futures of all of those who walked, played out.

Ros smiled, breathing in and taking in the smell of the freshly cleaned, sterile room around him. It was quiet, almost enough for him to hear his own heartbeat. With a smooth walk Ros moved, placing the box he carried on the dining table and moving past that to the bathroom, the hiss of that door barely breaking the quiet. Leaning over the sink, the lights came up in here as well, and then dimmed straight away. Ros took no notice, he leaned over the sink and let the water run into his hands, washing his face with the cold liquid and letting the drips splash back into the sink. In the mirror in front of him the room behind was out of focus, an effect of the lighting being low and as Ros stood, he could have sworn he saw himself still stooped over the sink in his reflection. He didn’t bother to do a double take though, not anymore.

Walking back into the living room a undid his jacket and let it lay over the back of a chair, undoing his shirt as he walked, letting it fall open to bare his chest. A chest that sported a large scar over his right shoulder that looked for all the world like a three clawed beast had gripped his shoulder, burning it’s image into him. He removed his shirt and a casual observer would notice a single ‘claw’ scar on his back on that side, like a thumb. The inside of his right bicep sported a tattooed 31, no longer hidden as Kara had once discovered. Kara.

Ros perched himself on the edge of the sofa and held up the dermal regenerator in front of him. Spinning it in his fingers once while he felt the burn inside of him, felt the fire consuming him slowly. He smiled, closed his eyes and let himself fall into it. Like another world, the fire was security, safety, knowledge and understanding. Death.

Kara was alive. That news shocked him, for the first time in a long time, he had been surprised. How had that news escaped him? The dermal regenerator spun in his fingers once more, and he moved off the sofa and to one of his bags. Taking out a simple shirt, he slid it over his head, covering the marks on his arm and body, the regenerator sliding into the bag as he zipped it back up. The warmth of the feeling of excitement, apprehension, flared within him. He had no idea what Kara’s reaction was going to be to seeing him again, and neither had he any idea what his would be in the moment. It was a moment that was about to happen though, there was no way he was going to delay this moment. Through pain, sorrow and woe he had lost her, thought her gone and dead in a place he could not reach. That smile played about his lips again, but the frown above his eyes told a different story that no one would be able to read. His eyes moved to the box, the light in the room for an instant making it seem that an outline of a person, his outline maybe, stood next to it.

Ros stood, walked and picked up the box once more, this time turning and moving into the bedroom, placing it inside the wardrobe and letting the door slide shut blocking it from view. That was for later. For now, Ros had someone to meet. Had a future to discover one way or another. The fingers of his left hand balled up and he rubbed them together, taking in a deep breath and letting it out before he stood and moved to the door where others waiting to show him to where Kara was due to be.

It was time, the heat in his eyes flaring for an instant before he opened the door, his hand relaxed. It was time.

Lt Cmdr Akirel Ros

As had been predicted by the Counselor, Kara Nakuto was presently in the holodeck. Training. The program was a bespoke one, as it had always been. But over the years, the changing of the landscape, the modification of the opposing foes, had woven a tale of the consciousness of this half-Klingon; from those early, innocent days amongst the forests of Carraya IV and a vicious onslaught against her Romulan captors, through the Dominion War and her matching of the ferocity of the Cardassians. And now, to a wholly different vista - a ring. The sand-covered floor of the platform course under her feet, occasional splotches of dark-red marking the sites of former battles. Around her on all sides, settled on tiered, timber seating, were a host of familiar faces - Majandra Guerin, Ta’lahali Beveres, Mike Stone, Reira Akaba. And there, in his now-customary seat on the front row - Akirel Ros.

In the beginning, the cheers and hollers from the crowd were glorious, Kara standing silently on the edge and allowing herself to take it all in. From each one she drew courage, drew sustenance from the calling of her name, from the encouraging of her victory. But from his she drew so much more. Acceptance. Belonging. Understanding. Until his was the only voice that remained. The only voice that mattered. She craved it, like she craved bloodwine. Could not bear, in that moment, to face the reality that it was only a digital recreation. Not real.

But then suddenly it came - the deep, primal singing of a gong. And almost immediately the voices were dissipated, friendly faces disintegrating into darkness so that she doubted their remaining existence at her side. Only his was still visible, those deep green eyes like absinthe, following each breath as she made her way, cautiously and uncertain, into the centre of the pit.
She was dressed in a black vest and shorts, muscular limbs bare and taut, tiny hairs bristling visibly on a current of nauseating anxiety. Assuming her warrior stance, Nakuto closed her eyes, not ready yet to witness their approach, not able to look them head on as they came upon her.

The door opened at that moment, far away, quietly. It was designed so that those entering would never be the centre of attention, that honor was held only for the ones in the pit. Well, those in the pit and the one person permitted to sit in the ancient, large throne beyond on a raised platform of the only wall that did not hold tiered seating. Everything was built so that those in the pit held the attention of all. Those entering the arena, had a long walk to the pit. A long, lonely walk as they surveyed what was to come of them.

And come they did. Singular, at first, then multiplying quickly until the pit was a frantic whirl of nightmarish limbs and cold, writhing darkness. A mass of frenzied, malevolent shadows. And now and then a glimmer, as the weak lighting caught the edge of a bat’leth. Before the darkness consumed it once again and the entire world turned black.

• Kara Nakuto (Consultant Researcher)

Ros walked. Slowly, towards the pit where the combat took place. He knew this place, intimately. He had designed it, built it with his own hands. Pulled from the darkest places of his mind and the deepest pits of his soul, this arena, this, Thunderdome, had been built for one purpose. Battle.

Everything here was built for battle, for honour, for sacrifice and for testing the limits of those who dared to step foot within. The seating was never built to hold an audience captivated by the struggle between the warriors, it was built so that the audience knew what waited for them in the pit. The audience would smell the sweat of the warriors, experience the fear in their eyes and taste the blood as it covered those in the front seats. Hear the grunts and groans of impact, of heavy breathing and pain as muscles ached and tore. Ros had built this for Kara, for what she had needed.

He walked. Closer to the whirling darkness and shadows that seemed to consume all within. Ros knew this, the battle that had raged in everyone on the Viking, in Kara and within him. Back then, he fought it. Barely understood it but knew it could never be allowed to consume him or the woman he was mated with. It was visible out of the corner of your eye in every room, in the eyes of the people you worked with, in the voices you heard in the empty corridors that echoed and never seemed to attach to body, or sounded like the crew that had left them.

He still fought it, and as he watched he knew Kara fought it harder than before. Kara had her reasons Ros knew as a dagger of guilt pierced him. She fought the darkness and her demons and he had not been there. Had not known she still fought. Ros believed he had lost her and in that loss he had come to realize that he had never understood. He had needed to lose her to realize how much he needed her, how much Kara Nakuto meant to him and how much he needed her touch and her breath upon him. How much he needed this woman at his side to control his own demon. It was more than the carnal release of tension and stress that pure survival had required, more than an alliance of mind and muscle in the darkness. He had lost her only to realize that he loved her.

In losing Kara, Ros had lost himself and he had turned to what he did understand. The darkness, and the need for battle. He had refused to grieve, let the fire in him grow and learned to use it. Now Kara was in front of him, still fighting and Ros was here. Fate was cruel sometimes, but fate was what had brought the both of them here. Cruel or kind, Ros would take it, even if it meant she would pierce his heart with her bat’leth. He wouldn’t make it easy for her, but he would take his fate.

He watched the whirl of the blade, heard her breathing and as he closed his eyes, felt the beat of her heart in the battle of the pit. It was strong, steady. It was the heart of a warrior, it did not race. It was controlled and steady. There was war in her heart, battle. Survival. Ros opened his eyes as he walked, much closer now to her and the pit and the shadows fighting the barely lit Thunderdome with the seats around them that once were filled with those they knew, those they worked with and fought against.

He let the heat of the battle fill him, lighting the fire within and letting his own low growl rumble in his heart and in his throat. Ros came to a stop only a few paces from the Pit, facing it and the woman within, facing the throne where she once had sat, that he had built for her. It was time, Fate was here, the shadows of the past were here and the darkness that threatened to consume them both was laughing at them, Ros could almost feel it like an undercurrent of madness in his soul.

He raised his hands to each side of him, barely level with his waist and he let the heat within surge forward. It was a holodeck, sure, but nevertheless the fire within him demanded this. A Warrior demanded this. Every wall sconce, brazier and torch adorning the walls of the Thunderdome flared into life, the torches in the black iron chandelier hanging above the pit where Kara fought burst into flame. Each blackened torch in the corners of the pit flamed, banishing the shadows swirling around the woman doing battle with her demons, leaving her exposed to his eyes he to hers.

This was not how it ended. This place, this arena where the light could not reach, where every inch of the stone hewn walls, every seat of the cold, wooden benches, had been chiselled from the very fabric of the abyss. It was the dominion of shadow, of those things that crept and lurched unceasingly within her ragged subconscious. This Gre’thorian battle could only be enacted here, on their ground. And at its nightly conclusion, when she fell, spent and exhausted, onto the hard, sandy floor, only then would she be rewarded with the treasured prize of slumber. It was the only way Nakuto had been successful in achieving undisturbed sleep.

But today the light had found her, had blazed fierce and dazzling from every single point. And with it the shadows had fled. Not from her - she was not quite so arrogant as to expect a combat-gained victory here. But then from whom?
And almost immediately the answer came in that avalanche chill down her spine. Someone else was here. Someone borne not from shadow, but instead from flesh and blood. She could hear it, staccato gunfire as its breath pierced the silence of the room. She could feel it, every hair on her body trembling with the visual caress of its eyes along her skin. And as those eyes continued to bore into her without saying a word, she could sense it burrowing to the depths of her very soul.

With the intruder still at her back, Kara’s eyes darted right to find Akirel Ros. The Bajoran remained in his seat, right arm now raised and pointing at the other, handsome face contorted into a mask of pure terror. Breath caught in her throat and ignited her to action, her own bat’leth raised as she drew a steadying breath and then, in movements honed from decades of discipline, pirouetted on her right leg to face her foe - the blade coming to rest against the soft, warm skin of a startlingly familiar throat.

“Kara,” Ros said simply, quietly but in a deep tone.

Her legs faltered, stumbled backwards into the pit, bare feet finding purchase at last and maintaining precarious balance. Brown eyes bore into his own, not holographic this time but real and containing every fathom of the depths that she had once willingly dove into and allowed to swallow her whole. And once again she felt the pull, that irresistible current of excitement and adventure, of intimacy and connection, of family and belonging. Of love. But her fingers still clung to the shore, to the diminishing illusion of reality and the physical laws of life versus death. Her mind scrambled to gain understanding, to gain acceptance, of the ghost now standing before her, yet solid as if still alive and not torn from her arms by the void.

“You.” It was all she could whisper before the barren scourge of words sealed her throat.

Lowering his hands and watching the warrior before him as he took a step towards the pit where she stood, he pulled off his shirt revealing the scars and the tattooed 31 on the inside of his right bicep. She knew these marks, intimately. Had added to them. She knew about the tattoo, she had told him he never needed to hide them from her and since he had lost her, he had never hidden them. The other secret, of course he hid from everyone, but that was something Kara would know he would never show the world willingly.

Eyes roamed his body with a hunger and passion she had thought no longer hers. Every inch, every feature, every blemish familiar to a hair, the story of their intimacy marked out in gentle scratches of tenderness and deep chasms of raw, unadulterated passion. She dared to inch a step closer, her movements deliberate and measured, as if one single slip of her foot could trigger the chaos and give him reason to strike. To his credit he remained steadfast as the half-Klingon circled around him, re-living the tale of their coupling at each beautiful scar - the deep indent on his shoulder where her teeth had laid their claim, dark valleys the length of his back where her nails had marked him as her own. This, here, was the true poetry - not in the flowery words recited by him as her hands tore at his skin, but in the aftermath of her desire, her want and need for every atom of him carved for eternity into his soul.

Her journey finally completed, she returned once more to face him and to drink of those fathomless green eyes. Until her tears conspired to blind her and, no strength remaining to resist, she allowed a single drop to spill down her cheek - a mirror of the bite she once left on his own, the taste of him still familiar and sweet in her mouth.

But the agony of time came upon her and the taste turned to ash on her tongue, memories beautiful and fragile as woven glass crumbled instantly by the nightmare of the void. So powerful as to almost find form, Nakuto winced as her consciousness was once more plunged into darkness, into endless months of torture and of agony with him gone from her side. He had abandoned her. Or had she left him? Impossible now to discern raw truth from this mountain of unendurable pain. They had both been swallowed by the beast, but she had believed only herself to have come out alive.

And then she had mourned him. She had grieved for him and cried for him and roared to him in Sto’vo’kor until her throat was ragged and torn. And with Tal’ahali’s help she had come to terms with her loss. Had relegated him to dreams, to a ghost forever cold and invisible in her bed. But Akirel Ros was no ghost. He was here. He was returned, standing before her now in solid, flesh and blood form. How could she not have known? Through the misery of the intervening years, how could she not have heard? Have sensed him? Almost reflexively her bat’leth was raised, her body falling easily into its warrior stance, even as the tears continued to fall, each one a tsunami of loneliness and of suffering against the cold steel cutting into her palm.

He took a vest from a stand beside the pit. Torn and sporting metal studs and dark stains he slipped it over his shoulders, zipping it tight over his chest as he stepped into the Pit facing the woman that had been taken from him so long ago, leaving the muscles of his arms exposed. “I thought you were dead.”

“I was,” she offered in ragged whisper. “And so were you.”

There was no accusation in his words, no excuse and no hint of apology but his eyes held a fire that Kara would recognize, that no holodeck recreation could match. It was the fire of the way that Akirel Ros had always looked at Kara Nakuto the woman and warrior, not Kara Nakuto the Captain. “I lost you.”

Akirel Ros

“You have found me,” Nakuto replied.

So easy it felt, in that moment, to end both their suffering and submit. One step was all it would take and then she could once again be in his arms, muscles heavy and strong against her back, her head bobbing gently with each rise and fall of his chest, the beat of the heart within him confirming at each stroke that he was truly, undeniably, alive.
But on this torrent of fear, new memories began to surface - memories of a different Ros. A darker Ros. Not one snatched from her by the darkness but one that welcomed it as an old friend. Of a face in the shower so wholly familiar and yet terrifying all the same. And as she stared at him now the realisation chilled her to the bone - she could not tell which Ros stood before her, the one come to lead her into the light? Or the one set to drag her back to the void. She remained frozen, her feet planted to the ground, bat’leth held before her like a physical barrier, watching, waiting, to see if he would cross.

• Kara Nakuto (Consultant Researcher)