STF

Side Sim - The Envelope, Please. - (Tag ALL Crew)

Posted Jan. 26, 2021, 12:26 p.m. by Lieutenant Pretha Oberon (Security Officer / CRIT Leader) (Melissa Aragon)

Posted by Shara Calloway (Intel Liason) in Side Sim - The Envelope, Please. - (Tag ALL Crew)

Posted by Lieutenant Faye Calloway (Mission Specialist) in Side Sim - The Envelope, Please. - (Tag ALL Crew)

Posted by Warrant Officer Walker Darach (Chief Operations Officer) in Side Sim - The Envelope, Please. - (Tag ALL Crew)
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻

OOC: This is the new garden for everyone’s reference: https://www.star-fleet.com/core/stf1/manhattan/posts/116416/

(snip)

OOC: Credit: A Home Song By Henry Van Dyke
~Faye Calloway

“Very appropriate. Though I’m not sure I’ve heard that before, where is it from?” Walker asked.

WO Darach - COO

Faye turned an amused gaze upon her mother. “You should recognize it,” she said emphatically.

A bewildered look spread across Shara’s face. “I should?” Faye just stared at her harder until it dawned on the elder woman. “Oh!! It was in that damn book of his, wasn’t it?”

Faye nodded with a light laugh. “Uh huh.”

“Yeah, never read it,” Shara said flippantly. “Tried the first three poems once and they bored me to tears and I never got any further.”

“Should have kept going,” Faye said before returning her attention to the rest of the group. “My dad had this really old book of poems that he treasured. It was an anthology from four hundred yeas ago that he acquired through means he would never tell us but always made him smile. Anyway, the poem was in there. It’s called A Home Song by Henry van Dyke Junior who lived on Earth in the nineteenth century and died in the early twentieth. He was a member of the clergy, as well as an author, diplomat, teacher… and you didn’t need to know all that,” Faye said, her cheeks warming slightly.

“Hey, I always loved having you as our resident encyclopedia,” Shara teased. “Livened up our dull days.”

“You’re such a riot,” Faye deadpanned, though there was a gleam in her eyes and she was enjoying the banter. It felt… normal.

~The Calloways

Without noticing it, Kiama had taken a step or two back as Faye and Shara talked. Not because she didn’t want to be there, though, but because the poem had touched and stirred up something deep inside her. She had an idea what was going on and it was okay. But she felt her eyes fill with tears and she really didn’t want to spoil their good mood because she was suddenly overcome by memories and emotions. Yet she also didn’t want to just walk away and neither did she want to interrupt Faye and her mother. So she did the only thing she could think of and crossed the small distance between Darach and herself. Hoping he wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes, she whispered, “Can you let Faye know that I’ll be right back? I don’t want to interrupt her and Shara.”

Turning around on her heels, wine glass still in hand, Kiama headed towards a quieter corner of the arboretum.

~Lt. Naim, CSO

“Sure think Lieutenant,” Walker replied back in a whisper. He politely avoided his eyes, he could tell that Kiama had been taken by the poem and needed a moment.

Raising his voice back to a normal level, he took a half step towards the Calloways. “He certainly had a way with words. Were all the poems in the book just as moving? I’m sure our resident encyclopedia must remember more of the poems,” he said with a glimmer in his eye. He was going to remember that.

WO Darach - COO

Faye tossed Walker a withering glare. “She does, naturally,” she said, thought she couldn’t help the smile that slipped back on her face. She was just in too good of a mood to be annoyed. “There’s another I really like by Walt Whitman, called Poem of the Road. It’s really long but there are some lovely passages.”

Gathering herself like she was preparing for a performance, Faye set her stance and readied her arms to be able to gesture.

Allons! After the great companions! and to be-
long to them!
They too are on the road! they are the swift and
majestic men! they are the greatest women!

Over that which hindered them, over that which
retarded, passing impediments large or small,
Committers of crimes, committers of many beauti-
ful virtues,
Enjoyers of calms of seas, and storms of seas,
Sailors of many a ship, walkers of many a mile of
land,
Habitues of many different countries, habitues of
far-distant dwellings,
Trusters of men and women, observers of cities,
solitary toilers,
Pausers and contemplaters of tufts, blossoms, shells
of the shore,
Dancers at wedding-dances, kissers of brides,
tender helpers of children, bearers of children,
Soldiers of revolts, standers by gaping graves,
lowerers down of coffins,
Journeyers over consecutive seasons, over the
years—the curious years, each emerging
from that which preceded it,
Journeyers as with companions, namely, their own
diverse phases,
Forth-steppers from the latent unrealized baby-
days,
Journeyers gaily with their own youth—journey-
ers with their bearded and well-grained
manhood,
Journeyers with their womanhood, ample, unsur-
passed, content,
Journeyers with their sublime old age of manhood
or womanhood,
Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty
breadth of the universe,
Old age, flowing free with the delicious near-by
freedom of death.

The cadence of the passage was such that to rolled and ebbed and flowed and made it much more like a spoken word performance than the recitation of a poem, and Faye, whether she was just less self-conscious in this moment or simply opening up more, performed the open the way she imagined it should be.

“The last bit is really pretty too,” she said before jumping in again.

Mon enfant! I give you my hand!
I give you my love, more precious than money,
I give you myself, before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself? Will you come
travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live

Faye smiled and shrugged.

OOC: The poem in full: https://whitmanarchive.org/published/LG/1856/poems/12

~Faye Calloway

Shara watched her daughter with a wide grin. It something else to see Faye so lively and animated. Had she ever seen that before? She didn’t think so. “Dear me, I feel like I should have brought a guitar with me and we could have had a whole campfire like the old days,” she said with a light laugh.

~Commander Shara Calloway

Pretha had been watching the whole show and smiled as the announcement was made. She was glad she had been right. There had been a reason for Faye’s actions, and the woman was worthy of the belief Pretha had known she deserved deep down. As the last of the most recent poem was murmured, she stepped up just to the right of the woman. “It was lovely. The poem I mean. And you deserve every moment of this evening. Enjoy it. I will find you tomorrow, I’m sure.” She winked and nodded to the woman hoping she understood the friendship that was being offered, or rather, had been offered back in the brig. It was still there and never wavered. She then nodded to the others.

“Commander,” she nodded to Faye’s mother. “Lieutenant,” she smiled to Faye and then the rest. “A good evening to you all.” She patted Faye’s shoulder once more and turned to go.

Pretha
CRIT Ldr


Posts on USS Manhattan

In topic

Posted since


© 1991-2024 STF. Terms of Service

Version 1.15.9