Posted by Commander Luka (Executive Officer) in Runabout to Athena

Posted by Ensign Allison Fleet (Scientist) in Runabout to Athena

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Rovan Moor (Engineer/Pilot) in Runabout to Athena
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻
<Snip>

The silvery glow of the moon blossom flower seemed to make everything glow, and Allison felt her cheeks warm despite the cool evening breeze. You sure timed this perfectly, she quietly thought, smiling. Everything was so perfect. She relaxed against him, happy to remain there as long as he would allow her to. If he had planned to impress her with this sight, and this scene, well, it was a smashing success. She reached out to take the moon blossom from his hands and hold it in her lap, looking back and forth between the flower, the basket, the photo, and his beautiful smile.

Rovan let her take it, then turned and moved his leg to the other side of the seat so that he was facing her and straddling it. Like this, he took her in his arms and let her lean into him, letting their bodies touch and feeling her close against him. He angled his head to look over the planet with her and the scene before them, his head on hers and the scent of her hair filling him as he held her close. He needed no words, just her. The dark hole within him was light again, Rovan hadn’t been this much at peace for a very long time.

She let the silence stand for what felt like several minutes before she finally spoke. “It’s beautiful… Thank you.” She sat up slightly, not leaning against him anymore, but still cradling the flower in her hands, careful not to get any of the oils on her skin. The Moon-blossom was an odd plant. It was a perennial plant which, each spring, first grew leaves and shoots, gathering energy. As the spring melted into summer, the leaves would wither and die, the plant storing all the extra energy in its small root bundle until mid summer, when the flower would appear from the dirt and glow in the night. It was fertilized mainly by a strange species of insect that her grandfather had discovered, which seemed to spread the glowing oil on itself as well as gathering the flower’s nectar to use for food.

But the bulb remained even after the flower died. Even when the beauty was gone from sight, it was the hidden bulb that held the magic, causing the flower to return the next year, and the next, and the next… She smiled, able to feel the rough texture of a small burlap bag in her hands underneath the blossom, just large enough to hold the bulb and enough dirt to keep it alive. He hadn’t killed the root to show off the beauty of the flower.

He looked down into her eyes and cupped her cheek in his hand, in the light of the Moon-Blossom his yellow eyes gleamed and shone. It could have made him look dangerous, like a predator that stalked the forest, but with those eyes looking at Allie there was nothing dangerous about them. They were soft and gentle, just like his heart which beat slowly as if trying to hold time itself in place. “It is beautiful, and it’s ours. Forever.” He said the words quietly, as if they would break the peace that had fallen over the planet.

She smiled, standing up and turning to look out over the water. “So, what’s for dinner?” she asked, looking back at him with a soft smile.

Ens. Allison Fleet, Science

Now, Rovan laughed. “Not a lot, we don’t want to be sleepy when we get back to the Athena,” he revealed, “but I brought a little rice and a few salads. Some of your chicken, it goes well with Ktarian bread and of course, I brought Ktarian chocolate pudding. You know I can’t go anywhere without it.” He moved back and swung his leg over the seat again, but paused and kissed her cheek gently before he moved himself onto the blanket and patted the fabric beside him. With the setting of the sun, the heat of the evening had not fallen. The breeze still carried the scent of flowers and the call of birds. Rovan opened the basket and brought out a few covered containers, placing two plates and cutlery on the blanket for each of them. It was clear that ‘dinner’ was a simple affair, light and tasty and easy to eat. A bottle of Ktarian fruit juice appeared from the basket as well, along with decorative and very old goblets Rovan had obviously collected from somewhere.

Allison followed him to the blanket, sitting down and smiling slightly. She still held the blossom. ‘If someone told me before that mission that I would end up falling in love with an alien, I never would have believed it…‘ she thought to herself. ‘Then again I wouldn’t believe that most of what’s happened to me would actually happen…‘ She had a thoughtful look on her face as she watched Rovan getting the meal ready.

As Rovan began to put a little of each dish onto their plates, he looked at Allie and smiled very softly. “Do you think a house here would suit facing the lake?” He asked her, “down lower a little, so this tree and seat doesn’t get blocked from the sunset or the sunrise. It’s the best view of the moons at night as well.” He told her, looking up at the rings and moons above them shining their light on the pair and the glowing Moon-Blossom.

Lt j.g. Rovan Moor
Eng/Pilot

The thoughtful expression on her face didn’t stop, even as she stared into the distance at the lake and the sky. The stars were magnificent from here. She glanced down at the moon-blossom in her hands, staring at it for several long moments. A house here? What was he saying? “Honestly, back when I was in the past, I always figured… I’d go home to mum and dad after I was done with Starfleet. Take over the greenhouses, I guess. When I was on the planetoid, there wasn’t really a future to look to. When the Genny rescued me… Well gee…”

He finished dishing out their small meal, then placed the plates in front of the two of them and watched Allie as she spoke. There were reasons he had asked her that question, and he was very, very interested in her reaction to it. The future was just that, the future. Rovan had no idea what was going to be in his, or their future but one thing he had learned since the two of them had been apart was a future without a dream, or without reason, was no future.

“I was just happy to be away from that planetoid. Didn’t think about what might be after. Still haven’t given it much thought. Guess I figured I’d just stay on a ship till they kicked me off, then go back home to Earth. Now I’ve been there…? I dunno. It’s great, but it’s not the same as I left it,” she sighed, starting to dig a small divot in the soil with her fingers. “So right now, I guess I haven’t got a home after Starfleet. It’s just me. Except life threw another monkey wrench in my plans.”

Rovan smiled in the moonlight as he watched her dig the small hole in the dirt, and seeing what she was doing he moved so that he was lying just in front of her on the blanket (after moving their meal out of the way) propped on one elbow. With the other hand, his fingers joined hers in digging. He was pleased to realize that she had the same thought that he had had when he brought the Moon-Blossom to this spot. “I’m not sure exactly what a monkey wrench is,” he told her, glancing up and grinning as he said it. “But i’m pretty sure I look nothing like a monkey wrench,” he teased her gently.

She glanced at him, and continued to dig until there was a small pile of dirt. She lifted the moon-blossom and planted the bulb in the hole. “Life introduced me to you. And you, Mister Rovan Moor, are likely the most mysterious character I have had the pleasure of getting to know. Not because you have mysteries about you, although I’m certain your time while I was on earth was fascinating and very secret,” she paused for a moment, grasping his hand.

He took it, and let their soil covered fingers intertwine before he raised his eyes to hers once more. His time while she was on Earth was definitely very secret, and important, but it had been empty compared how he felt now with Allison back in his life. Grasping her hand, he brought it to his chest and over his heart as she spoke.

“But because of the mysterious effect you have on me. I find myself hearing you talk about a house on a hill in the middle of nowhere on an alien planet, and instead of laughing or dismissing it as a joke, I find myself picturing a porch swing on a veranda, and the two of us relaxing in that porch swing, all grey and wrinkled as we watch the sunset together. And that idea makes me happy,” she pulled his hand over to the moon-blossom and guided him to pack the dirt in around the flower. When it was sufficiently packed, she grabbed her cup of water and poured it near the base, letting the water flow onto the buried bulb. “Happier than I could imagine. So please tell me that wasn’t in jest…” She looked at him, her eyes clear and sincere.

Allison Fleet

He lay before her and looked up at her framed by the rings of the Planet and the stars bright in the light of a world unsullied by civilization, her eyes looking back at him bright in the light of the moons above and light glimmering from the lake behind him. For a moment he didn’t speak. He just smiled at her as he watched her and ran his fingers gently over her knee closest to him, wanting to touch her.

“During my time away I returned to Ktaria,” he told her, speaking softly as if he didn’t want to disturb the breeze itself. “I didn’t grow up there, you know that already and you know that my parents are gone. I was lost, apart from you and everything I knew like I was in a world that had no place for me. I fought to make a place for me, or what I was and I realized that it was no world for me. Ktaria wasn’t my home, Allie, it never was. I had Starfleet but that wasn’t a home, then you came back to me. Whatever deity of whatever species that heard my quiet tears answered them and brought you back to me and I realized, that even more than before, I had no place I belonged and no future to dream of with you.”

Rovan looked up at the stars, the rings and the moons that stood out in the sky so differently to both Ktaria and Earth and gently traced patterns over her knee as he spoke. “I learned that everyone needs a future to dream of. Everyone needs a home or they lose themselves in a place bigger than what’s out there,” he said, eyes moving to the stars and then back to Allie. She had been ripped from her own time and dropped in his, and he had fallen in love with her. She loved him, an Alien of a species who once she had never even known had existed when she had begun to explore the stars. Her home wasn’t how she had left it, and his was gone completely.

“I want my future to be with you, Allison,” he told her and smiled again as he took her hand. “I want a house, a porch swing on a veranda while we relax all grey and wrinkled while we dance in the evening moonlight and watch the sunset over the lake, and drink tea in the glow of a forest of moon-blossoms that grow from this one we planted here tonight. There is no jest, this patch of land, this hill and the land down to the lake is where I am going to build a home where I can dream of a future with you. It’s my land, our land, signed and agreed and there is enough for anything we want to do including having our own orchard where I can chase kids that steal my apples but always let them get away with it. I love you Allie, so much more than I ever realized and I want you beside me for the rest of my life. I want a home with you that we can dream of together, a future with you as my wife.”

He brought her soil covered fingers to his lips and kissed them gently, both of them in the glow of the moon-blossom beside them and the moons above. “Will you dream with me about our home and future, Allie? Will you be my wife?”

Lt j.g. Rovan Moor
Engineer / Pilot