— CONTROL YOURSELF

Nicole frowned, staying her walk as she watched Aella zone out. Indecision warred. It only be the time she needed to adjust her eyes. But as it went on, Nicole became uneasy. She’d been about to reach out, nudging for a response, before the officer finally snapped back to present. Nicole’s eyebrows raised at the response.

"... No." Even if Aella were bleeding, she would not delay the talks. They superseded her in every way. But the headache that nags at her spits spots of black around her vision, and she can hardly see through everything else... "I mean... yes. Forgive me. I am fine. I... I can hear something. Perhaps the... wildlife." Pallid-faced, black eyes closed, she attempted to center herself. "It is merely very... loud. We may proceed."

Finding her way when all the colors were intersecting over her vision was going to be harrowing, but she refused to slow down the security officer.

So he makes a promise he doesn't know if he can keep.

Your mother was important to me. You are, too. She reads it over, and over, and over, and over, until her heart feels less rotten, less like the rock it is.

[ Learning Center ] I believe you.

Stupid...

it's in doing that job that he notices the girl, the same girl he sees around here most days. he's never bothered her, is more than happy to leave her to her own devices, but it's a slow day today, and he's finally curious (or maybe bored) enough to go bother her, so that's what he does, oyster and knife in his hands.

So he is not a complete stranger. But he is still so much of a stranger, insomuch that when he stops next to her and offers her the dead creature, she freezes, eyes wide, like a deer caught in the lights of a car.

Nicole nodded as the linguist responded. Not very chatty, but given the professional nature of the circumstances it seemed to fit. She indicated direction with a jerk of her head, and turned toward the cave system entrance as the officer started to follow.

"Tal'ein," she repeated, failing to fully replicate the sounds. She was pretty okay at the glottal stop though-- came from trying to learn Klingon.

"Our guide indicated that we weren't to use artificial lights in the cave passages. It's a little dim, but they've got some glowing substance lining the walls. Think it's from the native wildlife." The entrance was low. Nicole put her hand to the top of the rocky arch as she ducked inside, but she was able to stand up straight just on the other side.

Aella hardly need duck as she comes to the low entrance. She stares inside at rock meeting daylight, obscured into darkness. Wildlife... She does sense wildlife, indeed. Or — something or other. A strong pull exists — a murmur she cannot fully part her way through, a muddle of colors so interconnected she cannot see what color is being told. A space alive. Full, and teeming.

... She has been standing, a few feet apart from the other, staring off into space, for nearly a minute. She chastens.

“Forgive me, sir.” Her head is bowed in deference. “... Yes, of course.”

" it's fine. i think it's better that way." laramie doesn't elaborate. it's not like he could do that, and make perfect sense.

" pfff—counterpoint: someone calling you by the name you don't like is waaaay more impolite. it's called meetin' someone where they're at." he says, almost like a conspiracy theorist. though, that's just how he sounds when he's trying to share his point of view.

“I suppose...” What a thought: Mentor meeting her “where she was at”. It felt like an impossibility. A goal too lofty to carry, too impossible to balance on too brittle a back.

Or, perhaps... as Mentor always said... “Or perhaps I need be more obedient.”