#tinsnip

The very first lines in the document are this :

"The way to win is to be willing to give up more than your opponent thinks you will.

Bashir: his career/good name/golden boy of starfleet.

Garak: Tain’s name/legacy/official line"

Which is I guess A CLUE as to the plot?

EXCEPT! aha, WRONG! what follows is an Outsider POV scene about people who used to work with Bashir trying to figure up WTF was up with that Garak character.

Earlier: 

They find record of Ziyal,

Aha, here we go: Tora, Ziyal. Habitat ring 3 room 472C we can go ask her.

“I don’t think we can do that”

“Why? It’s not too late in the day.”

She pointed to a folder in Burial Records.

Tora, Ziyal. 2341-2358

“Shit.”

She’d been seventeen.

Christ, what did they used to keep in there?

So what have we learned about Bashir’s old friend.

“He was a fat, harmless gossip.

“He was a stoic, hardworking type with a black sense of humor. Who kept to himself and who could carry 80lb bolts of tholian wool without breaking a sweat.”

“cardies don’t sweat.”

“He must have loved her very much.”

“I must object, that is illogical.”

“Ziyal, not well... anyone else?” 

“I learned he maybe made a guy have a mental breakdown by staring at him.”

Everyone shut up. Porter smirked, milked the silence for a couple of beats and then launched into it.

“Yeah, while you were cooing over the dead girl’s dress I had a chat with Vedek Belain. He’s kind of new, frankly kind of a bubblehead, but he’s head priest of the temple now, because the old guy kicked off to a monastery planetside. Pretty much had himself committed. 

Vedek Rashet, apparently couldn’t kick up a fuss over Ziyal since the girl was devout and Colonel Kira would have his guts on a jumja stick but he made it damn hard for  Garak to visit her. 

He insisted that a ‘faithless’ unbeliever, not to mention a former official in the Occupation, have to undergo purification. The burning herbs are the problem, most Cardassians hate the smell of burning ____ since it makes them sick.”

That’s how Belain had told it:

“Whatever else, whatever the rumors say, he was a very stubborn person. he came he came nearly every week unless the Federation had work for him, translating or whatever he did and then the next week he’d come for sure. And every time Rashet would circle him with the burning herbs he’d look at him, he never said anything impolite, always greeted us both with a cordial but he would just lock eyes with him until the circle was finished. “

To Rashet it was a crusade, some kind of misplaced outlet for everything he must have felt during the Occupation. There are many people like that, people who expressed their feelings often did not survive, so it was a Vedek’s work to know that frustration, to redirect that energy towards walking with the will of the Prophets. In ourselves and our parishoners.

It would have been stupid, just a way of measuring will except I had this feeling that for the Cardassian the goal was always to see Ziyal and everything with Rashet was just an irritation.

I confess seeing Rashet march over and grab the purification burner with such righteousness I felt ashamed. Sometimes I wanted to stop by the shop and apologize for him. 

First he sneered, then he glared, then for a while he looked blank and did not seem to take any joy from the ritual. His hands would start to shake when he picked up the incense holder. 

When Mr. Garak would come he looked like he was marching to his own execution, though he never let me deal with him instead.

And then, just before he left, Mr Garak came unusually late at night, at the very end of Rashet’s shift, he had been nervous, anticipating it all day and then I couldn’t find him at the entrance. I was the only one on shift and very flustered so I just led him  into the crypt and he thanked me like that was perfectly normal.

I found Vedek Rashet later, he’d locked himself up in the library storage closet. He’d been crying I think, and tearing at his robes. 

You think he did it deliberately?

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AAAAND there are some more completely random snippets that maybe belong to another fic? Anyway they make no sense and I shan't post them.

I think the gist of this one was 'Bashir leaves DS9 to go to Cardassia in a somewhat scandalous manner. His direct reports are like 'wtf', quickly run into mentions of Garak, are then are like 'wtf, Garak?' And we learn that Garak was unassuming, wait he was terrible, wait he was kind-ish? wait, he was a person AND a weird lizard spy. Wait, he was in love with Ziyal? Ummmnnno it was actually probably Bashir.

yes our boss torpedoed his career to go be with the spy who gave him brainrot.

I have no idea why I stopped working on it because I love Outsider Pov Garashir but perhaps it got too long and I forgot about it. I still enjoy the idea that everyone who was ever there for the main run of DS9 and then left becomes a lowkey urban legend on the station.