=/\= T'Shen monastery, Shi'Al province =/\=
Just outside her quarters after having listened to some music on the holodeck again. They were both dressed well enough... He had gotten tired of getting nowhere. The usual methods of dating were not working with Sakarra. No he could tell no change in her demeanor towards him at all. Instead of simply waiting for something to come along he took the chance. He kissed her, there in the middle of the corridor, cornered against the side of the door as he held her. Then she told him, dared him, that if he was not careful that she would insist that he complete that which he had now started. It was the first time she had seen the smirk on his face, as he slowly walked her into her own room... It happened in the heat of passion. She placed her fingers to his temple and chin, and it was formed. At that moment Brent took the initiative, and began to speak for her, through the connection that they had in that memory.
"Sakarra... I know you can hear me. Please. Come back. We need you to come back. I need you. The healers here say you need to come back into a healing trance, that coming out too far would be dangerous. You remember the healing trance don't you?"
Brent transitioned into the next memory. The earlier one he had spoken of. Him dashing off with her in sickbay, making doctors irate afterwards... He took her to her quarters, she clung to him in the cold that she felt. He lay her down on her bed, letting her go into the healing trance and keeping watch over her. She could see him from his side. He stared at her for a little while, making sure that she was alright before he looked to his PADD. Every fifteen minutes like clockwork Brent would look back at Sakarra, healing her wounds. When finally the time came to bring her out he found it... Difficult. The annoyance, turning into worry... Into a dogged determination to bring her out of it even if it meant soaking her with ice cold water.
"Yeah you remember that don't you my love? I know you do. We need you to come back to that state. To the healing trance. Please. Please Sakarra. I love you."
Ah, how could she have been so wrong? Sihayel nearly gasped at the sudden realization and it took nearly all her experience to not lose herself, lose her patient in the forceful surge, and likely the human along with them both.
This was no trapped butterfly, struggling helplessly against its cocoon. It was a Shavokh nestling chained and beating its small but powerful wings in fury, blinded by the storm and darkness. The nest that had been its salvation becoming the cage, as the storm would not cease and there was no way out, no way … until it would kill.
And the nestling knew, fought, blind and angry, unwilling to cede the battle, not now, not ever, not like this, not like this,… Not. Like. This.
Until it felt a familiar tug at its heart, a glowing thread, faint, so faint … and spread its wings, flung itself into the howling storm, unafraid, trusting … risking everything on the faint flicker of light, struggling for every heartbeat, fighting onward with a ferocity that was enough to shake even the ancient healer's composure. Fast, too fast …
If the struggle alone did not kill her, emerging with such violence certainly would. And with all the force of her mind Sihayel held against the little angry bird, tried to make it understand …
What it was that soothed the furious one, Sihayel did not understand until the blue eyed one's voice reached the conscious part of her mind keeping watch. And reached her.
How...?
Blind, circling in the storm that shrieked around her, tore at her wings … the young one hovered. Listened.
This was no longer pure instinct, the natural reaction Sejet had hoped for. There was comprehension. Sharing. On the most basic of levels as far as the injured, dying Vulcan was concerned but … she knew. Remembered.
Nothing astonished the healer more than the brief impression of laughter echoing through the storm before in an outpouring of emotions that would have seen Sihayel cry out at the sheer intensity if she were any less experienced at containing even this … the young one acquiesced.
Circling, seeking, and then clinging to the memory she had been given she followed it with the same trust, the same determination.
Deeper.
It took no more than the gentlest nudge of the healer to settle the now calm, peaceful mind into the soothing dark of the healing trance and though there was acknowledgement, a silent nudge, a gentle hello to the helpful, vaguely familiar mind, the fiercely burning emotions were directed … elsewhere.
For a mercy they were, else Sihayel might have drowned in the meld before long.
No words.
There were no words … for this.
Even before the old healer's hands retreated from her patient's temples and she became aware of the tears running over her face, she knew. Knew the lithe, slender body was warming ever so lightly, knew the injured lungs were drawing breath almost as they should.
"Water."
It was about the only word she managed, and a stunned Sejet hurried to place the soaking linen on the young one's neck. Within minutes, it was dry.
Brent felt the healer withdraw from his hand as he looked down at Sakarra, there were those subtle changes as he brought his uninjured hand back to hers, wincing in the pain of moving his arm back into the sling. He brushed his hand through her hair again, making sure that he was not just imagining things. He wasn't. It had worked hadn't it? He could see the difference. She was in the healing trance. He smiled looking up at the healer and the old monk. "It worked didn't it? She's in the healing trance yes?" he asked looking between the two of them, still not trusting his own eyes.
Long ago, a Vulcan serving on a Starfleet vessel had been heard saying "Fascinating is a word I use for the unexpected. In this case, interesting shall suffice." Of course, this also works for the opposite. If something is so unexpected it may safely be called outrageous, 'I never believed this sort of thing could happen' astounding if not stupendous, the word 'astonishing' tends to be used to convey the bafflement and wonder.
Sihayel was quite … astonished.
A human. A human.
The healer was no fool to believe in mystic powers and had not sensed any dormant mind-talents asserting themselves. Though the latter were not uncommon among her own race, neither were they widely spread, and the telepathically blind and deaf children of Terra brought forth less than a handful in every generation with a much larger populace to draw upon. No, this had been instinct, pure and simple, propelled by a determination and fearlessness that the ancient healer would dare match against the hot blood of one of Nevasa's own any day.
She had managed to calm her features, recover from the turbulent meld while the quietly bustling Sejet had taken over care of their patient with practiced hands, drenched the cloth in more warm, fragrant water that was absorbed as eagerly by the beaten, battered body as the first while nodding with deep satisfaction at the slow, steady pulse under his fingertips.
"Yes, Brent Warren." The old healer-monk's deep baritone seemed to draw Sihayel out of the last of the haze still surrounding her senses and she blinked, both with the effort to absorb the experience and no small amount of fatigue.
Radiating nothing but cheerful calm, the abbot stepped around the blue eyed one rather than ask him to move aside as his experienced hands lifted the silk to examine the wounds. "But once again I believe you are asking me to confirm that which you already know." Humor crinkling the faint lines around his dark eyes Sejet tilted his head and then seemed to suppress an actual chuckle when the human sniffed the air, apparently recognizing the scent of the oil the monk had begun to drizzle onto the slowly warming, round shoulders. Ah, but it would require a little more help than this to let the young one recover … still he was minded to give Sihayel a few more minutes before letting someone see to replacing the dressings over the terrible disruptor wound. Now, they had those minutes. And more.
The deep satisfaction shining in the monk's eyes could have been mistaken for happiness in just about any other race. "I also believe that gratitude is in order. Not only have you assisted in giving our patient exceedingly good chances for survival, but you may have spared an old monk from the Matriarch's wrath."
"Sometimes it pays to get a second opinion," Brent responded to the comment that he was asking a question that he already knew the answer to. Given how only a few minutes ago he was trying to make peace with the fact that Sakarra would die, what just happened seemed almost impossible. He moved away from Sakarra as he was made to move so that the monk could see to her injuries properly now. He smiled before sliding down into the corner of the wall. "Good. Good. I think that since she's on the mend, and I can barely stand or think straight now. I'm going to pass out. This rollercoaster of adrenaline just dropped again and I can't think of a reason to stay up any longer." With that his head began to sag down against his chest. "If anything else happens, wake me please. Oh and if I snore, poke my sides that normally stops it." Before Brent could hear them respond or even comprehend what he had said, the Marine had passed out. His body unable to function any more on ten hours of sleep in five days.
Before Sejet's mildly surprised eyes, the tall, broad shouldered human drifted off to sleep and from the looks of her Sihayel would not have minded to do the same.
Shaking his head with faint amusement, the old abbot silently called for another healer and soon enough Miran and a flock of novices descended onto the room, filling it with the whisper and flutter of robes. But where Sihayel took her leave with a dignified half-bow, the Marine barely stirred when two females deftly hoisted him onto a low couch that had been set up close enough to his mate that one might reach out and touch, but not close enough to disturb either should he move in his sleep. Nor did he seem to notice his boots and jacket being removed by swift, practiced hands or the lingering ... appreciative looks.
Well and so, if she was going to be displeased with him for allowing the outworlder's intrusion, this little extra insolence of allowing him to remain would hardly make things worse. Or, as humans like to say – if I am to be damned, let it be for a good reason. Sejet firmly believed in giving people reasons.
"I am not certain whether the request was in jest, however you should poke his sides if he … snores."
"Human neuropressure, S'haile?"
"I must assume so. Unfortunately he failed to specify."
"Ah."
Leaving the no less puzzled young healer to watch over the well cared for patient and the peacefully slumbering Marine, Sejet set out to tend to his lilies.
Now, only time would tell. But knowing the women of Sas-a-Shar's blood as he did, there was another faint smile dawning on the abbot's face as he stepped into the bright sunlight.
[End Log]
Lt Cmdr Sakarra Tyrax
Executive Officer
Brevet 1st Lieutenant Brent Warren
Marine Commander
USS Charon
Sejet
Abbot
&
Sihayel
Senior Healer
T'Shen Monastery
