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Ziyal has claimed a small table in Ten Forward, and it's currently scattered with paper, inkwells, brushes. The red she's currently working with is slashed across the paper like wounds.

The brush that's been sitting in the black ink is next, and she moves it thoughtfully around in the well before tempering the violent red with swirls of black.

She's not really aiming for anything in particular at the moment, just getting a feel for new tools. There are a few pages drying off to one side, one in a Bajoran style, one looking more like a Japanese ink painting--she's been researching--and one that's a portrait of a woman, but the features are murky and unformed, aside from a set of Bajoran ridges and an earring. The ink is smudged, swept around the page like someone tried to erase it, and the side of Ziyal's hand is also stained black with ink.

Looks like she wasn't happy about that one.

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"Quite the interesting composition you have there. Interesting mix of colors and uses of ink, for certain. May I ask where you had your training," came a wizened voice from behind her. There is a smiling older gentleman there, looking expectantly at the young woman.

Ziyal glances up from the page, a small, polite smile on her face. She's been getting sideways glances from most everyone in a Starfleet uniform and from quite a few of the people displaced by Q, it's rather nice not to be stared at. "At the University in Jalanda City, on Bajor."

Which at the moment had few to no students...it was difficult sometimes to recall that the Occupation was still happening.

"I wish I knew what that meant, because I'm not a native from this universe. I'm certain I could mention places like Telos or Skaro to you and they would be just as meaningless," The Doctor said with a rather sad tone. He did appreciate the friendly reception here on the Enterprise, but he was getting itchy feet again.

"Ah...well, I could show you on a star map, but it's...very unlikely we'll be going near there anytime soon." She wouldn't want to show him pictures of Bajor as it was now. She honestly didn't remember much herself--she was 13 when she left, and sheltered for most of her life, she knew that. But she also knew how decimated Bajor was by the Occupation.

"Is it a situation similar to mine? Plucked from another reality by this Q being? I really ought to have words with him. He's taken me from my home and I am keen to get back before something happens that I won't be able to fix."

The Doctor is definitely homesick now. He misses his universe. He misses his Old Girl.

"Well...not so much another reality. This is mine. I'm just...a little out of place in it." She takes a moment to dip her brush in water to clean it, swirling it idly as she talks.

"I'm from about eight years on. Give or take a few months."

"Oh dear. From the future, and specifically their future?" The Doctor got far more angry now. "This Q is quite the idiot if he thinks he can just people from space and time and think there are no actual consequences for his actions."

Q is sounding more and more unpleasant. Should the being ever show up The Doctor is sure to give the being a piece of his mind.

Ziyal is quiet and thoughtful, hand abandoning the brush to hover over her chest, over the scar that's by all rights smaller than she thinks it should be, almost unnoticeable amongst her half-developed scales. Where Doctor Bashir and Doctor Trance had managed their miracle and given her another chance.

"Personally, I'm rather thankful, actually."

The Doctor notices that little movement, and the discoloration that would hazard the guess of a scar. It defuses his anger a good deal and gets his attention back on the young woman in front of him.

"Forgive me for asking, but why would you say that? Are you in a bit of a rut in the future? Are there events that make life bad for just you, for your planet, for this whole galaxy, or possibly the whole universe? It's been far too long since I had one of those scrapes, it would do me well to see if I can muster that with my TARDIS," The Doctor says, rambling a bit.

"You could say that." She was fairly sure, from how Doctor Bashir had avoided answering the question, after he'd replaced her whole heart, and from what she knew about disruptor wounds--which was rather more than one might expect, because the Breen had shot more than a few people who couldn't work any longer--she was sure that she'd died.

"I'm sorry, with what?" She wasn't sure how much one man could do against the Dominion, no matter what he had.

Steve has a pretty keen eye, but even if he was oblivious to the entire room he still would have seen her table. There's something familiar in sooty fingertips, black smudges and stained fingernails, paper wet and slightly curled blanketing the area. It's been a while, but an artist never forgets the feeling.

He doesn't want to be rude, but he's been watching her for some time now from a table a few feet off, studying the way she holds her brush, smirking when she veritably attacks the paper. He's been running his thumb along the edge of a fork, trying to manufacture the feeling of having a tool in his hand.

Eventually, when she pauses to appraise her current piece, he stands up and moves closer. He doesn't know if she's friendly, or if she'll even understand English, but he gives her a little smile and motions to her pile of work. "You're pretty talented."

Ziyal had a habit of getting absorbed in her work. It's a luxury she can let herself have, now that she doesn't have to watch over her shoulder. She feels safe on a Federation ship, safer than she has in a while. It's because of that she didn't really notice Steve watching her until he speaks up.

She doesn't blot the paper, since she didn't have the brush on it in the first place, but she does jump a little. Luckily, she's both friendly and if she doesn't understand English, at least has a universal translator.

"Thank you very much."

His smile deepens a little, his relief obvious. Under the confidence of the soldier and the self-assuredness of the New Yorker is still an awkward artist, scraping together the right things to say to get a dame to smile rather than frown. Understanding each other helps, though he has to admit he hasn't run across that problem yet.

"I didn't mean to startle you," he apologizes. "It's probably rude to walk up and critique someone else's work."

He looks a little sheepish, reaching back to rub his neck.

Dukat was holding a glass of kanar and loomed over the table for a brief couple of moments. His lips pressed together, looking at each painting, the way the brush strokes and ink bled into the paper. He gave a little twitch when he reached the one with the Bajoran woman, but it looked like Ziyal didn't like that one anyway.

"That's quite good my dear. What was wrong with this one?" Dukat gestured to the painting of the Bajoran woman. "It's not as clear as the others. Were you trying to paint someone in particular?"

"There's enough room for you to sit down, Father," Ziyal invites gently, chewing on the end of her brush as she studied the paper in front of her.

She tries to rub some of the ink off the side of her hand, looking a bit distant. "I couldn't remember what she looked like." As for who it was, she doesn't say. She still hadn't told him about the attack on the Ravinok, or that Mother had died. Ziyal had trouble recalling her without blood running down her face and didn't care to think about her hard enough to try at the moment.

Dukat took that to mean that she had just been on the Enterprise for so long that she was having trouble remembering. He pulled out a chair and sat down, gazing fondly at Ziyal.

"Well I think I can help with that. I'll get a picture from her profile on the next communications run to Terok Nor." He took a sip of kanar. "You never did develop a taste for kanar did you?" He never saw her drink the stuff. Then again, she was half Bajoran.

"It's perfectly alright, Father," she says, smiling. She doesn't want to ask him for a picture of her mother. That would be telling him far too much. "It was a woman I met very briefly, at university, and I never did get her name."

She's not well practiced in lying, and it causes her to feel like she swallowed something indigestible and unpleasant, but she thinks she pulled it off.

"No, I didn't. I've tried it a couple of times, but I'm afraid I prefer tea." Or water. Kanar is too thick, too bitter, and she can't handle it. She has two mugs beside her--one is murky with paint, and has a couple brushes lying across the rim of it, the other has a sweetly spiced tea.

"Well I would most certainly have a record of her if you remember any identifying features. I wouldn't want to get in the way of your art, y dear. In fact, I'd be happy to request a number of pictures of different subjects if you need inspiration. You have but to ask, Ziyal."

Dukat picked up another one of her paintings to study it. "These are quite good. You should have them hung in our rooms, I insist. But, how are you doing? I imagine this isn't exactly the life you're used to, especially on board a Federation ship. Are you making friends?"

That was not a comfortable thought. That the reason her father would have a picture of nearly every Bajoran was because he was the leader of the ongoing Occupation.

She wouldn't exist if not for it, but...

"Thank you, Father." She smiles, because if she doesn't...well, her questions about her dual-heritage wouldn't be best answered by talking to him.

"I am. Everyone's been perfectly kind to me." If a bit anxious because they knew who she was related to. And the Bajoran crewmembers gave her a wide berth. That made her sad, but not precisely surprised.

Dukat arched an eyebrow at his daughter, catching her not quite lie. "Kind to you. But that doesn't mean friendly. Have you made friends, Ziyal?" He really didn't like the thought of his daughter being ostracised on a Federation ship because of her lineage. Or her father. It was one thing to raise her on Terok Nor, and keep her sheltered due to the sensitive nature of the situation, but it was safe here.

"But are you happy? As happy as you can be given the situation."

Someone doing Japanese ink painting is a thing Nori hasn't seen up close in a very long time--hence why she's watching Ziyal with interest, though she keeps glancing to that drying one.

Hey, nostaliga shows up at odd moments, okay?

"Where'd you learn to paint like that?" she asks.

"I studied at the University on Bajor," she responds politely, smiling. Though she notices Noriko glancing at the one that was more of an experiment than anything.

"I was looking through the ship's database and found some art from Earth that looked rather similar, stylistically, to Bajoran ink painting...I thought I'd try to emulate it a bit." It wasn't like she could look at much in the quarters she shared with her father, they had the computer terminal there on fairly heavy lockdown. She supposed that made quite a lot of sense, with her father being who he was.

"Oh, I know the style," Noriko says, tamping down on how sarcastic she wants to sound about that. "It's the native style from my home country. I mean, you've done a really good job with it, which...I wasn't expecting to see on this boat."

It's more American or offworld than anything, and while New York is closer to her home than Tokyo has been in almost a decade it's still offputting. Nori is not prepared to start seeing cultural similarities with totally alien worlds, even if she recognizes that the feeling is petulant and probably has to do with how badly she wants to go back home.

"I'm assuming you're from Bajor? Wherever that is?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend. I'm...afraid I'm not aware of what Humans from different part of Earth look like." She wouldn't say she was sheltered, because it was hard to use that word as part of her definition of self with her past, but she was definitely unaware of much outside Bajor and Cardassia. "And I know, that sounds awful. I just haven't met very many Humans. We're sort of out of the way."

"Well, yes. I was born and grew up there. Mostly." She also can't really call herself Bajoran, though. It's complicated.

Edited 2014-11-11 04:28 (UTC)

"Oh, no, you haven't offended anyone," she says offhandedly. "I don't live there anymore. Or--didn't, before I got put here," Nori amends. "But yeah, I'm Japanese."

It at least is an easy definition, and it is a major part of Noriko's self-image. Female, Japanese, mutant. It goes on from there. "Don't feel bad, I hadn't met very many aliens either. From anywhere. We don't do interstellar travel where I'm from. We can barely go to the nearest moon and back, and only like...twenty-odd people have done it."

"I see." Well, it's not like Bajor or Cardassia always had interstellar travel either--though she knew both had attained it well before Humans did. That was about the limit of her knowledge, though.

"Well, I don't live on Bajor anymore, either. It's...rather difficult for me to." She puts the brush down, sweeping back some of the hair that's fallen loose from the twist on top her head. She doesn't elaborate, just continues with the diplomatic smile she's well and mastered by now.

"I'm Tora Ziyal."

"I know that feeling," Noriko replies. It's difficult for her to think about living in Tokyo anymore.

She's too New York now, she can literally almost hear it in her father's voice, and she shrugs lightly. "Ashida Noriko. Most people call me Nori. You're good at painting, though. I could never draw more than stick figures, or circuit pathways on a good day."

"And most people call me Ziyal. It's nice to meet you, Nori." She wonders if that nickname is derived from her family name or her given--she's never met a human that introduced themselves with the last name first, as Bajorans did, but she's not going to make another assumption and embarrass herself.

Her polite smile brightens at the compliment. "Thank you. It's not really where I thought I'd find my talent, but there's a lot in life that's unexpected, I suppose. Including all this. But I'm not really complaining."

"You're a better man than I for that." Noriko hasn't avoided complaining--she wants to go home, and see her friends' faces before any more of them die before they all hit thirty. "What did you think you'd be good at if not art? Assuming you don't mind me asking."

"I really don't know. I had...an unconventional childhood. Not a lot of time for hobbies or much of anything else, and I never had the chance to go to school until just a few months ago."

Ziyal had a benefit in that her father was here--but he was really the only one she knew, and she had realized shortly before finding herself here that she truly couldn't talk to him about everything. She desperately missed Nerys. Even Garak. The handful of Bajoran crew members on the Enterprise wanted nothing to do with her--not that she wasn't used to that, but Nerys' friends had at least tried.

"Is school not mandated here?" she asks, one eyebrow winging up.

It wasn't exactly a secret, what was happening on Bajor right now. It had been ongoing for 50 years, after all. "No, in the Federation it is, I'm sure. Bajor isn't part of it. And is actually under occupation right now. There aren't many schools open, if any, and even if there were, I wouldn't have been able to go to them."

Ziyal's brush goes back in the ink and then stabs down at the page--the bristles are a bit stiffer than a normal paintbrush might be, so it doesn't cause a blot, but it is an angry, thick line across the more delicate swirls once she's done with it.

It's not a pleasant subject for her, either, even if she hadn't been directly hurt by it.

"Oh."

While it is shitty news, and Noriko does feel bad for crossing a bad topic, she won't apologize for asking about something she doesn't know. She barely knew there were extraterrestrial civilizations out there from Earth, much less what political climates each one had. "My country was occupied once too. Before I was born, but it wasn't a good time for anyone. There had been a worldwide war, and the end of it was the United States--where I live--dropping atomic bombs on Japan. They're about as bad as you can get, destruction-wise. They occupied the islands for six years after that and caused an awful lot of problems."

It's not something Ziyal expected her to know. She just looks slightly morose about it.

"I'm not really sure how the Occupation started. My parents never really discussed it with me. Which isn't really all that surprising."

She decides, instead of scrapping her paper, to work with it instead, adding a second, more graceful line, with twisting brushstrokes bridging the gap between the two.

"I'm Bajoran, but I'm also half Cardassian--it was the Cardassians that occupied Bajor. It makes living there a difficult prospect for me. And I don't really fit on Cardassia either. My father's society doesn't hold illegitimate children in high esteem." She doesn't sound particularly angry about any of that, just frank and accepting. She doesn't like it, but it's nothing she can change right now. Perhaps not ever.

"That...sounds impractical," she decides, hedging the bet between 'shitty' and 'stupid', and delightfully able to answer both statements. (Sometimes Noriko is proud that there exists a diplomatic bone in her body, so to speak. Now would be one of those times.)

She's watching the progress of the painting with a half-smile because watching people creating art, even if it's just the ubiquitous spray-paint galaxies being made on the sidewalk in Manhattan, has always brought Nori enjoyment. Someone creating a thing that so far surpasses the sum of its parts has always been cool, whether that's machinery or ink on paper. "Understanding that I have literally zero knowledge of Bajor or Cardassia, I think you're pretty cool so far. Check-plus on Earthling opinions," she says with a cheesy smile.

Noriko might be blunt but she's not oblivious, nor is she an outright jackass most of the time.

Ziyal laughs, a smile back on her face. "Thank you. That's always a nice thing to hear." It's nice to remember sometimes that not everyone hates her, or thinks she should never have been born.

"Hey, complimenting people should be done more often," she says lightly.

"These are very impressive."

The voice is a tad bland-sounding, neutral. And it comes from a young-ish looking man, who is admiring the Japanese-style painting.

"This is from Earth, isn't it?"

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