(Open) The Stranger

[tasha_yar]

Tasha hadn't want to scare anyone - or worse - have their pity. She'd been here on some nights before, but always in disguise and making it a point to watch, but not interact, with anyone. Also, she didn't like to admit it, but she loved make-up. Not the kind that Deanna or Beverly wore to bring out their features. That kind of make-up wasn't for her. It didn't feel right on. She didn't like extra attention regarding her appearance; a holdover from Turkana IV, she supposed.

But make-up to disguise? To conceal who and what you were and be able to become someone else? She had an incredible love of that. She justified her enjoyment by its usefulness as a skill, but it was more than that. It was a chance to be someone without the burden of duty or a past. Someone more normal - unless the part called for something else.

The risk of discovery also played a big part in both the thrill of the challenge and the growing irritation at her self-imposed isolation. Tasha justified it easily. She might disappear at any moment - or maybe even drop dead - because "dead" was still her official status, though Picard had assured her the wheels of bureaucracy were getting a firm push regarding all that. Starfleet's reluctance was understandable with all the strange happenings onboard the ship, but it gnawed at her patience. She didn't want to upend anyone's life, but she missed them! It would also mean opening herself up to stacks of unfinished business, too, but she was tired of avoiding her friends - even is she still thought keeping her distance might remain the best course of action.

At least her insistence on isolation had gotten her caught up on as much security information and protocols a civilian had access to. Well, a civilian and a cadet. It turned out the Academy hadn't cancelled her alumni access. There wasn't much dangerous in that, but "not much" wasn't "nothing" by a longshot. She'd have to talk to them about that.

Tasha's tired of keeping to herself and making Aggie feel like she's rooming with a crazy hermit. Tonight, she's keeping her "disguise" to a hooded sweatshirt. It's time to go Ten Forward, to stop being someone else, face what, if anything, comes of it.

Comments

[tasha_yar]

Tasha nods. "No where to go but forward."

"What do you know about us?"

[kaylinneya]

"Depends how you're defining us," she said, in part to get a clearer answer and in part to buy herself enough time to organize her thoughts well enough to be able to make a formal report. Well... as formal as she usually managed for Marcus. As formal as she'd have to do for the Hawklord involved more groveling than she had seen anyone here resort to. Then again, she doubted anyone here had her issues with punctuality.

Of course, her lateness usually stemmed from being too tired and injured to wake up on time, or to spent from emergency calls at the midwives guild... None of that had yet been a case. ****s, no one had even taken her out drinking here. This long without a hangover was as odd as having gone this long without waking up to find Teela sprawled across her bed or Severn slinking around in some shadowy corner of her apartment.

Of the two... she preferred Teela.

[tasha_yar]

"Starfleet."

[kaylinneya]

She took a deep breath. Tipping her chin up to expose her throat while making a report was down right reflexive at this point, and she wasn't even fully aware she was doing it.

Throat exposed, she made her report. Odd to be sitting while she did it....

"As near as I can tell from my observations, Starfleet is, on the surface, the type of story that feiflings tell each other on cold winter nights. Stories of places where the people in charge care about the people who live among them, where might does not make right, where the laws and rules are not arbitary and subject to change with the whim of the fieflord."

"A Place where everyone has enough food to eat, and enough clothing to wear to keep warm. A place where water isn't fetid, and again, the people in charge of all of this are concerned that everyone has fair access to everything they need. A place where people can feel more or less safe, where if someone is hurt or sick... there is someone there to help take care of them."

"In the fiefs, kids tell stories about places like that, dream that's what the city across the river is like, but that we all knew deep down was impossible."

"For the first time since I left Nightshade as a child... For the first time I believe in that again. Maybe I'm stupid. If any Hawk came back to Elantra and told me a place like this existed, I'd ask how much they'd been drinking."

"When I came to understand Elantra... it itself... became a dream, took over the old dreams. There was still crime, there was still a reason to watch your back. But there were actual laws. There were Hawks and Swords and Wolves. There were doors with locks, and medical areas, and an orphanage and a midwives guild."

"Here... Just because I haven't seen things that would be considered as 'normal crimes' doesn't mean there aren't any. There wouldn't be security personnel if they weren't needed. But you do as much better here, it seems, than we do... as we do over how the fiefs are handled. Well... were handled. One of them is actually being remodeled after the successes of the city. So weird to walk those streets and see things being repaired..."

She shook her head.

"Anyway. I'd like to help with your investigations here. I presume there is an investigation going as to how to get everyone who wants to go back home, back home. Just because I have not seen it, does not mean it isn't ongoing. It sounds like the kind of hunt I've been assigned to as a Hawk."

She stopped, considered that, then shook her head.

"Strike that. I'd be on the team assigned to investigate how people were being dragged here in the first place...and assigned to stop it. Somehow."

[tasha_yar]

Tasha nods slowly. "You're right," she admits. "I am going to have to talk with the Captain." Then, she adds. "You have my word."

[kaylinneya]

She blinked, startled. Right... about what? Still, the rest made sense though and she smiled, grateful for the enormity of what was being offered and promised. "Thank you," she said, and she meant it.