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"Oh, shut up Joran."

Ezri mumbled to herself. He had never been this vocal before, well, before the Rite of Emergence. Which wasn't a mistake. He did help her catch the killer, not that Benjamin or the others would ever know. That would not be a fun conversation. 'Why no, Ben, I didn't use what I learned in Forensic Psychology, I just used Joran.' It would go so well. But now? Now she had to be vigilant. Ezri wouldn't be able to bury his personality as deeply as Curzon or Jadzia. And Ezri didn't have training in the first place. She didn't want to accidentally almost stab someone with a butter knife again. Talk about embarrassing. Benjamin hadn't been exactly understanding when that happened. Thank goodness Odo had come along, and taken the knife out of her hand before something really bad had happened.

Ezri had intended to take a walk along the Promenade, clear her head. That was until she wasn't in the Promenade anymore. She was in a bar. And it wasn't Quark's. It was....Ezri took a few steps toward a console. The U.S.S. Enterprise? Oh and they were at warp. The Trill put a hand on her stomach and another on her temple trying to fight back the wave of nausea and flashes of Torias' shuttle accident. Dying. Crashing. Oh no.

"Okay Ezri, you can figure this out. Just start by not barfing all over the security guard eating his lunch. He wouldn't appreciate that at all."

Ezri talked to herself.

"One. Wormhole aliens? Two. Spacial phenomenon? Three. I could just be going nuts. That's my clinical assessment of myself."

Ezri closed her eyes, trying to sort through eight other lifetimes of memories to remember if anyone served or visited the Enterprise D. That was....Curzon or Jadzia's time? Maybe she was just hallucinating memories. Did that happen? Maybe she should qualify that. Did that happen to her? It probably didn't happen to another other Joined Trill. That's Ezri, nothing easy for Ezri.

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"This is much better than the books the Symbiosis Commission gave me. That was not helpful." Ezri closed her eyes obediently, focusing on her breath, inhaling and exhaling.

He gives her a moment of that, smiling. "The Symbiosis Commission isn't the most helpful Trill institution sometimes." He sits back. "I use this simple meditation to help control the emotions I get from a ship this size."

"It must not be easy for you. If I have trouble sorting out the emotions of 9 people, I cant imagine what it's like for you with thousands here." She poked an eye open.

"Can I open my eyes now?"

"Sure." He says, laughing, before sitting back. "And I've had more experience being an Empath. I went through Starfleet Academy, I can handle a Galaxy-class starship."

He sighs. "It was a shock when I first got here. I went from a Miranda-class ship with 40 people on it."

Ezri joins him in a little laughter, albeit at her own expense. "Work your way up right? Is that what they teach you as an Initiate? How to not get totally overwhelmed by your Symbiont? "

Having never actually gone through the whole process--besides her special 15 minute lecture-- Ezri had no idea what to expect when she woke up. It was Terzen's metaphorical Galaxy class star ship with no preperation.

"...You didn't go through the initiate program?"

That's... a bit worrying, but not entirely surprising.

Ezri gave the half Trill a look.

" I got a 15 minute lecture from my ship's surgeon and he wasn't even a Trill. I didn't even want to be Joined. Never did. Funny how life works out. The universe has a twisted sense of humor sometimes. Nah, why give the Dax symbiont to someone whose prepared for it? Let's just give it to Ezri and see what happens. Nothing simple for Ezri."

She gave Terzen a shrug. "By the time we made it to Trill, it was past the 93 hour mark."

Edited 2014-12-31 01:50 (UTC)

"So you were joined to keep the symbiont alive..." He nods, frowning. "I'm sorry."

He looks up. "Have you been through your zhian'tara yet? That might help."

"Wasn't my choice but, that's what happened, and I'm slowly coming to terms with it. All nine of me!" Ezri gave a little laugh at her own expense. But she still shook her head. "Not yet. But I have gone through the Rite of Emergence." She left out the most important part. People tended to get a little nervous when Joran's name was mentioned. Ezri wasn't sure how much Terzen knew about Joran, or if he knew about him at all, but she figured not giving her new Trill friend a heart attack was a good idea.

"Have you? Had your zhian'tara yet?"

Terzen knows the cover story; that Joran Belar was a murderer that had been killed whilst attempting to flee from authorities. He doesn't know that Joran was joined to Dax, or anything like that.

"No, not yet. I..." He grins slightly, abashed. "I keep avoiding it."

Dax wrinkled her nose. " I know what you mean. There's more than one host I'm nervous about meeting. And then there's the idea of measuring up to the whole legacy of your symbiont and wondering if you're worthy. Jadzia avoided hers too. I don't know a lot about joined trills but I would imagine that it can be common. Getting nervous about it. Postponing it, and then, it just gets away from you."

"I imagine it's harder with a symbiont like Dax." Terzen comments. "I'm lucky. I only need to meet four previous hosts. T'Karr's pretty young."

"I think it's hard no matter what--unless your symbiont is so young you're the first. Then you wouldn't have to go through it." She gave a little laugh at that. " and now we're stuck here. That makes it even more awkward."

"Tell me about it..." Terzen remarks, sighing. "Now I'm here, I have enough free time to want to get the zhian'tara out of the way, I'm not sure what the protocol is for contacting the Symbiosis Commission to get a Guardian for it."

Dax nodded in agreement. "Or how it would even affect the time line if we were to contact the Symbiosis Commission. What if we contacted them and Curzon answered?"

It was so horrifying it was almost funny. Actually, Dax was laughing at the thought.

A slight chuckle, there. "Yeah, I can only imagine..." He sighs. "And here's me with the time to actually perform the zian'tara and being unable to. The Enterprise is so well-maintained, it makes the Pathfinder look derelict."