ten_fwd | (no subject)

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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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"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.

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