Personal Log: Sedai, Katriel

[Katriel]

Katriel slipped into her quarters late in the day, tired, but not unhappy.

The gratification of getting to venture out on an October-1a survey team had yet to completely wear off and the counselor briefly reveled in the remembered sensation of the crisp, cold air on her skin. Admittedly, though, she wouldn’t trade it for the warmth of her quarters now; the near freezing temperatures of the third planet’s moon had gotten old quick.

“Incoming subspace communication from Brian Sedai, U.S.S. Sirocco.”

Right on time, Katriel mused. It’s like he’s psychic or something.

“Accept transmission, display on main screen, please.” The computer chirruped in its compliance and Brian’s slightly anxious but mostly cheerful face popped into view.

“Oh great, you’re there!”

“Your timing is impeccable, I just got in,” Katriel complimented her brother as she flopped into an armchair and had her lap immediately accosted by the ever-present black feline.

“Ha, that’s what you think! What you don’t know is that I’ve actually been calling every fifteen minutes, I’ve left like six messages already.”

Katriel blinked once, but she smirked. “Oh.”

“So, stop stalling! How did it go? Find anything awesome?” Brian demanded as he slid into a seat on his end.

“We scoped out two planets, the first one was Class Y, so we couldn’t land,” Katriel tilted her head up towards the ceiling as she recalled the events. “So we moved towards the third planet in the system… which was a class Y gas giant, had the most amazing halo I’ve ever seen by the way, and Doctor Lindresko’s disappointed face almost matched the planet’s color when she thought we wouldn’t get to beam down again, but we discovered a class-M moon in orbit.”

“Seriously! What was it like?”

“Cold, freezing! But there were these trees and… hang on, I should have visual records.” Katriel leaned over to swipe a control PADD off the small coffee table and transferred some of the data to screen. The elder Sedai grinned in admiration at the taste of her planetary exploration adventure.

“Did you guys plant a flag on the surface in the name of Argo? One small step for a Betazoid, one giant leap for … err, Milky Way Galaxians?”

Katriel laughed outright. “What is this, twentieth century Earth? No, we didn’t plant a flag.”

“No claims of any kind, huh?” Brian mused aloud, while he flipped through the images captured from the journey. But as he said it, the counselor’s mind flashed back to a moment where her survey party had paused at the top of a stout summit to take mineral and floral samples. She had taken the opportunity to sit on a rock to enjoy the snowy view and, in her idleness, she leaned over to write a phrase in the snow with her gloved finger: Katriel was here.

“I guess the Federation’s matured a little since those days. Still, I am entirely jealous,” Brian continued, failing to notice Katriel’s mental lapse. “Here I am, trying to see new and unusual places by way of terraformation, and you’re the one who gets to go to a solar system from a whole 'nother galaxy! I think I’m in the wrong career path.”

Katriel just smiled serenely. “Speaking of which, how’s your project going? Are you almost done there yet, in Kormino?”

“Yeah, just a couple more months of observation to make sure all of our changes have taken effect properly, then we’ll be onto – actually, wait, I’m glad you brought it up,” Brian sat up in his seat in remembrance. “There’s actually no project scheduled after this one, at least not yet, so Sirocco command’s been floating talk of shore leave. I thought perhaps maybe you might want to request leave at the same time, so we could head home and visit Mom and Dad?”

Katriel’s hand came up to scratch behind Fairy’s ears. “I can’t, I already requested leave a couple weeks ago and had it approved, I couldn’t change it now.”

Brian’s head reared up from his study of the moon images to stare at her with surprise. “What? But you never take leave by yours-- oh.” Both expression and voice turned understanding in one word and then more melodramatic in the next. “Oh. Oh, I see how it is. Yeah, that’s how it starts all right,” the male Betazoid bemoaned, laying the back of his hand to his forehead in mock disbelief. “Before you know it, it’ll be Fairy answering these comm calls for you, cause you’re out enjoying yourself while your poor brother slaves over soil samples and dreams of seeing rogue solar systems, exiled from neighboring galaxies!”

Brian produced a pretended hurt sniffle and Katriel had the grace to feel a little guilty at his elaborate show. But… only a little. She opened her mouth to respond.

And then the klaxxon of the station’s red alert sounded throughout her quarters. Both Sedai siblings froze for a few seconds and while Brian’s expression turned concerned, Katriel’s turned neutral. She wouldn’t exacerbate her brother’s worry excessively. “I better go,” she stated, dislodging Fairy from her lap and coming to her feet.

Brian barely tried to clear the worry from his face. “Yeah, okay. Be smart, all right? And call me when it’s all clear.”

[Katriel]

“And these assignment rotation cycles? They’re quite unorthodox, what is the logic behind them being so short?” The Bajoran officer inquired suddenly. “It seems unlikely that we will have sufficient personnel to achieve this standard.”

Katriel leaned forward to tap at the console embedded into the conference table, which advanced the display’s slideshow. She and Commander Kkovug were the only two flesh-and-blood participants sitting at the wide wooden surface, while an additional four holographic officers took up spaces on the opposite side. All of them were dressed in medical blue and gray.

“I understand that it seems unusual, to say the least,” Katriel conceded easily. "But one of my primary concerns is in the personnel’s well-being, especially from a psychological standpoint. Being isolated out in deep space for an extended period of time is hard enough, let alone working at a facility that addresses a high volume of traumatic occurrences.

“What I would recommend is that Starfleet experiment with rotating personnel from one posting to another, assuming said officers are amenable and have no families that would be displaced with each move. The trauma center should have the shortest cycles, no longer than three or four months. But there should be arrangements to have personnel move to a second facility, where they may recover in a lower-stress environment before returning to the deep space center.”

The holographic Bajoran woman still had a frown on her face, but a couple of the other doctors were nodding. The Trill officer spoke up, “That makes a lot of sense. It would be largely dependent on what other facilities exist in the sector, but the principle itself is sound.”

Katriel nodded once. “Any other questions, sirs?”

“No, personally, I’ve heard enough,” said the same Trill. “You’ve done well, Counselor. I believe we can take your proposal and decide what to do from here.”

“What is the actual likelihood of Starfleet actually building out a facility like this, out here in Eta Eridani or any other deep space sector?” the Saurian at Katriel’s right asked abruptly and she couldn’t help a mild flash of gratitude. It was something she wondered herself, but she’d have never bothered to actually ask.

The Trill doctor smiled a little sadly. “Well, we’ve been pushing for it for a good few months now, Kkovug, but admittedly Command has not been paying all that much attention. As they like to point out, Medical has sort of already spent its experimental facilities budget and we’re still waiting to see what the long term return on investment looks like for that one.”

Commander Kkovug snorted a laugh. “You’re referring to the Kindred, of course. We’re the most recent experiment.”

“Indeed,” the Trill nodded. “Having said that, this proposal does look promising, Counselor. We will keep you posted if anything comes of it, of course.”

“Thank you, sir,” was Katriel’s only response.

“Very good, then. Have a nice day, both of you.” The Trill leaned over to touch his holographic hand to the console and all four photonic officers vanished with the disconnected call. The Saurian and the Betazoid sat in silence for a moment or two.

“Congratulations, Counselor,” Kkovug eventually remarked, tone dry. “You’ve finished your most recent term paper. How do you feel?”

Katriel shook her head, though a faint smile touched her lips. “Relieved, I suppose. But … it is rather like a term paper, isn’t it? Mountains of research and writing, to receive only a pat on the back at the end and zero reassurances of execution.”

“Oh, I’m sure Starfleet Medical will have the resources for such a project in … let’s say, ten years?”

Katriel’s eyes grew a little wider with chagrin. “Not helpful. I’m sure most of my recommendations will be completely obsolete by then.”

“On a completely different subject,” Kkovug relaxed back into his seat. “I heard your Task Force met up with that ah… the Klingon strike force. Kargas? Were you there?”

“We did and I was, yes,” Katriel mirrored Kkovug’s posture, though her humor drained out a little at the new conversation piece.

“Sector politics is not usually my concern, but I am curious, if only because I’m tired of treating disruptor burns. How did that go?”

“Tense,” was Katriel’s reluctant response. “I’m not sure how many present really wanted to be there, on either side. There’s a fairly long history of poor relations between both organizations, so though many of the faces are new…” she shakes her head.

Kkovug crossed his arms across his chest, looking thoughtful. “Still, it’s a start, isn’t it?”

Katriel’s lips turned into a faint smile, but she didn’t look terribly happy about it. “I suppose it is. I’ve never hated the Klingons, Doctor, but I’ve often wondered what the implication is when species seem as though they are only capable of setting aside their differences when a greater enemy threatens them all.”

The Saurian considered the statement for a while. “You think this alliance temporary at best?”

“Not necessarily,” Katriel sighed. “Simply observing that we’ve arrived at our current circumstances through necessity, rather than enlightenment. Despite all of our intelligence, our spirituality, our empathy… so much of our desires continue to instead be driven by that base evolutionary imperative to survive. Or conquer, as the case may be. Even in my line of work, Commander, it continues to baffle me, sometimes.”

“Spoken like a true psychotherapist, Counselor,” Kkovug remarked, bemusedly.

“Well, I do so hate to disappoint.”

[Katriel]

“… I had a really strange dream a few weeks ago.”

They were waiting for something, her and Matt. The two of them sat in
companionable silence, in the lounge of some foreign but irrelevant
starship. She was contemplating something, had opened her mouth
to speak, but then the swish of the sliding doors stayed her tongue
and she glanced up to see a pair of familiar faces coming through.

“-- uniform, really,” the female Trill
side-glanced what her escort was wearing.

The Isker ran one hand down his flank, hip, and thigh,
while the other combed through his hair. “You wish you
looked this good in uniform,” was his vain response.

“We’re… not late,” Chassy iterated, attention turned towards at the
other two, her complexion turning a light pink in embarrassment.

Her lips pursed and she glanced in Matt’s
direction. “What do you think? Are they late?”

He checked at his watch. “Nah, but it was close.”

“Razor takes full responsibility,” Chassy declared, but she smiled
when she looked the Isker’s way. “He whined all the way to the door.”

“Well you know,” Razor drawled with a shrug. “Once she explained
how double dating actually works, it wasn’t nearly as interesting, t’heh.”

“You were there, and… Razor and Chassy were, also.”
“Was there a dog, and a tornado, by chance?”

Sharply dressed in a suit, Matt returned with a platter of finger
foods. Had he been wearing those clothes when he had left?
Her brow furrowed in confusion, her glance following the tray
as Matt set it down, though she didn’t move to take an item.

Chassy, on the other hand, stole a cookie off the platter
and nibbled on it while Razor spent an inordinate amount
of time with his hand hovering over the tray indecisively. He
eventually made a selection and his fingernails swiftly
extended out like knives, skewering some viddles upon
them. She edged over to avoid being in his way.

“I don’t remember a whole lot.”

“So, Chassy,” Matt began, conversationally. “It is good to see you again.
Katriel and I have talked about you a few times, since you disappeared.”

“I wish you wouldn’t,” Chassy said. “I’d die all over again
of embarrassment if I knew --” Razor chose that moment to put
his face to Chassy’s and rub his barely-more-than-a-bump of a nose
against hers. She instantly flushed blue. “Ah, Razor… – they’re
right there,” she rushed the three final words out in protest.

Razor sat back, but didn’t pass up the opportunity to instead put his
arm around Chassy’s shoulders. “Hey, a date is still a date, right?”

“You were never that sappy when I was alive,” Chassy remarked.
“How about you, Kat? Does Matt embarrass the spots off you on dates?”

She wondered when Chassy had started addressing her with
that nickname that so many favored. “Do you see any spots?”

“Oh, good one.”

“Seems like we dream for a reason? Just wanted to maybe help
find out what that was, in this case. Unless you already know?”

“Congratulations, by the way, on your promotion,
Katriel. I would have been very happy to see it.”

“Oh, thank you. I wanted to wait for you to come
back for it, but administration was backlogged.”

“It is a good thing we didn’t wait,
because you are never coming back.”

“I guess this is what holoimagers are for. And having Matt pin it…
so romantic! I’m glad he’s worked out for you, Counselor.
Your Major Svenson. I admit, I had my doubts after our talk.”

“Did you? Because of that whole … thing.
And his dubious taste in children’s literature.”

“Oh, yes, of course that. That was… that was a horrible book. I fed it
to Hassiri’s cats. But yes, I was worried. You seemed very shaken.”

“T’heh t’heh! Who consoles the counselor?”

“Counsels,” she absently corrected.
“It’s who counsels the counselor.”

“She’s too emotionally bolted to need
consolation, Razor. Or counselation.”

“Emotionally bolted? Did it sound like a compliment?”
“She might’ve meant it as one… but I don’t think I received it as one.”

“This isn’t bad,” Matt commented, consuming some sort of food item. “It sort of
reminds me of the time when we were out on the Okoboji, looking for the lost
Moirai crew, and tried some of the local food. Those were uncertain times. But
now that you know Chassy is gone, you can grieve and start to move on.”

“How did you get away, anyway? And without Quaen,
I thought you couldn’t survive without him?”

“Oh, I can’t. But you never went to see Quaen,
did you. How do you know it was him?”

“Oh, I guess I shouldn’t believe everything Command tells me…”

“She didn’t want to know. She’d rather be
uncertain you’re alive than certain you’re dead.”

“Surprisingly insightful, as always, Razor. What do you
think, Matt? Would you have gone to meet Quaen?”

“No, I wouldn’t go. I believe the reports that came from
Starfleet, so I wouldn’t go check on it myself. I am a soldier.”

She had opened her mouth to say something, but Chassy beat
her to it. “Is that why you’re taking it so slow with Katriel?”

Outfitted in his tactical gear, Matt stared in Chassy’s direction. “Matt is
going at a comfortable speed for both of us. It works out for the better.”

“Oh, Matt’s not just stalling?”

“People only stall when they don’t want something to happen at all, t’heh.”

“Do you think Matt is stalling?” This was directed at her.
Why was Matt referring to himself in the third person?

“No,” Her response was immediate, reflexive. And maybe too quick.
Then a little more uncertain. “… We have vacation planned, remember?”

“Perhaps your dream was your mind’s way of saying that,
it hasn’t forgotten her. And… that you probably need to
dream about your boyfriend a bit more often. Just saying.”

Chassy suddenly came to her feet and approached, extending her
hands out to her. When she only sat and stared at the other
woman in confusion, Chassy set her hands on the counselor’s
shoulders and leaned in to touch a kiss to her forehead.

“Thank you, Katriel.”

“… Oh. You’re welcome, but… what for?”

The suddenly empty space where Chassy stood did not reply.[/right]

“Certainly, Chassy, wherever she is, doesn’t
want you dwelling on her in a sad way, forever.”

–

((Dream material, dialogue and narrative, contributed by Chassy, Razor and Matt’s players through live RP. Thank you guys. :) ))

[Katriel]

“Well, that was uhhh… interesting,” Matt finally stated.

Katriel laughed abruptly at the bewildered note in his words. The sound carried freely over the whispered lapping of the waves as the two of them made their way across the beach, hand-in-hand, returning to the hotel for the night.

She glanced sideways at him. “You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself more than me.”

“… yeah, okay, it was more than a little odd and I didn’t get it at all,” Matt shook his head, smirking with the concession. “The singing was nice enough, except that it was in Andorian and we had to turn our translators off or else the translations would mess with the music. But seriously. Risian interpretive dance? Did YOU get anything out of it?”

“Well, sure,” Katriel breezily responded. “There was a whole story in there, you didn’t see it?” Her companion halted in his tracks so he could turn the full force of his skeptical stare on her. Katriel merely emitted another chuckle and took a single step back, releasing his hand. She bent her knees and pulled up the long sleeves of her robe, as she extended a finger to draw in the sand.

“There was the protagonist, who was a woman,” she began. “You got that much, at least, I hope?”

“Yeah. There was only one female dancer. Is that, like, a stick figure with a skirt? Or… wait… it’s an ostrich!” Matt tilted his head first to the left, then to the right, trying to get a better sense of her sand sketching. “Maybe we should sign up for that art class at the resort tomorrow morning?”

Katriel likely would have doubled over at the jibe had he not stepped closer to steady her.

“You’re the worst.” But she was smiling. “This girl … she’s a normal person and doesn’t cause much trouble. But she’s got one serious problem: she’s really indecisive.”

Katriel made the little sand girl’s arms come up in helplessness and added a few question marks above her head for good measure. “So she spends much of her life letting other people make decisions for her: what to eat, where to go, who to see.”

“But then she has to decide who to love out of three men.” She lazily sketched three non-skirted stick figures in a rough triangle around the first. “And she’s not sure. She feels that love should be … obvious. That when she feels it, she should know. It should hit her like a tidal wave and leave no room for doubt. Probably because that would help her decide, when she’s normally so indecisive?”

Matt furrowed his brow. “But… the story is telling her that love is not like that?”

“More or less, I suppose,” she hedged, tilting her head up to look at him. “At least the other characters seemed to think that she would be waiting forever if she waited to feel like that.”

He walked slowly around the sand figures until he stood next to her and gave the drawing a perplexed look. “Did you really get all this just from the dancing?”

“Well, not ALL of it, but definitely some.” She paused for a long moment, sending him an innocent smile. “Admittedly it didn’t hurt that I could understand some of the words, sort of, even without my translator.” Katriel tapped her temple with a pair of fingers.

“That’s totally cheating,” he mock-scolded as he extended his hands to her. She suppressed a smile as she brushed the sand off her fingers before taking his hands and letting him pull her back up on her feet.

Matt’s expression altered with curiosity as they resumed strolling. “So who did she choose?”

“Oh, well,” Katriel’s lips pursed a little and her head tilted back to glance up at the night sky. “She didn’t get to, actually. A war broke out overseas and the three suitors were all drafted. It was five long years before only one of them came back alive and still wanted to marry her. So in the end, she didn’t have to choose anymore and they all lived happily ever after.”

He nearly stopped walking again, only she prevented it by tugging him forward. “What? Serious?”

“… No,” Katriel laughingly confessed. “I made that part up.”

“Oh my god,” Matt exclaimed. “Now who’s the horrible one?”

“Maybe you are just a bad influence?”

Their mutual teasing continued as they moved on, completely carefree. Behind them, the foamy waves lapped at the shore and eventually ventured high enough to envelop the sand-fixed stick figures, slowly reclaiming the smooth sand for the next passersby.

–

((Backdated by a week.))

[Katriel]

Dear Matt,

– Started the letter in her head. Katriel wasn’t exactly certain why or how this habit of composing mental missives started, especially when the compositions often never made it to their intended recepient by the time she found herself at a console again.

You asked a while back about what part of me didn’t want to go through with this counseling hologram thing. What I said then was true, but it maybe wasn’t quite the entire story.

She stood at the top of the reception deck ramp of docking bay four, her hands clasped on the railing as she absently watched the ships roll in and out. Truth be told, she had been dreading this meeting since approximately five minutes after she had accepted Project Listen’s offer a month ago. But visits from Matt tended to have a bolstering effect that was practically tangible, suffusing her sense of self-worth and luring her into that almost alien state of optimism. Or at least, she could come up with no other explanation for why she was now facing the impending enterprise with new resolve, rather than apprehension.

The truth is that… I’m afraid of what I might learn about myself when this project is through. Counselors by trade practice a great deal of self-awareness and reflection already, you know? But when it’s all in your head, you can gloss over the things that make you uncomfortable and altogether ignore the things that you fear.

“There it is,” spoke the dark-skinned Trill standing near. Katriel’s glance focused on the most recently docked passenger vessel, a U.S.S. Hermes. Doctor Revy Lake and her team of three were theoretically onboard, along with some specialized equipment. Standing with Katriel was Zasudoe, the primary maintenance engineer assigned to oversee Project Listen’s needs, who had helped Katriel with prepping Holodeck-A for the team’s arrival.

“And only fifteen minutes late. You excited, Counselor?”

Katriel pursed her lips, an action that was nearly thwarted by the smile she almost made after she realized what she was doing. “‘Excited’ might be a bit much, but I think I’m ready to begin, at least.”

Somehow I don’t think my faults will be as easy to ignore when they’re literally standing in front of me.

The two waiting officers watched patiently as passengers filtered off the vessel, until Katriel identified the project team from their unique uniforms and service photos. The Betazoid nodded to Zasudoe and they trekked down the ramp to meet their arrivals. The leading scientist was a willowy Andorian with even more pale than average blue skin and her fine white hair in a ponytail.

Katriel watched as the other woman simultaneously straightened out her uniform’s tunic and scanned the docking bay. But it wasn’t long before they made eye contact and the Andorian surfaced a ready smile that the counselor returned with a confidence she didn’t altogether feel.

But the alternative seems worse. If I continue to hide from those parts of myself that I don’t understand or like, then how can I hope to become someone better? These days I believe one thing more and more: that finding happiness will see you content, but it is growth that’ll lead to a more lasting fulfillment.

Only a few more steps and the two blue-clad women were facing one another. Katriel inclined her head in greeting. “Doctor Lake, welcome to Deep Space Thirteen.”

I miss you, too.
Katriel

[Katriel]

Step 1: Take one (1) whole dark-haired Betazoid…

Considering the complexity of illusions that modern holodeck technology was capable of achieving, the current state of holodeck-A was really nothing impressive. Still, Katriel observed her surroundings with more than just passing interest. The back half of the deck appeared to remain in an off state, with emitters and gridlines clearly visible, while the front half was actively engaged in producing a facsimile of the project team’s desk and console space.

There were also a number of non-photonic consoles and machines spaced throughout which, Katriel supposed, served specialized scanning or computing functions that required greater resolution or computational power than what the holodeck computer could provide. Not that she was enough of an engineer to follow that nonsense.

“As you might imagine, this is going to be one of the easier steps to complete,” Doctor Lake noted, as her aides ushered the counselor into the center of one of these machines now. The Andorian scientist stood casually watching as the aides fussed and poked and prodded at Katriel’s posture until the counselor was standing to their satisfaction. She wasn’t exactly sure what was different about how she was currently positioned from how she normally stood, but Doctor Lake was nodding in approval as her aides backed away.

One scientist remained at the machine’s adjoined console and started tapping away. “Just hold still for a while, Counselor, this won’t hurt a bit.”

Indeed, she felt nothing as she resisted the urge to look down when a photonic scanning beam enveloped her feet and started panning slowly upwards.

“This is our hybrid holographic imager and biomatter scanner, originally developed on Jupiter Station,” Doctor Lake explained. “With it, we’ll be able to get our foundation model for the template, as well as the vast majority of your static physical details, all in one scan. It’s a bit more sophisticated than your average holoimager, not to mention far higher resolution.”

Katriel was preoccupied trying not to watch the scanning light crawl up her legs, so she nearly missed Doctor Lake’s query. “Have you ever imported your image to a deck with a holoimager before, Commander?” When she didn’t answer right away, the Andorian continued. “It’s perfectly safe to talk. The machine will need to take a few passes, anyway.”

The Betazoid blinked once before opening her mouth. “I see. I … yes, actually, but just one of those substandard consumer imagers, and that was years back. The result was fairly unimpressive and it was some sort of proprietary format, et cetera. I’m sure it can’t compare with this.”

“It certainly wouldn’t,” Doctor Lake sniffed once with her response. “We’ve had to make sure that our holograms will appear at high quality regardless of the hardware producing it, so that requires getting scans at higher resolution since, as I’m sure you know, it’s always easier to compress down to lower quality than vice versa.”

Katriel merely nodded once, lapsing into silence for a moment as the beam had reached her neck. Despite Doctor Lake’s assurances, it still felt a little wrong to talk while her face was actually being scanned. She waited for the beam to sweep her entire head twice, once up and once on the way down before asking another question. “How long will the model rendering take after you’ve finished the scan passes?”

Doctor Lake smiled. Instead of responding, she nodded towards the aide who was processing the scan, who merely tapped out a sequence on the console. Just to the right of the imaging machine, a photonic outline flickered into view. Katriel watched silently as the image pieced itself together in time with the scan that was still currently passing over her figure. No wait for rendering at all, but a live scan.

“Very impressive,” was her measured response as she watched her own image being rendered.

“Mostly a demonstration of how excellent our engineers have become at optimization algorithms,” Doctor Lake responded, her glance having dropped down to her PADD for a moment. “We had to perfect the hybrid scanner early on, as the chairman indicated it makes for an impressive demonstration tool. So much of our early support was garnered through doing exactly these scans of doubters.”

The Andorian scientist smirked readily, putting the PADD aside as she stepped forward to inspect the still-building hologram. She slid her hands into her coat pocket and paced around the image idly. “You might be surprised by the size of the library of holograms we’ve built up, due to people who have donated their images this way. Even managed to dig up archived holoimage data and convert it into the new system, giving us access to many famous Starfleet figures.”

Katriel said nothing as the scan passed over her head one final time. Her gaze remained wordlessly on her holographic duplicate, as the final photons filled into place. Doctor Lake circled the hologram once more, her experienced eyes inspecting it for what, Katriel couldn’t say. But the Doctor merely nodded once.

“This’ll do,” she pronounced. “What do you think, Commander?”

That I hate mirrors. And that this is much worse.

“It certainly looks quite flawless, Doctor,” was all she said outloud.

“Change out the uniform,” the doctor instructed the aide still standing at the console. A couple of key presses and it was done, the familiar navy blue Argo uniform dissolving into the pale gray-beige of the standard medical duty uniform, only with a distinct violet stripe.

“Very good for a first pass. We’ll need to look at the data and clean it up, but there aren’t any glaring issues so far, so I’m sure we’ll be moving onto the fun part before very long,” Doctor Lake’s tone was brisk and cheerful. “In the meantime, this is for you.”

As one aide invited Katriel to step outside of the scanner, the other had approached with a set of clothing offered out. The Betazoid’s glance dropped to the neatly folded, darkly-colored uniform with some puzzlement. The texture looked rather like satin, promising to be a little more form fitting than her standard wear. Atop the pile was a pair of black gloves. “What is this?”

Doctor Lake just smiled primly. “It’s your uniform for the next week roughly, or however long it takes to get the motion data we need. Captain Morton assured me there would be no issues with you wearing something non-standard for the duration.”

Of course he would, Katriel grumped to herself. She gingerly took up one of the black gloves, fitting it onto her hand and snugging the fingers tight. Her lips pursed when the trim of the glove’s fingers turned white in response. An indication of its recording input?

This is going to be a long week.

[Katriel]

Step 2: Add in one (1) voice, alto-flavored…

It was with no minor amount of relief that Katriel delivered the motion capture suit back into the arms of Doctor Lake’s aide, who wordlessly rushed it off to a console to process. Katriel watched for a moment longer, trepidation increasing.

“How utterly fascinating,” Kkovug’s fluid baritone sounded out. The Betazoid glanced over to see the Kindred’s Chief Medical Officer inspecting her hologram with wide, fascinated eyes. He leaned forward, with his hands clasped behind his back, as he paced around the still form of photonic-Katriel. “They’ve quite captured your look, I think.”

Katriel suppressed a wince at the thought, but held her tongue as Kkovug and principal surgeon Emryd Kjorr carried on with their intense inspection of holo-Katriel’s flaws.

“I don’t know,” Kjorr temporized in his teasing tenor, as he retreated a step and craned his neck backwards, as if distance would provide a better lens. “She looks less … something. Overworked, perhaps?” He snapped his fingers. “That’s it. Your hologram looks far better rested. And her hair might not be blue enough. They do know your hair is blue, right?”

Whatever rejoinder Katriel might’ve made died in her throat as Doctor Lake pushed her gently towards one of the desk consoles. Her collected soprano began to explain. “While we’re parsing through the motion capture data, we may as well get started on the next step: voice print.”

Katriel was personally quite impressed by how quickly it seemed that her voice fled her at that instant, as the Doctor maneuvered her into position and set up the recording mechanism. She had to clear her throat a bit in order to get out her question. “And how does this work, exactly?”

“As with the motion capture, we will not be satisfied with anything but the most complete sample and record. You will need to speak uninterrupted for some length of time, so monologue only, no conversation. The program will assess if you’ve covered the entire gamut of samples that we will require, at the end.”

The Counselor nodded once. “Does it matter what I talk about?”

“Not in the least,” the Doctor reassured. “It should be in a speaking voice, however, no tonal singing. That comes later.”

Katriel shot the Doctor an alarmed look and was only somewhat mollified by Doctor Lake’s apologetic relax-I’m-joking smile. She internally sighed as she turned over subjects in her head. Talk uninterrupted?

“You could totally talk about the Maestro,” Emryd cheerfully volunteered. “Or maybe the time that you and Brian were late to that one fencing tournament because he forgot the --”

“THANK you, Kjorr, I’m sure I can come up with something myself,” Katriel grumped as she leaned a palm against the console, tapping her fingertips on the surface with a veiled irritation. Talk about herself, in front of this audience? Not likely. Summary of a Vulcan novella? An Andorian parable, or three? Her glance shifted over to the two Kindred crew members who had accompanied her to holodeck-A in their curiosity. She paused, then cleared her throat.

“Once upon a time,” and she had to keep her lips from twitching just a bit, as Kkovug shot her an amused glance for her whimsy. “… There were two sisters. Or half sisters, actually. The older one was dark haired and quiet, while the younger was fair haired and cheerful.”

Katriel wondered, briefly, if this was even an adequate method for obtaining a voice sample. She’d noticed that a person’s voice tended to modulate widely, depending on who a person was speaking with. Even the slightest amount of tension or unfamiliarity could make a person’s voice rise a notch in pitch. Katriel shook her head a little and tried to think of what to say.

"Out of the two of them, the younger sister tended to draw more attention. She possessed a naturally sunny disposition and everyone enjoys being around someone who is happy. But not only was she a pleasure to associate with, she was also intelligent and clever and tended to have opportunity handed to her on a plate.

"Much to the older sister’s dismay. Lei, as she was sometimes called, was a little more … prickly. More formal, a little more blunt. She was hardly unpleasant to be around, but her younger sister definitely tended to steal the show, so this was grating for Lei, who felt less and less sisterly affection as the years passed.

"Lei, in an attempt to distance herself and make her own way, went to Starfleet Academy. She did well enough, but her sister chose to join a few years later and seemed to excel just as much. Lei felt that no matter how well she did, her sister always seemed to be better. So blinded by her unhappiness and her jealousy, Lei and her sister rarely spoke to one another in their young adult years, though this was mostly Lei who couldn’t bring herself to be very courteous.

"Years later, Lei was offered a posting above the U.S.S. Poenari, as first officer. There were those that had considered it to be an ill-advised decision, as the Poenari had gone through two first officers already, both who had requested transfers after short time periods served. But Lei was ready and eager to take on new responsibility and to prove herself more able than her sister, who had achieved XO on a science vessel elsewhere in the quadrant. And whenever the Poenari’s Captain made a questionable judgement call, Lei ignored her instincts and continued to serve him faithfully.

"But during an escort patrol, the Poenari came under fire by True Way. The Captain was almost immediately killed in the battle, leaving Lei the commanding officer. They managed to repel the attackers, but when she gave the order to pursue as the former Captain would have done, the crew refused. The Poenari was at half strength and the civilian freighters they were escorting were also in need of attention.

"It was mutiny, Lei realized, and though she railed and ranted, the bridge crew refused to cooperate, Lei’s judgement called into question and ratified by both the Poenari’s CMO and head counselor. She was interred in the brig until the crisis was over, until Starfleet retrieved her to ESD and she awaited tribunal.

"In the end, Lei was cleared of any real wrongdoing, though her choices were ruled as poorly considered. It was argued that so quickly after assuming a role that she was not yet ready for, her decision to default to the actions of what her former commander would have done was really quite logical in some ways. But no commander would take her now, due to the stain on her record. The Poenari was ascribed a fresh Captain and it was not her.

"And then Lei’s sister came to see her. She had achieved Captain rank and was ready to assume command of a new science vessel, doing research for Starfleet Medical. Lei was both angry and disarmed when her sister asked Lei to be her first officer.

"‘Why would you want me, when I’ve been nothing but horrible to you?’ Lei wondered. And Lei’s sister just said, ‘because you are my sister and it would make me happy if we could serve together.’

“Lei had no other choice, even if she wanted to refuse, there were no other opportunities for her. But the two sisters appeared to work together well, even if they bicker constantly. Perhaps in time, Lei will have earned enough credibility to obtain her own command, but for now, they seem to be happy enough as they are.”

Katriel took another breath to continue but halted when a large section of the console lit up green. Doctor Lake stepped over from whatever corner she had been standing in and nodded a bit, reaching a hand forward to turn the recording off. “Very good, Commander. That’s all we need.”

The Betazoid made a slight face, but nodded. One of the aides helpfully handed her a glass of water, of which she took a brief drink while ignoring Kkovug’s speculative gaze. Emryd was less circumspect.

“Pretty tough luck for Lei, there, whoever she is,” he commented. “Not one of your patients or anything, was she?”

“Of course not,” Katriel’s tone was completely deadpan. “Just a little digging I did into Starfleet history, one night when I was curious.”

She brought up her glass for another sip but paused with the glass half-raised when a searing flash of anger brought her up short. Someone else’s anger, faint but distinct. Her head tilted towards the holodeck’s door, she listened as the feeling flickered in intensity. Someone’s getting chewed out.

… She’d have to look into that later.

[Katriel]

Step 3: Blend together aspects of personality (44% I, 50% N, 38% F, 44% J) thoroughly, then pour…

Holodeck-B was drenched in darkness, and the single, centered spotlight flickered out as the program ended. The ambient light level rose, revealing just the Counselor and Doctor Revy Lake, the latter staring at the space where the spotlight used to be.

“An … interesting experience, Commander,” the Doctor managed to state after a time.

Katriel pursed her lips as she offered to take the PADD in the other woman’s hands. This had to be one of the most neutral reviews yet. “I appreciate you taking the time to try it, Doctor.”

“Well, with the rest of the team going on about your innovative use of our hololibrary, I thought it only fitting,” the Andorian nodded as the two of them exited the holodeck and made their way back down the corridor to Holodeck-A.

“As a reminder, Commander, I will be departing the station for a couple weeks to attend the other labs on Risa and Vulcan,” the Doctor stated just as they entered Project Listen’s working space. “The next step is fairly detail oriented and work intensive, so it will not require my immediate supervision, anyway.”

Katriel just nodded once as she followed Doctor Lake over to a console. “All right. What will I be required to do?”

In response, an aide handed over a PADD, which didn’t look exactly standard issue, Katriel noted. Wider screen, less keys. Evidently there would be a lot more reading, perhaps?

“The next phase necessitates a personality inventory,” Doctor Lake clarified. “You’ll find that we have the most thorough and most extensive questionnaire to start with, accompanied by surveys of colleagues, and some observation sessions.”

Katriel looked just a little paler at the end of the list. Her fingers moved to flick the PADD on and she scrolled through the document that loaded.

And scrolled.

And scrolled.

And scrolled.

[Katriel]

The counselor was lazily lounged in her armchair, head resting on one armrest while her legs were draped over the other.

On the display screen, a comms call desperately tried to make a connection. Her brother’s vessel, the U.S.S. Sirocco, was currently parked in a class 2 nebula somewhere on the other side of the quadrant. More than one of their weekly calls had been interrupted or postponed entirely due to comms interference and Katriel was starting to become antsy with the information overload.

She reached a hand out to the coffee table and plucked out the very last chocolate-dipped jakarine from a plastic container, a gift from a number of weeks back from Chef Rellir. Kind of a miracle she was able to make them last this long, all things considered. Almost immediately after the treat was swallowed, Fairy shot up and out of nowhere to pounce on the lid of the empty container, sending both it and herself skidding to the floor, where the feline bat the errant piece of plastic around like a soccer player might dribble their black-and-white ball. Katriel watched, quietly entertained, sideways though her perspective might be.

“Owl? Is this damn thing working yet?” Brian’s tenor split the silence suddenly.

Katriel sat up abruptly and eyed the screen that alternated rapidly between her brother’s face and a layer of static. “… Not … as well as it could be, but I can hear you, at least.”

“Stars, I hate this nebula. Almost none of the experiments are turning out, what with twenty percent of our equipment failing every other day,” he grumbled.

“Sounds awful. How much longer are you guys going to be there?”

“As long as it takes, apparently,” was his unenthusiastic response. “Though I don’t know, the project leader was talking about cutting our losses and concentrating slash duplicating just the essential experiments, to increase the likelihood of actually finishing one. Here’s hoping, I guess.” She could barely make out his head shaking. “How are things on your end? You manage to get out of going to the Festival?”

“Ha, no. Thanks for the idea, though,” Katriel mused while she sat back in her seat. “I think it might’ve worked if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve avoided so many other social engagements. Coby didn’t buy it this time, unfortunately.”

“Well, you know. At least now you can buy me a jumja stick.”

“Ick,” was the counselor’s intelligent response. Fairy had whacked her new toy under the armchair in which the Betazoid was seated and had her paw extended under in an excellent show of futility. Katriel smirked as she hauled herself out of the chair and pushed on one side, tilting the entire piece of furniture sufficiently enough for the feline to reach her improvised toy and knock it out the other side.

Katriel eased back down into her seat as the chase resumed elsewhere. Her casual tone continued. “I asked Matt, actually, if he was free. Thought his presence might make it more bearable, but he can’t go.”

“Unfortunate. What about your photonic twin? Maybe you can send her in your place.”

“Oh, stars,” Katriel exhaled a sigh. “I’m still not done with this inventory, if you can believe it. Though I finally found the bottom of it, so it won’t be too much longer. Doctor Lake still hasn’t returned just yet, I’m not sure we can continue to the next step without her.”

“Do you know what the next step even is?” In the middle of Brian’s query, the picture suddenly steadied, and the static faded. Katriel glanced up at the screen, imagining that the connection might have stabilized on his side as well. “Oh, that’s way better,” he confirmed.

“It’s memory, I think. Integration of memories with significant effect on personality and behavior.”

Brian was silent as he turned that over in his mind. “That sounds like it might be … rather difficult.”

She couldn’t help but silently agree, as her memory flashed back to a recent encounter. “Speaking of difficult memories. You remember Razor, right?”

“Sure,” was her brother’s ready response. “Never met him, of course, but I know he’s a ‘self-absorbed peacock with hormones instead of brains and a black hole instead of a heart’.”

Katriel’s mouth fell open. “… did … I called him that, didn’t I? A long time ago? … I must have been in a really bad mood.” Her mouth creased into a slight frown. “The black hole bit might’ve been too harsh,” she murmured to herself.

“You run into him recently?” Brian asked, knowingly, pulling her back to the present.

“Yes,” she answered, her tone a little clipped. Then she sighed. “I see him so rarely, can’t help but think of Chassy when we cross paths. Plus that dream I had. I think I … didn’t really react well.”

“It’s been less than a year,” he observed. “Really not that long, all things considered. You didn’t break down, did you? Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

“Uh, well, I kinda… hit him. With a PADD. He deserved it, though.” She remained totally unrepentant.

Her brother’s tone was cheerful. “Hey, anger. That’s progress, right?”

“… Um.”

“… Yeah, okay see, this is why you’re the psychologist.”

“Right. Of course.”

[Katriel]

On the following scale of Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Neutral, Agree, and Strongly Agree, please answer:

➢ I think about how unsatisfied I am with my life.

Katriel moved her index finger to hit the empty bubble under the ‘strongly disagree’ column.

➢ When someone snaps at me, I spend the rest of the day thinking about it.

Her finger hovered over the PADD, indecisively moving between two bubbles, before eventually marking neutral.

➢ I can think about a problem for hours and still not feel that the issue is resolved.

Agree.

➢ I can find the good in even the most disagreeable people.

The finger paused, lifting a little, as the counselor recognized the question. She smirked vaguely, hitting the bubble under the ‘agree’ column.

➢ I spend time wondering why I feel the way I do.

Katriel pulled her finger back entirely as a frown tugged at the corners of her mouth. Did ‘wondering’ only encompass the moments during which she was confused about why she felt a particular way, or did it include all self-introspection on her emotions? Hrrmmm. Agree.

➢ I am as happy as the people around me.

What a terrible question for an empath, she mused, setting the PADD down on her desk. She folded her arms on the surface and drew down into a contemplative slouch, her chin resting on her right wrist. Even now, inured in the quiet of her quarters, she was not immune to the muted emotional glow of the rest of the station. Her empathic senses stretched a good couple of decks or three in both directions and with intent focus and attention, she was capable of picking out the stronger nuances of those individuals in singular moods.

Someone a few rooms away to port was reading a melancholy letter from home. Someone else to starboard was exceptionally relaxed, practicing an instrument of some kind. A deck below her was a pair conversing excitedly about their upcoming shore leave over the holidays. And someone above… Katriel’s brow creased as she recognized the scattered remnants of fear, patterned like a nightmare.

Her focus was broken when Fairy jumped aboard her desk without so much as a by your leave. The lingering discomfort faded into that ever-present emotional fog and Katriel determinedly shut it all out, in that way that her brother and she had practiced so many times before. The feline was most helpful distraction in this respect and Katriel focused on the cat as she weaved and wended her way to the new and unfamiliar item situated on one end: a statuette of a Risian dusk diver, with wings outstretched and coated entirely in a golden-bronze metallic grain.

Katriel held her breath as Fairy approached the inanimate bird with that obvious feline curiosity, tail high, and nose poking out towards everything of interest. The cat sniffed the statue’s outstretched wingtip briefly before creeping closer to give its head a similar inspection. Then, when the bird failed to react in any way, the black-furred animal immediately began to vigorously rub her cheek against the statue’s beak, likely finding it to be an exceptional shape and stiffness for reaching that itch on her neck without exerting an excessive amount of her own energy.

The counselor exhaled a laugh. “Well, how about that, Wally?” she asked the statue. “Even Fairy can’t resist your charm.” She watched the pair for a while longer, as Fairy began to purr contentedly over her new inanimate friend. Katriel shook her head and glanced back down at the PADD.

Strongly Agree.

[Katriel]

Step 4: Sprinkle in quirks, habits, and memories…

“Allez.”

Parry, feint, lunge, riposte. Point.

“Allez.”

The white-suited computer enemy charged forward on the command with a routine aggression. Katriel swung her weapon upwards to parry the enemy blade up and away, then lunged into the opening created and attempted a score against the computer’s exposed side. She was surprised, instead, when just before she could follow through, the computer’s momentum changed and the opponent’s blade ripped downward suddenly, catching her forearm neatly from above.

The holodeck gave off the cease-action buzz and a green light flashed off to the side and in front of her view. Point.

Had this been a real fight, the counselor would have needed more than a few passes with a dermal to recover from that one, as the non-existent laceration stingingly reminded her. She wasn’t exactly the sort who disabled safeties when she worked in a holodeck. But for her fencing programs, it seemed necessary to keep a minimum of tactile feedback in place, for the benefit of … faster muscle memorization.

She was shifting back towards her starting point when a drawn out metallic clattering drew her attention away. Her gaze moved towards a spilled over weapons rack, where a Project Listen aide stood, guiltily dangling a foil from his fingers. Katriel stifled a sigh.

“I do apologize, Commander,” Doctor Revy Lake intoned, stepping over towards the new disaster area, with an expression that clearly read she had no idea how to reset the equipment, even if she had any desire to make a real effort. “We really don’t mean to be an imposition.”

“No, it’s… I think I’m done for today, anyway,” the Betazoid dropped her weapon tip and straightened out of her stance, pulling her mask off. “You can just leave it,” she reassured the aide, who gingerly set the single foil down on the rest of the pile and hastily followed the rest of the aides out of the mini-deck. Katriel carefully hung her helmet and eyed her own weapon, then the downed foil rack.

“Computer, reset equipment and end program. Please.” She didn’t wait for the computer to comply before moving for the exit and her hands were only emptied just before she reached the arch.

The Project Listen team politely awaited her there in the corridor, making small talk amongst themselves, and ready to follow to her next destination.

Katriel swallowed a sigh as she started the trek back towards her quarters. This A-Day-In-The-Life-Of-Katriel-Sedai exercise was getting tiresome, to say the least. Not only was the entire team following her from one end of the station to the next, but periodically a pair of them would draw colleagues and coworkers aside to ask a question or two about who knows what. Katriel couldn’t bring herself to eavesdrop after the first question about her office habits.

Then they had followed her to one formal department meeting, a personnel evaluation, and lunch. They had combed through her office while she worked through administrivia for two hours, took their own meal break when she was seeing a patient, then met her on the gym floor and crowded into her reserved mini-deck to watch her fencing practice.

‘Watch’ being a generous term, considering the fact that they had peppered her with questions as she trained.

‘Are you any good?’ I’m not terrible.

‘Is the computer capable of providing you with a real challenge?’ The AI enemies have a fixed set of responses, but the counterpoint is that I’m not able to read the computer’s mind ahead of time.

‘Is this the only program you use or are there others?’ Sometimes I run a free-form version where I’m up against multiple enemies at once.

‘Are you absolutely certain you wouldn’t like to try the motion capture suit while you train?’ Is … my fencing really relevant to my work as a counselor?

Now they were headed back to Katriel’s quarters where she’d undoubtedly have to endure the group poking through her decorations and other personal items. Not that she was excessive in this respect, but her quarters weren’t exactly barren, either.

The counselor keyed her door open and allowed the team to proceed in front of her. The aides immediately fanned out, taking stock of various items on their PADDs, while Doctor Lake proceeded at a much more leisurely pace around the perimeter of the room. Katriel shook her head and stopped by the replicator.

“Would anyone like anything to eat or drink?” she inquired of the group in general. “I’m afraid my replicator only does cold beverages at the moment.”

There was a smattering of polite dismissals, after which she tapped in an order for a pitcher of iced tea, which materialized only after a few seconds. She poured herself a glass and left the remaining available on the table while she sank into her seat at her desk, in case any of the intrepid detectives changed their minds. A blinking light on her console caught her eye: Matt had left her a message.

“Your quarters are quite cozy, Commander,” Doctor Lake commented just then. “Are these rooms fairly standard?”

“There’s another layout, but I don’t require quite so much space for myself,” was her contrived, unhurried response. She wasn’t about to read through a personal message with all these busybodies about. Simultaneously, Katriel observed one of the aides helping herself to a glass of tea, though she only poured herself a mouthful’s worth, which was sampled thoughtfully and then immediately discarded in favor of taking a flurry of notes on a PADD. What was that about? Doesn’t like lemon tangesh?

“At any rate,” Doctor Lake spoke again, as she finished touring around the edges and settled into a casual lean against an armchair. “We appreciate your patience, Commander, and I’m sorry that this phase has been taking so long. We’re still working on the details of what data is relevant and what is not.”

Katriel viewed the survey team that was currently combing through her belongings. “I can see that,” she responded dryly.

“We’ll be able to start the next phase promptly after this,” Doctor Lake’s voice was all reassurance. “Better yet, it won’t require your participation in the least. You’ll just have to give us access to your personal logs, of course.”

Katriel paused with her glass half-raised to her mouth. “I … don’t keep personal logs,” she responded, cautiously. “Will that be a problem?”

Doctor Lake’s expression shifted into clear surprise for an extended moment. “I … well, no, I don’t suppose it is. But that means we’ll have to enlist you directly and interview for experiences for the memory segment, instead. That will be quite time consuming, but if it’s the only option we have, then I don’t see --”

“I’ve had some time to reflect on that, as it were,” Katriel interjected. She took a breath. “I was wondering if it might be possible to… teach me directly, how to program experiences into the matrix and assign the relevant parameters. Then your staff would be relieved of the necessity of interview.”

And then I could pick and choose what experiences to share, without anyone overhearing. She nearly physically winced at her own internal thought process. If she wasn’t already the most hypocritical counselor on the station, she was reasonably sure she was close to stealing the title from whoever was.

The other doctor’s baffled expression continued. “I don’t see why not,” she noted thoughtfully. “But then the burden of entry falls almost entirely to you. Will your schedule allow for that?”

“I’ll manage, Doctor.”

[Katriel]

The pair of them halted at the sight of a blue, paper-wrapped box sitting at the foot of the doors.

“Hmm. That wasn’t there when I left this morning.” Katriel glanced down the corridor one way first, then the other, as if the culprit who left the item might still be in range to see.

Matt glanced at the package on the ground before exchanging glances with her. “Nope. Not me this time, I swear. Maybe it’s from Brian?”

The counselor pursed her lips. “Possibly, but I can’t imagine what the occasion is.” Her own hands occupied with a stack of PADDs, she nodded towards the package while stepping towards the entrance of her quarters, her proximity causing the doors to swish open in welcome. “You mind?”

Matt ducked down to pick up the package, following her in. Curiosity and decorum warred within him as he resisted the urge to shake it.

Katriel smirked as she dropped the PADDs off on her dining table. “Oh, go ahead. They should have marked it fragile if it is.”

Permission granted, he gave into temptation and shook the box, though only a little and not with any real force to do any damage. Nothing crinkled or cracked at least, though there was a slight thudding as something inside shifted around. “It’s a book,” he declared.

“Really?”

He shook it again, before holding it out to her. “Honestly, I have no idea.”

She took the box from him, only to set it on the table between them. “Well, it got past security, so it’s probably not a bomb. You want to open it for me while I go change?”

“You want me… to open your present?” He sounded slightly horrified at the thought. Katriel smirked faintly.

“Sure? It’s called… being efficient.” She was already walking away by this point, one hand reached up for the zipper of her uniform jacket. “There’re scissors in my desk drawer if you need them.”

“Efficient isn’t always fun,” Matt remarked, locating the scissors and then turning the implement on the package, gently cutting away paper and tape. He raised his voice a bit to make sure Katriel could hear him from the other room while he worked. “If this turns out to be flowers from your OTHER boyfriend, I’m going to be disappointed.”

Katriel’s laughter sounded from the other room. “Not a very smart boyfriend, to put flowers in a box where they can’t breathe!”

Eventually Matt pried the lid of the box open and pulled out an orb-shaped device from inside. The partially translucent, white sphere had faint indentations where fingers might go if it was held in a palm. Matt held the device in one hand and puzzled over it for a moment before digging out the accompanying instruction manual.

'THERAPEUTIC INTRO SPECTRAL MEDIAN DEVICE, or the ORB: The Orb was designed to be a calming tool for species that have found art and self-expression as good ways to relax. This device may be best considered as a neural translator, taking the feelings and thoughts of a subject and creating a work of art from their subconscious.

INSTRUCTIONS: Connect device to visualizer (holodeck, PADD, personal console, etc.) Hold device in hand and let your mind relax, allow it to travel and contemplate what you are feeling. The Orb will automatically begin to ‘paint’ through visualizer using your memories and feelings to combine color and shape into art. Abstract or more straightforward results vary dependent on user.’

“So what is it?” Katriel had crept up beside him, more casually attired now, with her eyes on the orb. “Crystal ball?”

Matt handed it over to her, looking a bit baffled. “It’s a brain paintbrush.”

“A brain… paintbrush.”

“Yeah, so… the manual says you hold it in your hands and think happy thoughts and it’ll create … art for you. I already tried it, it drew a picture of Wally.”

Katriel’s lips quirked into a faint smile as she turned the orb around in her hands, inspecting its shape. “I see. No note on who it’s from?”

He stirred through the box, then checked the exterior for any labels. “Nope. Nothing.”

“Hmm.” Katriel fit her fingers into the impressions on the orb. “We do have … a gift exchange program going on for Task Force personnel, but…”

“You think this is from that?”

She shook her head. “It can’t be, I already received my gift from the person who I was assigned to. Someone from engineering.”

Matt opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to change his mind, turning his head to one side instead. After a pause, “You sure you didn’t just get this for yourself?”

Katriel was startled into a brief laugh. “What? Definitely not. Why would you suggest such a thing?”

He smiled at her. “Cause it sounds like just the type of thing a counselor would do when they want something, but don’t want to LOOK like they want something.”

She pursed her lips. “That’d be a bit underhanded, though I suppose I can imagine the type of person who might do that.”

“Is she about this tall, with black hair pulled back into a ponytail, and full black iris eyes and casual clothing?” He reached a hand out, palm level with the height of Katriel’s head, for good measure. “Just curious?”

Katriel’s mouth twisted into an amused smirk. “No, he’s about this tall,” and she adjusted Matt’s palm upwards a few inches to level with his own head, “with dark, short hair, brown eyes and wearing a nice sweater combo.”

Matt broke out into a laugh. “Don’t trust THAT guy. He sounds totally shady!”

“Alas,” she sighed, a little theatrically. “I let him in already.”

((Backdated by a couple days, maybe? Not sure it’s really important either way. To the person who gave Katriel an unexpected gift: thank you! Hope you don’t mind a little artistic license on delivery and description.))

((Sidenote: there’s been so much death/suffering drama lately that I have to admit that this log feels vastly out of place. Oh well!))

[Katriel]

Katriel waited another full two minutes after the door to Captain Morton’s office slid shut with Captain Quint’s exit, before allowing her head to sink to the surface of the desk in a tired slump.

For a few unguarded moments, she stared sightlessly at the respectively large items scattered neatly around her head. Coby had been kind enough to permit ‘his favorite counselor’ use of his office for any private appointments she might have while she lacked an office of her own. So here she was, feeling a bit strange though not entirely out of place. She’d passed enough hours here, after all, and none of them unpleasant.

Still, for someone who had spent so little time in her own office in comparison, she already missed it. It had been a sort of home since she had started here on starbase over two years ago and she had been used to it. There had been a fairly awesome origami paper collection stashed in a desk drawer that was now mostly ash (and her fingers itched with a sudden craving to fold something right now) and that Andorian tapestry had been a gift from her brother a few winter solstices ago.

At least the fish were safe in her quarters, as long as Fairy didn’t figure out how to tip over their temporary home, anyway.

Another moment of silence or two passed, before the counselor pulled herself together and hauled her head up off the desk. She slowly, methodically, logged into Coby’s desk console as herself and drew up a medical requisitions form on the screen.

This is it, she felt, the last thing in an incredibly long day, after what had looked like an even longer weekend. An off-station assignment on K-7, a couple hours devoted to loss report filing and requisitioning for a new office, an appointment with Captain Quint. The work took her mind off things (like exploding offices and best friend… zombies?). It gave her something to focus on, grounding her in reality. But it likewise chipped away at her energy reserves, making it harder for her to keep up this pretense that she was keeping it together. And she knew she was failing that a bit already, what with the concerned looks here and there. Coby had certainly noticed, not to mention Lieutenant Kermit.

Even Aster… stars. You knew you were in trouble when Nethali Aster, of all people, was being nice to you.

Katriel finished the remainder of the requisitions form in a concentrated silence. She paused on the notes section, thinking carefully through the interview, and at the last minute decided to add the extra scan focus on the memory results. Dreams and nightmares were, after all, a natural byproduct of the brain’s processing and reorganization of memory while sleeping.

Speaking of sleeping: like any good ghost, the news of this maybe-Chassy had spawned her own set of more nebulous anxiety dreams. Flashes of being back aboard the Okoboji, mechanically cleaning the bio-beds in the starship’s tiny sickbay, parsing through a cacophony of holographic ads: a true ‘regurgitation’ dream. Nothing terrifying in the least, only that pervasively unsettling uncertainty.

It all comes back to that, doesn’t it? she mused, as she sent the req form on its way. That uncertainty. Even in the presence of people she intellectually knew she could trust, it continued to feel impossible to put away the front and just be openly tired. She had a hard-earned reputation of being RELIABLE, SOLID, STEADY and to do anything to jeopardize that… to introduce that uncertainty in others? She couldn’t do it. Not when she hated encountering it so much herself.

“Mandukar to Sedai.”

Now what! She had to force herself to pat at her badge. “Sedai here.”

“Counselor Sedai, this is… – … this is the duty officer, over.”

Katriel blinked at the comms-distorted voice, that was definitely not Davin’s any longer, that also seemed to drop several pitches mid-sentence. “Er.”

“Yes, you are needed up on the promenade … maybe? Were you sleeping?”

What? “… no, I’m in Captain Morton’s offi-- … why are…” … Then it clicked. “Matt?”

The laugh from the other end was terribly welcome to hear. He dropped the pretense. “Yeah, I just made it here… well, barely. If you’re busy, I can wait up here on the promenade for you.”

Oh, stars no. She started logging out of the console and prepped to go. “I’m just finishing up. I’ll be there in a bit.”

“Ok, great. Out here.”

“See you.”

((Some creative time warping here, do please forgive. :x ))

[Katriel]

“How about … this one?”

Katriel watched the vidscreen, relaxed as can be, as Brian cleared his throat and plucked a familiar chord on the stringed instrument in his lap. Her sibling opened his mouth and started to sing along to his own accompaniment. “I was following the pack, all swallowed in their coats …”

She stirred herself to harmonize on the next line. “With scarves of red tied round their throats –”

“Horrible song, that one,” an older woman interrupted, seated across from Brian. “So terribly morbid.” She sniffed once. “Not much like a holiday hymnal at all.”

Brian and Katriel exchanged amused glances across the commspace. Their singing halted, but her brother continued to pluck the tune at a more muted level.

“Catchy, though,” temporized the man seated at her side. “Gets stuck easy. Perhaps not a great choice right before sleeping, which your mother and I should do soon. We’ve an early conference tomorrow.”

There was another exchanged glance between the two younger Sedais. They didn’t need to be in the same room to read one another’s thoughts, something along the lines of ‘of course you do.’

“I’m satisfied that we were able to do this, however,” their mother noted as she rose to her feet, after stacking a couple PADDs from her lap on the coffee table instead. Katriel’s workaholic tendencies were clearly genetic. Though it was noteworthy that tonight her lap only had a cat in it, rather than reading material.

“Perhaps, sweetheart, next year you’ll have enough leave accrued to return to Sol for a visit instead?” their father added, likewise rising.

“Perhaps,” Katriel remained noncommital. “Good night, Mother. Dad.”

The Sedai parental units murmured their goodnights as they moved offscreen. Brian remained seated in his chair, quietly strumming as he watched for them to move out of listening distance before speaking again.

“I’m really sorry I can’t join you for the new year.” His voice was laced with palpable regret.

Katriel leaned back in her seat, one hand gently moving down Fairy’s sleek fur coat as the feline slumbered obliviously. “It’s alright, Brian. It’s my fault, getting assigned to mission and all. I’m sorry for messing up our plans.”

“I know you are. Can’t believe you were thinking of not going for my sake, too.”

“I was thinking about not going for a lot of reasons, not just because of you.”

“You really know how to make a guy feel special, Owl.”

Katriel grinned privately into her mug of cocoa. “I know.”

Brian gave an amused snort. “How’re the repairs coming? Do you have a new office yet?”

“They just finished renovations, I think, but since I’m heading out tomorrow, I’m not sure I’ll get a chance to see where they’re putting me until I get back. Take me another few days to furnish, too, no doubt.”

He had resorted to single-string plucking of a different holiday song. “What about your colleagues? Anyone else you know who was affected?”

“Oh, I expect the rest of the psych department will be settled soon enough,” Katriel mused aloud, thinking through the rest of the personnel. “A few physician examination offices, too. But then a lot of the remaining were just unassigned, empty office spaces. Some of them were being used by the Risa ‘Project Listen’ team, actually, assigned to them when they came aboard.”

“The Risian team, huh? They’re there, too, because of an accident, aren’t they? Weather regulator malfunction, is that what you told me or am I imagining that?”

Katriel frowned abruptly. “That’s right, yes.”

“Unlucky.”

“Very,” she agreed.

“Well, at least you’ll have a new hanging for your office when you get back, right?”

Katriel glanced towards her desk, where she had left the gifted tapestry after showing it to her family via conference call. “I suppose I do. I’ll really miss the old one, though. The parable was kind of the whole point of hanging it in my office to begin with. You know, to convince the more recalcitrant types?”

“You mean you let a wall hanging do your job?”

“As I am the one who chose to hang it there, then I can still claim credit for the work. No one ever claims Jung is being lazy when they take a Myers-Briggs test, do they?”

“Yeah, but you didn’t WRITE the parable,” Brian pointed out.

“The Andorians are much more poetic than I could ever hope to be,” she rejoined.

“You know,” Brian’s tone was dry. “You could just ask me to find you a new one. Like, point blank. No need to beat around the bush and hint at it.”

“… Oh,” Katriel blinked once, surprised. “That wasn’t even… well. I certainly wouldn’t mind.” Katriel smiled at the screen, batting her eyelashes just a little. Brian blew out a laughing breath.

“I’ll keep an eye out for you.”

[Katriel]

Step 5: Add a dash of external influences to season…

It was almost done.

Katriel sat back in her chair, arms reaching up towards the ceiling as she bent backwards a bit in an extended stretch. It was clear that the extended time spent hunched at the virtual consoles on Holodeck-A, inputting and cataloguing her memories, was not really agreeing with her physically. She’d be glad to put this strongly indolent task behind her when this whole thing was over.

In the meantime, though the task was occasionally tedious and seemingly neverending, she could think of worse ways to pass the time than being the only occupant in a quietly humming holodeck, pouring over her own history and deciding which ones merited entry. At the very least, it was an interesting exercise.

Originally she had started out chronologically. Most of the material early in life seemed relatively harmless to input and, just from a counseling standpoint, earlier memories were considered more formative to one’s personality anyway. Eventually, though, as she started moving towards more recent years, she became increasingly selective about what she put in. More than once she was rueful that she hadn’t kept personal logs all this time, which would have simplified the whole matter by massive margins.

Still, she reflected as she scrolled through the listing of inputted entries, there was an impressive amount of information here. Like an interactive autobiography. Katriel pursed her lips at the thought.

“Computer…” she spoke outloud, on a whim. “Re-organize and sort memory listing by reference to persons mentioned in entry.”

She’d heard once or twice that a person was the average of those individuals they spent the most time with. If you bought into that theory, then wouldn’t it be important to make sure you were always surrounded by people who’d influence you to be someone better? Katriel often thought that people were a greater force of change to an individual’s life than experience alone. Those that we interact with most often would provide the template for what we either aspire to become, or refuse to, or a little of both.

So who were the people she had drawn most influence in her own life? Katriel watched as the computer diligently and rapidly sorted through memory entries, until a list of names lay before her, with checkmarks besides.

Not really names, actually, as Doctor Lake explained at one point. Eventually the memory databank would be obfuscated and compressed, so that the counseling hologram would be able to draw on the general experiences, but it would be unable to ascribe particular details. This included names of individuals that Katriel had recited into the console, so the list displayed on the screen was nothing but a list of alphanumeric reference names.

Katriel reached a hand out to activate rendering of her photonic twin. She barely flinched now, when it flickered into being, wearing the standard Starfleet medical uniform, purple stripe and all. Then, with her eyes on the hologram, her finger moved to the first name in the list and toggled it off.

The hologram-Katriel changed. It was slight, almost completely imperceptible; had she not been expressly looking for it, the counselor would probably have missed it altogether. She toggled the name on and off a couple times to be sure, but after a few more times, she was certain: removal of the memories associated with this person seemed to have a visible impact on making the hologram seem more … open, somehow.

Katriel glanced down at the reference name: REFFBETA10707.

She switched it back on and moved down to the next, a REFMBETA10315. Again, the hologram’s posture seemed a little more open, the facial expression a little less tight.

Curiously, with great self-amusement, she went down the list and toggled every name, looking at the changes that were wrought by the computer’s simulation. Sure, it was completely theoretical and not in the least bit scientific. But if she couldn’t have a little bit of ridiculously hypothetical and speculative fun after all her hours of input, then what was the point?

Most of the names had literally no change on the hologram’s countenance, but she was surprised by how drastic the changes were from others.

Without REFMBAJ10625, the holo-counselor looked a bit more withdrawn.

Without REFFKTAR1002, the hologram’s arms had moved to fold across her chest.

Without REFMBETA214, the hologram flickered out entirely. Katriel read the words of the error that splayed across the screen: ‘REMOVAL OF THIS PERSON RESULTS IN TOO FEW MEMORY ENTRIES TO RENDER’.

Without REFMBETA9889, the hologram’s gaze appeared significantly less narrow.

Without REFMHUM5165, the hologram’s stance seemed slightly less sure.

And without REFFTRI9261, the hologram’s glance was less downcast.

Katriel frowned at that one, toggling it on and off a few times. This one was Chassy, she realized, and with the recent developments, some of these memory references were actually out of date and would require amendment. Though, she sighed, maybe it wasn’t quite a happy ending just yet, if the recent news report was anything to judge by. Perhaps she was better off leaving things as they were?

Katriel toggled the last name in the list, a REFMHUM1230, and watched as the hologram’s already very slight smile vanished.

The flesh-and-blood Katriel pursed her lips, toggling the name back on and watching the hologram’s expression shift back into something slightly more content.

“… definitely better off with you there, aren’t we?”

[Katriel]

// portable console JL24156-ksedai
// composing outgoing message…

This year has really been off to less than a stellar start.

First this business, or more accurately the complete lack thereof, with Captain Morton. To be clear, I don’t dislike our new Captain Perim. But she is not Coby and it’s a trial having to adjust to a new superior officer, no matter how gracious or professional she is being about it. Plus it’s just difficult to lose a friend off station. I don’t make many as it is, and I am acutely aware that this is my fault, but some ways are too set for change, I think.

Secondly, Counselor Merrati. I can’t claim to have known him well or for very long, but it’s unnerving to find that a fellow colleague has died, and in such a way as to result in a completely unwelcome assigned security detail to my person and others. I grudgingly follow the logic, but it doesn’t mean that I must like it.

Fortunately, there’s not much remaining for the Project Listen team. They may be finished and leaving as soon as the end of this month, even. But there’s been a great deal of discussion on what to do with Merrati’s template. For the most part, his hologram is just about done (as are all of ours), but all participants were required to wait until the final product was delivered before final sign-off could be made. That leaves Merrati’s hologram in a strange legal state and Doctor Lake has been harried half to death in determining what her options are.

Then there is this… Kirina problem. The likes of which is what forces me to write instead of indulge in a comm call, since I have no desire to allow my new houseguest to overhear any of my personal correspondence. Have I mentioned her before? She’s… she’s a Romulan, let’s get that out of the way at once. She’s put me on edge since day one and those first impressions remain impossible to forget. But more than that, she’s… a little broken. Sociopathic tendencies, heavily desensate. About as much capacity for empathy or foresight as a four year old.

And so desperately craving redemption. From what, I can’t say and probably wouldn’t even if I could. I thought it would be enough, that craving, to help her forge a new way. But now I’m not so sure. There are always those patients who want to change and even work on doing so, but then something distracts them and they’re lost again. They pick the wrong way, because it’s familiar, because they know nothing different, because they are actually afraid to rise to a position from which it might hurt to fall.

I wanted to help this one, but I don’t know if I can. And now I don’t even know if I’ll get the chance.

Enough depressing talk. I wanted to note, your birthday gift this year which I had to send without a note in order to ship it out to Sol on time: those’re a sampling from the Pariah colony. I know I’m slowly running out of reachable sectors to get you new specimens from, but how lucky that a system from another galaxy so conveniently stopped by, huh?

Love,
Your “Owl”

[Katriel]

Step 6: Serves many.

Dear Matt,

– Started the letter in her head. Katriel promised herself that she’d actually send this one.

It’s all finished, or my part in it is, anyway.

She stood at the top of the reception deck ramp of docking bay two, observing as Doctor Lake exchanged some final words with Captain Perim. The remainder of the team had already started said their goodbyes and had started down towards the U.S.S. Hermes.

After your visit, I spent a couple more days doing my work in holodeck-A and entertaining Argo visitors to the, ah, ‘holo-Kat’. It’s probably not hard for you to imagine how varied the reactions have been, everyone seemed to feel something different, meeting my holographic self. Some officers were more curious about her purpose, her functionality… whether or not there were ethical conflicts with what she might learn from patients who intended to do harm to others versus the obligation to keep confidentiality.

I tried my little ‘counselor-or-hologram’ game with a few others after you. Other than a touch-telepath who was more than happy to cheat to arrive at the correct answer, no one really fared any better than you did. Lieutenant Kermit attempted to provoke me into breaking character (heh) fairly unsuccessfully, though it was admittedly interesting to compare my responses to the hologram’s, when he repeated his words to her afterwards. They weren’t radically different, but not exactly the same either.

Katriel pushed out of her lean on the railing as the other two officers finished their conversation and shook hands once more. The station commander tilted a nod in the counselor’s direction briefly before starting to move away, too busy to actually wait for the Hermes to depart. Revy Lake turned her attention to Katriel instead, a pleased smile gracing her face. “Commander. I’m sorry we haven’t been able to speak much in the last few weeks.”

“It’s no trouble, Doctor,” Katriel responded, her head inclining just a bit. “I know things have been busy for you.”

“I understand you sat in and demonstrated your template for some others that walked through,” the doctor inquired, casually, as she sorted through her documents one last time. “How did that go?”

Captain Quint was among one of the visitors, who startled me with his inquiry to the hologram, referencing back to a previous conversation we had, think I told you about it. It was thoughtful, I suppose, in a strange way… and more than a little meta. Ensign RunningBear, too, continues to surprise me in his seemingly out-of-nowhere moments of whimsy, asking my holographic twin about board games and whether or not she could sing, of all things. I’ll admit to feeling a moment of smugness when he seemed equally floored by her response on ‘amateurs’.

Chassy was more upset by the hologram than I expected, she quite bluntly thought the hologram would be a continued security risk to me and went as far as to try to stay the release, which was denied since Captain Perim has no jurisdiction over the matter. I’m not sure she would find it especially flattering to know that her concerns were echoed by a Romulan, Subcommander t’Veras specifically, who couldn’t understand at all why I would concede to … ‘expose’ myself through this project in such a way. As if I hadn’t wondered that myself once or twice or more.

“… It was educational, for everyone, I think. People who were unconvinced of its necessity before seemed more accepting, though there remain some who … feel it’s too grave a security risk.” Katriel kept her tone as diplomatic as possible.

Doctor Lake’s response was breezily unconcerned. “There’ll always be that worry, of course, but we’ll do our best to mitigate and personally I feel the potential benefits will outweigh the slight risks any day. Do you feel pleased with the results, Commander? I know you signed off on it, and we will of course be consulting you over the final look and name, but I’m curious about your off-the-record opinion.”

Still. You know that… during the multitude of steps in putting her together, it’s hard to understand how all of the individual pieces will fit to make up the whole in the end. So it’s with no small amount of surprise when I got to witness her giving responses to questions that were asked, and I can’t deny the slight sense of (albeit somewhat grudging) approval when she said something that I felt like I’d have personally also said. So she doesn’t have my heart, because her connections to people are all only in her memory, and soon she won’t have my appearance either. But she does seem to have my philosophy, so maybe that’s all that matters.

Katriel smiled faintly. “I am satisfied, Doctor, yes. I hope she’ll do well for the program and I look forward to when your team finalizes for the release.”

The Andorian officer smiled in return and the two officers shook hands over farewells. Katriel watched in silence as the Project Listen lead lifted up her suitcase and started down the ramp, to board the Hermes.

I hope Kuma’s adjusting well to starship life! I’ve hung your gift on the wall behind my desk. Thank you again for that, it looks really stunning and I’ve had more than one colleague compliment me on it already.

Stay safe out there.
Katriel

[Katriel]

Hey, happy belated birthday, ancient owl.

I’m sorry this gift is late, but I had to jump through some hoops in order to get it out to you. Nothing dangerous of course, there’s just a standard protocol “Early Exploration Phase” restriction on exporting natives from Coleoide, so I had to get this cleared by my super first.

What you have there is the remains of some variety of marine mollusc that we haven’t named just yet (the label is COLEONAUT-155, if you must know) and I’m pretty sure you understand why I sent it. I can hardly explain it in words and you have the thing in front of you anyway, so I won’t even try. But you can see it, right?

((wanna buy one?))

The exoskeletal structure… it’s like a bunch of mobius strips! You remember we used to make mobius loops and cut them down the middle when we were kids? At the time I never really understood what fascinated you about them. Still don’t, actually, but even I can admit that seeing this thing sure gives me a new appreciation for concept.

It’s a little fragile, so don’t go playing hot potato with it, but otherwise it might make a decent paperweight? Not that you use much paper, or run into much wind on station… Fine, just leave it on your desk, it’s cool to look at!

Love,
Brian

–

Hi Brian.

This is incredible, thank you! I’m planning to bring it to my office first thing, don’t want to let Fairy near it, just in case.

I do remember making mobius strips as a kid, though I don’t remember being so fascinated by them. I know it’s more a mathematical phenomena than anything else, but think about it. If you start drawing a single straight line along the middle of a strip and never lift your pencil or change direction, you end up with a line that’s twice the length of the original strip you cut and you end up right back at the beginning.

It’s a great metaphor for life, perhaps. When you start out on any venture, you follow the path that looks completely straightforward to you. In reality, when you look at the whole picture, that path of yours actually had twists and turns and sometimes you were even completely upside down. But if you stay true to your direction and keep going, you’ll make it back to where you started and it turns out you were never lost after all.

Yeah, sorry, that’s the psychology talking. Symbolism, it’s good for … you know, dream interpretation and such.

Also, if I’m ancient, then what does that make you?

Your still younger sister,
Katriel

[Katriel]

Katriel stood in the quietly humming dark of the active holodeck.

In the previous couple of weeks, her discussions with the Recreational Department had culminated in the scheduling of an ‘experimental art’ workshop in holodeck-B, so she had arrived a fair bit early in order to see to the configuration and setup. Though she’d casually experimented with the device a few times prior, she imagined that a formally hosted session with other Task Force officers deserved a bit more theatrical attention, so she considered the space carefully.

“Computer, render a wood pedestal, one point two five meters tall, please.”

be-boop.

Obligingly the object appeared and Katriel circled it once in speculation. “Now, how about a … square-shaped, black display pillow?”

be-boop.

She fetched the ‘therapeutic spectral median’ orb out of its case and set it on the cushion, making sure that it wouldn’t roll off one way or another. “Computer, recognize Spectral Median interface and bridge to 2D visualization matrix. Please utilize all holodeck surfaces for display.”

be-boop.

The translucent orb seemed to fill with a glowing milky light as it activated and connected properly with the holodeck display. Katriel stood there and considered it for a moment. She glanced towards the exit arch, before reminding herself that it would be at least another half hour before others might start arriving. So unthinkingly, she reached forward for the object and cradled it carefully in her right palm.

The orb’s internal coloring shifted immediately in response as it started picking up neural feedback, filling with greens and blues and purples. Katriel had absolutely no idea by what methodology or set of complicated algorithms the orb used to translate one’s biochemical input into imagery, but the sudden burst of color in the device’s interior inspired her thoughts to go arrowing back into very recent memory. The resultant image that started to sprawl across the various holodeck surfaces was therefore both completely surprising and not at all.

((‘Abstract Nebula’, Nicole Whittaker))

Katriel stood frozen as she stared with mild shock that gave way to a sighed, almost rueful smile. This is your fault, Matt. I hope you’re happy.

“Computer, please freeze and sustain images until manual clear or completed calculation of new input.”

be-boop.

Katriel set the orb back down on the podium and studied the painted abstraction on the surfaces of the holodeck, a slight frown overtaking her as she remembered that her departure from station to go see Matt’s surprise astrological phenomena in the proverbial middle of nowhere had resulted in one certain Trill’s complete and marginally unhinged paranoia attack. How’d that woman know the Betazoid had even left the station? Hmm.

She shook her head and indulged for a little while longer, just standing in the middle of a memory.

[Katriel]

Who counsels the counselor, they all ask? Her brother, it seems.

“Apparently she’s been tracking me for over a month, ever since my security detail was pulled. A month! My location at all times, and even basic health metrics… pulse, body temperature, anything the station computers could give her. She had files on all my routines, when I was sleeping, when I was with patients or in meetings, when I was exercising…” Katriel’s tone trailed off for a moment, as her expression took on a frown.

“… Exercising?” Brian prompted, when she didn’t automatically continue.

His sister shook her head, ridding herself of whatever thought had crossed her mind. “… Yeah. Nevermind. Point is, it wasn’t necessary and it was invasive and she wasn’t even sorry when I confronted her about it.”

Brian reclined in his seat a little, putting his hands up behind his head casually and leaning back to stretch. “It’s definitely excessive. She’s just worried about you, though, you know that. You really that angry about it?”

The observation was enough to knock just a bit of the wind out of her sails and he could see the slight softening of her posture. But then her lips thinned with renewed irritation. “I’m not a kid anymore, Brian. A person can care without being completely overbearing about it. I mean, you figured it out, eventually.”

His eyes rolled up and back as he tilted his head back to stare up at the ceiling, refusing to meet her gaze and grateful that they weren’t physically in the same room so that she would feel his discomfiture. “Well, it was either that or follow you to med school,” Brian forced his tone to stay light. “And we both know I can’t stomach the sight of blood, so that was definitely out.”

He kept his eyes on the ceiling, but could still envision the slight smile she was probably now wearing as a result of his remark.

“Anyway,” she continued, and Brian knew he was right by the way her voice had lost its edge. “I think she’s just using her preoccupation for my safety as an avoidance strategy for dealing with her own issues. It’s not healthy. She needs to start living her own life, not trying to safeguard mine all the time.”

Sometimes, Brian reflected ruefully, he really hated it when she spoke like that, all mature and grounded counselor and none of the whimsical little girl he grew up with. The truth was, he was vastly sympathetic with Chassy Skyler Quaen and her overzealous desire to ward Katriel from every horrible nightmarish thing that was out there in this teeming galaxy of threats, from opportunistic pirates to mind-controlling neural parasites to these new looming Iconians and their pet Heralds.

But it wasn’t his job anymore, he knew that. His little owl was capable of taking care of herself, and she’d proven it multiple times already. So instead of brilliant knight-protector in shining armor, he’d been relegated to the position of personal cheerleader and confidante, and even that was starting to be increasingly occasional. Stupid Matt, he mentally grumbled.

Brian couldn’t actually hate him, of course, he did seem to make her happy. The elder Sedai had been especially impressed by the recounting of this latest venture (“like drifting through the sails of an aurora” Katriel had said) and it wasn’t hard to see that the whole experience had dazzled her. But occasionally he wondered if they never fought or argued. He wasn’t sure Katriel would even mention it if they had. Brian supposed that might be the only advantage to long distance relationships: if you could withstand the blocks of separation, the moments you did have together ended up being too precious to waste on negative emotions.

“… Brian?”

“Hm?” Ah, crap. Caught redhanded. He finally looked at the screen to face her. “Sorry, what were you saying?”

“Just that I ended up altering my privacy settings to prohibit access to my biometrics, so she can’t do that anymore.” Katriel looked torn between amusement at catching her brother unawares and concern that she had actually done so for once. “Is everything okay? You seem really distracted.”

"Oh, ahmm, I was just … " Think faster, you dummy. “… there was someone who asked if I could meet up in the lounge after shift today, but I was expecting your call, so I skipped it. Just uh, wondering if they’re still there.”

“Really?” Katriel’s expression cleared as she bought the excuse. “You should go, we can always talk later, you know. In fact, I have a holodeck reservation I need to get to soon, so… you should go now!”

Brian suppressed a long sigh. “Yeah, all right, I’ll do that.”

“Great,” was her cheerful rejoinder. “Just remember what I said about people needing to live their own lives so they aren’t stuck just listening to me talk about mine all the time.”

“Low blow, Owl,” Brian grumped.

“True, though. I’m going now. Love you.”

“Love you back.” – fzzt, as the feed cut.

He sat there for a few moments, staring at the screen as it displayed the still logo of Starfleet, and let out the sigh he had contained earlier. “Computer, locate Lieutenant Kharya,” he ventured.

“Lieutenant Kharya is in the lounge.”

Brian shook his head and hauled himself to his feet reluctantly, shuffling slowly for the door of his quarters, which slid obligingly open and closed as he exited. Time to go have a life, I suppose.