<USS Atlantis> "Vampire Pt I"
- From: "Tempest Rainbird" <counselortempest@xxxxxxx>
- To: <ussatlantis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 04:35:26 -0800
"Vampire Pt I"
Lieutenant Commander Merienn Kiela
9901.25
As Kiela closed their connection with one of the myriad admiralty who had been
lavishing their attentions on the Atlantis over the past few days, she had
chanced to hear Commander Dolan's breathless gasp, "Alexi, no!" As Alexi's
mellifluous baritone washed over her exclamation, the connection sizzled shut,
but as Kiela returned to the repetitive labor awaiting her on the console, she
found herself troubled by the image of them sitting together: him holding her
frail, aristocratic form against the barrel of his chest, drying her tears with
his solicitous fingers, brushing away wispy strands of her hair, loosed as if
to mirror her concern, as they began to adhere to flesh made sticky by weeping.
She could see the wide-eyed fear radiating from her eyes in the same way the
spokes of her iris radiated from her dilated pupil; she could feel his solid,
comforting weight answering her plaintive call. It stirred other memories to
the surface. Tarine. Their brief shore leave together on Titan beneath Starbase
Aerheart. Kiela's hand rose unbidden to her earlobe. Her earring lying
abandoned on a bedsheet in a pool of blood.
The scene was later to haunt Kiela's dreams. A maelstrom of images
and sounds fragmented into nightmare and similar only in that they each evoked
a certain sickened, impotent despair in Kiela's gut would swirl through her
consciousness when it was made defenseless by sleep.
The last rays of the setting sun glimmered through the glass of
French Windows in a rented room. Tarine's lips brushed against Kiela's neck and
she smiled, twining her slender fingers through his. "Happy anniversary," he
whispered in her ear, the rush of air tickling like a tiny feather.
"Six months," she returned, breathlessly. The anniversary was silly
and they both knew it; six months since the day they'd met: since the day Kiela
had walked into engineering and tried ineptly to find the panels that indicated
the power flow from the bridge, and a dashing young Bajoran Lieutenant had
gently guided her to the correct console, their eyes meeting briefly, but
shiningly, over the schematics. Six months since the evening they'd shyly
trysted in the ship's lounge to whisper awed courtesies over a bottle of hot
Saurian Brandy while T'shara sat at a nearby table exchanging amused glances
with her friend Juli.
Six months, and it could have been six hours or six years.
They drew close to the bed, sitting on the synthetic sheets, hands
enmeshed, eyes locked, drinking in the richness of each other's company as
though it were vintage champagne.
"I want to share something with you," Tarine said. He stood and
lingeringly withdrew his hands and gaze from Kiela's, then turned and knelt by
the carryall he'd left by the door. "Do you know what day it is?" he asked. He
smiled. "Other than six months."
Kiela licked her parched bottom lip, and thought. "No," she concluded
after a moment's rumination.
"Bei'ani'abo," Tarine said. "Day of the Honored Dead." He reached
into the carryall, and removed two candles from its recesses. "When we honor
the souls of those lost to us in the Occupation."
Kiela smiled, but felt a tendril of ice creep into her stomach.
Despite her earring and the occasional prayer to the Prophets that passed her
lips, she was ignorant of Bajoran customs. She had told Tarine she'd been
raised offworld, but she didn't know how far that excuse would stretch.
"The maquis adopted our ritual to honor their casualties," Tarine
went on, carrying the candles, a box of matches, and two ornately carved
candleholders over to the white-painted dressing table sitting in the middle of
the room. "But they don't follow the ways of the Prophets. This ritual dates
back to the days of Prophecy when the sacred books were still being written."
He turned to Kiela. "They didn't practice it where you were raised?"
Kiela wordlessly shook her head.
"How strange," Tarine commented, returning to the dressing table.
When the candles were laid out to his satisfaction, he gestured for Kiela to
kneel beside him. Still smiling, and still icy in her heart of hearts, she did
so.
"Ordinarily, this ritual is performed by a single individual to honor
those of his family who were lost to the Cardassian's brutality." It was
difficult to detect, but Kiela could see the signs of impotent rage building up
behind Tarine's placid expression. ".but I want you to share in my grief,
Kiela, that you too may exult in its amelioration by the grace of the Prophets
- as we may share everything over the coming years."
His smile was gentle, and he reached out to take Kiela's hand. A
lingering moment later, he returned to the table.
Tarine lifted his soft, mellifluous voice into the rhythms of a
chant. He lit the first candle, then handed Kiela the second match, gesturing
silently for her to light the second one and never missing a beat in his
incantation.
Kiela reached for the second candle. It caught flame, and Kiela shook
out the match. Tarine stared silently at the two flickering lights, and Kiela
followed his example. The flames wavered, dancing.
"The first time the candles are lit, it is customary to tell the
story of the one they are lit for," Tarine told Kiela. "I light the candles for
my mother and my two brothers. Others in my family died during the Occupation,
but it is traditional for the candles to be lit by those who knew the deceased
best. I was close to my mother. I was close to my brothers. For me, their death
was like unto mine. The prophets have granted me care for their memories."
Kiela nodded.
"The stories are told only the first time the candles are lit.
Stories are precious. They must not be cast like leaves to the wind. They are
honored by the flame, but silently, that they may be hoarded as treasures and
secrets, their value undiminished by the ravages of platitude or commonality.
Their stories must remain fresh and new, and horrifying. To tell them
carelessly makes us callous to them; they must remain shocking. We can not
forget."
With that, Tarine pulled himself to his feet and crossed the room.
Kiela turned on her knees and watched him with quiet adoration and curiosity.
He paused before the French Windows, then flung them wide, opening the room to
the cool breath of the night air and the pale light of the stars.
There had been many a long night on the Halcyon as they plied their
way through the void, that Tarine and Kiela had passed on the observation deck,
gently secure in being together and making patterns out of the stars that hung
the empty sky like carelessly strewn diamonds. "When I was a child," Kiela said
quietly, pulling herself to her feet and joining Tarine by the window. "I was
told that the stars were lit by the virtues of men and women. Looking at them
now, they could be candle flames."
Tarine smiled, and wrapped his arm around Kiela's waist. "Para'e
lasitt," he said quietly. Grief and joy in one. It was a Bajoran expression
used to describe unity and balance.
"Para'e lasitt," Kiela echoed. Her Bajoran was colored.
Tarine turned away from the window to regard her with puzzled eyes.
"Your accent." he said falteringly. "I thought I heard." he trailed off.
Kiela wet her bottom lip again, nervously, but the time had come to
be honest, and she knew she must face the results. "I want to share something
with you too." She returned to the bed, and turned her back to him, while she
manipulated the folds of her leisure gown to expose her midriff and the darkly
embossed lines twisting across her stomach. Her mouth opened to form some words
of warning that would ease Tarine's shock, but none came to her lips, and she
wordlessly turned back.
Slowly, his gaze traveled to the exposed area of Kiela's flesh. She
saw the change in him immediately. His lip quivered with rage, and his eyes
flashed darkly in a way she'd never seen mar his expression before. "What does
this mean?" he growled, fists clenched.
Kiela lowered her gaze, and traced the outline of the tattoo with her
fingers. She answered him with silence.
"Bitch! Traitor! Slut!"
Kiela tried to lift her eyes to meet his accusations, but she
couldn't.
"You let me. you lied to me. I shared everything with you! You have
spit on the graves of my mother and my brothers! Defiled them!"
Kiela was silent. Her eyes traced the outline of the Cardassian word
engraved in her flesh. She doubted Tarine understood what the Cardassian script
said, but the meaning was clear enough to anyone who had lived through the
occupation. "COLLABORATOR."
Never mind that it had been her mother's hand which signed their
souls away. Kiela's childhood had been a lie that denied everything the ridges
on her nose, the earring she wore and the tongue she used to speak, symbolized.
And she was as aware as any of the underlying implication that beneath those
features could lurk blood that would have given her a different appearance
altogether: the dark-skinned, thick-necked, hollow-eyed countenance of a
Cardassian.
"Vampire," Tarine growled.
It was the term most often used to describe those like Kiela. Like
the creatures of legend, they had drained the blood of their people in order to
sustain their own lives.
Even now, that word stung. From Tarine's lips, it was like the blow
of a whip..
Kiela was branded outcast. No Bajoran who knew of her past would
suffer her friendship. Except T'shara. but Kiela's truest friend would have
been powerless to help her in the face of Tarine's anger.
"Six months," Tarine choked out, unbelievingly. "Six." He reached out
and grasped Kiela's earring in his hand. "How dare you wear this?" He screamed,
wrenching Kiela's head as he pulled. "You're not worthy of it! You foul it -
and them -by touching it!" He pulled again, and Kiela felt the flesh of her ear
tear, but before it broke, Tarine pulled his hand away, choking his rage in
tears.
Kiela clapped her hand over her earlobe and dared to try to search
Tarine's face for some kind of compassion, but Tarine's eyes were filled with
hate, rapt on Kiela's bare stomach. The disbelieving pain in his eyes had
faded, leaving them to resemble nothing so much as well-polished stone. "Get
away, Kiela," he hissed, finally, the beads of his earring jingling as he
turned away from her.
Kiela pulled the sheet over herself, and reached out to touch his
shoulder, wordless.
He didn't turn around. "It's almost dawn. Get away from here. Get
back to space: to your endless night. Vampires can't stand the light of day."
After a moment when she didn't move, Tarine shook his head and
stormed out of the room. Kiela reached after him impotently, staring at his
retreating form in silence while reality sunk in. He would offer her no
understanding. She was condemned.
"Prophets!" She snarled, her tongue tangling with the falseness of
the word. She seized the jewel, red as blood, dangling from her earring and
tore. Her lobe split with unnatural ease, gushing blood, and Kiela hurled the
earring down. It lay on the bedsheet in a well of pooling blood. "Prophets be
damned! You're liars and fools!" Her voice was choked with tears, and she
clenched her fist, sliding to her knees. "I swear, Never Again," she whispered,
eyes locked on the specter of her earring.
A breath of wind floated in through the window, and extinguished
Tarine's candle. The last glimmer of light caught the silver in Kiela's earring
and made it shine like a star; like the blossoming flare of the Celestial
Temple.
This, Kiela didn't see. Her eyes were clenched tightly against the
world, as though blindness could protect her, and thus she slept until the
morning and a pleading call to the starbase brought the solace of a transporter
beam and the endless night of space.
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