Second Secretary Aitas - Memorials
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Aitas
Sep 2, 2025, 6:20:32 PM9/2/25
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((Mountains near the Second House of Betazed Colony Site, Idrustix))
((OOC: This happens a few hours after Aitas' conversation with Lhando))
Much of the area near the colony sites was lush, green, the bands of plants near the equator proving a clear attraction to the Houses that had sought the most pleasant locations for their colonies.
And then there was this expanse of stone, gray flecked with green and purple, a substance that might prove beautiful when polished but was currently rough enough to catch a hand or an ankle easily enough. Shrines such as this were not built in easy places, though the paths might grow slightly smoother with time.
It was little more than a pillar of stone with smaller rocks piled around it. White ribbons were tied to that pillar, each bleached until it was almost sheer and then left to flap in the wind until it turned them to shreds.
The work of hands worn away by the world around them.
Most Betazoids didn’t follow Karawati, not any longer. They honored the Four in faith or ceremony, but Karawati was (depending on who you asked) too distant, or already personified in all her descendants in the noble Houses.
Still, there was usually someone who would leave an acknowledgment of her on such a large, new venture. Some of the Houses held more of her followers than others, small variances written larger merely through scale.
It had been slightly more in fashion in the Seventh House nearly fifty years ago. Before Aitas was born. Before her parents had ever met.
Aitas, for her part, couldn’t be considered a great devotee of any deities. Nor a great opponent of them.
It was her mother who had followed Karawati. Aitas had not been there for the funerary rites, of course. She’d been missing, believed all too likely to be dead. Just another casualty of the Dominion War.
Just another lost child.
She’d returned several years too late and found herself a stranger.
Aitas knelt and pulled strips of leather from her pack. They were long, thin, made from one of the creatures that had been served at the wedding feast when her parents married. A few slivers of bone were set into the ends of them, where wind and weather would soon wear it away.
She pricked her fingertip on one such sliver, left a few smears of green blood as she tied the strips of leather upon amid the ribbons.
There were no words to be said, not aloud. Aitas simply let her hand rest against the bloodied stone before she left.
Fin
Second Secretary AitasAnd then there was this expanse of stone, gray flecked with green and purple, a substance that might prove beautiful when polished but was currently rough enough to catch a hand or an ankle easily enough. Shrines such as this were not built in easy places, though the paths might grow slightly smoother with time.
It was little more than a pillar of stone with smaller rocks piled around it. White ribbons were tied to that pillar, each bleached until it was almost sheer and then left to flap in the wind until it turned them to shreds.
The work of hands worn away by the world around them.
Most Betazoids didn’t follow Karawati, not any longer. They honored the Four in faith or ceremony, but Karawati was (depending on who you asked) too distant, or already personified in all her descendants in the noble Houses.
Still, there was usually someone who would leave an acknowledgment of her on such a large, new venture. Some of the Houses held more of her followers than others, small variances written larger merely through scale.
It had been slightly more in fashion in the Seventh House nearly fifty years ago. Before Aitas was born. Before her parents had ever met.
Aitas, for her part, couldn’t be considered a great devotee of any deities. Nor a great opponent of them.
It was her mother who had followed Karawati. Aitas had not been there for the funerary rites, of course. She’d been missing, believed all too likely to be dead. Just another casualty of the Dominion War.
Just another lost child.
She’d returned several years too late and found herself a stranger.
Aitas knelt and pulled strips of leather from her pack. They were long, thin, made from one of the creatures that had been served at the wedding feast when her parents married. A few slivers of bone were set into the ends of them, where wind and weather would soon wear it away.
She pricked her fingertip on one such sliver, left a few smears of green blood as she tied the strips of leather upon amid the ribbons.
There were no words to be said, not aloud. Aitas simply let her hand rest against the bloodied stone before she left.
Fin
Federation Diplomatic Corps
Amity Outpost
O239307A10
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