Lt JG Imril - So We're Just Supposed To Sit Here?
Chris Taylor
((Swua’a’ahn’soh All-Natural Wellness Spa, Ferenginar))
A mountainous gastropoid set a bowl of incense down at the foot of the rectangular pool. The smoke wiring from it was blue-green and smelled of something that wasn’t quite cinnamon blended with something that on lazier days might deign to be a lime. The bowl’s rim and bottom were a conglomerate of stones, multiple shades of dark brown and darker grey. The middle was pale, and covered in calipgraphied glyphs which had been drawn with a thin brush by an artful hand.
The Schlerm hostess put her hands together in a way which curled her thick fingers against her palms before bringing the opposing knuckles together, just below the level of her lower pair of eyes. Tiny mouth well covered by her hands, she nodded her head in Imril’s direction.
Imril repeated the gesture, and then settled their arms into the grey-brown mud. Its warmth surrounded them on all sides, pressed against them, radiated into them. Paradoxically soothing and rousing. They were floating, and yet being weighed down. The smells of sulfur and mild decay were masked by the incense. The hostess nodded again and tumbled away to see to another patron.
The mud-baths were set in a circle, the head of each single-occupancy rectangular pit pointed towards the center. Where a small landscape was laid out, atop of which a pair of musicians -- one Schlerm, one Ferengi, both all-but naked -- played soft music, fife and bongo. Mosses and other small greens grew willy-nilly in the spaces in between the pits and everything else. Glowing barnacles embedded in the rocky ceiling above formed patterns of soft light in myriad pastel colors which the Schlerm believed to be soothing, but which Imril had learned Earth-folk would call psychedelic.
In the pit to Imril’s right, a female Ferengi wearing a necklace of latinum slivers smiled back at them before replacing the fruit slices over her eyes and leaning back against a heated stone headrest. To the left, a blob of muck with an airhole.
According to the itinerary, this as how Imril was to spend the next fifteen minutes. A high-temperature cool-down following the massage given by very large and strong and thorough hands. Well-loosened muscles unhurriedly absorbed the heat of the mud. Their ears, their eyes, their nose were kept just as much to in slow procession.
It didn’t take long for their mind to start wandering. Towards new R&D ideas. Ways to further narrow down the search for Galador 1. A sudden desire to read up on news from Galaris IV, or finally learn how to play Tri-D Chess. Echoes of a voice on Risa advising them to just relax. Their own voice agreeing.
In order to keep their head from floating away on a mud-bubble, Imril settled on responding to an unexpected but not unwelcome bit of mail which they had received while traveling the even muddier canals of Ferenginar. A mud-slicked hand reached for the small collection of items which Imril had insisted on keeping by their person in case the Artemis summoned them. Cleanly as they could, they withdrew the padd.
//
Communication Log, Stardate [[ILLEGIBLE]]
To: Ollie Bergmen, LTJG, USS Artemis-A
From: Imril, LTJG, USS Artemis-A
Subject: Re: Hey, hello, hi
Yes, I made it to Ferenginar. And actually I’m a bit ahead on my latinum budget. I did my eating tour -- no bribes necessary -- and I did get started on a trade caravan tour. Ubgu Of Ulang was the man being celebrated, alongside his guide Tepki, an adventurous woman who until recently had been left out of the history books. Her tale was kept alive by word of mouth, whispered from mothers to daughters across centuries until it could be told to everyone. Fascinating stuff.
But the rain defeated me, sorry to say. I made it through five stopovers before I had to get off and get dry. That’s where I found an ad for a ‘traditional Schlerm spa’. Their people have a small community here, to one side of town. So at least someone appreciates the wet weather. It’s been an adventure inside of an adventure, getting to see how some of these people live and adapt to Ferengi hypercapitalism. And this establishment is set up in a nice, big cave, so not a bad place to get the damp of the swamps wrung out of me. I may have left a vertebrae or two in the massage table, though.
As for where you are… I did come by your quarters after the Ferengi primer to see how you were doing after whatever called you away from the awards ceremony, but you had already left. If you make the ‘rendezvous’ I’ll be ready for you. I can even recommend a sort-of-bistro I was introduced to planetside. (No ‘scary’ food, promise!) If you can’t, I understand that’s the nature of the job sometimes. Don't beat yourself up over it.
If you’re ‘stuck’ on Trill a while longer than you expected, here’s hoping you find a nice surprise there like I found here.
- Imril
//
END FOR IMRIL
...OR IS IT?
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Lieutenant JG Imril
Engineering Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240110I12