Ensign S'Rorr - Foundations

[S'Rorr]

((Counselling Suite, Deck 10, USS Chin'toka ))

S'Rorr: I understand you came quite close to death.

Xiron: Didn’t we all? It was a close thing we managed to isolate the affected crew in Main Engineering without anyone killing or being killed. Had the ship action lasted another two minutes we would have been out of power and either suffered a warp core breach or a failure of the shields.

S'Rorr: D'you ever have feelings of.. regret, or guilt?

Xiron: Guilt, regret, pride, sadness, relief and dozens of emotions that Federation Basic doesn’t have words for.

S'Rorr: That makes sense. The heart can hold many truths at once.

Xiron: The worst of it is when I get messages from my Academy class’s ombudsman. The class of 2400 was one of the hardest hit. So many of my friends and peers killed or were killed, dozens grievously injured. This will be a scare carried by all and every decade we will meet back in San Francisco and poke the wound.

Ghee’looth twisted in her chair a bit.

S'Rorr: That must feel difficult.

Xiron: The hardest I felt about it was when I heard Carlos Nguyen died earlier this year.

S'Rorr said nothing for a moment. His ears tilted subtly forward, picking up the faint quickening of her breath, the uneven rhythm of it expressing her inner turmoil to him as easily as her words and her tone. Every movement of her antennae, the tension in her shoulders, the smell of discomfort itself on the air sang a chord to his Caitian senses, like a discordant melody. He took it all in without judgement.

She seemed to S'Rorr to have a practiced kind of composure, but the hull could only take so much before it cracked.

Xiron: I did not know Nguyen very well. We had maybe two classes together junior year. Senior year he dated a friend of a friend. I had not actually thought of him since then. Then that class newsletter comes up in my messages, killed during USS Pioneer’s survey of Pleiades Star Cluster. He would have been the first death from our class had it not been for Frontier Day. Now he is just the afterthought to the big wound we are fated to carry.

S'Rorr: Sometimes, grief arrives that way. Unexpected, and sharper for being sudden. Even if you weren't close, he tied you back to an era you still feel close to, to who you were then. It's okay to feel hard hit for Nguyen.

Xiron: Response

S'Rorr leaned forward slightly, voice soft but steady. His tail flicked lightly in thought. It's movements were more random than the movements Ghee'looth's antennae.

S'Rorr: These kinds of traumas can make the world feel unsafe, or meaningless. They can.. shake the foundations we stand on. How would you say you're feeling right at this moment?

Xiron: Response

S'Rorr: That's okay. Nobody expects you to be fine. I would be highly concerned with anybody that did tell me they were doing fine. You're remarkably well kept together, considering. What would you say has helped keep you walking forward? Is there.. a belief, or value, or a connection that helps you?

Xiron: Response

Ensign S'Rorr

Ship's Counselor

USS Chin'toka

A240206S04