Lieutenant Doz Finch - Silver Linings
D. Finch
((Sto'Vo'Kor Crew Lounge, Deck 9, USS Gorkon))
After celebrating each others small but large at heart triumphs, delivered in the form of ribbons that they could all wear to formal events with all of the pride and prowess of a person who’s been to hell, bought several of its t-shirts, and returned back again, the various different pockets of people turned inwards to food, drinks and the collaborative art of chitter-chatter.
Taelon: Y-you said you trained on Mars? What was that like…?
Finch: Mars has almost everything you’d need! Though obviously perhaps not on the same scale as Earth. There’s only so many bars and clubs you can fit into a contained atmosphere. Although in saying that, there was a little place in one of the lowlands where you could go and place darts without needing to wear an EV suit. Nimiska’s. Was ran by this old Antican woman, who I suppose is probably long gone by now.
Nera: Response
Taelon: Mars sounds surprisingly restrictive. I - I admit most of what I know is, um, second-hand. Why did you go there and not the Academy?
Sevo: Do you miss Mars; you know, how it used to be?
It was a welcome barrage of questions, even if the latter did bring about a sprinkling of that lachrymose dust that had a tendency to get into all the nooks and crannies of a person's throat and soul; she’d said that it has everything, when really it had everything. Not just because it was all those decades ago, but because of the very reason Ayiana had interjected Taelon’s question with one with a specific event in mind.
Finch: Do you know, it’s easy for me to get caught up in the way things used to be. The truth is that it was a very long time ago, and was only for a brief period of time. I enlisted first, Mister Taelon, foregoing the four year course in favour of the much quicker alternative. I didn’t have a lot of patience back then!
She hoped her answer had steered the conversation away from the tricky subject of Mars. Though she was quietly grateful to Ayiana for taking a genuine interest; perhaps it was one of the rare silver linings of their new timeline, the possibility of people, places and events having happened or happened differently.
Perhaps it was one silver lining of many.
Nera: Response
Taelon: Ah, I, um, I see. Why join Starfleet, then? ::He paused and looked to the others.:: I suppose that’s a good question for you all, too? Why join Starfleet?
Sevo: I wanted to explore and know more.
Finch: Sounds like a lyric, Ayiana. Quick, write it down!
Nera: Response
Taelon: I, um, thought it sounded…good? Exploration and seeing the stars, I mean. And something I could…do, I suppose. It was, um, not the most…it was kind of an impulse?
Brown eyes blinking away at her more youthful looking colleagues (she couldn’t exactly call them younger. One was sharing a body with an ancient slug and the other was an El-Aurian who was, well, she didn’t know how old he actually was. She needed to investigate that!) she inhaled the information falling out of them, massively intrigued by their reasons for joining.
Her reason had been somewhat of an impulse too, in the moment at least. But trees tended not to grow without roots, and hers were already years deep by the time she reached for the stars.
Sevo: I pretty much wanted to since I was little. My parents always took me and my sister to the Metropolitan Museum where my mother worked. Instilled a love of science in me.
Finch: She worked in a museum! Now isn’t that something? Don’t you just think that’s something, Mister Nera? What about yourself, is there a museum in your past somewhere that spurred on those first little explosions of inspiration?
Nera: Response
Sevo: I was the first in my family to be Joined, as well as to join Starfleet.
Bushy brows reached for the ceiling, as the older Human shook her head in amazement. There had to have been a certain sense of independence in a person to be the first of anything in a family unit; she couldn’t really imagine it, not having those people within reaching distance to idolise and frame your life around. Starfleet was generational for the Finch’s.
Finch: That’s just utterly smashing, love. Your family must have been so proud of you.
Taelon / Nera: Response
Sevo: Oh yea, my family were overjoyed. Even my sister. We’re highly competitive.
Doz chortled at that; with three brothers, she knew that sort of competition all too well. Though her brothers tended to used to battle it out against one another as kids, through engineering triumphs, racing, climbing, whatever they possibly could—and often with a cut or a bruise to tell the tale later—anytime she joined in the foray, she tended to come out on top, with them having claimed to have let her win on purpose.
Finch: Sounds about right for a pair of siblings. Have either of you two, Taelon, Nera, got any brothers or sisters?
Taelon / Nera: Response
Sevo: Aleesia didn’t care for Joining, nor Starfleet. But she did gain an interest in other cultures and languages. Studied Xenoculture and Xenolinguistics. She works for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs now.
Finch: What a wonderful name! Aleesia.
Taelon / Nera: Response
She had to admit that the concept of Joining was slightly an alien one to her. She’d known Trill over the years, she’d also known symbionts—in a manner of speaking—but the cultural weight of the entire situation had more often than not slid over her head like water on a rubber slide. There had been a brief course on it during her more official Starfleet Academy stay prior to the Gorkon, yes, but an overview rarely did such an elaborate topic justice.
Finch: Now when you say Xenoculture and Xenolinguistics, are we talking more of a diplomatic role than a science one, or is there a bit of a combination of the two to her role? ::She squinted to the other two men,:: it’s awfully fascinating stuff.
Taelon / Nera / Sevo: Response
Finch: Did she ever speak about having a favourite language? I know my way around the Klingon language, myself, but I haven’t used it a lot in the last few years. Except for when I’m goading Mek over his experimental meat and potato pasties.
She chuckled and reached for her golden flute, with its swirling potion of gorgeousness.
Taelon / Nera / Sevo: Response