Commander Jo Marshall - Bruising Skies Built for Twilight
Jo Marshall
((Cochtois Lagoon, Deluvia IV))
Evening carried a gentler breeze with it from the mountains of Deluvia IV, where the cold air mingled with warmth, and the skies overhead began to bruise at the edges. Jo loved that time of nearing twilight, when the planet sank onto its knees and readied itself for the night ahead. She was a sentimental old sort, and enjoyed the feeling of closeness which came with the lighting of candles and the flicker of torchlight along the beachhead. A little circle of light against an awful lot of universe.
Under the table, Rubin pressed her shoulder against Erin's shin, as if the not-so-puppy knew her caregiver needed something only the scratching of a dog's ear could give. The dog sagged into her with a satisfied little huff.
Marshall: Maezel, serious question. Are you always that fast, or is that just a dog-related reflex?
Fenn: Definitely just dog related. Bolians don’t tend to be any quicker than humans when it comes to physical reflexes.
Neathler: Response
Marshall: So what do you have back home? Pets, I mean. Anything that tries to lick you without warning or steal your breakfast?
Fenn: I don’t have pets; I never have done. Beyond a few exceptions, Bolians don’t tend to keep them at all. We fulfill our companionship needs with large groups of other Bolians. Due to the way we evolved, the size of the group, the collective competence of it, and our ability to act meaningfully within it correlates directly to our sense of security. This means being able to communicate clearly with the group is vital to ensure we do exactly that and since animals can’t speak, we don’t tend to include them within our close circles.
Jo nodded as she hooked her arm over the back of her chair. She understood the premise even if she couldn’t imagine living it. Most of human culture was quite set in the way their companionship needs. Lonely in crowds, loud in solitude, sometimes willing to outsource whole categories of emotional survival to creatures with large eyes and small vocabularies. Growing up on Volan III, her pet draka Shii had filled some of the empty spaces for the middle Marshall child, on days when being a family meant everyone was busy being a person elsewhere.
E. Reynolds: Deltans are similar, in a way. I, uh... I don't think I need to explain their method of community bonding, but they don't keep pets for a similar reason. There's no deep means of communicating with them, and animal emotions can overwhelm their empathic senses.
Marshall: I wouldn't know where to start if I could read this one's brains. ::She smoothed her hand across Rubin's head, receiving a panting smile in return.:: Can't imagine it'd be too different to mine, though. Food. Sleep. Run. Cause problems. Repeat.
Neathler: Response
Fenn: It’s not that we don’t care for them. I love animals, and Bolarus has some of the Federation’s toughest laws against cruelty.
E. Reynolds: And that's saying something. ::She smiled.:: It's interesting how our societies evolved in all these different ways.
Speaking of food, Jo took the opportunity to clear up the rest of the barbecued fish into smaller chunks, feeding Rubin a small wedge of it. A small breeze caught the edge of her shirt collar and she glanced out over the rising tide to the sun dipping toward the horizon. The star returning to sleep very politely.
Neathler: Response
Fenn: The level of love and care that other species have for their pets constantly impresses me. I’ve noticed some humans treat their pets as they would children. Do you consider your dog to be a part of the family in that way?
E. Reynolds: I... ::She paused, glancing toward Jo.:: In a way, I suppose? She's part of our little unit, but I can't say I think of her the same way I might a child.
Fenn: I guess everyone is different but I agree with you. Pets are pets, children are children.
Marshall: She's still part of the team, even though I wouldn't call her our child in the traditional 'having kids' sense. ::For simply existing, Rubin earned another small scratch behind the ear.:: The universe would be way better if people loved with the same no-strings-attached devotion that dogs do.
Rubin flopped down between Jo and Erin, content to lie on the wooden slats, her head resting on her paws. Satisfied and ready for an impromptu nap, no doubt.
Their lives had changed since Erin had brought the squirming, wriggling puppy home. More walks in the holodeck. Shore leaves spent outdoors. More hikes with a fluffy tail bobbing ahead like a cheerful banner leading them into battle. Picnics that inevitably became negotiations.
Neathler: Response
E. Reynolds: You said Bolians don't keep pets, but did or do they have semi-domesticated animals at all? Um... humans on Earth often used to have farm cats to control rodents. They weren't pets, but they weren't entirely wild, either. They co-existed, if you see what I'm getting at.
It was a question Maezel appeared to think about for a moment, stroking her facial ridge from forehead to nose with her index finger.
Fenn: Hmm… I guess you could put the Xilipher shark in that category. Our kelp farms produce a lot of heat which attracts various species of fish when they want somewhere warm to nest. The Xilipher shark feeds off the majority of those species and it’s normally friendly around Bolians.
Marshall: ::Chuckling,:: I don't think I've ever heard anyone use the terms "shark" and "friendly" in the same sentence. They must have incredible appetites. It'd be amazing to see one up close.
Jo could see the quarters request coming through the Operations console. Request for one (1) aquatic habitat, reinforced, heated for the purposes of emotional enrichment, where the occupant responds well to praise and may bite threats in half. Starfleet, which had a form for everything, would absolutely have a form for that. The mental image it conjured of Erin rolling a rubber ball along the glass in front of rows of teeth was quite funny.
Neathler / E. Reynolds: Response
Fenn: I guess it is kind of similar but the difference is you can’t take pity on it and adopt them. They’re the size of a large dolphin on Earth, they’re incredibly quick and strong and they have a very low sense of self preservation. They will sacrifice themselves to take down a threat so it doesn’t go on to threaten the rest of their school.
Marshall: You just make adopting them sound like a challenge. Try not to say that in front of Sevo. ::She grinned, but could also imagine the paperwork.:: In a sense, I guess that's true for Starfleet, too. Self-sacrifice for the greater good, for the betterment of the whole. We become some kind of family unit by necessity.
Truer than most, when it came to their Skarbek associated dreams and where that life had taken their counterparts, who struggled in more ways than Jo could ever have imagined and managed to keep it together. She wondered, sometimes, if she'd find herself back in their boots, looking through their eyes once more, feeling her way through the unknown.
Neathler / E. Reynolds: Response
Marshall: I wonder how many of us would know who we are if no one was depending on us. No crew, no family, no one to protect, no science to explore. ::As if realising she'd wandered a little too far down that path, she chuckled.:: I'd probably still be causing problems, just on a much smaller scale.
Neathler / E. Reynolds / Fenn: Response
Evening was settling more comfortably around them, stars beginning to peek out in the canopy of bruised sky overhead, and Rubin had gone slack with sleep at their feet, unbothered by the existential spirals happening above her head. Jo slipped an arm over the back of Erin's chair and let the heaviness of the thought wash over as if the wave had broken against the shore line.
Marshall: Alright, lighter question then. What do you miss the most when you're off-world or away from home? What's the thing that makes somewhere feel like home to you?
Neathler / E. Reynolds / Fenn: Response