Ensign Dekas - The Pit.

[Ace Christensen]

((Dekas’ Dreamscape))

Dekas had tried everything to rid himself of the fruit pit in his hand. It wasn’t pleasant, with its spiky outer shell in the color of ominous greys and veins of glowing green like the Borg. He’d thrown over the cliffside of Aure’vizhi first. It seemed to work for a few seconds. But a shade in the form of Zaraleek flew up in a radiant show of theatrics in the shine of the sun at the height of that summer and brought it back to him from below.

The shade wasn’t much for talking, but he somehow knew what it was trying to get across. A quiet look as though asking him if he really wanted to curse this place by littering it with pain if it landed in the wrong place? The shade also didn’t stay in one aspect. 

Zaraleek-Om folded golden wings behind his back, and the form shifted.

It looked like Major Han in his Marine armor as he tried and failed to tear it into pieces. He didn’t have the strength of Han to manage it, and he didn’t have the armor to keep it from sticking its spikes into his hand painfully.

It shifted, then, to the Captain. Only for a moment. No. He couldn’t hand this over to her to try. She held the weight of leadership on her shoulders. He couldn’t ask her for this. It wasn’t possible even if she offered. So it shifted again.

He tried to burn it with Kingsley. Purify it with his sister Koori. Soften the spikes with nurse Pelley. Cure it with Doctor Vihn. But the pit remained. It persisted. It resisted any attempt to be destroyed. And he was tired. He was so very tired of it. At some point, the shade disappeared.

But it was there again in the shape of himself after a short while. And it was the only time it talked.

The Shade: There are clouds in the distance, it’s going to rain. We only have so much time to figure out what to do with this.

Dekas: Is there anything I even can do? It won’t leave.

The Shade: Have you tried to bury it? That’s what we’re supposed to do with fruit pits, isn’t it?

Dekas: I don’t want it to grow here.

The Shade: Not every place gives it that chance.

The words gave him an idea. Aure’vizhi had a rockier area where things were shaded from too much sunlight, and overly hot as the summer went on. It was something. And it was the only thing he hadn’t tried.

The shade was quiet again, but it helped him until the pit was covered. And they waited five minutes for something to happen that would make it come back. But it didn’t. It did glow green underneath, but it didn’t move, and it didn’t seem to be expanding anywhere.

Dekas turned to where The Shade had been to thank it, but he was alone now.

Looking at the spot he’d buried it, he decided that would be enough to keep it contained. The ground was rough and less than fertile and the water was minimal if any. There wasn’t a chance this horrible pit could grow now. It wouldn’t hurt him or anyone else. It was over and eventually, the glow would fade, it would die, everything would be okay. He could relax now, and forget about it from this point forward.

At least… he hoped so.

—

(OOC: Now I can actually move onto shore leave with this out of my head.)

Ensign Dekas

Engineer

USS Juneau

J239802D12