Lieutenant Amelia Semara - Picture This

[Max]

(( Sickbay, Deck 6 - USS Khitomer - Drydocked at DS33 ))

Truthfully, part of Amelia liked being a hype-man for Doctor Thomas Melville-Kilpatrick.  (Boy she hoped he was secretly "third of his name" or something regal like that to add to the dignified length of his name.)  He knew more, and could do more than he let on.  If she had to guess, more than he let on even to himself.

Hopefully a little reminder of just what he could do and how he engendered trust would go a long way.

Semara: :: A nod :: And since then, I'm guessin' you've taken an interest in learnin' a little more about their physiology?  We meet Sheliak a lot out here.  It would be a commendable interest.

Whatever the doctor felt about himself, he had a way of building trust even across unbridgeable language boundaries.  Amelia couldn't help but think he was being too hard on himself, too doubtful of the adaptability that he'd shown.  In her mind, he'd already taken those first steps of growing his career and his capabilities.

The Sheliak prisoner had shied away from her... But Melville-Kilpatrick?  He walked the line of care and connection even in that place.  She'd sensed even then how he wanted to build towards something more with the Sheliak... Same as she did.

Melville-Kilpatrick: I have been doing a little bit more research. Trying to see what I can piece together from the ::wincing:: autopsy.

Her lips curled with a strange mix of pride and sympathy.  Some lessons came hard.  She'd felt that on her own skin.  But she would soon need him and what he'd learned.

Semara: Well, if you like, I might well have a way for you to help me learn even more 'bout the Sheliak...  :: Beat :: But for the moment, I do believe I'm quite ready for the workup if you are ready an' willin'.  No warm-up needed. :: A chuckle. :: If my faith in your abilities ain't enough, just consider it another learnin' opportunity.  There ain't much way of harmin' me with this test anyway, so... Try to relax? :: A goofy, sympathetic smile. ::

She was fairly sure "try to relax" was supposed to be his line - and she appreciated his laugh with a little chuckle of her own.

Melville-Kilpatrick: Alright then, let's get started.

Amelia straightened out, and stretched her neck a little.  Then, she stretched out her telepathic self and let it roll forward to everywhere and nowhere at once.  A meter on the biobed flickered slightly up, then back down to just above baseline with the intentional flexing of a purely imaginary muscle.  Watching it stay so steady even with putting in effort intended to make her neural activations spike gave her a good reason to smile.  Still had it.

As she settled back into herself, the room was undeniably filled with the scent of steaming hot cream and starch and the texture of dumplings... And a powdery, strawberry-flavored blush from whatever thought preceded anticipating lunch.  Amelia imagined it best to keep her chuckle to herself, even though she didn't really mind at all.

Semara: Ready when you are.

Melville-Kilpatrick: I'll start with something simple. ::pulling up the computer:: The computer will show me some randomly generated shapes, and I'll focus on those.

Semara: An orange circle.  'Bout six inches in diameter on a black background.  There ain't a border and it's filled in, so I guess technically I should say "disc", but you thought of it as a circle.  And the color is more orange like a pumpkin, less like the fruit - that's more pale.

If the doctor thought it was going to take her any time at all to think about it, he was wrong.  "The mind's eye" had quite a literal meaning to a Betazoid.  All she had to do was look.  Not physically - her eyes were momentarily pointed up at the ceiling, as if bored.  The workup only really cared about the numbers the bio-bed would record, but to Amelia the real trick with a test like this one was discerning the difference between the thing another person saw, and the way they saw it.  Telepathy wasn't particularly suited for gaining objective knowledge because it was so tangled up with perspective and feelings, but, as Melville-Kilpatrick had correctly inferred, Amelia had long ago trained until it was effortless.

Melville-Kilpatrick: Okay ::clapping his hands together:: What would you think about trying something a little more complex?

Semara: :: A chuckle ::  Definitely!  You wanna skip to the apple test?

A little too much excitement snuck into her voice and her glimmering eyes.  It had been way too long since she'd had telepathic contact, and even this grade-school sort of exercise felt exhilarating just from getting to reconnect to this part of herself - and another living, breathing, thinking person.

Melville-Kilpatrick: Response

Semara: It's where you try to picture an apple in your mind.  You prolly know it as a test for aphantasia.  Some Betazoids use it specifically to show how to develop a natural predisposition for hyperphantasia... Relative to Humans at least.  :: An even bigger grin. :: My favorite part is imaginin' eattin' the apple.

If ever one needed more proof of Amelia's love for food, they only would need to witness her bouncing on a bio-bed mid-exam to know it.

Melville-Kilpatrick: Response

Semara: Well, if you're really curious, y' might could skip on down to the telepathic projection portion, and I could always show you?  :: Beat :: It ain't technically what you're "supposed" to do for your first telepathic experience, if you ain't ever had one, but it's way more fun if you ask me - and perfectly harmless.

The rest of the test still needed to be done, but with the first exercise done and after stretching her telepathic legs, she was already more at ease.  Everything felt right.  Better, the readouts on the bio-bed were exactly where they should be - her psilosynine always sat lower than average like that, like an athlete's low heart rate.  Generations of genetic bonding and a whole childhood of training tended to do that.  Knowing in her bones that her mind and her senses were still entirely hers?  Relief was a hell of a drug.  Besides, she was feeling more herself than she had in some time with even a bit of clinical telepathy.  Every reason to be beaming with delight and wiggling her eyebrows mischievously to encourage a bit of something more fun than flavorless shapes.

Melville-Kilpatrick: Response

Tag / TBC...

---------- ●● ----------

Lieutenant Amelia Magnolia Semara

Intelligence Officer

USS Khitomer - NCC-62400

A239710MA0