Errand Run

Posted on Wed Nov 21st, 2018 @ 2:58am by

Mission: Run Afoul
Timeline: MD4, 1400 hours
2455 words - 4.9 OF Standard Post Measure

"Miss Beata?" Sekat approached the young operations officer. "May I have a word with you?"

Beata looked up, especially at the use of her first name. She wasn't exactly happy to see Sekat given their misunderstanding earlier but she nodded and approached him. "Yes sir?" She stood in front of him not directly looking him in the eye.

"I have an errand for you. I need you to deliver this hypospray and these instructions to Crewman Stef. You are likely to be finding him in the arboretum." Sekat handed her a PADD and a hypocrite. "Be careful you do not inject yourself please."

She frowned slightly at the last comment. Now he thought her an idiot as well as a silly young girl who had believed him interested in her? "Yes sir." She took the items from him and turned without another word, heading for the turbolift. She let out a big sigh once she was in there where she couldn't be seen by anybody. Arriving at the arboretum a few minutes later she entered through the doors and and looked around.

Tricorder lying open beside him, Stef sat with his legs crossed in the grass. He cradled something wiggly with white and cream fur. The teenager looked up and smiled as he saw the young woman. "Did Doctor Sekat send you?" He called out, beckoning her over.

"He did if you are Stef?" Assuming she'd found the right person she handed over the items and looked down at the furry thing in his lap wondering what his job on this ship was. He looked really young.

"Yes ma'am, I am he," the teenager replied pleasantly while taking a quick glance at the PADDs contents. Then he adjusted a setting on the hypo and pressed it against the rabbit's neck. The Vulcan youth smiled up at her, crawling awkwardly to his feet as he didn't want to drop the creature in his arms. "Do you like rabbits ma'am?" he asked quietly, while stroking the animal's fur.

"I honestly don't know, I've never met one." Beata replied, still watching the creature with both curiosity and a tad bit of apprehension. "He or she seems to like you though. Is it a pet?"

"I am not certain if it is someone's pet," Stef acknowledged, "it runs around freely here in the arboretum." He held out the quivering rabbit to the young woman. "It was not feeling well, so I asked Doctor Sekat for assistance. I take care of the animals here, aside from my duties as yeoman." He seemed to rblush a little. "For some reason, all animals here let me come close to them."

"Hmm." Well that answered that question. Beata looked up at him. "Do you think it would mind if I petted it? Oh, I'm Beata." She would have offered her hand but his arms were rather full. He was holding it out to her so she didn't hesitate to put her hands in the fur and stroke it slowly. "I never had a pet growing up." She said by way of explanation for her timidness.

"I am certain there will be baby rabbits in no time, with the amount that are running around," Stef smiled, putting the creature fully in her arms. "If you see brown chickens, those are mine. I rescued them from a cat on my prior assignment."

"What kind of starship is this? Rabbits and chickens in the arboretum, I've never heard of such a thing." Just as she'd said that a chicken came around a bush and Beata nearly jumped in Stef's arms to get away from it. "Sorry," she mumbled, hiding behind him instead. "They don't bite do they?"

Shaking his head, the teenage Vulcan seemed to chuckle. "No ma'am, chickens do not bite." He seemed amused that someone might be afraid of a harmless fowl. He turned to find her in extremely close proximity, so he took a small step back to give her some space. "A rabbit is more likely to bite ma'am..." He held out his arms. "I should turn it loose again, unless you desire to?"

Beata shook her head. "No, go ahead." She still didn't seem as if she wanted to take very many steps away from Stef at the moment. Feeling a bit light headed from her fright she asked, "If I sit down will they leave me alone?"

"I do not know... I consider it likely however..." Stef sincerely didn't know. "I am their mother... but I have never seen them approach anyone else." He set the rabbit down then took her arm. "Are you alright ma'am?" he asked, sensing her discomfort. "Do you require assistance?"

"I just need to sit down for a minute. I suffer from anxiety attacks." Beata was now adding a blush to her already embarrassed face. This ship had not served her well so far. First the misunderstanding with Sekat and now this, frightened by a bird.

"I see..." He helped her ease down into the grass and sat own next to her, carefully shoo-ing his chickens off. "Do you know what causes them?" he asked sincerely, "I have the exact opposite...I am, at times, too emotional...and my problem is that I do not understand how or what I feel."

"Lots of things," Beata said feeling her breath return and the dizziness subside. She didn't really want to list them at the moment. "How can you be too emotional. I thought you were Vulcan?" Then she remembered that he had smiled at her when she'd first delivered the PADD.

"I am," Stef confirmed with a minute nod, "but not all Vulcans are emotionless. Most of them choose to display a near perfect level of control. I was raised like that too but I have found it too restrictive. It is not who I am, however...now I need to learn when I can and cannot display them. I have...an abundance of emotions that I do not understand, and now I have to learn what they mean. Not everyone appreciates an emotional Vulcan so I have to be careful. And that is what makes it very difficult for me." He crossed his legs and leaned his elbows on his knees. "Adding to that....I was never telepathic before. Always tested negative, until my twin sister was killed... suddenly, I am overwhelmed by the feelings of others and I have no idea how to control it all. I never had to learn how."

"I knew they weren't," Beata answered him. "I just thought . . . nevermind." She listened to the rest of his explanation. "Oh." No doubt he had felt something from her moments before. "Well, do you want some help? I've no experience with dealing with the emotions of others but I'm pretty sure I know when it's okay to show emotion. At least around other humans, and some other species."

Stef nodded solemnly. "I could use some assistance," he admitted carefully, "though I will also need to learn how to control it. How to not be overwhelmed by the feelings of others. Often I cannot be certain if what I feel is something I feel, or whether it is someone else's emotion. It has gotten me into several awkward situations." He bit his lip, cheeks flushing as he remembered a very embarasssing situation on his prior assignment. He looked up, studying her. "Perhaps we can help each other..." he offered, almost shyly.

"We can try." Beata agreed. "Im not telepathic so you'll have to deal with my emotions. Though you can always ask me what I'm feeling so you understand the emotions you are picking up." She curiously watched him wondering why he had blushed. "Let me know when you would like to start."

Stef nodded. "Right now I get a sense of curiosity, but I am not certain what you are curious about." He gave her an almost rueful smile. "I cannot read your thoughts," he reassured her, "not without initiating a mind meld and that is something I would rather avoid until I received proper instruction. Since I was never telepathic before, I never learned how to initiate them."

"I see. No, let's not do that. My brain may be strange but I like it intact. I was curious about why you were blushing." Beata answered him honestly. "You were obviously thinking of something that I didn't understand."

His blush deepened a little. "When this first happened, I was sparring with someone... I had no idea what was going on at the time, and I mistook his feelings of love for my own... I thought I had feelings for him, which I did not. It was awkward and embarassing." Stef sighed softly. "Fortunately this has not happened again, though I do have difficulty expressing what I feel because I do not know what I feel. I am...experimenting though."

"Wow," Beata said before she could stop herself. "That must have been confusing. But, even those of us who understand our emotions don't always get rewarded for using them." Her hand dropped down into the grass, her palm running over the blades. "What do you mean experimenting?" She asked, looking back up at him.

"With what I feel...how doing things makes me feel. Watch how, what I do, makes others feel. Humans are very confusing as they often say one thing but mean something entirely else." He shrugged, watching her 'pet' the grass. "Why do you do that?" he asked softly.

"Hmm? Oh, I don't know. Humans like to touch things, it's one of our greatest senses. I can look at something but until I know how it feels with my hand it often doesn't get put in my permanent memory. I suppose that doesn't make sense. It's one of the ways we learn about things." She seemed to ponder that for a moment. "I never had a yard growing up."

"Neither did I," Stef admitted, copying her motions of running fingers through the grass. "How does doing this make you feel?" he asked, looking down at his hand.

"Content, somehow." Then again maybe it was listening to him that had relaxed her greatly from her earlier anxiety attack. She didn't want to say that out loud, not yet.

"It feels odd..." He gasped as one of his chickens decided to jump into his lap then and there. "Off," he declared, shooing the animal away, "you already had your feed you silly fowl. Shoo." He smiled at her. "Do you think they might be jealous?"

She blinked a few times, having nearly fallen over backwards when the chicken jumped at him. "Of what?" She panted. "I'm just sitting here."

"Of me dividing my attention," Stef explained. "I have not seen her behave this way before. Then again, I do rarely have company when I am tending to my duties here and they do follow me around. Probably because I have had them since they hatched." He studied her, while making sure his chicken didn't get close. "Why are you afraid of chickens?"

"I don't like birds, never have." Beata shrugged. She didn't really know why, it was something passed down from her parents, she thought. Not that she remembered them very well.

"There is not liking, and there is being afraid of them..." the teenage Vulcan pointed out, "and our reaction was not one of dislike, it is one of fear."

"Fine, I've always been afraid of them. I don't know Stef, I don't remember why." She said that perhaps harsher than she meant to. Beata let out a breath. "I'm sorry."

"Why?" He could tell she felt something, but the feeling was alien to him. Remorse was a feeling he was familiar with, but not one he really recognized. The question could be perceived in two ways however: why was she sorry, or why didn't she remember.

"For snapping at you. Another pesky human emotion. When we become overwhelmed we tend to put up barriers so we don't get hurt." Beata explained, at least she thought that's what he was asking about.

"I see..." he leaned back, putting his arms behind him for support and stretching his legs out. "I have no intention of hurting you... Nor do I want you to experience any feelings that may upset you." He paused, studying her. "Have you been on the ship long?"

"I'm not saying you were." She didn't move from the position that she was in. "I think something happened when I was little. I'm not sure what it was and my parents are both dead so there's no one to ask. I think I witnessed something with a bird, I'm honestly not sure. But it provokes a stress response in me. I can watch them from a distance and be fine, but I don't like them near me."

"Is it any kind of bird or is the size relevant?" He ran his fingers through the grass, feeling dirt getting under his nails. It wasn't a pleasant sensation so he stopped doing it. "How old were you when your parents died?"

"All birds." Beata answered him. "Four. I spent the rest of my childhood in an orphanage." She knew it was sad but for his sake she tried not to feel the emotions of isolation, the feeling that still haunted her. No one wanted her.

"I am sorry to hear that." Stef rolled over, putting himself on his stomach as he propped himself up on his elbows. Isolation wasn't a feeling that he was familiar with, having grown up with a twin sister. He did, however know the feeling of loneliness, because that's how he'd felt ever since he'd lost the one constant in his life. "You are not alone," he assured her.

"No, I'd say you're not alone." The chickens seemed to be approaching again. "I can't believe I stayed this long, I'm on duty! I have to get back to work. But maybe we can meet up again, for the sake of your experiment." She gave him a small smile. "My surname is Lauryl. You can leave me a message." She got to her feet and made her way towards the door to avoid the chickens.

Stef sighed as his fair blocked her from his line of sight. "You had to come and spoil things?" he accused the fowl before crawling back to his feet. She was gone before he could even move to go after her. Shaking his head, he returned to his own duties while his fair of four paddled after him as if he were a mother hen.

Ensign Beata Lauryl (Pnpc by Saulitis)
Operations Officer
USS Majestic

Crewman Apprentice Stef
Yeoman/Animal Caretaker
pnpc Lhaes