Some Time Among The Trees

Posted on Tue Aug 12th, 2025 @ 4:56am by Cass'e'Indira & Tessa di'Orion & Lieutenant JG Rala

Mission: Lower Decks

Cass'e'Inidira had other things to do, which was why she'd given her charge a stern warning not to leave her quarters for any reason whatsoever. However, when it came down to it, Tessa knew that it was a hollow warning at least here aboard the Chimera. If the ship came under attack, she'd scurry back to her quarters, but so long as everything was calm she already knew she was in safe hands with most of the crew. The Captain had warned her that it wasn't completely safe, that some of the crew had less than stellar careers and that most of the rest had worse than that, but there were many that were just trying to get by.

And so Tessa had tied her long blonde hair into a brief ponytail before checking the corridor both ways and making her way out onto Deck 4 before finding the turbolift and summoning it, "Deck Three." As the lift began to move, Tessa felt a hard pang of loneliness. While she was on Trarim, she'd almost never been alone, with someone watching her at all times as befitted a high-value... servant. Before that, she'd always had Cass and back on Tial had people waiting on her at almost all times and a few friends, but not that many. The doors slid open in front of her and she sought out one of the wall panels and brought up a map of the deck, finding the place she wanted to go see.

As the doors to the arboretum opened in front of her, she felt some dismay as the small semi-forest met her view. Of course it was small, there was rarely enough room on any starship that wasn't massive for a large space to be devoted to something that wasn't really useful. The trees here were mostly young growth, she noted absently, and measures had been taken to grow the branches mostly sideways and rather viny instead of true branches, but there was much ceiling to be seen rather than being covered already. But this was better than nothing, reminding her a bit of home and the vast swathes there of vegetation.

Rala had stopped by the arboretum at the end of her shift to check on one of the automatic watering systems. She probably could have gotten someone else to take care of it, but she’d been meaning to stop by anyway. She’d just identified a small error when she heard the door swish open.

Tessa stepped in and inhaled deeply. No, it wasn't the smell of home, but trees all had their own little nuances. She may have to ask if there were any medicinal qualities to these plants, she really needed to talk to... Whoever that was in Medical, see if she could help there while she was still on board. She reached out and cupped one of the small leaves in her hand before she saw a flicker of motion off to the side and turned her head, eyes opening wide as she saw the creature, no, person in Starfleet uniform over by another of the trees. Quickly she removed her hand from the leaf and held her hands behind her back, "I'm sorry, milady, I.. I wasn't going to pick it, I promise."

The unfamiliar voice made Rala look up from fixing the error in the watering system, finally noticing the young woman who’d entered. Slim, tattoo on one arm, a hint of silver in her blonde hair. “Don’t worry about it,” Rala said, glancing back down to finalize the fix. “One lost leaf isn’t going to cause any significant harm.” Closing the access panel, she turned to the newcomer. “And,” she added, adopting a very slightly more formal tone, “if I’m not mistaken, I should be the one calling you ‘milady’, or something along those lines. You’re our esteemed guest, whom we’re returning home, are you not?”

"Not really, milady, I'm quite comfortable being called by my name, Tessa, but Cass'e'Indira would be quite cross with me if I used less than the proper formula with anyone else." Tessa looked down at the ground, "But I refuse to be called 'My Lady' or 'Your Grace' by any of you, especially as this is your ship and not one of ours. Your Captain was gracious to give us a ride home after literally rescuing us from indentured servitude on Trarim. Once I get home, I'll be getting that enough and Mother will never let me leave home again, I'm sure of that."

“Ah,” Rala said, dipping her head in a nod that was just short of possibly being considered a bow. “Very well, Tessa. I’m Rala—or at least, that’s a reasonably close approximation that most humanoids can actually pronounce.” She walked over to a nearby bench and sat, turned slightly to one side to accommodate her tail. “So what brings you to the arboretum?”

"I needed to get out of my quarters, Lady Rala, and with Cass off doing something else, it was my chance." Tessa spun in place, the short dress flaring slightly, "Besides, there's a grove of trees inside of Light's End that I used to go to when I needed to think and a larger forest just outside of the curtain wall. This is as close as it gets and really is better than anywhere since I left home. You won't tell Cass that I snuck out, right, Lady Rala? I'd get into so much trouble if she found out."

“Ah,” Rala said again. “I believe the human term is ‘cabin fever’.” She looked around the arboretum, admiring how much green the crew had managed to squeeze into the limited space. “I can’t make a concrete promise on that, especially if I’m directly questioned about it by a superior officer, but I’ll do my best. I can certainly understand wanting to seek out something that reminds you of home. I left my homeworld to join Starfleet...” she trailed off, thinking. “...Gods, it’s been over six years already. Doesn’t seem that long. I was so eager to explore the galaxy—and I still am, don’t get me wrong—but I do miss home sometimes, especially the forests where I spent my childhood.”

"When we get home, I'll take you to our forests and you can explore to your hearts content!" Tessa grinned before realizing she shouldn't, and straightened her face out again. Cass'e'Indira and the diplomat from her own ship had instructed her never to reveal her feelings to officials from other nation-states. Both as a noble and especially as a representative of her world, "They are perfectly safe, larger predators tend to give the cities plenty of space, plus our security forces sweep the forests occasionally."

“I would like that, thank you,” Rala said. “I’m working on something to allay my occasional homesickness, at least to a degree, but it’s not finished yet.”

"Perhaps I can help you with it?" The eagerness in Tessa's voice was obvious and indicated that she was going stir-crazy without much to do, "I'll admit that I was a little thrown off by your appearance, you have a passing resemblance to one of the mountain creatures on Tial, in the Northern Reach, but different.. They don't have horns like yours, but a frill that protects their neck and from what I can tell, longer teeth."

“Perhaps...although part of me wants to keep it private until it’s finished.” Rala held up a hand. “No offense taken or intended.” She lowered her hand, chuckling as Tessa finally addressed the large metaphorical creature in the room. “It took you so long to mention it that I was starting to wonder if you’d somehow actually seen another Draakri before.” Her tail flicked, curling around her feet. “Since my species never encountered any others until a decade ago, and apparently no other sapient species that look like us exist, I’ve kinda gotten used to getting some kind of direct reaction when people see me for the first time.” She giggled, smiling. “It’s an interesting change of pace.”

That got a smile out of Tessa and she started to relax a bit more, "The Vedrek are definitely intelligent, but not sapient, but most definitely predators that are very fast and agile. We, too, haven't had a lot of outside contact and only when we've ventured out from the Veil of Asta, the location of Tial is one of the safety measures we countenanced when we began to explore beyond our star system. Our world has been attacked on two occasions, two hundred-odd years ago and again about seventy years ago, both of which destroyed our entire spacefaring presence. They happened to find us and we await their next visit, but now we may be able to defend ourselves properly."

Rala’s ears perked up slightly. “Veil of Asta?” Her tail flicked, and she idly scratched the side of her snout. “My own home system is inside what we now know is a particularly strange region of space, which makes detection of the things that normally indicate the presence of intelligent life nearly impossible—both from within looking outward, and hiding us from the rest of the galaxy. It doesn’t have an official name yet, last I checked, although I have heard a few people jokingly call it the ‘Draakri Expanse’. I wonder if this ‘Veil of Asta’ of yours is a similar phenomenon.”

"The priests of Lind'a'Torel tell us that the Veil of Asta is the remnants of a failed star from several million years ago, one that began to form, but then fizzled and dispersed when other stars formed in the cluster. It disrupts sensor readings of ours and the remains are still hot enough to obscure visual observations in or out. Within the Veil are a lot of young star systems still forming and Tial is in the center of the region." Tessa actually grinned now, "Really is a miracle of life, isn't it?"

Rala’s eyes widened slightly. “’Miracle’ is a good word for that. A planet managing to develop life in such conditions, let alone an intelligent civilization, is remarkable.” She scratched her chin with one hand while another produced a small pinkish-white twig perhaps six or eight centimeters long from somewhere; sticking the twig between her molars, she bit down, crushing the end and releasing a hint of bittersweet sap. “I can’t say for certain that your Veil is an entirely unrelated phenomenon,” she continued, speaking around the twig, “but it sounds rather different from the so-called ‘Draakri Expanse’.”

"How big is the Draakri Expanse?" Tessa asked out of pure curiosity, "I know it sounds quite big, but there's big and then there's massive and the gods know that when it comes to celestial constructs, it's really an understatement to call a star system small."

“We weren’t certain until Starfleet helped us survey it,” Rala said, shifting the twig to the other side of her mouth. “It’s irregularly shaped, but were it spherical it would have a radius of slightly under ten parsecs.”

Tessa did the math in her head, then whistled din a low tone, "That's pretty big, I think... Of course, I've got no idea how big the Veil is, not one of the things I was studying for back home, even with my position and all of the extra studies. I've been focusing primarily on my medical area, as befits a priestess of the third class of Urd'a'Neta."

“Medical, eh?” Rala smiled. “Have you had a chance to compare notes with Kally yet?”

"Not much of an opportunity." Tessa scowled at the ground, "Cass keeps saying that with the technology of the Federation and the potential dangers of the medications available that there is little point to me learning very much of your techniques. Back on Tial, we compound our medications by hand, even our off-world medical technology is primitive by your standards and that's the only place that we can develop it. We have improved our cauterization and stitching abilities, but wounds still mostly go through the normal body-self-healing capabilities because we don't have regeneration technology."

“Mm.” Rala flicked an ear, then started scratching behind it. “There’s probably still something around first aid and field medicine that could prompt a decent conversation, but fair enough.”

"Honestly, I just want to be of some helps, Lady Rala, not be a mere passenger. I'll need to write a comprehensive report when I get home and the more information I have the more-" Behind her, the door slid open and another woman walked in, armored and arms with various sword and other blades.

The new figure cleared her throat, "So this is where you've run off to, Your Grace." Cass'e'Indira stated, almost in resignation, and Tessa stiffened at the voice, "I know it's mostly safe here on board, Tessa, but when I give an instruction..."

"I need to follow it until we're home." Tessa replied with a sigh of her own, "But Cass, I was just getting to know a new friend!"

Cass glanced over at Rala, then back to her charge, "Your Grace, that's why you need to wait for me, so that I can guard your back, not that I'd think you'd harm her, My Lady." The last was directed towards Rala, "But we need to return to our quarters now, Your Grace. Now."

Rala stood as Cass entered, and nodded politely to her. "You may be getting tired of hearing this, but as guests on the Chimera, ensuring your safety—both of you—is one of my duties. If it came to it, I would protect her as fiercely as you would...or at least as close as I am able." Two hands fidgeted while another scratched her snout. "I'm suddenly curious how a sparring match between us would go." She shook herself, refocusing, and turned to Tessa, giving another nod that was just short of being a bow. "Ma'am, it was a pleasant, enjoyable conversation. Perhaps we'll have the opportunity for another at some point."

"It would indeed, Milady." Tessa gave what would have done an old English maid proud of a combination curtsey and bow before turning reluctantly.

Cass watched as her charge shuffled past her in obvious dejection, waiting until she had gone several feet into the corridor, "Milady, we can certainly arrange a sparring match if you so desire and I've no doubt you would acquit yourself well in the protection of Her Grace, but it is my sworn duty, one I have failed once already, I will not fail it again. If it is the last thing I do in this life, I will return her to her mother." The warrior closed her eyes and bowed her head to Rala, then she too was gone.