Spared the Pain

Posted on Mon Feb 5th, 2024 @ 3:23pm by Lieutenant JG Toareth Rouen (née Darqa)
Edited on on Mon Feb 5th, 2024 @ 3:29pm

709 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Mission 1: To Catch a Thief
Location: Rouen Quarters
Timeline: Prior: En Route to Chin'toka

Two bodies intertwined beneath the blanket. The shared warmth proved time and again that the blanket itself was the embodiment of joy and they were wrapped up in it. The two lied there as one.

Toareth held her close not wanting to let go. One arm resided beneath her head and bent around so her hand could be gently filled with a handful of breast; the other’s heart beating into her palm. Her other arm resting over and around her torso, holding her tight and close. Toareth took in her scent and sighed a sigh of joy. “I will always be with you. Please hold on to that.”

“How long? How much longer, until we are together again.”

“I cannot say.”

“Cannot? Or will not?”

“Cannot.” Toareth replied. “I see it. I do. To me, it is like a second from now. Tomorrow even. For you…”

“It feels like forever. I am broken without you.”

“Worry not,” Toareth squeezed her tight and held on. “I am with you always.”

Toareth squirmed a little in the embrace. She enjoyed the soft body pressing against her back. “What must I do to hasten our reunion?”

“Continue,” she said.

“Continue?”

“Just continue. Continue living. Find your way. Listen out for me. And do not reject.”

“Reject!?!” Toareth broke free from the warming embrace and rolled over to face her. “I could never…” but her hand that was meant to rest upon her face found only pillow. The warmth of the embrace was still there, but waning. She could swear those arms were still wrapped around her.

Looking around, she found herself back aboard the transport. El-Aurian refugees were commoving, but quietly. There was much movement and Toareth understood there should have been sound but things were surprisingly quiet. In fact, there were no El-Aurian refugees as their forms faded and became shadows moving along the wall as though lights were zooming by outside a window.

Sitting up, Toareth allowed the blanket to fall away, exposing her nude body. She paid that no mind as she looked out the window and saw trees outside her Academy dorm room lightly moving about in the midnight breeze. Leaves rustling in the air; some falling away. Again, there was not the sound to go along with what she was seeing. It was as if the leaves themselves brightened up as they fell away and slowly moved, all of them, to one side leaving streaks of themselves behind and to follow after. One leaf passed close, zoomed by, and again cast shadows along the far wall.

Toareth sat back and finally made out the passing star as it streaked by. She was aboard a ship, travelling at warp. The ship was not a transport. Neither was she in her dorm room back at the Academy. She finally called to mind, “Britannic.”

It was there that consciousness finally fully returned and she remembered where she was and who she was. “Britannic.” Placing her hand upon the pillow again the memory returned that she was married and her husband currently was in possession of the Bridge during this night shift. They were en route to Chin’toka. Gabrielle was asleep in her room. She was at least not making much noise if she was awake.

But the lingering dream that had just ended had her asking whether she was the embracer or the embracee. Who was holding whom? Who was speaking to whom? And who was answering? She could still feel as though a powerful heart of the girl she was holding was beating through a breast and into her palm while also feeling the tight embrace of an arm around her as though being held. She was one, and yet both in the, “Stupid dream,” she said as she fell back into a lying position. Toareth did not even pull the blanket back over her. It brought warmth but it was not the embodiment of joy. There was also a tight pinch behind and slightly above her right eye. It was another migraine…had been a migraine as the pinch was slowly going away. A migraine while she slept and she dreamt her way through the pain of it all.

At least she was spared the pain.

 

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