The Visitors

 Episode Name:  The Visitors

   Written By:  fortunae

         Cast:  Fortunae, Jiasha, K'net-mauri and Zero.

  Produced By:  Starfleet

  Directed By:  Fortunae

     Aired On:  Thu Aug 28 23:37:03 2003

     Stardate:  53469.1

Time: Thu Aug 28 19:18:51 2003

Stardate: 53468.6

Stardate 53468.6, the quarters of the Romulan Ambassador on S419.

The room is dimly illuminated. These quarters are expansive and spacious, with gunmetal gray walls and blue-gray carpet. The main doors open up into a large area sunken into the floor, meant for both meeting and entertaining guests. In this space there is a wraparound couch, large enough to accommodate several occupants, and two smaller personal chairs facing the couch. There is low black cabinet that does dual service as a coffee-table there, supporting a life-sized sculpture of a mantling falcon. The amber colour of the bird's wooden surface draws the eye and acts as a focal point of warmth in the otherwise coolly coloured room. On the wall over this conversation pit hangs the emblem of the Romulan Star Empire, its wings stretching nearly three feet across. This is an antiquated one, etched in black-veined green marble. In the far bulkhead there are three sets of tall viewports that look out upon the beauty of space. To the right of this main area is a door leading to a small office furnished with a desk, a large comfortable chair, and a computer terminal. To the left of the main area is a door leading to the sleeping quarters. One can reach the bathroom from both the main area and the bedroom. The right wall of the main area houses a replicator. A small table for four sits just a few feet away from it. On the wall beside the door to the corridor hangs a series of five paintings, each depicting the Firefalls of Gal'Gathong.

Through the transparent aluminum viewport, one can see the shining pinpricks of stars, and before that viewport can be seen the room's current occupants... the very pregnant Havaris Jiasha, her daughter Nua, Nua's latest cloth doll, and the Hawkish and Distinguished host, K'net-Mauri himself.

K'net-mauri looks rather terrible today, haggard and worn and grey-faced. His recent week-long absence from the station did not do him a lick of good, it seems. Quite the opposite. He didn't rise from his favourite armchair, the one with the Star Empire's emblem on the wall behind it, to let the young Havaris family inside. But he did smile; he seems pleased to see the young woman and the tiny girl-child.

Nua has very importantly been parading this new Bolian doll throughout this time to vist. Many-coloured blocks and bricks set out in staggered patterns-- she has been showing her addition and subtraction to K'net-Mauri. And Jiasha sits on a chair, with her swollen legs up, and grinning at Nua while she cups a lage mug of K'net's gingery tea. "Four hundred and three plus fourty seven. Minus twelve." She says to Nua. Who consults her blocks for a moment. puzzling out figures. Nua announces, after am oment. "Four hundred and five.. and nothing." After a couple more movements of the blocks, "Four hundred and.. three and eight."

K'net-mauri sips tea as well, Jiasha-made tea from his supply of non-replicated stuff from Romulus. He grins at Nua, a less lively expression than the little girl usually evokes from him, but a grin nonetheless. "Very good," he says to her, then looks to Jiasha. For a few heartbeats he considers her, so round with her pregnancy, so pretty in her roundness in spite of its awkwardness. His smile goes a little nostalgic and he asks, "How are you feeling?"

Jiasha wraps her slender arms around exageratted belly, and smiles in her fatness. It is muted, tired. But she is spending time with people who put her at ease. So it is frank. "Oh, as well as I could, I think. I -have- been far worse off than to be expecting a son."

K'net-mauri chuckles very softly. "All things considered," he says, "Saying that you've felt worse doesn't mean much. But you look. Well."

Jiasha says, "It is an awful lot of weight. I can't walk as much as I would like, my fingers are swollen and so it's hard to work. But. I think it will all be done with at least by the end of next month. I don't trust my body anymore. It gives me too many conflicting signals.""

The Romulan looks at the young Bajoran woman rather curiously. A considering moment, then he nods. "I think I understand. At least a little. We will hope your son makes his appearance sooner rather than later."

Jiasha says, "Absolutely. If he grows much more, I think we're both in for trouble." Nua meanwhile builds a space station for her doll to live in out of blocks. A ring that circles both she and the rag Bolian. She seperates this ring with rooms described by segmentation in blocks as well. Jiasha smiles, foldly. "I think over-all, it's a good life. I've got this part of my life out of the way, so I'll have so much more time to work when I'm older.""

K'net-mauri laughs at that, without much energy but with gentle good humour. "One doesn't often hear people thinking cheerfully about how much they'll get to work when they are older," he says, "And this part of your life will never be out of the way, even when both of them are grown." He's silent for a moment, sipping tea, then sits up from his semi-slumped position in the armchair and looks around the room with sharp, narrowed eyes. "What is that?"

Nua smiles, crawling over the space station, careful not to knotch down the Warp Core with a careless knee. "Here? Today?" Jiasha only addresses K'net-Mauri, about to talk about raising children and swet nostalic things to make him want for his Selera. Instead, "What is what?"

"That sound," says K'net-mauri, rising slowly and scanning the room for it, not so much looking but turning his head to pinpoint the source of what he hears. It would seem his wife is not on his mind at just the moment. He's not in the mood for weird hums this soon after such disasterous consequences followed a weird whine, and he scowls.

Nua picks up the doll, and sits the thing into her lap, casually. "Will they play or are they grown up?"

Jiasha still seems stuck in a state of confusion. "I don't hear anything." She insists. Sitting a bit straighter, and eyeing K'net-mauri, with a dash of skepticism.

K'net-mauri doesn't pay much mind to Nua's non-sequiter. Children say things like that all the time. But he does look at the little girl and ask her, "Do you hear that hum?" Children also notice things.

Nua looks up at K'net-mauri, clarity in her large blue eyes. She shakes her head, for a moment. Addresses the doll, "I don't think he understands your language. Can we still play maybe blocks?"

Now, Jiasha's skepticism turns to a trepidatious smirk. Aw. K'net-mauri and Nua are playing pretend.

And Nua looks up to K'net-mauri, addressing him, "Gr'Shella says you're not big enough to move the blocks."

K'net-mauri blinks at Nua, then starts walking slowly around the room, canting his head one way and then another, listening. Puzzling out the child's game and his role in it doesn't interest him. What he wants is to capture and brutally murder anything that makes any small unexpected humming or whining noise. But he answers her, distractedly, "Gr'Shella is your Bolian?"

The little girl lofts the rag-doll by her waist, waggling it carelessly in demonstration. "Gr'Shella says the universe is made of blocks. Are we made of blocks or blood?"

Nua rocks on her bottom, now, in the centre of this make-believe station. She sets Gr'Shella the Bolia n back in her lap. "They are coming to meet Mauno. He is big, so he will play blocks with me. Babies make all kinds of noises." Jiasha, now, lowering her chin closer to her chest, smirks at Nua. "You're silly, Havaris."

"Blood is made of blocks," replies Mauri, still scowling. He turns and walks along the outer wall, near the viewports. He pauses there for a moment, then moves towards the comm panel.

Jiasha starts, a little. It is unravelling that this clearly is not a little play between the two of them at her expense. Even Nua seems far too.. intent. "What sort of whirr is it, K'net-mauri?"

In the viewport, the Anomaly rotates into view, and as it does the light grows stronger then typical, catching the Romulan in a bath of luminiscence as he moves toward the com-panel... the twinkle goes from wash to a torrent so bright that it becomes impossible to see within the quarters...

...and then it recedes and there are no quarters. No Furniture. Just the Ambassador, his guests, and a cloth doll. There is whiteness above them. There is whiteness below them. There is whiteness around them, a void of whiteness, but they can see each other...

"It sounds --" K'net-mauri begins, but he cuts short at the invasion of stunning brightness. And then stands there, on that empty white sound-stage, blinking as his eyes adjust to that vast and featureless field.

Jiasha has one thought, asthe whiteness washes over to them. Running to scoop up Nua, for surely this is dangerous, somehow. Somehow this is malicious. And when the sdeen clarity comes from blindness she stumbles and starts, arms out, still. She is not dissuaded, by then. She grabs Nua, hefts her on her hip. The doll dangles by the foot in Nua's hand. Jiasha hans onto Nua, dark eyes gone stony and sharp. Nua stares, more curious than scared. "Gr'shella says they came to play with us."

K'net-mauri says something in Romulan. For once something has suprised him and not caused him to glare or curse -- his word is an exclaimation of amazed suprised, something equivalent to 'Cor!' or 'Blimey!' and just as devoid of literal meaning. He looks at Nua after another moment of staring about.

Nua informs her mother, with an important smile, "Gr'Shella says Mauno is coming soon. They've all come to meet him."

At this point, Jiasha's pulse is racing. Strange, alien things. She holds onto Nua's ear-clasp for a moment, for she herself does not wear one, staring at her child in a puzzled few moments. Jiasha flinches, then, weakened at the knees. A low, stifled grunt. She nearly doubles-over, still hanging onto Nua, tight. And down her leg a slow, steady trickle of water begins to drip down one od Jiasha's bare and swollen feet.

K'net-mauri is, like Nua, appearantly more curious than frightened. He asks the child, "Who are they, who have come to meet him?" But he doesn't have time to wait for the answer -- Jiasha flinches and he steps towards her. He leans forward as he moves, as if he wants to hurry, but his slow walk is once again unchanging. Reaching an arm out for the Bajoran woman will have to do. "Give Nua to me," the Romulan suggests, "And lie down before you fall."

The child is passed to K'net-mauri with care. He's trustworthy afterall. And with another grunt of pain, she cawls onto hands and knees, trying to calm herself down, head handing down between her shoulders, confused in the whiteness.

K'net-mauri is absolutely trustworthy. At least in this place, with these people, at this moment. He is also gifted with a strong arm, and he tucks Nua against his side with her bottom resting on his crooked forearm. This makes bending down to assist Havaris Jiasha an awkward proposition at best, so he simply remains upright and watches her. He speaks in a tone that is in some way familiar to both members of the young family -- that smooth, mild, gentle bedtime-story voice that can bring warm sleep to the restless. "This is going right. Even here. You have done this before, remember?" He looks around, head raised alertly, staring off into the whiteness with an intensity that does not match his soothing speech.

Jiasha draws a deeper breath, arching her spine against the weight of the child hanging slung by flesh below her. Water still dribbles its final traces down her legs, soaking her long skirt where it pools in at her knees.
Nua smiles in wonder. She offers the doll for exploration to the air. It is clear to a child where something incisible should be-- right in front of you, and everywhere, of course.
And Jiasha writhes, and tries to catch up in the innocent spirit of this, tries to contain fear of the foriegn and unknown. She concentrates on K'net-mauri's voice, now. She gets lost in the timbre. "Yes. I. This will be all right." She repeats, to make sure of it. "Just a baby. This is easy." Nua tells the air, "He'll be here soon!"

A sound vibrates back, almost sub-audibly, not unlike a purr in resonance.

K'net-mauri echoes Jiasha, "Just a baby," he says. "This is easy." He smiles at the thought, rather half-heartedly -- it's not worry that distracts him, it's that purring. It's source can't be pinpointed, and his every instinct wishes to find it. But he stays by Jiasha's side and continues to talk. "The easiest thing in the world. My wife broke my thumb delivering our eldest daughter, have I told you this? She held my hands too hard. But each time, this easy thing has been easier for her. Smoother and simpler and shorter, or seeming so."

Nua now addresses the doll, with a curious grin, "But Mauno is only a baby. He can't play until he's grown up."

Jiasha slides onto her back, now. She is soothed by K'net-mauri's hypnotic noises, placated like a kitten at the saucer of cream. She breathes deep and slow, staring around and trying to grasp detail, anythign at all of the whiteness. Her eyes slide about the glassy surface of nothing.
Nua peers over her mother, looking oddly peaceful from K'net-mauri's hip. Her smile is mild and truthful. Young Merriam to the breaking Moses.

Jiasha raises a slightly shakey hand gfigners unfurled for K'net-mauri, "I. I need you to keep me very calm. And the baby will come. There needs to be peace. He is coming. Come closer. Please."

"It will not take him long to grow enough to play a little," Mauri continues, not changing his tone or breaking the pattern of his speech to give any of those little non-verbal indications that he's answering Nua. "Simple games --" he hesitates and the last word falls from his lips out-of-pattern, interfering with the calming predictability of his talking. He scowls and picks it up again, scratching at his upper thigh with his Nua-free hand. "Looking at things and looking away, and looking for Havaris Nua when she hides..." The white infinity didn't stop him from his simple mesmerism, but something is now, that smooth comforting pattern is no longer perfect. He bends and sets Nua down, his eyes betraying concern now, adding, "Stay close," to the child as part of his now-imperfect verbal spell. The Romulan's long boney hand takes Jiasha's and folds around her delicate fingers.

Jiasha fizes her eyes onto the innumerable details in the tiny lines that make up K'net-mauri's face. Shuddering breath, she begins, "You must sing, sing and make everything calm. He will come quickly and easily. You must wear a scarf about your neck, knotted, because you are a man. Tell me poems and sing me songs. And it will all be fast."

"I don't have a scarf," replies Mauri, almost fitting this reply into his pattern, but not quite. He squeezes her hand, then draws his own away and lets his legs crumple under him, still bent over so the resulting fall is short. If changing from a standing to a sitting position in a featureless expanse can be considered a fall. He takes a beat to arrange himself into something resembling a natural pose, then takes Jiasha's hand again.

Nua paces a circle around her mother and K'net-mauri, holding her doll like her own baby, with great esteem and care. And Jiasha speaks Bajoran rhymes to herself in a pale voice. She is pulling her skirt to her thighs, breathing slowly, deeply, matching K'net's patterns with her own body. She is taking the lead of his tones and rhythyms.
And Nua stops short. She stands, there, behind K'net-mauri, peeling off her tiny yellow sweater. The child stands on her slippered toes, folding the length of her sweater around his neck and tying it in a careful bow. Nua is a terribly precise child.

Jiasha lengthens her torso, writhing slowly. She holds K'net-mauri's hand rather tenderly. She is smiling up at him, and over his shoulder at her gold-hued child. With skirt bunched up, and hips rocking, undulating like a lapping ocean tide, slow, luxuriant. She whispers a sigh, with the first feelings of Mauno making his way into the world in earnest.

K'net-mauri smiles at Nua, lifting his chin to allow her to tie that knot. He lets the expression remain, though his eyes do not smile. The Ambassador scoots slightly closer to Jiasha, using his free hand to drag himself crossways to her so she might rest her head on his right leg. Brushing hair back from her brow, he starts to sing. It's old fashioned Romulan singing, from deep in the throat, rolling backwards to resonate in his chest so the sound comes out in a great low vibrating hum. K'net-mauri knows from memory one hundred and seventeen songs in this ancient style. More than enough to cover the time of the average Bajoran labor. The fact that the vast majority of them are traditional funeral songs does not matter, as the slow resonance of their music makes it nearly impossible to understand the words anyway. His eyes are narrowed now and they flick about, scanning the whiteness uselessly. That rational 'whatever this weirdness is, investigating it will have to wait,' response is wearing off, being replaced with the hard edged aggressive-defensive feeling of 'something I don't understand is happening near my baby.'

The whiteness is filled with K'net-Mauri's singing, his presence and attention soothing Jiasha's state as Mauno makes his way toward his life outside the womb... the crowning commences and as it does more light fills the gulf of white that surrounds the Romulan and the Bajorans, and with the light an almost crystal tinkling that swells and fades in counter-party harmony and melody to the tones rumbled by the statesman...

K'net-mauri tries to ignore it, but the fact is that while his song might soothe Jiasha, it doesn't soothe him, and unseen presences playing crystal bells in counter-point to his singing do not make him feel comfortable and relaxed. He does not believe in good fairies. But he stays there, and he sings, and he tries not to let his rising tension show on his face. With his face, he has good success. He's practiced that. But the set of the muscles in his leg and hand may well give him away, if Jiasha's own body's demands do not keep the whole of her attention.

And Jiasha tilts her back once more, making way free for Mauno to find his way into the world. She whispers, "Catch him very gently, Nua. It is a big girl's job." Nua is given purpose anew. She is greatly satisfied with this so awesome a responsibility. The first to see her little brother. The important one who speaks the first greeting. big sister, protector, holder of worlds. The child feels her way with sticky fingers on her way to Jiasha's knees, mostly blind in the awesome light. The older girl has given up understanding. Sticken by childbirth and unalterable surroundings. She breathes deeply of the white, arcs in broken vocalizations through the beautiful Romulan dirges. She is soothed by paens, Nua driven to her job by a sense of great duty. Nua speaks, then, to K'net-mauri, keeping tune with the song he sings. "Do not be scared. They only came to meet him, because he has important things to do. They told me."

K'net-mauri looks at the child, his narrowed eyes now nearly closed entirely as he squints against the light. He nods, and keeps singing, but obtuse comforts from a three year old don't do much for him when it comes down to it.

A tinkling voice from the terrible light behind K'net-Mauri's head speaks, looking directly toward the source is unbearable, "So far (without leaving) from your love (heart's consumption) child of the Eagle (talons grasping) why do you leave him (emotional distance) when the others you carry (doting father) and she you cannot part with (linked in your spirit)? Is duty (head over heart) more valid than blood (he is you and she as one)? What do you love (above all things) Pride in duty (ego enslaved to others) or your family (future cast in flesh)? Did your first (before your now) flee the cold (logic that burns out passion) to be free for self (not slaves to visions)? There is only now (future uncertain) to be who you are (not what they tell you) more truth in child's perspective (then in all the speeches they have made)."

"Mauno will be medecine for your sad." This is what Nua has to say, sleepingchild heartbeat rhythym. "Don't be lonely, we'll be family for you." It is Nua's place to be brave. She was brave for the other children, for Tull. She will continue to be, bold and indomnitable. She is bold to K'net-mauri. Jiasha pulses with life, birth, beginning. From between her mother's legs, Nua cradles her brother's head in both her small hands. And Jiasha's face writhes with vague discomforts. Little stomach aches from not enough dinner, faint from heat and work in the house. Jiasha the faint and brittle baby. When her father would sing her songs before he was killed. This is a simple machine, it moves in graceful arcs. Jiasha who now of all times is a child, and her father, family, it is all comfort and white light.

K'net-mauri's song stops mid-note as he gives a jerking start at the sound of that strange voice. He grips Jiasha's hand harder and twists around to look, then turns his face aside equally suddenly, blinded and pained by the brightness. "I can't answer that!" he cries, rather loudly and without the care he normally applies to every word. In this vast white space he's no diplomat. Something in this place and that crystal voice has torn the veneer off him. It's not just the searing brightness that makes anguish show in his face, and he answers that question that a heartbeat earlier he claimed he could not. "If my life is the most important thing in my life, my life is nothing! Neither is more valid than the other! I have to make them into the same thing!" The way he says it, that deep and elegant voice now so uncontrolled, makes it obvious that what he has to do is difficult to the point of impossible, a painful project that will never be finished.

Jiasha writhes, disquieted by this sudden interruption. She stares straight, flinches from the light. Watches K'net-mauri's legs. Once, twice she sobs, half-lulled in and out of placid nostalgia, where K'net-mauri is the father she wants for, and the present, in alien light, with an alien man whose heart is being broken for want of the woman and children far from him. All of this while, Nua is sober. She has work to do. She is recieving her baby brother into the world. She grips the huge infant in tiny arms as more and more of him comes apparent from mother's body. The little wears a pale dress. Her belly and bare arms are soon smeared in the blood and wax of life and births. With all of her intent and unformed mind she concentrates-- not to loose grip of the crowning, emerging baby, who pushes from the dark confines of bellies and bodies to this bath of light, embrace of his stalwart sister.

Another tinkling voice, this one from just beyond Jiasha commences, "Leadership (not conquest) was the Path, Rule (not oppression) the talent you carry (heart to bone). Acting against that (avarice before service) sows seeds of sorrow (blood guilt on a people), tarnishing the Eagle (squandered potential) as history is written (memory colored), what was it worth (what price do you pay) when end of time rises (all things have cycles). Look beyond (your own limitations) see for your people (blinded by hunger) speak for your nation (tongue mired in lies) time is growing short (examples begin at home)."

Another voice speaks, from behind Nua... "Why did you make him (child with child)? Was it love (yearning) or chance (random fortune) that brought you (legs spread) through your life (so short for so much pain)? What will he give you (more than you offer) when you seek your way (those who can't do teach) should you create life (when your own lacks direction)? The father (goes farther) and carries more then heritage (genetics are telling) from his travels (always gone always there) where will he be (where won't he be) when Mauno is growing (more than up and out)? He passed along (early inheritance) a gift (a curse) he did not know (how could he know) and your son (he is coming now) holds a future (or many) in hands yet unseen (or should he let go) when there is uncertainty (certainly cycled) on the horizon (why didn't you see it)?

K'net-mauri makes a little sound, too quiet to be really heard over Jiasha's sobs, over the crystal-bell voices. It's a pained groan, high enough almost to be a whine. He hangs his head for a moment, then looks at Nua. Concentrate on that. Little girl, streaked in blood and life, with no need to answer the demanding questions. Woman child with all answers inside, coded in infinate complexity in the simple perfect language of nuclaic acids and manifest in the pure gesture as she guides her infant brother into light.

Jiasha stamps her fists on the white ground. She grits out breath and gutteral voice, the most that her belly and lungs can muster. "I was lonely and scared! I thought it would make everything better to be with him. Peace in my family, that my brother would have esteem for my decisions. He's always gone. They're all gone all the time. I don't. I don't trust so many secrets. I don't know the man he doesn't know -me-." And another ragged sob from Jiasha, "I'm trying as hard as I can. I'm trying." But all of this is mouthed. All of this is robbed of the proper amplifications, choked away by the rigors of birth. She can not speak, only pretend that she might. Nua all that while weaves her slippery little arms around her baby brother, coaxing him out from the shadow. Mutely still, Jiasha pleads to the white, as if blind, now, for the lack of anything, "Please let him be safe. If he had somethign to do for the world don't take him. Pleaseplease mysonmyson. "

It is blood, it is squirming, it is birth. A small head shaped by it's path to exit, hair matted with the fluids of its own navigation slips into the hands of innocence and with another involuntary fluxuation of muscles wrought solely for this purpose shoulders follow head and silence falls from the terrible lights as if the white void is holding it's breath and hips follow torso and legs follow hips and then it it feet slipping free with only the cord between mother and child still lost from view at it's terminus... and then the rest but it's arrival is covered by the release of tinkled sighs...

"I see (we saw) there he is (what does he see) but what will he know (what will he forget)? Do I touch him (will he touch us) will I watch him (won't he watch us)? But in other pasts (will he happen) in other futures (will he remember) will he finds his place (will the place find him first)? Welcome (goodbye) Mauno (Mauno), I have seen enough (there is much to be seen) I have learned (I will teach) choose well (or have you chosen) and we will remember (when you are forgotten)."

The lights start to decrease in luminescence fading back into the whiteness... then strengthen for a moment before a small slim block of foggy white surface falls with an echoing clatter at Nua's feet... then the fading begins again as softly comes ..."Build (your imagination) dream (what your heart tells you) and remember (focus) that what can be built (vision to manifestation) and be brought down (tumbled into oblivion) but what can be destroyed (undone from form) can never be lost (energy is eternal)." Then the light and the voices are gone, leaving the three now four in the white alone together.

Jiasha is no quaking, softly. Laying exhausted in a heap. Nua is first, because she holds the child in arms, who is huge and flat-faced and red waxy alive. Nua says what she has been told is proper, "Awake, child, and we welcome you." Jiasha chimes in "Awake, child, and we welcome you," in a staggered voice. Her hands are shaking. And Nua stares at Kn'et-mauri, almost as if waiting.

K'net-mauri stares at Nua. He began it to quiet the raging question that tears at a deep place inside him, but in the end it is Mauno's birth that demands the stare. He's transfixed, fascinated, and he holds Jiasha's hand and watches Nua take the slippery infant in her tiny arms and hold him. It's only when the tiny midwife speaks that it occurs to him to take note of just who is behaving like a child here, and who is not. He blinks, hesitates in mazed fashion and echoes, "Awake, child, we welcome you." He twists, drawing away from Jiasha, slow so as not to bump her head, and uses his arms to stoot-drag himself along few feet down her body so he can make himself somewhat more useful.

As tradition dictates, or perhaps just as fortune would have it, Mauno opens his mouth after his greeting and in tremulous but certainly healthy in volume voice, wails his response...

...and in that wail light and white retreat, all are on the floor of the Romulan Ambassador's quarters on S419, and in the viewport, the blue white light of the Anomaly rotates out of view.

--- Fin ---