Your Own Dream Landscape III

 Episode Name:  Your Own Dream Landscape III

   Written By:  Spider

         Cast:  Khitra, Spider and Taimol.

  Produced By:  Starfleet

  Directed By:  Spider

     Aired On:  Sat Mar 27 15:24:08 2004

     Stardate:  53977.1

Time: Sat Mar 27 11:44:02 2004

Stardate: 53976.8

It's time for tea, and quiet contemplation alone in one's room, as all priests of the prophets seem inclined to at some point during the day. The anomaly pulses and flares outside Taimol's window, a slow, unearthly sort of heartbeat.

Tearing his gaze away from the quiet contemplation of the anomaly, Edan takes the opportunity to stir the rapidly cooling liquid in his mug. Eyes sliding closed, he inclines his head slightly. "Thank you, Prophets, for providing this tea. May it strengthen my body and soothe my soul, so that I may be more attuned to your guidance, and do your will." A serene sort of smile finds its way to the young man's face, and he lifts his mug for a sip of the fragrant brew.

One might expect the door to chime. Instead, there's a rapping at it, a sharp, urgent, and brief sound just as Taimol brings the cup to his lips.

Taimol raises an eyebrow, placing his mug back on the table and pushing himself to his feet. "Do come in!" he calls to the doorway as he turns to greet whomever cannot use the doorbell.

The door opens out rather than sliding aside, and all at once, the room falls away. It's a peculiar sensation, rather like the world opened up around Taimol, as if the room were not unlike an orange parting into slices around its Prylar core before falling away entirely, leaving him in another place.

Tanalar Village. A place he has only been told about, seen pictures of.

A place he can barely remember save as smoke and flames.

This is the house of his parents. And the door is still closed.

There's no reaction from Edan for several moments as he gawks at the room which surrounds him. Finally, though, instinct overrides shock and he places his hand on the door to assure himself of its reality.

. o O Taimol thinks "Prophets, protect and guide me. Shower me with your wisdom. Cover me with your grace."

. o O Taimol is blank inside. There's no fear, or joy. He just is.

It certainly /feels/ real enough, as does the momentary sensation of being completely alone. The room is dark, lit only by the moons outside, casting soft blue-green-grey shadows over the furniture. Cradle. Chair he knows instinctively belonged to his mother. Memories long-buried come sluicing down over the Prylar. If you push it, it rocks. A small, unexplained scar on the back of his head, beneath his hair, attaches itself to a vague memory, now. Push, rock rock, laugh with delight, so small, so small, the chair was so large, but the chair came back too hard after the pushed it again, hit him on the head. Threw him into that bureau, there.

And he bled and bled.

At the time, only almost two, it seemed like so much blood.

At the time.

Taimol swallows, stepping back from the door so rapidly that his feet tangle with one another and he lands on his rump on the floor. "This cannot... this -IS NOT- real," he croaks, overcome with what can only be described as terror.

The sensation of being alone ends abruptly, as his falling back causes him to land against someone's feet and legs, his back bumping against their calves. Khitra's voice from above him murmurs softly, "It is of Bajor."

"The Cardassians destroyed this place and everyone in it," Edan murmurs, relaxing as much as he can into the one thing he truly knows and trusts here. "It -was- of Bajor."

. o O Taimol fear lowers from 'Having a Heart Attack' to 'I Nearly Soiled My Robes'. That's his relaxation right now.

"It is linear," comments another voice from beside Taimol, a voice he has not heard in nineteen years. A voice from deep memory. His mother steps around him, looking down. "It does not understand." His mother looks up at Khitra, then down at him again. "The Taimol is of Bajor, but it is linear."

Taimol blinks upward at his mother, looking between her and Khitra. "You... this?" He pauses, then adds, "We are so far from the Temple here." It doesn't understand is an understatement.

. o O Taimol thinks "These are Prophets."

"It is of Bajor," repeats the one with Khitra's form, as if this explains everything. She steps out from behind him, bending down slightly to peer at him. "It is like The Sisko. It exists non-linearly. But it is linear."

A third voice joins, lower, male. Havaris. "It exists here," he concurs, stepping out from the shadows and crossing his arms across a uniform-clad chest.

From outside, a single, long scream, joined by the sound of shouting. Blue moonlight is joined now by orange. Fire.

Taimol slowly pushes himself to his feet. It's undignified to meet your gods on your rear, after all. "My apologies," he offers softly. "I did not..." What he was going to say is drowned out by the scream, and he moves to the window to see what's going on... although, deep in his soul, he has a deeply-rooted suspicion of what it is.

. o O Taimol vacillates between shock, awe... and then, deep mourning.

"It exists here," repeats his mother, drawing up alongside him; the firelight reflects off of her features, casting her expression of mourning all more deeply as she watches Cardassian forms chasing down fleeing Bajoran civilians. "It is of Bajor." There is sadness in her voice. "So much of Bajor exists here." Havaris draws up alongside Taimol, all three faces now lit as much by the bright, lightning-like flashes of disruptor bolts lancing through the night as by fire and moonlight.

"Everything that's come before," Taimol whispers as he watches, before turning his eyes so he can see his mother fully. "It's all here?"

. o O Taimol thinks "She's so sad. I never imagined her that way."

"Come before?" his mother queries, her expression shifting from sadness to brief confusion. Khitra's voice, from the shadows behind them, reminds her, "It believes it is linear." Glancing back into the shadows, his mother nods once, and then looks back to him in order to address him directly. "So much of Bajor exists here." From beside him, Havaris concurs once more, "So much of Bajor refuses linear existence."

Outside, the flames arc higher into the night, and the Cardassians are approaching.

Before them, a small girl flees, then disappears into nothingness with an abruptly abrogated scream a moment after a disruptor bolt strikes her back.

Taimol bows his head in mourning. "I don't understand what you're trying to tell me," he offers softly, unable to watch the carnage beyond the window anymore.

"It is linear," sighs his mother, and Khitra moves to stand beside her, her face cast half in orange light, half in complete darkness. From beside him, Havaris reiterates, "So much of Bajor exists /here./" A fourth voice murmurs from the darkness, "It refuses linear existence. It exists here."

The scene shifts again, this time shifting around him like a fog suddenly blowing in, save that it is just another place blowing into vision. "Or here," says Vedek Toralin, his kindly face devoid of expression as the group now stands in the middle of a group of Resistance fighters, huddled in a valley as the Cardassians surround them, appearing three, four, five at a time along the ridge.

<CONTEST> Taimol contests his History (Bajor) skill vs a difficulty of Routine and Succeeds!

Grim understanding finds its way onto Edan's features as his eyes sweep the ridgeline. "Prophets..." he whispers gustily. "Shanlaya." He bows his head, thinking outloud for his own benefit. "These things don't exist anymore because they've been destroyed. I think of it that way because my life moves in a straight line... it's linear. You're... outside of time, though. You see all things at once." He glances around inside the little group. "So, they can be here with you, but are beyond me. Right?"

"It is not linear," Havaris repeats, with Khitra adding on, "It believes it is linear, but it is not. Not entirely." She nods her head in agreement with Havaris, while Taimol adds, "It exists /here./" And then there's a third sensation, as if the world was being peeled away from Taimol's skin like a wet piece of cloth.

The village, again, but this time, it's only a smoking pile of broken buildings, broken bodies. There's the disorienting sensation of being one's own normal height, but still looking /up/ at the woman in the tattered clothing which comprised the Resistance's only uniform. She looks down at him, phaser in one hand, and sighs, "It exists here."

Taimol closes his eyes, swallowing as he avoids looking anywhere. He's been here before. "The people I saw here believe that they're still part of a linear existance, even though it's not?" He just can't grasp what they're getting at.

"It does not understand," Toralin notes, as the woman in the resistance uniform crouches to look at Taimol more closely.

"Perhaps it cannot understand," she concurs, staring at the Prylar.

"It must understand," Havaris appends.

"It must understand," Khitra agrees.

A long, low breath escapes from Edan as he tries to collect his thoughts. "What I think of as 'time' is a straight line. Cause A creates effect B. B cannot happen without A. That's linear. Yes?" He glances around at the others, looking hopeful.

. o O Taimol tries to wrap his mind around what they're getting at. He just can't think outside the box.

"Yes." This, from the woman in the resistance uniform.

"This is what the Sisko taught us," Khitra agrees.

"The way you look at things is different. Cause A and effect B happen. Here, they can occur in any fashion. B before A. A before B. B and A at the same time. Time for you is... a pool. There's no set order to events, they just -are-." Another hopeful look around the group of Prophets from Taimol.

"Yes." This, from his mother.

"No." This from Havaris. "We understand linear events now. Because of The Sisko."

"So much of Bajor denies linear existence." Toralin adds this, as well.

Taimol blinks incredulously as a new thought occurs to him. "We dwell in the past." He stares directly at Toralin as the concept hit him. "We refuse to move into the future... and end up here." He gestures around the smoking remains of his home.

With a nod of his head, Havaris seems to agree, arms still folded across his uniformed chest. "It is not linear. The Taimol, also, is not linear."

Taimol's mother looks at him, tilting her head slightly to the side. "Some of Bajor refuse to exist elsewhere."

"What would you have me do?" Settling to his knees in the ashes, Edan places his head in his hands... either to block out the destruction, or to keep them from looking at his face.

"Linear beings are not made to exist in this fashion," advises Khitra, standing over Taimol. Her voice, like all their voices, is dispassionate, apparently unmoved by the Prylar's change in body posture.

A moment later, Havaris adds, "The most non-linear send us the linear."

"So, live for the future and not for the past?" Taimol asks after a moment of consideration. "In order to be able to do your will."

"Linear beings with us are with us," Khitra replies. "The most non-linear are not with us." She glances aside at Toralin.

"All are of Bajor," he murmurs.

"Yes," adds Taimol's mother. "All are of Bajor."

Taimol is silent for another long moment. "The isolationists. Vedek Parva."

"Yes." This from Havaris.

"No." This from Toralin.

"It sees only what is seen with the naked eye," murmurs Khitra, with the woman in the resistance uniform adding on, "It sees as it exists. Linear."

"There are others, then." Edan sighs, scooping up a handful of ashes. "Is Bajor in danger?"

"Yes." All of them speak at once, a unanimous agreement on this fact.

Taimol nods, allowing the ashes to fall from his hand before he pushes himself to his feet. "Where shall I begin?"

In the real world, outside of Taimol's quarters...

A chime to Taimol's door nets no response. The computer confirms his presence in his quarters, but there is no response to a chime at the door.

Khitra frowns, a bag of cookies in hand. She chimes again.

Still no response. There isn't even any evidence of movement from inside.

Khitra shrugs slightly; she's good enough friends with Taimol that they have some leeway when going into each other's quarters. She attempts to enter.

The door is unlocked; Taimol is slumped on his couch, a cup of tea once in his hands now spilled on his lap and on the floor. The cup has rolled halfway under a couch. His eyes? Closed.

Khitra's eyes widen; she drops her cookies and rushes over. "Edan? Edan?"

. o O Khitra feels a rush of fear, a cold grasp on her heart. Something is wrong.

No response, though he's breathing, and his eyes are moving behind his eyelids as if he's dreaming.

Back in Taimol's own dream landscape, the Prophet with Khitra's shape looks aside at the one wearing the shape of his mother and then back at Taimol. "That is for the Taimol to determine. We are not linear. We do not begin."

"But... I have to have a starting point." Taimol frowns around the circle of Prophets, eyebrows knitting together. "The man who shot me... is he one of the non-linear ones? Can he show me the path to the others?" He pauses for a moment, then adds, "Can you help me get through to him?"

"Starting point?" queries Havaris.

"Linear," notes Khitra.

"It is correct," amends Toralin. "The Taimol knows a non-linear."

"Many have their eyes closed and protest sight," adds the woman who found Taimol in the wreckage all those years ago.

Taimol smiles faintly. "Can you help me open his eyes?" he asks softly, confident that he's at least got a basis to work from now.

In the presumably real world...

Khitra has no idea what to do. It's not like she's really worked with other people much; she's only had to take care of herself, and if she goes into a weird dream state, there's nothing she can really do for herself. Hesitantly, she reaches out to touch Taimol's shoulder. "Edan?"

There is still no response. His fingers twitch, his eyes move beneath their lids, but he does not respond to her touch or seem to stir to wakefulness.

. o O Khitra thinks "I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to do this..."

Khitra nudges harder. She opts for a shoulder shake.

No change. Just Taimol with a tea-soaked lap, still seeming to dream.

Khitra sits down next to Taimol, tugging him against her and running her hand soothingly through his hair, for lack of anything better to do.

The prophet who wears Havaris's form replies only, "We are of Bajor. The Taimol is of Bajor. What the Taimol does, we also do."

A dizzying sensation, then, like being sucked through a straw, and Taimol finds himself leaned against Khitra's shoulder, her fingers running through his hair.

Khitra comes in from the corridor.

Khitra has arrived.

A deep, shuddering breath is taken by Taimol, and his eyes slide open. "But...." he starts to protest, when he realizes that he isn't where he just thought he was anymore. "I guess I'll do my best," he offers lamely after a moment to the air at large.

Khitra is there, sitting beside him; she's apparently tugged him close, head against her shoulder, and has been stroking his hair soothingly. "Edan?"

Edan regards Khitra for a moment, almost as if he's trying to decide she is who she appears to be. Finally, he relaxes back against her shoulder and allows his eyes to close again for a moment. "Everything's going to be fine," he murmurs. "We'll put it right."

Khitra looks down at him with concern, fingertips still sliding through his hair. She gives him a little squeeze and murmurs, "I brought cookies."

. o O Taimol truly relaxes now. He's safe here.

"I'm afraid..." Taimol offers after a moment of quiet contemplation, his voice carrying great weight in its softness, "... that we have concerns that are much larger than the ability of cookies to fix."