Interlude – Raise Hell in Heaven
by Cardassian Vi'kar Gul Tharek Getal & Alderman Yolanthe Ibalin
Post Details
ON:
The message left at the Cardassian Embassy had been brief and business like: the Ambassador's kanar is ready to collect, please stop by during regular hours, 1800 to 0300. there's 425 strips to pay, and the same again in deposit for next month. With thanks, Yolanthe.
Tharek smiled widely. Payback comes in strange ways.
He thought he'd go and collect the Kanar himself. That way, he could get back at Yolanthe for her nice little 'trick' she played on him, involving girls with very, very little clothing. Well, it was his turn to do the surprising. Within seconds of reading the letter, he made his way for The Box of Delights, once more.
The shutters had just gone up, and a dozen ultra keen sentients practically stampeded for their destinations, some to the gaming tables, a group of young cadets to the holosuites, two bajorans racing to the bar, where a young man who could be best summed up as 'pretty' would be serving the winner first. At the end of the bar, the little Orion woman who part owned the box was doing something to a padd with a stylus. Her colour-changing partner was nowhere in sight.
Tharek now managed to enter the establishment, and, considering his height, managed to blend in with the crowd in the darkened light. He slithered his way up to the bar, and spotted the Orion women he had seen in The Box before. He assumed that she would know where Yolanthe would be.
Klia looked up at the Cardassian, and suppressed a desire to vomit. Creepy spoonheads. She gave him a bright sunny smile. "Are you here for the Ambassador's booze?"
He thought he might give her a shock. "I am the Ambassador." His face showed no amusement, and his eyes narrowed.
Klia flinched. She'd been expecting a flunky, not the man himself. She swallowed, put the smile back on and said, "I'll just go get it then." She dropped her padd on the bar top and squeezed past him, eyes fixed on the door marked 'Employees Only' as if it actually said, 'Angry-Cardassian-Proof Room'.
Tharek suppressed a laugh. He waited until Klia had got back, until he replaced his grimace face with a smile. "Don't worry. I'm not going to bite your head off." He then dug around in his pocket, pulling out a gleaming object. "Here. Take it as a small token of apology. I don't mean to be mean." The object he placed onto the bar, was one gold-pressed bar of latinum.
She looked at it as she heaved the first case onto the counter top, and then at Tharek as she put second alongside it. This was possibly even more disturbing. A Cardassian that didn't mean to be mean? That made the galaxy all wrong. She picked the latinum bar up, weighed it in her fingers. "That's a lot of apology," she allowed. It was her turn to narrow her eyes. "What are you after?"
"Not much. My 'booze' and the company of the colour-changing charmer." He smiled deviously. "Know who I'm talking about?"
Oh. So that was it. She chewed her lip deciding which side of this game she was going to land; obstruct for Yolanthe’s own good, or let a grown woman make her own mistakes. She covered her indecision by holding another padd out for the Ambassador's thumb print. "Honestly, I don't know. Its her day off. She'd left by the time I got out of bed." She eyed the latinum bar, and debated saying more. It was a lot of apology.
"Do we have to do this? There's only so many bars I can hand out, I still want my Kanar after all." He placed another bar from his pocket onto the table. Some people would say he had more money than sense. Truth was, people would keel down before you, for only a few strips of latinum.
"Seriously, I don't know." She pushed the bar back towards him. "Its her turn to clean the bathroom, she always takes off early." But the Cardassian was throwing down bars of latinum. Bars! What was it that humans said, those who bend in the storm survive it better. He probably wasn't going to leave it alone, and it was probably better to stay on his good side. She might be able to avert the inevitable disaster. "Try Anatole's or Paninis. Or the Arboretum. And if its live combat night, she'll be in Q'uits."
"Much obliged." He then hit his chest, where a Cardassian commbadge lay. "Berok, have someone fetch my Kanar. Pay the women behind the bar too." He nodded politely to her and spoke softly, "Thank you my dear, your services have been amazing. I'll be sure to recommend you to all my colleagues."
Amazing services? Recommend her? Slimy git. Now she was regretting helping him. She hoped her friend wasn't in any of those places and he'd have to chase all over the station. The Orion watched him leave, vacillating between deep suspicion, anger and not a little guilt. She threw the latinum in the tip jar and then reached for her communicator. She could at least give Yolanthe a little warning. "Lani?" No Answer. "Lani, pick up." But the only thing she could hear was the communicator in question beeping softly at the other end of the bar.
[10 minutes later...]
Tharek stepped out of the lift, and into the Arboretum. He slithered about the place, searching for Yolanthe. He thought not to shout for her, he would surprise her, should she be here.
The Arboretum had been a pleasant surprise. She hadn't set foot on a planet in over two years, and missed greenery. Admittedly the trees here weren't as tall as those from Yolanthe's native world, and neither was the animal life that flew and buzzed and scampered amongst them as dangerous, but it was alive and it was wonderful to be amongst. Holoprograms, even ones made by programmers as talented as Klia, weren't the same.
One thing that was interesting to observe was how few people ever looked up. She had spent a pleasant afternoon sitting along one of the branches of a tall tree she didn't recognise, and the few moments of discovery she'd had were normally preceded by high pitched voices insisting, "Mummy! There's a blue lady in the tree!" The parents would then tell their children not to be silly, looked up and saw her, and look away quickly, embarrassed to have said anything. But the last time that had happened was some hours ago. The evening was drawing in, the lights were dimming, and there were few people to observe from her vantage point. Maybe it was time for food. And it was cage fights at Q'uits. This would be the first chance she'd had to try out the Klingon bar and she was looking forward to it.
She swung her legs round and clambered down, moving smoothly from branch to branch until she was low enough to jump. She stepped off the last tree limb, dropped the final six feet, and sauntered over the Promenade floor plan standing on the side of the well-manicured pathway. Food. She touched a few spots on the touchscreen and the options ran by in a long list. Terran, Bajoran, Klingon, Vulcan and every other major civilization she'd ever heard off. Plenty of choice. Too much. She twisted her deep blue hair up into a loose knot and rubbed at her neck, trying to make her mind up. What did she feel like? She didn't know. Except not shellfish. If she was going to be drinking Klingon all night she'd regret that in the morning. And since she didn't fancy racht, there was no point in heading straight to Q'uits. "Computer, randomize list." The list of options scrambled. She closed her eyes and raised a finger to choose at random. She'd let fate decide.
Fate decided quickly. Tharek peered from behind a tree at Yolanthe. He dug into his back pocket with silence, pulling out a small, blue vial. Having the vial now in his possession, he stepped out from the tree, and into full view of Yolanthe.
"Hello, my dear." He stated warmly, as he stood across the room from her.
Her skin flashed through the spectrum, and then returned to its usual dusky violet as she realised who it was. "Good evening, Ambassador. Its a pleasure to meet you again. I trust you're well after all that unpleasantness a few days ago?"
"I'm adaptable." He said with a smile. "How are you coping?" He tried his best to keep his real intentions for her a secret, and doing pretty well at it.
"Most of the damage was to my pride. And at least the maquis attack put the Box on the map. Figuratively if not literally." She pointed at the Promenade guide. "I think that the administrators are getting their own back by not updating the Promenade listings."
"Maybe... " He stated, still keeping a sinister grin on his face.
"So what brings you to the Arboretum? You didn't strike me as the outdoors type."
"I'm not all politics and violence. Sometimes I like to just, stare at the stars." He glared up with his words, staring out into the big blackness of space, only brightened by the glistening twinkling of the stars.
She looked up as well. "They are very beautiful. And so dense here. Back home you can barely see them for the trees and we don't have so many to look at." She paused, thinking about it, and felt a stab of homesickness that put hints of grey into her skin. "What are they like to look at from Cardassia?"
"Beautiful." He stated. "On a dark, humid night, looking up at the stars... It couldn't get more romantic. Now, you can't help but look at the cities. The stench of the dead. Corpses litter my province. Children scatter the floor for food. The Dominion took our sanity from us." He paused, then lowered his look to Yolanthe. "Some of us survived though. We kept our sanity intact. Granted we were scorned by revenge, but we survived. It's what we've done, it's what we will always do." His sentence sounded like he was trying to prove something to Yolanthe.
The intensity of emotion in his voice surprised her. She wondered for a moment if when he said 'we' he actually meant 'I'. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to raise painful memories."
"It's not your fault." He smiled politely. He paused, before slipping the vial into his pocket. His 'trick' might be a bit more horrific than first intended. So, instead, he walked over to a small grassy space and laid down, staring upwards.
She watched him for a long moment. Something had happened and she wasn't sure what, but she recognised the signs. It was the sort of moment where you left the bottle, drew the others to the far end of the bar, and didn't worry too much about the bill.
She turned away and headed for the lifts in silence.
Tharek didn't look at her as she left, he just lay there. The emotions, memories and pain came flooding in as he saw the images of Cardassia burning. Cardassia falling. Cardassia dead.
OFF
A JP Between
Yolanthe Ibalin
Owner & Bartender, The Box of Delights
Vi'kar Gul Tharek Getal
Cardassian Dictator, scorned by war
by Cardassian Vi'kar Gul Tharek Getal & Alderman Yolanthe Ibalin
Post Details
| Title | Raise Hell in Heaven | |
| Mission | Interlude | |
| Author(s) | Cardassian Vi'kar Gul Tharek Getal & Alderman Yolanthe Ibalin | |
| Posted | Thu Jun 10, 2010 @ 9:14pm | |
| Location | The Box of Delights/ The Arboretum | |
| Timeline | SD 19 Evening |
The message left at the Cardassian Embassy had been brief and business like: the Ambassador's kanar is ready to collect, please stop by during regular hours, 1800 to 0300. there's 425 strips to pay, and the same again in deposit for next month. With thanks, Yolanthe.
Tharek smiled widely. Payback comes in strange ways.
He thought he'd go and collect the Kanar himself. That way, he could get back at Yolanthe for her nice little 'trick' she played on him, involving girls with very, very little clothing. Well, it was his turn to do the surprising. Within seconds of reading the letter, he made his way for The Box of Delights, once more.
The shutters had just gone up, and a dozen ultra keen sentients practically stampeded for their destinations, some to the gaming tables, a group of young cadets to the holosuites, two bajorans racing to the bar, where a young man who could be best summed up as 'pretty' would be serving the winner first. At the end of the bar, the little Orion woman who part owned the box was doing something to a padd with a stylus. Her colour-changing partner was nowhere in sight.
Tharek now managed to enter the establishment, and, considering his height, managed to blend in with the crowd in the darkened light. He slithered his way up to the bar, and spotted the Orion women he had seen in The Box before. He assumed that she would know where Yolanthe would be.
Klia looked up at the Cardassian, and suppressed a desire to vomit. Creepy spoonheads. She gave him a bright sunny smile. "Are you here for the Ambassador's booze?"
He thought he might give her a shock. "I am the Ambassador." His face showed no amusement, and his eyes narrowed.
Klia flinched. She'd been expecting a flunky, not the man himself. She swallowed, put the smile back on and said, "I'll just go get it then." She dropped her padd on the bar top and squeezed past him, eyes fixed on the door marked 'Employees Only' as if it actually said, 'Angry-Cardassian-Proof Room'.
Tharek suppressed a laugh. He waited until Klia had got back, until he replaced his grimace face with a smile. "Don't worry. I'm not going to bite your head off." He then dug around in his pocket, pulling out a gleaming object. "Here. Take it as a small token of apology. I don't mean to be mean." The object he placed onto the bar, was one gold-pressed bar of latinum.
She looked at it as she heaved the first case onto the counter top, and then at Tharek as she put second alongside it. This was possibly even more disturbing. A Cardassian that didn't mean to be mean? That made the galaxy all wrong. She picked the latinum bar up, weighed it in her fingers. "That's a lot of apology," she allowed. It was her turn to narrow her eyes. "What are you after?"
"Not much. My 'booze' and the company of the colour-changing charmer." He smiled deviously. "Know who I'm talking about?"
Oh. So that was it. She chewed her lip deciding which side of this game she was going to land; obstruct for Yolanthe’s own good, or let a grown woman make her own mistakes. She covered her indecision by holding another padd out for the Ambassador's thumb print. "Honestly, I don't know. Its her day off. She'd left by the time I got out of bed." She eyed the latinum bar, and debated saying more. It was a lot of apology.
"Do we have to do this? There's only so many bars I can hand out, I still want my Kanar after all." He placed another bar from his pocket onto the table. Some people would say he had more money than sense. Truth was, people would keel down before you, for only a few strips of latinum.
"Seriously, I don't know." She pushed the bar back towards him. "Its her turn to clean the bathroom, she always takes off early." But the Cardassian was throwing down bars of latinum. Bars! What was it that humans said, those who bend in the storm survive it better. He probably wasn't going to leave it alone, and it was probably better to stay on his good side. She might be able to avert the inevitable disaster. "Try Anatole's or Paninis. Or the Arboretum. And if its live combat night, she'll be in Q'uits."
"Much obliged." He then hit his chest, where a Cardassian commbadge lay. "Berok, have someone fetch my Kanar. Pay the women behind the bar too." He nodded politely to her and spoke softly, "Thank you my dear, your services have been amazing. I'll be sure to recommend you to all my colleagues."
Amazing services? Recommend her? Slimy git. Now she was regretting helping him. She hoped her friend wasn't in any of those places and he'd have to chase all over the station. The Orion watched him leave, vacillating between deep suspicion, anger and not a little guilt. She threw the latinum in the tip jar and then reached for her communicator. She could at least give Yolanthe a little warning. "Lani?" No Answer. "Lani, pick up." But the only thing she could hear was the communicator in question beeping softly at the other end of the bar.
[10 minutes later...]
Tharek stepped out of the lift, and into the Arboretum. He slithered about the place, searching for Yolanthe. He thought not to shout for her, he would surprise her, should she be here.
The Arboretum had been a pleasant surprise. She hadn't set foot on a planet in over two years, and missed greenery. Admittedly the trees here weren't as tall as those from Yolanthe's native world, and neither was the animal life that flew and buzzed and scampered amongst them as dangerous, but it was alive and it was wonderful to be amongst. Holoprograms, even ones made by programmers as talented as Klia, weren't the same.
One thing that was interesting to observe was how few people ever looked up. She had spent a pleasant afternoon sitting along one of the branches of a tall tree she didn't recognise, and the few moments of discovery she'd had were normally preceded by high pitched voices insisting, "Mummy! There's a blue lady in the tree!" The parents would then tell their children not to be silly, looked up and saw her, and look away quickly, embarrassed to have said anything. But the last time that had happened was some hours ago. The evening was drawing in, the lights were dimming, and there were few people to observe from her vantage point. Maybe it was time for food. And it was cage fights at Q'uits. This would be the first chance she'd had to try out the Klingon bar and she was looking forward to it.
She swung her legs round and clambered down, moving smoothly from branch to branch until she was low enough to jump. She stepped off the last tree limb, dropped the final six feet, and sauntered over the Promenade floor plan standing on the side of the well-manicured pathway. Food. She touched a few spots on the touchscreen and the options ran by in a long list. Terran, Bajoran, Klingon, Vulcan and every other major civilization she'd ever heard off. Plenty of choice. Too much. She twisted her deep blue hair up into a loose knot and rubbed at her neck, trying to make her mind up. What did she feel like? She didn't know. Except not shellfish. If she was going to be drinking Klingon all night she'd regret that in the morning. And since she didn't fancy racht, there was no point in heading straight to Q'uits. "Computer, randomize list." The list of options scrambled. She closed her eyes and raised a finger to choose at random. She'd let fate decide.
Fate decided quickly. Tharek peered from behind a tree at Yolanthe. He dug into his back pocket with silence, pulling out a small, blue vial. Having the vial now in his possession, he stepped out from the tree, and into full view of Yolanthe.
"Hello, my dear." He stated warmly, as he stood across the room from her.
Her skin flashed through the spectrum, and then returned to its usual dusky violet as she realised who it was. "Good evening, Ambassador. Its a pleasure to meet you again. I trust you're well after all that unpleasantness a few days ago?"
"I'm adaptable." He said with a smile. "How are you coping?" He tried his best to keep his real intentions for her a secret, and doing pretty well at it.
"Most of the damage was to my pride. And at least the maquis attack put the Box on the map. Figuratively if not literally." She pointed at the Promenade guide. "I think that the administrators are getting their own back by not updating the Promenade listings."
"Maybe... " He stated, still keeping a sinister grin on his face.
"So what brings you to the Arboretum? You didn't strike me as the outdoors type."
"I'm not all politics and violence. Sometimes I like to just, stare at the stars." He glared up with his words, staring out into the big blackness of space, only brightened by the glistening twinkling of the stars.
She looked up as well. "They are very beautiful. And so dense here. Back home you can barely see them for the trees and we don't have so many to look at." She paused, thinking about it, and felt a stab of homesickness that put hints of grey into her skin. "What are they like to look at from Cardassia?"
"Beautiful." He stated. "On a dark, humid night, looking up at the stars... It couldn't get more romantic. Now, you can't help but look at the cities. The stench of the dead. Corpses litter my province. Children scatter the floor for food. The Dominion took our sanity from us." He paused, then lowered his look to Yolanthe. "Some of us survived though. We kept our sanity intact. Granted we were scorned by revenge, but we survived. It's what we've done, it's what we will always do." His sentence sounded like he was trying to prove something to Yolanthe.
The intensity of emotion in his voice surprised her. She wondered for a moment if when he said 'we' he actually meant 'I'. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to raise painful memories."
"It's not your fault." He smiled politely. He paused, before slipping the vial into his pocket. His 'trick' might be a bit more horrific than first intended. So, instead, he walked over to a small grassy space and laid down, staring upwards.
She watched him for a long moment. Something had happened and she wasn't sure what, but she recognised the signs. It was the sort of moment where you left the bottle, drew the others to the far end of the bar, and didn't worry too much about the bill.
She turned away and headed for the lifts in silence.
Tharek didn't look at her as she left, he just lay there. The emotions, memories and pain came flooding in as he saw the images of Cardassia burning. Cardassia falling. Cardassia dead.
OFF
A JP Between
Yolanthe Ibalin
Owner & Bartender, The Box of Delights
Vi'kar Gul Tharek Getal
Cardassian Dictator, scorned by war