[240103.22 ch`Rihan, the past]
Under the pleasant fall sun she walked .....and walked ......and walked and walked
Two days by sun and moons arch and by best her less than lucid conscious could tell. Two days and over two hundred miles by foot's travel away, The Shibae's imperative finally let up, and allowed her some time to herself.
"What am I going to do with you?"
'Au can do nothing about me. I am you.'
Aemhig gave herself a scowl, stepping off the road. The area she'd been freed to observe and move around in was quite nice-- full of lush vegetation, an almost warm climate, and a nearby stream. the Captain needed a bath.
'That's it, think about your appearance. It's important.'
"Who are you? I mean really? The last conversation I had with myself at this kind of length was during Psyche-endurance training in the Academy. I have no want to do that again."
'I am you. Or rather, a part of you left over from some earlier experiment.'
"Wonderful. If your still here when I next see D`Terik, remind us to kill him very slowly."
'And then his family too, we would imagine.'
Aemhig didn't reply. She didn't need to. The voice in her head already knew that she agreed-- perhaps was simply a formation of her own unvoiced thoughts anyway.
Disrobing, the Captain neatly folded her clothes in a pile, neatly tucked under her gear. it had indeed been a tremendous amount of time since she had taken a bath-- and no matter what everyone said, a shower on a warship was not an adequate substitute.
Standing before her stream, the woman's eyes trace her soft reflection in the gently flowing pool. A pale complexion by Rihannsu standards, trademarked with the hypocritical dual aspects of both soft gentle curves, and an angular muscled body. Lost in wordless thought, the captain runs a hand along the scare which travels from her inner thigh to just bellow her neck line.
'Duty is a funny thing.'
"Indeed it is."
Shaken slightly from her thought, Aemhig gets into the cold water, and instantly wishes she hadn't. The frigid liquid makes her want to gag on her own lungs and run screaming into the nearest warm bed. She makes no sound.
'I wonder if he remembers us?'
"You wonder about too many things."
'Do I?'
"Yes, you do. The mark, and his mark, are no longer maters of concern. we are alive, he is not. That is the way of things."
The Captain forces herself to look at her opposite side, almost mirroring the contour of the old wound, a black serpent coils around her-- its tail starting at her upper thigh, rapping around to her back, and ending on her shoulder. She had been such a child to get it.
'Do I indeed?'
Again the young woman does not answer. His mark had been a gift for completion of her first mission. The first real mission she had ever run. The first time she had truly proven herself to be of the Declared. What a pity the captain himself was no longer around to see where she had gone.
'Lost in time, in the company of rogues, on the outside of Agency control. How we have moved on from his watchful eyes, haven't we?'
"If you have a point, make it. If you have none, be silent."
'A point indeed my dear. We are declared, we are Agent, we are Duty, and it must all be fulfilled.'
"And I presume that you are taking me on the duty I must fulfil?"
'That we are. But be ready, for we can not complete the task alone. It is alone, in your hands."
He had himself been a captain then. Much like her, a simple political officer, placed in the odd situation of doing more than just observe and record. Quite a pity he had had to go in such a disrespectful way. A son, a Wife she could have replaced-- a whole family left alone in a split second. Life was cruel. Life was under the rule of traitors' mines and dissidents' bombs.
'Are you ready?'
"Lets go."
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