Meeting for the First Time Again

Posted on Wed Jul 29th, 2026 @ 5:03am by Ensign Siat-or-iian Elkovais & Lieutenant JG Alexander Mayweather

2,537 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: ARYL 1X04: All the Friends We Can Get
Location: Ship's Lounge

Alex sat at his table along the wall, sitting comfortably on a padded bench seat, arms folded, chin resting on them, staring at the toaster-sized wooden box in front of him. He was occasionally sneaking some popcorn into his mouth, or taking a sip of his drink, but other than that his attention was fairly focused. That focus was briefly broken, however, when a shadow fell over the box. He blinked and looked up as he realized someone was in front of him, and saw a familiar pair of amethyst orbs. "Ensign Tails," he said, grinning. "Fancy seeing you here."

The green and black uniform of Torii’s security outfit was a counter to those purple hued eyes as she’d set down in front of him and his box, a bag of something in one manicured-clawed hand and a drink in her other, “Well, you know how it is, Lieutenant, “Getting off duty, grabbing something to snack on in the lounge, sometimes even we diligent security types get to do it.” The tip of one tail flirted back and forth in the humor of the moment, “You don’t mind if I join you, I hope?”

"Please," he said, gesturing to the chair beside him. "How have you been feeling?" he said.

“A hundred percent after I got a good night’s sleep!” she said cheerfully, swapping to the seat next to him, “The quartermaster’s ripped me a new one though, said that if I ever bring him a set of leggings that torn up again that he’d never issue me another set. I know he was joking, but still..” She sighed, “Needless to say, my natural charm won him over and he issued me two additional sets, so all is good. Everyone else in sickbay doing good?”

"Yeah, thankfully things have calmed down now that everyone's back. We're starting to settle back into our routines," Alex said, glancing back at his box and poking at one of the symbols on the top.

Torii’s ears flickered around as if sampling any ongoing conversations before settling onto the box in front of them, then the left ear half-cocked to the side, forward but down, “What’s this?” She asked tentatively, the left ear quivering in place, “If I may ask, that is, I know some things people want to keep private and all.”

"This, is an official Karl Zimmerman puzzle box. This one's called Schicksaltruhe," he said.

The ear perked back forward again to focus on the box, listening for anything that could come in handy, "I've never heard of him, not that it's an uncommon situation with human names." She smiled, "It's rather pretty, the box."

"He's a master wood-worker on Gault," Alex said. "I've seen some of his bigger pieces. This one's pretty small, but it's all I could afford right now. I hear his custom pieces are amazing." He examined the box, turning it slowly. "The hard part is figuring out where to start with it." He left it sitting in front of him. "Obviously the Z in the middle stands for Zimmerman." He looked at the compass rose and the symbols on it: a snowflake, a rabbit, a pumpkin and a tree. "Not sure of the symbolism for the rest, though."

Torii looked at it from a slight angle and pursed her lips as she studied it, "Rabbits are prey animals and are known on Earth for coming out in the spring... A snowflake could symbolize winter snow, which would make the tree as summer, but that squash right there? I wouldn't understand why that would be autumn."

"On Earth, a pumpkin is an autumn vegetable," Alex said, thinking. "The question is, what do the seasons have to do with it?"

Suddenly her eyes lit up as something that had been bothering her hit, "I'm not sure that 'Z' stands for Zimmerman." She pointed at the spikes from the center, "Those remind me of a compass, but there's no 'Z' in compass and what it looks like is a sideways 'N'. N goes to North." She reached out to touch the box, but stopped short, withdrawing the fingers and claws for him.

He gestured to the box. "By all means," he said. "Give it a shot."

She reached out and tried to turn the 'N' right ways up, it took a bit of effort, but it worked. Still, nothing happened or seemed to happen at least.

He frowned and looked over the icons again. "If it's now indicating North," he said, "like the pole, which is cold..." he pressed on the snowflake, and the medallion at the center popped out completely.

"But what do we do with that?" Torii asked, looked around the sides of the box as much as she could without turning it, tail tips twitching and ears half-flattened, but still forward in consternation.

"Well, I'd guess if we place it in the right spot, it'll activate something," Alex said.

She reached out and picked up the medallion, spotting the magnet that was attached to the bottom, showing it to him before holding it between clawtips and moving it around the side of the box facing her. In the upper right corner, there was the slightest little 'click' and her ears perked forward full once more as she reached around the back to where one of the gold rivet studs had popped out. She pulled it, extracting a key, and handed it to him, "Your turn, I think."

Alex looked at the opposite side of the box where he'd seen a small hole earlier, and inserted the thin, gold key, turning it and looking down in surprise as the front side of the box facing him swung open on a hidden hinge. The door obscured Torri's view but he leaned down and looked inside. His face went through two or three emotions before he reached inside, moving his hand around and then withdrawing. "It's empty," he said, sounding confused.

Curiosity was evident on Torii’s face, ears twitching ever so slightly as she’d sat in anticipation, then drooping slightly in disappointment at the pronouncement, “I suppose that there doesn’t always have to be something hidden?”

He sighed and put his hands in his pockets dejectedly. "Well, maybe it's a metaphor? Your destiny isn't written yet and--" he sat up and grinned, pulling his hands back out to pick up the box. "That's it, it's like a time capsule. You put something inside you want for the future," he said, excitedly.

“Wait!” Torii reached up and carefully removed the double bar decoration from her hair, causing her bangs to fall down in front of her face, partially obscuring one of her eyes, then reached it out to him, “A search without a treasure just feels wrong, so whoever opens it now, will have this. Even if it’s you again.”

Alex took the hairclip in his left hand, his right hand falling below the table. "No, I couldn't take this from you, that wouldn't be right, he said, holding it up to examine it. "Are you sure you want to part with something so nice?"

“It’s all right, this one was from my Vantrell, my first time off planet.” Torii smiled fondly, remembering when her father had given it to her as a kit, “These are typically given to a vix on special occasions, so I have several of them in my quarters. I just need to keep this out of my face until I get back there. This is a special occasion, solving a problem with a friend."

He put his hands together over the clip and smiled at her. "That's very generous of you," he said. "Thank you." He put his hand over the opening and a metal-on-wood 'clink' was heard before he closed the door. He took the key and relocked it, then pushed the key back into it's hidey-hole. He replaced the magnet and set it back to a Z. He looked at her and got a wry smile. "Actually, I know how to make this fair." He slid the box to her. "You hold onto the box, keep it hidden somewhere, and we'll dig it out and open it again when the time is right."

Her ears bent slightly and a curious look crossed her face. “That sounds like an interesting idea. This way you don’t feel like you’re taking something from me and gives us a reason to revisit this another time.” One ear came back up, the other went down and to the side. “I think it’s a grand idea! I promise I won’t open it again until we find a special occasion to bring it back out.”

"Perfect," Alex said, smiling. He pushed his bowl of popcorn towards her to share. "Although, I should say, the way your hair is now is pretty becoming. Although, I'm guessing it goes against regulations."

“Only if we’re on duty, but I’m not in your chain of command.” Torii’s ears flicked briefly to the sides before coming back forward and reached up to brush the errant hair out of her face before snagging a few kernels of the popcorn with her claws, popping them one at a time into her mouth, “I’ll take it as the compliment you meant,” Two tail tips flickered as well now.

"Good," Alex said, eyebrows popping up as a thought struck him. "I meant to ask, by the way, your name didn't come up in my files as 'Torii'. I'm assuming Torii is a nickname-slash-abbreviation?"

A partial swivel of her ears before they came forward once more, “Torii is what my people refer to as my core name, you could call it a nickname if you wish, my full name is Siat-or-iian.” The way she said it made it sound more like a growl, it just was spoken faster, but Torii was still audible, just.

"So, if I may ask, how do you pronounce it?" he said, genuinely curious.

Torii smiled with several of her clearly predatory teeth, “A bit fast for you right? We usually only use it when speaking Fenrian, so it does get hard to pick up.” She cleared her throat and spoke slower and far more clearly, “Shi-aht-our-ee-yawn,” the ‘R’ was clearly rolled off the tongue, the then said it again with the faster version as well, then again at ‘normal’ speed, “Siat-or-iian.” Then looked at him expectantly with a smile.

"Shi-aht-our-ee-yawn," he said, slowly, rolling his 'R' in a similar manner. He tried one more time, then said it together. "Siat-or-iian," he said. It wasn't perfect, he could tell, but he figured not bad for a first try. "I'll have to practice a bit more," he said, smiling.

“You will, and I’ve got no doubt you’ll get it right, but that’s why we don’t use the full name away from Fenria.” Torii patted him gently on the hand, “Don’t want to end up hunting down and biting everyone that gets our names wrong, do we?”

"Uh no, that would be bad," Alex said. "I'll make sure not to add your dialect to my gibberish list."

"Good boy." She rubbed his hand gently, "What's your gibberish list?"

He gave a small smile. "I...it's this dumb party trick I do," he said. "I haven't learned a lot of languages, but I've learned some basic phrases, phonemes, et cetera, and I can sound like I'm speaking it. V'tosh ka'tur aishan nagau nam-tor ko-ka-ashausu," he said in a smooth, Vulcan dialect. "Et Ushaan-tor nal eshu kesh'an rill, he added matter-of-factly in upper-class Andorian. "And I mean that all from the heart," he grinned.

She rolled her eyes, her ears flicking to the sides and flattening fully, "I'd not do that around the Captain or any other Vulcans or Andorians, not unless you're looking for a diplomatic incident. Or for them to think you're really dumb." The ears came up most of the way, "And definitely don't add Fenrian to it, not around anyone other than me. Most of us get a little touchy."

"Eh, you'd be surprised how a convincing accent and a slur gets you written off as just a drunk who isn't worth the trouble," he said, grinning. "But I'll do my best to not do it with your language. If it helps, I don't know enough to really fake it." He gave a cheeky grin. "Of course, if I do annoy you, I know exactly how to soothe you."

"You don't dare do that in public!" Torii leaned in and hissed, eyes darting around as those fluffy ears went back and down against her head, "Don't even say it in public or else everyone's going to want to touch them."

He leaned in, his nose almost touching her smudged, twitching one. "Suggestion?" he whispered. "If you want to keep something a secret from a room full of people, best not to draw attention to the thing you want to keep secret, then imply how to do it." He rubbed noses with her teasingly and sat back.

She reared back, her cheeks flushing red at the touch of noses, her eyes opened wide. He didn't know, he couldn't have known, no, this was a mistake. She looked down as her ears seemed to go berserk for a moment, then settled down, "I can't cut them off, you know." She finally stated after what felt like forever but couldn't have been more than a couple or three seconds, "A Feixeian without her ears is....bad. Without her tails?" She shook her head quickly.

"I would never ask you to do either," he said, amused at how cute her scrunching her nose was, but concerned how bothered she was. "I promise."

"Good, because I've seen others without their tails..." Her ears drooped, "Poor tailless bastards.. Can't walk straight anymore." She sighed, picking up the box but definitely keeping her distance without being offensive, "I should probably get back to my quarters, it may be a busy day tomorrow."

Alex nodded, knowing a faux pas when he saw one. He felt a bit bad about it, but could tell she didn't want him airing it out more. "Well, it was nice seeing you. Hope to do so again," he said.

Torii nodded, making herself slowly stand from the table and take a step back, her ears flickering around to make sure no one was paying attention to them, "Of course. Maybe we could... Meet up somewhere else soon...ish? Where there are fewer ears?"

Alex brightened a bit. "Sure, how about next Tuesday evening? There's a quiet game room on deck seven, just off the rec lounge. Not many people use it. 1900 hours work for you?"

Tails twitching in unison with one another, Torii thought about it, then nodded, "I think that would be all right. Casual dress, no uniforms, nothing official, right?" She got a nod in return, "Then nineteen hundred it is. I'll see you then." Then she made a tactical retreat, certainly she wasn't running away. No. Not at all.

 

RSS Feed