Rubedo

Posted on Tue Jan 26, 2016 @ 1:04am by Lieutenant Cassandra Kennings & Lieutenant Nicole Anderson

2,086 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: The Fall
Location: Cassandra's Office
Timeline: Same afternoon as "Everything is About to Change"

Cassandra was on her hands and knees drawing on her floor with a large piece of white chalk. She'd always loved the smell of chalk. One of her town's schoolteachers actually used an ancient board and chalk to write out notes each day. She'd walk right up to the board and inhale while she read, taking in the scent.

Her teacher would have been proud of her work. It was a simple geometric design: a circle, inside a square, inside a triangle, inside a circle. She stood up and brushed her hands off on her dress and put her chalk down on her desk, grabbing two, tall, full-length mirrors and placing them carefully on the opposite edges of the outer circle.

As she got them in position, her chime rang. "Come in," she said.

As the doors opened, Nicole sauntered in. "What do you want?"

"And hello to you too," Cassandra said. "I want you to engage in a little more therapy. It's been some time since our last session."

Nicole sighed. "Cass is this really necessary? I'm fine. I haven't lost my temper...more than usual, and I'm sleeping well. I'm where I need to be."

"You're where you think you want to be, but that doesn't make it where you need to be," Cass said, coming over to Nicole and taking her by the shoulders, steering her towards the drawing on the floor and putting her in the middle of the center circle, facing the mirrors.

"And where do you think I should be?" Nicole said, folding her arms and looking at the mirror frames, not quite looking at her reflection.

"Remember our time in Rome?" Cass said.

Nicole shrugged. "I remember the assassination plot, the execution squad, the Emperor--"

"The thief who held a knife to your throat," Cass finished. "Back then you were willing to do what was necessary to protect yourself, and your shipmates."

"I was willing to kill, you mean," Nicole said. "You want to send me back to that point?"

"I want to get you to a point where you aren't afraid of who you are," Cassandra said, coming around beside her. "So long as you're continuing to avoid it, continuing to be afraid of it, you'll never master it. When you had your moment, you split that part of yourself off. It's time to reintegrate it."

Nicole sighed. "And if I choose not to?"

"Then you'll never feel like yourself again. You'll always feel something's missing, and you'll always be a slave to your fear," Cass said frankly.

"Lay it on thick, Cass," Nicole said, dryly.

"I will," Cassandra said. She looked at Nicole wearily. "Now, I have the next hour free, so I am going to take a nap, and you are going to speak with a friend." She flicked her wrist and a ball of violet energy appeared over her palm. She gripped it, wound up, and leaned back, then pitched it softball style at the mirrors. Immediately upon impact, they began to move as if traveling along a track around the outer circle. Another flick, another windup, another pitch striking the second mirror and their speed increased.

Nicole watched them pass by, getting strobe-like glimpses of her reflection and of Cassandra standing there. As the mirrors moved faster, they began to blend and she was able to see herself. As they finally spun so fast she could stand there and properly see herself, she looked more carefully at her reflection. One moment it seemed to show her normal reflection, then suddenly looked like her when transformed.

Her eyes narrowed, as did her reflection. She'd never really looked at it properly before. Her hair looked all right curled, but the blood-red eyes were disturbing to her. Her fangs were just showing over her lower lip, and she was wearing her old League-issued, form-fitting, commando-style uniform, her Starfleet rank and League insignia standing out, reminding her of a time that had defined so much of her life after the academy.

She stepped a bit closer, as did her reflection. She'd never seen her reflection look upset before. Angry, enraged, murderous, but never curious and with trembling lip like she had. It almost made her forget the monster she was looking at. She reached out and tried to touch her reflection, her mirror image doing the same. As their fingers met at the mirror, a violet spark leaped out and Nicole's hand recoiled, and she clutched it to her protectively. She looked up and her reflection was doing the same, looking like a wounded animal. Nicole briefly felt pity for her, then realized she was thinking about her own reflection and rolled her eyes. Her reflection did likewise and they crossed their arms, her reflection huffing in annoyance.

Nicole paused and stared at her reflection wide-eyed, her reflection staring back at her. *I didn't sigh...* Nicole thought. She took a step closer to the mirror, and her reflection did the same, sharing her expression of confusion and suspicion. "Okay...." they said together. Nicole rubbed her eyes. "Cass! What is the point of this?"

"To get in touch with yourself, I guess," her voice said from in front of her.

Nicole froze and looked over her fingers. Her reflection wasn't rubbing her eyes, she was still standing with her arms folded and a very annoyed, very familiar expression. "Maybe so you can apologize for all the hurt you've given me."

"Hurt I have given you?" Nicole scoffed. "Who the hell do you think you are?"

"I'm you, idiot," her reflection said in the same snide voice Nicole reserved for people who tried her patience. "And I have had to listen to nothing but you badmouthing me. Like I haven't saved your ass more times than you want to admit."

"You've killed more times than I want to admit," Nicole said. "How about that Roman thief?"

"The one who was going to slit our throat?" her reflection said.

"You could have let him go," Nicole said.

"You could have stopped me," her reflections sassed. "What about that Romulan centurion who had Amber hostage?"

"It was him or us, we didn't have a choice," Nicole said. "But you know very well there were times we didn't have to."

"What about Gerald?" her reflection said, and Nicole visibly tensed.

"He was going to kill us all. He had control of the ship..." she said quietly.

"He had two broken legs and internal bleeding," her reflection said, heatedly. "He could barely crawl away. He was no threat, but he spit at you, and you couldn't let that go, and you used me."

"I didn't use you, I just--" she stopped and put her hands to her head. "This is insane. I'm arguing with my reflection."

"How do you think I feel?" her reflection said, indignation all over her face. "You're not just arguing with it, you're blaming it. You know where you get all that piss and vinegar from? Me. You know how you've stayed so strong? Me. You know what's held you together when you're pulling yourself apart over me? Ironically, me. So what the guv-tvi-rivak is your problem?"

"My problem is I can't trust you not to fly off the handle and kill everyone in sight!" Nicole shouted. "I can't trust you won't be a monster."

"Do I look like a monster?" her reflection said. "I mean, honestly. Was I made the same way those Leeches were? Do I wake up at night wanting to kill? Do you spend your days wondering how your staff tastes?"

Nicole made a disgusted face. "Of course not. I'm not the monster between us."

"Oh really," her reflection said, raising an eyebrow. "How many times have you "let me out" to do your dirty work, then condemn me for it? If that isn't horrible, what is?"

Nicole folded her arms. "And what of that janitor?"

Her reflection raised both eyebrows. "He was in the way," she said in a sniffy voice.

"See? That is the problem I have with you! No remorse for anyone!" Nicole shouted, exasperated with herself, literally and figuratively. She and her reflection approached each other quickly, standing toe-to-toe. "He was innocent and we butchered him."

"He was one of the enemy," her reflection said. "Part of a group who would have dissected our corpse if we'd been there much longer."

"You killed an entire base," Nicole said.

"I stopped everyone who had knowledge of our physiology from passing on that information," her reflected shot back. "And in the process acquired what we needed to survivie."

"We didn't need that man," Nicole said. "He was no one, he was a janitor, an old man with a family--"

"Who worked in a building where atrocities were committed!" her reflection shouted back at her. "Perhaps he only swept their floors, but he worked there. He had knowledge of the goings on and he did nothing to stop it, he was as guilty as the rest. You want to stand there and pretend he was some innocent soul who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but we both know the truth: he deserved to die. You want to hate me for what we did? You go right ahead. But while you're busy putting yourself on that pedestal, make sure to look down at the blood on your hands, because it's just as bright red as on mine!"

Nicole was stunned to silence. She stood there, mouth agape, watching her own reflection lecture her, and hating every true word of it. She drew herself up and rallied what righteous anger she had left. "So we--that is to say, I--should be judge, jury and executioner for everyone I think is a bad person?"

"Yes," her reflection said, folding her arms smugly. "If you are in danger, or someone you love is in danger, you should do whatever it takes to protect them."

"I don't want to kill anyone!" Nicole shouted.

"Neither do I!" her reflection shouted back, matching her fist-clenched pose. "The difference is, I'm not afraid to do it if I have to!"

They were both staring down each other, ice blue eyes staring into blood red. "I can't let you run amok," Nicole said.

"You never did," her reflection said.

"Fine," Nicole said. They both folded their arms. "So now what?" they said together.

Nicole shrugged and looked around, seeing herself from other angles within the mirrored circle. She looked back in front of her, but now her reflection was back to normal. Her uniform back to Starfleet standard, and her eyes blue again.

"Okay," she said, "I get the point." She still felt conflicted inside, but at least she was being honest with herself. At least, that's what Cass would probably say.

Truth be told, she felt better. She had spent a good part of her career being put to work because of her condition, and while she had never wanted to kill, she had frequently found herself having to. *And that's the point,* she said to herself, *I have to, they want to.*

She put her hands on her hips and looked at her cage. She could still see herself from every angle and was becoming annoyed, although she secretly did appreciate she was keeping in shape. But that appreciation gave way to irritation when she realized she was stuck there and couldn't get out. She tried to see if the mirrors were slowing and when no gap presented itself, she finally crouched down, her eyes glowing red as her muscles strengthened and tightened. She sprang up hard, leaping up and forward, over the circle of mirrors, landing in a corner of Cassandra's office and spinning around.

The mirrors were at a dead stop, and the office was dark and silent. Almost silent. Nicole heard the soft, gentle sound of rushing air, the sound of someone breathing deeply.

She looked through the darkness to see Cassandra curled up on her couch, the jewel in her headband a dark blue, barely shining. *Oh, bless, she's exhausted,* Nicole thought, frowning. She knelt down and kissed her friends head and grabbed a blanket that was covering the back of Cassandra's couch, draping it over her.

She stood up straight and walked out of Cassandra's office, her eyes flashing red for a brief instant, and her mind set and determined never to have to come back.


JP


Cassandra Sanders
Ship's Counselor

Nicole Anderson
CMO

 

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