Medical
Oren Fae'Tayor was a poor soldier, even in his youth. His hair grew fast and hung long, his eyes were not keen in the bright of day, and his shoulders sloped flat like the span of a Fvaii's back. When Dalon and Maiek would rush the banks of the Ra'tleihfi where it cut their land, he retreated from them, jumped through brush and bramble and fell back to familiar halls. His defenses, broad rocks and thick sticks gathered over tedious hours, lay forgotten and left to the other boys in his wake.
When confronted, Oren would take refuge in the depths of the forge. Wrapped tightly in slatted shade and warm haze, he would wait until Naele came to retrieve him. She mocked him, endlessly, with her greater strength and keen wits. Her words were hard, her motions and statements unforgiving. Umhie ahrva umhi. Hers was the warrior's will, ch'Gehka ssaed, like his grandfather, like his father, but not like him.
Ch'Allkha ssaed, she joked. It struck him as his dismissal from the service was finalized. His freedom came with the flavor of Naele's honor. khre'Arrain in three years, gone off world before Oren was conscripted. Though he met many at the academy, none were sufficient. Only in Mnaeha was the sting of disarmament reduced.
Mandana.
She was all brightness and flush, gold and vivid orange hair. Her voice was flickering and she moved with the even grace of cutting flame. She held onto Ael, jumped in his updraft, and Oren drew her close, mindful of her sparking. She was tempering and her light resounded through the slatted shade of Mnaeha, glittering like a forge-lamp.
His hand tensed, a shock of reality in the calm warmth of reminiscience.
He couldn't feel her heat against his face, not as she sparkled in jade, nor as she danced with him above the water. Eisn dipped beneath the hard waters of Mnaeha and the summer breeze brought her higher, kept her dancing even as he tumbled down around her.
He never stopped tumbling, her flame honing him sharper than he'd been in his life. With Ael between them, hands intertwined, Naele pronounced them all foolish Allkha and primed the holo-capture. Her hands were harder, but her words were soft, and she struck Oren across the shoulder-friendly bloodshed to seal his decisions, she taunted. Mandana struck her back, and he laughed, free and crashing as Mnaeha wind and the splash of waves.
D'anna.
His chest jerked, the cold rumbling through his lungs, and his eyes parted to dim amber lights. His shoulder stung, as he lurched onto his side, rolling away from the crushing sensation grinding down against him. His lungs sloshed, drier than he remembered, and he swallowed hard. Fingers parted, moved, and he drew them up across the table.
Dead?
His eyes searched the halflight, ears twisted the silence into a cacophany of nothingness. His mind ticked back and a blank face carded across his vision--Pae'Oren. The dreams had crowded his throat and breath slowly shuddered out of him again. The pain in his chest was digging, twisting--Spock.
“Spock.” The word ground metallic against the walls, it tumbled like gravel and sand away from him as he pushed himself up on weary arms. His legs were hard as he slung them over the table, they clattered loud as he rose. His weight rocked, sent him forward against the wall, and his teeth shone sharp as he bore them. He drew breath to shout, to pour rage and green through the void in his throat, but his lungs seared and contracted against him. He coughed hard, slung against the wall like a dead weight, and forced himself away, to the cracked comm panel beside the bed.
“Ayel,” Nero hissed as his palm blindly depressed the speakers. The walls cracked with his voice, sputtered half static as the doors echoed it. “Hallh'na!”