Insist
Used in a sentence.
If you are going to insist upon
Not using your AIM, I can and
Will arbitrarily create canon.
Na-na-na.
==-==-==-==
Horatio receives so many comms each and every day that she hardly spares any one of them a fraction of a second. The entire point of having her biological functions so viciously, heavily augmented is to ensure that things like this never happen. Two thoughts cross her mind, in the nearly half a minute of total silence in her office.
The first is that Kira looks utterly terrified and it's an ugly expression.
The second is staunch refusal. No words, no real qualities at all. Just complete and utter rejection.
When it has become obvious that her captain will not, Kira speaks. "What does it say?"
"How do you know about that?" Horatio replies, her voice uncomfortably tight. Kira is a mind reader, yes, but hardly a well established one.
"I don't have to probe to know that look. Your hair has gone white. Who sent it, and what does it say?"
"It's from... It's from the Genetics Center. On Tamaranth."
For the briefest moment, Kira looks utterly bewildered. Then, realization settles. Horatio is no longer a citizen of the Former Empire of Tamaranth, even if she bears its name appended to her own. They wouldn't contact her at all. Why waste the resources trying to get an interstellar message out when she's got no business to conduct with them. She shouldn't even be on their records any more.
Except, of course, she is on their records. She is the Next of Kin.
"Which one?"
"Emmett. But, Theodosia has signed the waiver. She's decided to go with him, even though she's got three years left." The flinch is hard to hide. Three years, in local time no less, is nearly nothing. But for Theodosia to reject it so fiercely and entirely... There is a pang someone where in the back of her mind that Horatio forces aside. She doesn't understand that decision, and doesn't understand how she could ever sympathize. After all, unlike her, her parents are short-lived and stupid. "I won't go."
The response is exactly what she'd expected. Kira's nostrils flare and her eyes widen even as her brows knit together. It isn't a look of shock, oh no. It is the wild focus of an enraged drow noble who is watching her commanding officer blatantly disregard protocol for no reason.
Horatio has seen the expression, though it was never directed personally at her.
At any rate, it is impossibly insulting to Kira's sensibilities that she would disregard family in such a fashion. But, then again, the entire culture of the post-collapse Tamaranthan people disturbs her ferociously. Letting their entire lives be dictated by some amalgam of magic and technology that should have given out generations ago, that has no intelligence or adaptability...
"You will go."
Horatio is reminded brutally of a time when she would have folded under that glare. A time when she was captain of the Arjuna in name, but not in spirit. "I will not." In those days, it would have sounded like a petty retort. Now, it is a decree.
Kira seems startled by it, her ferocity wilts like leaves in a kettle.
"I'll make you, Horatio. I've done it before, and I will do it again."
The technologist shrugged lightly. "You have my permission to try. I don't expect it to work, but if you want to delude yourself... A distraction from the doldrums we find ourselves in would be a good thing."
Kira is too composed to storm out at such a barb. Instead, her face falls back into it's proper facade, and she turns the conversation back to the topic at hand. "If they continue to claim that your trick was in no way related to the Sombreii's escape,"
==-==-==-==
The last week has utterly reeked of mutiny. If it weren't for the fact that the loyalty of her crew was at this point completely beyond question, Horatio would have thrown them all planetside for the betrayal.
Marjya had taken her aside for nearly an hour, held at bay by Dairine's disconcerting metal manipulating abilities being focused on her wings. The Therian had attempted to talk with Horatio about grief counseling and the importance of closure before switching tactics and talking at her about the dangers of upsetting everyone on the Arjuna. Particularly when they had someone like Kira to lead the charge.
Panya's persuasive technique had been the same as his technique for... anything else. In the world. Lips and wrists both bruised, Horatio had wasted no time in convincing every possible surface of the Arjuna that it wanted to become statically charged, and that this charged liked the mousey Therian best. By the time she was done, the electricity was positively ecstatic about the idea of hugging Panya.
Kira's tactic was to ignore her. It was simple, and it was painfully effective.
Amoritia seemed, for once in her over-concerned life, to have better things to do. Those things seemed to involve an increasing amount of sleep.
The breaking point had been when the Ktsvara family beseeched her. They were... miserable. It was utterly disturbing, but what could be expected from the tales of wartime refugees.
The trio had lost everything they had ever known. Not just their own family and friends, but their entire world. They had been forced to stand by in total silence while everything around them crumbled. Buildings, systems, their entire government fell to dust. They pled with such wanton wretchedness that Horatio found herself trapped, forced to listen.
The little lost humans would have given anything, up to and including their very lives, to see those killed before them just once more. Not even Gwen, youngest and most naive of the three, believed in any afterlife. But still, they would be willing to pay that impossible price in trade for a brief snatch of missed time.
Looking into their fierce and frightened faces, she knew that they neither lied nor exaggerated. She had done the same, once. Even now, she could barely comprehend what forgotten events would cause her to feel such force of emotion, but she dared not risk losing herself to that tide again.
"Please?" Koana had asked, arms wrapped around the smaller body of her sister. "Let them know you care, still. Like we didn't."
Throughout it all, Avola had stood silent, his masculine pride somehow unmarred by the tracks of tears along his cheeks. Like Horatio, he hardly felt any love for those around him. But, unlike her, his stance came from a loss of unimaginable depth.
"Go and rest. The computers can handle running tests without you today. Tomorrow we'll start for Tamaranth."
==-==-==
Part Two
If you are going to insist upon
Not using your AIM, I can and
Will arbitrarily create canon.
Na-na-na.
==-==-==-==
Horatio receives so many comms each and every day that she hardly spares any one of them a fraction of a second. The entire point of having her biological functions so viciously, heavily augmented is to ensure that things like this never happen. Two thoughts cross her mind, in the nearly half a minute of total silence in her office.
The first is that Kira looks utterly terrified and it's an ugly expression.
The second is staunch refusal. No words, no real qualities at all. Just complete and utter rejection.
When it has become obvious that her captain will not, Kira speaks. "What does it say?"
"How do you know about that?" Horatio replies, her voice uncomfortably tight. Kira is a mind reader, yes, but hardly a well established one.
"I don't have to probe to know that look. Your hair has gone white. Who sent it, and what does it say?"
"It's from... It's from the Genetics Center. On Tamaranth."
For the briefest moment, Kira looks utterly bewildered. Then, realization settles. Horatio is no longer a citizen of the Former Empire of Tamaranth, even if she bears its name appended to her own. They wouldn't contact her at all. Why waste the resources trying to get an interstellar message out when she's got no business to conduct with them. She shouldn't even be on their records any more.
Except, of course, she is on their records. She is the Next of Kin.
"Which one?"
"Emmett. But, Theodosia has signed the waiver. She's decided to go with him, even though she's got three years left." The flinch is hard to hide. Three years, in local time no less, is nearly nothing. But for Theodosia to reject it so fiercely and entirely... There is a pang someone where in the back of her mind that Horatio forces aside. She doesn't understand that decision, and doesn't understand how she could ever sympathize. After all, unlike her, her parents are short-lived and stupid. "I won't go."
The response is exactly what she'd expected. Kira's nostrils flare and her eyes widen even as her brows knit together. It isn't a look of shock, oh no. It is the wild focus of an enraged drow noble who is watching her commanding officer blatantly disregard protocol for no reason.
Horatio has seen the expression, though it was never directed personally at her.
At any rate, it is impossibly insulting to Kira's sensibilities that she would disregard family in such a fashion. But, then again, the entire culture of the post-collapse Tamaranthan people disturbs her ferociously. Letting their entire lives be dictated by some amalgam of magic and technology that should have given out generations ago, that has no intelligence or adaptability...
"You will go."
Horatio is reminded brutally of a time when she would have folded under that glare. A time when she was captain of the Arjuna in name, but not in spirit. "I will not." In those days, it would have sounded like a petty retort. Now, it is a decree.
Kira seems startled by it, her ferocity wilts like leaves in a kettle.
"I'll make you, Horatio. I've done it before, and I will do it again."
The technologist shrugged lightly. "You have my permission to try. I don't expect it to work, but if you want to delude yourself... A distraction from the doldrums we find ourselves in would be a good thing."
Kira is too composed to storm out at such a barb. Instead, her face falls back into it's proper facade, and she turns the conversation back to the topic at hand. "If they continue to claim that your trick was in no way related to the Sombreii's escape,"
==-==-==-==
The last week has utterly reeked of mutiny. If it weren't for the fact that the loyalty of her crew was at this point completely beyond question, Horatio would have thrown them all planetside for the betrayal.
Marjya had taken her aside for nearly an hour, held at bay by Dairine's disconcerting metal manipulating abilities being focused on her wings. The Therian had attempted to talk with Horatio about grief counseling and the importance of closure before switching tactics and talking at her about the dangers of upsetting everyone on the Arjuna. Particularly when they had someone like Kira to lead the charge.
Panya's persuasive technique had been the same as his technique for... anything else. In the world. Lips and wrists both bruised, Horatio had wasted no time in convincing every possible surface of the Arjuna that it wanted to become statically charged, and that this charged liked the mousey Therian best. By the time she was done, the electricity was positively ecstatic about the idea of hugging Panya.
Kira's tactic was to ignore her. It was simple, and it was painfully effective.
Amoritia seemed, for once in her over-concerned life, to have better things to do. Those things seemed to involve an increasing amount of sleep.
The breaking point had been when the Ktsvara family beseeched her. They were... miserable. It was utterly disturbing, but what could be expected from the tales of wartime refugees.
The trio had lost everything they had ever known. Not just their own family and friends, but their entire world. They had been forced to stand by in total silence while everything around them crumbled. Buildings, systems, their entire government fell to dust. They pled with such wanton wretchedness that Horatio found herself trapped, forced to listen.
The little lost humans would have given anything, up to and including their very lives, to see those killed before them just once more. Not even Gwen, youngest and most naive of the three, believed in any afterlife. But still, they would be willing to pay that impossible price in trade for a brief snatch of missed time.
Looking into their fierce and frightened faces, she knew that they neither lied nor exaggerated. She had done the same, once. Even now, she could barely comprehend what forgotten events would cause her to feel such force of emotion, but she dared not risk losing herself to that tide again.
"Please?" Koana had asked, arms wrapped around the smaller body of her sister. "Let them know you care, still. Like we didn't."
Throughout it all, Avola had stood silent, his masculine pride somehow unmarred by the tracks of tears along his cheeks. Like Horatio, he hardly felt any love for those around him. But, unlike her, his stance came from a loss of unimaginable depth.
"Go and rest. The computers can handle running tests without you today. Tomorrow we'll start for Tamaranth."
==-==-==
Part Two