Seeing Ghosts

Posted on Tue May 12th, 2020 @ 9:46pm by Lieutenant Commander Estella Stratton

Mission: Unto Darkness, Light
Location: Counselor's Quarters
Timeline: Unto Darkness, Light

Alone in the solitude of her room, the counselor could no longer escape it. The feelings she'd bottled up and hidden away from others. Emotions too that the counselor would not be able to conceal much longer either as clearly others were beginning to take notice of that gnawing feeling of regret.

The kind that was born of both the past and present. The deepest regrets though were spawned from moments of inaction, times in which perhaps the counselor questioned that if she had done something else, the outcome might have changed. Then, those that ravaged her mind and plagued her conscience were years past. Ones she knew better than to dwell on.

So why now? It might have been the timing. Then, so much had happened too over the last ten months.

A cup of hot black rose tea in hand, Estella sat at the foot of her bed. Her thoughts on a number of things. One of those being the recent away mission. She had not lied in regards of the resilience she'd seen during their survey. If there was anything all life forms seemed to share, it was this unspoken strength. The kind that only manifested when tested.

She closed her eyes and inhaled the sweet floral aroma. The scent offered no comfort. Nor did it banish the memories of what the Romulans had done. Of their deceit or the price they had made the Strattons pay.

What prices had the survivors paid? How many of them were lost in the mist of all the chaos after the Borg? How many of them had to face the fear of assimilation and put the broken pieces of their former selves back together?

Perhaps that was what it was. The knowledge of all that they had overcome and the price perhaps at which it had come.

"Yes, that has to be it," Estella whispered before blowing on her tea and bringing the cup up to her lips.