The Struggles

Posted on Wed Apr 2nd, 2025 @ 12:09pm by Dodai Yaari & Indigo (*)

Mission: Shackles
Location: Personal Quarters, The Thrai
2379 words - 4.8 OF Standard Post Measure

Ever since Dodai had mentioned that she had not been mediating Indigo had been grumpily trying to prove him wrong but she was starting to think her equilibrium would never return. She had knew until her bonded had come back into life what she wanted and needed which was fixing the universe but the fact he had come back to save her from something was not settling right with her.

She hated that the man might be right about her which was why she was stood over his bed and nudged him awake. She knew he had been on night shift but she was sure that he would be okay with her waking him up and if he was not he would soon tell to go away for a few hours.

If anything, sleeping in a bed, albeit a slightly cramped bunk aboard and even more cramped spaceship, wasn't really Dodai's preference. Depending on the climate, he was far better suited to the lazy swing of a summer's hammock or the bundle of furs in the corner of a yurt, and there was something a little ridiculous about the way his bulk had to fold into the space. Even flat on his back, he struggled to stretch out to full length, and so perhaps it was simply a lack of comfort that prompted him to rouse almost immediately, as if to admit he'd barely been asleep at all. Then again, he had a habit of resting with eyes closed and senses on full alert. With his arm draped across his forehead, he at least looked peaceful, and the deep rumble of his eventual response was gentle despite its drowsy gruffness.

"I either didn't do it or I can explain." One eye cracked open. "Take your pick."

Well at least his sense of humour was still in tact despite the fact he obviously wanted to sleep. “Can I offer up a third option of I think I need your help.” She admitted kneeling by his bed. “Also why haven’t you pulled out the bed. I gave you the button bunk for that reason.” She added looking at how uncomfortable he looked despite the peace he seemed to ooze. Could he get more frustrating?

There was certainly scope to try. "Did we fly through some sort of wormhole?" Even tucked away in his bunk, Dodai utterly failed to hide the mischief behind his otherwise intentionally-impassive features. "Who are you and what have you done with my wife?"

The woman poked his chest and climbed into the bunk with him. She was not the type to physically want comfort but she was seeking his warmth there and then which meant she needed him. “I do not believe I am here right now.” She admitted. “You were right back on Freecloud.”

One of the more prolific wisdoms encouraged the acceptance of a time and place for all things, even his oft-unappreciated attempts at humour. There were many things to be said about the re-establishment of the matrimonial bed, which wasn't so much uncommon as it was usually more likely to be confined to far more private arrangements, but Dodai took the time to think better of most of them. What he did instead was to shift as much as possible to accommodate a second occupant and allowed the arm trapped beneath his wife to curl around her waist. It was easier to settle his chin atop her head, a compatibility of size that even Indigo couldn't argue with, though he wouldn't put it past her to try if the mood if ever took her.

"You've certainly chosen an excellent lifestyle for scattering yourself like breadcrumbs." Angling his head awkwardly to look down at her, Dodai asked, "What are you hoping will follow, I wonder?"

There was a silence for a moment as she wiggled to get comfortable before his arm pinned her close and she relaxed. “Me climbing in here with you? Or just generally with my life?” She wondered quietly as she could feel him angling to look at her. She shifted a little to lay her chin on his chest and stare along his body at him. She was not sure where the question was coming from so it seemed more logical to ask than get it wrong.

"Aside from the possibility that the two are not as mutually exclusive as you'd perhaps prefer," Dodai replied, the faintest of smiles rendering his expression fond, "I am simply speculating about your current motivation. Fragmentation is not fundamentally unhealthy," he reminded her, "Lack of intention is a concern, however. You are indecisive." The point was made as an attempt to clarify. "That can't be comfortable."

"I have intention. I want to make the future safe for all of us." She said gently. "My motivation is strong but I am still ... indecisive on how best to do it all. Theo is a perfect example of how I would be if I was human. I am here but am I trusted by the Romulans... who knows." She could not blame them but she had been fighting the fight since before they were a glint in their father's eyes.

For the space of several heartbeats, Dodai allowed the silence to speak for itself. There was a fine line between supportive advice and subtle control, and whilst the latter might occasionally become unavoidable, it was not the man's preference. Life, even a relatively long one, was a meandering journey and it troubled him more to hear Indigo speak in generalisations as impossible to grasp hold of as a fistful of sand. The future, by its very definition, was not safe. At some point, it ran out, even for El Aurians. Reducing the suffering along the way, which he took to be her meaning, was not a task with any definitive conclusion save the one you determined for yourself. Perhaps that was the problem here. The universe had a tendency to scream over the top of itself sometimes, the scope of necessity was often daunting.

"When was the last time you felt fulfilled?," he wondered. The woman he knew had never been as comfortable with the long wait as he was. Impatient for results, fuelled by a compulsion for constant momentum. His polar opposite, if anything, the rolling avalanche to his glacier.

Well, wasn't that just going straight for the jugular? She decided as she lay back down and cuddled a little into him as she tried to form words to explain just how long it might have been. "Maybe since before I became Indigo." She said honestly. Indigo was a façade and one she used to blend in as humans were thought of a lot thicker than El Aurians, it gave her a cover and one that she was nearly lost in if she was honest.

The trail of deft fingertips through strands of hair, coloured to enhance the charade, once again gave the silence an opportunity to reveal the obscured. There was no need to do more than occasionally provoke her, Indigo under any guise had always been astute enough to know her own mind even if she did take rather drastic pains at times to override her natural instincts. Gently, Dodai eased a tousled curl away from her shoulder and fixed his gaze on the underside of the bunk overhead. "Is there satisfaction," he eventually wondered, "in investing oneself in relationships that only reinforce a pseudonym? You have known people long enough now to consider them kindred and yet haven't spent a single day as yourself in their company." Once again, his chin dug in as he looked down at the top of her head. "I think this is why the others chastise us for spending so much time ignoring them." Even without intention, the long-lived wound up with multiple identities by the very nature of the amount of seasons they endured. Dodai weathered it as a monolith braced against the storm, but it was hardly unusual that his bonded had wanted more control over the inevitability of a new face for new times.

“I am not sure they want to know Tilra.” She said quietly speaking her birth name for the first time in decades. Tilra was someone neither of them would recognise anymore. She had not been that woman in more years than she could remember, she ignored her forces because, to them, she was still Tilra Yaari. “You did not and I certainly did not want to know her.”

"That's a bit harsh."

It was in keeping with the ebb and flow of their dynamic that Dodai sounded more affectionately amused than offended by her interpretation of his youthful surliness.

"I didn't tell them there was no way to convince me to bond with her, I simply told them they'd find it difficult make it sound appealing." An index finger gently jabbed into her shoulder. "She did tell me I smelt like a warthog."

“Because you did. But you did scrub up well, much like now.” She commented with a roll of her eyes. “How did they convinced you in the end?” She finally wondered thinking in nearly 200 years she had never once asked that question. She had avoided it in all honesty, not wanting to know until now what had finally convinced him that he wanted to be bonded.

An unhurried response was the fault of a complex route towards honesty. Like most of Dodai's choices in life, this path had numerous divergent pathways, many of which lead to destinations that were obscure at best. Once more, a finger toyed with a coiled tendril of hair and he opted for a mixture of bluntness and permissible vagueness. "I didn't think you'd agree." A gentle guffaw was promptly followed by a qualifying point. "But I could also see what was in store for both of us if we insisted. You wanted freedom, I had no compulsion for company outside my own. It felt possible to live as we preferred without too much compromise."

And at the time, he had meant it. Had seen no reason why he couldn't leave her alone, as she had so vehemently protested she desired. Underestimating the wisdom of the elders was a folly Dodai had only come to understand in the latter years, and failing to stay away indefinitely as planned was evidence enough that his intention had shifted. Leaving her hair, his fingertips traced a lazy circle against her shoulder. "In hindsight, that was a little optimistic."

Indigo was not sure what to say in response to that. She was not sure whether to follow the path or just wait there and see why was said next. ”They really did know what they were doing when they bonded us didn’t they?” She finally dared to say as she thought about what he had said.

"Don't say that too loudly, Abran will gloat."

Which would have been something, given the amount of time that had passed since Dodai had seen the old man. Of course, his father-figure hadn't forced his wilful protégé into anything, nothing about the process was blatantly aggressive. The elders were gardeners, planting seeds and tending carefully to them without too much intervention or pruning. Simply having an opinion about a bonded match was enough to guarantee persistence because once they spoke in unison about anything, the universe wasn't big enough to run from the inevitability of the elders' accuracy. Certainly not when you took the efforts of their cultivation with you when you went.

"It hasn't been so bad though, has it? You haven't thrown a pot at my head this visit, I must be doing something right."

"And you have not thrown me over your shoulder and away from trouble." She countered, smiling a little sadly as she remembered the pot incident vividly. "We have barely reconnected Do... It has only been a couple of weeks." She reminded sadly, finally looking at him.

"What you're saying is, there's still plenty of time to practise ducking." The rumble of a quiet chuckle didn't leave Dodai sounding particularly worried. "Perhaps that's why your balance is off, not a large enough target around for stress management." As much as he was teasing her, there was something to be said for the lack of connection to the broader picture. Living specifically was an essential part of staying sane long-term but at some point, you were a singular entity. You just got stretched very long and thin as time went by.

“Obviously, I needed a target as large and boisterous as yourself.” Indigo chuckled relaxing a little more against him as they slipped into the easy going nature of their bond. It had always been easy as he had become her best friend before they had given any physical aspect of their marriage a go.

"The universe will find a use for me yet."

And he would dodge and weave again, no doubt. Evasive, he'd been called once, which was a lot kinder than some of the other words occasionally shot at him when the aspirations of others didn't quite align with Dodai's current intentions. The smoulder of languid charm got the better of people at times, and certainly threatened to get the better of the man himself when he poked the proverbial bear, at least in terms of building a mythos around his reputation that scarcely resembled the stark reality of pervasive solitude. Dodai knew how to put on a show but the effect was fleeting and his enduring legacy was a knack for being forgotten, more than anything.

"So, we need a plan."

With that in mind, he could be annoyingly persistent.

The woman sighed and closed her eyes for a few moments. She wanted to just enjoy this moment, despite the "Can't I just lie here and just forget for the night? We can pick up the pieces of my life in the morning." She wondered quietly looking up at him, spreading her hand over where his heart was.

His gaze still fixed on the bunk overhead, Dodai's expression twitched with mischief left partially unrealised. It wasn't much of a plan, but it was a start.

"See," he ventured bravely. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"