Two’s a company

Posted on Tue Jun 3rd, 2025 @ 7:08am by Ensign Mercy Mourne & Lieutenant Avira zh'Kenarh M.D.

Mission: Remnant
Location: Planetside
Timeline: Day 408, early afternoon
2310 words - 4.6 OF Standard Post Measure

Mercy’s cheeks were flushed and her hair was missed from the breeze. An actual breeze! She paused in her scanning to briefly close her eyes and just enjoy the moment, the feel of the sun on her face and the weight of the planetary gravity in her body. Today was a good day. Looking back down at her hand scanner she checks the readings for the particular lichen that had caught her eye.

“I wonder if the plant life here could hold some clue as to what happened to the people? For them to all be gone it must have been a significant event, and yet the vegetation seems to be relatively healthy.” Mercy waited for the scanner to beep telling her it was finished before she looked up, her eyes searched for Avira to make sure the Andorran hadn’t left her alone.

Avira was doing her own scans several metres away, far enough away so that there wasn't overlap in their areas of focus, but close enough by to still have visual and audio contact. "If it were so strongly environmental one would hope our deep scans would've picked it up before we went down here. Otherwise it's going to be a busy day in decon." She continued her search of the surrounding area, "Though with the amount of vegetation, we'd probably expect much more wildlife. So whatever it was, it might've affected larger mammals. Would be interesting to see if there's any aquatic animals." She then stepped up to a fallen tree, clearly dead for a while, with her machete she bashed into the bark to expose what was right underneath it. "Still plenty of insects." The bugs scrambled around frantically trying to find refuge.

Mercy wrinkled her nose at that moving to the next plant specimen. "Urgh, bug. Well it's the sign of a healthy ecosystem for sure, but there should be something feeding on them too. Do you think the people here caused whatever catastrophe occurred? Typically smaller lifeforms and flora are the first to recover from most eco-logical disasters whether or not they are natural or made by sentient life." Mercy's scanner then gave a beep and she paused. "Huh, might have something over here Avi- I mean Doctor." Mercy bent down near a small shrub and started some more detailed scan. "Looks like some sort of berry, could be edible."

Avira was reminded of the violent reaction the Captain had had to local food during the ice festival and immediately brought out the epi pen. "Did you eat it yet?" She trusted Mercy to be more sensible than that, but on the other hand Mercy was one of those people that seemed to act before fully taking into account all of the consequences.

Mercy shot the doctor a guilty look, lowering the hand that had been on the way up to her mouth. In her defence she had only been planning a small lick... the hint of a taste really. "Uh... no? Not yet." She held the berry out to Avira to show her. "Wanna scan it yourself?"

"Break the skin, put some on your lip. Wait twenty minutes." Avira didn't want to double scan everything, but even foodstuffs that were perfectly edible could cause allergic reactions. The scanners would only pick up a limited number of allergens, especially when confronted with alien flora and fauna. "If you have no reaction you can eat one, a single one, wait another twenty minutes." She wasn't going to take any chances.

Mercy did as she was instructed and pierced the skin with her nail. “This is fun-oh wow!” The sweet smell of chocolate filled her nose as she bought the berry up to her lip. She dabbed a little bit of the juice there, and for a moment she looked like she had a smear of rouge or something on her lips. Like a starfleet officer coming home late from a party. The temptation to lick away the sweet smelling juice was huge. Setting a timer for twenty minutes she then went back to cataloguing and making notes about the plant.

“It’s not often we get to spend a lot of time together Doc. Wanna tell me a little about yourself?”

Avira wasn't really keen on sharing too much personal stuff with the rest of the crew. She was expected to cut into them when things got really bad, and the fact that she was getting close with some of them was already making that prospect a lot harder. Though the fact remained that the current situation was not really helping in keeping a professional distance. "What is it you would like to hear me tell?"

Mercy shot Avira a small smile, inside she was quietly cheering. Avira was a tough nut to crack, who wielded her professionalism like a shield. “Oh well, whatever you are comfortable sharing really. We could take turns asking questions if you like?” Mercy didn’t know if it would make it better or worse sharing back and forth but sometimes it made people feel better.

“This berry smells amazing.” She said in a singsong voice, however checking the timer it had been less than five minutes that passed, waiting a full twenty suddenly felt like torture.

"What is your favourite snack?" Avira asked, taking the opportunity to kick things off and keeping the question topical as well as comfortably shallow.

Mercy blinked, trying not to look surprised that Avira was actually playing alongside. “Ice cream, the kind in the cone with a flake.” She then grinned and thought for a moment. For a moment a series of entirely too personal questions click through her mind. What was your relationship with your mother like? Do you believe in a higher power? What was you darkest moment? In the end Mercy took pity and settled on something equally easy to answer, but perhaps a little more personal. “Do you have any siblings?”

The question instantly made Avira's antennae curl in on themselves. It had been a long time since she had seen her siblings, even before she enlisted wit hthe officer exchange programme. Now she would never see them again. "Five. Andorian bonds are quite extensive and regularly result in large families. I have the equivalent of what you would call two mothers, and two fathers." Biologically it was a lot more straight forward, just one of each, but culturally Andorian unions could certainly become a convoluted affair.

The statement perked Mercy’s interest immediately. Forgetting all about the berries for the moment her full attention now focused on Avira. “Really? I had no idea.” She did not have much experience with Andorians so didn’t recognise the antennae signals. However she was at least conscious that family could be a hard topic for some missing home. “How does that work? As in your fathers are together and your mothers are together and the two couples had children? Or are all four in a bonded group? Or is it like a blended divorce situation?” She could understand the last option more than most, although out of respect for her mother she had never really considered her step-mother an additional parent.

“Oh wait! Sorry! It’s your turn to ask a question.”

Avira was able to suppress the urge to quirk an eyebrow at the stream of consciousness that flowed from the scientist. "I'm sure there's some texts on Andorian bonds in the database." In the harsh winter conditions of Andor the consensus was that the four mate structure evolved as an effective way to protect against not only the elements but also other outside threats. In the modern age it was mostly tradition that kept them in place. In the case of her parents the bond had done nothing to protect against the internal threat of her father. She shrugged off the thoughts of her home. "I've come to understand a great deal can be learnt by asking whether you are a cat or a dog person."

Mercy paused, taken by surprise at the question. Then she laughed. Her face grew teasing and she quirked an eyebrow at Avira. “Ah sorry to disappoint but I’m an animal person. We never really had time or space for pets, so I never had the chance to develop a preference.” Mercy had spent a lot of her own childhood raising her siblings so the thought of another being dependant on her had never really appeared. “I guess really… I’m a plant person. They are easy to feed and care for generally, and rarely cause havoc in your quarters. And it makes me happy to look at them and understand them. Complex without being complicated.”

"I've never been good with plants, other than the hearty 'we'll live through any winter' types we had back on the Ranch to have feed for the bison." Avira had tried to keep some plants in the sickbay. If it hadn't been for Lotti they would've surely perished. She didn't even remember where they were now. She tapped her lower lip, "How does it feel?"

Mercy paused and gave Avira a confused look. “How does what feel? Being good with plants?” It was an odd question, Mercy had never really thought about it. “It’s… nice I guess. When I was a child gardening was a way for me to spend time with my Grandmother, as I got older it was a way for me to decompress away from my siblings. Like the window boxes in my room were some kind of sanctuary just for me.”

Avira's antennae curled a bit at that response, "That's nice, but what I meant was the berry on your lip. Any tingling sensation? Any swelling?"

“Oh! OH!” Mercy flustered as she realised what Avira had actually been asking. “Uhm feels fine, normal… maybe a bit sticky but think that’s just the juice. Can I try one now?”

Taking the medical scanner closer to Mercy Avira took a scan, just to make sure she'd have a baseline to compare it to. "One berry. Are you always this impatient?"

Mercy snorted. “Only when it comes to food.” She then winked and popped the berry in her mouth. “Oh! Avira! It tastes exactly like chocolate pudding! Like the good stuff too!” She was halfway to popping another in her mouth before she locked eyes with the doctor and then sighed, dropping the berry back into the sample canister.

“That’s two questions doc! So I get two in return… hmmm okay. What do you do to relax and what’s your favourite memory since coming aboard the Atlantis?”

The stern look on the Andorian doctor's features faded slightly as Mercy put the second berry back in the container. Avira wanted to simply return to the reason of their expedition here when the scientist brought up her two questions. It gave her a moment's pause. "To relax I go to the weapons range, shoot targets. I also read, mostly medical texts at the moment. Some cardio thrown in for good measure." The fondest memory was a bit difficult to answer truthfully, especially since her and Manishie had decided to keep their developing situation a bit on the down low. "I think I enjoyed the winter festival on Raelia quite a bit, reminded me of home." And the company she kept during it wasn't all bad either.

Mercy made a face like a kid being forced to eat veggies at the mention of cardio, but it was quickly followed by a smile, which showed she was mostly joking. Mostly. “That’s nice. Raelia was fun. I can see why it would remind you of Andor with the cold. It’s good to have a little piece of home so far away.”

She then looked at the doctor expectantly, kind of curious to see if she would switch to asking a question of her own or continue the conversation and share more.

"It's a double edged thing, of course. Reminds you of home which is nice but also reinforces the distance between us and that." Avira squatted down to inspect a plant that seemed to measure something on the specific scanning instruction they had loaded up. With any luck they could use a lot of this stuff to create sedatives, analgesics, and so on. They hadn't had any luck on finding a miracle cure for her personal ailment though. "Have you ever been seriously injured?"

Mercy paused in her chewing and tilted her head before giving it a shake. She had to hold back a smile at the doctor question. To be fair she hadn’t said it couldn’t be work related and that was still kind of a personal question. “Nope. Don’t think so. Before I came here I worked at the space dock data centre categorising information from other people’s adventures. I was born with ASD though, does that count? A hole in the heart. Something that’s easily fixed nowadays so nothing to worry about and by the time I could understand what it meant it was long gone. My mum used to say it was just a sign I’d always have space for a little more love.”

There was a beat of silence where Avira contemplated her response. "I'm glad they've been able to fix that issue before it became life threatening." She pointed at a bush of berries, "I think there's more snacks for you." She plucked a berry from the bush herself and split it open to spread it over her lip. Humans and Andorians were built different after all.

Mercy grinned at Avira as she saw the woman join in on the allergy testing. Now it was a party. Shouldering her back of sample canister she wondered over to begin for eating in earnest.