One Last Adventure III

Posted on Thu Nov 3rd, 2022 @ 2:35am by Ensign Ilan Ocara & Lieutenant JG Corvin Hartjin
Edited on on Thu Nov 3rd, 2022 @ 2:37am

Mission: In-Between (S1:E3-S1:E4)
Location: Anorra
Timeline: Mission Day 21 at 2235
2844 words - 5.7 OF Standard Post Measure

ON

"More like a dick's depth," Ilan muttered over the rim of her drink.

Corvin couldn't help a little snort of amusement that escaped and stopped him from taking a drink from his glass since it was very much in keeping with Andrei's past behavior. However, he quietly wondered if it would be just that deep before shaking his head. "Glad I was just about to take my drink, and instead of taking it,"

She grinned at that and laughed softly. "Yeah, sorry about that. I couldn't help it, though. You know it's true." They'd see, she supposed. In this case, she would be happy to be proven wrong, but she had some doubts. Who wouldn't? It could be an open-type thing, though... that would probably work better, and that would also mean she still had a chance... Her thoughts drifted a bit, and she lost focus on Corvin.

Amused, Corvin finally took his drink, enjoying the sweet burn of the alcohol, almost like a scotch whisky and taking a moment to savor it, tasting a tangy sweetness that gave it a unique flavor. He pondered the alcohol for a moment before noticing how quiet his companion had gotten. She seemed to be staring off into space with what he could call a subtly lascivious expression; the Terran man wondered what she was thinking.

"Penny, for your thoughts?"

"Hm?" Ilan brought her attention back to Corvin and gave him a mildly guilty smile. "Oh, sorry. I was still thinking about how two people like them could work out and honestly being slightly sad about it. They are both quite lovely." It was an easy admission for Ilan. She was never shy about her attraction until given a reason to be. Still, even when dissuaded from it, the appeal was just a base physical reaction. It couldn't be changed in that aspect.

"Well, I can't argue with you there," He chuckled and sipped his drink while reaching out with his free hand to gently caress her bare arm while giving her a little smirk. "Objectively, I can say that Andrei is a good-looking man and Lyra is a singularly attractive woman, but you never know if they could be willing to share, and you would have an in."

"Oh, would I? What kind of in?" She asked with amusement and leaned in a bit closer to Corvin. "Did you sleep with the boss?" She teased and poked his side.

"No, unfortunately, I made my move too late." He chuckled as she leaned in closer and poked at his side, feeling a mix of emotions as if it was meant to be playful. Still, for him, it was usually followed by something akin to vigorous petting since it wasn't often that someone was like this with him. "I was just saying that you would have an in because you are quite a charming and attractive woman who knows how to enjoy herself."

"Well, maybe so. Who knows, though? Besides, I have someone very interesting here in front of me now, don't I?" She asked and smiled at him, leaning a bit closer and taking another sip of her drink.

"Well, I like to think that I am a rather interesting individual," Holding her gaze and returning her smile with one of his own. Then acting on instinct, he leaned in to steal a kiss from her. After a moment, he began to make out before pulling back, tugging her lower lip before licking his own to take a sip of his drink. "You do make this drink all the better."

"Well, to be fair, this is a better drink. The other was gorgeous though and worth the slightly less appealing taste just for that, in my opinion." She licked her lips and looked into his eyes. "So, what brought you to the club in the first place, Corvin?"

"I've been trying to immerse myself around aliens, be more comfortable around them, and have a good time." It was a slightly softer spoken admission, like he shouldn't have been saying that out loud, but he didn't look away as he sipped his drink. "Might have gone out on the dance floor and danced with a few women here who wanted a dance, so trying to grow a little."

"Well, I think that's an excellent idea, honestly." Ilan praised and placed a hand lightly on his chest. Maybe her comments at the festival had made a genuine impression on him, or perhaps she was giving herself too much credit. Probably so. "No sense in being more miserable than we have to be while we are stuck out here in the delta quadrant."

"It's still a work in progress, but work is the keyword here." Corvin puffed up a bit with pride at her praise. He wasn't confident that he could fully overcome his intense hatred for aliens. However, it was hard to deny his attraction toward alien women. It was difficult for him as he considered his mixed feelings about it and what had gone into making them before he looked back to Ilan. "Did you want to try getting back out on the dance floor, seeing if we can have some more fun? Or maybe find some other way to have some fun?"

"Sure. Let's go dance. It will be fun, and I'm not ready to return to my room yet." Finishing her drink, she stood up and smoothed out her dress. While she liked it on Anorra and would milk every last moment she had here, it wasn't a place where she wanted to remain for too much longer. When he joined her, she walked back onto the dance floor and took a similar position to where she had set them up before they were interrupted. She didn't wait for him this time, and once she found the place she wanted to be, she began to move to the music.

Corvin enjoyed watching her move in front of him again, admiring the sway of her shapely hips. Once back on the floor, he paused to watch her for a moment, letting himself relax again, feeling the beat of the music as he moved up behind his partner and started to move in a way that felt right. Anorra wasn't a world that overly thrilled the Terran man; it had its attractions; once they were gone, he wouldn't be crying over not being able to enjoy its diversions.

After all, it was just that—a diversion.

The next hour was spent together dancing, drinking, and enjoying the atmosphere at the club. They even shared a plate of one of the "exotic offerings" of the Vidiians, meaning that it was not Vidiian-originated, and they found it tasty enough. Eventually, they tired of the club atmosphere and decided to leave and wander in the dark rooms.

Eventually, they stumbled upon some bioluminescent underground arboretum. It wasn't overly large, but it was big enough to take a pleasant stroll through and admire the variety of species in all their glowing colors. There weren't many people here, so it was also relatively private.

"This is absolutely fascinating." Ilan cooed out and leaned over a giant flower that seemed to be shifting from bright purple to electric blue.

Corvin had never seen anything like the plant life in the room before; he'd been in old mining tunnels with glowing fungus veins. Though that was a far cry from what they were seeing here as he looked about before turning his attention to Ilan and the flower she was currently cooing over. "It's definitely impressive; I didn't know that plants could thrive in darkness like this,"

He moved next to his companion, reaching out to place his hand on her back to gently caress her. He enjoyed touching people since the touch would communicate their intent in a moment. "So I know you told me your family are geneticists working for the Empire, but you could have chosen any job; why this?"

"Honestly, I love it just as much as my parents do." Ilan straightened and looked to Corvin, not balking at his hand on her back and instead leaning into him a bit. "There is a unique power in having this particular knowledge, a power that to the right people could be very valuable. That is how people like you and I climb in this world."

Corvin nodded as he listened to her, considering her words and finding it strange that she sought to climb though he also knew that was because he was happy where he was in the world. He had a position that allowed him to more or less do as he pleased, fight as much as he wanted, and didn't have to worry about someone coming at his back with a knife from the shadows. "So, what was your childhood like? Did you grow up on Terra, or did you and your family return there?"

Ilan smirked just a bit and thought about asking the man if he was trying to do more than be dick depthed like most men. Still, she wasn't sure he would appreciate the joke, and really, she wanted to reward a man who tried to be more than superficial in their efforts. "I grew up on Terra in Bergen, Norway." She offered up to him and began wandering to look at other plants. "I had a nice childhood. Never really wanted for anything and had a good education."

Following after, Corvin listened to the lovely woman, with his attention primarily on her. Still, he did glance at the plants she paid more than just a passing interest in. "I imagine you must have grown up learning to love the snow during the winter months; I went there for cold weather training during the winter, and it was quite beautiful."

"It was, yes." Ilan smiled slightly at the memory. "Though I will say it is a good thing that transporters exist. It was nice to be able to leave the beautiful snow for a while, too, when we got tired of being cold all the time. Then we'd go to a nice beach and enjoy ourselves for a few days." She chuckled and paused in front of a hanging vine with glowing droplets of water on it.

Moving up behind her, the Terran man returned his hand to her back, moving it gently along her spine but stopping from going too low to touch her rear. "So beaches and snow are how you spent your off time; what about school? Not everyone grew up in the hollowed-out wrecks of starships or being knocked about by Klingon pitmasters." He chuckled softly as an insect landed on the vine, attempting to feed off the glowing dew. In an instant, the insect was caught in sticky strands as it was dragged into the dew droplet. It was sucked into the body of the vine as another emerged elsewhere.

"Ohh..." Ilan purred in fascination and reached up into her hair. She pulled one of the pins holding it back from her eyes, and with it, she lightly poked at one of the droplets on the vine to see what happened. Corvin may as well not have been there at that moment for all the attention she gave him.

Even the light poke she gave the droplet was enough to trigger its feeding response as several glowing tendrils shot out, trying to snare its prey. The tips of the tendrils glowed an intense light as they waved about searching before eventually retreating into the droplet as the droplet began to shift in color as it seemed to be trying to attract its prey back to it.

A giggle escaped her as she watched the display, taking the pin back and inspecting the end of it, then looked to Corvin. "Did you see that? That was so fascinating. Of course, I've seen carnivorous plants, but none are so active in capturing and attracting their prey."

"I did," He agreed, watching her and how her expression lit up with joy at the sight of the plant. The lights didn't attract the pin but drew another insect to the droplet. This one met its end much more quickly. As if the plant was taking out its previous denial on its new prey, the tendrils sucked the bug into the dewy body and disappeared inside it. "Any speculation as to why it's so aggressive?"

"Honestly? Probably because people do exactly what I did to it just now all the time." She offered up and watched the new bug be devoured, then finally turned fully to Corvin. "Even plants, if harassed enough, can learn to be more aggressive."

With a brief moment to ponder this, he gave the nod and then met her gaze again. "So is it just curiosity that drives you to want to learn more, or is there more to it than that?"

"What do you mean 'more to it than that?" Ilan asked, looking into his eyes and fighting off a frown at the question. Was he getting suspicious? She didn't think so, but what kind of question was that?

"Like, more." He replied and furrowed his brow while trying to sort out how best to word what he was asking. "Are you trying to prove something to your parents since you are all scientists, or is it just because you love what you do?"

At his clarification, she relaxed internally and just gave a soft laugh. Ilan understood it could be terribly difficult for people to grasp that she genuinely loved her work even if it was part of what made her… not Terran. Not officially. Her family had carried around the label of Illyrian despite three generations having come and gone. Ilan would be the one to rid them of the marker.

"I really just love what I do."

"I can't argue with that, I suppose, since I'm a knuckle-dragging security officer who loves his work." He gave a deprecating chuckle and looked over at his companion. "Though I find it admirable and rather attractive that you love what you do, it's not just a job."

Ilan blushed slightly at that, looking at a bunch of shimmering pink flowers. She didn't say anything for a long moment; It wasn't often that she received compliments like that. Usually, they were much more physically based. "Well, people don't give security enough credit, in my opinion."

Corvin smiled as he reached out to take her hand, a more subtle gesture of physical affection and not so overt in its interest in her physical form. "So something not so knuckle dragger about me is that I'm fairly handy at disarming explosives since handling the torpedoes is part of my duties as the head of the Armory, it's rather delicate work, you have to have patience since if you rush it can lead to an accidental detonation."

"Well, some accidental detonations can be fun… not that kind, though." She said with a laugh and squeezed his hand lightly, looking into his eyes and then back to the flowers. "It's important to be able to do delicate work, though, in my opinion. A skill many men don't have."

He watched her for a moment and felt less like the half-feral beast he usually did that wanted to fight, tear and beat others to within an inch of their life, and it was a strange feeling for him. It was different, though maybe different wasn't all bad. "I can show you my ability to do delicate work sometime."

"Sure, maybe not on something that could explode in our faces, hm?" Her voice was teasing, and she started to wander again, taking a deep breath of the peat-smelling air and sighing slowly. "It's almost kind of magical down here. In a way. Don't you think?"

"It is. I've never been much for places like this, but this is quite...appealing." The Terran man relaxed and looked around, it wasn't a terrible place, and there was just this sense of something in the air before attention turned back to Ilan, and he smirked. "I wouldn't choose something that could explode, but I would try to find something fun."

“Hm. I can think of something fun and explosive… but not in the fiery death sense.” Ilan grinned and took his hand.

For the next hour or so, Ilan and Corvin simply took their time exploring the underground area of the resort. They talked and joked, never broaching anything too serious and as their evening went on, hints and flirtations became much more pointed and physical. A little more food, a little more drink, a little mutual appreciation of scantily clad dancers. They finally found themselves moving back up to the resort proper and inevitably back to Ilan’s room. The evening had left them both wanting and into bed they fell together to bring their time at the resort to a very pleasurable conclusion.

It had been quite an adventure here.

END