Old Songs Are Just Like Old Friends

Posted on Fri Apr 12th, 2024 @ 3:50am by Lieutenant Commander Lyra Cassiel & Ensign Maya Price

Mission: In-Between (S1:E7-S1:E8)
Location: After 11
Timeline: Date 2371-09-26 at 1830
4746 words - 9.5 OF Standard Post Measure

ON

“Okay, Maya. If I don’t roll out of here, I’m going to be late.” the man said with a captivated grin. He had dark eyes and skin the same color of caramel brown as she did. He also wore his uniform, service gold, while she sat in a somewhat flowy sea-foam green dress which cascaded down to her ankles, hugged her waist, and a rounded plunging neckline that showed off some of her most impressive features.

“Well, I wouldn’t want you to be late.” she responded, a certain demureness in her attractive expression mixing with the confidence of a Terran noblewoman to produce something alluring, flirtatious, and almost innocent. She reached out and grabbed his strong forearm, holding him in place as best as she could, even as she said he could leave. “You always have to go before the fun starts.”

He responded to her pout with a smile of his own. He placed a hand on hers, gently removed her fingers and held them. Bending down, he kissed them gently.

“We can make more fun tomorrow after your shift. I promise.” he said warmly, but with energy. “Stay beautiful.”

WIth that, the man turned from the table and walked energetically toward the exit to After 11, breaking into a jog as he reached the door, and bumping into the woman who was trying to walk through it.

“Oh, shit.” he said, placing his hands on her shoulders to steady her before removing his hands and smiling. “Sorry, Commander. My fault.”

Though Lyra obviously expected to be run into when she stepped through the doors, the impact did little but make her take a small step back. The hands on her shoulders made her lift her brow, and she looked slightly down at the shorter man.

“Is there a fire?” She asked dryly.

“Nah, just late for a meeting.” he said, smiling handsomely and allowing his eyes to linger on her attractive face for just an instant before he pulled himself away. “Gotta run.”

And, with that, he was off down the corridor as he had originally intended. From the table, Maya had observed the entire interaction and, when she noticed whom her boyfriend had run into, her heart skipped a beat. The beautiful girl tried to make herself small to no avail, and shifted her neat blonde dreadlocks to block the half of her face closest to the woman walking through the door. It had been weeks since they had been ship mates, and they hadn’t spoken once. She wasn’t sure if the other woman was avoiding her, just as she was, or if she just didn’t care to talk to her after so long.

At first, when she arrived on Vengeance from Gladius, she thought very little of the Chief of Security beyond her familiar last name; one which belonged to a friend of hers at the Academy named Madeline. They had lost contact after graduation, though Maya had thought of her occasionally. One of the shuttlebay managers mentioned that she had changed identity, and Maya had bled the woman for all the details she knew. Knowing that Lyra was Madeline after all made things uncomfortable and strange beyond an acceptable limit for Maya. She found herself hoping the woman would never ever talk to her and missing the friendship they’d shared.

It wasn’t too often that Lyra felt any sort of social awkwardness anymore, but when she had found Maya’s name on the transfer list from the Gladius weeks ago, she’d felt a complicated series of feelings over it. They’d been friends of a sort, not locked in link step and terribly close, but friends nonetheless. Friends were something she was sorely lacking in her life, but she had also been taught that friendships were liabilities - it wasn’t like her family had the best track record with close friends either.

Still, Maya was an intelligent woman and insatiably curious; it was likely she would end up figuring out that Lyra and Madeline were one in the same and Lyra didn’t want to strain things between them if nothing else for the sake of the working relationship. The problem was she really wasn’t sure what to say. “Hello you don’t remember me but you kind of do in a way I was your friend from the academy but I was in the middle of a blood feud and had to be genetically modified for that into a different person but now I’m me again so hey” didn’t really seem like it would work very well. She still really wasn’t sure what to say, but she was relatively certain that Maya was actually avoiding her now, and that couldn’t be allowed.

Lyra herself was dressed in a long dark purple tunic blouse with slightly fluttering sleeves and a dark wash blue jean that hugged her long, beautiful legs. Her hair was back in a ponytail, giving her a slightly more youthful and approachable look. She was trying to keep it casual. Her dark eyes found Maya immediately, looking pretty as ever, and she also noticed how she was trying to melt into her chair and be unnoticed which really only made her stand out more.

The corner of her lips twitched up in a smirk, but first she turned to the bar to get a drink. When Nat approached, she nodded and gave a small smile. “Whatever you have on special, please.”

“I bought tons of this drink on Sikaris called Frostfire.” Nat said with a grin that hid something beyond casual bar talk. She reached for a cool blue bottle and poured it into a clean glass. The liquid was the palest shade of blue and seemed to be naturally cold without having to be chilled. She slid it to Lyra with a wink. “Go slow. Don’t fuck yourself up.”

Lyra picked up the glass and took a small sip, sucking in a breath through her teeth immediately after as the prominent burn of the naturally cold alcohol hit her and then the flavor finally started to come through. She looked down into the glass and then up to Nat again. “Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind. Good find though.”

“If there’s anything I know, Lyra, it’s how to find the good shit.” Nat said, turning her head to the side and flashing an ironic smile which seemed calculated to be a joke on its own. It fell quickly, though, and she turned to an insistent customer who had stepped up next to Lyra.

“You know more than that.” Lyra chuckled knowingly but accepted the woman’s attention turning away from her to another customer. She grabbed her drink from the bar and finally turned to approach Maya’s table. Stopping behind the chair across from Maya that her boyfriend had been sitting in, she looked down to her once friend. “Hey… seat taken?”

Oh, Gods.. Maya thought as she realized, eyes cast down at the table, that her most immediate nightmare was occurring. Even though she had been avoiding Lyra, the last thing she wanted was for the other woman to know she was avoiding her. She looked up quickly, her large, bright brown eyes filled with pleasant happiness so convincingly, that no one who went on her appearance alone would be able to sense her horror.

“Commander Cassiel.” she said, her fingers dancing together nervously, despite her smile. “It’s so…good to see you.”

Had Lyra not been the observant person she was, she likely would have bought into Maya’s words; she was very good at projecting what she wanted to be seen as many noblewomen were, but she wasn’t perfect. Despite not being directly invited to do so, she pulled the chair out and took a seat.

“Is it?” She asked, another small smirk tugging at her full lips, her head even tilting just slightly to add to the effect.

Maya blinked rapidly again. She wasn’t exactly hesitant to break the act if it came down to it, but there was no need at this point to do so in her mind. After all, starting off their first interaction in years with a litany of explanations about how frantically she had been avoiding Lyra wouldn’t go anywhere good.

“I’m surprised you sat down with me.” she said, dodging the question in as honest a shift as she could. “I honestly wasn’t sure you wanted to talk to me.”

“Well…” Lyra began, her face scrunching a bit and she reached up to scratch the side of her head with one finger. “Honestly, Maya, I couldn’t really figure out a good way to approach you, and I’m still not sure this is it but I thought in the end just ignoring it would be worse.”

“Maybe.” Maya said, her eyebrows going up in the first sign of facial anxiety. “Sometimes ignored…difficulties…solve themselves.”

As usual, the pilot spoke in an excessively soft and small voice. It was melodic, gentle, and innocent, specifically chosen to make people feel comfortable around her. It rose in pitch as she made her statement, with a hint of a sarcastic tone for comedic defense.

“Yeah, sure.” Lyra took a sip of her drink and for that brief moment reflected on herself even just during this brief exchange, finding herself acting much more the peasant Madeline as a default. She lowered her glass slower than she had lifted it up.

“If you don’t want to talk, I understand, but I wanted to at the very least come over to say hello. I know you’ve been avoiding me - I don’t blame you.”

She could lie, but she knew it wouldn’t be believed. Instead, she let the smile fade slowly and laced her fingers more calmly.

“It’s not that I didn’t want to talk to you. It’s just..you have a different face; a different name.” She admitted, making good eye contact and seeming to speak from the heart, quite genuinely. “I honestly didn’t know if you were the same person I was friends with at the Academy. I mean, maybe you didn’t even really like me and you were just pretending as part of your..cover?”

A slight smile appeared on Lyra’s face, perhaps a bit encouraged by the shift of Maya’s responses. “I did like you, Maya, you weren’t just a part of the cover. As for being the same person… yes and no. Obviously because of my… assignment… there were certain things I needed to do or say or act a certain way to make that cover believable, but it wasn’t all part of the cover.” She placed a hand on her own cheek absently, but it became thoughtful immediately after.

“I know it is probably very difficult to believe and deal with on your end. It was difficult for the people even just here and most of them didn’t even know I existed until I was made assistant chief of security.”

She was right. It was difficult for her to believe and accept. Friends didn’t change faces and, to be honest, being fooled by Madeline, or Lyra, or whoever she was, had probably made Maya look pretty damn stupid. She didn’t know if the woman across from her thought that or not, but she found herself embarrassed more than anything else.

“It must have been very lonely for you.” Maya said, her voice sympathetic, though she kept thoughts to herself.

Lyra gave a noncommittal hum in reply to that observation and simply looked away. “It was what I had to do.” She didn’t look away for long, bringing her attention back to the younger woman. “I don’t really expect to pick back up as friends, I’m sure you feel you don’t know me at all and that’s alright, but I at least wanted to maybe get to the point where you don’t feel you have to avoid me.”

“I shouldn’t have done that.” Maya said with a slow shake of her head. “I was just afraid of any awkwardness, I guess?”

“I can understand that; like I said, I really don’t blame you.” She took another drink, this time taking a bit more of the alcohol than she had before. It wasn't an immediate regret, but this stuff was certainly potent. “I’m not mad.”

Maya inhaled in an overt sigh of relief at having received that message. She tried to hide it, but it was too late. She flashed a bashful glance at the ceiling before looking back at Lyra.

“Well…you can start by telling me what the hell is going on.” She said, smiling and even allowing a small giggle, within reason.

Lyra faltered slightly at the shift in response, really having not expected it. Genuinely she really had only expected to exchange a few words with Maya so they could function in a professional setting without problems and then be on her way. “Okay… what exactly do you want to know?”

“Who are you?” Maya said, smiling brighter at the obvious half joke, “and where did you come from?”

Lyra couldn’t help but smile just a bit in return. “Well, I’m Countess Lyra Caterina Orsini Hale Cassiel - because like all the royals I need to have sixteen names and I was feeling left out so I kept them all. I was born in Rio on January 13, not off in April like I told you once.” She waved down one of the slaves to get a refill on her drink.

“My father was Lord Renato Hale of Brazil, my mother is Aurelia Orsini. I do have the two brothers though, that didn’t change.”

Maya blinked at the rush of information, trying to superimpose it over the Madeline Cassiel she had known. It wasn’t an easy task. Despite any sameness in personality, her entire image of her school friend was incorrect. Again, she felt the weight of self-consciousness that she hadn’t picked up any sign that something was amiss. Sure, Maddie had been guarded and private, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything.

“I remember hearing about you as a girl. I’m sure I remember being in the same room with you on a handful of occasions too.” Maya said, tapping her full lip with her finger “My father brought me to the Summer Court every year so I would be appropriately connected. But you died or…went missing? I can’t remember what Daddy told me about that.”

“Died was the official report, but perhaps your father tried to shield you from such notions as children your age dying so he simply said we went missing?” Lyra offered up, quirking a brow.

“No, he wouldn’t do that. He believed in seeing things as they were.” She said with a shake of her head as she thought of her father. They had been very close when he was alive, and his death still stung. “I just don’t remember, I suppose. It wasn’t as if I knew you, of course, so it didn’t stick.”

“No, it wouldn’t have, I imagine.” Lyra rolled her glass on its bottom edge in her hand. “I’m sorry about your father, I know you two were close. How was your brother taking to his new position before we left?”

Maya smirked and frowned at the same time, somehow, as both of the men floated into her mind.

“Daddy’s death was sad, but he was suffering and it was very hard to see him that way and not really to be able to help.” she said as she remembered how thin her father looked on the medical bed. But then she shifted to her brother and the frown shifted to the back slightly. “Khalon was dealing with being High Lord of Mars in exactly the way I expected: throwing parties, flirting with my friends, and dreaming big about what a great lord he was going to be. You never met him, did you?”

“Once when he came to visit you at the Academy and I’m sure in passing when we were younger, but it was never more than an introduction and pleasantries.” Lyra did remember her brother though, he was quite striking as his sister was. “Did he have a woman in mind before you left, or was he enjoying his flirting too much?”

“Khalon likes to keep his options open. Which basically means he’s scared of commitment and Daddy isn’t around to force him to marry.” Maya responded, adjusting her body into a more comfortable position. She looked at Lyra with a curious raise of her brow. “Speaking of relationships: Andrei Petrov, huh?”

“Yeah, Andrei Petrov.” Lyra replied and leaned back in her chair, crossed her legs, and took another sip of her drink. She didn’t offer up to Maya that she now knew that Andrei had been the disastrous date she had during the Academy; she was curious to see if she would offer that information up herself.

“Right..” Maya said, a small, less than innocent smile crossing her face as she turned her head to the side. “And how’s that really going?”

By her tone, it was obvious she wasn’t asking about the more typical details of the relationship. It might have been slightly rude otherwise, but as far as Maya could recall, she had told Madeline Cassiel who her unfortunate date had been with that Saturday evening at the Academy.

Lyra leaned in conspiratorially and propped her head up in her hand with her elbow on the table. “Mm what exactly are you asking, Maya?”

Of course Lyra knew, but she wanted to gauge exactly how comfortable Maya was in conversation.

“I told you, didn’t I?” Maya said, not wanting to have to say it allowed if Lyra had already been informed of the brief history. “At the Academy? The..poorly matched date?”

“That was with Andrei?” Lyra asked, her brows going up in surprise. “I remember you telling me about the date, but we never got to the who it was with.”

“Oh…” Maya said, demurring and growing quieter. She felt immediately awkward about the whole thing, and wondered if Lyra thought they had been together. “Sorry. Yes, it was him. We had a nice date and then we went back to his dorm. We..tried, but. Let’s just say it didn’t work. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” Lyra blinked, tilting her head.

“I don’t know..” Maya said with a shrug and a smile. “It’s just incredibly awkward. I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable with that history. Everyone around here is also terrified of you on top of that, and..it kind of rubs off.”

“Are they? I hadn’t noticed.” Lyra said and meant it, actually. She took another drink and let her dark eyes linger on Maya, though seemed determined to keep her naturally cold, calculating gaze in check to not scare her off.

“Sure they are. But, to be honest, I never asked why.” Maya answered with a measured expression. “Lyra…it was literally just the tip…and I stopped him after about twenty seconds and gave him the Virgin story. He was getting ready to break me in half…please don’t hate me.”

It took every bit of her substantial control to not laugh, but she succeeded, she didn’t even look like it had been a danger. Instead she just gave a little smirk and shook her head. “Of course I don’t hate you and I’m not mad; he had a… long… history and I knew that - I still do. As long as you aren’t trying to play Miss Steal-Your-Man, I really don’t care.”

“Well, I have a man and, as you saw, he runs really fast.” Maya said with a joking smile, allowing a cathartic giggle. “Besides, I still don’t want to be broken in half. I assume..your height advantage on me makes that all..pleasant for you?”

Lyra highly doubted he would actually break her in half… not with his manhood anyways. Likely they had just been drunk, things were sloppy, and she hadn’t been ready, or maybe something had been off with her physically during that time, but the notion that a man could hurt a healthy, ready woman in that way was silly. “Well I’m not exactly a delicate little flower, no.”

She chuckled softly and shook her head. “He has found he gets to enjoy many things with me that he might not be able to with the majority of other women.”

“Oh, grown a little freaky since the Academy, huh?” Maya asked with a smile.

“We have our fun, but I’m not sure if you noticed Andrei is large… and large. Most women can’t handle the force with which he likes to enjoy from time to time.” She said frankly and ran her fingertips around the rim of her glass. “What about your boyfriend?”

“Girl, there’s no way you can just take all that on a random Tuesday night without some serious foreplay.” Maya said, slightly under her breath as if she was half-ashamed of the brazenness of the statement. They used to talk like this all the time, though she had gotten around a bit more than Maddie had. “Will is normal sized. As in, the size a Terran male naturally would be without being genetically altered.” She giggled, teasing just a bit and laughing at her own joke. “He knows how to use it, and I’ll just leave it at that.”

“That’s all that really matters in the end,” Lyra noted and meant it genuinely, but she couldn’t deny the benefits of having someone like Andrei - at least for herself who enjoyed that kind of thing. “I’m glad to hear it.”

Maya offered a nod and a smile to show they were on the same page. She looked at Lyra and tried to picture the face she remembered. There wasn’t very much there that reminded her besides the skin tone and her dark eyes.

“So, Lyra Cassiel….you aren’t dead. Care to explain that part to me?”

“Oh you know… imperial revenge plot, a little genetic modification, a little training to become a fighter and assassin, a little strategic positioning so I was on the same posting as my target…” Lyra waved a hand as if it weren’t an interesting story.

“Your target?” Maya asked, her focus clearly leveled on the woman opposite her. “Who was that? What are you supposed to do with them?”

This was part of the reason she liked Maya; the woman was intelligent and quick enough to hold interesting conversations, but not quick enough to be a threat. “You mean what did I do with him: I killed him.”

Maya’s eyebrows went up at that. She wasn’t surprised as much as she was intrigued. A few seconds passed before she selected her next question.

“How’d you do it?”

“A sword through the heart. Better than he deserved, really, but I was tired of toying with him and wanted my life back.” Lyra replied, keeping Andrei’s tangential involvement a secret of course.

“Metal.” Maya said, and then she laughed. She didn’t seem bothered by the details she was presented with and, in fact, seemed at least mildly entertained and fascinated by the story. “And then you went to Sickbay, where the doctor gave you a new body with a..very durable nunny?”

“Technically had that in the other body too.” Lyra smirked. She had only slept with Andrei a few times under the guise of Madeline, but they’d enjoyed that too.

“Well, if it works.” Maya responded with a shrug. It was all a bit odd to her, but she supposed no one was used to changing faces. “Things are definitely different for you than they were when we knew each other.”

“They are. I can finally just be me… in body and just a person as a whole and being out here in the Delta Quadrant has given me a freedom I wouldn’t have otherwise possessed, I think.” She frowned at the thought.

“Yeah, I bit. In the Alpha Quadrant, you’d have a lot of explaining to do.” Maya said with an expression that communicated she expected that was really true. “Have you made lots of friends here yet besides your beau?”

“I probably had more explaining to do here, honestly. Were we back home, the Emperor would have spoken and the people would have accepted.” She shrugged slightly and then shook her head. “No, I don’t have many friends, I really haven’t put in the effort to. My family doesn’t have a great track record with friendships.”

Maya was quiet for a few seconds, and she seemed to consider what Lyra just said. Hesitation with making friends made a lot of sense to her, and she recalled that the girl hadn’t been particularly interested for quite a while in the Academy. Eventually, she warmed up to Maya and talked with relative openness. She smiled.

“Well, you’ve got one now, right?”

It really hadn’t been her goal to reconnect with Maya like this, but now that she had it in front of her she found she didn’t wholly hate the idea. It might be nice to have a friend who was just… nice and wasn’t going to try and steal her man or be conniving in some way. Mika was there of course, but she couldn’t really be herself with Mika, the girl was too innocent for many things and she was also Andrei’s sister, if something happened between them she doubted he would allow Mika to keep speaking to her and Mika would of course cave to that.

“Mm… yeah. I do.” She nodded and gave a bit of a smile, then lifted her drink toward Maya. “To friends.”

Maya raised her glass and smiled fully, finally. She was beautiful with perfect skin and sparkling white teeth. She was a few years older, and had blonde locks when, before her hair was typically straightened and dark brown, but otherwise she was the same girl Lyra had known.

“To friends.”

Lyra took a sip of her drink and then lowered it back down to the table with a sigh. “Have you been settling in here on the ship alright? You’ve gotten yourself a boyfriend already so it must not all be terrible.”

“Going from the Gamma shift Helmsman on Gladius to the Assistant Chief here felt like a natural promotion, but I’m not sure if it’s okay to feel so good to be on a ship I never saw nearly torn to pieces. I’ve made some friends here and there, but I mostly focus on my work with the Chief being so hands-off recently.”

“I think it’s natural to feel good about something that puts you in a better, more secure position.” Lyra shrugged. “I wouldn’t think too much about it honestly as long as you’re happy.”

“Maybe you’re right.” Maya said with a shrug. “It was a miracle we found you when we did. Things were getting harder and harder. Now things are almost easy.”

“Certainly better than what you had if what I’ve heard and read are true.” Lyra shook her head and sighed. “Listen, I should get going. Andrei is expecting me back for dinner. We’ll talk more soon? We have a lot more to catch up on.”

“Oh, of course. Go see your man.” Maya said with a wave of her hand and a smile. “We’ll talk later for sure. It was nice to reconnect with you. Thanks for coming over, Lyra.”

“Bye.” Lyra bid without anything else as she stood and walked away, pausing only to leave her empty glass on the bar before she disappeared through the doors to head back… home.

END