InsaneJournal

Between her actual duties and her side project, Jadzia hadn’t spent much time looking after herself. So before the lounge closed she decided to get a drink, and see if Marian might join her. She still owed the woman a drink, after all, and drinking was always better with friends.

Marian wasn’t a friend yet, but Jadzia was working on that. She found a place with a view out the window and took a seat with her drink.

From their brief chit chat on the magic glass, Marian was actually quite certain that Jadzia was gorgeous and engaging. They'd clicked well enough that being friends wasn't really in question, and Marian liked that Jadzia was willing to explain the things to her that her mind was having a hard time wrapping around.

She was already in the bar when Jadzia came in, and she grabbed a fresh drink before sitting down with her and waving a hand. "So IS it Jadzia, or is it Dax, or both? I'm still a bit confused by the naming conventions, there. Also, hello!"

Jadzia was gorgeous and engaging, and she’d be the first to joke about it. She gave Marian a look over as she came in, smoothing her skirt out as she took a seat. “It’s both, or one or the other. It depends on the situation, I answer to either.”

She held out her hand. “Nice to meet you in person.”

"Oh lovely," Marian mused. She glanced down at Jadzia's hand and arched a brow for a moment, before taking it gently in hers and placing a quick kiss on it. Which was what the gentlemen at parties were always doing to her back in Thedas. That was why she'd held it out, right?

Well if it wasn't, it didn't matter much. Marian was happy to sneak a kiss in, even if it was on the hand. "Well, we'll see how we do. Hawke is about the only name you need for me of course. Not even my mother called me Marian before she died."

Which was a somewhat bleak time in her life, and Marian physically dashed the memory away with one of her hands. "Have you tried this Tequila stuff? It's really amazing. Oh! Nice to meet you in person too, of course. Me and my manners."

Both of Jadzia’s eyebrows disappeared into her hair, but she just assumed that was a custom of Marian’s. It was sweet, anyway. “Hawke, then. Tequila is really good. I remember the first time I had it. But it’s got nothing on Klingon bloodwine.”

Manners didn’t appear to bother Jadzia, so she waved them off as well.

"No one's mentioned this Klingon Bloodwine to me yet. Now I'm going to be quite cross. Do they serve it over at the bar?" Marian asked, her own eyebrows raising. Then they furrowed a bit, and she added, "Is a Klingon some sort of alien race around here? Have I already seen one and just didn’t know it yet?"

Aliens fascinated Marian. She'd come from a place with Qunari, who looked quite different from humans, and even Elves had their own sort of facial structure. It was fascinating to get to know entire new races of people with all sorts of faces and sizes. Though perhaps less new people with horns.

Trill had no horns, thankfully, but apparently they had spots. Did those go all the way down? There was no polite way to ask.

“They’re aliens, but you wouldn’t find one on this ship. In this time period the Federation and the Klingon Empire aren’t exactly friends, though that will change eventually. Which is why finding a decent Klingon meal or drink is a pain right now.” There were plenty of foods Jadzia liked, but she really, really liked Klingon cuisine. But maybe that was for the best. Less reminders.

“Klingons have forehead ridges, and typically large noses and sharp teeth.” Jadzia had checked the Enterprise's files to discover that the smooth-headed genetic offshoot wasn’t common any more. “I was married to one.”

"Oh..." Marian winced a bit. She was never any good at that kind of thing, but she did keenly understand the feeling, even if she'd never been married to Fenris at all. Neither of them were really the type, and Thedas's current climate wasn't really conducive to settling down.

"Well, that's got to be hard, though I suppose less hard with none of them hanging about to stare at longingly. I think I've lucked out, there. There are precious few elves aboard." Though there was that cute devil man who reminded her of Fenris all the time. She darted her eyes off to the side for a second and sipped at her drink. "Perhaps we can find a way to smuggle some of this wine aboard, though. There's always a way to do that where I'm from."

“I’m sure we can sneak a few bottles on board.” Jadzia preferred to think about that rather than think about Worf. She didn’t even know if she should mourn him, or if she’d ever see him again. It made her personal life complicated, like she was in some kind of limbo. Could she even return without seriously messing with her timeline?

Thoughts and attractions she’d otherwise ignore.

"I'll keep my eyes out for any bottles of it I can find on the station," Marian decided. She was always in favor of any alcohol that was guaranteed to knock her on her ass. "The last... I want to say 18 years of my life? Are the sort of thing that requires heavy drinking, even in polite social circles. So I'm always ready to try new alcohol."

Jadzia nodded. Unlike a lot of Starfleet officers, she’d spent enough time in environments to understand that life wasn’t always easy and that people sometimes got dealt a bad hand. Just look at Bajor in its entirety. While she understood why the Federation had stayed out of it for so long, she didn’t actually like it. If she was here long enough, she was considering doing something really, really bad for the Temporal Prime Directive.

“We’ll be there soon and you can indulge your alcoholism to your heart’s content.”

"It might be nice to find some other things to do, of course. I was considering that traveler program. But also, didn't you say something about creating places for people to be? It flew over my head a bit." Marian pondered the post that had been made a bit back, trying to remember if Jadzia had mentioned what kind of project she'd been working on. Or if it had a name.

"We need a place to practice the proper use of our powers," She explained, after sipping her drink. "I'm not the only one who showed up here from somewhere... else. I've got magic, there's a girl scared to death she's going to burn the whole ship down, and I'm sure there's others."

“You’d view it as a kind of magic,” Jadzia said. “Basically I can replicate a location or time, as long as I have enough information to do so. I’ve done combat programs but it’ll take some doing to make it stand up to destructive power… maybe something with force fields…”

"I can actually create force fields, I think. Something similar." Marian mused, squinting her eyes a bit as she thought. Mages didn't have the kind of magic in her world that could be used to create elaborate illusions like the ones Jadzia was discussing, but she knew that things like that were possible. The Fade was all about that. There was probably a reason why mages didn't have access to that level of power.

"They do block magic attacks. There's got to be something somewhere in your science that can do something similar. And I think if we could set them up inside Liz's rooms she'd sleep better at night, too."

“Okay.” Jadzia had a few ideas already. “I think I can replicate what I need, but I’m going to need your help testing it. Nothing...extremely powerful, we just need to know if the shielding can withstand sudden heat.” After all, Jadzia would like to avoid any of the fire suppression systems. Worse case scenario? Exposing a room to vaccuum.

"Right, I THINK I can manage that, though the last time I tried to summon a flame at all there were all kinds of alarms. I don't suppose you could turn those off?" Marian asked. "Your computer was quite cross with me over it. Though the room was extremely cold at the time, so I suppose the fire was a bit easier to detect?"

“I won’t tell anyone if you won’t,” Jadzia promised. “We can run the test in the lab, that way if there won’t be a ship wide alert. I can schedule a test that involves fire so it will be treated like a normal test.”

Which it really was. If the shielding worked like expected,they could install it in certain quarters.

"Excellent! It's going to be extremely appreciated, I think. I know I'll rest easier, even if my new friend doesn't. Back where I come from, I was the one..." Marian said, then twisted her lips a bit and darted her eyes off to the side. "Well. I took care of plenty of problems in Kirkwall that all seemed to start with people saying they could control their power. And simply being unable to. Now that I'm here I'd like to take on a different line of work."

Deciding that topic was done, she decided to move on to the question that was still burning a hole into the back of her brain. "Alright, you don't have to answer this but do those spots go all the way down?"

“So you were the problem solver, were you?” Jadzia knew the type, often raised to command positions whether they wanted to be in charge or not. Some were just natural leaders.

And some just had to ask that question. Jadzia laughed. “Since it’s probably been eating you up this whole time, I’ll give you an answer. Yes, they do.”

"It really has. Honestly I tried to control the impulse to ask, seeing as it's probably extremely rude. And we only just met, and you probably do get that question all the time." Marian replied, grinning a bit sheepishly. "But my infernal curiosity just got the better of me.”

“And yes, I was definitely the problem solver. It got to the point where certain agencies that were supposed to kill or detain me instead hired me to take care of their problems."

“It’s fine, I don’t mind answering. Sometimes I like seeing the reactions on people’s faces when I respond.” Laughing, Jadzia reached for her drink. “It’s like they don’t expect that answer, or for me to answer at all.”

She decided that Marian would be a good fit for Starfleet. At least, certain portions of it. “So. A hero.”

"It's possible that the majority who ask are hoping that the answer is 'yes', so that they can quickly follow that up with a request to see them in their entirety," Marian mused, after finishing off the rest of her glass. There was a time when she might have put herself on that list.

"Hero. There's a word. They like to toss that at people at random, I think. 'Oh, you killed that dragon bothering the mine? You're a hero! Oh, you survived the Deep Roads, you must be important!'" Marian snorted, and shook her head, "And then your friend goes and writes books about you and that only makes it worse. Well, one book. But it was a rather large one. I'm mostly an ordinary woman, you know. I spent the first half of my life trying very hard to be inconspicuous and then it all went to the abyss."

“I’ve gotten that more than once.” Jadzia leaned in and winked. “Sometimes, I let them have that follow up.” If they were cute, or interesting. Jadzia didn’t discriminate between any of the dozens of genders she’d encountered, or species. Ferengi, for example, could be a lot of fun.

“Ordinary women do the most extraordinary things.”

"I'm sure that in the end, most heroes were just ordinary people. It's just that there's times where you look back on your life and wonder how many of the things you're known heroically for were actually... that heroic in the long run." Marian mused, then looked down into her empty glass.

"I think this needs more liquor in it. And you should tell me a story about people and your spots and all the interesting places that leads."

“Well then.” Jadzia laughed. “Let me fetch you a drink, and I’ve got a story that’ll burn your ears off.”