She broke eye contact and slumped forward, the need for sleep aching in her bones. Heavy-limbed with exhaustion, she rested her forehead against his chest for a fraction of a moment. “Fine,” she whispered.
Jacob slipped an arm around her waist and propelled her forward. How they wound their way through the halls and stairs of the winemaking facility, Rena couldn’t precisely say. Once she heard the drumming rain and smelled the fresh, stirred-up scents of soil and the esanishe remembered seeing growing beside the main doors, she knew they had found their way. Renewed energy filled her. They stepped out onto the porch.
As Rena’s will supplanted her fatigue, she became acutely aware of Jacob’s hand splayed against her waist and the warmth of his body beside hers. She disentangled herself and stepped out onto the rickety wood steps, immediately losing her balance on the slippery surface. Jacob caught her by the elbow and helped her upright. As she straightened herself, she glanced up at the dusky sky in time to see beams of moonlight fanning through the mist.
Jacob was a nimble-footed traveling companion, Rena discovered. Swiftly, they moved in tandem toward the River Way, avoiding mud slicks and water-filled divots in the few paved spots. Occasionally, the saturated ground gave beneath their weight, forcing them to scramble to avoid a fall or an injury. Within a kilometer, Rena had settled into her traveling mode, in spite of the problematic terrain. The eerie wine-colored sky prevented darkness from eclipsing their path. Eyes drilled ahead, she glanced infrequently at him, wanting to avoid the intimacy she felt creeping between them earlier. Instead her gaze meandered from the Pah mountain range in the distance on her right, where the dark silhouettes of former volcanoes stood on the edge of the rocky valley floor near Mylea, to the tabletop-flat grasslands spread as far as the eye could see on her left, down to the Sahving Valley, where she’d come from.
The loamy scent of rain-soaked peat and the gingery perfume rising off the reeds and marsh roses saturated the air. She knew they would join the River Way shortly when she heard the rain’s steady hiss on the Yolja’s glassy surface as the river rambled toward the ocean, but Rena didn’t mind the weather. The sweater she’d knit last year proved sufficient insulation from the light rains. Rena imagined that Jacob, having spent time on the river, felt similarly. Up over a slight rise in the landscape, they would find familiar territory. She nearly wept with relief when they took their first steps onto the pathway paved by the ancient Bajora. Relieved of the burden of watching each step, Rena increased her pace to a gentle jog; Jacob followed suit.
As they drew nearer to the coast, sour marsh gases gave way to brine-tinged winds. The road no longer gently rose and fell, but instead sloped steadily downward. Bowed clusters of willow trees gave way to bedraggled shrubs, half-hidden by drifting sands. When white, water-polished boulders began appearing, Rena knew they would shortly arrive at the crossroads and the bridge to Mylea. She almost didn’t recognize the junction when she saw it, having never before seen the intersection marked with a placard written in both Federation Standard and Bajoran. Another sign of change,she thought wistfully, wondering if this road would feel the same the next time she passed through, or whether it would be the way everything else in her life seemed to be: transitional, shifting like the shore dunes.
Rena mentally calculated how long it would take her to reach Mylea after the bridge, especially without the barges to take them out and around the peninsula, then into Mylea Harbor. She didn’t care. She’d walk until she collapsed on the bakery’s front step. She raced down the roadway to the bridge, her legs nearly running away with her. The rushing river waters called to her, urged her forward…
“Rena!” Jacob shouted.
She almost didn’t see the collapsed bank in time to stop her from running off the ledge. Only Jacob, who had approached this last stretch before the Yolja with more caution than she had, had seen how the ground where the bridge joined the land had given way. As she stuttered to a halt, she tripped over a fallen tree branch and fell forward onto her face. The force of her fall split open her knapsack, spilling the contents, including her precious sketchbook, into a muddy puddle.
Her sketchbook. The only part of her university life she’d brought home with her. Her canvases, her paintings—all of them had remained behind in the student studio when she left school to return to Mylea. She left believing she would never see those artworks again, that symbolically, she needed to leave them behind if she were to truly embrace the path she was destined for. The only memory she allowed herself to keep was her sketchbook. Now she watched the dirty water soak the pages through, irrevocably destroying months of charcoal, pastel, and pencil memories. She beat her fists against the ground, teeth clenched. Though she felt that remaining in her prostrate position fit her circumstances, she pushed herself up onto her elbows, pulled her legs up into a kneeling position, finally righting herself by the time Jacob reached her. Tersely, she brushed aside his offers of assistance, ignoring the smarting cuts and bruises on her knees and forearms as she paced.
Cursing, she screamed at the sky, screaming as if she believed that the Prophets themselves could hear her, demandingthey hear her. “I’m doing what you asked! I walked away from my life to follow the path laid out for me! Do you hear me?”She stamped her foot angrily, her hands balled into fists. “If I am submitting to all the demands placed on me—all of them!—why can’t you make it easier? Do you hear me, dammit?! Answer me! Send your Emissary or your Tears, but answer me!” Rena continued screaming her diatribe until she was hoarse, her throat sore from exertion. The storm’s tempo picked up, and soon she was soaked through.
Throughout her display of temper, Jacob had stood off to the side, leaning against a road marker and respectfully averting his eyes from Rena. Abruptly, he took a few long steps forward, pointing at the river. “There’s something out there—I can see the light on the bow.”
“They’ll never see us through this storm,” Rena said, coughing. Heavy with discouragement, miserable from cold, she could see no way out of their predicament; she plopped to the ground, prepared to spend the night in the downpour.
Not to be dissuaded by her negativity, Jacob unfastened a pocket on his gear bag, fished around, and removed a wristband with a small circular object mounted on top where a chrono face would be. He thumbed a switch and a brilliant light beam burst out of the side. Holding the light before him like a signal beacon, he ran down as close as he could to the riverbank, trying to draw the attention of the boat. Minutes passed. Then: “It’s changing course! Rena! You can go home!” He let loose a loud whoop of joy.
In spite of all that had gone wrong, Rena couldn’t help smiling. Steward, indeed.
Girani
As she marched toward the examination room, Dr. Girani Semna suspected that one thing she wouldn’t miss about working in Deep Space 9’s infirmary was all the Cardassian instrumentality. Most of the medical staff had grown accustomed to it over the years, herself included. Her patients—the Bajorans, particularly—were another matter. They tended to become uncomfortable in this place, beyond their natural aversion to going to see a doctor at all. Despite the fact that the entire station shared the same design elements and seemed no longer to trouble most of the residents, the infirmary made them particularly uneasy. All things considered, that was no surprise. This was, after all, where they felt the most vulnerable.
Her newest patient, she suspected, was going to be no exception.