Skeletons Galore [Saf/Arch]

"Dhael is quite a pretty name," Safefta said expressionlessly. It meant 'bird' or 'birds'. Safefta quite liked birds. "I would call you that, rreki, or alha." The latter was a Romulan word which translated loosely to 'master', where rreki meant 'sir' with a very low-land dialectal twist.

"As for Alidar... fvillhu (Praetor) would suffice, as would the other terms. I aim to avoid speaking with him if it can be avoided," she said blankly. "As I imagine, you would refer to me by name, or if you wish to give the image that we are not friendly, hfehan."

"Will I be questioned?"

"Yes... Quite a pretty name until you find out that your father named you after a class of warbird," Archangel grumbled. "He even used to call me 'little bird' when I was younger." Pushing away from memory lane, she tried to get her head back into the dangerous web they were trying to weave.

"Alidar's aware of the fact that I don't tend to stand on ceremony, so you calling me by name and vice versa won't raise too many eyebrows. Alidar will expect you to be subservient though, in the way expected of a bond-slave."

Little bird. How... endearing. Safefta thought briefly back to the toy warbird her own father had given to her when she was a small child. She wished she still had it, even if there were bad memories attached to her childhood. "Warbirds have their own beauty to them," she commented quietly.

"It may not raise eyebrows for you to call me Thue, but it might the other way around," the Romulan figured as she got back on track. "As for Alidar... I shall practice being more subservient. I will kneel to greet him and other dignitaries... and all other things expected of me... though I will require practice."

It seemed so bizarre to Archangel, that she was sitting in her quarters, discussing how best for one of her officers, for her best friend to act as a slave to her. She sighed quietly, trying to resist the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose, knowing that it would do nothing to assuage the headache from the previous night that was beginning to rear its head again as a low throb in her temples.

"I can easily put together a holoprogram to help you practise, if you like. It won't quite be the real thing, but it's something."

It was a ridiculous that she was trying to prepare for this- there was no doubting that. She was trying to imagine herself in that postion- on Romulus, in the garb that came with the subservience of a bond-slave, and trying t maintain the image that she was Thue, and not Safefta Pardek.

Safefta nodded politely. "I would appreciate that. Please do inform me ahead of time if you have programmed it to strike me." The word was spoken so bluntly that she didn't appear to any sort of reaction to it at all.

While Safefta may not have had any external reaction to her request to know if the program would hurt her, Archangel visibly flinched at the thought that she could ever create a program that could do such a thing. It went against so many of the values she held herself to.

"Of... of course, Safefta. I don't think it will though. I... I don't think I can do that."

Safefta inhaled deeply, then sighed. She apparently did not have many of the same clinging to Federation morals that Archangel did. Still, she appreciated the thought that Archangel wouldn't want to harm her physically, even if that might put a damper on their plan.

She wasn't sure how to say this. "You... realize that you may have to, yes?" She cast her eyes on the ground. "I never met one Romulan who did not use physical reprimands for their slaves. Even my parents, who were vastly different from others, did so just the same as anyone else."

"I will not see it as a fault to you if you do, captain. You will not hurt me- but Alidar might, in the case that he decides you are not sufficiently keeping me in line."

"I... I..." Archangel stammered before eventually giving up on trying to formulate any kind of sentence. Just the thought that she might have to inflict pain on Safefta... It was completely alien to her.

"Urgh," she groaned, dropping her head into her hands. "My father may have taught me all that he could about our people while he was still on the Starbase, I've never lived among them, not in the same way you have. I don't know if I can do that, Safefta, deliberately hurt you, but I won't let him hurt you either."

The idea was terrifying to Safefta as well. She did not like being hit, or yelled at, or anything of the sort- but she was more than dedicated to this plan, and she knew it would involve elements that neither of them were going to like, or really want anything to do with. "I have lived among them, for many years. Believe me when I say I would not tell you this if it were not true. It thrills me less than it does you."

She needed a way to explain to Archangel the gravity of the situation. She truly did not want to accosted by Alidar. She felt he could be so much worse than the worst damage Archangel could inflict. "I will put it to you this way," she said calmly. "Would you rather me a bruise from you, or a broken bone from the Praetor?"

Safefta presented a good argument, no matter how much it sat badly with Archangel. The young captain shifted uncomfortably as she tried to find any other way around it and came up blank.

"I understand," she said quietly. "I think I'm going to need some practise on that front as well, with a suitable hologram." After a moment's additional thought, she continued. "Is there anything else we should prepare?"

The young Romulan nodded solemnly. She wished Archangel had no reason to need to understand Safefta's argument. It would make her life so much easier if she or Archangel had no trip to Romulus to make at all. She was still mildly dumbstruck that she'd just advocated for Archangel to mistreat her... while she was pretending to be a slave... on a planet she swore she'd never return to.

I am crazy. Completely, certifiably crazy.

"I have sufficient skill to program you a hologram that will look and act sufficiently like I do. I will do that as soon as I leave here," she said. "Beyond what we have discussed, I do not believe there is any more to go over. We have... decided on quite enough, I would say," she added meekly.

Suddenly feeling so very tired, Archangel also nodded slowly, rubbing at her ridges. "I'll put that program together for you as well. I know enough of the layout of the Praetor's residential buildings and the people who frequent it to give you a fairly accurate representation of what you'll be up against." There was a brief pause before she added: "Yes, that's enough for today, I think. Chances are we're going to deeply regret this more than once during the course of its execution."

This was good, at least. Safefta would get a chance to explore the layout of the building she was going to spend a few weeks in... at the very least, she could navigate some exist points or strategic locations while she was busy playing servant to the praetor and his wife.

She knew what Archangel meant by her comment, but the wording she'd chosen brought a sad sort of smile to her face. "Let... us hope that it does not end in an execution while we are... executing our plan."

With that vague and mildly useless comment spoken, she nodded politely to her captain. "Goodbye, Archangel," she said softly, before turning and exiting her quarters. There was a lot to do in the short time before departure, and Safefta wanted to make sure that everything was done to make her cover as solid as possible.

Unfortunately, she couldn't predict how it would go, but if she knew her chances well enough, something was going to go drastically, terribly wrong.

It was just a matter of time.

[END]