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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Lanzen_Jars on 2024-12-24 20:02:37+00:00.
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A/N: In case you missed it, this is a two parter. Find the first part here:
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Part B
Shida's left grabbed the front of her shirt in a tight hold, while her right balled into a fist, holding something similarly soft thought slightly sturdier squeezed between its fingers.
She inhaled briefly and let the air out briskly; clenching her eyes shut for only a moment as she fought down her nervousness.
In all honesty, she was still extremely nervous, even as she let go of her shirt a moment later and smoothed it out with a few strokes of her hand to not look completely disheveled for the upcoming meeting.
However, she had made a promise to herself. A promise that she would be strong for this. A promise that she wouldn't let this be another thing she would allow to be ruined through some freak mix of incomprehensible emotions in her stomach.
She wanted this to be on eye-level. She wanted this to be honest. She wanted this...
With another inhale and exhale, she removed her left from her chest completely, using it to quickly gesture orders to the screen before her.
After her request, Koko had worked...scarily quickly. To the point where Shida didn't even want to know every string the Commander had pulled to make this happen as soon as she had. However, she was not going to complain.
Honestly, it would've probably made things much worse if she had gotten any more time to get into her own head about this. The urge for this meeting had arisen all of a sudden, and it was probably better if she was thrown into it just as suddenly as well.
And now, thanks to Koko's apparent witchcraft...the person she wanted to talk to was already on hold, just waiting for Shida to finally put her on.
It was time.
With her right hand clutching even tighter around the crumpled fabric, she activated the call with her left, allowing the screen to jump from the 'incoming call' window to the active camera feed of the person on the other end of the line.
Shida's eyes twinkled as they first fell upon the ever-familiar, purple exoskeleton, glistening with a metallic sheen in the dim light of the G.E.S.-32's bridge.
The feed's background was filled with movement as all manner of people stood at their respective stations in the distance, working away at the many screens that were the only source of light in the dark, rounded room.
Shida knew that the same picture would continue all the way around the entire bridge in a ring, leaving the people in the ring-shaped, ceiling-less room able to look 'up' at the people who were seemingly upside down on the other side of it.
She remembered her own time toiling away in front of many of those screens...
Though although all those memories flashed through her mind at an instant as the picture appeared on her screen, they didn't last more than a moment as both her eyes and mind quickly settled on the person that was actually right in front of the camera.
The tall pillar that made up most of her body was pointing straight up, showing off its deep segmentation as shadow and light plaid across its curvature with each gentle movement her body made.
Ten of the twelve flexible limbs that sprouted out of the slightly larger segment in the middle of her body were planted firmly on the ground, while the last two, which were positioned on the exact opposite sides of each other, were slightly raised, bending around to press their segmented manipulators against each other.
The three of her four green, crystal-shaped compound eyes that Shida could see from the current angle were still and unmoving as always, and yet the feline still imagined that she could see a sort of...anticipation hiding behind them. Admittedly, that may have just been wishful thinking.
Still, with a quick glitter of light flashing across her reflective surface, Division Officer Nahlzahm finally made a more clearly intentional motion as she seemed to process that the picture in front of her had changed.
The two pressed-together graspers separated as she swiftly swung them in deliberate movements, quickly conveying a message to Shida.
'It is good to see you, Lieutenant-Commander,' the DO signed in a polite manner, before then tilting her stiff body forwards a slight bit to indicate her respect.
Shida briefly felt her throat tightening, threatening to choke her up before she had even gotten her first words out. However, she forced the feeling back with a heavy swallow as she pulled all her focus together.
That way, her voice was only slightly croakey as she opened her mouth to say,
“Oh, uh...technically, I am not a Lieutenant-Commander right now, Ma'am.”
Her tone was awkward and she quickly cleared her throat as she realized how she sounded. As if it wasn't strange enough already to talk to Nahlzahm while technically outranking her – honestly Shida was glad the DO had gone for her rank instead of 'Ma'am'-ing her – of course this had to happen at a time when she would have to admit that said outranking was currently...on hold.
She briefly bit her lip to fight down another wave of awkwardness while Nahlzahm slowly lifted her body up straight again so her stiff eyes could look at Shida more easily.
'How come?' she asked quite quickly. To many, it would have seemed like not much had changed about her demeanor since there really wasn't a lot to give it away. However, Shida knew the woman well enough to tell just from the way her arms moved that, had Nahlzahm's eyes been able to narrow, they would have done just that in that moment.
And the tingly feeling that crawled down Shida's back was immediate. Clearing her throat one more time, she spoke up again.
“I have been...sort of...suspended from service,” she admitted.
There was a brief moment in which Nahlzahm simply stood there, her limbs frozen in their movement for a second as she processed what she heard.
But it really did last only a second, as her limbs soon found their groove again.
'Why am I not surprised?' they swiftly signed in smooth motions. And although her face could not show off any readable emotions, Shida could taste the sass in her question.
However, it was a good-natured sass, without any sense of being malicious. Although her skin still tingled, Shida began to smile softly.
'Was it the Commander who reached out to me?' Nahlzahm half-asked half-suspected, briefly switching up the legs she was using to sign in a smooth exchange.
How the DO signed heavily depended on who she was talking to. If she didn't know someone well, she generally stuck to two legs, in order to not make following what she was saying unnecessarily confusing.
But with Shida, he had always used whichever leg was comfortable at the time while the feline was still serving under her. And it seemed like she still had not the slightest worries about Shida keeping up.
“Are you a mind reader now?” Shida asked with a slightly lightening mood.
'No. But she sounded worried about you,' Nahlzahm replied directly.
Shida nodded. Her tail began to swish behind her as she looked down for a moment.
“I'm...” she began to say, but interrupted herself with a sigh, not quite sure how she even wanted to put it – and how much she actually wanted to tell. However, as she raised her eyes up to directly look at the screen once more, she couldn't help but cave entirely as her gaze found one of those green diamonds. “I don't know what's going on with me,” she said in a slightly breathless voice, focusing on keeping it together as she spoke and thus surrendering some of the control she had over her tone. “I just...can't get myself under control. I've done a bunch of stupid things. And every time I tell myself I'm going to stop, it just happens again before I even notice it.”
She reached her hand up to rub over her eye, only to feel the soft feeling of fabric press against her face as she had inadvertently used the hand she was still clutching the white ball of cloth in.
Nahlzahm looked back at her for a long moment, observing how Shida looked down at what she held in her hand.
White with yellow accents. It was the uniform the Division Officer herself hand given to Shida during their last meeting.
“I just don't know what happened,” Shida said again, her face heating up as she looked at her old uniform. Her hand trembled slightly. Why had she wanted this? Letting Nahlzahm see her like this...and bringing the damn uniform with her.
Surely this wasn't what Nahlzahm had in mind when she handed the thing to her. When she still wore this uniform, the galactic uniform, she hadn't been like this. She hadn't been this...stupid. In the service of the Galaxy, she had been held back for so long, running place forever as she chased her ultimate goal, and it had made her so angry when she had first realized that.
But maybe...maybe it had been right.
Her gaze snapped up when she realized Nahlzahm was moving again, quickly focusing to not miss what the woman was saying.
'I know what happened,' Nahlzahm stated in swift signs. 'You forgot.'
Shida's burning eyes blinked as she...
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