Dysfunctional You

Posted on Wed Apr 1st, 2026 @ 2:43am by Commodore Wilkan Targaryen & Gamma Quadrant NPC & Lieutenant Commander Aidan Datari & Lieutenant Rio Kholin MD & Lieutenant Amber Laurell

4,773 words; about a 24 minute read

Mission: 8. Epidemic
Location: Laboratory, Talu
Timeline: 2439-08-27, 02:30

The basalt walls of the Primary Ward were the color of a bruised sky, but today they hummed with a sickly, golden vibration that Elara could feel in her teeth. Every breath had felt like swallowing broken glass. Her skin, once the soft grey of a river stone, was now mapped with weeping geometric cracks that stung whenever her heavy silk tunic brushed against her.

But the air had changed...

The tall man with the violet eyes, the one the Elders called Borath, had departed, leaving behind a lingering scent of rain and ozone. The emerald mist he had released was still swirling, a cold, protective veil that made the glass in Elara’s lungs melt away. The frantic, high-pitched ringing in her ears - the "noise" the adults said was the Federation's fault - had faded into a soft, manageable thrum. As the pain receded, Elara’s hand instinctively went to her opposite wrist. Her fingers clawed at empty air.

"My... my colors," she rasped, her eyes widening with a sudden, sharp spike of distress that had nothing to do with the resonance. The braided bracelet the strangers had given her, the one that had felt like a small, warm anchor of friendship, was gone. It must have slipped off when the healers had cut away her old tunic, or perhaps it had simply dissolved into the shadow of the ward. The loss felt like a physical hollow in her chest, a piece of the "outside" world that had vanished just as the Dominion's mist arrived.

"The resonance is dampening, but her pulse is spiking. Look at the cellular cohesion," a voice whispered. It belonged to Minister of Health Chirnup. The Doctor moved with a clinical, academic grace, her eyes fixed on the flickering datapad. While others saw a miracle in Borath's wake, Chirnup saw a fleeting variable. She looked at the fading emerald mist, then glanced toward the Starfleet officers remaining in the shadows, noticing the way Elara’s eyes searched the floor.

"I... I can breathe," Elara whispered, her voice thin as she looked up at the strangers, her lower lip trembling, "But I lost it. The gift. It’s gone."

Chirnup placed a cooling hand on Elara’s brow, her touch professional yet heavy. She checked the child’s stabilizing vitals, then turned her head toward the Federation team. Her expression was a mix of academic curiosity and the cold pragmatism of a leader whose time had nearly run out.

"She is lucid, though clearly agitated by a personal loss," Chirnup announced, her voice echoing off the basalt. "The stabilizer Borath left behind has provided a temporary equilibrium, but the mist is already beginning to dissipate. We have a narrow window before the systemic fatigue takes her again." She looked directly at the Starfleet personnel, her eyes narrowing behind her lenses. "You claim your presence is not the toxin. Prove it. If your science is as advanced as you boast ask your questions now. Find the root of this discord before the silence Borath gave us vanishes." She stepped back, granting them access to the bedside. "Be brief. If your words agitate the resonance again, this dialogue ends and so does our neutrality."

Elara looked up at the strangers, her wide, watery eyes reflecting the faint, dying green glow of the mist.

Aidan approached slowly, mindful of the two medical officers that no doubt would want to take their own readings. He didn't get too close, so they would have the room they needed. Carefully, he watched the patient, observing her in an old fashioned way and taking notes on a stylus rather than agitate them with the use of a tricorder. The way she spoke was alarming, as if something vital had been neutralised.

"My name is Aidan," he introduced himself to the girl, once more foregoing the use of the universal translator. "I'm glad you can breathe again but I hear your sadness. Can you tell me what you mean by losing a gift? If speaking is difficult, will you allow my friend Amber to see your thoughts? All you have to do is think, and she'll see images of what you're thinking of." He gestured towards Amber, hoping she would agree. "I'll write down everything you share with us. It will help us to find a way to make you feel better." He paused, indicating Rio. "My friend Rio is a doctor, will you allow her to take a closer look at you? Can she take a blood sample from you?" Rio smiled, waiting for the little girl to give or withhold permission but wishing to be reassuring and kind so as not to frighten her by being too intense. The blood sample would be super-important if she could get it.

Amber had offered a warm, friendly, and caring smile at the child as Aidan made his suggestion. “I’m Amber, I know you’re afraid but we’re going to try and make you all better again. Will you allow us to do that?”

Elara looked at her empty wrist again, the stone-grey of her skin feeling cold where the braided fibers used to rest. She looked up at Amber, then Aidan, her breathing hitching in a rhythmic, whistling cadence that mirrored the wind outside the basalt walls. The emerald mist was thinning now, swirling in lazy, dying eddies near the floor, and with its retreat, the faint, high-pitched "ringing" began to tickle the back of her skull.

"The colors," she whispered, her voice trembling as she looked at Amber. "They were... soft. Not like the metal men or the loud ships. It was a promise that the world could be quiet and kind." She looked at Aidan, her eyes watery and wide. "I don't know how to give you my thoughts, but if you look... will you see the braid? It was the only thing that didn't hum when the glass started to grow in my chest. If I think about the colors, maybe you can find where they went? I don't want the gift to be gone."

She turned her gaze to Rio, shrinking back just a fraction against the hard pillow, though she didn't pull her arm away. The thought of a needle was scary, but the "noise" coming back was worse. "You can take the blood," Elara breathed, her lower lip quivering as she reached out a trembling hand toward Amber, seeking a physical anchor. "Just... please don't let the song come back. It's so loud when the green air goes away. Tell the doctor to hurry before the glass starts again."

Rio had been preparing a hypo-collector which just made a puffing sound and softly withdrew a misted, molecular sample without penetration and therefore no pain. She said "Thank you Elara" gently to the courageous young patient and unloaded an internal vial from the collector ready to analyse.

Aidan watched the stricken girl, following her gaze towards her wrist, listening to her fragile breathing. "The fibres didn't hum? Everything seems to resonate here.." he paused, tilting his head as he caught on to something. "Do you hear that?" He asked his companions, "listen to her breathing, and then listen to the wind outside. It's the same pattern, the same frequency, if you prefer." He looked towards the girl again. "Just think of your bracelet, that's all you have to do, right Amber?"

“Right” Amber nodded as she gently held Elara’s hand. “Don’t fear, just concentrate on the braid, show me the colours.”

He smiled encouragingly at them, though his eyes remained clouded with worry. His frown betrayed his inner turmoil as he tries to figure out how the non vibration piece of jewelry was important. Was it a disruption in the flow of things? Was it the nudge that threw everything out of sync? Aidan looked towards the Talu doctor while the two women set to work. "Is it Talu design?" He asked, hoping the alien doctor could tell him more.

Minister Chirnup’s movements were sharp and clinical, her posture rigid as she adjusted the seals on her quarantine collar. The device hummed with a constant, protective frequency, a barrier meant to shield the Minister from the very "noise" that was currently shattering her people. Her hands, however, betrayed a fine, rhythmic tremor that no field could fully dampen.

"It was a commemorative reproduction," Chirnup interjected, her voice filtered through the collar's speakers with a metallic edge. She looked up from her datapad, her gaze pinning Aidan with academic intensity. "The weave was modeled after a fragment of the Starfleet uniform left behind during our contact. Our government commissioned them to symbolize a 'New Song' among the stars. It was a gesture of unity, nothing more. Strange that she became so fervent toward it"

Amber let her touch aid the connection between herself and Elara, focusing her telepathic senses on seeing the colours and the braid that the girl wanted her to see. She flinched slightly as the sound of ringing filled her mind, she could feel that Elara was trying to hold the ringing back, but she was losing the battle. “Focus Elara, show me the colours.”

Elara squeezed Amber’s hand, her fingers steady as the emerald mist held the "glass" at bay. She didn't understand what a "commemorative reproduction" was, only that the Minister’s voice sounded hard and cold. In her mind, she saw the deep braid of crimson and black. She remembered how the fibers felt: a snug, heavy weight against her pulse. It hadn't vibrated like the floor; it felt solid, an anchor she had fastened to herself. That spot on her wrist had been a concentrated point of warmth she carried everywhere.

"It was the red of the deep fire," she whispered, her voice clear. "And the black of the stones. It was... heavy, Amber. Everything else shakes, but the braid stayed right where I put it."

Chirnup checked the child’s vitals again, her brow furrowing as the emerald mist began to thin. "If that specific patch of skin didn't hum, it is a localized anomaly. Perhaps a fluke of the material's density, or a psychosomatic response to a 'gift.' We don't have the luxury of sentiment." She stepped back, her expression darkening. "Dr. Kholin, hurry with the sample. The silence Borath gave us is already beginning to scream, and I will not have this ward become a tomb of failed experiments."

"I have completed my sample taking" Rio replied calmly, standing aside slightly to show the portable micro-analyser she had been working with and the now half empty vial standing on the side next to it as it hummed quietly away.

"Are there any more of these commemorative bracelets? Any I can study and see why there's no vibration from them at all?" He paused, casting the Talu medic a questioning look. "If I were to give you say, the hem of my uniform, would you be able to tell if it carries any tune? That way I have some measure of comparison while I study this phenomenon. That is assuming these bracelets are not made of Starfleet fabric..." He scribbled a few more notes on his writing pad and chewed on the end of his pencil in thought.

“Hold onto the colours Elara” Amber added in support of the ailing child. “Hold onto my colours for as long as you can I’m not going anywhere.” She looked up at Rio concernedly. “I see the colours, but I don’t understand their significance.”

"Perhaps it's something along the lines of a 'visualisation' technique from long ago, when patients who were trying to battle primitive diseases were taught.... encouraged....to imagine images of silver light, or tiny imaginary golden 'soldier' cells gathering at the afflicted parts of their bodies to 'fight off the problem. It wasn't the medicine of the time, it was quite random and not well understood, but in those days they didn't understand the part that hope, belief and self-help could do to strengthen the immune system and the chemicals dispatched around the system in times of healing - or lack of it.

Anyway, whatever it is, if it's actually shielding Alara's wrist from whatever is harming her, then I say good on it and bring on more of the same. If we're looking at resonance as the Commodore was discussing earlier, then perhaps the material of the wristband is blocking whatever is carrying the attack, or if it's encouraging mental/internal self-protection then we just need to find out what it is and make more of it and we can figure out the whys and wherefores later when we have more time. What are you reading from her thoughts Amber? Can you see and describe anything?"

As she spoke, the heavy doors of the ward groaned open with the sound of frantic footsteps fracturing the quiet. Two more Talu children were carried in, their skin mapped with the same weeping geometric cracks Elara had just escaped. Even through the swirling emerald mist Borath had left behind, their breath was already hitching in that terrifying, shattered cadence.

Elara’s eyes went wide as she looked past Aidan toward the new arrivals. They were lucky, unlike her: they hadn't lost their gifts. Around each of their wrists, the crimson and black braids stood out vividly - heavy, silent, and still tied tight. Despite the green air, their small bodies were already starting to shake.

"The song..." Elara whispered, her voice trembling as she clutched Amber’s hand tighter. "It's louder for them. Why is it so loud for them?" Elara’s fingers dug into Amber’s palm, her knuckles turning a pale, waxy grey. The relief she had felt only moments ago - that cool, silent space where the "glass" had stopped cutting her - was being choked out by a new kind of cold. She watched the new children, their small bodies jerking in a rhythmic, violent discordance that seemed to mock the steady hum of the ward.

Elara whimpered, her gaze locked on the wrists of the newcomers, "They still have them!" The crimson and black fibers sat there, stark and heavy against the weeping cracks of their skin. "The colors... they’re staying quiet. Why are they staying quiet while the children are breaking?"

"Again?" Minister Chirnup spun around, her quarantine collar emitting a sharp, agitated hiss as she moved. She didn't look at the children with the eyes of a healer; she looked at them with the eyes of a woman watching a dam burst. She stormed toward the first stretcher, her boots clicking sharply against the basalt floor as she grabbed the scanner from a nearby attendant, her hands shaking so fiercely the screen blurred, "Borath promised us that the stabilizer would hold for a rotation! The resonance is already peaking... it's like they're being struck from the inside out."

"I hear the difference in their breathing," Aidan said softly as he listened, his gaze following the girl's towards the new arrivals. "I think I know what she means with colours doctor, counselor." He moved towards one of the children, listening closer to their breathing, comparing it to Elena's and made a few more notes. "Minister, I need one of your scanning devices," he addressed Chirnup, "I want to take a few readings but I don't want to risk using my tricorder for fear of making things worse for them."

Elara’s fingers didn't just dig into Amber’s palm; they clung to it as if Amber were the only thing keeping her from drifting away into the void. She watched the new children with a wide-eyed, paralyzed intensity. Their skin was the color of wet ash, and the geometric cracks were weeping so much faster than hers ever had.

"They’re still wearing the fire and the stone," Elara whispered, her voice barely a thread. She looked at the boy on the nearest stretcher. His braid was perfect, a tight, heavy circle of crimson and black that looked so peaceful, so still. But his chest was heaving, a jagged, whistling sound that made Elara's own lungs ache in sympathy. She looked up at Amber, her lower lip trembling. "Why are the colors staying so quiet while the boy is screaming inside? My wrist felt... it felt like a wall, but their walls are falling down."

Minister Chirnup didn't answer Elara. She was too busy hovering over the boy, her quarantine collar buzzing with a frantic, metallic drone. She snatched the scanner Aidan had requested from a nearby technician and thrust it toward him with a jagged motion.

"Take it," Chirnup snapped, her academic composure completely dissolved into raw, vibrating nerves. "Borath’s 'miracle' is a lie. The stabilization isn't just failing; it’s being bypassed. The resonance isn't coming from the walls anymore." She looked at the boy’s wrist, then back at Elara’s bare arm, her eyes wide behind her lenses. "It’s as if the 'Song' has found a way to sing underneath the mist. It’s deeper. More... focused."

Elara pulled her knees up to her chest, trying to make herself small. She felt a strange, cold shiver; not of sickness, but of a terrible realization: "I'm the only one who can breathe right," she whimpered, "because I’m the only one who's empty."

Using the alien scanning device, Aidan took readings of the girl's wrist, the approaches the boy. Taking careful note not to touch the child, despite his forcefield, he scanned the bracelet. His eyes widened a fraction as he took another scan, then turned the device onto himself and then Amber and Rio. "Oh no..." He whispered in horror. "Elara...you can breathe because the cause of your distress is gone..." He reached out and snatched the bracelet from the boy's wrist, then moved quickly to do so with the other child too. "If I were to give this back to you, or any part of our uniforms, you would be getting sick again."

His eyes still filled with horror, he returned the scanner to the minister. "See for yourself..." He cast the girl an apologetic look as he deactivated his own field. "I apologise, but I must prove the theory. I promise you'll be alright." He tore the hem from his tunic and placed it very briefly across her lower arm. In the same second, he reactivated his field again.

Elara watched the scrap of dark fabric - the same heavy, silent material as the braid - descend toward her arm. For a fleeting second, it felt like the anchor she had been mourning. The fabric was soft, far smoother than the rough, vibrating silk of her own tunic, and it felt like a piece of a world that didn't have to hum to exist.

"It's quiet," she whispered, her eyes fixed on the spot where the dark hem touched her grey skin. She didn't pull away; if anything, she leaned into the stillness it provided. For a heartbeat, she looked up at Aidan with a tiny, hopeful spark. "It feels like the wall. Like the shaking stopped right there."

Within moments, the "quiet" began to curdle into an angry, localized heat. The spot beneath the fabric didn't just feel heavy; it started to prickle with a thousand tiny needles. Elara’s brow furrowed, her small hand tightening its grip on Amber’s as the grey of her skin beneath the Starfleet fabric began to flush a deep, bruised violet.

"Aidan?" she murmured, her voice losing its steadiness. "It... it’s starting to sting."

The reaction was instantaneous. As soon as the cloth made contact, the smooth surface of her arm began to ripple. The geometric cracks she thought the emerald mist had chased away didn't just reappear; they sparked into existence like lightning trapped under her flesh. The whistling in her lungs returned with a sudden, sharp snap, and the emerald air felt as though it had turned to lead.

"The song!" Elara gasped, her eyes snapping wide as she clawed at the air. "It's back! It's louder! It’s... it’s screaming right where the cloth is!" She began to shake, a fine, high-frequency tremor that matched the sickly golden vibration of the walls. The "glass" was back in her chest, cutting with every shallow, panicked breath.

Minister Chirnup lunged forward, her quarantine collar emitting a sharp, agitated hiss. "Get it away from her!" she shrieked, her voice cracking through the metallic filter. "The cellular integrity is collapsing! You didn't just prove a theory, Federation! You invited the executioner back into the room!"

Elara slumped back against the hard pillow, her vision blurring as the first drop of weeping silver fluid welled up from a fresh crack on her forearm.

in reflex, Aidan snatched the strip of fabric from the girl's arm and stumbled back as the Talu minister lunged forward. "Rio!" He cried out, "it's our uniforms...our fabrics that are making them sick. We need to get them to discard all of the bracelets. Discard and destroy."

The Trill's expression was a mask of horror and guilt as he watched the girl. "I didn't mean to cause further harm," he promised, "I didn't know it would react so strongly. I'm sorry..." He cast apologetic eyes on Elara. "It's gone..whatever harms you is gone, and it will never harm you again. But you can never wear this again or touch our uniforms." Stricken, he looked towards the Trill chief medical officer, praying she could save the girl.

Amber could feel deep regret emanating from Aidan, he had done what he had to do now she hoped Elara could be saved.

The basalt doors groaned, and Prime Minister Dervimnurk loomed in the threshold: a mountain of ivory fur and frost-sashes that seemed to swallow the dim light, but the "visibility of strength" his culture prized was fracturing. As he stepped forward, a violent tremor racked his massive frame. A wet, rhythmic wheeze, identical to Elara’s, erupted from his chest, and his tectonic deliberation faltered into a heavy, uncontrolled lurch.

Before the Prime Minister could strike the floor, a shadow moved from the ward’s periphery.

Commodore Wilkan Targaryen, his own breathing a jagged whistle, caught the towering Talu leader. The height difference was immense, but Wilkan braced his shoulder under Dervimnurk’s arm, his face pale and slick with the sweat of his own systemic struggle. Wilkan’s hands, steady despite the resonance, gripped the ivory fur to keep the Prime Minister upright, preserving the giant's dignity even as the Talu’s four eyes - rimmed with an angry, sickly crimson - flared with a mix of agony and revulsion.

"Don't... don't touch the fallen," Dervimnurk rumbled, his voice a subsonic vibration of grief. He tried to pull away, but another spike of the "song" hit him, and a map of weeping violet geometric cracks split the skin across his brow.

"I'm not letting you fall," Wilkan managed, his voice thin but resolute. He didn't look Dervimnurk in the eyes - not out of deception, but because the effort of holding the Prime Minister while his own lungs felt filled with glass required every ounce of his focus. To Dervimnurk, however, that averted gaze remained the shifting, guilty look of a poisoner caught over the well.

"The snow is black," Dervimnurk wheezed, his weight sagging further onto Wilkan. "I felt it in the high passes... and I see the truth in your hands. You speak of 'science' as a shield, but the girl’s skin, and mine, do not lie. You gave our children a shroud woven of fire."

"The 'New Song' is a dirge," he roared, the sound rattling the ward’s windows. "Every breath you take here is a theft! If your ship is still in our sky when the next sun touches the glaciers, our Interceptors will not ask for your departure. They will cleanse the heavens of your infection." With a final, trembling surge of strength, Dervimnurk shoved himself away from Wilkan’s support, staggering back to stand on his own shaking legs. He raised a massive hand toward the exit, his ivory fur bristling as frost sizzled against the basalt. He looked at Wilkan, his charcoal eyes full of a frozen, absolute finality. "Leave, Commodore. Before the silence you have broken becomes permanent."

The Captain of the Starship Enterprise looked at the towering figure brought down before him, the crushing realization falling upon him like no other could. No matter what they did, no matter the action they took, the Federation was at fault. Somehow they had brought the danger to the Talu and now they were the harbinger of their destruction. It made him sick to his stomach, more than anything else could possibly have done. There was no winning answer, there was no way to make this better, the Kobayashi Maru had set sail for the promised land.

"We leave you in peace, Prime Minister, but at least allow us the opportunity to leave behind medications and to take the bracelets that cause this danger to you. It is the least we can do."

The Talu leader spat at him, "You've done enough. Leave us before you destroy us all."

Wilkan felt the weight of the Prime Minister’s rejection more heavily than the physical strain of his own collapsing lungs. The Talu leader’s spittle was a cold, wet brand against the deck in a final, visceral punctuation to a First Contact that had turned into a funeral rite. Wilkan straightened his spine, the movement sending a fresh jolt of "glass" through his chest. He didn't look away this time. He forced his gaze upward, meeting the Prime Minister’s burning, quadruple stare with a look of raw, haunted clarity.

"I won't leave you a cure that burns," Wilkan rasped, his voice sounding like grinding stone, "and I won't leave you a legacy of ash, but if my shadow is the toxin, then I will take the darkness with me."

He turned to his team, his hand gripping the air as if trying to physically seize the disintegrating situation. "Aidan, Rio, Amber - gather the fabric. Every scrap, every braid. I don't care how small. We strip our presence from this ward down to the molecular level and then bring every last bit up to the Enterprise with us." He looked back at Dervimnurk, his eyes dark with a promise that felt like a vow. "We are leaving, Prime Minister. Not because we are guilty of your plague, but because we will not be the reason you stop fighting it. May the High Glaciers forgive us for the 'Song' we brought to your silence."

With a sharp, pained nod to his officers, Wilkan turned toward the basalt doors. He walked with a brittle, forced dignity, his footsteps heavy and uneven, leading his team out of the ward as the emerald mist of the Dominion continued to swirl - a mocking, beautiful reminder of the savior they weren't allowed to be.

Amber nodded. “I’m so sorry, we had no idea…” she looked towards Elara hoping she would recover once they were gone, then she followed on behind Wilkan.

Kholin put down what she had been doing without finishing and silently followed as well, a tear on her cheek slipping down as she passed Elara.

The walk to the extraction point was a rhythmic agony, the "Song" of Talu now a discordant shriek in Wilkan’s marrow. Behind him, his team moved like ghosts, clutching the confiscated braids—the "gifts" that had turned into toxins.

"Enterprise, five to beam up," Wilkan rasped into his comms, his voice a dry, hollow echo against the basalt. "Directly to the isolation ward. Molecular quarantine protocols in effect."

"Acknowledged, Commodore."

The shimmering blue light of the transporter swept over them, a cold curtain rising between Starfleet and a world that now viewed them as a plague. For a heartbeat, Wilkan saw Elara’s wide, terrified eyes one last time through the haze of the dematerialization field.

Then, the cavern vanished. The humming stone and the weeping violet cracks were replaced by the sterile, humming silence of the Enterprise transporter bay. They stood on the pads, stripped of their finery and their pride, as the containment fields hissed into place around them. Wilkan didn't look at his officers; he simply stared at the deck, the weight of the Talu's silence settling over him like a shroud.

"Seal the bay," he whispered. "We're leaving."

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