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When Garak got home, Julian was waiting by the door for him.
“Did you wait there for me all day, dear?” He asked, giving him a hello kiss.
“Well, no. Ah... about that,” Julian said sheepishly, scratching the nape of his neck. Garak quirked an eye ridge as he set down his things by the entrance.
“Keeping busy on your day off?”
“You could say that,” he grabbed Garak a hot cup of red-leaf tea.
“Hold on dear,” he chuckled as he made his way to the bedroom. “I need to change into something more comfortable before-“ Julian quickly threw himself between Garak and the door.
“Wait! Ah, before you go in, I should explain...” he met Garak’s intrigued stare. “Please,” he motioned to the couch, handing him the mug. “Sit down,”
Garak took the mug from him before the dangerously sloshing liquid could make it onto their clothes. He decided he better just do as Julian said, and get to the bottom of his very strange actions.
He sat down and brought the mug to his lips, and Julian regarded him expectantly.
He froze, and pulled the mug back.
“Did you poison this?”
“What?! Of course not, Elim!” Bashir looked slightly offended.
“Ah. I was beginning to think you were growing tired of me. And, you would get my property if I were to mysteriously pass away.” He took a sip of the tea with a twinkle in his eye.
“I would never dream of it,” Julian said, his smile growing as he realized Garak was pulling his leg. “You uh, may be wanting to poison me though after I finish this story.” He coughed.
“Oh? I sincerely doubt that, but please continue.”
“Alright. Then you will understand that I had no choice.”
Garak froze again.
“My dear, did you kill someone?”
“Of course not! Hold on- Why do you sound so proud?” He shook his head.
“Wait-“ Garak gasped. “You didn’t ruin my favorite tunic, did you?”
“No! I promise! I would never do anything to harm you, or someone else, or your...clothes,” he sighed in exasperation. “Of course that was the only thing you actually sounded concerned about. But just let me finish the story, alright?”
“Alright dear, I’m sorry for interrupting.”
Julian cleared his throat.
“Alright, well, I was taking the skimmer bike into town...”
~~~
He had been enjoying the feeling of the wind in his hair, admiring the fields of imow, which looked almost ready for harvest. It reminded him a lot of wheat, turning a light coppery color during the summer.
That’s when he saw a young Cardassian woman waving her arms, signaling him to stop.
He pulled over and instinctively grabbed his medkit as the dust settled around him and he headed over to her. There were a couple more young women standing in the field looking at something.
She started speaking to him in Kardasi, obviously concerned and pointing to the field.
“I’m Doctor Julian Bashir,” he responded in Cardassian. She was speaking too fast for him, with a thick western accent, but he picked up the words “injured” and “animal”, so he followed her into the field.
He made his way through the tall grass, until he reached the three other women.
They stepped aside to reveal an injured riding hound.
He had only seen the races a few times on holo broadcasts and he had a feeling that the creatures were probably not treated as well as they should be.
It was almost the size of a horse, with sleek black fur, a long, thin tail, and small ears that were folded back.
It was laying on its side, with what looked like more than a few injuries.
One of the other women spoke a bit of English with a heavy accent.
“We found him not too long, are you an animal doctor?”
He pulled out a medical scanner.
“I’m not, but I am a medical doctor.” He knelt down to scan it.
His scanner showed obvious signs of abuse and poorly healed wounds, as well as malnourishment.
“We do not know a lot about injury fixing, but we gave him water,” the woman said.
“That’s alright, you did a good job,” he said with a smile. It was a difficult feat, with sight of the hound’s condition.
“Our friend has the skimmer going to town to find an animal doctor, but they are far.”
“I’ll see what I can do until then,” he said. His tricorder picked up a broken leg, four fractured ribs, blunt force trauma and internal as well as external bleeding, with some slight infection. Probably from a booting or two, he cursed internally.
He pulled out a dermal regenerator, and approached the animal slowly.
But when he got too close, a deep, throaty growl rose from it and he stopped. Its golden eyes were trained on him, and a torn ear twitched.
“Shh, I’m not going to hurt you,” he said gently. “I just want to get a closer look at that wound,” he slowly brought his dermal regenerator closer. The animal hissed slightly, but gave up and dropped its head.
He carefully worked to heal the wounds he could reach. Luckily, he also had brought an osteo-regenerator in his small travel kit which he used to heal the fractured leg and ribs.
“I think I’ll let the vet perform the surgical debridement for the older, infected wounds,” he said to himself. “I may just- apply some antibiotic,” he grunted as he loaded up the spray applicator.
He attempted to use it on one of the wounds and the creature hissed and scrambled, and all of them leaped back. The creature’s lips curled, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth, and Julian’s eyes widened in awe.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he assured softly, “this will help your infected wounds heal.” He carefully moved back to spray the wound, and the creature hissed again, but less intense this time. “You are a very good boy, thank you for letting me do that,” he soothed. “You are a much better patient than my husband.”
The woman laughed and translated for her friends, who were giggling too.
“Alright, I’m just going to give him a pain reliever, and then I’ll be done,” he explained. He turned to the women. “Do you have any foods that are safe for him? Meat?”
“Yes, I have sandwiches,” she dug through a picnic basket and pulled a sandwich, picked out a thin slice of zabu steak and handed it to Julian.
He saw the hound perk up immediately, and he readied the hypo. Cautiously, he held the meat flat and his palm, and offered it up. Somewhere in his mind, he wondered whether the hound was capable of biting his hand clean off.
The hound regarded him warily, and suddenly snapped the steak out of his hand. He flinched, but managed to administer the pain reliever successfully without his hand being swiftly removed.
The hound must have decided he was alright because it allowed Julian’s other hand to remain on its bony shoulder blade. He was amazed by the sleekness of its fur; its texture wasn’t too different from Cardassian hair.
The other women started offering meat from their sandwiches, which the hound gobbled up happily.
Then one of the girls pointed and said something in Kardasi, and he turned to see two more larger skimmers pull up, dust trailing behind them. The large white skimmer had an official veterinary logo, and two Cardassians stepped out with a medkit and a stretcher.
“Looks like we have some friends on the way, they’re going to help you.”
The other member of the grind group jumped out of her blue skimmer and hurried over, explaining her quest into town.
Her accent was less thick and he was able to understand most of her story, and her friends filled her in on the details.
One of the women explained to the male vet, and the female vet approached him.
“It looks like the job you did was excellent,” she said, carefully extending a hand to the anxious hound and inspecting his wounds. “It is shameful that hound racing continues these days.”
“I sincerely agree.” He turned to the hound. “My name is Doctor Bashir, by the way.” He gave them the run down of the injuries he treated and the medicine he used, and the vets were able to move the hound into their skimmer. He led the parade to the veterinary hospital in town on his skimmer bike to avoid the dust.
He spent the rest of the afternoon at the veterinary hospital, waiting for them to treat any remaining injuries. He exchanged information with the women as they waited.
Apparently, the one Cardasian who spoke English was Rashi Pidar, and they had all been going out hiking for the day to enjoy the good weather. She was grateful they had crossed paths with him when they found the riding hound.
The male vet returned to inform them that the hound was recovering well, and the women celebrated.
“Obviously, we do not want to return him to his previous owner. We can give him to the shelter, but he would have better chances if one of you adopted him.”
The women talked concernedly amongst themselves.
“I do not think we have the space necessary for him, but Kito is getting a bigger house soon,” Rashi translated. “But we think you should have him.”
“Me?” He asked.
“You can help him heal, and it looked like he respected your scent.”
He tilted his head. “What does that mean?”
“Riding hounds have a very good sense of smell, and some people naturally have a ‘command’ scent. I would agree that you would be a good owner for him.”
“I don’t know if my husband is a hound person,” he began with a grimace, but a smile crept across his features. “However, he loves me, so he’s going to have to deal with it.” Rashi translated what he said into Kardasi and they all laughed.
“Very good!” The vet said.
~~~
“...And the rest was history,” Julian finished.
Garak eyed the door.
“Is it...in there?”
Julian nodded, and wordlessly got up. He opened the door, and the riding hound slinked the room, nose in the air. It was about as tall as Julian himself.
“A beautiful creature,” Garak said, holding out a hand to it. It seemed to accept him, gracefully sniffing his hand, and ducking its head.
Garak carefully moved to pet it, but it flinched back.
“Don’t worry,” Bashir said. “He likes to look intimidating, but he’s really very sweet.”
“I’m not worried,” Garak said.
“I was talking to him, not you,” he said, nodding to the hound.
He held Garak’s hand and moved it out to the beast, and it allowed them to run Garak’s hand down its back.
“What should we name him?” Julian asked, beaming.
“Name him? We can’t name him.”
“What? Why?” Julian’s expression fell.
“Because, we can’t keep him.”
Julian looked absolutely heartbroken, and the sad-looking animal beside him wasn’t helping.
“Okay, both of you stop looking at me like that.” He attempted to avoid both the human and the hound’s pitiful faces.
Garak sighed theatrically, giving in.
“Fine,” he said reluctantly, “but we are not going to pick up every stray on the street.”
“Thank you Elim!” He threw his arms around the Cardassian and kissed him. Then Julian bounded away to replicate food for the hound, ranting all the while about how exciting this is, and Garak couldn’t help the grin from spreading across his face at the human’s joy.
“Our house will become an animal shelter with that one around,” he huffed to himself, as the hound nuzzled into his hand.
Resistance was futile.
That night they finally settled on a name together: Mirit, meaning “tea” in Kardasi.