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Zeeren regularly assess the vitus reflux himself, because someone has to do it, and he doesn’t yet have any cadets both competent and trustworthy enough to do a proper job. He does a lot of things himself, knowing he’ll do them best. Nahla probably had that in mind when she dumped the colossal task of endangered wildlife protection in his lap, as though he doesn’t have a hundred other menial but mandatory tasks to occupy his day. He curses her under his breath while he taps a series of new statistics into his padd, an arm’s length away from the nearest giant bud. A few weeks ago, he didn’t know they came that big. He could’ve done without knowing.
“A big sucker, isn’t she?” Nahla mutters next to him, then casually takes a sip from her Academy-branded thermos while he restrains his shock. He didn’t hear her coming. Probably because she’s not wearing shoes. As a master of battle tactics, he usually has better instincts, but walking barefoot is an unfair maneuver. He’s half convinced she does it just to bother him.
He ignores her comment on the plant and dryly asks, “Could you at least humour me and wear shoes on my campus?”
Gaze fixed on the gently swaying Vitus blossom looming overhead, she casually responds, “Only if you take yours off in mine.”
His nose wrinkles. He can’t imagine why she’d want that. She must have some strange foot fetish. It might explain why she sits so strangely, feet often propped up. He asks, genuinely curious, “Haven’t you tormented me enough?”
“Tormented you?” She glances sideways at him, lowering the thermos, her other arm behind her back in picture-perfect Starfleet posture. Her blonde hair’s loose about her shoulders, her fitted uniform unusually crisp. She looks nice, as usual. And frustrating, as usual. “Really, I thought you’d like it.” The weird part is she isn’t smiling, doesn’t have that telltale grin and twinkle in her eye that tells him she’s enjoying his torment. She rarely hides her pleasure. He squints, confused.
After a long moment of the two of them staring one another down, Zeeren ready, on alert, and Nahla seemingly simply delighting in the bright spring day, Nahla sighs, “Ah, you haven’t figured it out yet.”
He cautiously asks, “Figured out what?”
“The Vitus Reflux leaves, when dried and powdered, make the most delicious tea.”
Zeeren’s heart skips a beat, then another, because she has that twinkle and smile, but not so evilly, the sort of warm, welcoming way she talks to her favourite colleagues. He’s seen her be a genuinely good person. A pleasant presence. He’s also smart enough to be wary, and the butterflies in his stomach only make him anxious. He’s always wanted to have a proper tea session with Nahla, for some bizarre reason he can’t explain, but knows she’s too wild and uncouth for it to ever happen. She’d ruin it on purpose just to see him squirm. He doesn’t appreciate her toying with his heart and volleys, “You’re not going to fool me again.”
“I’m being serious.” She thrusts her thermos over, and he gets a faint whiff of something herbal and sweet. Visible steam wafts out of it. She gestures, trying to give it to him, and a part of him really wants to take it, but his brain kicks in, and he doesn’t. She rolls her eyes and pulls it back to take a long sip, idle and indulgent, but that means nothing—he knows her taste buds are as off-kilter as the rest of her. She tries to pass it back to him as though she’s proven it’s not poison. He knows she wouldn’t poison him. Probably.
He says, “That’s unhygienic.” They’re not at that stage yet. Maybe there is some world, far in the absurd future, where he and Nahla Ake are comfortable enough to share a tea cup, where the thought might even thrill instead of repulse him. It would repulse him with most people. With her, he hesitates, overrun with what ifs.
She retracts her thermos and mutters, “You’re lucky you’re cute, Kelrec, because boy, are you difficult. Brew your own and thank me later.” She pats his shoulder, gentle, with one delicate hand, and then turns on her bare heel and marches down the hall. Presumably back to the Academy. To her separate world.
Zeeren stands there in her wake, belatedly muttering in disbelief, “Cute...?”