Off-Duty Damage Control

Tal'Ara chuckled at this.

She took a moment to breathe in the air.

"I'm excited for this mission to be over," she said, flatly.

"Oh yes," T'Pren agreed with low-voiced enthusiasm. "Definitely."

She took a moment after that to study Tal'Ara thoughtfully. "I know why I'm excited. Why are you excited?"

Tal'Ara thought about omitting her plans with Falten, but she figured it couldn't hurt to divulge.

"I have a long overdue dinner engagement," she smiled.

"Ah," T'Pren replied with a knowing smile. "With our sickly blue bartender. Hopefully she'll be better by then, but with immune systems like the Andorians..."

Tal'Ara sighed, "Yeah... well, here's hoping."

"Well, hopefully she took my advice and finally went to the infirmary to get checked out," T'Pren offered optimistically. "Regardless, no matter how long it takes her to heal, I don't think she's going to lose interest."

Tal'Ara blushed.

"Anyway..."

She trailed off.

There was a long silence after that, in which T'Pren studied the Romulan in its virtual natural habitat and then just studied the habitat.

"Have you been to Vulcan ever?" she wondered suddenly.

"I have," she said. "Dreadful place, really. Nothing but desert."

She then tilted her head, "Though, I suppose it does have its charm."

"What sorts of charms does it have?" wondered the half-Vulcan of her ancestral homeworld.

"There is a lot of history there. And a... somber quality of life there. Things move very slowly. It is relaxing in a way," she said.

"I've been thinking I ought to go, if for nothing else than to say I've been," T'Pren mused out loud, picking up another rock. "But I imagine I'd be better received if I wasn't quite so..." She hesitated and tried to think of just the right word to describe what the Vulcans wouldn't like about her. Eventually, she just settled on, "Emotional."

She paused a moment and then asked, "When was the last time you were on Romulus?"

"Hmmm... not too long after the war ended. Maybe three years ago?"

For some reason T'Pren had expected that Tal'Ara would have been on Romulus just before coming to DS15, so the answer clearly surprised her. "Why haven't you been back?" she wondered, and then immediately blushed green. "Unless that's too personal. I apologize if I'm prying."

"No, it's fine," she said, cooly. "There just isn't much reason to go back anymore. My parents are both dead, I don't keep in touch with my extended family, I dont really get involved in politics anymore... it is nice to go back and visit once in a while. See D'Imus when I can. Check in on a few old friends. But I spent most of my life away from Romulus. On other worlds, pretending to be other people. And then after that, I was very involved in military strategy, so that kept my in space basically constantly."

She paused.

"I'm just used to it, I guess."

"D'Imus is your friend who makes the Romulan ale?" T'Pren wondered, looking up from the rock in her fingers and lifting her brows.

"Yes. He was my mentor," she said, looking off at the horizon.

"Your mentor...in the Tal Shiar?" responded the once-again surprised lieutenant. Then she grinned. "So there are former agents of the Tal Shiar besides you."

"Oh no. He is still very much in the Tal Shiar. But at his age, he mainly serves as more of a consultant."

T'Pren hesitated at that, knitting her brows as she studied the Romulan woman. She let the rock she was holding fall between her fingers and hit the ground. "But you're no longer in the Tal Shiar, right? Or are you a consultant now too? Just a consultant on...diplomatic sabbatical?" The half-Vulcan seemed less wary than she was confused and curious.

"No, my ties were officially severed - part of the deal with Starfleet. There was a whole ceremony and everything," she chuckled.

"Oh, a ceremony," T'Pren replied, her tone teasing and overly impressed. "Then it must be official."

The half-Vulcan took the silence that followed to slide off her stone and find a suitable area of ground to stretch out on. She laid on her back and looked up at the virtual Romulan sky. "What do Romulans do for fun?" she asked, keeping her gaze upward.

Tal'Ara cocked her head at this.

"I dont know if we do anything distinctly different than other peoples... we drink, we sing, we eat, we read, we sport, we entertain... just like everyone else."

She paused for a moment.

"Though I will say, of all the time I have spend living among other cultures - no one parties like the Romulans."

"Not even the Klingons?" T'Pren asked with amused skepticism.

"Ugh, Klingons. Their idea of a party is barbarian. They get drunk incredibly quickly and get into silly brawls and disputes. Every time they get drunk, you'd think it was their first time," she said witha bad taste in her mouth. "No, we tend to have decadent parties that last for hours - to days. We pace ourselves. We sing, dance, philosophize, we eat - oh, do we eat."

She laughed, thinking back on many a fond memory.