She was still shaken from the crash and the urgency of everything that came afterwards, but more shaken by the sudden clearing of her mind. Movement and actions still took on a strange surreality to T'Sei as she walked towards the Romulan woman's ship that sat in an unproclaimed corner of the outside of the bar, a little ways away from any grass so as not to start a fire by weapons tests. It was a small ship as Romulan ships go, slightly larger than Ruanek's ship but certainly no scout ship or military vessel. All of this T'Sei took in and readily accepted with an odd, removed part of herself that seemed instinctual. She hadn't dreamed for a while, only been…guided…

In the loss of momentum following her confusion and brief realization, T'Sei felt suddenly bereft of something and unsure. She stood in front of the Romulan ship, wordless, thinking of her childhood. The only thoughts that pressed into her mind were muted, as if waiting. For now, without anything to charge her thoughts electric with recognition, all reference points to a life not her own somewhere ahead, she fell bewilderingly back into herself in a single instant. Seeing herself reflected on the cool dark hull of the Romulan ship was like seeing a stranger you realize you knew a long time ago. The world was briefly disorienting and she felt only remote and alone. Even as her heartbeat quickened again and her muscles tensed as she walked into the trader's ship, a familiar part of herself was left standing and staring at the sky, wondering at the years that had gone past, and T'Sei knew as well that whatever lay quiescent within her at the moment, whatever caused the foreign memories and dreams, thought the same but also waited with fearful anticipation for whatever came next.

.`

The Romulan trader already knew the planetary objective had been changed, in the heated pace of footsteps and turned corners. She had a cool mind for a Romulan, one that missed few details. But something about this change might have upset that mind, at least for a moment, so that while she kept walking, the part of her that understood was shaken and kept seeing stars, and space, and things far past.

Perhaps it was something that could be lost with different thoughts. But no; Evine had tried to lose that particular aspect of her mind in detail and fervent wish to survive. It did no good to dwell on the past when the present could kill you in a single moment, trip you up and leave you dead. She recalled herself, much younger, a sharp-faced child staring in horror at what she had seen, the dark-cloaked people around her uncaring and hurrying while the sound of far death played in tinny audio across the streets. She did not wish to remember, but that destination…perhaps she must…no. Survival meant more. Evine looked forward at the ship's console in the half-light and then to the side, into the eyes of the passenger, then looked away.

She keyed in swiftly the coordinates, noticing that the woman behind her held a jutting part of the bulkhead with a white-knuckled grip as she saw the stars rushing past. Evine did not see the woman's eyes grow suddenly unfocused, saw only the red-orange of the words and figures on the controls before her. She was thinking hard and fast.

Space drew onward, shocked and frozen stars running through the Romulan's memory as in reality the ship moved nearly too fast to see them.

It was difficult to outrun your memories, but more difficult to outrun reality. The dark corridors were there, but never always appeared that way. Reality gave you little choice: do this or die. Even beyond Romulan space. A small part of Evine, the part that did not wish to run her own honor blade through herself rather than submit to the Federation, thought that perhaps she could escape anything if only she was not on Romulus. It was not so.

Romulan did not quite come slowly to her, but had an edge of ill-recognized confusion behind the automatic knowledge of the language, the instincts of what to do, how to act…perhaps all beings were the same, confronted with the same problems, when in utter fear; it slowed thought.

Akkh, I do not wish to do this.

She did not know as much about where she went—where she would go—as the mysterious woman who had demanded desperately that she be taken there. But the part of her that refused to kill that memory of what she had witnessed on the homeworld in childhood, that part barely reawakened, pounded at her senses quietly. The Romulan knew she could conquer most fears and ill things in the world, but that it was not the entire reality: any confidence she had was undercut now, harshly, with that small warning, deadly serious: Be afraid. Or you will be caught unawares, and then you will be dead.

The destination they were really approaching was perhaps not what her passenger had asked for in the end, but would keep them alive a little longer. Evine tried to keep that in mind, but instead ended up thinking bitterly of all she wished she had left behind on Romulus.

`.

T'Sei's dreams were uncertain, as if they could not become memories anymore. She never stayed on one image long enough to understand it; they moved faster than the ship she could barely sense moving.

She did realize, however, that they had turned.

It took a moment for everything around her to gain clarity and meaning, but from the positions of the stars that were now apparent ahead and not unclear from the ship's speed, it took an even shorter moment for T'Sei to understand that this planet they approached was not the one she had asked for passage to. Though slight exhaustion made T'Sei's movements unsure, she walked forward in the half-darkness and looked disapprovingly at the Romulan woman who was preparing to drop out of warp and enter the atmosphere of an increasingly familiar planet: Romulus.

T'Sei was caught for a moment by the planet growing steadily closer, then tore her gaze away and saw that the trader's eyes were tight and her movements reluctant. She seemed to be operating against her will. T'Sei wondered inwardly what this might mean, then shook her head free of the questions. It was too much to think at once, and to remember: memory, other memory, places, people, rebellion…

She realized she had moved intently forward to see the planet again, and maneuvered herself back to her seat. All was quiet for a moment, and then T'Sei asked, "Why?"

It seemed perhaps a little sharper than it should have been in the profound silence. Surprisingly, however, the trader answered in a low, quick voice, turning her eyes from the main viewscreen to urgently meet T'Sei's.

"Listen." She spoke rapidly, the words gaining a clarity that shook T'Sei out of any dream-confusion. Perhaps she spoke now, in space far to reach by any Romulan intelligence, because it was a far more serious matter than T'Sei had at first realized…"This is not something I would do if not for the lives in the balance. Years back, I left the homeworld with no more defining factors of my destination than away. As far away as I could get was the Neutral Zone, but I have not been able to escape that which made me leave. I warn you, if I take you myself to where you are headed for, I cannot say that you can trust my actions. They are bound by very old ties I cannot escape with my life—"

The Romulan's words were cut short as the ship jolted slightly in re-entry. She moved towards the controls of the ship, and T'Sei registered a look of surprise across her features in a strangely long moment before the ship lurched again and the trader was knocked sideways, T'Sei with her. She had inadvertently reached out an arm sharply to stop her fall and her hand had struck against the other woman's head for an instant. T'Sei froze, catching a flicker of thoughts and memories as they both righted themselves.

That's probably not good.

What little telepathic ability she had was usually not enough to start a mind meld, or even for her to pick up thoughts or emotions from minimal contact—not that she'd really tested this possibility before. T'Sei shook her head. The events around her seemed slowed a little, as if they were lagging behind when they were actually happened; the Romulan ship's descent into its planet's atmosphere seemed inordinately long to T'Sei. Images pressed brightly against her vision but without complete understanding. She blinked, slightly nauseated, then the memory of the Romulan's mind receded slightly and T'Sei could see properly around her. What she saw was that the trader, having finally gotten the ship under control, seemed a little confused as well. It was a slow moment after the ship touched down into a shady, unnoticed corner of the spaceport in Ki Baratan, that the trader remarked as she seemed to gain comprehension of recent events, "I think I know who you might want to see, and how I may bypass these restrictions placed on me." T'Sei saw that the Romulan's hand went briefly to her side where perhaps an honor blade lay concealed, and that with fierce desperation she grinned and turned and was fast out of sight.

`.

As Evine ran, she almost wished the knife at her side would make some sort of noise, alert the sharp-eyed passersby in the narrow streets between the red stone buildings that cluttered together. But it had been far too long a time of being watched, being fearful, that gave her the almost automatic instinct to keep any weapon concealed close to her skin. It was that which she would change soon, and perhaps a younger Evine would have been frightened at the monumental difference in her life soon to come, and in the possibility of death. But too many years running, avoiding…she thought of those children, long ago, running, many to die in the desert and by each others' hands but many more whose spirits would die in returning to their homeworld that hated them but had begotten them.

Everything was unraveling, she would have thought if she was younger. But that part of herself had been awakened, the part that felt pain, the part that noticed.

And when confronting something that had been unnoticed for years…how many of those children had died without Romulus' notice?

All of them. All save a few.

And to have seen the fire in those few's eyes extinguished after years in the world that congratulated their genetics but used them to further Romulan society like a soulless machine…shock, Evine knew, could keep anger and sometimes justice at bay for a long time. But it had been Romulus, and fear of the man she would now put an end to, he and his 'eyes' watching, controlling…it had been that fear and that instinct for survival that had stopped her from previous memory and feeling. And in that thought, she had taken her ship and left, years ago, for the Neutral Zone, but some things could not be escaped.

And yet the small part of her that did not concentrate rapidly not on surroundings or only brief survival, or of how swiftly she had overcome the desire not to kill that had weakened her and been her undoing in the past, was ashamed.

But I remembered.

She thought, puzzled, for a moment as she ran, of the enigmatic woman she had taken to Romulus instead of somewhere she would have gone and faced headlong, come life or death. Something unsure, unrealized in her mind that nevertheless pushed her forward to do something she barely understood.

It is not places, but people and memory of places that lies ahead.

Her passenger was a mystery, and that brief, unplanned plunge into both their minds both left Evine more confused than ever except for understanding of the woman's purpose, and took over whatever thoughts of hers that weren't fixed on the weak, fatal places on a Romulan man's body, so that as Evine finally went through a little-used doorway, she was beginning to remember faces that she had only seen as children, whose odd reckless determination in the face of horrors she had seen in the face of someone they would soon meet.