A series of tall, rectangular portals were positioned in a row along one wall, folded near the top at a straight, obtuse angle. The revealed a sky that was growing pale with sunset, and a scattering of many-textured walls and sloping beige rooftops. The lower ledge was barely ten centimetres above the eye level of Richard's son. Curling his fingers around a corner, their tips pressed hard against the upper surface of the windowsill, Julian tilted his head and pulled himself up onto the very tips of his toes.
Threads of a bright and yet elusively haunting melody found their way in through the outer walls - but even Richard's ears could not pinpoint their direction with any clarity. It was a pleasantly lively addition to what would otherwise have been a long and sterile silence. He decided that he didn't mind the company of this continued noise. The instruments were unfamiliar - but not indistinguishable. A vaguely reedy flute or hollow pipe, blending easily with the call of strings, percussive wood, and sonorously ringing bells.
Stepping from the lift to a long hallway on the hotel's uppermost floor, he had steered his son through the entrance while the smoothly geometric doors closed tightly at their rear. He glanced around the unfamiliar space, wondering briefly whether they should even unpack. Only one night remained before they would have to travel East, to the outskirts of this tangled city where the doctors had sworn that his six year old boy would be transformed, by the time that they were done.
Julian stepped away from the window's edge - and glanced fervently around him before alighting finally on a thin, shallow chair in the farthest corner. Determination deepened the furrows across the bridge of his nose. Grasping each side of his chosen prop with short, childish fingers, he started to edge it gradually towards the window.
"Jules," his father scolded, moving forward to halt the youngster's forward progress. "Leave that."
The boy still held the chair, but set it down and turned around slightly as if only now remembering that his father was with him in the room. "But I want to see."
"Not from there," persisted Richard. "It isn't safe."
"Why?"
"Because you might fall off."
Pouting so that his brows dropped into a frown, Richard's son paused for a brief and focused contemplation of the chair. He examined the seams along its back, and shook it so hard that for a moment, the sound of rattling metal filled the room. Sighing, he abandoned his efforts and trudged to the shallow bed. His doleful eyes turned slowly to where the scene outside was still invisible to him.
You promised him adventure. Richard pulled his coat from its place beside the door, and stopped for just enough time to gather his son's.
"Don't forget your shoes," he said. "And put this on. It's cold outside."
Julian beamed.
"How do you feel?" Nikos' voice floated softly through several layers of darkness.
Why did it have to be her?
Bashir had woken to memories of the Anniversary parade, where his father had taken him over twenty years ago. But to his waking mind, it had seemed that he and all those he'd ever cared about were back in those lively streets in the Western Quarter of Adigeon's capital. The cheerful strains of music, overwhelming colours, crowds of pale, strangely elongated humanoids and occasional aliens like himself and his father - all had briefly seemed as real as a dream could be. Exhausted by the noise and excitement, the younger Julian had held to his father, who wrapped his boy in both strong arms and carried him back to their suite at the hotel.
Half on his side, half on his chest. Arms folded. One hand facing upwards, with fingers curled to rest against his cheek. He was warm and heavy - unable to open his eyes. Every breath carried a bitter taste like something rotting, and he found himself gagging as the muscles clenched all the way from his stomach to his throat.
In the blackness that surrounded him, even the slightest of noises cut all the way through the bones of his skull. He groaned beneath his breath, through lips too numb to form a proper sound.
"Keep still," Nikos told him. "Relax. You had a bout of nausea - that's all. It will pass."
Journeying back through his most recent memory, perhaps there had been that moment of semi-awareness - consumed by a powerfully unsettled sensation, slowly unfurling at his core. Could that be why his throat still burned? Why he still felt a residual film of moisture where someone had wiped a damp, lukewarm cloth across his mouth? "I can't…" He was drifting - but focused hard, holding to the world as though to a life-sustaining dream. "Why can't I move?"
"You're in a restraining field," Nikos explained. "Don't worry. It's only temporary."
Like everything else he'd experienced here was temporary? Like agreeing to come in the first place was only temporary?
Bashir felt the pressure of a hand upon his shoulder, answering another nauseated grimace. Its contact was broken as he tensed as though to shy away. A shift in the air left him with a passing hint of lavender-scented perfume. Usually a mildly pleasant smell, but which today only reinforced the ache in his stomach.
There was a definite change in the direction of Nikos' voice, which dropped to half-volume. Her face remained unseen. "Keep the field in place for now. Let's err on the side of caution - but I think we can afford to let the sedatives wear off naturally."
Julian's ears caught a distant, efficient, and mildly throaty response.
"But… It won't do any good." Speech came slowly, hauled to the surface as though from the bottom of a deep, black well - and pieced together only with tremendous effort. "Just let me go."
The silence beyond his small, dark world was unbearably long, until he found himself wondering if he might have missed Nikos' reply. But her voice - when it came - was soft and husky; laden with what sounded like a moment of bitter anguish. "I'll check on you soon."
What's the point? Bashir wanted to demand of her, but failed to object beyond a nearly silent, wordless grunt. It didn't matter. All the gentle surrounding noises had started their retreat, and there was still a part of him - the part that had witnessed such scenes from Athena's position - that understood the prudence of her actions. She wanted to keep him calm and still, say nothing to agitate him any further. At least until he was past the point where he was likely to do something harmful.
As the soft edged warmth of Nikos' sedative pulled him back into a place where not even dreams could find the means to enter, he wondered what else it was she had so clearly wanted to say.
