THIRTY-FOUR: Opine
If Thelen had one flaw, it was that he worried.
Constantly.
He worried about Dagmar wandering around in abandoned tunnels, where anything from a misplaced boot to a wild beast could kill her. He worried about Dagmar doing something daft and dying from the cold (and, oh, how horrified he had been when he had learned how fragile Humans were in that respect, too.) He worried about Dagmar doing something stupid and breaking her fragile bones, which didn't splinter like Andorian bones but could still shear and puncture organs and blood vessels, or destroy delicate nerves. He worried about Dagmar doing something really, spectacularly stupid and dying in an ushaan duel. He worried about Dagmar and Vilashral.
Yes, he knew. Or at least, he knew Shral's side of it.
Thelen doubted the aide meant the Human woman harm, but the daft thing had no Clan to defend her honour, and she knew little about the complexities of Andorian relationships and… well, Thelen felt obligated to look out for the Terran. It had been bad enough, seeing how her own kind treated her – how she was little more than tolerated by most- but to see such a thing amongst his own people for yet another thing that was not her fault…
So, Thelen sharpened the serrated edges of his ushaan-tor. He had fended off the presumptuous and the leering low-castes already, who watched her path home too closely or stared for too long. No formal duels had been declared, but Thelen liked to be prepared. He was a Security Officer for a reason, after all; preparing for the worst was what he specialized in.
Jealousy wasn't a factor... Largely because there wasn't anything to be jealous of. He would fight on Dagmar's behalf, untrained as she was, and he would keep an eye on her, but his interest in her was surprisingly plain that way. Surprisingly, because Thelen was not known for being conservative with his potential playmates (though, to be honest, not many Andorians were.) He could cohabitate with her comfortable, certainly, and he was fond of the translator, but there was something lacking in his relationship with the Terran woman, something key to lust or romantic affections.
Even if that were not a factor, Thelen honestly wasn't sure if Terrans were physically compatible with Andorians.
For Shral's sake, Thelen hoped so; poor bastard was probably going to lose his mind otherwise.
Vilashral was not a bad sort, Thelen considered after a long moment of observing the aide at work from his post at the Ambassador's doorway. But he was… odd. The Security Officer had a few suspicions about the aide in question, particularly when it came to some of the re-con tech Shral had access to… but if Thelen's suspicions were true, the less he poked and prodded about, the safer things were for everyone involved.
Even Dagmar.
Therein lay the dilemma, of course. If Shral was what Thelen thought he was, then very few people would be safer than Dagmar… or, alternatively, in more danger, though not from Shral himself.
The lieutenant suppressed a sigh, antennae flicking slightly despite his best efforts. The affection between the translator and the aide was blatantly obvious to anyone who had taken the time to observe Humans. Even those who hadn't observed their Terran allies so closely could probably tell.
But Humans were funny. They didn't court like Andorians did. They didn't have the antennae for it.
It would be easy enough, for Thelen to simply ask Dagmar how Humans did things, and then for him to tell Shral… The aide would certainly value the information, after all.
But Thelen couldn't quite bring himself to, and that puzzled him. Perhaps he felt that they needed to sort things out themselves. Perhaps some part of him protested at the thought of their joining. Perhaps he simply didn't want Dagmar to be in any more danger than what she naturally got herself into. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
Ultimately, it did not matter. Thelen would continue to tend to his weapons, just as he would continue to watch over the wayward translator amongst his people, and he would simply wait.
And prepare for the worst.