I.
She had been keeping her head down, trying not to ruffle any feathers – it had been less than two days since Odo had cleared her of Vaatrik's murder. But she wasn't too surprised when a brace of Cardassians detained her in the Promenade.
"Stol mu'badr," the taller one said. "Grundentol."
"Grundenta tukor?" asked Kira. Selected for what?
That had been her first major loss to the Cardassians: learning their language – and it had happened without her say, like hair growth, or digestion. The Cardassians had installed public monitors all over her planet, on which they projected their daily propaganda, news and culture. Her generation had been weaned on them. In the Shakaar resistance cell, there were even weekly Cardassian lessons, to facilitate infiltration, espionage, disinformation, blackmail.
Kira hated the language – the sibilant consonants that so resembled hissing, the uvular grunts and the artless, blunt words… the ring of them. She wished she'd never learned it.
Mutatis mutandis, she might not have had to. It was common knowledge that, a few centuries back, the Federation had developed something called the Universal Translator (UT). It was an incredibly versatile device, capable of translating any language on the fly. However, the Federation had quickly outlawed the UT, out of concern that it diminished intercultural exchange.
Intercultural exchange! The Federation was blind.
"Skyal," the Cardassians snapped, so she fell silent and walked beside them. Her fellow Bajorans lifted their heads, silently noting her misfortune – whether to pity her or to congratulate themselves, or both. The Cardassians traversed the Promenade and crossed over to the Habitat Ring, with Kira in tow.
And then the worst possible thing happened.
They took her to Gul Dukat's quarters.
For a moment, Kira forgot to breathe. He was already standing up, imposing as always in his cuirass. "Garval," he said, bidding the guards leave. She steeled herself for what was to come – obviously he'd figured out she'd killed Vaatrik and wished to torture her for information – she just didn't know what manner of torture yet – and then the execution – the order delivered in those hateful back vowels and fricatives – when he spoke to her in Bajoran: "Ar'ja batosh palunta, vash?"
Kira was speechless. She detected only a slight accent in his Bajoran speech – which might even have passed for an eastern brogue – and his grammar was impeccable. It made sense, of course; Cardassia's high-ranking politicians would learn Bajoran for the same reasons that the Resistance learned Cardassian. It just never had occurred to her. She felt no small amount of cognitive dissonance, seeing the Prefect's lips move to the shape of her own culture.
"Ehn," she replied at length, for they had met before.
"Nerys ralan'to?"
Alarms went off in her head again; he remembered her name. "Ehn."
"Do koss djart."
Kira shook her head and lied that she wasn't afraid, she just hadn't expected him to speak Bajoran so well. He laughed and said he looked forward to educating her on this point and more – for he was a complicated man, kind and open-minded, nothing like the caricature her people made of him. He even quoted Gaudaal's Lament: The shore hides more coins than urchins.
And all at once, Kira's fear was displaced by anger: Did he hope to woo her with this – this veneer of class, this false kinship? Was he really so deluded?
Oblivious to her disgust, Dukat smiled and took a seat. "Kanar," he prescribed for both of them, and as she poured it, he launched into a homily about Central Command's policies for Bajor: where he thought they fell short, what improvements his personal touch had brought, how grateful the Bajorans should be to him, and how her people may need an iron fist, but it had to come wrapped in many layers of silk gloves.
His own hand sought hers as he said this… and Kira jerked back, spilling some of her drink.
"Endopree," she said, rather brusquely, and wiped it off.
"Nendopree'gh, Nerys," replied Dukat, smiling, touching her hand again. She couldn't pull back this time; it was too soon, his grip was too tight. She just stewed in her juices. "Napred shti'dajor kosstam tesh. Koss ern," he cupped her cheek, "ern moyash…"
Kira blanched.
(A fleeting thought: his Bajoran really was excellent.)
Kira tore her hand from his.
Speaking Cardassian – with no plan in mind, just a baring of teeth at his accumulated slights – she told him she should be going soon, she had a lot of work to do and it wouldn't do to fall behind, however pleasant the kanar and his company may be.
"Nerys," exclaimed Dukat, switching to Cardassian himself now, "puk za kenedri Cardassi, skodda!" If she'd been surprised that he spoke Bajoran, it was nothing to his shock that she spoke Cardassian.
Resigning herself to a few more minutes in his quarters, Kira took a swig of her drink. At least that gave her an excuse to fend off his encroaching hand again.
"Mov'ital pukam," she said. We all do.
He seemed surprised at this. "Keed? Mov'ital?"
You really have no idea, you bastard, she thought like a mantra as his index finger lingered on the ridges of her nose, bastard bastard bastard. What you're doing. What you've done. We're a complicated people, too.
"Mov'ital," she repeated, boring the word into him with her glare, and thought she saw understanding dawn on his corrugated face.
II.
"My dear doctor, as much as I enjoy discussing classic literature with you, I do regret that this has been a one-way street so far. I wonder, will anyone ever get around to translating The Never Ending Sacrifice? I'm afraid my descriptions of it don't do it justice. Of course, with how the Federation looks down on Cardassian culture, I don't see this happening any time soon. That may be an upshot of Dukat's – shall we call it Faustian? – bargain for power. Soon you may be bound by law to read The Never Ending Sacrifice… maybe even in the original."
III.
The bar was abuzz with jingles, aglow with dim blue lights. Its patrons consisted mostly of Cardassians now, which suited Damar just fine.
"When Rom told me to 'choose my poison', I didn't think he meant it quite so literally," laughed Weyoun. His pronunciation of Federation Standard had improved over the past few weeks, although he still tripped over the diphthongs. "Cardassians don't employ such underhanded tactics, do they? Except, perhaps, our friend Dukat, but we'll wean him off it yet – it's not a trait the Dominion welcomes in its subjects, and surely not one Cardassia endorses in its representatives…"
Damar shot him an appraising glance, at the same time hailing Broik ("Mott kanar"). Privately, he shared Dukat's misgivings about the Vorta. How could Weyoun presume to tell them what Cardassia expected of the alliance? What Cardassia featured for the war? What it needed from a leader?
He hadn't even cared to learn the language.
IV.
"Come in."
Kira does, averting her eyes from the baseball that stands for all she's lost. "You needed help with some of the office's new features?" Although she's been expecting Dukat to invite her over for some time, his pretext is so thin that ensigns could use it for target practice.
"Indeed, Major," he says cheerily. He is occupying Sisko's chair, his hands folded in front of him. "I can no longer access the 'Sleek and Sultry' voice setting of my personal log. I would like you to investigate."
"Dukat…"
"And the rotation of this chair is not how I remember it – perhaps you could oil it up a bit?" Wedging his foot against the chair leg, he propels the seat to the right and swivels once, to demonstrate.
"I don't have time for this," Kira snaps and makes to leave.
"That's another thing – I couldn't help but notice, Major," he says in the same conversational tone, "that you put very little time aside for your Cardassian or Bajoran colleagues nowadays. And you speak Federation Standard now."
That stops her in her tracks; she knows it's bait, and yet she cannot let it slide.
"So what if I speak Standard?" she whirls at him. "That's what makes it standard. Everyone speaks it." Too late she realizes her mistake – the echo of an earlier conversation that has caromed through her life for eight long years, to finally die out here, now, in his presence.
Dukat picks up on it, too. "Everyone?" he repeats with wicked delight. "Why, Major, I didn't think you'd be so cavalier about this. There was a time you regarded Cardassia's linguistic expansion as a threat to Bajor's integrity." He gets up from his chair. "Or have you forgotten?"
"That was different," she hisses, burning up inside. "The Federation is our ally."
"Ally, oppressor, enemy, friend – I hope one day to impress on you the fluidity of these words."
"Let me help you out: oppressor is the one who forces you into slavery, takes your food and rapes your culture. Ally is the one who doesn't."
"Bedeen nomilan dje Bajori," he points out.
That one stings a bit – but Kira is still in touch with her heritage, she can speak any language she wants, and she gives him a good show: "Milan'of Bajori, milan'of Standard, milan'of noshite ru'shot, bal presh –"
Suddenly she freezes. Flushes red. Flags, falters and frowns… because she cannot, for the life of her, remember the Bajoran version of this word (not anymore).
"Bal presh imposter," she finishes lamely.
Dukat is breathing down her neck by now, and Kira is reminded that, underneath the hate and the fear and the contempt, the decades' worth of grudges and no, no, no, no, there is a worrisome part of her that every now and then says maybe, that is amused and flattered by his courtship.
He cannot conceal his pleasure at her slip-up – it's written all over his tilted head, his victorious smile – but for once, he doesn't gloat.
"You see my point, Major," he says softly. "But don't worry. Things are going to change."
V.
Ziyal only speaks a smattering of Federation Standard. She is, however, fluent in both Bajoran and Cardassian. What she loves most are those Cardassian terms that entered the Bajoran vocabulary during the Occupation and were reinterpreted, softened, the hard G's sliding into J's, the meanings of words like gavok (hearth) and stregal (ridge) taking on new dimensions – but sometimes she has the impression she is the only one who sees beauty in this, and that everyone else thinks it grotesque, erosive, a violation. It makes her feel guilty to write or converse in either language.
She draws.
VI.
They are standing very close now, Kira notes, and the blame is partly with her. Why has she given him such liberties? If Dukat wished to, he could reach out and run his index finger down her nose again, in that patronizing way he had, the one that said I'm going to ruin you or I'm going to shake your world – but might now, instead, say I won't let them ruin you and I won't let them shake your world.
She still doesn't think he fully grasps his role, doesn't think he checked the color of his hat before he donned it… and yet, somehow, there is comfort in the thought.
Kira doesn't crane her neck (not quite).