Chapter 3
Kira quickly made her way to her quarters. The stress from the day and the past several months was beginning to swamp her. She stepped into the darkened interior of her home and made her way to the replicator for a glass. She didn't bother with the lights. There was enough faint starlight for her to distinguish where everything was at and besides, the dark perfectly suited her gloomy mood. She took her prizes over to the couch, dropped into the floor in front of it and placed her glass and two bottles on the low table in front of her.
Where to start?
Kira picked up the bottle of brandy and poured herself a measure into the glass. She figured by the time she had finished off the bottle, she'd hopefully be too drunk to care that the other bottle was kanar.
Nasty stuff, kanar. She wondered how anyone, anyone other than a Cardassian that is, could bear to drink it. Although she had to admit, if one was simply looking to get utterly wasted in as short a time as possible, it was the best bet. It was wickedly strong stuff.
She downed her shot of brandy and poured herself another. She quickly downed that one too.
She had never felt so depressed in her life. For some reason, it felt like every awful thing that had happened in her life was coming back now to haunt her. Why today? Of all days, when she already had so much to deal with? When she still had yet to deal with Ziyal's death? She poured herself another.
She wanted to cry. To scream. To rail against fate and the Prophets for all the awful things that had happened to date. She dropped her head and let loose a dry sob. Pitiful Was she so lacking in feeling that she couldn't even honestly weep for the girl that had been the closest thing to a daughter that she would likely ever have? Her tears for herself had turned to dust long ago but didn't Ziyal deserve for her to weep at her passing?
It depressed her even more to think that Dukat could show more emotion than she over Ziyal's passing. A man she had always credited with not having any real feelings for anyone and he was more distraught than she was. What was wrong with her?
She began to regain a measure of calm as the level of the bottle became less and less. She stared blearily at the picture on the wall in front of her, trying to bring it into focus. She knew what it was. It was one of Ziyal's paintings. She remembered the young woman giving it to her on the occasion of her acceptance into the art school. It was very good. It depicted a Bajoran meadow with the B'nar mountains in the distance. Kira had always loved the B'nar mountains. She remembered Bareil mentioning once that he had always been fond of them too.
She suddenly leaned her head forward onto the table and began to weep. Deep, racking sobs tore up through her. Her grief consumed her. She felt as if she were weeping not only for Ziyal but for every thing in her life that had gone wrong. She slowly fell over onto her side, continuing to cry into the plush carpet. She cried and cried until she had no more tears left. As she lay there, a deep exhaustion overcame her and she gratefully let herself retreat into the oblivion of sleep.