At first, it was just her and the storm, racing toward each other across the desert. Running toward a storm was insane. The logical path was away, but that meant running toward the Romulans, which was far more illogical. Even though they were supposed to be behind, she saw them ahead as well, lurking in every shadow that twisted within the bouncing disk of her light. They haunted the desert as easily as they haunted her memories. So there was no running away, only running forward. When she actually felt their presence, angry and eager for pursuit, she was filled with almost as much relief as terror. These were real, physical beings that could be outrun, or blast apart by a gift box filled with explosives. With the realness came realization. Panic spurred her, and she scrambled up a sandy hill. Focus ahead, not behind. Move. Run.
They were Romulan, children of Vulcan. Each gulp of air reminded Juliette of their greater endurance. Twinges in her legs let her recall how much stronger they were. This Plain of Blood was their birthplace, not hers. Every time she looked back, the glowing columns of their lights in the dusty air appeared twice as close. All they had to do was follow the path, and they would overtake her long before she reached the caves. That had to change.
She hopped off the trail to an outcropping and took careful steps to avoid tripping on the rocks. When their lights played over the field in front of her, she abandoned all care. Her feet skidded. Rocks clattered. A sustained round of lightning revealed a tall, narrow hill. She rushed toward it. With luck, there would be a shallow cave, and it would be her and the storm, once again.
A presence within made her stop short and scour its surface with her light. The smooth pumice-like surface was pocked with tunnels no bigger than her fist. A Kli'mari mound. So much for luck. She started to run around, to use the hill as cover, then stopped. Perhaps luck could be made.
She played her light from the base of the hill slowly to the top. There was no way the Romulans would miss that. She was rewarded with a sense of their recognition and urgency. She focused on the mound. Her hands trembled with panic and effort, but she reached anyway, passed the sandy surface of the hill, deeper into the tunnels, following the myriad of small presences that fed and formed something larger, something deep inside the stone that rested, but did not sleep, waiting for dawn to ease down the tunnels to signify the start of day. Juliette shone her light into the tunnel, but the Kli'mari were unmoved its dim glow. Another failure! But wait, they didn't need to see light, they only needed to think it was morning.
She pressed her awareness against the intelligence of the mound. It's morning! It's morning, chew the pulp! Fill the zattre'Kak! A fidgeting at one of the tunnels caught her attention. The scout turned and clambered down the side of the hill, confused by the dark, but wary of intruders. The single scout was followed by more until the entire mound started to wake. Juliette pressed the sensation the hill was alive with Kli'mari, and the scouts were too numerous to avoid. She extinguished her light and let the flicker of the storm guide her away from the mound.
The Romulans were focused on finding Juliette, and they did not recognize the mound. Their pain and dismay stung her mind as the sound of their pistols echoed off the rocks. She remembered the wicked sets of jaws the fiercely territorial Kli'mari, hard enough to chew woody shrub into pulp. The Romulans would have to make a wide circle around the swarming mound, harried by irate scouts. It was time and distance Juliette desperately needed, but would do nothing to help reach the caves ahead of the storm. She squinted up at the approaching clouds. The race was already lost. A gust of wind pelted her with grit. Her hair stood out from her head and her skin prickled as she skid down a gully. Perhaps the Romulans would consider her lost to the storm and give up. Juliette felt their apprehension grow as lightning-laced the sky. Maybe they'll run from the storm, just as she wanted to, but while the storm frightened them, the repercussions of returning without her terrified them, and drove them passed their own good sense.
No death seemed pleasant, but at least the storm would take no pleasure in it. She threw herself in the shadow of a basalt slab and clawed at the base. If she could make a small hole, maybe she could hide inside and maybe the Romulans would overlook her, and the lightning might pass over the gully. A handful of maybes and mights. They might as well be sand. For each handful she scooped away, another sifted down from the sides of the rock. The basalt scraped her fingertips raw and tore her nails ragged. Each time she plunged her hands into the sand, grit wedged deeper into her torn palm.
This wasn't how the Passion Operas ended - with the heroine desperate and digging, waiting alone for not one death but two. In the Passion Operas, the good people won and the bad people were taken away, and everything was alright. Everyone would celebrate, and her head wouldn't hurt anymore, and she could go home to Betazed while everyone evil suffered. But they wouldn't suffer. She would. There was no help. Matron and Papa on Betazed - they probably didn't even know, and couldn't do anything even if they did. Box and the ESH were gone. All she had were handfuls of sand. Stupid. There was no use crying, it just blurred the goggles, and taking them off - they'd just get all muddy. At least Matron could finally tell people her daughter was alone on Vulcan, and everyone would realize how terrible it all was. Would Matron make a song for her, like the Loresinger did? Lara might. She liked music, and could sing. T'Mar played harp, so she might too. She wished she could hear T'Mar sing it. Or Danek. Would he sing? Maybe after she was dead. They'd both miss her, or would they? Was missing someone just another emotion to be suppressed? They'd be married, and all wrapped up in their bind. She'd be another set of forgotten bones in the desert.
Juliette flung handfuls of sand. T'Mar couldn't sing some pathetic, sad song about the girl that cried in the desert and melted into the dirt. No. when the Romulans came, she'd reach and hit them - hit them with her fear, and anger over being left in the desert and forgotten. She'd throw all her emotion at them, harder than she'd done with Pylkau, harder than ever before. They'd run if they felt as scared as she did. Just because they were bigger, stronger, and had weapons they didn't have to be afraid. Well, she had weapons too, and when they found out, they'd run and hide. Then she'd stalk them, one by one, let them shoot their silly guns into the shadows until she pounced. That's something even the Klingons would sing about. How her claws sunk into their skin and pulled away a green fountain and white bone.
That was her song. She could hear the music in her head, it had been there ever since she'd come to Vulcan; it was part of the Sas-a-Shar. Surak's logic cooled the Pain of Blood, but Vulcans and the Romulans fought anyway. Nothing could cool the fire between them. But the music would, it would cool everything. She could hear it in the sand, in the Kli'mari and the Ur-worms nuzzling roots in the dust. She was so consumed by the symphony that she didn't feel the wind at her back calm, or the flickering light of the storm become swallowed by a shadow. As the aria paused, she felt something intimately close, almost touching, the heat of their body against her back. The music withered away, and she was too terrified to turn or reach. She could only remain still and silent save for her short, quick breaths.
Only when she heard a growl that rattled the pit of her stomach was she able to reach, then turn toward the familiar sensation. A pair of pale red eyes stared at her, the blinked. As each eyelid closed, the color of the sehlat's eye changed. First burgundy, then muddy olive, and finally a moonlit gold. Her head was so close Juliette had to lean back against the rock to see the tips of the sehlat's fangs.
Nudging. Snarling.
Juliette's arm trembled as she held it out from her body. The sehlat snuffed along the arm she had once ruined. Her sniffing blew Juliette's hair back, and she brushed along the inside of Juliette's wrist with one fang and made a high, whining sound.
Juliette let her fingers brush along the sehlat's nose and eased her consciousness forward. What had the sehlat meant to do that day? There was no time to sort out her intent from the shock of the memory. Had she figured out by herself to push Juliette back to P'Nem, or had it been some desperate mental understanding between them? Who could have told the difference in that bloody, terrible moment? But she'd never hunted Juliette, but guided her back to where she stood a chance of survival - what had happened before was an accident.
Juliette whispered, "It's alright. You didn't mean to - just don't - don't do it again. Please?"
The wind shifted, curling around from behind. The sehlat tasted the air. The scent merged with Juliette's memories. They were not far. The sehlat's whine ground to a harsh snarl and her head snapped to search the lights approaching the top of the gully. The Romulans were the closest they'd been, but Juliette's fear was gone, replaced with a wild eagerness.
They smell different but not different from Vulcan. They hunt to hurt. The storms are for feeding. It's time to stalk and pounce and tear.
No, wait-compassion.
Just a pounce and a snap and a feast.
Stop!
Juliette wrapped her arms around the sehlat's foreleg and was pulled along. Her connection felt more like a tangle. This was no simple animal to command. She pressed her face against the hot, leathery skin and coarse fur. Do not go, they have weapons, and they will shoot. I do not want you hurt like before. Don't go. I don't want you to die. Don't Please.
A blast of wind threw a shroud of dust and grit over everything. Shadows became smudges to almost everyone but the sehlat. The storm was her home. Juliette could see nothing except through the sehlat's eyes. At the top of the gully, the Romulans staggered against each gust, waving their lights about as if to shake off the sand. Helpless. The sehlat sniffed at the ground as the lightning danced close by, brilliant and white-hot. The bolts avoided the sehlat, as if by some ancient compact each respected the other's territory. Juliette laughed at the thought. Lightning wasn't alive, was it? The sehlat turned at the sound of her laugh. Juliette saw herself - small, dirty and bloody and her hair and on-end. With the sehlat's vision came a sense of regard as well, a point of attention that said mine.
The sehlat looked back up the gully and roared. The Romulans crouched down and searched the storm for the predator they could only hear. Satisfied, she settled down on her haunches, stretching her neck forward. The sand between her talons steamed. Juliette understood and clambered on her back, her knees wedged at the base of the sehlat's neck. She lay flat, gripping the wiry, coarse hair in her bloodied hands. The sehlat stood, with Juliette wedged tight, and after a couple of shifts, there was a sudden lifting motion that dropped her stomach away. When it stopped, they were on the opposite side of the ridge of the gully where there were no Romulans nor Vulcans, only the desert, and the storm. They took one last look at the Romulans huddled on the opposite ridge. There was nothing else to be done with them. The were the storm's.
The world bounced as the sehlat broke into a run. Juliette tightened her grip as she bounced between columns of light. She felt a brief moment of panic from the Romulans, and then even that was gone, lost in the lightning and the shrieks in the wind.