Far from the bustling, rebuilt metropolises of Tallum and T'daali, a guest of honor on holiday took a much-needed reprieve. Fresh, mountain air carried the scents of nature. A world whose deepest scars remained visible a century later, yet life prospered. A rehabilitating, relaxing escape from the highest office of the Republic in solitude…relative solitude with the cadre of security detail maintaining a distant presence of protection around the perimeter of their leader.
The sniper stepped out of the cabin, not armed for a change, aside from the pistol holstered on his waist. This was a visitor he was expecting. The silver eyed man cracked a slight smirk. "Kazak will not go to the mountain, so the mountain must come to Kazak," a slight alteration of a phrase he picked up on Earth. "Though, it's always a pleasure to see the mountain come this way."
Despite her best attempt to remain stone-faced at his clever alliteration, the faintest of smirks cracked at the corner of Tak's mouth. Lacking her formal attire better suited for the regal affair of her office as Chancellor of the Republic, a shade of her former, adventurous self shone through. An ensemble of weatherproof, climate-appropriate outdoor gear with boots to match and a laden framed pack across her shoulders. A finely-tailored suitcase of other necessities in her hand, she crossed the clearing towards the waiting man and his cabin.
"The mountain doesn't want to bury her cabinet under an avalanche, it makes for bad PR." She countered, setting down her suitcase beside her feet after stepping up onto the covered porch before embracing the silver-eyed man in an affectionate hug. "Apologies I missed your rare excursion to your favorite planet in the universe. End of the fiscal year has proven to be a nightmare…bureaucrats…I miss the simplicity of strangling my problems away."
"Lots of things are easier in life when you're getting shot at, you just shoot back until they stop." He let out a single laugh as he embraced her. "I mean, yeah, wouldn't want bad PR of being seen with one of the guys that helped bring about the Republic but then wanted absolutely nothing to do with it now do you?" He was semi joking for a change, but then turned more serious, "When are you going to retire, put all that nonsense behind you, come out here and enjoy nature?"
"That "nonsense" is preventing short-sighted idiots from reliving our predecessor's nightmares…" She tiredly countered, a conversation they had countless times before. "Sooner you convince them to lose their aspirations of self-service, greed, and arrogance, the sooner I can step away into a simple life of obscurity. You'd have better success being the social butterfly you are before I made any meaningful headway."
"I mean…you know if you want a rash of disappearances I'm the most deniable asset around. I technically don't exist as far as the Republic is concerned, do I? I may be old now but I still got the skills." Kazak sighed, "Or maybe it's better to just let the inevitable happen and we just do this whole song and dance all over again every couple generations or so because we're a species of fucking idiots." Still jaded as always, and why he was fine opting to come take care of the Ahko cabin, he had his fill for one lifetime. "Enough of that, don't need to dwell on that while you're here."
"No, no, do continue. I miss your incoherent rambling and "old man yelling at the sky" threatening aura you exude." Tak cheekily responded in fluent sarcasm. "You know the rules, any criticism you levy, I get to tell you a long-winded story about one of my cabinet members' incompetence. You don't talk about work, I don't talk about work."
"Well how else am I going to tell you about how the horses have been faring on Vort if I can't talk about work? And you know those stories of yours only serve to make me want to throw on the armor and go back to Irk and remove the problem…but you don't want news of an assassination happening now do you?"
"Please…" She scoffed at his expense with a roll of her eyes. "It isn't "work" if you enjoy doing it. You live here, rent-free, and have all the free time in the universe."
Taking the opportunity to roll one shoulder after the other out of her framed backpack to set on the worn floorboards near the front door, she followed Kaz further inside.
"...to answer your earlier question with sincerity, retirement is on my radar. Nothing more than a thought considered at this point…but a possibility nevertheless. We can't all be lunatic recluses."
Helping herself to his familiar cupboards, Tak procured a corked bottle of spirits. A pair of worn, scuffed glasses gathered in her opposite hand, she returned to the hardwood, hand-hewn kitchen table.
"Assuming I can move the stars themselves and make the impossible come to pass…" The crafty stateswoman inquired amidst pouring out their respective drinks. "I presume you'd like me to join you in your slow descent into madness in the solitude of this beautiful backdrop?"
"I always figured if it was just my time I'd just walk out into the woods and just not come back." He half joked, taking one of the glasses. "Not like anyone would notice aside from you and Rub that I've gone completely incommunicado."
Tak gave a derisive snort of a huff as she took her seat, taking up her own drink.
"You and I both know that's a load of garbage." She countered, sampling her glass while peering over the rim at him. "There are other people in the universe beside myself, Rub, Vult, and Vaukt, you know…some of them happen to like you, too. I haven't quite figured out how or why…maybe it is just part of your charm I am so infatuated with."
Another drink and casual shrug of the shoulders.
"...or maybe I am weak for rugged, edgy bad boys."
A moment's reprieve gave way to a sigh of annoyance, turning her full attention to the silver-eyed man sitting adjacent at the rough-hewn, rustic kitchen table.
"I realize we're both severely out of practice, but at least pretend you're somewhat pleased to see me. I am being sincere, Kaz…do you not wish for me to encroach upon your solitude here?"
"I don't have a weapon in hand, if that's any indicator." A slight smile followed before sipping his drink, "I'm just still pleasantly surprised you haven't wanted to pursue other options."
"Ever the charmer as always…" Tak muttered at the man's tongue-in-cheek response before taking a drink. "Eager as I am tempted, it solves nothing in the long-term. Someone else just as short-sighted, selfish, and stupid will fill their vacancy. I would prefer the known evils and using my influence and intellect to manipulate them into what needs done rather than what they wish to do. You should sit in on a forum once. The verbal sparring never disappoints. I am yet to be defeated."
"You know if I did that you'd probably have an entire slew of ambulances lined up." He let out a singular laugh, "I walked away for a reason. The others had the patience and the desire to be big shots in a new military. A large part of me had enough for one lifetime, surprising as it is to hear."
"To which I respect your decision and cannot fault you…but I do miss your company." She authentically admitted with a thin, brief smile. "...can I look forward to a simpler life here with you in the coming months or do you have other plans? I know you don't have a mistress. I barely put up with you as-is."
"You and everyone else in the universe. But, I suppose you could look forward to it. You're one of the few people I can stand to be around for more than five minutes."
"I'll take that as a compliment." The visiting stateswoman commented with a huff. "The Marshal needs his Deputy, don't he?"
"Suppose he does, doesn't he? And he saves the good stuff." He rose from his seat, going into another room and returning with a mason jar full of an amber colored liquid. "Just poured this stuff a while ago, been aging it in a cask for the past thirty years. Humans had some damn smarts with alcohol."
Whatever confusion she held was quickly clarified upon his return with the jar in question. A knowing smile graced her visage as violet eyes glanced from the contents to the man himself with a suppressed smirk.
"See you've kept up with your little craft hobby…does this batch taste marginally better than paint thinner?"
"It's not like the first batch. Never going to let me live that down, are you?"
"My spooch is still scarred." Tak commented off-handedly as she helped herself with a twist of the ringed lid, breaking the seal with a small hiss, and sampling its contents. "Mmmm…that's smooth. Dangerous, but smooth…I was going to compliment you, but you are as smooth as ground glass and we both know that." She concluded with a snicker at his expense.
"Yeah, ground glass with a mix of gravel and a touch of arsenic." He played into it, long knowing he's not the most sociable type. "I'll cook us up some food and we can relax on the sofa by the fire or something."
"Making yourself useful and sharing your reserve with me? You are spoiling me." She teased, moving to rise from her seat, destined for the hearth in the living room. "Be sure to wear the apron. I like the apron." Tak concluded, trailing a hand along Kazak's arm and shoulder as she passed by. "I'll get the fire going."
Despite the visiting Chancellor's century-long career, the highest pedigree of training wasn't lost to time. The Empire, a distant, fading nightmare of a memory, only lingered through the likes of PAK'd Irken such as Tak. At the very least, her time spent on Devastis served her well in self-preservation for tasks both large and small. Using the simplest of tools and archaic of resources, striking a flame in the stonework fireplace was smeet's play.
Nurturing a flame from tinder and kindling near the hearth, she tossed the last of the logs from the waning stack with a dusting of her palms
"Still got it…" A prideful smirk graced her aged features, appreciative of her accomplishment.
To Kazak, the simplicity of ranch life, finding something else he was good at outside of lining up an HVT in his crosshairs, was a great relief to the weight he carried long ago; nor did the lifestyle find itself too far outside his own element. After losing everything on Earth at the insistence of his own friends, it was only a talk with Ruk on Kyozist and his brother willing to have him on to tend the family cabin that gave him a homesteader's life once more. He did carry some elements in from Earth. Beef cooked over charcoal was a favorite of his, at least he could import some on occasion.
It would be that on a couple of plates he brought over to Tak after some time. "Over charcoal, medium rare, like I used to do in an age long past."
Accepting the offered plate of perfectly-seared meat exotic to Vort, Tak couldn't help but smile warmly at the scents triggered nostalgia as much as the familiar apron she purchased for him as joke he took to wearing.
"On the behalf of the Republic's generosity in making your eclectic tastes a reality so far from Earth, I should be thanking myself." The vacationing leader commented cheekily as she settled into her seat with the offered meal. "See you haven't lost your touch in command of a grill."
"Believe it or not, even a sniper needs to eat something other than snakes and bugs." He set the apron aside with his cooking done before taking a seat with his own plate. "At the very least, I do appreciate getting some things imported from Earth from some of you. Although it sometimes reminds me of what I could've had."
"As close to humility and gratitude I am going to get out of you, I'll take it." Tak commented in jest before slicing a sliver of perfectly-prepared steak to melt in her mouth. The euphoric expression and satisfied hum as she chewed was all the compliments to the chef she needed to pay. "...I knew I kept you around for a good reason."
"A recluse who doesn't want any kids needs to keep himself valuable somehow." He dug into his own. He always was something of a fast eater, still can't drive the mentality of a soldier crunched for chow time out even after all these years. His was about half gone before he spoke up again, "Had enough of being a dad when it wasn't even my kid."
"I wasn't aware you had taken on a mistress." She dryly commented at his expense, knowing full and well what he was referring to. "I thought I knew you."
Kazak simply rolled his eyes as he polished off his steak. Still not one for witty comebacks.
"For the love of Irk, that was a joke." Tak scoffed. "Your self-imposed exile in solitude out here is doing things to your mind and none of them are healthy."
"Much happier here than I'd be back on that shithole of a homeworld, that's for damn sure." He spoke plainly. "Was the same back on the ranch. Or would you rather deal with me in a constant state of quiet rage?"
The visiting woman casually pulled the sleeve of her shirt up, checking the time on her wrist.
"...not including my initial arrival, I believe that's a new record for you expressing your loathing disdain for the broken mess I've helped mend back together a step closer to its former glory. Considering what I had at my disposal, I'd say I've done a damn fine job."
Huffing, she pulled her sleeve back down.
"...that "shithole" is our home."
"Yours. Not m-"
"OURS. Yes, you live here, on Vort, but we both did our part to take back what was stolen from our people. It is as much yours as it is mine whether you like it or not." She interrupted, a similar conversation that came up time-and-time again. One that brought her hand to pinch the bridge between her eyes in frustration before taking a deeper, calming breath. "...I came here to spend time with you, Kaz, not bicker…please…beside, I have an illustrious record of always being right."
Her last sentence was anything but serious.
"You know I cut that tie long ago." He sighed, "Aside from you, Corr, those three kids…and the rest of the old teams tangentially, nobody knows I'm even alive or if I even existed. That and some video game nerd on Earth who heard stories from his granddad about me."
"Really, now?" Tak challenged with an arched brow as she finished off the rest of her food. "Funny you should mention your eternal brooding because I have been personally made aware otherwise. The repeated invitations to gatherings you decline or outright ignore…"
She rose from her seat with her flatware and plate, taking up Kazak's as well, and making her way towards the wash basin in the kitchen.
"So tell me…" She continued, speaking over her shoulder as she rinsed their soiled dishes off. "At what point are they ignoring your existence? Before or after you sever the cords of your own accord? Have you tried having fun at least once in your life? It doesn't hurt, I promise."
"Don't give me that, you know how persistent Aero is. I could fire the Maxim over her head and she'd still try to drag me kicking and screaming." He huffed, grabbing a home brewed bottle of beer from a fridge in the kitchen. "Why's everyone seem to mistake that I prefer being alone for something else? I don't want my name in any history books. I'm just a disgruntled sniper who decided to put a boot in the ass of the people who did me wrong and walked away. Nothing more, nothing less."
Tak's brow furrowed into an expression of mildly annoyed confusion as she turned from the sink to face Kazak. "Nobody mistakes your preference for anything. Your friends and myself care about you and occasionally want to see you. They aren't dragging you off your mountain against your will to get involved in whatever…nonsenses and shenanigans it is that retired special forces operatives get into."
"Yeah because then I'd have to listen to Haxx telling me that his shenanigans are cheeky and funny while mine are cruel and tragic, which makes them not shenanigans really."
"Matter of perspective, Kaz," She whimsically smiled at him, taking his opened drink for a hearty swig of her own. "Dark humor is still humor. Everyone manages misery differently and you…" she tapped his chest with a smirk. "...are far too serious for your own good sometimes. If I can learn to loosen up over a century, surely you can let your antenna down every now and again."
"I don't do relaxed, not like you or the others think of it. Herding livestock, homesteading, living surrounded only by the sounds of nature. That to me is relaxing. Never did like crowds, gatherings…and I hate being reminded of the past."
Tak sighed, her features falling solemnly. "I know. I miss the ranch sometimes, too. Life was a lot simpler back then…wasn't it?" She finished drying her hands off before moving to take one of his hands. "C'mon, the sun's setting. I like the view from up here."
"I don't know how the rest of you people carry on doing what you all do." Kaz led the way to the back deck of the cabin, complete with wood furniture from both Ruk's previous work and his own additions. He took to a lounger he was quite partial to. "Don't think I'd have lasted long after the war if I stuck around."
She waited until he settled into his chair to carefully share the seat with him. More or less sitting in his lap, she leaned back against him with her attention towards the picturesque view from the porch. Snow-capped peaks of the range framing in an evergreen valley below as the suns hung lower and lower in the open sky.
"You'd have been fine." Tak assured, insistently taking his hands to wrap his arms around her midsection for comfort, laying her own atop his. "You kept my sanity together when it mattered most. I'd never let you fall, either. All this fresh, mountain air must be getting to your pea-sized brain to doubt yourself like that. You go on and on about this…broken man hiding away from the horrors of the past…"
She paused, tipping her chin up to look up towards Kazak's face, laying back against his shoulder.
"You know what I see? The man, in some cosmic sort of coincidence, that made everything possible. You saved Vult, did you not? Our entire race and its lineage owes you a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid or a depth that can never truly be understood unless they shared those moments with you. Despite your faults, you are well-meaning. I dare even say, noble. Things most of us never could have hoped to be. The humility, the sacrifice, the hard decisions and choices you live with so others do not…that takes a magnitude of a man few can achieve, let alone aspire to."
He closed his eyes, letting out a sigh as she spoke. She was entirely right. Even for being the most anti-social Irken around, and that was a feat even among Scout Snipers, he always just had his peculiar ways of doing things and going more off action than rhetoric. "It also takes a lot out of such a man that in such instances it grinds him down…wears him out, utterly and totally destroys him. I walked away because I knew I had nothing left to give anymore…not unless I wanted to find myself eating my pistol because I gave too damn much that it killed me. I gave everything I had up to the point of insanity." He went quiet for a few moments. "I just couldn't do it anymore."
Tak's hands squeezed his own in consolement with a nuzzling nudge of her head. A reminder that she was there and he wasn't alone. "Nobody could ask more of you, let alone expect more. We all have our limits. I may not have been in the same trenches with you lot, but I saw and heard enough. I also know every single one of those people you shared them with have experienced this in some form or another. You may not be a social butterfly, but you all have that in common and can confide in one another through it."
"They have enough going on that I'm not going to burden them. They've done that enough just putting up with me in the first place." He opened his eyes, glancing around at the surroundings, "I have my small measure of peace here. It's not the wide open ranch, but it's enough, I can't really ask for more than that…and I doubt it's something I'd have ever gotten if I stuck around. At least here I can just focus on the moment, forget everything, just live quietly."
A lull of silence overcame the pair as they continued to take in the breathtaking beauty with a gentle breeze carrying the scents of nature through the open porch.
"...if you don't want me to impede on that after I retire, I understand." She quietly offered amidst the serenity. "I know all of this means a lot to you…but you mean a lot to me."
A sudden frown from the man followed. "Why me? Look at us…we're practically never in the same room. Aero and Hesa have had plenty of kids by now, even Haxx and his wife adopted a bunch of war orphans I'm told. I'm genuinely surprised you haven't left me for someone else long ago, or sought out someone to give you a child that I'd never deliver on. Maybe it's me, I just have a hard time believing I'm worth giving all that up."
Tak sat up enough to roll over. Rather than lay her back to his front, she now faced him, eye-to-eye. "Since when does anything have to make sense? You've always preferred your solitude and I would be terrible at my job if I left on vacation all the time to come here. In a way, it has worked wonderfully for both of us. The few times throughout the year I'm able to make this trip, I cherish it. Not just to be rid of fools on Irk, but your company."
Smiling softly at him, her palms rest to either side of his face.
"...you may be an idiot, Kaz, but you're my idiot. What other reason do I need?"
"I don't see how I'm tangential savior of the race on one hand and an idiot on the other."
"The two aren't mutually exclusive." She chimed right back with a smirk of bemusement. "...and I should've known better padding your ego was going to do more harm than good." Tak concluded with a tease.
He didn't say anything, he just closed his eyes, too many thoughts going through his mind again. Everything happened for a reason, that much he knew, some weird divine logic to the universal order he could hardly comprehend. It put him at the right place at the right time for everything to transpire as it had. Yet his entire retirement has been putting as much distance between it and himself as he could. Could he deal with someone else around? Even if it was the one other person in the universe who seemed to have accepted him as he was?
It was something he'd dare not even mutter.
"Rub's practically demanding I go to this next reunion. Some of the Ohnmatu types are going too." He opted for a subject change instead, "Every natural instinct in me is wanting to stay away. It seems like that's not really an option this time."
Tak didn't miss his brief pondering. Leaving the man with his thoughts, she only spoke after he brought up the reunion. "...just like every natural instinct is telling you I have lost my mind to be so infatuated with you? Those same instincts?"
"Even all this time I still don't understand what you even see in me…I gave up trying to understand it long ago, but it still causes me a great deal of confusion as to why you stick around. Even Rha was a better man than me."
"I stick around because I want to. That's how these things work: obstenance and perseverance." She playfully challenged. "We're both stubborn enough to make it work…and remind me, which one was he again? Haxx, I bit him in the face. Nearly killed Vult. Gave Aero a concussion…" Her digits ticked off, trying to recollect.
"Captain Explosion, the one who was very much obsessed with solving problems with high explosives. Had the massive scar on his face even more than Volx."
"Ah, yes. The Havenite Hero." She nodded, able to place the name and face together now. "He, like the others, were all good men and women. Just like you are, despite your self-doubts otherwise."
The final, tinted rays of filtered sunlight began to wane as evening gave way into night down in the valley below. A cacophony of insects chirping, clicking, and calling in the dark began to pick up in crescendo. Tak adjusted her posture, shuffling closer to Kazak's head to rest her own against his shoulder, palm to his chest.
"Coming here, nights like this with you…reminds me of the days on the ranch…of Earth."
Her violet eyes distant on the beauty before them, a bittersweet expression tightened her gaze.
"...of Dib."
"I don't know which one of us had it worse, you dealing with Nossa or me trying to keep Dib alive because he was so necessary to getting access to this old human tech."
Tak couldn't help but huff with a small shake of her head before sighing.
"I quite fondly remember both of us being pushed to our respective limits for different reasons." She chided in fluent sarcasm. "...but before we delve deeper down the memory hole, I do have a proposition for you."
She sat up straighter at his confusion, looking him squarely once more.
"This reunion, if you go, I'll go with you…and should the cosmic winds blow in our favor, I'd like to see Earth again. You and I, together. I dare say, a vacation?"
"I'll think about it, the vacation anyhow." He sighed, he hated leaving the mountains now, felt a strong tether to his plot of land, same as he did the ranch, "I'll send a telegram or something if I'm getting dragged along to the reunion."
"I will be sure to pass the message on in your stead should you conveniently forget between now and then." Tak smirked at him in close proximity. "For now…I could get used to this."
"May not have the plasma TV and the DVD player like back on the ranch, but that fire should be going well enough now. Let's go inside and relax."