original vorta character from star trek ds9 // written by indigo . ➣ READ. ➣ CH1 ZEV FIC.
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@zeveth
original vorta character from star trek ds9 // written by indigo . ➣ READ. ➣ CH1 ZEV FIC.
you feel a presence over your shoulder. it's fandomless / multiverse zeveth following on main 🤲 @zheurgeist !
. "I can't imagine what the Dominion were like, especially at the height of the war. The Founders didn't seem pleasant winning or losing. I don't blame them for wanting to keep their secrets from an enemy, but... I don't know, I'd always hoped we could figure things out prior to the war breaking out. But I doubt we would've stayed allies for long, given their- err. Stances on some things."
. Their stances on the enslavement of other races and genetic tampering for a few... Julian still struggled to understand the magnitude of creating the Jem'Hadar just to serve as canon fodder. Vorta and Jem'Hadar had been his temporary enemies, yes, but never in heart or spirit.
. "I'll trust your memory and knowledge, then." No other expert, and he wondered how she wrote. "Oh, I'd love to!" Knowing him, he'd speed through it as quickly as possible then do that again just to try to absorb every tidbit of knowledge. He descended the stairs with her in tow, speed a little quicker with how eager he was to get on with things.
. "Ahh, I'm not going to sleep tonight," he laughed to himself.
"Yes-- quite." Zeveth stiffens, bristles under a shield she raises in spite of herself, in spite of the Founders' many great, undeniable evils. Coldness enters her bearing, "but They needn't have been pleasant to your solid, Federation standards to be worthy of the compassion you claim to champion."
The moment the words leave her tongue, she bites it.
She has inhabited this station long enough to recognize that the doctor must have become more comfortable in her presence, that he feels free to speak his mind without consequence. It is something she welcomes.
However... in her heart of hearts, she cannot deny that the Founders are still gods to her. Still holy. Still demanding of undying faith. The complications keep her restless.
"Forgive me." Her mouth has gone dry. She bows her head. "It is-- difficult, sometimes. Words cannot describe what They are to look upon, perfect, exquisite visions of life, itself... and They proclaimed to love us, that we were extensions of Themselves."
But then she fixes the doctor with a subtle smile, like a shared secret. "Why then, were They so reviled by us? No. You stand correct. I, too, regret that things did not play out differently. Even gods can be wrong-- and, indeed," she laughs, uncharacteristically nervous, "unpleasant."
Zeveth's laboratory is nestled in a small room off the Promenade between the Section D airlock and the jumja stand, not far from where the Dominion Embassy still sits. The door slides opens with a code, revealing neatly-kept instruments, a single biobed, computer, and a work table laid out with something bubbling in progress, a stark, pale liquid collecting drop by drop in a beaker below. The place might have belonged to a machine, if not for several haphazard stacks of padds.
"Welcome to my little cell," she says, half-joking, though it's not without a hint of pride. She moves to eye-level with the sample of liquid. "White, for our Jem'Hadar friend. Continuation of our current examination. Down 81% original potency. Less addicting, but still vitalising. Only able to sustain one unit for six of your Bajoran hours, though, I'm afraid. Igana has grown quite irritable with me."
She straighens, a laugh under her breath, and shuffles through a few padds until she finds one for the doctor. "Take a look at the original baseline. These were the average measures for the effect of White on a standard unit, including acceptable deviations, aberrations, and unit loss."
Unit loss. She speaks like a Vorta, cool and unaffected.
Below the numbers lie descriptions written in what must be her own voice, precise, straightforward dialogue that drives straight to the point. Even her reflections, which hint at a more singular personality and even an underhanded sense of humor in the pursuit of lengthy questions, settle with little bias or flower, even for a Vorta. She is as she was designed: the ideal scientist and researcher, even more so in the abstract, perhaps, than for the Dominion itself.
"Now, take a look at this one. This is where we are today. Of course, I only have one test subject..."
"Vain. Arrogant. Self-obsessed." He repeats, an amused smirk now firmly planted on his face. "I think that could describe every teenager, couldn't it?" He still doesn't look at Zev. Now he's staring up at the sky. "I was so young. I think I was, what, eighteen? Just turned eighteen. It's all a blur when I look back at it."
At least he had the excuse of youth then. What does Dave have left to hide behind now? "No, I'm just old and jaded now, aren't I?" He plays it off like a joke, but there's an element of truth in it. Zev's unexpected confession snaps him back to reality, though. "Of course. I could see you were the only real fucker in that cesspit of fakery and appearances. It wasn't hard to tell."
She snorts, feigning a cross over her chest. "Not me. I was as selfless as a saint! Still am, me." If only she were so far from the truth of such devotion; Dominion Records... long gone, now, but still written up in her blood to create one among a congregation of perfect parishioners. Dead gods still lurk in every corner of that city and of her mind.
Eighteen. She's never been eighteen. She's never been fourteen, or ten, or eight, not really. Following his gaze into the cloudless blue, she admits after a moment, "I can't imagine."
He may be playing all this off as he usually does, but she remains quiet a bit longer, runs a hand over her mouth, dead on the horizon. "That's because I malfunctioned. Like you're malfunctioning now. We were both-- designated to function in that world, and now we can't. I know there's so much more to life than music, than tennis, but-- what, exactly? I've never... really been able to answer that question."
She turns her furrowed brow to Dave. "When's the last time you played for you? Because you wanted to?"
quick TMNT-style zev B)
Zev's ask is a surprisingly monumental one. It's hard to break out of the endless feedback loop of his impending doom, like a tape that's been stuck. Dave is silent for a moment, a long moment, as he tentatively touches the railing, not trusting it to hold his weight and save him from plummeting god-knows-how-many-floors below. Maybe, at this point, it would be something of a mercy.
"You remember the first time we met? At that MTV thing?" A smile starts to find its' way onto his face, as if he's almost forgotten how to do that. "What was your first impression of me?"
A laugh leaps from her chest before she can stop it, distinctly genuine. Her shoulders fall and she shakes her head, grinning to herself at both the memory and at Dave's almost charmingly irrepressible ego.
"Exactly the same as it is today," she teases, throwing him a smirk. "Vain. Arrogant. Self-obsessed." She elbows him gently in the side, smile failing slightly. "But also... you were lost in a strange new world. One that was angling to close its fist around your throat and never let go. You were so-- young... so gullible."
One by one, she opens the fingers of a hand she had balled up over the rail, as if slowly letting something go. "You're not that person anymore. I don't know what got into me. I guess I didn't want to see you eaten up, at least not so quickly. I was in such a-- a lonely place, and you talked to me like I was, uh. Human. I guess."
. Julian expected that; few liked having tests run and samples collected. As much as the doctor tried to make sure people felt like people and not science experiments, there were parts of the process of something like this that would always feel like that.
. "If grumbling is the worst he does, I'll be happy," he said with a grin. "And I'd love to see what you have, yes!" He stood, a brow ticking upward at the left bowl before he collected their items and moved to put them to be materialized away.
. "Oh, no, I have plenty time." He waved a hand before he clasped his wrist behind him. "I hope nothing was lost in all your movement? I can only imagine how hectic things were."
A low chuckle rose to meet the Vorta's smile. Though she paid no regard to the doctor's tidying, she swept after him like a ghost, following to the replicator until they were free to step back out onto the Promenade. She seemed rather pleased with herself over something, perhaps it was the sense of having the doctor's attention hooked on a line.
"Oh yes. Well, as you know, I was only fortunate enough to escape with my life. And though I admit it was painful to do, I managed to destroy many records along the way. What little I was unable to wipe was probably eradicated at the end of the war. The Dominion greatly feared such precious information falling into... the wrong hands."
The wrong hands. And here they are, now.
"Since then, of course, I have had time to transcribe much of my memory of that knowledge, which should be fairly detailed and accurate, having been my own findings and business, of course."
She paused at the top of the winding stairs to the lower level, lifting out an arm to invite him through first.
"I believe it will be enough to enlighten you of our current status and understanding -- and perhaps give you a bit of evening reading to do, too."
[ @17goiingunder ! ( continued . )
To be frank, Dave never really watched MTV growing up. (Growing up, he says, as if he’s still not eighteen years old, still a child in all ways but legally.) There was no telly at home, and he was always out on the court or out at the pub, starting a fight. This is a world completely foreign to him, just as the Wimbledon winner’s gala had been. It’s hard for him not to stop and stare in awe of the whole operation, and he feels the warm glow of recognition, but he’s glad that no one’s mobbing him. That sort of thing gets old, real fast, even for an attention-hungry teenager like Dave. “Oh. Yeah.” Even though he’s just met Zev, he implicitly trusts her (certainly, over Weyoun) and he lets her lead him around this labyrinth. He’s had to get over his stage fright and fear of cameras in a hurry since last year, but this is something completely different altogether. Suddenly Dave wants to go back to the tennis court. At least that’s familiar ground. Here, he feels like a fish out of water. “Mate, I feel nervous all of a sudden.’ He whispers to Zev, the only one here he’d confide in.
"Oh?" she lifts her brows as if his heart couldn't race in her ears any louder. Her grip tightens at his elbow, a little sharp, a little reassuring, voice gone low, "You mean you're a tennis player, not a pop star? Let me go and get the proper department," she breathes a hollow laugh. "Unfortunately, this is the state of the entertainment business these days; whether you like it or not, you're entertainment. I hate it here."
She lifts her head toward the stage, blazing beams of light and the eyes of cameras striking down on the place where Dave is meant to stand. A slew of guitars stand waiting in a semi-circle off to the side, and a broad screen stretches up the back. "You'll be fine. Won't be able to see a thing once you're up there. They only keep the best twenty seconds, unless you really fuck up, so don't really fuck up. Off you trot."
With a little push, Dave is left on his own in the spotlight. Zev smirks from just off-stage.
his eyes barely have time enough to widen before she's off like a bat out of hell. " aw, hell, " he drawls, resigning himself to his fate. freeing one hand, he pulls his cap by upturned brim to tighten it. throwing caution to thr wind, he follows, wildly firing.
a jeep is splashed with yellow. a yell goes up from somebody's hiding place, foxes smoked from their holes. a private is hit in his privates. igor laughs, jeering at them all as he crouches behind a makeshift barricade that had been fashioned for the game.
radar squeals, yelling, " i'm hit! i'm hit! " as he paws frantically at his chest.
once more, zeveth is at igor's side, eyes wild and breathing fast from the exertion and excitement. the voice cries out -- radar, of course, and without an ounce of hesitation she stands from their hiding place and snipes at the 'wounded' corporal with intent to take him down. she collapses again and jostles igor, "put 'im out of his misery, poor sod."
only then does she feel the wet drip of paint running down the back of her own neck. bright violet -- she flinches at the sight of what her probing fingers retrieve as if she'd caught the sight of real blood, then laughs. "seems you're talking to a ghost, mate," she giggles, gripping the barrel of igor's gun and turning it almost playfully to her chest, "and i'm miserable."
. Being hunted from both sides- the Federation with all its power, and the Dominion wishing to lash out like a wounded snake. Both were weakened by the war but both were still formidable.
. He wasn't surprised by what she said- far from it. Vorta and Federation weren't exactly allies, even if Sisko had them ally with Vorta a few times throughout the war- particularly Keevan and the Weyoun that accompanied the Jem'Hadar at the portal site. What an odd situation that'd been.
. "Well, I'd love to get started as soon as possible. Do you think your friend will mind a few samples? I can spread them out over a bit of time if he'd prefer. We can work from that and his personal experiences with ketracel white to see what we can do."
"He may grumble," comes a sly smile, and she puts her palms together readily. "But he knows his purpose here. Let us seek him out, then! If he is for some reason unavailable, I can introduce you to the data I have already collected and we can start from the baseline."
With a glance at the hour, she pushes away from the table and straightens, lip curling at the cold remainder of the soup. It must not have caught on with a Vorta texture palate.
She turns to leave -- but steps back. "Unless you have other duties to attend to? Did you need to arrange your schedule?"
[ @thebrazenandbold ! ( continued. ) "The Fou-- oh, like the security chief?" She spared not a moment's thought to the optics of her low familiarity with the 'Founders'. Zoe's eyes focused to some middle distance as she considered the possible ramifications of that hypothesis. "The unstable form could potentially lend itself to the extant biodiversity. It's not my field, but on Earth the more unique species are typically those that split from the evolutionary chain earlier, and I've certainly never heard of another species like them. Though that's hardly evidence." She smiled brightly, fascinated by the thought. There was science that was still undone! That meant discovery! Maybe she ought to travel to the future, to find out if it had been sorted yet. Oh, but miss the chance to see hypotheses fold out in real life? "I can do next week. I could meet with Viwilath too, if you think it will help. Do you mind introducing us? My schedule is very flexible." Incredibly flexible. Why, she could make just about any time work for her.
The Vorta blanched slightly. In due time, she'd come to accept the Founder's -- the security chief's -- choice to forsake his people, to live this life, misguided as it felt to the very core of her chest, like an image not-quite-right, but still it unsettled her. The Founders were not meant to exist this way. It did funny things to her brain just to think about it in too much depth.
"Ah-- yes," she managed, eyes downcast in brief, knee-jerk reverence. "Odo." Thankfully, Zoe sped ever onward, and Zeveth soon lifted her chin to peer back at Zoe's words.
Where the Founders were concerned, no evidence was needed. Only faith. Zeveth bit her tongue before she could allow such an injury against science, objective, non-demoninational science, to fall loose, and braced her eyes closed. "Yes," she heard herself echo, "I suppose anything's possible."
The moment passed, and Zeveth found herself firmly in place once again. "It would be my pleasure. In fact," her smile became wry, "I think the two of you may get along famously. Wil has an easier time with this sort of thing than I, that is-- the more human side of things. I think it will give you a fuller picture of the procedure and of what to expect."
She spread her clasped hands. "In that case, perhaps we can see if she's free now? She is resting today, but I have a feeling she would take to a visitor."
[ @dimensionalspades ! ( continued. ) “That’s good to hear.” He was mostly proud of that. DS9 wasn’t immune to people holding grudges or treating others terribly. And being so close to the end of the war, he was more surprised people were so welcoming. “That’s quite the story- unexpected friends in unexpected places. Did you explore much when you traveled together? I’m sure the Alpha Quadrant is all still new territory.” He thought of Goran'Agar again, wondering if he died alone with his unit or if he’d been found and killed some other way. He liked to think of him hiding out in comfort somewhere, but that was improbable. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad both of you lived. I’m sure between the three of us, we can do quite a bit of good!”
"Unfortunately not," she leaned back, a soft sigh on her words as if to let memory drift by on a breeze, just out of reach. "I'm afraid we never did make it together to the Alpha Quadrant. Though we came to understand one another rapidly, our time was short. The Dominion was as much on his tail as mine, and soon-- well." A faint laugh. She pulled a smirk, eyes sharp and back on Julian. "The Federation caught up with us. I was taken prisoner. I think you can guess the rest."
Her expression softened, and she shook her head almost imperceptibly. "There was a time I might not have believed your words. But now, I can see that you mean them. I appreciate your goodwill and intent. And I think you're right. Your input will be invaluable. I can appreciate that, too."
"Yeah, whatever you say. You're the boss." His mind briefly wanders to his physiotherapist, and the fact that Dave really ought to call him again. But with the amount of times he's smashed this ankle, it's going to take a miracle to put him back together. He perches himself on the edge of the railing meant to keep people from falling off from this dizzying height. It's too much to stand up and keep his weight on both feet.
"Really? This is it? Your solution to all my woes?"
"Shut up," she smiles, leaning over the railing on her crossed elbows. "Got you out of the apartment didn't I? Just like I promised. That's more than you can say for yourself, locked up in there for gods know how long." Leaning far over, she idly toes a small chunk of loosened concrete off the side of their perch. It vanishes noiselessly into the distant bushes below.
"Ask me something. Like, something you wanna know that I've never told you before. You have got to think about something other than tennis for at least sixty seconds. For my sake."
. He wasn’t sure how to take her stare, giving her the time to speak despite the need to fill the dead air.
. Julian’s expression lit up at the reveal that there was a Jem'Hadar to work with. He’d spent so long accepting that his research would have to muddle along without any other personal encounters with friendly Jem'Hadar. It was wonderful to know that it wouldn’t remain that way.
. “Well, that’s wonderful! I can imagine he’d be tense, given he’s on a Bajorn-Federation station- I hope people have been treating him alright.” He was brimming with energy, then, expression bright. “I’m sure we’ll get along swimmingly. I- Did you travel together, did you meet before or after the war?”
Zeveth laughed a little. “Considering the situation, I don’t think he quite knows what to do with how welcomed he’s been. Not by everyone, of course. But for the most part I think it’s been one of the station′s unexpected blessings, perhaps.”
Settling back comfortably, she nodded. “We met just after the war. In fact, he was the one to tell me it was over. He’d heard of me before, but of course to me... he’d only been a number, considered a casualty, in fact. By the time we met, he had already lead an insurrection against the Dominion and earned back his life.” She paused. “He came to kill me. He’d heard of my own separation from the Dominion and knew it was his chance to take out another Vorta, particularly one as essential as I, one who had been granted a certain amount of power.” Her shrug implied simple facts. “But neither of us turned out to be what the other ever could have expected. He turned out to be more than a soldier. And I turned out to be more than a machine. After that, we did travel together for a short while, but went our own ways before I contacted him and invited him here.”
klinger uncrosses his fingers and opens his eyes when he realizes he remained unpicked. radar 'phew's.
" i would play for you, " mulcahy starts, giving wil an encouraging smile, " but i'm sure your voice is just fine -- sans accompanist! "
everyone cheers, then quiets. the sobering affect is nearly immediate. radar shrinks, looking at his fingers as if they were the most interesting thing in the entire world. a muscle in potter's jaw clenches, and margaret places her hand on his. bj and hawkeye watch wil, contemplative. charles looks off somewhere else, then down at the floor at the same time she gathers enough confidence to lift her chin.
zeveth's loud cheering manages to break the melancholic tension that had spread over them like a stormcloud, even if it makes more than half of them flinch. mulcahy's the first to join, then klinger, then hawkeye. at the final note, everyone is singing along.
" i stand correct, " mulcahy half-whispers, voice rough with emotion.
" hate to follow that act, " klinger agrees, sounding almost reverent.
" speaking of following that act, " margaret says in a way to clear her throat, reining in her composure. she looks expectantly at wil, and everyone awaits their fates.
dazed, but still shining ear-to-ear at them all, wil sits down a little too hard on the very edge of the cot at some point during the burst of cheer. if not for margaret's prompting, she might have forgotten the entire thing was meant all along as part of a game.
"oh!" finding her voice again, she hurries to look around. "right! oh. um. thank you. um."
she tries to resist for a moment, but out of everyone in the room she has to imagine klinger the least likely to protest anything she might happen to suggest, or to find some way to retaliate later. reluctant, she chews her lip - but she thinks she's highly likely to catch fire if she has this many eyes on her for any longer. "klinger-- sorry. um. well. truth or dare?"
" baseball, " his sigh borders on wistful, " now, there's the game of champions. i'd give anything t' be sittin' at a mudhens game. " lightbulb moment, accompanied by a friendly shoulder-to-shoulder nudge: " say, when there's a bet started come next season, you oughta join in! put your hat in the ring! "
wil being up here with him is making the change from pole sitting protest -- vying for his much coveted section eight -- to sudden record breaking opportunity thrust upon him by the colonel pass a little easier. food will do that. food makes everything seem easier, even if it's the shit they try and cobble together and make the best out of.
there comes a time where a man gets tired of trying to make the best out of a shit situation. a thought that everybody shares, but pushes to the neglected corners of their mind: there's nothing else for them to do.
" ha! " he shouts, which is followed by a series of actual chuckles. " no kiddin'. everything's better than his! y'know somethin', wil? you're really fitting in with us. " ah, of course taking the piss out of poor straminsky -- who doesn't, mind you, even cook the food! -- means one has slotted themselves comfortably within the ranks of the four-o-double-seventh.
it's not a familiar feeling, this, perched in an easy moment with someone. when the word friend passes through her mind, she thinks, yes. yes, this must be it! klinger is my friend. there's no hurry, no greater motive, nothing but the air beneath their swinging feet and the fine scent of a dewy early morning amist their laughter. maybe he's right. maybe she really is settling in, finding a place here.
"you think so, really?" she straightens to look at him. "i would like that. a lot, i think. i like being around all of you very much. even igor," the addition comes with a stifled laugh, "even major win-ches-ter!" and a salute. she sighs. "in spite of everything, i always thought coming here would be interesting, for sure, but -- well, i didn't exactly expect..."
wil seems to catch herself, and waves a helpless arm out at the world.
"anything like this."
her brow furrows and she looks back at klinger. "did you?"
"What?" Nicole gasped in mock astonishment, clutching at her heart. "You keep giving me such mixed signals, I don't know what to think! First I'm the love of your life, then I'm too bony for you? Agh, my poor emotions. They're getting whiplash!"
Her dramatics eased into a grin, friendly for all of her ribbing. "You didn't snore, actually," she added, a gentle aside. "You getting enough sleep?"
Zeveth threw her head back when she laughed next, flash of teeth, and extended her legs out beneath the table. When she sighed, her whole body slumped comfortably to fit the chair.
She rubbed at an eye. "To be completely honest with you, not so much. Still kinda getting used to the whole-- diurnal lifestyle, I guess. Got any tips?"