Now it was Calcite’s turn to get angered by the other, her single eye twitching almost imperceptibly at the use of her old rank. This was the second time she had done it and despite the change in context, it was one time too many. “Don’t you dare call me Ensign again. I worked silting hard for my promotions and I will not have you calling me by the rank your Calcite clearly never managed to surpass.”

It was looking as though her Captain had figured out a way to do a transfer of her consciousness with the counter part she had in the Prime Universe and while this was all without a doubt exceedingly interesting for the gem, it was also more than a little inconvenient. At the very least she should have given her a proper warning before simply going ahead with whatever it was that she had done. Who knows what kind of risks there had been!

“Help? You honestly expect me to help you?” The gem scoffed and shook her head at the human. Of all the nerve…. Coming into her domain and insulting her before asking for help…. Granted there was some potential in this to be interesting for her, but she was going to make the impostor work for it. “Why? Why should I even consider helping you do anything other than possibly find your way to the brig a little bit faster than you would on your own?”

Despite how long lived they were, gems had for long been expected to be as static as actual rock. Calcite had simply been deemed as defective before and had her personality appropriately altered.

“Oh, I’m sure I will.” Calcite smirked at Janeway, already making plans on doing that while making her job as difficult as possible. There was no reason she couldn’t mess around with her friend during their shared free time. Her attention was quickly drawn to the throng of celebrating crew members, easily assuming that Harry had somehow bested the dragon despite how unlikely that would be.

“I think I rather would.” She agreed with the Captain, following after the group with her. Calcite did doubt that there would be any actual inebrients, though she was still curious what she would be treated to in this strange new holodeck simulation.

“Yes, sir.” Shoya’s reply was automatic, tense. Seeing the First Minister and the rest standing there, she made one keen observation. The larger the wings, the higher their rank. Much like Selasi…

“Captain,” she said suddenly. “If you are to be a Kelmarrian without wings… then I think you would be my subordinate. Flight is very important here. Look at their rank insignias compared to their wingspan.” As she explained, she gestured to them on the monitor. “I do not think they would believe that I would take orders from you. With respect, Captain… I think I need to lead. Or I need to pretend to lead.”

Reg managed a small smile when she complimented his beard, but it didn’t last long, quickly replaced with the mask of worry he always wore these days. “Thanks. It, uh… w-wasn’t really a choice at first, I just never found the time to shave it off…” A small shrug.

“It did,” he confirmed, when she asked about their message. “We were working to find a way to respond to you, but then… th-then, uh, we had more pressing matters to attend to. The Breen attack was a year later, and we… we never quite recovered from that. But – I suppose you don’t know much about that…”

What must it be like, finally returning home only to find it a war zone? Not only that, a war zone where you couldn’t even trust someone to be who they appeared to be? “I h-hope you didn’t try to get back to Earth first. That… you w-won’t find it a friendly place now.”

“Well, I certainly hope I’m real and that you are too. I was in my office when some man appeared. He snapped his fingers and now I’m here.” She looked around. The woman had a Starfleet insignia on, but Afsaneh didn’t recognize the uniform. “Where is here, exactly?”

She looked out the window. The ship, she guessed, was going at warp but she couldn’t say what factor. On the Dana she could always tell, but here the ship flew so smoothly that she couldn’t.

“Oh it’s tempting but I promised I wouldn’t meddle.” He laced his fingers together. “My hands are tied. Not that you need me. Surely some pitiless pirates wont give you that much trouble.” He conjured up a drink of his own from nowhere in particular in order to mimic her.

The gem knew nothing about the composition of her “stick” being of any significance so the revelation of what it meant. She had no idea how the computer would know so much about her, but honestly it  was a little bit scary considering it was something that she hadn’t actually brought up to anyone. “I’m not a romantic, but I did want to be a healer for a while. That was before my Diamond decided to go missing.”

Calcite could feel her cheeks burning angrily when when Janeway laughed at her first attempt at spellcasting, but it was her first time doing any magic at all so it made sense that she wouldn’t get it yet. Another flick incorporating the tip she had gotten and she pocketed the wand for trying again later. “Maybe later you could teach me a few simpler spells to get me started. This is a school so I’m assuming there are some classes that I could try?”

Reg followed after Kathy, doing his best to keep from bumping into all the students also scrambling to find their seats before the train left. It was odd being so much bigger than some of them, but he supposed there were limits to the holodeck’s capabilities; it couldn’t very well transform them back into eleven year olds.

Once inside a compartment, Reg carefully set his new owl’s cage on the floor and took a seat. Something about the student already there seemed familiar, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it… until he spotted the trunk tucked under the seat, which had N Longbottom written along the side of it.

“Neville? Are you Neville?” he asked, suddenly excited.

Confused, Neville shrank away a little bit. “How do you know my name?”

Oh. Right. “It’s – it’s on your trunk,” Reg quickly covered, pointing. “S-sorry. Someone mentioned you earlier. Uh… I’m Reg, and this is Kathy.”

“Hullo,” Neville replied. A small head peeked over the top of his front pocket; his toad, Trevor. Neville gently but firmly pushed the animal back into his robe. “Sorry. I’m worried Trevor’s going to get out, and my great-uncle will kill me if I lose him.”

“Well, you have to break them in first,” he pointed out. “These have just… been extra broken in.” He’d never seen couches that worn down on the Enterprise, but this wasn’t the Enterprise. This was a ship that couldn’t afford to use its rations on something as unimportant as seating.

“I heard some people are trying to pool their rations to replicate new ones, but others are vetoing it. They’ve gotten used to them. There’s just something about them being so… lived in. It’s a bit homier. Besides,” he added with a soft chuckle, “everyone knows it’s the best place to take a nap.”

He sipped his hot chocolate slowly. This replicator had made it just a bit too hot, so he settled for plucking some marshmallows off the top. “So… how are you holding up?” he finally asked. It wasn’t something she could really discuss with anyone else on the crew. People who might lose faith in her if they saw her doubting herself.