Disclaimer - Paramount owns them, just not the way we write them.
Happy Easter to those who celebrate it, and a happy day to those who don't.
I finally had the time and creative impulse to write something. Hooray! I hate writers block...
No, this isn't an Easter story.
*
She asked for a story. A fictitious parable that might originally have had some basis on actual events, but now had been twisted out of all similarity to the occurances.
Something he 'made up'. Something involving an angry warrior perhaps. But absolutely nothing that involved a certain animal.
She wanted a fairy tale - a story of love against all odds, a tale of good triumphing over almost insurmountable evil. A story that would warm her heart and bring a smile to her face whenever something reminded her of it.
The truth was, he had lost the stories a long time ago. He had none for her anymore. None that she would want to hear, anyway.
When he had been a child his father had often told him how important stories were. A story could build or destory empires. The way it was expressed could change a whole civilisation. Long after computer or tricorders or padds were forgotten, the people would still be there to share the stories that had always been passed from one generation to the next. Despite all their 'technology', it was the only way they would be remembered.
Frankly, Chakotay hadn't believed it. He didn't want to believe it. He was too focused on other things; getting into the Academy, leaving behind his fathers beliefs so he could live in a 'better' and more advanced society.
He had grown some since then, overcoming his own ignorance and his own decision to belittle everything his father had tried to teach him. After his father had been killed and his home colony destroyed, he'd written down what he could remember of the tales. As he did he recalled so many nights spent lying on the grass, staring up at the stars as his father spoke. Despite himself, most of the time he enjoyed them. They always had a mythical quality to them as if they never could have happened. And yet in direct contrast to that, they seemed real. The way his father spoke, the intensity in his voice almost made them believable.
He didn't know quite what he was going to do with the stories - there was no one of a younger generation of his people out here. He'd considered telling them to the 'ancestors' they'd discovered but found that his relatives had far more to tell him that he would have have to say to them.
In the Maquis, he'd also considered telling his crew. True, they weren't relatives but they were close enough. They were all fighting for the same cause, fighting the same enemy. But there'd never been the time to gather everyone around and tell them all the stories. Always hiding, always fighting.
Now there was Voyager. A new family. Only he had left it too late. He had let himself be distracted by other things, and he couldn't share a story with a people without sharing it with a leader who would understand.
As a child he hadn't been ready to listen. It had taken him decades to reach the stage he was at.
Now, she wasn't ready to listen. She could hear but she wouldn't listen.
He had no more stories for her. Only truths.
At one point a truth in the guise of a story had been the only way he could talk to her. Now even that was gone.
"Tell me a story, Chakotay."
"I can't Kathryn."
Frowning. "Why not?"
"Because...there are no more stories for me to tell."
Turning away from him. "Then tell me a truth."
Shaking his head. "You don't want to hear one."
"Yes," stated with absolute conviction "yes I do."
"Not this truth." Insistant.
"*Especially* this truth."
"No, Kathryn. You're not ready to listen."
Turning back and grabbing his arm. "No Chakotay. I *am* ready to listen. *You're* not ready to tell."
Blinking. Wrong. Wrong? Arrogant?
Whispering. "Tell me a truth, Chakotay."
He spoke the words.
~FINIS
Now...the challenge!! Just what words does he say, and what reaction do those words cause?
I look forward to your responses...