By hook or by crook

Posted on Mon Oct 27th, 2014 @ 6:59am by Lieutenant Roberta Andrews & Korok Lukk

1,247 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Deadly Diplomacy
Location: Unnamed Lounge - Korok's Place
Timeline: Current

Lieutenant Roberta Andrews walked into the establishment, just in time to see her husband throw another table like a frisbie from one end of the bar to the other. "Ok Lukk, got it all out of your system now?" She asked with a small smile on her face.

Korok looked up from the floor and growled "NO!" and threw the leg he had into the corner to follow the table. He sat before a new stack of tables and table legs that had been replicated for his current mindset. He picked up a table leg and banged it unto the table he had set down. *BAM*

Andrews smiled as she looked over the wreakage. "I like your idea of decorating. " She sat down next to him. "You know, if you keep doing this for the next few months it will be harder for me to sit down and get up. Now, how about we talk about what's bothering you?"


Korok looked at Roberta "Nothing is bothering me, except I can't get these stupid tables together." to illustrate his point he slammed down the fourth leg *BAM* and the other three toppled and he growled in rage and picked it up and swung it against the wall in anger it splintered and fell apart in a heap.

"Well, you're not going to get *any* of these tables together, if you keep trying to build them the way you're doing.."

Korok took a table leg and beat it against the the next tabletop with frustration. *BAM, BAM, BAM* "It seems like it is working fine to me" He whipped the table leg across the room and it stuck into the wall. "This is so useless." He growled softly

Andrews sighed. "Ok, le'ts talk."

Korok leaned back against the bar he sat in front of and stretched out his leg. He rubbed his knee to ease the pain he felt. His face still glowered with frustration "Bloody leg. Stupid thing is useless."

Roberta looked over Lukk's leg, then back at him. "It *does* look a bit 'banged up,' but *you* are supposed to be in therapy, making it better. " Roberta got closer. "It's up to *you,* you know. *You* have to work on it.. Try putting some of that energy you've been using here into your therapy instead of 're-arranging' the furniture here."

Korok glared at his leg and then looked up at Roberta "I do not need to go to therapy. It does nothing to heal my leg. To make my knee better it does not fix the unfixable. To remove the dishonor of our family." He kicked the stacked table tops so they slid off and over in his frustration and growled out some more. "The tables are stupid anyway, this whole concept that Maia had, that she thought I could do this, run a place like she and her sister is stupid."

Roberta could feel her face turning red. "What do *you* mean; '...Remove the 'dishonor of our family?' Please explain."

Korok realized that she thought he meant her and the baby. "No, not that. There is no dishonor in that, we are mates. It is me." He looked down at his knee the constant reminder. I've dishonored our family when I was taken as a hostage."

Roberta shook her head. " Quite a 'few' of us were taken hostage, remember? But we - and by that 'we' I include you, fought our way out. *You* helped in the escape from that 'prison,' and that is an honorable achievement."

Korok glowered at his mate for a moment in thought and then spoke gently. "Roberta, you don't know what it was like. Helping people escape, fighting yes that is something but I should have died in there, that would have been honorable. Letting my fighting partner die, being injured that is not honorable. Most of all being held hostage itself is very dishonorable."

Roberta's eyebrows shot up. "Wait..she's not dead..she's alive.. and being injured in the process of fighting to protect others, wouldn't that be a 'badge' of honor?"

Korok growled "To some maybe but to a bIHnuch (coward) like me. Shame and dishonor are now labels of mine and my family because I should not have tolerated being held captive. I should have killed myself for being taken hostage in the first place but I didn't..." He paused and looked at her and continued in a softer growl as he looked away. "I will try to bring honor to our family again some way, some how." He met her eyes again a look of hidden self loathing in his own. "So my family will not be shamed."

Roberta looked straight into Korok's eyes. "Your family is *not* ashamed of you. And we need you now; *I* need you now, more than ever. It's only my first month and I've gained two pounds. Another couple of months and I may need you to 'cart me around' the ship." Roberta slightly smiled.

Korok wanted to laugh at her. Two pounds did not seem much to him but then again he had little to no concept of how much a mixed species baby could grow inside a human woman. The corner of his mouth twitched with a smile. It seemed she had the most delicate way of bringing his world into perspective more then any other person. "Well then we are to have a mighty big male child if it has grown so much already."

Andrews's face grew red. "The child isn't 'big' yet; I think I'm just retaining water or something...you want me fat?!?! " Roberta began to cry..

"No," He growled and then responded again quickly "I mean yes, um no..." Korok lifted his knees and put his arms on his knees and grabbed a wrist with a hand as he hung his head his face burned burgundy. He knew that the correct answer was no and at the same time she would get bigger in the middle with the baby and he was happy for that so the answer was yes.

Roberta stopped crying. "So, when you've put this place in order will you then come to our place? The kids have been 'decorating' the baby's room and they want to show off their work to you. " Roberta looked off into space. "Lukk..do you think I'll make a good Mom?"

Korok growled softly and wiped at a stray tear. "You are already a good mom." Korok then turned and struggled to stand up his knee did not want to cooperate, the muscles around it screamed with pain but he knew that was his own fault for missing therapy. He held out his elbow to Roberta.

As the doors shut behind them and they left the unnamed lounge it reset itself, every table, every chair in place. It was a specialized holo-program it adjusted to the first person through the door unless Korok set it to stay a certain way. Today he had needed to let off steam so it had created stacks of tables and chair legs.

As the two of them semi limped down the corridor towards their quarters, Roberta slightly grinned. "Lukk, sometime when you're alone with Oliver, you *may* want to have a talk with him, while I chat with Olivia. It seems that they're both a bit curious about our baby and the umm. why's and the umm..hows?"


Lieutenant Roberta Andrews, CSciO

Korok Lukk, Civilian (npc)

 

RSS Feed