round 7 Ambassador Della Vetri - Just reward

[TLea]

((Vetka, Inner Isles))

:: Della had something of a stubborn streak. In part, it was inherited from her symbiote, as all of Vetri's hosts had been like that to some extent, but whatever the source, it was there. Unfortunately, no matter how stubborn the hold on a belief, it couldn't stand up to overwhelming evidence that the belief was wrong - evidence like the still form of the woman that Della really *had* just shot in the side of the head.::

:: The phaser in her hand dropped like a stone as she dived to the ground, wrapping her arms around T'Lea's motionless body with a choked cry. Any kind of rational thought was impossible as she fought to try and deny what she'd just done, and *why* she'd done it.::

Vetri: T'Lea! Please... I'm sorry... I'm so sorry!

:: Something tickled at her ear, and it took a moment for her to realise what it was. The way she'd gathered the Romu-vulc into her arms put T'Lea's head right beside hers, and that faint tickle of breath was intimately familiar... Just under much more happy circumstances. What it told her, however, was enough to kick her disbelief at what had happened aside, replacing it with a whole other kind.::

:: With a fearful glance, she looked at the phaser she'd dropped, and sure enough it's controls showed her that somehow, amongst the lightning-fast chaos of the last couple of minutes, she'd managed to do something that was probably going to save her life.::

:: Once she was recovered, T'Lea was probably going to kick her [...] for it, though. Nobody appreciated a heavy stun blast to the head, after all.::

:: Even so, it was a very shaky hand that touched the hybrid's throat, seeking out the telltale flutter of a pulse under the skin... and an even more terrifying wait until it was found. Weak, thready... but there. A breath she didn't even realise she was holding burst out from Della's lips in a gasping sigh of relief - then she threw herself flat, cradling T'Lea as best she could as a massive, sky-shattering roar tore through the air.::

:: Her wild look around to find the source of the noise didn't take long to come up with results, and the sight of the multi-headed rafe towering out of the mist was... Actually, compared to what she'd just done to both herself and T'Lea, it wasn't that huge a deal.::

:: Huge, scary, and thoroughly [...]ed off, sure. Just not enough of a problem to outweigh what she was feeling right then.::

:: The queen rafe, because that was the only [...]ed thing it *could* be, roared again, and the response from the only conscious person on the ground was probably not what it might have expected.::

Vetri: ::tiredly:: Oh, shut the hell up.

:: Amazingly enough, that got a response. And not even a messy one, as it took the form of one head drooping down a bit to stare at her with a mildly quizzical look in it's eyes.::

:: Anything more didn't have a chance to happen, as the very next thing to take place was a blast of energy spearing down from the heavens, smashing into the ground near the queen rafe, and levelling what had to have been a pretty hefty chunk of jungle.::

:: This did not, apparently, go down well with the rafe, and there was little Della could do but hunker down even more, covering T'Lea as best she could, whilst grabbing her comm.::

:: Somehow, she and T'Lea - and the other two, though she gave less of a [...] about them - managed to get through the rafe queen's explosion of rage without being crushed, but there was no way she would have been able to explain how. Soon enough, however, the situation changed yet again, with another thunderous roar slitting the air. Risking a glance upward to see what was going wrong now, but it took some furious blinking to clear the tears that were flowing for her to be able to make out what had caused it.::

:: When she saw the Thunder, hanging in mid-air like a duranium brick, she knew she should have felt some sort of relief. What she *actually* felt, though, was nothing more than an echo of the rafe queen's reaction - and as a result was utterly unsurprised when the creature let loose a blast of... something... that slammed into the ship.::

:: A part of her also pointed out that the fact she was going into a kind of shocked-out emotional numbness probably helped her lack of excitement as well, but she was too mentally numb to care.::

:: As she waited for the inevitable backlash - it was *Parker* in command up there, after all - to level the entire island, with them on it, Della made herself give a frak about someone but T'Lea enough to look over at Toni and Waltas, only to see that they were gone. At some point, she figured, the two of them must have been beamed up by the Thunder, and that was good. She'd managed to get them into far more trouble than any of them had bargained for, and it was only proper that they get the best care possible for what her idiocy had brought down on them.::

:: It was also right and good that she be left behind to face the consequences. She was the one that had started this fight, after all. Just like she'd been the one who'd talked T'Lea into staying in Starfleet, and putting herself at risk of precisely what had happened. And then, of course, there was the fact that she hadn't done something permanent to Selta the first time they'd met...::

:: The added fun of having been the one that very nearly blew her own wife's head across the landscape was just the icing on the cake.::

:: With a tired sigh, she closed her eyes, tucking T'Lea's head under her own as she held her, and waited for what she knew had to be coming for her. At least the girls were safe. With her gone, there was nothing left to threaten Gina and T'Sara, and they'd be able to have the happiness in life she knew now she'd never, ever, be able to give them.::

:: There was no need to care about what was happening around her, so she ignored the sounds from above, including the one that heralded the arrival of something else in the skies over the island. Just like she ignored the way a ticklish tingling wrapped itself around her and T'Lea, a totally harmless little quirk of the Gypsy Ranger's transporter that would have told her that Rossh had gotten her call.::

:: The change from blasted jungle to the inside of the Ranger just didn't seem to matter.::

TBC

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Ambassador Della Vetri

Diplomatic Officer

Embassy of Duronis