Marisol Fortune: (Mis)Fortune Comes For The Wicked

[Corliss]

"Hey, Eleanor."

In Marisol's right hand, she jerked her hand up and down. The two slips of latinum clinked together in a beautiful melody against the small table next to her. Clink, clink, clink the latinum went as she twisted it around and around in her hand, the edges clinking against the top of the table. She sat, slumped, in her captain's chair, her dark black eyes staring into nothingness as the viewscreen showed a planet she hadn't seen in eons. She had chosen a white wig that was tied back with a clasp, but a strand stuck to her cheek, just in front of her right ear. 

She let out a huff, her dark eyes flicking away from the viewscreen. "You know I've always hated that name, idiot."

A laugh echoed around her in the bridge, dark and silent except for their voices. "Yeah. You went through a phase with your middle name, right? Cor-"

"Don't say that name," her hand stopped for a moment, her eyes slipping shut as she took in a slow breath, then opened again. "Just don't. I don't have the temper, nor the time, to deal with you."

"No time for your favorite big brother?" the voice teased, and her left hand swung from where it dangled over the armrest, resting her cheek against her fist with a click of her tongue, licking her dry lips.

"You're my only brother, dummy." She paused. "...and you're dead."

"Yeah, well." If he was here, she knew he would shrug and do that stupid grin of his that always, always irritated her. It was boastful, gloating, deceitful. Girls his age would giggle and sigh when he flashed that grin, but oh how they were just so very disappointed when he moved on to bigger and better things. Like he always did. Like he had always done.

Which, of course, led to his demise.

She shifted, grunting as she leaned further on her hand, her eyes fluttering shut again. "What do you want?" she asked wearily to the empty bridge. She was going out of her mind, that's what it was. That happened sometimes, later in life, to Betazoids. Or. So she believed. She didn't want to think otherwise. Perhaps her telepathy was finally attempting to eat away at the lobes of her brain in an effort to self-destruct. That seemed less absurd than the rest of the...everything...going on.

"You think I'm only a figment of your imagination," he begun, and she really did not want to go down whatever path he was going. "So I mean, why not chat a bit? Take some comfort in it. Maybe I'm a spirit sent back from Karawati to help you along the way."

Marisol snorted, coughing as she covered her mouth before shaking her head, letting her arm lay limply at her side. "I've never believed in that hogwash. Peace and love and on and on until you die pitiful and alone because that's what life is really like."

"The pirate life really did you no favors, you know." Marisol peeked an eye open. The planet in front of her grew ever larger the closer they came to it. It rotated in place slowly, and she could see a storm building up over a large body of water. Pity. She had ever so hoped to experience rain on her face one last time. Her hand weakly lifted up, pale fingers skating over her own cheek.

"Is this what the afterlife is like, then? Waiting on my ship to crash into my homeworld?" She let out a sharp laugh, coughing harder as her head slumped forward, wheezing slowly. "Truly a fate befitting of my actions these past years. What say you, brother?"

"I dunno. Always thought you'd die in a shoot-out. Would have been more...dramatic, that way." His laugh, deep baritone, rumbled through the bridge. It was like she could see him, in her mind's eye, standing in front of her with his arms crossed. He smiled often, but his face always acted like it never knew what to do about it. A permanent resting brooding face. "But ah. Here you are. Ship malfunction. Just a stars-forsaken warp drive malfunction, that's all it is, wasn't it?"

Marisol blinked slowly, feeling the want to just lay back and fall asleep. But that would be rude to her guest, wouldn't it?

Yes. Just a warp drive malfunction. Something that sometimes just happened, something they thought they could fix. But, no. It took out half her ship. And when the...incident happened, she forced her crew to depart in what little escape shuttles they had. There was no escape for her, she thought, looking down slowly. The large piece of metal pinning her to the seat took care of that. This felt like some ironic fate. Just as he said, she often thought she’d be shot in the streets after a deal gone awry, not this…slow and…almost boring event.

Her left hand trembled as she brought it up to sweep the white strand of hair from her right cheek, then let it collapse around her, the energy just not there any longer to keep her extremities moving. “What kind of story will they tell, I wonder,” she murmured, her eyes finally sliding shut as she smiled. “Despite everything, I’ll fade into obscurity as so many have done. What an end to a story.”

”It’s not a very satisfying end, no,” he agreed, the viewscreen flicking a bit before stabilizing into the, what she knew to be, hologram of Betazed. “In fact, if I read a holo-novel leading up to this, I’d sooner curse out the author for killing my favorite character.”

She sputtered out a laugh, shaking her head, the white wig slipping a bit. “I was your favorite? How charming, how bold. How naive. You’ve always been that way.” She sighed, smacking her dry lips together, and it echoed loudly followed by creaks of the ship and pops of snapped wires trying to get energy from one to another. “Perhaps you could tell me a different story.”

“A story?” His voice carried amusement in it, but not the teasing type, no. She couldn’t place her finger on it, actually, but she felt that, at this time, she shouldn’t have to. “Sure, why not. What kind? You know I’ve always been able to make up some pretty good ones,” he joked.

Yes, like the time he’d managed to convince a traveling group of entertainers that he was a juggler, and managed to hitch a free ride across three planets before they found out he didn’t know what juggling was.

She sighed, relaxing back in the chair as the ship started to rumble around her threateningly. “Give me…a different story. One with…a good end.”

There was a beat, then two, and she figured he’d finally wised up and left before she heard:

“On board the USS Gorkon, the new counselor, Corliss, is roughly awakened from an unnatural sleep…”