Subject: Grail: "Great Brightness" - 'Cutting Loose'

<<Stardate: 47307.31- 00:35>>

<<Holodeck 4>>

Epic Terrakian was not quite drunk. After the Counselor, Mirkas

Tzavaras had left him sitting alone in the Lounge, he had had a half

dozen cups of Klingon Blood Wine. With the first taste of the powerful

liquid, he recalled the first time he had ever had it. It wasn't so long

ago, but it was during another lifetime. A time when he had last been

genuinely happy.

A time when he had last been in love.

It amazed him sometimes how much six months can change someones

life. Six months ago, he had been a Security Chief aboard the USS Nova

and he had fallen in love with a woman who had hated him. R'Laurent was

a Klingon, though one of her parents had been a Vulcan. Her Vulcan side

had done little to subdue the powerful passions that she barely kept in

check.

Epic smiled sadly as he considered how he had done all he could to

provoke her. He provoked her anger, her lust... every passionate emotion

she possessed. And she hated him for it. He had challenged her resolve

at every turn and succeeded in bringing out the best in her. But she had

considered it her worst. And she hated him for it.

They had made love only once, but in that act, Epic knew he had

found the one woman for him. She had sacrificed a part of her soul for

him, and she had taken on some of his own souls burden. She had saved

him from himself. And in the end, she hated him more than ever.

And when she was confronted by the reality of spending the rest of

her short life on the Grail with him, she had resigned from Starfleet

and left him cold. And when she left, she took her hate with her,

leaving only himself to hate him.

And six months later, his self-loathing and self-imposed isolation

were beginning to take their toll. His anger and self-hate were an

almost omnipresent knot in the pit of his stomach. He fell asleep

feeling it and he woke up with it. And there seemed to be no outlet for

him.

And of course, he had to keep a tight leash on his emotions so that

little Kaede would not be hurt by him. But he was starting to realise

that if he did not cut loose soon, he would do her more harm than good.

And he felt a responsibility to Kaje, as well, who would be equally

affected by his emotional repression or expression. Damned if he did,

damned if he didn't.

Epic knew in his heart that he had deep feelings of longing for the

mother of `his' daughter. But he also knew that he was the one thing she

didn't need in her life. He would always be there for her as a friend

and as a father to her daughter, but she could never love him. How could

she? He was the epitome of all that she had feared and hated her whole

life. He was an arrogant and dominating and cruel and spiteful man. It

was a miracle that he had not succumbed to taking from her her wealth of

powerful feelings. And he was resolved to never taking from her. It

would be different if she were to give...

Epic shook his head in negation. She would never give of herself

again. Her life had been one long painful effort to give, only to be

raped of all that she had, again and again. And he was the worst kind of

taker.

He wandered through a blasted lanscape of burning buildings and the

screams of the dying. The scene was the Massacre at Khitomer. He had

built this program when he was on the Nova. He only ran this simulation

when he was intent upon hurting himself. But now, standing amongst the

ruins, he had no energy for it. So he walked.

He thought of Janice Hargen. He wondered what her thoughts were

like when he was around. She always seemed to be embracing him and he

was becoming accustomed to her physical comfort. He liked the way he was

when he was with her. He was never motivated to provoke her emotionally

because she possessed no emotions that he could perceive. He could

simply feel and think whatever came to his mind, knowing it was

genuinely his own.

He suddenly felt the urge to go to her. To take her in his arms and

....

He stopped himself again. He hated to think that all his

aggressions might be tied up in a physical need to evacuate his lusts,

but he was realistic enough to know that he needed some form of outlet.

But Janice might have liked him, or respected him, but she would never

accept such an advance from him. If he had ever made such a stupid move

like that toward her, it would spell the end of the friendship he knew

was there.

Epic topped a rise and saw a band of a half dozen Klingons,

searching the ruins of a burnt out hulk for survivors of the cruel and

cowardly attack against them. And he knew that if he were to move among

them, they would attack. And maybe he should do just that. Walk within

their midsts and let them pummel him into an oblivion he couldn't drink

to achieve.

He sighed deeply. He knew why his anxieties were peaking tonight

and not any other night. It had been his meeting with Mirka Tzavaras. He

had provoked a broad range of powerful emotions in her, made all the

more sweet by her years of repression. She was not unlike him at all.

And in the allowance of her pent up emotions, Epic felt an excitement

that frightened the both of them, though she couldn't know that he felt

it too.

With her sudden realization that she desired him as much as he did

her, at that moment, Epic had almost experienced a spontaneous physical

release, only her terror at the realization subduing his excitement.

But that was always the way it had been. And for the rest of his

life, it would always be that way. He was amazed that he just couldn't

get used to being lonely and alone. After all this time, it should be

second nature.

But he knew from where his difficulties stemmed. It was the

powerful and poignant memories of R'Laurent that came back to him again

and again. He had been the perfectly cold monster until she had come

into his life and made him feel the heat of passion that he had long ago

resigned himself to never having. She had reminded him that he was a

living, breathing man, and left him a cold and hopeless monster.

And as the fury of remembered pain filled his chest, he picked up

from the blasted ground a bat'leth lying next to a dead warrior. And

screaming a Klingon curse at the top of his breath and voice, he charged

the haf-dozen Klingons like a berserker.

And even with the safeties off, they never stood a chance.