SAREN The world cleared from a haze into a picturesque image of the night sky. Stars dotted a sky which was coloured from blue to black. Fairy lights strung up from post to post around some sort of campsite, illuminating the place in a warm glow around the fire. People sat around, chatting and talking, and from just further back from the logs placed around the fire you could hear music filtering through. Here and there were people in uniforms – not with those strange shoulder-pads that the Star Empire had always worn, but different uniforms, a greenish-brown in colour and bringing a new sort of hope with them. If you squinted up close enough at the sky you might just see it: a ship, in orbit, but not attacking. Instead, it had come to the colony’s aid. Someone all but flung themselves down onto the log that Saren was perched upon, taking his place to his side. He almost fell directly off the back of the log as they swung – his too-tall and burly form almost toppling him straight over. “Saren, I’m so glad to see that you and your family are okay! I can’t believe we were this close to having to flee to the Azmuth, but who knows if that rickety old thing would have survived! And then – that firefight in the sky that lit everything up green, and the fact that they took down one of the D’deridex-classes? It’s – it’s incredible!” The man paused, running a hand over his bald head and scratching at his beard. He had never subscribed to traditional Romulan hairstyles. “Maybe… Maybe this talk of a Republic? These people saving us? Maybe it’s true. Maybe we actually have hope.” - The Romulan was... very confused to say the least, when he opened his eyes only to be presented with the peaceful, serene scene. Mere moments ago he was in a lab, filled with horror and disgust and apprehension at the sight of two mutated beasts, recognizable yet warped into something new and terrifying - he was outraged at this violation of his peaceful homeworld's fauna. Mere moments ago there was a figure, a Frankenstein, but as soon as their eyes met... He was here. The Republic's uniform was instantly recognizable - as well as Laiir Prime's vast landscape, because Saren would always recognize his birthplace, be it in complete darkness or not. He found himself sitting on a log, as if he, too, was participating in a celebration. Here and there, he noticed familiar faces - some still lived, and some Saren himself saw fall and succumb to their wounds during the attack. He froze up at the sight of the ship in the sky, but no fire descented from it. It was almost like... it was protecting them. Someone else was also here. He watched the man plop down besides him, tall and intimidating, yet friendly. Saren caught him by the elbow, listening as the man excitedly went on and on about old Azmuth and the fight and... "The Republic saved us?.. Is the Captain of the raid dead?.." he whispered, bewildered. Saren looked down at himself, not knowing what to expect - was he even still in Starfleet's colors? Did the clothes hide away his ugly scars, or maybe they didn't exist on him at all in this wondrous, alternate dimension? "Sorry, I'm just... just a little bit... dazed." Maybe we actually have hope. Oh, that handcrafted-- no. Those immoral, terrible scientists were feeding him false hope. Playing out the scenario he has daydreamed so, so many times, while lying in his medbed, while studying, and sometimes... he daydreamed of this still. But, why? Why did they choose to do this? "I don't know your name, yet you know mine," he looked the man dead in his eyes. He needed to be careful. "What's your name, then?" - "Oh, hey, it's okay," the stranger replied with a grin - although he wasn't entirely a stranger. It was like there were familiar features - people who he had seen before on the colony - merged with that which wasn't recognisable. He sat there holding his hands between his knees, staring at the fire with light in his eyes as he thought over the events of the day. "I'd be surprised if there was anyone here who isn't still a bit star-struck about it all, you know? ...That and the ale isn't going to help!" He shook his head then but gave a rumbling laugh. "I think the Captain from the raid is dead -- or taken prisoner and is up aboard that ship. Everything happened so quickly with this 'Republic' and their commandeered starship flying in to help that we're still trying to keep track of it all, but that lot over there-" he gestured a thumb to some of the newcomers in uniform, "-are keeping everyone up to date with it all. Oh -- and my name is Kerutep." - "Kerutep," he echoed, staring into the fire. "...Mind if I call you Keru?" His face was... uncanny. Like a mosaic built from colorful glass, it's shards reflecting different faces, yet the picture was whole. He recognized the eyes, the nose, the tilt of the head, the little mannerisms... Saren forced himself to look away, both mesmerized and terrified. It hurt, seeing these people again. See them walk around, shaken but safe, whole, laughing, chatting, singing... "That one," he pointed towards a young girl, her hair long and flowing, "was the quickest of us. She wanted to become an adventurer, one day. Her twin sister, over there, wanted to become a cartographer. She had a crush on that boy over there, who's standing besides his grandparents - they were descendants from an influential House, yet chose to help the resistance - he hoped to one day open up his own shop here, filled with trinkets from all the different quadrants. But all of these people are dead, Keru." He slowly, carefully, landed his hand on the man's shoulder. Squeezing it, a smile spreading on his face. He didn't want to stop talking, stop introducing these ghosts around them - because he didn't want to leave this illusion, this beautiful lie created for him. But he had to. Not only for the sake of his teammates, but also for the being in front of him - forced to do someone else's bidding. He took in a big, steadying breath: "I know we're in the lab right now. I know this isn't real. But we came here not to hurt someone, but to help. And we could help you. We could offer you freedom, medical assistance. You are lying to me, right now - but I want to believe that you shall make your choice wisely. Because you are a living being, and you should be treated like one. You should be given a chance to be your own thing. Please, Keru. Release us, and we will show you life beyond that cell you were locked in." - There was no resistance to the shortening of his name. It also seemed like he was quite content to just sit there and listen, gazing across the campfire and through the bokeh of the fairy lights to look at whoever Saren pointed out. He liked to listen to the stories. He wanted to say that these people hadn't wanted to become an adventurer, or had wanted to own a shop. He wanted to say that they were still alive, that they could be spoken of in the present -- but he also knew that was wrong. He knew that they were gone, and that he was just plucking them from the depths of this Romulan's memory in order to create the mindscape. He knew that he himself wasn't really this person sat behind the Romulan either; that his pointy ears weren't real, that the memories he was constructing for himself wasn't real. He knew that he was tired. He knew that some of the mindscapes were still active, and that he had failed in others... But he knew that it hurt to keep them going. :777_divider: Blink, and he had changed. There wasn't a Romulan sat beside Saren anymore. Instead there was a Lethean with the antennae of an Aenar and a single black, Betazoid eye. That red eye that had seemed so piercing before now seemed just... Dull. His gaze had dropped down from the fire to the ground below instead. "I don't want to hurt you. I don't want to keep you here - or keep any of the others here. It hurts. I'm-" In culture all across the Klingon Empire, this was a sign of weakness. He wasn't sure if he cared any more, even if he had poured such traditional Empire energy into the mindscape for the Vulcan-Klingon hybrid. "I'm tired. I didn't want to do any of this. They - they changed me, turned me into this -- creature. They know how to control my telepathy. There's a device, the computers can do it. And--" Who knew if Letheans could cry, but the man's voice was thick with emotion. It was horrid to see someone from such a traditionally violent and powerful race be reduced to whatever this was. "They've got my boys. They've got them in one of those rooms. I can't stop. They'll hurt my boys..." - He... he couldn't handle this. Saren threw his arms around the man, giving him the best hug he could muster up right now, hands shaking, because f u c k, F U C K, those immoral monsters were going to the depths of hell for this. "We can't save the dead, but we can help the living. We have promised this to many unwilling victims of this whole operation - we will protect you and those closest to you. No harm will come to them, I swear to you. I will not let this shit go on any longer. You will reunite. We will find your boys, and you will reunite, okay? You have the chance, Keru." He didn't know if the telepath could feel his intense emotions - he probably did. Romulan's didn't lock up their emotions like Vulcans did, they reveled in them - and right now, Saren's burning need to go, fight, find justice for this hurt man was so intense, it was almost palpable. "Ready to let go?" - Letheans weren't really ones for hugs. They were a terrifying species known for being hired to conduct crime and inflict pain -- but after all of this? Kerutep didn't care. Fuck it. It wasn't like anyone was going to know, anyway. This was inside of one Romulan's mind -- and the man seemed kind enough to keep a secret. That hug was immediately reciprocated, and with the broad shoulders and huge frame that had remained in both the illusion of the Romulan and in actual person himself, it was bone-crushing... But a good sort of bone-crushing. "I don't know what they'll try to do to fix this, but I'll try to fight their control. You need to break the machine -- I don't want them to just use me again and for any of your friends to get hurt. There are a handful of you still in the mindscape. I'm going to try to let you all go. You..." He looked to Saren, those ridged features of his face somehow still managing to convey a frown. "You've been through so much in your life. I think that more people should strive to be like you. Having been through so much, having endured all that pain... But still being kind." The frown changed to a smile. "Thank you."