Star Trek: Starbase 777 - team-orange-jail

To the back of Team Orange’s territory was their makeshift jail; a little hut built of branches and vines. It was hard to spot without concentrating, given that the entrance was concealed by overhanging foliage and blended into the natural surroundings well. It might have seemed like an ominous place outside but inside it was far nicer, hosting comfortable benches and having bottles of juice and snacks stored in coolers. Even if whoever was here couldn’t actively play the game, at least they could chill for a while!

Alone, she sat... hoping only to be tagged back in the game again... she started to pull leaves from the branches and pretend to mark however many days she was in here. One minute equaled one day for now

Holding the flag in her hand, Essen sprinted for the jail before tagging Coda back into the game. "Come on! Two is better than one!"

21:47

Before they both sprinted back to the #team-orange-territory!

"Oh shit with the flag??? WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? LETS GO!"

21:53

So much for a victory run. She began to mark the days again and sing a sad tune

Seems like Coda wouldn't be alone. Essen made her way into the jail and sat down across from Coda. "Well shit. I thought we had it. I should have just kept going for it. That's my bad. I'm sorry, Coda."

"Well, we can hope someone from our team makes a mad dash to save us..."

Essen chuckled at that. "Yeah, let's hope," Essen said. Then she looked in the coolers - oh! There were a bunch of snacks in there that she could munch on! And some juice too! "Hey, no need to count the days when you've got actually a nice bit of food and drink in here. You want any?" Essen said, getting out a juice bottle for herself.

"Oh yeah, I'll take a drink, thank you!" She took one and began to think "Do you wanna place bets on who will save us? My money would be on Vara'l."

Essen snagged another bottle of juice before handing it over to Coda. "Here you go," Essen said, before unscrewing the cap on her own bottle. "To a well-played run," Essen said before beginning to sip from her juice. "I'd say Vara'l, yeah. He's one clever motherfucker, let me tell you, I have mad respect for him. At least how I've interpreted him, he's someone to use less brute force and more strategy. I tried to be the same way with my Kung Fu, but it turns out it didn't apply in this case the best. Ah well. I just hope Kaylee's doing alright."

"Yeah, uh, I don't wanna sound rude or insesitive or anything, but what was all that Kung Fu stuff? it seemed so... pointless? sorry."

Essen couldn't help but giggle as Coda asked. "No no, you're okay," Essen said, getting up in the middle of the room to show Coda. "So, if you don't know this about me, I've had some issues with keeping my emotions under control. I'm not a follower of Surak, I just... no. So, I never really learned any way to keep myself under control. That became very evident when I saved Kaylee's life back in September of last year during a yellow alert. I disobeyed orders in the interest of saving her." Essen did get slightly emotional during this, so she tried to reframe her thoughts. "So! I went to counselling, obviously. But there's something else I've used to keep my emotions in check. Kung Fu. It's not just about the moves. Discipline is a huge part of Kung Fu. Staying focused, being present in the moment. So I thought, since I have been able to keep myself under control thanks in part to doing more research about Kung Fu and understanding how it could help me, the focus and control it gave me then would help me during the game. It keeps me on my feet, nimble, and fast. Turns out I haven't fully allowed Kung Fu to keep me disciplined when I got hardcore distracted seeing Kaylee in the neutral zone, heh..." But then she continued. "But Kung Fu I think is really cool just to learn about and study. I use what's called the Dragon style of Shaolin Kung Fu." With that she demonstrated a simple stance, in which her body ebbed and flowed, as her feet moved in a zig zag pattern, and her arms did low sweeping motions. "That immediately relaxed me a bit just doing that stance. Cool, right?" (edited)

Listening to this story she knew that when she first met Essen she was not like other Vulcans... not that it was bad or anything, Coda just knew it wasn't her place to ask or anything. This helped clear up some questions she was too afraid to ask. Though, an attack that caused a yellow alert? It was before Coda was stationed here, but she didn't pry about it. If she really wanted she could read some reports on what happened if she was so interested. "When you ran out in the neutral zone, I was surprised, but it did give me a good opening to grab the other teams flag, so thank you for that." Coda watched as she did various stances, she didn't quite get it, but it did look cool she had to admit that. "Ooh I see, so it just looks kind of odd but that isn't the main focus, got it. I've never tried anything like that myself before."

Essen assumed a new stance, her feet continuing in their zig zag pattern while she kept herself loose. "Of course! Better keep the other team distracted as much as we can!" Essen replied, before taking some deep breaths and continuing. She slowly and gently went into a form, sending some punches, chops, and kicks outwards, of course not too close to Coda, and EXTREMELY slow just for demonstration purposes. "Well, it is a main focus in terms of self defense and all that, but you're right in that the way I use it most often isn't for self defense," Essen said. "Not like I have a thousand people trying to attack me, because I don't. Although that may be a cool holodeck simulation... but that's besides the point." Essen looked to Coda when she said she never tried anything like that before. "Honestly, like I said the moves are just half of Kung Fu. There is a lot more to Kung Fu that I've learned about, that have helped me on missions, in talking to my senior officers including both Vara'l and the CTO, Commander Pog. Even with Kaylee! And it's just ways of thinking. Like, telling myself to never give up. Telling myself to always practice, not even the martial arts aspect of Kung Fu but even doing research for my job as a tactician, and always being curious. Keeping myself in good health in both body and mind. Using great effort in all that I do. It's a mindset I never learned growing up on New Vulcan, even though I had the martial arts themselves I didn't have the mindsets. Until now."

Watching the demonstration was kind of fascinating actually. It reminded her of yoga poses in a way that Essen was demonstrating it, but she was most interested in the mindset. Perhaps she could use that in her personal life, to make her more out-going or whatever. A more positive outlok might not make every interaction like nails on a chalkboard for her. It was a nice thought... as nice as one could have in a fake jail playing capture the flag. "How did you get the right mindset, what changed for you? Sorry if I'm prying, I'm just curious, it sounds like it really helped you and it could really help me too... not that I wanna bother you with teaching me or anything, just so that I have a better mindset... you know? I'm babbling a lot here, uhm thank you for the demonstrations." She felt a little awkward as she continued to have run-on sentences and just kept talking, but she was always working on herself, so one day she wouldn't be so embarrassed

Essen giggled again, it was evident that she could definitely give Coda a hand, and she was certainly willing to, so she sat back down across from Coda. "How did I get into the right mindset?" Essen replied to Coda. "Well, honestly, it was... just growing up. I know that may sound weird. But I used to be the most annoying little shit on the station. I was a rebel. Well, I still am. But I didn't want to conform to anything or anyone, I wanted to be my own person. And while that mindset itself of just being my own person isn't necessarily bad, the way I approached it was. I just needed to tell myself, it's time to learn how to be not only an adult, but a leader and a role model. Kaylee was the biggest person who helped me realize that, aside from obviously Vara'l and Commander Pog. I also just needed to tell myself... it's okay to feel my own feelings. And that being an asshole rebel all the time isn't the attractive behavior I thought it was. All in all, I rethought everything. Lieutenant Commander Alin q'Reth at counselling certainly helped with that too, I owe a lot of my progress to him. I hope all that makes sense? Did that answer your question? I feel like it was a jumbled mess of an answer..."

"Yes, it did answer my question, thank you for explaining something that feels... really personal." Coda looked around as orange confetti fell all over the place, indicating that their team had lost. "Aww, and after all the cool maneuvers we did too... I'll never dodge like I did when I was being dog piled." She laughed, it was really fun after all, despite how scared she was at the start

Essen was about to respond to Coda's first statement when she was interrupted by the confetti and the trumpeting fanfare happening around the holodeck. "We almost had it too," Essen said. "I screwed us over, I'm sorry Coda," Essen said. In that moment, Essen's mind started to go to a dark place she would never have wanted it to go to. Her eyes widened as she became perfectly still. She began to revisit feelings of herself not being enough, not being where she needed to be, not performing up to standards. Images filled her mind of her own tears running down her face, of her being abandoned, of Kaylee dying in the turbolift, of Tevis scolding her, of her worst nightmares she had to endure growing up--- Wait. This was just a game. A game that didn't mean anything other than having fun. A game that she got to be active in, she got to do something outside of what she was used to. This didn't determine Essen's worth as a person, not even close. She wouldn't be abandoned from this, she knew Kaylee was safe, Essen didn't disobey orders. Essen quickly remembered where she was, and what she was doing. It was just a holodeck game. Did she have fun after all? Yeah, yeah she did. "But hey, this was a fun game, wasn't it?" Essen had to remind herself that New Vulcan wasn't established in a day. She was allowed to feel what she felt and certainly slip at times. And knowing this, truly believing it, made her feel better and reminded her that this was, indeed, just a game.

"Oh yeah it was a lot of fun, we almost got their flag at the very start, just the two of us that deserves a reward in itself." She laughed as she got up from her seat, grabbing a drink to go. "I think we can leave now, if you wanna join the celebrations?"

"Eh, just a second," Essen said. She recentered herself briefly, taking some deep breaths. She was not in the best state right now, and tackling this head on would help her in interacting with others. Inner peace... inner peace... with that, Essen opened her eyes, wiping any tears that may have fallen, she wasn't sure. "Yeah! If they'll let us out, that is, for all we know this could be a rebellious Vulcan girl trap," she joked to lift her mood up. But the door was unlocked - no secret jail going on here. "Okay! Yeah, where are we supposed to go...?" Essen said. Was there a party? She didn't know. At least she took a drink with her to go like Coda did. Then she began to hear where the noise of celebration came from, and motioned for Coda to follow her to #team-orange-territory. (edited)