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A view of the city and the sparkling expanse of black ice outside the city's protective dome could be seen from Kira's open apartment window as she rested her arm on the ledge. She inhaled deeply as the warm, excessively circulating air moaned on her face. The humans had called their colonized planet Aemnoa, after a Laotian word meaning "river"---even though Aemnoa had no running rivers, only ice---and had constructed their little domed city on a wide ledge of volcanic rock overlooking the enormous southern ice plain. The ancient term, however, had thrilled the leading archaeologists as had all their naming of things, as if naming grabbed an object and made it human-owned. The desire to possess things was common among humans. Today was a day when she felt particularly owned; it was not a feeling that pleased her.
The air carried a murmur of traffic from the street ten floors below and a variety of strange odors that she had long since become accustomed---clinging dust, the acidic smell of human flesh, a lovely touch of roses and columbine from the gardens several blocks away, the subtle metallic burning odor from the humans' mobile machines, as well as the deep-buried ventilators that had kept the city's contained environment alive. She had spent 10 years living among humans on Aemnoa in the care of her keepers, safe under the supervision of the Dalek Project, and far from the busy cities of Earth and any potential terrorists who would want to assassinate Earth's first alien child for political or religious reasons.
Even if the humans gave her a choice, she would still have few alternatives, so she reminded herself that there are worse sorts of captivity.
As she turned her gaze away from the bright city below, her delicate pupils became larger. The vast ice plains of Aemnoa gleamed beneath a blue-black sky, only barely hidden by the dome's fabric beyond the roofs of the other residential structures. The ice plain made her think of an issue that she couldn't quite place but one, based upon recent experience, she knew couldn't be solved by careful consideration. The recollection tormented her mind, preventing her from going beyond a hazy understanding. She had been stolen by humans when she was too young and had so lost something significant.
What have you lost? It puzzled her. Even the questions to ask are beyond my comprehension. Where can I look for the solutions?
She sighed and turned to gaze at her pallid palm on the ledge. A human guy could find her face attractive since she resembled a human, but he might be unable to ignore her unique symmetrical facial feature: a row of horizontal ridges on the bridge of her nose between her two brown eyes. What was behind her pale skin, reddish hair, organs, structures, and fluids was even more distinctly different from the average human being; this difference went all the way down to her cells' biochemistry.
Her psychiatrist, Dr. Bashir, recently exchanged incisive essays with a scholar from Earth regarding her people's peculiar reproductive system. Bashir discovered that instead of human morning sickness, Kira would probably experience violent sneeze attacks if she ever became pregnant. Because of the strong vascularization between the mother and fetus, she would give birth after 5 months instead of the 9 months that human women do. Any effort to remove the fetus early, especially in the latter stages of pregnancy, would result in significant blood loss for the mother and great suffering for the unborn child, therefore an abortion was out of the question.
Label: a woman. Am I? Yes, without a doubt. She possessed breasts, exactly like a human woman, and genitalia that were somewhat resemblant of human female genitalia in terms of anatomy and function. She had dreamed about her mother and had a clear gender connection; therefore, it was obvious that she was a woman. What, then, could gender possibly signify to her? After all, she had been a kid who didn't care about grownup matters.
She could identify the two proteins that were unique to Earth biochemistry and her body, and she could even draw a trustworthy diagram of their structure. She had made a suicide attempt when her young mind withdrew into months of catatonia during those first few weeks while the Earth survey ship sped hurriedly back to Aemnoa and its advanced labs. She had nearly perished from malnutrition and illness. Because they also desired the child's intellect and body, not just one without the other, humans had also triumphed over that death.
She was able to recite the enzyme's chemical composition, but even the astute biochemists were unsure of the precise mechanism underlying the success of their wonder medicine in curing the cyclic fevers that later returned and almost killed her twice. With their chemistry, as well as many other things, humans were witty. She attempted to forget that she was now controlled by her nutritional supplements. She would perish if the humans stopped providing the nutrients. She had moments when she questioned her concern.
She was able to recite the enzyme's chemical composition, but even the astute biochemists were unsure of the exact mechanism underlying the success of their wonder medicine in curing the cyclic fevers that later returned and almost killed her twice.
With their chemistry, as well as many other things, humans were witty.
Stop this, she told herself.
In the beginning, she had come close to escaping, running away from her dread into her own dream world, secure from fear, loss, and agony she pushed away. However, they had cajoled and coerced, stroked and wheedled, chastised, rewarded, drugged, caressed, and loved her, robbing her of the safe blackness and its soothing pictures, and imposing their version of reality. She thought it was a reason to be thankful since, as much as she regretted it, she had to finally embrace their environment in order to survive, even if a kid could not comprehend such things. Her psychological development since then has been thoroughly chronicled in the literature, the highs and lows, the uprisings, the depressions, the emergence of joy, and the developing social behavior have all been compared to human children, the only analogy they were familiar with. She believed she should.
The mental chemists were just as watchful to heal as the biochemists who had labored tirelessly in those first few weeks to rescue her; nonetheless, they continued to monitor for the craziness while being so unaware of their own kind of insanity.
Moving away from the window, she let her eyes roam over the distinguishable elements of her bedroom, such as the little bed with its cheerful cover, the desk with the viewer, and the wall art that was based on popular Dalek themes. As a youngster reared among scientists who were fascinated with the Dalek ruins at 17Q1 Phorix and Cirvais, she had acquired their interest in the long-dead Phorix Daleks, looking for some kind of connection in the survey data that had been sent back to Aemnoa for analysis. She had determined there was no connection between her and the Daleks, despite serious scholarly articles by project academics speculating otherwise. Recent visions she had made her believe that her people had come from Beyond, from the other side of Dalek space, but she had kept this information hidden from the humans. She had kept many things from the humans since it was her only remaining means of revolt.
She tried to resume the study of the Dalek bas-reliefs she had begun yesterday while the computer screen on her desk blinked constantly to get her attention, but the idea was tedious. The Project's weekly report form, which she was obliged to fill every week, was next to the monitor. It asked for intrusive details about her daily bodily processes and included a grading scale for her emotions, self-affirming thoughts, and general well-being that was wrapped up in behaviorist and psychoanalytic terminology. She was amazing---a test subject who could produce her own data reports! She didn't bother with the form last week, and it was still blank this week. She reasoned "Let them write a report about that." She went back to looking out the window.
Some of the people found it amazing that Kira was capable of anything intelligent, much as how amazing it was to watch a chimpanzee manipulate sign buttons to the delight of his handler. She experienced both extremes of feeling just like a jackass performing in a circus and the hopelessness of never making a genuine connection with anything. She had a suspicion that Dr. Bashir promoted such sentiment since it gave him more power and ensured the reputation of his Project. Because of Kira Nerys, Julian Bashir was able to establish a flourishing profession, which he jealously guarded. The previous recollection was playing tricks on her head as she gazed wistfully at the pitch-black ice plain sparkling beneath the stars.
Where? I know you from where?
After years of often falling asleep during the night, she had recently started dreaming more frequently. Dreaming of the Naga and the other Khmer companions she had imagined for her daytime daydream, as well as other features, shapes, and potent pictures that were not human----she was confident of and struggled as best she could in the understanding. She also dreamed of a black plain like this one beneath a dazzling star, a mesmerizing garden of pale flowers that turned into a quick and paralyzing dread.
A white-skinned goddess appeared to her in dreams, nude and pale, pouring a stream of stars into the Void while elegantly kneeling by a lake. Her arms were powerful and graceful, and her figure was ideal. Her pale face and shoulders were surrounded by a cloud of drooping dark hair that blended into the night sky behind her. Her half-closed eyes watched a shower of stars fall from her jar, the long, feathered lashes highlighting a beautiful darkness. She gave a little smile as her lips curled with such grace that Kira yearned for her bright eyes to open so she might see the youngster who was watching from a distance.
Her mind's dark chamber of emptiness and loss was magically filled with warmth and calm as a result of the sight, and she was left with a knowledge of tremendous significance that evaded her awake consciousness. Although The Dancer was significant. But why? She once darked the Naga in a dream to ask about the Celestial Dancer, but the Naga became enraged and refused to speak, eventually withholding all information for day and nights. When she came back, the Naga began to play word games, seeming mystified and flipping his fronts in frustration as Kira persisted. He finally ended the questioning with a ferocious pursuit through a glade and a woodland that frightened Kira into exercising greater judgement. Sadly, despite the fact that the idea looked absurd, Kira had a sneaking suspicion that the Naga was similarly ignorant.
She found it odd that her dream pals were Khmers, but perhaps it wasn't at all odd. Her foster father's fortunate selection, the Khmers' gods, where what lured her out of her self-made abyss. She had spent her first year with Ben Sisko in this human outpost ruled by archaeologists surrounded by his recordings and drawings of the strangely identical Dalek and Khmer iconography and had been fascinated by the pictures that these ancient peoples, one human, and one alien, had etched in stone. After receiving her listless attention for months, Ben was pleased to pique her interest and was gladly relieved that he had discovered something tangible he could offer her. In those early months, he often sat with her and told her tales about the drawings she adored. He had purchased prints of the Khmer monuments for her nursery walls, as well as illustrated book-tapes.
He described how the first wave of migrants moved from the Indian subcontinent into Southeast Asia and intermarried with the native tribes. The Khmer race was created, with the locals still speaking their native dialect but now having a mixture of DNA from both the Indian traders who arrived in the area and the native people. Neither the first nor the second, but both.
According to their mythology, the Khmer were the descendants of the Hindu warrior-prince Kaundinya and the Naga princess Soma. The Hindu ruler, a semi-historical figure, had a dream that he was meant to leave India with a merchant ship, his bow, arrow, and javelin, which he would pound into the earth to mark the center of his empire and capital. He found Soma, the Moon, daughter of the Naga King, in command when he arrived at the Mekong River's bank. She assaulted him with a group of female warriors, but they were unsuccessful. Finally, they developed feelings for one another. The Naga king wed them, swallowing the water to dry the ground and make room for rice paddies. Kaundinya became Cambodia's king as a result. The queen owned the nation; the monarch governed over it.
Ben explained earnestly in his pedantic manner that the Naga King, Soma's father, was a snake with five, seven, or more heads. In Chiang Mai, Thailand, the Buddha was protected by the fabled Naga snake. The Temples of Angkor were also guarded by Nagas with nine heads. According to legend, the Hindu ruler Kaundinya wed a serpent to produce the Khmer people. Ben made up tales about the Dalek gods, speaking of Garaduka, the lord of light, and his adherents who hunted along jungle paths, celebrating the creation of the universe. Perhaps a powerful alien prince had arrived on Phorix 17Q1, married a "snake," and given birth to the Daleks as well. He showed her holograms of the six great Dalek gods who stood in the Grand Gopura of Amonk Het, the Dalek city on Ciravis, where the humans had discovered her, calling them one by one and requesting her recite their names thereafter, then inventing improbable tales of their great accomplishments that were violently adapted from six human cultures: Sumer's heroic Gilgamesh, Maudlin of the Celtic seas, Valkryie and Odin's Doom, the Dream myths of ancient Australia.
Later, as he stood beside her bed and waved his arms theatrically, evoking the magic of the Naga King, his residence in the depths of the Underworld, and other realms beyond while she lay wide-eyed, watching him, she understood that she must've spent hours reading about myths, typing them out meticulously, and solidly preparing in secret for that night's narrative. He had struggled mightily to find a way to lift her out of the slumber that continued to engulf her in her severe despair. To the doubtful astonishment of the Project, he had also succeeded. Later, when she was older, Ben had abruptly stopped telling her bedtime tales, offering lame justifications and urging her to pursue more serious studies. She had a suspicion that Dr. Bashir, at the time a recent arrival to Aemnoa, had interfered because he disapproved of dreams and fantasies.
In order to escape the intrusive gaze of the humans who were studying her, she had found solace in her own solitary play. She had recreated Ben's heroic play-creatures, denying her captivity and her isolation in endless imagined adventures, where the mighty Kaundinya had become a fierce and protective lover, strong and crafty, where the rakasaha (Hindu demons) had been implacable enemies to challenge and outwit, where Soma and the Bird King, the Celestial Dancer and Queen Lotus Flower, all joined in the high drama, while the last Khmer king drew his sword and made war on the first Thai kingdom, Sukhothai, in a vast jungle clearing. As intimately as she knew the actual people in Aemnoa's real world, she knew all the kings---and usually preferred them despite their fierceness.
Fantasy, but perhaps it was fantasy that had kept her sane during those formative years when she had no defenses. And fantasy that comforted still. A smile appeared on her face.
She thought, gracefully coiling her hands over her head and fluttering her fingers. "I am the Naga," she thought as she inverted her hands into a Hindu-like prayer. "I am King of the Birds and the mount of Lord Vishnu. I am Soma, the Moon, Lady of the Mekong and daughter of the Naga King. Caution, Kaundinya! You will perish if you throw your javelin into my turf. As Soma ordered her troops to assault the haughty Brahmin, she walked once more in her small circle while violently gnashing her teeth. She then sat quietly down as Kira Nerys once more, pale and attractive but still unusual among people. Reality: Who owns it? She had received various labels from the Khmers, many of which she preferred. She contoured the index finger and the thumb of her right hand into a "C" shape again, invoking Soma.
She said to Dr. Bashir, "Beware. You'll be the first to be disemboweled when I'm let loose in your world."
She felt guilty as she heard the hiss of the exterior door in the adjacent room, but as soon as she heard the footsteps and recognized them, she relaxed. Bootheels rang twice on the tile of the hallway, stopped as Ben looked through the fax mail in the garbage, and then started moving slowly in her direction. The recognizable tang of his cologne, the fragrance of his dark skin, the mints he enjoyed chewing, and a hint of coffee mist in his hair and eyebrows all preceded him. Even if others also possessed them, their fragrances were still uniquely his. She moved away from the glass and faced the entrance, raising her lips in greeting.
A middle-aged Negro person with too much excess flesh and facial wrinkles, Ben filled the doorframe with his gaze bent on the mail in his square fists. With the exception of inquiries concerning his alien foster-daughter, his motions and confidence remained steady despite the graying of his black hair (what was left of it). Ben Sisko, a renowned archaeologist with expertise in linguistic analysis, overflowed with deference to Dr. Bashir on that persistent other matter because he secretly believed he lacked a necessary quality in a father, just as he felt responsible for an earlier failed marriage that he rarely talked about. Even while she occasionally sensed a disconnect from Ben, as she usually did in all of this human place, she occasionally hoped she could convince him of a few things because of his human nature. 605Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt6ictsClXR
After finishing his perusal of the mail, he glanced up, his brown eyes gleaming. He feigned to complain, "I never catch you staring out that window. You are always aware of my presence."
"Correct."
Moving slowly, he entered the space. " I stopped experimenting with slipping in covertly, as you may have observed."
"Months ago."
He gave her one of the texts and said, "Right," agreeing absentmindedly. "Dr. Crusher wants us to attend her ship party."605Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyEq7RwvcD7
Kira scrunched up her nose, the ridges appearing to merge into a single line as she did so. "No way."
In frustration, he snorted. "This is a gathering of friends. You have to go. You won't be able to complete your teenage socialization otherwise."605Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAOombqoWD6
"Is that the objective? Socialized?" she questioned in a harsher tone than she meant to. "Or has Dr. Bashir once again been worried about my social index?" She gazed back out the window as she turned her shoulder to face him.
He remarked, seeming perplexed, "I thought you loved Beverly Crusher. You can converse with her about bas-reliefs. She's intrigued by your concepts." Ben shuffled his feet while Kira stayed silent and avoided eye contact with him. "And, Kira, Dr. Bashir means well." After pausing, he gave a throat clearing. "I think you need to go."605Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5AhwOX6zHD
She hunched her shoulders, knowing he would not give it up easily. Ben loved her in his own way, but sometimes it seemed like an absentminded love, like a reflexive habit: he cared equally---or more---about other things, and his choice to be her parental figures had been made by Kira and others, not sought by himself. For ten years Ben had postponed his own ship assignments on Phorix survey, contenting himself with the videos and artifacts brought back by others, consulting frequently with Dr. Bashir about how to parent an alien child. He took his duty seriously.
"You have to go."
"Ben...."
She never called him "Father," for all Dr. Bashir's cagey encouragement, stubborn in that also. Ben had not seemed to mind, had not even inquired why.
He leaned over her and took the flimsy from her hand. "I'll send our acceptance," he said with a note of finality, and turned to leave.
"I like Dr. Beverly," she declared without looking at him. "I don't like Dr. Bashir."
Ben sighed feelingly land left the room. Kira thumped her fist on the windowsill, then stared at the dark plain beyond the dome, hoping the fixed attention might bring it into her dreams. Ben's scents lingered in the room for several minutes, distracting her, then blew to vague fragments on the city breeze. She stared at the plain until her vision sparkled with jagged spots, then blinked tiredly. She buried her face in her arms.
When she was younger, she could pretend she belonged in this place. Confused, she could pretend Ben was her real father, others a kind uncle or cousin, all the adults the warmth of welcoming arms she remembered from the before-time. But maturity now brought insistent dreams that denied that reality, disjointed her, filled her with an aching loss. Her people could not tolerate outsiders well, she believed, and tried to ignore Dr. Bashir's insistence that her recent obstinacy was a failing, a reproof, an ingratitude. She chose to be obstinate. She had tried denial, acceptance, cooperation and endurance. But nothing had filled the void inside her for long. Didn't flexibility and intelligence go hand in hand? Why not obstinacy?
He had such clever words, did Dr. Bashir, and Ben trusted him. If she confided in Dr. Bashir, she knew from experience, the psychologist would only cluck his disapproval and offer twelve other reasons to confuse her, then mark his charts and pull at his chin in ostentatious thought, unaware that she knew how much he detested her alienness, a primal fear of the Other he likely denied even in his secret thoughts. The Naga King had told her that about Dr. Bashir; she believed it. Yet he did not wish her to be human, for all his cajoling; he had too much of a vested stake in her difference, Earth's only alien child, a foundation for an alienist's career, much better than mysterious crumbling stone and centuries-dead civilization. A living trophy could perform, could be truly owned.
Stop this, she told herself. Stop thinking about it.
The warm air riffled her hair, tickling her cheek, and surrounded her with the scents of Aemnoa , teasing at her. From the distance she heard a metallic chiming she could not identify; it reminded her of the iceflowers, the last memory untainted by the humans. Her dreams sometimes began in that garden on Ciravis, surrounded by carved stone and a silent city: she focused on the memory, allowing it to calm her.
I wish I could sleep, she thought. I wish I could sleep forever in that garden, waiting for the Black Starship. And my mother would walk toward me through the blooms, her face alight, all sternness and despair erased in her joy, and she would gather me close to her, glad in the welcoming. The others would crowd around us, happy with her, and together we would go to the Black Starship, our home. I so wish....
It was a familiar wish. She raised her head and stared for several more moments at the dark plain beyond the dome, then got up to dress for Dr. Crusher's party.605Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1Q329WUHuy
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"Good evening, Kira," Dr. Beverly Crusher said as she took Kira's hand, squeezing it warmly. A tiny red-haired woman in her early forties, Beverly Crusher had a high social index that Kira envied, one that easily included aliens at any party. She sniffed at Dr. Beverly's flowery perfume, a bit overwhelmed by the heady scent, and caught fainter underscents of bath oil and scotch. Dr. Beverly's scents, she thought, her answering smile unforced. In another five years, Ben had told her, he expected Dr. Crusher would leave her post as head of Bas-reliefs at Ciravis, and become the Phorix Project's overall director. Kira hoped so.
"That's a beautiful outfit," Dr. Beverly said. "Red becomes you."
"Thanks."
"Hello, Ben. You look like your usual self. Smart of you to let Kira outshine you."
"What?" Ben asked absently, and then looked sharply at Dr. Beverly down his flat nose.
Dr. Crusher laughed and pressed Ben's hand, then led them into the apartment foyer. A gaggle of voices issued from the room beyond as glasses chinked and Dr. Crusher's guests talked a combination of gossip and shop. One Aemnoa, with a population of scientists obsessed with the mystery of the Dalek ruins, one could go anywhere and overhear voices in affable argument about glyphs, technic structure, and xenobiology. Kira recognized representatives of the Ciravis, teams in the room: Metals, Urban Map, BioSurvey, and Glyphs. She had met a few of Dr. Beverly's guests now and then, seen fax-photos of several others in article bios.
For 15 years, first at the smaller Dalek mining outpost on Phorix 17Q1 , the first ruins discovered by the Aemnoan probes, and then at the larger ruins on Ciravis, the scientists of Earth had plunged into the exploration of an alien culture, the first and only alien culture---save Kira herself, of course, in all her different mysteries. Though the Earth legislature debated the expense every year, sometimes in rancorous dispute with the other colony governments who had their own agendas, every year the Project got what it asked for in ships and support and money, with a suitable smaller largesse for an archaeological subproject named Kira Nerys Sisko. She and Ben lived well, as did Dr. Bashir. She glimpsed Dr. Bashir's portly figure in the far corner of the next room. He was laughing jovially with a group of admiring friends, gesturing with the drink in his hand as he told his story. She winced and looked back longingly at the door.
"Come along, Kira," Ben said.
"Yes, Ben."
I hate parties, she thought rebelliously.
In the larger inner room, several groups of people gathered in different parts of the room talking, several voices already too loud from alcohol. To Kira's sensitive hearing, the noise rose to a painful level, but she tried to ignore the clamor as she reluctantly followed in Ben's and Dr. Sisko's wake. As usual, Kira's presence attracted immediate covert glances: though she looked nearly human, her pale complexion and different nose structure, the odd brownish shade of her eyes, the sheen of her reddish hair, even the way she moved, Ben had told her once, were sufficient to attract attention. Many of the adults in the room had known her for several years and the others from video and a wide academic literature, but they still looked, usually askance and then quickly away. She tried to ignore that, too, practicing the vague social smile that made her look dimwitted. Sometimes when she looked stupid enough, nearly everyone left her alone; she wished to be left alone tonight.
I don't want to be socialized, she thought, gritting her teeth. Maybe I could tell that to Dr. Bashir and give him grist for another paper. Alien child alienated! Right. Learned doctor makes new discovery, he announced today...
Dr. Bashir noticed her and turned to smile unpleasantly, then said something to his group with a vague wave in her direction. Two in the group swiveled to look at her; she ignored them and him.
Dr. Crusher took her elbow and guided her to a sofa by the wall, but her choice of social companion for Kira showed too many years away at Ciravis. The brown-skinned boy on the couch looked up warily.
"Here's Virgil Bashir, Kira," Dr. Crusher said pleasantly. "Why don't you two get some punch from the table and have a good time?" She patted Kira on the shoulder and then turned as the door chime sounded faintly, announcing another guest. "Ben, there's Dr. Picard waving at you, wanting to argue. Why don't you oblige him?"
As Dr. Beverly and Ben moved off in different directions, Virgil stared up at Kira for a long moment, then put on his familiar mocking half smile. Slowly relishing the moment, he mouthed his favorite taunt.
Freak. His grin widened.
"Mushbrain," Kira retorted, glaring back at him. "Why don't you stuff your head in an air compressor? It might improve your intelligence."
"Tut, tut," Virgil said, tipping his head to the side, one of his father's common gestures. "Is that a nice thing for an alien freak to say?"
"You should know, being one. Is your father here?"
"Naturally. You are. Wherever you are he is."
"If you've got jealousy problems," she said brutally, "solve them yourself. Don't ask me to help you."
"Oh, tut at that," Virgil cried. "I'll tell Father about that comment. He's sure to drop your social index way down." Virgil stood up and moved closer to her, stopping only when his face was inches away. "Tut!"
She felt herself flush despite herself. Virgil Bashir had led the group of children who chose to taunt her in school, ignoring every lecture from the teachers in his systematic campaign to make her life a living hell. Finally, Ben had taken her out of school for private tutoring, and even Dr. Basher had admitted defeat in getting the colony children to accept her. But somehow that, too, had become more Kira's failing than theirs
Virgil fluttered his eyelashes, mocking her, then opened his eyes wide to stare ostentatiously at her alien face. Virgil knew all about her dislike for stares, had known it from the start with a bully's infallible instincts. She studied his thin Semitic face, her anger rising inside of her like a cold flame.
"Bug off, Virgil." She looked away.
"Crinkle-nose!"
She turned back to face him and narrowed her eyes angrily. At this distance, Virgil's scent filled her nostrils, an acrid pool of odor in the odor-laden warm air of the room. The noise of the party rose around them, assaulting her ears and starting the slow dull throb of a headache.
"Crinkle-nose," Virgil whispered, drawing out the word in a long hiss, taunting her.
Kira smiled and hit Virgil squarely in the face, putting unearthly strength into her fist. The blow caught Virgil totally off guard and lifted him clean off his feet, then bounced him neatly on and off the couch. Virgil yelped as he landed hard on the floor, sprawling, and every conversation in the room stopped as all eyes swiveled in their direction. Kira stood still, smiling down at Virgil, as Ben and Dr. Bashir arrowed in from different directions.
"She hit me!" Virgil declared to his father, his outrage maybe half real. He fingered his nose gingerly and winced, then looked up at Kira in genuine astonishment. Kira's smile widened with intense satisfaction.
"Did you really, Kira?" Dr. Bashir rumbled.
"Did you really, Kira?" Ben said at almost the same time. She turned to Ben and smiled up at him, batting her eyelashes.
"Can I go home now?" she asked brightly.
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