Zaliel
Dead. I am so dead. I am so miserably-fucking-dead. Zaliel raced through the unfamiliar territory of Ben’s cottage, looking for her things. Ben was being unhelpful, since he was also tripping over clothes, towels, and random domestic items strewn about the place. Three days. She lost three days here.
She remembered every minute, of course, and Zaliel wasn’t upset why, just that she lost total track of time. And that call! That was the worst part of it! Donovan had to have heard Ben’s voice and the bottles, oh my god, the bottles were everywhere. Some alcohol, but mostly juices. Zaliel needed the sugar; needed energy just to keep up.
It wasn’t all sex. Ben introduced her to surfing and cycling and swimming in the ocean! The last one was terrifying; all those slimy creatures in the water she couldn’t see until she stepped on one. Zaliel shuddered at the memory. Oh, but the food! Ben took her to restaurants—“holes in the wall” he called them—places only the locals knew about where everything was fresh and no meal the same twice. One place changed its menu every day, just to keep things interesting for its patrons.
And they talked, talked, talked when they were tired. They started with stories about Amanda, but also talked about their homes and everything that brought them to today.
“Do you miss Trill?” he had asked her as they walked along the pier. Zaliel happily hung on his arm as the couple strolled; it was exactly how she had always pictured it: she dreamed of slow-walking somewhere, her arms entwined with someone who made her feel special.
“Sometimes, but I think I miss my parents the most. We were always together until I came here,” she had answered.
“You haven’t gone back?”
“No,” Zaliel remembered saying sadly. She could have gone, but she always convinced herself it wasn’t a good time. “I cried every night for the first month. I wanted to go home so badly.”
“Why did you stay?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “It was like, I applied for Starfleet but the competition is so fierce I didn’t think I’d get in…and each exam took me closer until I was here. I,” she hesitated. “The dream was so big, I couldn’t really believe it until well after it happened. I’ve only felt that way one other time before.” She squeezed his arm. “Every now and then l sometimes stop and think I have so much farther to go, you know?”
“What was the other time?”
Zaliel hesitated, even coming to a stop on the pier. “Well, you know, Ben.” She turned and looked over the water. Hands rested on the pier’s wooden railing.
He came along beside her and placed an arm around her shoulders. “You know none of that changes how I feel about you, right?” he said gently. He held her until the sun went down, then through the night in his cottage.
Zaliel couldn’t believe how well it was going or how happy she was. Even frantically looking for all of her clothes and personal items, frustrated at herself for such a lapse in responsibility, she was really amazingly happy. Anxious, but happy.
It was a weird feeling.
Zaliel and Ben collided at the front door, each haphazardly dressed, their respective bags a half-open jumble.
“I have to—,” she started.
“It’s okay; I really need to—,” he reassured.
They held each other, first to say goodbye, then to say soon, and finally to say right now. Neither made their obligations that day. Monday became Tuesday, then Wednesday, and so on as commitments were avoided, dodged, or outright ignored. For Zaliel, it was as if time had stood still and she reveled in the beauty of each moment. This was it, she was in love, and it was everything she’d hoped it would be.
Ben
Time didn’t stand still. It’s nice to wax poetic about romance, but at the end of the of the day, night comes whether it’s welcomed or not.
For Ben, twilight began to set on Friday, a week after Zaliel first showed up at his house. She had stayed the whole week, insisting it was fine and she had plenty of leave time. Ben, however, still had class.
Still had classes he was missing because he didn’t want to go and was finding in Zaliel the perfect excuse. “I’m heading to class,” became, “You’re right, this crafts fair sounds like lots of fun and it’s just one class and who really cares about sociology anyways?” He only knew one sociologist and he taught sociology. And drank. A lot. Ben wasn’t sure if there was an intersection between understanding group dynamics and alcoholism; something he undoubtedly would have learned in sociology.
But even when he make it to class, his thoughts turned towards Zaliel. The hard, sharp lines in his notebook began to curve into the increasing familiar shape of her face, her body, all the way down to her feet, as he drew her from memory. It was an intense feeling—one he wasn’t sure how to handle—and he wanted it to keep going, but was this really okay?
As Ben looked longer at the notebook, his pencil poised, he tried to understand the problem with this picture—the problem with all of his pictures of Zaliel. And no matter how he looked at it, whether flipping between pages or glancing away and back again quickly, it just didn’t jump out at him.
It wasn’t anatomy. Ben could close his eyes and feel the shape of her body in his hands. She was right, in a way, the moving and shaping of clay, like flesh, had places of soft and firmness, of heat and cold. It was intimate, bordering or wholly enveloped by sensuality. Similarly had he given these drawings the depth and attention he felt they deserved.
He showed a few of his pictures to some friends, but he found no explanations. Zaliel on the beach, Zaliel asleep on the couch, Zaliel looking at the sky while she told him about her home, lightyears away. They had all been candid works drawn from memory.
He decided, quite arbitrarily, that it was his own internal criticism at work. Artists are notoriously bad judges of their craft, constantly chasing their taste with inadequate skill. Maybe, one day, he would feel his ability matched his desire. Maybe he would even make something amazing one day. He felt the potential inside him; the power to change the world.
Motivation, though? That was the problem he faced. Maybe another change of majors, he considered as he left the campus, returned to his beach house, and fell into Zaliel’s arms.