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ezrisdax · 9 days ago

Text

what is a tomb if not a body; carrying those long dead.

cenotaph (noun): a tomb or a monument erected in honor of a person or group of persons whose remains are elsewhere. derived from the Greek kenos taphos, meaning "empty tomb." A cenotaph is a monument, sometimes in the form of a tomb, to a person or group of persons buried elsewhere. or. Ezri.

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Live, Jadzia Dax. Live a long, fresh, and wonderful life.

The words rattled in Ezri’s head as she jolted awake. Her breathing was harsh in the otherwise quiet room and Ezri pulled her legs up to rest her head on her knees, just trying to still her rapidly beating heart.

She’d dreamt about Jadzia’s life again. Last night had been Audrid. Before that had been Tobin.

Ezri sighed, pressing her face harder against her knees and rocking slightly. It was a habit she’d picked up as a child and –

She stopped, mentally calculating it in her head. Had she picked it up or was it an after effect from another host?

No, Ezri told herself, I used to do this when mother was mad at me. I’d crawl into Norvo’s bed and sit like this until he came home and we’d talk about it.

Relieved that she was doing something which was wholly her own quirk she relaxed a little and pushed the dream from her mind. Thinking about the dreams she had as her past lives never did her any good, she always felt off during the day then. More off than she already did or would have, she imagined, if she hadn’t been joined.

“Get a hold of yourself Ezri.” She said out loud, pulling up to stretch and groaning when at that moment the alarm she had set for the day went off to remind her it was time to get ready for her shift. “Yeah yeah,” She told the computer. “I’m already awake.”

What she really needed now was a Papalla juice – raktajino – Jestral tea –

“Can’t you just decide on one?” Ezri groused to the flashes of old hosts favourites in her head. “This is already confusing enough.”

She dragged herself up to get ready, tugging on her uniform nervously. Today she had a meeting with Garak, another with Nog, and one with one of the Bajorans who’d been here while the Cardassian’s had occupied the station again a few years back. Despite that Benjamin assured her she was doing fine she still couldn’t help but feel like something was missing.

“Your confidence.” She told herself, looking in the mirror.

Joran had had confidence, he’d been so sure of his self and –

“I am not looking up to a murderer.” She said angrily, frowning at her reflection. Since she’d called him to get help more and more he’d been leaking into her daily thoughts while the others surfaced at night.

“I’m Ezri.” She said but even she could hear the hesitation. “I’m Ezri.” She asserted again because she knew it helped to hear it out loud. Her shoulders fell and she sighed, “I’m Dax.”

And it was time to face the day.

Though the station was comprised of four different duty shifts mornings at Quark’s were always full.

“Hey Ezri,” Leeta greeted her with a grin, nodding her head over to the corner where Worf was sitting, “He’s been nursing that prune juice for a while.” Leeta lowered her voice in a conspiratory whisper.

Which meant that Worf had been awake a lot longer than necessary. She shot Leeta an appreciative smile and made her way over to Worf, taking the seat across from him.

“Busy night?” She asked, looking for an opening. Experience as Jadzia had taught her the best way to get Worf to talk was to cut right to the chase though she had enjoyed teasing it out of Worf at times.

Worf huffed, “A crew of Bolians arrived last night. They were unscheduled.”

“Is it anything bad?” Ezri glanced around, trying to discern if anything was amiss.

“They were...loud.”

She tried not to snicker at Worf’s grumpiness but it wasn’t easy. Luckily Leeta arrived to pull her attention away.

“So what’ll you have, Ezri?”

Gagh, Meshta gagh which was Curzon’s favourite –

Andevian eggs, a taste Lela claimed was acquired –

Something new, something unknown, Torias never ate the same thing twice –

“Just the usual breakfast of the day shift.” Ezri hedged her bets on her stomach; figuring pancakes would go down the easiest.

“Oh that’s Rom’s favourite now, you know he tried it after he got promoted, he actually gets Quark to still add some beetles in it.” Leeta laughed to herself at the memory. “Raktajino with it?”

Pancakes suddenly didn’t sound quite as appetizing but Ezri forced a smile and nodded.

If Jadzia had heard that would she have tried to add Gagh pancakes?

She was tempted to ask Worf but their relationship was still rocky and asking about her past life and his ex-wife like that felt like asking for another fight.

“You do not look well.” Worf noted as Leeta walked away. “You should visit Doctor Bashir.”

“I might.” Ezri said, mostly so Worf didn’t go all mother hen on her. He’d deny it but he really did look out for his friends. At least he counted her as one now.

Leeta came by with her drink and set it in front of Ezri who took a sip and bit down her sigh.

It wasn’t a raktajino day after all.

Worf may not have known it but Ezri had avoided the infirmary for as much as she could.

The Shrine may have been where Jadzia got mortally wounded.

The infirmary was where she actually died.

Maybe this was why the symbiont commission frowned on hosts interacting with places they’d lived before in past lives. They hadn’t really given Ezri much help or ideas, just told her she’d have to sort through the memories herself. Try to find common ground with her past hosts.

Unfortunately she was feeling space sick again and needed some help.

“This is the second time this week.” Julian said, hovering over her with a hypospray.

“I thought I was getting better.” Ezri’s smile was weak and her stomach roiled. The pancakes were an awful idea.

“Well, I can give you a higher dose to help you over the next few days. You might want to look into meditation techniques to help deal with this.”

“Like standing on my head?” Ezri deadpanned, thinking of Emony’s hobby.

“Maybe not quite that,” Julian replied, bemused. “I’ll look up some holodeck programs to help with that. I recommend you check them out.” He had switched back to his doctor mode. “If you need someone to go with you to them let me know.” He offered.

“I’ll be fine.” Ezri assured him though it felt like a lie. “Has the Chief fixed the holosuite glitches yet?” She asked to change the subject. “You know Torias would have loved holodecks.” She mused, letting her thoughts run around again, “It sure would have helped him to be able to run simulations on shuttles instead of just reprogramming it and hoping it would work I mean, sure would have made him less likely to crash a shuttle.” She laughed a little at the idea, “Of course then he would have lived longer and I might not be Dax.”

She fell silent at the idea, her skin itching like it had when she’d first gotten the symbiont and felt an uncomfortable sensation of not belonging.

“We’re all glad you’re here.” Julian said after the silence went on too long, making it awkward and unbearable.

Ezri muttered something about needing to get to her first appointment and dashed out of the room, trying to leave the thoughts there along with it.

Garak was as verbose and complicated as ever, winding his words with obfuscation to purposely mislay her.

It gave her a headache on top of feeling space sick but she listened as best as she could to what wasn’t being said.

They really needed another session on the holosuite so after he left her office with one cutting remark on the drabness of a Starfleet uniform Ezri went to hunt down Miles to see the progress on the holosuite repairs.

“It’s not ready.” Miles said gruffly without preamble when he saw her.

“Anything I can do to help?” Ezri asked, locking her hands behind her back.

I picked it up from Jadzia, she reminded herself unnecessarily, who picked it up from Lela.

Miles glanced at her from the corner of his eyes, no doubt trying to find a way to let her down without being needlessly mean spirited about it. He’d been surprisingly caring since the situation where he’d been stuck at her childhood home with her.

“It’s okay.” Ezri waved off whatever remark was coming, “I’m sure Nog can help you out after our session today.”

Miles grunted his agreement and turned back to the panel he had open.

Ezri floundered a bit, her natural inclination to ramble these days when things got too quiet weighed on her.

“You all right?” Miles broke the quiet and squinted up at her from where he was crouched.

“Just space sick.” Ezri said, latching onto that excuse though she was feeling better since visiting Julian.

“Problem with your quarters dampners?” Miles frowned at the thought and Ezri could see him already adding it to his mental list of things wrong with the station.

“Nope.” She replied quickly, seeing the relief on his face. “I don’t know what’s causing it. Could be all in my head.” Even as she said it she rested a hand on her stomach, right at the pouch where the symbiont was.

“Sounds like you need an appointment with our resident counselor.” Miles quirked his lips in amusement, glancing back at her.

“Oh I think I talk to myself enough.” Ezri tried to return the smile but she could tell it didn’t reach her eyes. “I should go, I need to meet Nog now. I’ll send him to you when I’m done.” She promised and fled before Miles could comment on any of her strange statements.

Or maybe they weren’t strange anymore. Maybe they were just who she was now.

That headache was coming back.

Kira stopped at her office just as Nog was leaving, giving him a quick nod in greeting before stopping before Ezri’s desk. “Lunch?”

It wasn’t unusual for them to meet for lunch but typically Kira didn’t come to find her and Ezri eyed her suspiciously. “Have you been talking to Julian and Miles?”

“They might have said something.” Kira admitted sheepishly but kept meeting her eyes. “Still offering.”

Ezri smiled weakly in return. “Sounds great!” She said with an enthusiasm she didn’t really feel.

Forced socialization, Tobin’s least favourite thing, somewhere in the back of her head she could hear his sulk.

“Think the replicator can make nolaberries?” Ezri asked as she and Kira began the walk down to the promenade.

Kira shot her a confused look, “Nolaberries? I’m not even sure I’ve heard of them.”

“Tobin was allergic, I just had a craving.” Ezri shrugged, internally feeling a little vindictive. And then immediately guilty.

Other Joined Trill didn’t fight with their past lives so much, other Joined Trill handled this better, Ezri had just been there at the wrong place wrong time wrong person.

Kira raised an eyebrow at her in silence, questioning but allowing Ezri to decide what to say and Ezri felt more gracious to her than ever.

“You know me and my cravings.” It came out without her thinking, immediately trying to undo what she had just said. Always trying to undo what she’d done; stepping back in her past but never able to fully shake it off.

Now it lived under her skin, permanently etched in her brain, behind her eyes when she closed them and-

Kira’s hand dropped to her shoulder, squeezing it lightly and grounding Ezri back in the moment.

“How about I pick the meal today?” Kira asked and while there was nothing in her tone that brokered concern Ezri could see it in her eyes.

“Yes.” Ezri agreed quickly. “Please. Just-”

“Not gagh,” Kira cut her off with a laugh, her hand falling from Ezri’s shoulder and the concern that had haunted her a moment ago gone. “Believe me if I ever picked that you can just assume possession.”

Ezri snorted in her own amusement. “I think it’s safe to assume the same of me.”

Possessed by Jadzia or Curzon maybe.

She rubbed at her head, the pounding back with a vengeance she didn’t care for. When she caught Kira frowning from the corner of her eye she quickly dropped her hand and flashed a smile.

“You know it’s occurred to me I can’t ever remember you cooking.” Ezri said, struggling to move their conversation along.

“That’s because you don’t want me to.” Kira grumbled.

“Don’t let Benjamin hear that, he’ll give you lessons.”

“Oh he’s tried.” Kira replied and then was off on the disastrous time she’d had.

She let the words wash over her, lost in a story that wasn’t hers.

Odo was frowning when Ezri walked past his office on the way to hers; though that was his default face so it was hard to tell which frown that meant.

“All good?” Ezri asked, slipping into Odo’s office.

Odo jumped slightly, a sign he must have been deeply in thought. “Ezri.” He greeted, his voice as gravely as ever. “Something I can do for you?”

“For me? No, no, I’m good. Well. Minus the space sickness, I just can’t shake it.” Ezri joked. “But I was asking about you.”

“Is this a doctor’s visit then?” Odo asked drily.

“A friend visit.” Ezri corrected and took the seat across from him. “Unless you want to book a counselling session instead…”

Odo let a hrrmph, “I’ll pass.” He paused. “But thank you.”

“Any time.” Ezri promised. “You know you sometimes remind me of Torias which is silly because you embodied Curzon that one time but like, he was proud, wouldn’t admit he needed help ever which uh.”

“Got him killed?” Odo looked unimpressed.

Ezri winced. “I don’t think you’re that bad.”

“I should hope not.” He must have decided to take pity on her because he continued. “It’s just about one of the ships docked here. I’m worried one of the passengers might be a changeling.” His frown deepened as he admitted it.

“Oh.” Ezri said, surprised he’d even tell her. She looked him over with a more critical eye, taking in the hunched shoulders and tightness around his mouth. For all Odo said he couldn’t get the shape of a human right he sure had mastered the emotions of it.

“Worried you’ll have to lock up someone of your own kind?” Ezri asked as kindly as she could.

“No.” Odo shot down. “If they’re here to cause trouble they deserve it.”

“And if they’re not?”

Odo was quiet. There was always a chance the station was just a waypoint for the changeling before they left for somewhere worse like Klingon or Federation space.

“What’s it like?” Odo asked, jolting her from her thoughts.

“What?”

“Never being alone?” Odo’s attempt at a smile fell weak.

“Honestly?” Ezri leaned back, her own smile faltering. “Crowded.”

And somehow damningly alone all at once.

“I think I’d like to know that experience again. The Great Link…it felt like that, knowing everyone at all times…” Odo’s voice trailed off in a longing.

“So long as you remember you’re still you in there. It’s easy to get lost, trust me.”

“I know.” Odo agreed, a haunted look in his own eyes. Then he straightened up. “I should get back to my investigation.”

She knew a dismissal when she heard it and stood up. “Let me know if you need help.”

“Of course.” Odo inclined his head.

She turned to leave.

“And Ezri?”

She looked back.

“I’m here as well. If you need to…talk.” The last word made him wince a little and Ezri tried not to laugh at how similar he looked like to Garak at that.

“Thanks Odo,” She said, infinitely grateful.

She walked away, her head quiet for the first time that day.

The silence didn’t last long.

It wasn’t Jake’s fault of course, he’d burst into her office just as she was finishing her shift for the day and thrown himself dramatically onto the chair across from her.

“I’m having a writers block.” He declared, groaning and rubbing at his face.

“Sounds serious.” Ezri said, as deadpan as she could and trying not to laugh at Jake.

He scowled. “It is!”

“All right.” She held her hands up in surrender and set down the padd she was holding. “Let’s talk about it then. What are you stuck on?”

Jake leaned forward in his seat, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together. Ezri couldn’t help but be struck by the similarities to Benjamin at his age in that moment.

Brash, sure of himself, still needing guidance-

No he was a friend, an equal on the same ground, the greatest person ever met in eight lifetimes-

Nine. She thought. I’m the ninth lifetime.

Swallowing back the memories that threatened to pull her under she focused on Jake as he began to talk.

“It’s the plot. It needs more…” Jake grasped at the air with his hands. “Something.”

“Descriptive.” Ezri couldn’t help but tease. “I’ve always thought things need more something.”

Jake shot her an annoyed look. “I knew I should have gone to Nog.”

“He’d just get you drunk.”

“Exactly.” Jake’s head lolled back and he sighed like the world weighed on him and no one truly understood it; a young man but he hadn’t completely shaken off the teenage years.

In a way she was glad to see it given he’d been around for the occupation and certainly had his share of trauma over the past year.

It struck her then that despite having watched Jake grow up as Curzon and Jadzia that as Ezri she was only a year older than him.

“Hey,” Ezri said to get his attention, swallowing down her own wallowing. “Tell me about the world and characters. Maybe I was never a writer in a past life but I had my fair share of adventures.”

Jake launched into his latest idea, a novel involving a mystery on old earth; long before current investigative techniques.

Ezri tapped a finger on her desk, considering the plot. “I know when Joran was on the run he was caught because of his own ego. He believed he couldn’t be and believed he was so in the right it was his own destiny to outsmart everyone.”

She made a face, remembering her own taunting’s from Joran when she’d called him forth. “The thing about murders is no matter how smart they are or seem they’re still prone to the same mistakes everyone makes.”

Jake was tapping on his padd excitedly. “I knew you were the person to come to, thanks Ezri.” His eyes crinkled as he smiled.

Ezri repressed the shudder that threatened to run through her at living more in Joran’s memories.

“Any time. Now, let’s talk about motivations…”

The station rocked around her, she couldn’t feel it because of the dampeners but she knew it in her head. All the ships attached to dock swayed with it, back and forth in space, going nowhere but constantly moving.

Leonard McCoy had once told Emony a story about a ship. The name escaped Ezri’s memory but she recalled that it was all philosophical. If the ship was changed out with all new wood was it even the old ship at all? Or if that old wood was used to build a ship was it then the original ship?

McCoy had called it all hogswash.

Ezri was beginning to feel like gaining a symbiont was a little bit like that. If the symbiont was removed somehow and she was Ezri Tigan again would some part of her always be in the Dax symbiont, living on for as long as it did, beyond just the memories?

Would she ever forget what had been given to her and be herself again?

“You’re looking a little green.” Quark commented as he wiped a glass across the bar from her. “Didn’t think Trills got that colour, thought that was more Vulcans.”

There was some undertone of concern Ezri could hear in his voice that made her smile.

“Just ship sick.”

“Don’t you mean space sick?”

Ezri shrugged and stared back down at her drink. Romulan ale.

Torias liked it. Ezri didn’t.

“Not to your taste?” Quark clicked his tongue and leaned over the bar. “I’m sure I’ve got something that you’ll like. It might cost a few latinum but I’ll give you a discount, just don’t tell the others.”

Ezri bit her lip so she didn’t laugh. “Somehow I think I’d still end up losing in that deal.”

Quark drew back, a hand to his chest, “Ezri I would never-”

“You still owe Jadzia ten slips of latinum from Tongo.”

“Forget that I owe my dear dear friends. Let me get you something else. On the house. Any requests?” Quark asked, merciful enough to ignore her slip in saying Jadzia’s name instead of herself.

Ezri sighed down at the glass in front of her and pushed it towards Quark.

“Surprise me.”

It wouldn’t matter anyway.

Everything had been tried before by someone else; a lingering taste of sweetness for something she never even knew.

“I hear you’ve been moping around.” Benjamin’s voice rang clear above her and Ezri yelped at the sudden intrusion.

She nearly kicked him the face as she fell from where she’d been balanced against the wall, once again trying Emory’s way of fixing feeling how out of whack she was.

“Didn’t I teach you to knock?” Ezri grumbled at him, scowling at him from the floor.

“Actually you taught me how to break in.” Benjamin grinned at her. “Both Curzon and Jadzia did at least.”

She remembered that, a younger Benjamin following Curzon around and Curzon doing his best to corrupt him. Teaching to gamble and break in and-

“I did didn’t I?” Ezri agreed ruefully. “Or, well, not me me but-”

“Dax.” Benjamin cut off the ramble. “I know what you meant.” He crouched down and then with a groan sat on the floor next to her.

Ezri grinned at him, “Careful there, old man.”

Benjamin shot her a look, grumbling something under his breath.

“I’m just saying,” Ezri couldn’t help but continue. “Keep up like that and you’ll lose future chances to play baseball.”

“I’ll live vicariously through Jake then.” Benjamin said, like the thought didn’t bother him but Ezri could see the frown hidden in his brow.

“And everyone else on this station you’ve gotten in to it.”

Benjamin hummed, happier than a moment before.

“Curzon never played with me.” He said suddenly and Ezri eyed him, wondering where he was going with it. “He appreciated my love of it but never showed any interest. Jadzia did, she’d come to holosuite games with me and Jake and Kasidy.”

She remembered those, quizzing Kasidy on rules and then purposefully getting them wrong to bother Benjamin and Jake.

“And you I taught.” Benjamin nodded at her.

“It was fun.” Ezri laughed at the memory. It was easy then, lost in the moment. Easier to let the hosts run free in her head.

A little bit of Emory to catch a ball. A little bit of Torias to be competitive. A little bit of Lela to manage where everyone was on bases.

“I’ll have to arrange another game.”

“Just don’t make us stage a mutiny this time.” Ezri groaned. “You were worse than Neema. Those fights we got into were brutal, it felt like I was raising a teenager for decades.”

“Audrid’s daughter?”

Ezri startled, it had slipped out. She shut her eyes.

“Yeah.”

“Trouble with the old hosts?” Benjamin asked.

White light prickled behind her eyelids.

“Always.” Ezri sighed.

“You’ll get there, old man.” Benjamin told her with such surety she almost believed it.

“Right.” She nodded, trying to relieve Benjamin of any stress that he may have had over it. Any lingering guilt that lay with him in Jadzia’s death. “I’ve got this.”

She really didn’t.

It wasn’t that the symbiont was ever supposed to be like that but there were days Ezri felt she was building her own tomb.

Writing everything that was her into something else and letting herself be erased by what was already there and when it was all over all that would be left of her would haunt someone else.

All the others hosts asked for this.

It was a privilege.

One so sought at that Verad-

He didn’t count, she reminded herself, he didn’t count.

Except he wasn’t that different from her.

He got the symbiont through unfair means even if they were by his own hands.

That was the difference, she shut her eyes in the already darkness of her room closing everything out. I never asked for this.

When she first arrived on Trill with the symbiont inside her it didn’t take Audrid’s memories to know how disappointed the Symbiont Committee was; how angry they were.

She wasn’t picked, she wasn’t chosen, it wasn’t her legacy to have.

She’d stumbled around those first few days, completely lost in the past and unseeing anything in front of her. She’d cried out for children that weren’t hers, begged for a sister she never had, sought solace in a mother not her own.

And then what emerged was supposed to be Ezri.

They’d declared her ready and shipped her out like they couldn’t bear to look at her, glad to have Starfleet to assign her somewhere far away.

Instead she’d returned to exactly where she was before.

Just three centimeters to the right.

She tossed to the other side of her bed, kicking the blankets down and sighed heavily. She tried to center her mind; sorting out what it was she was feeling.

Responsibility, Lela knew it all too well, it weighed on her; everything needed to be perfect-

No, anxiety, Tobin had it in spares, it drove him to his own madness, always needing a distraction like-

Adrenaline, Emony was always waiting for the next big thing, shifting on her toes, prepared and-

Pride, Audrid carried it around her like a second skin never seeing how it hurt others but-

It was curiosity, like Torias and a desire to know and go further, try the unthinkable, he just had to be-

Angry; angry at what the committee had done to Joran; to herself, they all deserved what they got and it was the unfairness of it all it that-

Flickered, never the same thing drawing Curzon’s attention twice; nothing worth keeping everything worth knowing anyway and-

It burned. Like a sorrow for a life cut too short or the joy found in laughing with a friend; different but somehow lighting up Jadzia all the same-

“Stop.” Ezri begged quietly even though she knew no one could hear her anyway.

Not out in the halls of the station. Not in the vastness of her mind.

Can’t you just ignore it, a voice that sounded like her mother scoffed; trying to bury all the things Ezri felt.

She shouldn’t have to. That was Norvo. Always having her back.

She has to do something. Janel. Her only sibling left now. Practical and unmoved.

Do I? Ezri asked the voice. Didn’t I do something on the Destiny and end up here?

Not that they hadn’t pushed it on her.

The Symbiont couldn’t die. It was too important.

Ezri was not.

Her hand pressed against the pouch where it lay and though it was probably her imagination she thought the symbiont pressed back.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered. “There was only me there.”

For once nothing answered her back and for the first time she wished it would; the thought curling around her as sleep finally claimed her.

Live, Jadzia Dax. Live a long, fresh, and wonderful life.

#ezri dax #star trek ds9 #beej writes

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