Текст книги "Twilight "

Автор книги: David George

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 42 страниц)

“Not the captain’s family, and certainly not when some of them are officers in the crew,” Akaar said, his voice rising as he struggled to make Vaughn see the folly and the danger of having his daughter serving aboard his ship. “You should know that better than most.”

Vaughn flew up onto his feet as though he had been launched from the sofa. He strode away from the sitting area and across the room, over to the window. He stood there for a moment, then leaned on the sill and looked out into space. He said nothing.

“Having Prynn on your bridge is irresponsible and dangerous,” Akaar said, refusing to back down, although it pained him to have to deal with Vaughn about this. “Especially if her intensity…especially if she still blames you for what happened to her mother.”

“L.J.,” Vaughn said, still gazing out the window.

“I’m sorry, Elias, but I’ve taken steps to have Prynn reassigned.”

Vaughn whirled around. “What?”

Akaar rose and regarded Vaughn across the room. He hated having to do this, but he knew that it was the right thing. He only hoped that Vaughn would be able to see that too.

“Don’t do this,” Vaughn said, seething, his words wrapped in a concentration of anger Akaar had rarely, if ever, seen in his old friend.

“Captain Mello has agreed to take Prynn aboard Gryphon,”Akaar said, “and she will reassign her alpha-shift conn officer to Deep Space 9 so that you can have him for the mission to the Gamma Quadrant.”

“Don’t do this,” Vaughn said again. “Please.”

Akaar walked over to Vaughn, hoping to close more than just the physical distance between them. He looked into Vaughn’s eyes, expecting to see anger, but instead saw only anguish. No,Akaar thought. Not just anguish.There was also something he had never before seen in Vaughn: fear. “This is the right thing,” Akaar went on. “I think you know that.”

“I know what you’re saying,” Vaughn admitted. “Do you believe I haven’t thought through all of this? I have.” He turned away again and peered out the window. “I’ve fought with myself over and over, made the same arguments that you’re making. I’ve thought about reassigning her…I’ve thought about transferring myself.”

“But you transferred here to try to mend things with Prynn in the first place,” Akaar said.

Vaughn turned from the window. “No, that’s not the case. I mean, I knew she was here, but…something else motivated me to stop what I was doing, to change my direction…”

“‘Something else’?”

Slowly, Vaughn divulged a strange and unsettling tale about an encounter he had experienced with one of the Bajorans’ Orbs of the Prophets. From anybody else, Akaar would have considered the story either a fabrication or a delusion. But not from Vaughn. Still—

“I have never known you to trust in mysticism,” Akaar said.

“No, you’re right,” Vaughn said. “And I don’t know if that’s what this was. Maybe, maybe not. I’ve been thinking of it as a personal epiphany. But not about Prynn; about me. I want to explore.”

“Then explore,” Akaar told him. “But do not bring Prynn with you.”

Vaughn paused and looked down. He seemed to be gathering his thoughts—gathering himself—and Akaar could not recall ever having seen Vaughn in such a desperate state. When he looked back up and spoke, his voice grew low and beseeching. “This may be my last opportunity to reconnect with my daughter. Things have been improving; we’ve been working well together the last few weeks. L.J., you know what it was like to grow up without your father.

Imagine if you had also not had your mother.”

The personal nature of Vaughn’s appeal startled Akaar. A spill of emotion washed over him suddenly, bringing with it his long-simmering melancholy about never having known his father, and the fear he always felt when he thought about how close his mother had come—more than once—to losing her life during his infancy and childhood.

“Why would Prynn still be on DS9, and ready to pilot Defiant,”Vaughn asked, “if some part of her didn’t want to reconcile with me?”

“She loves her job,” Akaar said, recognizing the weakness of his argument, and that the direction of the conversation had changed.

“She loves her job more than she hates her father,” Vaughn agreed. “And that’s a start.”

Akaar gazed at Vaughn, and he felt his resolve slipping away. Finally, Akaar dropped his head. “All right,” he said, and hoped he would not regret the decision.

“Thank you,” Vaughn said, his voice thick with gratitude and relief.

“I have to inform Captain Mello,” Akaar said. He turned away from Vaughn and headed for the door. “Thank you for dinner, and for the grosz.”

“L.J.,” Vaughn called, and Akaar stopped and turned back to his friend. “If you’re concerned that I’ll somehow jeopardize the crew because Prynn is on the ship, I can promise you, that won’t happen.”

“I know that,” Akaar said. “But sometimes it becomes necessary for a commanding officer to make difficult decisions…even to make sacrifices. And I know that you will do what is best for your crew.”

“Thank you for that,” Vaughn said.

“Do not thank me,” Akaar told him. “Thatis what concerns me: that you will do the right thing for your crew, even if it is the wrong thing for you and Prynn. I am not worried about your crew, Elias; I am worried about you and your daughter.”

Vaughn said nothing. Akaar held his gaze for a moment, then turned toward the door, which opened before him. He left Vaughn’s quarters, not knowing whether he had just done his old friend a favor, or consigned him to a terrible fate.

13

The sun shined down on the mountains and glinted off the distant ribbon of the river. The vibrant colors of the autumn—the green of the grass, the reds and oranges of the leaves falling from the trees—had deserted the landscape now, overtaken by the muted hues of winter—the yellow of the dead grass, the brown of the barren trees. Kasidy Yates gazed out from the porch at the vista before her and knew that another change was coming; snow had been forecast here for later in the month, and soon all would be dusted white. Already, in the past week, some of the higher peaks had been frosted.

Kasidy reached up and grabbed the edging of the deep-blue shawl draped across her shoulders, pulling it closed about her. The weather had grown warmer today than it had in weeks, in part because the winds had died down, but a chill continued to blanket the land. Kasidy breathed in deeply, enjoying the crisp freshness of the air, though she missed the rich, sweet scent of the mobafruit that grew on this land in summer.

Now, come on,she told herself. You’ve only been living here a couple of months.But she had visited here in the summer, when the mobafruit had ripened and hung down from the trees in succulent, violet globes. The aroma had captured her senses back then, and now she looked forward to next summer, when she would live in the midst of that splendid bouquet with—

Kasidy stopped the thought before completing it, not ready to think again about who would be with her in the future, because that also meant thinking about who was not here now. Instead, she opened the shawl and peeked down at the swell of her belly beneath her sweater. A smile came instantly to her lips as she ran a hand over the bulge in her flesh, in her body, that still seemed so strange to her, but that by next summer would be her son or daughter.

Kasidy walked the length of the porch to its western end, where sunlight streaked past the overhang and illuminated a patch of the wooden planking. She reached out from beneath the shawl to grab the arm of one of the two rockers, and pulled it over into the sun. She sat down without too much effort, although such maneuvering became more troublesome for her each day; she could only imagine the level of difficulty her final trimester would bring.

A cloud scudded by overhead, sending a shadow sweeping across the land toward the house. Kasidy wrapped the shawl tightly around herself, and when the cloud had passed, she tilted her face up and let the comforting rays of the Bajoran sun warm her. She closed her eyes, and this time she could not keep herself from thinking about Ben; she never could, not for long. He had loved this place, had looked forward to witnessing the change of seasons, and now she lived here, wishing every time she closed her eyes that, when she opened them, he would be here too. One day, she believed, that would be true. One day, she would open her eyes, or come around a corner of the house, or look out past one of the mobatrees, and there he would be, smiling so wide, with the love he felt for her reflected in his eyes. And he would come to her, and then this house, this land, would truly be theirs.

She lowered her head and opened her eyes. Ben was not there. That was hard, but somehow, it was also all right, at least for now. There might come a time, she knew, when she would not be able to hold on to her hope, and on to that last, evanescent connection she had experienced—or thought she had experienced—with Ben almost half a year ago. For now, though, she remained content, even amid the despondency and the emptiness, to believe that she had communicated with him in whatever realm he had ascended to, and that what he had told her—what he had promisedher—would eventually come to pass.

In all the time she had been together with Ben, Kasidy had never really understood the Bajoran religion, not in any deep and emotional way. She supposed the conceit of her own beliefs—the conceit of almost anybody with religious beliefs—prevented such understanding. Well-defined theological convictions did not admit contrary viewpoints, for even the consideration of alternate possibilities ran contrary to the notion of faith. Lately, she had begun to wonder if she should—or even could—find her way out of such a self-limiting perspective.

As for Ben, she had never understood how he had done what he had done. He had never been an impractical man, and yet somehow, over time, he had allowed himself to be made an icon of an alien spirituality. She knew that he had come to have a deep and abiding love for the Bajoran people, and that he had actually conversed with their “gods,” but she could not imagine taking on such an enormous responsibility. It was one of her concerns about being here on Bajor, where her relationship with Ben threatened to make her something of a minor figure in their religion herself.

A low sound drew Kasidy’s attention away from her thoughts. She looked around and listened for it again, but heard only the lyrical trickle of the creek that ran through the property. She peered into the distance, where the sun bathed the Kendra Mountains golden and sent shimmers along the winding form of the Yolja River. Farther north, though, she saw thunderheads moving down the valley, darkening the ground beneath as they sailed in this direction. A jagged streak of lightning flashed from the sky to the ground, out beyond the nearby town of Adarak, and the thick, cottony rumble of faraway thunder threatened again.

In a few minutes, the wind picked up, pushing its way through the skeletal mobatrees, and carrying with it the electric smell of the oncoming storm. Kasidy huddled tighter beneath her shawl, knowing she would have to head inside soon. It’s just as well,she thought. I have to finish that letter to Joseph—

Movement caught Kasidy’s eye, past the trees, and she looked off to the right, down the unpaved road that led from Adarak. A lone figure was walking in this direction, she saw. Her heart seemed to jump in her chest, the thought of Ben still fresh in her mind. She tsked at her silliness; she could not yet tell the identity of the figure, but the light complexion eliminated Ben as even a remote possibility.

Or Jake,she thought, sadness buffeting her like the cold wind. It had been weeks– months,she amended—since anybody had seen Jake; she had not heard from him since she had moved to Bajor. She missed that bright young man for so many reasons. She had known and liked Jake longer even than she had known Ben, and the two had been friends from the day they had met. And after Ben had vanished, she had found solace in sharing her grief with Jake, and in being able to see so much of his father in him. When she had learned that Jake was missing, sorrow had overwhelmed her and taken her to the brink of despair; only the life forming within her had brought her back and allowed her to look forward again.

Kasidy stood from the chair and walked to the other side of the porch, nearest the road. Who can this be?she wondered. When she had first relocated to Bajor, she had received scores of visitors, well-meaning locals—and others too, from all over the planet—wanting to do whatever they could to help the wife of the Emissary. Kasidy had not wanted to insult anybody, out of her own sense of politeness, but also because of Ben’s love for these earnest people. As the days had passed, though, Kasidy had begun to speak privately with some of her visitors from Adarak, and she had let them know that while she appreciated the assistance and the good wishes, she also sought a measure of solitude. To her surprise, the people of the town had understood, and now they not only left her to herself—for the most part, anyway—but also exercised a protectiveness of her, keeping uninvited guests away as best they could. They monitored the local transporter, and kept the roads and skies clear of unauthorized traffic. Kasidy still received messages on her companel, as well as an occasional visitor, but the person she saw most these days was Itamis Nath, the local postmaster; while mail almost always arrived in her delivery box via transporter, he sometimes would come out himself—just to check on her, she was sure.

The figure coming down the road waved, and Kasidy pulled a hand from beneath her shawl and waved back, though she still could not identify the person. Not Nath,she could see that, and not anybody she knew from town. Maybe a stranger,she thought, absently biting her lower lip. She hoped she would not be faced with another of the Bajoran faithful; she suddenly found herself not in the mood for a guest, particularly not for one wanting to worship her missing husband or her unborn child. Whoever the caller, they wore a wide hat, she saw now, and did not seem to be that tall—

Nog,Kasidy finally recognized. She smiled, realizing that what she had mistaken for a hat was actually his ears. She wondered why he had come all the way to Bajor unannounced, and why he had walked out to the house rather than using the transporter in Adarak. She had known Nog for as long as she had known Jake—the two young men still considered themselves best friends—and she had actually gotten to know him well in the weeks and months after Ben’s disappearance; Ben had helped Nog become the first Ferengi in Starfleet, and Nog had regarded Ben with appreciation and respect. After Jake had also gone missing, Nog had contacted her at least once a day, ostensibly to update her on the hunt for Jake, but the two had continued talking daily even after the search efforts had slowed. They had subsequently become good friends. Like the locals here, he had also become protective of her. He had even modified one of the escape pods from Xhosafor her, so that she could keep it behind the house in case of emergencies; with her being pregnant, he had not wanted her to have to walk half an hour into town if the local transporter went down for maintenance or for some other reason.

She watched Nog as he walked up the dirt road toward the house, and she revised her earlier feeling about not wanting guests; she was pleased to see him. She had intended to contact him on Deep Space 9 this afternoon, after she had finished her letter to Joseph. She wondered again why he had come all this way without letting her know first—

And suddenly Kasidy understood the reason for Nog’s visit. They found Jake’s body,she thought, something Nog would have wanted to tell her, not by subspace, but in person. No,she thought. No, not again.She stepped off the porch, intending to run to meet Nog.

But what about Nerys?Kasidy had also become good friends with Kira Nerys in the last few months, and she could not imagine the colonel not shouldering the burden of delivering such terrible news. Maybe…

“Maybe you should just wait till he gets here,” she said, chiding herself for leaping to such an awful conclusion. Still, as she waited, she could not shake off the feeling of dread that had descended upon her.

Even before Nog reached the house, though, she felt herself relax. The Ferengi wore a wide, toothy smile as he approached, an indication that he was not delivering bad news to her—although he might be delivering something; she saw that a small box dangled from one of his hands, his fingers tucked beneath a string wrapped around it. When he got within earshot—actually, with his ears, he had probably been within earshot for quite some time, she thought, amused at herself—she called to him. “Hi, Nog.”

He waved again with his free hand, and when he finally turned off the road and up the path to the house, he said, “Hi.” He was not in uniform, but clad in comfortable-looking blue pants and a green sweatshirt, underneath a light jacket. He lifted the box as he walked up, offering it to her. “Here, I brought you some Argelian teacakes. I know how much you like them.”

“Why, thank you, Nog,” she said, touched by his thoughtfulness. As she reached out and took the box from him, she asked, “Where did you get them? I usually couldn’t get any on the station.”

“They’re from Uncle Quark,” he said.

“Really?” Kasidy asked, slightly embarrassed by the obvious skepticism in her voice. Quark had always treated her well enough, particularly after she had become involved with Ben, but such a considerate act was hardly characteristic of Quark’s dealings with her—or of his dealings with anybody else, as far as she could tell.

“He doesn’t know,” Nog admitted. “He wasn’t in the bar when I left the station. Treir’s running the morning hours.”

“Treir?” Kasidy asked. The name did not sound familiar to her.

“Uncle’s new dabo girl,” Nog explained. “Although I get the feeling she thinks she’s his business partner. Anyway, she let me take them.”

“So you stole them?” Kasidy teased. “That’s not very Starfleet of you.”

“Don’t worry. When I tell Uncle they were for the Emissary’s wife,” Nog said, “he’ll thank me for cultivating good relations with the Bajorans.”

“And then post an account of his good deed to the Bajoran comnet,” she said with a laugh. “Come on in the house.” She stepped back up onto the porch and started toward the door.

“I forgot what time of year it was down here,” Nog said. His shoes clocked along the porch behind her. “My lobes are freezing.”

Kasidy opened the door and went inside, Nog coming in after her. The front room, the largest in the house, spread away from the door in all directions. Kasidy spent most of her time these days here, either huddled around the fireplace or sitting at the picture windows that looked out on the scenic landscape. She liked the openness of the room, the great windows and the vaulted ceiling an inoculation against potential feelings of claustrophobia. She enjoyed reading books or recording letters in this space, often composing missives to Ben—and lately, to Jake—so that, when they returned, she could easily share with them what they had missed, as well as how much she had missed them.

“I’m sorry about your ears,” Kasidy told Nog, “but you should be all right in here.” She had burned a fire earlier this morning, and the room still retained much of the warmth that had been generated. “Why didn’t you transport over?” Kasidy asked, curious. “For that matter, why didn’t you let me know you were coming?” She walked across the room, pulling the shawl from her shoulders and dropping it onto an easy chair. She stopped with the box of teacakes at the kitchen doorway, and turned back toward Nog.

“I guess because I didn’t even really know I was coming,” he said. “Not until I was on my way.” He strolled over to his left, skirting around a sitting area and moving toward the stone hearth. “I had the day off, and I realized that if I stayed around Deep Space 9, I’d end up working on the Defiant.I knew Commander Vaughn wouldn’t like that, so I decided to get off the station.” As he spoke, Nog looked at Ben’s collection of African art from Earth that adorned the walls, and then along the mantel, at the framed photographs there: Ben and Kasidy at their wedding, a portrait of Ben in his dress uniform, a montage of Jake at different ages, and others. His gaze did not linger on the photographs, Kasidy noticed—she could not look at them herself without becoming wistful—but quickly traveled upward. Above the mantelpiece hung a reproduction on parchment of a painting Ben had loved, and that Kasidy had come to appreciate herself, City of B’hala.“Before I knew it,” Nog went on, “I was on a transport headed to Bajor. So then I thought I would come visit you.” He turned and looked over at her from across the room. “I hope it’s all right.”

“Yes, of course,” Kasidy said. “But why didn’t you transport out from Adarak?”

“I don’t know,” Nog said, looking nervously down at his feet. “I guess I just felt like taking a walk.” For the first time, Kasidy detected a note in Nog’s voice that something might be wrong.

“Well, I’m glad you came by,” she said, opting not to question him about it, but to let him tell her in his own time, in his own way. She held up the box and said, “I’m just going to put these on a plate. Can I get you something to drink? Maybe something warm?”

“That would be great,” Nog said.

Kasidy thought about what she could serve Nog; her replicator had not been programmed with any Ferengi selections. “You don’t care for tea, do you?” she asked him.

“Not really,” he said.

“How about some hot chocolate?” she tried.

“If you have salt to go in it,” Nog said. The notion of combining chocolate and salt did not appeal to Kasidy, but after leading a freighter crew comprising people from several different species, she had long ago ceased to be surprised by the various things people chose to eat.

“I certainly do,” she said. “I’ll be right back.” She headed into the kitchen. While she removed the string from around the box and set some of the teacakes out on a plate, Nog spoke to her from the front room.

“This place looks just like the model,” he said.

“The” model,Kasidy noted, and not “Captain Sisko’s” model.She wondered if Nog had intentionally avoided using Ben’s name for her sake.

“That’s right, you haven’t been here since we finished,” she said, and felt momentarily awkward herself for having referred even indirectly to Jake, who had helped her during the early stages of the house’s construction. “I’ll take you on a tour later.” She pulled a tray out of the cupboard and placed the plate of teacakes on it. She got out two smaller plates and some linens, and then tracked down a saltshaker. Good thing I stocked the kitchen,she thought. She had done so because to do otherwise would have meant that this was not Ben’s house; he loved to cook.

“I remember these windows from the model,” Nog said. “They’re great.”

“Yes, that’s one of the things about the place that I like best,” she said. She activated the replicator—Ben might have been a cook, but she was not—and ordered a mug of hot chocolate for Nog and a cup of apple-cinnamon herbal tea for herself. She loaded the two drinks onto the tray and then carried the light repast out of the kitchen. Nog had crossed to the side of the room opposite the fireplace, she saw, and stood now at the windows, looking out at the view. He had taken his jacket off, which she saw hanging on the coatrack beside the front door. “Here we go,” she said. She set the tray down on a small table, between two chairs that faced the windows. Kasidy sat down, and Nog walked over and sat in the other chair.

“So how are you feeling?” he asked.

“Good,” she said. “It’s getting harder every day to move around normally, but overall, things are good.” She took one of the small plates and put two of the teacakes on it.

“I’m glad to hear that,” Nog said.

“So what’s this about Commander Vaughn not wanting you on the Defiant?”she asked, recalling what Nog had said a few minutes ago.

“No, it’s not that,” he explained. He picked up the mug of hot chocolate in one hand and the saltshaker in the other. “The crew’s been working so hard to get the ship ready to explore the Gamma Quadrant that he just wants to make sure we’re all well rested.”

“Sounds reasonable to me,” she said.

“Me too,” Nog agreed, “though none of the crew were too happy when we had to push the start of the mission back a day.”

“So when are you leaving?” she asked, and suddenly felt an unexpected pang of loss, knowing that she would not see Nog again for another three months.

“The day after tomorrow,” he said.

She took a bite of a teacake, trying to distract herself from her emotions. “Hmmm, these are terrific, Nog. Thank you for bringing them.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, and sprinkled a liberal measure of salt into his mug. He drank deeply, licking his lips afterward. “This is good too.”

“So are you looking forward to the mission?” Kasidy asked.

“Yeah,” Nog said. “It’ll be nice to be on the Defiantwithout having to head into battle.” He paused and looked down, his eyes focusing on the mug in his hands. He seemed distant all of a sudden, and Kasidy wondered if the thought of going into battle had been the cause. Nog had been traumatized by the loss of his leg during the war, she knew, and though he had been fitted with a perfectly functional biosynthetic replacement, it would not have surprised her to learn that he still sometimes suffered from the memory of the ordeal. She chose not to intrude into his silence, and finally, he looked up and said, “Anything to get off the station right now.”

“Is there something wrong on DS9, Nog?” she asked, concerned about the young man.

“It’s just…the other day…” Again he looked away, clearly struggling to deal with something. “No, not really,” he said at last. “I just want to get away.”

“Okay,” she said, not wanting to add to his troubles by pressuring him to discuss them. If he wanted to talk with her about it, then she would let him find the way to do so.

“I guess I wanted to say goodbye to you before I left,” he said then, seeming to recover from whatever had occupied him. He shook more salt into his mug and took another hearty drink. “We’ll be gone for three months.”

“I know,” she said. “You just make sure that you come back.” She immediately regretted her words, knowing that it evoked the disappearances of Ben and Jake.

“I’ll be back,” Nog promised, and Kasidy wondered how many such assurances she would hear in her life, and whether any of them would ever turn out to be justified. Nog set his mug back down on the tray—rather deliberately, she thought—and then locked his eyes with hers. “I also wanted to tell you that Jake’s coming back too.”

“What?” The assertion shocked her, too much for her even to be happy about the claim. She put her own cup back down on the tray, a little too quickly, and tea spilled over the rim and onto her fingers. She ignored it. “Nog, what do you mean?”

“I mean that I know Jake is all right,” he said confidently. “That he’s alive and not hurt or anything.”

“Howdo you know that?”

“I don’t know how I know,” he admitted. “I just do.”

“So you don’t know,”she said, trying to control the annoyance she felt and prevent it from growing into anger. She raised her hand to her lips and mechanically licked the drips of tea from them. “You just believehe’s okay.”

“Listen,” Nog insisted, leaning toward her in his chair, “people keep talking about Jake being missing or in trouble because he would never just leave the station and not tell anybody where he was going.”

“He did tell us,” Kasidy pointed out. “He said he was going to visit his grandfather on Earth.”

“Right,” Nog said. “But I don’t think he was ever going there.”

“Why not?” she asked. “Did Jake say something to you?”

“No, no,” he said. “I would have told you—I would have told everybody—if he did. But before he left, I kind of got the feeling that maybe he wasn’t going to Earth after all.”

“But why did you get that feeling?” she wanted to know.

“I don’t remember, exactly,” Nog said. “But I do remember the feeling. It was the last time Jake and I talked before he left, and it seemed to me like he wasn’t going to Earth, and that he was specifically trying notto tell me that.”

“But why wouldn’t Jake tell you where he was going or what he was doing?” she asked, of both Nog and herself. “Why wouldn’t he tell me?”

“I don’t know,” Nog said. “But you know Jake. If he thought there was any chance he wasn’t coming back, he would’ve said goodbye.”

“Yes,” Kasidy agreed hesitantly. She looked away from Nog and toward the window, trying to make sense of what he was saying, wantingto make sense of it.

“I don’t know why Jake didn’t want us to know where he was going,” Nog said, “but he’s smart and strong—”

“Like his father,” Kasidy said without thinking.

“Exactly,” Nog said. “I’m telling you, I knowhe’s coming back.” It was preposterous, of course. Nog had not presented any new facts, other than his recollection of having a feeling that Jake might not have been headed to Earth. But even if that turned out to have been an accurate feeling, it still remained that Jake had not been seen or heard from in two months.

And yet,Kasidy thought. Nog’s assertion that Jake would return, unsupported though it might be, for some reason bolstered her. In the vigor of Nog’s certainty, she found comfort, and even a renewed hope.

“You know,” he said, “Jake really likes you.” Kasidy looked back over at Nog. “I mean, he loves you, but he also likesyou. He thinks you’re great.” The words touched Kasidy deeply. “I’m telling you, he wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye.” She nodded her agreement to him. Whether true or not, Nog’s conviction filled her with a feeling of strength she had been lacking for some time. She committed to herself that she would consciously hold on to that feeling for as long as she could.