“Everything in this world will pass away. In eternity only Love will remain.”
Pope Benedict XVI. (2011)
The morning sun began it’s slow rise over the glittering jewel of Omaja Peak, bringing with it the promise of a new day and found Taesin curled and asleep amidst the rumpled luxury of sheets with a high thread – count, her spray of platinum white – blonde hair in perfect disarray as the young El – Aurian slept the first undisturbed slumber that she had enjoyed since commencing her short vacation on Colludia II.
The reason for this was simple. She had found her muse.
As inexplicable as these things often are, somehow her chance encounter with the ravishing beautiful and beautifully self – depreciating stranger, Rhovan di Acosta, had proven the transformative event that had seen the writer’s block that had so effectively paralyzed her creative mind, simply evaporate like a confounding mist, leaving her free to start and nearly complete the pressing academic paper she was due to submit to the Daystrom Institute.
It was happy serendipity indeed that, not only had she been able to return to the ‘D’hôtel Apparat’ after their chance encounter and clumsy collision in the artisan’s quarter of the picturesque holiday town, there to burn the midnight oil with her newly re-ignited promethean flame of creativity, but that the manifestation of the muse had proven to be such an utterly charming young man.
And therein lay the problem.
At only 200 years old, Taesin Girau was considered little more than a juvenile amongst her very – long lived people. Yet in that comparatively ‘short’’ span of existence she had taken several lovers and had had one true love, Galen, with whom she had chosen to share her life. She had loved and lived a full and happy lifetime, knowing what it was to truly share everything she was with another who cherished and reciprocated that trust and passion, yet she was forever cursed by one immutable and devastating law of the universe.
Love was not eternal.
At least not when only one of two (or more) lovers was effectively immortal, when considered against the fleeting, fragile lifespan of that majority doomed to live only a modest span of life before their time came to die and move on to another plane of existance.
It is almost impossible to balance the manifest joy she had in sharing her life with Galen, against the slow inevitability of watching him age slowly and incrementally as the passage of time wound steadily onwards, as she remained eternally unchanged like biblical Lot’s Wife transformed into the Pillar of Salt.
The salt of the tears that she cried at his funeral were mute testament to the futility of love in the face of such an egregious balance of fates and after she had bid farewell to her beloved, Taesin had resolved that she would never risk her heart like that again and indulge in the beautiful folly of falling in love.
Of course, she would always hold her love for Galen deep in her heart, but it was love of the deeply wounded kind. It was both eternally joyous and bitterly personal and she had determined that she would never be so foolish as to lose her heart to another.
Some hurts just run too deep.
So, it was with a certain sense of regret and foreboding that Taesin awoke in the sun – dappled luxury of her hotel apartment bedroom and was conflicted with uncertainty and a tincture of lingering doubt about her impending luncheon appointment with the compelling and darkly handsome native of Omaja Peak, later that day.
She chided herself. She had no more fallen in love with Rhovan di Acosta, as she had fallen backwards out of a shop and collided with the man as he made his way through the thronging tourist crowds of the narrow backstreets.
Maybe it was the adrenaline that coursed through her brain as she recovered from the accidental encounter that had addled her senses and that was why she so readily agreed to meet with him for lunch, so he could make amends.
You didn’t have to be an empath (which she was) to appreciate that there was more than a little opportunistic attraction on Mr di Acosta’s behalf, when he made the gallant offer to assuage himself of guilt. The problem was, if she was being entirely honest with herself, Taesin knew that she had felt a thrill of attraction towards this handsome stranger, one that had nothing at all to do with the shock of their accidental collision.
As she lay entangled in the sheets, and thinking of him, she blushed to realize that she was feeling that self-same rise of desire right now. She sat up in bed and gathered the sheets around her naked form, wrinkling her nose and shaking her fine mane of straight hair to dispel such fanciful foolishness.
Here she was, two centuries old and the Commanding Officer of a Starfleet starship and she found herself mooning over an attractive stranger like a love-lorn teenager!
Should she stand him up?
He rose and drew on one of the deeply fluffy robes with the ‘D’hôtel Apparat’ logo embroidered neatly on the breast and padded into the bathroom to brush her teeth and make an attempt to tame what damage the night has wrought with her hair.
As she stood in front of the reverser field, she looked at her reflection and tried to wonder what Rhovan di Acosta when he looked at her.
A slim woman, almost elfin – looking in the fineness of her cheekbones and svelte frame, with porcelain – smooth pale skin, dusted with a light spray of pale freckles across a pretty nose, with long, platinum hair complimented by strong, but artful brows and eyes of such a pale shade of blue as to be remarkable.
Rhovan di Acosta saw a beautiful woman, ostensibly in her early 30’s. Probably nothing more.
But within those pale, intelligent blue eyes, the full story of her 200 plus years could be found, if you knew where to look. Whilst she seemed a young woman on the outside, she had lived more than most people would do and encountered more things than some would in a number of lifetime and was cursed to do so for near eternity.
Did she really need the complication of a holiday romance to add to that toll of past – burdens?
She sighed as she brushed her teeth carefully, with small, deft strokes of the toothbrush. Was she overthinking this? She knew that she had a tendency to overanalyse things (one of the pitfalls of being a scientist) and that this was also a defence mechanism she had developed over time. It was far easier to pre-empt an issue, based upon long experience, than it was to suffer it’s inevitable effects.
She rinsed out her mouth and dried her lips with a hand towel.
She attempted to apply that scientific reason to her current predicament, by laying out the pro’s and con’s and arranging them in the most logical order.
Pro. Rhovan di Acosto was undeniably one of the most beautiful men she had encountered in her long life, by the metrics that she held personal.
Con. She was immortal and he was not.
Pro. His attraction to her was obvious and to some extent reciprocated by herself.
Con. She only had one more day left of her vacation and would be leaving the Colludia system and travelling back to the Fleet Yards to participate in the launch and inaugural voyage of the Fourth Fleet’s newest Noble – class Explorer, the USS Atalanta, as her new CO.
Pro. She was a grown woman (whatever her mother maintained) and was perfectly capable of meeting a charming and attractive man for a lunch date and not falling head over heels in love with him, not matter how much allure he might hold for her.
Con. He was a complication she didn’t need in her life right now.
She realized that she had been staring at herself in a disassociated manner for quite some time now and she frowned disapprovingly at herself, finding such self – serving introspection and indecision unbecoming, yet lamentably typical of herself.
“Fuck it.” She said to herself and went to pick out an outfit.
A land car arrived at the hotel just before midday to pick her up.
This relatively archaic mode of transportation was entirely typical of the kind of enforced analogue that the community of Omaja Peak liked to perpetuate, as if they were somehow embarrassed by the clarion of technological innovation and wished to keep their municipality shackled to a nostalgic past, like a beautiful dragonfly forever perfect and trapped in amber.
The vehicle itself was magnificent appointed and by the quality of its design and finish it bespoke that its owner was a person of substance.
As Taesin stepped down the white marble steps of the porte-cochère that framed the entry to the ‘D’hôtel Apparat’, attired in sunglasses, a flowing and breezy summer – dress and flat canvass slip – on shoes, a livered driver stood resolute by the door to the car, which he dutifully opened for her and she slipped inside to be cossetted by the comfortable leather of the interior.
To find that she was alone in the back.
As the driver took his seat up front and edged the nose of the limousine tentatively out into the sparse midday traffic of the street fronting the hotel, she leaned forward and enquired of him.
“I’d rather thought to find Rhovan here?” Taesin ventured, a little confused.
The driver did not look back but replied courteously.
“Mr di Acosta left instructions to pick you up from your accommodations and convey you to the funicular station. I believe you are to take the funicular to it’s destination, where he will meet you.”
Taesin sat back, half amused by the novelty of it all. Looking around the unmistakable luxury of the car and the fact that it came with its own driver, she began to wonder if Rhovan was being entirely honest with her about who we actually was. To the best of her knowledge, Philosophers didn’t usually command this level of opulence, no matter how erudite they may be.
Deciding that this was a mystery best entertained for now, she did not embarrass the driver by pressing for more information and settled back into the car’s luxurious interior and enjoyed the short trip that took them to the archaic funicular station that was the main means for tourists to access the breathtaking spectacle of the Cascade Falls, which Omaja Peak was justifiably made famous by.
Fed by a deep mountain aquifer that dwelt deep beneath the towering northern mountain peak that gave the town hers name, the capacious bowel of Lake Omaja slowly emptied its flowing waters at the first of a series of plunging waterfalls at the terminus of its southern shores. Long centuries had carved its determined path down through the limestone cliffs, creating a succession of falls that fell many hundreds of feet, each collecting momentarily in a deep caldera before renewing its roaring plunge down to its eventual river terminus in the far valley at the foot of the mountain.
On sunny day, the interplay between the spray from its fountain – progress and the Sun of the Colludia System, made the mountainside seem as if it were arrayed in a rainbow mantle of a billion shimmering diamonds.
The funicular itself was a marvel of solid, no – nonsense old fashioned engineering and, as Taesin took a seat by the window she could not help to marvel at the simple physics that were harnessed to make the novel cable – railway operate. It was an absolute dichotomy in such an age of technological advancement, and she could not quite help to admire the wonderful wilfully luddite – stance of the locals once again.
Commencing from the southern end of the lake where thousands of tons of water departed the edge by virtue of gravity, that same force of gravity had been harnessed to permit the heavy car to descend the cliff face, as its opposite number was propelled upwards by capturing and compressing but a fraction of the raging waters and utilising its hydraulic compression.
An ancient technology contemporaneous with the 19th century, the water-powered funicular operated using two counterbalanced cars connected by a cable over a pulley at the top of the slope. Each car had a water tank beneath its floor. At the start, the upper car’s tank was filled with water to make it heavier than the lower car. Gravity then pulled the heavier car down, which simultaneously pulled the lighter car up. At the bottom, the descending car’s tank was emptied, and the process repeated.
This system requires minimal external energy, making it highly efficient and was so deliciously archaic as to be a wonder unto itself.
Taesin alighted at the foot of the first of the eleven falls and was confronted with the overwhelming hurricane war of the water as it arrived at this level, the very air pressure gradient created by the falls was palpable and the experience of being in such close proximity to such raw power sent a shiver through her spine and made her want to suddenly release and explosive, primal yell – safe in the knowledge that none could hear her should she choose to do so.
Rhovan di Acosta was waiting for her.
Adorned in a light – coloured linen suit, causally offset with a tee – shirt as white as his flashing smile, her host greeted her with the two small kisses to each cheek, which was the custom for informal greetings in Omaja and tried to say something, but the thunderous crescendo of the falls robbed his words as soon as they had left his lips, so instead she let him take her cool, slim hand and enfold them in his wonderfully warm own and permitted him to lead her.
Smiling back at her from time to time, as if to reassure himself that she was still there and possibly to reassure her that he knew where they were going, Rhovan deftly led her on a course that threaded through the meander of the thronging tourists and eventually to a small redoubt that was cordoned off with a braided rope.
With the ease with which he penetrated this permitter, she surmised correctly that this must be a barrier to which he held the right to entry and was pleasantly pleased to find that the small meander of steps that he led her down, opened up to a beautifully – appointed private terrace that afforded a breathtaking panoramic view of the Cascade Falls.
A picnic, as equally breathtaking and sumptuous in its appointment was waiting for them on a beautifully woven rug, away from the glittering spray from the falls, which the lee of the cliff – face occluded them from, and the powerful updraft of the falls carried away through the air.
It was like being seated in the heart of a rainbow.
Quite overwhelmed by the beauty and savagery of the nature on display, Taesin let Rhovan led her towards the picnic blanket and was startled when all of sudden the thunderous noise was ceased, reduced now to a low primal rumble and she realized that she had stepped into the circumference of a ‘quiet – field’, which effectively dampened and reduced the noise from the falls and created a space of sudden, conversational intimacy.
Rhovan let go her hand and indicated for her to join him on one of the throws of comfortable floor cushions arrayed around the feast.
“You honour me, Ms. Girau, with your presence and beauty, which I fear quiet eclipse even that of the very falls themselves.” Rhovan smiled and somehow managed not to make that platitude sound contrived, which Tae had to give him points on.
Taesin found herself blush and under that strange compunction that this man seemed to be able to conjure at will. A quick and surreptitious application of her empathic ability confirmed that he wasn’t being obsequious in the slightest and she decided to abandon herself to his easy charm for the time being, she was on vacation after all.
She let Rhovan pour her a glass of chilled amber wine into a beautiful slender glass flute, that reminded her of their encounter outside the glass – blowers yesterday and smiled in her response.
“When you invited me for lunch yesterday, I hadn’t really imagined anything so….extravagant.” Taesin admitted as he poured.
That sudden little – boy – hurt look of regret illuminated his fine feature again and Rhovan frowned, she could sense his uncertainty.
“It is, perhaps, too much?” Her host worried, which she sound even more adorable.
Her laugh was light, like the tinkling of tiny bells and she found herself placing a reassuring and on his own as she shook her head easily.
“No, not at all.” It was Taesin’s turn to be embarrassed. Rhovan had obviously gone to great effort to arrange everything and she didn’t wish to undermine his efforts by tending towards dismissiveness.
“Everything is so….so wonderful, I just hadn’t thought that a humble Philosopher would have the ways and means to conjure up such a delightful contrivance, especially at such short notice.” She fenced playfully as he completed pouring her glass with a steady hand and then raised his own to toast her.
“And my lady is both as perceptive as she is full of grace.” Rhovan smiled and they both took a sip of the amber wine, which was chilled to perfection and glorious, carrying with it an afternote of summer peaches and fresh mown grass.
“Well, as nice as this all is, I’m not entirely sure that I’m ‘your lady’.” Taesin teased and then added “Well, not yet at least.” When she saw his crestfallen look turn then brighten again.
“It may help if I actually knew little more about you, who you are and where you’re from, before I venture an option on that title.” She smiled impishly. “You’re not a philosopher, that much is sure.”
Rhovan nodded and set down his wineglass.
“Actually, I am a philosopher as it happens.” The attractive Omaja native feigned a hurt look, with a sparkle in his eye. “But the di Acosta family are anything but. I am the wayward youngest son to a family business that is the mainstay of the manufacture of superconductors within the system. A dreary undertaking of which I thankfully have little understanding of and even less interest in being a part of.” Rhovan explained, much to Taesin’s evident amusement.
“Despite my family’s most insistent urging, I studied Philosophy at university and have even published two books on the subject. I reside here in one of our family homes, more at ease amounts the artists and poets of Omaja, that amongst the scion’s of industry that my father courts. In some ways that makes me the family black sheep, but it’s something I like to remain philosophical about.”
Taesin laughed again. There was something so charming and disarming about this honesty, his complete lack of pretension, that she found so utterly compelling. She was determined not to fall in love with this attractive, funny man, and just enjoy her lunch at face value, but he made it so damnedly hard to do!
To distract herself from her conundrum, she put down her own glass and countered.
“Do you really believe that in an age where science and reason reign ultimate, that there is still a place for philosophy? “
Rhovan led back on his pillow and looked at her shrewdly.
“I must admit, I hadn’t had to pegged for a cynic?” He smiled, running an olive – skinned fingertip around the ring of his glass and making a gentle ringing sound.
“I’m not!” Taesin protested but pressed him. “Surely we’ve found answers to most of the great mysteries of the universe, what is there left to explain?” She toyed with him.
“You’re a scientist, are you not?” Her host prompted and Taesin nodded, causing him to pick up a brightly – coloured exotic fruit from a platter on the picnic rug and holding it up.
“This is the universe.” Rhovan proudly announced.
“It’s a dragon – fruit, but I’ll accept the analogy.” Taesin grinned and popped a lychee into her mouth to enjoy its sweet perfume.
“As a scientist you rely upon the scientific method, which involves empirical observation, experimentation, and data analysis. Scientists formulate hypotheses, conduct experiments, and analyse results to draw conclusions about natural phenomena.” He extemporized as he held the universe in his hand.
“Philosophy, on the other hand, employs logical reasoning and critical thinking to explore abstract concepts and fundamental questions. Philosophers engage in rational inquiry and speculative reasoning without relying on empirical evidence.”
He smiled that easy smile again.
“Just as you are concerned with understanding the natural world and its mechanisms through observation of natural phenomena and data analysis, as a Philosopher, I employ logical reasoning and critical thinking to explore abstract concepts and fundamental questions.”
He began to peel the Dragon-fruit, concluding.
“We both wish to know how the universe works; the only fundamental difference is the method by which we seek to explore it.” Rhovan shrugged earnestly and she felt herself grown even more attracted to the man and his mind and cursed herself for it.
She clapped lightly and politely, conceding defeat and she smiled.
“Maybe I am a cynic after all, it comes with age.” Taesin allowed it, causing Rhovan to frown, but she saw no good reason to unpack all of that baggage right now.
“Well, I for one and glad that you decided to accept my invitation, it was the least I could do to make amends.” The delicious Rhovan di Acosta smiled openly. “Speaking of which, I have a gift for you.”
“A gift?” Taesin raised a pale eyebrow in interest.
Rhovan di Acosta nodded.
“When we met yesterday, you said that ‘What is unique cannot be replaced.’ Do you remember that?” Rhovan asked gently, his deep brown eyes invigorated by an inner light.
“Yes, I do.” Taesin nodded and watched as her drew out the box that had flown out of her grasp yesterday and shattered the beautiful glass vase that she had purchased as a peace offering to her mother.
Rhovan opened the box and there was the object d’art, but instead of being shattered into hundreds of pieces, the broken shards had been carefully re – aligned and then fused back into their original form by means of a fine filigree of gold.
Her breath caught and her eyes widened in surprise, going from the contents of the box and its miraculous transformation to search his own.
“It’s called ‘kintsugi’, it’s a centuries‑old Japanese method of restoring broken ceramics by bonding fragments with urushi lacquer and then dusting the seams with precious metal powder. The end result highlights the breakage as part of the object’s history rather than a flaw.” Rhovan searched her pale blue eyes, and she felt her heart start.
“Something unbidden during our meeting told me that you too are ‘kintsugi’, that the sum total of your beauty is the result of being broken and carefully put back together many times.” He said quietly.
“I wanted to show you that, whilst what is unique cannot be replaced, that the things that damage us can be transformed into something infinitely more beautiful, like you.”
And in that moment, she fell in love.
