1 ✧ A Night at the Opera

[jadzia]

WHO: Jadzia Dax
WHERE: The opera house and the lab
WHAT: Poking around in some of the city's outskirts.
WHEN: This takes place after the 'air rows' signs appeared.
WARNINGS: None at the moment!

-------=+=-------

If it weren't labeled in Klingon, it wouldn't have been as interesting.

While she's been something of a cultural connoisseur over her assorted lifetimes, Jadzia won't deny that she'd inherited an enduring fascination with all things Klingon from Curzon--and one most of her crewmates sadly didn't share.

Seeing the label here made her wonder, not for the first time, about what the Agrii were like, and how much they knew about their chosen champions. Had they put the sign there to entice her? Because of course it was working. With her bat'leth tied to her back using a vine as a makeshift rope, Jadzia forged a path through the overgrown lawn to the check out the building.

-------=+=-------

These signs weren't quite as simple to read as the Klingon had been, but she got the gist after riddling out the binary code. The row of buildings seemed to have been laboratories once, though they and the equipment within is all derelict, some salvageable and some clearly beyond repair.

Maybe she can find tools here to help her repair Julian's tricorder; having a tool like that would make things much easier on them, especially if she'd be able to easily scan their food items for compounds that might be harmful to her symbiont.

-------=+=-------

Wildcard!

Comments

[jadzia]

Jadzia casts a glance over her shoulder when she hears someone approaching, smiling gamely at Steve's comment. "Not at all. A little exercise never hurt anyone."

Since the new arrival seems to be going in the same direction, she stops to wait for him, arms akimbo. Her uniform is a little worse for wear, stained with grass and dirt from exploration, and her hair has been pulled back into a bun, leaving the trail of rosette spots exposed from her temples down into the collar of her top.

"Can you read Klingon or were you just exploring?" She guesses it's closer to the latter than the former, but makes no assumptions. Nodding once, she gestures to the immense building. "I believe it's an auditorium of some kind. The sign says 'opera,' so I thought it'd be fun to take a peek inside."

[brooklyn_boy]

"Klingon...ah, no." Steve takes that and her outfit as a clue that she's not from the same universe as him. Or at least not one from the same time. Not that big of a surprise considering the cast of characters he's been meeting. "But an opera house. Huh. That is a pretty big clue about who these people were..."

Steve jogs up to come beside her and extends a hand in introduction. "Steve Rogers. Earth. Uh...Earth with superheroes..." It's as good a description as he can give to differentate universes.

[jadzia]

Steve's rather succinct description of where he's from makes her grin even wider, and she extends her hand to him, grip firm and self-assured.

"Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Steve. I'm Jadzia Dax. I'm from a planet called Trill, but I've been to Earth. Most of my best friends and crewmates are from Earth. I can't speak for super heroes, but there are heroes in spades."

Without waiting to see how he'll respond to hanging out with an actual alien from another planet, Jadzia starts off again toward the building. "I love a good opera," she tells Steve as they walk. "Klingon operas are a personal favorite, which is why it's interesting that the building was labeled in Klingon. If it iS an opera house, I'd be willing to say they took the arts very seriously, if the size of the building is any indicator. We'll see when we get inside... if you'd like to join me?"

[brooklyn_boy]

If she's expecting a reaction Steve is going to disappoint her. He's had so much exposure to aliens that one who looks almost like a human with tattoos isn't going to alarm him. He just shakes her hand back with the same open smile and widens it at the new information. He has no idea who the Klingons are but, if they make opera, they can't be all that bad, clearly.

"Yeah, 'course I'll join you."

Steve tightens the shield around his back and waves a hand for Jadzia to lead the way.

"I've never been much for opera," he concedes for conversation sake as they move along. "But I used to love the movies. Cartoons came about when I was younger and, boy. My friend hated Snow White by the time it was out of theaters, I took him so much..."

[jadzia]

"Klingon opera isn't exactly for the faint of heart," Jadzia explains as they walk. "Most of my friends don't care for it, which is a real shame. The stories are full of such drama and passion."

Steve's story about Snow White has Jadzia scratching her chin in consideration, drawing on memory stores that span entire centuries of life lived. "If I'm not mistaken, the art of animation on Earth is nearly four hundred years old at this point. When were you born, exactly?"

[brooklyn_boy]

Steve ducks his head a little. He wasn't expecting anyone who didn't know him to be aware of how out of date his references were. Jadzia clearly knew a lot about the Earth and her Earth and his had enough similarities for her to catch on.

"1918," he says with a shrug as though it's no big deal. "My boyfriend was born in 1917, though, so technically I'm not the oldest one here."

He knows he needs to provide more of an explanation than that and sighs.

"I was born back then and fought in World War II. During that time I crashed in ice and was frozen until the early 2010's.

"Man out of time."

[jadzia]

"The 2010's? Fascinating. My symbiont hatched in 2018." But he wouldn't know what that means, so she explains. "My species, the Trill, are capable of joining in a symbiotic union with another species on our homeworld, simply called 'symbionts'. My symbiont, Dax, has been joined with eight other hosts; the person I am now is a blending of the woman I was before--Jadzia--and all the memories and experiences of my previous hosts."

Hey, it's no more outlandish than being frozen in ice for nearly a century.

"How did you survive that, by the way?" she asks, her curiosity overwhelming her. He must be physically augmented in some way that would have made being frozen survivable. Or perhaps the physical constants aren't quite the same in his universe?

[brooklyn_boy]

Steve, for a moment, thinks that Jadzia said 'Symbolic' but quickly realizes the error as she keeps going. Symbionts. Definitely something new but not something so odd that Steve is taken aback by it. If anything, the idea that Jadzia might have even a tiny understanding of what it feels like to be out of one's own time is a comfort. As Steve journeys forward with her he is easily able to answer her question in a way he might not have been with others.

"I survived because I have a serum that a scientist created that heightens everything about me. Makes me super fast, super strong, heal fast... Things like that. When I was frozen the serum kept me just alive enough to be thawed and revived.

"Same thing happened to the other Captain America, here, just in his universe. Apparently we're all meant to take an ice bath."

[jadzia]

Steve's rather succinct explanation of how he managed to survive as long as he did prompts her to give him an unsubtle once-over, but with an eye more critical and studying than flirtatious. "A serum? I suppose it would have acted like a form of antifreeze in your body," she speculates. "If some property of the serum affected the way ice crystals formed, it would have prevented cellular damage--"

She shakes her head with a chuckle, reigning herself in. It occurs to her that being frozen for the better part of a century might not be something he's interested in discussing in great detail, but the scientific aspect of it is intriguing. Then something he says makes her brows quirk in wry amusement.

"Captain America?" she asks, pushing through a clump of grass.

[brooklyn_boy]

Steve has flashes of a female Tony as Jadzia speaks and has to reign in the feeling of nostalgia and longing. He smiles warm as she picks up on his title and decides to just embrace it right now. "Superhero name," he explains in a drastic summarization. There's some rock in front of them and he picks it up like it was a pillow and tosses it. Some animal scurries out but it doesn't look dangerous. Steve walks on.

"I fought under Captain America back when propaganda needed someone to center around. Just kinda stuck after that." He shrugs a shoulder. "Technically my boyfriend is Captain America too, in his universe.

"Long story."

[jadzia]

Watching Steve heft the sizable rock and casually cast it aside like a pebble is... well, it's impressive. Being in Starfleet, she's seen plenty of incredible feats performed by humanoid aliens of every stripe, but for a human it's another thing entirely. The effects of the serum must be profound to give him that kind of physical ability.

His comment about his boyfriend has her arching a brow at him. "We've been aware of the existence of alternate universes for some time in the Federation. On more than one occasion, there have been incursions into one we've dubbed 'the mirror universe,' which is ruled by the Terran Empire, based on Earth." Then she changes gears. "How did you two meet, then?"

[brooklyn_boy]

Steve is about to ask about the Terran Empire before Jadzia successfully details the conversation by asking about Bucky. He smiles wide and looks at the ground as his cheeks redden.

"He was my best friend my whole life. I mean. That part of our universes are the same, at least, even if he specifically wasn't my best friend." It's complicated but Steve figures Jadzia will get it. "He saved me from some bullies and for some reason kept hanging around me. We stuck together ever since."