Pet Projects
Posted on Sun 10th Nov, 2019 @ 8:52am by Lieutenant Nalani Emmiad
679 words; about a 3 minute read
Mission:
Resolution
Location: Crew Quarters
Timeline: MD 3: 2015
Nalani was busier than she'd been in months. She remembered the reaction she'd had to the orders that she should prepare for a senior diplomatic team to arrive. While that had taken her away from lingustics for a time, it was certainly better than the bookwork she'd been doing. There was some call for translation of literature into other languages, and she'd been doing that for the Anthropological Database of Literature. Vulcan poetry didn't always translate well, and retain the beauty that it had while in the Vulcan tongue. The activity in the diplomatic arena just meant that she had more to do. She was truly enjoying the study of the language and culture of the Besm. Truly fascinating.
It was late in the evening- almost 2000 hours before she walked back into her quarters, and her beloved creatures. Multiple terrariums and aquariums decorated one wall of her quarters and her face lit up as she looked over her little bits of other planets. The large, violet edged coral beauty angelfish was brilliant in the light of her largest aquarium, as it floated through the coral and plant life.
"Honestly, I should have been a biologist." Nalani muttered to herself as she checked the meters for each of her tanks to ensure the water was within appropriate levels for the health of her fish.
"Dinner time my lovelies" she called out in a sing-songy tone her hand reaching for the foodstuffs for each tank. The largest fishtank, that held creatures from earths oceans, she dropped a small krill pellet. It dissolved in a puff, and the fish darted to and fro to eat the tiny shrimp. Briefly she paused to admire the new Alcyonium coral that she'd set in the back of the tank, and smiled at the appearance of the banded coral shrimp that picked at the sand at the bottom. Naturally she had other bottom-feeders and custodian shrimp and fish in the tank, but he was the only one out scavenging at this moment.
The saltwater tank took up a good portion of the wall in her sitting area, but it was both a thing of beauty and a conversation starter. Not that she had many visitors these days, but it had in the past been a conversation starter. This tank she'd started with coral she'd harvested from her home reef, and an anemone with its clownfish still within. There had been more, but over the years, the other corals she'd harvested had died. They had turned a beautiful white, and she'd sold them to a sculptor. It remained a little piece of home that she'd painstakingly cultivated to remind her of where she came from.
A smaller freshwater tank held an assortment of angelfish and fancy goldfish, as well as a mated pair of Jaixa Frogs. They were a beautiful opalescent blue purple and black. Her favorite fish were in this tank, a chocolate oranda goldfish and a koi angelfish. Her fingers stroked over the glass of the tank and hummed softly to herself. The tank itself slowly raised into a terrarium, to allow the frogs out of the water from time to time and give the trio of snakes that also lived in this tank both humidity and water. A red milk snake-Scarlett, a piebald ball python-Sierra and a silver streak ball python-Luna. A quick glance at them and she reached in to stroke the silver python. She was beautifully marked, but starting to grow too large for this tank she'd lived in since she was a baby. Nalani definitely needed to make a new terrarium for the snakes.
The light reflecting out of the tank cast rippling motes of blue light onto her cream colored walls and she relaxed into the embrace of the cream loveseat with dark blue decorative pillows. On her lap was a PADD with a diagram of the new terrariums. She could separate the snakes into separate enclosures that connected with a small tree or branch. Tapping her nails on the side of the PADD, she pondered the designs before her.
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