The Ghosts and the Lost - Part Nine

Posted on Wed Aug 31st, 2022 @ 6:26am by Lieutenant Commander Monique Deepshadow & Lieutenant Commander Krista Deepshadow MD

Mission: Mission 109: The Travelers Path
Location: Various Locations - Starbase Vanguard
Timeline: 1830Hrs - November 18th, 2393

Krista noticed all of this play out across her twins face, as she gently grasped her twin's hand, she gently and effortlessly spun Monique back around to face her. "Why do you not like her.?" she asked in a rather blunt manner.

"She's screwing with me." Monique protested quietly. Still unsure of what to make of the conversation at hand.

"But is she right?" Krista pressed further, as she regarded her new sibling.

"Krista. Aunt Talon is having a joke at my expense." Monique answered a trifle hotly.

"No..." Krista answered her twins' anger with her own. "She isn't having a joke at your expense, she's having one at her own expense," Krista explained. "I know how human humour works... and I know how Catian humour works, they are alternating concepts that require one to think differently in various ways on the matter at hand," she explained. "She was also telling me something that I needed to know... Not to avoid the matters of family as you seem to do," she explained her position and the matter at hand with plain and simple terms.

"It's because I don't know where I fit in with this oversized family of ours... You have your own, mom remarried and so did Dad. It doesn't help that my stepmother has her own children from prior relationships and so does Dad." she paused. "It's all a lot to handle at times... and most of the time it's too much for me to process..." Monique admitted.

"Nah. I like it. It means I got many relatives directly connected to me." Krista answered. "All my life, I wondered who I was and where my biological family was located... Now I have found them all at long last... and then I hear people making jokes that you like to avoid family members... Are you always busy... Are you always working... are you just anti-social.?" Krista paused as she regarded her twin. "Which is it, honey?" she inquired further.

Monique wasn't fully sure of what her issues were so she decided to come clean with the matter at hand. "It's a combination of all of the above... Mom never told me about you, only she handed me off for aunt Miranda to look after for various reasons." Monique paused as she let out a sigh. "She never told me..."

"How could she?" Krista asked her twin in a soft, gentle tone. "When she didn't even know how to articulate it to herself, let alone anyone else.?" she then shrugged. "I was raised by a criminal before she got herself killed... I ended up on Huthea, a Caitian world so this woman could raise me as her child... Then she got herself killed and then I ended up in foster care..."

Krista regarded the other woman before her. "At least you had your family growing up. I had two elderly Caitians willing to raise me but they didn't know half of what they needed to know in dealing with me." she paused a moment as she looked at her twin. "Oh, I was a demanding child... A human being raised by Caitians to be a human, except they raised me as a Caitian... They simply did the best they could with what they had to work with... Which was... Nothing really."

Monique indicated the door to the next room. "It might have helped had I known."

"But you're still being too hard on your mother...Our mother honey." Krista answered quietly. "How was she to process the level of loss that she had suffered... Her own child, stolen and then slain later on... Leah Deepshadow hunted me, her own child to bring me home, back to Earth..."
Krista then sped her hands wide. "Then she finds out that I was slain in a botched robbery... Except I didn't die..."

"Mom was at loose ends..." Monique answered quietly. "No idea of what to do after losing you not once but twice..." she paused. "But she met Rob while at the academy..."

"Wait... Who's Rob...?" Krista asked gently.

"He's our step-father... He was the one who spent years helping mom overcome her issues... Mom once said that had it not been for Rob, she would have been forced to withdraw from the academy." Monique explained. "You'd like him... He's the guy who set the rule... The step-father who doesn't prey on the children from the previous relationship."
she added.

"Well, that's good to know... But honey, you are being too hard on our mother. Does she know where she fits into your life?, what about your father?... What about all the siblings with all of the other people involved?" Krista asked. "Hell, I wanna take Sammy to bed and make her howl. She's hot... But yeah, she's my half-sister."

Monique nodded her head. "I dunno what to do."

"Then do nothing," Krista answered. "Let her tell you... She might not tell you directly and if a translation is needed, then I will explain later... Come on, let's go finish with dinner and then eat inner... Together, as a family should." Krist smiled.

Monique nodded. "Yeah..."