“Far be it for me to judge you or anyone.” Rixx said, and by anyone, he generally meant other Rodulans.

He was slowly learning to incorporate other species into his worldview. Thus far he has a clear, distinct memory of every Rodulan he had met, shining in his memory as a true and complete being. And then there were a few others of different species who had made enough of an impression on him that he recognized them as a distinct and complete individual.

And then there was the mass of ‘transients’ out there. Aimless lifeforms drifting through a short lifespan, a short matchstick fire in the big dark galaxy, a tiny flare before they burned out.

“I am Nestira.”, Nestira introduced herself. “And this is Alasafor. We were visiting before the Blackout came and we got… stuck. How about you?”

She was trying to sound friendly, and distinctly non-threatening.

”Something similar.” Alcyone responded. “We were supposed to travel to Earth from here, but…”

Her voice trailed off. Yes, they were all stuck here, and as much as they all tried to forget that fact, it loomed over them like a shadow.

“But the blackouts.” Whether Rixx had no concern for the coddling of others feelings or he did have concern, but simply didn’t recognize when some things shouldn’t be bluntly placed out into the open was unclear. “Were you seeing someone… family?”

He was digging, just a little bit, to keep her talking.

“Here? No. I was traveling with the USS Sirona, and we had planned to spend a few days here, not more.”

Nestira tilted her head in surprise. “You look young to be part of Starfleet.”

Alcyone, who had heard that same statement made many many times before, sighed. “I’m still growing. Just not very reliably.”

She had been mistaken for an Ensign or Cadet more often than she could count, and commanding others’ respect was difficult when you looked like you still had a curfew.
Alcyone knew that many people tried to attain eternal youth – there were countless medical procedures for that – but she couldn’t relate. She was very much looking forward to not being stuck in the body of an adolescent for the rest of her life.

Rixx gazed at her and nodded. “You must be twice the age of most of the young people you work with?” he surmised.

“No.”, she shook her head. “Same age.”

He shrugged, even if he was a little off, he seemed unsurprised. “What if I told you I was over two hundred years old?” he fixed his dark eyes on Alcyone, his slim facial features hardly looking past a human age of forty. Thirty if he was hale and healthy and has recouped some of the color in his features again.

“That would be… old.”

Unfathomably old.

“You may simply be born of a species that ages slowly. There is nothing wrong with that, it is merely… different.” Rixx offered gently.

Though the question struck him – what other Rodulans were out and about in the galaxy? His species loathed leaving their homeworld, generally only venturing off-world for the shortest of trips necessary to complete needed diplomacy or commerce. He was an exile, Nestira was a rebel…