[audio] username: thebeginning

[starpulse]

[ There's a new username on the block and it appears that thebeginning does not believe in texts posts, so come click play on this audio! You'll be treated to a young-sounding female voice that has diction and inflection like your grandma. ]

Attention, people of the wondrous tome!

I have been following your conversations for a few days now and I am most entertained and at the same time most confused. Just what are all of you? Am I truly speaking to mortals of far-away lands?

I do not wish to bother you only for trivialities, however. Relay to me your most entertaining story. Where I am, it is always so boring and I am so... [ yaaaawn ] sleepy...

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[audio]

[jrltezridax]

[ Is this... an alien from the wormhole? Would it be rude to ask? Is this Deatth Chat even capable of providing contact with a prophet? What would this mean for the Emissary? ]

Oh, I see! [ She doesn't see. ]

My name — Ezri — is pretty obviously Trill, you know? I think that's a human name, too. Isn't that funny how different cultures can develop the same thing? But nobody who looks at me would mistake me for human, of course. The spots are a dead giveaway! And the whole symbiont thing, but you can't see that just by looking at me. Not with my uniform on, anyway. Uh, sorry, too much information. Anyway, Dax is also pretty clearly — well, you know, Dax, but I guess my old family name, Tigan, is a little more ambiguous.

It's just great not to be the only non-human anymore! Do you have a species? Or are you really just as you are?

And — well, okay, back on track. I'm actually a counselor on Deep Space 9, right outside Bajor's wormhole! Or The Celestial Temple, as you might have heard the Bajorans call it! That's the Bajoran-Federation space station. It's a warzone, um, and we're in the middle of a war with the Dominion.

[ That's how you ask if she's from The Celestial Temple, right? Right! ]

And — oh, gosh, I'm sorry, I've gotten completely off track again, haven't I? I definitely have stories about adventure and heroism! But they're Dax's, not mine. I'm definitely not much of a hero, or... or an adventurer, really, but if I don't have just myself to pull from... You might want stories from Jadzia Dax — my previous host — she was a real fighter. Really brave, unlike me. She also lived on Deep Space 9. She was murdered by a Pah-wraith while protecting the Tears of the Prophets in the station's temple.

[ If she keeps over explaining and name-dropping these things, this one might recognize something and comment on it and confirm her theory, right? Right? Could she really be so lucky as to be encountering a Prophet? ]

That's how I became Dax's host, anyway, just because I was the closest Trill within lightyears...

[audio]

[starpulse]

[ These are a great many words stated with an air of being self-explanatory and Sothis is... impressed, for lack of a better descriptor. She does not remember the last time someone has made her feel this lost - granted, she does not remember talking to anybody much at all.

There is a pause because it's... honestly, it's kind of embarrassing to have no idea what this woman is talking about? Sothis does not like it when other people have the upper hand. ]

There are two of you in one body, then. Might I ask, how do the two of you interact?

Oh, and as for my species, I do not have a word to describe it. I am not human, that is most certain, however. And I am likewise pleased to not be the only one.

[audio]

[jrltezridax]

Oh, we don't! Dax doesn't really have its own thoughts and opinions or have any say on what my body is doing. It's just a parasite — well, symbiont. [ Oops. ] In fact, our brainwaves are completely in sync. That's to say they're just the same brainwaves. They can't be separated by any known medical means, and it's been argued in courts that a host and a symbiont, while joined, are the same person, rather than separate. That's a whole can of worms!

[ Haha. Worms. ]

More experienced hosts with proper training and practice can separate the memories and wants and desires and experiences of each past host and communicate with them actively in their headspace, but I can't even really figure out what part is me right now, let alone do all that.

[Okay, Ezri. Shoot your shot. Don't fuck this up. ]

Would you... happen to describe yourself as a non-linear being?