i’m thinking about ezri, and about trills, and specifically about how ezri gets the dax symbiont.
what we know is that she never wanted to be joined. she’s not prepared. she’s the only trill on the destiny, and en route to trill, the dax symbiont takes a turn for the worse and she becomes a host.
the thing is – we know that while rejection is a real danger, there’s still a better than 50% chance that any given trill is capable of safely being joined. but outside of us (the audience), the only people who know that are the symbiosis commission and the three people in the room in “equilibrium” where this news comes out: sisko, bashir, and dax. everybody else, including ezri and the destiny’s medical staff, believes that only one trill in a thousand can be safely joined, and that an improper joining will result in the death of both the symbiont and the host.
starfleet officers routinely take on all kinds of dangers to save lives, even to save a single life, but those are absurdly bad odds. there is no way a starfleet doctor, or a starfleet captain, would order, coerce, or probably even ask a starfleet officer to take on that kind of risk, even if it’s the only chance to save another being’s life.
which means it was ezri’s idea. which means ezri must have insisted, over the warnings and objections of the ship’s chief medical officer, that she was willing to take the risk. which means that despite personally having no interest in being joined, ezri looked at a dying symbiont and felt it was her responsibility to try and protect its life at all costs, knowing she would most likely fail and die in the process.
which says something about the trill! no one in ezri’s family is joined. for all we know, she didn’t even grow up on trill, since her family now lives off-world. but joining must be such a significant factor in trill mythology, trill culture, trill life that she couldn’t turn away from that, even in the face of all publicly available information and the fact that she doesn’t actually want to be joined.
maybe there were other factors at play that mitigated some of the risk, like universal testing for young trill children that at least point to whether someone might be able to be a host, or the possibility they would make it to trill in time for the symbiont to be removed. but it seems like regardless, ensign ezri tigan made the choice to get on that operating table, knowing that more likely than not, she would die.
in one way, she does. in another, she gets the chance to live forever. in either case, joining isn’t just something that happened to her. for all the challenges she faces in that first year, all the regrets and struggles and loss of herself, it was her very brave choice to do it. we know from jadzia that the most sacred obligation of a trill host is to ensure the survival of the symbiont, and ezri did that instinctively, without taking any oaths, without any training at all.
Ezri looks so fucking bored in this picture please just come out queen it’s okay
I love how this looks like a terrible fan photoshop AND YET IT SOMEHOW ISNT.
there’s having your ship never go canon and then there’s having your ship go canon but it’s so cardboard you have to change your username and flee the country
Kirk and Spock and Uhura… It was like waking up in one of her Academy dreams, only this time she wasn’t going to wake up with her PADD stuck to her cheek! It was a little different with Leonard; she’d known him, sort of, so he didn’t have the same larger than life feel to him.
Which was probably for the best, if they were going to spent time together and she was actually expected to speak in whole, unbabbling sentences!
“I guess it’s not all that realistic to keep it from everyone… Do you think it’s a little strange that I ended up here? I mean, I could have shown up any time, anywhere. Right in the middle of empty space, even! But somehow I fell back a few hundred years, and ended up crashing into someone I knew!”
Which, as soon as the words left her mouth, Ezri realized it sounded even more unlikely than it had in her head. “I kind of hope it’s just a coincidence.”
Ezri leaned back on her elbows so she could watch Leonard work, the regenerator looking just like she remembered (Emony had spent and awful lot of time in infirmaries just like this one!) Her ankle still throbbed, but even as she watched, she could see the swelling start to fade.
“I’m pretty sure that’s the sort of question that’s going to get us both into trouble with the Temporal authorities! But really?” She blinked up at him with a half smile, “It’s no that interesting– my life, anyway! I went to the Academy, got stuck with the Dax symbiont, and ended up on the front lines of a war that I’m reallynot supposed to talk about.’
“See, each host has the memories of all the hosts before. So Emony? She had all of Lela’s, and Tobin’s. And I’ve got all of those, plus Audrid.. Torias… Joran, and Curzon, and Jadzia!” Ezri ticked the points off on her fingers, as she usually did when he was trying to remember all her post hosts.
“But… yeah. I can remember everything that happened with Emony after she was Joined. So…” Ezri ducked her head, half hiding a laugh and a flush of embarrassment, “I definitely remember you.”
It was a bit too much of a coincidence to ignore. He didn’t want to think about it though. If the circumstances of her popping out of thin air meant something sinister was going on…that wasn’t something he needed on his mind right then. “Life’s just funny that way, I guess,” he said quietly as he flipped off the regenerator. “This should sit for a little bit more, then we can go at it again and then get you up and moving a little bit.”
“A war?!” Leonard nearly jumped back. “What sort of war are we talking about?” His eyes grew wide and one eyebrow shot up. “Tell me we aren’t about to spend the next hundred years at war with the Klingons!” He had been fortunate. In his lifetime ‘war’ wasn’t a static concept. It was something heard about from ancestors and read about in history books. Even though their relationships weren’t the best with Klingons and Romulans, there wasn’t a real war. They respected each other’s space…for the most part.
There was a scientific curiosity about Dax. He sure hadn’t met anyone else like her before. “So you simply…transfer your memories? Consciousness? Something else? That seems like a surprisingly logical way to survive.” He admired the spots running down her leg again, head spinning with a million medical questions about her species. He didn’t want to pry. He knew well enough she was humanoid, at the very least.
He couldn’t keep a grin off of his face. “Well, let me assure you,” he said as he looked at her. “I haven’t forgotten a bit of you.” Was it his imagination that she was a little flustered? “You seem a little bothered…tell me the memories are flattering.”
“Um, guess not then? Maybe just forget I said that. I don’t really want to go changing the future, but history was never my best class! Anyway, my space station is outside of Federation space. Which is a whole big story that I can’t actuallytell you.”
This was going to be such a challenge!
With a little more shuffling and twisting, her ankle protesting everything that involved moving– weight related or otherwise!– Ezri arched her back and tugged the zipper on her new uniform into place, smoothing her hands over the strangely cool material.
It wasn’t unpleasant, just… different. And there was an awful lot less of it!
“I was thinking the same thing.” She said distractedly, looking down at herself, and tugging the hem of the uniform a bit lower. How had woman gotten around in these things?! She remembered doing it, sure, but that was Emony! And Emony wasn’t exactly self conscious!
Well, there was no point putting it off.
Pushing back the curtain, Ezri resisted the urge to tap her fingers. The short skirt showed off a long stretch of pale skin, and there was something almost risque about the trail of intricate spots that curved over her collar bone, and vanished beneath the slanted uniform collar, only to appear again on her thigh where the hem didn’t cover.
“Have you been on a station recently, maybe? Or a planet where you could have picked me up? I’m not… Not really sure what you could tell your captain, Leonard. I mean, sir- doctor- bother! Names are almost as much trouble as pronouns! But I do need some kind of alias. We can’t go around telling people I just popped in from the future!
He laughed when she corrected herself again. “You can call me Leonard, that’s alright,” he said with a gentle smile. “It’s not very formal around here. Jim runs a pretty relaxed ship. Uh…Captain Kirk, that is.” It wasn’t to say they were too casual, but there was an understanding and comradery on their ship that others lacked. It was comfortable.
“We just came from Starbase 12 a couple of days ago. I could get it past most everyone on this ship, except for our Captain and First officer. They would believe you if you told them where you came from, but maybe we should hold off for now and see if we can’t getcha home first…” He didn’t want to be around for a conversation between this bubbly time traveler and Mr. Spock.
He gently pulled back the curtain and ran the dermal regenerator over her ankle once more. He had forgotten that the spots run all the way down to her feet. Looking at them was starting to bring back some memories that were best left for off-duty. “If I can get ahold of Uhura, I’ll see if she can lend you some tights,” he muttered as he forced himself to concentrate on the regenerator.
“So…you remember everything Emony did?” he couldn’t help but be curious. “That was a mighty long time ago…even longer for you. What have you been doing since then?”
He wasn’t understanding. Not really, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try. He had seen every situation from there to the edge of reality itself. There was damn near nothing he wouldn’t believe. He did look at the spots when she referenced them. Emony had similar spots, but he had never questioned her. There were so many races with so many various features, it was his personal policy not to bring any of them up unless it was in the line of duty and it had to do with their health.
Regardless of how this young lady was Emony (or not really Emony?), she was injured. And she was awfully sweet. He was just fine with her having Emony’s memories and the memories of about a billion others it seemed. Maybe every once in a while her body just rebuilt itself or something. A way of survival for her people. It wouldn’t be the wildest thing he’d heard of. They paused for a minute outside of the sickbay door. She remembered him? Well, wasn’t that flattering?
He gave her a genuine, warm smile. “Well, thank you,” he said. “I have some good memories of Emony.” Better not to elaborate on that. The door to sickbay opened automatically when he turned them toward it and he ushered her inside and propped her up on the biobed near the door. “You just relax there for a second,” he told her as he grabbed a medkit off the desk on the far wall.
He took her foot in his hand and carefully tugged off her boot. “Let’s take a look,” he said as he tugged off her sock. Definitely swollen. He prodded gently, supporting her ankle with his fingers and pressing in with his thumb. “Bad fracture,” he said tugging out an osteogenic stimulator from the medkit. He scanned the ankle over once and then pressed again lightly. “I’ll keep you here for a little bit, and you should be back up in no time. Here, lie back.”
Leonard packed up the medkit and put it aside. He positioned the pillow so it was against the wall and gently lifted her leg to keep it elevated. After he was sure she was situated, and started to putter around, putting things away.
“Alright, I gotta ask you,” he said as he tucked the medkit into a cabinet. “What sort of uniform is that?”
Leonard swore there hadn’t been anyone there a second ago. “No need to apologize,” he told her with a polite smile. He dropped to his knees in a moment to examine her foot and gently pushed up her pant leg. It was beginning to swell already, but the real injury was under her boot.
All of a sudden he realized how strangely she was dressed. He gently pulled the fabric back down and looked up at her. “I should get you to sickbay,” he said. “Getcha fixed up.” Leonard’s eyes landed on the Starfleet Emblem on her jacket. Was this some kind of uniform? Not like anything he’d ever see before.
He stood up and held his hand out, moving to support her in a respectful way. The last thing he expected was to hear his name come out of her mouth. A wildly dressed, pretty stranger dropped out of the sky and already knew him? This was like a dream. “I…sorry, do I know you?” he asked as he took her hand. “Careful, now.” He looked her in the eyes, but she wasn’t familiar at all to him. “Can you walk?”
here’s a cute lil ezri dax 5x7 inch collage that I just listed! it’s v v glittery and I sealed it with thick gloss varnish. the panel it’s on is made of wood that’s been sanded, painted black, and varnished. it has a depth of ¾ of an inch so you don’t need to attach anything to the back or get it framed in order to hang it up!
my links to my personal work, ko-fi, and shops are all in my bio!
I am going to think about ezri dax every day for the rest of my life
she never asked for this!! she never asked to wake up with eight lives worth of memories all mixed in with her own! she never asked for the ordeal of building a new person out of all that came before! she was drowned in the personalities of her predecessors and was not given a choice and she clawed her way to an identity uniquely her own and she never asked for this!!!
to have your sense of self stolen from you by circumstances beyond your control and to fight tooth and nail to be your own person again in the aftermath is. so fucking much and it was not explored deeply enough
i can’t believe ben sisko and dax are literally soulmates. not romantically, in the sweetest, very platonic kind of way. ben loved curzon and then curzon died but loving jadzia was the easiest thing in the world for him. it took him almost no time at all to develop a beautiful and important bond with jadzia and it was so easy because she was dax. and then jadzia died, and it tore him up. the only time he ever called her by her first name was after she died, when he was talking to her in her coffin, and she couldn’t hear him. she died, he left ds9, and then ezri appeared out of nowhere.
and just like that, he loved ezri too. the minute he found out who she was, he grinned widely and greeted her with an “it’s great to see you again, dax”. she asked him not to call her old man and he obliged. he tried to help her through her transition to life on ds9 in every way he could. ben sisko and dax are bound to find each other, no matter what. look at what ezri and jadzia respectively say: “i knew i had to come and see you!” “benjamin, i was happy when i heard you had accepted this assignment. i had been worried about you.” ezri was totally discombobulated after being joined, and she knew that sisko was the one she needed to go to, the one she needed to see. before jadzia even met ben, she was worried about him. sisko and dax are soulmates. they’ve been friends for three lifetimes, and you know they’ll make it four if they can.
