June 12, 2363

Happy birthday to me. I called Kaith and Kang each to wish them well on the anniversary of our birth. I found out that Kang has a very lovely girlfriend, a trill named Jelnazia, because apparently my call came while they were enjoying his birthday present in bed.

She's an artist. She mostly paints, but does stone and metal sculpture too. She met Kang when she was commissioned to do a statue for a great family, and some of her tools broke down. Cursing in a beautiful string of Klingon in her workspace near a public walkway, she drew his attention. He sprung to her rescue, repaired her equipment and convinced her to join him for a drink that evening.

That was three months ago, and since then she's been trying to keep up the work flow on Qo'noS so they don't have to play the long distance relationship game. Apparently it's been causing a bit of a stir that she's been bringing my brother with her to the unveiling parties for her commissions. Justifying going off world for an artist is easy, Klingons are warriors, not artists. Justifying your artist dating a half breed? A little awkward. At least we have family in service of the empire, so that makes it a little easier.

Zia promised to send me a copy of her portfolio, when Kang sends the present he said he had for me, after I started asking about what she did when she wasn't capturing the “warrior spirit” in metal or stone. Kang actually blushed a bit when she started gushing about how the nudes she painted of him were some of the best she's ever done. I suggested commissioning her to get a picture of Me, Kaith and Kang painted for Mama's birthday.

Kaith's gotten a promotion, about a week ago. He's a junior tactical officer now. His fluency in English helped even, as they usually start hinting you should learn it when they're starting to groom you for promotion into the higher ranks. Apparently only his fellow low ranking peon crew mates had heard him speaking it, when he'd call and talk to me, as the first time a hint was dropped, he replied in English and gave his commanding officer the surprise of his life. The whole crew is still talking about it a month later.

He tells me Mama's proud of him, but she still doesn't seem interested in talking to me. Nice to know that she can't make up her mind still. I still hear from her all the time because she's started calling and talking to Travis somewhat regularly, and he finds this about as normal as I find my brothers and I interrupting each other's sex. Thankfully this communication channel goes both directions, as Travis reports to me what she has to say when she calls him. I think Mama knows this, and is using him to get around admitting that maybe I'd been right about Kaith needing a military career.

Travis' family sent me out a present for my birthday. They'd managed to time it right so that it arrived at the station right before we pulled out for the run, and Travis hid it away until this morning. The birthday card was drawn for me by Grace, and they found me the prettiest pair of patchwork suede boots, black and white. They lace up the side and come to just under my knee. Travis couldn't help laughing with delight when I pulled on the boots without bothering to put on another scrap of clothing. Because of this, I selected to make this my birthday outfit, at least until I called my brothers. Blue was quite amused as well.

This went over especially well when we had pirates board the ship, and I elected to go help Blue dispatch them as I was. Best Birthday Present ever, getting to cause chaos and pain to pirates while wearing nothing more than my pretty new boots.

When Blue teased that I should spar with him like that, Travis did get a little defensive and possessive. It was cute, and Blue soothed his jealousy by assuring him that nothing he could do would make me stray. While it was cute, it also surprised me, as Travis hadn't shown himself to be the jealous sort before, even though he had clearly established before we hooked up that he was monogamous.