The Will of the Prophets

by Cath Allan

Date: 1/28/99 4:55:22 AM MST
Disclaimer: Paramount owns just about everything Trek-related except this bit. Not that they'd want it anyway.

ObInfo: This is what happens when I fabricate a non-existant story to threaten RAFL. I must not be so naughty ever again.

The Will of the Prophets

Catherine Allan

Odo surfaced from a strange, green fog that made everything waver. Or at
least, he tried to. The larger part of his consciousness, the part of him
that held his dignity restraint, and most of his personality, remained
trapped underneath the fog. All he could do at the moment was listen and
observe.

His last memory was of attending some truly awful security conferance on
Bajor. It was awful in two ways; first, because the lecturers only spoke in
monotone and seemed to be all reading from last year's notes, and second,
because Nerys was busy on the station trying to find out what mysterious
little disease she had and why it wouldn't leave her alone. He'd been about
to call the station and plan a trip back when one of his fellow attendees
collided with him. Odo hadn't noticed the crayon-sized crystal until it was
too late.

"Relax," whispered the stranger, "the Prophets have willed this."

The rest of his recollection was a blur, and some of his other memories
scattered when he tried to access them. His arms wouldn't work, and neither
would his voice. All he came out with was, "Wfgl?"

"Good. You're awake."

He knew that voice, he just couldn't place it. Some
threat to Nerys or himself. The part of his mind that was beyond the green
fog recognised it, too, from a far longer time ago.

"I was beginning to be worried."

"Mwfl?" Was all Odo could manage.

Orange robes, blonde hair, and a familiar face drifted into view. "Don't
fight it, Odo. You belong here, and I have proof. I found the Prophecy that
will stop the war." She displayed a yellowed scroll, and gently unfurled it
to recite, "The Reckoning shall be undone, and the Prophets will chastise
the Emissary. Therefore, for peace to reign, he who is declared the last of
the dying Gods must join with Bajor, and father the children of peace."

The greater part of his mind, even though it was submerged, fought to
argue. _That could mean *anything*!_ His mind protested. _For all we know,
the Q are in trouble too... Oh, Nerys, help me._ His voice, now a traitor to
him, made an agreeable little noise. Now he knew her. Kai Winn.

"Your people are dying," Winn soothed, "and you've been told that you're
the last. I, of course, being the spiritual leader of Bajor, am the heart of
Bajor. It's been said by some that I *am* Bajor."

Odo tried his best to call out for his beloved, but all that issued forth
was a mouselike, "Nryss?"

"Forget her. *I* am Bajor! The Prophets should be talking to *me*, not
some two-bit little ex-rebel who hasn't *seen* Bajor in over a year..." He
must have flinched, since Winn instantly gentled. "But that doesn't matter.
All that matters is the Prophecy."

A distant alarm sounded. Winn fished in a recess and retrieved another
familliar-looking crystal. This time it was as thick as her wrist. "This
should keep you from wandering too far from the Prophet's path." She pushed
it into his matter, smiling as she did so. "At least *you* had drugs that
helped you forget, my dear Odo. I had nothing but the silent Prophets...
Before I'm done with you, you *will* remember - everything."

The fog wrapped him in a pleasant haze, his senses numbed, Odo tried to
find an answer in the shattered and elusive fragments of his past.

//Warm, soft hands covering his eyes. He knew who it was, even before her
voice said, "Guess who."

He laughed, an unfamilliar thing for him a mere year ago. "I knew you were
trying to sneak up on me a few minutes ago, Nerys."

She removed her hands, revealing a tremendously cute pout. "You're always
spoiling my fun."

"Can I help it if I always know where you are, Ale'al?"

Nerys' pout turned into a grin as she settled into his lap without a damn
for who may be watching outside. "Well, *this* time I can turn the tables on
you." She grinned, producing a little box, "Happy anniversary."

The box held a locket, which confused him as he tried to examine it. "How
can *this* help?"

"It's a special alloy," she informed, showing off a wristlet she had
hidden under her uniform arm. "and this shows me where the locket is. It's
the only tracer made for that alloy, which Dax cooked up for me on request."

Odo looped the chain around his neck, and let the locket and chain sink
into his being. "I'll have it with me always," He promised. "Can you still
read it?"

She checked, rolling her eyes at him. "*Ye-es*."

"How about now?"

Nerys laughed. Prophets, how he loved that sound. "Odo, what are you
*doing* to it? I've got some kind of weird subspace amplification registered
here."

"I just pushed it deeper - aside."

"*What*?"

He explained how his body worked, and where the rest of him went when he
was being, say, a rat. Having his own personal subspace pocket was a very
useful thing, sometimes.

Nerys took it in stride. "So *that's* where your communicator goes..." She
paused to kiss him. "You're going to have to hold it away from your aside,
Ale'al, you could blow out my little receiver."

"Oh, all right." He made the rather minor adjustment. "Better?"

"Much. Now, what are we doing tonight, Constable?"

"Unfortunately, saying goodbye for a while." Odo sighed, embracing his
beloved. "I have to attend the annual security conferance on Bajor."

She groaned. "Just when I *don't* need it. I'm going to have to be stuck
here while Bashir *probes* me..." Nerys kissed him a few times and murmured,

"Are you sure I can't convince you to stay?"

"If you like the idea of me loosing my job." Odo kissed her back.
"Although unemployment could have some advantages."

Her pout was delightful. "Fine. I'll let you go; but you have to call
*every* night."

"I promise."//

Odo wanted to weep. He'd broken his promise to his beloved Nerys. He had
no way of weeping, and no capability for anything else. He wished he'd never
seen that stupid crystal...

//Mora administered the antagonist, and watched with concern as Odo slowly
surfaced, shuddering, from the green fog. "Better, now?"

"Why do you have to do this?" Croaked the shapeshifter. "My body's better
off without these - reactions; I can feel it."

Mora's answer was as inevitable as death. "It's part of the Work, Odo. The
more we piece together, the more we know about your people."

His entire being felt - frayed. As if someone had decided to whip it
several times over razor-sharp shreds of duranium.//

The rest of that memory decended into the fog, and Winn was back. Wearing
considerably less than she had before. The fog-shrouded part of him, the one
that had access to memories he didn't know he had, idly pondered that the
Kai's figure was very well-preserved. A little stouter than last time, but
she *had* been starving, back then.

The rest of Odo was wondering exactly what the hell the other, amiably
drugged half of him was talking about. Unfortunately, the happy,
green-wrapped idiot didn't like talking to *him*.

"You're remembering, aren't you?" Winn asked sweetly. She had the sort of
voice that always had a blade in it, even when talking to babies. She sat
her demiclothed body next to his idly lolling one and gently ran a hand over
his form. "I've been remembering, too. If I'd only known of the Prophecy,
back then, we could have avoided all this, but I suppose that the Prophets
in their wisdom wanted me elsewhere. They have ways of making sure their
children are where they're needed when a Prophecy is due to happen."

The touch of her, through the green, was intensely exciting. His
experiences Linking with Nerys were better, though. More - personal. Making
love while half of him wasn't there wasn't his personal idea of fun, but the
shrouded part of him was thoroughly enjoying himself. The dolt. Some form of
strange, sensual echo washed over him half a minute after her initial
contact. It washed through his being like a bolt of electricity.

He was caught, and helpless to stop it. Just like before.

"Good," Winn purred, voice full of knives, "you *do* remember. That will
make this far easier for the both of us." She shed the rest of the fragments
of cloth and murmured, "all you have to do is remember that night, and do it
again."

By then, he could barely hear her, snared in the electrifying bolts and
echoes of pleasure. He could feel his body, under the control of the drugged
half of him, begin to caress Winn's form in return. Half of him was
disgusted and appalled, as well as terrified. The other half, wrapped in the
oblivion of the drugs, didn't care.

_It's easier to give in, Odo'ital, remember?_

But he didn't remember...

//The party had gone on for days. Odo Ital didn't remember very many of
them. The woman who the soldiers had taken him to had given him lots of the
peculiar compounds Mora had only tested once. She'd evidently had a lot of
fun testing out the properties for herself. He'd surrendered after a massive
dose of the crystal that wrapped him in green fog.

Now, she was sharing.

From what she'd told him, her husband delighted in being away from their
politically advantageous marriage. It was high time she had a child, and
since he was away fertillising other females, she'd decided to get revenge.

She didn't care who or even *what* she conceived a child with. There were
Bajoran prostitutes of both genders present, as well as Cardassians who
seemed to be enjoying the party. Each of the Cardassians had taken him aside
at one time or another, and they'd exchanged pleasures; Odo Ital, desperate
for anything resembling a kind touch, quickly gave in to whatever they
wanted.//

His body remembered, easing itself over skin both strange and familiar,
letting the drug carry him into paradise. Part of him - against what he
always thought of as his will; began to caress her soft folds, probing for
her innermost secrets. Odo tried to take his mind away, and let his body do
whatever it had to to survive this situation. He was trapped in the fog, and
couldn't escape; not even into the nothingness that had always been his
final refuge.

In the end, he fled to the memories that came to him.

//The feel of Nerys' hair...//

//They wanted to humiliate him, some of them, but quickly found that Ital
was no sport. Some, angered by his submissiveness, struck him.

The green fog didn't understand pain, and converted it into pleasure.//
//A Bajoran woman, thrust at his addled self. Blonde, thin, and with eyes
that burned. "Go on, shapeshifter," urged the Cardassian, "show us all how
you take a whore!"//

Now he was the whore, thrusting into a stranger, titilating another who
was *not* his beloved. Satiating a rapist.

He felt filthy, even when Winn, finished with his body's desires, gently
washed his form. He wanted to scream and howl, claw his way back into
consciousness and show her what an *angry* shapeshifter could do. Odo was
even more shamed when he discovered that his body, drugged and incapable of
much movement, was trembling for another touch.

-----------------------


Winn was talking to him with the voice that had the least number of blades
in it. "There now, that wasn't so bad... and *all* we have to do, is keep
going until the Prophecy is fulfilled."

_Oh, Nerys, where *are* you? Can't you find me?_

"Here's your reward, my dear." Another crystal, pushed deep into him.

Pushed into his core, the part of him that exchanged his exhausted matter
with the rested. The green fog filled him in one, shocking blast. She knew.
She knew all his secrets.

//"He likes it when you do it *this* way." The betrayed wife positioned
the crystal with practiced ease, right over his core. "Gently, now. If you
do it right, he'll take you to the heavens before he knows it."

They did it right, whoever they were. All Odo Ital recalled was the green
fog, and a pair of burning eyes, watching. Always watching.//

Kira Nerys knelt before the Prophets, and wept as she prayed. There was no
formal structure to her prayer, only a litany. _Oh, holy Prophets, please
care for him. Make sure he's alright. Why can't I find him? Where is he?
Prophets please give me a sign, lead me on the path that brings us back
together. Please, Prophets, *please*..._

"You know, I could *order* you to take a break," Bashir said
conversationally. "This is doing absolutely nothing for your health."

Normally, she would have fought. She would have broken one of his bones
and not cared. Instead, she wept and prayed to the Prophets, or tried to. It
felt like someone had taken half of her soul, torn it from her, and nothing
could heal that great, gaping wound inside.

"Or, I could sedate you and drag you off to the infirmary. Which would you
prefer?"

"Damn you, Julian." Her voice was full of tears, and had lost its usual
invective.

"Come on," he helped her up. "we'll see how the search is doing."

"Something's blocking my scanner," Nerys complained, "I don't know where
he is, if he's alright. If he's *alive*." She sniffed, wiping moisture from
her face.

"We *will* find him." Bashir promised. "No matter what happens, we *will*
find him."

_Oh, holy Prophets, *please*..._

Miles away, under a cloud of drugs, Odo unwittingly shared the same
thought with his beloved. _Oh, holy Prophets, *please*..._ The memories were
the worst, surfacing to taunt him whenever consciousness called. Shocking
him with the things he'd done over that missing two months in his memory.
Before, he'd simply recovered in the Lab, and Mora only told him that it was
better not remembering.

Two months, gone.

He'd wondered where they went, how, and why the scientist was
closed-mouthed and shame-faced about it. Mora let him think that some drug
nearly killed him, and the two months were spent in delerious recovery of
some sort.

Now that he remembered, he wanted to go back to believing such a pleasant
lie.

It was so hard to remember anything else but the times under the green
cloud, now. Everything else was fading into a distant fog. There was
pleasure here, the fog seemed to say, so why fight?
He had to admit it did have a point. There was something very nice about
the company of a female, even if they did seem to spend most of it having
sex. She talked a lot, while he lost more and more control over himself.

The fog remembered her name as being Eleka, a Bajoran 'comfort girl' who
must have decided that her current employment was better than starving in
the mines. The last time he'd been submerged in the fog, and they'd -
coupled; he'd found the tiny signs of life inside, too small to be noticed
yet. Now she wanted another?

Didn't she know that was impossible when he was under the fog?

He neared another climax, his seed long since curdled and ruined by the
drug. The only life it could start would be if any mould grew on it.
Useless. Under the green shroud, he was just a pleasure-toy. Eleka didn't
seem to care. After a while, neither did he.

He was allowed a respite, during which time Eleka vanished, and he was
left alone with himself and the fog. His body was more or less liquid
inside, not bothering with structure any more. Something inside was nearing
his core. All Odo knew was that he couldn't let it fall inside Aside, but he
couldn't recall why.

His control was limited. In the end, all he could do was watch it drift
closer and closer.

Closer and closer.

And gone.

Miles away, something bleeped into life, and someone's prayers had been
answered. Odo knew nothing of this, and wanted to howl his distress at
failing to do something important.

Eleka was back, holding another crystal for him. "There now," she purred.
"I haven't forgotten you. You'll soon feel no pain at all."

"Drop it." Another voice, unfamilliar to the fog, commanded.

"You will *not* stand in the way of the Prophecy!" Eleka snapped. "They
have chosen *me* to bear the children of peace. *I* am Bajor!"

Odo fought to look at the other. Red uniform. Red hair. Fire inside and
out. Strong and beautiful. Holding a phaser on Eleka.

"The Prophets don't hold with abducting and drugging your way into the
Prophecies." The firy beauty sidled her way towards the ancient scroll,
reading the words while being extremely wary of Eleka. Then Red laughed.
"The prophecy's already come true."

Eleka changed her grip on the crystal shard. "The Prophets chose *me*."
"They never talked to you. My time hosting them gave me the ability to see
the meaning of their words, Winn. To 'join with Bajor' means that he'll join
with a Bajoran who signifies Bajor to *him*. I'm his symbol."

"You do not *know* this. *I* was his first Bajoran mate. *I* should have
been the one."

"You're too late, Winn. I'm already pregnant. Bashir says I've been
carrying for almost a month."

Eleka had been moving, very subtley, into an attacking stance. She
screamed and dove for the Red one. Red fired at the shard, which exploded in
Eleka's hand, and dodged out of the way. Eleka fell, wounded and sobbing, to
the dirt floor of the cavern.

He couldn't remember her *name*. He knew she was important to him, and the
news of the impending child was as significant, but it made no more contact
than that on his mind. She holstered her weapon, trying to shake him into
reality.

"Kira to Bashir. Odo's on some kind of drug, he looks out of it. Winn's
here, too. She's been wounded."

Kira. The name was like a fire in his mind. He struggled to echo it, and
managed, "N'rysss?" Nerys. Kira Nerys. He knew her now. His beloved. His
life. His bond to Bajor.

"Shh," Nerys soothed, "Everything's going to be alright, soon."

"Have... to tell... b'fore I forget."

"It'd be better if you *did* forget, Ale'al. You don't need to remember
any of it."

Ah. That was alright, then. Odo let himself fade out of consciousness.


----------------------------


"Mwfl?"

"Oh, good. You're awake."

Odo looked around him. "I was on Bajor. Nerys, what happened?"

Nerys was making some complicated calculation in her head. "Kai Winn
misread a Prophecy involving you and a lasting peace for Bajor. She arranged
the 'conferance' and had you drugged. She managed to keep you captive for a
week before we found you."

Odo searched his memories, and found nothing. "I - don't remember that
week..."

"Good." She wiped her face. Nerys had very obviously seen something at the
end of that week that had disturbed her no end. Odo had a sneaking suspicion
he'd never find out what that was. "You remember that lingering cold we
thought I had?"

"Of course. You were worrying me. Did Bashir find a cure?"

"Better," she grinned, "it wasn't a lingering cold. Odo, we're going to be
a family."

It was the first and only time in his life that he fainted.


END.

Cath :)
How's that for smut that the juniours might be able to read?



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