Ruling Passion

Posted on Tue Aug 27th, 2019 @ 1:25pm by Lieutenant Commander Mnhei'sahe Dox & Jaeih Dox-t'Aan
Edited on on Tue Aug 27th, 2019 @ 9:35pm

Mission: Family Detention
Location: Ten-Forward
Timeline: 2396, While Rita, Sonak and Az'Prel are on Vulcan

When I was young, my mother spoke often... well, lectured... on the principles of Rihannsu honor, but she never gave it a name. At least not right away.

Of course, there was a good reason for that, but one I had forgotten. My first name was hidden to me, just as I was hidden behind a facade, the illusion of false humanity. The DNA overlay and cosmetic surgery that left me with rounded human ears, curly, auburn hair and freckles was a lie. A mask meant to hide my true parentage... so that no one would discover that I was in truth the daughter of Dra'lath tr'Rul. Himself the son of Verelan t'Rul. A Deihu, or Senator, of the Ihhliae province of ch'Rihan. A very powerful women with a very long reach within a very large Star Empire which would very much like to know and lay claim to her bloodline. After all, bloodlines were sacrosanct.

So my DNA, my name, and my entire identity became a lie that I lived, a fabrication to protect me. Overwritten by ‘forbidden’ science so that my blood would tell a different story. A safer story. I was to be 'Melanie Dox'. Daughter of a simple human smuggler named Declan. A man I believed to be my father, though he was only in my life a short time before abandoning us to go rot in a prison somewhere.

In time, with the aid of a doctor more brilliant than they will ever accept of themselves, and the whispers of the woman I know as Masato Rei, but known to all those on death's door as that step into the final frontier’s gatekeeper, I learned the truth. Death herself told me the name of my forgotten father.

But by then, I had already learned my own name.

From an ancient god of tales whose name I still dare not speak for fear of invoking him, I learned my true name in his whispers as he bargained with me.

I was Mnhei'sahe.

Of course, I knew the word. Even my mother could only hide it from me for so long. As the child pilot of the smuggling ship, 'Forager', we interacted with many Rihannsu as we shepherded them from servitude to the imperium, and they all used the word. It was bizarre how it always made me pause and yet the word felt familiar and I never understood why.

Only now do I begin to wonder what about me is interesting to beings of such power that two of them would help me to restore my past. What does this portend for my future if this is just the overture, the days of my youth? I wonder, for we live in tumultuous times.

I hadn't been called 'Mnhei'sahe' since I was almost five. I had buried the memories deeply when my parents, out of fear, had me surgically and genetically altered to appear half-human. They feared my father's mother, and her wrath. Their freedom and mine would be no more than a memory if she knew of my existence. Then, my father’s section director of the Tal'Shiar had begun investigating why my father would vanish from his duties as a Romulan Tal'Shiar investigator for days on end.

He was, of course, visiting the family he had begun to grow in secret with the woman that his mother despised and believed dead.

To say the least, my childhood was… complicated.

They were quite right, as I would later learn. After my surgery where my Rihannsu ears were cropped and my DNA edited, my grandmother, Verelan t'Rul, had become suspicious of her son and growing up, I never saw him again after he left that last time. It was one trauma too many for my very young mind, and I blocked it all out. And to protect my mind, my mother decided to let me keep forgetting. Encourage it, even.

From then forward, I was Melanie. The human that was no more than a business relationship with my mother became my father. She even changed her own third name to 'Dox' to perpetuate the illusion as he too left. And we were alone again.

I was raised Rihanna. I spoke Rihan. I was taught that in spite of my appearance, I was my mother's daughter and thus a daughter of ch'Rihan regardless of my rounded ears or my then brown, damaged blood.

And a Rihanna girl needed to learn and understand the meaning of the Rihannsu ruling passion- Mnhei'sahe.

Mnhei'sahe is the principle of honor meant to to be the driving force of Rihannsu life. You live and die by that honor. It defines you, and how you conduct your life.

Mnhei'sahe requires balance, which means maintaining not only your own honor but the honor of those you interact with. To maintain mnhei'sahe means giving from yourself to aid an enemy in need. It means denying a friend to serve their needs and protect their honor.

For my mother, it meant denying a daughter the warmth and caring she wanted to give, to teach her to be powerful. Her ruling passion had to be fulfilled by making me strong. By giving me the skills to survive a galaxy that wanted to punish me for my heritage. My mother was, and is, an honorable woman.

That honor led her to destroy her career to help the helpless. That honor lead her to give up her freedom to preserve mine. That honor forced her to live a lie to protect my truth.

"Your father, he wanted to name you 'Okhala', for the element of fire." My mother told me not long ago as we spoke after work in the ship’s lounge. "We rarely agreed on matters of philosophy and even less on Religion. And In religion, he reminded me of my own father, who named me 'Jaeih' after the element of air."

Growing up, my mother taught me about the comparative religions and beliefs of ch'Rihan. She had been raised to worship the elements. Of the land that nurtured the Rihannsu people. The air they breathed. The water that sustained them. The fire that fueled them. It was a belief that served the concept of balance in the Ruling Passion. Serve the balance of life and it would serve you.

But she also spoke of the mythological legends of Al'thindor. The great bird reborn in fire that was a metaphor for the exodus of our people from when S'Task led us from Vulcan thousands of years ago. It was, of course, meant to be little more than a metaphor but it was a concept that inspired her and one that, as I gain experience in life, resonates with me.

I often wonder if Al'thindor might simply be a different name for Masato Rei, the rider of the pale horse... for Death. She who shepherds us all regardless of culture or origins to the great beyond. I could ask her directly, of course. I even told her my feelings on it once, and she didn't contradict me. But I won't ask her. It's not mine to know and I won't sully that friendship. That would betray both of our honors. Still, that idea stays with me.

As we spoke in Ten-Forward, my mother told me that my father wanted to name me 'Okhala' because I was his fire. "I didn't hate it. It's a lovely name and I did not want to contradict his desire, for you truly were his fire. But I knew your name from the moment I knew I was pregnant."

"In my life… I had done many things I regret. I turned my back on our Ruling Passion in favor of obeying orders or protecting my comforts." My mother said to me in a moment of honesty that was more and more frequent, if still surprising to me. "So I knew that you would be my reminder. Not of my mistakes, but of why I wished to rectify them."

Smiling, I simply nodded and asked what my father thought of my name.

"He understood my reasoning and ultimately agreed." My mother smiled slyly as she recollected and took a sip of her glass of Kali-Fal. "Though he did raise the issue that you would potentially have to deal with significant mockery if you engaged with other Rihannsu children."

It was something I had thought of more than once after learning of my original given name and then choosing to reclaim it. On the Hera, I was the only Rihanna. Nobody was aware that 'Mnhei'sahe' was such an important word in our culture. That it is not a word dropped casually among the better of my people.

It certainly was among the refugees we took onboard the Forager for years. It wasn't long that my mother had no choice but to put the word to its meaning in my teachings.

"I was… terrified that every time one of our passengers spoke of their ruling passion by name that it would trigger another nightmare or repressed memory for you." She told me as I nursed my coffee. "And for a while, it did to a degree. You would awake in tears, only six years old complaining of your ears hurting. Your dreams of blood and pain were fed whenever someone said your hidden name. This lasted for a time, but faded by the time you were little more than… seven, I believe."

"But perhaps he would have been right." She said with a warm smile betraying her feelings for her lost love. "Had circumstances allowed me to raise you where… as… I wanted to, you may well had been mocked for my choice of your name. You may still if you are ever able to reconnect with more of our people."

She had lingered on the word 'where' and moved on, but it fired a question in my mind of what she meant. But I put it aside for the time to discuss later. She was speaking from the heart and I would not get in the way of what I had wanted from her in my childhood: honestly.

"But he embraced my choice for you. Its meaning clear to him and one he resonated with as well. His honor was very important to him, my dear." She said, speaking of him in the past tense. When I had last seen him, not knowing who he was but simply recognizing him, he was a broken drunk. But she had learned the horrible truth years after he had left. She saw him as that same broken man I would see years later. A broken drunk that looked right at her and could not recognize her anymore. She knew that his mother must have subjected him to the device called the Neural Extraction Converter.

The device was a Tal'Shiar tool and weapon in one. One that could erase memories, rip them from the mind, or rewrite them to serve the needs of the imperium. And it was a device my mother carried the shame of having used too many times when ordered to secure the loyalty of the Rihannsu people during her own time in the Tal'Shiar. And she knew its effects when she saw it. He was alive, but his mind had been broken.

"He… cherished you, Mnhei'sahe. I know that you don't remember well his time with us, but he did." She said to me, leaning forward in her seat in our booth tucked in the rear corner of the lounge. "He never cared for the risk he took in loving you. And I know that, Starfleet or not, he would see all you have accomplished here and he would burst with pride. Many nights he would sit with you in his arms and whisper his silent prayers for you. He would tell you the stories of our people with pride and look into your eyes and see your future before you."

Leaning back, she took another sip and looked longingly out the window. "Our home is broken, Mnhei'sahe. Long ago, our people forgot what I chose to remind myself of with your name. They have forgotten what you represent. The lessons I have tried to instill in you."

Then she looked back to me and met my eyes. "And I may have failed to be what you needed and for that, I hope you know that I have far too many regrets. But when I look at you and what you have become. When I see how strongly you embody that name I gave you, I have nothing but pride."

As it is usually for me when meeting praise, I became uncomfortable and blushed like a child. I much prefer talking about anything but myself more often than not and it was no different then. I had no words to reply with as a went through my somewhat predictable motions. I looked out the window, ran my fingers over an ear. I nodded and smiled through flush, green cheeks awkwardly.

Taking the cue, Mother smiled slightly in acknowledgment and nodded, tweaking the subject somewhat laterally. "But perhaps we are at the crossroads of something new here. With your posting here and with this crew. With the beginnings of a family of your own in the works. Perhaps this is a rebirth of sorts."

Quizzically, I raised a brow towards her as she spoke. An expression that was uncomfortably close to her own face, at times. As I did, she continued, "Those children. They are of you as much as of Mona. They will be both Miradonian and Rihannsu. And that will make them exceptional individuals."

Then I watched her tone shift to the melancholy In an instant as she thought. "When you were but a child… when your father was still with us… I allowed myself the luxury of a child's dream. When we held you together in the night and looked into the stars beyond the ship, I imagined the impossible."

"There we stood, together as a family, Dra'lath at my side as we watched you grow up in peace. In my mind, I saw you laugh and play in the lavender-hued meadows of ch'Rihan. I heard your laughter echo across its soft, turquoise skies. I watched you grow up in happiness under the light of Eisn." Then she brought her gaze up to meet mine, a look of determination on her stern face.

"It was a dream unfulfilled, but one I give to you. Yours with be children of ch'Rihan as much as you are. And I pray to the Elements, and Al'thindor, and the old gods even of Vulcan lore, that you will stand with Mona and your children someday as I imagined for you on that world with happiness at last."

"I love my home, Mnhei'sahe. And I miss it terribly at times. But rarely so much as I do when I think that you have never been there."

We talked for a while longer. We talked of my career and my new wife's pregnancy. We talked of my own aspirations and fears and the tasks she now took as an unofficial member of the Hera. We spoke of many things before bidding each other good evening in our customary fashion.

Ever since joining the Hera I've noted the momentary discomfort of those around us when my mother or I say "Jolan'tru", or in truth, anything in our native tongue. The crew is all equipped with universe translators of course, but they tend to skip over the occasional random word or, in my case, expletive, especially when it's intended to be heard as it is.

That or Captain Telvan and Rita simply don't care when I curse under my breath at the helm in Rihan. A habit I need to work on and quelch as well as I did in covering up my accent.

But as I left Ten-Forward to walk the decks for a while, I thought on those momentary looks of uncomfortably over something as innocent as a cultural farewell. Nobody looks askew when Sonak gives a Vulcan Salute. Even when S'Rina and V'Nus say "Q'Plagh", many get nervouse, but none seem to be... suspicious.

Although it's still different for Rihanssu. Or, perhaps I should say, for 'Romulans'. It's there where those distinctions seem to live the hardest. What we should be as a people versus the caricature we've become. The name 'Romulan' was a crude misinterpretation of our name made centuries ago that still finds a way of twisting in me ever so slightly when I hear it and twisting very little less when I've had to use it myself out of simple expediency and not wanting to bother explaining the difference a dozen times a day.

I'll admit, I don't like the word.

When I am off duty and not with others, I like to walk the corridors. I have made habit of reading the reports of department heads, reviewing security logs and many tasks that aren't my responsibility as a simple lieutenant. But this ship is my home and I feel a responsibility to it and my fellow officers, so I like to know what's happening. And as I walk the corridors, I'm met mostly with polite, professional smiles from those that notice me or are not otherwise engaged in their own business. I notice no overt hostility or distrust in the eyes of my shipmates. Things are getting better. Those looks... and the former insults and recriminations found at the academy and at past postings that once made me want to resign my commission before joining the Hera, are all but gone. A thing of the past best left there.

I am an officer. And above that, a section chief and member of the ships senior staff. And that means that the face they see when they meet mine, Rihanna or human, must present itself professionally and responsively. And I strive to not show my frustration or irritation with the increasingly rare, if still occasionally present, looks of distrust. I don't always succeed at that. Sometimes, my delicate temper is on display more than I'd like. Sometimes I forget simple protocols like changing into a uniform not caked in my own blood if I've just been in sickbay with Plasma burns or stab wounds. Sometimes I'm less than approachable. But like the rest of the crew, I'm getting better. Making fewer such mistakes. I'm trying.

I work to show my fellow crewmembers respect. They show me respect in turn. We work together to achieve the goals set for us by the Captain and First Officer. We work together to maintain that balance. In that, there is my balance.

My ruling passion.