Very Old Wounds

Posted on Wed Sep 25th, 2019 @ 3:22pm by erei'Riov (Commander) Arrenhe t'Suil & Jaeih Dox-t'Aan & Deihu (Senator) Verelan t'Rul
Edited on on Mon Sep 30th, 2019 @ 12:47pm

Mission: Family Detention
Location: Brig of The People's Will
Timeline: 2396

Walking through the cold, claustrophobic brig of the Romulan Warbird, the People’s Will, Erei’Riov Arrenhe t'Suil walked slowly to the cell of the traitor, Jaeih Dox. It had been two days since she or her mistress, Riov Dalia Rendal had been in the brig since Rendal last spoke to Jaeih’s daughter, Lieutenant Mnhei’sahe Dox.

Two days free of questions or torture for the prisoners while plans were being made and preparations were put into motion. T’Suil found that it seemed that the debate with the young Dox had troubled her noble Riov. She was concerned that the mewling child, Dox, had made her mistress even question her resolve, but that time was done. The Riov had decided on her next course of action and it fell to her SubCommander to implement it.

Standing outside the forcefield, t’Suil spoke. “Jaeih Dox, blood traitor to the Imperium, you are to be moved.”

Inside, there had been almost no light for the imprisoned Intelligence operative and former Tal’Shiar agent but for the sickly green glow of the force field generators for over two weeks now. But suddenly, as t’Suil pressed a pad outside the door, the overhead light snapped on.

“AAAH!!” Jaeih yelled as the sudden light shocked her awake. Blinking, Jaeih strained to focus through swollen, bruised eyes. When Mnhei’sahe Dox needed to have her resolve to resist weakened, Riov Rendal had chosen to have her Mother and Grandmother beaten to make her point. And Jaeih still had bruises to spare. “You? Rendal’s little lackey. What do you want?”

“I do not like to repeat myself, traitor. You are being moved to prepare for your… treatment. You will turn and lay flat on the cot with your arms crossed behind your back. Comply or you will be stunned and moved regardless.” t’Suil said with an angry sneer, disgusted by the sight of the woman who had once betrayed her beloved Empire.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to put you out any, would I.” Jaeih scowled, her eyes narrowed. In truth, she was glad for the beating in a strange way. The pain gave her something real to focus on these past few days. Something to keep her from retreating into her own mind as she was threatening to. As she spoke, she turned over on her thin, flimsy cot and folded her arms behind her back. If anything, staying awake while being moved was an opportunity to learn more about her surroundings. The layout of the brig, perhaps. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

“Excellent. You are capable of at least following basic directions. Do not move until instructed to. Or move if you’d like. I would very much enjoy reminding you of the cost of betraying the Imperium.” t’Suil said as she stepped back, deactivated the field and held up two fingers.

As she did, two Centurions entered the cell and attached a pair of wrist shackles to Jaeih as she lay there before pulling her painfully off the cot to her feet. It was painful but Jaeih made no sounds to give t’Suil any further satisfaction.

“Centurions, attend our guest to detention cell 22-C.” t’Suil said, as they shoved Jaeih forward. Passing t’Suil, Jaeih kept herself from making eye contact as they lead her down the corridor of cell doors. Two of them had active fields glowing. One six ahead, and the last at the end of the corridor. Slowly, they passed the first of the glowing cells. And inside, Jaeih saw a sight which turned her stomach on edge and sent a cold chill through her heart.

In the small cell, identical to her own sat her daughter, Mnhei’sahe. Her arms and legs were secured in metal shackles attached to the cold, metal chair that she was locked into. She looked gaunt and pale as her head hung limply forward, seemingly asleep. Hopefully just asleep.

“Mnhei…” Jaeih went to shout as she moved slightly towards the field before being shoved past the doorway where she fell, hitting the deck with her shoulder hard. “AAAGH!!! Mnhei’sahe! What have you done to her?!”

Standing before the glowing field, t’Suil looked in calmly. “Nothing. She is fine. She is fed and given water every day. She simply… sleeps. She sleeps most of the time, it seems. A weakness in her upbringing, perhaps, that she lacks your… fortitude.”

A gesture from the SubCommander and the centurions hoisted Jaeih back to her feet. “Let us continue. This is not your place.”

As they walked further, Jaeih glanced back as her Daughter had not stirred in the slightest.

The walk to the end of the corridor seemed longer than was possible, but eventually, they arrived at the final forcefield. “Centurions, her shackles.” As t’Suil spoke, the centurions unlocked and removed the shackles. Then, t’Suil tapped the pad on the wall outside the cell and the field fell.

The centurions gave a final shove and Jaeih stumbled into the cell, larger than her own with a forcefield of its own in the center. As she turned, the main field reactivated, and silently, the Centurions turned and left leaving only t’Suil. “Here you will stay until it’s your time, traitor. Enjoy yourself.” Then, she too left down the corridor and Jaeih was alone again. Or so she thought.

"Ohhh, this is grand opera then... all the recording devices from every angle, so voyeuristically capturing every instant of this meeting. Pairing the two of us together before they hurtle us through some life-changing or ending drama..." The voice of the old Senator was a bit reedy and thin tonight, but as she leaned against the far wall of the cell, she still played her part for the oration to the gallery of the senate. Even when it was light-years away, and she was beginning to believe she might not make it back there again.

"The first and second generations, the unlikely in-laws, the senator and the smuggler. The traitor to the Tal Shiar and the democrat who wants to bring peace to the republic." With that said, the old and injured Rihannsu levered herself unsteadily to her feet, then recovered, setting herself in a dignified pose.

"Hello, Jaeih... it's been rather a long time. Pity the circumstances."

"The Circumstances?" Jaeih stood on her side of the shimmering green field that split the chamber, her fists clenched as she growled out, "The circumstances YOU created!!! We are here because of YOU, Verelan! Because you must own EVERYTHING!!"

"Oh yes, by all means, this is most certainly the situation that I sought, was it not? How wonderfully ideal for all involved, no?" The elder satesman of the great senate that ruled the people who rejected logic for their passions, for better to be consumed and destroyed by them than to forever deny them. "Explain to me how this is all my fault, and I'll explain how it's all yours and I'm sure we might make afternoon telenovella of the week, Jaeih. But we both know there's blame enough to share here, so why don't we get to what you really want to say. Because I suspect this little exchange goes on precisely as long as it entertains our captors, and when they get bored, our time is done."

"She always was perceptive," muttered one of the technicians recording the exchange, who until recently had worked for the Deihu.

Her puffy eyes went as wide as they could. In the dim light, Jaeih could see that Verelan had also been the recipient of Riov Rendal's wrath, and while it wasn't outside the realm of possibility that it was all a ruse, the seasoned Intelligence operative felt that the scenario was as it seemed.

"You couldn't leave her alone, could you?" Jaeih hissed. "You just had to try and control everyone and everything like you always have. You had to know she wouldn't betray her entire life because you told her… what… that you would whisk her away to ch'Rihan like a child's fairy tale?"

"It isn't some child's fairy tale, Mrs. Dox," the senator of the province of Ihhliae drew herself up haughtily. 'She is of my blood. She IS my heir, no matter how hard you tried to pollute it or hide it. So she IS the heir to the seat in the senate. She is the only one who can inherit it, unless I name a successor. No matter what you think, she IS the future of our family. If our line lives on, yours and mine, it is through her."

On the Hera, when Commander Paris called Jaeih ‘Mrs. Dox’, it was affectionate and it somehow never bothered her. But out of Verelan’s mouth, who knew all too well that her fake marriage to Declan Dox was a business arrangement and a sham to help her conceal her daughter’s true father’s identity, it stung like the venom of a snake.

"Blood, blood is sacred to us, don't you see? Because it's our heritage, what ties us to one another. The simple truth of our genetics that override anything mixed with it. What drives us out to conquer the galaxy and bring it to heel beneath our boot. Because we are the Rihannsu. The Declared. Our passions drove us to the stars, to build, and to conquer. And so we did. Here we all are..." The silver-haired senator, some of her hair matted with green, waved her finger about lazily in the air.

"She's last of the house Rul, like it or not." Seeing the sour face of her audience, the old woman rolled her eyes exaggeratedly. "Yes, you did a marvelous job of hiding her, but then you let her enlist in Starfleet. Well, you were in no position to stop her at least. Then those nosy Starfleet doctors started investigating and undoing everything you had done. Frankly, I'm surprised it took them as long as it did. Doesn't speak well of the Starfleet Academy doctors that they never realized how wrong her biology was in four years there, and however many years of active service until they undid what you did. Well, had done, which I applaud your choice- never try to 'home kit' rewiring your child's genetic code."

"Oh, we were thorough. We were trained to be. 'Never do a thing in half measures', I believe you taught me that yourself." Jaeih hissed across the field.

Pacing like the caged animal she felt like, Jaeih pinched the bridge of her nose. As always, even after almost forty years, Verelan knew exactly how to push her buttons. It was no wonder that she came so close to talking Mnhei'sahe into turning, she thought. "She wasn't YOURS, Verelan. She was MINE. But just like with Dralath, you wouldn't allow that, would you? And now he's gone. And I heard that speech Mnhei'sahe gave to Rendal... So many of your words falling from her lips as if they were her own. Congratulations, now you have her, too. For however long we all have left, she'll fight for YOU too. You kidnapped her and she'll still fight for you."

“Why does she have to be a possession to you, Jaeih? Why can she simply not be a person, a woman, an individual?” Shaking her head, the old woman sighed. This was an old argument, but one they apparently needed to have again. Nothing like an old wound. "Mnhei’sahe is starved for a culture and a people she’s been denied her entire life, whom she’s been taught to fear and hate. No wonder she has self-esteem issues- her ‘Romulan’ mother taught her to hate and fear ‘Romulans’. All I did was show her our nobler intentions, our loftier goals. To what we aspire, if not always achieve.”

“It worked on you once too, as you recall,” Verelan said quietly. “It would have gone on working, had you not fallen for a man with inconvenient political ties. Ties that would have forced you to sacrifice some of your freedoms to become a political wife, which was apparently a fate worse than death for you. Which you viewed as so spectacularly awful that a life of mutilating your child and hiding on the fringes of space living like a scavenger was preferable.”

“All so that you could maintain YOUR precious freedom, to keep your daughter from what, exactly? A higher education? A life of privilege? Growing up to eventually become an Imperial Senator? How dastardly of me to concoct such a fate for the poor girl. You’re right, clearly, I am a horrible, horrible villain,” Deihu t’Rul sighed, shaking her head as she walked slowly toward the forcefield, her energy waning as she spoke. This discourse was taking what reserves of strength she had left, but she would be damned if she would flag in the face of this confrontation, which was now 30-plus years in the making.

At Verelan’s words, Jaeih shrunk slightly and made no attempt to hide it. For herself and the many, many mistakes she had made, she had no defense. She knew that there was too much truth to what the elder Rihanna woman had said about her own fears. What was once talk of marriage to Dralath tr’Rul had devolved into requests from her for assignments further and further away to avoid that fate she had once feared and longed for now that it was impossible. For her own past, Jaeih had no words. But for her daughter’s future, she still had fire in her.

“She was an individual, Verelan. Before you took her away from it, I let her go. I let her go and she finally thrived for it. She has a WIFE! She was finally HAPPY!” Jaeih pleaded across the field, her voice growing hoarse. “What about HER freedom?! She’s going to…”

Then Jaeih stopped herself cold, snatching the words she was about to say and swallowing them. As far as she knew, Verelan had no idea that her earlier words might already be false. That the bloodline hadn’t ended. Mona was pregnant with three of Mnhei’sahe’s children, as Rihannsu as they would be Miradonian. Verelan's great-grandchildren to come. But she wouldn’t betray that information.

“All of that is due to you, is it, Jaeih? That was all part of YOUR master plan? Because a little birdie told me you were busy cooling your heels in Starfleet detention, decoding the bread crumbs they could find for the better part of the past 15 years. Because your little smuggling vessel got caught, and you had nothing to do with her or her life choices at all after that point. So tell me again how you LET her go, how you LET her thrive.” Chuckling, the elder Rihannsu leaned her back against the wall next to the forcefield and slowly eased herself down to the floor, stiffly and painfully. “We lie so well we believe them ourselves, it seems…”

Narrowing her eyes slightly, Jaeih had an answer that was very uncomfortable for her to say. “You’re ‘little birdie’ had far too little information. We were caught because Mnhei’sahe tampered with our cloak. I had… I had let things become so…”

The words were beyond difficult for her, but she dragged them out. She had sworn to her daughter to leave behind her life of lies, and even now with Verelan, she had to live up to that. “She wanted free of me and that life. I knew how badly I had failed her… I KNOW how badly I still do... that when she saw a Starfleet patrol ship, she sabotaged our cloak. I knew what she had done and I let it happen anyway. But she was sixteen. By law, she could be held responsible for the life I had forced on her, so my ‘breadcrumbs’ were part of a deal. I offered no resistance and agreed to assist my captors and betrayed yet another oath so that she would be free. NO criminal record, NO charges. A chance of at least some kind of future.”

“That’s how I Let her GO, Verelan.” Jaeih said through a cracked voice. “For her happiness now, I know I did nothing. Everything she’s found that is good in her life happened on that ship.”

“Which, again, you played no part in. So tell me again how you were her savior from such a terrible life on ch’Rihan, being groomed to be a senator? How knowing her homeland and her heritage would have been so bad for her? How it all had to be my way… when in fact, it really all had to be YOUR way, didn’t it?” The aged politician let the words hang in the air. The bitter sting of truth was not going to go over well, so she chose instead to soften those words a bit.

“But she likely would have been soft and pampered, my way. Never known hardship, never known injustice, never know the true realities of life in the universe. Instead, she would be an idealist, always aiming at lofty ideals without realizing it’s those people with dirt and blood under their fingernails who are busy making that dream come to fruition with the sweat of their brows and the strength of their backs. So maybe you did me a favor after all, Jaeih. Maybe now she will far better appreciate what I offer.” Waving her finger about lazily in the air, the old woman looked bemused. “Assuming we all survive this…”

Slumping back against the wall, Jaeih let out a sigh. In over forty years, she never won an argument with Verelan t'Rul, and now she didn't even want to. The elder Rihannsu was right about her and she knew it. Her voice was weak and flat as she replied, "And... if we survive... you would intend on continuing what you started? Whisper your truth to her until she's what? What will she be if you succeed? Independent? Happy? Will you be inviting her alien wife to ch'Rihan? Or will you simply continue to lean on what you know of her and use that to mold her as you see fit? Her sense of responsibility? Her guilt? Her need for what I denied her?"

"I don't care what you think about me, Verelan." Jaeih said, exhausted with a plaintive tone, "I don't care what happens to me in any of this. I only care about her. So tell me, please... Tell me the truth. Why are you doing this? Do you care what she wants? Tell me you care about her in this."

That elicited rueful laughter from the old woman, a tired laugh that ended in a cough that became an unpleasant hacking sound. "Ohhh, Jaeih Dox, how little you've ever understood me. Why do you think I did all of this, any of this?" Waving her hands airily about before her, the old woman muttered on. "The future, the future. It's all about the future. The future of our bloodlines, the future of our people, the future of our world, of our empire, of our destiny as a galactic power, as residents of the milky way."

"We... you and I," Veleran wagged her finger between the two women, separated by a generation and a forcefield. "We're the past. We're still here, and we still affect events, but her... she's the future. She carries all of us within her, and more. She is what we will be, for weal or woe, for greatness or pettiness. All I have ever done was work to better our people, to advance them, to maintain their greatness and press them ever onward to the stars. All for her, although I didn't even know she existed. I did it for her because she is the youth, the next generation. The ch'Rihan to come, who will never know the shame of Shinzon."

"I want her to be great if she'll allow herself to be. I want her to lead our people as I have done, and to change our course for the better. I want her to bring honor to our house and live up to that ridiculously pretentious name you so cavalierly decided to saddle her with," the head of the house of Rul shook her head, letting slip a moment of genuine honesty between the two women. "There is great passion within her, and it is tempered. I want for her to have the opportunity to live up to that potential... as a Rihannsu, not as a Federation Starfleet officer. To serve her homeworld, not some mongrel alliance of blandness. The 'human polite club', as the Klingons called it."

"As for you... the only thing I ever disliked about you was that you forced my hand. If you'd worked with me we could have found an accommodation. Perhaps. There were no guarantees for such things, of course. But by playing it your way you kept her safe... but Dralath had to be sacrificed," Veleren admitted quietly. "It was... the only way."

At the mention of her former love, Jaeih's heart tightened and she felt anger well back up in her, but the let out a breath and tried to release it. There was too much old pain between the two for her to truly see Verelan as she was in that moment. But she tried, in spite of herself. "There is always another way, Verelan. I learned that lesson a little too late from someone from your 'human polite club'."

Closing her eyes, Jaeih slid down to sit across from Verelan as she hung her head slightly and thought long on her fate, whatever it might be. "I will not return from whatever Rendal has in store for me. I know this. Then you will be the only blood Mnhei'sahe has left in this universe. And you must be prepared for what that means to her. You don't just have an heir, Verelan. You have a granddaughter. And either on ch'Rihan or back on her ship, she knows you now. And she has her father's tenacity. That which he got from you is in her. She knows you now, and even if she escapes back to her ship, she will seek to know you more. That is who she is. She will find a way."

Taking a deep breath, Jaeih looked across at Verelan with defeated eyes. "You have stolen her from her home and the family that has earned her trust and her love, as I once did. But after everything I ever did to her... the horrors I inflicted on her to shield my own fears... she reached out to me. She reached across that gap I had curated over her lifetime and pulled me across to her in spite of everything I am. She will forgive you as well and that is a responsibility. Be ready for what that means."

"Don't fail who she is, Verelan," Jaeih said as she hung her head.

Taken aback by the frank truth, the sheer honesty of her words, the aged senator sat in silence, respecting the moment before whispering back, "I swear upon my Mnhei'sahe... I shall not."