Closed Doors

Posted on Thu Sep 26th, 2019 @ 4:17pm by Riov (Captain) Dalia Rendal & Lieutenant Commander Mnhei'sahe Dox & erei'Riov (Commander) Arrenhe t'Suil & Deihu (Senator) Verelan t'Rul
Edited on on Mon Sep 30th, 2019 @ 12:48pm

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

As the double doors slid open almost deliberately slow, Lieutenant Mnhei’sahe Dox felt her stomach tighten into a knot. Her arms still shackled painfully behind her back, the two Romulan Centurions at her side led her through the doors into the surprisingly large chamber. Her grandmother, the distinguished Rihannsu Senator, Verelan t’Rul led the way as they entered.

The room was a large, octagon-shaped chamber with consoles along the walls that almost resembled an older starship bridge from Rita Paris’ era for all the equipment present and the big chair in the center. Monitoring stations, however, all appeared automated with a single command console to the side of the large durasteel chair that was part of the structure of the room. Above and behind the chair was a series of cables and equipment that lowered from the center of the ceiling. Standing at the console was the SubCommander, Arrenhe t’Suil and to the other side of the chair, with a look of smug satisfaction, was Riov Dalia Rendal.

This was the room where her Grandmother had been taken. Where her mind was re-written and she became the Riov’s puppet. And while the technique seemed less than complete, as her grandmother seemed to still be fighting the control, controlled she was. And it was likely the fate that awaited Dox herself.

The embattled Starfleet officer had done everything that she could to stall, to prevent being in this room, as had her mother. She had exhausted everything she could think of to talk them out of what they were planning, but it had only seemed to serve to delay what might have always been inevitable. But the red-headed Rinahhsu woman in the shackles wasn’t out of hope just yet.

“Rendal…” She said in a Raspy voice, speaking their native tongue. “You don’t have to do this. There are better ways to defend the Star Empire than protomatter weapons. You’re opening a door to something you don’t understand.”

"Then help me understand. Get in the chair or talk to me." Rendal glared at her with that same dispassionate jade faced glare for a couple seconds before motioning for the centurions to strap her into the chair. "We do this the hard way."

"I've been trying to make you understand. My mother tried to make you understand. The things I know about... these weapons... these beings that have been in my head. They shouldn't be played with. It's dangerous on a level you aren't understanding. Gaia almost destroyed and remade half the system and she was on a direct path to ch'Rihan, Rendal. And we didn't stop her with a superweapon. We talked to her and convinced her to stop." Dox pleaded as the Centurions unlocked her shackles and forced her into the cold, metal chair where all new restraints waited for her. Already bruised from days being locked in metal shackles, Dox winced as they tightened the straps around her ankles, wrist, and head. 

"Yes, I visited a couple of those planets. Highly advanced now. One of them has a bronze age civilization of arachnids at war with twelve-meter tall lizards. Another, a form of intelligent mushrooms has... Sprouted up... And they've advanced to the point they've discovered electricity... But not fire." As the Royal Riov punched in a set of commands into a nearby console, she continued rambling. "All quite fascinating, I assure you. I also assure you that even if it's a fraction of that power, I want it. To be able to terraform a world rather than destabilize an entire system with Sunseed? Yes, that's a tradeoff I'm willing to take."

While Rendal spoke, t'Suil walked over and pulled the cables down and began fixing the leads to several points on Dox's head and neck. Before too long, there were easily a dozen leads stuck to various points along her forehead, temples and the back of her neck while her head remained lashed in place. 

"And the worlds that had civilizations on them already? Ch'Rihan and ch'Havran would have been two of them, erased and restarted with nothing left of our people, their history, culture or lives. That can't be what you want, Rendal? That kind of blood on your hands... on the hands of every Rihannsu... will never wash away!"

As Dox spoke, t'Suil simply walked back to her command console and looked over the readings with a nod. "My Riov... leads in place. The signal strength is quite strong. We may begin at your leisure. Shall we be probing for information or creating a loyalty patch... or both?"

Rendal flat out ignored Dox's arguments this time, determined not to get riled up this time. "Let's begin slowly. A loyalty patch should be a good start. That way she'll be more inclined to our way of thinking."

Taking a breath, Dox turned her eyes to her grandmother, Deihu Verelan t'Rul. This was what they did to her to make her the puppet she now was who simply had to stand there and watch. Her words and actions were no longer her own, but her mind seemed to be intact just below the surface, struggling. But given more time and more treatments, even that would eventually be Rendal's. As would be, Dox feared, her own.

While her grandmother stood impressively beside her, the eyes were anything but. In them, Mnhei'sahe Dox could see the woman fighting, struggling for control. At one point her hand lifted slight, reaching toward her as t'Suil was placing the leads, but it had been brushed aside by the woman busily making the connections. Now she stood, still as marble, face a mask of noble composure But her eyes pleaded and darted about the room, clear evidence that while her actions were controlled, her mind was not yet gone. Below the surface, she still knew what was happening here- what was going to happen here. Precisely what had been done to her, and she struggled with every considerable ounce of willpower the senator from ch'rRhan possessed.

To no avail, save to add despair to her granddaughter's fate.

"Ie, Riov. Commencing neural pattern overlay patch." t'Suil said with a disturbing calm, as if she were doing nothing more elaborate than entering helm coordinates and not preparing to rewrite the mind of a sentient being. A fellow Rihannsu woman.

And in that instant, Mnhei'sahe realized that she was out of time.

There was going to be no last-second rescue. Rita and Enalia weren't going to appear, phasers at the ready to save the day. Her grandmother could do nothing but watch. Her mother was locked in a cell across the deck. And her words had failed. She had once successfully talked a TITAN out of terraforming a quadrant, but that was with the minds of her friends buttressing her own. Here, she was alone and everything she could think to say wasn't enough to change Rendal's mind.

So, she did the only thing left she could do. She closed her eyes, took a breath, slowly let it out and trusted in the only thing she had left: her own mind. For over seven months, she had been engaged in intensive mental training with the Kolinahr master, Lieutenant Sonak. He had taught her how to discipline her own mind to protect it from psychic attack to the best of his more than considerable abilities. She had successfully learned to force even HIS powerful mind out of her own with near-impossible effort. All she had now was to trust that she wouldn't fail his training. That she could keep Rendal's machine from destroying her mind.

So she concentrated, forcing out the room, and the cold chair, and the painful straps, and the voices of Rendal and t'Suil as they cavalierly discussed re-writing her mind to make her loyal to them. She was no longer on the Warbird nearing ch'Rihan. She was no longer strapped to that chair. She was no longer bruised or exhausted. She was whole and herself as she breathed, feeling her breath pulled from her by the arid heat of Vulcan. The Vulcan of her mind, imparted there by Sonak's training. Reinforced by her own discipline.

Looking up, she was unshackled and standing tall at the base of the legendary Mount Selaya. Gone was the grayish-green prisoner's garb she wore in the chair, replaced by her command crimson uniform and proud Starfleet Delta. The air was hot and dry and she could feel it pressing down around her, trying to sap her strength as she took in the seemingly endless expanse of red, stone steps before her.

In the real world, Rendal had given the order, and t'Suil begun, entering the first program into the Neural Extraction Converter. And in the Vulcan of her mind, the effect was immediate. There was a tremendous, booming sound across the imagined landscape as the rocks shuddered and Dox found herself slammed to her knees. It was as if the air itself had become a living thing, pressing down all around her with a weight that threatened to crush her as she let out a scream that extended beyond her mind to the reality beyond.

The Senator twitched as the scream echoed forth, and unbidden she moved to stand beside the two at the control panel. Partially to distance herself from the screams, but partly because they were not paying any attention to her, and not ordering her now. The puppet's strings were not being pulled by the distracted puppeteers. She might only have one moment to act, but if she was careful, that one moment could make all the difference. So she relocated herself, and with no objections launched, she waited for that moment to arrive.

Within her mind, Dox remembered Sonak's lessons. You don't fight the forces acting upon you, you adapt to them. You adjust yourself to breathe easier and let the pressure pass through you. Taking in another shallow breath, Dox felt the waves of pressure upon her begin to flow over her as she slowly worked her way to her feet. In her mind, she remembered Sonak's deep, calming voice instructing her to climb.

It felt as if it had taken an eternity, but she had slowly returned to her feet and opened her eyes. The dry air of her mind had become a mighty wind and she felt the harsh sands biting her face as she looked through squinted eyes towards that first step. And after a long moment, she took it. It was so much like her first time doing this months ago, with Sonak forcing down the power of his own mind onto hers through his mind-meld, but stronger. More aggressive. And without the option to try again if she failed.

Back in the reality of the chamber, Dox twitched in the chair as the Rihannsu women looked on. From her console, t'Suil looked confused for a moment. "Riov... the readings I'm getting. Our data patches are being reflected back. The leads are all registering and the sensors are saying that the connection is strong, but we aren't getting any neural synchronization."

That report finally got a rise out of Riov Dalia Rendal, her eyes going wide as she read the screens herself. “What? That’s impossible. Lock in the secondaries. There’s no conceivable way she can resist.”

While externally she showed not the slightest hint of a reaction, internally Verelan cheered. Fight them, Mnhei'sahe. Whatever it is in there you have that they want, use it and fight them. Don't let them do to them what they have done to me... you can do this granddaughter. I believe in you, so fight!

In the real world, the power flow of the machine had been intensified. Thus the effect was palpable in the reality of Dox's mind, as she found herself slammed back to her knees on the lower steps of her ascent. As she hit that hot stone, she let out another sharp cry of pain. In the real world, the muscles in her legs could be seen tensing involuntarily as she cried out again.

But on the steps of Mount Salaya, Dox redoubled her effort. She had to. If she stopped, her mind would be overwhelmed by the machine. By Rendal. She would become something else. SomeONE else. Something horrible and broken.

"NO!" She cried. "I... will not let you make me forget... who... I am."

In the chamber, she simply began muttering incoherently, as one trying to speak through a dream. But inside her own mind, she rose back to her feet on legs that felt like jelly. "I am the wife... of Mona Gonadie... a mother to our children to come!" And she took a step.

"I... am the bond-sister of Rita Paris... and Asa Dael!" And she took another step.

"I am the friend and Baroness to Enalia Telvan... Captain.. and queen of the Artan empire!" And she stepped up further, her skinned knees wobbling and stained green from her fall.

"I am Orensu… student to Sonak of Vulcan! Kolinahr and Master of Gol!"

“I was loved by Shawn and Juliet Dox… The family for whom I carry this name with honor!”

“And I am the daughter of Jaeih Dox and Dralath t’Rul!”

"I am... NOT YOURS!!! I am... my own woman…”

“My name is Mnhei’sahe t'Sendatu-onay Dox! Daughter of ch’Rihan and the house Rul and you WILL NOT HAVE ME!!!" Dox shouted against the blistering wind in her face as she climbed the steps, feeling the weight of a thousand hands pressing against her.

In the chamber, a red blinking warning light went off on t'Suil's console. "Riov! Vitals are beginning to spike. Neural activity is off the charts. I have never... she is resisting the converter. I have only ever seen this level of resistance in Vulcans, and even then, not like this."

The Riov pulled up her own set of neural readings and stared at them for a long moment as her eyes went even wider. “There’s got to be something inside of her, driving her on. Not even our best agents are trained this well. Turn the system up as far…” Even as she spoke, she realized that the system was already at maximum and there was nothing more they could give it but more power, which would fry both the brain hooked to it and the device itself.

In the Vulcan of her mind, the steps seemed to stretch above her forever. But Dox kept pressing forward, looking up into the swirling red sands that obscured the summit. Then she saw it. At the top, she saw the sands begin to lessen, and a light appeared to hover before her, beckoning. It was a pulsing lavender glow she knew as well as she knew anything in her universe. It was the light of her bond with Mona. The combined energy of their joined souls that had wrapped itself around her heart permanently since their bonding ceremony, what now felt like an eternity ago.

On legs that threatened to collapse with each step, she wobbled to the flat stone platform at the top where she stood before the essence of her love given form and slowly reached for it. As she did, the throbbing energy began to take shape. The shape of her Miradonian love, reaching back towards her.

But back in the cold chamber, t'Suil called over to her mistress. "Riov... I... something's happening. Vitals are stabilizing. Neural levels are... the sensor leads are overloading, but there's... something else."

“What is this? What am I looking at?” Rendal mused as she watched the brainwave activity return to normal, then mingle with another, faint signal. “It’s…” Then she realized, slowly pulling the wedding bracelet out of her pocket with a look of disgust. “She formed a bond with that Miradonian. But that’s impossible! Rihannsu aren’t compatible!”

For a moment, she raised the bracelet over her head and made to throw it down on the ground, but then thought better of it, slowly bringing it back down in front of her, her hand shaking in rage. “We should have captured and deep-fried that bird…”

Atop Mount Salaya, Dox stood before the glowing Lavender form of Mona. The piece of her soul forever bonded to Mnhei'sahe's that lived within her, reaching a pulsing hand of light across the platform. Barely able to stand, Mnhei'sahe reached back towards the hand, shaking as she did. In the chair, her body had begun shuddering in place. And in that last second, Mnhei'sahe leaned forward, falling into the arms of Mona's light. "I... love you."

And in a burst of lavender warmth, Mount Salaya was eclipsed by a cascading wave of energy bursting forth to fill her mind. But in the chamber, something else was happening.

Without warning, the sensors went almost blank on the consoles in the chamber. And as they did, Dox's body went still and she flumped limply in the seat, seemingly unconscious as the Subcommander looked at the readings from her console. “Riov. Bio-scans say she’s unconscious. Neurological activity is all but flat, but… we’re receiving some kind of... data from the feed.

Without warning, Dox’s eyes went wide. Instead of her normal eyes though, they were inky black, as if they led into an endless abyss. When she spoke, it was the voice of a million shadows across the depths, calling from the other side of that inky abyss.

“You who have called to me. You seek my knowledge. If you dare to follow. I am here.” For a moment, all the screens in the room lit up with calculations and math that barely made sense to the women in the room before going dark again and Dox slumped back once more, unconscious.

Meanwhile, in the landscape of Dox’s mind, the darkness faded back to light and the young officer was again as she was, at the top of the Mount Seleya. Still in the crimson uniform she wore with pride. Still herself. She no longer felt the pressure or the energy of the Ju’rot against her, just the hot winds of a world she had never stood upon. Yet another world that was a part of her heritage that she had never truly seen. But she was there again. But Mona’s energy form wasn’t. Instead, a strange figure appeared and smiled at her wearing a white bunny dancer costume.

She was obviously Rihannsu from her ears and light olive tint, but she had the smooth, pale skin of some humans. It also seemed like her bunny ears were a part of her.

“Good evening. I should introduce myself. I’m the White Rabbit.” She then pulled a comically sized pocket watch from out of seemingly nowhere and pointed to one of fourteen hands on it. “And you seem to have broken the time inside of you.”

Exhausted and confused, Dox looked around for a moment across the vista in her mind. At the red, craggy peaks and the pale yellow sky. And then at the strange woman in front of her. The young Rihannsu pilot shook her head for a moment. “What… you’re not Rendal? I mean… you aren’t something from the machine being put in my head… that pressure isn’t… it’s gone. Who… what are you? What do you mean?”

“I’m a friend of Death. You call her… Rei?” The rabbit woman paused a moment to muse on the subject for a moment as she put the watch away. “Anyway, you overcame the machine in your way. Congrats. As the White Rabbit, I control the space-time continuum. To me, the Q are just an aforementioned referendum. As a friend, I’m here to set things aright before that spark of Gaia’s touch in you sets you alight.” Here she paused a moment, hoping that what she was saying was sinking in or at least making sense. She didn’t always, so she might have to start over.

“Tlhei Nouhha…” Dox muttered to herself, the Rihan equivalent of 'oh my god', in a moment of disbelief. “Spark of… Gaia? Sh… She was right. My mother was right. She was trying to scare Rendal, but she was right. You’re saying that she… Gaia... left something inside of me?”

The White Rabbit nodded happily. She’d gotten her point across. “Just a… business card? Hailing frequency?” She looked thoughtful for a moment, trying to figure out how to put it in terms that would be understood. “A Rosetta stone triggered by your focusing far beyond your pain. Now they have the key to a door and you need to find your sanity again.” With that, she held out her hand and motioned that they should be off.

Stumbling, Dox was stunned for a moment as she processed everything. She had succeeded in overcoming the Converter, but somehow still failed to protect what was in her mind. What she didn’t even know was in her mind. Worse, if she understood the Rabbit's twisting words, it was her resistance to the converter that somehow activated Gaia's 'business card'. But she forced that doubt to the back of her mind to try and focus on the White Rabbit’s more pressing words. “My sanity? Is this the… broken time you mentioned?” Slowly and hesitantly… she reached forward. Her every instinct told her this wasn’t some trick by Rendal, and she chose to trust in those feelings as she gave the Rabbit her hand.

In that moment, time seemed to stop and they caught a glimpse of the White Rabbit helping others in other time-spaces. One of them being Enalia in her current uniform. Another was Schwein in an Asgardian dress. One was Asa but clearly in a far-flung future.

As quickly as the moment came, it had passed, and they were standing in some sort of carnival with rides that seemed to defy the laws of known physics. The teacups ride seemed to spin in and out of itself. The Ferris wheel was kaleidoscopic. Other rides were almost indescribable. But they were there to visit a trinket vendor that looked like a red and black-furred cat-woman, complete with collar with a gold tag.

She was selling small silver and gold bells and metal bits from a wooden red and black gypsy cart and though it looked like she’d sold a fair number, she looked depressed and like something was weighing heavily on her. The White Rabbit simply motioned for Dox to approach the cart.

The red-haired Rihannsu woman was taken aback by the experience. She had seen the flowing time. She had seen Enalia and Schwein and Asa. She had seen a blur of other faces in between that she couldn’t place but somehow knew. And she was still more than a little disoriented, almost overwhelmed by the cacophony of lights from the carnival that she suspected wasn’t exactly a real place. But she had come this far, and slowly stepped forward towards the sad-looking woman in the cart. “Hello? Are… are you alright?”

The cat-woman looked up in surprise at the unexpected compassion. Apparently, in this surrealistic world it wasn’t a common practice. “Oh… I… Yes, I’m well enough. I’m just worried about my mother, is all. You’re… Not from around here, are you?”

Glancing over to the White Rabbit for a moment with a slightly more focused expression, Dox turned back to the woman in the cart. For a moment, her mind fell to her own mother, locked in the cell on the Warbird and then to her grandmother in the room with her back in reality, suffering under Rendal’s control. But she brought her focus back to the moment she found herself in and shook off her own distracted thoughts. “I’m sorry, I’m worried about my mother too. But what about yours? What happened?”

Rubbing an ear, Dox interjected quickly as she spoke, trying to keep a positive tone for the unusual but clearly troubled woman. “Oh… and no, I’m not from around here. My name is Mnhei’sahe. What’s yours?”

“Sytemma.” The dark-eyed cat woman looked a bit sheepish as she brushed one of her locks of hair behind one of her ears. “My mom got caught up in a passing Emordnilap’s eating frenzy and now her heart-core needs a donor, but… Finding one… In our world, getting someone to donate that kind of energy is just… Impossible…”

“So I take it you’re not made of energy? You’re… Matter?” Sytemma almost whispered the word as she leaned in almost conspiratorially.

There was something almost child-like to the woman’s mannerisms that actually gave Mnhei’sahe the slightest of smiles in a moment that desperately needed them. She leaned in to reply. “I suppose. Well, more often than not, at least. Unless I’m beaming somewhere..." Then Mnhei'sahe glanced down at the crimson Starfleet uniform she knew was a construct of her mind and chuckled slightly, "...but I don’t think that’s quite the same thing. So, yes. I’m matter. Usually.”

“That is so… The closest thing to matter here is this carnival and only because the owner found some transmission from some… Milky Galaxy? Or Ja-Pong? I forget…” Sytemma waved it off with one hand as she stared at her newfound friend, wide-eyed.

“The Milky way? I’m from there. It’s a very big place. Lot’s of matter, too.” Then Mnhei’sahe stood back up and looked around again. The swirling lights were disorienting so she looked back to the black and red furred woman. She had no idea what she was doing, but was simply following her instincts and hoping she could help. “What… what kind of energy are you talking about? Maybe my friend and I can help you find some?”

“It’s her heart-core. Like this.” She reached into her chest and pulled back her fur to reveal not blood and meat inside of her, but a network of blue, glowing energy vines flowing from a crystallized energy block of red and purple.

Now showing her very heart and soul to someone she had literally just met, Sytemma spoke reverently as she sealed her chest back up. “Hers needs a similar type to mine, but I’m incompatible. Her energy is one of the rarest types and not only can she not regenerate it… No one in our society donates it because it can’t be regenerated at all. I would need a sliver of a god or creation itself to save her…”

As Sytemma spoke, Mnhei’sahe began to understand. The blue energy. The red and purple crystal. The sliver. All things she had, but something would have to be given up to help the woman. As she thought, Mnhei’sahe simply smiled at Sytemma, “That… that was beautiful. Thank you for showing me. Excuse me just a moment.”

Then, the exhausted pilot stepped back just a bit and turned to the White Rabbit. “You said that Gaia’s spark was going to… set me alight? But I’ve had it for months. I didn’t even know it was there. And… if they got some kind of key from it… what do I still have? If I give it up, we might not be able to stop Rendal, will we?”

“You have the knowledge now and that future is not yet written. What you do with that key inside you may help this kitten. What you do when you return is still up to your friends. No one is yet guaranteed to meet their ends.” As usual, the White Rabbit wasn’t the most clear while talking, but she hoped that at least her point came across.

Smirking slightly, Dox rolled her eyes a bit. “Rei gives me much clearer answers. But… I think I understand.”

Leaning back over, the young pilot looked at all of the shiny bells for a moment while she collected her thoughts. The shard inside her might destroy her, but it also might be needed to stop Rendal. But regardless, it was certainly needed here, wherever here was. “In her mind, she realized this was some kind of test and she didn’t quite know what to do. At least in her mind.

Her heart, however, was a different matter. “Sytemma… can you take me to your mother?”

“If you’re matter, then no, I don’t think I can. The medcenter she’s in filters out contaminants like space debris and, no offense…” Sytemma tucked her stray hair behind her ear again, only for her ear to twitch and the same hair to escape once more. “If you know where or how I could get some energy like that, I think…”

She then popped down into her gypsy wagon and rummaged around for a moment before popping up with an empty-looking heart crystal, which she held tenderly in her hands. “This was my grandmother’s core. She had the same energy.”

“Your… grandmother.” Mnhei’sahe looked down, the symbolism as clear to her as the crystal heart in front of her. She didn’t understand how this was supposed to save her sanity or do anything, but she wasn’t thinking about anything but what she could do in the here and now. For weeks, her world had been little more than pain and failure. But inside all of that, also hope. Hope that she could save her mother from the fate prescribed her by Death and Kodria. Hope that she could have the family she had always longed for with, as unlikely as it felt, the grandmother she couldn’t help but care about now. And hope that she would be reunited with her one, true love. With Mona. That hope kept her going. And hope was what was needed here.

She thought of that brilliant purple light that lived inside her. The fusion of her own red life force and Mona’s own blue energy that was a part of her soul, and there was really no choice. Slowly and gently, she cupped her hands over Sytemma’s… the crystal heart between them and slowly closed her eyes and focused again on that internal glow within her. “Whatever I can give to help… is yours.”

With those words and that intent, something flowed out of the Rihannsu woman and into the old core, lighting it from within with both a tiny golden light and a swirling lavender and red mist. Sytemma’s eyes widened and tears sprang forth unbidden as she saw what had been given to her. She tried to speak, but though she tried, no words came out.

Eventually, she found her words as she placed her grandmother’s core in what appeared to be a black wooden box behind the counter. “Thank you. I owe you everything. If there is anything I can do for you, please… Just name it.”

Stepping back, Mnhei’sahe felt slightly light-headed for a moment, but the sensation passed quickly as she looked at Sytemma’s beaming face. She closed her eyes for a second, and within her she could still feel the swirling purple light that was always there. It was dimmer than before, a piece of it in the crystal now, but with each passing moment, it seemed to slowly grow more intense. Self-regenerating. “There we are, Jhu Dhael.” She whispered to herself, smiling as she said the Rihannsu name for her love that meant ‘Angel Bird’.

Collecting herself, She smiled at the young woman in the bizarre cart. “You don’t have to do anything. I’m glad I could help.” Then she tapped the Delta still on her chest from the uniform she wore in her mindscape, still in place wherever she was now. “That’s what this means. Even if I forget that sometimes, myself."

“Will you at least take a memento of my appreciation with you then?” Sytemma asked, holding out one of the little cat-shaped golden bells. “I craft these from pieces of myself.”

Nodding, Dox smiled broadly and gave a little chuckle. “That, I will take with honor, and I will treasure it, Sytemma. Thank you.”

As soon as Sytemma laid the small bell into Dox’s hand, it seemed to melt into her palm as the world once more shifted around her, the White Rabbit at her side, one hand on her shoulder. “Back to your time and body again. It’s been a pleasure!”

“Wait? What… what happened? Where did the bell go? I don’t… I don’t under...” Dox was confused and disoriented by the sudden shifting reality as she once again felt the bruises on her neck, wrists, and ankles return and her head go slightly light.

Back once more in the Ju’rot device room, Rendal looked between Dox, Verelan and t’Suil before glancing around at the now overloaded electronics of the room. “Take her back to her cell. We’re done. I… No, We’re done.”

It took a moment for Mnhei’sahe to roll her eyes back and wake fully up. The memory of what had just happened, even if she didn’t understand, was still fresh enough for her to recall the White Rabbit’s words. Although it was all beginning to feel like a particularly vivid dream. Which meant she knew that regardless of her efforts, or perhaps because of them, Rendal had gotten some kind of information… a key… from the spark of Gaia that had been left behind in her. That spark that was now gone, fueling Sytemma’s mother’s heart somewhere and somewhen else.

But the consoles looked damaged, so there was a hope that whatever information pulled from her mind might be damaged or incomplete. At least that was a possibility she clung to in that moment as reality had fully set in again as she muttered weakly to Rendal. “W… well. Will you look at that. No loyalty… I still hate you.”

“And I loathe you… You and your…” Rendal held up the bracelet once more. “Infuriating bond with that bird-woman.” She then tossed the marriage bracelet into Dox’s lap, seemingly fed up with it. “Hurry up and get her out of my sight.”

Subcommaner t’Suil snapped her fingers and gestured to the two guards flanking Verelan. “You heard the Riov. NOW, Centurions. Rushing over, they released the restraint straps, shoving Dox forward and pulling her arms back behind her back to replace the metal shackles she had been brought in with. As they did, the bracelet slipped off of her lap and rolled across the floor towards the feet of Mnhei’sahe’s grandmother. As it did, Dox let out a shout of pain that covered up the sound of the pearlescent black metal hitting the floor as Rendal and t'Suil were busy looking at the shorted out consoles.

Then, yanking her back to her feet, the Centurions shoved her forward as Dox resisted saying anything further to infuriate Rendal as she was let out of the chamber by the armed guards.

Bending over, unnoticed, Verelan picked up the bracelet, then slipped it onto her wrist, sliding it up her slender arm as an armband, to keep it hidden. She knew the inherent value of it to her granddaughter, and while she might have not been able to affect this situation, her moment would still come, she was certain of it. Mnhei'sahe was strong, and she had survived their worst... and if the data was incomplete, they would still need her alive. The Tal Shiar would likely want her alive anyway for further testing or dissection, given what had been shown today. So now she had at least guaranteed her own survival to ch'Rihan, if not that of her mother.

For now, the helplessly puppeteered Veleran t'Rul would bide her time and wait for the moment that would come where she could make a difference- ironically, the very thing she had worked so hard to convince her granddaughter of, now became her very mantra.