Changed Fates

Posted on Fri Oct 25th, 2019 @ 8:36am by Death & Lieutenant Commander Mnhei'sahe Dox
Edited on on Thu Oct 31st, 2019 @ 10:58am

Mission: Family Detention
Location: Deck 8, VIP Quarters
Timeline: 2396 - en route to Earth

Relieved of duty, Lieutenant Mnhei’sahe Dox had precious little to do while the Hera warped back to the Sol System for her multiple debriefings, counseling sessions and competency hearings on Earth with Starfleet Intelligence. As it turns out, having been kidnapped by the Romulan Tal’Shiar and your Senator Grandmother and subjected to indoctrination techniques, advanced mind-control technology and multiple attempts to get you to switch sides from the Federation to one’s own people makes fleet command reluctant to let you function again on a highly classified Intelligence ship without a certain degree of vetting. And so vetted she was to be.

But it would be days before the Hera would arrive in Sector 001 so she could be properly grilled, and that Meant even more down-time for the frustrated young pilot who wanted little more than to bury herself in her work and not think about her month of captivity. But Starfleet knew best, so Mnhei’sahe had little to do but cool her proverbial heels.

Her first two days on the Hera had been wonderful. The Captain had allowed her wife and bond-mate, Ensign Mona Gonadie to take some personal time in order to allow the two to reconnect and spend some much needed time alone, together. And it was all Mnhei’sahe needed and more. Their telepathic bond when touching allowed the young Rihannsu pilot to get the first REAL night of good, restful sleep, free of bad dreams or lingering memories in over a month. It was a good night and a wonderful day just reconnecting and talking.

But today, Mona was back on duty, managing what was normally Dox’s own assignment as Chief of the Flight Control Department. The embattled Lieutenant simply wanted to get back to work, but that wasn’t an option for the indefinite future as her career was on pause for the time being, but she wasn’t under guard and could still go wherever she’d like on the ship freely, save any off-limits facilities. Like her own office.

So she sat in her quarters, reading whatever ship’s news was not directly classified and sipping on a tart, bitter black Rihannsu coffee she preferred called brhon caelis. She was in full uniform out of both habit and a desire to feel more at home. More like the Starfleet officer she was, in spite of her current status. And she was trying to not dwell in her own thoughts. She could go to Ten-Forward or the Holodecks or visit with friends, but it was Alpha shift, and her friends were largely all on duty at the moment and her mother was nursing an actual hangover after a night of heavy drinking and frivolity. So her friends were largely all indisposed.

All except one. The one friend that she knew she wanted… needed… to talk to the most. The one friend that had been able to come to her during her captivity, if only for an instant to fulfill a promise made months ago. The friend that stayed in cabin 13 of the VIP quarters on the same deck she called home. The woman known by many names. Azrael. Rider of the Pale Horse. Masato Rei.

Death.

Perhaps the most unusual friendship Mnhei’sahe had curated in her time on the Hera, the woman who, in life sixteen hundred years ago as a young Japanese woman, was named Masato Rei. And that was what Mnhei’sahe called her. True names were important to the young woman who didn’t learn her own real name until a year ago, and she felt it was a matter of respect. But there was more that was needed to be said, so Mnhei’sahe put down her PaDD, put on the pair of thin black gloves she wore whenever she went to visit Rei so they could touch safely, (as skin-on-skin contact with the entity that was the embodiment of Death was bad for one's health.) and went to the ship's Officer’s Galley.

Even removed from duty, she was still a senior officer, so that privilege was still available to her and she took advantage of it to procure a tray of fresh-made sushi and a bag of something extra as well. She knew Rei loved Sushi and it was the first meal the two had shared, so it seemed apropos.

And after a brief wait, Mnhei’sahe was at the sealed door to Rei’s VIP Quarters. Due to the unique nature of their friendship and the fact that She was one of only a few officers allowed to visit, those privileges had not been removed, and after giving her access codes and making pleasantries with her two guards, Mnhei’sahe stepped into the room's foyer and introduced herself.

“Rei. It’s Mnhei’sahe. Are you available?” She asked, with a touch of nervousness in her voice.

For a moment there was naught but silence, the entity known as Death apparently out for one reason or another, but then from a suddenly shadowy corner of the room Taxes, with Rei mounted atop, came gliding in like a ghostly visage with no hooves as was common to the pale horse.

"Mnhei'sahe! It's lovely to see you hale and hearty and still among the living!" Rei exclaimed as she dismounted and rummaged through her saddlebags, Taxes giving a friendly snort as well at the Rihanna woman. "I honestly didn't expect to see you again for many years, if I'm to be honest, but here you are."

While Mnhei’sahe had admitted a slight bit of fear around horses, she was beginning to warm to Rei’s spectral mount, Taxes, who was always a little bit more friendly than not with the young woman. In fact, Taxes was so friendly with her that Dox wondered if he could tell she was nervous around horses and wanted to help her get over it. Either way, hanging off her arm was a bag she had also procured from the ship's galley, just for the ethereal equine.

But as she stepped over to the table to lay down the tray of Sushi, keeping a hold of the bag, Mnhei’sahe’s expression changed to one of slight confusion. “Yes, I’m… Wait... what do you mean, several years?”

As she spoke, she stepped over and pulled an apple out of the bag and presented it, admittedly anxiously, to Taxes.

As Taxes gently nibbled at the apple and flicked his ears in appreciation, Rei pulled out several small leather-bound books and set them on the table. "Ah... Your planned fate was to be left behind while your mother escaped. By the time you made it back to this part of the galaxy..." She looked a bit sheepish as she admitted this.

"But those three fatebreakers from other universes pulled through and made a lot of extra paperwork for those of us that have to deal with such things and... here you are." Though it was obvious Rei was happy her friend was here, it also looked as though she had been putting in extra hours, if such a thing were possible.

The words hit Mnhei’sahe like a punch in the gut as she all but dropped the bag of apples and turned to the table where Rei had put the books. For months, she had known about the vaguely worded prophetic statements from both Rei herself and Mnhei’sahe’s android niece, Kodria, from the future. The warnings to appreciate the time she would have left with her mother as that time was to be limited. And for all this time, knowing that the rules that governed Rei had prohibited her from saying anything more back then, she had assumed the message was a warning that her mother, Jaeih, was going to die. Now she knew that she had completely misinterpreted that statement.

As she processed it, Mnhei’sahe’s face went pale and she simply stood there blinking for a moment until Taxes stepped silently up behind her and gently nudged the side of her face with his large snout, snapping her out of her moment. “Huh..." She muttered as she caught back up with reality.

Smiling awkwardly, she gave Taxes another apple from the bag as she looked at her friend. “I wasn’t… I wasn’t supposed to be rescued? I… I was going to be left behind. That was how I was going to lose her… Nouhha tlhei.”

As Mnhei’sahe spoke, the accent that she had spent years learning how to cover up slipped back out, something she was having difficulty with since her rescue as she trailed off, saying ‘oh my god’ in her native Rihan.

“And… you couldn’t say anything more, could you? You knew... but even saying what you did… it was bending the rules, wasn’t it?” Mnhei’sahe said, as an acknowledgment of how difficult it must have been for her friend to not say more until now.

"Yeah. And now that that's changed and I have schedules to modify and deaths to replan and reschedule. Not to mention the Fates and the White Rabbit have their plates full now..." Rei sighed heavily as she unsealed the first book and what looked like a ghostly visage floated up and out of it for just a moment before she pulled out a quilt and started scribbling in it. "Is that sushi? please tell me there's some eel in there. I haven't eaten since your wife stopped by."

“Uh... yes. Yeah, Mona mentioned she had come by. Uh... Yes. There should be a full roll of Eel.” Mnhei’sahe replied, removing the top and placing Rei’s chopsticks in front of her and pouring two cups of hot tea that had been on the tray. Then, in an entirely characteristic display of her ability to somehow feel guilty for almost everything, Mnhei’sahe dropped her head slightly. “I’m… sorry that I gave you more paperwork. Probably not something I can help with, all things considered.”

There was the slightest of chuckles at the last statement as she realized how absurd she was being. “So… The White Rabbit. She said she was a friend of yours. Honestly, I wasn’t sure that was even real or if I had hallucinated that. Although, when I gave my briefing, the Captain said she had met the Rabbit as well once.”

"I'm sure you hallucinated a fair bit, but she was real. So was I." Rei then slid one of the books over in front of Dox before picking up her chopsticks to dig into the sushi. "Oh, that's divine... You can actually help me by looking up prior fates so I can re-plan them. There's no harm in you knowing what would have been and it's not like I'm going to tell you what's going to happen now, after all. On page... Gemma falco nine... Colony New Krun'chi, if you don't mind."

As Mnhei’she looked at the small, leather book that seemed quite ancient and slowly opened it to the page she was told to, she looked back up to her friend as she thought about everything that she had said. And everything that she had seen during her captivity. “Rei…” Mnhei’sahe said gently. “For that… I can’t thank you enough. For letting me see my father again after... after Rendal killed him. For letting me know that you were there for him. It… it meant more than I think I can say in words. Thank you.”

"You're welcome. His vision of Al'thindor and you at the end, I think gave him some measure of peace as he crossed over at the very least." As Rei scribbled in her current notebook, she snagged another piece of sushi and munched on it thoughtfully before taking a sip of her tea. "Do you know why I'm bending rules with you?"

It was something that the young woman had all but avoided thinking about. As Mnhei’sahe looked up, she reached into the bag and held up another apple by the side of her head where she knew Taxes had been all but camped out as she stalled in her reply. As the spectral horse took the apple gently, Mnhei’sahe shook her head slightly, “No. I… I don’t. I've been appreciative... but I didn’t think it was my place to ask.”

"Well, there are six of us... And it's hard to retire out of a job like this, as you can imagine. I'm by far the youngest and my predecessor didn't last near as long as I have. The other five... Some of them have been in their positions since this universe was born..." The pale woman's words trailed off as she paused in her writing and she grabbed another piece of sushi, leaning back in her chair.

“The White Rabbit had mentioned something about there being others, but…” Mnhei’sahe said, recalling her encounter with the other cosmic being that had chosen to also help her for no defined reason other than her friendship with the pale woman sitting across from her. But as she spoke, the weight of what Rei might be implying began to sink in as she slipped between languages without thinking. “Wait… predecessor? Retire? Rhanne na docgae… I don’t… understand.”

"You're being recruited for another role in your next life," Rei said plainly as she sipped at her tea. "The decision is ultimately yours, but you are one of very few that have been found... compatible."

Her eyes went wide for a moment as all of their conversations over the past year had begun to fill in. The woman who was sitting across from her, looking at her rather casually, had bent the rules for her. Refused to take her life at least once when she otherwise would have died. Let her see her father after he had been killed. Told her how many grandchildren she was supposed to have. How long she was expected to live. Rei had told her seemingly countless random rules for her station in casual conversation. And now she was letting Mnhei’sahe read from her books. All of it started to add up, and more.

Mnhei’sahe was frozen in her own thoughts as she remembered the most important thing Rei had ever told her. Rei had told Mnhei’sahe exactly how to take the mantle of Death from her. It was information she simply pushed to the back of her mind and didn’t think about. Information she didn’t want to think about.

Staring forward, Mnhei’sahe sat in the chair opposite Rei with her jaw hanging slightly open for a long moment doing nothing more than blinking and thinking. After a few seconds, Taxes leaned over and gently bopped the young woman’s head again. Again, snapping her out of her momentary daze. “This… This isn’t… you’re serious?”

"You could say I'm deathly serious," the pale woman replied without a hint of emotion.

Looking down at the book in front of her, then back across to Rei and over at Taxes hovering over her shoulder calmly, Mnhei’sahe was at a loss for words. Instead, the tension broke as an extremely nervous chuckle cracked out at the flatly delivered pun.

Nervously, the Rihannsu pilot ran her finger over the tip of one of her ears. This had been quite a month for the young woman as first her Grandmother had tried to recruit her to succeed her in the Rihannsu senate. Then the manipulative Commander Dalia Rendal tried to claim her as an apprentice. And now this. It was almost more than the emotionally weary woman could process. Instead, she reached over and grabbed a piece of sushi and ate it.

“Me? What… what does ‘compatible’ mean?” Mnhei’sahe asked, trying to wrest some mental control out of the situation with questions.

"Well for one, you just opened a book of the dead and..." Rei then motioned to Dox sitting there. "You're not dead. You've met and or spoken with three of the six whether you know it or not. You've thwarted or evaded the domains of four of us. Of any living being, you have the best and only qualifying resume of this universe."

Running through her memories, Mnhei’sahe tried to process everything while she looked down at the book realizing that she was likely handed it as a test that she apparently passed. “So… obviously you. The White Rabbit is… time. And I know I’ve met or talked with Hera, Gaia and… and Anansi…” Mnhei’sahe stuttered slightly, forcing herself to say that last name, “But they’re… who else did I talk to and who else did I…”

But as she asked, her eyes glanced across the page she had been asked to open to. Something regarding what Rei called the New Krun'chi Colony. She paused, mid-sentence as she took in the names that were both unfamiliar to her, and also not completely alien. “Rei… these names. They’re all Rihannsu.”

Rei stared silently at her for a moment contemplating whether she should mention the third aspect that had recently visited her without revealing herself before deciding against it and leaning in to look at her own book. "I believe they are, yes. Specifically, I believe you would call them... reunifi-something... Staying there on ch'Rihan, you would have saved your grandmother, become Rendal's apprentice... And that entire colony would have been wiped out thirteen cycles from now. That's..."

She pulled out a large ornate silver watch from inside her jacket and did some mental math before adding anything more. "About one month to you, I think. And..." Her hand reached out to turn the page and pointed to one name on that list that stood out to both of them. The name of a person that was now safely aboard this very vessel.

“Nouhha tlhei… Mother.” Mnhei’sahe looked at the name in the book in utter shock. The name that was no longer slated to die in a month, written out in Rei’s own hand: Jaeih ir-Korthre Dox-T’Aan. “This colony… she would have been there? And the reunificationists... they all would have died? Because of… me? Because I didn’t get rescued?”

"And now we have to rewrite the lives of everyone that was there that day." Rei nodded and popped another piece of sushi into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. "And guess who gets to make sure I don't miss a single name?"

Raising an eyebrow at how casually Rei was taking the whole affair, Mnhei’sahe shook her head slightly. “Wait… hold on. First, all things considered, I need to ask why they would have died. What was supposed to happen?”

"If you really want to know, it's all written right there in front of you." The pale woman motioned towards the book in front of Dox with a slight grin. "Just don't read it out loud. Bad things happen when you read words of death out loud."

Looking up slightly, Dox took another piece of sushi and glanced across the table at Rei. Unlike testing her ability to open the book, this was more transparent. The enigmatic woman grinning slightly was clearly testing her again. This time, it seemed, in regards to her willingness to do the paperwork of the job. Mnhei’sahe was becoming very tired of being groomed for things, but she also needed to know why these people all would have died had she not been rescued.

Looking down, she saw the names with lists of information next to each. She didn’t recognize any of the names, but her heart sank as she read them to herself. Each name was a life that was almost extinguished. Next to the names, she saw their dates of birth and the dates they were supposed to die, just over a month away. There were so many names. Names of elders, adults and children. So many children. As she looked at the names, Mnhei’sahe’s eyes began to well up slightly, but she cleared her throat and choked back any tears.

And then, she saw the description at the bottom of the section of thousands of names. That they were to be executed under the orders of Riov Dalia Rendal… in order to break the will of her Apprentice. The apprentice listed in the book as Mnhei’sahe Dox-t’Rul, after she had refused to carry out an order to pacify the population.

Closing her eyes, Mnhei’sahe sat back and put her hand over her mouth in shock. As she did, Taxes made a plaintiff whinny as the horse lightly pressed its head against hers, comfortingly. “I can’t... She would have killed an entire colony of her own people… just to try and break me?”

"Because she didn't consider them her people any longer," Rei corrected, finishing off the eel sushi. "Along with the small fleet of ships they had. I think Fate has something else special for them in particular now. Something I guarantee you'll prefer."

Reaching up without really thinking, Mnhei’sahe patted the side of Taxes’ head reassuringly. “It’s okay, Taxes. I’m okay.” She said through a half-forced smile. Even under the circumstances, she didn’t want the spectral animal worrying over her as she looked back up at Rei, “Whatever it is, they’re alive. They weren’t used as… leverage because of me.”

There was a long moment of silence in the room as Mnhei’sahe looked at the book again before she spoke, rubbing the bridge of her nose, “So, it… means something that I was able to open this and read it, I’m guessing? Why me?”

"For the book? Because we're close friends and you know my original name and a few other things. Because Taxes likes you. Normally even those that can see him can't touch him. The other five also don't dislike you. A couple of them may even be fond of you." Rei went back to scribbling in her book. "But like I said... The ultimate decision is up to you and you have a lifetime to decide."

Turning to look at Taxes, who was still looking over her shoulder, Mnhei’sahe signed and smirked lightly. “The ‘ultimate’ decision? Interesting choice of words. Choice...” She said, trailing off for a second. Of all the bizarre paths others had presented to her, this was by far the strangest, but also one where she still had a choice in the matter. And maybe that was the difference. Maybe that was why she wasn't getting up to leave or panic. She was being asked, not coerced. She was hardly psychic, but she sensed nothing but sincerity from the woman she had considered a friend and reached out to.

Somehow, since joining the Hera, she had found herself on a grander stage than ever she thought possible, and in spite of her desire to stay out of that particular spotlight, it seemed that her choices and actions were positioning her to be there regardless. Maybe... Mnhei'sahe thought in a moment of self-doubt, Maybe I should have never asked to meet Rei when Schwein and her were merging... But how could I not help when I knew that a friend was suffering. ANd it turned out that they BOTH were. And when we separated them, everyone was checking on Schwein and Hera... and I went and offered DEATH a hand and my continued friendship. I did this to myself. Maybe I put myself here because I don't know how to not take on every responsibility that falls in front of me. Maybe I should have just stayed on Starbase 17 flying cargo shuttles...

But, as her mind startled to spiral, she shook her head and took a breath. That wasn't her. It wasn't who she wanted to be. Those same needs to do what's right lead her to where she was. To the Hera and Mona. To helping convince a Titan to be merciful. To saving her grandmother from herself. That was who she was, and if that meant opening herself to the bizarre and figuring out how to negotiate and navigate all of this, then she was a pilot, and that's what pilots did. And that's what Starfleet officers did. And that's what Mnhei'sahe Dox did.

Recentering herself, she took a breath and leaned forward to look at the book with her Mother’s name in it, that had to be re-written because she would now live, and flipped back to the original page Rei had instructed. “So… you have the advantage of me being off duty and having nothing to do, so paperwork is bizarrely appealing right now. So… we’re rewriting lives? What do you need me to do?”

"I just got back from a meeting and their lives, or at least the key moments... Have already been rewritten by Fate. I need to make sure no one got missed and write an appropriate death for each of them when their time comes. Normally, the White Rabbit would loan me a pocket and I'd have it done outside of time and space, but since something like this hasn't happened in literal eternias and the others have their own issues to deal with..." Rei opened up another book that seemed to release some sort of blue and silver steam as she did so. "I need help making sure every name over the course of the next three hundred forty-seven cycles that have turned black in that book gets rewritten in this one and has a matching entry in Fate's book. Red names are still slated to pass on as scheduled. Black names have changed and those are the ones I need to know, ok?"

Looking over at Rei with a suspiciously raised eyebrow, Mnhei’sahe smirked slightly, “And in a pocket outside of time and space, you wouldn’t be able to see how I handle this part of the job either, I’m guessing? So, the black names. The first is... Nurema ir-Korthre.”

The tension built in the air for a few seconds as Rei wrote the name in the new book and it vanished from the one in front of Dox. A few more seconds passed and the air seemed to grow deathly still and an unnatural heaviness seemed to hang in the air as the pale woman referenced the other book in front of her and scribbled out the person's ultimate end.

As she finished and looked up with a hollow grin, Rei couldn't help but chuckle at how pale Dox had become at processing just one name.

"One down... three thousand nine hundred forty-seven to go. Remember to hydrate or you'll end up as dry as me."