Meeting Your Mother for the First Time Again

Posted on Tue Oct 29th, 2019 @ 11:33am by Lieutenant Commander Mnhei'sahe Dox & Jaeih Dox-t'Aan
Edited on on Thu Oct 31st, 2019 @ 10:58am

Mission: Family Detention
Location: Crew quarters, Deck 8
Timeline: 2396 - en Route to Earth

In the quarters she shared with her wife and bond-mate, Mona Gonadie, the embattled Rihannsu lieutenant, Mnhei’sahe Dox was still in bed allowing herself a luxury she very rarely indulged in: sleeping late.

It had only been a couple of days since her and her mother had been rescued from captivity by the Tal’Shiar and the Hera was warping it’s way to the Sol system where she and the command crew was to face multiple Starfleet Intelligence debriefings, but until such a time as those meetings were over and Mnhei’sahe was found clear of any wrongdoings in the incidents, she was officially removed from duty.

However, Mona was back on duty now that her wife was safe at home, and actually stuck doing a bit more duty than not by filling in at the Flight Control Department as it’s assistant chief while its actual chief was forced to cool her heels and wait for permission to get back to work. It was a frustrating state of affairs as Mnhei’sahe was extremely stressed and found herself unable to do the one non-destructive thing that she found helped when she was overly stressed: work.

At least officially. She had still found some ways to occupy her time. Chief among them was the most unusual activity the young pilot had ever been engaged in across her thirty-two years of life. The day before, she had spent with her most unusual friend, the woman she called Masato Rei. The embodiment of Death itself. The two talked, ate sushi, and Rei informed Mnhei’sahe of something she was likely going to be processing for years to come. Mnhei’sahe had apparently been chosen, when her own life was finished, to succeed Rei in the role of Death. It was, to say the least, not an idea she was comfortable with. But it was also a role she could decline as well, so she had that slim comfort.

But it was something she had no idea who to talk to about. Her friendship with Rei was something she didn’t even talk about much with MONA as, frankly, nobody wants to talk about one’s lunches with DEATH. But aside from that revelation, Rei also had a task she needed help with and asked Mnhei’sahe for help with.

As it turned out, according to fate, Mnhei’sahe was not meant to be rescued from Romulus. She was meant to stay there for years before finally escaping. But because of the presence of Rita Paris, Sonak, and Az’Prel, she was rescued. The three were refugees from another dimension, and their actions in THIS reality had the unique quality of being completely off of Fate and Death’s respective books. And because of that rescue, a colony of Rihansu reunificationists… three thousand nine hundred forty-eight of them… were now going to live when they were originally supposed to die within a month.

So, for hours the day before, Mnhei’sahe had assisted Rei in removing those thousands of names from her books while the enigmatic being re-wrote their fates. It was a task that only Mnhei’sahe could have helped with apparently, as Rei had informed her that nobody else alive could have read, much less opened, a Book of the Dead. Another item to be added to the list of unusual things about herself and her life that she had to stress over. But the act of reading out the thousands of names had been particularly exhausting to Mnhei’sahe. Perhaps supernaturally so, Rei implied. So that night, after snuggling with Mona and trying to not talk or think about being hand-picked by Death as a secretary, she had passed out hard.

So hard that she had slept through Mona getting up and leaving for work, though as she began to stir in their bed, she smiled as she could still smell her Miradonian mate. Slowly, Mnhei’sahe had begun to roll over and groggily open her eyes as she muttered weakly, “C… computer. What time is it, please?”

With a slightly muted chirp, standard for the bedroom, the computer replied =^=The time is 02:37 hours.=^=

“Imirrhlhhse!” She cursed as she shot up in bed, still groggy but stunned at how late it was as she muttered to herself in her native tongue, “Fourteen… I slept for fourteen hours? Ughh… it’s probably good that I’m not on active duty or…”

As she sat up, rubbing her eyes in the still-dark room, she heard something in the main chamber of their quarters. A voice and what sounded like giggling. She couldn’t quite make anything out, but she got up and grabbed her crimson robe, tied it off and went to the door. As it wooshed open, she looked and saw a bizarre sight. Her mother, Jaeih Dox, sitting on her couch holding a small baby with light green skin and a face rimmed with spots that Mnhei'sahe recognized as the daughter of Captain Enalia Telvan and her wife, Maica.

Jaeih was bouncing the baby on her lap and smiling as the baby giggled and Jaeih whispered in Federation Standard. “Shhh, shhh. We must be quiet my dear, we don’t want to wake up…” Then she noticed her daughter standing in the door to the bedroom, “...Mnhei’sahe. Ahh… I apologize. We came to visit and you were still asleep, but Moira was getting fussy so I was going to prepare a bottle and one thing lead to another.”

Rubbing her face slightly, Mnhei’sahe was still clearly tired as she raised an eyebrow and replied in Federation Standard as well. “It’s okay, Mother. I needed to get up anyway. I overslept… considerably. And yeah… coffee.”

Slowly plodding across the room to the replicator in the kitchenette, Mnhei’sahe ordered a cup of black Rihannsu coffee. It was unusually tart and almost sour by human standards, but both Mnhei’sahe and her mother enjoyed it quite well. “Do you want anything, Mother?”

“No thank you. I’ll get her bottle in a moment, but there’s a specific formula I need to add to the replicator in here.” Jaeih said, looking with a raised eyebrow at her daughter. “Are you well? I don’t know you to sleep this long, Mnhei’sahe? Frankly, you look like death.”

Taking a sip of her coffee, Mnhei’sahe almost spat it out as she choked slightly. “Al’thindor forbid.” She whispered as she walked over to the chair next to the couch. “No, I’m fine Mother. I was just up late with… some paperwork.”

Taking another sip and savoring it this time, Mnhei’sahe took a moment and looked over, smiling lightly. “So, did the Captain ask you to babysit for Moira or something? Is everything okay?”

“Oh, beyond okay, Mnhei’sahe.” Jaeih smiled as she continued to bounce the spotted, green infant who continued to giggle. “I was speaking to En… to the the CAPTAIN… about everything that had happened, and after a bit, she… well… she asked my to become little Moira’s… Theirr’anov. Her godmother. To help take care of her and take care of her if, Al’thindor forbid, anything were to ever happen.”

Surprised slightly, Mnhei’sahe suddenly felt a bit more awake as her eyes went wide. Watching, Jaeih smirked slightly and said, “Yes, that was the face I made as well. Frankly, between Mona, Gavarus and O’Dell, and now Enalia, I do not understand why everyone seems to think I’m the person to trust children with.”

Sipping her coffee, Mnhei’sahe smiled lightly and settled back in the chair. “Face it, Mother. You are not the same woman you were when I was little. Even I can see that. And clearly, so can everyone else.”

Reaching up under Moira’s arms, Jaeih stood up with the baby, lightly rolling her eyes and stepped around the small table to the chair with Mnhei’sahe planted in it. “Put your coffee down a moment, I need to fix her lunch. Hold her please.” It was said as a statement and clearly not a request as the fatigued young pilot knitted her eyebrows and scrambled to put her cup down.

“Simhoni, fvah!? Dhat…” Mnhei’sahe protested in vain as, once her cup was down, Jaeih deposited the smiling baby in her arms. Not even realizing she had switched to Rihan to say ‘Wait, what!? No…’, Mnhei’sahe reluctantly took the little green baby, holding her from under her arms, but holding her out a few inches away from actually holding her.

“Oh, for Elements sake, Mnhei’sahe. You have three of these on the way. Just… here.” Leaning over, Jaeih gently repositioned little Moira in Mnhei’sahe’s arms in a proper cradle and stood back up. “There. Just keep her head supported and rock her and she’ll be fine.”

Looking down, little Moira was looking back up at Mnhei’sahe with big, brown eyes and a soft smile as she gurgled slightly, reaching up to tug on the pilot’s red curls gently. “Ie, yes. I have… ow… hair. Yes, I do.” Then she looked up to her mother who was punching instruction into the replicator. And a moment later, a small bottle appeared. “So… The Captain wants you to be Moira’s Godmother. While that’s wonderful… why did you bring her here?”

Turning, while testing the temperature of the bottle on her wrist, Jaeih grabbed a bright yellow dishrag with cartoon eggs on it and flipped it up over her shoulder as she looked at her daughter who had a suspicious look on her face. “Because… you and I haven’t talked… really talked… since we left ch’Rihan. We’re avoiding each other, we both know why, and we won’t be inclined to yell at each other with a baby in the room. I admit that I stole the idea from Miss Gavarus, but it was effective then and should be so thusly.”

As Jaeih walked back over, Mnhei’sahe began to angle to hold Moira back up for her to grab, but Jaeih just shook her head, “No, no. Here. Hold her a bit more upright…”

“Mother… this is ridicu…” Mnhei’sahe tried to protest, but then Jaeih simply put the dishrag over her daughter’s shoulder and presented the bottle to the smiling baby, who began making grabby hands for it. “Yes, here you go, e'lev. Take it gently, slowly. Good.”

It was almost uncomfortable watching her mother dote so thoroughly, but not as uncomfortable as it was to be the one who had to hold the baby all the while. But little Moira took the bottle and began sucking gently as Mnhei’sahe continued to gently rock her in her arms, bringing her voice down slightly. “So, what are we talking about, mother?”

Sitting down, Jaeih casually stole her daughter’s coffee cup and took a sip before setting it back down. “We can start with whatever you’d like, my dear. But are you aware that your accent has come back?”

Rolling her eyes, Mnhei’sahe sighed, “Yes, Mother. It’s… it’s been tricky since we got back. Nobody’s said anything but I know they can hear it. It’s frustrating. It took me almost four years of practice when I first was sent to Earth to learn how to cover it up. But one month of talking in almost nothing but Rihan, and it feels like I have to start practicing all over.”

“It’s not that pronounced, dear. Just a little a bit under enunciated and drawn out on the vowels. You're rolling your letters a bit more. Honestly, it's quite faint and only seems to peek out when you're stressed. But if it bothers you, I'm sure you’ll get it under control.” Jaeih said with an undercurrent of judgment in her tone. “Still, that you have an accent is no shame. I understand why you sought to conceal it for co long, considering Starfleet’s view on our people, but everyone who knows you, know’s what you are now. And nobody here judges you for it. You know that.”

As Jaeih was talking, Mnhei’sahe looked down at the baby in her arms and thought about the three growing in her wife at that very moment. The three children she could now feel when the bonded couple touched. The three children that would be as Rihannsu as they would be Miradonian. And as she thought, she realized her mother was right. She had spent years trying to pretend to be something she wasn’t. “I know, Mother. Though I’m willing to bet that the brass at Starfleet Intel will take hearing an accent as a bad sign when I have to sit down for my debriefings later in the week.”

“Debriefings…” Jaeih scoffed as she crossed her legs. “Call them what they are: interrogations. It’s an insult that after everything you’ve done for this ship… for their Federation… that they are treating you as if you did something wrong for being kidnapped. It’s disgusting.”

“Didn’t I?” Mnhei’sahe mused, looking down at little Moira. “I can justify it as playing out the clock and stalling for time, but I listened. I was told to compromise and consider and I did and you know it. You saw it.”

Leaning forward, Jaeih folded her hands in front of her and rested her arms on her knees. “And did you agree to stay? To join your grandmother in the Rihannus senate and abandon your wife? Did you renounce Starfleet and your life like I know you were told to? No. What did you do? What was your crime? Caring enough about that world to want to help it? Is that not what your Federation is supposed to be devoted to? ”

Standing up, Jaeih began pacing as she talked, “Listen to me. Your grandmother… Verelan. She is and has always been… persuasive. When she found me studying in Engineering at the Academy of the Great Art, she took me under her wing. She said all the same things she said to you. That the best way to change the system, to fix ch’Rihan, was from within. And I believed her as wholeheartedly as you would have if you hadn’t stood up for yourself and let her continue. I followed her and accepted her tutelage and did my best to be what she wanted me to be.”

Looking up with a thoughtful expression, this was quite possibly the most her mother had ever spoke of her past with Mnhei’sahe and it was a surprise and a very welcome one. Listening, Jaeih continued. “And… it wasn’t hard. Much like you, she saw a space in my heart and she did what she could to replace what was missing. And for the both of us, it was much the same thing.”

“What do you mean?” Mnhei’sahe asked, gently, as little Moira was starting to drift off in her arms as her bottle lowered slowly from her pursed lips.

“Family.” Jaeih said after a moment of hesitation. “I know… I’ve never spoken of such things. I… I didn’t know how to. But, my own mother. Your other grandmother. Her name was Fethraie. She was an… aide.” As she spoke, she sighed and continued. “A political aide to a senator. She, herself, was nothing special. We came from no great house. We had no house name, yet. So she was simply Fethraie ir-Korthre.”

Listening, Mnhei’sahe’s eyebrow cricked up. She recognized that name from Death’s book. Several of the names that had been scheduled to die but didn’t shared that name. But she didn’t give it too much thought. She knew the Rihannsu naming conventions, and 'ir-Korthre' was a second name, indicative of where a Rihanha was from. In this case, it simply identified one as having come from the village of Korthre, so Mnhei’sahe said nothing and let her mother continue.

“She was in transit in a transport ship from the Hearthworld to a colony on the edge of the Neutral Zone when her ship was intercepted by a Federation ship. Who was on who’s side has never been determined, but there was a battle and many on board were killed. My father was, at the time, a simple Centurion guarding the Senator. They had only been wed for five years. I was only four and still at home at the time, but… my father… Tha'torth… he saved the Senator when enemy fire ruptured the hull and nearly blew them both into space, but…”

As Jaeih paused, she knew without hearing the rest and whispered ‘oh my’ in Rihan gently as she felt herself go slightly pale. “Tlhei…”

“Yes. My Mother was nearest the bulkhead when it disintegrated. She never had a chance.” Jaeih sat back down looking slightly more weary in that moment. “Before that, my father was a more open man. He used to read to me of our Vulcan ancestors. He was what would later be called a reunificationist. 'Was' being the operative term. Afterward… after losing his wife to aliens. Well, he became the model Romulan officer. Xenophobic and vocal about his hatred of anyone who wasn't Rihannsu because of what he lost that day. And as a hero who saved a noble Deihu, his voice suddenly had more weight. He earned a house name for us. He made Riov within a year. We became wealthy, but he became a different man, and one I almost never saw anymore. After that, we had enough to have house servants and I was largely raised by our hru'hfe. Our head servant.”

"So... in many ways, I too was... adrift for many years. Then I met Verelan and she was filled with passion and life and filled many cracks I had left in me." Jaeih admitted.

The baby was now lightly snoring in Mnhei’sahe’s arms, snuggled tight up to her warm chest and gripping her plush, crimson robe as the young Rihannsu woman picked up the fallen bottle and set it aside. “So, Grandmother… she… she became like a surrogate mother to you, didn’t she?”

“So, you can see why our… falling out… was as extreme as it was.” Jaeih smiled slightly, but it was a forced affair and Mnhei’sahe could see it on her face. “For a long time, all was well. Verelan was my superior. She recruited me into the Tal'Shiar and we were to make it better. We were to be true Rihannsu. But before too long, we were both just following our orders blindly. And when she introduced me to your father, I thought it was perfect."

"But after a time, Verelan had begun grooming us for something other than our service to the Tal'Shiar. She had political aspirations for Dralath... for your father. And that meant I would have to resign myself to the life of a political wife. Go back to that life I hated when my own father became wealthy. I would be stuck in an ostentatious home out in the country, preparing grand meals and being your father's doting prize. But in my heart, I saw it as nothing more than destroying the career that I had worked so hard to build. And worse, to become little more than what my hru'hfe was to me when I was young: a pretty house servant." Jaeih said, clearly having a hard time with the memories she knew her daughter deserved to hear.

"So I pushed away. Began demanding assignments further and further from the Hearthworld and Dralath. I was a frightened little girl still running away. And... and for years, I refused to see that. So, I blamed Verelan for everything. For my relationship with your father falling apart. For my career… for everything. I lied to myself for so long that I finally ended up believing it, Mnhei’sahe.”

“I loved your father, I did. And he loved me… perhaps far more. He gave up everything just for another chance to be with me when he discovered I was alive. And I tried, for a time. But as always, I pushed him away, Mnhei’sahe.” Jaeih admitted with more than a little pain in her voice. “I pushed him away and he suffered for my pride and my… independence. And… I never even got to see him before…”

A tear escaped Jaeih’s eye and she quickly wiped it away, hoping that Mnhei’sahe didn’t see, but she did and she said something. “No. No more hiding. No more pretending you have no pain, Mother. Look at me. Look at her.”

Looking down at the little green baby in her arms, Mnhei’sahe continued to whisper as she locked eyes with her mother. “He loved you. He loved me. He said so before he died. The last time I saw him… he was standing in front of me. He looked for all the world like the man that you told me about. Tall, handsome, and proud with bright eyes and a warm smile. And that was the last thing I saw of him, Mother. He may be gone, but he touched me before he left and I will always carry that… and that memory… forever.”

“And one day… I’ll learn to share that with you. I promise.” As she spoke, Mnhei’sahe told her mother the truth, but for one small detail. She spoke not of the disheveled, broken man in rags with the hollow eyes and the lost face that touched her before Riov Rendal executed him. Instead, she spoke of the man, restored. The soul taken in that last instant by Masato Rei that she had been allowed to see one last time. Her TRUE father, unbroken forever. That was her true last memory of the man and the one she shared now.

Across the room, Jaieh knew better. She knew what she was hearing couldn’t be true. But she also saw nothing but truth coming from her daughter, who could never lie to her. So she simply smiled and nodded. “Thank you, my daughter. I… I appreciate that. And I’m glad you saw him like that. He was… an amazing man. You deserved to know him. Have him in your life.”

Nodding, Mnhei’sahe started to speak as she stood up slowly and gently, not wanting her mother to go down the path she was starting on. “And now, I want… I deserve... to know the woman in front of me. The woman telling me the things she was never able to say. The mother I always wanted, who is somehow here. Sitting right in front of me. Ready to be a godmother and a grandmother.”

As delicately as possible, Mnhei’sahe squatted down and softly transferred Enalia Telvan’s beautiful daughter into the arms of the elder Rihannsu woman chosen as the baby’s Godmother. The woman who would be a grandmother to Mnhei’sahe’s three daughters on the way. “You are my mother. You are her godmother now. And you are ready to be who you always could and you have earned all of this and I am extremely happy for all of this. And I am proud that you are my Ri’anov.”

Looking down, little Moira cooed and turned over to snuggle up against Jaeih’s chest and let out a light sigh as she did. Looking up to meet her daughter’s gaze, Jaeih’s eyes were wet with tears and a smile crept across her face. No more was said for a long moment while they let the baby sleep. And before long, Mnhei’sahe, sitting back in her chair, drifted back off as well. And as they both slept, Jaeih simply smiled at the hand fate had dealt her. A fate she never could have imagined: Happiness.