Home and Hearth

Posted on Wed Nov 14th, 2018 @ 2:30am by Commander Rita Paris & Captain Enalia Telvan & Hera
Edited on on Fri Sep 6th, 2019 @ 4:25pm

Mission: Escaped Pantheons
Location: USS Hera, Deck 8, VIP quarters #11
Timeline: 2395

There was considerable debate waging within the mind of Commander Rita Paris, which was unusual. One of her strengths was the ability to quickly and decisively arrive at a course of action, then to pursue it without looking back. It made her an excellent pilot, and a stellar officer. Command was no place for indecision and waffling. Which brought her to the current moment, pacing outside the VIP quarters where the captive goddess Hera was being contained. Tomorrow, she was to be transferred to the custody of gods from another pantheon, who Rita assumed were in some sort of agreement with Starfleet.

None of which had anything to do with why she was here, nor with what she was contemplating.

Instead, the goddess of women, matrimony, family, home and hearth, had gotten her to thinking. All of her life, Rita Paris had set her sights on the stars, and pursued that goal with a zeal matched by few. It had taken her to the edges of the galaxy, to other dimensions, alien vistas, and through time itself. Which had left her with few regrets- in her lengthy yet relatively short lifespan, she had explored far more than most would in a dozen lifetimes, and survived far more circumstances that would have destroyed a lesser woman.

Yet, of late, her mind had turned to other possibilities, and she was uncertain if it was the influence of the matron goddess whom she had captured taking her revenge, or if perhaps being cut off from everyone and everything she had ever known had shocked her system. Whichever it was, she found her thoughts traveling unfamiliar paths in her mind, which disturbed her. Now here she was contemplating breaking protocol that she herself had established for good reason, for a justification that she herself could not even clarify.

Faint of heart ne’er won the day, Rita. Stepping up to the doorway she nodded to the beefy security personnel stationed there. “Gentlemen. No matter what, I leave this room alone- is that understood?”

The security officers exchanged somewhat confused expressions, but they shrugged and nodded. “Yes ma’am,” the second class petty officer offered, the senior of the pair.

“Computer, unseal this hatch. Authorization Paris, Rita, LTCDR, 8675309,” she called out to the overhead, which chirruped and responded.

=^= What was your mother’s first name? =^=

“Valentina,” Rita replied.

=^= Double identity check confirmed =^= the computer intoned as the door slid open to VIP quarters #11, the current residence of one Hera, wife of Zeus and queen of the Greek pantheon of Olympus.

Looking up from her fainting couch, Hera smiled politely at her new guest. Whatever she was thinking or plotting, well hidden behind that facade of hers. "Commander Rita Paris. It pleases me to see you again. I feel we've come to understand one another a bit better over our time together. I'd like to think we're borderline friendly, but... I probably shouldn't push it, should I?"

“Given that I’ve gained a considerably greater understanding of just who you are over the course of our association, I started by thinking of you as a petty tyrant with terrible motivations who committed unspeakable acts on whimsy, and it hasn’t really gotten much better? No. I most definitely would not define us as friendly, friends, or anything remotely close.” Framing the perspective that she’d gained of the petty goddess aloud like that firmed her resolve, and thus, Rita Paris did what she always did in such moments- she changed course.

“I’ve just come to check on you to insure that you’re prepared for your transfer. While your request for asylum is being considered, we want to insure that you are prepared to be handed over to the Norse pantheon.” While it all sounded reasonable, and there were elements of truth in the statement, it wasn’t the truth. Which meant that when she spoke, it was readily evident that Paris was being dishonest to the most oblivious person, which Hera most certainly was not.

"Though I know your people have done horrible things in the name of war, how about we not discuss my own misdeeds before I start reminding you of animal cruelty and testing or asking how many times you squashed a bug just because it was bothering you." Hera was definitely no fool and she grew serious at the mention of her impending transfer. "So for now, how about we dispense with the pleasantries and pretenses and tell me why you're really here." It wasn't so much a request as a statement of fact or an order.

The time-tossed temptress forced a smile, a perfunctory close-lipped affair that possessed no warmth nor mirth. Making demands was the fastest way to get Rita Paris to dig in, resist and to get nothing out of her. Hearing it alongside a comparison of human history to Hera’s misdeeds only confirmed her choice to keep her own counsel. “No, I don’t think so. I gave you the benefit of the doubt a few times now, and I’ve had cause to regret it. I genuinely had some hope that you might have some redemptive quality. But it seems my idealism seldom survives contact with the modern world”

“I’d get yourself together and prepare to be delivered over to those who implicitly understand you. Some folks who are more on the same level as you, who decided to work with the insects instead of… whatever it is you call what you do.” With that, Paris turned to leave.

Hera stood and tossed her hands out to the side exasperatedly. "Well, since my belongings were confiscated and all I have is the clothes I'm wearing and my request seems to have been perfunctorily denied... I'm ready now. Perhaps my new captors will dein to execute me in a few hundred years so I can once again be with my husband."

The eyes of the lost navigator narrowed as she half-turned to regard the captive warlord. When she spoke, there was an acidity to her words that was certainly something new coming out of the hard-luck heroine. “You declared war on most of the civilized galaxy and destroyed a planet, causing millions of deaths and marring their culture forever all because you were so irked that your husband was unfaithful. You could have ended yourself at any time, so don’t give me that ‘maybe I’ll be reunited with my husband’ crap. If that was your goal, you could have accomplished that a long time ago. And you wonder why asylum was denied. You lie like you breathe. Patron saint of women my ass.”

Hera narrowed her eyes as well. "Oh, so you approve of suicide? When you're summoned against your will into a universe you left peacefully by people that think they're a little more civilized now because they have starships and replicators rather than books and democracy? Then when you try to figure out why you were summoned and try to make your new home there, everyone blames you for their problems and tries to kill you, even when you're warning them that there's some major shit out there that's about to splatter their so called advanced civilizations all over the place in a heartbeat? I should have just rolled over and let myself die? Thrust an anathame into my beating breast and gone silently into the aether so they could summon me again? Is that it? Because if so, your civilization has gone backwards and I should have tried harder to wipe you out."

"As for you... You should have slit my throat when you had the chance and let my blood run across your hands. At least then I wouldn't have to worry about living in a galaxy that no longer has a place for me. I might have been summoned elsewhere as my whole self rather than some fragmented ghost of who I was. But no, you showed mercy..." Hera turned away to once more stare out one of the windows, her arms crossed. "Next time, keep your mercy..."

When she began, the voice of the all-too human woman was low and soft, and she did not turn around to address the starship's namesake. "Starfleet wanted you dead. The Commodore, the Captain, they expected you dead. But nope. Dumb ol' Rita thinks the goddess of home and hearth, of women and family and matrimony, this couldn't just be about getting pissy with the universe over her husband sticking his spear into every cleave he could find. There's gotta be more to her than that. You can't have lived that long and seen so much, and just be so small and... petty."

"But you showed me, all right," Paris snickered, shaking her head. "Every chance you got, you made sure I knew exactly how horrible you were, how heartless, all of the terrible things you'd done because you got off on watching me recoil. Because you have no compassion left, just a perverse joy in showing off just what a repugnant life form you were before we stopped you, and how you have no remorse... none. I'm not sure if you think you were justified or if that literal god complex of yours just renders you above it all while you feed off our psychic energy like a parasite."

At that, Paris turned, her eyes red but there were no tears. "I wanted to believe in you, Hera. For Meroset, for all those people across the galaxy you casually murdered with your troops and your chariots. I so desperately wanted to believe that there was some part of you worth redeeming, some tiny flicker of decency and nobility left to you. But there's none. Joke's on the stupid Earth girl, hah hah, she's no goddess, just a selfish vile thing with power."

"Enjoy your imprisonment. I hope they leave you locked up long enough for you to realize what you truly are, so that you can understand why the least merciful thing I could have done to you... is to let you live." By the time starfaring explorer was done venting her spleen, the voice of the embittered young woman was little more than a hiss, and she set her jaw in a scowl that looked unnatural on her face, yet not ingenuine.

When Hera spoke, it was soft and sounded decidedly vulnerable. "I already know what I am. I know what I was. I was a mother to your people and several others. I guided civilizations when they needed it. In this day and age... I'm just a failed summon brought about by some vengeful soul. The only powers I woke up with were driven by anger and you bled the last of that off. I saw everything I did as I did it, but what choice did I have but to just go along with it. I can't even tell you why I really did any of it..." A slight sob escaped the ancient being's lips as she covered her face with one hand.

Eventually she was able to compose herself enough to turn and face Rita, tears on her face. "Yeah, I'm the monster you think I am. But if I could make one last selfish request of you... Even though I don't deserve it, please don't tell any of your three kids about this version of me. They deserve better than the nightmares those stories would give them."

The expression of bitter cosmic disappointment was unmoved by Hera's speech, until she mentioned children, at which point Rita Paris' jaw dropped. Indecision warred within her as this was, she realized, something of the reason she had come to see Hera one more time, and come alone. Because deep down she had wanted to ask if such a thing might come to pass, or if it were even possible given their extremely improbable lives. While she didn't want to give Hera the satisfaction of knowing she had struck home, Paris' ever evident emotional expression betrayed her. "Th-three...?"

"In this universe, yes. That is the family I see for you and your Vulcan husband." Hera looked down at the floor, a few more tears slipping free. "That was one of my favorite duties on Meroset. The locals were facing a declining birth rate because of their long lives and most of them were sterile. Those colonists... As far as I'm aware, not a single one was born after I arrived. Over a billion were born in my care on the homeworld. Their lives were harsh, but their increasing sterility has been cured for probably ten thousand years or so."

Rolling her eyes, Rita Paris growled under her breath then shook her head. "All right, I still don't agree with it at all, but... look. A Deltan doctor I once met on Risa gave me a little life philosophy that I think applies to you. So if I was right, and there is still some spark of who you were in all those stories and legends, then maybe you could try it. It's simple- be better. Be who you are, and make your way through the universe. But as you do so, every day, in some way, be a little bit better. Give a kind word instead. Keep your calm instead. Be you, but be a better you."

"Because the universe really could use a better you, Hera."

"Having been the first to 'die' and enter the Aether... And now seeing this galaxy as it is..." Hera shook her head. "I'm not so sure you're right about that. I'm just a senile old woman trying to relive her glory days. I couldn't even get you pissed off enough to sentence me to death or kill me for my crimes against your people. The others may have found a way to survive and a new place, but..."

Struck by inspiration, Paris raised her chin and looked archly at the fallen goddess. "You said you owed me, and that you'd grant me any boon within your power. Well, being a better person is a choice- we make it every time we make any choice, and that's well within your power. You might not know the difference between right and wrong anymore, but you know how to figure it out. You can still recognize mercy and kindness and goodness, and you are capable of making that choice. So if your word is good for anything, that's the boon I'm asking of you. Be better. Be a goddess I can tell my kids about someday."

Hera looked up in surprise, her tear streaked face and eyes wide in shock that a mortal would request something so selfless as a boon. "That... I believe that is within my power, yes..." An inner light glowed within Hera for a moment as the contract for the boon was sealed. The light soon faded, but the contract had been sealed and Hera could do no less than be her best now. "Thank you..."

"Ah, I still meant those terrible things I said," Rita muttered. "But where there's life, there's hope. Being a better person is most definitely within your power, because we mortal insects can manage it, so I think the high and mighty can swing it. Something tells me Hera and the Hera aren't quite done with one another yet, which means we'll probably meet again. So show me, Hera." A chagrined half-smile settled on the face of the heroine of another age, one of dubious but unmistakable hope.

"I deserved them and more." Hera wiped her face dry with her hands but a few more tears slipped free. "To think I would learn such an important life lesson from a Human... If I have any more children, they'll be named after you. Thank you, Rita Paris. I will always remember you."

Handing the weepy goddess a napkin, Paris figured it was time for a joke to lighten the mood.

"Well, they do say I'm unforgettable..."