Mnhei'sahe

Posted on Mon Jan 7th, 2019 @ 7:26am by Lieutenant Commander Mnhei'sahe Dox & Commander Rita Paris

Mission: Section 31-B
Location: Crew Quarters, Deck 8
Timeline: 2396

Standing in the center of her overly spacious senior staff quarters, Lieutenant Junior Grade Melanie Dox was extremely nervous. She straightened the tunic of her uniform and cleared her throat as she looked over to the time displayed on the wall console to her left. In two minutes, she would be speaking directly to her mother for the first time in over six years.

For years, they had corresponded via recorded messages as Melanie's mother had been under Starfleet protective custody, consulting on her engineering knowledge with Starfleet as a part of her arrangement as both a political defector from the Romulan Star Empire and a former smuggler. But recently Captain Telvan had informed Melanie that she had pulled some strings and had Melanie's mother transferred to Starfleet Intelligence, a privilege that came with the opportunity for holographic communications rather than the previous recordings. Their communications would still be monitored, of course, and Melanie was instructed to not mention any specifics regarding her current assignment on the Hera. But still, it was to be an actual conversation.

However, it was not likely to be a pleasant one. In their most recent mission, the Hera confronted a worldship of beings best described as actual gods, and Melanie herself found herself assaulted mentally by a creature known as Anansi, the self-described "god of stories". This Anansi had the power to reach into one's mind and pull out memories and manipulate them to either torment or reward his victim.

For Melanie, it was a torment that had almost killed her. But it also opened her mind to a host of questions. Memories were raised that she didn't consciously remember of childhood trauma and conflict. Anansi taunted her with the memories he claimed Melanie had repressed. Memories of mutilation and betrayal. And memories of a name only half-remembered: Mnhei'sahe.

It was a Romulan word that meant 'ruling passion.' It was the name given to the philosophy that guided, in principle, all of Romulan life and defined their honor. But Anansi taunted her with it. He said it was also her true name. Melanie had questions that she needed answers to.

In her hand was a PaDD from the ships Chief Medical Officer, Asa Dael. On it was the extensive results of in-depth genetic testing and scans the diligent Doctor had performed on the young pilot in the wake of Anansi's assualt. Results that confirmed much of what the dark God had chosen to reveal.

The physical evidence of her once pointed, Romulan ears having been surgically removed was there in micro scarring. Beyond the surgical, was extensive evidence that at the same time, she had undergone genetic tampering designed to alter her DNA by artificially surpressing much of her Mother's Romulan genetic code in favor of her Father's human genes. It was a shoddy job that Asa was preparing a treatment to correct as, over time, it would lead to further long-term genetic damage.

She had all the physical evidence of the truth, but she needed to hear it from her mother. She had to know why it happened. And why she had forgotten.

A chime went off on her wall console as the computer spoke: =^=Subspace holographic communication for Lt. Melanie Dox. Starfleet Intelligence. Do you accept the communication?=^=

"Melanie Dox, Lieutenant Junior Grade. Access code 795-X9E. Yes, I accept the communication. Please begin." The anxious pilot replied, taking a deep breath.

The crew quarters of the Hera were equipped with holo-emitters, and in the room, just feet in front of her, the image of Jaeih Dox appeared in a shimmer of light as if she were standing there for real. She stood with her hands crossed behind her back, mirroring Melanie's own posture, although she was a good 5 inches taller than her partly human daughter. Jaeih"s hair was worn long and tied in a very formal ponytail in the back, but she sported the characteristic, V-shaped bangs customary of Romulans. But unlike in prior messages, she was now dressed formally in a dark grey Starfleet tunic similar to the one worn by the HERA's own Intel chief, Clemens. Jaeih's was, of course, bereft of any Starfleet insignias, however.

"Jolan'tru, my daughter." She had a broad smile on her face and looked to be working hard to contain her happiness, which made Melanie's stomach tighten all the more. "I am... Very pleased to see you. Whoever your Captain is, they must have some impressive connections to have arranged..." Jaeih trailed off as she read the nervous and serious expression on her daughter's face. Her posture loosened slightly as she continued. "Something's happened. What's wrong, Melaine?"

Adjusting slightly to straighten up slightly attempting to hold on to a military demeanor, Melanie swallowed dryly. "Jolan'tru, Mother. I... yes, I'm sorry. I had hoped that our first such communication would have been different, but something has happened and it... It's raised a number of serious questions."

With this, Jaeih's posture went rigid, as if she knew what was coming. "I understand." She answered less like a mother and more like a commanding officer, nodding for Melanie to continue.

"While regulations forbid me from going into details, I was recently subjected to... a psychic attack... of sorts." Melaine kept her wording vague. "In the process of this attack, memories were... I was shown things. Things I didn't remember until now."

Turning her head down and away from her mother, Melanie shut her eyes for a moment to collect herself. "These memories were... manipulated. I need to know what is true and what isn't. I need you to help me remember, Mother."

Tilting her head slightly, Jaeih watched as her daughter spoke, picking up on all the non-verbal cues of her anxiety on top of her words. "I knew at some point we would be having this discussion, daughter." She sighed, bringing her arms forward and crossing them loosely in front of her as she spoke. "Ask me your questions."

"We're back to 'daughter'." Melanie brought her eyes back up to meet her mother's. "Lately, you've been calling me by name more and more. It's not something you did very much when I was growing up."

Melanie paused, not wanting the conversation to become confrontational. She sighed slightly and ran a finger over one ear, but paused with her hand there, flinching slightly before re-crossing her arms behind her back before continuing with one word:

"Mnhei'sahe?"

The name caused Jaeih to stand up just a little straighter and purse her lips. She may have told herself she was ready to have this conversation, but she suddenly felt very exposed and felt old anger welling up in her. She shut her eyes for a moment before responding. "You ask that as a question... when it's apparent you already know the answer."

Her eyes snapped back open, a Stern look across her face. "Mnhei'sahe is your given name. It is the name bestowed upon you in your naming ceremony shortly after your birth. It is your TRUE name, before..."

Turning slightly away, Jaeih's tone shifted again to one of barely contained anger. "Your father disagreed with my decision and we argued considerably for the first few years of your life. His... position was that announcing your Romulan heritage could be dangerous for us in our occupation."

Taking a moment to compose herself and calm down, Jaeih continued. "Melanie Dox was a... compromise. The first of many I made for his fragile human ego."

"Compromises?" Melanie was now visibly upset herself. Her face slightly flush as the tone of her voice raised slightly. "What other compromises don't I remember, Mother?"

Now on the defensive, Jeaih tilted her head again and Melanie saw not a loving mother but the stern taskmistress that raised her harshly as she looked down on her daughter judgementally. "Would you like a list, Mnhei'sahe?"

The name cut into Melanie like a knife as she scowled back, finally losing her patience. In Rihan, the Romulan tongue in which she had been raised, she snapped back. "I'D LIKE THE TRUTH, MOTHER!!"

Crossing her arms behind her back again, Jaeih worked to contain a slight smirk at the response. "Theeere you are. I'd wondered when MY daughter would show herself." Then her eyes went cold. "Your... Father... took much of your birthright from you. Did his level best to make you a docile little HEVAM!" She spat out the word, a Romulan slur for humans. "Tell me, what did this psychic show you? It wasn't just a name to have you this upset."

Without hesitation, Melanie launched into her memory of Anansi's psychic revelation. "We were on the Forager. I couldn't have been more than five years old, and you were in the cockpit. You were screaming at him and he was screaming at you. I... Couldn't make out what you were saying."

Tears of anger began to streak down the young pilot's cheeks, her arms now tensely at her side. "But I was on my knees... On my knees in the corridor outside the cockpit in a puddle of blood, crying. Screaming in pain. My ears were bleeding. The tops were cut up and I was holding the tips in my hands."

Her emotions flared wildly in her as her voice raised to a scream. "WHAT DID HE DO TO ME?!

The stern expression snapped back with shock as Jaeih listened and her face went soft as her arms unfolded and fell to her sides. "No. No, Mnhei'sahe. That's... That's not how it happened. No." Suddenly, Jaeih was a mother again, anger replaced by genuine concern.

"Whatever invaded you mind twisted your memories to hurt you." Her body language was now awkward as she couldn't move forward to touch her daughter. "But, yes. When you were little, you had my ears. Romulan DNA is... extremely potent. Human DNA is quite recessive in the mix. But... that's not the point."

Straightening up, Jaeih composed herself to continue. "He took you, in a drunken fit of petulance, to a human surgeon while I was off the ship brokering a deal with pirates on the Federation side of the neutral zone. He knew I was preoccupied, and took advantage of it to have you mutilated to placate his desire for a HUMAN daughter.

Tears of her own were now visible on Jaeih's cheeks. "The... doctor... didn't anesthetize you property and I later learned that you woke up on the table screaming. But the damage was done. The monster had your ears removed... Your DNA altered making your very Romulan blood turn brown. I was horrified."

"But, at the time I didn't have the means to fix it." She looked up at Melanie, with a sincere look of pain on her face.

"When he came back, you were still in shock. I put you in your room and went into the cockpit, hoping the air seal would keep you from hearing." Jaeih's rage returned as the memories came back out. "He wasn't always a drunk. Once... he was a man I thought I could be with. But... his pettiness... his jealousy... and his all too human prejudices destroyed him. In that moment, I... I..."

Composing herself again, Jaeih continued as Melaine looked on in shock. "He threatened to turn me in to the Empire if I tried to leave with you, but I had no intention of leaving. It had been a steady decline in our... relationship... and I had taken assurances that the Forrager would not obey any of his commands. That ship was mine. YOU were mine!!!"

Wiping tears from her eyes, Melanie squinted at her mother. "What did you do?"

"I didn't kill him, obviously. But I came very, VERY close." Jaeih chuckled slightly, a humorless laugh tinged with anger and sadness. "Like it or not, Mnhei'sahe, we are Romulan. And Romulans are rarely unprepared for betrayal."

Turning slightly away from Melanie's gaze, Jaeih continued. "I predicted he might one day need to be dealt with. So, one night while he was too drunk to protest, I performed a little surgery of my own. I implanted a nano-aggregator at the base of his skull wrapped around his spinal cord. A means of obedience used by the Tal Shiar on Romulus."

Melanie's face went pale with shock.

"With a word, it could have taken his head off of his body. A different word and it... Let him know it was there." Jaeih looked almost upset as she recalled, shaking her head slightly.

"I let him know in no uncertain terms what would happen if he didn't leave immediately. And like the coward he was, he bargained for his pathetic life. Apparently, you heard all of this. But like the memories of your childhood and what happened to your ears, you suppressed it. Forgot it. And once I realized that you had blocked all of the memories once he was gone, I... I let you believe the lie."

Hanging her head in emotional defeat, Jaeih sighed. "Calling you by your REAL name gave you nightmares. I... I was terrified of hurting you anymore. So I let you believe. I let you believe your father simply left. That you always looked like this." A tear dripped down her face.

"I let you be Melanie."

Quivering in place as she stood, dumbfounded, Melanie wiped tears from her own face. She wanted to step forward to embrace her mother but remembered that she was only a holographic projection from a galaxy away.

"So... That's the truth Mnhei'sahe." Jaeih put her head back and took a deep breath, and Melanie found hearing the name no longer stung to hear. She smiled awkwardly to her mother.

"And..." Melanie chuckled... "And you let him come back when I was fourteen after all of that?" The dry half-joke cut through the tension in the room as Jaeih let out a hard laugh.

"THAT, my daughter, was a reunion purely borne of need. It's true that he had stopped drinking and at least was trying to make an effort, but he had collected a number of invaluable connections that we needed to continue our efforts towards aiding the reunification efforts on Romulus." Jaeih smiled slightly. "And, in truth, he was bargaining to try and get me to deactivate the bomb I put in his head."

Taking on a slightly melancholy demeanor, Jaeih looked over at Melanie, pursing her lips in a broad, close-mouthed smile. "And, in truth, I had hoped that his presence might help pull you out of the depression you were spiraling further into. Of course, you only retreated further into your studies... flying the ship... until you..."

Catching herself getting lost in the moment and saying far too much, Jaeih snapped herself back to focus, stood up straighter and cleared her throat. "But... that is the long and short of it.
Do as you see fit with it."

he shift in tone caught Melaine by surprise but not as much as the wording. When she was being attacked by Anasi, the trickster god appeared to Melanie once as Jaeih, using a variation on the words. 'Do as you see fit' was a phrase Jaeih uttered many times in Melanie's past and they still carried a sting.

Hanging her head slightly, Melanie took a long breath and the silence between the two seemed to last an eternity.

"And now what?" Jaeih commented, dryly. Her arms crossed behind her back again and standing with her head back in a somewhat authoritarian posture. "You have your answers. You know your truth. What you do with it is up to you, Mnhei'sahe."

The few feet between Melanie and the hologram of her mother now felt like an eternity of distance, as the shaken pilot struggled to maintain eye contact. "I... I don't..."

As Melanie trailed off, Jaeih interjected again. "Our communications are still monitored. There's no going back. No hiding what you are from your crew. Are you prepared for that, Mnhei'sahe?"

"I'm not... afraid of that anymore mother," Melanie responded, her determination undermined only slightly by sniffling as she spoke. "You don't know this crew. This ship."

"I know humans. I know the federation. I say this not to discourage you, but to remind you to be the woman I raised. You are as much my Mnhei'sahe as you have ever been Melaine Dox. You are my daughter and a child of Romulus." Jaeih took a hand out momentarily as if to reach toward her daughter before pulling it back.

"Use this truth, my daughter. Be the whole woman my weakness denied you all these years. Be who you truly are and nothing can stop you."

The two looked at each other from a galaxy away, both straining to keep tears from their eyes again.

"Jol hwi arhem, Mnhei'sahe." Jaeih said with a lump in her throat, Rihan for I love you.

With fresh tears welling in her eyes, Melanie's voice cracked in response. "Jol hwi arhem, Ri'ranov."

'I love you, Mother.'

Seconds later, the image of Jaeih shimmered and vanished as the computer chirped. =^=Message terminated.=^=

Turning to walk back towards the bathroom of her quarters, Melanie touched the pad on the wall turning on the soft light over the mirror. She leaned forward over the sink, looking hard into the reflection that was at once familiar and somehow different with all the things she now knew.

"Mnhei'sahe." She whispered to her reflection as tears built up in her eyes. A reflection that she always felt was wrong somehow and she now understood why.

As tears began flowing freely down her face, she whispered the name again, as if waiting for an answer.

 

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