What's in a Name

Posted on Sat Jan 12th, 2019 @ 9:38am by Lieutenant Commander Mnhei'sahe Dox

Mission: Section 31-B
Location: Crew Quarters, Deck 8
Timeline: 2396, en route to the Section 31 base

Sitting alone in her quarters after the end of her shift, Lieutenant Mnhei'sahe “Melanie” Dox was nursing a hot bowl of beef stew as she sat, looking at the small notebook in front of her.

The notebook was a part of her ongoing therapy with the ships new Councilor and existing Chief Medical Officer Asa Dael. By leaps and bounds, Asa had been proving to do the job of a counselor far better than the ships previous one and Dox was happy for that. It was a little strange trying to mentally separate your counselor from the same person who was also among your best friends, but so far it was working.

The idea of the notebook was to try and write out your memories and feelings in journal form. Doctor Dael suggested that the tactile act of doing so with pen and paper had a theraputic value and could help Dox process her most recent traumas. Most specifically the fears and anxieties caused by her encounter with the entity called Anansi and the fall out from the repressed memories the so-called 'god of stories’ had unearthed from her own mind.

But as a journal, it also could serve as a catch all for what she was thinking and feeling and hopefully make it easier to process the massive changes that had taken root in the young part-Romulan pilots life.

There were a couple of pages already filled. Memories of her lost childhood she had written down. But tonight, she had a different set of thoughts she wanted to collect on paper.

Picking up the replicated ball point pen, Dox began to write, putting her thoughts down as the came in her first language of Rihan, which came easier to her these days.

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Journal Entry #2. Mnhei'sahe Dox

That's a weird thing to write. My name. When Anansi called me that for the first time it was immediately familiar. I mean, beyond my obviously knowing the meaning of the word itself. For Rihannsu, the word is the name of the cultures principal philosophy. It would be like a human naming their child “karma” or I suppose.

But what I mean is that it felt natural. It felt familiar to me AS a name. As my name. My mother later clarified the details of why I had forgotten it and why she let me forget. But in the moment in which Anansi told it to me, I knew it was the truth.

After I told it to Commander Paris, she began peppering it into our conversations. Using it in little ways here and there. But what was weird to me was that it felt right. I liked hearing it. It felt good.

Inversely, I've found my feeling torn on being called 'Melanie’. Knowing that it was a name that my father pushed on me when I was about 4 as a part of his attempt to somehow pretend that I wasn't Rihannsu has tainted it. I find that I actually cringe a little inside when I hear that name now. I wish I didn't, but it's true.

I've been trying to explore each aspect of my past and my heritage and just who I am. Rita talked with me recently about not forgetting that half of that heritage is still human and I understand what she was telling me. I'm never going to be just one thing and if I try and forget either part of myself, I'll do myself more harm than good. But I don't know if I can keep being 'Melanie’. What it means has become painful to me.

Mnhei'sahe is my given first name. Melanie was something put on me out of hate and I can't use that knowing it. Dox, however, my last name means more than just my father. His parents, my grandparents, were as good to me as I would allow. I regret not letting them in and wish I could go back and be better to them, but I can't. But I can carry that name and try and do right by it now. It's a reminder that I am as human as I am Rihannsu.


Rihannsu are supposed to have four names. Their given first name, their second name denoting where they were born, their family or house name and a fourth name they learn later in life. I don't actually know where I was born, but if it was on the ship I grew up on, I'm not adding 'i'Forager' to my name. And it seems I have two given names and two house names. My Mother's house name is t'Aan and Dox comes from my father. But it sure feels like my given Rihannsu first name and that fourth name... Called ones 'true name' might just be the same.

I've updated my personnel file to reflect this and submitted it to the chain of command, but after a lot of thought, it's what I needed to do for myself. To feel a little more... complete. That rest I can work out in time.

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The young pilot closed the book and put her pen down, smiling. This felt like an important step on this journey she was taken trying to accept herself. Each night, her nightmares were getting just a little better the harder she worked at reconciling the conflicting sides of herself.

But she was glad to have help. Asa has been both a friend and a sage council. As has Rita Paris and Sonak. Baroness Von Alcott and Commader Thex have held out their hands in welcome friendship. Even Captain Telvan has worked to let her know she was not alone on this journey.

It was an extremely new idea to the redheaded Romulan, but a very welcome one.