Interlude – Facing forwards to the past - Part 4
by Commander Isha t'Vaurek & Commander Chelsea Dunham
Post Details
Continued.......
ON:
*But did you deserve the level of severity?* Pia wanted to ask but held it back for the moment, perhaps that was a question for later. "What happened after that? What did you do?" she asked instead as an interim question.
"My parents are considered both progressive and liberal. Many would say that my temerity was the result of their earlier leniency,” Isha answered the unasked question first, she thought perhaps because she wanted to demonstrate to the counsellor that what she claimed about being able to ‘read’ people was true. She continued, “There are only two worthwhile occupations, war and politics, it was the latter that was to be my path to power. By the time my wounds were healed and a physician was called to ensure that there were no signs of scarring that would hinder me making a good marriage I was resolved to be the best. I would not fall into the comfortable time-serving routine that my father occupied, but would bore my way into the heart of the system, I would become the system. Understand, Pia that I had learned first hand the power that I and my actions had over the lives of others, I saw why my mother had chosen S'Ten to do it and understood how important the choice of instrument is, but most importantly I learned why IF I choose to deceive someone I should never, ever allow myself to get caught."
"I see." Pia's feelings about this were irrelevant so she did not display them. "She *did* understand both the lesson and how Isha had dealt with it. She took her back to the question they had been looking at.
"Isha, do you remember that earlier you told me you allow yourself to be attacked because you feel as though you are being punished for something, that you deserve and that you do not have the right to hit back? Do you think this might have something to do with your feeling guilt regarding S'Ten?" Pia posed.
“If I did not deserve it, why would he be driven to do it?” Isha replied giving no clue as to who ‘he’ was in the context she was considering.
"Driven? Who was driven to what?" Pia asked, confused.
As she looked at Pia it struck Isha how uncharacteristically naive her own statement was. How could she, Isha be stupid enough to equate something that S'Ten had done because he had no choice with something that Cardassian thrai did to her because he was so convinced of his own superiority.
"You're right, Pia," Isha said trying to clarify her meaning, "I do feel guilt, and when these things happen I cannot imagine that these men would hurt me unless they had no other choice, but that's ridiculous, isn't it? They're not vassals who cannot refuse to do as they are commanded, and I am not subject to their authority," Isha said cutting straight to the bone of the matter.
"No, they are not" Pia nodded. "...and you are not! I am sure that S'Ten forgave you, after all, you were but a child."
"I don't know what happened to S'Ten, I tried to find out, so that I could seek his forgiveness, but the trail went cold at a trading outpost near the Klingon border. His summary dismissal from my Mother's service had damaged his reputation so I suppose he went and did whatever he had to do to survive," Isha breathed a melancholy sigh. "I have a lot to feel guilty about, Pia."
"No, Isha, I believe S'Ten would not have wanted you to feel that way. It was your mother who ruined him. Your mother's choice to taint his reputation and your mother's liberty to have chosen to have made allowances for his loyallty and reasons for what he did but she chose not to take them into account. You however made no such informed nor far-reaching choices."
Isha smiled slightly. What an optimist Pia was. Isha was sure that he did not blame her at the time, but as the years passed and he had time to think, forget and to rearrange old memories - who knew? Was it not Isha’s own rearrangement of her memories that had brought her here?
"Actions have consequences," Isha said, "sometimes for ourselves and sometimes for others. If I am responsible for my actions then I am also responsible for the consequences," she argued.
"I believe I am responsible for my actions to a large degree, but at different times in my life my ability to be *held* responsible for outcomes that I could not possibly have foreseen, cannot be complete. Besides, at any time we are all at the whim of the Prophets, or the Elements or whatever we individually call the *Omnipotent* forces that rule our universes. It is too arrogant to assume we do everything all by our own hand and especially as children when we are probably little but pawns ourselves in the hands of those who control us on a local and more mortal level."
"I'm afraid your mother's blaming you for what *she* did to S'Ten to avenge her own loss of control of him cannot be something you deserve to be punished further for." Pia thought passionately of the little girl, instilled with such deep and painful guilt because she was sensitive enough to care for her surrogate father and his fate. She was very angry with Isha's mother for her manipulation of so young and pure a spirit.
Gradually she calmed herself. "I'm sorry" she said quietly. "I don't have the right nor the business to be giving my opinion. This is your session and your opinion is what we are here to explore. Please forgive me for my outburst."
Whilst Isha might not have been familiar with the practices of Federation Counselors she was deeply versed in the use of the dialectic method, to her it seemed quite natural for Pia to counter her supposition if she viewed it to be erroneous, “How else are we to determine the truth if not through rational discussion?” Isha asked genuinely interested.
"Counselling is supposed to be the art of listening and coaxing the patient to assess their own situation and learn to deal with their own feelings, inner or outer, about what is troubling them. It is not for debate or expression of the Counsellor's own point of view." Pia explained.
Isha rested her elbows on the arms of her chair and touched her fingertips together as she leaned forward, "I see," she said following the thread of their earlier conversation, "so it is a manipulative art," Isha could understand and respect that, though she was not sure that the counselor would like her description, "through which you trick my mind into following paths it would not normally allow itself to follow. You're very good," she observed.
Pia laughed. "Not so good that I have achieved this aim with any successful stealth! But seriously though, I don't have any intention to do this by subversion. My intention is that you, and your mind of course, should co-operate willingly with the taking of these less well-worn paths and hopefully triumphant destinations. Now, less of the diversionary tactics by flattering me off the subject if you please?" She raised an eyebrow and her eyes sparkled with a friendly amusement.
An involuntary tug raised the corners of Isha's lips, "I'm a somewhat intransigent case," she admitted, "or so I've been told. You may choose to describe it in any way you wish but I know a manipulator when I meet one. If it were deceit then my co-operation by definition could not be willingly given, but subtlely twisting my perceptions ... well, you are merely inviting me to go somewhere. And don't you dare be offended, this is an art we value, though not for the purposes of exposing one's own mental frailties," she added with a sigh.
"I won't be offended then" Pia agreed with another smile. "but do you really feel that we are only investigating *frailties*? Surely we have uncovered great strengths and wonderful qualities? Does your society not value the ability to feel compassion and regret for a fallen loved one? As your surrogate parent, S'Ten was certainly a figure who was deeply set in your childhood affections and your loyalty to him, to still carry the pain of his punishment at your mother's hand is extraordinary. As is your need to chastise yourself for your part in his path to invoking her wrath."
"Strengths typically speak for themselves," Isha observed letting her hands drop into her lap once again. "and if one lets compassion run too wildly it becomes a weakness. I will admit, Pia that I had never thought of him that way, a surrogate parent as you say. Perhaps he was, he certainly provided the ear and encouragement that mine by their absence did not."
"I wonder if perhaps is too mild a word. It seems to me that it is certain.... is this an idea that you don't like?" Pia asked.
"Like? To acknowledge that in the rare weeks they were there my own parents never spoke to me except to criticise, to have felt valued because a servant of no origins took the time to listen to me and give me his approval? How can I like that? My parents were not just parents, they were the leaders of my House, I owed, and owe them my unquestioning loyalty, but I doubt I would have cared if my mother's ship was crushed in a singularity or if my father had never escaped the Senate District during the Shinzon coup," she said in a strange tone halfway between savage and indifferent. .
"What happened to your siblings? Or is that too painful to answer? I don't mind if you'd rather not talk about them, only they seem strangely absent too, in the tales of your childhood." Pia asked gently.
"They were both much older than I, and their lives then were focussed on the Galae not on an irritating little sister. Of course we saw each other from time to time as families like ours do but even as I grew older I was becoming a politician, not a soldier - it was natural that our paths did not cross unless they required representation. Besides, I was always going to leave the family,” Isha said thinking she might have to explain how that worked to the Counsellor, “The only time a woman leaves her House of birth is when she marries the Head of another House, usually it is the male who takes his wife’s name. I won’t bore you with the details of that … anyway, that was my future, and near the and of 2343 with all due pomp and celebration I became part of the House Illialhlae, one of the few Great Houses with a lineage more impressive than the one I was born into.”
"Oh, how romantic!" Pia exclaimed before remembering that she was *supposed* to stay aloof. It was hard with this fascinating lady whose life seemed to unfold like the sort of novel you couldn't put down.
“I don’t have any real notion of romance in the way that you understand it. My husband had lost his first wife several years earlier and nobody had ever thought he would marry again; it caused something of a stir actually He was in his eighties and whilst there was a measure of infatuated lust on Nveid’s part he was also quite cynically acquiring my skill at law on behalf of his House. I was thirty-five, young, beautiful, influential, suddenly astonishingly wealthy and through a simple contract and act of consummation I outranked my mother."
"How did that affect your relationship with her? Did it make you feel that you had *measured up* to her expectations of you?" Pia left out the resentful "at last" that she instinctively wanted to add. She reprimanded herself mentally for having even thought it since it was decidedly *not* neutral. She tried to pull herself back to the role of observer and not participant.
“The first gift my husband gave me was full jurisdiction over the affairs of his House in the courts and at the Senate. There are few things that could have made me more delighted,” she said with a smile, “of course his brother was a bit chafed by the decision, but Nniol and I had known each other for a number of years so I wasn’t too concerned I thought we could continue to work together. Of course it meant that I no longer served my mother’s House in that capacity which reduced our communication down to public occasions,” she continued trying to get back to the question that Pia had asked, now was not the time to talk about Nniol, nor indeed Rh’vaurek, both of whom played an enduring role in her future.
“It was at one such event that I argued with my sister. She seemed to think me unreasonable for denying my mother’s request to put the support of my people behind a particular motion, one that my mother opposed and which my husband supported. As my mother’s heir it was her duty to try and reason with me where our mother had failed. Perhaps a more grateful daughter would have granted the initial request, or listened to her sister, certainly Nveid would have accepted my decision, but I was not grateful … that is when my mother understood that any hope she had entertained of using me to annex the influence and power of my husband’s House was misplaced. Nveid had freely put the political fate of his House into my hands and I was not about to cede that power to anyone. There were others too who tried to exploit my new status and they too found themselves disappointed where their interests deviated from mine and Nveid’s. So yes, Latta-Jhu and I argued and life went on.”
“I lost my husband and eldest son in the Dominion war, the second battle of Chintoka. Days later my brother died in another skirmish. Somewhat more needlessly my sister died in 2378 as part of a force defending a colony against a raid by pirates. My sister's death left me the last female issue of my mother’s body. It was an unprecedented state of affairs. My husband had already named me his successor until our children, or those of his brother were of age – unusual itself as the title and responsibility would normally have passed to his brother as the next most senior male child of the female line. Now my mother named me heir to her House. I could not refuse, why would I? But it did place an unusual concentration of power in my hands. Death is very fond of me, Pia,” Isha told her, “and for every life I give him he rewards me with a little more power in the hope to keep my favour. Why must I benefit through their misfortune? Why must I occupy a place that should have been my son’s? What is it I do that makes these things happen to me?
"Woah, wait... how is Death's fondness for taking those around you, something that becomes your deliberate intention and responsibility?" Pia spluttered in refute of that last turn of what had begun as a recount of events and ended as a series of statements and question that were at last the crux of this whole consultation. It was sudden, dramatic and very important. Pia tried to rein in her enthusiasm to deal with all these points at once.
"It might not be my intention but it is to my gain. I could refuse what is offered to me. I did not have to allow my husband's will to stand, I could have petitioned the Senate on grounds of precedent and had it revoked, I could have accomodated those who wanted me to use my infliuence to help them with no damage to the stability of my husband's House. I thought that I was acting as mhnei'sahe required, but now I am no longer sure. To do what one must because honour requires it is no crime, but to justify fulfilling one's whims on such grounds is a heinous breach of mhnei'sahe."
"Isha, did you do anything that made these loved ones and relatives of yours die?" Pia asked leading for an answer she already knew the answer to.
"The people I have mentioned? No," she replied.
"So then you believe you should have done more to prevent yourself from benefiting from their wills... which they wrote to bequeath you that which they wished you to have?" Pia conjectured.
"Bequests are made with personal interests in mind, those of the dead, not of the living. I would not have been wrong to say no."
"Neither would you have been wrong to say yes - since it was not of your doing that it was gifted you. You cannot be held responsible for everyone else's intentions and actions, nor the repercussions of them. Certainly not to the point of punishing yourself for the rest of your life, surely? Must you wear a hair-shirt and turn away all good fortune before you will forgive yourself that others have not been so lucky as you?" Pia continued to project the conceptions.
"Was I not taught that along with privilege, I had to accept responsibity?" Isha questioned.
"Yes, for your own intended and calculated actions, but surely not for all those of every other soul alive or dead?" Pia returned.
"Only those who wish me good or ill." Isha replied.
"I don't understand. Why do their wishes matter to what you must take responsibility for?" Pia enquired.
Isha rolled her lower lip between her teeth before linking her fingers together on her knes. "Perhaps we will discuss that next time," she said drawing a deep breath. Isha rose, deciding that the interview was over.
Pia took in a breath too. The decision to break was Isha's to make and it was perfectly okay for her to do so. Pia stood up. "Of course. Would you like to arrange another time or would you prefer to be spontaneous about when you come back?" she offered.
"I'm sure we will never meet again, Pia," Isha said.
"Oh... I'm sorry" Pia said, genuinely disappointed as the Romulan dignitary left anonymously and had never been there.
OFF
Ambassador Isha t'Khellian
and
Ensign Rimmec, Pia
Assistant Counsellor
by Commander Isha t'Vaurek & Commander Chelsea Dunham
Post Details
| Title | Facing forwards to the past - Part 4 | |
| Mission | Interlude | |
| Author(s) | Commander Isha t'Vaurek & Commander Chelsea Dunham | |
| Posted | Mon May 24, 2010 @ 10:48pm | |
| Location | Assistant Counselor's Office |
ON:
*But did you deserve the level of severity?* Pia wanted to ask but held it back for the moment, perhaps that was a question for later. "What happened after that? What did you do?" she asked instead as an interim question.
"My parents are considered both progressive and liberal. Many would say that my temerity was the result of their earlier leniency,” Isha answered the unasked question first, she thought perhaps because she wanted to demonstrate to the counsellor that what she claimed about being able to ‘read’ people was true. She continued, “There are only two worthwhile occupations, war and politics, it was the latter that was to be my path to power. By the time my wounds were healed and a physician was called to ensure that there were no signs of scarring that would hinder me making a good marriage I was resolved to be the best. I would not fall into the comfortable time-serving routine that my father occupied, but would bore my way into the heart of the system, I would become the system. Understand, Pia that I had learned first hand the power that I and my actions had over the lives of others, I saw why my mother had chosen S'Ten to do it and understood how important the choice of instrument is, but most importantly I learned why IF I choose to deceive someone I should never, ever allow myself to get caught."
"I see." Pia's feelings about this were irrelevant so she did not display them. "She *did* understand both the lesson and how Isha had dealt with it. She took her back to the question they had been looking at.
"Isha, do you remember that earlier you told me you allow yourself to be attacked because you feel as though you are being punished for something, that you deserve and that you do not have the right to hit back? Do you think this might have something to do with your feeling guilt regarding S'Ten?" Pia posed.
“If I did not deserve it, why would he be driven to do it?” Isha replied giving no clue as to who ‘he’ was in the context she was considering.
"Driven? Who was driven to what?" Pia asked, confused.
As she looked at Pia it struck Isha how uncharacteristically naive her own statement was. How could she, Isha be stupid enough to equate something that S'Ten had done because he had no choice with something that Cardassian thrai did to her because he was so convinced of his own superiority.
"You're right, Pia," Isha said trying to clarify her meaning, "I do feel guilt, and when these things happen I cannot imagine that these men would hurt me unless they had no other choice, but that's ridiculous, isn't it? They're not vassals who cannot refuse to do as they are commanded, and I am not subject to their authority," Isha said cutting straight to the bone of the matter.
"No, they are not" Pia nodded. "...and you are not! I am sure that S'Ten forgave you, after all, you were but a child."
"I don't know what happened to S'Ten, I tried to find out, so that I could seek his forgiveness, but the trail went cold at a trading outpost near the Klingon border. His summary dismissal from my Mother's service had damaged his reputation so I suppose he went and did whatever he had to do to survive," Isha breathed a melancholy sigh. "I have a lot to feel guilty about, Pia."
"No, Isha, I believe S'Ten would not have wanted you to feel that way. It was your mother who ruined him. Your mother's choice to taint his reputation and your mother's liberty to have chosen to have made allowances for his loyallty and reasons for what he did but she chose not to take them into account. You however made no such informed nor far-reaching choices."
Isha smiled slightly. What an optimist Pia was. Isha was sure that he did not blame her at the time, but as the years passed and he had time to think, forget and to rearrange old memories - who knew? Was it not Isha’s own rearrangement of her memories that had brought her here?
"Actions have consequences," Isha said, "sometimes for ourselves and sometimes for others. If I am responsible for my actions then I am also responsible for the consequences," she argued.
"I believe I am responsible for my actions to a large degree, but at different times in my life my ability to be *held* responsible for outcomes that I could not possibly have foreseen, cannot be complete. Besides, at any time we are all at the whim of the Prophets, or the Elements or whatever we individually call the *Omnipotent* forces that rule our universes. It is too arrogant to assume we do everything all by our own hand and especially as children when we are probably little but pawns ourselves in the hands of those who control us on a local and more mortal level."
"I'm afraid your mother's blaming you for what *she* did to S'Ten to avenge her own loss of control of him cannot be something you deserve to be punished further for." Pia thought passionately of the little girl, instilled with such deep and painful guilt because she was sensitive enough to care for her surrogate father and his fate. She was very angry with Isha's mother for her manipulation of so young and pure a spirit.
Gradually she calmed herself. "I'm sorry" she said quietly. "I don't have the right nor the business to be giving my opinion. This is your session and your opinion is what we are here to explore. Please forgive me for my outburst."
Whilst Isha might not have been familiar with the practices of Federation Counselors she was deeply versed in the use of the dialectic method, to her it seemed quite natural for Pia to counter her supposition if she viewed it to be erroneous, “How else are we to determine the truth if not through rational discussion?” Isha asked genuinely interested.
"Counselling is supposed to be the art of listening and coaxing the patient to assess their own situation and learn to deal with their own feelings, inner or outer, about what is troubling them. It is not for debate or expression of the Counsellor's own point of view." Pia explained.
Isha rested her elbows on the arms of her chair and touched her fingertips together as she leaned forward, "I see," she said following the thread of their earlier conversation, "so it is a manipulative art," Isha could understand and respect that, though she was not sure that the counselor would like her description, "through which you trick my mind into following paths it would not normally allow itself to follow. You're very good," she observed.
Pia laughed. "Not so good that I have achieved this aim with any successful stealth! But seriously though, I don't have any intention to do this by subversion. My intention is that you, and your mind of course, should co-operate willingly with the taking of these less well-worn paths and hopefully triumphant destinations. Now, less of the diversionary tactics by flattering me off the subject if you please?" She raised an eyebrow and her eyes sparkled with a friendly amusement.
An involuntary tug raised the corners of Isha's lips, "I'm a somewhat intransigent case," she admitted, "or so I've been told. You may choose to describe it in any way you wish but I know a manipulator when I meet one. If it were deceit then my co-operation by definition could not be willingly given, but subtlely twisting my perceptions ... well, you are merely inviting me to go somewhere. And don't you dare be offended, this is an art we value, though not for the purposes of exposing one's own mental frailties," she added with a sigh.
"I won't be offended then" Pia agreed with another smile. "but do you really feel that we are only investigating *frailties*? Surely we have uncovered great strengths and wonderful qualities? Does your society not value the ability to feel compassion and regret for a fallen loved one? As your surrogate parent, S'Ten was certainly a figure who was deeply set in your childhood affections and your loyalty to him, to still carry the pain of his punishment at your mother's hand is extraordinary. As is your need to chastise yourself for your part in his path to invoking her wrath."
"Strengths typically speak for themselves," Isha observed letting her hands drop into her lap once again. "and if one lets compassion run too wildly it becomes a weakness. I will admit, Pia that I had never thought of him that way, a surrogate parent as you say. Perhaps he was, he certainly provided the ear and encouragement that mine by their absence did not."
"I wonder if perhaps is too mild a word. It seems to me that it is certain.... is this an idea that you don't like?" Pia asked.
"Like? To acknowledge that in the rare weeks they were there my own parents never spoke to me except to criticise, to have felt valued because a servant of no origins took the time to listen to me and give me his approval? How can I like that? My parents were not just parents, they were the leaders of my House, I owed, and owe them my unquestioning loyalty, but I doubt I would have cared if my mother's ship was crushed in a singularity or if my father had never escaped the Senate District during the Shinzon coup," she said in a strange tone halfway between savage and indifferent. .
"What happened to your siblings? Or is that too painful to answer? I don't mind if you'd rather not talk about them, only they seem strangely absent too, in the tales of your childhood." Pia asked gently.
"They were both much older than I, and their lives then were focussed on the Galae not on an irritating little sister. Of course we saw each other from time to time as families like ours do but even as I grew older I was becoming a politician, not a soldier - it was natural that our paths did not cross unless they required representation. Besides, I was always going to leave the family,” Isha said thinking she might have to explain how that worked to the Counsellor, “The only time a woman leaves her House of birth is when she marries the Head of another House, usually it is the male who takes his wife’s name. I won’t bore you with the details of that … anyway, that was my future, and near the and of 2343 with all due pomp and celebration I became part of the House Illialhlae, one of the few Great Houses with a lineage more impressive than the one I was born into.”
"Oh, how romantic!" Pia exclaimed before remembering that she was *supposed* to stay aloof. It was hard with this fascinating lady whose life seemed to unfold like the sort of novel you couldn't put down.
“I don’t have any real notion of romance in the way that you understand it. My husband had lost his first wife several years earlier and nobody had ever thought he would marry again; it caused something of a stir actually He was in his eighties and whilst there was a measure of infatuated lust on Nveid’s part he was also quite cynically acquiring my skill at law on behalf of his House. I was thirty-five, young, beautiful, influential, suddenly astonishingly wealthy and through a simple contract and act of consummation I outranked my mother."
"How did that affect your relationship with her? Did it make you feel that you had *measured up* to her expectations of you?" Pia left out the resentful "at last" that she instinctively wanted to add. She reprimanded herself mentally for having even thought it since it was decidedly *not* neutral. She tried to pull herself back to the role of observer and not participant.
“The first gift my husband gave me was full jurisdiction over the affairs of his House in the courts and at the Senate. There are few things that could have made me more delighted,” she said with a smile, “of course his brother was a bit chafed by the decision, but Nniol and I had known each other for a number of years so I wasn’t too concerned I thought we could continue to work together. Of course it meant that I no longer served my mother’s House in that capacity which reduced our communication down to public occasions,” she continued trying to get back to the question that Pia had asked, now was not the time to talk about Nniol, nor indeed Rh’vaurek, both of whom played an enduring role in her future.
“It was at one such event that I argued with my sister. She seemed to think me unreasonable for denying my mother’s request to put the support of my people behind a particular motion, one that my mother opposed and which my husband supported. As my mother’s heir it was her duty to try and reason with me where our mother had failed. Perhaps a more grateful daughter would have granted the initial request, or listened to her sister, certainly Nveid would have accepted my decision, but I was not grateful … that is when my mother understood that any hope she had entertained of using me to annex the influence and power of my husband’s House was misplaced. Nveid had freely put the political fate of his House into my hands and I was not about to cede that power to anyone. There were others too who tried to exploit my new status and they too found themselves disappointed where their interests deviated from mine and Nveid’s. So yes, Latta-Jhu and I argued and life went on.”
“I lost my husband and eldest son in the Dominion war, the second battle of Chintoka. Days later my brother died in another skirmish. Somewhat more needlessly my sister died in 2378 as part of a force defending a colony against a raid by pirates. My sister's death left me the last female issue of my mother’s body. It was an unprecedented state of affairs. My husband had already named me his successor until our children, or those of his brother were of age – unusual itself as the title and responsibility would normally have passed to his brother as the next most senior male child of the female line. Now my mother named me heir to her House. I could not refuse, why would I? But it did place an unusual concentration of power in my hands. Death is very fond of me, Pia,” Isha told her, “and for every life I give him he rewards me with a little more power in the hope to keep my favour. Why must I benefit through their misfortune? Why must I occupy a place that should have been my son’s? What is it I do that makes these things happen to me?
"Woah, wait... how is Death's fondness for taking those around you, something that becomes your deliberate intention and responsibility?" Pia spluttered in refute of that last turn of what had begun as a recount of events and ended as a series of statements and question that were at last the crux of this whole consultation. It was sudden, dramatic and very important. Pia tried to rein in her enthusiasm to deal with all these points at once.
"It might not be my intention but it is to my gain. I could refuse what is offered to me. I did not have to allow my husband's will to stand, I could have petitioned the Senate on grounds of precedent and had it revoked, I could have accomodated those who wanted me to use my infliuence to help them with no damage to the stability of my husband's House. I thought that I was acting as mhnei'sahe required, but now I am no longer sure. To do what one must because honour requires it is no crime, but to justify fulfilling one's whims on such grounds is a heinous breach of mhnei'sahe."
"Isha, did you do anything that made these loved ones and relatives of yours die?" Pia asked leading for an answer she already knew the answer to.
"The people I have mentioned? No," she replied.
"So then you believe you should have done more to prevent yourself from benefiting from their wills... which they wrote to bequeath you that which they wished you to have?" Pia conjectured.
"Bequests are made with personal interests in mind, those of the dead, not of the living. I would not have been wrong to say no."
"Neither would you have been wrong to say yes - since it was not of your doing that it was gifted you. You cannot be held responsible for everyone else's intentions and actions, nor the repercussions of them. Certainly not to the point of punishing yourself for the rest of your life, surely? Must you wear a hair-shirt and turn away all good fortune before you will forgive yourself that others have not been so lucky as you?" Pia continued to project the conceptions.
"Was I not taught that along with privilege, I had to accept responsibity?" Isha questioned.
"Yes, for your own intended and calculated actions, but surely not for all those of every other soul alive or dead?" Pia returned.
"Only those who wish me good or ill." Isha replied.
"I don't understand. Why do their wishes matter to what you must take responsibility for?" Pia enquired.
Isha rolled her lower lip between her teeth before linking her fingers together on her knes. "Perhaps we will discuss that next time," she said drawing a deep breath. Isha rose, deciding that the interview was over.
Pia took in a breath too. The decision to break was Isha's to make and it was perfectly okay for her to do so. Pia stood up. "Of course. Would you like to arrange another time or would you prefer to be spontaneous about when you come back?" she offered.
"I'm sure we will never meet again, Pia," Isha said.
"Oh... I'm sorry" Pia said, genuinely disappointed as the Romulan dignitary left anonymously and had never been there.
OFF
Ambassador Isha t'Khellian
and
Ensign Rimmec, Pia
Assistant Counsellor