Interlude – Facing forwards to the past - Part 3
by Commander Isha t'Vaurek & Commander Chelsea Dunham
Post Details
ON:
~Pia had a bad feeling about how the expected and deserved accolade from the legendary matriarch would go. She held her breath, almost as if she were experiencing this too.~
”My mother returned from one of her many extended tours of duty, she had invited several friends and to us, I mean me, and S’Ten it was the ideal time to show her and her friends what a daughter she had bourn. I won, of course, I think I could have beaten her if she had come down to the square, but she sat there with a horrified look fixed upon her face, she was staring at me.
“I, I rather petulantly threw my blade on the ground and stalked away. I did not have a very colourful vocabulary then, but if I had I would have used it. Once inside I plotted my steps, I wanted to know what was going on and in the walkway beneath the ground that the slaves and servants used I overheard her voice through the ventilators.
“ …good if you discount that the others have been paid,” Llaiir t’Khellian said, “Isha is such frail child, the only mark she will make is in the Senate. She has an obsession about mimicking her sister, I think you’ll agree that Latta-Jhu and Isha are two very different females,” she said.
A man spoke, a voice Isha did not know, but she thought she had heard the same voice among her mother’s party, “I was surprised, Llaiir, but I agree that this has been arranged. There have been some whispers about Isha’s ‘abilities’ and I wanted to see for myself but having seen her, they do not match up.” He paused before speaking again, his voice hushed and deep, “Llaiir, you are a cousin and I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but if I ever find out that you have lied about your daughter ...”
“I have not!” Isha’s mother said, “My only deception has been to disguise her frailty. How I wished that she could encapsulate the essence of our Empire. It is not to be ... “
"I'd forgotten that," Isha said biting her knuckles, not understanding why her mother had belittled her.
"Do you think you really did forget it? As if it didn't matter to you? Or do you think you buried it... for your own reasons?" Pia enquired gently.
”I don’t know,” Isha replied, “I suppose it was important at the time, but more pertinently I wanted to prove my mother wrong How dare she describe me as frail! As far as I was concerned, if my sister could do it, then so could I! Of course my mother did not have to explain or reason with me, she was both by mother and my hru’Hfirh and expected my compliance. She simply ordered that I should cease those lessons and concentrate on my studies and ‘perhaps learn to dance’ if I felt the need for activity – those were her words. My mother did not know me very well.”
"It doesn't sound as if she spent much time with you then?"
“No, she likes to play ‘Starships’,” Isha said derisively before continuing. “In her defence, she feared that I might be psionic – it occurs from time to time and when they are discovered … well, they are automatically enlisted to work for the government. One can hardly blame my mother for wishing to keep me. I wasn’t. I mean I am not. I am the next best thing, I discovered, so it turns out she was correct in a way. My mind functions on a slightly different level to most, it processes faster, it sees in a glance the clues from that suggest future action. If someone throws you a ball, your mind, with no prompting from you, calculates its trajectory and allows your hand to be in the right place to receive it. Mine does that, but it would also interpret the rearrangement of musculature that followed the initial action and perform a predictive algorithm which would suggest with a ninety percent accuracy their next action,” Isha could not talk about how the extent of her ‘gift’ had been tested under extreme and controlled conditions, she did not like to go there but that did not change the truth.
“Pia, people have ruined their minds trying to ‘enhance’ themselves to be able to process information in this way and there I was born with it when the only thing life truly required of me was to be graceful and tolerant. I think, Pia, that my mother wished that Latta-Jhu had this, not me,” Isha added with a sneer.
"But then, one assumes, your sister would have been forbidden to train instead of you?" Pia tried to work the logic out. "What did you do?"
“No, Pia, Latta-Jhu was her heir and my mother would have found an equally fallacious explanation for her prodigious and nurtured talent,” Isha said tightly. “In my case, it went against my mother’s plans, so she sought to remove the problem. Where she wanted to make a strong heir out of Latta-Jhu she wanted to make me into a graceful and malleable lady. She achieved half of her desire at least,” Isha observed, but then even rock was malleable if one heated it enough. “She wanted me raised to ally with another powerful House – one of her choosing, so that through me she could annex their firepower and my father could guide my political choices.”
Isha broke her dour poise for a moment, and burst into laughter, “Guide my political choices,” she repeated, “I soon discovered what people thought of his political acumen! He was one of the old guard, would never countenance a negotiation with a faction who could not trace their lineage – truly he was an object lesson in how not to succeed in political office, I think that is why I did what I did.”
“After weeks of tedium and being patronised I simply ceased to go with him to the senate offices in the evening. I stayed at home, my mother was gone again and my father did not complain of my absence, how much easier for him to eat and talk with his old chums without me there. My earlier anger was compounded by frustration, my father was a fool and my mother absent … that was when I began to work on S’Ten - he at least I could learn something from.
“He refused at first ignoring my demands and walking away. My mother had given him explicit orders and very few people ever ignored an order from my mother, but I tried again, the next day and the next and the next time I tried he hesitated. He could see my ambition burning in me and I knew then that I would win – his mhnei’sahe, about which he had often spoken would compel him to.
“Do not think he simply did it to shut me up. It was a decision based on the arguments I fed to him, the arguments that I knew would win him round, for I could have used as many and stronger ones that would have led him to a very different decision. He came to realise that he could not let my talent wither, and I got my confidant back, the one adult who listened to me and had time for me.”
"That must have made you feel completely different to the way your parents made you feel." Pia nudged, wondering about Isha's rarely mentioned father.
Isha gazed at Pia. It was true, whatever she had done before or since Isha had never secured her mother’s approval. Even though she had becoming what her mother desired her to be she had found the woman dissatisfied, perhaps because she realised what Isha too had realised; she could never quite be whole. Isha left that thought where it was for the moment and responded to what Pia had said, “A House is a sprawling entity, people coming and going, the clans, the supplicants, the servants. Even at the centre everyone vies to be close to the seat of power. I was not short of companions of my own age, but bereft of stable company of my own rank and intelligence. My parents had their own duties to attend to. Had there been someone who I could talk to, who appreciated me, and who would take me seriously I would not have made S’Ten disobey my mother, and if I had not done that, then I would not have destroyed his life.”
"His life was destroyed by this?" Pia seemed shocked. ~A loyal family retainer? Surely he would not be 'destroyed' for kindness to a family member?~ she thought.
"She found out. I didn't know how, I still don't, but she found out."
"And she blamed him?" Pia asked.
"Me. She was livid. I may never had had her approval, but equally, I had never seen her so angry. I had directly defied her and coerced one of her servants into disobedience. My mother's response was calculated so that our punishment would have the greatest impact.”
Isha paused again rubbing her brow with her fingers; how had she not thought on this for so many years? Isha let her hand fall into her lap. “She ordered that S'Ten was to administer the beating, that was his punishment ... of course he could have refused but then my mother would simply have ordered someone else to do it. If it were he then at least he could control it - one can do a lot of damage with a bunch of sticks," Isha remarked, wondering for a second how the girl she had recently ordered to be thrashed felt now. "That poor man, I can see him now, twice my size and weeping at what he had to do," Isha continued, her gaze in another time and place. "I took half a step back before I remembered myself - the Khelliana do not run - I did close my eyes … and I fell with the first blow and curled up, waiting for it to be over. I just wanted to make it easy for him." Isha swallowed.
"What happened after that?" Pia nudged as Isha seemed to have stopped and was gazing blankly, lost inside her thoughts. This was not a good sign and all Counsellors are trained to break the thread and re-focus so that the memory does not take control of where the patient's mind goes next.
"I was taken back to my rooms, my wounds were dressed, and once I had stopped crying I just lay curled on my bed, utterly numb with the realisation that I was no better off than the lowliest slave. Later my mother came to me. Her weight on the edge of my bed alerted me as she sat and smoothed my hair. This is what she said to me as she took my hand. Child, you must understand it was necessary. I cannot and will not tolerate disobedience, not in a matter such as this. S'Ten is gone, he has dishonoured my House and his good name, and that responsibility lies on you. People of our position have a responsibility, it is the price of privilege and by your actions you have failed in yours. Do you not think I have your best interests at heart? I didn't think my mother had a heart," Isha said commenting on her own memory.
“But all I could do was nod. That was enough, it seems, for she continued, You have a gift, Isha but were it to be widely known you would be taken from us. You must use it carefully, invisibly - ever since I realised I have tried to push you into an arena where it would seem invisible. Child, if in a single instant you can see before they do where another person plans to stick their sword what do you think you can achieve in the halls of government where you can observe at leisure? Do you want the Tal'Shiar to learn what you can do? Do you want them to come and snatch you in the night? For that is what will happen. "
~Ah, the good old 'bogie men will come and get you in the night' chestnut.~ Pia thought angrily but kept her emotion to herself. It was not her place nor would it be constructive to make the comment aloud. ~I guessed even Romulans must have *those* to frighten their children into obedience.~
"I was twelve then. Nothing like it ever happened again, nor once my mother left my rooms did we ever discuss the incident. I did deserve it, I still do," Isha said her tone somewhat forlorn.
TBC ...
A JP Between:
Ambassador Isha t'Khellian
Not in any way related to the Borgias ...
and
Ensign Pia Rimmec
Assistant Counsellor
NPC'd by jools
by Commander Isha t'Vaurek & Commander Chelsea Dunham
Post Details
| Title | Facing forwards to the past - Part 3 | |
| Mission | Interlude | |
| Author(s) | Commander Isha t'Vaurek & Commander Chelsea Dunham | |
| Posted | Mon May 17, 2010 @ 6:11pm | |
| Location | Assistant Counselor's Office |
~Pia had a bad feeling about how the expected and deserved accolade from the legendary matriarch would go. She held her breath, almost as if she were experiencing this too.~
”My mother returned from one of her many extended tours of duty, she had invited several friends and to us, I mean me, and S’Ten it was the ideal time to show her and her friends what a daughter she had bourn. I won, of course, I think I could have beaten her if she had come down to the square, but she sat there with a horrified look fixed upon her face, she was staring at me.
“I, I rather petulantly threw my blade on the ground and stalked away. I did not have a very colourful vocabulary then, but if I had I would have used it. Once inside I plotted my steps, I wanted to know what was going on and in the walkway beneath the ground that the slaves and servants used I overheard her voice through the ventilators.
“ …good if you discount that the others have been paid,” Llaiir t’Khellian said, “Isha is such frail child, the only mark she will make is in the Senate. She has an obsession about mimicking her sister, I think you’ll agree that Latta-Jhu and Isha are two very different females,” she said.
A man spoke, a voice Isha did not know, but she thought she had heard the same voice among her mother’s party, “I was surprised, Llaiir, but I agree that this has been arranged. There have been some whispers about Isha’s ‘abilities’ and I wanted to see for myself but having seen her, they do not match up.” He paused before speaking again, his voice hushed and deep, “Llaiir, you are a cousin and I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but if I ever find out that you have lied about your daughter ...”
“I have not!” Isha’s mother said, “My only deception has been to disguise her frailty. How I wished that she could encapsulate the essence of our Empire. It is not to be ... “
"I'd forgotten that," Isha said biting her knuckles, not understanding why her mother had belittled her.
"Do you think you really did forget it? As if it didn't matter to you? Or do you think you buried it... for your own reasons?" Pia enquired gently.
”I don’t know,” Isha replied, “I suppose it was important at the time, but more pertinently I wanted to prove my mother wrong How dare she describe me as frail! As far as I was concerned, if my sister could do it, then so could I! Of course my mother did not have to explain or reason with me, she was both by mother and my hru’Hfirh and expected my compliance. She simply ordered that I should cease those lessons and concentrate on my studies and ‘perhaps learn to dance’ if I felt the need for activity – those were her words. My mother did not know me very well.”
"It doesn't sound as if she spent much time with you then?"
“No, she likes to play ‘Starships’,” Isha said derisively before continuing. “In her defence, she feared that I might be psionic – it occurs from time to time and when they are discovered … well, they are automatically enlisted to work for the government. One can hardly blame my mother for wishing to keep me. I wasn’t. I mean I am not. I am the next best thing, I discovered, so it turns out she was correct in a way. My mind functions on a slightly different level to most, it processes faster, it sees in a glance the clues from that suggest future action. If someone throws you a ball, your mind, with no prompting from you, calculates its trajectory and allows your hand to be in the right place to receive it. Mine does that, but it would also interpret the rearrangement of musculature that followed the initial action and perform a predictive algorithm which would suggest with a ninety percent accuracy their next action,” Isha could not talk about how the extent of her ‘gift’ had been tested under extreme and controlled conditions, she did not like to go there but that did not change the truth.
“Pia, people have ruined their minds trying to ‘enhance’ themselves to be able to process information in this way and there I was born with it when the only thing life truly required of me was to be graceful and tolerant. I think, Pia, that my mother wished that Latta-Jhu had this, not me,” Isha added with a sneer.
"But then, one assumes, your sister would have been forbidden to train instead of you?" Pia tried to work the logic out. "What did you do?"
“No, Pia, Latta-Jhu was her heir and my mother would have found an equally fallacious explanation for her prodigious and nurtured talent,” Isha said tightly. “In my case, it went against my mother’s plans, so she sought to remove the problem. Where she wanted to make a strong heir out of Latta-Jhu she wanted to make me into a graceful and malleable lady. She achieved half of her desire at least,” Isha observed, but then even rock was malleable if one heated it enough. “She wanted me raised to ally with another powerful House – one of her choosing, so that through me she could annex their firepower and my father could guide my political choices.”
Isha broke her dour poise for a moment, and burst into laughter, “Guide my political choices,” she repeated, “I soon discovered what people thought of his political acumen! He was one of the old guard, would never countenance a negotiation with a faction who could not trace their lineage – truly he was an object lesson in how not to succeed in political office, I think that is why I did what I did.”
“After weeks of tedium and being patronised I simply ceased to go with him to the senate offices in the evening. I stayed at home, my mother was gone again and my father did not complain of my absence, how much easier for him to eat and talk with his old chums without me there. My earlier anger was compounded by frustration, my father was a fool and my mother absent … that was when I began to work on S’Ten - he at least I could learn something from.
“He refused at first ignoring my demands and walking away. My mother had given him explicit orders and very few people ever ignored an order from my mother, but I tried again, the next day and the next and the next time I tried he hesitated. He could see my ambition burning in me and I knew then that I would win – his mhnei’sahe, about which he had often spoken would compel him to.
“Do not think he simply did it to shut me up. It was a decision based on the arguments I fed to him, the arguments that I knew would win him round, for I could have used as many and stronger ones that would have led him to a very different decision. He came to realise that he could not let my talent wither, and I got my confidant back, the one adult who listened to me and had time for me.”
"That must have made you feel completely different to the way your parents made you feel." Pia nudged, wondering about Isha's rarely mentioned father.
Isha gazed at Pia. It was true, whatever she had done before or since Isha had never secured her mother’s approval. Even though she had becoming what her mother desired her to be she had found the woman dissatisfied, perhaps because she realised what Isha too had realised; she could never quite be whole. Isha left that thought where it was for the moment and responded to what Pia had said, “A House is a sprawling entity, people coming and going, the clans, the supplicants, the servants. Even at the centre everyone vies to be close to the seat of power. I was not short of companions of my own age, but bereft of stable company of my own rank and intelligence. My parents had their own duties to attend to. Had there been someone who I could talk to, who appreciated me, and who would take me seriously I would not have made S’Ten disobey my mother, and if I had not done that, then I would not have destroyed his life.”
"His life was destroyed by this?" Pia seemed shocked. ~A loyal family retainer? Surely he would not be 'destroyed' for kindness to a family member?~ she thought.
"She found out. I didn't know how, I still don't, but she found out."
"And she blamed him?" Pia asked.
"Me. She was livid. I may never had had her approval, but equally, I had never seen her so angry. I had directly defied her and coerced one of her servants into disobedience. My mother's response was calculated so that our punishment would have the greatest impact.”
Isha paused again rubbing her brow with her fingers; how had she not thought on this for so many years? Isha let her hand fall into her lap. “She ordered that S'Ten was to administer the beating, that was his punishment ... of course he could have refused but then my mother would simply have ordered someone else to do it. If it were he then at least he could control it - one can do a lot of damage with a bunch of sticks," Isha remarked, wondering for a second how the girl she had recently ordered to be thrashed felt now. "That poor man, I can see him now, twice my size and weeping at what he had to do," Isha continued, her gaze in another time and place. "I took half a step back before I remembered myself - the Khelliana do not run - I did close my eyes … and I fell with the first blow and curled up, waiting for it to be over. I just wanted to make it easy for him." Isha swallowed.
"What happened after that?" Pia nudged as Isha seemed to have stopped and was gazing blankly, lost inside her thoughts. This was not a good sign and all Counsellors are trained to break the thread and re-focus so that the memory does not take control of where the patient's mind goes next.
"I was taken back to my rooms, my wounds were dressed, and once I had stopped crying I just lay curled on my bed, utterly numb with the realisation that I was no better off than the lowliest slave. Later my mother came to me. Her weight on the edge of my bed alerted me as she sat and smoothed my hair. This is what she said to me as she took my hand. Child, you must understand it was necessary. I cannot and will not tolerate disobedience, not in a matter such as this. S'Ten is gone, he has dishonoured my House and his good name, and that responsibility lies on you. People of our position have a responsibility, it is the price of privilege and by your actions you have failed in yours. Do you not think I have your best interests at heart? I didn't think my mother had a heart," Isha said commenting on her own memory.
“But all I could do was nod. That was enough, it seems, for she continued, You have a gift, Isha but were it to be widely known you would be taken from us. You must use it carefully, invisibly - ever since I realised I have tried to push you into an arena where it would seem invisible. Child, if in a single instant you can see before they do where another person plans to stick their sword what do you think you can achieve in the halls of government where you can observe at leisure? Do you want the Tal'Shiar to learn what you can do? Do you want them to come and snatch you in the night? For that is what will happen. "
~Ah, the good old 'bogie men will come and get you in the night' chestnut.~ Pia thought angrily but kept her emotion to herself. It was not her place nor would it be constructive to make the comment aloud. ~I guessed even Romulans must have *those* to frighten their children into obedience.~
"I was twelve then. Nothing like it ever happened again, nor once my mother left my rooms did we ever discuss the incident. I did deserve it, I still do," Isha said her tone somewhat forlorn.
TBC ...
A JP Between:
Ambassador Isha t'Khellian
Not in any way related to the Borgias ...
and
Ensign Pia Rimmec
Assistant Counsellor
NPC'd by jools