Things Past – Once Upon a Time in ch'Rihan
by (G) erie'Riov - Sub Commander Rianni Monteros-t'Khellian & Commander Isha t'Vaurek
Post Details
erie'Riov R'Vek tr'Khellian had just returned home for the first time since a highly successful raid on a Federation outpost just on the other side of the Neutral Zone, freshly promoted and with the full confidence of the Praetor himself. ~Take 100 prisoners and destroy a spy installation and you deserve his confidence at least.~ Now though, with the battle over and victory his, R'Vek tr'Khellian was looking forward to spending a much needed month at home with his fiancee, R'ania, who was pregnant with his child, his soon to be born son.
He stepped into the Great Hall of the Khelliana, breathing deep the scent of his home and heritage, when his eyes caught sight of a slightly built but undeniably lovely young woman, "My God, that can not possibly be Little Isha!" He laughed aloud.
Lounging on her back on a chaise with one knee drawn up and one arm dangling over the edge, fingers idly twisting the fur on the floor, 'Little Isha' was somewhat bored.
She had recently finished her training as a raihiw'sheh and was yawning her way through the dragging days before the family came together for their annual festival during which the Lesser Houses and more distant members had the chance to look upon the elite of the House and bathe in their light.
This year during the proceedings Isha would turn twenty five, and would be accepted as a Citizen of the Empire - everything before that had simply been training. After ... well she was to take a seat on the Senate when the Upper House reconvened, act as the senior Representative of the Khelliana in official matters, and keep responsibility for the effective running of the family compound.
Hearing the sound in the quiet she raised herself on one elbow, "R'Vek!" she said with a smile, "You're the first of the wanderers to return. I've had the place practically to myself for a fortnight," she added - It wasn't quite true of course, there were at least a hundred members of the family in the compound, not including slaves and servants, but what she meant was that there was no-one else of her rank or status which in this part of the complex, was as good as being alone.
"Well, I'm glad to disrupt your loneliness then." R'Vek laughed, adding as he stepped closer, "And your boredom, I'd wager." He took a seat next to her and set his bags down, "And how do you not have a line of suitors wrapped halfway around the planet?"
"You know the hru'Hfirh, my Mother. She has plans for me, and they don't involve attracting a flock of suitors. The Elements know if she could delay my coming of age any longer she would becuase it makes me an adult and allows me to slip a little further beyond her control," Isha said in a whisper as she sat and leaned in close.
"You've been promoted," she said aloud. Isha tended to make light of the military achievements of others, as she felt it was something she had been purposefully denied, but R'Vek was a different matter; her older cousin had been something of a fixture when she was young, he hadn't found her a bore, or thought her a waste of his time. He was one of the few family members she looked forward to seeing after an absence. "Do you wish to tell me how?" she asked, her green eyes glittering."
R'Vek smirked slyly, Isha had always found his war stories fascinating, and he never minded regaling her with them, "Well, it seems we accidentally slipped across the Neutral Zone and stumbled across this Federation spy outpost." He began, "Well, I saw it, so I decided to hit it. They were without a ship, without artillery support, they didn't even have any fighters, just a spy satellite pointed straight at the Empire. So, I destroyed it, we took over 100 Federation spies prisoner, and the Praetor himself ordered me promoted, skipped me over Centurion straight to Sub-Commander."
"How lovely" Isha said, "I'm sure you deserved it. Where do these creatures get the idea that they can watch us and expect to be left alone?" It was a rhetorical question and one which drew Isha to her feet. She held out both hands to R'Vek, "Let's walk, I'll ask for someone to have your things taken up."
"I'm sure some of them aren't so bad." R'Vek sighed, "I've just not met one yet." He smiled and took her hand, "And, yes, a walk around the grounds would be lovely. Glad I'll have you as a tour guide, I've been away so long I fear I'd get lost."
"I'm sure very little has changed. My mother might be content to leave me as chatelaine, but I'm sure if I actually changed anything she'd have a fit. Ekenda, please arrange for erie'Riov tr'Khellian's things to be transferred to his room," she said as they passed, "and lay out my gown for kuhaos'ellaer. You will have dinner with me, won't you R'Vek?" Isha asked as they moved from the Great Hall into the wide corridor.
"Of course, Isha." R'Vek smiled, she had always been his favorite of his cousins, mainly because she didn't bore him to tears like most of the others did.
There was always a certain awkwardness when the family came together - all the time spent apart, but she was working on greeting everyone as though it had only been a day since she had seen them last. Isha had not yet perfected the technique. She took R'vek's arm, "Good then you can tell me all the gory details that you are supposed to disclose to no one," she said with a conspiratorial wink.
"I think we can arrange that." R'Vek laughed, returning Isha's wicked wink, "And you can tell me what manner of mischief you've found yourself in in my absence."
"Mischief, R'Vek?" Isha said coyly, "Eviess t'Leinarrh found herself in an awful lot of trouble when her father found out we'd been going gambling in the Senate district. Really, if he expects her to be so responsible he shouldn't give her such a generous allowance. I think if I hadn't been there to talk very quickly indeed the authorities would have been called."
"Glad to see you've still got a talented tongue, Isha." R'Vek laughed, even as a child Isha had been able to talk her way out of anything, same for anyone who happened to be with her in the middle of whatever mischief she found to amuse herself with.
As the warm spring light of Eisn touched her skin and a gentle breeze lifted her hair and filled the air with the scent of water and flowers Isha smiled. "As I'll be spending the rest of my life in the Senate that's most likely a good thing," she said as she kicked off her shoes and stooped to retrieve them from the thick grass.
"I suppose that I would have found a Galae career horribly stifling anyway, but it makes it very challenging, to walk into those halls with a position I've been given by virtue of my birth. I'll have a lot to prove, R'Vek," she said swinging her shoes in one hand as she curled her toes in the grass.
"You'll do fine, Isha." R'Vek reassured her, "You're quick witted and can charm a damned Naussicaan to do your bidding, you'll be the lead shark in that pond in no time." He hadn't been able to miss how well Isha had developed, the cute little girl he had once carried around on his back was now a beautiful young woman, sensuous to the point of being sultry, ~That will serve her well in the Senate, too.~
Isha glanced up at her cousin for a moment, "Charm may be one thing, but those sharks you speak of will not hesitate to turn on one of their own. How long have you been away, R'Vek?" she asked changing the subject.
"Too long, Isha." He answered honestly, "Far too long."
"More than five years, R'Vek," she said with a sigh. "All the people I wish to see spend their lives in the distance, and when I do get to see them I am stuck behind a veil of pomp and they are just there to fulfill their feudal obligations. Meanwhile I'm stuck pretending to be less than I am because it would be unbecoming to outshine all those who are experienced in the law." Isha had not spotted that her voice was rising, she had not even realized quite how frustrated she was with her seemingly charmed life.
She threw her shoes onto the ground, "I'm not going to sit in the background while time-servers, and incompetents continue to trample on our government. There's been nothing I could do so far, but as soon as I am a full citizen the whole damned convention can stick their protocol. My rules!" she said with a somewhat infectious grin spreading across her face.
"Well, well." R'Vek laughed heartily, "Aren't you the little fireball?"
"I care, R'Vek, and I have the status to do whatever I need to, and the youth for any early errors of judgement to be ascribed to an endearing mix of inexperience and zeal," it would also, she knew be a unique opportunity for her to assess who was likely to take sides against her.
"Good, good." R'Vek nodded approvingly, it did his heart good to see Isha had some fighting spirit, so many Romulan women were more concerned with their furnishings than their homeworld, "If we had more people like you we'd be better off."
"If we had more people like me we'd have civil war," Isha responded wryly.
"Well, as those Ferengi toads say, 'War is good for business.'" R'Vek laughed.
"Not when it spans generations," Isha replied quite seriously, "people like me don't value anyone's direction but their own," she continued, "we'd raise armies just to make our point. History is full of examples of such events, and there are mauseleums full of such leaders. No, I will use the law to make my points, and the Tribunal has a sword as sharp as any and a verdict that is irrefutable. Much more decisive, don't you think?"
"I can see your point, Isha." R'Vek nodded, "Though there is some merit to my way. At least I like to think so."
Isha smiled as she closed her eyes against Eisn's light, "Of course there is, R'Vek, but I was not raised to make war - I'll leave that to others better suited for it. No, its the Senate in which I will make my name." Isha said that as though she had been given a choice in the matter, though they both knew that she had not been allowed that luxury.
"And I will continue to make mine as I already have." R'Vek smiled, pretending as Isha did that he'd had anything remotely resembling a choice in it.
"Shall we go down to the lake?" Isha suggested, "and you can tell me what has been going on in your life."
"I can imagine no greater pleasure." R'Vek smiled, taking Isha's hand and leading her down the path to the lake.
"We had an area cleared and deepened a few years ago," Isha said as they walked, "Its rather nice to go for a swim in the morning. One can pretend that one is completely in the wild rather than a suburban garden. Mother had a fit, but when I reminded her that she had made me custodian there wasn't really any way she could continue to object, not aloud anyway."
R'Vek laughed heartily a the image of his Aunt wanting, but being unable, to throw one of her trademark fits over Isha's actions, "My, my, you are quite the little hellion, aren't you? A regular photon torpedo of a woman."
"Of course not, I am quite the most amenable woman I know, except where my mother is concerned," she added.
"Well, nobody is quite amenable enough to please your mother." R'Vek laughed, his aunt was notoriously difficult to deal with, "Nor has there ever been."
"I think that when one has been hru'hfirh for so long one begins to assume that one's word really is law," Isha reasoned. "It may be within the House, but that does not necessarily extend beyond."
"Only tell her that if you decide you really do want to kill her." R'Vek laughed, he had always enjoyed Isha's company and this side of her was most enthralling, "I don't know if she could take it...."
"Oh, I wouldn't ever say it," Isha replied with a winsome smile, "though I am quite entitled to think it, particularly as it my elder sister, not I who will inherit the House. I, no doubt will find myself married off for some political or financial consideration. Life, R'vek is hardly free."
"It's as free as you choose to make it, Isha." R'Vek replied, the statement she had just made was one aspect of Romulan life he abhorred, even though it was all true. ~One day, things are going to change. They have to, or this Empire will die from within.~
Isha did not entirely agree. "We have more freedom than most, R'Vek, within the structures that society dictates. I am no reformer and consider myself to be most blessed."
"And in many ways we are most blessed." R'Vek agreed, "But, honestly, how long do you believe we can truly maintain the Empire in it's current form? As the humans and their Federation have expanded, the races of Empire: ourselves, the Klingons, the Cardassians, we find ourselves falling further back, losing ground that our troops bled for. It makes one wonder if we're not the ones with the wrong ideas."
"I have no desire to change the system, merely to work within the framework it offers me. The Empire will not fail. Whilst we can be as aggressive as the Klingons we have no need to thrust that fact under the noses of powers that might prove a useful ally, and whilst we are far more cunning than the Cardassians we understand that other powers do not appreciate such slipperiness and we take pains to earn their trust. We have the best of all worlds, R'Vek as long as our leaders have the wit and guile to take advantage of the fact."
R'Vek smiled and softly clapped, "A speech befitting a Praetor if ever I heard one." He complimented sincerely, "Before too long I'll be serving under you I have no doubt."
"It does seem the most obvious route to power," Isha conceded, "though I believe I prefer to act on the sidelines. If one puts oneself in the centre of all things one becomes too easily a target for every disgruntling lordling within a parsec."
"And there we have it." R'Vek laughed, "The reason why you're the crown jewel of the Khelliana. The talent to be Praetor, and the brains not to want it."
"None of us know where we will go," Isha said, "and those who have the desire to take only one path are oft left disappointed." It was a philosophical question with no true answer - the single minded might walk that path but only if the Elements agreed, others might be swayed from it or pushed into it and away from the road they wished to take. Isha surrendered herself to the Elements.
"Well, well." R'Vek smirked, "Little Isha is indeed all grown up." He stepped closer, gently stroking her hair with the back of his hand, "And become quite a woman. I must say, I am even more impressed than I first thought. You've become.... amazing."
"Well," Isha laughed, "we should probably get back to the house before you persuade me that I should directly stand against my mother, or raise a coup on the senate or some such."
"Wouldn't dream of it." R'Vek laughed, amused to see his Aunt still gave him the reputation of a rabblerouser here at the main house, "Contrary to anything your mother might say of me."
Isha raised an eyebrow and half turned her head away, "I would never contradict anything my mother said," she breathed the lie.
"Of course not." R'Vek laughed, knowing that Isha lived to contradict her mother.
"Then lets get back to the house. The clans should be gathering by now, and I'd like to change before I meet them."
"Yes, let's." R'Vek smiled, Isha was so much more than her mother seemed to want to allow her to be, it was sad in a way, but funny because he knew she would find a way to exceed the limitation her mother had in mind. "So, who all is coming to our little party?"
"Everyone," Isha replied, "I'm sure we'll all nod and bow so much that our heads will fall off," she observed with limited enthusiasm.
"If we don't first die of boredom." R'Vek quipped, he hated these things, always had, and didn't hide it as well as some of the others. "All of those imbeciles toadying to curry your mother's favor, jockeying for position at the main table. I'd just as soon skip the whole bloody thing."
"Some luxuries just aren't available to us R'Vek. Responsibility, and that includes putting on a good face and staying on the right side of one's hru'Hfirh no matter how irksome the performance."
"Quite." R'Vek nodded, Isha was right, she usually was in this situation. Didn't make the performances any less, how had she put it? Irksome! Without really thinking about what he was doing, he pushed a stray lock of Isha's long hair back behind her ear, his hand stroking her face softly.
Isha turned her cheek into his warm palm, "We could take a shuttle and be beyond the bounds of the Empire in only a few days, quicker if we took a warship, but that would be somewhat harder to explain." It was a joke of course, with an element of desire beneath.
"Why take one when I have one?" R'Vek replied, like Isha joking, even if there was a thought that it might not be the worst thing in the world.
"Because they'd know what to look for," Isha replied.
"Indeed." R'Vek nodded, it seemed lovely Isha had spent a lot of time thinking about getting out of here, "Well, perhaps one day soon I can spring you from your gilded prison."
"One day," Isha replied. "Meanwhile I am expected back at the house, Shall we go."
"Of course." R'Vek smiled, even though going back to that house was about the last thing on ch'Rihan he wanted to do, "Before your mother sends out a searching party."
"Its time," Isha nodded as they made their way back up the slope towards the house.
"Yes, it is." R'Vek sighed, accepting it like a prisoner on his way to the gallows. Then, as if out of nowhere, surprising him and, no doubt, Isha, he found himself kissing her.
It was a bad idea. A terrible idea. A catastropic idea, but Isha returned his kiss for a moment at least. She pulled back, traces of saliva clinging to her lips. "No," she said, a single syllable that emphasised what could never be.
"Of course." R'Vek nodded, "My apologies."
Isha directed her gaze anywhere but his. "Its forgotten," she said taking a great interest in the way that the grass bent around her feet before for the last time she suggested returning to the house.
This time, they did.
Off
Isha t'Khellian
R'Vek tr'Khellian
by (G) erie'Riov - Sub Commander Rianni Monteros-t'Khellian & Commander Isha t'Vaurek
Post Details
| Title | Once Upon a Time in ch'Rihan | |
| Mission | Things Past | |
| Author(s) | (G) erie'Riov - Sub Commander Rianni Monteros-t'Khellian & Commander Isha t'Vaurek | |
| Posted | Wed Aug 01, 2012 @ 5:30pm | |
| Location | Romulus Khelliana Main House | |
| Timeline | Long ago |
He stepped into the Great Hall of the Khelliana, breathing deep the scent of his home and heritage, when his eyes caught sight of a slightly built but undeniably lovely young woman, "My God, that can not possibly be Little Isha!" He laughed aloud.
Lounging on her back on a chaise with one knee drawn up and one arm dangling over the edge, fingers idly twisting the fur on the floor, 'Little Isha' was somewhat bored.
She had recently finished her training as a raihiw'sheh and was yawning her way through the dragging days before the family came together for their annual festival during which the Lesser Houses and more distant members had the chance to look upon the elite of the House and bathe in their light.
This year during the proceedings Isha would turn twenty five, and would be accepted as a Citizen of the Empire - everything before that had simply been training. After ... well she was to take a seat on the Senate when the Upper House reconvened, act as the senior Representative of the Khelliana in official matters, and keep responsibility for the effective running of the family compound.
Hearing the sound in the quiet she raised herself on one elbow, "R'Vek!" she said with a smile, "You're the first of the wanderers to return. I've had the place practically to myself for a fortnight," she added - It wasn't quite true of course, there were at least a hundred members of the family in the compound, not including slaves and servants, but what she meant was that there was no-one else of her rank or status which in this part of the complex, was as good as being alone.
"Well, I'm glad to disrupt your loneliness then." R'Vek laughed, adding as he stepped closer, "And your boredom, I'd wager." He took a seat next to her and set his bags down, "And how do you not have a line of suitors wrapped halfway around the planet?"
"You know the hru'Hfirh, my Mother. She has plans for me, and they don't involve attracting a flock of suitors. The Elements know if she could delay my coming of age any longer she would becuase it makes me an adult and allows me to slip a little further beyond her control," Isha said in a whisper as she sat and leaned in close.
"You've been promoted," she said aloud. Isha tended to make light of the military achievements of others, as she felt it was something she had been purposefully denied, but R'Vek was a different matter; her older cousin had been something of a fixture when she was young, he hadn't found her a bore, or thought her a waste of his time. He was one of the few family members she looked forward to seeing after an absence. "Do you wish to tell me how?" she asked, her green eyes glittering."
R'Vek smirked slyly, Isha had always found his war stories fascinating, and he never minded regaling her with them, "Well, it seems we accidentally slipped across the Neutral Zone and stumbled across this Federation spy outpost." He began, "Well, I saw it, so I decided to hit it. They were without a ship, without artillery support, they didn't even have any fighters, just a spy satellite pointed straight at the Empire. So, I destroyed it, we took over 100 Federation spies prisoner, and the Praetor himself ordered me promoted, skipped me over Centurion straight to Sub-Commander."
"How lovely" Isha said, "I'm sure you deserved it. Where do these creatures get the idea that they can watch us and expect to be left alone?" It was a rhetorical question and one which drew Isha to her feet. She held out both hands to R'Vek, "Let's walk, I'll ask for someone to have your things taken up."
"I'm sure some of them aren't so bad." R'Vek sighed, "I've just not met one yet." He smiled and took her hand, "And, yes, a walk around the grounds would be lovely. Glad I'll have you as a tour guide, I've been away so long I fear I'd get lost."
"I'm sure very little has changed. My mother might be content to leave me as chatelaine, but I'm sure if I actually changed anything she'd have a fit. Ekenda, please arrange for erie'Riov tr'Khellian's things to be transferred to his room," she said as they passed, "and lay out my gown for kuhaos'ellaer. You will have dinner with me, won't you R'Vek?" Isha asked as they moved from the Great Hall into the wide corridor.
"Of course, Isha." R'Vek smiled, she had always been his favorite of his cousins, mainly because she didn't bore him to tears like most of the others did.
There was always a certain awkwardness when the family came together - all the time spent apart, but she was working on greeting everyone as though it had only been a day since she had seen them last. Isha had not yet perfected the technique. She took R'vek's arm, "Good then you can tell me all the gory details that you are supposed to disclose to no one," she said with a conspiratorial wink.
"I think we can arrange that." R'Vek laughed, returning Isha's wicked wink, "And you can tell me what manner of mischief you've found yourself in in my absence."
"Mischief, R'Vek?" Isha said coyly, "Eviess t'Leinarrh found herself in an awful lot of trouble when her father found out we'd been going gambling in the Senate district. Really, if he expects her to be so responsible he shouldn't give her such a generous allowance. I think if I hadn't been there to talk very quickly indeed the authorities would have been called."
"Glad to see you've still got a talented tongue, Isha." R'Vek laughed, even as a child Isha had been able to talk her way out of anything, same for anyone who happened to be with her in the middle of whatever mischief she found to amuse herself with.
As the warm spring light of Eisn touched her skin and a gentle breeze lifted her hair and filled the air with the scent of water and flowers Isha smiled. "As I'll be spending the rest of my life in the Senate that's most likely a good thing," she said as she kicked off her shoes and stooped to retrieve them from the thick grass.
"I suppose that I would have found a Galae career horribly stifling anyway, but it makes it very challenging, to walk into those halls with a position I've been given by virtue of my birth. I'll have a lot to prove, R'Vek," she said swinging her shoes in one hand as she curled her toes in the grass.
"You'll do fine, Isha." R'Vek reassured her, "You're quick witted and can charm a damned Naussicaan to do your bidding, you'll be the lead shark in that pond in no time." He hadn't been able to miss how well Isha had developed, the cute little girl he had once carried around on his back was now a beautiful young woman, sensuous to the point of being sultry, ~That will serve her well in the Senate, too.~
Isha glanced up at her cousin for a moment, "Charm may be one thing, but those sharks you speak of will not hesitate to turn on one of their own. How long have you been away, R'Vek?" she asked changing the subject.
"Too long, Isha." He answered honestly, "Far too long."
"More than five years, R'Vek," she said with a sigh. "All the people I wish to see spend their lives in the distance, and when I do get to see them I am stuck behind a veil of pomp and they are just there to fulfill their feudal obligations. Meanwhile I'm stuck pretending to be less than I am because it would be unbecoming to outshine all those who are experienced in the law." Isha had not spotted that her voice was rising, she had not even realized quite how frustrated she was with her seemingly charmed life.
She threw her shoes onto the ground, "I'm not going to sit in the background while time-servers, and incompetents continue to trample on our government. There's been nothing I could do so far, but as soon as I am a full citizen the whole damned convention can stick their protocol. My rules!" she said with a somewhat infectious grin spreading across her face.
"Well, well." R'Vek laughed heartily, "Aren't you the little fireball?"
"I care, R'Vek, and I have the status to do whatever I need to, and the youth for any early errors of judgement to be ascribed to an endearing mix of inexperience and zeal," it would also, she knew be a unique opportunity for her to assess who was likely to take sides against her.
"Good, good." R'Vek nodded approvingly, it did his heart good to see Isha had some fighting spirit, so many Romulan women were more concerned with their furnishings than their homeworld, "If we had more people like you we'd be better off."
"If we had more people like me we'd have civil war," Isha responded wryly.
"Well, as those Ferengi toads say, 'War is good for business.'" R'Vek laughed.
"Not when it spans generations," Isha replied quite seriously, "people like me don't value anyone's direction but their own," she continued, "we'd raise armies just to make our point. History is full of examples of such events, and there are mauseleums full of such leaders. No, I will use the law to make my points, and the Tribunal has a sword as sharp as any and a verdict that is irrefutable. Much more decisive, don't you think?"
"I can see your point, Isha." R'Vek nodded, "Though there is some merit to my way. At least I like to think so."
Isha smiled as she closed her eyes against Eisn's light, "Of course there is, R'Vek, but I was not raised to make war - I'll leave that to others better suited for it. No, its the Senate in which I will make my name." Isha said that as though she had been given a choice in the matter, though they both knew that she had not been allowed that luxury.
"And I will continue to make mine as I already have." R'Vek smiled, pretending as Isha did that he'd had anything remotely resembling a choice in it.
"Shall we go down to the lake?" Isha suggested, "and you can tell me what has been going on in your life."
"I can imagine no greater pleasure." R'Vek smiled, taking Isha's hand and leading her down the path to the lake.
"We had an area cleared and deepened a few years ago," Isha said as they walked, "Its rather nice to go for a swim in the morning. One can pretend that one is completely in the wild rather than a suburban garden. Mother had a fit, but when I reminded her that she had made me custodian there wasn't really any way she could continue to object, not aloud anyway."
R'Vek laughed heartily a the image of his Aunt wanting, but being unable, to throw one of her trademark fits over Isha's actions, "My, my, you are quite the little hellion, aren't you? A regular photon torpedo of a woman."
"Of course not, I am quite the most amenable woman I know, except where my mother is concerned," she added.
"Well, nobody is quite amenable enough to please your mother." R'Vek laughed, his aunt was notoriously difficult to deal with, "Nor has there ever been."
"I think that when one has been hru'hfirh for so long one begins to assume that one's word really is law," Isha reasoned. "It may be within the House, but that does not necessarily extend beyond."
"Only tell her that if you decide you really do want to kill her." R'Vek laughed, he had always enjoyed Isha's company and this side of her was most enthralling, "I don't know if she could take it...."
"Oh, I wouldn't ever say it," Isha replied with a winsome smile, "though I am quite entitled to think it, particularly as it my elder sister, not I who will inherit the House. I, no doubt will find myself married off for some political or financial consideration. Life, R'vek is hardly free."
"It's as free as you choose to make it, Isha." R'Vek replied, the statement she had just made was one aspect of Romulan life he abhorred, even though it was all true. ~One day, things are going to change. They have to, or this Empire will die from within.~
Isha did not entirely agree. "We have more freedom than most, R'Vek, within the structures that society dictates. I am no reformer and consider myself to be most blessed."
"And in many ways we are most blessed." R'Vek agreed, "But, honestly, how long do you believe we can truly maintain the Empire in it's current form? As the humans and their Federation have expanded, the races of Empire: ourselves, the Klingons, the Cardassians, we find ourselves falling further back, losing ground that our troops bled for. It makes one wonder if we're not the ones with the wrong ideas."
"I have no desire to change the system, merely to work within the framework it offers me. The Empire will not fail. Whilst we can be as aggressive as the Klingons we have no need to thrust that fact under the noses of powers that might prove a useful ally, and whilst we are far more cunning than the Cardassians we understand that other powers do not appreciate such slipperiness and we take pains to earn their trust. We have the best of all worlds, R'Vek as long as our leaders have the wit and guile to take advantage of the fact."
R'Vek smiled and softly clapped, "A speech befitting a Praetor if ever I heard one." He complimented sincerely, "Before too long I'll be serving under you I have no doubt."
"It does seem the most obvious route to power," Isha conceded, "though I believe I prefer to act on the sidelines. If one puts oneself in the centre of all things one becomes too easily a target for every disgruntling lordling within a parsec."
"And there we have it." R'Vek laughed, "The reason why you're the crown jewel of the Khelliana. The talent to be Praetor, and the brains not to want it."
"None of us know where we will go," Isha said, "and those who have the desire to take only one path are oft left disappointed." It was a philosophical question with no true answer - the single minded might walk that path but only if the Elements agreed, others might be swayed from it or pushed into it and away from the road they wished to take. Isha surrendered herself to the Elements.
"Well, well." R'Vek smirked, "Little Isha is indeed all grown up." He stepped closer, gently stroking her hair with the back of his hand, "And become quite a woman. I must say, I am even more impressed than I first thought. You've become.... amazing."
"Well," Isha laughed, "we should probably get back to the house before you persuade me that I should directly stand against my mother, or raise a coup on the senate or some such."
"Wouldn't dream of it." R'Vek laughed, amused to see his Aunt still gave him the reputation of a rabblerouser here at the main house, "Contrary to anything your mother might say of me."
Isha raised an eyebrow and half turned her head away, "I would never contradict anything my mother said," she breathed the lie.
"Of course not." R'Vek laughed, knowing that Isha lived to contradict her mother.
"Then lets get back to the house. The clans should be gathering by now, and I'd like to change before I meet them."
"Yes, let's." R'Vek smiled, Isha was so much more than her mother seemed to want to allow her to be, it was sad in a way, but funny because he knew she would find a way to exceed the limitation her mother had in mind. "So, who all is coming to our little party?"
"Everyone," Isha replied, "I'm sure we'll all nod and bow so much that our heads will fall off," she observed with limited enthusiasm.
"If we don't first die of boredom." R'Vek quipped, he hated these things, always had, and didn't hide it as well as some of the others. "All of those imbeciles toadying to curry your mother's favor, jockeying for position at the main table. I'd just as soon skip the whole bloody thing."
"Some luxuries just aren't available to us R'Vek. Responsibility, and that includes putting on a good face and staying on the right side of one's hru'Hfirh no matter how irksome the performance."
"Quite." R'Vek nodded, Isha was right, she usually was in this situation. Didn't make the performances any less, how had she put it? Irksome! Without really thinking about what he was doing, he pushed a stray lock of Isha's long hair back behind her ear, his hand stroking her face softly.
Isha turned her cheek into his warm palm, "We could take a shuttle and be beyond the bounds of the Empire in only a few days, quicker if we took a warship, but that would be somewhat harder to explain." It was a joke of course, with an element of desire beneath.
"Why take one when I have one?" R'Vek replied, like Isha joking, even if there was a thought that it might not be the worst thing in the world.
"Because they'd know what to look for," Isha replied.
"Indeed." R'Vek nodded, it seemed lovely Isha had spent a lot of time thinking about getting out of here, "Well, perhaps one day soon I can spring you from your gilded prison."
"One day," Isha replied. "Meanwhile I am expected back at the house, Shall we go."
"Of course." R'Vek smiled, even though going back to that house was about the last thing on ch'Rihan he wanted to do, "Before your mother sends out a searching party."
"Its time," Isha nodded as they made their way back up the slope towards the house.
"Yes, it is." R'Vek sighed, accepting it like a prisoner on his way to the gallows. Then, as if out of nowhere, surprising him and, no doubt, Isha, he found himself kissing her.
It was a bad idea. A terrible idea. A catastropic idea, but Isha returned his kiss for a moment at least. She pulled back, traces of saliva clinging to her lips. "No," she said, a single syllable that emphasised what could never be.
"Of course." R'Vek nodded, "My apologies."
Isha directed her gaze anywhere but his. "Its forgotten," she said taking a great interest in the way that the grass bent around her feet before for the last time she suggested returning to the house.
This time, they did.
Off
Isha t'Khellian
R'Vek tr'Khellian