Day 06 [2345 hrs.] Far From the Tree

Re: Day 06 [2345 hrs.] Far From the Tree

Reply #25 – January 25, 2020, 08:22:43 PM

Attn: @fiendfall

Hathev rose to her feet, and yet, he failed to mimic the movement immediately. He remained where he was, his dark eyes fixed on hers, his face imperturbable once more. Hands clasped in his lap, the tatter of cloth tightly held in a fist made of white knuckles and slight trembling. She offered him her assistance, later on, if he required it. An offer that was tarnished by a condition she did not specify, but that he managed to read between the lines. An invitation to correct the deviation that lay within him, the thing that embarrassed him but the he couldn't get rid of. An offering that concealed Hathev's intention to transform him into a lesser, crippled version of what he was at that time, even with his flaws, and left him at the mercy on an iniquity that he both longed and gloated. Emotions were a perol to every rationale being; they were responsible of both the near aniquilation of their race in the far part, and for the hardships that their patients had to endure every day. He did not want that to himself. No.

No.

He wouldn't be subjected to be enslaved by emotions, to such vileness, further than what his own biology obliged him to undergo every seven years. Not even at the behest of one of the people he admired most. In the end, that mere suggestion illustrated the failings of her logic, how far she was still from perfection, as she, like most, still had a long way to go before she reached her ultimate mental clearness. Seren took a deep breath before he stood up too. When he did it, Hathev had already reached the door.

"I will consider this assistance you have offered," the young ensign declared as the door hissed before his savensu. It was not necessary to be a Vulcan to understand that he was simply dismissing her help in the most civil manner, leaving little room for a change of opinion. He stepped toward the center of the small room. She turned to offer him a goodbye. He raised his hand in the ta'al before saying "Rom-halan". His instructor observed him for a while beneath the lintel of the door. He stared at her in return, wondering what part of his psyche had been disturbed during the melt to make him reply in that manner instead of just echoing the traditional words. Seren blinked once, bemused. Hathev said her farewells one more time, thus using his rank. Correct, fitting. Distant. As if there hadn't been anything going on between the two of them.

As was proper.

Seren declined to answer this second time. The door closed behind her. The young Vulcan stood still in the same place when the faint sound of Hathev's footsteps faded into the outer corridor. And he was still there, motionless, long after, gazing at the closed door as his fingers curled over the patch of cloth.

Only when the room's computer whistled softly, clocking a quarter to two, did Seren finally move. With sluggish movements, as if he had just emerged from the ice once again, he rearranged the room. He carefully cleaned the wax traces from the mat and the floor, stored the meditation equipment in their alcove, and replicated a new candle to replace the one that had become useless as well as another small white object. Next, he discarded his meditation clothes and took a long sonic shower.

An hour or so after Hathev had left his quarters, Seren was lying on his bed, his glance lost in the amber shades of the ceiling. Over his chest, rested a small whitish box that contained the shred of his savensu uniform. The thumb of his left hand rubbed the top of the box from time to time, and each and every time he felt a glimpse of that which had overwhelmed him when Hathev had taken control of the melt. It was something that humbled him, that he didn't understand, for which he had no name. It made his heart beat 1,023 times faster. It produced a strange pang of... something in the lower part of his ribcage. That made k'shatrisu purr in the dark corner of his mind where he had exiled him, like a huge beast sated only temporarily. Seren abhorred that, that sense of incomprehension, that unknowable question that he was unable to answer. And, at the same time, curiosity impelled him to continue exploring it in a loop that he was unable to break or comprehend.

The hour at which he had to wake up surprised him still in that state of uneasy insomnia. However, routine forced him to leave his bed and perform the usual activities of the early morning. The only difference was that the small white box accompanied him during his food intake, during his morning meditation, during the review of the day's agenda. When Seren was about to leave it on one of the shelves next to his desk, he noticed that he had been scratching the lid, until he had carved on its polished surface the spirals of a single word.

Ko-mekh.

Seren's eyebrows darkened his eyes at such incongruence. Nevertheless, he had no time to think about it. Not now. But perhaps he should consider it a symbol, a warning that he should re-establish a bond he had reestablished after so many years, which had grown surprisingly strong the night before and which, almost immediately, had broken in the same distant disregard that had alienated them after Kiriel's departure.

Maybe.

Perhaps…

Seren placed the little box next to the head of his bed and next, he took one of the neatly stacked padds on his desk. His fingers swirled quickly across the screen in a short text message. The young ensign reread it a couple of times before sending it, he even reworded it three times, and only then did he send it.

On the far side of the starship, in a different vector, Hathev's personal padd flickered a couple of times, displaying a short message.

Quote

From: Seren, Ens.
To: Hathev, Lt Cmdr.
Subject: midday meal.

Honoured en'ahr'at,
I would be privileged if you would accompany me in the consumption of the midday meal, in the correct silence as tradition dictates.
After that we can discuss the current status of the department and our patients.

Seren.

A million light years away, a new message appeared in a mailbox that hadn't been opened in years.

Quote

From: Seren, Ens.
To: Profile 245820y4
Subject: message 2341

Sa-kai.

It has been a week since my last message. It has been 1245 messages since I received a response in return from you. I acknowledge that my previous communication, pertinent to my emergence from cryostasis, is relatively recent and that I am breaking the time protocol you established for my communications with you. However, I have to tell you something about your mother...

FIN

Savensu → teacher
Ta'al → hand salute, the Vulcan hand-greeting
Rom-halan → farewell, a partint salutation, good-bye
en'ahr'at → godparent
k'shatrisu → foreigner, one who is from a foreign country or place; an outsider
Ko-mekh → mother.
sa-kai → brother