round 18 Doctor Saveron - Not all that is true is logical

[Alora DeVeau]

“I’ve been afraid of changing

‘Cause I built my life around you.

But time makes you bolder

Children get older

I’m getting older too.” ~ Dixie Chicks, Landslide

((Saveron’s Quarters - USS Invicta))

::Saavok was in his room, ostensibly sleeping though Saveron suspected that he was up reading again. His son knew that if he was too tired the following morning both his father and his teacher would have something to say about it, and Saveron would not discourage the acquisition of knowledge. He permitted Saavok to manage his own sleep and meditation requirements providing that he did so acceptably.::

::The lighting was dimmed to grey tinged with purple, like a Vulcan dusk, and he carefully set out candles laced with Vulcan spices in the central space of the lounge room. In their centre was a sitting mat and, in front of it, a carved piece of crystal.::

::Lowering himself gracefully onto the mat he picked up the crystal and held it for several minutes, attuning himself to it and reinforcing its programming. It was prepared to act as a katric ark, large enough to hold just one katra. Should he face imminent death without another Vulcan to entrust his katra’s return to Vulcan to, this provided an alternative to his katra being lost. Saavok had one as well.::

::He set the crystal down and let his eyes drift closed, emptying his mind first of all thoughts and allowing his body to fall into the light, comfortable trance of meditation. He held that calm emptiness for as long as he felt necessary, before allowing the first thought that was in his mind to surface.::

::Saavok. His younger son, who had endured four uprootings in the last two years, yet seemed to thrive on the constant change and unfamiliarity of the myriad alien cultures they were exposed to. If anything, possessed as he was of the mental plasticity of youth, he adapted even better than his father did. Yet he was his father’s child, even more so than Teron or S’Rel. All three of them had inherited his restlessness and desire to see more than the planet of their birth, but none so strongly as Saavok. He was thriving out here on the edge of the Federation, in spite of the dangers inherent in living on a ship in unknown, politically complex space. Or, Saveron sometimes suspected, because of them. He still worried about his son, behind that wall of emotional control. Like any parent he wanted what was best for him, and feared that what he had now was not it. But it was not a logical fear. Saavok’s academic and emotional growth indicated that he was faring far better now than he had on Vulcan, much to his mother’s lack of preference.::

::T’Rel. Saavok’s mother. Teron and S’Rel’s mother. His previous bondmate. He had received notification that she had achieved Kohlinahr and then been initiated as a Priestess of the Temple of Gol. Achieving her goals as she had set out to do with a ruthless direction that brooked no distraction. He could only hope that it would bring her peace and contentment. He knew that it would not bring her happiness, she would never experience that again, or any true emotional response. As much as he agreed with the control of emotion, Kohlinahr was a future he could not even begin to contemplate. She was more lost to him now - more inscrutable, more alien - than she had ever been when she chose Serok over him.::

::He considered that thought for a moment. Yes, perhaps he had held onto that hope, subconsciously, despite it’s lack of logic. Maybe one day… No. Not now, not then, not ever. T’Rel was lost to him, and always had been. It felt odd to make that final acknowledgement.::

::Perhaps that was why he felt a need to assist Counsellor Moonsong. Raissa. She too had lost something that she could not truly regain, something that had left ‘a hole in the soul where the wind blows through’, to quote a pre-Surak poet. He was familiar with the stages of grief, for a moment it seemed that she had moved to acceptance, whilst in some strange way he had still been in denial. ::

::”‘Vulcans do not lie’. That is perhaps the greatest lie that Vulcans tell, and most of all they lie to themselves.” ::His old mentor Professor Bakewell in a sour mood, more insightful than many at their deepest and most philosophical. Had he lied to himself?::

::Perhaps. Perhaps that was why he could not bring himself to Bond with Sirenya two years ago, the difference in their preferred life paths merely an excuse. Others made long-distance relationships work; perhaps the distance that had grown between himself and T’Rel in their last years had been all he ever wanted to experience of that.::

::’Would you Bond again?’ Raissa had asked him. Raissa, who had her own traumatic difficulties to manage, still thought of her friends and their happiness. He wasn’t now certain that he’d truly thought he would. Perhaps the truer question was ‘would you Bond with another?’ Abstractly, the answer was simple. However, when he looked beyond the logical response to his own inner, instinctive reaction, It was oddly difficult to answer.::

::A restlessness gripped him and he broke his meditative pose and rose fluidly to his feet, stepping around the candles and across the lounge room to the pictures on the wall; holographs of his family. Reaching out, he took down the one taken some twenty years ago; himself, a very pregnant T’Rel and a young Teron and S’Rel before them. A picture of simpler times, of perhaps the most satisfactory period of his life.::

::Next to it were more recent pictures of his children - including one of Teron, his mate T’Rayel and their daughter T’Nai - and beyond those, one of Saavok. His youngest son, unecpected but no less dear. The one who lay just metres away, facing the dangers of life in space with nothing short of enthusiasm. So much his father’s son, more so than his older siblings, and unlike them he had never known a time when his parents were together.::

::And they would not be together again. Nine years had passed, T’Rel had most definitely moved on. As for himself, perhaps even Vulcans needed time to grieve. As Raissa grieved for her loss, as many others grieved. Yet his own words came back to him; if one mourned too long, one could lose other things. Like friends, like other opportunities in life. How much of his most recent conversation with Raissa could have a mirror held up to it, and still be equally valid?::

::Perhaps that subtly implied turnaround had been intentional, or perhaps it was simply that their lives at this point had so many things in common. And even as he had counselled her about Carter, she had asked him about others. Non-Vulcans. Humans. Confusing aliens that they were, she had spoken of a need to be near and a fear of rejection that overrode the pain of not knowing. The idea was bizarre, and fascinating. She had spoken with implied specifics. A Human. He couldn’t help but wonder.::

::Not herself; she was grieving the loss of Carter, and regardless knew the Vulcan mindset well enough that she would have just told him. Not Aron, good friend though he was, he was just now becoming involved with Niccolo del Vedova. Not Quinn, fellow member of the Single Parents Club. He could tell by her pained looks that she yet waited and hoped for Commander Ross’s return. As did he. Not Chythar, colleague who was never more than professional.::

::He studied the holograph in his hands, so recently ‘hung out’ on his wall, and knew that he held the answer. Someone who found repeated excuses - or no real excuse at all - to be in his presence, yet worried excessively that she was there overmuch from the number of times that she asked him if such was acceptable. Fear perhaps that one day he would say ‘no’?::

::Alora.::

::Carefully he hung the holograph back on the wall before turning and settling once more into his meditative pose.::

::The question was, how did he feel about her? It was one subject on which he knew he could not rely upon logic alone.::

END

LtCmdr Saveron

Second Officer

USS Invicta