Posted by Civilian Kenzo B’tren-Hyrushi (Governor) in Governor’s Home - TMODJ (PRISM)

Posted by Captain Eela Dasca (Lt. Governor) in Governor’s Home - TMODJ (PRISM)

Posted by Civilian Kenzo B’tren-Hyrushi (Governor) in Governor’s Home - TMODJ (PRISM)
Posted by… suppressed (9) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

Eela shook her head. “It’s not mine to share,” she said softly drinking more of her tea.

After tea, and getting up with help (she was feeling her back a bit after being silly and sleeping with her brace on), Eela settled in and made the call to Iven. And then the police commissioner.

By that point Eela was physically and emotionally exhausted. She let them help her into a lying position and she turned to face Karilan, scooching over so there was more room. “You’ve been here for ages, my dear. Please don’t feel like you can’t go if you need to. But if you do stay, at least be comfortable.” In truth it would feel nice to sleep knowing tangibly that someone was there, but Eela was mindful that there was a lot going on and she didn’t want to be selfish here. Caridee was here too.

~Eela Dasca, Lt. Gov.

Karilan simply slipped off their shoes and slid in next to Eela. “Shut up and go to sleep.” they said softly and put their arms around her, pulling her close.

Karilan

With a smile on her face, Eela let her body settle in. Normally she would sleep on her stomach to take pressure on her back, but the reassurance of Karilan’s arms around her was too lovely to give up. And she hoped that maybe having someone who cared about her so deeply in such close proximity would help her mind and body find some equilibrium. She slipped her hand over for a moment to make contact with Karilan. I rather love it when you’re bossy with me.

Caridee said nothing and crept out of the room with a smile. She moved down the hall to see if Sharah was awake still, wanting to check in on the doctor who had risked a great deal to help her mother. Whether it was a sense of duty or more, Caridee knew that Fayth and Hyrushi didn’t have to have risked themselves for Eela. But they did anyway. She herself might have had the right pieces to set all this in motion, but they saved her and there were no words to truly express that gratitude. After all she and her mother had been through, she had not ben prepared for even the idea that she might lose her mother in some significant way today.

~Eela & Caridee

Sharah was sitting cross-legged on the bed with Yavia and Ilena. She was eating a small snack, and not nearly as much as Yavia would prefer. She looked up, “Dr. Sevren. Is everything alright?”

Lt. Cmdr. Fayth, SFCMO

Caridee nodded and gestured with her head down the hall. “She’s resting, finally, and her vitals are stable. I expect her neurotransmitter levels will take a day or so to fully return to baseline but they are continually moving in that direction. I just wanted to see how you were doing, and…”Dee eyed the three women and smiled softly. “And I wanted thank you all for you help. For what you were willing to risk,” she said, her last comment said as she focused on Sharah.” She pressed her hand to her heart and bowed to them in the Haliian tradition. A greeting yes, but also one given to show respect and gratitude.

~Caridee

The three women returned a similar gesture from their own culture. Ilena and Sharah being almost identical. “We are glad she is okay. We will wait about half an hour to make sure there is no relapse, then we will clear out so everyone can rest.she will be extremely sensitive until her levels return to normal. Make sure anyone who needs to know is aware.”

Lt. Cmdr. Fayth, SFCMO

Caridee nodded. “As I understand it, her team at the office have cleared her schedule for today and tomorrow, so hopefully that will be enough time, but I will let Cort know. And provided she feels comfortable with the idea, I was going to suggest she move back to her place after she’s rested.” The practical matters at the moment were easy enough to tend to, but Caridee knew all too well that she would need time to digest everything from an emotional perspective and deal with the triggered memories that all of this had brought up. She knew the mechanics of what was going on for her right now, but she could also wait it out.

“I’ll be downstairs if anyone needs me. She still has the cortical monitor on, so I can keep an eye on things while she sleeps.”

~Caridee

Sharah nodded, “You know how to read it, and we are just a comm away. Her security staff knows how to reach us as well. I would speak to Lt. Iven about when and how he feels she should return to work. Physically,” she glanced at the PaDD Ilena handed her, “she’s fine. Unless something happens.”

Lt. Cmdr. Fayth, SFCMO

She repressed the snort of laughter that wanted to come out, but the amusement played in Caridee’s pale blue eyes. “Well, she’s spoken to Iven so he knows where she is at. He can make recommendations, but can’t exactly give her orders. I think we all know my mom well enough to know that if she’s determined to work, she will find a way, even if it’s from her home office. And once her neutrotransmitters are normal and she has her mental shields, she’ll be more protected. I can’t see her laying low any longer than absolutely is necessary, given everything else going on. Eela Dasca does not do well sitting on the sidelines. If people want to convince her to take more time… good luck. Though if anyone can convince her it’ll be you or the Governor.” She knew it would come better from those she worked with that she had a close connection to. Even Caridee herself wasn’t the best one in this case, for very specific reasons the others might not anticipate. Roger would, but he didn’t even know about this all yet.

~Caridee.

Sharah shook her head. “Perhaps, but your mother knows I absolutely will not compromise when it comes to matters of health. So if I must add my own medical order to Lt Iven’s mental health recommendation I will. And Governor Hyrushi is not the sort of man to ignore something like that. Your mother knows. She has asked to always be treated the same as everyone else. I wouldn’t let anyone else get away with that behavior either. She needs to be 100% for everything that is going on right now. If she can’t see and accept that, she isn’t putting the colony before her own desires. And that is a level of selfishness I do not believe your mother is capable of.”

Lt. Cmdr. Fayth, SFCMO

Caridee leaned against the doorframe and nodded. “No, most definitely not. If anything she tends to put others before herself to the extreme. The Governor did mention though that he was going to task her with working with Ambassador Mathis. They have a rapport and a connection to Jones, so he thought it would be something meaningful she could do without being so fully in the public eye.”

She inhaled deeply and held her hands palm up before her, moving them up and down in opposition to each other. “It’s that delicate balance about giving a person something positive to focus on while not letting them use that as an excuse to ignore what they are dealing with.” She dropped her hands. “I’m an outsider here, and I can admit that I don’t fully understand how everything works, but what I do know is that a large piece of her job involves optics. It matters not what great work she is doing behind the scenes if the people of Oed think otherwise. She loses her capacity to do the work she so clearly loves if they see her as shirking her duty, or failing to live up to some expectation. Her and the Governor are held to a different standard than everyone else, whether it’s fair or not, and I think she would be devastated if she lost her credibility after all the good work she’s done thus far.”

~Caridee

Yavia shook her head, “Oed is a hard place, but you, nor Eela, are giving Oed enough credit. It’s not secrete she and Jones were involved. It’s been on the media, seeing them together. All very proper and such, but you can’t mistake the look on their faces. When this breaks, there isn’t a person on this colony that will bat an eye if she takes some time. Those that do, well, then the police will have a place to start looking for the person who did this. Eela is VERY well liked. No one thinks she is capable for shirking her duty.”

Yavia

Perhaps it was an odd thing, but Caridee wouldn’t help the gladness that swept through her and the smile that graced her face. “You know, you’re probably right about my not giving Oed enough credit. I’ve only been here a few days and I only have seen the pressure my mother has been under.” He smile grew. “But at the same time, I know she loves this work and she good at it. I think I knew it intellectually, but I never really got to see her in her leadership roles before. Growing up with your mom being the first officer or captain was very different. I either wasn’t there because it was the War, or we saw her off duty. Seeing her in action the other night at the gala was kind of amazing.” She couldn’t help how proud she was of her mother. “I guess I’m just protective of her because she’s been through so much these last several years. But I also know that she’s doing as well as she is here not just because of her hard work, but because of all of you who support her. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her so happy, so thank you for that as well,” she said pressing a hand to her heart. As far as Eela herself not giving Oed enough credit, she knew that wasn’t quite it and also knew there were a lot of other layers involved in that situation.

~Caridee

“I will continue to monitor her remotely through the cortical reader. Don’t let her take it off, my orders. Mostly she needs rest, as much as she can get. I’m glad she will be speaking with Iven. Follow his instructions and let Governor Hyrushi handle things. He knows how to talk to her. I won’t disturb her, but she can call if she needs anything.” Sharah smiled gently, “It is always enlightening when we see our parents as something other than as our parents. You should return to her.”

Caridee nodded. “She’s sleeping, so I’ll be downstairs.”

Ilena and Yavia were moving crates to the door to be taken down and transported back to the hospital.

Sharah closed her eyes. She could not read Kenzo’s thoughts, but she knew him better now. She gently pinged his senses. She did not want to disturb him, but she wanted to ensure he was taken care of as well before they left.

Lt. Cmdr. Fayth, SFCMO

The door to Eela’s room was just cracked open enough for her to see that her mother was still sleeping, Karilan curled up with her. She smiled again at the loveliness, knowing that this was a piece of the puzzle of Eela Dasca that was coming into place in a way that never could have before the accident and the divorce. Before her father showed up on Oed. She tamped down on the feelings that rose up and hurried down the stairs with quiet steps. Caridee made it to the patio doors and stepped out into the garden.

It was a lot. All of it. Her mother’s sudden life-threatening illness triggered so many difficult memories and emotions from not just those weeks at her mother’s side while the coma persisted, but afterwards when Eela had been awake and trying to literally get back on her feet. She knew then that her parent’s relationship was strained, but it was hard to ignore how distant and disengaged her father had been. How easily frustrated he’d been with his recovering wife whom had had an enormous amount of loss inflicted all in one go. And Jourin had drifted away. She and he were still close but it wasn’t the same, and there was a lot they couldn’t talk about. In the end it had been just her and Roger supporting Eela these last years. And Kian too, of course. But Eela had become wayward and adrift, and there had been only so much they could do to help her. She had had to find her own path. As Roger proved, that meant being far, far away from Earth, but also rooted somewhere where she could build community. She was so heartened by what she was seeing in her mother’s transformation. Or was it more that she was becoming who she always should have been?

The reality for Caridee was that she was torn. She still loved her father, but much like her mother the mask he had been wearing had been pulled off. It pained her so much and the thing she hadn’t yet shared with her mother or Jourin is that Caridee had taken the difficult step of telling him she needed space. She couldn’t be involved in his life for a little while until she had had a chance to sort things out for herself. She had had that terrible thought at one point that if he would be so desperate as to physically harm a woman he claimed to love, what did that mean for the rest of them. The thought still made her shudder as she wandered into the garden, PADD in hand in case the cortical monitor went off. She found a place to sit and allowed herself to drop her guard for a little while. She needed to stand down for just a brief time so she could be there for her mother when she woke up. There was still a crisis in play after all, and her mother’s health would take a couple days to fully be at baseline. She had promised her mother years ago that she would also be there for her and help her through anything. It was the same promise that had made her her mother’s medical proxy through everything after the Steadfast. She would never break that promise.

~Caridee

“You are conflicted about your parents.” a voice said from behind her. Hyrushi stood two or three meters back from her, dressed in a suit with his hands clasped behind his back. His black eyes seemed bottomless, and a slight breeze moved his long black hair slightly. “The failures of our parents as individuals are particularly hard to process. They are, by their nature of being our progenitors, supposed to be beyond such foibles.” He walked slowly forward to stand next to her, looking out over the city. “It is never a pleasant experience… learning our parents are mere mortals.” He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Walk with me, Doctor.” he said, and he began to walk along the stone path that weaved its way through the dual-rooftop garden.

There was no use in denying the truth of his words. It was written all over her face, and in her body far beyond her emotions. Rising, Caridee simply fell in stride with Hyrushi, taking his lead and trusting him. How could she not? She had trusted him with her mother’s life and that had been no small matter.

“Your mother is an amazing person. I have known none like her.” The admiration in his voice was subtle… but strikingly sincere. “That being said, I also know her to be stubborn and prone to excess when it comes to emotion. You and I must ensure that proclivity is not put on display when Mr. Jones’ assailant is identified.” he said.

Hyrushi, Governor

She couldn’t help but snort, the deep truth of that reality was already on her mind. Whomever was responsible had best be kept a safe distance from Eela Dasca, that was for sure. “What people don’t always see at first is that my mother is a deeply passionate woman, in all areas of her life. And passion by its very nature is intense and barely controllable. Her career tempered it into something she could wield more intentionally.” Sevren swallowed, unable to keep certain memories at bay. “Her accident all but undid that tempering, and in many ways it’s freed her. But as you so correctly allude to, it can get her into trouble. And I need to be up front that the Kuskaaritz has triggered some very difficult memories for me, from her accident and the aftermath. But they give me a deeper insight into that part of her mind that I don’t know if others here fully understand yet.” Caridee gazed at Kenzo deeply. “I never share things that are not mine to share, but I think because of this morning this is an exception…”

Caridee stopped, facing him. “There is something more happening for her right now. Something that I detected when we were trying to ground her. I’m not sure if Karilan did or not, but based on their closeness I’d bet on it. Experiencing Dashiel Jones’ death has been an extraordinarily painful for her, as if it was her herself going through it. But it’s not isolated. It’s triggered memories. Maybe it’s from the Steadfast, or maybe it’s something else. I know I don’t know everything about her life. But I do know she has had an incredibly varied life and also experienced many difficult times, including the Dominion War. And the body keeps the score, Governor. It tells the truth when the mind cannot. Hers is suffering right now and you are correct that her emotions will not be denied or hidden. My mother believes in justice and she will fight for it with every inch of her being, though it’s a fine line we might need to remind her of lest she do irreparable damage. So what do we do? Book her a vacation? This isn’t like the aftermath of my father’s visit. I may not understand Oed very well yet, but with the Vren here, I can’t imagine she would take well to being left out, and I don’t know how long the public will allow her to be absent, even if that absence is in hers and Oed’s best interest.”

~Caridee

Hyrushi led her to a small clearing surrounded by tall bamboo stalks. On the far side was a small shrine in which burned a single candle. In front of the shrine was a small bronze pot filled with red sand. Stuck in the sand were several long, thin sticks. Hyrushi walked up to the pot and knelt down, sitting back on his feet. He looked at Sevren and then looked back at the shrine.

“My family are devotees of an ancient Earth religion… Shinto.” he said as he reached forward and took one of the sticks from the sand. “Shinto, in a purely academic sense, revolves around spirits called the kami. The kami are believed to inhabit all things everywhere… including forces of nature and some special and unique landscape features. The kami are worshipped at kamidana household shrines, family shrines like this one, and jinja public shrines.” He leaned forward and put the tip of the stick in the flame of the candle, setting it alight. He pulled it back, let it burn for a moment, and then blew out the flame. The ember on the tip of the stick soldered and soon a tendril of fragrant blue-gray smoke floated up from it. He stuck the base of the incense stick back in the sand and closed his eyes, breathing in the aroma.

All too well versed in ritual, Caridee bowed her head in reverence, letting her mind express a moment of gratitude, especially for her mother’s Kuskaaritz being resolved.

“Those who follow the ways of Shinto place primary importance on several things: purity, harmony, respect for nature, family respect, and subordination of the individual before the group. We believe that no One is more i.portant than the Whole. But what many outside of Shinto fail to grasp is that the Whole must have the One to be complete.” A slight chuckle escaped him and he said “Oddly, the most precise summation of our beliefs was made not by a Japanese practitioner… but a French writer from many centuries ago. His name was Alexandre Dumas in a fiction novel entitled *The Three Musketeers’. In that work, the protagonists are set against a powerful adversary who seeks to break their bond s with one another. But… they adhere to their code.” He opened his eyes and looked at Sevren.

“All for one. And one for all.”

He looked back at the shrine and bowed deeply, raising back up and exhaling slowly. “I believe that is actually the best motto for Oed V. I’m sure the Musketeers would agree.”

Hyrushi, Governor

She smiled softly. “As it is on Halii, too.” Caridee exhaled an audible breath. “This is why I was so adamant that we needed to get her through to Batarael. Those rituals will help her find her centre, help her feel whole. Death for Haliians is not quite sad at its core. We release a person to the Great Mystery and bid them a safe passage. We don’t assume or guess about an afterlife because it’s beyond us now, but we do believe we are always connected. We can’t help but be. Physics and all that,” she said with a warmer smile. “But the space between the moment of death and release can sometimes be perilous. For my mother it will likely be more than just finding acceptance. I told the women upstairs how grateful I am for all of you who have found a place in her life. She’s very picky,” Caridee said, unable to push back the smirk. “So you are right, she’s going to need all of us, all of Oed, to see her through.” But…

Caridee had blue eyes like her father’s, but they were always softer in gaze, even when she was having stronger emotions. “If it was just Jones and the Kuskaaritz, I think it would be simpler. But it’s not. This is on the heels of a massive upheaval in her personal life. I do believe you are one of the few who knows her better than most, so I think, I hope you understand that her actions going forward won’t just be about grief for Dash. She’s still fighting her own reality, of what she thought her life had been versus what it truly is, while also trying to be the great leader she has always been.” Caridee’s expression was almost pained. “To this day I still don’t know what all went down on the Steadfast, but I’m giving you this warning because I believe you will know what to do with it: something about what happened that day, and her determination here on Oed are inextricably linked. Add to that the potent guilt and grief that comes with loss and you have a precarious situation. Eela Dasca cannot stand being a burden to anyone, Governor. Do you understand? She was made to believe having needs at all was a burden. I watched it happen in real time after her accident without fully understanding what I was seeing. And now I understand that that was the end of it, not the beginning.”

~Caridee