=/\= T'Shen monastery, Shi'Al province =/\=
17th Day in the month of et'Khior, YS 9022
He shook his head. "It isn't considered a good thing by most humans no. It's considered in bad taste and tends to lead to excessive fights that need not take place." He let out a deep sigh, before he let go of Sakarra's hand for only a moment. He grabbed a hold of the marble slab that Sakarra was laying down on and with what appeared to be no trouble what so ever, lifted it up off of the ground where it lay. He held it perfectly still there, looking over at Sejet before he smirked ever so slightly, and let the marble down, letting it fall the last few centimeters making a rumble as it slid back into place. "I come from a high gravity world. Much higher than you have here. When we lose our tempers, we can tear through bulkheads. Or as the late Romulan admiral so discovered, we can tear someone apart with our bare hands. As you leave the colony you are told about the dangers of losing your temper. One of the last things my father gave me was a book about calming rituals that had helped him through his time out away from the colony," he said. Intentionally leaving off the swift kick in the ass that his father had given him telling him to go mature.
"Indeed." The expression on T'Para's face was one of barely contained satisfaction, as if she'd had a lingering suspicion confirmed before her eyes, but the old monk's face was unreadable as he watched the marble slide back into place. "Though it was my observation that humans in general are quite cheerfully … losing their tempers at any given occasion, I can see the inherent … difficulties."
Not surprisingly, the young T'sai was not in the least unsettled by having been lifted along with her bed, and merely raised a brow at her Companion, giving his shoulder a meaningful look.
Carefully spreading the clean linens over the wound, Sejet was about to suggest that his patient be left to rest, but a calm, meaningful gaze out of night black eyes made him simply incline his head and see to the fire before making for the door. It had not been a request. Not this time.
Lightly as a falling feather, T'Para touched her near-sister's wrist and followed the old abbot, but not before favoring the tall marine with another outright friendly nod.
Alone at last.
The storm outside was shaking the trees and the windows were fair dripping with water, but inside there was only the warm glow of fire, and the distinct scent of herbs. Caring little for the ache in her very bones, Sakarra shifted on the bed and propped herself up on her elbows, drinking in the sight of her beloved seated on the small couch beside her. Silken black curls tumbled over her shoulders, veiling the hideous marks left on the soft skin, but there was no hiding the deeply thoughtful expression in her night black eyes.
"Your bare hands, ashal-veh?" soft, melodious, barely loud enough to be heard over the falling rain, her voice still carried into every corner of the room.
Brent looked at Sakarra as they were alone at last. He moved himself over to the stone slab that he had just lifted off of the ground and laid down on it, next to Sakarra as he heard her questions. He nodded his head slightly. "Yes. My bare hands," he let out a sigh, letting one of his hands attempt to move around her waist. "Through the front of his head, through his nose bone... And then out the other side. I put a pretty substantial dent against the back of the wall too," he said looking off into the ceiling. He turned looking back at her letting out a sigh. "I've tried my entire life to control my temper, and until I lost you I did a fantastic job. But once you were gone..." he paused, hesitated for a moment. "You're going to see things, hear things about me. And chances are they are all possibly true."
If there was anything flickering in the bottomless depths of the Vulcan's eyes it was come and gone too fast to be read by even a bond-mate, though the disquieting, silent glow of sleeping embers remained.
Heedless of the linens so carefully placed onto her back by the healer and now sliding into disarray, Sakarra stretched out on her side, reaching for her beloved's face with tender, careful fingertips. The hand brushing over her waist ever so lightly did not pull her closer, seemed not to dare go beyond this feather light touch. It hurt more than if he had closed his fingers over the barely mended bones and crushed them worse than the other had.
"And you feel it might appall me to hear those things? For I think you know better than to believe they would make me fear you, yes?"
Substantial dent. Oh, she could… hazard a guess as to how substantial. Just as she knew beyond even the possibility of doubt that this had been merely … the end of it. Just as she knew … felt, sensed, in her very soul, that the impressions that had plagued her in her delirium before the desperate fight had purged the blood-fever … had been his. Fury, burning so brightly it was as spark to tinder to already boiling Vulcan blood. Darkness. Rage. And over and over, the desperate reaching for that glowing thread, that failing light. The light she herself had dimmed, the thread she herself had tried to cut, to tear from her heart so he would not see, feel … the thread she even now prevented from flaring to life in all its magnificent splendor.
'Have I wronged you, beloved? Am I doing so now, trying to shield you from more hurt?'
For the first time in her life, Sakarra was uncertain. And found she did not like the sensation one bit.
'You have never wronged me my beloved. Never,' he said his hand moving up to gently touch her cheek as he brushed some of her hair out of the way of her eyes. 'No you have not wronged me, nor do I think I could really ever feel you hurting me,' he leaned against her and let out a deep sigh. 'No matter what happened... I will love you. Even if you push me away for what I am about to show you... Know that,' he took her hands, making her fingers touch his face in the meld points, while he did the same to hers. It was in that moment that he shared everything that had happened to him since when he had first heard from Savant that the captain had surrendered the ship without giving word to the crew. The brutal killings he had done, the graphic dismemberment... Everything up until he had confronted Itsak, and his eventual brutal death at Brent's hands...
Fearless. It had been what captured her heart from the first day. Not the foolish ignorance of the one who does not know what he does, nor reckless abandon. He knew what it was to fear. But had none whatsoever in the things that mattered.
Laying his memories, his soul, at her feet like the precious gift it was. As if it were the most natural thing, as if it could be no other way.
Push him away. For this?
Even as the darkness, the terrible pain made tears fall from her eyes in crystal rivers, she almost wanted to laugh.
Generous. How could he say she had not wronged him? Leaving him in uncertainty, leaving him in this darkness, not knowing whether she was even alive …
Would it have hurt less to know she was alive and suffering?
He would not even let her pose the question, offered forgiveness before she could ask for it.
And he believed she might push him away.
'Brent Warren, the Other be my witness you are … I don't have words for what you are to me. But I love you.' Leaning her face against the fingertips still resting against her temples, Sakarra looked into the deep blue eyes and smiled even though her heart felt as if it were wrenched out of her side.
Not caring that just about every muscle and nerve in her body protested the sudden motion she flung her arm around the broad shoulders and kissed him, with the infinite tenderness that only he could wake and bring to blossom in her.
"You shame me, beloved. Thrice over, you do." Deep, black pools shining with tears still, Sakarra let out a soft sigh "But know that you have done nothing to them I have not done as well, and as for him…" for an instant, the dark light was back, turning her face into a mask of marble, her eyes to smoldering flame "… do not think you were cruel. What you did was granting mercy, and more than I would have shown given the chance. More than I did show. And I do not even have the grace to feel regret."
[To be continued …]
Lt Cmdr Sakarra Tyrax
Executive Officer
Brevet 1st Lieutenant Brent Warren
Marine Commander
USS Charon
