Note: Ruanek, T'Selis and the new character belong to Susan Shwartz and the late Josepha Sherman. I met Susan recently at a convention and learned so much about their characters and situations. This is one of them with my own universe as an overlay. Thank you, Susan, for all you taught me and all the entertainment you've given me over the years.
Saavik walked with a natural grace, her Vulcan dress gliding with her like shifting sand. Her youngest daughter, T'Pren, moved by her side, her dark head high over being here for the celebration. They didn't hurry even though they got to Ruanek and T'Selis' home at the last possible moment. Sarek caught sight of them and came over.
"It is good to see you arrived in time," he said after greeting them.
"Agreed," Saavik said. "I was concerned that my duties would prevent it. As it is, Spock will not be able to attend, a fact that disturbs him. In fact, Spock's absence will disturb them far more than mine if I was the one not here."
Sarek's brows lowered. "I had believed both Ruanek and you had forged your own relationship. Naturally, you first related to each other through Spock, however, has that not changed?"
"Grandfather is right," T'Pren piped up because that was what T'Pren did. "My Sa-mekh-rá had you teach martial arts to T'Selis when he was uncomfortable doing so himself." Her eyebrows lowered like her grandfather's. "Why did he not want to teach T'Selis? And do you both not want to spar with each other? You both appreciate the art of it."
Those words only made Saavik glad her child did not have the violence at her core. Ruanek's from his ingrained training to be a warrior; Saavik's from her abandonment on Hellguard.
She could tell Sarek understood. Saavik knew violence like no other Vulcan; it formed her Romulan half and her Vulcan half was all that stood between that violence and the world around her.
Sarek said, perhaps to move away from the sensitive subject, especially on a day like this, "Ruanek informs me that he and T'Selis wished to speak with you."
"I contacted them yesterday, Father. They gave no indication of a subject other than my proposed time of arrival."
"It needs to be spoken in person."
That was Saavik's only hint, and since the gentle music playing in the background faded out, she wasn't going to get any more with the ceremony now starting.
Ruanek stepped out of his home, the self-exiled Romulan dressed in Vulcan robes, showing the life he had built here. He secured a cradle to a waist-high pedestal in the middle of the garden. His one sleeve fell back, revealing a Romulan marriage bracelet, one of the very rare things he wanted as part of his former life.
Warm memories replaced Ruanek with Spock in Saavik's mind, and the Naming Days when he brought out cradles for their three children.
She nudged T'Pren and gestured with a nod towards the house. They needed to join the guests there, people like her own Chief Medical Officer, Frances Stewart, who had become good friends with T'Selis. T'Selis' family drew around the cradle, and Ruanek looked up to see Saavik.
He brightened and gestured for her and T'Pren to join the circle. The eleven-year-old girl looked up at her mother at the unexpected idea, but Saavik motioned for her to do as Ruanek asked. He must, she decided, want those close to him to act as his own missing family. She felt even more certain about this when the Romulan asked Sarek to join them as well. The Vulcan ambassador "gave his patronage", as Ruanek put it, from the moment when he brought a dying Spock back home to Saavik, equally in the darkest depths of pon farr.
The matriarch of the T'Selis' family, T'sahuu now entered the small garden, followed by T'Selis herself, carrying her and Ruanek's infant daughter. The mother didn't wear her Seleyan robes showing she was an Adept or the brown ones showing she was a healer. Instead, T'Selis wore simple clothing as she met with Ruanek and passed over the baby with a last touch of her hand over the infant's silky, dark hair. Ruanek moved with the overly careful movements of a new parent as he placed the baby in the cradle, something Saavik remembered doing in the first days with her son, Setik. He and T'Selis stepped back.
T'Pren beside her mother stayed glued to everything going on and Saavik was sure she'd later get a full report on every thought her daughter had running in her head.
T'sahuu lifted her head to the sky and spread her arms wide as she called out in a voice raised to the sky. The melodious words in Vulcan heralded the welcome news of a new member in the family. The eldest male of the immediate bloodline repeated the call, the way Vulcan families had done for millennia.
The family circle chorused these blessings in normal tones while T'sahuu crossed to the newborn. The chant celebrated the birth, the continuation of the family, and the beauty of life itself.
T'sahuu picked up the baby girl and held her. Saavik waited for the next traditional words for the infant's Naming Day, but the matriarch broke with them. "You wished to make a statement," she said to the parents.
"We wish to ask a question," T'Selis responded.
Saavik watched as they came up to her, thinking they wished to ask something of T'Pren. She was, after all, Ruanek's ko-fu-tel, or his goddaughter, as McCoy put it. But they spoke to her, not her daughter.
"Will you be her patron?" Ruanek asked. "Will you be there for her, be her guardian and mentor?"
"Will you be," T'Selis asked, "her Ko-mekh-rá?"
The fleeting thought occurred to Saavik that they felt obligated because she had done this with Ruanek and T'Pren, but T'Selis never feel beholden – the feeling would be illogical – and patrons were so vitally important in the Romulan society that Ruanek would only choose her to do this because it meant so much.
But maybe they sensed it and they lowered their voices. "You and I understand each other," Ruanek said. "You know what's at my heart, what I can and can't do, and you know I respect you, including with T'Selis' safety. The baby is like you and she's different. You even were the first person to point out how great that is."
T'Selis spoke. "You will understand her the way no one else can. I want that for my daughter."
Leave it to ever formidable T'Selis to think of it that way.
Now Saavik understood what Sarek had been saying when she got here. She honestly meant what she said about Spock would be the one they would want here, but with this…
"I agree," Saavik said and shouldered the massive responsibility. "And I am honored."
No doubt they had hoped to make Spock Sa-mekh-rá. Saavik knew they still would, as soon as he could arrive.
T'sahuu still held the baby and carried an air of peace and satisfaction. "From the moment of your birth, you began the greatest journey of discovering both who you are and what your life is to be. We help you on this first step by telling you: You are of Us and We are of You. We tell you this by giving you your names." She put the infant girl into her father's arms.
"You have the right to do something I couldn't when I grew up. Learn," Ruanek said to his daughter and Saavik thought she might be the only other person to understand. "You will always have the freedom to learn - and question. Any question you want to ask. That alone made me want to live again after I left everything behind." He cuddled his daughter in the crook of one big, secure arm to hold out two fingers to his wife. "That's until I met your mother and I didn't need anything else. Until we had you."
He passed the baby to T'Selis. "My life has been the opposite of your father's. I have learned at Seleya and at the Academy, only to discover that I knew nothing of my own katra and what we mean to each other as people. That is until your father arrived and now you."
They whispered the baby's names and then the infant was given to each person in the circle who also whispered the three names: first, the family name, then her common name, and last, her self-name, her áhtia name, or what Vulcans referred to when someone asked for a first name. The secret name.
Sarek held the baby and spoke just above a whisper so Saavik could hear. She forced control. She recognized her own name as the root for the little girl's.
They not only named her Guardian, but they also gave the child her name.
T'sahuu motioned Saavik to come back to the center. She felt the Elder's touch to her head and the girl's warm cheek and then – the wondrous, remarkable, breathtaking feel of another mind, a young one blossoming under her touch as they became bound to each other for eternity.
The Elder released her, so Saavik spared a moment to give her own message to the infant. It is only right that one of our blood is at last born free. You will know only a family who has my deep respect and a life suitable to all you deserve. I swear to it as I do for my own children. There will be no Hellguard for you.
T'sahuu took the baby away from her and held the child aloft to the circle and spoke her common name in the familiar litany. "Behold T'Savia, daughter of T'Selis, daughter of T'Saplar."
T'Pren came over as fast as acceptable and peered into the cradle. "In a way," she said to her mother, "she is another sister to me."
"In a fashion," Saavik said, "yes, she is. You are fortunate." She kept her own hand ever so gently on the baby girl's as she heard the parents coming up behind her.
Ruanek whispered, "I still wish my Honor Blade didn't get destroyed in that lava. I really wanted to give it to her."
T'Selis shot a narrowed eye look and a corner of his mouth twitched.
None of them said anything for a second until Saavik spoke again. Tiny dark eyes that would change color sometime soon looked back. "T'Savia, I am your Guardian."