Whipping around to face the voice, Picard failed to conceal the astonishment that blazed through his being. There, calmly standing in the middle of the area before the Proconsul, stood a trio of shimmering figures, two men and one woman. Even as his mind struggled to associate the hatred and venom of the voice he had just heard with the cool and impassive tones to which he was accustomed, Q took a step forward and pointed at Corikh.
"The creature is mine," the immortal being repeated, his quiet voice burning with a fervor that struck a primeval core deep within Picard, a chord that resonated with all the violent undertones and vicious vengeance instilled by millions of years of reinforced instinct within the human race. Suddenly every fiber in his body throbbed with insatiable anger and hatred as the desire to destroy the surrounding enemies seized him. Desperately suppressing the rampant rage, he squeezed his hands into tight fists, forcing his fingernails to bite into the flesh of his palms. The haze of pain cleared his thinking slightly, and he managed to thrust the loathing far from his mind.
Temporarily restored to sanity, he returned his attention to the trio, helpless before the devastating effect of Q's fury. Around him the tension in the amphitheater mounted as others, unaware of the reason, also reacted. Picard suddenly felt suffocated in the gathering cloud of animosity.
Ju-galrianmei turned to Picard, face uncharacteristically pale. "What is happening?"
Picard nodded towards Q. "His will can shape reality."
The Deltan's breath hissed. "And now his will is murder."
Picard only nodded slightly in response, fighting to retain his self-control.
Suddenly the figure next to Q reached out and placed a hand upon his outstretched arm. "No."
The word reverberated in the air, bringing with it the sweet wind of restraint and wisdom, understanding and grace. It spoke not only to Q's statement, but also denied the fury and nihilism that statement awoke in those surrounding them. Although the anger did not entirely dissipate, that quiet refutation stilled the burgeoning savagery, and Picard felt the tense pressure around him ease.
Yet the gentle peace didn't affect everyone. Face still suffused with anger, Q whirled to face the being next to him. "That animal deserves infinite suffering for his actions," he said harshly.
"No," the woman repeated, and Picard realized with a start that it was Adara, though substantially altered in multitudinous ways since he had last seen her. Her features seemed somehow nebulous, as if her very species shifted from second to second, trying them all and rejecting them each in order. "Don't do this."
"Then do we let him go?" Q challenged. "These pathetic mortals lack the imagination to punish his crimes adequately." A strange pleading entered his voice. "Are you just going to let him walk away?"
Light flashed in her eyes – literally. "No. But I will decide his fate."
The third figure, a seemingly ordinary Romulan, finally spoke. "Indeed, daughter? Then you'd better get on with it."
Adara directed a stern glare towards the elder Q. "You stay out of this," she retorted curtly. "You're in enough trouble already."
The other snorted. "This Romulan's life does not deserve the extra time you're granting it through your prevarication. End it. Now."
She narrowed her eyes. "Why do you wish me to kill him so quickly? Some game you enjoy playing to alleviate the boredom of eons?" Mouth tightening, she grated, "Forget it, Father. I'm going to do this my way. The questions must be answered." A strange hesitancy fell over her. She turned to face Q, still glowering ominously beside her.
Picard found himself holding his breath.
.
.
"Well?" she said softly. Despite the hushed tone of her voice, the word conveyed a complicated mixture of hope, despair, and affection. Q didn't respond, didn't acknowledge her inquiry. Stepping closer to him, Adara repeated softly, "Don't do this."
Q looked at her, gaze intent. In a gesture of exquisite tenderness, he cupped her chin in his right hand and searched her eyes. Between them passed quick flashes of communication, too brief, too overwhelming to be conveyed in anything as mundane as words. She felt the rage the memories of her past had awakened in him, his burning desire to strike out at the source of that pain in her life. She realized that Corikh, to him, was nothing more than a symbol of the depravation of her torments, the evil mastermind behind all her woes.
Yet Corikh had earned something more subtle than physical retribution. Striving to explain this, she murmured, "I require more than his pain."
"You are too gentle," he replied.
"No," she stated, steel entering her voice. "But the questions remain."
He smiled lightly. "You and your questions." His tense anger vanished. Lowering his hand, he stepped back and nodded. "As you wish. I will not interfere." His manner, however, suggested that should she request it, he would gladly bring the full weight of his wrath to bear upon the wretched scum.
Raising her hand, she brushed his cheek in gratitude. Then, face bleak, she turned to face Corikh. The fringe of her consciousness alerted her that others even now moved towards them: a mere thought stilled all those within the theater. A questing thought from her brother was answered with reassurance and a firm command to leave her to her task. Slowly she walked towards Corikh, who stared at her with eyes wide in frenetic sanity.
She allowed her external appearance to change subtly until finally, as she settled into position before the Governor and crossed her arms expectantly before her, she looked exactly like the half-starved Romulan that had escaped from the prison on Saatilvik. Ignoring the ripple of surprise that swept through the onlookers as they finally comprehended her identity, she forced Corikh's eyes forward to meet her own.
He stared back in sullen silence.
"Why?" she asked simply, inserting threads in his mind to impel truth.
"What does it matter why I did it?" he snarled, though she could taste the copper scent of his fear. "Just kill me and have done with it. No battles are won with questions."
"Answer me," she commanded as she pulled the strings she had placed in his mind, dragging the words from his mouth.
Groaning in pain, he responded, "I did what was necessary."
"For what?"
His face contorted with the effort to resist her insistent demand. Sweat broke out on his forehead as he finally gasped, "Mnhei'sahe… Mnhei'sahe demands its sacrifice, and I willingly gave it what I could. Power is the ultimate currency in the Star Empire, and you represented a limitless source of power, if I could only figure out how to use it."
"That's all?" Q sneered. "Adara—"
She held up a hand, stilling him, her heated gaze never leaving Corikh's face. "For twenty years, I existed in a world of darkness and pain, at the mercy of those who daily tore my mortality away piece by piece. I was tortured beyond endurance, probed and inspected like a slab of meat, restrained and fettered with more malice than any animal or slave had ever received. You ordered the death of my mother, abandoned my brother to the chill indifference of an icy grave, and shackled me inside the unassailable fence of my own agony." She placed her hands on either side of his face, ignoring his terrified flinch. "And you claim you did it out of some kind of culturally ingrained lust for power?"
"I—" Rational thought warred with fanatic loyalty in his face and thoughts. "I knew no other way."
Abruptly righteous indignation overwhelmed her hesitation. She drove her mind into his, scrutinizing his face, his movements, his thoughts. As her harsh search revealed nothing different than what he had already revealed, she growled, "And now you tell me that I went through twenty years of pure agony for damned Rihannsu pride?" Even as her thoughts formed the concept, Corikh dropped to the ground, writhing in agony, as her will shaped his pain. She catalogued every torment that had been performed upon her and gathered them into her memory, prepared to force Corikh to experience all of them simultaneously.
For one blazing instant, she beheld her revenge, complete in every detail.
Then he raised his head, and for an instant their eyes met. In his gaze lay a pleading not for mercy or freedom, but for an escape from the endless labyrinth of dead ends he had created through his aggressive pursuit for power. And beyond that, she saw the labyrinth for what it truly was: laid not of his own devising, but placed for him long before his birth. And, slowly, inexplicably, her anger died, and his pain died with it. Abruptly she saw Corikh as he truly was – tired, old, afraid – and not as the monster her nightmares had constructed. She realized that no punishment of her conjuration would prove as effective as leaving him to live in the cage he had constructed for himself.
Just like Cetus, she abruptly realized. "You truly did not know another way, did you?" she whispered as comprehension flowed through her. An acrid taste filled her mouth as she realized that, in the end, he must suffer whatever judgment his own people deemed appropriate and leave him be. An instant's rebellion that demanded brutal revenge shook her torso, quickly quelled as she clamped her mind around her decision.
With a sharp regret at the sudden epiphany, she understood the justice of what had been done to Cetus. And, even as she had refused to kill Cetus, so now she resolutely excised her hatred against Corikh and placed his fate into the hands of others.
Kneeling, she placed one hand upon his shoulder and said, for his ears only, "I meant no harm in being born."
His eyes regarded her, and suddenly Adara understood what he could have been, what indeed he might once have been had the Empire not ensured his failure through its very existence. "Perhaps not," he sighed. "I meant only to assure the success of the Empire."
"Only at first," she told him sadly, reminding him of his innocence. "In the end, you only sought to perpetuate your own."
He hissed as he realized how corrupt his dreams had become. The memory of his youth, so long buried, filled his eyes with tears. "Perhaps." Swallowing his regrets, he said woodenly, "And now?"
"You have been judged by that which you sought to become."
Hanging his head in defeat, he nodded. "Yes," he said.
Adara nodded abruptly and climbed to her feet. "Stand," she said harshly, in a loud voice.
Numbly he obeyed.
"Hear then my sentence, Corikh tr'Jeiai: I shall not harm you." No flicker of expression marred his features as he waited for her to continue. "Instead, I give you this gift: death won't claim you until justice has been satisfied, whether it be five years or five centuries." Her face grew cold. "But you will be punished, for should your people fail to deliver justice's sting upon you, they shall suffer in turn." Corikh paled as several Senators, long-time rivals of the Governor, grinned in glee. Adara waited for the full impact of her words to work their way through his brain. Even as his face recovered its normal shade and his expression became one of resignation, she asked, "Do you acknowledge your sentence?"
Never once blinking or breaking eye contact, he said, "I am a warrior. I am Rihannsu. I will restore my honor as I must."
Adara nodded. They understood each other.
Negligently she released her hold upon those around her. Immediately the Tal Shiar agents seized Corikh and brutally pushed the unresisting man onto the floor, none too gentle in their efforts to render him immobile. Her father strode to her side and observed the process, demeanor radiating disapproval. "Was that well done, my daughter? Such leniency ill befits your heritage."
She turned to face him, forcing her face to remain neutral. "Would you have done it differently?"
"Of course."
"Then let me ask you this: why did you not prevent the murder of our mother?"
She felt the surprise and anger flash through him. "You are impertinent."
"Answer me."
He met her gaze. "The immutability of choice. I warned her, and she chose to ignore my warning." His eyes grew distant. "It is one of the gifts of mortals, to choose their own future."
"And the other gifts?" she asked acidly.
He looked at her. "Death and time."
She pondered this, nodding slowly. "Understood. Thus I cannot change my choice."
An ominous glint entered his glare. "Are you quite sure?"
Stubbornly, she nodded.
Her father regarded her intently for a moment, then suddenly stepped back from her, an obscure pride suffusing his features. Lifting his face, he looked into the heavens, quirked an eyebrow slightly, and said expectantly, "Well?"
Surprised, Adara glanced at Q, mouth framing a question, when suddenly she felt it: a presence so overwhelming the air seemed thick with the unmistakable syrup of atomic energy and dark matter. Astonished, she followed her father's steady gaze and attempted to discern any indications of the being's presence.
The starry expanse came from nowhere and encompassed the whole of Romulus, superseding the sun with constellations that hadn't existed for billions of years and others that wouldn't exist until all the stars currently living faded completely. And, as the sun disappeared, she realized that above them lay not an amorphous aura of power, nor a physical incarnation such as her father and Q assumed among mortals, but the full embodiment of the Eldest of the Q Continuum.
Something within that vast shadow moved, and Adara shuddered helplessly as a hand, immeasurably immense, reached down and cupped the entirety of the amphitheater into the shadow of its palm. Her mind struggled to accept the incredible sight of those colossal fingers curling around the enormous edifice even as above them a face formed, eyes and mouth capacious enough to contain entire galaxies. Words entered her mind, almost stunning her with their potency.
"It is well."
The, as quickly as the shadow had descended, it was gone. A mysterious force tugged at her, and dimly she realized that she was being taken along with it.
.
.
Picard blinked and looked around.
Adara was gone, as were Merak and the one she had identified as her father. Only Q remained, bearing a look on his face that Picard never would have thought possible: awe. Abruptly his face hardened as he muttered something under his breath. Feeling Picard's eyes on him, Q turned and met his gaze, a sardonic grin twisting his lips. "Greetings, mon capitaine."
Fighting the automatic irritation he experienced around the infuriating Q, Picard inclined his head in return. "Q."
Q laughed then, eyes glinting. "Such a warm welcome for an old friend, Picard! You must be careful, or others will suspect the true nature of our relationship." Pausing, he glanced at the sky, face pensive. "And what did you think of our visitor?"
Picard hesitated, tempted to shrug away the enormity of what had occurred in an attempt to annoy Q. Fortunately, his curiosity got the better of him. "I have never beheld the like."
Q nodded in response, equally serious. "Few have." A hint of his condescending humor returned. "But then, what do you expect from God, mon capitaine? A platypus?" Then, with a wink and an expansive gesture, he also vanished.
Picard glanced around the amphitheater, encountering expressions that seemed to align fairly strongly with what he himself felt: stunned incredulity.
Then, tone filled with reluctant awe, Proconsul Neral whispered harshly, "What in the name of the nine hells of the seventh moon of ch'Havran was that?"
Before Picard could answer, Ju-galrianmei stepped forward and bowed formally, mien serious. "The time has come," the Deltan said, "to talk of many things."
.
.
Merak blinked, surprised at the sudden transfer. Quickly extending his senses, he sought to ascertain his location. Around him loomed the arena of reality, where the infinitesimal and the infinite vied with each other for power. Forcing his thoughts back to the lessons given him by his father, he realized that this must be the Hall that he had been warned so strenuously about.
Suddenly his thoughts brushed up against something old beyond time and empty beyond measure. Blackness reared up and swirled around him, eagerly sucking at his power and greedily draining his vitality. Deranged gibbering filled his head, completely breaking his concentration and drawing him deeper into their demesne.
*yes this one good powerful confused will serve us well good food good servant will free us yes free us*
His mind recoiled in terror, unprepared against the onslaught.
Abruptly a presence placed itself between Merak and the grasping darkness that sought to consume him. No, it said firmly, as if speaking to slightly backward children.
The chittering swelled menacingly. *promised you promised us those who came unprepared promised us when we lived when we died when we failed more we need more*
The other voice responded, implacable, unwavering. No.
The darkness shrieked its anger and battered against the barrier that the presence had constructed around Merak, but remained unable to break through to claim the tantalizing prize beyond. The shrieking rose in pitch and volume as the blackness screamed its frustration, then gradually faded into an impotent wail that disappeared into the realm of death from which it had come.
Merak shuddered, slowly gathering his wits about him. "What was that?" he asked the presence, then wondered if he would receive an answer.
The other seemed to hesitate, then suddenly solidified before him. An old human, beard reaching down to his knees, stood before him. Eyes ancient beyond years regarded him keenly. "The Heart of the Storm is all that remains of my lost children."
"Your children-?"
"Those beings you know as the Q Continuum," the other clarified. "To all of them, in their own time, is given a test." He made a gesture that seemed to encompass the Hall, the reality beyond the hall, and the darkness from which sprung the Heart of the Storm, in one subtle movement. "Not all of them succeed."
"I have never understood why you refuse to destroy them," a voice stated from Merak's left. At least, he thought it was his left. Suddenly it seemed to also be above him, below him, behind him, and directly in front of him. Everything was everywhere in this place, and he humbly realized how ill equipped he was to handle it.
Turning his attention to the 'voice', he found Viridian and Adara nearby (and simultaneously farther away than he could truly comprehend). Adara, eschewing her mortal form entirely, chose instead a nascent Q incarnation. Viridian, now only loosely adapting a humanoid form, glowed green, flickering through the various shades quicker than conscious perception.
The old man turned to face him. "There are many aspects of my decisions that you have never understood, my son. Yet I believe you are mistaken to claim perplexity. Look at these, your own children: would you willingly destroy them?"
Radiating uncertainty, his father retorted, "That is completely different, Father. My children have failed nothing."
"No?" the Eldest asked mildly. "I only now prevented your son from joining my other lost ones." Merak flushed in embarrassment, suddenly unwilling to meet Viridian's keen gaze. The Eldest chuckled softly. "Besides, my other children need their attention diverted somehow. Can you imagine what it would be like if your brethren had nothing to do but satisfy their curiosity about all of reality, rather than just this corner of it they so flippantly call the universe?"
Viridian didn't answer, though his being flickered red momentarily in response to the other's words.
Abruptly Q appeared, still in human form. "So nice of you to invite me," he said sarcastically.
The Eldest turned to him, mouth twitching. "Since when have I ever had to invite you anywhere?"
Q actually blushed, eliciting a moment of sympathy for him from Merak. Shaking off the unwelcome emotion, he turned to the Eldest. "Why did you bring us here, Grandfather?"
The Eldest blinked. "I suppose I am, aren't I?" A bemused look crossed his face. "No one's ever called me that before. I think I rather like it."
Viridian interjected, "Aren't we straying from the point?"
The Eldest exchanged a measured glance with his son. "Very well." He turned and scrutinized Adara, who calmly accepted this abrupt focus with equanimity. When the Eldest turned his gaze to Merak, however, he felt the uncertainty bubbling deep within. The Eldest sighed, then said, "We've brought you here to apologize."
Viridian began spluttering, "That's not why—" He stopped when the Eldest raised a peremptory hand.
"We manufactured the concept of their very existence to satisfy a curiosity, Viridian."
"And that was-?" Adara asked pointedly.
The Eldest again faced her. "The Continuum are my children – at least in the sense that they owe their existence to me. Your father is more directly my offspring, but the distinctions blur in explanation. It's a little complicated, but by nature of their longevity, most so-called 'immortals' are a result of an ancient error on my part."
Q blanched. "You mean we exist because of a mistake?" he asked, aghast.
The Eldest shrugged. "The laws of reality differed back then," he explained dismissively. Fixing his eyes on Adara, he explained, "Yet mortals, such as they are, evolved independently of my actions. I've always been curious of them, particularly their ability to learn so much in such a short period of time. I told my children to observe but not interfere in their development." He glared at Q. "Of course, there are exceptions to every rule."
Q managed to appear slightly embarrassed at the admonition. "Nothing was forbidden—" he began in protest.
The Eldest waved a hand. "No matter, Q. You, in your own way, are as much an experiment as Merak and Adara."
Blinking in surprise, Q said, "What?"
"Never mind," Viridian interrupted. "The point my father is laboriously trying to make is this: we wanted to find out what would happen if we mixed the characteristics of Continuum and mortal in one being."
"So I wasn't the first one to realize the potential?" Q demanded incredulously.
The Eldest shot him an amused glance. "No."
Adara looked at Q with an eyebrow uplifted in query. Q actually blushed, backing away and muttering, "Ah, that's not important right now." He looked at Viridian, discomfiture fading. "There have been other…experimentations. The El Aurians—"
"True," replied Viridian, "but those other efforts involved willing and knowing participation on both sides with advanced mortal races already aware of our existence."
"Why Romulans?" asked Adara, gaze intense.
"Well…" Viridian began, then faltered.
The Eldest took over. "Their predilection towards insularity, their embrace of the more extreme of mortal passions – these among other reasons." He glanced at Viridian, a slight smile tugging at his lips. "And I am afraid that, for reasons incomprehensible to me, your father developed an – oh, what's that quaint word? – infatuation and precipitated your conception sooner than I had anticipated. We had wanted to observe all of the major interplanetary races – humans, Romulans, Klingons, Vulcans, Cardassians, and the like - before settling on a final choice."
"I said I was sorry," Viridian muttered, his entire being a vibrant pink.
"You actually fell in love with a mortal?" Q demanded disbelievingly.
Open mouth, insert foot, Merak thought to himself as Adara abruptly assumed Romulan form and rounded on Q. "And what is wrong with mortals?" she said acerbically.
"Nothing," Q stammered, verbally backpedaling. "It's just that, uh, well…"
Taking pity on the immortal, Merak diverted the conversation. "If you wanted to find out what would happen, why didn't you take better care of us… and our mother?"
Now Viridian's gaze became flinty. "Cetus. He found out about out you and took steps."
"Why didn't you stop him?" Adara inquired, tone deceptively mild.
"To save your lives," the Eldest replied seriously. "The granting of the power of the Continuum to one outside of it is never undertaken lightly. Generally if such power is given to a mortal, it completely consumes the individual and immediately changes him into a member of the Continuum. The Assembly frowns upon those who do it, and many members of the Continuum are delighted to destroy such 'aberrations.'" He glanced at Q. "Our friend here has been known to tamper with the order of things from time to time, but even he never had the temerity to grant a mortal the full, unfettered powers of a Q for long."
He sighed. "We had deliberately granted you the full powers of the Q without forcing upon you the knowledge of the Continuum's ideals and duties, choosing instead to observe what happened. Considering Cetus' previous grudge against Viridian, he required little impetus to expand his hatred towards you. It took much subtle effort to prevent him from killing either of you outright. In the end, we only managed to divert his attempts, not prevent them entirely."
"I managed to save Merak's life on Khalan III by ensuring that a Federation vessel would arrive in time to save him," Viridian explained. "Unfortunately, Cetus succeeded in covertly persuading the Romulans to keep Adara in that prison and inspired her captors to create the device that chained her abilities. Had that collar not been used, she would have been able to escape long before she did, and Merak's powers would not have remained dormant." Viridian's color dimmed to a dull grey. "Your mother's decision to ignore my warning and her subsequent death affected me more deeply than I thought it would. My grief and guilt incapacitated me for a while."
"You did love her," Adara murmured.
Viridian nodded gravely.
A brief, awkward silence ensued. Clearing his throat hesitantly, Merak asked, "And your conclusions? About the experiment, I mean."
Smiling slightly, Viridian replied, "Quite unexpected. One of the more recent flaws of the Continuum is their tendency to eschew emotions from their outlook in favor of reliance upon their 'superior instincts'. The simple everyday emotions so treasured by mortals have become somehow distasteful to the Q, as if it were a throwback to the days before they attained their awesome abilities, a distraction from their contemplation of the eternal and infinite." He shook his head. "We can be quite pompous at times."
"I hadn't noticed," Adara said sarcastically. Merak hid a grin behind his hand.
Pointedly ignoring this interjection, he continued, "We arrived at an inescapable conclusion."
Merak turned to face the Eldest. "And that is?"
"That, in all truth, the mortal and immortal cannot mesh perfectly. The different sides constantly strive against each other for domination, with neither side capable of truly understanding or overcoming the other." He met Merak's eyes with piercing wisdom. "And yet somehow, in each of you, one side has indeed gained the victory – through free will."
"What do you mean?"
Adara turned to him, face inexpressibly sorrowful, and gently took his hand. "Our awakening forced us to choose, my other self."
Merak met her eyes. The touch had restored that link between them dulled by recent events, and again he felt the closeness they had shared since they had together become aware of the soft beat of their mother's heart. He remembered the joy of awareness and togetherness in their childhood, remembered the desolation and emptiness that had caused to him to deliberately forget those moments of happiness after their first separation, remembered the incredible power and rightness of their reunion in her dream before her freedom began once more.
Suddenly, he saw two figures before him. One was Adara of Romulus, his beloved sister, and in the instant that he saw this, he saw their life together, and, many decades hence, their death together, leaving behind a strong and unified Star Empire. The other was Adara of the Continuum, a being of inscrutable power and unknowable purpose, the dreadful weight of the universe on her shoulders as she succeeded the Eldest in his eternal quest to right the wrongs of his past, alone, unloved, and unsupported. Yet, far beyond that, his Q abilities revealed the wrongs righted, reality again restored to what should always have been, and a love that far surpassed any mortal appreciation of the word.
He shuddered from that eternal struggle. "I don't want to lose you again," he whispered to her.
She wept silently, with no tears, the link between them vibrating with the sorrow of her decision. "I will never forget you."
"But…" he said, starting to explain his vision. Her hand twitched in his, and he knew that she, also, had seen it. "You knew. You knew on the Enterprise when—" He stopped, glanced at Q, then back at his sister. He bowed his head. "I cannot desert my people now."
Abruptly hands gently clasped their shoulders. They turned simultaneously to find Viridian standing beside them, compassion in his abruptly Romulan eyes. "You have chosen well, my children." He looked directly at Adara. "Your strength never lay in the frailty of your body but the resiliency of your soul, and that strength is desperately needed." Transferring his eyes to Merak, he continued, "And your sense of duty understands that we cannot succeed in our task without the wisdom and resolve of those gifted with an ability to escape, in death, from the consequences of their choices." His expression saddened. "I wish that your mother had lived to take you back."
Merak only nodded numbly in response as Adara bowed her head.
And then the Eldest was also besides them. "Now, as equals, say farewell."
Without conscious effort, Merak found his arms around Adara, savoring her nearness, her beauty, her strength. Between them flowed emotions and impressions unfettered by language or logic, the link in their minds afire with the purity of their love for each other.
The moment became eternity, complete and perfect in every aspect.
Then something within him shifted, altering him in some indefinable manner that signaled louder than words that he was indeed mortal. The awareness which moments before had been able to discern the details of solar systems one hundred parsecs distant vanished, leaving only the mundane senses of sight, touch, hearing, smell, and taste, and the more undeveloped sixth sense, to guide him through reality. Opening his eyes, he drew back from the embrace and looked at Adara.
Shock coursed through his body: before him stood a figure that in no way resembled a Romulan. Instead, the Adara of his vision regarded him, gaze opaque, bodily outline pulsating slightly.
"A'rhea," he whispered brokenly, acutely aware of the void within.
"My soul," she replied in a hushed tone of voice. Suddenly she was flesh again, though no Romulan features manifested.
Merak drew himself up. "Do not forget me," he asked plaintively.
She smiled wistfully. "Aoi'hlan."
He nodded. Turning to Viridian, he said, "I am ready."
The powerful being scrutinized him for a moment, then nodded. "Farewell, Merak of Romulus."
And, for the last time in his life he was surrounded by the strange melding of color and sound as the place between places enveloped him and took him elsewhere.
Abruptly he stood in his aunt's private quarters in the Citadel on Romulus. Dully he looked around, adjusting to the crushing mundanity of his vision and senses, surprised at the ache aroused within him as he realized that he would never taste sounds or hear colors again.
A gasp came from behind him. Whirling, he found Sienae and Serlin behind him, their conversation interrupted by his appearance. His aunt, silver circlet of betrothal glinting on her brow, noticed the anguish on his face. Immediately she stood and rushed to his side. "What has happened?"
Merak couldn't answer. A single tear formed and fell, inviting others to join it. Eyes suddenly flooded with tears, he slowly shook his head and walked out of the room. Behind him he heard Serlin's voice: "Leave him be. Some grief cannot be shared."
Arriving at his sleeping quarters, Merak mechanically entered the room and locked the door behind him. Every movement studied and precise, he sat upon his bed and stared at the wall, mind blank.
Then, as the emptiness within him shrieked its loneliness, he curled into a fetal position and wept.
After a few moments, the lock on his door clicked. Struggling into an upright position, he barely managed to wipe away the tears before a figure entered the room.
Viktris, hair disheveled from her earlier activity, cheeks marked with her own tears, regarded him for a moment, then bowed slightly. "My lord Merak."
Merak swallowed harshly. "I do not require your presence," he said, attempting to sound calm.
Shaking her head, she silently took a place next to him on the bed and waited, gazing at him expectantly.
Eventually his closed his eyes and bowed his head. Tears squeezed themselves through his eyelids as he asked, "I'll never see her again, will I?"
An arm wrapped itself around his shoulders. "No, my lord."
A sob shook his body. Then, with self-control gleaned from balancing the forces of the universe in the palm of his hand, Merak met her gaze. Gently tracing the line of her tears with a shaking finger, he whispered, "I'm sorry."
She smiled slightly. "Jurak chose his own path, my lord, as did I. Is that not what your father said? The freedom of choice, the time to forget, the escape of death – these are the gifts of mortals."
He snarled. "Some gifts!"
Her eyes narrowed. "Would you prefer the monotony of destiny with no escape from the guilt of your mistakes? Your father will always feel your mother's blood on his conscious, and your sister will always wonder whether she should have joined your path." Merak looked at her, startled at her insight. "It is your choice to aid the Empire from destroying itself, my lord, and her inescapable duty to follow her fate. You retain the option to change your choice. She cannot escape hers."
A sneaking suspicion stole over him at that point. "Who—"
She shrugged. "Your sister sent me. She wishes you happiness, not sorrow. Grieve her loss, but do not regret your choice."
The acerbic words had the effect of a slap to calm his hysterics. Once again his former resolve settled in his very bones. "The Star Empire needs me."
She nodded. "Yes, my lord."
"Well, then," he said, rising to his feet and adjusting his clothing. "We don't want to disappoint, do we?" Bracing his shoulders against avenging time, he commanded succinctly, "Come."
Obediently she followed, as she would for the remainder of her life.
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Mnhei'sahe - translates loosely to "the ruling passion," centers around a strong respect and appreciation of honor, duty, courtesy and strength. The motivation of all Romulan behavior
ch'Havran - Remus
A'rhea – dear heart
Aoi'hlan - never