The children were waiting for her as soon as she stepped through the door. "Mother, I don't want to eat dinner!" Henry was declaring as he attempted to jump off of the sitting room furniture. "I don't want to eat dinner! I don't wan-"
Shanna found his declaration to be hilarious since the evening meal time was hours away! "We'll see how you feel later," she said in a noncommittal way, fighting to keep a straight face as she pulled him up into her arms, snuggled him, and then put him down. Finally off of the sofa he forgot he was previously trying to climb, he began running around in his hyperactive way. "I'm not gonna eat, I'm not." he was declaring.
"Can I do homework later, mom?" Ananda was asking with the edges of a smile on her face as she put her arms around her mother and hugged. "I want to go and play-"
T'Lera entered to collect both children immediately. "Your mother has only just arrived. Come, continue your schoolwork, the both of you."
"But I don't wanna-"
"Ananda," T'Lera was chastising her, "if you wish to announce what you do not want to do, you should speak clearly. And you will complete some of your assignments before the mealtime."
Shanna gave Ananda a return hug and sent her with the nanny. She smiled at their retreating backs, grateful for T'Lera and Ms. Tyler's help with the children. She missed Reianna, but acknowledged that the children were doing well with less supervision the older they got.
She ran to grab a hot shower for her aching muscles and then rushed into the kitchen. She was still undecided on what the family should eat that evening, but if she wanted to serve dinner in a timely manner, she would have to figure something out quickly.
##
Two hours later Henry was scarfing down mouthfuls of curried chickpeas and garlic fried rice. He had already eaten half of a large mushroom filled with sage and thyme cornbread stuffing. She knew the vegan cheese spinach was going to get destroyed after he finished his rice. And he said he wasn't going to eat dinner! she mused with internal laughter.
The dinner was silent. They were trying to have the children acclimated to Vulcan ways. They had not adhered to the silent meal rule when they were babies, but a year before they decided to start gently enforcing the custom.
Her mind was in a million places as she sat at dinner. She was okay with the garlic rice, but thought it could have come out better. She felt she had gone above and beyond with the curried chickpeas and stuffed mushrooms, had not yet eaten any of the spinach. While contemplating a lentil stew for the next day's meal, to Shanna's shock, Siranon showed up at that moment. He almost never made it home in time for dinner these days! He usually showed up about an hour before the children were due to go to bed. He would spend their last hour with them and then take a cold meal in the kitchen by himself before doing more take-home work.
"Father!" exclaimed Henry, openly excited to see him for the mealtime. They both decided not to say a word to him for breaking custom since he was very young. He had also already gone back to eating, and was not saying another word. Ananda only just caught herself from saying anything, but she was looking over at Siranon with piece of a happy smile on her face.
Shanna's eyes were full of surprise as her husband extended his fingers to hers and she reached out, made contact with his fingers.
Dinner proceeded, as usual, but Shanna couldn't help but wonder what had changed on this day for him to arrive home this soon? Then she remembered him catching sight of her in the shower. Maybe it was that?
##
What Had Changed
Siranon had been sitting in his office hours before, attempting to finish skimming his latest intelligence report on the various factions in his area that trained throughout the week. He knew about the different guilds, for lack of a better term, and their ideals. There were all male guilds, all female guilds, intersex guilds, gender neutral guilds, nonbinary guilds, guilds open for everyone, and guilds dedicated to the training of 'pre-warriors' under a certain age. He knew that they all trained below the ocean waves, but he did not understand where they would go. The gills on the Mashtiq, he discovered, served in a semi-limited capacity. They were designed only for short-term water breathing. Much like Earth's Delphinidae species, the Mashtiq had to break the surface to take in pure oxygen at certain points or risk drowning. Warrior training, he hypothesized, would require a great deal of air intake. They had had to modify their initial supposition that they lived below the waves… or at least the certainty that they lived below. Perhaps they still did, just not in a way that they currently understood.
He sat back to puzzle over the concept yet again. He had been here for over two years and he still did not fully understand the warrior society he was serving. It was as if some piece of the puzzle were right within his reach and he was incapable of seeing-
His viewscreen caller chirped and he saw there was an incoming call. It was Chol'chyr. He quickly accepted the call. "Siranon, here."
"It is Chol'chyr," said the almost grouchy Klingon as he appeared onscreen. "I have solved the mystery of the training warriors below the waves."
Siranon's left brow rose.
"Yes," the Klingon said as he frowned. "My wife was the source of this particular piece of intelligence," he filled him in as he forwarded a document to Siranon.
"The Lady Ta'ole convinced a guild to give her this information?" asked Siranon, impressed, as he received the document and began to skim it.
"No, not so much convinced," he said, even more grouchy. "She has been in possession of the knowledge for quite some time, I was simply unaware of the particulars. As I had not asked her, she did not know this was one of our puzzles that needed solving."
"But I do not understand, how did she-"
"Chest-it, man! Our women join the warriors four days a week, they are bound to know some of these particulars!"
Siranon was taken aback… "Our- -wives?" His mind was imploding. Is that the reason Shanna's physique had begun to change?
For once Chol'chyr looked completely mortified as he realized he had apparently told some secret Siranon's wife did not wish him to know. And then he was laughing uproariously. "You are completely unaware of your lady wife's activities! Hahahahahaaaa!" he pointed at him through the viewscreen, full of jeering mirth. "You would not survive in the Empire with such a wife! She would outmaneuver and then replace you with one more clever and able to deal with her machinations!"
Siranon sat there feeling, for lack of a better expression, numb.
"Take heart, Vulcan! From what I have heard, she is becoming quite the warrior! If she were worthless the Sisterhood would have ejected her within 7 weeks! But she has held her own for 7 months!"
And the call disconnected, Chol'chyr's continuing laughter at his ignorance over his wife's activities the last thing he heard from him that day.
Suddenly Siranon felt better, for he now understood the reason for his wife's changes. And then he wondered why she had not told him of her activities.
His mind intuited what the reason might be for not disclosing these things.
From what he knew of the Sisterhood of Swords, they were one of the few guilds that did not support or deny Shuulin's claim to leadership as they had been formed solely to enhance warrior training and nothing more. They, in fact, did not support or deny anyone else's claim. They had been established for many years and they were solely about training. He was relieved, at least, that Shanna and Ta'ole had joined some part of this society with no political motivations. The Sisterhood's reputation as some of the best trained warriors was well known. What he was a bit surprised by was his wife being capable of such a thing. And he wondered, then, if the Sisterhood had only allowed Shanna to join because Ta'ole had insisted or something along those lines. He did not know, but he suspected that could not be the case. Klingons did not lie about the abilities of warriors. And if Ta'ole was of the opinion that Shanna was doing well and said as much to her husband, that must truly be the case.
Among all of these thoughts, he still had not decided if he should ask his wife what she was doing and why. But he did reflect on the fact that he barely saw his wife, and did not spend as much time with their children as he wanted.
He stood and decided to go home early and partake of a meal with them for the first time in almost a month.
The children looked extremely pleased to see him, and so did Shanna. He was inwardly more than satisfied with his decision to return home early that day.
They finished the evening meal and then Siranon assisted her helping the children finish their schoolwork. He saw that Ananda's workload had substantially risen since she had changed age and he wondered how Shanna was getting all of this done each evening without his assistance. And yet she had not asked for his help. Slowly it dawned on him, there was a simmering hum of resentment that had built up from her at his absence. Even she did not detect it. But the reasons for her hiding her activities became plain to him in that moment as he helped Henry get ready for bed.
Once both children had gotten clean and into their nightwear, they were ushered to their own rooms. Ananda had opted that night to have a story read to her by Ms. Tyler, but Henry wanted Shanna to rock him until he slept. "No, not anymore," Shanna reminded him as she helped him up and into bed, Siranon standing by the door as he watched.
"I'm not too old, really," he was trying to convince her. "I'm not five yet."
Her heart contracted. He was still very tiny, was he not? But she knew he was getting older, because the last time she had rocked him to sleep, her back began protesting within three minutes of picking him up. "Lie down, and I'll lie next to you for a while, all right?"
"Can I sleep with you and father tonight, please?"
Shanna sighed tiredly. Siranon had shot that idea down immediately half a year before once both children had turned 4. There were no more sleep-ins with them at that point. He was insistent that they learn to develop independently. Ananda had been upset for all of two days and then moved on. But Henry needed so much more. "My little man," she said lovingly as she stroked his dark brown hair. Thoughts of the children she had lost involuntarily entered her mind at that moment. They had both been boys...
"Mama, are you sad?" he asked, very unexpectedly.
And some part of her, taken unawares, almost burst into tears. "Mama is fine," she insisted as she pushed back the stirrings of grief. "Just very tired."
"If you wish, son, I will sing you another song of Vulcan's past," Siranon said, coming to life.
Shanna just kept herself from startling. She had forgotten he was standing there in the background.
"Yes, father," said Henry.
While Shanna lay down next to Henry, Siranon sat on the other side of the bed and sang to him. Henry's eyes at first remained fixed on Shanna as if she would disappear, but within no time, his body relaxed, his eyes began to droop. He was asleep in less than five minutes.
##
"He was very tired," Shanna remarked, amazed at how quickly Henry had fallen into such a deep sleep.
The two of them were walking to their shared quarters together. It had been such a long time since they had done this together. The silence between them was long and a bit strained.
Once they reached their room, Shanna decided to find her pajamas and see if she could get some much-needed sleep. The days she trained with the-
"May we speak together?" Siranon interrupted her thoughts.
She practically jumped. She had forgotten he was there in the room with her, he had been so quiet.
Siranon sighed. "We have lost touch with one another."
She couldn't help but say, "Well shit, I'm impressed. Do you have any other observations, Captain Obvious?"
He flinched. "You are angry with me." Some part of him was fascinated. She was beautiful when she was angry. He flinched inwardly. Where had that illogical thought come from? He would have to address it during his meditation cycle. "It is time we repaired things between us."
"Because you feel it's time?" she asked. Hurt was in her eyes as she asked him the question.
The hurt in her eyes was not beautiful. And he knew in that moment if he said the wrong things at this time… "I will be truthful at this time. I am aware that I have a tendency to become lost in my work, in circumstances, in mysteries. I become single-minded when presented with a puzzle of some kind. It is a major flaw in my character."
She thought back to the days when he was pursuing her. He had chased her down so hard! "Was I a puzzle you needed to unravel? Is that why you were so insistent that we come together?"
He felt alarm spreading up his spine. "My wife, you are a puzzle I acknowledge that I shall gladly never solve."
"Does that mean you've given up trying?" she asked.
He allowed his empathic shields to drop. He was aware of the things she might be upset about, but he knew it was better for her to enumerate them. "Tell me, my wife. Tell me all of the things you are angry with me-"
"I shouldn't have to!" she snapped.
He took a deep breath. He had miscalculated. "My wife, I think perhaps it would be advantageous if I-" he thought his next words through carefully, "-I should ask, what do you propose would repair the rift between us?"
She took a deep breath in and out, squelched down the urge to say another angry word to him. So she just paced back and forth for a few seconds and asked, "Tell me, honestly," she was afraid as the question formed in her mind, but she had to know, "if I went back to Earth with the children and let you stay here at your station on your own, would it make a difference to you at all?"
He actually gasped. They were due to leave in a few weeks to return to Earth. Was she asking him to- No, no. He stopped himself from that thought. She had asked him a question. She asked him if it would make a difference if they left and he remained there. And he realized the question he was being asked in that moment. His eyebrows registered the surprise that would not show outwardly on his face. "You and the children are essential to me," he said as he walked into her space, held her shoulders, forced her to look up into his face, to see the sincerity in his eyes. "I do not wish to ever be parted from you."
She heard the emotions in his voice when he said that last sentence and something in her responded. A tear leapt to her eyes. She shook her head. "Why does this keep happening?"
He realized then, she needed reassurances of many kinds. And it was alien to him to give them. And the question he wondered earlier came to him then. "Why do you never ask for what it is you need from me... from anyone?"
She pulled away from him then, hurt. She knew she was being unreasonable. But for some reason that question stung. Why should I have to ask?
Do you take for granted that I read minds, my wife?
"Get out of my head!" she snapped.
"It comes with the territory of a marital bond," he said, an intensity in his eyes she had not seen directed toward her in months.
She just sat down at that moment, partway checked out, and partway acknowledging that this needed to happen. Things needed to be brought out into the light and spoken about. She needed to let herself be vulnerable. She didn't want to be vulnerable. She was only just learning, once again, how to be strong.
He saw her sitting down on their bed, looking dejected. "My wife, why do you not ask for what it is you need from me? Why do you wait until-" he didn't know how to describe what it was he was trying to say.
"Why do I wait until I start to wonder if you're interested anymore? If you think you've made the biggest mistake of your life? If maybe you should have returned to T'Sh-"
"Do not!" he said.
"Well it's true!" she said, fully rolling down an icy hill quickly in the mental equivalent of iceskates.
"It is untrue!" he affirmed strongly as he sat directly in front of her, used his hand to turn her face to his. "You are the mate I wish to keep!"
She misheard his words. "So you just don't want another broken bond?"
"No, I do not want another broken bond! And I do wish to keep you!"
She swallowed back saying anything else in that moment. No matter what he did or said in this moment, she saw that she would automatically see it in a negative light. Was she this angry? She knew her anger was not solely directed at him and she also knew it was unfair. Yes, she was angry with him, but you can't take out your general anger at life on your partner... She found herself disappointed in herself in that moment, realizing that that's what was happening. She sighed. "I'm not in the right frame of mind right now. I'm not. I- I need to get my head together so I don't keep biting yours off."
He nodded, saw that she was trying to keep from continuing to snap at him. "We will sleep. But tomorrow, we will put together agreements so that this disconnect does not form again. Is this agreeable to you?"
She pulled herself back from responding 'well whose fault is-' and slammed that line of thought shut. Stop it, Shanna! The man is trying! "Yes, that's fine with me. We will sleep and try again tomorrow."