My Own Battle
Part IV
Barin's POV
Ten years ago, my mother and sister did a miraculous thing. They helped to free Betazed from the Dominion and I'm here today talk about it or at least the result of that day.
Maybe I should start at the beginning. I was five years old when the Dominion invaded and took over our planet. We were peaceful people who hated violence and needless bloodshed, but that sort of changed after that.
The Dominion killed many Betazoids during their tyranny, but in the end, Betazed retook their planet. How exactly none of the elders will say, not even my sister, Deanna. They all insist that it is best we did not know how it was done, because if we did, such things could continue to occur. They have all buried it deep within their psychics; locked it deep within their minds so that no other telepathic being can know exactly what happened that day. So, to this day, only the adults of that time know what they did to retake our planet.
All the children, me included, were left in the resistance cell with the adults who were too old or too sick to fight the battle. Yet if the other adults had not succeeded, it would have fallen to us to fight the Dominion.
I had been very sick, and my mother argued with the doctor about using her own blood to keep me alive. I'm not sure how that worked, but I vaguely remember hearing their argument. Against his better judgement, the doctor did as my mother insisted. Then, after Betazed was back in our hands again, I got the treatment I needed and got better.
Today, my sister is happily married to her Imzadi and they are about to make me an uncle. I have a girlfriend, which Mother seems to despise because she is not from any house of Betazed, just from Betazed, but according to Deanna, Mother was like that with her too. Deanna says Mother doesn't really hate my girlfriend; it's just her way of showing she loves me.
Whatever. I like Kiana and if it wasn't for my mother, sister, and all of the elders we would have not met nor would any of my friends be free to have fun without fear or suffer some sort of terrible death because it was found that we were telepathic or empathic when we hit puberty. We are free to be kids. We are free to go about our lives and become whatever we want to become in life.
Kiana wants to be a doctor, my best friend, Jarik, wants to go into cybernetics, and I want to be a delegate of Betazed. Not traditional, as my mother says, but she's happy one of her children wants to follow in her footsteps and carry on the fifth House's name. Thing is, it will be my future wife who does that, of course, because Betazed is still a matriarchal society.
Well, that's Betazed for you. It's very much steeped in tradition, but you know what, I have my mother and sister to thank for that, because if it wasn't for them, I might not be here right now to enjoy all of this. Thanks to them, I have a life of freedom and choice that is buried deep in tradition too. Thanks to them, I have a past to be proud of and a future to look forward to also. They are two great and powerful women who helped to free Betazed from Dominion reign.
Don't ask who the head of my sister's house is. That doesn't matter, because, according to my brother-in-law, Will, my mother still has her nose in Deanna's life to this day and I don't expect her to be much different when I grow up, neither does Will for that matter. After all, she is the daughter of the fifth house of Betazed, holder of the sacred chalice of Riix, heir to the holy rings of Betazed and she won't let you forget it either. My sister still says the chalice of Riix is a molded old clay pot. Well, some things never change, but life goes on and I think I hear my mother calling me.