Prompt 87: "I saved you a seat." (Janeway & Tuvok)

Episode: Pre-Series

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The Temple of T'Paneth on Vulcanis Lunar Colony was more than a thousand years old. Built into the side of a mountain, it was a labyrinth of rough-hewn caves and corridors that echoed with every step and smelled of candle wax, incense and stone. It was one of the holiest places in Vulcan space, and it was also at the heart of Lieutenant Tuvok's family life. His wedding had taken place here, as well as the baptisms of his four children (those weren't the words, but it amounted to the same thing). Today, as his daughter Asil was about to take the sacred vow of a Kohlinar priestess, all of his family had gathered to honor her … including Captain Kathryn Janeway, who felt deeply alien and self-conscious as she tiptoed through the Great Hall with her head down.

It was dark in here, even with rows and rows of candles burning along the sides of the room. There was a crowd of people, but unlike a human crowd, they were almost entirely silent; all you could hear was the occasional rustle or throat-clearing, and Kathryn's boots clicking on the stone floor felt unnaturally loud. If Tuvok hadn't raised his hand to catch her attention, she might not even have found him.

"Am I late?" she whispered.

"You are not, Captain. I saved you a seat."

He pointed to an empty cushion at the end of the row next to him. She dropped inelegantly into a cross-legged position, her Starfleet dress uniform tight and stiff compared to the flowing robes everyone was wearing.

"Isn't T'Pel coming?"

"She was called to a medical emergency." Tuvok's wife was a surgeon at T'Pol City Hospital. A strong sense of duty, thought Kathryn, was something this family must have in common.

"Kathryn-t'sai." Sek, Varith and Elieth, the couple's younger sons, ranging in age from mid-twenties to sixteen, craned their heads from where they sat to get a better look at their exotic honorary aunt and greet her with the ta'al. "How long are you staying? Will you tell us about your last mission later?"

"Did you bring any Earth desserts?" That last one was Sek, the youngest and the family rebel, who had inherited the same sweet tooth that Tuvok always tried to suppress.

"As if I'd forget." Kathryn smiled at them all, opened her purse, and allowed them to see and hear a crinkling bag of marshmallows.

"There will be time to speak afterwards," said Tuvok. "Now, silence, if you please."

The young men subsided. Kathryn tried to sit still, or at least fidget as quietly as possible, while waiting for the ritual to begin.

Music erupted without warning. First came the strike of the enormous bronze gong she had walked past earlier, followed by a procession of white-robed, hooded priests, chanting in complex harmonies as they went. Kathryn found it atonal and grating, but Tuvok closed his eyes and relaxed into his cushion, like someone soothed by the sound of an old familiar hymn.

The five novices came last in the procession, distinguished by the bright green sashes they wore over their white robes, and the fact that they wore their hoods down. Kathryn looked for a young woman with Tuvok's coloring, but dark skin and textured hair were common on this colony, and it was too dark to see their features clearly. If Tuvok recognized his daughter, he gave no sign.

The procession arranged itself in two rows at the front of the cavern: initiates in the back, novices in the front. One small, elderly woman with a shock of white curls stepped forward; she wore no symbols, but Kathryn guessed at once that she must be the High Priestess. She lifted her gnarled hands, and the chanting stopped.

Silence fell.

She began to speak in Golic, a Vulcan dialect so ancient that Kathryn's Universal Translator was trying to render it as Shakespearean English. Her high, cracked voice echoed strangely off the cave walls, making it even harder to follow what she was saying. Her speech seemed to go on and on.

What am I doing here? thought Kathryn. She was used to dealing with aliens in much stranger and more dangerous situations, but never like this. She and Tuvok had survived a lot together and she thought of him as family, but he wasn't really. These people were his family. She was just a nosy shipmate with no sense of personal boundaries. She wanted to go home.

Whoosh! The High Priestess lit a fire inside a stone bowl that stood in front of her. She turned to the side and spoke to the row of novices behind her, this time slowly enough that the Universal Translator could parse it more easily.

"Do ye swear to renounce your ties of the material world, even unto the ties of blood and friendship?"

"We swear," they said in unison.

"And do ye swear to walk in the light of Surak's wisdom all your days?"

"We swear."

One by one, the novices untied their green sashes – the color of Vulcan blood, Kathryn remembered now – stepped forward, and dropped them into the fire. It changed color as it consumed the dyes, green sparks flickering between the orange. As the sash burned, each novice pulled the hood of their white robe forward, so that their face was no longer visible. It might have been her imagination, but she thought they paused before doing this, looking out at the seated crowd in front of them, as if searching out their friends and family for one last goodbye.

A pair of black eyes widened in surprise to see Kathryn before disappearing under the hood - surprise and recognition. Asil.

At the same time, Tuvok's hand reached out to cover Kathryn's, and squeezed hard.

He had broken his leg once in a shuttle accident and leaned on her heavily while she walked him to Sickbay; this was the mental equivalent of that. His thoughts and emotions were as deeply layered as the music earlier, but one was the loudest of all.

I shall never see my daughter again.

Technically this wasn't true, from what he had told her about the Kohlinar priesthood beforehand. He could still see her again when he visited the temple, or when she was out and about in the city performing charity work. But never in private, and never with her hood down, and she wouldn't call him Father anymore. He would never play duets with her on the lyre, cook her favorite tarra nut soufflé, argue with her about curfew, school and watching her little brothers, read poetry by her bedside when she was sick, watch her hurry to meet him at the space port when he returned from Starfleet and, when he left again, demand to know why …

When she was small, she cried when I stopped holding her. Now I am the one who cannot let go.

Kathryn tried to weather this calmly, she honestly did, but it was too much. Admiral Edward Janeway had been just as good a father once as Tuvok. He, too, had disembarked from a shuttle looking splendid in his uniform and held out his arms to catch the tiny balls of energy running to meet him. He, too, had always challenged Kathryn to be better, whether it was getting into Academy Prep or sharing her ice cream with Phoebe. He should have had the chance to be in his daughters' lives for decades more, but instead he'd died in a shuttle crash on a godforsaken ice planet. Kathryn hadn't been able to save him, but she was damned if she'd ever let go of her love. She was so angry with Asil on Tuvok's behalf, she could have walked up to the younger woman and yanked that ridiculous hood off her head.

I'm sorry, she thought-spoke, trying to pull her hand away, as the priests resumed their chanting and filed slowly out of the hall. I'm so bad at this. T'Pel should be here.

No. Tuvok held on tight, even as his face remained neutral except for that familiar frown line between his eyebrows. Do not let go, Kathryn, please. Your anger is … cathartic.

He showed her how he saw that at work, a purifying flame like the one in which the High Priestess had burned the sashes. Underneath it was his love for Asil as it had always been, unconditional, solid as stone.

The priesthood was her vocation. He knew this as well as his daughter did. They had discussed about it so thoroughly, over comm and in person, alone and with the rest of the family, that there was nothing more to say. She had passed every test that the High Priestess had set during her novitiate, including the last and most dangerous one of surviving pon farr through meditation alone. She would now belong to the most honored class of Vulcan society and live a life of service. The Kohlinahru were non-partisan and could reach places no one else was allowed, like Cardassian or Romulan space, to help those in need.

When Tuvok was her age, he had had the same ambition, but his pon farr had thrown him off course. He was forever grateful for that, as he had found a different peace in T'Pel's arms than any monastery could teach him, but he recognized the same spiritual potential in his daughter. He would miss her horribly, but he was prouder of her than he could ever say.

It is only logical, I suppose, that she should continue along the path where I turned back.

Logical or not, Kathryn retorted, I'm glad you turned back. Starfleet would have missed out on one hell of a security officer … and me, a really good friend.

A friend? You are family, Kathryn. Never doubt that.

The chanting had stopped, and all around them, people were rising to their feet. The three boys still sat with their heads bowed, as if lost in thought; Sek was the first to get up, and the others followed. Time to get back to the real world.

He helped her to her feet and, with a final look of deepest gratitude, let go.