'Neath the Raptor's Wing part 4

Posted on Sun Jul 17th, 2016 @ 7:47am by Captain Charybdis MacGregor

0 words; about a 1 minute read

Mission: Taking Chances
Location: USS Bonne Chance, Deck 6, Sickbay
Timeline: 2265 / 2255
Tags: Vulcan,Sebel,flashback

Without the man she had come to rely upon as her anchor, Charybdis' mind turned inward, as it usually did, and relived her past. The past that she wished to deny, to be a part of no more, yet still haunted her in moments of weakness.



The outer shell of her personality had fractured and broken, and she was doing as she was told. Obedient, passive, unemotional. Charybdis had been this way for three months now, and it was time for her to be brought before the Review Board.

If they approved of her, and decided that she was sane- by which they meant in control of her emotions- once more, then she could walk free, perhaps supervised, but she could rejoin Vulcan society. Because that was what she wanted more than anything... to be a productive member of society. To reject the dangers of emotions, and to embrace the teachings of Surak. Emotions held dangers, and she knew now to avoid them. To resist the temptation to give in to simple feelings, and apply clear logic to all things, to all aspects of her life.

Sebel was proud... in his own way. He had worn her down slowly, patiently, and now finally she would be a triumph for him to show the Review Board that his methods and his teachings could reach even the most damaged and primal psyche. They had all heard the stories of the wild feral child who had returned in the research vessel, limping back to the only home that she knew, haf-starved, crazed and damaged physically, emotionally and psychically beyond all recognition. Her physical injuries alone would have been traumatic... the purposes that the Klingons had used her for were beyond savage.

But through the sacrifice of her parents she had escaped, and returned to Vulcan... where it had been Sebel's job to care for her, to ferry her back from the yawning abyss of madness, and to bring the peace to her mind that only cool logical sanity could provide. And he was certain that he had done so.

As they strolled the halls, he regretted her choice to keep her hair long. It would have been a more outward sign of her recuperation had she cut it, but she had asked that cutting it be her celebration of triumph when she were judged whole once more by those worthy of standing in judgement on such things. He had agreed, but only to give her some concession, as she had conceded in every other way.

As they entered the large echoing chamber of the ministers, he opened his augments and plead her case, explaining the trauma of being captured by Klingons, of being violated by them, of the brutal beatings she had endured that their hands, of watching the violence committed against her parents. As he guided the ministers of the Review Board down the path of her tale, Charybdis stood impassively- calm, emotionless, logical. Just as any Vulcan would. After all, these were simply facts. There was no reason for emotion to be involved.

Sebel described her trek back to Vulcan, managing the ship after watching her parents sacrifice themselves to give their child the chance to survive, and even as she had been wounded and unfamiliar with all of the ship's systems, she had still managed to turn the Shek-Hinah toward Vulcan and survive to see her homeworld once more. But not without cost. The stress, the traumas, her injuries, her losses... all had taken their toll, and Charybdis was no longer whom she had once been. In her place was a wild and uncontrolled thing; hurt, angry, fearful, always ready to lash out or turn inwards amongst her memories.

But now, Sebel had reached her, and calmed her mind. Now she stood, emotionless as the events were replayed in description for the ministers. Now she could be brought before them, to prove that she was once again whole, and prepared to begin rejoining Vulcan society once more. Some had said that it was impossible, and some had questioned his methods. but here was proof... his logic could not be disputed.

T'kul spoke for the Board. "Have you melded with her mind, Sebel?"

Sebel was taken aback by the question. "When first she was brought to me I did attempt it, but the trauma was too great, and in melding my mind with my charge, I risked my own sanity. Until now she has been combative at every attempt to meld minds, and so I have not done so. Instead she stands before you today, calm and logical, without benefit of the calming touch of my mind... instead relieved simply through my words."

"Yes," T'kul spoke again in a cracked and dry voice. "So meld with her now. Prove to the board your claim of her logic and her calm mind, and demonstrate it here for us."

Sebel began to argue, but he could see that the ministers were all in agreement. If his claims were true, then this would prove them, and there would be no disputing his flawless logic and his peerless methods. And there were too many on the board who disagreed with said methods and disapproved of his means; he knew they called him sadist behind his back and thus this was their opportunity to shame him by demonstrating his logic to be erroneous in the treatment his charge.

He turned to face Charybdis. "You are calm, and you have found the peace that comes from logic. I would ask that you meld with me... will you do this?"

She turned dispassionately toward him and nodded. "It is only logical. You must prove my sanity, and thus you must comply with the request. I welcome you within my mind, Sebel"

It was a perfectly logical answer, and he reached out his probing fingers to begin establishing the telepathic link between them.

"My mind to your mind.... "

The fractured outer shell of her psyche felt the contact and welcomed it. Encouraged, he pressed deeper into her mind.

"My thoughts to your thoughts..."

He slid beneath the outer shell, and was unprepared for what awaited him there.

Sebel had attempted to meld minds with Charybdis only once before, when he had first been placed in charge of her rehabilitation. When he had made contact with just her surface thoughts, he had encountered so much chaotic and raw primal emotion that he had withdrawn, lest it affect him as well. The experience had given him pause, and he had meditated upon it for many days, concluding that it would be risking madness to do so again. But now he was being called upon to do it before his peers, and he had no choice. It was of no consequence, he was certain. She was mended, cured, and her fractured mind had been made whole once more.

He had no idea how flawed his logic was... but he began to learn as she opened up and shared her mind with him.

The technicians of the Tal Shiar who had disassembled and reassembled her mind had done so while keeping her conscious... because this very experience was sectioned in her mind, as a failsafe for this very possibility. While her external personality had broken down, that personality was meant to be adapted to circumstance, and was by its very nature schizophrenic. Beneath all of that was the Tal Shiar trained agent who had been genetically engineered for the task, whose mission was to survive and assume a successful identity, reprogrammed with the stolen neural patterns of a doomed Vulcan girl.

It was a far from perfect process, and her psyche did not simply adapt; it carried something of the past with it each time it rebuilt, becoming less the creature they had built, reaching for becoming... something else. But what it was at this point was remarkably flawed and damaged as a result of her experiences, particularly under Sebel.

This man had been her jailer for eight hundred and seventy-four days, sixteen hours, twelve minutes and forty-two seconds. She hated him... she hated him with a deep and burning passion, as she hated the entire Vulcan race. The alien races of the galaxy were distasteful to her by her training, as they would be to any speciesist... but there was a special burning hatred in her heart for the children of Surak. Their logic. Their smug superiority. Their insufferable boasting and incessant calculations.

She had spent the time needed to heal physically, and he had further harmed her cracked psyche, damaged by the procedure which had given birth to it, by the testing it was put through and the subsequent injuries inflicted upon it to make her story seem authentic.

But now, the jailer was inside her mind... and she had something very, very special to share with him; a secret that only she possessed. The experience of having one's mind overwritten, of having one's very being erased, torn from you and replaced by something else was horrifying... and painful beyond all imagination in so very many ways.

Sebel had once retreated from the emotional chaos that he had found within Charybdis... now he suddenly found himself drowning in a whirlpool of soul-stealing agony and mind-rending terror that was not his own. It was not even hers... it was that of Charybdis and Scylla as well, as both of them had experienced it from different perspectives, and both those experiences were now seared into her being.

Looking down at his charge, whom he had instructed so generously since she had come into his care, as she shared with him her violation and her beatings from captive Klingons to give her convincing injuries... then in one fleeting instant she shared with him exactly how she viewed him... as a pompous, arrogant, petty tyrant so completely ignorant of the truth as to be laughable. Another know-it-all Vulcan too full of himself to see the universe beyond his own nose.

The last rational thought that Sebel mustered was to break the contact before it was too late... but the mind meld had a tendency to leave a bit of the other with the melder. Charybdis knew of Sebel's horror at what he had found in her mind... for amongst the horror of the procedures she had endured, a hint of the truth of who and what she truly was had been dangled before him as well. She, in turn, regained a bit more structure and self-control from him... after all, he would certainly not be needing it any longer.

For his part, Sebel knew only horror and madness.

She had stood impassively, to all outward appearances, while he had joined with her, and as he broke the contact, she still appeared to be without emotion. He grasped her by the neck with a roar, his face a mask of rage as he began strangling her. Outwardly she maintained her calm and tried to pry his hands off her neck, without panic or fear, but with a simple requirement for air to survive and to resist his snapping her neck. When the attendants came and pulled Sebel off of her as he screamed and bellowed, she looked after him calmly, then turned to face the ministers.

Her face held no expression whatsoever.

The ministers debated, and while it seemed clear that the child was once again in control of her emotions, it was likely despite Sebel's questionable methods and faulty logic. The very unfairness that permeated Vulcan society, that made emotions or those that displayed them always wrong now worked against Sebel as his people did what they always did with the emotional- they shut him away, judged him to be faulty and would spend their days judging, condescending and belittling him to show that logic was his only salvation. He was Kolinahr- he was without emotion, completely purged of it, yet he roared and screeched and ranted like a madman.

For a madman he had become.

Freedom was won for her that day, and in time she even escaped Vulcan, to live amongst the stars and seek a home in Starfleet. Once she was free of the planet where logic reigned supreme, she no longer pretended to fetter her emotions, and lived as what was called a V'tosh ka'tur, an 'anti-reformist'. She would tell others that was what she was referred to as... she herself did not. In fact, she never actually referred to herself as a Vulcan.

She had another name for it... a rebellious daughter of the Romulan Empire, masquerading as a rebellious Vulcan. It would be years before she threw off the yoke of her homeworld and lived free, but another step had been taken that day.

No one suspected what she truly was, and it was doubtful they ever would. People were curious about a Vulcan who chose to embrace emotion, and indeed, there were even inquiries from the Review Board whom had freed her. But under the protection of Starfleet, she was just required to pass her psychological evaluations. She had reassembled herself to be a reasonably functional individual now, and as time went on she became more and more stable, with the occasional spike of madness here and there... but nothing that could not be explained by a mood swing or circumstance. The facade of who she created became who she truly was, and the wisecracking, cheerful Starfleet officer began to take pride in herself, and live the identity that had formed within her.

Sebel had no answers... he was locked within his own mind, endlessly experiencing the Tal Shiar's reprogramming, over and over, day in and day out. Sometimes his screams were audible, and sometimes they were just in his own mind, because his throat had been screamed raw that day already.



Rolling and twisting in a Sickbay bed, she endured the nightmare and felt the weight of guilt. Sebel had been a bastard, but no one deserved to have what had been done to her inflicted upon them. As much as she loathed the logical and dispassionate Vulcans, and her jailer in particular, she regretted Sebel's fate. She wished that she could undo her past, but she could not... and while she wanted very much to forget it, her mind had been recreated with astounding potential for recall.

Thus her nightmares were in crystalline clarity, as they had been for most of her adult life, and would most likely remain... reminding her of her life neath the raptor's wing.

 

RSS Feed