by Commander Salvek
90315.0400
...continued from part two...
90315.0400
...continued from part two...
“The events leading to this day are not relevant. I merely ask for your help in releasing me from this presence that holds me hostage.”
“I disagree, Salvek. You see your meld with Taris as a single foolish choice that has caused you pain. I see it as the natural result of a long series of illogical decisions.”
Salvek shifted his eyes left and right. V’Drea was not going to make this easy. No one here ever did.
“You have allowed yourself to love,” V’Drea continued, “To satisfy the feelings you have for your mate. A very passionate mate at that. By turning away from logic to embrace love, you have opened yourself to all the other emotions that so frequently accompany it.”
“This is not about Lair Kellyn,” Salvek said, the tone of his voice sounding a warning. V’Drea rose from his seat, and stood over Salvek.
“Oh, but it is. Had you not embraced love, when Taris was dying, you would have done the logical thing, and simply let her die, in the best interests of yourself, your ship, and the Federation. Instead you felt fear, and compassion. Two very different emotions, and both deadly.”
“Will you help cure me or not?” Salvek stood up, ready retreat in fury if he did not like the answer to his question.
“How can I? You want me to treat the symptoms, not cure the disease. How am I to cure you if you will not even acknowledge what is making you ill?”
Salvek sat back down in the chair, and composed his thoughts for a moment as V’Drea awaited his reply. The Master slowly circled back around the table, to stand across from Salvek.
“I acknowledge, that my experience with the emotions you discussed is still minimal. I admit that I do not understand completely how to cope with them, and make logical decisions at the same time, and that is a direct result of the choice I have made in my lifestyle. Choices I cannot and will not alter.”
“You cannot make logical decisions and cope with emotions at the same time. You can only hope that the course of action dictated by logic and emotion coincide by coincidence. Your Captain is Bajoran as well, correct?”
“Correct.”
“I mentioned earlier that her desire to let Taris die was the logical choice, but I am willing to assume that her reasoning to do this was not based in logic.”
“I would agree with that assessment,” Salvek replied, thinking to himself that V’Drea had no idea just how right he was.
“Exactly my point. Emotion and logic coincided by coincidence.”
Salvek accepted the line of reasoning for arguments sake, even if he did not completely agree with it.
“You must reject the emotions you have allowed to take you over. Complete the Kolinahr, focus on the mental disciplines, and your strength of mind will purge Taris from your soul.”
“That would mean sacrificing the emotions I feel for Lair Kellyn. It is unfair to expect her to agree to those terms. She is a passionate woman, and I embrace and I dare say depend on her fire and strength to fuel my soul. I am Vulcan; she is Bajoran. Surely it is the best interest of both of us to meet in the center.”
V’Drea drew in a deep breath slowly, and held it for a long moment, as he contemplated what to do with this Salvek of Starfleet. “I must have your thoughts now.”
Salvek prepared the same warnings he had given The Master earlier, but V’Drea was ready to address his concerns, before Salvek could even speak them.
“I have the ability to shield myself from Taris, and you have my word I will not probe into any memories of events that Starfleet has deemed classified. I only wish to touch your heart and feel the depth of your emotions.”
Salvek nodded, and lifted his chin towards V’Drea. The Master’s fingers were cold against Salvek’s skin, as he initiated the link between the two men.
He encountered significant resistance to the link, indicating just how much effort Salvek was putting into simply holding himself together.
It was not unlike the effects one would expect to see as the result of a prolonged and untreated Pon Farr, except that rather then being fueled by passion and the overwhelming desire to mate, Salvek’s soul was being consumed by pure hatred.
V’Drea could only catch glimpses of Salvek’s inner light, between swirling clouds of black that seemed to spiral down upon him, literally choking the life from him. The emotion Salvek had always used to express his love for his mate and his daughter, was now the weapon Taris used against him.
The effects of the mental battle within Salvek were not merely taking their toll on his katra. The constant stress of fighting Taris was invading his physical being as well.
Salvek was dying.
The strength of his heart was the only thing that gave him any ability to fight back. Had he relied only on logic to help him, Taris would have crushed him the moment their minds met on the Romulan ship.
V’Drea had melded with those before that carried the spirit of members of other races, but had never seen anyone that possessed the pure unadulterated evil that poisoned Salvek of Vulcan.
As he probed his memories, he saw glimpses of the most important moments of Salvek’s life. The day he met Lair Kellyn; his assimilation and subsequent rescue by then-fiancée’ Lair.
Their wedding day, their mission to Bajor to find the infant they would name Lair Arie.
The day that Kellyn had died, and the agony he felt, that he tried so hard to keep from his friends.
The day she was restored, and the relief and joy that would fill his heart.
The day he left her behind to travel to Utopia Planetia, to work on the upgrades for Starfleet’s flagship, and the loneliness that he felt until they were reunited. It was not suppressed or ignored. It was endured.
At every turn, at every moment that defined who and what Salvek was, she was there. It was as if he were merely an empty shell, passing from day to day, without a purpose or meaning until she arrived in his life to define who he was.
V’Drea withdrew his mind from Salvek’s, and returned to his seat. His voice was low and solemn as he spoke. Over his shoulder, a woman in a black robe and hunched over a walking stick, appeared from behind the same rocks V’Drea had.
“I cannot help you, Salvek. Completing the Kolinahr could take months, if not years. Especially considering how much of the training you will need to relearn.”
“Then I have no recourse left?” Salvek asked.
“I did not say you could not be helped, I said that I cannot help you. You are dying Salvek, quickly, and it is too late for logic to save you.”
V’Drea left his seat, approached the woman in the room, and took her aside so they could confer in private. For a moment Salvek thought he heard some sort of rustling or scraping sound form the far corner of the room, but the noise vanished as quickly as it had arrived.
When V’Drea returned, the old woman was not with him. “I have touched your soul, Salvek of Vulcan, and seen how dependant you are on the emotions that guide you. Love, devotion, your protective nature, both familial and passionate. Given time I could purge these emotions from you, but you have come to be defined by them, and purging them would mean destroying the person you are.”
“Then what it is you propose?”
“It is not logical for me to change the person you are, and wish to be. You have a mate and a child that would suffer for this, and their needs cannot be ignored. If you were to complete the training, it would forever create a barrier between you and your mate, if not destroy your relationship all together. This will cause each of you nothing but pain.”
“Even if logic would relieve me of Taris’ influence, Kellyn and Arie would pay the price for my emotional detachment. Forgive my illogical nature Master if I tell you I would rather die, letting them remember who I was than live as an empty shell.” Salvek replied.
“And that is why, Salvek, in your rare case, the only logical course of action is to tell you to embrace emotion. It is the only way to save you.”
The rustling noise returned, and Salvek looked towards a mound of rock in the far corner of the room. Some of the rocks tumbled from their perch, kicking up clouds of dust as they fell. Salvek rose, expecting danger, but V’Drea remained seated. The old woman returned to the rear of the room as well.
As the dust and the rocks cleared, Lair Kellyn, battered with bruises and scrapes, appeared from the small hole in the wall she had cleared.
“And now, Salvek,” V’Drea began. “We will purge the evil from you.”
Commander Salvek
First Officer
USS Serendipity
First Officer
USS Serendipity