Reflection

Posted on Sun May 19th, 2019 @ 5:18pm by Lieutenant Commander Radak

1,077 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: The science of stars
Location: Crew Quarters
Timeline: After Sika's Death

ON:

Lieutenant Commander Radak bent down and lit the little row of candles in his quarters, carefully. Once they were lit he stood there, with the lighter still in his hands and closed his eyes, slowly bringing his hands together in front of himself and taking a deep breath. It had been a long month and an even longer year. He set the lighter aside and dropped to his knees in front of the candles. He bent over and put his hands and his forehead flat on the ground.

Vulcans didn't really pray to deities, although they did believe strongly in meditation. Radak was not meditating. It took a lot of work to maintain his Vulcan facade. A lot of work and a lot of discipline. Sometimes so much that it was too much. Overwhelming. The most recent adventure had gone well, but not without the costs of lives, some of them people he had sort of considered his friends. They had definitely been of value to the ship and their absence would be sorely missed.

He did speak the funeral prayer for those that had died. It was hard for him, forcing the words out among tears and waves of strong emotion. V'tosh ka'tur is what they called him, back home on Vulcan. He was one that had never gone though the Kolinahr. V'tosh ka'tur literally translated as 'Vulcan without logic.' His 'Uncle' Kov had worried that the Kolinahr ritual would do damage to the young Romulan. As far as Kov had known, no Romulan had ever gone through the Kolinahr and he wasn't about to experiment on Radak.

He sat up again and covered his face with his hands, sobbing quietly. It was helpful for him to purge these things, even if it was not pretty. At the moment it didn't matter to Radak at all. He was alone in his quarters and no one could see. He sat back on his heels and slowly began to wipe his face free of moisture. It wasn't much help because the tears hadn't stopped. Instead of continuing to fight them he let it happen, staring at the flickering candles and taking deep breaths when he could.

He missed Kov, deeply, especially in moments like this. The old Vulcan would come and cradle him when he cried as a child, but now he just had to pretend and try to remember the feelings of belonging and comfort. He also missed Kov's advice and he had always been full of it for him, with wisdom and patience. He felt like he could really use it now.

The death of Sika had been the toughest for Radak, maybe even one of the most difficult he had ever experienced. Not because of any sort of closeness or friendship that he had formed with the Bajoran, but instead he had received all of that closeness and emotion in one clump of a mind meld. Now, he couldn't shake it. He had hoped that maybe just letting the emotion run its course would help him purge it, but he hadn't expected it to be quite this intense.

He should have never tried the mind meld. He knew he wasn't good at it. He knew he was basically untrained in the skill. Yes, Romulans were very capable of mind melding, but they didn't not acknowledge that aspect of themselves. Kov had worked with Radak a little, in private, but he had never received any sort of formal training. He knew it was dangerous to do an untrained meld, but the Bajoran had been dying, it was what he had wanted of Radak. Who was he to deny a man his dying wish.

The aftermath hadn't been great either. Radak had been wracked with emotional pain and sorrow. He had also been filled with a rather vast feeling of loneliness. He had known that there might be some emotional transference, but he had never expected it to be this painful or last this long. He worried about it a little. He had heard that mind melds could go wrong. He wasn't sure that that was the case this time, but he did admit that he had been unprepared for how he would feel after.

He wrapped his arms around himself and closed his eyes again. The sobbing had stopped, but the tears had not really. He tried to focus his mind. Thinking of Kov and his home on Vulcan, trying to pull times of comfort to the forefront of his mind. It wasn't all that effective. The mind meld had also brought up long forgotten memories that actually belonged to Radak. Memories he had long buried of his brutal upbringing.

He would try to put those feelings away again, but first he felt that he should left them express themselves before he lost his mind. It had been getting more and more difficult to hide his emotional stress and Sika was just the tipping point. He was glad that it was all over, but the cost of it being over was high.

After quite a bit of time the tears slowed and then stopped. At this point he was exhausted. He wished he could just sleep where he was, but he was sure that if he did he would regret it in the morning when he went to stand on legs that had been folded under him all night. He sniffled and rubbed at his nose and wiped his eyes again, this time they stayed dry.

Slowly, he stood and changed for bed. All sorts of ideas ran through his mind making him unsure that even if he lay down, even as exhausted as he was, that he wouldn't be able to sleep. He couldn't stop thinking of Pa'nar Syndrome. He was pretty sure he was just being over reactionary, because it only happened to the recipient and he was definitely not the recipient. He was sure that with the intensity of his experience with Sika's katra that it was simply emotional transference and it would fade in a few days. If it didn't, things might get very interesting and probably not in a good way.

He lay down on his bed and curled into a ball. He closed his eyes tightly to try and get himself to focus and had some success. As his mind quieted he began to drift off, finally, to sleep. He dreamed of Bajor.


Lieutenant Commander Radak
Executive Officer

 

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