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Far to Go

Fair of face

Miral left Qo'noS in high summer to wed John. She argued twice with Grilka, Grilka who refused to recognize their union.

"You were a warrior!" Grilka spat. "You dishonor yourself, bedding this human. Are you so weak?"

Miral bared her teeth. "Not so weak I cannot break your neck!"

The blood dripped into Grilka's eye. She did not speak again, not to Miral.

Their mother contacted her some years later to tell her of Grilka's death: slain in battle. Honorable.

John touched her shoulder. "Are you all right?"

"I am fine," Miral snapped.

His smooth face was so gentle, so soft with pity. Miral turned away.

Full of grace

"B'Elanna," Miral croaked. "B'Elanna. I want to hold her. John."

He settled at the edge of the bed. "You need to rest." He held B'Elanna swaddled in her cloths, so close. Miral could smell her.

"She is my daughter," Miral growled. "I am her mother. Give her to me."

John hesitated.

Miral closed her eyes. "Please."

"All right," he said. "For a minute."

Hardly enough time to memorize the soft forehead ridges, the dusky tone of her skin, the strength of her small hand closed around Miral's finger.

"She's beautiful," John said, "like her mother."

"She's strong," Miral said. "'Lanna."

She was Klingon. She did not cry.

Full of woe

The instructor wished to speak with B'Elanna's parents. Miral went alone.

The instructor, a small human with an equally unimpressive forehead, eyed her. "Will Mr Torres be joining us?"

Miral tightened her hands. "John is off-planet. I will speak for him."

Later, Miral went to fetch B'Elanna from the playground. The corner of B'Elanna's mouth was swollen and slowly purpling, the same shade as the scarf she wore over her forehead. "I'm sorry," she said.

"Do not apologize," Miral said, frowning. "You are a Klingon warrior. Come." She held her hand out to B'Elanna. "I will replicate ice cream to celebrate your victory."

Far to go

John abandoned them. Fickle, like a human. Miral took her grief and swallowed it as she would a stone, that she might carry the weight in her belly instead of her heart. Her daughter grieved as humans grieved, weeping until she slept, exhausted.

At the end of the fifth month, Miral told B'Elanna to prepare for the voyage to Qo'noS.

"I won't go!" B'Elanna shouted.

"He will not return!" Miral shouted back. "He is gone!"

B'Elanna covered her face. She touched her brow, her fingers smoothing across the ridges as if to rub them out.

Miral could not breathe for the weight in her belly.

Loving and giving

Miral sent B'Elanna to the monastery to teach her what it was to be Klingon. This was all she could give her.

At night in the silence of her empty house Miral dreamt of Kessik IV: of John, and B'Elanna when she was still an infant, so small and filled with joy.

The trees swayed above them, rustling softly. Miral tossed B'Elanna high and caught her. John said, "Look how she laughs!"

"You were right," Miral told him. "She is beautiful."

He stroked B'Elanna's brow. "And strong," he said. He smiled. "Like her mother."

When Miral woke her face was wet, slick with tears.

Works hard for a living

B'Elanna left Miral and Qo'noS for Starfleet and San Francisco. They spoke rarely and when they did, B'Elanna was distant and angry, revealing little, but arguing much.

Near the end of her second year, B'Elanna contacted Miral to recite her exam score in warp theory. Her face was thin, the skin around her eyes bruised.

"You are my daughter," Miral said. "You will survive."

B'Elanna laughed humorlessly. "You're right," she said. "I am your daughter."

Late in the harvesting month, Miral received a brief, uninformative communique from Starfleet: her daughter would not be attending the academy in the fall.

B'Elanna did not return to Qo'noS.

Bonny and blithe and good and gay

The barge rolls beneath her. Miral flees below, but the kos'karii sing to her through the hull with the voices of those she has lost.

"Join me, sister!" Grilka cries. "The battle is still fresh! Can you not smell the blood?"

John pleads with her to jump: "I'm here, Miral. I'll catch you."

Her mother sings a lullaby.

Miral covers her ears, but still the kos'karii whisper.

"Mother."

"Stay away!" she shouts. "You are an illusion! You're a kos'karii trying to lure me away."

B'Elanna catches her hand and holds it to her cheek. She is warm, and real, and here.

"Mother," she says, "it's me. It's me."

This story was originally posted at livejournal on 06/16/2009. Some notes:

1: All but the seventh drabble are set pre-series. The seventh is set during "Barge of the Dead," which is the third episode of the sixth season, and to which I owe an enormous debt. The dialogue between Miral and B'Elanna in the final drabble is not mine: it was written by Bryan Fuller, who wrote the teleplay for "Barge of the Dead."

2: Kos'karii are serpentine creatures which tempt travelers bound for Gre'thor (Klingon hell) to leap into the water by appealing to them with the voices of their loved ones. What they do after they have successfully lured an unwitting soul into the water is left unexplained, but evidently it is worse even than death. Er, just so you know. Kos'karii were introduced in "Barge of the Dead."

3: This is a (very) late response to one of a pair of related challenges posited by Paula Stiles on .creative (which I do not frequent, alas - I discovered the challenge reading archived DS9 fic back in 2004). The challenge was to write a series of seven drabbles, exactly 100 words each, one for each line of the following poem:

Monday's child is fair of face.
Tuesday's child is full of grace.
Wednesday's child is full of woe.
Thursday's child has far to go.
Friday's child is loving and giving.
Saturday's child works hard for a living.
But the child who is born on the Sabbath day is bonny and blithe and good and gay.

So, I tried.