Dreams of Isolation

Posted on Fri Dec 15th, 2023 @ 9:52am by Captain Shran dh'Klar & Lieutenant Inara Senn

Mission: Hard Earned Peace
Location: Inara's mind

Inara kept her mind closed, which was unusual for a Alindari and unusual for a Betazoid. She began to realize she was asleep. She didn't want to dream. She'd only have nightmares now.

A soft voice began to whisper to her. The voice was familiar, perhaps both comforting to hear and yet unwanted. It was Brigid, and she spoke in a soft tranquil tone. "Be not afraid. You are not alone, and you are not lost. Your choices will determine your fate."

She was so angry, but also grieving intensely. She didn't want gods or goddesses. She wanted mortals to control their own destinies. To write their own fate. She wanted to live her entire life with Josie. She believed whole-heatedly that mortals now, will not remain so in the future. They were now travelling the stars, expanding and learning at an impressive rate. That Hela hated. The gods may have lived for countless centuries, but in just a few centuries since they ceased worshiping old gods. Mortals had done the following.

They had developed law, they had conquered the oceans of Earth, they had developed Parliamentary Assemblies and Human Rights. Nations and Governments that acted for the people. They had painted the Mona Lisa, Drafted the Declaration of Independence, The US Bill or Rights, they had abolished slavery, The Enlightenment made medicine flourish that cured sicknesses, Computers and Rockets were created. Adolf Hitler and Imperial Japan was defeated. Nations moved away from Kings and Emperors to Representatives and Presidents. Then in Montana, a man named Zefram Cochrane would send a ripple through these 'Gods' Warp drive. Mortals were traveling the stars, building cities on distant worlds. All without their influence. Perhaps some of them were frightened of what would come next.

Perhaps mortals would discover the next great monument of their evolution. They would not be so mortal anymore. And now Inara stood. She was the child of all this. Of enlightenment. When she said Hela was a monster, she meant it. Hela was primitive to her. A being of such monstrous desires. The mortals now found her reprehensible. Hela was going to murder more mortals. A lot more of them. These were not the Vikings and clans they were familiar with. And now Inara had touched and wounded time itself. But there was reason. Very much reason. These new mortals had their failings. And when great evils came upon them, sometimes they would answer an evil with a greater evil.

This was made clear to some deities when the Mortal, Harry Truman, used two Atomic Weapons to end the second world war. It was a horrible, unprecedented thing. But soon after, the emperor announced Japan's unconditional surrender. The lives of thousands for the lives of millions that would have happened if there was an Allied invasion of Japan. But now there was a true concern, it would come apparent later, with the Andorian phrase 'do not push the pink skins to the thin ice.'

This was not a Viking, but an enlightened, educated, cultured, civilized mortal pushed to her breaking point again and again. The Gods of Yore could not ignore that in just a few centuries, they had been outdone. The fact that they were Mortal, was just another hurdle to what they considered children.

And like the book 2001: A Space Odyssey. They would develop into something... Incredible. It probably drew envy.

"You must stop this. You are going down a dark path and working off false premises. Do not act out of anger, out of grief. You are doing exactly what she wants" Brigid attempted to reason with Inara.

She was still sitting in the center of the room. She didn't want to believe this was happening. All of this had to be some kind of bad dream. And she'd wake up soon. Next to Josie.

Brigid continued to speak with Inara, "You must accept where you are and pick up the pieces of your life. You are under a mistaken belief that immortals are somehow all powerful, looking to dictate your life. We do not do that. We have never done that. Your fate, your destiny, is a combination of choices and actions you make along with the actions and choices of others that impact you, nothing more. Very rarely do any of our kind intervene in your lives. Your experiences with Hela are rare, and she had nothing to do with the choices and actions in your life prior to you encountering her here. The good and bad in your life up to this point has purely been created by mortals. You may wish to blame us for things, but mortals are just as capable of vile deeds as any of our kind, and with far less power."

"I don't know what to do anymore" Inara mentioned. She was tired and angry, spiraling into hopelessness. "Nothing I did could stop her, and the only way I could save Josie from being tortured was to kneel before her, but we could not do that." Inara noted. "I looked in her eyes. We had to decide what was more important, our bodies and the pain, or our souls and our dignity. Add to that, I cannot believe that I am going to live life only for Hela to be waiting for my soul at the end of it." Inara noted as she opened her desk and pulled out a bottle of wine. Pulling it open, she took a generous draw from it. "I am sick of her. I wish I could have one weapon in hand to throw her off our damned ship. I wish I had the ability to save her, but I don't Brigid." Inara wept. "I just don't. If it was death or serving as that thing's thrall, both me and Josie made our choice. I wanted to let her know just how we viewed her. She is a tyrant, and if that woman is what happens to our souls, I will be the first to oppose her forever. You watch us from on high and change little. We abolished slavery centuries ago!!!" She was getting it out, all of it. Shedding tears in the process. "I just wish it didn't have to be so painful." She stayed on her knees. "Or hard. I'm so defeated. I tried to fight for Josie."

"You call yourself a person of science, but you stray from it so easily. You seek out logic but are a slave to your own emotions. Humanity, like so many other species abolished physical slavery while still practicing it for centuries afterwards, and what was abolished was the easiest form of slavery to end. One can be a slave to so many things. The chains of slavery are easy to put on yourself when you don't realize it. You are so concerned about what comes when your life ends, but Hela is far from an eventuality. You give Hela exactly what she wants, all for your stubborn pride. And as you do, you become more a slave" Brigid replied.

'Don't give up.' a whisper told her. 'You are strong enough to overcome the hopeless inside you. I know, you don't know what to do, and you're hanging on by a thread. But they are not all as evil as you imagine.'

"Are they? Six months ago, I was fighting shapeshifters who called themselves 'gods.' The Founders plunged the quadrant into war. I am certainly pleased Hela hasn't gone out and got herself some Jem'Hadar cloning factories and some Vorta to serve her, because she sounds like the type. A deluded psychopath."

Inara shed more tears. 'They could have killed you when you went back in time. They let you live so you could learn. They admire your incredible intellect. Stop reacting and use it.' Inara shook her head. "I must be out of my mind."

"You need to trust yourself, believe in the goodness of those around you and in the inherent goodness of the universe itself. What you put out will always revisit you" Brigid said calmly. "And don't wish for soulless minions to fight, Hela has plenty of those to use at her disposal. Remember, though things may seem bleak, you are never alone."

'Be Arrianna again.' The voice noted.

"Can I? After everything I've done?" Inara told herself. "I've been so angry.. these last ten years. I wanted to salve it with blood. It didn't work. And I've caused people pain, I've caused everyone pain." Inara mentioned. "Can I be Arrianna again. I am not as innocent as I was before."

'Everyone sheds their innocence...'

"You can never go back to who you once were, but you can have a rebirth. Like the phoenix, from the ashes of the past comes the promise of a new and better you" Brigid said soulfully.

"I can be a new Inara..." She noted. "I'd like that."

'Remember, it is always darkest before the dawn.' The whisper in Inara's mind noted. 'Fate has given you pain, loss, and sadness. But I see the light coming for you, and it will be greater than you could imagine, you'll see...'

"Seek out those who can assist you. You are not alone in this" Brigid noted.

"Yes..." Inara noted.