A form of bonding...

Posted on Fri Jul 25th, 2014 @ 2:44pm by Captain Navala Cowell & Lieutenant Rainna
Edited on on Fri Jul 25th, 2014 @ 2:44pm

Mission: Temporal Integrity
Location: Wicklow, Ireland
Timeline: Stardate 565314.9 (24 April, 2888)

The solidarity that the Cowell clan had enjoyed during the actual funeral for the Cowell patriarch had swiftly deteriorated the moment they returned to Earth. The oldest of the children seemed much more focused on their mother and her grief to be all that concerned with keep peace between the two youngest, which granted them an opportunity to finally settle things. And neither of them seemed overly against the idea.

Torak had demanded satisfaction for Navala’s earlier statements not long after they had returned to their stepmother's property. Navala had been somewhat slow to respond to it at first, her mind still firmly rooted on the events that had transpired aboard her ship. A small amount of urging and posturing on the part of her Klingon sibling, however, had the intended effect of summoning the anger she’d let go of earlier in the day.

The bright sky and rolling green hills seemed to be a rather bizarre setting for their ‘battle’, but then neither of the two were really paying their surroundings much mind when they decided to step outside of their stepmother’s home and finish the feud that had started practically the day Navala was born.

“Today is the day you die like the Romulan worm you are…” Torak said as he drew his ceremonial dagger out of its holster at his hip.

“If only you were the warrior you claim to be, it might actually be true… but sadly you let anger blind you to the world and hatred steer you toward poor choices. And worse yet… you never learned how to fight with a knife properly,” Navala growled at her older brother as she pulled the stiletto her father had given her for her 16th birthday from her boot.

Torak lunged at his sister with blind fury, his jabs and slices arcing too wide and too sloppily to cut much but air. The few times he’d actually managed to come close enough to his Romulan sibling, the woman was able to deflect the blade without much difficulty.

“See? You’re sloppy… you fight like a child drunk on blood-wine,” Navala teased the Klingon, “It is no wonder you’ve never been given a command of your own, you’d die the first time someone challenged your authority!”

“Be quiet!” Torak thundered as he made yet another poorly timed lunge at Navala. The Romulan girl flipped her blade around and sliced her brother’s wrist in an upswing. The Klingon howled at the pain of it and only managed to make contact with the blade when she spun around for another slice.

“You fight like a coward!” the Klingon accused the woman.

Navala grinned at him evilly, “I fight to win. That’s what Papa taught me… the only way to fight is fight to win. Honor comes after your enemy is bleeding to death… not before. And you might have known that if you hadn’t been so busy cursing Papa for your own weaknesses.”

“How dare you speak his name! You were never a worthy daughter to him!” Torak furiously slashed and stabbed at the Romulan girl, each attempt just a little less chaotic than the last. He had either been purposely fighting poorly or Torak was simply starting to get lucky.

“Papa was never ashamed of me,” Navala hissed, “You’re the one that brought him dishonor by running away and turning your back on his house. I’ll bet you don’t even admit he’s your father to your Klingon friends.”

Torak screamed in rage, lashing out and grabbing Navala suddenly by the neck. He might have even managed to plunge the blade he was holding into her heart had she not managed to dig her own blade in his ribs first. The Klingon pushed her back and retreated a few steps, his free hand clutching at his wound, pink blood oozing from the opening she’d managed to make.

“See? You’re weak… blind… and stupid,” the Romulan girl taunted him angrily, “If you can’t even defend yourself against your weak little sister, how can you bring honor to the Cowell name?”

"What the hell is going on out here?!"

The words themselves were not so surprising given what Navala and Torak were doing. What was surprising was who uttered them. Riordan was a pacifist, he had never raised his voice or uttered a bad word in his entire life, so the words held more weight having been yelled by Nathan's eldest son.

"What are you doing, are you out of your mind?!" Riordan continued, outraged by the spectacle he saw. "Are you trying to stress Mum into an early grave?!"

“She… and you… have nothing to do with this. My fight is with that bitch of a girl and her alone,” Torak growled at his older brother.

“Riordan… for once… it might be better if we see this through to the end. If it wasn’t Papa stepping between us, it was someone else… It’s about time we settled this like Papa would have and saw it through to the end,” Navala said before pointing her blade at Torak, “Don’t you Klingons love to say that every day is a good day to die? Why not join Papa in the World Beyond… maybe you’ll finally listen to some of the wisdom he always tried to share with your thick headed ass!”

Torak screamed and convulsed in a fit of agonizing rage before throwing the knife to the ground, “You were always his favorite!”

Navala’s mouth fell open at the sudden and unexpected outburst, “Excuse me?”

When Torak looked up there were tears rimming his eyes, “Out of all of us, he loved you the most! Navi this… Navi that… He coddled you to the point that he drove the rest of us away! Why you?! Why were you so special?!”

“Special?!” Navala screamed back at the Klingon, “How was I any different than any one of you?! He had the same expectations for me as each and every one of you! I was always living under the heel of what you and the other three had already done. ‘Oh, you know I remember when your sister did this...’ or ‘I recall when your brother got first place in that’. I had to play catch up to people who were already over a hundred years old by the time I learned to walk! If anyone was special it was the rest of you! He let you get away with leaving! He let you walk out of his life and didn’t ask anything in return for the centuries of love he showed you! All I got was the burden of carrying on his legacy… his name in Starfleet… his ship!”

Tears began to line Navala’s face as she confessed the dark secrets she’d been hiding from them all the long years of her life. Nathan had pinned all of his hopes on his youngest child because he’d let four others grow up exactly as they wished to, free of his expectations to the line. The old man had been cruelest of all to her, the one that he drove to taking up his old uniform, his old life, and everything he had stood for for a thousand long years.

“You don’t want me around because you can’t live with the guilt of being set free! That’s why you want me dead, because then you can ignore the duty you were never strong enough to shoulder! Papa gave all four of you something better than he gave me… he gave you a choice! He never tampered with your futures, never did that thing he did when was making damn sure fate aligned with his desires. You got off without a scratch on you… so a stab to the gut is better than you deserve!”

"Is that what you really think?" a weak voice called from the door. The days of sleepless nights were apparent on Shae's aged face as Aisling and Riordan helped her to sit on the porch bench swing. "Is that really what you believe?" she asked softly as she beckoned her two bloodied children closer. She had played mother to all of Nathan's children at one point or another and considered Torak and Navala her own. She made no distinction in her love between the different children, no matter their parentage, she was everyone's mother. It killed her to see her children fighting this way, but she wasn't going to stop them if this was really what they had their minds set to, but she wasn't going to let it continue without correcting a few misconceptions either.

"Navala, do you really think he pushed this on you because you were his last hope to carry on his legacy? All of his children carry the legacy in their own way, you are not so special in that," Shae explained softly. "He pushed you hard because he saw the potential in you, child, but he never would have made you live a life you didn't want. If you had told him to stop, he would have, but you took what he gave you and you asked for more. You kept exceeding his expectations so he pushed you all the harder."

Then Shae looked at Torak. "And Nathan never believed you abandoned him or this family. He knew your time with your mother was short, and I know I never wanted you to feel like you had to choose between her and us. It had been our hope that you would return to us and we could be a family, but ultimately the choice was yours."

Torak eyed the diminutive woman for a moment before letting out a sigh, “Perhaps I have been… hasty…” The Klingon was still clutching the stab wound but he seemed to have given up on his anger. He closed his eyes for a long moment before he looked back up and stared at his younger sister.

“I was ashamed of you… but not for the reason you think. Father told me once, when you were still too young to speak… That you would do things that would eclipse his own accomplishments. I was ashamed of you because I knew he was right and I couldn’t bare the thought of him admitting that there was someone better in this galaxy than him. And I felt guilty… as you say… for allowing a child to make me feel such things…” Torak finally admitted, “I simply never came to terms with it before Father died and now I won’t get that chance.”

“What did you expect Papa to say?” Navala asked him seriously, “I only knew him for fifty years… you had almost double that! If you didn’t know by now how that rotten old bastard of a man was…”

“It is as you say. He would have brushed it off and told me I was a stupid little boy and that I needed to grow up,” Torak nodded, “And he would have been right.”

Navala shook her head, “No… I think he would have done more than that… He’d have slapped you upside the back of your head too.”

“Agreed…” the Klingon shifted uncomfortably at the memory of many a hand crossing the back of his skull.

“Are we still going to kill each other?” Navala inquired, rolling her father’s knife in her hand.

Torak shook his head, “No… today would not be a good day to die. I would not wish to see the disappointed look on Father’s face when I greeted him in Sto’Vo’Kor. I am sure that he would never let me live down the fact that my younger sister was a better warrior than I.”

"I don't think that's the only thing that would disappoint him," Shae said as she allowed herself to finally relax. All of this stress wasn't good for her. She had been disappointed that the two had been fighting, but now she was just relieved that neither of them would be dying today.

"Aisling, go get your med kit, tend to your idiot siblings before they bleed to death on my porch," she said simply, wringing her hands in her lap. Aisling disappeared back into the house to do as she was told, then Shae looked at Torak and Navala. "I've lost many children to senseless violence. Thank you for sparing me the pain of losing one of you this day."

Torak nodded but didn’t bother to say anything in reply as he moved over to the porch and sank down onto the steps. He winced a bit at the pain of such a maneuver but otherwise remained mute. Navala folded her knife up and stuck it back in her boot before making her way back toward the house. As she walked by her brother, the Klingon reached up and grabbed her wrist to stop her.

“Father taught you those mind games, didn’t he?” the boy said as he looked up at her.

“Papa taught me a great many tricks… I just didn’t think they would work so well against a Cowell…” Navala said as she glanced down at him.

“Yes…” Torak muttered, “I tell my Klingon friends who my Father is. Though he is not Klingon, the House of Cowell is still respected.”

Navala couldn’t help but let out a small laugh, “Torak, Son of Nathan… I suppose that’s not nearly as bad a sounding introduction as I thought.”

The Klingon let go of his younger sister and let out a grunt, “It is an honorable name. Make sure you keep it that way… Navala, Daughter of Nathan…”

Navala ran her fingers over the Klingon’s somewhat subdued cranial ridges, “I’ll do what I can…”

“That is enough,” Torak commented as Aisling returned with the medkit.

"If your father could see you two now, he would be so proud," Shae said as she watched Aisling tend to Torak. "You both honor him in ways you can't even imagine. I just wish it hadn't taken his death to help you overcome this feud."

“He likely planned it this way…” Torak growled, “That conniving old man was more secretive and manipulative than any Breen or Ferengi combined… And he was always right! Damn him for knowing everything!”

Navala scoffed, “I could live the rest of my life fighting the Breen, the Borg, and anything else out there that wanted a piece of me… and they still wouldn’t compare to Papa and his evil…”

The two youngest siblings looked at one another and laughed. It was odd enough that the other three children could do little but stare in awe of the sudden and radical change in them. It seemed all too likely that Nathan had indeed planted the seed for their reconciliation long before his death, and did so with such confidence that he didn’t need to be around to see it come to fruition. The old man was very much still alive in his family’s hearts, guiding them even when they didn’t have a clue...