Lieutenant JG Yogan Yalu — Remember her
jkpbem
Zhian’tara VII
OOC note to the reader: The following sim contains discussions of suicide. If you are feeling suicidal, thinking about hurting yourself, or are concerned that someone you know may be in danger of hurting themselves, there is help available:
In the United States, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline, on 800 273 8255.
In the United Kingdom and Ireland, the Samaritans, on 116 123.
In Australia, Beyond Blue, on 1300 22 4636.
In countries and territories around the world, by telephone, by text, and online.
Me. If you need to talk, I’m here.
(( Symbiosis Institute Compound, Leran Manev, Trill — Monday afternoon ))
K. Verso (as K. Yalu): How badly did you want to be Joined, Yogan?
Yalu’s fourth host Keroga, inhabiting the body of Yogan’s younger sister Kejana, sat with her feet tucked under her body, as if she were trying to make herself as small as possible. The question, and others of a similar nature, had come up a few times already, and Yogan was prepared to answer it.
Yalu: I always told myself I would be OK with not being selected. That it wouldn’t be a reflection on my intelligence or my character. Being Joined is a rare honour, and I spent a lot of time preparing myself for being washed out of the program. ::beat:: But if I’m honest, I wanted so badly. I would have been crushed if I had been rejected.
K. Verso (as K. Yalu): ::flatly:: I didn’t want it at all.
Kejana, Yogan’s sister, always projected the air of being the wisest soul in the room, the type of person who would stand in the corner at a party, nursing a drink and smirking the entire night, silently judging everyone else. Seeing his too-cool-for-school sister embodying Keroga was a bit unnerving, and his discomfort was compounded by the fact that Keroga wasn’t at all what Yogan expected. The subdued tone and tenor of this conversation caught him off guard. He had known Keroga as a fragile personality who lived to live on stage, and seeing her present herself without pretense, as just an ordinary person, was discordant with what he anticipated from her.
K. Verso (as K. Yalu): I was so focused on everything else.
Yalu: Your acting.
Keroga nodded and leaned back in her seat, placing her hands under her legs and appearing even smaller still.
K. Verso (as K. Yalu): My acting. ::beat:: Do you have passions, Yogan. Some part of you that influences everything else? Something that defines you?
Yalu: ::suddenly uncertain:: I-- I don’t know. I’m a pretty skilled pilot. I got good grades in medical school.
K. Verso (as K. Yalu): Medicine is a career. Pilot is a job. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about you. Who you are, not what you do.
In the far corner of the room, Nedal stood with his arms folded across his chest, quietly shuffling his weight from foot to foot and watching the conversation carefully. Rohjess Beem had insisted Nedal remain in the room throughout Yogan’s time with Keroga, given the unique circumstances surrounding her brief Joining and her untimely death.
Yalu: I guess I’m not sure. I have a lot of passions, but I’ve never felt the need to rank them before.
K. Verso (as K. Yalu): My whole life, the only thing I ever wanted to be was a performer, to bring characters to life on stage. Every time I stepped into a new role, I was reborn. Everyday life seemed so ordinary by comparison. It was uninteresting, it was… little. Acting was so wonderfully different. Grand. Life-giving.
Yalu: I’ve watched recordings of some of your performances. Seeing you act was… enrapturing.
Keroga smiled, and for a moment, Yogan could see a hint of his sister’s wryness coming through.
K. Verso (as K. Yalu): I was good, wasn’t I?
Yalu: You were the most acclaimed actor of your generation.
Keroga scoffed quietly and changed positions, unfolding her legs from underneath her body and stretching them down to the floor.
K. Verso (as K. Yalu): You’re right about that, Yogan. I was. Until I wasn’t. Keroga Tanesk was creative and compassionate. Tenacious. Never passive. Thirsting to be led to something greater. ::long beat:: And then, I wasn’t.
Yalu: ::nodding:: You weren’t Keroga Tanesk anymore.
Keroga slapped her hands on the armrests of her chair, punctuating Yogan’s summation.
K. Verso (as K. Yalu): Exit Keroga Tanesk, stage left. Enter Keroga Yalu, stage right. A new, unique individual, the collected memories and voices of Zedro, Edanne, and Omed with me all the time. Inseparable. Inescapable. Impossible.
Yalu: If you were so disinterested in becoming Joined, how in the world did you end up with a symbiont?
K. Verso (as K. Yalu): The Commission invited me to apply.
On hearing this, Nedal left his spot in the corner of the room and slowly approached Yogan and Keroga. Yogan shook his head dubiously.
Yalu: That’s not how it works. At least, not how it worked for me.
K. Verso (as K. Yalu): I’m sure it doesn’t. It was a mistake. ::gesturing to Nedal:: Your guardian looks uncomfortable. Maybe we shouldn’t be talking about this.
N. Verso: It would be expected that the Evaluation Board’s criteria for hosts has improved over the years.
K. Verso (as K. Yalu): It just so happens that their ‘criteria’ in my day was heavily influenced by talent or accomplishments in the arts. It wasn’t just actors; the Commission courted painters, poets, musicians. For those of us with the right ‘qualifications,’ getting through the Initiate program was a far less rigorous affair. I completed my training in less than a year, and I never stopped working.
Yalu: But why go through with it at all? You didn’t need a symbiont to be a successful actor.
K. Verso (as K. Yalu): Being Joined is a privilege, Yogan. It is the apex achievement of our society. You know that.
Yalu: A privilege, yes. But also a responsibility. When we become Joined, our lives are no longer fully our own. You must have known that.
K. Verso (as K. Yalu): I knew it. But I did not understand it. At least, not until it was done.
Keroga stood and gazed into the middle distance, her stance poised and deliberate, as if she were reliving an experience of being on stage.
K. Verso (as K. Yalu): How can I bring a new character to life with all these memories churning around in my head? How can I focus on my craft when I am constantly interrupted by random emotions and recollections? How can I become someone else on stage, when I don’t even know who I am anymore?
Yogan watched Keroga’s half-performance/half-confession with a mixture of confusion and heartbreak. It was tragic.
K. Verso (as K. Yalu): You said you watched recordings of my performances. Did you watch the opening night of Echoes of Moza?
Yalu: ::nodding slowly:: I did.
Keroga shook her head dismissively. Yogan was no theatre critic, but even his amateur assessment was that there was something totally different about Keroga in this performance, her first since becoming Joined. If he had to name it, she appeared distracted. Yogan watched her continue to pace the room, emotion growing in her voice with each sentence.
K. Verso (as K. Yalu): So you know what I am talking about. ::shaking her head:: I knew I was doomed before I stepped on the stage that night. Rehearsals had been a nightmare. There was nothing within me that even remotely resembled a professional actor. I was lost. In my role, and in myself.
Yalu: Adjusting to life after Joining is difficult.
K. Verso (as K. Yalu): Difficult? Yogan, you told me you had many passions. Imagine if you had only one. Imagine if that passion also happened to be your greatest talent. How would that make you feel?
Keroga’s emotions and memories had always been like a rolling boil inside Yogan’s head. They were difficult to articulate, difficult to comprehend. He sat before her now, however, and the picture began to clear.
Yalu: I would feel like my life had a purpose.
K. Verso (as K. Yalu): Exactly. ::long beat:: Now imagine that your passion, your talent, your purpose, had been taken away. The single most important thing in your life, drowned out by the endless cacophony of strangers.
As Keroga spoke, Yogan felt as though he finally understood her for the first time. She was never meant to be Joined. She might have possessed the biological compatibility, intelligence and maturity to be a suitable candidate, but he had been right about her all along. She was a fragile personality, and the one thing a host can never be is fragile. Where Joining had ignited the passions of other artists, giving them focus and perspective, Joining had only burdened Keroga with a tidal wave she couldn’t withstand. When she existed only as memories and emotions in his mind, Yogan found her demanding and dramatic. Now, he felt deep sympathy for her, for what this ill-considered lifelong commitment had done to her.
Yalu: I am so sorry. I can’t imagine how difficult that was for you.
K. Verso (as K. Yalu): It was intolerable. I thought if I just threw myself into my work, and accepted the challenge of getting to know myself again, I could find a way to adjust. I couldn’t. Every performance was worse than the last. I couldn’t cope.
Keroga sat back down, arms and legs tucked in close once again.
K. Verso (as K. Yalu): And then Renvo divorced me. Castings dried up, not that I felt comfortable on a stage, anyway. Everything had just spun out of control. I couldn’t imagine living the rest of my life, another 70, 80 years, like that.
Keroga’s words carried atmospheric weight, pushing down on Yogan from all directions. He wondered how he would feel when her memories were reintegrated back into him, whether the dismay and disquietude would be more palpable now that he’d experienced it directly from her. Yogan remained silent, unable to come up with the right words to lighten the gravity of the situation.
(( Timeskip – Nahx Café, Leran Manev, Trill – a few hours later ))
K. Verso: So what happened to Keroga?
The three Verso siblings sat at an outdoor table on the pavement in front of the nearby café. The shared experience had been emotional for each of them, but also allowed them to rekindle their bond. It had been years since they’d spent this much time together, and like so many of his experiences so far this week, Yogan wondered why and how he had allowed this to happen.
Yalu: She was Joined to Yalu for five years. Things never really got better for her, and she grew increasingly isolated. Despondent. Eventually, her depression got too much for her to handle, and she took her own life. ::gesturing across the plaza, blinking back tears:: Right over there, just outside the main entrance to the Institute compound.
N. Verso: She came back to the compound? Why?
Yalu: ::speaking slowly, thoughtfully:: I always wondered that myself, but I think I understand now. If Keroga died alone in her home or offworld somewhere, Yalu would have died with her. There would have been no further hosts, and the memories of Zedro, Edanne, and Omed would be lost. She saved their memory, even if she couldn’t save herself.
For six years, Keroga had been a mostly unknowable personality to Yogan, but now, with her memories restored, this was no longer true. She wasn’t just the actress, the star of Trill theatre. She was unique, passionate, vulnerable, someone who had tragically come to mistaken conclusions about her abilities and her self-worth. It would take time for Yogan to grieve for the talent, the potential, the person that was lost when she died.
(( OOC: Some of Keroga’s dialogue was paraphrased from Stella Adler’s The Art of Acting. ))
TBC
PNPC Kejana Verso (embodying Keroga Yalu)
Yogan Yalu’s sister
PNPC Nedal Verso
Trill Guardian Apprentice & Yogan Yalu’s brother
with, and simmed by
Lieutenant JG Yogan Yalu
Helm Officer
USS Resolution NCC-78145
Justin
D238804DS0
As you liberate yourself in metaphor, think of others, those who have lost the right to speak.
— Mahmoud Darwish