JP: Lt. Commander Sevantha Saa & Tesslana Saa - Losing You (Return to Betazed Part 2)
Sevantha Saa
((Matron Tesslana Saa’s Office, The Saa Estate, Medara, Betazed))
Defiance from her own words, accompanied by the presence of Alora and Morro, had released her from the arrangement. Sevantha had followed every instruction her mother had given her to the letter.
Dramatically her mother had stormed out of the room and skipped dinner, an important time of bonding for family and honored guests. The choice Tesslana had made had been deliberate, she slighted the human Matriarch for siding with Sevantha not with words, but with her absence. Nothing would be resolved if Sevantha allowed this to continue. Tesslana’s next step would be to come out, grieve at her daughter’s treatment, and wallow in the act of disobediance.
Politely, she dismissed herself from dinner once the meal was finished, and approached the office once more. It was rare her mother stayed out of her own sacred space for long. Nervously, she wrung her wrist, considering all the ways this could go wrong without her father, Alora or Morro there to offer support. Yet, she knew, she had to face this last step alone and their presence provided her all the more courage to continue forward.
Now, with her reprinted features, she nearly resembled a younger version of her mother, though her face angles were softer like her fathers.
Saa: I have done all you have asked; a Matriarch's hand annulled the arrangement, and no one will question it. There will be no political fallout… ::She frowns:: And yet I still feel your anger.
Saa’s words hung in the air like a verdict that should have brought relief, yet instead felt hollow. For a long moment, her mother said nothing.
The proud Betazoid matriarch remained seated, posture perfectly composed, yet the storm of emotion radiating from her was unmistakable, tingling anger at the decisiveness of her daughter’s actions. Sevantha had acted so swiftly, so absolutely, that Tesslana had not even needed to lift a finger.
For a fleeting second, Tesslana wondered who this stranger was who wore her daughter’s face so precisely. Her fingers tightened briefly around the edge of her chair before she finally spoke.
Tesslana: My anger is not about the annulment. It is about the ease with which you walked into it, and the speed with which you walked away.
Saa: M’adi…::She hissed:: You didn’t even want the arrangement! I can tell from your expression you think less of the 14th house because of their union with the Klingon line Mirrin.
Folding her arms over her head, Sevantha stared down the woman, she knew how her mother felt regarding the Leian colony and in her words, “rustic bumpkins.”
Saa: You should be proud, they have a Captain in the Gamma Quadrant in the Federation…
Tesslana: I raised you to see beyond uniforms and medals. A single Starfleet captain does not cleanse generations of political entanglements, nor erase how that house has leveraged its alliances for centuries.
Throwing her hands up in the air as her mother threw her logic back in her face.
Saa: I am with Morro, I am not playing a part in a political marriage just because of your insecurities about our line. ::moving her hands to her hips:: ..What is this really about, mother?
Tesslana: This line is your family, Sevantha. I want you home, even if tradition was the only chain strong enough to pull you back.
Fury burned in her chest at her mother’s words. Shaking her head, biting her lip, she tried to contain herself but it had all leaked out. Words unspoken, thoughts unshared, something she had been denied because her mother could never bring herself to connect telepathically with her daughter.
Saa: Tradition?! ::She shakes her head:: You picked a man, my father, for the fact he was an exceptional telepath and you don’t even love him. He has no name, no weight… once you were the political climber, to create children to arrange with the houses…
Tesslana: Do not speak on- (Cut off dialogue)
Saa: But then you had a son, not a daughter, and Father said it changed everything. ::exhaling before continuing:: You loved him more than anything in this world, you abandoned ambitions, your job, father said it was the closest to love you two felt. ::She frowned:: and then you had a daughter, the reminder of your ambition, your responsibility… and with her came war.
Sevantha Saa had been born the year of the occupation of Betazed. Her birth would be celebrated for only a short time before her mother left to join the war, leaving the infant with her father, and creating the path their entire lives would take. It was a sacrifice, Sevantha recognized that, but what happened after, failed to create the bond between mother and daughter their society elevated publicly as a rite of passage. Something Sevantha had felt the absence of her entire life.
Saa: …and when you returned from war, you did not treat your daughter as a mother… you never telepathically bonded with her as you did your son. We were never what a Matron mother and daughter should have been.
Tesslana looks away briefly, unable to meet their daughter's own gaze of fiery emotions. Her voice quieter, almost brittle as there was some form of defence being though.
Tesslana: I loved your brother… I loved him with everything I had. And when the war called, duty demanded I go. Do not mistake my choices for a lack of love for you.
Saa: Then he died, mother. Your beloved son… ::She stared at her firmly, rings in her eyes glowing:: ~And all you saw was a broken daughter, a disappointment, a perfect reflection of what you see when you look in the mirror.~
It was a crossed boundary, Sevantha knew it, speaking directly against her mother’s mind unwelcomed. She stared, resisting letting the tears well up, and yet her fist clenched. It was a hard truth Sevantha had come to accept, and where she once had golden curls and her father’s eyes, she now resembled her more than anyone.
A sudden, unwelcome intrusion into her mind made Tesslana recoil sharply, the mental contact jarring her like a physical blow. Her daughter’s emotions, raw and fiery, threatened to tear through the fragile control she had fought so hard to maintain. Her telepathy, still weakened from the war, made the sensation even sharper, leaving her breath short and her chest tight. She did not want this, did not wish to confront her daughter’s truth, or see how ugly it might be.
Slamming her hand on the desk, she sent a warning, a physical barrier to protect herself while she regained control. The anger flickering across her mind was only a mask, barely concealing the fear and sorrow beneath: the fear of losing it all again. Tesslana slid back into her chair, gripping the arms as if they could anchor her to the present. Her voice came low at first, uneven, but each word carried the weight of everything she could not openly admit.
Tesslana: I did not raise you to be a stranger to me! Every boundary I set, every rule, every plan, it was to keep you safe, to keep us intact! Sevantha, if you stay here we can fix this, fix this all. And yet you—
Saa: …Me being here isn’t going to fix the years between us, or whatever self-hatred is manifesting all of this.
Gesturing with her arms vaguely, she indicated the room but meant to infer the conversation, the situation, all the tension which boiled between them now.
Tesslana: I will not lose you now, Sevantha. Not to time, not to distance, not to my failures.
The prideful woman seemed to deflate as she admitted the fears she had long buried. The clinging, desperate hold she had kept on the daughter that she never felt she truly had. Every tightening grip, every gilded cage she had built around Sevantha, had been born of her own desperation. She wasn’t sure if this was an admission of pain, of guilt, or both, but it felt like she was watching her daughter slip through her fingers, and the thought tightened her chest like iron.
Saa: Mother, you will lose me because you wish a cage upon me. ::She drops her hands to her side:: Why did our ancestors stop wearing birds in cages in their hair? Because we acknowledged their pain, their suffering, and their desire for freedom, to soar freely and nest where they wished instead of holding their songs as accessories, extensions of ourselves.
Pain crossed Sevantha’s features as she stared at Tesslana before looking away. Every piece in the office a trophy of her mother’s career as both a soldier and member of the Peacekeepers, a position she held with pride,
Saa: I cannot know what war did to you or the horrors you faced, nor the pain of losing a son. ::bowing her head:: But you cannot shelter me now when you had the chance and failed, it is too late…::Exhaling:: But it is not too late for honesty between us.
Tesslana: So yes… I sheltered you. I bound you close. I shaped your life as I did because I believed that control was the only way to keep you alive. How could you understand that when you only see everything tinted in hate.
Sevantha recoiled a little with a frown.
Saa: I do not hate you, Mother. ::Defensively:: I have wished nothing but your respect since childhood, to feel like anything I did would earn me an ounce of it, and yet I failed, over and over again. ::shakes her head:: I could not even respect myself for failing to be what you wanted, I withered in the shadow you cast.
Tesslana: I did not mean to cast a shadow that would swallow you…
Saa: Mother… I followed Velaan’s dreams to the stars because I didn’t know who or what I was.
Slowly she turned towards a set of double doors in Tesslana’s office, pushing them open to see the fading sun from a balcony view. Warmed by the rays, Sevantha basked in it for a moment, allowing a moment of reflection internally before she spoke. Staring out the window, into the vast blue, she smiled faintly.
Saa: Yet out there, in the stars, I finally found myself after losing her in the rubble of Ohmallera.
A lump formed in her throat, words became hard to form as she felt tears welling up and threatening to spill down her cheeks.
Saa: Can you not see her before you?
The matriarch bristled at the sound of her son’s name. Some days it was bearable; others it was not — grief was an unpredictable thing, striking when least expected and then lying dormant without warning.
As the doors opened and sunlight streamed into the office, the woman looked away. She could not tell whether it was the brightness of the light or her own daughter she could not face in that moment. Stubborn pride still clung to her, half-convinced that she had been right and that Sevantha was being childish.
Yet, despite the pain of it, she slowly lifted her head, turning toward the light — and toward the smaller, mirrored image of herself standing before her. For a heartbeat she did not know whether she truly wanted to see, or feel, the woman her daughter had become.
Tesslana: Sevantha… I-I am trying. I am trying to see you, this new you.
Who could have expected their child to return so changed, not just mentally, but physically as well? At first, she had been almost unrecognizable. Now, faced with all of this from Sevantha, it was hard not to acknowledge some truth in what she was saying, and even in what she was seeing. Even just like the sun it was hard to look at closely.
Tesslana: It feels like I’m losing you too. I don’t think I could handle losing you completely.
Saa: …You always wished for a daughter who didn’t hide herself away or spoke her mind. ::smiles weakly:: Don’t tell me you regret pushing me so hard now?
Spinning around, she faced her mother, and offered a gentleness they rarely shared with one another. Hearing her cave, to offering her vulnerability, was the first step for the two of them to move forward.
Tesslana: I do suppose, you took to this lesson well in your own way.
Saa: …Mother, allow me to share with you my mind, even if you cannot offer your own so you can finally understand.
In a sign of graciousness and respect, Sevantha walked forward and knelt before her mother, the white fabric of her outfit fanning across the wooden floors of her office. Her palms extended outwards to invite her to the floor with her.
Saa: Let me share with you the joys of the stars and my heart, so you can finally understand your daughter.
The prickly nature returned, her protective armor almost tangible around her, as if it could shield her from the uncertainty that filled the room. The tension was palpable; the underlying distress of the moment pressed on her, yet as Sevantha lowered herself in a gesture of respect, opening herself to her mother, Tesslana hesitated.
She looked away, lost in thought, her mind fearful of whatever truths might lie beneath this openness. And yet, something in her daughter’s vulnerability stirred her. Slowly, she lifted a hand, reaching toward Sevantha. With deliberate care, Tesslana rose and moved toward her daughter, sliding down to join her on the floor, closing the distance she had kept for so long.
Tesslana: I may not understand but ::beat:: I am willing to see.
[[To Be Continued...]]
Lieutenant Commander Sevantha Saa
Counselor | Head of Health | Second Officer
USS Thor
A240105SS2
&&
Tesslana Saa
Sentinel Peacekeeper
Peacekeepers
Matron of House Saa,
In Service of the Seventh House of Betazed
T240211T14