Nothing Left But This

Posted on Thu Mar 25th, 2021 @ 3:51pm by Caithlin t'Leiya

782 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Frizzle
Location: Haumea Colony, Main Town Area

Caithlin's eyes swept around the currently unoccupied few rooms of what would comprise her private law office on Haumea, in what passed for "downtown"; a place to do what work she would undertake for the colonists themselves who wished wills or divorces or other elements of Federation legal niceties handled for them; as opposed to the office she ahd among those set aside for the Bray Foundation staff, in a nearby building.

It was, all things considered, a very nice office; with simple but elegant furniture and appropriately secure file cabinets and network access; a lovely vase of local flowers arranged just-so in a vase in the entrance. But as much as it was hope for the future, Caithlin could not help but view it also as a symbol of all that she had lost, in a lifetime full of such despite having seen less than a century to date.

First, sixty years ago, she had lost Aliereth for so long; when the latter had decided to leave the Empire with her new husband and unborn child, in fear and protest of the Tal Shiar's growing power. Then she had lost Laiae and Selieke in the war against the Dominion; half her siblings now gone. Her grandparents had died in Shinzon's coup attempt; her grandmother with the rest of the Senate, her grandfather in fighting afterwards. Her father she had lost with her mate and her extended family and the very homeworld itself, with so many of her people; taken in the nova.

The shame of surviving had filled her, despite her innocence in it; then anger that her father had done so; that he had sent her on ahead of him, unknowing, had meant her to live beyond him and help preside over the chaos and sorrow that followed. Meant her to live beyond her mate, who would never see the birth of the children she was carrying.

Little by little, she had lost it all; as the situation had deteriorated in the few short years following the nova, until finally, she had had nothing. Unable to save the Empire from collapse, left with nothing but her own life and that of her children; bereft of her House and family, her mate and her father and her siblings. Of her station and title and rank; her resources of any kind, a lifetime spent building political capital now useless; a bank account no longer accessible and hard currency and resources destroyed or valueless. Far from "welcome" in the most powerful of what rose out of what remain of their people--a target on her back in the Free State, from her family's historical opposition to the Tal Shiar. Unwelcome in the Republic, for having been part of the former regime. Lost then even of of her society; and of the homeworld itself; alone in the dangerous and uncontrolled areas that had arisen, with two young children to protect, she had bitterly swallowed the last shards of her honor and gone practically on bent knee to a former foe. An ally during the war, to be sure; but always in the end a competitor, on the galactic stage; a fact known fully by both sides. Until there was now only one of those sides remaining.

That she had done so despite the ways in which their leadership had failed her people was more bitter still; alone on her own she would sooner have died than do so. In the end, her will for Arenn and Telek to live had outweighed the stain of dishonor she felt. And now...Her hand touched the wall for a moment. overcome by it all as she allowed herself in private; and the realization that as far as she now was from Romulus, in a sense she was perhaps closest to her ancestors as she had ever been: They, too, had gone far across the stars with little but their own lives. But...they at, at least, done that together. Only the barest shreds of her own family remained, here now far from their own kind; and as she might have failed in her other duties, she swore she would not fail in this; to build some semblance of safety and stability for those few.

After a long stretch of minutes, Caithlin took a deep breath and stood straight again, hands smoothing her long tunic by reflex, schooling her face and body into a more proper control; and exited the small office; reaching up to the sign above the door afterwards which declared the availability of legal services at the premises, and flipped the sign under that from "Closed" to "Open".

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