His Own Way

Posted on 14 Apr 2016 @ 11:39am by Lieutenant JG Cyrin Xanth & Lieutenant Oren Idris Ph.D.
Edited on on 16 Apr 2016 @ 9:15pm

3,100 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: Episode 10 - Symposium
Location: Symbiosis Commision & Fel Home, Mak'ala, Trill
Timeline: MD 22-35

[ON]

Cyrin sat outside the counselor's office on a comfortable chair, but he felt anything but comfortable. The young man bounced his legs and looked around nervously, rubbed his palms along his thighs, pulled at the collar of his uniform tunic. The counselor's aide gave Cyrin an odd glance before returning to his work, but Cyrin had seen it. He tried not to worry about it, but right then it was impossible.

So many worries were running through Cyrin's mind, and a lot of shame. It had been over six years since he'd been here, at the Symbiosis Commision, back when he'd been an eager teenager going through training for the chance to be Joined. The need to come back now seemed like admitting defeat. They'd thought he would be a good candidate for one of Trill's youngest symbionts, and he'd been so proud at his accomplishments, but now...now he had to admit that they'd been wrong about him. The only problem was what to do about it.

The doors of the counselor's office suddenly opened and two Trill women walked out. The older one briefly glanced at Cyrin before discreetly wiping away what looked to be tears. Exchanging some quiet pleasantries, they parted and the young woman, presumably Dr. Pem, turned to Cyrin with a kind smile.

"Ensign Xanth?" she asked unnecessarily, extending one arm towards her open door. "Please."

The moment the doors had opened, Cyrin had jumped to his feet. After staring for just a moment, he averted his eyes to avoid looking at the woman who might have been upset. The wall was a most uninteresting shade of beige. Only when he heard his name did he turn back, and faced his fate. Cyrin took an obvious deep breath before steeling himself for this ordeal and began to walk inside. He opened his mouth to try to say some sort of greeting, but nothing came out, so he settled for a brief nod of acknowledgement at Pem. Hopefully that would be good enough.

Pem followed the young man inside, taking in his body language. "Please take a seat, Ensign. Would you like a cup of tea?" she asked, but was already pouring two steaming cups, so the offer seemed largely a rhetorical one. Coming over to sit, Pem settled herself right next to Xanth as opposed to sitting opposite her patient.

"You said when you were scheduling this appointment that it was urgent. What is it that you wished to discuss?" she asked.

"I uh..." Cyrin was about to turn down the offer, but cut off when the cup of tea was passed to him. He took it with hands that trembled slightly, then held it between both palms to soak in the warmth. He looked at the woman from the corner of his eye, and shifted on the couch in a way that put a few more centimeters between them. This direct approach she had, asking him right out, caused more awkwardness.

Cyrin turned his eyes to the cup of tea and tried to slow down the racing thoughts in his mind. He was always thinking, a half dozen different things, at high speed, half a product of his own innate intelligence and half the nervousness that seemed a constant companion. Most of the time he was able to focus on his job, his science and mathematics, but at times like these it was different. Cyrin thought of possibilities, worry about what people expected him to do or say or be, the mistakes he was going to make. Sometimes - often - it was like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do," Cyrin finally admitted, for the first time, out loud. The weight he gave those words stressed that he didn't mean what he was supposed to do in counseling. The young man meant so much more than just that.

Pem quietly observed the young man's posture. Despite what was probably going on in his mind, Cyrin was definitely not the first Trill to ask that question, though maybe less directly than this.

"You're not supposed to do anything," she said softly, reaching out and placing a hand on his back. "Just live." She knew it was weak advice, but it was said to prompt to young man into revealing more.

He'd read about counseling a little, curious about what to expect. There had been plenty about a patient growing to trust their therapist, so they'd feel comfortable in opening up. Cyrin didn't have that luxury, not if he wanted to be able to report back to his post before the Galileo departed. There was the option of taking leave from Starfleet, remaining here on Trill for an extended period, but no matter what doubts he had about things he was somewhat certain he didn't want to sacrifice his career.

That left him with only two options: either give up, return to the Galileo without dealing with his issues...or tell her everything.

"All my life, I've always known the next step," he started quietly. "When I was a child, my parents had everything planned out, you see. They called me gifted, a prodigy..." Cyrin didn't say that with any kind of arrogance; he spoke of his intelligence as one might say they had brown eyes, or were two meters tall. "So it was all about going to the best schools, having the best tutors they could find. I studied hard, harder as I got older. They wanted me to the be the first member of our family to succeed at the tests to be Joined, and...well, I don't know what I wanted."

Pem listened patiently, watching him. Confusion once a person was joined was common with many symbionts, especially those with many previous hosts. The fact that Cyrin seemed to be going through so much turmoil as a first host was troubling.

"Did you not wish to be Joined?" she asked, her voice not betraying her worry.

"Of course I did," Cyrin said enthusiastically at first. His tone was bright, eager, his speech clear. "I mean, the part of me that is Xanth did. I can remember waiting in the pools until it would be my turn. That's all there really was to do, was wait, to listen to the elders tell their stories about the lives they had lived, the things they had experienced. And it didn't seem like my life was really going to start until that moment came."

His manner shifted again, became quieter, more unsure, "But I also remember how much I just wanted to quit school, play football or go surfing. That wouldn't have gone over well. Responsibility in my house was a big deal, and we all had our duty to the family." Cyrin sighed, shook his head. "I know how much an honour it is, to be selected, and I guess a part of me wanted it too, but I'm not sure that it was ever really my choice either."

"Cyrin..." Pem said softly, scooting a little closer to him. "What does being Joined mean to you? As Cyrin, not Xanth." The duality of emotion that Cyrin exhibited wasn't unfamiliar to Pem. He was clearly an intelligent, gentle soul and, for a moment, she pitied his lack of choice in being Joined. Still, she knew he saw it as an honour that wasn't to be taken lightly.

In fact, it seemed that was the reason he had come in.

The distressed young man was silent for a long time, his grey eyes clouded and distant as he tried to figure out some sort of answer to that question. Things weren't so simple as to let the host speak, or the symbiont. They were joined, blended, each a part of the other in a way that was so deep and intimate that they could no longer tell where one of them began or the other ended. The symbiont didn't have previous lifetimes of experience to draw upon to help with that of course. He could feel the small sensation within him that was the symbiont shifting, uncomfortable by the question perhaps, or maybe by the possible answers that could come.

After minutes had gone by, during which Cyrin was obviously struggling to find some kind of answer, beginning to gesture and speak only to let his hands fall back to his lap in defeat, he finally took a deep breath and admitted the truth, "I don't know."

---

It had been a few days since he'd last seen Doctor Pem, days spent with his friends from the Galileo and with his family in the capital, but Cyrin had been drawn back to her office unavoidably. He knew he had to go through this, no matter how uncomfortable it made him feel, no matter if in the end it was decided that the Xanth symbiont's first Joining would be marked down as a failure. Now that the floodgates had opened, it had been hard to think of anything else and the only way out was through. Or so he hoped.

"Don't get me wrong," Cyrin continued their discussion. They had been talking about his years of training today, the things he had experienced and hoped for. "I love science. It gives me answers to questions, and even better gives me new questions to ask every day. But there were times when I wanted nothing more than to just run and pit myself against the skills of someone else." Cyrin smiled, a little shyly, and shrugged, "So you know what happened then. I wound up almost dropping out of the Initiate Program, joined the League, and got to play for one season."

"Why didn't you?"

The question was straightforward and honest, though Pem already had an answer. Cyrin was a responsible young man, surely he didn't want to let people down, those that counted on him to become Joined. "More importantly, why do you think those two would be so mutually exclusive. You are not one thing, Cyrin, and even Joined, no one expects you to keep yourself on a certain path."

"Well, I guess because..." He changed what he had been going to say slightly with a sigh. The line she gave him about staying on a certain path had made him feel very uncomfortable because it hit so close to his problem. "When you're an Initiate, you hear all sorts of things about the conservative nature of the Committee, right? They've been doing this for centuries, figuring out who to be host, and are so strict in their efforts. It wasn't often that a Joined Trill wound up being very active in professional sports. So I thought that if I kept going I wouldn't make it through the program. I just started to imagine the faces of the Advisors, or my parents and...yeah."

Pem nodded. "I understand. You are not tied you your path by anything beside yourself and your own sense of what you want to do, or feel you should be doing, Cyrin," she tried to explain. "You can do whatever you want to do if you regret becoming a scientist. Do you?"

"Not for a moment," he said, without any hesitation but with a great deal of frustration at the same time. He ran his fingers through his hair, making a mess of things, tried to force his thoughts into some sort of order by squeezing against his skull. "I just...I m-mean..." The frustration mounted further, turned his face red, as he couldn't figure out what he wanted to say. Words tumbled out anyways, rapid-fire, perhaps hard to follow, but even in his confusion there was some unwitting honesty coming through.

"There was always a puh-path, the d-decisions to m-make were c-c-clear. I never h-had to figure that p-part out. N-not that the t-tests were hard, I didn't h-have a problem with learning. Then th-there was the Academy, and th-that was all puh-planned out. Then th-the Vulcans, so r-r-rigid, so organ-organized, it w-was the same." Cyrin let his hands drop, hair disarrayed with part of it sticking up and some having fallen down over his forehead. His eyes were pleading, begging her to understand somehow. Or maybe to give him what he was missing now, a clearly defined path that told him who he was supposed to be. "But now, I just don't know..."

This time, when he trailed off, the struggle, the fight against his confusion, seemed to drain out of Cyrin. It was exhausting, always demanding from himself what he thought others expected of him, and even more so when he wasn't even sure what that was anymore. He could see himself doing that again, with Doctor Pem, wondering just what sort of answers she wanted from him. There wasn't some sudden moment of realising that he couldn't do this anymore, no dawning of wisdom and understanding, but as his shoulders sank the young Trill's mind and thoughts shifted to something new.

---

"I would have thought you'd have made lieutenant by now," Talor Fel said, but not unkindly. There was pride in his voice as he spoke to and of his son sitting on a stool and leaning heavily on the counter that separated them. He'd given Cyrin his height and leanness, and their cheekbones and nose were exactly alike, but the older Trill was much more fair skinned with a brilliant shock of pale yellow hair and vibrant emerald eyes that his son certainly didn't have.

"Dad..." Cyrin sounded weary, and looked exhausted. He'd been only half-listening to his dad go on for some time now about where he thought Cyrin should be in his life. Mostly he'd been trying to think of an excuse that could work to get out of dinner with his family tonight. They were all going to be there; not just his mom and dad, his two brothers, his two sisters, but at least six of his aunts and uncles, their children and spouses, and who knew how many others were going to show up. Family gatherings at the Fel household were never a small affair. Maybe he could say that he and Marika had made plans already.

"What was the name of your commanding officer again? Commander Coach or something? Commander Coal? I could send him a subspace message, make sure he appreciates the genius he has on his staff. Why, I bet you'll be promoted any day and-"

"Dad!" Cyrin's voice this time was plaintive and desperate. The last thing he needed after screwing things up so badly with Andreus Kohl was for his father to contact him. He'd likely find himself busted down to crewman and set to scrubbing plasma injectors on some old warp five scow inside of a week, the way his father could go on. Yet, as he went on, the near-whine he'd used became something else, something neither of them was used to hearing. Cyrin was forceful, firm, with a tone that brooked no argument. "Commander Kohl went off to Command School, I told you that. I've hardly spent ten minutes around my new CO, and you are not going to ruin any chance I have to make a good impression by calling him."

Talor blinked uncertainly, and this time it was he who sounded unsure of himself, even with a touch of a stutter that any of Cyrin's colleagues would have found familiar, "B-but...you are t-trying, right son? You've b-been in Starfleet now for s-six years. M-maybe you should have taken th-that research position at the university instead, like your mother and I suggested-"

"No, Dad, I wanted to join Starfleet then," Cyrin spoke over his father, getting up out of his stool so he could look the other in the eye instead of sitting lower than him. It was was an unconscious sort of gesture, and not at all like what would have been likely from the quiet boy he'd been when growing up here, especially when he was contradicting his parents which he'd only ever done twice before. Once he had joined the football team, to the utter dismay of his parents who thought he was throwing away everything he'd worked for with the Symbiosis Commission as a Candidate, the other time when he'd left Trill to join Starfleet.

"And I want to stay in Starfleet now. Not everyone gets to shoot up the career ladder to captain, and I don't know that that'd be something I'd even want someday. I get to see things out there, do things that I never thought were possible. It doesn't matter what my rank is. What matters is that I love what I do." Though Cyrin had sounded commanding for once, his voice softened the edge it had and grew much quieter. "I don't need you or anyone else to plan my life for me anymore, Dad. I know you mean well, but these are things that I have to start figuring out on my own."

There was silence in the kitchen for a moment as they stared at one another. Cyrin's cheeks were red and his breathing rapid, worried as he was that even this small amount of rebelliousness was going to land him in hot water no matter how old he was, but he didn't break his gaze or back away. Talor looked at him long and hard, his brows drawn down, his lips curved in a slight frown, green eyes unreadable. Then the tension seemed to leave Cyrin's father, his face lit up with a smile, and he came around the counter to wrap long arms around his son in a hug.

"If that's what you want, Cyrin, then I'm proud," he said with a chuckle and a couple of slaps to Cyrin's back. He released the younger man, but then held him by the shoulders to look him over once again. "Are you sure you don't want me to see about this promotion though?"

"Dad..."

"Kidding, I'm kidding," he released Cyrin and held up his hands for a moment in a calming gesture. "Now, I think the thing you need to worry about most right now is how your mother is going to take all of this."

If Talor Fel could be overbearing and controlling with his children's lives at times, Jan'ara Fel was far, far worse. Cyrin groaned.


[OFF]

Ensign Cyrin Xanth
Astrophysicist/Cosmologist
USS Galileo

Doctor Pem
Counselor
Trill Symbiosis Commission
NPC by Idris

 

RSS Feed