#dadtp

“we are ten of eleven, quaternary adjunct of unimatrix zero”

A child of worlds.      Silas met Ten in the brig of the Enterprise, in the heart of the Collective.  He met her at the birth of time, at the culmination of eons, at the deaths of suns.  Across galaxies.  She has always been Borg.  All Borg have always been Borg.

Until they are not.

     [    ten is the creation of my long-time friend and rp buddy, and so does not get played here on my blog, nor is she really canon to my blog, but she is perhaps the most crucial element to the completion of silas as a person.  the two of them became acquainted after an incident in which silas was partially assimilated, and after which ten was detached from the borg collective.  at the behest of his spouse, she was adopted, and silas retained custody of ten upon their separation and subsequent divorce.    ]

Personal Log, Stardate 2258.171:      I don’t know why I caved.

     That’s a lie.  I thought, at first, it would make him happy to take in yet another stray as he tends to want to do (like the birds, like me), but realistically that would not have been enough to force my hand in such a way.  She terrifies me.  Child or no, I am distinctly aware of her capabilities and the vastness of her knowledge, as well as the potential cruelty in her lack of empathetic experience.  She has never had to love, or hurt, or be afraid -- incomprehensible emotions isolated so effectively in the face of the bigger picture.  The Greater Knowledge.

     And yet she is sad.  She is alone.  I know that feeling.

     Separation I feel is as difficult for her as it was for me.  The strangeness of a thousand minds, the invasive nature of it, is indescribably overwhelming.  I felt surrounded in that place, eternal and vast but also nothing.  Who are you among a herd?  What is a bee in the hive?  Nothing.  No one.

     I understand her because I am her.

     We see these things through different eyes, but I feel connected to her in that way.  Maybe I am imagining things.  Going insane.

     I remember her like a face in a crowd, and yet I cannot separate that face from my own.  Looking at her is looking in a mirror and through a window, out into space and time with no concept of either.  I have always been her.  She has always been me.  Mother.  Father.  Child.  There is no distinction, here.

     I don’t want her to be alone, or sad, though perhaps it is unavoidable.  A man cannot protect his child, always.