Part 13 (1/2)
”Has a young son named Alexander? Cute as a-”
Then Lwaxana started to laugh. This did not strike Deanna as being A Good Thing.
The laughter started out low and then began to grow, louder and louder, until she was shaking with such spasmodic contractions of her chest that Deanna was momentarily concerned that Lwaxana was literally going to die laughing. Only Lwaxana's formidable mental training was able to help her as she managed to pull herself together ... unfortunately, only long enough for another peal of laughter to fill the mansion and, once more, it took time for her to recover her equilibrium.
”Oh, Deanna,” she said at last, ”you certainly know how to amuse your old mother. You and Mr. Woof... G.o.ds, child, for a moment there you had me going. Wheeww!” She sagged back in her chair, rubbing her ribs as if concerned that one might have snapped during her laughing fit.
”Mother, I'm not joking... .”
”No, of cooourse you're not.” She patted Deanna affectionately on the arm.
”Mother, don't take that tone of voice with me. It's insulting to me. If you don't believe me, here,” and suddenly she relaxed her guard, ”let's just jump over the protests and the convincing and get right to it. Here. Look into my mind. Find out what you want, and then we'll talk.”
Lwaxana didn't need a second invitation. Her body sagged a bit as she projected her formidable mind-reading abilities into Deanna's head. It took her only the briefest of moments to discern the information for which she was looking.
The moment she did, she went completely slack-jawed. Deanna didn't think that she'd ever seen her mother look quite that astonished.
”You're not serious,” she said, but she was speaking from her surprised state of mind, because she was already more than aware that Deanna was not kidding in the least. ”Dean-na, what... what were you thinking? He's completely wrong for you. Certainly you must know that.”
”May I remind you, Mother, that you didn't like Will Riker when I first brought him home.”
”Nonsense. I adored him.”
Deanna openly gaped at her mother. ”Now you're the one who can't be serious, Mother! You threatened to bring him up on charges before Starfleet if he continued to be interested in me. Is that your definition of a ringing endors.e.m.e.nt?”
”You were young and too easily swayed,” Lwaxana said dismissively. ”I was simply watching out for your own good. As an individual, though, I found him perfectly acceptable. Even charming in a rugged, tactless sort of way. I just didn't want you to make a mistake....”
”And what's the excuse now, Mother? I'm quite a few years older than I was then. Are you still claiming that I'm still not sufficiently mature to know my own mind?”
”I'm just...” She tried to steady her hands as she gestured with them, since they were trembling with confusion and frustration. ”I'm just saying that I've seen Mr. Woof in action ...”
”Worf! His name is Worf!”
”Deanna Worf.” Lwaxana shuddered at the notion.
”I wouldn't be Deanna Worf. If I chose to adapt to that Earth custom, I'd be Deanna Rozhenko.”
”Oh, well that's just ever so much better. You'd trade Troi for Rozhenko? While you're at it, why don't you add another five syllables to 'Deanna'? And have you considered children? What would they look like? Half Betazoid, half Klingon? Half telepath, half warrior? They'd go around telling everyone what to think. They'd be at home nowhere in the galaxy.”
”Congratulations, Mother,” Deanna said dryly. ”We haven't even taken any vows yet and you've already had us give birth to pariahs.”
Lwaxana waved dismissively, like an imperious queen.
”You're right, it's ridiculous to discuss this. I won't give permission for it.”
”Permission?” Deanna was astounded at her mother's presumptuousness. ”Mother ... I came here to share happy news with you. But I did not come looking for your permission. Even if you 'forbid' it, I will still do as my heart tells me.”
”Then your heart should be steering you to Will Riker.” Deanna put her face in her hands and moaned softly. ”This from the woman who arranged a marriage for me when I was a child.”
”Deanna.” Lwaxana took her daughter's hand in hers. ”I don't pretend that I haven't made mistakes in my time. More than my share, if truth be known. And I haven't... I haven't always done right by you. I know that, I admit it...” ”Mother, don't be so hard on yourself... .” ”But removed by a distance of years, I'm able to see not only my mistakes, but yours.” ”How comforting it must be to be all-seeing.” Any trace of sarcasm in Deanna's voice was completely missed-or else simply and deliberately ignored-by Lwaxana. ”Riker was your Imzadi, and you were his. I admit I was angry about it at the time, but it seems now, in retrospect, that you were destined to be a couple. You complemented each other in so many ways. When fate brought the two of you together again on the Enterprise, that wasn't coincidence. It couldn't have been. It was meant for you two to be together again.”
”We ... are just... friends,” Deanna said patiently. ”Does Riker know about this ... this engagement?” ”Yes. And he was the first to raise a gla.s.s in a toast to us.” Lwaxana shook her head, discouraged. ”Then he is as foolish as you. Then again, I expected more from you.” ”Mother, why are you so opposed to this ... ?” ”Because ...” She sighed. ”Deanna ... you're talking to a woman who has spent her entire life honing her emotions and feelings. They are, to me, a sort of natural resource. You should understand: You're an empath. To me, it just... it feels wrong. Feels so profoundly wrong that I can't even begin to articulate why.”
”Well, don't you see, Mother? To me, it feels as right as it does wrong to you. So who's to say who's right?”
”I am.”
Deanna almost laughed at that until she saw that Lwaxana was deadly serious. Suddenly she felt a small buzz of alarm. ”Mother ... what do you mean by that?”
”If you go through with this,” Lwaxana said flatly, ”then at your marriage, you will not be allowed to drink from the Sacred Chalice of Rixx.”
Deanna was floored. It was as if her mother had hit her upside the head with a heated poker. ”Mother!” she cried out as if stricken. ”The women of the Fifth House have drunk from the Sacred Chalice at their weddings for over six centuries! Six centuries of tradition, Mother! That's when the chalice is pa.s.sed down to its new holder!”
”That's a fairly dramatic reaction,” Lwaxana said tartly, ”from someone who once dismissed the Sacred Chalice as an old clay urn.”
” 'Moldy old pot,'” Deanna corrected, sounding a bit chagrined. ”It's what it symbolizes, Mother, no matter what it may actually be. Even your mother, although she disapproved of your marriage to my father, still pa.s.sed on the Sacred Chalice in the time-honored manner. Would you be even more strict than she was?”
”I would do whatever I have to do,” replied Lwaxana, ”to make you realize the foolishness of this. Little One, he's so wrong for you....”
”You said that Will Riker and I 'complemented' each other. Did you ever stop to consider, Mother, that perhaps Worf and I likewise complement each other?”
”It's a matter of extremes, Deanna. There's no middle ground, there's no ...”
”How can you know that? You don't know him, not really.
Although you certainly seemed to get on well enough with his son. As I recall, you adored Alexander.”
”That's true enough,” Lwaxana said slowly, even grudgingly. ”He was the most soulful child. He seemed to be enduring a world of hurt with utter stoicism. I think I actually made some serious progress with him.”
”If that's the case, then think how much progress I could make with him if I were like a mother to him. Or at least a continuous positive female influence on him.”
”Taking care of the child on a temporary basis is one thing, Deanna. Becoming his full-time mother is something else again. I just...”
For a moment, Lwaxana seemed to be out of words, and Deanna used the opportunity to jump in. ”Mother, at least give him, and us, a chance. Speak to Worf. Spend some real time with him and Alexander. Show a bit of faith in my judgment and realize that we truly are good for each other, Worf and I.”
Lwaxana sighed heavily, as if expelling the weight of the world. ”All right,” she said finally. ”Bring them here for dinner tonight. We'll have a nice, small, intimate little gathering, and discuss matters then.”
”Thank you, Mother.” She kissed Lwaxana on the cheek. ”You won't regret it.”
”I do already,” Lwaxana said.
”A small, intimate little gathering?”
”That is what she said,” Deanna told Worf. They were in a room at a nearby inn. Alexander had already found the mattress on his bed insufferably soft and, tired as he was from all the traveling, he had simply taken a blanket and dropped to sleep on the floor.
Worf was looking out a window at his view of the city. The clouds were pink and puffy in the sky. The city was a virtual tapestry of smoothly integrated buildings that were practically monuments to symmetry. It made him itch just to look at it.
I.
”It's beautiful, isn't it,” Deanna said, noticing that his gaze seemed captivated by it.