Child of Dreams
Sometimes I dream, I'm lost in time where heroes go, and no one speaks in broken words, an lovers aren't afraid to know, each breath that calls, each star that falls, an angel dies to be alive. Am I dreaming or am I in love?
Sometimes I Dream, song by Mario Frangoulis
Chapter 3
Two weeks later
Archer walked along beach of the east cove. The sun sparkled on the water and the waves lapped at the shore. Children darted in and out of the surf, giggles following in their wake. It was a peaceful place, a good place for children and a man with a limited memory. He had learned a lot since waking, but his mind refused to be reunited with his past. His strongest connection was to the children. He remembered holding each one at birth. He remembered naming them and caring for them, but he could not remember creating them. When he tried to imagine their mother, T’Pol came to mind. He remembered enough about her to miss her terribly. He remembered the sound of her voice, and the scent that was uniquely hers. He remembered the way she moved and that she held knowledge and logic in high regard. He remembered talking to her and listening to her, fighting with her and eating with her, and he remembered loving her. Those seemed to be the easy things. She came to him every night as sleep edged into his mind. Always she asked him if he dreamed and his response was always “yes.” How could he do anything less? Once he had become stronger, he had visited the resting place of the Hahn and stared upon the newest of graves. There was regret there, and sadness, but nothing binding. Somehow when he looked at that grave, he knew it was not T’Pol in it. His mind could not fathom the knowledge, for the things he felt when he dreamed of her left no doubt of his love for her, and that love negated the possibility of him fathering children with anyone else. If she wasn’t the woman in the grave, then who was? And surely his T’Pol must be dead, her body held elsewhere, for he could not imagine her leaving him and the children alone.
There were times of course that he questioned both his logic and his certainty and at those times he would wander back to the gravesite and wonder. For how could a man with no memory be certain of anything? And when he could tolerate his doubts no more, he went to the children and held them or watched them as they slept. And his certainty that they were his fed his spirit and kept him going.
His eyes searched them out in the surf, making sure they were okay. He needn’t have bothered, for his sweet Meyah was quite the little mother. She doted on her siblings, often carting them around on her hip, though they were nearly as big as she. She was quiet and efficient, and ever patient with them and him as well. When she smiled, it rivaled the sun for brilliance and when she cried, he could have sworn the heavens would weep as well. She didn’t talk, nor utter any sound for that matter, but her eyes spoke volumes. Everything she thought was written there for all the world to see. She made herself understood, and all of them, including Henry could communicate with her.
The twins were an entity unto themselves. They did nearly everything together as if being apart would somehow damage or diminish them. They had even started speaking at the same time. The speech was stilted and slurred as is often common among the very young, or those who have not practiced how to say their words. However, having finally decided to be vocal, they were loud and energetic and eagerly absorbed everything he tried to teach them. Like the moon and the stars, they were bright and just as appealing.
If Meyha was his sun, and the twins his moon and stars, little Henry was joy personified. There was little the boy did not take pleasure in, whether it was the ocean stretched before him, or his siblings. The child chattered constantly. Instead of irritating his father and siblings, it had the opposite affect. If Henry was silent, he was sleeping or making mischief. All in all he was such a good baby that Archer could hardly believe he was real. In fact, all the children were amazingly well behaved. Hahn Leyna said it was because they were loved, and because he loved them so completely, they were special.
Whatever the reason, Archer knew he was blessed.
The only thing to dampen the childrens’ spirits was a thunder storm. The bright flashes of lightening and the quickly darkening skies seemed to terrify them, all of them. And when the thunder would crash and roll around them, his precious ones would run and hide in his arms and cry until it stopped. Storms were almost as common as the dawn, and he had quickly gotten accustomed to children being around.
He had learned other things as well during his stay. The Hahn were the spirituals keepers of all the people. They were steeped in ceremony and history. They performed the rituals of birth and death. They kept the records and provided the world’s moral center. The temple of Hahnala was one of the seven temples of the Hahnai and the oldest. It was said to have been built on the land where the creator first allowed life, and from its shores, all life florished. Both the world and her people shared the same name but it was there similarities ended. Time changed many things and as technology developed, people pulled away from the old ways. The rituals were forgotten, and the Hahn and the people were torn in their beliefs. A government was formed and the people began to follow a new path. That path led the Hahnai into the worst and most destructive conflict in their existence, a civil war. Surprisingly the war was not between the church and state, but rather the Hahnai themselves. The people were torn into two factions, one who wished to follow the old ways, and one who wished to follow the new. The temples of Hahnai became less a place of learning and worship and more a place of sanctuary, the Hahn caught in the middle. Despite the war or because of it, the temples were named sacrosanct. It was amazing to Archer that more people did not seek shelter within their walls. He didn’t know whether to be grateful to the Hahn for their lack of participation in the outside world, or to be dissappointed in them. It seemed to him that if a world’s moral center did not take an active stand in the conflict around it, how could the people. At the same time, he understood the need to protect what was and what had come before. By not actively siding with one faction or the other, the Hahn made a statement of their own. We are at heart what we have always been and will always be. He could only hope the planet did not destroy itself in this constant conflict.
The Hahn had also informed him that he was most likely an escapee from the prisons of Hahnati, the closest continent to Hahnala, and the second largest land mass of Hahnai. In their effort to force conformity in their beliefs, the prisons were filled with what were labeled as war criminals. Torture was not an uncommon tool in the effort to make prisoners talk, and often whole families were arrested in an effort to control the masses. A beating, whether by whip or fist, seemed the preferred method of dominance. It explained the lash marks on his back, for he didn’t figure himself for one who would submit willingly to another’s will, nor would he accept the abuse of one unable to protect itself. Meyah carried the mark of the lash as well, and it hurt his heart every time he saw it.
As he watched the children play and took in the colors around him, it was hard to imagine such conflict. They were sheltered here, but he wondered for how long.