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Ma'el Final Farewell
by Seven
Disclaimer: Earth: Final Conflict and its characters are copyrighted by Tribune Entertainment Company. All rights reserved.
Author's Note: Thanks to Lyta for inspiring me to write this one!
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Over 2000 years ago...
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Ma'el deleted the last of the files on his datastream and waved a hand to dismiss it. He uttered a sigh of resignation.
He had accepted the assignment, but the last of his duties ending seemed so... final. He knew perfectly well that his assignment was necessary and relatively simple, but... it meant leaving everything that he held dear...quite possibly forever.
Ma'el shut down the computer system and took a long look around his office. Specimen tanks, now empty, sat on tables and desks. Long organic vines trailed outside, their blue pale in comparison to the deep aura of the Taelon sky. He would make a holographic image of this place before he left the next day. To remember.
Ma'el sighed and lapsed into a deep meditation.
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The next day...
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Ma'el felt a tremor in the Commonality, sadness from friends and family who knew when he was to depart. It was best this way, with no goodbyes. He would always be with them in spirit, as a part of the Commonality.
"Sa'shai!"
Unfortunately, Ma'el mused, that was not enough for the young and innocent.
Da'an ran in, glowing brightly with his exertion. He threw his arms around his parent's leg and clung to him, shooting out a long stream of words that were so garbled as to be incomprehensible. Ma'el smiled. Da'an was barely more than an infant, a third the size of an adult Taelon. But he possessed a strange maturity and impression of being older than his years. Now, however, Ma'el's only child was inconsolable.
"Why are you leaving, sa'shai?" the tiny child asked as Ma'el knelt down to look into his deep blue eyes. "Why cannot I come with you?" Ma'el smiled sadly, putting his hand on the child's shoulder. "Da'an, I must go to a planet far from here, to work. I cannot come back... for a very long time. It is too dangerous on this planet; the creatures there are savages."
Da'an stared at him with round blue eyes. "Why?" he asked, quaveringly. "Why can't you stay here?" Ma'el looked at the waiting shuttle. "Because fewer Taelon children are being born, Da'an. You know that there are few children your age?"
Da'an nodded.
"And in time, if nothing happens, there will be fewer still. The answers we seek to defeat the Jaridians may be on this planet, and I must go. If I can, I will return. I promise you this."
Da'an nodded. He was still afraid and sad, Ma'el sensed, but no longer as upset as he had been. In time, Ma'el thought sadly, the child would grow more attached to his guardian, Tu'ar, another scientist who yearned for a child. He would take good care of Da'an, and would make sure that he reached his full potential.
Ma'el briefly held his hand up to Da'an, and the tiny hand touched his. For a brief moment, Ma'el felt the indescribable sorrow that the child felt, amplified by his inexperience with loss. But Ma'el's calm acceptance of whatever might come seeped into Da'an's consciousness, and the child straightened ever so slightly, determined to take whatever might come bravely.
*It would have been better with no goodbyes...* Ma'el thought, as he climbed up into the shuttle. Da'an's sorrow was imprinted forever on him like a visible mark... but as deeply imprinted was the child's love and courage.
