Patin’s Lessons to the Prophets, Vol. 47C: The Shape of Loss
Posted on Thu Oct 16th, 2025 @ 4:50pm by Patin
1,118 words; about a 6 minute read
Mission:
Character Development
Location: Celestial Temple
The Celestial Temple felt heavier that day. Not physically, the air still shimmered like molten glass, the clouds swirling in slow, deliberate spirals — but heavy in the way silence can be when it carries memory. Patin hovered at its center, her multipocket jacket looking oddly human against the shifting gold and violet light, a spectral cigar clutched between fingers that had seen too many sparks.
“Alright, you lot,” she said, voice low, “Lesson Forty-Seven-C. The Shape of Loss. Don’t get all dramatic on me, I’ve already done enough crying for one eternity.” She smirked, though the edges of her grin trembled.
Loss.
The word echoed like a drumbeat that wasn’t really sound.
Patin waved a hand and the cloudspace began to ripple. From the ether, images bloomed, fragile and trembling like water trapped in crystal.
The first was her younger self, alone, standing on a frozen peak in the southern Bajoran mountains. A single snowflake caught in her hair, a ghost of wind in the corner of her vision. Then, a blur of motion, a Cardassian Gul, arrogance dripping from his every gesture. Patin’s jaw clenched, and the memory flared red, a silent scream suspended in light.
“Yeah, that happened,” she muttered, smoke trailing faintly from her spectral cigar. “One time. And never again.” She gestured at the swirling image, fingers slicing through the scene. “I made sure the next betrayal wasn’t theirs, it was mine. Took the choice right out of their hands.”
The cloud twisted, revealing the deeper truth. Her hands glowed faintly; a spectral, almost surgical light traced her body. She showed the moment she burned her womb, the choice she carried into the rest of her life.
Patin swallowed, masking the ache with a laugh. “Lesson one in loss: you don’t get to decide what hurts you. You only get to decide how loud you scream when it happens. Or… how many fuses you light instead.”
What is this teaching?
“Perspective, sparkles,” she said dryly. “That’s what loss teaches. That you can keep giving, keep fighting, keep loving... even if the body you were counting on is gone. And sometimes, the joke’s the only thing left you can call your own.”
The cloudspace shifted. Now she conjured the battlefield of the Occupation. Explosions frozen mid-air, sparks frozen mid-spin. Faces of comrades and enemies alike floated in the light, each expression caught between fear and defiance.
“I lost friends,” she admitted quietly. “Some to the mountain, some to the bullets, some to the sky I couldn’t outrun fast enough. And every time I thought I was done, I found another reason to stay.” She exhaled a faint, glowing puff. “Because someone had to. Because someone still cared. Because I knew Nozzie, Rhenora, would’ve stayed if it were her. And hell, I wasn’t about to let her have all the fun of dying for the galaxy alone.”
And your child? The one you never bore?
Patin flicked her hand, a new image appearing, a tiny spectral cradle floating above snow and fire. “The kid I never had,” she said softly, letting the words hang. “I named her in my head sometimes, just to keep her alive for a moment. But I can’t cry over what never was. I can only teach over what is.”
The Prophets shimmered, a ripple of motion in the cloudspace.
Loss is absolute.
“Sure,” Patin said. “Absolute as gravity. But here’s the secret: it doesn’t have to break you. You shape it. Mold it. Make it useful. Teach the living how to survive it, or how to laugh when it bites their ankles.”
A new memory floated up, her with Bonnie, teaching explosives. Bonnie’s wide-eyed chaos mirrored Patin’s own reckless youth. The resulting crash on a Jurassic planet seemed absurd in the stillness of the Temple, yet Patin’s grin remained intact.
“See? Even disasters can be lessons. Even loss can spark… something else.”
Explain this ‘something else.’
Patin shrugged. “Growth. Survival. Chaos with a purpose. Laughing while the world burns. And sometimes… making a drink while it brews in the background.” She tapped the ether, and a soft golden glow filled the cloudspace. A faint image appeared: a barrel, slow-turning, spiders crawling over the rim as if blessing the fermentation. “Venom whisky,” she whispered. “It takes time, patience, and a little bit of danger. Kinda like grief, actually.”
The Prophets stirred, their movements hesitant but attentive.
Do you rejoice or lament?
“Both,” she said. “Rejoice in the fire I lit to survive. Lament in the things I couldn’t save. That’s the point. You don’t pick a side. You… live anyway. And then you teach the next idiot how not to screw it all up.”
The cloudspace darkened briefly, and a spectral representation of Rhenora appeared, holding newborn Patina’agi. Patin’s figure floated above, hand extended as if to touch both life and memory.
“And when the ones you love leave you, or the ones you were never allowed to love appear in another life… well, you show up anyway. You fight. You laugh. You teach.” Her voice cracked but she covered it with a bark of laughter. “I don’t cry in public. Too messy. But every time I’ve lost something, I’ve kept a piece of it tucked into a corner of my skull. Makes me better. Makes me dangerous. Makes me… me.”
And what of regret?
Patin’s grin returned, crooked and defiant. “Regret’s for those who didn’t try. I’d trade the body I wanted for the family I saved. I’d trade the quiet for the explosions. Hell, I’d trade the rest of eternity for a single moment of Nozzie rolling her eyes at me for something dumb I did. That’s what loss teaches... the value of what remains.”
The clouds parted, revealing a sweeping vista: Bajor under a golden drought. Cracked riverbeds, empty valleys, but still the mountains held snow at their peaks. The world was broken, and yet alive.
Patin drifted to the edge of the vision. “Even dust remembers rain,” she said softly, almost to herself.
And the rain remembers you.
Her laughter rang out, soft, a spark against the echoing eternity. “Lesson Forty-Seven-C. Shape of Loss. Done. Now leave me to my memories before I start crying and blowing something up.”
The cloudspace shimmered and slowly folded the memories into itself, leaving Patin alone, triumphant, wounded, alive, and the Prophets, silent but thoughtful, watching the small, indestructible force of her soul.
TBC
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