Interlude: The Gift of What Might Have Been
Posted on Fri Oct 17th, 2025 @ 8:24pm by Patin
1,022 words; about a 5 minute read
Mission:
Character Development
Location: Celestial Temple
The Celestial Temple was quiet.
Not the kind of silence that follows an explosion, Patin knew that kind too well, but the deep, weightless hush of something waiting to be understood.
The Prophets had not summoned her like this before. The space shimmered with more formality than usual. They appeared not as their usual swirling lights but as patterns—circles within circles, shifting geometry that implied presence without revealing faces.
You have spoken of loss.
Patin blinked at the slow, deliberate unfolding of light. “Yeah,” she said. “Lesson forty-seven, subpart C. A real crowd pleaser.”
We would offer perspective.
Her eyebrows rose. “Perspective, huh? You’re going to tell me what I should have felt? Because let me tell you, I already had front-row tickets to that theater.”
The light pulsed, patient. We offer a glimpse of what might have been, had your path diverged. You may look, but you cannot touch.
“Oh, this should be good.” She folded her arms, the faint shimmer of her jacket glinting. “Alright, show me.”
The Temple dimmed. Threads of color stretched outward, resolving into moving images, memories of a life that never was.
She saw herself younger, cleaner, still mortal. The air was heavy with heat and dust.
The Cardassian Gul stood beside her, voice slick as oil. The younger Patin knelt at his feet, expression blank and terrified.
The older Patin winced. “Ah. This one. I always wondered how that story ends.”
The younger version flinched under a gloved hand, her body rigid. Then something in her eyes shifted—small, dangerous. She looked up at the Gul and smiled the smallest, most vicious smile imaginable.
The image froze there, mid-smirk.
Had you remained, your rebellion would have ended your life. You would not have seen the war end.
Patin nodded once. “Yeah. That tracks. Wouldn’t change it. Better a short fire than a long freeze.”
The vision melted away.
Now she stood in a village near the equator. Green hills rolled endlessly, rain drumming gently on rooftops. There was a small house, modest, crooked, bright with flowers.
Inside, another Patin laughed. Her hands were stained with clay; a child sat at her feet, smearing colors on a piece of fabric. There was a partner, too, someone soft-voiced, brown-eyed, content. The laughter in that house was easy.
Patin reached toward it before she remembered she couldn’t touch.
Had you fled before the Gul found you, this might have been your life.
Her throat tightened. She stared at the child’s little hands, the way the tiny fingers mimicked her own impatient gestures.
“Cute kid,” she said softly. “Would’ve driven me crazy.”
Would you trade what you became, for this?
Patin’s lips twisted into a half-smile. “Nah. I’d ruin it. I’d scare the neighbors, explode the stove, curse in front of the kid. That’s not me. That’s a ghost who forgot she had work to do. Definitely not me.”
Work.
“Yeah,” she muttered. “Saving lives, starting fights, loving Nozzie. The messy stuff. The loud stuff.”
The image blurred, fading into the next.
She stood on the slopes of a snowy ridge, her ridge, only now it was empty.
No footprints, no rebellion, no Rhenora, no fight. Just wind and ice.
Down in the valley, she could see the wreckage of a ship she would never have helped to crash, the tiny spark of a civilization she would never have joined.
She crouched down, brushing her spectral fingers through the snow.
“Cold,” she murmured. “Feels right.”
Had you walked another path, there would have been no Sunfire. No friendship. No sacrifice.
“Then there’d be no me worth saving.” She straightened, looking toward the light. “You think you’re showing me choices, but all I see are things that weren’t meant for me.”
The Prophets stirred. And yet, you look with longing.
“Because I’m not dead inside, you luminous know-it-alls,” she said, voice cracking despite herself. “Because sometimes I wish I’d had a kid, or a day without war, or someone to hold me who wasn’t bleeding. But that’s not regret. That’s just… being alive.”
The Temple pulsed, light bending as if the words had struck something deep.
We do not understand ‘alive.’
Patin laughed quietly. “No. I guess you wouldn't. You live forever, but you never live through.” She looked back at the snowfield. “Loss is the through part. You burn, you ache, you laugh anyway. That’s what makes the story worth it.”
You would not choose to see more?
She shook her head. “No. I’ve seen enough mirrors for one lifetime. You start staring too long, you forget which reflection is real.”
Then you reject our gift.
“I don’t reject it.” She smirked faintly. “I just tell it to sit down and shut up for a minute. Sometimes the lesson’s not about seeing... it’s about staying.”
The Prophets were silent for a long while. Then the light softened, almost apologetic.
You surprise us, Patin of Bajor.
“Get used to it,” she said. “You picked me, remember?”
We chose you because you chose yourself.
Patin tilted her head. “That almost sounded like a compliment.”
It was… an observation.
She chuckled, wiping at her eyes as if the gesture still meant something here. “Yeah. You’re learning.”
The visions dissolved completely, leaving her in the center of the Temple, surrounded by gentle starlight. The silence this time was comfortable. Full.
Patin took a long drag on a cigarette that didn’t burn, blew a ring of fireless smoke, and said quietly,
“Lesson 101: don’t ask for what might’ve been. You’ll miss what is.”
The light trembled, like laughter.
We will remember.
“Good,” she said. “Just don’t make a habit of it. You’re starting to sound sentimental.”
Sentiment is… inefficient.
She grinned. “Welcome to being alive, shiney-hammers.”
TBC
RSS Feed