Patin's Lessons: The one about Regret

Posted on Fri Mar 20th, 2026 @ 8:00pm by Commander Jenna Ramthorne & Patin

1,155 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Character Development
Location: Celestial Temple

The Temple did not rush this lesson.

It let the echo of Forgiveness settle first, the quiet afterward, the way Patin still stood at the center with her shoulders squared, eyes red, expression set in the practiced calm of someone who had already cried and refused to apologize for it.

The Celestial Beings remained. They did not disperse. They conferred without sound, without sequence, without heat. Their attention gathered again, heavier this time, more deliberate.

You have demonstrated Forgiveness.

Patin rolled her shoulders once, a small reset. “Yeah,” she said. “That one cost me a bit.” She half-smiled.

There is a companion state.

She snorted softly. “There always is.”

We name it Regret.

Her jaw tightened just a fraction. She said nothing.

You will instruct us.

Patin glanced down at her hands, flexed her fingers, then tucked them into the pockets of her jacket like she was bracing against a draft that didn’t exist. “You’re assuming I’m the right teacher.”

You are available.

“That’s a low bar,” she muttered.

The Temple shifted. Light refracted. Time bent inward on itself, the way it did when the Celestials wanted proximity to a truth rather than a definition.

Do you regret giving your life for The Rhenora?

There it was. No preamble. No ceremony. Patin’s breath left her slowly. She tilted her head back, staring up into the layered geometry above, as though the answer might be etched there in advance. “You always go straight for the jugular,” she said. “Ever think about warming up first?”

This is personal.

“Yeah,” she replied quietly. “I noticed.” She shifted her weight, boots scraping faintly against nothing. “You want to understand regret like it’s a lever,” she said. “Pull here, get outcome there. That’s not how it works.”

Please define it.

She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, her voice was steady. Plain. “Regret isn’t ‘I wish I hadn’t,’ ” Patin said. “It’s ‘I wish I could have...’ ”

The Temple absorbed that. Tested it against its internal structures. Found no contradiction. Found no completion either.

Patin exhaled. “Let me try this another way,” she said, already angling for safer ground. “Think of a kid. Drops a toy into deep water. They don’t necessarily regret dropping it, because they learned something, right? They regret that it’s gone, that they can’t have it anymore. Same shape, smaller scale.”

The air tightened. That analogy is insufficient.

Patin grimaced. “Was worth a shot.”

The Temple answered by unfolding a future, as illustration. Rhenora appeared first. She stood in a quiet place, older by degrees that felt earned rather than imposed. Her breath moved easily in her chest. No hitch. No flinch. No constant readiness for impact. She laughed at something unseen, a sound unguarded enough to surprise even her.

Patin felt it hit low and slow. Her fingers curled inside her pockets. Then Patina’agi. Small. Furious. Alive in the way only the newly arrived are. Her first cry tore through the space, sharp and demanding and perfect. Rhenora’s hands shook as she gathered her close, tears spilling freely, unashamed.

Patin swallowed. Her throat worked once. She stayed upright. The vision continued. A future argument. Voices raised. Rhenora sharp with fear she refused to name. Patina’agi just as stubborn, just as loud. A slammed door. A pause. Then laughter through tears as both realized how alike they were.

A moment of terror. A flash of Remal, eyes closed, still, sadness. An almost-fall. A sharp intake of breath. The kind of instant Patin would have interrupted on instinct alone, hand already out, probability already bending.

This time, she watched. Her jaw clenched. Her eyes burned. She did not step forward.

These outcomes remain intact.

“Yes,” Patin said, voice tight. “That was the deal.”

You are absent.

She nodded once. “That was also the deal.”

The Temple waited.

Patin laughed under her breath. It came out thin, edged with something raw. “You’re fishing for doubt,” she said. “You won’t find it.”

Then where does Regret reside?

She drew her hands from her pockets and held them out, palms up, as if weighing something invisible. “Right here,” she said. “In the space between moments. In the things I don’t get to see finish. I can't partake of the outcome, or experience those things with my friend.”

Her gaze lifted, fierce and clear. “I would do it again,” she said. “Every time. Without hesitation. That part’s easy.”

Then the emotion persists without contradiction.

“Exactly,” Patin said. “That’s what you don’t get.”

She stepped forward, closer to the light, closer to them. “Regret isn’t doubt,” she said. “It’s love with nowhere to land.”

The Temple stilled.

Patin’s voice softened. “I don’t regret saving Nozzie. I regret that I don’t get to grow old watching her breathe without fear. I regret missing the dumb arguments and the terrifying silences and the moments where I’d have yelled and fixed things and made them worse before making them better.”

She swallowed, hard. “I regret the continuity. The continuation. The long, ordinary stretch of being there.”

This emotion follows meaningful choice.

“Yes,” she said. “That’s the point.”

Then Regret is weakness.

Patin barked a short laugh. “No. Well, maybe. Regret is the receipt after eating at that strange joint downtown. You chose it on a whim only to get indigestion, gas even.”

She wiped at the corner of one eye with her thumb, irritated at the moisture there. “You give something of yourself so others can have more. Regret is what shows up later to prove to you that it all mattered.”

The Temple leaned inward.

Then Regret serves purpose.

“It does,” Patin agreed. “It keeps love honest. It reminds you that some choices don’t end when you make them. They keep echoing.”

She straightened, shoulders back, expression settling into something calmer, clearer. “You wanted to know if I regret giving my life,” she said. “Here’s the clean answer.”

She met the Temple’s attention head-on. “I regret that I can’t stay,” she said. “I don’t regret that I left.”

The light shifted. Subtle. Marked. We understand.

Patin huffed. “You understand the shape,” she said. “The weight will take longer.”

She turned slightly, gaze drifting toward the futures still glowing faintly at the edges of the Temple. Her mouth curved into something almost like a smile. Almost.

“That’s Regret,” she said. “The price of caring about futures you don’t own and you'll never get the chance to partake.”

The Temple held that. And for once, it did not rush on to the next lesson.

TBC

 

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