Patin's Lessons - Flexability and Responsibility

Posted on Tue Mar 10th, 2026 @ 3:32pm by Commander Jenna Ramthorne & Patin

1,975 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Beholder
Location: Celestial Temple
Timeline: Current

The Temple did not begin as a place. It began as a condition.

A stillness folded through time like a held breath that had never quite been released, and within that stillness a shape gathered itself slowly into the suggestion of architecture. Pillars of pale radiance rose and dissolved in the same moment. Floors existed only long enough to support the idea of standing. The air shimmered with a quiet gravity, a pressure of thought more than matter, as though reality itself had been persuaded to behave.

At the center of that persuasion stood Patin.

She appeared as she often did when the Temple allowed her passage. Mostly solid. Partially human. Mostly the woman who had learned the dangerous art of caring too much. Yet her outline trembled at the edges like a reflection in disturbed water. The Temple felt her presence and answered in kind. The long arc of light that served as a vaulted ceiling bowed outward a fraction of an inch. The floor beneath her feet carried the faint impression of pressure that did not quite belong to weight.

Patin folded her arms. “I heard you,” she said into the white quiet. “And I would like to register a complaint.”

The Temple replied as it always did. From everywhere. From nowhere. From a voice that carried neither breath nor lungs, only intention.

The Patin has returned.

Another voice joined it.

The Patin arrives with agitation.

A third spoke, tone unchanged.

The Patin expresses disagreement.

Patin tipped her head and gave the empty air a long, unimpressed look. “Disagreement,” she repeated. “That’s one way to describe it,” she frowned.

The pillars shifted, sliding through one another with the fluid certainty of light reorganizing itself. The pressure inside the Temple tightened as more of the Celestial Beings focused their attention. They gathered around her without movement. A circle formed without circumference.

The Temple listened. The VezdaPagh must not be allowed freedom. The statement arrived the way gravity arrives. Simple. Inevitable. Complete.

Patin rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Yes,” she said patiently. “You mentioned that already.”

Another voice continued the thought as if no interruption had occurred. The VezdaPagh are of us. Once within us. Cast beyond us. No longer us. What you name emotion we define as destabilizing impulse. Destructive. Uncontained.

The Temple vibrated faintly as that classification settled across its vast interior. It carried the tone of a fact recorded in stone.

Patin let out a small breath. “You keep saying that part,” she said. “You keep skipping the part that comes after.”

A long silence unfolded. The Prophets did not experience silence the way mortals did. They experienced it as the absence of necessity. The Patin proposes continuation.

“Yes,” Patin said. “I do.”

The light along the pillars brightened, the Temple adjusting its geometry to accommodate attention. Patin felt the space curve around her the way a bubble curves around a breath. The Patin has expressed her desire for us to accept responsibility. Those who were cast out have caused pain.

Patin nodded once, pointing a single finger into the void. “There it is.”

The Temple studied her. You assign causality where sequence already exists.

Patin laughed softly. “Oh, I've assigned a lot of things lately. It’s a growing hobby.”

The pillars dimmed and brightened again, a subtle flicker of disapproval that carried the emotional weight of a glacier shifting a fraction of an inch. The VezdaPagh were removed for structural preservation.

“They were removed because you didn’t like them,” Patin replied. The correction arrived instantly.

Preference was not involved.

“Sure,” Patin said. “You just experienced a bunch of very inconvenient feelings and decided they should live somewhere else.”

The Temple flexed. The ceiling bowed slightly inward, responding to the small rise of irritation in Patin’s voice. The space reacted to her like a membrane reacting to pressure.

The emotions you reference produced destructive trajectories.

“Of course they did,” Patin said. “They were emotions.”

Another voice entered the conversation, its tone as level as the first. Anger fractures cooperation. Grief distorts clarity. Fear multiplies error. Resentment corrodes trust. The removal of these impulses preserved continuity.

Patin tilted her head thoughtfully. “You threw away the messy parts of being alive and called it a day,” she said.

We refined existence.

“No,” Patin said gently. “You sterilized it.”

The Temple fell quiet again. The silence thickened into something almost tangible, a field of thought pressing inward from all directions.

We observed the consequences of those impulses across infinite timelines. Collapse followed their proliferation. War followed their escalation. Chaos followed their indulgence.

Patin’s mouth curled in a small, crooked smile. “Funny thing about chaos,” she said. “It tends to happen when people pretend they don’t have it, and whether they like it or not.”

The pillars shifted again. The VezdaPagh represented a concentration of destabilizing forces.

“And you bottled them.”

Containment preserved reality.

“Containment postponed reality,” Patin replied. “There’s a difference.”

The Temple brightened. The Beholder was and is. Always. They stand as Guardian across dimension, time and space.

Patin lifted a finger. “Right,” she said. “And let’s talk about that for a minute.”

A small distortion rippled outward from her hand as she gestured, the Temple bending around the motion before settling again.

“You nudged things,” she continued. “You influenced a timeline. You guided a person into becoming the Beholder.”

The pillars remained silent. Patin’s eyes narrowed. “You manipulated Marie Batel.”

The answer arrived with quiet certainty. We nudged so that the Beholder could be.

Patin nodded slowly. “There it is again,” she said. “That word.” The Temple watched her. “Nudged.”

Patin paced a slow circle, her footsteps producing faint impressions in the light beneath her. Each step created a small ripple in the architecture.

“You cast out your negative emotions,” she said. “You locked them on a world. You created a problem so large it required a guardian across time itself. And then you nudged a person into becoming that guardian.”

The pillars brightened. The Beholder must contain the VezdaPagh.

“Of course they must,” Patin replied. “Because the VezdaPagh exist.”

The Temple’s attention sharpened. A sacrifice must be made.

Patin stopped walking. Her edges sharpened. The floor beneath her feet bowed outward slightly, responding to the sudden concentration of emotion inside her chest. “A sacrifice,” she repeated quietly.

The Temple confirmed the statement. It is as it always was.

Patin’s voice remained calm. “No,” she said. “It’s as you made it.”

The Temple reacted to that statement the way the ocean reacts to a stone dropped into still water. The pillars rippled with light. The ceiling shifted. The air tightened. You assign agency where inevitability exists.

Patin laughed again, though the sound carried a sharper edge now. “You created the inevitability,” she said. The Prophets did not answer immediately. Patin folded her arms once more and looked upward into the vast white expanse.

“Let me explain something about responsibility,” she said. “It’s a messy concept. It comes with guilt and regret and a whole bundle of feelings you decided you didn’t want anymore.”

The Temple vibrated faintly. Those impulses degrade clarity.

“They also create compassion,” Patin replied.

The pillars dimmed. Compassion produces hesitation.

“Yes,” Patin said. “And hesitation sometimes keeps people from making catastrophically arrogant decisions.”

The Temple studied her again. You suggest the restoration of destabilizing impulses.

“I suggest ownership,” Patin said. The word hung in the air like a bell struck once. “You threw something away because it frightened you,” she continued. “And now that thing has teeth.”

The Temple answered. The VezdaPagh cannot be allowed freedom.

Patin nodded. “Agreed.” The pillars paused. That agreement produced a ripple of attention across the Temple. Patin lifted her hands slightly, palms open.

“They’re dangerous,” she said. “They’re destructive. They’re exactly what happens when you bottle up the darker parts of existence and pretend they belong to someone else.”

The Temple absorbed the thought. Containment remains necessary.

“Maybe,” Patin said softly. “But containment doesn’t erase responsibility.”

The silence stretched longer this time. The Prophets were thinking. For beings who experienced time all at once, thinking resembled a slow rearrangement of eternity.

The VezdaPagh were once within us.

Patin nodded again. “That’s the part you keep acknowledging,” she said.

They were removed for preservation.

“Sure.”

Their impulses would have destroyed coherence.

Patin considered that. “Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe they would have taught you something.”

The Temple brightened slightly. Clarify.

Patin’s smile returned. “Emotions are like fire,” she said. “Left alone they burn the house down. Controlled properly they keep you warm.”

The Prophets absorbed the metaphor. You suggest integration.

“I suggest balance.” The pillars shifted again, subtle distortions rippling along their surfaces like light refracting through water.

Integration introduces instability.

“So does repression,” Patin replied.

The Temple studied that statement with immense patience. Patin felt the pressure of countless perspectives turning toward the same conclusion and examining it from every possible angle. The Temple bent slightly inward.

The Patin advocates flexibility.

Patin gave a little bow. “Look at that,” she said. “You’re learning new vocabulary.”

The pillars flickered with what might have been irritation. Flexibility introduces unpredictable outcomes.

“Welcome to existence,” Patin said. The Temple quieted again. The conversation had reached a hinge. Patin felt it the way a storm feels the moment before thunder.

“You created the VezdaPagh,” she said softly. “You created the conditions that required a Beholder. You created the entire mess.”

The pillars glowed steadily. We created preservation.

“You created a problem that required sacrifice,” Patin corrected.

The Temple answered in one voice. Sacrifice sustains balance.

Patin’s expression softened slightly. “Sometimes,” she said. “Sometimes sacrifice is necessary.” The Temple listened carefully. “But,” she added, “sometimes sacrifice is just the bill arriving for a mistake.”

The pillars dimmed You suggest that responsibility must be acknowledged.

“Yes.”

The silence that followed felt enormous. Finally the voices spoke again, slower this time. The Patin introduces a variable previously unconsidered.

Patin blinked. “Only one?”

Flexibility.

Patin grinned. “Progress.”

The Temple brightened. The VezdaPagh must remain contained.

Patin nodded. “They should.”

The Beholder must stand.

“They will.”

The pillars pulsed softly. But responsibility may be shared.

Patin’s expression shifted. A small, satisfied warmth flickered behind her eyes. “There it is,” she said quietly.

The Temple continued. The Patin has altered our perception of the problem.

Patin shrugged. “That’s sort of my thing.”

The voices gathered together into a single declaration that filled the Temple with quiet gravity.

You will succeed.

Patin’s smile faded slightly as she waited for the second half. The Temple delivered it without hesitation.

But there is a cost.

The words settled into the architecture like weight settling into stone.

Patin breathed out slowly. “Of course there is. There always is.”

The pillars brightened once more. The Patin, Prophet of Chaos and Boom, has taught us flexibility.

The statement carried neither praise nor condemnation. It existed simply as a fact recorded by the universe. Patin looked around the Temple, her edges shimmering faintly. “Happy to help,” she shrugged sarcastically.

The voices concluded. This will exact a price. The Temple quieted. And somewhere beyond time, the consequences began to unfold.

TBC

 

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