Beholder Beheld

Posted on Tue Apr 7th, 2026 @ 10:09pm by Captain Rhenora Kaylen & Commander Jenna Ramthorne & Patin

2,462 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Beholder
Location: Celestial Temple

Somewhere deep within the temple - a new face appeared. Hesitant and confused, eyes open in wonder and trepidation at the same time. What was this place?

"Hello?" Batel called, her voice carrying in the nothingness that was everything. A mist appeared, columns towering into eternity and a marble floor beneath her feet. What had she be standing on before?

At the edges of perception, forms began to gather.

They emerged gradually, drawn from the same luminous substance that shaped the Temple itself. Outlines resolved with patience, each figure holding a position that felt intentional, placed with meaning rather than proximity. Their features shifted in soft degrees, as though memory and possibility were both being considered.

Among them, one presence settled differently. Where the others held a quiet cohesion, this one carried a faint irregularity, a softness at the edges that resisted complete stillness. Its outline suggested familiarity shaped by motion, by something that did not rest easily within structure.

The figures remained where they were, suspended in unified awareness. The mist thinned along a central path, revealing just enough to guide the eye, just enough to invite recognition. And the Temple held the moment, poised to present what it believed would be understood.

Welcome Batel, Marie to the Celestial Temple of the Bajoran Peoples their voices sounded as a unified chorus, layered and resonant, each tone arriving together yet carrying its own weight, filling the vast space with a presence that felt both intimate and immeasurable.

A confused look crossed Batel's face, followed by the dawn of realisation. "Bajoran, Bajor, you mean the Gods of the Captain with the wrinkly nose?" She asked, incredulous. She looked around at the faceless opaque beings.

"Why am I here? How am I here?" She asked, working through the emotions. "I feel a connection here, why?'

You arrive as you are. You are received as you are. The chorus settled around her, each voice layered within the next, carrying meaning without urgency.

Bajor is known to you through another. Through the one who walks with faith shaped by her people. The mist shifted, the columns drawing closer in quiet acknowledgment. We are of Bajor.

You have come to where endings gather and become something else. You stand where what was, continues.

The light around her softened, responding to the shape of her question. The path was always present. You have reached it. An invitation was requested.

Connection is recognition. Recognition is memory carried beyond a single life. The figures at the edge of perception held steady, their attention unified.

Patin stood just off the line of presentation, where relevance thinned enough to let her exist without being the center of it. Her outline held together out of habit more than necessity, edges soft, trailing a fraction behind when she shifted her weight. She watched them form their answer, felt the careful layering of meaning settle into place, each word polished until it carried three interpretations at once.

Her eyes rolled slowly, deliberately, a motion she did not bother to hide. “Of course,” she muttered under her breath, folding her arms as her gaze tracked the way they circled the point instead of touching it. “Say it in six directions so nobody can tell which one you meant.” The corner of her mouth twitched, something dry and unimpressed settling in. “Ask two questions, get a philosophy lecture and a weather report.”

As though she could still remember what it felt like to stand there and want a straight answer, Patin exhaled through her nose, the tension easing into something contained. “Hang in there,” she murmured, voice soft enough to belong only to herself. “They’ll get to the point. Eventually. Maybe.”

"So I am dead" Batel seemed to shrug at the realisation as her feet began to wander, silence instead of footsteps as she moved, her body needing to be in motion to process what she was being told.

"So, the connection is feel here is through another, the Bajoran Captain. Why doesn't that feel like it's the whole thing though. Why would you, if you are the Gods of the Bajoran people, a people I hadn't even heard of until a I woke up in sickbay two days ago. So why do you invite me, a human here? Unless you feel a responsibility somehow..." she paced, finding the abject lack of sound disorientating. The ground felt solid beneath her black bootes feet yet she couldn't see through the mist.

An invitation was requested. Acceptance of the invitation is needed before continuation. The voices arrived together, layered in quiet unity, their tone carrying expectation shaped as inevitability rather than demand.

The mist shifted in response to her movement, parting just enough to allow her path while holding the greater shape of the Temple intact. The columns seemed to listen, their presence leaning inward without closing the distance.

An invitation was extended. The chorus returned to its origin point, patient, unmoving in its intent. Acceptance defines continuation.

Batel furrowed her brow, tossing the words around her mind before replying. "The wrinkle nosed Captain told you to invite me here, even though I'm ...dead...to what....spend eternity here?" It felt odd to speak of herself as dead, but if she tried hard enough, she could see herself in the stasis unit, the doctor amd the Captain still by her side, just as they had promised. So this was whatever the wrinkly nose people considered heaven, and these beings were their Gods. It blew her legal and scientific mind right there and then. Gods, heaven, temples and beings. And she was an Atheist!

"I take it the alternative isn't pleasant." She murmured to herself. "What is it that I am to to do, once I accept?"

The Rhenora did not invite without intent. The chorus gathered around her, each voice aligned with the next, carrying a weight that settled rather than pressed. The Rhenora values you. The Rhenora requested your presence within our continuity. The mist shifted in acknowledgment, drawing slightly closer, as though the Temple itself recognized the name and the weight it carried.

You ask of the alternative. The light dimmed by a subtle degree, not in warning, but in clarity. It is without existence. Without breath. Without knowledge. Without love. Without continuation. Each word arrived cleanly, unadorned, placed with deliberate care.

A quiet pause followed, allowing the shape of that truth to stand on its own. You are offered placement. The Temple adjusted again, the distant figures resolving just slightly, enough to suggest purpose without revealing its full shape. You will remain. You will observe. You will teach. The word lingered.

You carry perspective not held within us. The chorus deepened, threads of meaning weaving through the tone. You have lived within limitation. Within uncertainty. Within consequence. These are conditions we study. These are conditions you understand. The space breathed outward, then settled.

Through you, we refine understanding. The statement held a quiet finality. Through you, we align what is known with what is experienced.

Off to the side, where relevance thinned just enough to let her exist without invitation, Patin shifted her weight, her outline flickering faintly at the edges. She tilted her head, watching them with a familiar, unimpressed ease before a small, crooked smirk touched her mouth. “I taught them that,” she muttered under her breath, the words soft, edged with a hint of pride she made no effort to hide.

Marie felt something, another voice, muted deliberately so. It was an odd feeling, to know someone else was there without being able to see them. "You want me to teach you, about humans." She repeated, looking absently though the faceless beings for the mysterious renegade. "I accept your offer, but I want to meet the one who hides"

The Temple did not answer at once. Its vast stillness shifted, a subtle tightening in the geometry, as though the request had touched something less easily categorized. The mist drew inward in slow currents, the columns holding their places with a firmer intent. The chorus conferred without sound, their awareness turning upon itself in layered consideration, each thread of thought intersecting and looping back again.

The one you perceive is not placed as you are placed. The voices returned, measured, carrying a careful weight. She exists within. Adjacent. Intersecting. Unbound by invitation.

A pause followed, longer this time, filled with a quiet hesitation that did not often surface within them.

Direct introduction alters alignment. It introduces variance.

Patin exhaled sharply through her nose. “Yeah,” she said, voice carrying just enough to cut through their careful layering. “Heaven forbid a little variance.”

The Temple reacted at once. Pressure shifted, not to stop her, but to account for her, the space bending in a soft curve as she stepped forward anyway. Her form sharpened with the motion, edges pulling tighter, the faint fuzz resolving into something more defined, more present, more deliberately real. She did not ease into it. She arrived.

One step, and the mist parted around her as if it had been waiting for the excuse. Another, and the distance between observer and participant collapsed into something immediate. The light caught along her outline in uneven ripples, trailing half a breath behind her movement like the Temple itself struggled to keep up.

Patin rolled her shoulders as she came to a stop, glancing once toward the pillars, then back toward Marie with a look that carried both apology and amusement in equal measure. “Hi'ya,” she said, simple, grounded, in a way the rest of the space refused to be. She hooked a thumb lazily over her shoulder toward the unseen chorus. “Sorry about them. They mean well. Sorta.”

Her mouth curved into a small, irreverent smile as she straightened just a touch, enough to give the moment a shape, enough to acknowledge its weight without letting it take control. “Patin,” she said, then added, with just enough flourish to make it clear she enjoyed the title more than she should, “Prophet of Chaos and Boom.”

"Chaos and Boom, that's one hell of a title" Marie smirked, the emotion uplifting the corners of her mouth. "So these lot call themselves Prophets.. of the Bajoran people. Somehow I get the feeling you're a bit different here. I feel a kindred almost connection to you, I don't know why" Marie explained, looking around the mist and finding, as usual, nothing descript.

“I’m the one they don’t quite know what to do with yet,” she continued, tone easy, though something sharper lived just beneath it. Then her attention returned fully to Marie, steady, and present. “And the one who’s going to make this make a lot more sense than they ever will.”

" You have a purpose, I like that" Batel replied, seeing Patin fully for the first time. She looked like the Bajoran Captain in features, wrinkled nose, determined eyes, a sense of a long history of hardship. "You look like her... the Sunfire Captain, you have her zeal, how the heck did you end up in this place, with these... Prophets"

Patin’s grin came easy, “Get that a lot.” Her gaze flicked upward for a brief second, toward the unseen chorus, then back again, something knowing passing through her expression before it settled. “Long story,” she added, shoulders lifting in a small, casual shrug that carried far more weight than she let on. “Tell you what, accept their invitation with a grain of salt, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

Her hand moved without ceremony, slipping into the space beside her as if reaching into a pocket that only she believed existed. The Temple responded with the faintest distortion, light bending around her fingers as she pulled a cigar from nothing, turning it once between her fingers before bringing it to her lips. A flick of her thumb. A spark answered.

The flame caught with a soft flare, brief and warm, a color that felt almost out of place against the Temple’s pale expanse. She drew in slowly, the tip glowing ember-bright, then exhaled, a thin ribbon of smoke curling upward, twisting through the mist before dissolving into it like it had always belonged there.

Patin angled her head slightly, one brow lifting as she regarded Marie through the slow drift of smoke. “Fair warning,” she added, tone easy, grounded. “Their version of ‘purpose’ comes with a lot of fine print they forget to mention.”

"Why do I get the feeling that's not all they forget to mention?" Batel said ruefully, seeing the faceless beings still gathered around where she was standing - waiting for her decision. "Alright, let's go do this"

She strode purposefully back to where the Prophets waited as though time had indeed stood still. It had no meaning in this place, removed from space and time itself.

"I accept your invitation - the alternative is not at all appealing." She said formally, feeling as though there should be a handshake, or something. How do you shake hands with a being that didn't really exist?

The Temple responded at once.

Light gathered, not in a single place, but everywhere at once, a quiet brightening that carried warmth without heat, presence without form. The pillars seemed to rise taller in acknowledgment, their surfaces catching and holding that light as though the space itself approved of the choice being made.

Acceptance is received. The chorus moved through the Temple, layered and resonant, each voice aligning in a harmony that felt structured, deliberate, almost ceremonial.

The mist shifted beneath Marie’s feet, firming with intention, giving her stance a sense of grounding that had not existed a moment before. The silence that followed held a different quality now, less distant, more aware, as though the Temple had turned toward her fully.

You are placed within continuity. The words settled gently, their weight precise. You are welcomed within what endures.

A subtle movement followed, the faceless forms drawing into a loose arrangement around her, not enclosing, but acknowledging, their presence marking her inclusion within something vast and ongoing.

The Batel, Marie, you are received.

Behind her, through the slow curl of dissipating smoke, Patin watched with a faint smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. She tipped her head slightly, as if toasting the moment with the ember of her cigar.

“Welcome to the deep end,” she murmured, just loud enough to carry.

TBC

 

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