Earth and Water

Posted on Tue Jun 2nd, 2026 @ 3:52am by Captain Marie Batel & Patin

2,406 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Character Development
Location: Celestial Temple

The conflict was clear on Patin's face, no longer shielded by bravado and sharp barbs. There was insecurity, fear even, a lack of complete faith that all will work out ok in the end. Patin didn't have the gift that Marie used, she couldn't see through time as well as space, to see that everything WOULD work out in the end, as best as it could.

"They are giving you a choice, that alone says how much they have respect for you, how much you have taught them in the time that you've been here." Marie said gently, wrapping Patin in a hug that seemed to stretch on for days. " I think you softened them up for me though"

Patin stood stiffly at first inside the hug, like someone who had forgotten what being held without expecting pain felt like. After a long moment, she let herself lean into it just slightly. “Yeah well,” she muttered softly against Marie’s shoulder, “don’t go giving me too much credit. They still communicate like hallucinatin' drunken poets.”

When she finally pulled back, the vulnerability was still there, quieter now instead of raw. Dangerous in a different way because she wasn’t hiding it anymore. Patin glanced upward toward the unseen Temple and narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. “Though...” Her mouth crooked slightly. “Watching omnipotent space gods develop emotional growth has been kinda hilarious.”

The pivot was obvious, intentional, rather than her usual evasions. “So this tropical island,” she asked casually, almost aggressively casual. “You think they’ve got decent rum, or is this gonna be one of those spiritually enlightening retreats where everybody drinks herbal tea and talks about their feelings?”

"I believe this tropical island boasts beaches, pools, and an idyllic resort lifestyle in an equatorially perfect climate. When they finally relax, there will be romance, the consequence of which will be one of your options." Marie said cautiously, alluding to the rebirth option. "The other is a young Bajoran officer who will suffer a horrible accident, but there is an opportunity for a transference. She was to be assigned to the Sunfire as a security officer." Marie let that hang.

“I’m sorry,” she said slowly, holding up a hand. “Did you just casually imply I might get conceived on a tropical island during their shore leave?” Her eyes narrowed upward toward the unseen Temple immediately afterward. “Absolutely not. Nope. I reject this entire prophetic briefing.”

Somewhere in the mist, stars flickered suspiciously innocently.

Patin pointed accusingly upward. “And I am definitely not comfortable knowing hypothetical details about my own future conception. There are boundaries. Like cosmic-sized boundaries.”

The Temple wisely remained silent.

Patin groaned and dragged both hands down over her face. “That is information no mortal, dead or otherwise, should ever possess.” Despite herself, though, a reluctant laugh escaped her afterward, softer than before. Tired, but real.

Then her eyes shifted back toward Marie, suspicion returning immediately. “Wait.” She pointed at her now. “You already know, don’t you? You're wearing the single most smug time-traveler face I have ever seen.” She, too, had seen variations, but she had never focused on a single moment.

" I might, but no Prophet nor Chaos and Boom will let me influence this one. This is entirely yours, wholelus bolelus. And know, that which ever option you chose, even if it is neither, you will still be a valuable contributor to the universe as a whole." Marie chose her words carefully, letting Patin know that there was the third option - to remain in the Temple.

Patin’s expression shifted slowly after Marie’s careful reassurance, the humor still lingering around the edges of her mouth while something quieter settled underneath it. Thoughtful now instead of defensive, she tilted her head upward toward the drifting mist and the endless stars hidden beyond it.

“May I see them?” she asked at last.

The question hung strangely in the Temple. The Prophets themselves were considering the request rather than merely observing it.

To observe possible futures alters the finite.

Expectation reshapes decision.

Knowledge becomes burden.

Patin snorted softly and folded her arms. “Yeah, well, so does being alive.” She waved one hand dismissively through the fog. “I survived Cardassians, multiple religious catastrophes, and one deeply traumatic Talarian wedding reception. I think I can survive a little existential dread.”

The Temple flexed around them with visible hesitation. Then the mist unfolded. The visions arrived in a scramble. They shuffled and overlapped like someone thumbing too quickly through an ancient deck of cards.

A tropical shoreline bloomed into existence beside Patin. Warm sunlight. Salt air. Rhenora laughing somewhere just out of frame while a little girl with Patin’s eyes sprinted barefoot through the surf, carrying something alive she absolutely should not have been carrying.

The image flipped away. Another replaced it instantly.

A Bajoran security officer screaming as twisted metal collapsed inward around her. Blood. Smoke. Then sudden stillness as unfamiliar eyes opened again carrying Patin’s fury behind them.

Another turn.

Patin standing unseen beside Rhenora through years unwritten, present in every quiet tragedy and every impossible survival alike. Older than memory. Tireder than death.

The visions kept cycling.

Another future. Another consequence. Another life half-glimpsed before it vanished again.

Patin blinked rapidly while the possibilities shuffled faster around her, her expression caught somewhere between fascination and alarm. “Oh this is deeply unsettling,” she muttered while another future snapped past her shoulder. “Why do your timelines work like a deranged rolodex?”

One vision flashed by too quickly to fully catch. A fist. White light. An extremely offended Q. Patin pointed immediately. “Hang on, was that me punching a Q?” The image vanished before the Temple answered.

"Q? You mean the child that could make people think and do different things then got busted for it?" Marie struggled to locate the faded memory in her frazzled brain. There was the time when the Enterprise was in space dock, after Parnasus Beta, and this 'child' made Spock and Christine fall in love and even tried to get them married, and everyone just went along with it. The whole concept of that level of influence was still deeply concerning.

Another timeline flipped past. Patin in Starfleet colors. Patin with a child on her shoulders. Patin standing knee-deep in fire with blood running down one arm while laughing like a lunatic. She barely glanced at any of them now.

“Nozzie told me about him once,” she continued, waving a hand dismissively through the floating visions. “Apparently, he liked poking humans with existential sticks just to see what happened.” Her grin returned faintly. “Former Emissary punched him square in the face. Which... you know, honestly? Fair. I would have paid Latinum to see that.” A flicker passed by again. The same figure recoiling backward, while Patin herself appeared mid-swing.

She pointed immediately. “See? There it is again.” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously upward toward the Temple. “Why do several futures involve me knocking the stuffin' out of higher beings? That feels concerning.”

The stars above her shimmered with what almost looked like amusement, or worry.

Patin folded her arms. “The god was the prick, by the way. Not the Emissary.” Then another timeline rolled forward more slowly than the others. Patin stopped talking.

In this one there was no storm. No Temple. No cosmic spectacle at all. Just Rhenora older now, exhausted and grieving quietly somewhere dark, while another figure sat beside her in silence with a hand resting against her shoulder. Patin’s expression shifted almost imperceptibly as she watched it. She quickly recalled a memory where she saw the Meatbag fall. “...oh.”

" There is light and dark in all your futures," Marie said softly, allowing Patin the time to see the memory breathe and hold its place before moving on. "Only this time, it will be balanced." She acknowledged the hardship of Patin's past, the brutality, the fight for survival, and the short time she had found purpose that didn't involve death.

Patin watched the timeline linger a moment longer before flicking her fingers through it, sending the vision scattering into drifting ribbons of light. “Balanced,” she echoed quietly, like she was testing whether the word fit in her mouth at all.

Another future rolled past her shoulder, laughter around a dinner table this time, warm and painfully ordinary. Patin stared at it a second too long before looking away again. “Not sure I’ve ever trusted peaceful things,” she admitted under her breath.

"Give it a chance - they may surprise you" Marie laughed lightly, understanding the gravity of the situation and adding a little light humour. " It's a big decision, not many get the chance to choose how the return, they must truly appreciate you" Marie plopped onto a cloud and a glass of wine appeared in her hand. She sipped it, enjoying the velvety red texture and wondering if she would ever taste the real thing again. Probably not, her time in this universe was done as a mortal being.

Patin watched another future drift past without really seeing it. After a while she snorted softly and waved the entire collection of timelines away from her face like an annoying swarm of insects.

“You know what's funny?” she asked, glancing sideways at Marie lounging comfortably on her cloud with her wine. “Everybody keeps staring at me like I'm the one with the big decision.” Her eyes lingered on the captain for a moment, studying her in a way she rarely studied anyone. “Guardian, reborn, stay dead, don't stay dead, whatever.”

The humor faded as she gestured vaguely toward the Temple surrounding them. “You, though?” Her gaze drifted toward the mist and stars beyond it. “You're the one becoming like one of them.” A crooked grin returned a heartbeat later. “Frankly, Captain, I find that a whole lot more terrifying than anything they've offered me.”

"I don't know if that's an insult or a compliment," Marie mused with a crooked grin, taking a sip of the wine from her glass. She looked at the Prophets who were both present and absent, allowing them this moment of discussion and contemplation without too much interruption. "But they can be moulded; they are learning, they are getting there. Humility, maybe not so much. " She tossed the jibe out and let it float around without reaction. "See?"

Patin snorted and folded her arms, watching the mist drift lazily around the Temple as though it had all the time in the universe. Which, annoyingly, it did. “Yeah, I see.” Her voice carried less anger now and more disappointment, which somehow landed heavier. “I see a bunch of toddlers who traded emotion and common sense for omniscience, then spent ten thousand years acting surprised whenever people suffered because of it.”

She pointed vaguely upward toward the unseen Prophets.

“Don't let the clay we're molding pull the wool over your eyes, Captain. Learning isn't the hard part.” Her gaze swept across the endless stars surrounding them. “Anybody can learn. Hell, I've met Cardassians who could quote philosophy while ordering executions.”

Patin's expression hardened slightly. “What matters is what comes after.” She jabbed a finger toward the mist. “Action. Accountability. Doing something different because you finally understand.” Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Otherwise it's just enlightenment with better marketing.”

The Temple offered no immediate rebuttal.

Patin smirked faintly. “They know I'm right.”

" They do - which is why they have given you a choice. Which is more than anyone else has gotten, myself included. Most of us just dealt with the cards they gave us." Marie countered gently. "And no, I'm not sticking up for the fact they have given the universe hell over the last million or so years." Marie made her position clear. She didn't condone previous action nor inaction, but as ever she saw hope in the future.

Patin stared upward into the mist for a long moment after Marie spoke. The sarcasm she'd been leaning on all afternoon seemed to run out of fuel at last. “You know what's funny?” she asked quietly.

The Temple listened. Around them, stars drifted through mist. Timelines braided and unbraided themselves behind the veil, threads crossing threads, consequence tangled with consequence, prophecy looping back on itself.

Patin gestured vaguely at all of it, then addressed the void. “You've spent this entire conversation trying to understand mistakes.” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Trying to understand consequences.”

The mist shifted. A thread brightened. Another dimmed.

Patin pointed upward. “But you've never explained yours.”

Silence settled across the Temple.

Marie glanced between her and the drifting stars.

Patin continued before the Prophets could answer. “Everything comes back to Nozzie.”

A timeline flickered. “Bajor.”

Another flicker. “The Pah-Wraiths.”

Another. “Me.”

The stars dimmed slightly. “Remal.”

The mist tightened.

Each name seemed to catch on a different strand. Different centuries. Different choices. Different disasters. Yet every thread curved, crossed, and returned to the same place.

Patin folded her arms. “Every road you lot care about eventually circles back to one stubborn Bajoran woman who keeps getting herself shot at.”

For the first time, there was no grin attached to the observation. Above them, timelines continued their endless weaving. A woman on Bajor. A fire in the dark. A war. A choice. A death avoided. A death delayed. A future preserved. A future broken.

Different threads. The same knot.

“Why?”

The Temple did not answer.

Patin waited. Nothing. The silence stretched. The stars drifted. The timelines turned. Long enough to become uncomfortable. Long enough that even Marie stopped smiling. Still nothing. There was no denial. There was no correction. Not one of the Prophets' impossible answers wrapped around itself like a riddle.

Just silence.

Patin's expression changed first. The irritation vanished, and amusement followed. Something colder settled in its place. The threads above seemed suddenly different. Not hidden. Not guarded. Avoided.

“...oh.” The realization landed softly.

Not refusal. Not secrecy. Not manipulation. Fear.

A timeline flickered. Then another. The stars above them pulsed once. Then again.

For a moment Patin saw the braid differently, not as a design being woven, but as something being watched. Something being protected. Something every road kept returning to because every road depended on it. Or on her.

The mist tightened. The stars flickered once more. And for the first time Patin began to wonder if the Prophets were afraid of the future too.

TBC

 

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