Guardians - Secrets of B'hala

Posted on Wed Sep 9th, 2026 @ 3:08am by Captain Marie Batel & Patin

3,174 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: Character Development
Location: Celestial Temple / B'hala
Timeline: Then

The memory dissolved without ceremony, the warmth of the little tent thinning into the strange light of the timestream until even the sound of her Fa's voice was gone. B'hala remained before them, impossibly old and impossibly beautiful, its towers rising above the ancient landscape as though the city had been carved directly from Bajor's dreams.

Patin stared at it.

For a moment, wonder won. She could almost see the child she had been looking through the eyes of her father, believing in impossible cities and stars that listened. Then the memory twisted. One moment they were standing inside a memory Patin had spent most of her life trying to forget, and the next they were simply standing before B'hala again. The towers became crumbling resistance shelters, grand stories became whispered nonsense told between hurried relocations, and the warmth of her Fa's hand became the last memory of him she had never wanted to revisit.

Her jaw tightened. She folded her arms across her chest and looked away from the city, blinking hard before turning back. B'hala was everything he had promised it would be. That somehow made it worse. As a child, she had believed every word. She had believed B'hala was a place where stars came down to watch the people below. She had believed ancient cities could be beautiful enough to survive forever. She had believed her Fa knew things simply because he was her Fa. And she had believe in the idea of a sister.

Patin hated him for it. Not necessarily because the stories themselves were bad. Because they had made her hope and hope was a dangerous thing to have during the Occupation. Patin swallowed, she had spent years telling herself that his stories had been foolish. That he had filled her head with fantasies because he couldn't accept the world as it actually was. That perhaps, if he had spent less time dreaming and more time thinking about survival, he might still have been alive. She knew better now.
Her eyes lifted toward B'hala again.

The city remained beautiful, almost offensively so. Patin folded her arms tightly across herself, as though the gesture might hold the past where it belonged. The story about the two sisters lingered somewhere in the back of her mind, refusing to disappear with the rest of the memory.

'A sister, apparently.' Her jaw tightened as the memory struck again.

Marie watched a myriad of emotions flicker across Patin's face in rapid succession before settling somewhere between a scowl and confusion. This was a deep dive into Patin's and indeed Bajor's past, and Marie was sensitive to that fact. What she was seeing was personal, deeply so.

"Why does this make you angry? Was it the story, or the facts behind it?" She asked gently.

Patin's eyes remained fixed on B'hala. For several seconds she gave Marie nothing. Her jaw worked once, then again, as though the answer itself had lodged somewhere behind her teeth and she was deciding whether to spit it out or swallow it. She looked away, folding her arms tighter across her chest.

"The story," she finally said, though the words came reluctantly. "And the person who told it." Her gaze dropped to the ancient ground beneath their feet. "My Fa loved to tell stories." A humorless little smile touched her lips. "He filled my head with that shit when we were hiding from Cardassians and moving from one resistance cell to another. We barely had enough food some days, and here he was telling me fairy tales about ancient cities and sisters who appeared because somebody wished hard enough." She swallowed and picked at her cuticles. "I hated him for it."

"You hated him for trying to shield a little girl from the harsh reality?" Marie prompted "of giving hope for a better future? Or was there something else?" she plonked herself down in the sand and waited. Content not to go any further until she got the answers that she was waiting for. In this existence - time had no meaning whatsoever.

"What are you, my therapist now?" Patin muttered. She reached casually into the empty space beside her and, with the sort of familiarity that suggested she had done this more than once, pulled a battered bottle of kanar from the void. She popped the cap with her thumb, took a long, hefty swallow, and winced as the liquor burned its way down.

Patin lowered the bottle and stared at it for a moment. "Gods, that's awful." She still took another drink anyway. Stubbornness on point, she wasn't prepared to divulge everything up front. Her eyes returned to B'hala, fixing on the ancient city with exaggerated interest. “Weren’t we looking for secrets or something?” she asked, the casual tone doing a rather poor job of disguising the retreat.

"You don't get to be Captain for 14 years without becoming part therapist" Marie snorted as she pulled the bottle from Patin's hand and took a swig herself. "You're right - that is awful" She grimaced and swallowed, handing the bottle back.

"From memory, we were looking for when the Prophets and the Pah Wraiths/Vezda Pah had their disagreement, or at least that's what I thought we were looking for." Marie shrugged as she looked over the city. "You brought us here"

“Not intentionally. If anything, I’ve realized while spending time with them.” Patin pointed upward, toward the strange emptiness surrounding them. “They love to pull strings and drop hints, but actually coming right out with the point? Apparently that’s beneath them.” She looked back toward B’hala, her expression settling into something more thoughtful. “I think they wanted us to see the story.” Her gaze lingered on the ancient city. “But I've no idea what it means?”

“I mean, we’re here. We may as well look around, right?” Before Marie could answer, Patin stepped forward and passed through the edge of the void. Reality folded around her.

The barren emptiness of the void and the Badlands, vanished, replaced by ancient Bajor in all its magnificence. B’hala rose before them, immense towers climbing toward the sky, their surfaces catching the light while bridges and terraces threaded between buildings that seemed impossibly graceful for a civilization so young. The city stretched across the landscape with an almost deliberate order, every structure appearing to have been placed with a purpose Patin could not yet see.

She stopped and took in the visage, for once Patin had nothing smart to say. Her eyes moved slowly across the skyline, taking in the towers, the avenues, the strange geometry of the city beneath the ancient sky.

" Is it as the stories once told?" Marie asked quietly, letting her eyes wander around the landscape. It was truly impressive for the timeframe. She looked skyward as if to check where the Prophets were in this period, and saw nothing but clear skys.

"What's that over there?" She pointed to a dark mountain that looked like an erupted volcano with a molten core ready to explode again.

Patin looked toward the range of mountains that separated B’hala from the Kendra Valley. “The Kendra Mountains. That’s one of the old volcanoes.” She squinted at it for a moment. “Although I remember it being bigger.”

She glanced back across the city, taking in the landscape with the peculiar familiarity of someone who had once known a place that no longer existed. “Actually, that whole mountain range feels smaller. Of course, I was here like thirty thousand years from now, so...” She shrugged. “Things change, I guess.”

Her attention returned to the city and the people moving through its streets. “In fact, this whole area is different. Same basic layout, I guess, but...” Patin's eyes narrowed as she searched the skyline. “I remember there were two towers in the central courtyard. Or rather, one tower and a partial.”

She pointed toward the distant courtyard. “The other one had fallen.” A faint smile touched her face. “Made for good shelter, though. Kept the rain off, mostly.” Her expression softened as she looked toward the courtyard, something distant passing through her eyes. “In fact, that’s where I found someone I called friend.” For a moment, Patin simply stood there, looking toward the place where the fallen tower had once been.

Marie inclined her head, pondering the options of said 'friend'. "Do you mean Rhenora?" She asked, noting the expression on Patin's face. The two towers in the courtyard held a symbolism she couldn't put her finger on just yet - the whole thing was symbolic to a tea - she just had to work it out.

Patin's eyes remained fixed on the courtyard. Reality shifted like a watercolor painting caught in the rain.  The magnificent city around them began to soften at the edges, its pristine stone giving way to weathered walls and broken masonry. Green reclaimed the streets, vines creeping between ancient stones and moss spreading across the steps. Rain began to fall, masking the memory/vision, pattering against the ruined city with the steady rhythm of a Bajoran storm.

Patin watched herself, much younger, moving cautiously through the rain. The teenage girl kept close to the walls, glancing over her shoulder as the distant voices of Cardassian guards carried through the streets. She ducked into the remains of the fallen tower, pressing herself against the damp stone and holding her breath.

Then she heard a rustle from deeper inside the ruins. Young Patin spun around, ready to run or fight, only to find herself staring at a little blonde-haired girl.  Barely ten years old, perhaps. Thin, soaked through, and watching her with a wary expression like someone who had already learned that strangers could be dangerous.

Neither of them moved. The rain continued to fall through the broken roof above them. The younger Patin slowly lowered her hands. The little girl stared back. 

The vision settled around them, leaving the two women standing at the edge of the ancient courtyard, watching the beginning of a friendship that had already become something much larger. Patin swallowed. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “I think this is where we met.”

Marie watched the interaction then, and as the timeline continued, the two continued to bump into each other at regular intervals. "It seems that fate brought you two together," she mentioned as she watched each happenstance, realising it was all by design from those still very quietly pulling strings from above.

"Damn them, they planned all of this; every time you two met was planned. They had eyes on you both from forever ago." She turned to Patin. "Your life was never your own, and neither was hers"

Patin watched the last echoes of the vision fade from the courtyard. “I came to terms with that a while ago. They may pull the strings, but that doesn’t mean they get to decide what you do with them.” She glanced sideways at Marie, a crooked smile beginning to form. “Choice is a funny thing. Sometimes you can be pushed toward a door and still decide whether you’re going to kick it in or knock politely.”

Her eyes narrowed compassionately. “Although...” She looked Marie over. “They pulled your strings pretty hard too, didn’t they?”

"I guess so. Although I wish so many of my crew didn't have to die for it. This wasn't their prophecy; they were doing their jobs." She turned her head away, hiding the tears that pricked her eyes and threatened to fall. "I'd always believed the future was made through hard work, dedication to the cause, and a little luck. This blows it out of the water." She shook her head, the gold of her tunic absorbing the moisture from her eyes as she swiped at the tears. "Damnit, I swore I wasn't going to cry"

Patin had never been good with tears, or crying, and she had never pretended otherwise. It wasn't that she didn't care. She cared far more than she usually let anyone see. She simply had never understood the purpose of displaying pain when there was nothing she could do with it. Looking backward with regret instead of looking forward with whatever came next had always seemed pointless to her.

What Patin didn't realize was that she did it all the time.

She looked at Marie for a long moment, then stepped a little closer. “Look, your crew didn't die because some cosmic strings got pulled and the universe was stacked against them. Well, not intentionally. Hell, the universe is stacked against everybody.” Her voice softened. “What I'm trying to say is, your crew died doing what they loved. They chose to be explorers. They chose to seek out new things and visit new places. They chose to stand beside you when things got ugly.”

Patin gestured toward the ancient city around them. “That's called free will, hun. The Prophets may have plucked the Vezda string, but you and your crew still decided what music to make with it.” She gave Marie a quiet, understanding look. “You weren't their puppets. You were a crew. And when the universe handed you something terrible, you faced it together, like a conductor facing an orchestra.”

She paused, her expression gentling. "What matters now is, B'hala has secrets to unravel, and that's what we are going to do. Starting with the fact that when I was here, there were two towers, one built, one fallen. " She looked around, "But all I see at this moment is the one."

"So what happened to the other one?" Marie dried her eyes with a tissue box that she conjured up. She looked around, seeing no foundations, no evidence of it having been removed - just gone. "So what do the towers represent? Did your father ever tell you? Or a prophecy maybe?" she probed, noticing one of the nearby volcanoes rumbling before an eruption. The landscape was young, and continued to move and shape itself.

“I don't know.” Patin shrugged. “But let's find out.” She reached into the inner pocket of her jacket and mimicked pulling something out, her fingers closing around empty space as though the timeline itself had somehow been tucked away there. With a practiced motion, she drew it out and held the shimmering strand between her hands.

“Let's see what we've got.” P atin adjusted the controls with her thumb, treating the impossible thing much like a video control. The world responded, people began moving. At first it was subtle, a merchant crossing the street too quickly, a child running past them in a streak of color, workers carrying materials appearing and disappearing as though reality had forgotten to render every moment between one step and the next. Then Patin pushed the timeline faster. B'hala blurred around them.

Generations seemed to pass in the space between heartbeats. Buildings rose and vanished, streets filled and emptied, sunlight became darkness and returned again. The people became little more than flowing streaks of motion, a river of lives moving through the same streets while the city itself slowly changed beneath them.

Patin watched carefully. The landscape shifted again, and then a group of workers appeared in the central courtyard. Stone was being hauled into place. Scaffolding climbed steadily upward. A tower was beginning to take shape. Patin's thumb moved across the controls. Slowing things down again.

The rushing world decelerated until the workers were moving normally. Then Patin made one final adjustment, and the entire scene settled into stillness. She smiled, “Nice.”

Her gaze moved over the workers before settling on the surrounding camp. “Now, whenever there's building to be done, you don't look at the people doing the building. You look for the one doing the most thinking.” She pointed toward a nearby tent.

Inside stood a man surrounded by rolled parchment, architectural drawings, and half-finished designs. He was balancing several scrolls against one arm while studying another, occasionally comparing one drawing against another with the intense concentration of someone trying to make an idea exist before anyone else could see it. “Like that geeky lookin' fellow over there.”

Marie followed Patin's gaze. The man looked like any other, bar the odd look in his eyes. He had the facr of someone who knew more than he was letting on. Much much more.

"Who is he?" Marie asked, stepping closer to the man with the mysterious mind. She peered over his shoulder, looking at the beautiful sketches done with an architects precision and the beauty of an artist. "It's amazing"

The Architect's head tilted slightly. Had he heard them? Their voices were not sounds carried through the air, to him, but something that seemed to arrive from somewhere behind the world itself. He slowly lowered the parchment in his hands and looked over his shoulder toward the two luminous figures standing behind him.

The man's eyes weren't quite focused on either of them. Instead, they seemed fixed on something just beyond their bodies, as though he were seeing an entirely different version of the world layered over the one around him.

His lips moved, “Thank you, blessed one,” he murmured in ancient Bajoran. “The stars shine upon me. Your chosen Architect.” He smiled to himself and returned to his drawings.

Patin exchanged a look with Marie. The Architect suddenly stopped again. His fingers tightened around the parchment. “No,” he whispered, his expression changing. “No, that is not where the second light belongs.” He began rearranging the drawings across his table with increasing urgency, muttering to himself as he worked. “The sisters... the sisters must remain together.”

His hand trembled. “I have seen it. I have seen them.” He looked up again. This time, his eyes seemed to settle directly on Patin. For just a moment, the man's face went completely still.  “You,” he whispered.

Patin raised an eyebrow.  “Me?" She looked at Marie, "Is he really talking to me?"

The nearby volcano rumbled. The sound rolled across the camp like some enormous beast stirring beneath the earth. The ground shuddered under their feet, sending a tremor through the Architect's table and rattling the parchment spread across it. Several scrolls slipped to the ground.

"Did NOT see that coming" Marie gaped as the architect looked directly at them with a knowing expression. This man was no man, but something else entirely. Alien? Prophet? Vezda? More questions to be answered.

For one disorienting moment, the Architect seemed to flicker before them, not vanish, but shift, as though they were seeing him at several different ages at once. Young. Middle-aged. Ancient and exhausted. His hand moved across the drawings in a blur, tracing lines that seemed to change beneath his fingers. The volcano groaned again.

The Architect looked toward the mountain, his face tightening with fear and wonder. “Not yet,” he whispered in ancient Bajoran. “There is still time.” Then his gaze snapped back to Patin. “No,” he said, his voice suddenly resigned to the urgency. “There is not.”

TBC

 

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