I'll Tell You Everything

Posted on Sat Sep 19th, 2026 @ 11:38am by Captain Rhenora Kaylen & Remal Kajun

2,968 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: Character Development
Location: DS9

Their temporary quarters were quiet by the time Remal finished preparing Patina for bed. Most of the station's usual hum had faded into the softer rhythm of the night shift, leaving only the distant vibration of docking clamps and the occasional muted announcement from somewhere beyond the walls.

Patina sat in the middle of the bed, already tucked beneath the blanket, her small hands clutching the edge of it while Remal straightened the covers one final time. 

"All comfortable?" He asked, his voice set low with a parents authority. 

Patina nodded, her tight curls springy.

Remal smiled and reached down to brush a stray lock of hair away from her face. "Good." He turned toward the window, intending to give her one last look before dimming the lights. Instead, he found himself standing there for a moment. Bajor hung in the distance. From the station it looked impossibly small. Beautiful, blue and green beneath the scattered light of its atmosphere, turning slowly beneath them. Somewhere down there were mountains, lakes, forests, cities, old battlefields, old temples, and a little stretch of private beach beside Darkur Lake. Home.

Behind him came a small voice. "Story?"

Remal looked back to see a pair or irresistible tiny eyes pleading, and his heart stumbled. Patina was watching him expectantly. He couldn't help but to relent. "A story?"

She nodded firmly.

"Well..." He glanced toward Bajor again. "I know one about a little boy who had absolutely no idea what he was doing."

Patina smiled. "That sounds silly."

"It was," Remal agreed. He crossed back to the bed and sat beside her, resting one hand lightly on the blanket. "Very silly." He added as he touched the ridges on the bridge of her nose affectionately. "Okay... well, once upon a time, there was a boy who lived on Bajor during a very difficult time. He wasn't especially brave. He wasn't particularly wise and he certainly didn't have any great plan for his life."

Patina blinked sleepily. "A boy."

Remal's voice softened. "And one day, that boy made a friend." He paused recalling the memory. "That friend just happened to be a Cardassian. A child of the enemy."  Even now, his memory carried a strange weight. Remal did not try to hide it from himself, but neither did he allow it to darken the story. "They were both children, so neither of them cared very much about the things the adults cared about. They played together. They talked. They got into the sort of trouble children are very good at." A faint smile crossed his face.

"But then the little Cardassian became sick." Patina's eyes remained on him. "He had a disease they called Orkett's disease. The doctors discovered that the boy needed blood marrow, and they eventually discovered something else." Remal gently tapped one finger against the blanket. "The Bajoran boy was a perfect match."

"But the Cardassian's father wouldn't let him have it." Remal said quietly. "He absolutely refused due to pride." The room seemed a little quieter. "So the little Bajoran boy did something that wasn't particularly wise. Brave perhaps, or dumb, that's for history to decide I suppose."

Patina's eyes widened.

"He helped his friend escape." Remal smiled. "And that was the first time he really learned an important life lesson. Sometimes doing the right thing doesn't make your life easier."  He leaned back slightly.  "Sometimes hard choices make everything much harder." He looked toward the window again. "But that boy kept going."

The story moved forward slowly after that. "The boy grew older. He became a field medic in the Bajoran Militia because he had learned that there were people who needed someone willing to help them, even when helping them was dangerous. There were fights in jungles. There were long nights without enough food or medicine. There were moments when running seemed smarter than standing one's ground. And eventually," Remal continued, "the boy found himself running."

Patina's eyes were beginning to close.

"He found a group of monks who took him in, gave him sanctuary. They taught him faith. About patience. About the Prophets. Mostly, they taught him that having faith didn't mean knowing what would happen next." Remal smiled faintly. "That was probably one of the hardest lessons."

He let the silence sit for a moment. "Then, one day, they showed him an Orb."

Patina's eyes opened slightly. "An Orb?"

"An Orb."

"What did it do?"

"That depends on who you ask." Remal's smile deepened. "But for our boy, it showed him something about his future. He would say, it showed him a path. One of many." He looked again toward Bajor. "It showed him that someday he would meet a woman. A beautiful, brave, intelligent and stubborn woman who would become his wife and a home in the shadow of a mountain, surrounded by trees, flowers and a glistening lake. And it showed him that together they would have two amazingly spirited little girls."

Patina smiled sleepily. "Like me?"

"Very much like you." He winked to reassure her.

She seemed satisfied with that answer.

"The boy thought that meant his life had been decided." Remal shook his head. "He was wrong." Patina's eyes drifted shut again. "The Orb had shown him a destination. But it never promised him an easy road."

And what a road it had been.

"There were years of wandering and fighting. There were people he loved and people he lost. There were Pah-wraiths, dinosaurs, jungles, arguments, impossible missions, and more than one occasion when the lad had seriously questioned the motives of the Prophets. Then came a firestorm in Darkur Province. The USS Sunfire had come to help. And somewhere among the smoke and destruction, the path that had begun with a frightened little boy and an impossible prophecy finally crossed paths with the future the Orb had promised him."  Remal smiled to himself.  "He found her."

Patina was barely awake now. "Did they get married?"

"Eventually."

"Babies?"

"Eventually." He couldn't help but to smile at her simple innocence.

She made a sleepy little sound that might have been approval.

Remal tucked the blanket beneath her chin.  He leaned closer, lowering his voice as though sharing a secret. "The important part of the story is that our young boy never knew where the next step would take him. All that he knew was that he had to take it."

Remal glanced toward Bajor one final time. "Sometimes the road took him exactly where he'd hoped to go. Sometimes it took him somewhere he'd never expected. Sometimes he made wrong choices and had to find his way back." His hand rested gently against Patina's head. "And sometimes, when he thought he had finally reached the end of the road, he discovered there was another step waiting for him."

Patina's breathing had become slow and even.

Remal smiled. "That's the funny thing about stories and steps, little one. The best of them don't always go where you expect. They are designed to carry you beyond." He lowered his voice to almost a whisper. "Lives are meant to be lived the same way. One step at a time."

Outside the window, Bajor continued its slow turning beneath the station. Remal remained beside the bed for another moment, watching his daughter sleep. He had spent much of his life wondering whether the Prophets had shown him a future or merely given him direction and trusted him to keep walking. After everything that had happened, he suspected the answer was somewhere between the two.

The Orb had shown him a future in Rhenora. Life events had forged him. His heart had chosen to earn her. Somehow, despite every wrong turn, every separation, every battle and every impossible road between them, they had still arrived here... at the next step in the road of many.

He stood, once he was confident she was asleep, and backed out of her room quietly. As he turned, he came face to face with the loving eyes of a beautiful, brave, intelligent, and stubborn woman who had become his wife.

Rhenora watched silently, a small smile on her face as her husband tucked their daughter safely into bed and filled her dreams with the tales of times past, and always hope with the future.

"Ahhh, our young boy - what a man he grew into - despite the struggle and the harsh journey. A wise and respected leader of our people," She commented truthfully. "And a wife who is utterly grateful for his continued presence"

He wrapped his large arms around her tiny frame and pulled her close until they were nose to nose. His grin spread wide as he playfully asked, "Who is to say I wasn't talking about some other lucky fellow? Eh?" His light chuckle rumbled warmly from his chest.

He held the grin for another moment before his expression softened, his eyes settling on hers. "Though, between you and me, I suspect that young man would have had to be exceptionally fortunate."

"I'm not so sure about that. I think there's a young woman who feels just as fortunate. He provides her grounding, her sense of worth, her family." She rose to her tiptoes and kissed him. "What say you we take a little jaunt to Bajor?" she paused and allowed the universe to guide her mind. "Have you ever been to B'Hala?" She pronounced the word in the old tongue, a slight variation to modern times. "I feel we should go there"

Remal's grin softened into something warmer as her lips met his. His hands remained gently at her waist, one thumb brushing slowly along her side as he looked down into her eyes. "B'hala..." he repeated, giving the ancient pronunciation a moment of consideration. Then his brows rose with playful disbelief. "Do you mean the ancient city lost for twenty thousand years? The city where Sisko discovered the Reckoning tablet? The place that helped trigger the Reckoning, the battle between Pah'Wraith Kosst Amojan and one of the Prophets?" He gave a small, amused shake of his head. "That B'hala?"

His smile returned as he leaned forward until their foreheads touched. "Can't say as I've ever even heard of it."  A chuckle escaped him, and his fingers gave her waist a gentle squeeze. "Of course, knowing you, when you say we should take a little jaunt, I begin to suspect the universe has something considerably more interesting in mind than just a pleasant walk and a picnic."

"The universe has destined that our livea shall never be boring, as much as sometimes we would like it to be" She replied, bemused at the implication.

He kissed her forehead, lingering there for a moment.  "If my guiding star and the Prophets have colluded and decided we need to go wandering through an ancient city together, who am I to argue?" His eyes twinkled. "Besides, I've followed you into jungles, battles, Pah-wraith trouble, and more questionable situations than I care to admit."

He drew back just enough to meet her gaze again, his expression becoming softer. "One more adventure with my wife sounds like a rather good way to spend an afternoon. But only if you're feeling up to it and the doctor says it's okay." His brow raised, questioning her mindset.

"There's nothing but ruins, sand, and archeologists at B'hala. I'm sure we'll be fine. I had a dream about the towers and wanted to go and see what was left of them. They remind me of Patin, but there's something else to do with them that I haven't figured out yet," she admitted, taking a step back and regarding her husband.

"A dream, huh?" Remal's brow lifted, his smile taking on a knowing edge. "And you've already been doing research, it sounds like?" He watched her for a moment, the protective concern that had settled over him beginning to ease. His hand came up to gently caress her cheek, his thumb brushing along her jaw before resting there.

"Well, who am I to tell you no?" He gave her a warm smile. "If B'Hala is calling, then I suppose we should goand see why." His hand slipped from her cheek to find hers, his fingers curling comfortably around it. "We'll pack tonight and head out first thing in the morning. We can take it slowly, see the ruins, walk the site, and let your mysterious dream tell us what it was trying to show you."

A mischievous glint appeared in his eyes. "Do you think S'thenosis will watch Patina for us?" His attempt at maintaining a straight face lasted half a second before he snorted and broke into a laugh.

"We can ask, although I think Patina is slightly essier than her previous brood. She was telling me they used to literally scale the walls." She laughed a little at the prospect of mini -S'thenosis climbing the walls and ceiling. "I'll send her a message this evening. It should only be for the day"
She felt this would just be an ancient exploration for a few hours to resolve the dream she had had.

Remal's face went blank as he considered the mental image of Patina scaling walls and ceilings like one of S'thenosis' infamous younglings. "I don't know..." he said slowly, a thoughtful look crossing his face. "I can imagine a lot when it comes to the Dragon. Patina climbing the walls might be just one possibility."

He let the thought go as he turned toward their sleeping quarters, beginning to undress for the night. His fingers worked at the fastenings of his uniform before he slipped his shirt free. "One day?" he asked, as though considering the terms of their expedition. "Fair enough."

He pulled the shirt over his head, and a broad smile spread across his face where she couldn't quite see it. "So I'll make plans for at least three."

She laughed, realising he was most likely accurate, none of their exursions ever went to plan, particularly when the Prophets were concerned. "I think you know me too well." She turned and headed towards the bedroom, retrieving their day packs from the storage cabinet. "I feel these may be bad luck considering our history...."

Remal finished dressing and crossed the room, mostly to interrupt whatever thoughts were beginning to occupy her mind. He slipped his arms around her from behind and pulled her into a warm, tight embrace, his chin settling lightly against her shoulder. "You act as though we're going to get kidnapped or shot at," he teased, "That's only ever happened three, maybe four times."

He kissed her cheek before falling backward onto the the bed. With a laugh, caught her hand and pulled her down with him before she could get her next word out.

She squeaked, but not in an objectional way, tumbling on top of him with a laugh before sombering a tad. Her gaze was drawn to the viewport and down to the planet in the distance. " There's someone there we need to talk to"

Remal's playful mood sobered. Whatever had caught her attention was enough to pull her away from the moment, and that meant he needed to pay closer attention. He shifted beneath her, following her gaze toward the viewport and the planet beyond it. Squinting slightly into the distance for another moment before looking into her distant eyes. "I don't suppose you have any idea who?"

She contemplated the feeling, reaching out for more information but getting nothing. "Someone old, not from this time," she replied. "Sorry, that's all I have to go on. Sometimes I think it wouldn't hurt the Prophets to provide more to go on"

He rolled slightly to the side, allowing her to slide off his chest and settle beside him. "Fair point," he said with a small smile. "The Prophets have been vague for as long as anyone can remember. We Bajorans have just learned to sorta roll with it." His smile widened slightly. "Besides, if they told us everything, where would the fun be in figuring out their riddles?"

"Riddles, omissions, selective truths," She quipped as she snuggled into his chest, then fell silent for a few moments. "I wonder if Patin and Marie are having any wins with them?"

He contemplated for a solid moment as well. "I think, wherever they are, whatever they are doing, they are in a place all their own. They were both fighters and leaders. I imagine they have the whole of the afterlife bowing down with respect right about now."

"Patin bows to no-one, and Marie, she would convince them of the error of their ways. Whether the Prophets listen, who knows." Her thought process was interrupted by a barrage of sneezes. "And so it begins"

The sneezing fit eventually passed, leaving the quarters quiet once more. Remal gathered her gently into his arms, and before long the day's exhaustion began to settle over them both. Rhenora rested against his chest while his arms remained wrapped securely around her, the familiar rhythm of his breathing slowly drawing her toward sleep.

In the adjoining room, little Patina slept peacefully beneath her blankets, entirely unaware of the plans being made for the morning or the strange feeling that had followed her parents' conversation.

Outside the viewport, Bajor continued its silent journey beneath the stars. The planet looked peaceful from so far away, its ancient mountains and forests hidden beneath the darkness. Somewhere among them waited the ruins of B'Hala, an unanswered feeling, and perhaps an old presence Rhenora had sensed.

For tonight, there was nothing to be done about any of it. There would be time for questions in the morning. There would be time for answers, too, though neither of them yet knew how much the Prophets had already shown them.

TBC

 

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