B'Hala Reborn

Posted on Sat Oct 10th, 2026 @ 1:39am by Captain Rhenora Kaylen & Remal Kajun

4,069 words; about a 20 minute read

Mission: Character Development
Location: B'Hala - Bajor

The tower lay a crumbling ruin before them - joint pieces of stone buried and scattered still waiting to be unearthed. Rhenora couldn't wrap her head around the fact that they were somehow going to rebuild the crumbling city, much less turn it into the glowing jewel of Bajor.

"I'm sorry - I don't get how WE...the 'four' as you call us, are gonna do this" She admitted.

The Architect looked from Rhenora to the ruins and back again, apparently considering the question far more seriously than either of them expected. "How?" he asked, almost as though he were genuinely surprised by the question. "The same way it was built the first time." He spread his arms toward the ruins. "One stone, one wall, one foundation, and one room at a time."

There was a sudden enthusiasm in his voice, the old man slipping into the role of a tour guide who had finally reached the part of the tour he was most excited to show them. "Where you see a ruin. I see the bones of a city. I've seen B'Hala before, you know. I watched it rise from the ground. I watched the builders construct it again. I know what it looked like when it was nothing more than plans and stone."

He turned toward Remal. "And I've seen you do it." Remal blinked. The Architect pointed toward him. "Ah, yes, you built your cabin." He pointed toward Rhenora. "Then the two of you built it again, together." His hands came together in front of him, fingers interlacing as though fitting two pieces of a puzzle together.

"That is what you don't understand. You think I am asking you to build a city because you know how to build cities." He shook his head. "I am asking because you know how to build futures."

"Ambiguous as ever," Rhenora retorted as she took in this information and tried to wrap her mind around it. Patina was still only a toddler, and the second child still months from being born. How they were to build a future, let alone a city, was still beyond her grasp of comprehension despite the projections from the Architect.

From the distance she heard hushed voices, and realised they had been noticed. Even out of uniform they were recognised, not something she wanted nor appreciated. Being the parents of the Emissary came with its pitfalls.

The Architect began walking slowly along the edge of the ruined foundation, gesturing toward the scattered stones as he went. "You built a home from almost nothing. You made something that belonged to the both of you. You changed it when your lives changed. You made room for another life. Then eventually, another."

His gaze settled briefly on Patina before returning to the ruins. "You didn't have a blueprint for that, did you?" He smiled. "Of course you didn't. Nobody does." The Architect turned back toward them, his expression suddenly very clear. "You simply built what was needed next."

He swept one arm toward the ruined city. "B'Hala will be the same." For once, there was no hesitation in his voice. "You will build what is needed next. Stone by stone, decision by decision, life by life. You will make mistakes. You will change your plans. You will discover that something you thought belonged in one place belongs somewhere else entirely."

His smile returned. "That is how every great thing is built." He looked between them. "And that is why I know you can do this." The Architect turned toward the ruins again, his eyes following something neither of them could see. "You are already very good at building each other's futures." He paused. "Perhaps it is time you helped to build Bajor's."

More tourists noticed, and some of the archeologists had stopped their work and whispered amongst themselves. She picked up the odd word as they spoke in hushed tones. 'Emissary, B'Hala'.

"If you lead, they will follow," the Architect said smugly.

Remal waited until the Architect had wandered a little farther ahead before gently catching Rhenora's attention. He glanced toward the growing number of eyes around them, then back toward the old man. "Can I borrow you for a minute?"

He waited until they had put a little distance between themselves and the Architect, enough that his voice wouldn't carry. Patina remained close beside them, blissfully unaware of the weight of the conversation taking place around her. Remal looked at Rhenora for a long moment.

"What are we doing?" He gave a small, almost apologetic smile. His eyes drifted toward the ruins. "He's convinced this is going to happen. He talks about it like he's already walked through the finished city." Remal shook his head slowly. "And somehow, he seems just as certain about us as he is about the buildings."

He looked back toward Rhenora. "I thought we were in agreement about keeping Patina out of the Emissary limelight."

"That's the plan, but I still haven't worked out who or what he is. Part Prophet maybe, or just a whackjob who knows too much about us." Her voice was low. "I get a weird feeling from him, but I can't put my finger on it. " She steered them away from prying eyes and ears.

The uncertainty in her voice was enough to settle something within him. He had learned a long time ago to trust her instincts, especially when she couldn't quite explain what was setting them off. Some things were felt long before they could be put into words.

"I don't know what he is, and I'm not sure we really want to find out." His eyes moved toward the Architect, watching the old man fuss over the ruins with the same certainty he seemed to have about everything else.

As they talked, Patina took an interest, of her own, in what was happening. She moved over and was attempting to stack a small stone on top of a larger one.

"Now even Patina is conspiring against us" Rhenora stepped forward to scoop up their daughter - only to have her scoot around the back of the stone pile and continue her building. "Now is not the time, young one" She started to scold before the Architect emerged from around the corner.

A deep rumble could be heard in the distance, the sky darkening with a pregnant cloud both large and menacing. The sun seemed to flee before it, rapidly eclipsed by the growing beast as it crested the mountain peaks and generated more dark energy.

"Central transport, 3 to beam up." Rhenora tapped her combadge in an effort to escape the darkening clouds.

"Sorry, Captain, too much atmospheric interference; you'll need to seek shelter at your current location."

The tents began to flex and bow, threatening to topple and blow away with the gusty wind. The rain began in horizontal sheets, driving everyone towards the ruins in an effort to find shelter from the storm. Jagged lightning lit the dark sky, and Rhenora spied a simple stone structure that was once probably a cold store room. It looked sturdy, and more importantly, intact.

"This way!" She shouted to the frightened people. Remaining outside until everyone was safe.

Remal barely had time to glance toward Patina before the first gust of wind tore across the ruins. The little stone she had been trying to balance shifted beneath her hands, and he stepped forward instinctively, keeping himself between the worst of the wind and his family. The distant rumble had become a deep, rolling roar, and the sudden darkness made the ruins look and feel entirely different.

Then the rain came as a rolling surge across the landscape. "Everyone inside!" Remal called, his voice carrying through the wind. He moved alongside Rhenora as she directed the frightened visitors toward the stone structure, using his own body to help shield those nearest him from the driving rain. One hand caught an older man's arm when the gust nearly sent him stumbling, while the other reached out to steady a woman struggling to keep her footing on the slick stones.

"Keep moving. Watch your feet. We've got you." There was no panic in him. The storm could be as angry as it wanted, but people still needed somewhere safe to stand, and Remal had always been good at finding the next thing that needed doing. He helped guide people through the narrow entrance, turning back each time he saw someone still exposed to the wind.

Another flash of lightning split across the darkened sky. For a moment the entire ruin was illuminated in stark white, and Remal glanced toward Rhenora, still standing outside to make sure everyone had reached shelter. He moved to her side without hesitation.

"Come on," he said, calm despite the roar around them. "We've got everyone we can. Let's get ourselves and Patina under cover before the Architect decides this is another part of his grand design."

The store room was barely big enough to house them all, Remal and Rhenora squeezing inside the stone doorway with Patina jammed up against their legs. Still - the child was not frightened. She pushed her way through the sea of legs towards the rear of the small room, running her hands along the stone until she found one in particular that she liked.

"Push!" She shouted, yet no-one paid attention to the small Bajoran who appeared to be doing nothing more than playing with rocks.

"Push!!" She shouted again, pulling on the trouser leg of the person closest to her. Rhenora looked through the people for their daughter, seeing her at the rear of the room and slowly squeezing her way through the people in that direction.

Frustrated Patina through her small bodyweight against the stone she had been pointing to, and it shifted - causing a deep rumble to emit from the ground beneath them.

A series of stones shifted sideways, revealing a tunnel at the rear of the room, large enough to move through with little trouble. There was a stunned silence amongst the crowd.

Remal waited for the stunned silence to settle before moving carefully through the crowd. His eyes found Patina near the newly revealed opening, the little girl seemingly far more interested in the fact that she had just shifted half a wall. He crouched down a few steps away, keeping his movements slow and deliberate so he wouldn't startle her. "What have you found, little one?" he asked, a quiet curiosity in his voice.

His gaze followed the path of the stones, as they disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel beyond. The opening was clean enough to suggest it had been sealed rather than mearly collapsed, and the deeper passage disappeared beyond what the available light could reveal.

Remal's expression shifted as he looked back toward the room. The Architect was nowhere to be seen. He slowly straightened, scanning the faces around him before looking toward the entrance and then back at the tunnel. His brow furrowed slightly. "Hrmm." He looked down at Patina again, then toward the passage. "A secret tunnel?" A faint smile tugged at his mouth. "How very... obviously pre-destined."

He glanced once more toward the place where the Architect should have been standing. "Funny how he disappeared right before we found it." Remal stepped closer to the opening, though he stopped short of entering. One hand rested lightly against the stone beside him as he studied the darkness beyond.

Whatever this was, Patina had somehow found it. He looked back toward Rhenora, who was at his side, leaving the decision with her.

It was crowded in the small room, with the rain and storm still thundering outside. Going back to the station was out of the question at the moment. Rhenora swung her pack from her shoulders and pulled open the fastening, digging around inside its contents. Within a short time she had found the palm beacon and activated it, shining the strong beam down the tunnel Patina had discovered. In the distance, another room could be seen.

Remal shrugged his shoulders in resignation and reached down to scoop Patina up, keeping her safely tucked against him as he looked into the darkness beyond. "I guess we're going down the deep, dark hole into the unknown," he said, a hint of amusement creeping into his voice.

Then he looked down at Patina, his expression brightening as he slipped into his best Daddy-to-daughter voice. "Who would've guessed, huh?" He gave her a little bounce in his arms. "That's right. We're going on a trip. We're going to be brave little explorers today."

He glanced toward the tunnel again, then back at his daughter with an exaggeratedly unserious expression. Remal smiled and shifted Patina comfortably against his shoulder before looking toward Rhenora. "Lead the way, my Captain."

Rhenora stooped, flashlight lighting the way along the tunnel. She carried the pack in her other hand, ready to dump it and run if necessary. The stale air was pungent but safe enough to breathe, carrying a heady mustiness.

The second chamber was larger than the first, more ornate, with a higher ceiling. Stone platforms and shelves lined the walls, with an altar and sealed cabinet beneath it. For some reason, Rhenora was fearful of what was in the cabinet. She couldn't explain it, but it filled her with dread.

Remal followed close behind, keeping his senses tuned to the unfamiliar surroundings as they made their way through the tunnel. He was grateful when the passage finally opened into a larger chamber, even if his nose immediately objected to the stale, musty air that seemed to have been trapped there for centuries.

Patina, meanwhile, appeared fascinated by nearly everything. Her attention moved from the walls to the shelves, from the stone platforms to the strange markings scattered across the chamber. Every few steps brought something new for her to inspect from the safety of her father's arms.

Then she saw the altar. That's when the curiosity vanished from her face. Patina turned inward against Remal, hiding her face against his shoulder as though she suddenly wanted nothing more to do with the room.

Remal noticed the change immediately. His eyes followed hers toward the altar and the sealed cabinet beneath it. He didn't move any closer. "We should probably exercise some caution," he said quietly.

His gaze lingered on the cabinet for a moment before he looked toward Rhenora. There was something about the chamber that felt familiar, though he couldn't quite place it at first. "This whole situation feels familiar somehow." His brow furrowed slightly. "Reminds me of when they found the tablet of Kosst Amojin a few years back. Remember?"

"It's got Wraith vibes all over it" Rhenora agreed, unable to put more than a gut feeling on the place. Still, she trusted her gut more than anything. But why had Patina opened the passage for them to come here if it was something to do with the Wraith?

"There is something in there for us to find" She drew the feeling out "We were led here for a reason. But the Prophets led us here, not the Wraith, so what we find has to be related somehow." She tried to reason with the craziness of it all. "But that cabinet, or whatever is in it, is bad news."

Remal listened as Rhenora worked through the strange contradiction of their circumstances, his gaze moving between her and the sealed cabinet beneath the altar. He understood the reasoning, even if it did little to settle his own unease. He had spent enough time studying the old Bajoran stories to know that the Prophets rarely made their intentions clear. Whatever had brought them here, he wasn't ready to assume understanding just yet.

"Well, if the Prophets have gone to the trouble of bringing us all the way down here, I suppose we should at least try to find out why," he murmured. His eyes remained on the cabinet for another moment before he deliberately turned his attention elsewhere. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness beyond the reach of Rhenora's light, he began to make out details that had escaped his notice at first. The chamber's walls weren't quite as uniform as they had appeared from the entrance. Shallow grooves followed the contours of the stone, disappearing behind one of the larger platforms and continuing into a shadowed section farther along the wall.

Patina stirred in his arms. Until then, she had kept her face tucked against his shoulder, her small hands curled into his clothing. Now she shifted away from the altar, twisting just enough to look toward the darker part of the chamber. One hand lifted, her fingers opening and closing as she reached in that direction.

Remal glanced down at her, then followed the line of her attention. "Oh? Something else caught your eye, little one?" he asked softly.

Patina leaned toward the wall, her interest returning in cautious little increments. Remal adjusted his hold on her and moved only far enough to bring them closer to the place she seemed intent on seeing. He kept a respectful distance from the altar and its cabinet, mindful of Rhenora's warning, while angling the light across the stone.

The markings emerged slowly. They had been carved directly into the wall, their edges softened by an age that Remal could scarcely comprehend. Lines and shapes ran in ordered sequences, some grouped together and others separated by spaces that suggested deliberate breaks in the inscription. He recognized the care that had gone into their arrangement, though the writing itself was unfamiliar.

He leaned a little closer, careful not to touch the surface. Bajor's history stretched back through millennia of kingdoms, occupations, and religious traditions, and Remal had spent years studying the old accounts preserved by the faithful. Yet these markings belonged to something far older than the texts he knew. Thirty thousand years was a span of time that made even the oldest surviving stories feel like recent recollections.

"Huh," he breathed, his brow furrowing as he studied the nearest line. "I've never seen writing quite like this."

That piqued Rhenora's interest, and she moved closer to see the symbols. The dialect was indeed unfamiliar yet she could see similarities between it and anicent Bajoran.

The light shifted as he adjusted his wrist, catching the shallow cuts at a different angle. One symbol stood out from the others, its shape simple enough to distinguish despite the unfamiliar script surrounding it. Remal stared at it for a few seconds, then tilted his head, trying to make sense of the recognition stirring at the back of his mind.

"I've seen that before," he said at last, more to himself than anyone else. "Or something very much like it."

He didn't reach for the wall. Instead, he brought the light closer and examined the symbol from another angle, searching his memory for the old religious diagrams and fragments of Bajoran iconography he had encountered during his years with the brotherhood. He could remember a similar shape appearing in a much later depiction, though he couldn't recall where he'd seen it or whether the resemblance was meaningful.

" What does it mean?" Rhenora asked, heeding to his more advanced studies of their planet's ancient cultures.

He turned his attention to the carving again, his expression thoughtful. "I think I've seen this associated with one of the old symbols used in the stories of the Prophets. I couldn't tell you what it means here, though. A symbol can mean very different things depending on who carved it, and when."

Patina gave a small, impatient wriggle against his arm, her attention fixed on the wall.

Remal smiled faintly and shifted her into a more comfortable position, allowing her to keep looking. "All right, sweetheart. We're looking."

He swept the light farther along the stone. The markings continued beyond the section he had first noticed, following the wall around the curve of the chamber. There were too many for him to take in at once, and the beam was revealing only a small portion at a time. He couldn't tell whether they described a story, recorded an event, or served some purpose.

Remal fell quiet as he followed the line of symbols into the darkness. Whatever had been sealed beneath the altar, the people who built this chamber had left something else here to be found.

" We should send a team here to decipher all this, it could have some meaning we are unaware of" It was kind of stating the obvious but Rhenora felt it had to be said, the Architect however shook his head "These are not for Federation eyes, these are for Bajoran eyes"

Remal lowered his light a little as he considered the markings, letting the beam fall away from the wall while he searched his memory for where he might have encountered the familiar symbol. The movement was almost absent-minded, his attention still caught between the ancient carving and the half-remembered images from his years studying Bajoran religious history.

A faint shimmer lingered along the stone where his light had been. At first, he assumed it was simply an afterimage, the sort of trick that came from staring too long at a brightly lit surface in an otherwise dark room. He blinked and shifted his gaze, but the glow remained, a delicate thread of pale light following the carved lines.

He raised his light again, checking the section of wall before lowering it once more. The glow faded beneath the beam, then slowly emerged as his light moved away. His expression changed from curiosity to quiet astonishment.

"Rhen, hold on a moment." He angled his light toward the floor, careful to keep it from the inscriptions. "I think there's something else here."

He studied the wall, allowing his eyes to adjust. The faint illumination extended beyond the symbol he'd recognized, tracing other cuts in the stone that had been invisible a moment earlier. A few feet farther along, another line began to emerge, then another, each one joining the next in a pattern that seemed to follow the chamber's architecture.

"What did you find?" She asked, raising her balm beacon to illuminate the wall better.

Remal turned his head toward Rhenora, his voice dropping to a thoughtful murmur. "Could you lower your light for a moment? Or douse it altogether, if you're comfortable doing that? I think the stone itself is glowing."

"Well that would be a first" She murmoured, but turned off the flashlight, plunging the room into relative darkness. The storm began to recede outside, it's violence tempered by the layers of stone between them.

He waited, keeping his own light directed downward. The suggestion carried a flicker of excitement, though he remained mindful of the sealed cabinet and the unease it had stirred in both Rhenora and Patina. Whatever this was, he wanted to understand it before anyone went poking around where they shouldn't.

As the chamber grew darker, the glow became more apparent. Fine lines of muted blue-green light spread across the wall, following the inscriptions in long, intricate paths. The illumination was subtle at first, like starlight caught beneath translucent stone, but it gradually revealed a pattern much larger than the small section Remal had been examining.

He looked around slowly, taking in the way the markings continued beyond the wall and across the stonework toward the chamber's far side. The platforms and shelves, so ordinary in the narrow beam of a hand light, now stood within the edges of a design that seemed to encompass the room itself.

Remal let out a quiet breath. "Wow."

"Incredible, but what does it all mean?" It was a simple question that would haunt them for goodness knows how long. Nothing with the Prophets was ever as it seemed - or straight forward for that matter.

Patina shifted in his arms, her attention fixed on the luminous wall. He glanced down at her, then back toward the spreading lines of light, a small smile tugging at his mouth.

"Seems our little explorer has found us something worth looking at after all."

He fell quiet again, studying the patterns without pretending to understand them. The glow revealed more of the ancient work with every passing moment, but it offered no easy translation, no clear explanation of who had made it or why.

TBC

 

RSS Feed