Chapter Text
The people of Fair Haven had once considered Kathryn and her companions to be spirit folk.
She could see the truth in that.
Were they not beings from another layer of reality?
They could alter the weather. Stop time. Rewrite memory. Resurrect the dead.
Kathryn came and went, appeared and disappeared, passed through boundaries the villagers did not understand and could only call magic when they tried.
This, she supposed, was a little like that.
They followed Seven’s thread.
Kathryn’s brow furrowed as the water gained clarity, as figures grew distinct.
Before them appeared an enormous statue, carved of the same pale stone as everything else, her hands and her face tilted to the surface.
Then the light shimmered strangely, a trembling breath, and betrayed the boundary only moments before Kathryn registered what she was looking at.
“Wait-”
The ocean released them into those outstretched hands.
Water slipped over the hull in shining sheets, drawn back. What remained of the pressure vanished with such sudden completeness that Tom’s hands scrambled over the controls to fire the ventral thrusters and stop the ground from rising to meet them.
A figure in the courtyard turned their face towards the disturbance and then carried on as if nothing had happened at all.
“Set us down, Tom,” Kathryn heard herself say.
Fair Haven had been Tom’s confection of Ireland more than Ireland itself, but still it had preserved the shape of the old stories Kathryn loved so much.
The other worlds in them had never been distant. The stories hid countries beneath green hills, described roads that crossed human ones without ever quite touching them.
Sometimes the entrance was a cave.
Sometimes mist.
Sometimes water.
Sometimes one only saw the door because something on the other side wished to be followed.
Kathryn swallowed.
She knew what waited beneath the hills in Irish tales. Knew what happened to travellers who followed strange music across the lake.
She also knew, no, felt she ought to know, that stories were not science. Seven would agree. Chakotay wouldn’t. Perhaps, for now, it would be best to leave her own opinion on the matter half-formed and undecided.
At least in Fair Haven she had always been certain of where the world ended, of where the meeting place was. Of what ‘real’ was. No matter how convincing the patter of rain or warm the friendly hand in hers, she knew the location and existence of the arch that separated her from the fanciful realm born of circuitry and tricks of light.
Yes. This was all a little like that.
It had simply been much more comfortable on the other side of it.
Kathryn was heading for the exit before Harry’s scans could attempt to confirm a breathable atmosphere.
“Captain-”
The door began to open. A calculated risk. Her favourite kind. She ducked beneath it, one hand holding the edge above her head in passing. Then her boots clacked against dry stone. The air that met her skin was cool, clean, faintly saline. Startlingly fresh for an environment enclosed by kilometres of ocean.
The others traded half a glance, grabbed their tricorders, and followed.
“Wow,” Tom exhaled.
High above them was a separation reminiscent of that between land and sky, only… tangible.
“Looks like a bubble,” B’Elanna murmured as she continued after Kathryn. “Must be some kind of forcefield.”
“Yeah,” Harry replied. “But it feels like if you pricked it, it’d burst.”
“Please don’t make me think about that.”
The skin of the bubble was more visible from beneath, it seemed, and Kathryn doubted that was a matter of chance. It shivered in bright opalescence, casting a watery reflection on all that dwelt within.
Ah.
The glow of that submerged moon they had witnessed from above was in truth this impossible sky holding back the sea.
Kathryn’s steps faltered when she realised she was not really sure where she was going. The others had fanned out behind her, tricorders aloft. A denizen crossed Kathryn’s path ahead, and purpose rediscovered her.
“Excuse me,” she called, moving more quickly now.
“Yes?”
The sound of her boots on the stone echoed in the courtyard. Echoed, and echoed.
Kathryn came to a stop and smiled.
“I’m Captain Kathryn Janeway,” she began, “of the Federation Starship Voyager. I’m looking for someone and was hoping you’d be able to help me.”
The alien inclined her head. She wore a beaded headdress that seemed identical to the ones worn on the surface. Her robes had the same cut, the same pastel colours. Her cheekbones were pebbled and her large, wet eyes shimmered in the sea light like those above did by the moon.
“My greetings to you, Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager,” she replied warmly. The cadence was as familiar as the rest of her. “Whom do you seek?”
Two answers tangled on the tip of Kathryn’s tongue. She frowned. The alien registered her hesitation and bowed her head again.
“Do not be troubled, Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager. I believe I know. There really is only one answer, is there not? Come. Come, I will show you.”
She looked over Kathryn’s shoulder.
“Your friends should accompany you. Yes, bring your friends.”
Kathryn nodded. She turned. B’Elanna was standing at the foot of the towering statue in the courtyard’s centre, neck craned. Kathryn’s eyes followed hers all the way up.
“You admire the Lady,” the alien spoke proudly, “and rightfully so. Is she not beautiful?”
“Very beautiful,” Kathryn said on a swallow. “She… looks Lanthari.”
“Of course she does!” the alien laughed, not unkindly.
As though sensing the attention, B’Elanna looked toward them.
“There’s more to this monument than meets the eye, Captain,” she called, giving her tricorder a little shake. “I’ve got some very interesting readings here.”
“Getting interesting readings everywhere,” Tom chimed in.
Kathryn nodded. She beckoned the three of them with a curl of her fingers.
“Our lovely host here has offered to help us,” she said as they drew near. “I’m sorry, what was your name?”
The rest of her questions remained in her own mind. There would be time for them later.
“I am called Palella,” came the friendly answer. “Come, come.”
Palella turned with a soft flutter of fabric and began towards the darkened, arched entrance to the temple at the rear of the courtyard.
“Doesn’t she seem a little… young? I thought it’d been ages since anyone was ‘called’ down here before Seven,” Tom murmured.
Kathryn’s stare, thrown over her shoulder, received the contrition it demanded.
“First things first, Lieutenant.”
“Aye, Captain.”
No one said anything else.
They entered the temple.
The passage they travelled opened into a hall so vast Kathryn had to lift her head to find its ceiling. Shallow channels of water ran through the floor. Blue-white light traced its way down the walls. Niches carved into the walls beside them held toys, cushions, tools, bowls. There were columns carved in low relief with waves and seagrasses, the patterns spiraling upward until they disappeared into shadow. Between them hung cloth, and beads, and shells-on-strings.
The space was cavernous, but far from empty. The height did not fully consume the murmurs of low conversation, the delight in a child’s giggle, the trickle of water beside their feet. People moved around them without ceremony. An elderly Lanthari sat cross-legged on the floor and sorted ribbons in woven baskets.
Palella did not slow.
She did not turn to check if they were following, paid no mind to their passive scanning, asked no questions and made no polite small talk.
Tom elbowed Harry’s attention toward a mosaic that resembled a large fish, his eyes wide and his mouth open. He wiggled his eyebrows. Harry sighed.
The hall went on, and on, and on.
Kathryn was about to speak when they entered an alcove and all speech left her.
Seven.
She sat on the stone, knees drawn into her chest, feet dipped in a channel of water. She looked soft in the diffuse blue light. Hair caressed the shoulders her sundress left bare.
Seven.
She did not look afraid. She did not look expectant, either. Tired, perhaps. Calm. She moved one foot lazily in the stream.
B’Elanna broke the silence when it became clear Kathryn wasn’t going to. Or couldn’t.
“Seven?”
The word echoed. Her head turned. Her face lit up and Kathryn had never seen anything more lovely. Seven’s eyes found their target and their target alone.
“Kathryn!”