In her dream, the stage was a small, dusty, wooden affair with boards that creaked as Lahn measured less than a dozen steps from stage left to stage right. Small motes of dust glinted through the hot spears of light flung from dark metallic canisters suspended by a spider's nest of cables and struts. The bleached glare footlights all but blinded her to the rest of the auditorium, but as she squinted past the harsh wall of light, she spied rows of narrow, empty seats with only a trio of silhouettes who leaned into each other silently. Her ears strained to hear murmurs, but no words. She didn't know why, but she knew with certainty one of them was the director.

Evlyn Lahn was not alone on stage. All her hosts were present. Sabina, Atrios, Rose, and the other Evlyn – Evlyn Yassal. Sabina was center stage right practicing pirouettes. Amazingly, for a woman in her late 20's and of a more matronly bearing, she succeeding in holding them with a gravity-defying grace. Tall, almost gawkish Atrios stood upstage from Sabina and watched her with a bemused expression. The lights stretched his shadow backstage until it twisted up the back wall and stood like a nameless extra. Rose, whose body served as Lahn's current host, was Lahn's haggard twin - her black hair was cut into a short, thorny tangle and her dark brown spot fled down her mahogany cheeks, neck, and shoulders. Rose stalked along the footlights as if pacing the bars of a cage and would periodically stop glare accusingly into the depths of the auditorium. Suddenly, as if she had a part to play she would consult her script, and silently mouth quick lines only to begin pacing anew.

For a moment, Lahn could not find Yassal, but she knew she must be there. Rose was her body while Yassal was her mind in a process that even the Symbiont Commission could only generously describe as complex. Eventually, she spied Yassal by her shock of gray-white hair almost glowed in the backstage gloom. Yassal the crone, impossibly old for a host, but as a shade in the mind of Lahn, free of the infirmities of her age. She eyed the rest of the stage through her milky eyes with a suspicious frown, but once discovered, reluctantly shuffled to her place among the lights.

Lahn continued to squint past the floodlights. "What's going on here?"

Atrios smiled, "You don't know? Why are you auditioning if you do not know?" His accusation bore only amusement.

"I didn't even know it was an audition," Lahn admitted apologetically. "What are we auditioning for?"

"I'm auditioning for the part of The Mother," Sabina said, assuming a croisé position. Her long black hair was done up in high layers, with a French braid spiraling upward. Lahn remembered the hours spent brushing tangles out of that hair when Sabina was her host.

"Very fitting. You were my first host, my beacon of kindness. I chose you because I wanted to experience raising young Trill and understand their lives outside of Joining. You enriched my life. I hope you get the part."

"You took a great risk in choosing me," Sabina said gravely, "I was never a tier one candidate, and had already had two children. The chance my body would have rejected the join was very high."

"I'm glad I took the risk."

Sabina smiled gratefully and nodded to Lahn. Lahn looked to Atrios.

"I shall be The Explorer," Atrios stated with certainty.

Lahn smiled at his confidence. She had forgotten Atrios' sparse hair and his muddy black spots that faded against his almost translucent skin. Decades of outdoor living had already started to weather that skin into a deeply lined face that easily smiled and held an expression that made some think he was lost, when as a stellar cartographer for Starfleet, he had always known his way. Lahn was Atrios Lahn until he was well into his eighties - far past the time greedier symbionts would have already chosen other hosts. "I selected you because you were a seeker and an explorer. I have always kept your spirit of adventure and wonder. You have hosted me the longest of any, and I treasure the memories of those years."

"We almost explored death together," Atrios chided. "Only Yassal has taken you closer."

"And I am still a fan of the northern continent Velocity league. Some of those games - we certainly explored death together," Lahn held out her arms, "I fear the jersey won't fit anymore."

Atrios eyed her up and down with a smile, "I approve of your choice on shape alone, and if I were younger -"

"You are young," Lahn corrected with a gentle smile of her own.

He chuckled, "and not a shade of your consciousness, I would take you to many a game."

Lahn smiled, and blew him a dramatic kiss, clutching her hands under her jaw, "Pity. Ours is a love that can never be."

Atrios grinned slyly. "Who said anything about love?"

Lahn tsked and shook her head. Atrios smiled and bowed just a little to Lahn who returned the bow before looking at Yassal expectantly.

"I am to be The Devil," said Evlyn Yassal, with a definite finality, her arms crossed stubbornly in front of her.

Evlyn Lahn sighed. "Of course," She stepped close as Yassal studied the ground. She murmured into her ear, feeling all eyes on them, "You keep secrets from me."

"All part of the agreement that brought us together. Do not be a fool. They watch you to make sure you do not break your agreement."

"They?"

"You know who I mean," Yassal snapped. "My...associates." There was no malice in her voice, only dread.

Lahn smiled and said, "Dreams are not reaching back into previous memories, so the agreement remains intact." Lahn's expression became more gentle as she looked at the milky jade eyes so much like her own but faded by time. Like her eyes, Yassal's spots were shadows. "You may not share everything with me, but what you have shared - that loyalty, that kindness. You are miscast."

"I think you misunderstand the Devil's role," Yassal retorted with more sadness than anger.

"That's something we'll find out together. I need you and am glad to have your experience and your wits. I wouldn't survive without it. Starfleet used to be for explorers, but I think those days are gone."

Yassal looked over to Lahn, her smile having a hint of bitterness, "Oh, they'll throw us a nebula when it's become too much a bloodbath, even for them. But until then, you need a killer, and you have one. I swore to protect the Federation, and I did, with everything I had."

"And then some. You lost what it meant to be Trill."

"No," Yassal said, bitterly, turning away, "I threw it away."

"Why?"

"Because they threw me away," Yassal answered in a tone that she knew so well when it came from herself.

Lahn felt a presence to her left and turned. Rose stood uncomfortably close to her, book nestled between her folded arms. Rose's eyes of watery jade held an expression both reverent and fearful. This close, Lahn could see the a long, pale scar along her chin and the speckled burn divots across her cheek. For a moment, Lahn looked at her with confusion – hadn't medical fixed those before the join? Then she shook her head. They could not heal how Rose saw herself.

"I regret you were my briefest host, Rose, and that I couldn't make everything right, but I fixed what I could. I needed you for that, and you gave without question. I cannot tell you how grateful I am." Lahn felt a tenderness that threatened to overwhelm her. Somehow I'll find a way to fix this.

Rose offered the book, which Lahn gently took from her hands. There was no lettering on the worn cover, its corners crushed in from rough handling. She flipped to the beginning, flipping through pages – slowly at first, then faster. She frowned and fanned to the end of the book.

"The pages are blank."

"Perhaps the play has yet to be written," Atrios said with a bemused air.

"Perhaps she has nothing to say," Sabina observed, her stance a low arabesque.

"That's preposterous," Lahn said. "Everyone has something to say."

"Perhaps her tongue was cut out," Yassal said.

Lahn shuddered, then felt a brush of annoyance. "You cannot audition for a play when you are not given any lines."

"Can't you? The director gives direction, not lines," Sabina said.

"I haven't heard any direction, either. What kind of play is this?" Lahn asked.

"It's the stage we all must play on," Atrios said, circling her, "the play we must all take a role in. It has been played by millions on Trill, trillions in the galaxy, and by the uncountable horde of the universe. The plot is the same, but the stories are all different. But for the Joined our destination is singular - Back to the pools, and the muck of Mak'ala. There you represent us, and we represent you."

"Represent us? To who?"

"We all answer to the pools," Atrios said, now joined by Yassal, Rose, and Sabina who paused in her dance to join in circling Lahn.

"But what is the question?"

Sabina asked, "Did you choose well?"

Atrios asked, "Did you choose wisely?"

"Yassal asked, "Did you choose at all?"

Voiceless, Rose looked at Lahn with an earnest gaze.

Lahn scowled.

"This play has only one ending, dear," Sabina said with surprising tenderness. "The only question is, did you carry us, or did we carry you?"

Lahn smiled. "At last, a question I can answer. Our lives end when we join. You carry half of me for the rest of your life. I carry all of you for the rest of mine until we return to Mak'ala."

"By then, we will be hundreds to join the thousands as part of the pools."

Lahn frowned. How more lives would call themselves Lahn? Each birth and each death added to those she carried. Each existence her burden and her boon. Was Starfleet the right place for her? Dare she place these four lives on the line? Could she be so cavalier with ten? Twenty? A hundred? She shuddered at the enormity of destiny. Joined trill spoke about lives, but rarely mentioned the deaths that have to happen for those lives to move forward. So much sacrifice. She wearily questioned her worthiness. Lahn slid to her knees and buried her face in her hands.

She felt Atrios' hand on her shoulder. "You are not alone Lahn. You will never be alone. We are with you. You have chosen us, and we in our own choosing guide you.

Lahn put her hand on Atrios' and looked back at her hosts who stood behind him - Hopeful, fearful, exuberant. She tried to see the hosts that would be. No matter who they were, Lahn would protect them, nurture them and share her very best at every join. In turn, they would guide Lahn through its many lives. She felt so much pride for all of them. Sabina, Atrios, Rose and Yassal. She would not fail them.