Title: Woman King

Author: IAmRightHere

Category: Action/Adventure, Drama

Warnings: Gratuitous McKay whumpage, but for a good cause, as always.

Rating: K+

Spoilers: None

Betas: I was blessed with a Holy Triumvirate of Heavenly Betas for this story. Words cannot express my gratitude to Kamilion, Tazmy and my first true handholder, Pranksta. Prank, blessed are ye among betas.

Summary: A tale of two adventures and two adventurers, McKay and Teyla, who manage to build a solid friendship despite their differences.

Disclaimer: SGA was not created by me. I own no part of it except for the stories in my head.

Feedback: Of all sorts is appreciated and gratefully accepted.

A/N: In my previous fiction, "Twelve," a tiny Rodney and Teyla vignette deposited itself near the end of the story. I wondered about whether these two characters could ever find a common ground, and "Woman King" is a story about how that might happen.

Lyrics to "Woman King" by Iron + Wine are used without permission but with deepest thanks.

Prologue

"A true friend freely advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably."—William Penn

hundred years, hundred more
someday we may see a
woman king, bloodshot eye
thumb down and starting to weep

Teyla Emmagen wasn't interested in the physical sciences or in Prime/Not Prime, and she wasn't loquacious enough to bite back when Rodney McKay was whining all day long.

There was a time, early on, when he had tested how far he could go with her, how much insult Teyla would tolerate. She had accepted none of it and had told him so the first chance she got, as he was walking away from her, smirking and not noticing her dangerous expression.

She had caught him and thrown him down hard, on the mossy soil underneath a tree, rather than on the rocky terrain a few metres away. They were on the Mainland visiting the Athosian settlement, so Teyla had fighting sticks with her for sport, rather than defense. The sticks had bobbled against McKay's Adam's apple as he'd tried to fight off the powerful force that was straddling his chest.

"Say it," she'd said, low and quiet, like a growl.

"What?" he'd wheezed.

She'd pressed the sticks against his throat a little harder, teach-him-a-lesson hard, not enough to actually cut off his windpipe, glaring at him even more intently than before.

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry. I won't call you Xena any more."

"Xena?" she'd whispered, coming so close that he could smell the fragrant balm she used on her hair.

"I will never call you anything insulting ever again. I promise."

With that, she had risen and helped him up. Then she'd smiled and the air had cleared between them

Chapter One

No one had been down the stairs in a very long time. Someone had roused him from unconsciousness with a carefully aimed bucket of cold water, thrown in some hardtack and a flask, and left. Now Rodney McKay was hungry, cold, wet and thirsty, in no particular order.

He was locked within a stone-block cell, behind a heavy wooden door that let in a sliver of golden light underneath. The walls and floor, slick with subterranean moisture, radiated a chill that had settled in his bones while he'd sat there hour after hour. Except for its lone occupant, the cell was completely empty, lacking even so much as a thin blanket or a chamber pot. His boredom and disgust were almost as wearing as his fear.

Ronon, Teyla and the Colonel were not with him in this place, and he felt thoroughly unsettled without them.

"Hello?" he called weakly, whenever the sounds of footsteps or opening doors reached him. "Teyla? Ronon? Anyone?" The footsteps continued on without pause, a passing shadow visible from the crack under the door.

After many days spent alone in the dark, someone approached the massive plank door and stopped there. A wedge of torchlight sliding along the space beneath grew brighter. Iron keys jangling together sounded like salvation as the lock fell to order and the door was pulled open.

Silhouetted against the glowing firelight beyond stood Teyla. McKay thought he'd cry with relief.

"Teyla! Thank God!" He reached out to her, but stopped when he noticed her bedecked in a splendid, flowing dress of shining yellow, bordered with white lace and velvet. Her hair was piled on her head in dramatic ringlets and curls, set in place with sparkling hairclips shaped like birds and flowers.

"Were you attacked by Barbies or something?"

He never expected this petticoated version of the Athosian leader to heave her fist and punch him high on his forehead. But hit him she did, with a mighty blow that sent him falling backwards onto the floor. The scientist rubbed the pain away, then looked up at his teammate, dumbfounded, as he tried to pull his addled mind together.

"You won't touch me!" Teyla hissed, sounding as if the Furies themselves were living within her.

"Wha-? Tey?"

"Stand!" Moving forward, hovering over McKay, she had never appeared as large or as ferocious.

With clumsy motions, he scuffed to his feet, alert for another attack. This was Teyla, although her expression showed no recognition of him.

"Take off your shirt," she ordered.

He crossed his arms indignantly. "Okay, what. This is a joke, right? Did Sheppard put you up to this?"

With movements so quick she seemed to blur, Teyla plunged her fist into McKay's solar plexus, and he quickly ended up on the floor, again.

"Centris, deal with him!" she commanded, and a large man with tawny skin and equine features entered the cell and came around to McKay, who lay curled with his arms clasped about himself, struggling to draw breath. He stayed bent over, even as Centris signaled and two guards lifted McKay and stood him on wobbling feet before the woman who was one of McKay's closest friends.

Grabbing McKay's shirtfront, Centris tore it open, sending buttons plinking against walls and floor. Then, using a curved, serrated knife, he slit the undershirt beneath and spread the fabric wide, revealing McKay's torso from neck to navel.

Teyla approached and brought her hand to McKay's chest, then let it roam over his belly. The physicist cringed modestly, shrinking from her touch as the strong soldiers held him up like a cut of meat to a prospective buyer. She grabbed his hand.

"He palms are soft and won't take to farm work," Teyla sighed and then shot him a piercing stare. "You are pale and overfed. Useless!"

McKay bristled at the invasion. "Useless as a farmhand, maybe, but how many cowboys need a Ph.D. in physics? Hmm?"

"You continue to speak to me as if I were a mere dairymaid."

"Oh, you're hardly that, Teyla. Now if you'll just get your guys here to let me go…" He was stifled, this time by a smack to his face. "Ow! Cut it out!"

"You will address me with respect!"

He stared at her, suspecting that perhaps this was not a game or a trick by which to facilitate their escape. This was serious business, something that hadn't occurred to him until now. There was a short silence, while he collected himself and shook some of the cobwebs from his mind.

"I'm sorry," he relented. "The whole starvation, dehydration and hypothermia thing must be getting to me. What should I call you?"

Centris's humid whisper caressed his ear. "You will not call her at all. She is Woman King of Sey. You address her as Your Maje."

McKay glanced at the guards who still held him in an iron grip, then nodded, even though he didn't understand exactly what was going on.

"It doesn't matter," Teyla said. "You are a lowly criminal but, still, I would have hoped to use you as a laborer like the others. Unfortunately, you are not strong and I do not have the time or the resources to make you into anything useful."

With a lift of her chin she turned to Centris. "You agree that he cannot be helped?"

"I believe as Your Maje believes," he responded.

Teyla brought her stare back to McKay's belly. She grimaced in distaste, then squeezed his upper arms and grabbed a bit of flesh around his back. Then she dropped her arm and rolled her eyes like someone who could not find a good apple in the bowl.

"He is not worth the effort. Kill him," she said simply, then turned and stalked out of the cell, leaving her friend behind without even a backwards glance.

"Teyla?" he said helplessly as she departed. Centris and several sentries approached. They produced a heavy iron collar, which they clasped about his neck.

"No! Teyla!" he cried, as a chain was rattled through a thick metal eyelet in the collar's rim. The contraption had been crudely crafted, was rough and pitted and abraded his throat.

"Get it off! Teyla!" He cast pleading eyes past the doorway as his hands were bound with iron cuffs and his ankles hobbled with the same.

McKay was dragged out of his cell and heaved along a dark hallway, then pulled up an uneven stairway into a muddy courtyard under Sey's perpetually leaden sky. A small wooden cart stood ready. McKay was hoisted up and deposited onto the bed like a sack of potatoes and his collar chain affixed to a bracket in the side.

Centris was there to send him off. Leaning so close that McKay could see shining pores on his nose, the aide smiled with delight. He said easily, as if he were reading off a vacation itinerary, "You are condemned to death. This cart will take you to the burial pits, where you will be dispatched with all due speed.

Stuttering fearfully, McKay managed, "C-condemned…" before his tongue failed him.

"By Teyla, our beloved king, sovereign over this great nation!"

TBC...