The Will of the Spirits
Cainwen: You all see what a lovely person I am? I give you two chapters! In two hours! Now, please, leave reviews, or I will ask my masters Steve and Mr. Benevolent Wraith to go bother you. And they are liking me right now, so they probably would do me that favor.
(Steve and Wraith grin evilly and crack knuckles)
Cainwen: So, please leave a REVIEW and look out for my prequel A Mother's Love.
I have not died.
Oh! Why have I not died? Why have I been left behind again? Why do the Spirits prevent me from rejoining my wife, my family?
My mind is clouded, even as I lament my continued existence. A dull but persistent ache throbs in my chest with each beat of my heart. Around me, there is the soft hum of engines, the murmur of voices…human voices.
Why did John not kill me? Was not the weapon well charged? Even if it were not, could he not have killed me still? Or seeing that the weapon had failed to end my life, did he think it more profitable to take me captive?
Yet…I do not feel any bonds. Nothing prevents my movement except my own lethargy. I lie upon something soft, not the hard floor of a cell. For the first time in many years, I am warm. Someone has spread a blanket over me, and my head rests upon a pillow…
Perhaps it is because my mind is still wrapped in a fog that I do not understand. What is happening? I do not believe I am dead, but I cannot be a captive. No one treats a captive as they seem to be treating me.
Perhaps I am mad.
At last, the fog dissipates enough that I am able to open my eyes, if only for a moment. The light stabs my eyes and my vision is blurred by…tears?
Someone draws near to me…the woman. She is different than the others somehow. I crack my eyes open once again, and try to see her through the haze. She turns to someone I cannot see.
"Doctor, John, he is waking," she says, and I hear her, but as though I were underwater—it is distant, distorted.
"Nearly there," John's voice floats to me. "Doc, why don't ya give 'im something? He's had a rough night…"
He says more, but I cannot understand or cannot hear. I feel as though I were muffled in a cocoon of fleece, or floating in womb…
Another face hovers above me…the man with the accent…a kind face…I see his lips move, and his voice follows, delayed…
"Ah'd nair thought Ah'd say this tae one o' yoo, but, thank you. Thank you, faer gi'n us back Sheppard. Tapabh leigh."
How does he come to speak the old language?
Something bites my arm, and a chill spreads through my veins…I cannot ponder his knowledge of the old tongue, for I am once again welcomed into the arms of sleep…
…………………….
I wake with a jolt, as though hit with a wave of cold water. All around me is darkness and cold. On the air is the acrid taste of fear mingled with the exhaust of Wraith darts. I shout as one who has just awakened from a nightmare, and peer into the darkness. Memories swirl through my mind with no obvious order. I had thought he had killed me. I had wanted him to kill me. Then, finding myself alive, I had thought myself once again a captive…and now I am here, lying in a field with darts screeching overhead. I remember my chest aching…I touch it where I was hit by the energy weapon. The ache has lessened, melded with the residual pain of my healing body.
Sheppard stands before me, hale and healthy, but changed. He has been tempered somewhat by what has happened, and what I have shown him. In his hands, a weapon, held loosely, though he raises it slightly as I wake.
"Ah, Sheppard," I say, "I thought…"
What had I thought? I no longer know. So much has happened…
"There's a lot you don't know about humans," John tells me, some of his cheekiness back in his voice.
I lean on my left arm and rise to my feet. This planet is different…the soil and trees sing a different song, the stars are different, the moons are gone.
"Ah, I see," I murmur. John thinks he has done for me what I have done for him…brought me home. He could not yet understand that my home is with my family, and that no hive now can be my home. My home was a place of life—they are only places of death…
I turn to him once again. I wonder… "Next time we meet..."
"All bets are off," he replies. We watch each other. I wonder how long it will take him to understand what I have shown him.
A dart screeches closer to us…I turn to look, and when I turn back, John is gone.
The wind begins to blow, and I stand swaying on my feet. I am tired once again—I have much healing to do. I think I understand why the Spirits stopped John's hand. I have forged the first link of trust, laid the first brick in a new alliance of humans and wraith. John does not realize it, but he has delivered a more terrible weapon than he could imagine into the midst of the Wraith. I am what the queens would fear, what they should fear. I am one of the ancient ones. I know all the technology we possess. I know its flaws, how it has degraded over time, and how best to exploit it. My mind is not laid bare before the queens, nor will I be swayed. With my face I can pay homage, while my hands destroy what the queens have wreaked.
Yet I have work to do.
The End