Dance on the Wind

by Medie
Rating: PG
Spoilers: through first season
Disclaimer: I own the Athosian (or Ethosian whatever) but not the concepts of the show. If I did? *evil cackle*

She had been three days in the city of the Ancestors, three days and three nights later, before the doctor -- Beckett -- examined her. She was unsurprised by his confirmation of what she had suspected for some time. She was with child. It was not welcome news. Not to her. Her husband would have been pleased. Had he not been taken in the Wraith attack. Lost along with the leader of the newcomers. She grieved for them all. The child included.

In her heart of hearts she had always prayed desperately to the Ancestors that it would never be so. That she would be barren. Had she the energy the fervent wish would have shamed her. A child should be a blessing. Dr. Beckett, in his attempt at comfort, had said as much but she saw no blessing in it. Her husband was dead, her home destroyed and within her belly she carried a child whose fate would be death as a monster's meal. It was the fate his father had met, the fate his grandfather had met, and the fate that awaited his mother.

Not even the shining spires of the Ancestors' city could change that. The newcomers were formidable and had a defiant spirit born of a life spent free of the wraith. But, as Halling had pointed out, they were not the Ancestors returned. She believed in her darkest of moments the Ancestors had truly abandoned them. That, wherever they had departed to, the concerns of those they left behind were trivial to them. If they truly cared they would have done something by now. Whether they would succeed or not, as they had not so many years before, they would at least try...

If they could not be bothered to try and the newcomers lacked the knowledge and comprehension to raise the city to the glory the teachings said it had once possessed...how could they hope to defeat an enemy their predecessors could not?

Some of them, some of the newcomers, had spoken of a race they had faced in their own world. A race which they called Goa'uld. They spoke of their cruelty, their use of humans as hosts, and their domination of their galaxy. The young soldiers had boasted of their success against the nearly overwhelming numbers. Successes won to them by something they called SG1...

Whatever this SG1 was -- whether it a talisman or weapon -- they'd not brought it with them and she thought it thus irrelevant. Victories won in a galaxy which she had never seen against a race that had never known the Wraith did nothing but leave them overconfident. She knew the lessons they had not learned yet. Her people had once lived lives free of the Wraith. The legends and stories had spoken of these things but that was no longer. The successes of the past meant nothing to the battles of the future. They had faced this Goa'uld but they had yet to live with the constant threat of the Wraith. She had never known these Goa'uld and although this meant she could make no comparisons she could not imagine they were nearly so terrible. She could not help believing if the newcomers had always lived with the realities of the Wraith then their confidence would be different. Perhaps then, if their confidence remained, it would give her hope.

As it was, she felt none. All she felt in the face of their foolish optimism was an overwhelming weariness. They would learn soon enough the truth she and her people held self-evident. She would not be fooled to the dream as Teyla was. She knew the Wraith would ever be a constant of their lives. A plague upon them. The city of the Ancestors offered no protection and no hope beyond that of a temporary shelter. Things in this magnificent city would be no different then on the planet they had left behind.

The Wraith would still come and people would still die.

For the sake of the newcomers, for the sake of her child, she wished it was not so but wishes had all the substance of the wind on which they danced. Wishes would offer no help to her child nor would they offer any to her.

Standing on the balcony of the city, staring out at the water, she placed her hands over where her child lay beneath her heart.

"I am sorry, little one," was all she said, "had I the strength, I would end this now..."

But for all the harshness of her reality, for all she knew and she understood, she still wished to dance upon the wind. Still she dreamed.

Finis