Seventh Turning
Title: Seventh Turning
Warnings: None
Spoilers: 1st half of season 4
Genre: H/C
Beta: Jani
Word Count: 5906
A secret santa fic for rhymer23. The prompt was:
Since it's Christmas, I want to wallow in self-indulgent heroism. Not for me a Shep who falls over on page one and lies there unconscious while everyone else does the cool stuff. No, I want a Shep who heroically staggers on and does the day-saving, despite injury. Bonus points if the others don't know he's injured until near the end, as long as the justification for this isn't too contrived. No vomiting, please. Heroes don't vomit. Heroes only have picturesque injuries that allow heroism to continue, albeit with a pained and self-sacrificing stagger.
I hope you like my interpretation of the prompt. :D
Seventh Turning
I am Stevani, and I am the last of the old people. Listen, and I shall tell you my story. The story of the day the world died.
It was the summer of my seventh Turning. I had been out playing after sun-high amongst the cappalas and my fingers and lips were stained purple from the cappa berries I had been eating. I knew I would be in trouble when I got home, because my mother had warned me not to eat them. But to a child barely Turned seven, cappa berries are much nicer than gorma root and kafta shoots. I sneaked in the back entrance of my home, hoping to change my clothes and wash my face before I was caught with the incriminating evidence.
I tiptoed down the passageway, and paused when I heard my father’s voice. He was afraid, and I don’t remember ever hearing him sound like that before. I slipped a little closer to the room, hid myself behind the wall hanging that covered the small nook where the spare blankets and winter coats were kept (a useful hiding spot that unfortunately I was growing out of) and settled in to listen.
I didn’t understand most of the conversation.
“But why would these Asurans come to us? We have done nothing to them.” My father was asking. I couldn’t understand why he would be afraid of these men coming to visit. When you are but a child, anyone new coming to your small world seems like an exciting event. The loss of that childish innocence is a painful thing, no matter how necessary it may be.
At this point I became aware that strangers were in there with my father. I heard a man’s voice, deep and strangely accented.
“They’re at war with the Wraith. They think that by eliminating the Wraith’s food source, they will weaken their enemy.” The voice said grimly.
“But we haven’t had a culling for generations!” My father replied heatedly.
Another voice, higher and faster, started speaking.
“It doesn’t matter to them. Look, we’ve been monitoring them and there are three Aurora class ships entering this system. Yours is the only inhabited planet. You do the math.” I’d never seen a ship then. Now they haunt my nightmares and I cannot forget.
“So what do you think we should do?” I was scared now. I had never known my father to hesitate in his leadership, and our people had prospered under his hand. Even in the winter of my fifth Turning, when it felt like the world had frozen and the sun would never return. My father had led with confidence and hope, and had handled everything well. But now? Who were these strangers, and who were these Asurans, and why was my home suddenly not the safe place it had been at the sun’s rising? I bit my tongue so I didn’t cry.
A moment later I was too frightened to cry. I heard a huge noise, like an avalanche had started behind me, and a strong wind pressed me into the wall. I felt heat wash over me, but hidden in my little nook I couldn’t see anything. I heard the first stranger’s voice say “We’re too late. It’s started.” I remember his voice well. The words he spoke were not comforting at all. But there was no fear in the voice, just anger and resolve. I clung to the voice and waited for it to speak again, and tried not to listen to the other voices that were coming from outside, because all those voices were screaming.
The voice spoke again, telling my father that they needed to get everyone to the ‘gate. The voice sounded closer, so I peeked out the edge of the hanging. I saw my father leaving the room with the strangers. There were four of them - a giant warrior, who was so tall he had to duck to get through the doorway. He moved the way a hartha does when it hunts a kirri, quiet but intense. The hunter lady was small and quiet. Amongst our people, women don’t hunt, but she carried herself the same way Pavali and Cerrus and the rest of the hunters do. There was the kirri man, taller than the woman, but shorter than all of the other men there. He had quick, nervous movements, like a kirri when it is hiding in the long grass. It tries to stay still, but it makes quick little shifts as it looks around. Even when it is still it has a coiled energy to it. The fourth man came last, watching everyone. He was angry, but I could tell that he wasn’t angry with the others because he looked at them the same way my father looks at the hunters when they have to go out on the really dangerous hunts in the winter.
“We’ve got to get them moving.” The giant warrior said. My father and the strangers moved quickly past me and opened the door. Outside I saw my people running and screaming as smoke filled the air. I saw the house next to ours was burning, and a hand tightened around my heart as I thought of my friend Davri. Was he in the house or was he safe? I didn’t know. I wanted to go and help him, but another loud explosion rocked the ground. I let the hanging drop back and pressed myself against the wall. This time, I couldn’t help it, I started to cry. I wanted my mother, but I didn’t know where she was. I wanted my father to come back and hold me in his strong arms and tell me I was safe. I really wanted to wake up in my bed and realise this was all just the night spirits. I don’t know how long I stayed hidden there, but it couldn’t have been long. More explosions rolled through the village, and I didn’t want to go outside, but the stone walls around me became uncomfortably hot. I stepped out from behind the hanging and away from the wall, and realised that the timber roof was beginning to burn. I ran to the door.
At the open door, I stopped, mouth dry and heart aching so much I thought it would break. The village was nothing I could recognise and call familiar. Many of the buildings were burning and in some places there were giant crators where buildings used to be. Smoke filled the air, making everything hazy and making it hard to breathe. I coughed as I looked around for my father, but the fires gave the smoke an eerie orange tinge that made the people running past me look strange and unrecognisable. I had heard my father and the strangers say they were going to get everyone through the ‘gate. I guessed that the ‘gate was the Ancestral Ring, since that must be how the strangers came, so I headed in that direction.
I heard another explosion, and looked over to my house. It was gone. There was nothing there, except flame. How could it burn so quickly? I didn’t understand until a movement caught my eye, and I looked up. I saw my first ship. It was huge. It was the colour of thunderclouds, heavy with rain and lightning. I had heard the stories of the elders about Wraith cullings although the stories of the elders were from long ago, before even my grandfather’s time. But in the stories, the ships were small and narrowed at the front like a spear. This ship was bigger than anything I had heard tell of, and was bulky and bulbous at the front. I scanned the sky, and saw another ship in the distance, near the Thanai village. A small ball of yellow lightning streaked from the ship to the ground. I realised that the ships were at the other villages too, and I felt cold and numb inside. I put my head down and kept running, wiping the tears away when it got too hard to see.
I had not come far when I saw my father. He was with two of the strangers, the hunter lady and the kirri man. They were talking to Cerrus and four of the hunters who had gathered at Cerrus’ home. As I took a couple of steps towards them, one of the yellow lights came from the ship and struck the building near them. I ran though the smoke towards them, yelling my father’s name. I saw the two strangers first. The kirri man was half under a collapsed wall. His face was grey with stone dust and smoke grime. A dark patch of blood on his forehead showed brightly against pale skin. He was calling for the hunter lady, Teyla.
“Rodney! Hold on!” When she spoke I was able to find her. The smoke was thicker, and she was coughing from it. She rushed forward and held Rodney’s hand. She started talking to someone else, but I stopped paying attention to her as I saw my father. He was with three of the hunters and I didn’t have to touch them to know they were all dead. They didn’t look asleep like old Sharna when she died last winter. I closed my eyes and ran into the forest.
The run through the forest was something I could never clearly describe afterwards. The trees at the edge had caught fire, whether from the ships or from the spreading flames from the village, I couldn’t say. The flames raced above me, raining fiery twigs and hot cinders down on me as I ran, arms above my head to ward off the worst of it. The smoke wound among the trees like a pareeki serpent, wrapping around me and tightening my chest until it hurt to breathe. Finally I started to clear the flames, and I noticed life in the forest for the first time. I almost died of fright when a hartha appeared out of the smoke beside me. I froze, but it paid no attention to the small boy clinging to a prahini sapling and loped through the underbrush with the speed and strength and grace that made it such a deadly hunter. I breathed a sigh of relief when it passed me, and continued my own journey.
The Ancestral Ring was some distance from the village, even though our village was the closest to it. I had been running through the forest for what felt like days, but it must have only been for one shifting of the sun. I walked to the Ancestral Ring with my father once, and it took us three shifts. I must have covered close to half that distance running from the flames. I walked more slowly now, looking around me for landmarks. I spotted the rock mound rising over to the left and nodded to myself. Yes, I was just over half way to the Ring. Davri once said that the rocks looked like a hartha leaping, but I could never see it. Davri was like that, sometimes. To me, it just looked like a pile of rocks. I picked some cappa berries and sat on the rocks for a short rest. I remembered my mother’s warning not to eat the berries or I would spoil my dinner, and felt a hard lump in my throat at the thought. The village was burning - there would be no fire pit with kirri roasting over it. There would be no women in a chattering group peeling the stringy coating off the green kafta shoots to reveal the crisp, tangy centres. There would be no Davri to try and steal my gorma roots while they were hot and steaming. He loved gorma roots, while I much prefer the sweet tastes of berries and juini fruit. I would have happily given him my roots, but it was fun to try and stop him from stealing mine. Suddenly I wasn’t hungry anymore and I threw the rest of the berries into the scrub. I stood up to leave when a hand clamped over my mouth, and a strong arm pulled me to the ground.
Part 2
Warnings: None
Spoilers: 1st half of season 4
Genre: H/C
Beta: Jani
Word Count: 5906
A secret santa fic for rhymer23. The prompt was:
Since it's Christmas, I want to wallow in self-indulgent heroism. Not for me a Shep who falls over on page one and lies there unconscious while everyone else does the cool stuff. No, I want a Shep who heroically staggers on and does the day-saving, despite injury. Bonus points if the others don't know he's injured until near the end, as long as the justification for this isn't too contrived. No vomiting, please. Heroes don't vomit. Heroes only have picturesque injuries that allow heroism to continue, albeit with a pained and self-sacrificing stagger.
I hope you like my interpretation of the prompt. :D
Seventh Turning
I am Stevani, and I am the last of the old people. Listen, and I shall tell you my story. The story of the day the world died.
It was the summer of my seventh Turning. I had been out playing after sun-high amongst the cappalas and my fingers and lips were stained purple from the cappa berries I had been eating. I knew I would be in trouble when I got home, because my mother had warned me not to eat them. But to a child barely Turned seven, cappa berries are much nicer than gorma root and kafta shoots. I sneaked in the back entrance of my home, hoping to change my clothes and wash my face before I was caught with the incriminating evidence.
I tiptoed down the passageway, and paused when I heard my father’s voice. He was afraid, and I don’t remember ever hearing him sound like that before. I slipped a little closer to the room, hid myself behind the wall hanging that covered the small nook where the spare blankets and winter coats were kept (a useful hiding spot that unfortunately I was growing out of) and settled in to listen.
I didn’t understand most of the conversation.
“But why would these Asurans come to us? We have done nothing to them.” My father was asking. I couldn’t understand why he would be afraid of these men coming to visit. When you are but a child, anyone new coming to your small world seems like an exciting event. The loss of that childish innocence is a painful thing, no matter how necessary it may be.
At this point I became aware that strangers were in there with my father. I heard a man’s voice, deep and strangely accented.
“They’re at war with the Wraith. They think that by eliminating the Wraith’s food source, they will weaken their enemy.” The voice said grimly.
“But we haven’t had a culling for generations!” My father replied heatedly.
Another voice, higher and faster, started speaking.
“It doesn’t matter to them. Look, we’ve been monitoring them and there are three Aurora class ships entering this system. Yours is the only inhabited planet. You do the math.” I’d never seen a ship then. Now they haunt my nightmares and I cannot forget.
“So what do you think we should do?” I was scared now. I had never known my father to hesitate in his leadership, and our people had prospered under his hand. Even in the winter of my fifth Turning, when it felt like the world had frozen and the sun would never return. My father had led with confidence and hope, and had handled everything well. But now? Who were these strangers, and who were these Asurans, and why was my home suddenly not the safe place it had been at the sun’s rising? I bit my tongue so I didn’t cry.
A moment later I was too frightened to cry. I heard a huge noise, like an avalanche had started behind me, and a strong wind pressed me into the wall. I felt heat wash over me, but hidden in my little nook I couldn’t see anything. I heard the first stranger’s voice say “We’re too late. It’s started.” I remember his voice well. The words he spoke were not comforting at all. But there was no fear in the voice, just anger and resolve. I clung to the voice and waited for it to speak again, and tried not to listen to the other voices that were coming from outside, because all those voices were screaming.
The voice spoke again, telling my father that they needed to get everyone to the ‘gate. The voice sounded closer, so I peeked out the edge of the hanging. I saw my father leaving the room with the strangers. There were four of them - a giant warrior, who was so tall he had to duck to get through the doorway. He moved the way a hartha does when it hunts a kirri, quiet but intense. The hunter lady was small and quiet. Amongst our people, women don’t hunt, but she carried herself the same way Pavali and Cerrus and the rest of the hunters do. There was the kirri man, taller than the woman, but shorter than all of the other men there. He had quick, nervous movements, like a kirri when it is hiding in the long grass. It tries to stay still, but it makes quick little shifts as it looks around. Even when it is still it has a coiled energy to it. The fourth man came last, watching everyone. He was angry, but I could tell that he wasn’t angry with the others because he looked at them the same way my father looks at the hunters when they have to go out on the really dangerous hunts in the winter.
“We’ve got to get them moving.” The giant warrior said. My father and the strangers moved quickly past me and opened the door. Outside I saw my people running and screaming as smoke filled the air. I saw the house next to ours was burning, and a hand tightened around my heart as I thought of my friend Davri. Was he in the house or was he safe? I didn’t know. I wanted to go and help him, but another loud explosion rocked the ground. I let the hanging drop back and pressed myself against the wall. This time, I couldn’t help it, I started to cry. I wanted my mother, but I didn’t know where she was. I wanted my father to come back and hold me in his strong arms and tell me I was safe. I really wanted to wake up in my bed and realise this was all just the night spirits. I don’t know how long I stayed hidden there, but it couldn’t have been long. More explosions rolled through the village, and I didn’t want to go outside, but the stone walls around me became uncomfortably hot. I stepped out from behind the hanging and away from the wall, and realised that the timber roof was beginning to burn. I ran to the door.
At the open door, I stopped, mouth dry and heart aching so much I thought it would break. The village was nothing I could recognise and call familiar. Many of the buildings were burning and in some places there were giant crators where buildings used to be. Smoke filled the air, making everything hazy and making it hard to breathe. I coughed as I looked around for my father, but the fires gave the smoke an eerie orange tinge that made the people running past me look strange and unrecognisable. I had heard my father and the strangers say they were going to get everyone through the ‘gate. I guessed that the ‘gate was the Ancestral Ring, since that must be how the strangers came, so I headed in that direction.
I heard another explosion, and looked over to my house. It was gone. There was nothing there, except flame. How could it burn so quickly? I didn’t understand until a movement caught my eye, and I looked up. I saw my first ship. It was huge. It was the colour of thunderclouds, heavy with rain and lightning. I had heard the stories of the elders about Wraith cullings although the stories of the elders were from long ago, before even my grandfather’s time. But in the stories, the ships were small and narrowed at the front like a spear. This ship was bigger than anything I had heard tell of, and was bulky and bulbous at the front. I scanned the sky, and saw another ship in the distance, near the Thanai village. A small ball of yellow lightning streaked from the ship to the ground. I realised that the ships were at the other villages too, and I felt cold and numb inside. I put my head down and kept running, wiping the tears away when it got too hard to see.
I had not come far when I saw my father. He was with two of the strangers, the hunter lady and the kirri man. They were talking to Cerrus and four of the hunters who had gathered at Cerrus’ home. As I took a couple of steps towards them, one of the yellow lights came from the ship and struck the building near them. I ran though the smoke towards them, yelling my father’s name. I saw the two strangers first. The kirri man was half under a collapsed wall. His face was grey with stone dust and smoke grime. A dark patch of blood on his forehead showed brightly against pale skin. He was calling for the hunter lady, Teyla.
“Rodney! Hold on!” When she spoke I was able to find her. The smoke was thicker, and she was coughing from it. She rushed forward and held Rodney’s hand. She started talking to someone else, but I stopped paying attention to her as I saw my father. He was with three of the hunters and I didn’t have to touch them to know they were all dead. They didn’t look asleep like old Sharna when she died last winter. I closed my eyes and ran into the forest.
The run through the forest was something I could never clearly describe afterwards. The trees at the edge had caught fire, whether from the ships or from the spreading flames from the village, I couldn’t say. The flames raced above me, raining fiery twigs and hot cinders down on me as I ran, arms above my head to ward off the worst of it. The smoke wound among the trees like a pareeki serpent, wrapping around me and tightening my chest until it hurt to breathe. Finally I started to clear the flames, and I noticed life in the forest for the first time. I almost died of fright when a hartha appeared out of the smoke beside me. I froze, but it paid no attention to the small boy clinging to a prahini sapling and loped through the underbrush with the speed and strength and grace that made it such a deadly hunter. I breathed a sigh of relief when it passed me, and continued my own journey.
The Ancestral Ring was some distance from the village, even though our village was the closest to it. I had been running through the forest for what felt like days, but it must have only been for one shifting of the sun. I walked to the Ancestral Ring with my father once, and it took us three shifts. I must have covered close to half that distance running from the flames. I walked more slowly now, looking around me for landmarks. I spotted the rock mound rising over to the left and nodded to myself. Yes, I was just over half way to the Ring. Davri once said that the rocks looked like a hartha leaping, but I could never see it. Davri was like that, sometimes. To me, it just looked like a pile of rocks. I picked some cappa berries and sat on the rocks for a short rest. I remembered my mother’s warning not to eat the berries or I would spoil my dinner, and felt a hard lump in my throat at the thought. The village was burning - there would be no fire pit with kirri roasting over it. There would be no women in a chattering group peeling the stringy coating off the green kafta shoots to reveal the crisp, tangy centres. There would be no Davri to try and steal my gorma roots while they were hot and steaming. He loved gorma roots, while I much prefer the sweet tastes of berries and juini fruit. I would have happily given him my roots, but it was fun to try and stop him from stealing mine. Suddenly I wasn’t hungry anymore and I threw the rest of the berries into the scrub. I stood up to leave when a hand clamped over my mouth, and a strong arm pulled me to the ground.
Part 2