Battening Down
Title: Battening Down
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis - AU
Series: Part of the Goddess ‘verse
Characters: Lor, Laru
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,039
Prompt: Dark Bingo Fill: “Side Effects”
“I think I’d be safer with you. Let’s go back to the city,” Laru squeezed Lor’s arm and dug her heels in, refusing to go any further. He turned and frowned at her and she gave him a watery and all together hopeless smile. “Please?”
“No.”
“You’re letting David stay with you,” she protested, pouting prettily, even though it wouldn’t work on him and she damn well knew it.
He rolled his eyes. “Only because he has not decided what he wants to do yet. I’ll deal with him after you’re safe. C’mon Laru, for the baby. Harriman is still out there. If he gets to you, he could undo all of this and the baby will be born Abero. And you’ll be dead.”
She shuddered at the reminder that the little creature that had been kicking her recently had started out life as an abomination, an unnatural creature of dark chaos and dark order. She and Lor had been tricked into conceiving it, Harriman, an Abero, had done it in an attempt to make another of his kind.
“But I don’t know anyone here. I don’t know anything about this century!”
“All for the better, you’re less likely to fall in with a bad crowd and get into trouble.”
She rubbed her belly and scowled at him. “Why did you choose this place?” Laru was still annoyed that she had not been allowed to design her own hiding place and that Lor had taken control of the whole situation. She might not have any of her abilities anymore, but she still knew what they could do, even if they were now in his hands. He hadn’t even allowed her to advise him. “Why reality instead of a pocket dimension like the one you put Allie in?”
“Harriman might catch on, if I create too many of them in rapid succession. If he knows what to look for, it is only a matter of time before he finds one or all of you, simply by popping reality bubbles. He will come after you, Laru.”
“I know. So why here, when exactly is here, anyway?”
Lor reached for her hand and tugged her after him. “2158. This is the Earth colony Hyperion.”
“Always with the Greeks, why always with the Greeks? There were plenty of other cultures to name stuff after.”
He didn’t answer her. “I like it here. The air is clean and the water is sweet and refreshing. There is no war, the people are kind and gentle and studious. The city is open and inviting and there is excellent health care. This is a good place for you and the baby, Laru. If anything happens to me, if I can’t come back for you, you’ll be safe here.”
“How do you know? The future is uncertain; the future is the playground of Chaos, Lor! Everything could turn in a heartbeat and then we won’t be safe. It could be more dangerous here; the timeline could evaporate under us!”
He stopped and turned back to look at her again, dropping her hand. She took a step back in surprise as she saw that his eyes had gone completely black, inhuman, frightening. “I can see the Order. I can see the Chaos swirling around it, but the order will prevail. This is the most probable of timelines, the most secure. There is a firm grounding of Order here that even Chaos cannot disturb.” Laru knew that he was touching the raw essence of either Order or Chaos or perhaps both at once; he was seeing the possible and the probable. She had not seen him do anything on this scale before and it troubled her to see it now.
“Be human again, Lor,” she whispered as a breeze picked up around them. Even in mortal form, she could sense the rising power around him. “EVAN LORNE!” she cried out his name, trying to snap him back to his senses, to bring him back to this reality with her before he slipped away. When he didn’t seem to hear her, she muttered a few choice swear words in several languages under her breath and hauled off and punched him in the jaw, snapping his head back.
“Evan?”
He straightened up and shook his head to clear it as he rubbed his jaw. “Ow. What happened? Why’d you hit me?”
“You zoned out on me. It scared me, Lor. You’re losing control.”
He didn’t argue with her, she was speaking the truth. “After the baby comes, I am dumping all of this right back on you, little goddess.”
“Are you going to be able to do this?” she asked with true concern. “Have you slept? Eaten? How is your energy level?”
“There have been a few unforeseen side effects. I’m learning to deal with them,” he shrugged.
“How far gone were you just now? What happens if you drift too far one way or the other into the stream, Lor? I’m scared for you.”
He pulled her into a hug and kissed her forehead. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. But you and Allie will be safe, and hopefully I can get David to safety as well before Harriman or anyone else comes.”
Laru pushed away from him and demanded, “What do you mean anyone else?”
“I’m not convinced the Abero was acting alone. Someone else might be working with him, pulling his strings, giving him directions.”
“Desh,” Laru breathed. She grabbed his hands. “No, you can’t leave me here. You can’t face Desh alone. Lor, you’re just barely keeping your head together with both of our powers mixed up in there. You cannot face an Old One of Desh’s strength, not like this. He nearly destroyed you once, when you were strong and whole. You have to dump my power, give it back.”
He yanked his hands away and took a few steps backwards. “No! The baby has to be born human. Laru, it is not too much longer, just a few months. I’ll deal with all the fallout. Come on, I’ll walk you to the visitor’s center. You’ll like it here, they pamper their guests.”
Laru was impressed; the place was everything Lor had said it would be. He impressed her as well, using a Chaos ability at the visitor’s center and tricking the intake officer into believing she was the wife of a diplomat that had come here to bear her child in safety away from a war zone. It was mostly true; the only tricky part was the diplomat’s wife persona. She soon found herself in a quaint little bungalow with servants to tend to her.
“They won’t look for you here,” Lor promised as she sat on a bouncy, curved lounge chair that looked like it could have come from IKEA.
“Try not to antagonize them. Go into hiding yourself, Lor. Wait for me. After the baby is born, we can deal with Harriman together. We’ll get my energies out of you and you’ll be back to normal.”
Lor shook his head sadly. “You know that won’t happen. We’re stuck, even if you took it back, there’s Chaos settled into every crack in my being. There will never be normal again. Not for us, we’re ruined, sweetheart.” He walked over and kissed her temple and smoothed back her hair.
She caught his hand and gave it a squeeze. “Be safe, Lor. Try not to get yourself killed. I want to go home. I want Allie back. I want my powers back. I want the baby to know its dad.”
“Behave yourself. Try not to corrupt the kid, okay?” He smirked at her and for just an instant, he looked like the Evan Lorne she had always known, instead of the tortured being she had a part of creating. It was her power that was eating away at his mind and body. He had taken on the burden to protect her.
“Thank you, Lor.”
He nodded and she sensed the energy building as he prepared to leave. “Hey, Laru? I never thought I’d consider a Chaos Goddess part of the family, but, well, there it is. You’ve been a surprise.”
And with that, he was gone and she was alone.
~*~
“You need to push now, Mistress Cadman!” the midwife called.
Being human sucked.
She panted out a few breaths and screamed at the top of her lungs as she bore down, trying to get the baby out of her body. This was all Harriman’s fault and she was going to hold onto this pain and she was going to rain it down on his abominable little body when she got her powers back. She was going to let him feel what it was like to have another being rip its way out of his guts. Maybe she’d implant something, just to make it happen. There were plenty of nightmarish creatures that a Goddess could get her hands on for the purpose.
If she had known exactly what giving birth was going to entail, she might have reconsidered the plan to force the baby into human form. She might have let it be born Abero. They could have taken their chances with a little demon. Weren’t all children a trial to their parents, after all? What was one more?
“Rest, Mistress.”
She squeezed the hand of the midwife’s assistant, Poola, a round faced girl with sweet eyes that patted a cloth over her brow and kept giving her cool sips of water. “Bless you, Poola. May you have fat happy babies of your own someday!”
This was nothing like she had expected. Her body, this human form she was stuck in, was being torn apart from the inside. Maybe they had it wrong? Maybe the baby was still Abero and Lor’s prediction was coming true and it was tearing its way out of her! She sobbed and looked at the midwife. “I’m dying. It’s ripping me apart!”
The midwife patted her thigh and smiled. “No, dear, it just feels that way. Push again, yes?”
She writhed on the birthing chair, screaming for Allie, for Lor, even for David. She was alone and it hurt and she was scared.
“Good, good, I have the head, push again, Mistress!”
Human women did this more than once? Were they insane? She felt the child leave her body and she cried in relief. The midwife cleared the baby’s mouth and nose and cut the cord. Only then did she look up at Laru. “You have a son, Mistress.”
A son? “Is he… is everything…?”
“A fine son, hear him, he has good lungs. Poola will wash him and bring him back. You need to push more, you are not done, Mistress. Bear down again.”
“He’s out, why do I have to push?” Laru whined.
The midwife chuckled at her. “The afterbirth must come too. Push, Mistress.”
Rising up on her elbows, and pissed off that she hadn’t been warned about this part, Laru bore down fiercely. It hurt, just as much as it had when she was pushing the baby out. She dropped back, panting for breath as the midwife ordered, “Push again, Mistress, you really are not done yet. This was unexpected.”
Laru cried and sobbed and pushed, letting out a scream as the midwife pulled the mass from her body. She fell back and closed her eyes, crying and wishing Lor and Allie were there. “A daughter, Mistress.”
“You said a son!”
“And a daughter. Look.” The midwife was smiling as Laru looked down her body to see her holding up a squirming pink baby.
She slumped back and started to laugh and sob at the same time. This was totally Chaos at work; this had to be the result of the stray energies, another side effect of the power gone wonky.
Twins? Even if they did not possess a dram of their parent’s power, they were certain to be trouble. She had no idea how to raise one baby, how was she going to handle two?
Closing her eyes, she put every ounce of her remaining energy into a prayer, hoping that the erstwhile God of Order heard it. “Lor, get your ass back here!”
The End Originally posted at http://rinkafic.dreamwidth.org/
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis - AU
Series: Part of the Goddess ‘verse
Characters: Lor, Laru
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,039
Prompt: Dark Bingo Fill: “Side Effects”
“I think I’d be safer with you. Let’s go back to the city,” Laru squeezed Lor’s arm and dug her heels in, refusing to go any further. He turned and frowned at her and she gave him a watery and all together hopeless smile. “Please?”
“No.”
“You’re letting David stay with you,” she protested, pouting prettily, even though it wouldn’t work on him and she damn well knew it.
He rolled his eyes. “Only because he has not decided what he wants to do yet. I’ll deal with him after you’re safe. C’mon Laru, for the baby. Harriman is still out there. If he gets to you, he could undo all of this and the baby will be born Abero. And you’ll be dead.”
She shuddered at the reminder that the little creature that had been kicking her recently had started out life as an abomination, an unnatural creature of dark chaos and dark order. She and Lor had been tricked into conceiving it, Harriman, an Abero, had done it in an attempt to make another of his kind.
“But I don’t know anyone here. I don’t know anything about this century!”
“All for the better, you’re less likely to fall in with a bad crowd and get into trouble.”
She rubbed her belly and scowled at him. “Why did you choose this place?” Laru was still annoyed that she had not been allowed to design her own hiding place and that Lor had taken control of the whole situation. She might not have any of her abilities anymore, but she still knew what they could do, even if they were now in his hands. He hadn’t even allowed her to advise him. “Why reality instead of a pocket dimension like the one you put Allie in?”
“Harriman might catch on, if I create too many of them in rapid succession. If he knows what to look for, it is only a matter of time before he finds one or all of you, simply by popping reality bubbles. He will come after you, Laru.”
“I know. So why here, when exactly is here, anyway?”
Lor reached for her hand and tugged her after him. “2158. This is the Earth colony Hyperion.”
“Always with the Greeks, why always with the Greeks? There were plenty of other cultures to name stuff after.”
He didn’t answer her. “I like it here. The air is clean and the water is sweet and refreshing. There is no war, the people are kind and gentle and studious. The city is open and inviting and there is excellent health care. This is a good place for you and the baby, Laru. If anything happens to me, if I can’t come back for you, you’ll be safe here.”
“How do you know? The future is uncertain; the future is the playground of Chaos, Lor! Everything could turn in a heartbeat and then we won’t be safe. It could be more dangerous here; the timeline could evaporate under us!”
He stopped and turned back to look at her again, dropping her hand. She took a step back in surprise as she saw that his eyes had gone completely black, inhuman, frightening. “I can see the Order. I can see the Chaos swirling around it, but the order will prevail. This is the most probable of timelines, the most secure. There is a firm grounding of Order here that even Chaos cannot disturb.” Laru knew that he was touching the raw essence of either Order or Chaos or perhaps both at once; he was seeing the possible and the probable. She had not seen him do anything on this scale before and it troubled her to see it now.
“Be human again, Lor,” she whispered as a breeze picked up around them. Even in mortal form, she could sense the rising power around him. “EVAN LORNE!” she cried out his name, trying to snap him back to his senses, to bring him back to this reality with her before he slipped away. When he didn’t seem to hear her, she muttered a few choice swear words in several languages under her breath and hauled off and punched him in the jaw, snapping his head back.
“Evan?”
He straightened up and shook his head to clear it as he rubbed his jaw. “Ow. What happened? Why’d you hit me?”
“You zoned out on me. It scared me, Lor. You’re losing control.”
He didn’t argue with her, she was speaking the truth. “After the baby comes, I am dumping all of this right back on you, little goddess.”
“Are you going to be able to do this?” she asked with true concern. “Have you slept? Eaten? How is your energy level?”
“There have been a few unforeseen side effects. I’m learning to deal with them,” he shrugged.
“How far gone were you just now? What happens if you drift too far one way or the other into the stream, Lor? I’m scared for you.”
He pulled her into a hug and kissed her forehead. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. But you and Allie will be safe, and hopefully I can get David to safety as well before Harriman or anyone else comes.”
Laru pushed away from him and demanded, “What do you mean anyone else?”
“I’m not convinced the Abero was acting alone. Someone else might be working with him, pulling his strings, giving him directions.”
“Desh,” Laru breathed. She grabbed his hands. “No, you can’t leave me here. You can’t face Desh alone. Lor, you’re just barely keeping your head together with both of our powers mixed up in there. You cannot face an Old One of Desh’s strength, not like this. He nearly destroyed you once, when you were strong and whole. You have to dump my power, give it back.”
He yanked his hands away and took a few steps backwards. “No! The baby has to be born human. Laru, it is not too much longer, just a few months. I’ll deal with all the fallout. Come on, I’ll walk you to the visitor’s center. You’ll like it here, they pamper their guests.”
Laru was impressed; the place was everything Lor had said it would be. He impressed her as well, using a Chaos ability at the visitor’s center and tricking the intake officer into believing she was the wife of a diplomat that had come here to bear her child in safety away from a war zone. It was mostly true; the only tricky part was the diplomat’s wife persona. She soon found herself in a quaint little bungalow with servants to tend to her.
“They won’t look for you here,” Lor promised as she sat on a bouncy, curved lounge chair that looked like it could have come from IKEA.
“Try not to antagonize them. Go into hiding yourself, Lor. Wait for me. After the baby is born, we can deal with Harriman together. We’ll get my energies out of you and you’ll be back to normal.”
Lor shook his head sadly. “You know that won’t happen. We’re stuck, even if you took it back, there’s Chaos settled into every crack in my being. There will never be normal again. Not for us, we’re ruined, sweetheart.” He walked over and kissed her temple and smoothed back her hair.
She caught his hand and gave it a squeeze. “Be safe, Lor. Try not to get yourself killed. I want to go home. I want Allie back. I want my powers back. I want the baby to know its dad.”
“Behave yourself. Try not to corrupt the kid, okay?” He smirked at her and for just an instant, he looked like the Evan Lorne she had always known, instead of the tortured being she had a part of creating. It was her power that was eating away at his mind and body. He had taken on the burden to protect her.
“Thank you, Lor.”
He nodded and she sensed the energy building as he prepared to leave. “Hey, Laru? I never thought I’d consider a Chaos Goddess part of the family, but, well, there it is. You’ve been a surprise.”
And with that, he was gone and she was alone.
~*~
“You need to push now, Mistress Cadman!” the midwife called.
Being human sucked.
She panted out a few breaths and screamed at the top of her lungs as she bore down, trying to get the baby out of her body. This was all Harriman’s fault and she was going to hold onto this pain and she was going to rain it down on his abominable little body when she got her powers back. She was going to let him feel what it was like to have another being rip its way out of his guts. Maybe she’d implant something, just to make it happen. There were plenty of nightmarish creatures that a Goddess could get her hands on for the purpose.
If she had known exactly what giving birth was going to entail, she might have reconsidered the plan to force the baby into human form. She might have let it be born Abero. They could have taken their chances with a little demon. Weren’t all children a trial to their parents, after all? What was one more?
“Rest, Mistress.”
She squeezed the hand of the midwife’s assistant, Poola, a round faced girl with sweet eyes that patted a cloth over her brow and kept giving her cool sips of water. “Bless you, Poola. May you have fat happy babies of your own someday!”
This was nothing like she had expected. Her body, this human form she was stuck in, was being torn apart from the inside. Maybe they had it wrong? Maybe the baby was still Abero and Lor’s prediction was coming true and it was tearing its way out of her! She sobbed and looked at the midwife. “I’m dying. It’s ripping me apart!”
The midwife patted her thigh and smiled. “No, dear, it just feels that way. Push again, yes?”
She writhed on the birthing chair, screaming for Allie, for Lor, even for David. She was alone and it hurt and she was scared.
“Good, good, I have the head, push again, Mistress!”
Human women did this more than once? Were they insane? She felt the child leave her body and she cried in relief. The midwife cleared the baby’s mouth and nose and cut the cord. Only then did she look up at Laru. “You have a son, Mistress.”
A son? “Is he… is everything…?”
“A fine son, hear him, he has good lungs. Poola will wash him and bring him back. You need to push more, you are not done, Mistress. Bear down again.”
“He’s out, why do I have to push?” Laru whined.
The midwife chuckled at her. “The afterbirth must come too. Push, Mistress.”
Rising up on her elbows, and pissed off that she hadn’t been warned about this part, Laru bore down fiercely. It hurt, just as much as it had when she was pushing the baby out. She dropped back, panting for breath as the midwife ordered, “Push again, Mistress, you really are not done yet. This was unexpected.”
Laru cried and sobbed and pushed, letting out a scream as the midwife pulled the mass from her body. She fell back and closed her eyes, crying and wishing Lor and Allie were there. “A daughter, Mistress.”
“You said a son!”
“And a daughter. Look.” The midwife was smiling as Laru looked down her body to see her holding up a squirming pink baby.
She slumped back and started to laugh and sob at the same time. This was totally Chaos at work; this had to be the result of the stray energies, another side effect of the power gone wonky.
Twins? Even if they did not possess a dram of their parent’s power, they were certain to be trouble. She had no idea how to raise one baby, how was she going to handle two?
Closing her eyes, she put every ounce of her remaining energy into a prayer, hoping that the erstwhile God of Order heard it. “Lor, get your ass back here!”
The End Originally posted at http://rinkafic.dreamwidth.org/