all the trees of the field will clap their hands
title: All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands
with: Ronon
rated: PG-13
disclaim: I only own the dvds; everything belongs to Wright, Cooper, Sci-Fi, et al.
note: for kribby via atlantisbasics, with the prompt “Ronon, his gun, an advanced society he meets while running”
thanks: to buffy-lily
Ronon dreams of Running. Sheppard wakes him. The moon is full and low in the sky. A light wind comes from the northeast and sighs around the campsite.
“It’s quiet enough,” Sheppard says.
“Good.” Ronon sits up and settles back against the trunk of a tree.
The firelight glances over Teyla’s profile, and McKay murmurs in his sleep. Ronon watches Sheppard lie down, watches his breath even out. Sheppard is asleep within minutes.
Ronon dreams of Running, but not as much as he used to. Tonight he’s glad for the change in watch, for Sheppard pulling him up from the maze of dreams. Half memories of hard flashing eyes, of being lost in the City of Flesh and the bone deep knowledge that his life could be unraveled with the flick of a thought. He slides the strange black knife from its ankle sheath and fingers it absently. Even on Atlantis, he gets restless if he sleeps more than four hours without interruption.
For two years Sheppard’s people have lived in the city, and they have no idea.
Ronon moves into a crouch. An ache blooms at the base of his throat, like he’s swallowed a stone, and it pulls his attention to the west. A Shadow-thing flickers, blue and quicksilver at the edge of the clearing. On Sateda, children called them reylii and stopped believing in the stories before they hit puberty, but Ronon knows what they really are. The children who believed and the halfwits who passed the story on, they had no idea. No more than the Lantians. Ronon tightens his hold on the bone hilt of his blade and looks directly at the thing. It shudders and melts back into the darkness.
For seven years he was a Runner. This is not quite the same as being human. Even Teyla can’t grasp the distinction, so he never tries to make it. She wouldn’t want to hear about the Shadow-things; she has no patience for made up monsters when the Wraith are so very real.
He never tries to correct them. He’s not a Runner anymore, but he carries the knowledge within him. You can only see the Shadows when you have been a shadow as well.
…
Keep moving, he repeated to himself, keep moving, a mantra that saturated his mind until he no longer needed to think the words. His knee throbbed, swollen.
Keep moving.
The Wraith were never more than a step behind, sometimes as close as a breath. He had killed only three so far, in the sixty-four days he’d been on the Run. Sixty-four days, give or take, he thought, punching in a ring address. Difficult to be certain when moving so quickly between worlds.
The ring put him out into a thick, wet forest. High altitude, it felt like. The old man he got the address from said it was uninhabited. Mist clung to the rubbery leaves, and birds screamed to each other in the distance. Six paces from the gate, a smooth hilt stuck out of the soil, and Ronon bent to retrieve it. The blade was fine and black, paperthin and sharp. It’s oil-dark surface did not reflect the light. The hilt was polished bone, but he couldn’t place the material of the blade. Carefully, he wrapped the knife in a cloth and tucked it in his waistband before setting off into the forest. He needed to eat soon; he needed to keep moving.
Finding sabron leaf to chew on did not prove difficult. It reduced the swelling and pain in his knee; Melena had taught him that. Ronon settled on a low, fat tree branch within sight of the snare he set, slowly chewed a few more sabron leaves, and waited. His older sister Kayllen had taught him how to make a snare, to place it in an animal track and wait. She loved the wilderness. A small bird landed on a nearby branch and hopped back and forth, chirping nervously.
“Don’t worry,” Ronon told it. “You’re too small. Not worth the effort of catching you.”
The bird chirped a few more times, then flew up to a higher branch in the tree. Ronon waited, still, and tried not to think of Melena, of Kayllen, or his father, or his brothers Sammel and Bryton, or his best comrade Haen, tried not to wonder if any of them had managed to survive the attack.
Someone must have survived.
He drew the knife he had found by the ring. Again, light seemed to sink endlessly into the blade’s surface. At the very base of the bone hilt, a sigil was carved. It was simple, but had never seen it before: an oval with a slash through it like a snake’s eye, lines curved like a sine wave extending diagonally from the eye, and a ring of five-sided stars circling the hilt, connecting with each corner of the eye. All in all, the symbol wasn’t particularly odd. Melena had told him of stranger things she saw when training with various off-world healers. The blade was the truly remarkable-and important-thing.
A rustling, thrashing burst of noise startled Ronon and drew his attention back to the snare. He hefted the knife and threw it at the madly scrambling animal. The blade sank into the small beast’s neck, and the creature convulsed once before laying still.
Its hide was thick, but its meat was tender enough, and Ronon set aside the hide to make a sheath for his new blade.
…
Ronon used the world where he found the knife as one of several home bases. When he could, he stockpiled a few supplies there, like he did on a handful of other uninhabited worlds. He was careful not to double back often enough that the Wraith would see a pattern, but he found himself liking the high tropical forest of the knife’s world.
Several years into the Run, when he could barely count the days anymore, he stepped through the ring expecting the knife’s world and instead found himself in a rich valley with soft, sand-colored walls curving up from the soil. A city. Ronon didn’t know how he could’ve misdialed. He turned around immediately to leave, but there was no dialing device by the gate, none anywhere that he could see.
A wall parted, and a man walked out. A burst of light, and the world went black.
Ronon woke in the center of a room filled with pale pink light. He was lying on a low bed, still clothed and armed, and to the left a woman’s back was turned to him. The walls ran in smooth organic lines up to the ceiling, and he reached silently for the black knife.
“That is truly unnecessary,” the woman said, turning around. She wore a simple brown sheath and a placid smile on her face.
“Sorry. Your people did shoot me.”
“And you have my apologies.” Her smile turned kind. “We tend to overreact when a stranger appears.”
“The Wraith. I’m a Runner.” Ronon sat up, struggling with a packed-cotton feeling in his head. “They’re coming. They put a tracker in me.”
“There’s no need to worry,” the woman said. “Our shielding would block any such signal.”
Ronon blinked. “Can you take it out of me.” They must have the technology. “Please. The tracker. I can’t go home with it-”
“Calm yourself.” The woman frowned, sending a shiver down Ronon’s spine. “We will see about the Wraith device, but first you must negotiate a form of payment with the Koblai.”
“Who’s that?” Ronon frowned at the walls; he thought he’d seen them tremble too. “What is this place?”
“This is the city of Zannado.” The woman folded her hands before her. “The Koblai is our leader. We have already given you refuge, and you have little to offer us.”
“I can work,” he said. “Name’s Ronon.”
“We do not want for labor.” Her eyes were green and distant. What he had taken for kindness now seemed condescending. “I am Naiabe.”
“You got anything to eat?” He felt weak. Who knew how long he’d been unconscious from the blast of their guns.
“Of course.” Naiabe looked down her nose at him, then her smile was kind again. “You will want to eat and clean yourself before your audience with the Koblai.”
Moments later, there was a knock at the door. At Naiabe’s gesture it opened, letting in a creature carrying a platter of food. It walked upright but didn’t look Wraith or human. Its face was smooth, and its eyes wide and liquid. It was the color of moonlight and wore a black robe. “What?” he started to ask, but Naiabe waved off his question. She showed Ronon a small bath adjacent to his room and left him alone. The creature went with her.
Ronon ate quickly. The meal was good: spiced meat, slightly sweet bread, and a fruit like the fieldberries from home. He went to the bathroom and began to scrub himself. The water smelled slightly of sulfur, but the soap had a crisp yellow scent to it. It felt good to be clean again. When he was done he changed into the fresh clothes Naiabe had left for him, a loose shirt and lightweight pants.
When Ronon was done he realized he was locked in his room. He was vaguely annoyed with himself for not checking the door immediately after Naiabe had left. After a few minutes, she returned to escort him to the Koblai.
They walked through a wide courtyard, and at the center was bright, rushing fountain. Water flowed up from an ivory pedestal to arc through the air toward the four cardinal points. The pedestal was twice Ronon’s height and carved with myriad faces. The walls of the courtyard were curved again, running away in flesh-tones. The dash of the water sounded like breath.
The Koblai was a tall man with thick blonde hair and broad shoulders. He sat at a clean brown table that wasn’t made from wood. Ronon found himself impressed with the Koblai’s physical presence, which was strange, but the man was bigger than a Wraith. Ronon shook his head slightly. There was a packed-cotton pressure still lingering in his mind. The blast from the gun that had shot him must be worse than a Wraith stunner.
“Thank you, Naiabe.” The Koblai made a dismissive gesture, and she withdrew. “So, you must be Ronon the offworlder.”
“Yeah.”
“What world are you from?”
Ronon only hesitated for a moment. “Sateda.”
“Never heard of it.” The Koblai smiled. “Then again, we don’t get out much.”
“I bet.” Ronon felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. “I didn’t see a way to dial the ring.”
“Oh, we have a portable device that allows us to open the ring when we wish.” The Koblai made that dismissive gesture again. Ronon didn’t like the way he was being looked at, but he couldn’t figure out why.
“Am I a prisoner here?” Ronon asked.
“Of course not!” the Koblai cried, and Ronon felt himself relax again, even though something in the back of his mind was starting to scream at him. “You are our guest.”
“Naiabe said I’d have to find some way to pay for your hospitality.”
The Koblai sighed. “Naiabe can be rather cut and dry sometimes, you’ll have to forgive her.”
“Can you take the Wraith tracker out of me?” Ronon asked.
“Now for that we will have to exact payment.” The Koblai frowned. “In fact, you will have to finish your term of service before I’ll authorize the operation.”
“How long? Doing what?” Naiabe had said they didn’t need laborers.
“You will be my servant, but only for a month.” The Koblai held up a single finger and waved it back and forth. “It seems more than a fair deal, considering you’ll be fed and kept safe from the Wraith the whole time.”
“Sure.” It did seem more than fair.
“So we have an agreement?”
“Yeah, sounds good to me.” It did sound good. “When do I start?”
“Immediately.” The Kublai rose and walked closer to Ronon. “Is that all that you wanted?” He dropped his voice, and the packed-cotton feeling in Ronon’s head increased.
“I want the tracker out more than anything,” he said.
“That’s not what I asked.” The Koblai loomed closer, and his eyes raked up and down Ronon’s body. “Ah. Your wife.”
Mist blew in through the window, and again there was a sound like breathing. A figure began to coalesce.
“Stop it.” Ronon’s throat grew thick.
“Does she not please you?” The Koblai walked a slow circle around Ronon and the phantom of Melena.
“No.” Ronon wanted to lunge at the Koblai, but something held him frozen in place. “Leave the memory of my wife alone.”
The Koblai clucked his tongue then gestured, and Ronon’s knees gave out beneath him.
“What are you?” Ronon asked.
“We are the Kin, of course.”
…
Curled in the bare corner of his room, Ronon listened to the city rustle and sigh around him. He had a few hours to sleep now, but the bed in the center of the room was so exposed that it made him nervous. Before the first day was done, he realized that the walls here didn’t simply look organic, they were organic. The City of Flesh began to whisper to him shortly after that, and now, three days later, was whispering to him almost constantly.
We are the souls of the chosen, it said, and the Kin have locked us here. They can confuse minds.
The City of Flesh said we cannot free ourselves and you are strong.
The Shadow-things never spoke. The city whispered we were once like them and you will be one of them if you stay.
Ronon tried to bide his time, to wait for a chance to escape. If he couldn’t find the device that controlled the ring, he could certainly hide somewhere else on the planet.
The Koblai enjoyed projecting images of Melena and made obscene promises about turning her into flesh again. Ronon had to deal with Naiabe the most, though; she was the Koblai’s first consort. Her eyes were brighter now than they had first appeared, the angles of her face harsher. When she smiled, and she did smile at him often, her bared teeth were pointed.
Some of us do escape, but after it’s too late the city said; its voice was harmonic and echoed in Ronon’s head. It’s too late and we are slight like vapor. Your escape would anger them greatly.
“What are they?” Ronon whispered, drawing his knees to his chest.
They are their own creators. They are Kin, both to the Ancestors and to the Wraith. The wall at Ronon’s back shivered.
The Kin allowed Ronon to remain armed with his several knives, though the Wraith stunner he had when he came through was long gone. He guessed that his knives were of little concern when they could make him crumple to the floor with a thought. On the fifth day, when Naiabe’s back was turned, he drew a knife from the sheath on his arm and threw it at her neck. The knife stilled in midair. Naiabe turned and took it, held it out to Ronon handle first. “I believe this is yours,” she said.
He grasped the knife and returned it to the sheath.
“What are you?” he asked Naiabe. “Where did you come from?”
“We are survivors, Ronon.” She smiled with her thorn sharp teeth. “Most of the ones you call Ancestors refused to adapt, but some saw the glory of the Wraith. Some saw a chance for growth, for perfection, and look how well we succeeded when our cousins fled.”
The ring, the ring, the city whispered while Ronon slept. It connects at random to another world for two weeks every pass, that is how you came. Ronon dreamt of slaughter. You are strong. You can escape, and they will be angry.
Use the black knife.
In the end, the city arranged his escape. Nine days after Ronon first stepped through the ring, a small section of wall opened up by his head, and the city offered him a small device which would open the ring. He waited a few hours until he saw his chance, then shoved the black knife deep into the Koblai’s chest. Ronon drew the Koblai’s gun before they staggered apart, both gasping. The Koblai straightened himself, his skin smoothing over the wound almost instantly, and Ronon shot him point blank.
Then Ronon continued to Run. The gun he’d taken from the Koblai served him well.
…
Back in Atlantis, the days fall into a routine which only occasionally leaves Ronon restless. Wake up, run with Sheppard, eat, train some Marines, eat again, briefing if they’re headed offworld the next day, spar with Teyla, dinner, run again, sleep. Once in a while Teyla would get him to meditate or he’d watch a movie with someone. Important thing is he kept moving. No point in giving himself time to dwell on things that he can’t change.
Keep moving and you stay alive.
If Sheppard’s running at any time of the day, Ronon goes with him. He lets Sheppard set the path and the pace. Sometimes Sheppard only tolerates his presence, and only because they never talk on those days.
Today’s not one of those days, though, and Sheppard looks wide awake as they set off at a jog. “Bet the surf is great over on the mainland this morning.” He grins at Ronon. “Seriously, buddy, we’ve got to go surfing one of these days; you’d love it. It’s a zen kind of thing, but way better than meditation.”
“Anything’s better than meditation.” Teyla had roped them both into it a couple nights ago. Ronon doesn’t see the point of that much contemplation. He lets Teyla keep talking him into it though because there must be something more to it, something he’s doing wrong.
“Yeah,” Sheppard says. “I was thinking since the weather’s so nice, we could run out along Pier Three today.”
“Sure.”
As they round a corner, the silver flicker eyes of a Shadow-thing stare. The Shadow-things are different than the shadows the Wraith make you see: a flash of oilslick iridescence instead of flat black mist. For another, they’re real, even if they can’t necessarily hurt you. Ronon’s not worried-all the Shadow-things in Atlantis seem melted too far into the air to do any damage. He’s the only one who can see them though. There are a number of them here, and any doubt he had that the Kin used to be Ancestors has long since gone.
They reach a long hallway, and Sheppard lengthens his stride. Another Shadow-thing keeps pace with them, gliding in and out of the corner of Ronon’s eye. The Shadow-things are fascinated by Sheppard. Like the city is. Like the people in the city are. It figures; a long time ago the Shadow-things were human. He wonders if Atlantis talks with Sheppard the same way Zannado had briefly done with Ronon himself.
Ronon matches his stride to Sheppard’s and brings his mind back to the rhythm of their feet. The steady beat is good, the sound of the living. He remembers Teyla’s words the other night and wonders if this is how he meditates, this running. Sheppard turns left, heading for an outdoors walkway and leaving the Shadow-thing behind.
Ronon doesn’t think he’s fascinated with Sheppard-he hasn’t been fascinated with anything in a long time-but he does like Sheppard. Thinks Sheppard is a good enough leader, better than the sort of people who always want the job.
Sheppard puts on a short burst of speed and they emerge into the sunlight, the salt-sharp air. The Lantians have good hearts and better minds, and that is what leads them into trouble too often. Ronon will never be the one to tell of the Shadow-things or of the Kin who made them because the Lantians will want to go looking, want to make contact.
They won’t understand that nothing good can ever come of the Kin.
with: Ronon
rated: PG-13
disclaim: I only own the dvds; everything belongs to Wright, Cooper, Sci-Fi, et al.
note: for kribby via atlantisbasics, with the prompt “Ronon, his gun, an advanced society he meets while running”
thanks: to buffy-lily
Ronon dreams of Running. Sheppard wakes him. The moon is full and low in the sky. A light wind comes from the northeast and sighs around the campsite.
“It’s quiet enough,” Sheppard says.
“Good.” Ronon sits up and settles back against the trunk of a tree.
The firelight glances over Teyla’s profile, and McKay murmurs in his sleep. Ronon watches Sheppard lie down, watches his breath even out. Sheppard is asleep within minutes.
Ronon dreams of Running, but not as much as he used to. Tonight he’s glad for the change in watch, for Sheppard pulling him up from the maze of dreams. Half memories of hard flashing eyes, of being lost in the City of Flesh and the bone deep knowledge that his life could be unraveled with the flick of a thought. He slides the strange black knife from its ankle sheath and fingers it absently. Even on Atlantis, he gets restless if he sleeps more than four hours without interruption.
For two years Sheppard’s people have lived in the city, and they have no idea.
Ronon moves into a crouch. An ache blooms at the base of his throat, like he’s swallowed a stone, and it pulls his attention to the west. A Shadow-thing flickers, blue and quicksilver at the edge of the clearing. On Sateda, children called them reylii and stopped believing in the stories before they hit puberty, but Ronon knows what they really are. The children who believed and the halfwits who passed the story on, they had no idea. No more than the Lantians. Ronon tightens his hold on the bone hilt of his blade and looks directly at the thing. It shudders and melts back into the darkness.
For seven years he was a Runner. This is not quite the same as being human. Even Teyla can’t grasp the distinction, so he never tries to make it. She wouldn’t want to hear about the Shadow-things; she has no patience for made up monsters when the Wraith are so very real.
He never tries to correct them. He’s not a Runner anymore, but he carries the knowledge within him. You can only see the Shadows when you have been a shadow as well.
…
Keep moving, he repeated to himself, keep moving, a mantra that saturated his mind until he no longer needed to think the words. His knee throbbed, swollen.
Keep moving.
The Wraith were never more than a step behind, sometimes as close as a breath. He had killed only three so far, in the sixty-four days he’d been on the Run. Sixty-four days, give or take, he thought, punching in a ring address. Difficult to be certain when moving so quickly between worlds.
The ring put him out into a thick, wet forest. High altitude, it felt like. The old man he got the address from said it was uninhabited. Mist clung to the rubbery leaves, and birds screamed to each other in the distance. Six paces from the gate, a smooth hilt stuck out of the soil, and Ronon bent to retrieve it. The blade was fine and black, paperthin and sharp. It’s oil-dark surface did not reflect the light. The hilt was polished bone, but he couldn’t place the material of the blade. Carefully, he wrapped the knife in a cloth and tucked it in his waistband before setting off into the forest. He needed to eat soon; he needed to keep moving.
Finding sabron leaf to chew on did not prove difficult. It reduced the swelling and pain in his knee; Melena had taught him that. Ronon settled on a low, fat tree branch within sight of the snare he set, slowly chewed a few more sabron leaves, and waited. His older sister Kayllen had taught him how to make a snare, to place it in an animal track and wait. She loved the wilderness. A small bird landed on a nearby branch and hopped back and forth, chirping nervously.
“Don’t worry,” Ronon told it. “You’re too small. Not worth the effort of catching you.”
The bird chirped a few more times, then flew up to a higher branch in the tree. Ronon waited, still, and tried not to think of Melena, of Kayllen, or his father, or his brothers Sammel and Bryton, or his best comrade Haen, tried not to wonder if any of them had managed to survive the attack.
Someone must have survived.
He drew the knife he had found by the ring. Again, light seemed to sink endlessly into the blade’s surface. At the very base of the bone hilt, a sigil was carved. It was simple, but had never seen it before: an oval with a slash through it like a snake’s eye, lines curved like a sine wave extending diagonally from the eye, and a ring of five-sided stars circling the hilt, connecting with each corner of the eye. All in all, the symbol wasn’t particularly odd. Melena had told him of stranger things she saw when training with various off-world healers. The blade was the truly remarkable-and important-thing.
A rustling, thrashing burst of noise startled Ronon and drew his attention back to the snare. He hefted the knife and threw it at the madly scrambling animal. The blade sank into the small beast’s neck, and the creature convulsed once before laying still.
Its hide was thick, but its meat was tender enough, and Ronon set aside the hide to make a sheath for his new blade.
…
Ronon used the world where he found the knife as one of several home bases. When he could, he stockpiled a few supplies there, like he did on a handful of other uninhabited worlds. He was careful not to double back often enough that the Wraith would see a pattern, but he found himself liking the high tropical forest of the knife’s world.
Several years into the Run, when he could barely count the days anymore, he stepped through the ring expecting the knife’s world and instead found himself in a rich valley with soft, sand-colored walls curving up from the soil. A city. Ronon didn’t know how he could’ve misdialed. He turned around immediately to leave, but there was no dialing device by the gate, none anywhere that he could see.
A wall parted, and a man walked out. A burst of light, and the world went black.
Ronon woke in the center of a room filled with pale pink light. He was lying on a low bed, still clothed and armed, and to the left a woman’s back was turned to him. The walls ran in smooth organic lines up to the ceiling, and he reached silently for the black knife.
“That is truly unnecessary,” the woman said, turning around. She wore a simple brown sheath and a placid smile on her face.
“Sorry. Your people did shoot me.”
“And you have my apologies.” Her smile turned kind. “We tend to overreact when a stranger appears.”
“The Wraith. I’m a Runner.” Ronon sat up, struggling with a packed-cotton feeling in his head. “They’re coming. They put a tracker in me.”
“There’s no need to worry,” the woman said. “Our shielding would block any such signal.”
Ronon blinked. “Can you take it out of me.” They must have the technology. “Please. The tracker. I can’t go home with it-”
“Calm yourself.” The woman frowned, sending a shiver down Ronon’s spine. “We will see about the Wraith device, but first you must negotiate a form of payment with the Koblai.”
“Who’s that?” Ronon frowned at the walls; he thought he’d seen them tremble too. “What is this place?”
“This is the city of Zannado.” The woman folded her hands before her. “The Koblai is our leader. We have already given you refuge, and you have little to offer us.”
“I can work,” he said. “Name’s Ronon.”
“We do not want for labor.” Her eyes were green and distant. What he had taken for kindness now seemed condescending. “I am Naiabe.”
“You got anything to eat?” He felt weak. Who knew how long he’d been unconscious from the blast of their guns.
“Of course.” Naiabe looked down her nose at him, then her smile was kind again. “You will want to eat and clean yourself before your audience with the Koblai.”
Moments later, there was a knock at the door. At Naiabe’s gesture it opened, letting in a creature carrying a platter of food. It walked upright but didn’t look Wraith or human. Its face was smooth, and its eyes wide and liquid. It was the color of moonlight and wore a black robe. “What?” he started to ask, but Naiabe waved off his question. She showed Ronon a small bath adjacent to his room and left him alone. The creature went with her.
Ronon ate quickly. The meal was good: spiced meat, slightly sweet bread, and a fruit like the fieldberries from home. He went to the bathroom and began to scrub himself. The water smelled slightly of sulfur, but the soap had a crisp yellow scent to it. It felt good to be clean again. When he was done he changed into the fresh clothes Naiabe had left for him, a loose shirt and lightweight pants.
When Ronon was done he realized he was locked in his room. He was vaguely annoyed with himself for not checking the door immediately after Naiabe had left. After a few minutes, she returned to escort him to the Koblai.
They walked through a wide courtyard, and at the center was bright, rushing fountain. Water flowed up from an ivory pedestal to arc through the air toward the four cardinal points. The pedestal was twice Ronon’s height and carved with myriad faces. The walls of the courtyard were curved again, running away in flesh-tones. The dash of the water sounded like breath.
The Koblai was a tall man with thick blonde hair and broad shoulders. He sat at a clean brown table that wasn’t made from wood. Ronon found himself impressed with the Koblai’s physical presence, which was strange, but the man was bigger than a Wraith. Ronon shook his head slightly. There was a packed-cotton pressure still lingering in his mind. The blast from the gun that had shot him must be worse than a Wraith stunner.
“Thank you, Naiabe.” The Koblai made a dismissive gesture, and she withdrew. “So, you must be Ronon the offworlder.”
“Yeah.”
“What world are you from?”
Ronon only hesitated for a moment. “Sateda.”
“Never heard of it.” The Koblai smiled. “Then again, we don’t get out much.”
“I bet.” Ronon felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. “I didn’t see a way to dial the ring.”
“Oh, we have a portable device that allows us to open the ring when we wish.” The Koblai made that dismissive gesture again. Ronon didn’t like the way he was being looked at, but he couldn’t figure out why.
“Am I a prisoner here?” Ronon asked.
“Of course not!” the Koblai cried, and Ronon felt himself relax again, even though something in the back of his mind was starting to scream at him. “You are our guest.”
“Naiabe said I’d have to find some way to pay for your hospitality.”
The Koblai sighed. “Naiabe can be rather cut and dry sometimes, you’ll have to forgive her.”
“Can you take the Wraith tracker out of me?” Ronon asked.
“Now for that we will have to exact payment.” The Koblai frowned. “In fact, you will have to finish your term of service before I’ll authorize the operation.”
“How long? Doing what?” Naiabe had said they didn’t need laborers.
“You will be my servant, but only for a month.” The Koblai held up a single finger and waved it back and forth. “It seems more than a fair deal, considering you’ll be fed and kept safe from the Wraith the whole time.”
“Sure.” It did seem more than fair.
“So we have an agreement?”
“Yeah, sounds good to me.” It did sound good. “When do I start?”
“Immediately.” The Kublai rose and walked closer to Ronon. “Is that all that you wanted?” He dropped his voice, and the packed-cotton feeling in Ronon’s head increased.
“I want the tracker out more than anything,” he said.
“That’s not what I asked.” The Koblai loomed closer, and his eyes raked up and down Ronon’s body. “Ah. Your wife.”
Mist blew in through the window, and again there was a sound like breathing. A figure began to coalesce.
“Stop it.” Ronon’s throat grew thick.
“Does she not please you?” The Koblai walked a slow circle around Ronon and the phantom of Melena.
“No.” Ronon wanted to lunge at the Koblai, but something held him frozen in place. “Leave the memory of my wife alone.”
The Koblai clucked his tongue then gestured, and Ronon’s knees gave out beneath him.
“What are you?” Ronon asked.
“We are the Kin, of course.”
…
Curled in the bare corner of his room, Ronon listened to the city rustle and sigh around him. He had a few hours to sleep now, but the bed in the center of the room was so exposed that it made him nervous. Before the first day was done, he realized that the walls here didn’t simply look organic, they were organic. The City of Flesh began to whisper to him shortly after that, and now, three days later, was whispering to him almost constantly.
We are the souls of the chosen, it said, and the Kin have locked us here. They can confuse minds.
The City of Flesh said we cannot free ourselves and you are strong.
The Shadow-things never spoke. The city whispered we were once like them and you will be one of them if you stay.
Ronon tried to bide his time, to wait for a chance to escape. If he couldn’t find the device that controlled the ring, he could certainly hide somewhere else on the planet.
The Koblai enjoyed projecting images of Melena and made obscene promises about turning her into flesh again. Ronon had to deal with Naiabe the most, though; she was the Koblai’s first consort. Her eyes were brighter now than they had first appeared, the angles of her face harsher. When she smiled, and she did smile at him often, her bared teeth were pointed.
Some of us do escape, but after it’s too late the city said; its voice was harmonic and echoed in Ronon’s head. It’s too late and we are slight like vapor. Your escape would anger them greatly.
“What are they?” Ronon whispered, drawing his knees to his chest.
They are their own creators. They are Kin, both to the Ancestors and to the Wraith. The wall at Ronon’s back shivered.
The Kin allowed Ronon to remain armed with his several knives, though the Wraith stunner he had when he came through was long gone. He guessed that his knives were of little concern when they could make him crumple to the floor with a thought. On the fifth day, when Naiabe’s back was turned, he drew a knife from the sheath on his arm and threw it at her neck. The knife stilled in midair. Naiabe turned and took it, held it out to Ronon handle first. “I believe this is yours,” she said.
He grasped the knife and returned it to the sheath.
“What are you?” he asked Naiabe. “Where did you come from?”
“We are survivors, Ronon.” She smiled with her thorn sharp teeth. “Most of the ones you call Ancestors refused to adapt, but some saw the glory of the Wraith. Some saw a chance for growth, for perfection, and look how well we succeeded when our cousins fled.”
The ring, the ring, the city whispered while Ronon slept. It connects at random to another world for two weeks every pass, that is how you came. Ronon dreamt of slaughter. You are strong. You can escape, and they will be angry.
Use the black knife.
In the end, the city arranged his escape. Nine days after Ronon first stepped through the ring, a small section of wall opened up by his head, and the city offered him a small device which would open the ring. He waited a few hours until he saw his chance, then shoved the black knife deep into the Koblai’s chest. Ronon drew the Koblai’s gun before they staggered apart, both gasping. The Koblai straightened himself, his skin smoothing over the wound almost instantly, and Ronon shot him point blank.
Then Ronon continued to Run. The gun he’d taken from the Koblai served him well.
…
Back in Atlantis, the days fall into a routine which only occasionally leaves Ronon restless. Wake up, run with Sheppard, eat, train some Marines, eat again, briefing if they’re headed offworld the next day, spar with Teyla, dinner, run again, sleep. Once in a while Teyla would get him to meditate or he’d watch a movie with someone. Important thing is he kept moving. No point in giving himself time to dwell on things that he can’t change.
Keep moving and you stay alive.
If Sheppard’s running at any time of the day, Ronon goes with him. He lets Sheppard set the path and the pace. Sometimes Sheppard only tolerates his presence, and only because they never talk on those days.
Today’s not one of those days, though, and Sheppard looks wide awake as they set off at a jog. “Bet the surf is great over on the mainland this morning.” He grins at Ronon. “Seriously, buddy, we’ve got to go surfing one of these days; you’d love it. It’s a zen kind of thing, but way better than meditation.”
“Anything’s better than meditation.” Teyla had roped them both into it a couple nights ago. Ronon doesn’t see the point of that much contemplation. He lets Teyla keep talking him into it though because there must be something more to it, something he’s doing wrong.
“Yeah,” Sheppard says. “I was thinking since the weather’s so nice, we could run out along Pier Three today.”
“Sure.”
As they round a corner, the silver flicker eyes of a Shadow-thing stare. The Shadow-things are different than the shadows the Wraith make you see: a flash of oilslick iridescence instead of flat black mist. For another, they’re real, even if they can’t necessarily hurt you. Ronon’s not worried-all the Shadow-things in Atlantis seem melted too far into the air to do any damage. He’s the only one who can see them though. There are a number of them here, and any doubt he had that the Kin used to be Ancestors has long since gone.
They reach a long hallway, and Sheppard lengthens his stride. Another Shadow-thing keeps pace with them, gliding in and out of the corner of Ronon’s eye. The Shadow-things are fascinated by Sheppard. Like the city is. Like the people in the city are. It figures; a long time ago the Shadow-things were human. He wonders if Atlantis talks with Sheppard the same way Zannado had briefly done with Ronon himself.
Ronon matches his stride to Sheppard’s and brings his mind back to the rhythm of their feet. The steady beat is good, the sound of the living. He remembers Teyla’s words the other night and wonders if this is how he meditates, this running. Sheppard turns left, heading for an outdoors walkway and leaving the Shadow-thing behind.
Ronon doesn’t think he’s fascinated with Sheppard-he hasn’t been fascinated with anything in a long time-but he does like Sheppard. Thinks Sheppard is a good enough leader, better than the sort of people who always want the job.
Sheppard puts on a short burst of speed and they emerge into the sunlight, the salt-sharp air. The Lantians have good hearts and better minds, and that is what leads them into trouble too often. Ronon will never be the one to tell of the Shadow-things or of the Kin who made them because the Lantians will want to go looking, want to make contact.
They won’t understand that nothing good can ever come of the Kin.