A is for Aspect
Written for Gen Fic Day for Vala Alphabet Soup. The Goa'uld might be snaky symbiotes, but it's the hosts' faces that Vala has always hated. 912 words. Includes spoilers through Continuum. Rated PG.
Thank you, Random, for your usual stellar beta.
A is for Aspect
Vala knows that the Goa'uld are slimy snakes that burrow their way into human bodies and claim their victims' faces as their own. After all, she spent too many years with a symbiote riding her spine, ruthlessly using her body for its own purposes and pleasures. But for all her bitter, intimate knowledge that the Goa'uld isn't the face of the host, she can't help making the association. Even for herself -- for long years after the Tok'ra removed Qetesh, she couldn't look at her reflection without flinching away from the anticipated flash of her eyes.
So when she thinks of Qetesh and Ba'al and Apophis and Ra, she doesn't picture a snake-like creature; she sees the faces of the humans who were forced to host them, and she hates them. She hates the ageless child with the arrogant nose who ruled the System Lords for millennia. She can't stand the golden skin and smooth features and rich voice of Apophis. She despises the dark glint in Ba'al's eyes, the gestures he makes with his hands, and the way the corner of his mouth curls when he smiles. And yes, she knows that in many ways, she still hates herself as the puppet Qetesh used as the tool for her atrocities.
So it is a shock to Vala when she wanders restlessly around Daniel's office, fingering his papers and artifacts and absentmindedly cataloging their value, and she sees a framed picture of Amaunet hanging on the wall. The clothes are too simple and the expression too pleasant, but that face cannot be mistaken.
The Tau'ri think she has no self-control, so it's easy to school her features and hide her initial reaction. She's shrewd enough not to ask Daniel any questions, as the only answer he's likely to give is another demand that she remove the bracelets that tether them to such close quarters. Instead, she tosses out some innuendo, gives him her most infuriating smile when he explodes, and pretends reluctance when he orders the handsome young thing that guards the door to take her as far away as possible without risking their joint collapse.
Tau'ri computers are nothing like the Goa'uld systems she knows so well. Still, Vala has been using what this stolid planet considers to be outrageous behavior as a distraction for a long time now. They don't seem to recognize how much she can absorb just by surreptitiously watching keystrokes and listening to muttered imprecations. She allows herself a broad smile as she seats herself at the computer in the deserted office and easily breaks the codes that allow her to search through personnel files.
The smile disappears, though, when she opens Daniel's file and learns why that picture of Amaunet is displayed in his office. The shock isn't the discovery that he was once married, or that he lost his wife to the Goa'uld; it's the recognition that the face she hates -- the long glossy hair, the haughty tilt of the chin, the sweep of her eyebrows -- all of it, everything that makes up the composite she labels Amaunet, is actually Sha're of Abydos, a woman with her own personality and sense of self before the Goa'uld took it away.
Vala closes her eyes and accepts that she's probably known it, on some intellectual level, all along. It's a kind of lazy mental shorthand, she supposes, that she allows herself to hate the hosts' faces. And maybe it hasn't really mattered until now. But that picture changes things, and while the Tau'ri might laugh at the idea, Vala is usually pretty honest with herself.
She never mentions anything about Amaunet to Daniel. Later, after she takes her second, longer trip to another galaxy and the Ori fashion their mouthpiece from her own flesh, she's quietly moved when he actually volunteers information about Sha're when they think Adria has died. By then, she's already starting to work on her resolve, and hearing Daniel speak of his wife makes it easier to see the person behind the facade.
It's difficult to make that shift in perception, but slowly, painfully, she learns to focus her hate for the Goa'uld beyond the faces they steal for their own purposes. She gets more practice than she really wants, especially when Athena straps her down and strips her of memory. It's a difficult process, and she wishes she could just forget the whole thing and go back to the easy way of thinking.
But when the Ori are gone, and Adria is... permanently elsewhere, and the Tok'ra summon SG-1 to witness Ba'al's final execution, Vala finds it surprisingly easy to ignore the face that Ba'al has worn all those millennia and focus on the innocent host instead.
"I think I might stay a while and help him through this."
"Yeah," Daniel says calmly. "I thought you might."
There's a wealth of understanding in those few words, and she carries that comfort with her as she moves toward the trembling figure. She doesn't think he'll survive for more than a few hours, a day or two at most -- as Daniel said, the man suffered as Ba'al's host for too long. But for herself, for Sha're of Abydos, and for every other human being that the Goa'uld have claimed as their own... Vala is ready to look upon that face without a snake behind it, and give him the grace of his sense of self for as long as he might yet live.
Thank you, Random, for your usual stellar beta.
A is for Aspect
Vala knows that the Goa'uld are slimy snakes that burrow their way into human bodies and claim their victims' faces as their own. After all, she spent too many years with a symbiote riding her spine, ruthlessly using her body for its own purposes and pleasures. But for all her bitter, intimate knowledge that the Goa'uld isn't the face of the host, she can't help making the association. Even for herself -- for long years after the Tok'ra removed Qetesh, she couldn't look at her reflection without flinching away from the anticipated flash of her eyes.
So when she thinks of Qetesh and Ba'al and Apophis and Ra, she doesn't picture a snake-like creature; she sees the faces of the humans who were forced to host them, and she hates them. She hates the ageless child with the arrogant nose who ruled the System Lords for millennia. She can't stand the golden skin and smooth features and rich voice of Apophis. She despises the dark glint in Ba'al's eyes, the gestures he makes with his hands, and the way the corner of his mouth curls when he smiles. And yes, she knows that in many ways, she still hates herself as the puppet Qetesh used as the tool for her atrocities.
So it is a shock to Vala when she wanders restlessly around Daniel's office, fingering his papers and artifacts and absentmindedly cataloging their value, and she sees a framed picture of Amaunet hanging on the wall. The clothes are too simple and the expression too pleasant, but that face cannot be mistaken.
The Tau'ri think she has no self-control, so it's easy to school her features and hide her initial reaction. She's shrewd enough not to ask Daniel any questions, as the only answer he's likely to give is another demand that she remove the bracelets that tether them to such close quarters. Instead, she tosses out some innuendo, gives him her most infuriating smile when he explodes, and pretends reluctance when he orders the handsome young thing that guards the door to take her as far away as possible without risking their joint collapse.
Tau'ri computers are nothing like the Goa'uld systems she knows so well. Still, Vala has been using what this stolid planet considers to be outrageous behavior as a distraction for a long time now. They don't seem to recognize how much she can absorb just by surreptitiously watching keystrokes and listening to muttered imprecations. She allows herself a broad smile as she seats herself at the computer in the deserted office and easily breaks the codes that allow her to search through personnel files.
The smile disappears, though, when she opens Daniel's file and learns why that picture of Amaunet is displayed in his office. The shock isn't the discovery that he was once married, or that he lost his wife to the Goa'uld; it's the recognition that the face she hates -- the long glossy hair, the haughty tilt of the chin, the sweep of her eyebrows -- all of it, everything that makes up the composite she labels Amaunet, is actually Sha're of Abydos, a woman with her own personality and sense of self before the Goa'uld took it away.
Vala closes her eyes and accepts that she's probably known it, on some intellectual level, all along. It's a kind of lazy mental shorthand, she supposes, that she allows herself to hate the hosts' faces. And maybe it hasn't really mattered until now. But that picture changes things, and while the Tau'ri might laugh at the idea, Vala is usually pretty honest with herself.
She never mentions anything about Amaunet to Daniel. Later, after she takes her second, longer trip to another galaxy and the Ori fashion their mouthpiece from her own flesh, she's quietly moved when he actually volunteers information about Sha're when they think Adria has died. By then, she's already starting to work on her resolve, and hearing Daniel speak of his wife makes it easier to see the person behind the facade.
It's difficult to make that shift in perception, but slowly, painfully, she learns to focus her hate for the Goa'uld beyond the faces they steal for their own purposes. She gets more practice than she really wants, especially when Athena straps her down and strips her of memory. It's a difficult process, and she wishes she could just forget the whole thing and go back to the easy way of thinking.
But when the Ori are gone, and Adria is... permanently elsewhere, and the Tok'ra summon SG-1 to witness Ba'al's final execution, Vala finds it surprisingly easy to ignore the face that Ba'al has worn all those millennia and focus on the innocent host instead.
"I think I might stay a while and help him through this."
"Yeah," Daniel says calmly. "I thought you might."
There's a wealth of understanding in those few words, and she carries that comfort with her as she moves toward the trembling figure. She doesn't think he'll survive for more than a few hours, a day or two at most -- as Daniel said, the man suffered as Ba'al's host for too long. But for herself, for Sha're of Abydos, and for every other human being that the Goa'uld have claimed as their own... Vala is ready to look upon that face without a snake behind it, and give him the grace of his sense of self for as long as he might yet live.