Kala's Tale by Kriadydragon (Strange New Worlds and Alien Geography challenge)
Title: Kala's Tale
Author: Kriadydragon
Rating: PG, Gen
Characters: John Sheppard, kid OC, some Ronon
Summary: Some legends tend to be a bit skewed.
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The Ancestor-sent came in the night after premonition of the beasts' return. Athos was taken and the Ancestor-sent followed riding the carriage brought to being by the wise-one McKay. The mother-beast fed on the Lantean king who died without sound. She turned her sights to the Athosian queen and her people, when the warrior Sheppard stood between them, arms open wide in self-offering. The mother-beast was pleased and accepted this offering for the life of the Athosian queen and her people.
When the Mother-beast went in to devour, the warrior struck killing her with the very weapon used to capture her prey. The warrior Sheppard fled carrying the Athosian queen and her people to the Old City that none can find, there to live out the rest of their lives in peace.
It you look into the sky when the sun his high, you may almost see a flash of silver off the bright skin of the winged carriages, for the Ancestor-sent are always there, watching over us. And so forever will be.
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It was uncle Timrin who found the next wild-man, going out in the early morning to fish in the Vren, then scurrying back like a spooked Ims shouting all about it. It had been a full lunar cycle of both moons since the last one and talk in the village was that most of the slave labor of the Cossy mines must be too weak to attempt an escape. That was never a good thing according to mama. It made the Cossys bold, she said, enough to cross the river and risk a metal pellet to the brain-pan just so they didn't have to do the work themselves.
Kala had learned a lot from Gef about making herself scarce and easy to over-look when it came to following the men out to the river. She was nine, but small for her age, unlike Gef who was twelve and getting too tall for his skin. But Gef was old enough to join the parties. He helped Kala come along since he knew better than to try and stop her.
“But if papa catches you, I'm gonna pretend I don't know anything. I'm not getting barred in doors because of you.”
Kala felt that fair enough. She kept behind his skinny frame and both kept to the rear of the party as they made their way to the river. The moment they stopped, Kala made for the nearest bonta tree and climbed to get a better look at the wild-man. She could almost see him moving about beneath one of the bonta that all looked as though they were standing on their knobby roots. The man must have been bone skinny to squeeze through those roots where he paced like a caged animal.
The men moved in slow and cautious with nets and soft ropes. Kala had never understood why the adults didn't just shoot the wild men and be done with it. They were dangerous, so said aunt Midgey. The Cossys did terrible things to their slaves; hurting, beating, and things the adults wouldn't talk about around the kids. It turned the slaves mean as beasts, so vicious even the Cossys couldn't control them. Every once and a while one of these wild ones would escape and the village would send out men to catch him, drug him to sleep, and drag him to the town to be cleaned, fed, then sent on his way. It was the best the towns-folk could do what with the wild-ones being too far boggled in the head to do much else.
Papa, the tallest and leanest of the group, made the closest approach. “You come out now, there, fellow,” he said, quiet and kind-like. “We won't be hurting you. It's all right, now. No one's gonna do you harm.”
The wild-one stopped pacing, Kala could see it. “Then why the nets and ropes?”
A bit of a confounded murmur rippled like water through the party. Papa was quick to recover from the surprise of a wild-one talking back (most not saying anything unless it was nonsense) and answered, “Oh... well, it's precaution mostly. You a slave of the Cossys? No need to fret answering, we've no intentions of sending you back.”
“You mean those freaks who make you dig through brown mud to find black mud? Yeah, I was their employee for a while. Then I quit the moment I got the chance to bash one of their skulls in.”
Papa lowered his net. “Then you know the need for precaution. Most don't break out with their minds all that put together. We've had to get a bit rough just to help 'em live a little longer. You don't fight and we can help you.”
“Define 'help'? Because if it involves locking me up in a cage then I'm going to be telling you where you can shove your help.”
Papa dropped the net to hold up both hands. “No cage. Just warm food, clothes, even a bed if you're so inclined.”
There was a moment of long quiet before the wild-man spoke again, hesitant, even a little afraid it sounded like. “I'm inclined but... I... Not to be rude or anything but I've been having a really bad couple of weeks and my ability to trust is a little fragile right now...”
Papa smiled. He had a kind smile, but then papa was a kind man, which was why he always led the retrieving parties. He knew how to handle the wild-ones in a way that kept them from exploding into a tizzy of animal-mad, and knew how to handle them in gentle ways when they did. “I understand. Not a bad spot to shelter in, anyways. The river is always clean, good for fishing, and bonta trees do good in sheltering from the rains. It's the warm season so you don't have to worry about cold. Better above all, the Cossys know better than to cross the river. You're safe here, stranger. Feel free to come to the village when you're ready, just up the path there.”
The men started to disperse, leaving it at that for now. Knowing papa, he would probably send someone to bring the stranger food or clothes. Kala shimmied down the tree when the men were past enough not to see her. She glanced back quick enough to spy a thin, pale head fuzzed with dark stubble and wild black hair peek through the roots.
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Kala had been found out, and as promised Gef denied knowing anything about it, but mama didn't buy it. They were both confined to the hut, not even allowed a step out to sit on the porch. Gef pointedly ignored Kala for the rest of the day and Kala whittled time by staring out the window at the pin-pricks of light flickering soft as glow-bugs in the next tree over. The walkway connecting the giant Muln trees holding clusters of houses within their thick branches and metal-green foliage swayed and creaked in the breezes. She wondered about the man, how he was doing, and why papa hadn't dragged him back to the village where he'd be safe high up in the trees. The bonta roots might protect him, but some of the land animals could get pretty big, pretty desperate, and pretty mean, especially when hungry.
Kala had to wait the entirety of the next day before the confinement was let up. She over heard papa and mama talking about the man, that he had survived the night and how their neighbor Jornty had set out some food for him.
Before mama let up the confinement, she had her final say. “I don't want you anywhere near that wild-one. Just because he can talk doesn't mean he's all in his head.”
“Yes, mama,” Kala wisely replied. She already had a plan. The bonta tress were tall and she had no reason to think the man had strength enough to climb. So, by that piece of logic, keeping to high places beyond reach was the same as keeping away. And someone had to keep watch on that wild-one since no one else seemed to be.
Her, Milly from the next tree over, and Gef scurried like the little furry Ims that were smaller than a man's palm to the river, clamoring up the bonta to wait for the wild man. Their wait was rewarded when the man squeezed his skinny body through the roots to crouch by the river for a drink.
And, boy, was he skinny. The muddied clothes were almost rags split down the front making room for one side to slip bunched at the elbow and stopping just above his upper stomach. His skin was too tight on his bones, sinking into the crevasses, ribs curved and sharp as the tines of a pitchfork and backbone like dull, stubby spikes. Mud and bruises and scabs from thin thread cuts to old, crusty gashes marred his back fiercely. Kala had never seen a man that poor off before, but then this was her first real look at a wild one.
It made her feel strange, like she was seeing something she wasn't meant to. It was the kind of thing that was going to stick hard to her mind fresh as now and never letting up. She absently plucked one of the finger-thin teal leaves from the bonta and rubbed the slick surface between her thumb and forefinger as she sometimes did when uneasy. She liked the texture, it made her feel comfortable.
The man cupped water into his shaking hands to bring to his cracked lips, then splashed water on his face and chest to rub splatters of grime and mud from his skin. “If you think I can't see you up there, guess again.”
Kala stiffened, dropping the leaf, and turned a wide-eyed look on her bother and Milly. Dark-haired Milly shrank back shaking like a leaf in a storm. “We gotta get out of here!”
“Relax,” the man said in a humored sort of way, not quite chuckling but close. “I'm not going to hurt you.” He stood, yanking the dropped sleeve back over his shoulder. “You three wouldn't happen know where the Starg... I mean ring of the ancestors is, would you?”
“Two days ride from here,” said Gef, “by wagon.”
The man nodded. “Which direction?”
“North,” Kala replied. She remembered well since her papa liked to take her to the ring. There were ruins there, with picture-stories, and he liked to tell her about those stories as part of her education. He never took her off world since he wasn't all that fond of such travel. He was a farmer, not a trader. “I'm a one-land man,” was his motto, and dusting his feet with foreign soil didn't sit right with him. But he did love the stories people brought, and Kala loved to hear them.
Kala plucked another leaf and rubbed it. “What's your name?”
The man dropped back down on the bank to dip his bare, dirty feet into the water with a contented sigh. “Most call me Sheppard. You can call me John if you want.”
Again, Kala stiffened, passing another wide-eyed look that her brother and friend shared before all three burst into a fit of giggles.
John gave them a narrow-eyed look. “What? That sound funny to you? It's my name, I swear.”
“Sheppard?” Gef said, breath hitching as he tried to catch it. “The Ancestor-sent warrior?”
Kala wiped her blurring eyes. “You can't be Sheppard. He's really tall, and big, and rides in a carriage with wings made out of shiny metal.”
Milly, gnawing a piece of her hair, scowled. “You're too skinny to be him.”
John shrugged. “Well, that's my name, sorry to disappoint.” He then gave them a mixed glance of suspicion and curiosity. “How do you know about m... uh... Sheppard, anyways?”
“Our dad told us,” Gef said. “He hears stories all the time from the traders, and they hear about them when they go to other worlds. Sheppard was sent by the Ancestors from a place so far away no gate can reach it, and they live in a city that can fly.”
“They took the Athosians to a safe place,” Kala jumped in, hauling herself to her feet by an upper branch. Stories of the Ancestor-sent she knew better than anyone else, being her favorite because it was said that the Lanteans were still around, still watching over the people of the various worlds. In most tales, the heroes were usually long dead by now. She liked the idea of there being a chance - yes, a very sand-sized chance - that she might one day meet an Ancestor-sent. “But they can't say where it is or the Ancestor-sent will have to leave because the great beasts will find them and try to kill them. Warrior Sheppard had killed a Mother-beast and the beasts aren't happy, so the Lanteans have to hide. They took the Athosians with them because their home was lost and... and...” her enthusiasm was like water swelling a water-sack about to pop, and bouncing on the branch was the only way to make it drain before she burst. She'd never been the one to tell the tales before, always being on the listening-end instead. “And they...”
Her foot slipped, pulling her legs out from under her, still in the tree by the grace of the branch above her.
“Kala!” Gef cried.
Kala whimpered on looking down at the distance she had to fall, then up at her ever slipping grip.
“Kala hang on!”
“I can't!” Sweat and moss combined. Her hand slipped free and she fell without a sound when the push of open-air shoved the breath from her lungs. She braced for the hard impact on the ground only to impact with something a little less hard, slowing her to hit with less force. She was on the ground, cradled in bone-thin arms, looking up into the less-grimed and prickly face of John.
“You okay kid?” he said. He helped her to her feet with a wince.
Kala swallowed. “I'm okay.”
After making sure she was steady, John leaned forward with one hand on his knee and the other pressed against his side. He was breathing heavy, like he'd run a ways and lost the means to breathe right.
“You all right?” Kala asked, concerned, wondering if she needed to run and fetch papa, even if it did mean another day's confinement for not listening to mama.
John nodded. “Yeah, I'm good, just a little banged up.” He eventually straightened, which hurt just as much by the scrunched look on his face.
“My ma's a healer!” Milly squealed. She was always quick to nab every possible chance to let people know, healing being a tricky task not many were good at - except for her ma. She climbed down the tree after Gef, who ran to Kala and checked her over, squeezing her limbs and poking her chest.
Kala pushed him away. “I'm fine! Yeah, Milly's mama knows how to fix folk right up. You should come to town and let her fix you, then you won't have to wait for anyone to bring you food or anything.”
“No one'll hurt you,” said Gef. “We don't do harm to the folk who get away from the Cossys.”
John's scrunch of pain became a scrunch of uncertainty. “I don't... I mean... I'm kind of not up to handling crowds at the moment...”
Kala rolled her eyes. “Sheppard would do it. He's not afraid of anything. You shouldn't call yourself Sheppard if you're not going to act like him.”
That made John laugh for some reason, part in humor and a little hysterical sounding. “Crap, kid, you're good. Motivational speaker good.”
Kala wrinkled her nose. “What's that?”
“Never mind.” Then he pointed a dirty finger at her. “But if your papa tries to stick me in the local jail, I will not be held responsible for any bruises procured on his person.”
Kala giggled since it sounded funny, even if it wasn't supposed to be since it was her papa he was talking about. Seeing as how papa would probably be doing the most bruising on John, she didn't take the threat to much heart. She did take him by his hand to tug him along up the path winding through the Bonta into the grove of larger Muln. Kala was surprised at the lack of pop and crack from John's neck the way he bent, twisted and turned it trying to see the trees with their house-clusters and web of walkways. They pushed and pulled John up the winding path of wood planks to their house cluster, Milly taking off across the bridge to fetch her ma. A cool, moist breeze shivered the leaves that flickered shimmers of sunlight down on them.
People slowed or paused all together on the porches and wooden-planked paths to stare at the skinny wild-man in his mud-stained rags. John didn't seem to like this much by the way his colorless face stained red at the cheeks. Kala felt the muscles of his hand harden, saw the muscles in his arms and shoulders twitch doing the same, like an animal bunching up for a quick bolt. Kala pulled John into a fast walk before had the chance and didn't let go when she had him in the house, and for good reason when mama stepped from the kitchen and gasped in horror.
“What the... Kala, Gef! You get away from that man! Are you brainless, why did you bring him here!” She tried to pluck Kala away from John but Kala couldn't let go. John would take off if she did, she knew it like fact... and also because of the way John kept trying to inch back toward the exit while cringing like an over-kicked creature.
“He's harmless mama!” Kala shrilled. Mama pulled on her arm, Kala pulled back, holding tight to John who was seeking out the door-handle with his free hand.
“He is, mama,” Gef said. “He even saved Kala when she fell out of the tree. He says his name is John.”
“He's hurt, mama. Milly went to get her ma to heal him.”
Their ma looked from Kala to John, back and forth, angry and uncertain. “I don't know about this, kids. Gef, you fetch your pa. Mr. John is it?”
John nervously shrugged, forced to move out of the way of the door for Gef to leave. “It would be Mr. Sheppard, but you can call me John.”
Mama was even more baffled now, not that Kala blamed her. There had to be something touched about a man's head if he'd rather be called by the name of a warrior of stories, or maybe it made him feel better, like pretend; easier thinking himself something that he wasn't than admitting to what he was. “Well, John, you have a seat at the table and don't ponder funny business. I know where all the weapons are kept hid and I'll have a pellet in your heart faster than you can blink if you so much as try any harm.”
John shuffled sideways to the table with one hand raised in a show of innocent complacency. “Trust me, lady, I doubt I have the capability of flicking a thumbtack at you. Your daughter brought me here to be healed, so once that's said and done I'll be on my way.”
He plopped himself into papa's carved seat at the head of the table and waited without a word. Mama hovered in the main room until papa finally arrived, then dismissed herself muttering about fixing up a little better food for the stranger.
“Glad to see you took the invitation to come,” said pa.
“Your daughter was very persuasive,” John answered.
Kala went rigid but didn't have time to take off out of the house to hide when her father settled a very displeased gaze on her. “You went to the stranger after your ma told you not to?”
“She did what!” Mama burst from the kitchen still squeezing a lump of brown doe in her hands. In less than a heartbeat Kala and Gef were confined to the indoors for two days. Not that Kala cared all that much. All the interesting goings-on would be in the house now that papa had invited the stranger to stay. Mama wasn't happy about it, of course, but was a little less angered than Kala would have expected. Kala suspected pity behind it. Mama would look at her husband in that way that could wilt leaves, but when she looked at the stranger she softened into mud, just enough for Kala to catch it.
John really was a pitiful thing, all the more so when Milly's ma arrived with her healing herbs and binding cloths, feeling the stranger's skin that she said was warm, cleaning all the cuts, then fingering his bones searching for breaks. John winced and hissed when his ribs were pressed, then two fingers of his left hand. He was cleaned a little extra about his upper body with a wet cloth before the binding strips were tightened around his chest. Mama gave him one of papa's old shirts to wear, big on him to hang low on his chest at the collar, but it didn't try to slip past the sharp knot of his shoulder.
John asked them about the ring and if the roads were safe to get to it, but Milly's ma wouldn't hear of him talking about travel. It was too early in his condition, whether by foot or wagon, and he needed to get some strength up. Mama wouldn't have it either until he layered more meat over his bones. She was getting more exceptive of his presence by the minute, as though he were some lost child without a home or ma of his own. Kala would have giggled but bit it back what with mama in a mood and unpredictable because of it.
One of the spare rooms was made up for John. He was good about offering help then staying out of the way when when mama didn't let him. It was just as well with him being more interested in looking out the window. His wonder was kid-like, all wide-eyed and open, which meant he really was a stranger to this world. Only travelers from the other worlds ever had that look. Kala asked him about it when papa invited him to sup with them.
“What's your world like, John?”
“Wet,” John said. “It's surrounded by water, lots of water.”
“Never heard of such a world,” said pa.
“Probably not, it's hard to get to.”
Kala felt smitten by the idea of a home surrounded by water. It would be hard to get about, but you could swim whenever you wanted and not have to worry about thieves unless they could fly. Kala wanted to show John the town that was as safe as could be being up in the trees and all, but had to wait the full two days of her confinement. Mama said John needed time to rest, anyway, so there was no big rush. She showed him to the bathing house out back after dinner where he could clean up the rest of the way.
He was definitely more improved with his face free of the fuzz, his hair sorted out as best as could be, and in soft clothes as he sat loose-limbed in a spare padded chair by the fire, warming his bones. Kala wasn't much into admiring boys like her older friends but she had to admit that Sheppard was handsome in a way. She liked his hair, a perfect mess that he didn't seem bothered or embarrassed by one bit.
“Why do you call yourself Sheppard?” she asked. It had been bothering her from the start and the bother seemed to be getting worse. “People'll think you're boggled in the head if you keep saying that's your name.”
“But it is,” John said. “There doesn't have to be one Sheppard.”
Kala humphed and tried to focus on knotting the threads of the blanket she was making for Milly's birthday. It would be pretty when she finished, all multi-colored like the color-bows arching over Mendak falls. “I guess. People'll still think you're boggled.”
“Then I guess I'll just have to live with it.” John sighed, lacing his fingers over his sunken stomach. “Tell me about Sheppard? What's his story?”
Kala looked at him like the mad man he most definitely was. Everyone knew the legends, so said papa who heard as much from the traders down at the drinking hutch. The stories didn't always tell the same but folk on other worlds knew what they needed to to understand who and what was being talked about. “Sheppard saved the Athosians from the mother-beast by offering himself to her. He killed the mother beast, brought the Athosians to the hidden world, married the Athosian queen and had ten children.”
John's head snapped around. “Married her?”
Kala nodded, tugging a knot. “Uh-huh. Well, that's what my cousin said and her pa is a trader so he's heard all the stories.”
“Oh,” John said, relaxing back in the chair. “Well, I think I heard one where Sheppard didn't wed the Athosian queen since they were from different worlds so couldn't. They stayed friends instead.”
Kala gave him a wary look. “I thought you didn't hear the stories?”
“I never said that, I just asked what the story was. You get a different version depending on where you go.”
Kala considered John's version for a moment, then perked. “I like yours better. It's more romantic. Oh! Maybe they're secretly wed! That would be lovely,” and she sighed.
John grimaced, looking uncomfortable all of a sudden and shifting stiffly in his seat. “Um, why don't we keep that particular theory to ourselves. Wouldn't want the Athosian queen finding out, she might not like it. Well, she'd probably just laugh, actually... from what I heard,” he added quickly. “But Sheppard's friends would definitely make fun of him.”
Kala snorted. “No they wouldn't. The great Rone wouldn't let anyone make fun of him, and he can turn into a giant beast. Mic-Kay is too smart. He builds the flying carriages.”
“In his dreams,” John muttered.
Kala's eyes widened. “He builds them by dreaming about them! Oh wow!”
John rolled his eyes upward, seeming to consider this. “Actually he... I heard he dreams in blueprints. I mean, he'll dream of something he wants to make, and when he wakes up he builds it,” then added under his breath, “not that it works.”
Kala shrugged. “I just heard he can do anything, is all.”
John smiled, rather fondly it seemed. “So have I.”
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In the early morning hours of the day when confinement was over, Kala dragged John from his bed to show him the town. Two days seemed more than enough time for him to get plenty rested. They clattered across the bridges to the neighboring trees: the houses and stores and meeting hall in the highest tree where the village gathered should it be attacked.
John seemed more interested in the trees themselves; their smooth, gray-blue trunks near-solid as stone and waxy leaves of bright, shimmering green. They fetched Milly from her house, and Gef joined them when they headed to the falls to follow the path through the slick, silver-bright rocks to stand at the cliff-edge so John could see the valley in a single sighting. The early day was always the best time to climb, when the Anverans took flight in a flurry of red fringed with colors. John said they reminded him of something called a Mak-Kaw the size of ee-gals but with more colored plumage.
Next stop was the growing fields freshly turned and already planted. Kala gave him a stick to thump the ground and chase away the Ims that scurried with high-pitched squeals to the forest. But John tired quickly and had to be taken home. Along the way, she pointed out a nest of Veyrns she'd found one evening in the hollow of a young Muln tree. John called them extra harry squre-ells with really big ears. Kala told him about her cousin Fenny that had kept one as a pet. Kala had always wanted one, but they scared her ma. They also chewed on anything and everything made of wood. Enough said.
She was able to show him the bigger beasts when twilight came. The massive, grunting Borks with their thick, scaly skin and two horns on their beaked snouts. They were good for pulling heavy things, but too blasted slow in Kala's opinion. She liked the long-legged etters that bounded over the ground, eating the distance within heartbeats. They were also fun to ride, even if mama lost color in her face every time she heard about it.
“Teyla should see this,” John said, resting his chin on his arms folded across the railing of the porch. “She'd wanted to come to this world because it's the only one she's never traded on herself. One of her people told her about it.”
“Was she taken by the Cossys?” Kala asked.
John shook his head. “Nope. Just me when I crossed the river. I didn't even see them coming, and my friends didn't see where they hauled me when they grabbed me.”
“They drop down from the trees,” Kala explained. “You're lucky your friend wasn't caught. I hear they do bad things to women, but the adults don't like to talk about it.”
White and soft lavender light from the two moons flashed in Sheppard's suddenly sad eyes. “For good reason.” The loose cloth of his shirt vibrated with his shuddering body.
“The Cossys didn't used to be bad,” Kala went on. “Mama said they just got real greedy, especially when folk crossed the river 'cause they didn't like working the mines. It's better on this side 'cause we got better rulers and good laws that keep us all safe. They always tell us not to cross the river since it's all bad over there. They say Cos doesn't even have any Muln trees left.”
“They don't have any trees, period,” John said.
Kala joined him in leaning on the railing. “Then it must be really bad.”
“You have no idea, kid. And I hope you never do.”
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It was back to the river when John had more strength to help with the fishing. Gef showed him how to toss the nets into the water to spread the weights at one end that sank forming a knit wall that the larger fish got tangled in. They were able to collect some nice Boong fish and yippers that, though too stringy to eat, had a soft, shimmery skin good to use as the inner lining for coats.
They dumped the fish into the basket and readied the net for a second batch. Gef let John do it this time. The net was bunched in the man's thin hands and he pulled his arm back, ready to toss it, only to freeze. John stiffened, back-bone straight and eyes darting about like the head of a spooked bird.
“I think we should go back,” he said in a low, flat voice that made Kala's skin try to creep off her bones. The look in his eyes was as intent as the gaze of a sef hound after having caught a scent.
Something was out there.
“But the basket's only half full,” Gef argued.
John backed out of the water onto the shore. “No, we need to go, now!”
Kala searched the woods trying to see whatever it was John was seeing, or hearing, even feeling. She turned, then leaped back into John when a heavy body dropped from a tree landing with a thud that shivered the ground. John grabbed her and pushed her behind him before the man had a chance to nab her . He was a big man, John's height but thick as a bork, layered in tan clothes smeared and spattered with mud and grime, fogged goggles hiding his eyes. He was of a kind that Kala had never seen before, and that alone frightened her.
“Who is he?” she hissed, clinging to the back of John's shirt.
“What you call a Cossy,” John said, cold and bitter like spitting something nasty.
The bigger man pulled his goggles away from his white-fleshed gray eyes, smiling to show-off his misshapen row of dirty teeth. “Oh, isn't this a pretty party. Two brats and a walking skeleton.”
“But we'll just have to do, right?” John spat viciously.
The Cossy's eyes moved to Kala and Gef. “The kids definitely.” He lunged forward for the taking. John stepped toward him, grabbing the man's arm, swinging him around and twisting that arm up and behind the broad back until the man squealed like an Ims. Both dropped to the ground hard with John's knees pressing into the Cossy's back.
“You two get help!” he shouted. Gef took off. Kala started to follow until John's pained grunt pulled her back. Now it John was on the ground with the Cossy straddling him, choking him one-handed.
Kala didn't think, she reacted, running to take a flying leap at the Cossy's back, pounding the thick shoulder-blades with her fists raising a cloud of dried mud. The Cossy was hurting her friend and no way on any world was she going to let him get away with it.
“Get off, get off, get off...!” An elbow hard as rock smacked into her face knocking her back on her rear. Never being one to take mind to pain, Kala took another lunge. Between the two moments of distraction John was able to catch his breath and gather the gumption to ram the heel of his hand into the Cossy's nose. Bone cracked, blood spurted, and the man jerked back off the skinnier body. It opened the way for John to drive his foot into the man's privates, and while the Cossy was busy clutching at them with a cross-eyed grimace of agony, a bony fist cracked into the stubbled jaw. The Cossy toppled to the ground. Kala scrambled over the writhing body to get to a wheezing, choking John.
“John, John, are you all right! Huh, Are you!”
“Yeah,” John rasped. He grabbed Kala's arm and pulled her to her feet, then they broke into a run back to the village.
“That was so wild! The way you grabbed that man's arm and twisted, then kicked and punched...!” Kala swung her fist through empty air. They slowed on nearing the village, closing in on the party sent by Gef. “You can call yourself Sheppard all you want 'cause that is so much what he would have done. No joke. That's exactly what he would have done.”
John, rubbing his bruising throat, smiled. “Thanks kid.”
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The Cossy hadn't stuck around when the party showed up. Papa said the man had probably learned his lesson to the point of never coming back, but made sure that word got around that no one was to hover about the river for a few weeks. Cossys tended to lurk in the places where they made a find of new labor.
Kala was scolded for acting so reckless in her helping John, but her ma was more relieved than angry, and didn't confine her this time. They stuck close to the village after that except when they went out into the fields. John was getting stronger by the day. He was still the skinniest thing Kala had ever seen but muscle was starting to show itself beneath the skin, his bones looking less like they were ready to rip from paper-fragile flesh.
Kala was painfully aware that, soon, John would be making his way to the ring, back to his world. She tried not to say anything about it, hoped that John might have gotten comfortable enough here not to want to go back. Mama would say it was being selfish but Kala didn't really care much. She didn't want John to go, even if he was a little messed in the head. He was fun, had interesting stories to tell, and he was someone she could show her world to and feel a swell of pride at the never-ending look of wonder on his face.
But, being a man and not a pet, she had no say in if or when he would leave. Since the topic had yet to really come up, she felt safe in not having to say anything at all.
Then the stranger came. Kala was out in the field chasing the Ims with John when uncle Brin approached walking along-side a man as tall and lean as the ryca cats that would chase borks into stampedes. His hair was a wild nest of weaved ropes that Kala couldn't stop staring at. His face was as impassive as stone.
Until he saw Sheppard. He smiled and something warm and relieved flitted in his eyes like a spark. John straightened looking just as wonder-struck as when Kala had shown him around the village.
“Ronon?”
“Sheppard,” Ronon called.
John hurried forward, tearing across the field, and the two men embraced, quick and brusque as most men-folk when they hug. Ronon then held John back at arm's length to look him over. “You've gotten too thin.” He gave John's shoulder a firm pat. “We need to fix that.”
John chuckled softly but didn't say anything, and Kala was pretty sure he was going to cry. Except he didn't. Still, it was a while before his eyes finally stopped shimmering. They headed back to the house where mama made some tea and frinik cake. John talked about his capture, his escape, and being found by the towns-folk. Ronon talked of weeks spent tracking, slipping like a spook within Cossy territory. When he didn't find John in any of the slave barracks, he assumed escape was the reason so headed back to the gate, pausing in town to ask about. The rest everyone knew.
Kala just glared at the big man who was going to take Sheppard away. Not that he noticed the look, it just made her feel a little better better.
Papa offered the big man a room and mama fixed it up while Ronon relaxed in the dining room to wait and talk with John. Kala hovered, tying more knots into the blanket and watching them, part of her half afraid of waking up and finding John gone without having said good-bye.
“Is his name really Sheppard?” she asked, mostly to keep them from forgetting she was there.
Ronon gave her a blank look, then John a questioning one.
“Don't ask,” John mouthed. Ronon looked back at Kala.
“Yeah.”
“After the warrior that saved the Athosians?”
Confused, Ronon wrinkled his brow. “What?”
“Seriously, Ronon, do not ask,” John pleaded.
Ronon obviously wasn't listening to him when he leaned forward with an intense look that seemed to see right through Kala's skin to her very insides. A part of Kala wanted to look away, but she hated it when people told her what to do, even when words weren't being used.
“You don't think that's him?” the big man asked.
Now she had to wonder if this man was as boggled in the head as his friend. “No! Sheppard is big and has ancestor weapons and flies in a carriage. John can't be him.”
The big-man's lips pressed into a thin line. He glanced back at John who responded with a withering look that could have melted metal. Ronon, however, didn't seem to take much notice of it. He returned his sights to Kala, clearing his throat, taking a moment before speaking.
“Well, that's the thing you've gotta consider. Weapons get lost, carriages break, and people get hurt.”
Kala shook her head resolutely. These men may know a little about the stories, but not like she did. “Sheppard is Ancestor-sent. Nothing can hurt him. And he has Mic-Kay to fix the carriage and Rone to protect him.”
A change like a passing shadow altered Ronon's expression. The muscles of his strong jaw twitched and his eyes... Kala couldn't say for sure what she was seeing the way they seemed to change with each beat of the heart - sometimes angry, sometimes sad.
“But occasionally,” said John, “things happen, things we can't control, and no matter how determined or strong the warrior is, there's going to come times when all he can do is try, even if he doesn't succeed. But that's all right. Sometimes trying is all you can do. It doesn't make the effort any less appreciated.”
The words were like a spell, and the flicker of mismatched emotions faded away to calm.
“The good-guys don't win all the time, Kala,” John said. “But they sure as hell try.”
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It was decided that since John had saved Kala a second time it was only right that escort was offered. They started off in two day's time in wagons hitched to borks. Borks might have been slow but walking was always far slower. Kala went with them, Gef too. They were the ones who got John to come into the village after all. That gave them some rights to him - the right to see him back safe and the right to say goodbye later rather than sooner. Kala wasn't happy about any of it but refused to cry. That was just getting silly. She'd known this day would have poked its head out eventually.
Yet when they reached the gate on its stone platform next to the ruins, it was getting harder to fight the tears. Ronon went on ahead to dial home. John lingered by the wagons, leaning against one as though with all the time in the world to wait. Kala fought and fought with everything she had to be older than she was, and it hurt. It hurt so bad she couldn't fight it any more and rushed forward to throw her arms tight around John's waist.
“I'd ask you to stay, but... but... but I know you - you won't,” she sobbed.
John crouched low enough to wrap his arms around her, speaking softly in her ear, “Doesn't mean I can't drop by for a visit. Don't think of this as good-bye, Kala. Think of this as see you later. I always preferred that myself. Good-bye is too damn long.”
Kala sniffed and wiped her eyes one-handed. Putting it that way, it didn't seem so bad now, making it easier to swallow back some of the tears.
“I will come back and visit,” John promised, then grinned. “Maybe I'll even have more Sheppard stories for you.”
Ronon called that it was time to head out. John gave Kala a soft pat on the back before releasing her to head to the gate, stepping into the star-bright puddle with a small wave to her.
Kala waved back. Maybe that had been the Sheppard; she wasn't quite sure and she couldn't bring herself to say as much. But she supposed it wouldn't hurt if she did say as much later on, like a compliment when she told others of the wild-man that had saved her life twice, even if they didn't believe her.
Didn't matter if they did or not. John was in a right state to be called Sheppard.
The end
Author: Kriadydragon
Rating: PG, Gen
Characters: John Sheppard, kid OC, some Ronon
Summary: Some legends tend to be a bit skewed.
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The Ancestor-sent came in the night after premonition of the beasts' return. Athos was taken and the Ancestor-sent followed riding the carriage brought to being by the wise-one McKay. The mother-beast fed on the Lantean king who died without sound. She turned her sights to the Athosian queen and her people, when the warrior Sheppard stood between them, arms open wide in self-offering. The mother-beast was pleased and accepted this offering for the life of the Athosian queen and her people.
When the Mother-beast went in to devour, the warrior struck killing her with the very weapon used to capture her prey. The warrior Sheppard fled carrying the Athosian queen and her people to the Old City that none can find, there to live out the rest of their lives in peace.
It you look into the sky when the sun his high, you may almost see a flash of silver off the bright skin of the winged carriages, for the Ancestor-sent are always there, watching over us. And so forever will be.
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It was uncle Timrin who found the next wild-man, going out in the early morning to fish in the Vren, then scurrying back like a spooked Ims shouting all about it. It had been a full lunar cycle of both moons since the last one and talk in the village was that most of the slave labor of the Cossy mines must be too weak to attempt an escape. That was never a good thing according to mama. It made the Cossys bold, she said, enough to cross the river and risk a metal pellet to the brain-pan just so they didn't have to do the work themselves.
Kala had learned a lot from Gef about making herself scarce and easy to over-look when it came to following the men out to the river. She was nine, but small for her age, unlike Gef who was twelve and getting too tall for his skin. But Gef was old enough to join the parties. He helped Kala come along since he knew better than to try and stop her.
“But if papa catches you, I'm gonna pretend I don't know anything. I'm not getting barred in doors because of you.”
Kala felt that fair enough. She kept behind his skinny frame and both kept to the rear of the party as they made their way to the river. The moment they stopped, Kala made for the nearest bonta tree and climbed to get a better look at the wild-man. She could almost see him moving about beneath one of the bonta that all looked as though they were standing on their knobby roots. The man must have been bone skinny to squeeze through those roots where he paced like a caged animal.
The men moved in slow and cautious with nets and soft ropes. Kala had never understood why the adults didn't just shoot the wild men and be done with it. They were dangerous, so said aunt Midgey. The Cossys did terrible things to their slaves; hurting, beating, and things the adults wouldn't talk about around the kids. It turned the slaves mean as beasts, so vicious even the Cossys couldn't control them. Every once and a while one of these wild ones would escape and the village would send out men to catch him, drug him to sleep, and drag him to the town to be cleaned, fed, then sent on his way. It was the best the towns-folk could do what with the wild-ones being too far boggled in the head to do much else.
Papa, the tallest and leanest of the group, made the closest approach. “You come out now, there, fellow,” he said, quiet and kind-like. “We won't be hurting you. It's all right, now. No one's gonna do you harm.”
The wild-one stopped pacing, Kala could see it. “Then why the nets and ropes?”
A bit of a confounded murmur rippled like water through the party. Papa was quick to recover from the surprise of a wild-one talking back (most not saying anything unless it was nonsense) and answered, “Oh... well, it's precaution mostly. You a slave of the Cossys? No need to fret answering, we've no intentions of sending you back.”
“You mean those freaks who make you dig through brown mud to find black mud? Yeah, I was their employee for a while. Then I quit the moment I got the chance to bash one of their skulls in.”
Papa lowered his net. “Then you know the need for precaution. Most don't break out with their minds all that put together. We've had to get a bit rough just to help 'em live a little longer. You don't fight and we can help you.”
“Define 'help'? Because if it involves locking me up in a cage then I'm going to be telling you where you can shove your help.”
Papa dropped the net to hold up both hands. “No cage. Just warm food, clothes, even a bed if you're so inclined.”
There was a moment of long quiet before the wild-man spoke again, hesitant, even a little afraid it sounded like. “I'm inclined but... I... Not to be rude or anything but I've been having a really bad couple of weeks and my ability to trust is a little fragile right now...”
Papa smiled. He had a kind smile, but then papa was a kind man, which was why he always led the retrieving parties. He knew how to handle the wild-ones in a way that kept them from exploding into a tizzy of animal-mad, and knew how to handle them in gentle ways when they did. “I understand. Not a bad spot to shelter in, anyways. The river is always clean, good for fishing, and bonta trees do good in sheltering from the rains. It's the warm season so you don't have to worry about cold. Better above all, the Cossys know better than to cross the river. You're safe here, stranger. Feel free to come to the village when you're ready, just up the path there.”
The men started to disperse, leaving it at that for now. Knowing papa, he would probably send someone to bring the stranger food or clothes. Kala shimmied down the tree when the men were past enough not to see her. She glanced back quick enough to spy a thin, pale head fuzzed with dark stubble and wild black hair peek through the roots.
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Kala had been found out, and as promised Gef denied knowing anything about it, but mama didn't buy it. They were both confined to the hut, not even allowed a step out to sit on the porch. Gef pointedly ignored Kala for the rest of the day and Kala whittled time by staring out the window at the pin-pricks of light flickering soft as glow-bugs in the next tree over. The walkway connecting the giant Muln trees holding clusters of houses within their thick branches and metal-green foliage swayed and creaked in the breezes. She wondered about the man, how he was doing, and why papa hadn't dragged him back to the village where he'd be safe high up in the trees. The bonta roots might protect him, but some of the land animals could get pretty big, pretty desperate, and pretty mean, especially when hungry.
Kala had to wait the entirety of the next day before the confinement was let up. She over heard papa and mama talking about the man, that he had survived the night and how their neighbor Jornty had set out some food for him.
Before mama let up the confinement, she had her final say. “I don't want you anywhere near that wild-one. Just because he can talk doesn't mean he's all in his head.”
“Yes, mama,” Kala wisely replied. She already had a plan. The bonta tress were tall and she had no reason to think the man had strength enough to climb. So, by that piece of logic, keeping to high places beyond reach was the same as keeping away. And someone had to keep watch on that wild-one since no one else seemed to be.
Her, Milly from the next tree over, and Gef scurried like the little furry Ims that were smaller than a man's palm to the river, clamoring up the bonta to wait for the wild man. Their wait was rewarded when the man squeezed his skinny body through the roots to crouch by the river for a drink.
And, boy, was he skinny. The muddied clothes were almost rags split down the front making room for one side to slip bunched at the elbow and stopping just above his upper stomach. His skin was too tight on his bones, sinking into the crevasses, ribs curved and sharp as the tines of a pitchfork and backbone like dull, stubby spikes. Mud and bruises and scabs from thin thread cuts to old, crusty gashes marred his back fiercely. Kala had never seen a man that poor off before, but then this was her first real look at a wild one.
It made her feel strange, like she was seeing something she wasn't meant to. It was the kind of thing that was going to stick hard to her mind fresh as now and never letting up. She absently plucked one of the finger-thin teal leaves from the bonta and rubbed the slick surface between her thumb and forefinger as she sometimes did when uneasy. She liked the texture, it made her feel comfortable.
The man cupped water into his shaking hands to bring to his cracked lips, then splashed water on his face and chest to rub splatters of grime and mud from his skin. “If you think I can't see you up there, guess again.”
Kala stiffened, dropping the leaf, and turned a wide-eyed look on her bother and Milly. Dark-haired Milly shrank back shaking like a leaf in a storm. “We gotta get out of here!”
“Relax,” the man said in a humored sort of way, not quite chuckling but close. “I'm not going to hurt you.” He stood, yanking the dropped sleeve back over his shoulder. “You three wouldn't happen know where the Starg... I mean ring of the ancestors is, would you?”
“Two days ride from here,” said Gef, “by wagon.”
The man nodded. “Which direction?”
“North,” Kala replied. She remembered well since her papa liked to take her to the ring. There were ruins there, with picture-stories, and he liked to tell her about those stories as part of her education. He never took her off world since he wasn't all that fond of such travel. He was a farmer, not a trader. “I'm a one-land man,” was his motto, and dusting his feet with foreign soil didn't sit right with him. But he did love the stories people brought, and Kala loved to hear them.
Kala plucked another leaf and rubbed it. “What's your name?”
The man dropped back down on the bank to dip his bare, dirty feet into the water with a contented sigh. “Most call me Sheppard. You can call me John if you want.”
Again, Kala stiffened, passing another wide-eyed look that her brother and friend shared before all three burst into a fit of giggles.
John gave them a narrow-eyed look. “What? That sound funny to you? It's my name, I swear.”
“Sheppard?” Gef said, breath hitching as he tried to catch it. “The Ancestor-sent warrior?”
Kala wiped her blurring eyes. “You can't be Sheppard. He's really tall, and big, and rides in a carriage with wings made out of shiny metal.”
Milly, gnawing a piece of her hair, scowled. “You're too skinny to be him.”
John shrugged. “Well, that's my name, sorry to disappoint.” He then gave them a mixed glance of suspicion and curiosity. “How do you know about m... uh... Sheppard, anyways?”
“Our dad told us,” Gef said. “He hears stories all the time from the traders, and they hear about them when they go to other worlds. Sheppard was sent by the Ancestors from a place so far away no gate can reach it, and they live in a city that can fly.”
“They took the Athosians to a safe place,” Kala jumped in, hauling herself to her feet by an upper branch. Stories of the Ancestor-sent she knew better than anyone else, being her favorite because it was said that the Lanteans were still around, still watching over the people of the various worlds. In most tales, the heroes were usually long dead by now. She liked the idea of there being a chance - yes, a very sand-sized chance - that she might one day meet an Ancestor-sent. “But they can't say where it is or the Ancestor-sent will have to leave because the great beasts will find them and try to kill them. Warrior Sheppard had killed a Mother-beast and the beasts aren't happy, so the Lanteans have to hide. They took the Athosians with them because their home was lost and... and...” her enthusiasm was like water swelling a water-sack about to pop, and bouncing on the branch was the only way to make it drain before she burst. She'd never been the one to tell the tales before, always being on the listening-end instead. “And they...”
Her foot slipped, pulling her legs out from under her, still in the tree by the grace of the branch above her.
“Kala!” Gef cried.
Kala whimpered on looking down at the distance she had to fall, then up at her ever slipping grip.
“Kala hang on!”
“I can't!” Sweat and moss combined. Her hand slipped free and she fell without a sound when the push of open-air shoved the breath from her lungs. She braced for the hard impact on the ground only to impact with something a little less hard, slowing her to hit with less force. She was on the ground, cradled in bone-thin arms, looking up into the less-grimed and prickly face of John.
“You okay kid?” he said. He helped her to her feet with a wince.
Kala swallowed. “I'm okay.”
After making sure she was steady, John leaned forward with one hand on his knee and the other pressed against his side. He was breathing heavy, like he'd run a ways and lost the means to breathe right.
“You all right?” Kala asked, concerned, wondering if she needed to run and fetch papa, even if it did mean another day's confinement for not listening to mama.
John nodded. “Yeah, I'm good, just a little banged up.” He eventually straightened, which hurt just as much by the scrunched look on his face.
“My ma's a healer!” Milly squealed. She was always quick to nab every possible chance to let people know, healing being a tricky task not many were good at - except for her ma. She climbed down the tree after Gef, who ran to Kala and checked her over, squeezing her limbs and poking her chest.
Kala pushed him away. “I'm fine! Yeah, Milly's mama knows how to fix folk right up. You should come to town and let her fix you, then you won't have to wait for anyone to bring you food or anything.”
“No one'll hurt you,” said Gef. “We don't do harm to the folk who get away from the Cossys.”
John's scrunch of pain became a scrunch of uncertainty. “I don't... I mean... I'm kind of not up to handling crowds at the moment...”
Kala rolled her eyes. “Sheppard would do it. He's not afraid of anything. You shouldn't call yourself Sheppard if you're not going to act like him.”
That made John laugh for some reason, part in humor and a little hysterical sounding. “Crap, kid, you're good. Motivational speaker good.”
Kala wrinkled her nose. “What's that?”
“Never mind.” Then he pointed a dirty finger at her. “But if your papa tries to stick me in the local jail, I will not be held responsible for any bruises procured on his person.”
Kala giggled since it sounded funny, even if it wasn't supposed to be since it was her papa he was talking about. Seeing as how papa would probably be doing the most bruising on John, she didn't take the threat to much heart. She did take him by his hand to tug him along up the path winding through the Bonta into the grove of larger Muln. Kala was surprised at the lack of pop and crack from John's neck the way he bent, twisted and turned it trying to see the trees with their house-clusters and web of walkways. They pushed and pulled John up the winding path of wood planks to their house cluster, Milly taking off across the bridge to fetch her ma. A cool, moist breeze shivered the leaves that flickered shimmers of sunlight down on them.
People slowed or paused all together on the porches and wooden-planked paths to stare at the skinny wild-man in his mud-stained rags. John didn't seem to like this much by the way his colorless face stained red at the cheeks. Kala felt the muscles of his hand harden, saw the muscles in his arms and shoulders twitch doing the same, like an animal bunching up for a quick bolt. Kala pulled John into a fast walk before had the chance and didn't let go when she had him in the house, and for good reason when mama stepped from the kitchen and gasped in horror.
“What the... Kala, Gef! You get away from that man! Are you brainless, why did you bring him here!” She tried to pluck Kala away from John but Kala couldn't let go. John would take off if she did, she knew it like fact... and also because of the way John kept trying to inch back toward the exit while cringing like an over-kicked creature.
“He's harmless mama!” Kala shrilled. Mama pulled on her arm, Kala pulled back, holding tight to John who was seeking out the door-handle with his free hand.
“He is, mama,” Gef said. “He even saved Kala when she fell out of the tree. He says his name is John.”
“He's hurt, mama. Milly went to get her ma to heal him.”
Their ma looked from Kala to John, back and forth, angry and uncertain. “I don't know about this, kids. Gef, you fetch your pa. Mr. John is it?”
John nervously shrugged, forced to move out of the way of the door for Gef to leave. “It would be Mr. Sheppard, but you can call me John.”
Mama was even more baffled now, not that Kala blamed her. There had to be something touched about a man's head if he'd rather be called by the name of a warrior of stories, or maybe it made him feel better, like pretend; easier thinking himself something that he wasn't than admitting to what he was. “Well, John, you have a seat at the table and don't ponder funny business. I know where all the weapons are kept hid and I'll have a pellet in your heart faster than you can blink if you so much as try any harm.”
John shuffled sideways to the table with one hand raised in a show of innocent complacency. “Trust me, lady, I doubt I have the capability of flicking a thumbtack at you. Your daughter brought me here to be healed, so once that's said and done I'll be on my way.”
He plopped himself into papa's carved seat at the head of the table and waited without a word. Mama hovered in the main room until papa finally arrived, then dismissed herself muttering about fixing up a little better food for the stranger.
“Glad to see you took the invitation to come,” said pa.
“Your daughter was very persuasive,” John answered.
Kala went rigid but didn't have time to take off out of the house to hide when her father settled a very displeased gaze on her. “You went to the stranger after your ma told you not to?”
“She did what!” Mama burst from the kitchen still squeezing a lump of brown doe in her hands. In less than a heartbeat Kala and Gef were confined to the indoors for two days. Not that Kala cared all that much. All the interesting goings-on would be in the house now that papa had invited the stranger to stay. Mama wasn't happy about it, of course, but was a little less angered than Kala would have expected. Kala suspected pity behind it. Mama would look at her husband in that way that could wilt leaves, but when she looked at the stranger she softened into mud, just enough for Kala to catch it.
John really was a pitiful thing, all the more so when Milly's ma arrived with her healing herbs and binding cloths, feeling the stranger's skin that she said was warm, cleaning all the cuts, then fingering his bones searching for breaks. John winced and hissed when his ribs were pressed, then two fingers of his left hand. He was cleaned a little extra about his upper body with a wet cloth before the binding strips were tightened around his chest. Mama gave him one of papa's old shirts to wear, big on him to hang low on his chest at the collar, but it didn't try to slip past the sharp knot of his shoulder.
John asked them about the ring and if the roads were safe to get to it, but Milly's ma wouldn't hear of him talking about travel. It was too early in his condition, whether by foot or wagon, and he needed to get some strength up. Mama wouldn't have it either until he layered more meat over his bones. She was getting more exceptive of his presence by the minute, as though he were some lost child without a home or ma of his own. Kala would have giggled but bit it back what with mama in a mood and unpredictable because of it.
One of the spare rooms was made up for John. He was good about offering help then staying out of the way when when mama didn't let him. It was just as well with him being more interested in looking out the window. His wonder was kid-like, all wide-eyed and open, which meant he really was a stranger to this world. Only travelers from the other worlds ever had that look. Kala asked him about it when papa invited him to sup with them.
“What's your world like, John?”
“Wet,” John said. “It's surrounded by water, lots of water.”
“Never heard of such a world,” said pa.
“Probably not, it's hard to get to.”
Kala felt smitten by the idea of a home surrounded by water. It would be hard to get about, but you could swim whenever you wanted and not have to worry about thieves unless they could fly. Kala wanted to show John the town that was as safe as could be being up in the trees and all, but had to wait the full two days of her confinement. Mama said John needed time to rest, anyway, so there was no big rush. She showed him to the bathing house out back after dinner where he could clean up the rest of the way.
He was definitely more improved with his face free of the fuzz, his hair sorted out as best as could be, and in soft clothes as he sat loose-limbed in a spare padded chair by the fire, warming his bones. Kala wasn't much into admiring boys like her older friends but she had to admit that Sheppard was handsome in a way. She liked his hair, a perfect mess that he didn't seem bothered or embarrassed by one bit.
“Why do you call yourself Sheppard?” she asked. It had been bothering her from the start and the bother seemed to be getting worse. “People'll think you're boggled in the head if you keep saying that's your name.”
“But it is,” John said. “There doesn't have to be one Sheppard.”
Kala humphed and tried to focus on knotting the threads of the blanket she was making for Milly's birthday. It would be pretty when she finished, all multi-colored like the color-bows arching over Mendak falls. “I guess. People'll still think you're boggled.”
“Then I guess I'll just have to live with it.” John sighed, lacing his fingers over his sunken stomach. “Tell me about Sheppard? What's his story?”
Kala looked at him like the mad man he most definitely was. Everyone knew the legends, so said papa who heard as much from the traders down at the drinking hutch. The stories didn't always tell the same but folk on other worlds knew what they needed to to understand who and what was being talked about. “Sheppard saved the Athosians from the mother-beast by offering himself to her. He killed the mother beast, brought the Athosians to the hidden world, married the Athosian queen and had ten children.”
John's head snapped around. “Married her?”
Kala nodded, tugging a knot. “Uh-huh. Well, that's what my cousin said and her pa is a trader so he's heard all the stories.”
“Oh,” John said, relaxing back in the chair. “Well, I think I heard one where Sheppard didn't wed the Athosian queen since they were from different worlds so couldn't. They stayed friends instead.”
Kala gave him a wary look. “I thought you didn't hear the stories?”
“I never said that, I just asked what the story was. You get a different version depending on where you go.”
Kala considered John's version for a moment, then perked. “I like yours better. It's more romantic. Oh! Maybe they're secretly wed! That would be lovely,” and she sighed.
John grimaced, looking uncomfortable all of a sudden and shifting stiffly in his seat. “Um, why don't we keep that particular theory to ourselves. Wouldn't want the Athosian queen finding out, she might not like it. Well, she'd probably just laugh, actually... from what I heard,” he added quickly. “But Sheppard's friends would definitely make fun of him.”
Kala snorted. “No they wouldn't. The great Rone wouldn't let anyone make fun of him, and he can turn into a giant beast. Mic-Kay is too smart. He builds the flying carriages.”
“In his dreams,” John muttered.
Kala's eyes widened. “He builds them by dreaming about them! Oh wow!”
John rolled his eyes upward, seeming to consider this. “Actually he... I heard he dreams in blueprints. I mean, he'll dream of something he wants to make, and when he wakes up he builds it,” then added under his breath, “not that it works.”
Kala shrugged. “I just heard he can do anything, is all.”
John smiled, rather fondly it seemed. “So have I.”
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In the early morning hours of the day when confinement was over, Kala dragged John from his bed to show him the town. Two days seemed more than enough time for him to get plenty rested. They clattered across the bridges to the neighboring trees: the houses and stores and meeting hall in the highest tree where the village gathered should it be attacked.
John seemed more interested in the trees themselves; their smooth, gray-blue trunks near-solid as stone and waxy leaves of bright, shimmering green. They fetched Milly from her house, and Gef joined them when they headed to the falls to follow the path through the slick, silver-bright rocks to stand at the cliff-edge so John could see the valley in a single sighting. The early day was always the best time to climb, when the Anverans took flight in a flurry of red fringed with colors. John said they reminded him of something called a Mak-Kaw the size of ee-gals but with more colored plumage.
Next stop was the growing fields freshly turned and already planted. Kala gave him a stick to thump the ground and chase away the Ims that scurried with high-pitched squeals to the forest. But John tired quickly and had to be taken home. Along the way, she pointed out a nest of Veyrns she'd found one evening in the hollow of a young Muln tree. John called them extra harry squre-ells with really big ears. Kala told him about her cousin Fenny that had kept one as a pet. Kala had always wanted one, but they scared her ma. They also chewed on anything and everything made of wood. Enough said.
She was able to show him the bigger beasts when twilight came. The massive, grunting Borks with their thick, scaly skin and two horns on their beaked snouts. They were good for pulling heavy things, but too blasted slow in Kala's opinion. She liked the long-legged etters that bounded over the ground, eating the distance within heartbeats. They were also fun to ride, even if mama lost color in her face every time she heard about it.
“Teyla should see this,” John said, resting his chin on his arms folded across the railing of the porch. “She'd wanted to come to this world because it's the only one she's never traded on herself. One of her people told her about it.”
“Was she taken by the Cossys?” Kala asked.
John shook his head. “Nope. Just me when I crossed the river. I didn't even see them coming, and my friends didn't see where they hauled me when they grabbed me.”
“They drop down from the trees,” Kala explained. “You're lucky your friend wasn't caught. I hear they do bad things to women, but the adults don't like to talk about it.”
White and soft lavender light from the two moons flashed in Sheppard's suddenly sad eyes. “For good reason.” The loose cloth of his shirt vibrated with his shuddering body.
“The Cossys didn't used to be bad,” Kala went on. “Mama said they just got real greedy, especially when folk crossed the river 'cause they didn't like working the mines. It's better on this side 'cause we got better rulers and good laws that keep us all safe. They always tell us not to cross the river since it's all bad over there. They say Cos doesn't even have any Muln trees left.”
“They don't have any trees, period,” John said.
Kala joined him in leaning on the railing. “Then it must be really bad.”
“You have no idea, kid. And I hope you never do.”
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It was back to the river when John had more strength to help with the fishing. Gef showed him how to toss the nets into the water to spread the weights at one end that sank forming a knit wall that the larger fish got tangled in. They were able to collect some nice Boong fish and yippers that, though too stringy to eat, had a soft, shimmery skin good to use as the inner lining for coats.
They dumped the fish into the basket and readied the net for a second batch. Gef let John do it this time. The net was bunched in the man's thin hands and he pulled his arm back, ready to toss it, only to freeze. John stiffened, back-bone straight and eyes darting about like the head of a spooked bird.
“I think we should go back,” he said in a low, flat voice that made Kala's skin try to creep off her bones. The look in his eyes was as intent as the gaze of a sef hound after having caught a scent.
Something was out there.
“But the basket's only half full,” Gef argued.
John backed out of the water onto the shore. “No, we need to go, now!”
Kala searched the woods trying to see whatever it was John was seeing, or hearing, even feeling. She turned, then leaped back into John when a heavy body dropped from a tree landing with a thud that shivered the ground. John grabbed her and pushed her behind him before the man had a chance to nab her . He was a big man, John's height but thick as a bork, layered in tan clothes smeared and spattered with mud and grime, fogged goggles hiding his eyes. He was of a kind that Kala had never seen before, and that alone frightened her.
“Who is he?” she hissed, clinging to the back of John's shirt.
“What you call a Cossy,” John said, cold and bitter like spitting something nasty.
The bigger man pulled his goggles away from his white-fleshed gray eyes, smiling to show-off his misshapen row of dirty teeth. “Oh, isn't this a pretty party. Two brats and a walking skeleton.”
“But we'll just have to do, right?” John spat viciously.
The Cossy's eyes moved to Kala and Gef. “The kids definitely.” He lunged forward for the taking. John stepped toward him, grabbing the man's arm, swinging him around and twisting that arm up and behind the broad back until the man squealed like an Ims. Both dropped to the ground hard with John's knees pressing into the Cossy's back.
“You two get help!” he shouted. Gef took off. Kala started to follow until John's pained grunt pulled her back. Now it John was on the ground with the Cossy straddling him, choking him one-handed.
Kala didn't think, she reacted, running to take a flying leap at the Cossy's back, pounding the thick shoulder-blades with her fists raising a cloud of dried mud. The Cossy was hurting her friend and no way on any world was she going to let him get away with it.
“Get off, get off, get off...!” An elbow hard as rock smacked into her face knocking her back on her rear. Never being one to take mind to pain, Kala took another lunge. Between the two moments of distraction John was able to catch his breath and gather the gumption to ram the heel of his hand into the Cossy's nose. Bone cracked, blood spurted, and the man jerked back off the skinnier body. It opened the way for John to drive his foot into the man's privates, and while the Cossy was busy clutching at them with a cross-eyed grimace of agony, a bony fist cracked into the stubbled jaw. The Cossy toppled to the ground. Kala scrambled over the writhing body to get to a wheezing, choking John.
“John, John, are you all right! Huh, Are you!”
“Yeah,” John rasped. He grabbed Kala's arm and pulled her to her feet, then they broke into a run back to the village.
“That was so wild! The way you grabbed that man's arm and twisted, then kicked and punched...!” Kala swung her fist through empty air. They slowed on nearing the village, closing in on the party sent by Gef. “You can call yourself Sheppard all you want 'cause that is so much what he would have done. No joke. That's exactly what he would have done.”
John, rubbing his bruising throat, smiled. “Thanks kid.”
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The Cossy hadn't stuck around when the party showed up. Papa said the man had probably learned his lesson to the point of never coming back, but made sure that word got around that no one was to hover about the river for a few weeks. Cossys tended to lurk in the places where they made a find of new labor.
Kala was scolded for acting so reckless in her helping John, but her ma was more relieved than angry, and didn't confine her this time. They stuck close to the village after that except when they went out into the fields. John was getting stronger by the day. He was still the skinniest thing Kala had ever seen but muscle was starting to show itself beneath the skin, his bones looking less like they were ready to rip from paper-fragile flesh.
Kala was painfully aware that, soon, John would be making his way to the ring, back to his world. She tried not to say anything about it, hoped that John might have gotten comfortable enough here not to want to go back. Mama would say it was being selfish but Kala didn't really care much. She didn't want John to go, even if he was a little messed in the head. He was fun, had interesting stories to tell, and he was someone she could show her world to and feel a swell of pride at the never-ending look of wonder on his face.
But, being a man and not a pet, she had no say in if or when he would leave. Since the topic had yet to really come up, she felt safe in not having to say anything at all.
Then the stranger came. Kala was out in the field chasing the Ims with John when uncle Brin approached walking along-side a man as tall and lean as the ryca cats that would chase borks into stampedes. His hair was a wild nest of weaved ropes that Kala couldn't stop staring at. His face was as impassive as stone.
Until he saw Sheppard. He smiled and something warm and relieved flitted in his eyes like a spark. John straightened looking just as wonder-struck as when Kala had shown him around the village.
“Ronon?”
“Sheppard,” Ronon called.
John hurried forward, tearing across the field, and the two men embraced, quick and brusque as most men-folk when they hug. Ronon then held John back at arm's length to look him over. “You've gotten too thin.” He gave John's shoulder a firm pat. “We need to fix that.”
John chuckled softly but didn't say anything, and Kala was pretty sure he was going to cry. Except he didn't. Still, it was a while before his eyes finally stopped shimmering. They headed back to the house where mama made some tea and frinik cake. John talked about his capture, his escape, and being found by the towns-folk. Ronon talked of weeks spent tracking, slipping like a spook within Cossy territory. When he didn't find John in any of the slave barracks, he assumed escape was the reason so headed back to the gate, pausing in town to ask about. The rest everyone knew.
Kala just glared at the big man who was going to take Sheppard away. Not that he noticed the look, it just made her feel a little better better.
Papa offered the big man a room and mama fixed it up while Ronon relaxed in the dining room to wait and talk with John. Kala hovered, tying more knots into the blanket and watching them, part of her half afraid of waking up and finding John gone without having said good-bye.
“Is his name really Sheppard?” she asked, mostly to keep them from forgetting she was there.
Ronon gave her a blank look, then John a questioning one.
“Don't ask,” John mouthed. Ronon looked back at Kala.
“Yeah.”
“After the warrior that saved the Athosians?”
Confused, Ronon wrinkled his brow. “What?”
“Seriously, Ronon, do not ask,” John pleaded.
Ronon obviously wasn't listening to him when he leaned forward with an intense look that seemed to see right through Kala's skin to her very insides. A part of Kala wanted to look away, but she hated it when people told her what to do, even when words weren't being used.
“You don't think that's him?” the big man asked.
Now she had to wonder if this man was as boggled in the head as his friend. “No! Sheppard is big and has ancestor weapons and flies in a carriage. John can't be him.”
The big-man's lips pressed into a thin line. He glanced back at John who responded with a withering look that could have melted metal. Ronon, however, didn't seem to take much notice of it. He returned his sights to Kala, clearing his throat, taking a moment before speaking.
“Well, that's the thing you've gotta consider. Weapons get lost, carriages break, and people get hurt.”
Kala shook her head resolutely. These men may know a little about the stories, but not like she did. “Sheppard is Ancestor-sent. Nothing can hurt him. And he has Mic-Kay to fix the carriage and Rone to protect him.”
A change like a passing shadow altered Ronon's expression. The muscles of his strong jaw twitched and his eyes... Kala couldn't say for sure what she was seeing the way they seemed to change with each beat of the heart - sometimes angry, sometimes sad.
“But occasionally,” said John, “things happen, things we can't control, and no matter how determined or strong the warrior is, there's going to come times when all he can do is try, even if he doesn't succeed. But that's all right. Sometimes trying is all you can do. It doesn't make the effort any less appreciated.”
The words were like a spell, and the flicker of mismatched emotions faded away to calm.
“The good-guys don't win all the time, Kala,” John said. “But they sure as hell try.”
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It was decided that since John had saved Kala a second time it was only right that escort was offered. They started off in two day's time in wagons hitched to borks. Borks might have been slow but walking was always far slower. Kala went with them, Gef too. They were the ones who got John to come into the village after all. That gave them some rights to him - the right to see him back safe and the right to say goodbye later rather than sooner. Kala wasn't happy about any of it but refused to cry. That was just getting silly. She'd known this day would have poked its head out eventually.
Yet when they reached the gate on its stone platform next to the ruins, it was getting harder to fight the tears. Ronon went on ahead to dial home. John lingered by the wagons, leaning against one as though with all the time in the world to wait. Kala fought and fought with everything she had to be older than she was, and it hurt. It hurt so bad she couldn't fight it any more and rushed forward to throw her arms tight around John's waist.
“I'd ask you to stay, but... but... but I know you - you won't,” she sobbed.
John crouched low enough to wrap his arms around her, speaking softly in her ear, “Doesn't mean I can't drop by for a visit. Don't think of this as good-bye, Kala. Think of this as see you later. I always preferred that myself. Good-bye is too damn long.”
Kala sniffed and wiped her eyes one-handed. Putting it that way, it didn't seem so bad now, making it easier to swallow back some of the tears.
“I will come back and visit,” John promised, then grinned. “Maybe I'll even have more Sheppard stories for you.”
Ronon called that it was time to head out. John gave Kala a soft pat on the back before releasing her to head to the gate, stepping into the star-bright puddle with a small wave to her.
Kala waved back. Maybe that had been the Sheppard; she wasn't quite sure and she couldn't bring herself to say as much. But she supposed it wouldn't hurt if she did say as much later on, like a compliment when she told others of the wild-man that had saved her life twice, even if they didn't believe her.
Didn't matter if they did or not. John was in a right state to be called Sheppard.
The end