The Last Survivor by Kodiak Bear Country [T]
Rec Category: John/Rodney friendship
Pairing: none
Category: h/c, John/Rodney friendship, original character, gen
Warning: early Season 3 spoilers (through 3x03)
Author on LJ: kodiak_bear
Author's Website: Kodiak Bear Country's page on ff.net
Link:
On LJ: The Last Survivor
On ff.net:The Last Survivor
(Full disclosure: I was a beta for this story.)
Why This Must Be Read: This is one of the best, if not the best, original character POVs that I've read in this or any other fandom. It's also a wonderful character study of Sheppard and McKay, together and separately.
Mawani, sole survivor of a Wraith culling, who has lived alone so long that she's nearly forgotten how to talk, finds two critically injured strangers (John and Rodney) in the woods and nurses them back to health. In the process, she begins to rediscover her own humanity. It's a very basic plot, often done in many media, but what makes this story soar is the wonderful, wonderful character voice. Mawani is a fully realized person, with her own unique figures of speech and outlook on the world. As the story demonstrates beautifully, "primitive" does not equal "stupid", and intelligent, perceptive Mawani has a wonderful back-and-forth with her slowly healing charges, trying to figure out their complicated relationship (bickering one minute, gentle and concerned about each other the next) while trying to grasp their sometimes convoluted explanations of concepts like spaceships, Stargates and germ theory.
And as if being injured and lost on another planet wasn't bad enough, there are also Wraith -- and other predators -- afoot in the woods...
"No life signs on the planet, and yet, here you are."
I could not tell if he was pleased or angry.
He shifted. "What is this - straw? Poking every inch of me - but note, that is every thankful inch. Still," his lips drew tight, "Another space gate we can't harvest. At this rate, we'll finish the damn thing posthumously."
Though I knew his voice was weak, I was relieved that he was talking. It was a good sign for his recovery. But the words he used -- I tried to follow. Life signs, space gate...harvest? "You harvest gates?" What was a gate? Surely he did not mean the ones I used to keep my animals from leaving while they recovered. One did not harvest a gate - food was harvested. And space was empty but for the lights, did he mean to say that those lights meant others lived above and around me? That all this time I was surrounded by others like me, and these males? "Did you come from the lights in the night sky?"
Sky eyes stopped muttering...I had not realized he had continued while I struggled to understand. From the creasing of his forehead, I could tell he was in pain. He seemed to stare more at my home, the fire, the dark haired one and then his leg. "Yes, yes. We come from a place far, far away, a little light in your night sky." He was looking again at the dark haired one, the bandages and then back to his leg before returning his eyes to me. "It feels better - did you do that? Really, it feels a lot better. Carson would have kitties to see what you're using. "
Had I done something wrong? Maybe I should have left these males in the woods. I backed further away. "You were both injured, and you asked for help."
I would not have helped if he had not asked.
The false thought made me angry at myself. I would have helped them, whether sky eyes had asked or not. They were the first of my kind I had seen in so very, very long. I had often thought I was the only one left in all the day and night sky.
"Of course I asked for help! Something in this atmosphere made our..." he looked at me thoughtfully, "space ship...break...crap, I hate explaining technology to primitives. We crashed, fell very far from the sky, Sheppard tried to get a signal out but there were..." sky eyes drifted quiet, but then his eyes widened, and he tried to sit up, crying out, "Wraith! Oh, God, we've got to get out of here! We detected wraith life signs on the planet, their ship must have been affected like ours and --"
"Wraith?"
His eyes narrowed, the pain of his sudden movements tamping his outburst. "Ugly life sucking monsters, white hair to here," he raised a hand to his shoulder, "and very hard to kill." Something he said made him look around with renewed intensity. "Where's our stuff? No no no ... we need guns! What'd you do with the things we had with us?"
Pairing: none
Category: h/c, John/Rodney friendship, original character, gen
Warning: early Season 3 spoilers (through 3x03)
Author on LJ: kodiak_bear
Author's Website: Kodiak Bear Country's page on ff.net
Link:
On LJ: The Last Survivor
On ff.net:The Last Survivor
(Full disclosure: I was a beta for this story.)
Why This Must Be Read: This is one of the best, if not the best, original character POVs that I've read in this or any other fandom. It's also a wonderful character study of Sheppard and McKay, together and separately.
Mawani, sole survivor of a Wraith culling, who has lived alone so long that she's nearly forgotten how to talk, finds two critically injured strangers (John and Rodney) in the woods and nurses them back to health. In the process, she begins to rediscover her own humanity. It's a very basic plot, often done in many media, but what makes this story soar is the wonderful, wonderful character voice. Mawani is a fully realized person, with her own unique figures of speech and outlook on the world. As the story demonstrates beautifully, "primitive" does not equal "stupid", and intelligent, perceptive Mawani has a wonderful back-and-forth with her slowly healing charges, trying to figure out their complicated relationship (bickering one minute, gentle and concerned about each other the next) while trying to grasp their sometimes convoluted explanations of concepts like spaceships, Stargates and germ theory.
And as if being injured and lost on another planet wasn't bad enough, there are also Wraith -- and other predators -- afoot in the woods...
"No life signs on the planet, and yet, here you are."
I could not tell if he was pleased or angry.
He shifted. "What is this - straw? Poking every inch of me - but note, that is every thankful inch. Still," his lips drew tight, "Another space gate we can't harvest. At this rate, we'll finish the damn thing posthumously."
Though I knew his voice was weak, I was relieved that he was talking. It was a good sign for his recovery. But the words he used -- I tried to follow. Life signs, space gate...harvest? "You harvest gates?" What was a gate? Surely he did not mean the ones I used to keep my animals from leaving while they recovered. One did not harvest a gate - food was harvested. And space was empty but for the lights, did he mean to say that those lights meant others lived above and around me? That all this time I was surrounded by others like me, and these males? "Did you come from the lights in the night sky?"
Sky eyes stopped muttering...I had not realized he had continued while I struggled to understand. From the creasing of his forehead, I could tell he was in pain. He seemed to stare more at my home, the fire, the dark haired one and then his leg. "Yes, yes. We come from a place far, far away, a little light in your night sky." He was looking again at the dark haired one, the bandages and then back to his leg before returning his eyes to me. "It feels better - did you do that? Really, it feels a lot better. Carson would have kitties to see what you're using. "
Had I done something wrong? Maybe I should have left these males in the woods. I backed further away. "You were both injured, and you asked for help."
I would not have helped if he had not asked.
The false thought made me angry at myself. I would have helped them, whether sky eyes had asked or not. They were the first of my kind I had seen in so very, very long. I had often thought I was the only one left in all the day and night sky.
"Of course I asked for help! Something in this atmosphere made our..." he looked at me thoughtfully, "space ship...break...crap, I hate explaining technology to primitives. We crashed, fell very far from the sky, Sheppard tried to get a signal out but there were..." sky eyes drifted quiet, but then his eyes widened, and he tried to sit up, crying out, "Wraith! Oh, God, we've got to get out of here! We detected wraith life signs on the planet, their ship must have been affected like ours and --"
"Wraith?"
His eyes narrowed, the pain of his sudden movements tamping his outburst. "Ugly life sucking monsters, white hair to here," he raised a hand to his shoulder, "and very hard to kill." Something he said made him look around with renewed intensity. "Where's our stuff? No no no ... we need guns! What'd you do with the things we had with us?"