The Raven by Kriadydragon (Animal Challenge)

[kriadydragon]

Title: The Raven
Author: Kriadydragon
Rating: Pg-13 for torture, Gen.
Spoilers: The Storm/Eye, The Hive, Common Ground. Anything up to season three is fair game, pretty much.
Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate Atlantis nor the concept of the Daemon.
Synopsis: "Sheppard had never considered the setback of having a raven for a Daemon until his first mission."
Note: This is an AU fusion with Pullman's “His Dark Materials” series. Not a crossover, just fusion because I really loved the concept of the daemons. If you have not read “His Dark Materials”, a daemon is like a piece of one's soul manifest in animal form (or at least that's how I interpreted it). Men have female daemons, and women male daemons. A daemon can change its form up until its human hits puberty, then it takes on a single form. They can talk, but normally only interact with their human or other Daemons. I am taking some liberties with the idea, but as my own interpretations of what was done in the books. Also, I recently came across another SGA story using Daemons while taking a break from writing my story, so I'm saying now that the idea for mine did not come from reading this other fic.

John Sheppard had never considered the setback of having a raven for daemon until his first mission. A training mission, of all things, actually, and he wasn't the one being trained. All he had to do was fly a bunch of new recruits into some field, drop them off, then pick them up when they were done. The team was a squadron of five who sauntered in psyched to their hair roots until they discovered that their pilot had a raven daemon. After that, they bitched and moaned under their breath the entire trip, kissing rabbits feet, rubbing saint medallions, and muttering prayers. Their own daemons kept giving Sakura looks that should have fried her feathers off.

The Special Ops guys gave him never-ending hell about it.

Soldiers were superstition and the vast majority of society had more than one taboo when it came to ravens, owls - and on occasion seagulls - and death. Pilots seemed predestined to be pilots as John had yet to encounter any that didn't have a bird daemon. It was also a unanimous agreement among all fellow flyboys that ravens and their blackbirds cousins got a bad rap. It was why Sheppard preferred flying medevac missions where people were too busy saving lives or screaming in pain to notice their pilot had a living bad luck charm on his shoulder.

It was all a bunch of superstitious crack anyways. Sheppard had only gone down twice, ever, once when he was already on the ground and a stray bullet hit the engine, and the second time when he went in to rescue Holland. Although he couldn't deny the second time being an utter failure. All that effort had been for squat when he and Holland were captured, Holland tortured to death, and Sheppard nearly dead when he was found. John hadn't known which was worse: watching Holland choke on his own blood or his ocelot daemon fade away.

Someone had pinned the blame on Sakura. John had been recovering at the time, had heard the whispered accusations, and had bolted upright in bed, broken bones forgotten, with the intent of strangling who ever had said that. You don't acknowledge another person's daemon that way, you just don't.

One would think being tossed into another galaxy and living among facts-only scientists that the same taboos wouldn't exist. Except they did, twice as bad since you have a mix of cultures and backgrounds. The difference between Atlantis and Earth was that everyone on Atlantis had the decency to keep their mouths shut. John was the only one with a raven daemon, but there was a guy with a rook, several people with owls, two scientists with black cats, and a marine with a snake. To dis one animal with a bunch of bad legends attached was dissing all animals with bad legends attached. But John had heard rumor that several scientists and a few marines did try to go out of their way to make sure they never ended up on the same Jumper as John.

Going one-man-army on a bunch of Genii hadn't helped his and Sakura's standing any, except to make people a little more discreet in their prejudice. Although John wouldn't call someone trying to maintain five feet of personal space while talking to him discreet.

Sakura always pretended not to mind, but since she was a part of John, Sheppard knew damn well she minded, she just didn't show it.

John gathered the playing cards together, tapped them, flipped them, then began laying them out in another round of solitaire. He would have been playing Black Jack with Sakura but had forgotten to bring the bookstand to hold up her cards. Rodney was next to him, fingers flying over the keyboard of his laptop. The bright orange tabby that was Lorraine was curled up next to it, her green eyes half-lidded as though she were scowling, but the cat always looked like that even when awake. Ronon was on Rodney's other side with is goret, Mika, around his neck. John had taken Ronon to be a tiger daemon kind of guy, but supposed the goret was close enough. It was cat like, dark blue with green stripes, a long body, long tail, and short but powerful legs that made it easy to assume the thing was slow. Except it wasn't, it was damn fast, damn cunning, and solid muscle. John had seen the thing's jaws crush bones.

Teyla was next to John. Her animal was less complicated: a bird, like a hawk, but with iridescent feathers that sometimes looked blue or green in the right light, and a swept crest of feathers running from head to lower back - a decoration of the male of the species, Teyla had once said. It's name was Corlath and it had a lovely singing voice.

Carson was on the other side of Teyla with his Corgy daemon, Dierdre, in his lap so she didn't have to miss out on anything. Elizabeth walked in, always last since her entrance was the signal for the meeting to start. No one liked beating around the bush, Dr. Weir least of all. When she sat, Eviaan, a white cat, leaped onto the table and curled up, regarding everyone sagely with sapphire eyes.

Elizabeth folded her hands on the table-top. “So where are we with the Monderaans?”

John gathered the cards back up and shoved them into his pocket. “They're nice and 'willing' to trade, but I use the term willing loosely as they are also paranoid and that makes me nervous.”

“How so?” Elizabeth asked.

Teyla was the one to answer. “The Monderaans are a good people but suffer a division. They are not a violent culture and welcome any who have been misplaced from their homes, but they have had difficulties with wraith worshipers among those they help. The followers come in and convince many to follow them back through the Stargate to serve the wraith. The Monderaans have been extra cautious since.”

“And I don't blame them,” John said. “But I also know how people can get when they rely on suspicion to keep them alive. We so much as blink in a way they don't like, they could have us locked up in a heartbeat.”

“I thought most wraith worshipers had iratus bug daemons?” Weir said.

John shivered and Sakura ruffled her feathers. “Some, if the humans are trained up from children, but the wraith discourage it. Miss 'wolf in damsel-in-distress-clothing' had had a mouse daemon. Or what looked like a mouse.”

Elizabeth nodded. “So not only do we have a problem with paranoid villagers, there could also be potential spies on that planet. Then I guess the real question isn't whether they'll deal but whether we want to.” Elizabeth shifted enough to face McKay. “Rodney?”

Rodney leaned back in his chair. “Those ruins aren't promising in terms of technology thus far, but there is a ton of ancient script, including pictorials, that could either tell us the location of something worth checking out, or let us in on something being already there just well hidden.”

And a chance to find a ZPM or cache of drones was always worth the risks. Sheppard jumped in. “Because that planet is a recruiting zone, the Monderaans haven't been having a lot of cullings. Neither have they been letting people in lately. They like to get everyone prepped to 'just say no' when the next wave of refugees arrive. Until then, any refugees that do come are sent to live in a shanty-town a couple of miles away from both the village and the ruins. If the Monderaans see anyone they don't recognize, they confront them, even chase them out. They would have done the same to us if we hadn't said the word 'let's trade' before 'howdy'.”

“They prefer shopping to playing 'guess who the bad guys are',” Rodney said.

“So it's agreed that negotiations continue?” said Elizabeth.

Rodney lifted his head. “I would think so.”

John just shrugged. He wasn't a scientist and didn't see the merit of ancient scribblings until they translated into something useful. Whatever Elizabeth decided, he would go with it.

Elizabeth unclasped her hands and pressed them flat on the table. “All right then, it's a go. Try to get into those ruins and see what there is to see. If nothing turns up, maybe we can get some vegetables out of this.”

Everyone murmured in agreement and the meeting was adjourned.

-----------------------------

John wandered lazily around the cathedral-sized chamber that looked as though it had been graffitied by computer nerds and Egyptians. There were pictures mixed within the blocky Ancient writing that stretched from floor to a few inches passed John's head. The walls were a smooth cream brown going straight until curving into a dome supported by weathered flying buttresses. In the center of the chamber was a table in a misshapen halo of light spilling in pillars from four windows in the domed roof.

John's shoulder brushed the wall. Sakura hopped onto it from the other shoulder, crossing over the back of his neck, and tapped one of the pictures with her beak.

“That looks like me,” she said.

John lifted his P-90 and leaned in close, squinting. “Yeah, it kind of does. The beak, anyways. But I don't think you could fluff up enough to have a hair-style like that.” The tiny raven carving had plumage much like Teyla's daemon. John glanced over his shoulder. “So what's all this talking about, McKay?”

Rodney had scanned half the room into his tablet PC to run translations. “You are here and ZedPMs that way.”

“You know, one of these days we just might run into something that says that. Until then, get over the fact that you're clearly disappointed and tell me the truth.”

Rodney sighed heavily, dropping his gaze from the wall to the tablet. He tossed up the hand holding the scanner. “Well... so far it all kind of reads like a code of honor.” He pointed to a column of text. “Here we have an oath, and next to it instructions. The rest, so far, has been history. Looks like this place might have been training grounds for future Ancient warriors.”

John perked up at that, turning away from the wall to face Rodney. He saw Ronon doing the same out of the corner of his eye.

“So the Ancients had an elite fighting group?” Sheppard asked.

Ronon stepped forward, Mika sinuously trailing after. “How elite are we talking?”

“Very,” said Rodney. “So elite that most never made it very far. If these guys used the force and had lightsabers, they'd pretty much be Jedi. They worked with both weapons and hand to hand... And, oh, you should get a kick out of this Colonel, most were employed as pilots. Which makes sense since the majority of battles with the wraith were in space.”

John walked closer to peer over Rodney's shoulder at the tablet. “So if these guys were so kick-ass -”

Rodney jumped and gasped. “Jeez, Sheppard! Heart attack, ever heard of it? Because you just about gave me one.”

Loraine growled, so Sakura cocked her head cheekily in response.

“So if these guys were so kick-ass,” John continued, “why'd the wraith still win?”

“Hello? Didn't I just say not everyone made it through training? Most couldn't handle the discipline needed. And training began in child-hood. If you hit puberty and were still around, then the rest was a cake-walk. All trainees ended up with the same daemon - some kind of bird - that acted as a sort of badge of honor.”

John nodded. “Cool.”

“Yes, very cool,” Rodney muttered. “I was wondering why they weren't mentioned in the database, but according to this writing,” he pointed at another column of text, “what went on in this temple, stayed in this temple. As far as anyone in the city was concerned, these elite were nothing more than glorified guards.”

“Why all the secrecy?” John asked.

“Well, for one, it's considered sacred, and this writing here says something along the lines of 'to understand it, one must live it'. I'm guessing most of the Ancients saw this training as a necessary evil, except for those who taught and those who trained. The Ancients were more for creating life than destroying it. They probably saw the elite as a failure in that they'd been reduced to relying on violence to protect themselves from their own creations.”

“So the Ancients didn't like them?”

“Obviously. Everyone else did, though. These elite were at the forefront of trying to save as many planets as they could. I wouldn't be surprised if the Ancients got jealous when their little human seedlings became more excited at the arrival of the guys with the birds than at those who weren't elite. There probably is more about them in the database, but it wasn't apparent because we didn't know what to look for.”

John pursed his lips, then furrowed his brow. “Now haughty Ancients I get since we've met them, but pissy Ancients with envy issues? Can't seem to wrap my brain around that one.”

“Well,” Rodney replied, “like I said, it probably had more to do with these elite being seen as a symbolism for the Ancient's failure in maintaining themselves as omnipotent. They fought because they had to, not because they wanted to. To rely on living flesh rather than super machines had to be slapping them upside the head with some serious fallibility complexes. No one likes to be proved wrong.”

John clapped Rodney on the shoulder. “Nope, no one does.”

Rodney just narrowed his eyes and Loraine growled.

-------------------------------

After a quick trip back to the gate for Rodney to send a data burst of info through for Zelenka to begin searching, they all piled back into the ruins for an overnight stay so McKay could continue translating. John, Ronon, and Teyla took turns standing guard at the structure's only entrance. Not that they really needed to according to the Monderaans. The only way to reach the ruins was to pass too close to the village, with mountains, rocky terrain, and wild animals making all other routes impassable. But it was just plain common sense to never take chances.

John's next watch came a little after midnight. Ronon nudged him awake and John stumbled to the entrance shaking sleep from his brain. The night was cold, wet, and smoky with thin tendrils of green moon-lit mist. It was eery as hell, like a bad sci-fi movie, accented by some kind of distant clicking that was probably a night bird. At least John hoped it was a night bird.

Sheppard leaned with his back against the slick wall just within the entrance.

“I hate midnight,” he blurted without meaning to.

“I know,” Sakura said.

Sheppard had his own taboos and it always pricked him with feelings of being a hypocrite. Holland's daemon had finally vanished at midnight according to the watch the insurgents had let him keep. Exactly at midnight, right on the dot, and that had come across as all kinds of creepy. Holland's buddies had blamed John and not in that whispering-behind-their-hands way that most people went about it. It had been direct, superstition as the reasoning not so much, but one guy kept crossing himself in between calling John a cursed bastard and the devil. He'd had to keep from laughing because he was overcome by sudden pity for those unlucky SOBs who had snake daemons.

Except, irony of ironies, the local military chaplain (a southern man) had daemon that had been a snake, a bull snake. John had talked to the guy during recovery. Yeah, the man got a lot of heat for it, but it didn't seem to bother him.

“Moses turned his staff into a snake through the power of God,” he'd said. “That snake ate the serpents of the sorcerers. The way I see it, God might have punished the snake for being naughty at one time, but he doesn't hate 'em, so they sure as heck ain't evil. We - people - are good at a lot of things and misinterpretation is one of them. People'll see what they want to see, hate want they want to hate, which is their own problem. If I'm evil, it'll be because I made some sour choices, not because of what kind of daemon I have. When people judge, it's best to turn a deaf ear, 'cause they don't have a right to it.”

It had made John feel better at the time, but speeches like that came once in a blue moon, and the taboo just kept going and going.

John breathed out long. Fog streamed from his breath, bordered in green and melding to the mist. Sakura perked up, cocking her head, which always made John stiffen.

“I thought I heard something,” she breathed.

A twig snapped directly behind John. He stepped outside swinging his P-90 light in the direction, the beam barely cutting through the fog.

“John, behind you!”

John whirled and got a face-full of something hard that sent him falling back. Darkness slammed over his eyes before he even hit the ground and the last thing he heard was Sakura's frantic caws.

-----------------------------

Sheppard awoke to a cold, hard surface, chilled skin, and a heart-sick feeling. He peeled sticky eyelids apart to a dimly lit room of ancient stone blocks and candles burning in metal candelabras in each corner of the square room. There were no windows, only one door, and a whole bunch of people in that room: he counted seven. He took all this in at a glance as he desperately searched out the one thing that was missing.

He found Sakura restrained in delicate, feminine hands. John's stomach clenched tight until he gagged. The woman holding Sakura was average height, slender, with brown hair verging on black that tumbled around her shoulders. She was dressed in a robe, forest green, with black trim and a swept-back hood. The indifference oozing from her as she restrained the daemon horrified John, as though she did not realize what it was she was holding, what she was doing.

Touching another's daemon was an act of intimacy, of bonding and trust. His mother had described it as being like touching another's soul, an interaction of the metaphysical kind that could leave a lasting imprint on the heart. There were so few things regarded as sacred anymore on any world in any galaxy, but to touch another's daemon was universal. No matter where one was, no matter the culture, you just didn't do that. It went beyond being a preconception to being something instinctively ingrained from the day one was capable of remembering: the first lesson ever learned.

The only one to have ever touched Sakura had been John's wife. It was why they still communicated off and on, why he wrote to her sometimes just to check on her. The marriage may not have lasted, but that bond still existed.

For someone to touch another's daemon without consent was uncomfortable. For them to restrain the daemon was a violation of the soul equal to the violation of the body. John's muscles coiled tight like a well oiled spring ready to snap, to pounce.

“Who are you?” he snarled. Shivering, only vaguely aware that his shirt had been removed, and he immediately knew why. It was all about dominance: him being exposed, lying in a cold room on a cold floor, his daemon confined by another's hands. And it was working. John felt helpless in a way he hadn't since he'd been tied down to be wraith lunch. Even then, the only one holding his daemon had been another daemon.

Sheppard's question received an answer in the form of a hard boot to the back, directly on the spine. He arched and Sakura squawked and writhed. Feet hissed, shifting, human and daemon alike. John heard skittered whispers of “desperate times, desperate measures” in voices lacking any true conviction.

“We will ask the questions, stranger,” the woman said, husky and flat. “Who are you?”

“Lt. Colonel John Sheppard, US Air Force...” that earned him a steel-toed boot to his chest, shoving the air from his lungs.

“That is not what I meant,” the woman dead-panned.

John coughed and sucked in a ragged lung-full. “Then you're going to have to be more specific.”

Another kick, more like a stomp, directly on the right side of his ribcage. There was a snap, John screamed and Sakura shuddered, making a weak croaking sound.

“I said silence.”

The next kick came to his stomach which was short lived when another flew at his face, snapping his head back. John spat a wad of bloodied saliva, with more running down the corner of his mouth. He chuckled ruefully. “You're gonna have to do better than that.” He'd gotten worse from the insurgents who hadn't been more than a group of damned trigger-happy kids getting their kicks out of playing terrorist. They'd strung John up by his arms out in the desert and threw rocks at him for the better part of the day, but they hadn't laid a finger on Sakura even when she flew out their own daemons.

“Who do you serve?” the woman said as though pretending John hadn't broken her cardinal rule of 'shut the crap up'.

John spat more blood onto the floor and said nothing. Someone kicked him in the back again, then the chest. It was getting hard to breathe. Sheppard coughed and gasped until his lungs remembered how to function. “Thought... was s'pposed to stay... quiet.”

The next kick was to the shoulder-blade.

“Gaw, you people suck!”

“Who do you serve?” the woman pressed.

John was starting to get the gist. These people were either anti-wraith worshipers or wraith worshipers on a mission to see if they'd just caught themselves some 'Lanteans. Speaking of which, John wondered where the gang was, if they were getting the same treatment. A kick to the lower back returned him to the here and now.

“Who do you want me to serve?” John growled just to ward off future abuse.

The woman cocked an eyebrow. “Your weapons are very advanced. Your clothes are of a make that we have not seen on any world. You come to speak of trade yet will not say what world you reside on.”

“Our world was lost -”

“And yet you seem to be doing well. We take in refugees, and all who we take in are always those desperate and barely alive.”

John had his answer. These folks were locals and that horrified him even more than if they had been wraith followers. Even the followers wouldn't touch another's daemon. Hell, even the wraith didn't touch another's daemon. Crap, John hated wraith Daemons: iratus bugs, every single damn one.

“We're not wraith followers,” John said. “We're explorers from another galaxy. Our world isn't even in the neighborhood. We still have contact with our planet and they bring us supplies.”

The woman took a step back. John's heart started to pound, hard. He lifted his head off the cold floor. “Whoa, whoa, wait, what're you doing? Look, lady, it's the truth. All right? So just put Sakura down, please.”

One of the woman's entourage shifted uncomfortably. “Kaveya...” His porcupine-like daemon made grunting noises as it circled in agitation.

The woman - Kaveya - shot the man a look that could have killed him on the spot. “You dare utter my name?” she hissed. It was in that moment, a heartbeat long, that her face crumbled, becoming drawn and ill. Her own daemon, a two-foot tall yellow dinosaur, pranced about her feet making low chirping sounds while cringing.

Kaveya looked back at John and her mask solidified. “I do not believe you.” She took another step back, then another. Sakura squirmed, cawed, and John's heart hammered until he couldn't breathe. It felt as though a hand were burrowing into his chest, wrapping around his heart, squeezing and pulling until he was shivering from more than just the cold.

“No, please, stop...”

The woman kept backing away, shaking her head. “The truth, man. Tell me the truth.”

John tried to lurch to his feet only to be pulled back and pinned down. “It is the truth you sadistic witch! What the hell do you want from me!”

Kaveya kept backing away, to the door then out it. Sakura's writhing and cawing turned from frantic to panic-wild.

“John, John, Jooooohn...!”

John lurched again, hard, manic, desperate: pulling, writhing and bucking when the tugging in his heart ascended to heights of excruciating, incomprehensible pain.

“Sakura! Let her go, please! It's the truth, the freakin' truth! Sakuraaaa!” The pain was like a knife slicing up his very core. John threw his head back, howling, sobbing, clawing at the stone floor until his fingers bled and the nails ripped. All other pains ceased to exist except for the single, all-consuming agony that burst out from his heart. It was a pain that not even the wraith feeding could match.

“Sakuraaa! Sakuraaa!”

“Jooooohhhnnn!” She was so far away. Any farther and she would be gone, then him, split, souls shattered, lives over. You do not kill by separating Daemon from human. You. Just. Don't.

It was heartbreak that killed.

John thrashed and howled against fleshed restraints as his heart was ripped still beating from his ribs. There was no rational thought, only blind animal terror and a yawning chasm of isolation that reduced him to mere flesh, bone, and insignificance. He was agony itself, right down to his atoms.

“Kaveya! Kaveya, please. He is telling the truth!”

“Kaveya, stop! By the Ancestors you must stop!”

“This is wrong!”

“You can't!”

“Please!”

The voices spoke all at once, begging, sobbing, terrified. Animals keened, chirped and howled in anguish as though they were being slaughtered. Witnesses to pure sacrilege, and they would all be damned.

Then the pain eased, just a little, enough for John to recall how to breathe.

“The - the truth,” the female voice gasped, unsteady, as though the woman were nauseas.

John buried his face into the cold stone and choked on a sob that shook him. He felt small and weak, frail as a dry leaf and alone in a suddenly too big world. “Truth. It's... truth. Please... Let her go, just let her go.” Not once in his entire life had ever felt so alone.

The pain eased a little more, enough for John to sag boneless and shivering. He looked up through a blur of tears at Kaveya's form and the black blotch that was an exhausted and sick Sakura. He sucked in a stuttering breath.

“It's the truth,” he whispered, beyond begging. If she'd told him to shoot himself right here and now, he would have just to end this pain.

Kaveya stood there, either frozen or contemplating. Minutes crept by like centuries until she finally moved, placing Sakura within John's reach. Sheppard extended a quaking hand and Sakura flopped and fluttered toward it until he was able to pull her to his bruised chest. The pain was gone, but not the heartsickness that made his stomach roil and knot. His body hurt beyond bruises and broken bones. There was a sharp ache to his joints and heat to his skin. He shook, sweating and weeping like something sick and dying. Sakura buried her head into his chest and keened mournfully.

“Jo-ohn...”

John held her more tightly, but gently. “It's okay, Sakura, it's all right, it's okay now...” It was. As long as they had each other then it always would be. He looked up at Kaveya who stared down at him, pale but angry, as though she blamed John for what she had had to do.

John curled his lip back from his teeth. It's a damn choice, lady. You did what you did because you chose to. Out loud he hissed, “Bitch.”

The woman's bottom lip quivered, then she turned and strode swiftly from the room, her daemon trotting after. The others followed shuffling like beaten subservients. The last man lingered uneasily to snuff out all the candles. Then the door whined closed, leaving John and Sakura in the arctic darkness.

It didn't matter. They still had each other.

------------------------------

The door whined open and weak light spilled across the floor just out of John's reach. He pressed his spine harder into the wall, curling his body protectively around Sakura when four people entered. An old man in dark blue robes, Kaveya looking pale and horrified, and two guards with large, burly daemons like shaggy rotweilers. One of the guards went around the room, lighting candles with a laser much like what Teyla had.

The old man, with long-white hair and an iron gray beard, groaned as he knelt before John, his miniature stork-like daemon shifting to compensate for the balance. John curled into a tighter ball and bared his teeth.

“Back off!”

The old man lifted a weathered hand dry as wood. “Easy, my boy,” he said kindly. His voice was soft and deep from age, calming to listen to though John tried not to give in. “Easy. I wish to see your Indyak... Uh... yes, your soul-creature. I swear on my own that I will not touch her.”

John wasn't feeling particularly trusting right now, but Sakura chose that time to pop her head out from John's arms.

“John? What's happening?” her ebony head twitched in the old man's direction.

The old man gasped and struggled to his feet, his mini-stork flapping its wings and keening like a trumpet. “Denkiarta! The Denkiarta! Denkiarta!”

“Are you sure?” one of the guards asked. “The Denkia have been extinct for thousands of years. Even as Indyak.”

The old man nodded, wheezing and pointing a gnarled finger at John. “Denkiarta, for that very reason. The dark bird is like that described in the old texts. No other creature matches it.”

John's heart slammed and Sakura ducked her head back into his arms, shivering. “Please,” he said in a voice quiet and strained from screaming, “I'm not this Denkarta thing. I'm not even from this galaxy.”

The old man whirled around. John flinched back and started trembling himself, holding Sakura so tight he could barely breathe and was certain she couldn't. But he wouldn't let them take her. They couldn't endure that pain again, they would die the next time the woman moved beyond the door with Sakura in hand.

The old man wiped his mouth and returned to kneeling by John. “You are, my boy. And I must apologize. By the Ancestors, we would not have done this had we known.”

Kaveya approached him, spilling tears like rain, her breaths hitching. “Forgive me,” she sobbed. “Please, please, please...” she dropped to the floor on her knees with hands clasped. She inched toward him in agonized supplication, then fell forward with her face pressed to the floor and her body shaking as she wept. The old man began mumbling in an odd language at the woman, then twisted around barking orders at the guards. He looked back at John.

“We will bring you food and water as you wait for your people. Please, accept our apology, Denkiarta.”

John opened his mouth to ask what a Denkiarta was, but the old man rose suddenly, grabbing Kaveya by both arms and hauling her roughly to her feet. He yanked and dragged her out, shouting at her in an alien tongue, his daemon diving and snapping at hers.

John felt no pity for her. He thought he should have, and wanted to because he wasn't normally a vindictive person, but he just couldn't with Sakura shivering against his chest.

One guard brought him a blanket and covered him with it, and the other brought a plate of food and large cup of water. John took the water but couldn't even stand the smell of the food the way his stomach continued to roll, so begged them to take it away. The water cooled his parched throat. He then slipped into an exhausted, pained sleep to the rapid beat of Sakura's heart against his, and his slower heart against hers.

--------------------------

Sheppard awoke to someone touching his bare shoulder. He jerked away slamming his bruised back against the wall. “Don't touch me!”

A slender, brown hand pulled away. His eyes cleared for the blurred face to coalesce into Teyla's frightened visage.

“I am so sorry John. I did not mean to startle you.”

John gaped up at her. Corlath was pacing from one side of her shoulders to the other, fluting like a loon.

“John, are you all right? Are you injured?” she touched his arms with the intent to pull them away. He pulled back, twisting his body to move Sakura beyond reach. This was Teyla, he knew her, he trusted her, he just... he wasn't sure. He was afraid, sick, hurting and wasn't ready to release Sakura from his embrace.

Teyla stiffened, her brown eyes wide and reflecting the terror he felt. “John?” her voice cracked. “John, please, what is wrong?”

Sheppard's eyes blurred until the tears tumbled hot down his cheeks. His heart sped up and with it his breathing. “Th-they tried... to take Sakura... They were taking her...”

Now it was Teyla who was gaping, pale and appalled. “Oh, John, no.”

He heard the whine of a charging weapon and looked past Teyla to Ronon now turned with his gun drawn and ready, pointing it at those gathered in the doorway. Mika prowled around the big man's legs, snarling, baring fangs the length of John's middle finger. McKay was in the corner, clutching Loraine to him as though the same thing might happen to them.

“I will make no excuses.” John knew that soft, gentle voice: the old man. “The one who did this act has... had... taken her own life in the night. We know no apologies will suffice, so we will leave, let you be on your way. All we can do is offer protection on your journey.”

“No need,” Ronon growled. He didn't lower his weapon.

Teyla wiped at her shimmering eyes. “Can - can you walk, John?”

John shifted his legs, testing them, and nodded. “I think.”

“Is it all right if I touch you, to help you up?”

John swallowed and nodded again, but winced and flinched when Teyla's hand slid into the blanket and her cool fingers wrapped around his heated arm. She took him by both arms, supporting his weight as he winced and cried out from the pain of standing. She let him lean up against her when his legs tried to give.

“Maybe I was wrong,” he said. His legs trembled, his whole body trembled, from a fatigue the sleep hadn't gotten rid of. If anything, it was worse.

“L-let me help,” Rodney said, placing Loraine back on the floor to take John by the other arm while keeping the blanket around his shoulders. Sheppard's former captives parted to let them through. McKay demanded to know the where abouts of John's clothes. His jacket and vest were returned, but the shirt had been cut from him. John was in too much pain to put any of the articles on.

The place he had been taken to was a maze of corridors that finally brought them to a set of stairs leading up into the blinding daylight that John winced away from. They were met by another team, led by Lorne with the addition of Carson. Two marines were carrying a stretcher between them that John gladly set himself on, curling beneath the blanket and still shaking.

Lorne's wolf daemon and Sgt. Baily's blood-hound daemon raised their hackles when John's former captors emerged after.

“That's far enough folks,” Lorne said, flat and cold. The old man just bowed, then turned and followed his people back into the underground.

The 'Lanteans didn't leave right away. Carson crouched beside the stretcher, pressing his fingers to John's neck. John let him, too tired to react, the walk having sucked the last vestiges of energy from him. Dierdre set her chin on the stretcher's edge, twitching her wet nose at Sakura. Sakura poked her head out to regard Dierdre, which was okay. It was another daemon, and it was always okay when it was another daemon.

Carson didn't prolong the vitals check, just the pulse then John's eyes with the penlight. They started moving out, back to the 'gate. John tried, but couldn't remain conscious for the journey.

--------------------------------

John awoke to warmth, no pain except for a dull throb in his chest, and a soft body pressed against his shoulder along with the base of a cool beak just above the hollow of his throat. John swallowed and the motion caused the beak to lift away.

“John?”

“Hey Sakura,” John rasped, then coughed. The coughing alerted one of the nearby staff who hurried over to grab a cup with a straw and place it within reach of John's lips.

“Not too much,” the woman said, smiling brightly, her cardinal daemon twitching and chirping. She pulled the cup away after John managed three weak swallows. “I'll go get Dr. Beckett and let him know you're awake.” She hurried off.

Sakura set her beak back on John's neck. “Do you still hurt?” she asked.

John smiled. “Carson has me on the good stuff.”

“That's not what I meant.”

His smile faded. “There's an ache,” he said, “in my chest.”

“Me too. I wanted to make sure it wasn't just me.”

John pulled his unsteady hand out from under the covers and flopped it over Sakura's body. His fingers were wrapped in gauze bandages flecked with a few grain-sized specks of blood.

Carson came over, raising the head of the bed a little for a more face to face conversation. He read off the list of John's injuries in layman's terms: two broken ribs and a third cracked in the chest, and some severe bruising on the back over the spine that Carson would need to keep an eye on. In fact, as he rambled about the injuries, he had John lean forward to check the bruises, then he move to the end of the bed to poke at John's toes and ensure the nerve endings still worked.

Sheppard was also putting up with a low grade fever and heart palpitations.

“Teyla told me about what happened,” Carson said soberly. “Fever and a rapid heart beat are to be expected, especially with how close...” Carson took a deep, steadying breath, his face going a little gray. “I can't even imagine...” he shivered and glanced down at Dierdre who whined up at him. “And I don't want to imagine. But there'll be no long term effects.”

Not physically, anyways, was what Carson didn't need to say. Then came a quick change in subject. “You hungry, lad? You've been asleep for nearly two days and I don't know if those people fed you.”

John shrugged. “I could go for something.”

Carson smiled, relieved, and nodded. “Right then, I'll have someone fetch it for you.”

John's meal ended up being oatmeal with honey, a glass of orange juice and a glass of water. He was visited by his team who ate with him and made small talk that got John smiling sincerely a few times, taking his mind away from things he didn't want to think about yet. Then they took his tray and left for him to take another nap.

When John awoke, it was to Elizabeth sitting by his bed with Eviaan curled in her lap.

“Hey sleepy head,” Elizabeth said with a small smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. “I though I was going to have to come back tomorrow. How are you feeling?”

John took a deep, careful breath. “Better than I was. Can't complain.”

“That's good,” she said. They both fell silent.

John reached up and placed his hand gently on Sakura's warm body. She remained asleep, her back moving to her quick but steady breaths. “Are you superstitious?” he asked.

Elizabeth clasped her hands together, leaning on her elbows around Eviaan's body. “Not really. Why?”

John pressed his mouth into a firm, straight line. “Just met a lot of people who are.”

Elizabeth's lips quirked crookedly in a sardonic smile. “I think that if raven's really were omens of death and doom, we would have been dead a long time ago.” Then she frowned. “You don't believe it, do you?”

John snorted. “Hell no. But a lot of people do. Every time something happens to me, they buy into it a little deeper. I'll be hearing about it again, in the mess hall, always whispered behind my back, people rubbing good-luck charms out of the corner of my eye. I'm used to it, but I get sick of it too. Kind of daemon racist if you ask me.”

“I'm sure if you put it that way, people would stop.”

“They won't,” John said. He slid his fingers along Sakura's ebony wings. He'd almost lost her. Crap, they'd almost lost each other. The pain of that would haunt him. Just remembering sent wave after wave of chills coursing up and down his spine until he started to shiver.

Elizabeth straightened. “John?”

“It's because they're wrong,” John said. “Sakura saved my life. Once that old man got a look at her, everyone was practically falling on their faces like we were gods or something. She saved me just by existing.” Then he added, under his breath, “Omen of death my ass.”

A thoughtful look settled on Elizabeth's features. “I was helping Zelenka in the data-base search for information about these 'elite',” she said. “We didn't find much, but I did send a data burst back to the SGC the night you vanished - before we found out you'd vanished. I received a reply as soon as the Deadalus was in range to deliver it. Guess they couldn't wait, though it seemed a bit much to go through all that effort. Anyways, there isn't much in the Ancient database about these elite, but Dr. Jackson found pictures of the birds similar to the ones Rodney found in the ruins. It pointed him in the right direction. The birds were called Deenkyar.”

John pushed himself up a little straighter. “Kind of sounds like... Denkiarta. That's what the old man kept calling me; Denkiarta.”

Elizabeth smiled. “Deenkyarta. Don't ask me how Dr. Jackson found it so fast, but he found the word Deenkyarta which meant “the breathing shield.” He thought it was referring to a device, but after I sent the information I had, he dug deeper. It was the name of this unique group of protectors, marked by their daemons which were always Deenkyar, which means night birds... because they were black.”

John grinned. “Cool.”

Elizabeth lifted a finger. “Wait, it gets even better. The drawings of the birds change. Daniel didn't understand it, but I think I do, if you look at it logically. The Ancients came to a planet where the Deenkyar don't exist. So, naturally, through years of change, the daemon of the next Deenkyarta would take on the form of the next best thing.”

John's eyes popped wide. “A raven?”

Elizabeth nodded. “I've seen pictures of a real Deenkyar in the database. They're the spitting image of the raven except for this mane of plumage down their head. Several of the biologists even have a theory that the bird might have been brought to earth, becoming our modern day raven over time. But it's just a theory.”

John smiled. “I like that theory.” It made a hell of a lot of sense. These elite, these Deenkyarta warriors, the Ancients didn't like them; regarded them as harbingers of destruction, but only in the Pegasus galaxy did people know them as protectors. On earth, the Ancient prejudice would have been allowed to grow, and the symbol for the protectors evolved into the symbol of death. It tended to be the bad-fortune of all soldiers to go from coming across as guardians to being regarded as death-heralds.

“Think we could start spreading the word?” John asked.

Elizabeth twisted her lips ruefully. “I don't know if it'll help. People cling pretty tight to superstition.”

John smirked. “Maybe we ought to get footage of those people bowing down to Sakura. Bet that would change a few minds.”

Elizabeth chuckled lightly. “Yes, well, if not, at least you have a galaxy full of people who believe in a much more positive bias.” She reached out to grip his wrist. “You going to be okay, John? I can order people to keep their mouths shut if I have to. Don't take this as pity, just sympathy, but you've been through enough.”

“I'll be all right,” he said. There would be bad dreams and nights waking up screaming, drenched in sweat, because the pain would always be there, crouched like a predator in the back of his mind, making rumors and snide remarks nothing. Besides, word would get out, one way or another, starting from an overheard conversation and going beyond, that John had almost had his daemon ripped from him. You don't kick a man when he's already down, and that had sent him straight down into hell.

Even now it was still fresh as today in his mind. John fingered the edge of the blanket. “It may take a while, though. Just so you know.”

Elizabeth squeezed his wrist. “I know. We're here for you John, and Sakura's still with you.”

John nodded, then Elizabeth left. Sheppard burrowed back into the pillow, intent on another nap, when Sakura's head lifted.

“What were you guys talking about, anyways?” she croaked.

John closed his eyes, smiling. “About ravens actually being kick-ass warrior gods.”

He felt her feathers ruffle. “Really?”

“Really.”

Sakura nestled in closer, pressing her body into the pulse point of his neck and setting her beak back across his throat. He shifted his hand to have it draped over her, keeping her close, keeping her with him. His good luck charm.

The end