Night Breeze by Greensilver (Amnesty)

[trelkez.livejournal.com]

Title: Night Breeze
Author: Greensilver
Challenge: Amnesty - Enclosed Spaces (and 38 Minutes ... sort of *g*)
Summary: A Teyla-centric AU riff on The Siege, II/III. Things don't work out as planned.

-

She sits cross-legged on the ground, and the terrain beneath her is both the packed dirt floor of her tent on Athos and the smooth metal plating of a transporter in Atlantis. The tent walls shift restlessly in a night breeze, but the transporter is motionless, neither going to or coming from any particular place in the city.

The tent exists in a small, dark space in her mind that is absolutely static, resisting change, seeking sanctuary in the comfort of the familiar. The transporter surrounds that space, closing in on it slowly, silently; gradually forcing the dark space to constrict, to grow smaller and smaller as it retreats from what is real.

The transporter is a predator, and the dark space is too stubborn to realize that it is prey.

She moves her hands restlessly across the metal deck, across the earth, and tries to focus her thoughts. Distant voices skitter across her awareness like water bugs just barely disturbing the surface of a pond, casting tiny ripples that distract and disorient her just enough to keep her slightly off-balance. Even so, she's getting better all the time, faster, and now she can pick out one voice and skip to another without lingering long enough to give her presence away.

One says, We were promised a feast, but there is only this worthless city, and its puny humans would not feed a hiver.

One says, There were only enough on land to feed a few.

One says, The portal will not activate. The humans lied. There is no new feeding ground.

And when her concentration weakens just for a moment, one says: The harvest is not over. We know you are here.

She lifts her hands from the ground and turns them up toward the sky, fingers curling slightly in an almost meditative pose. Her palms are scratched and stained, and the dark space insists dirt, just dirt - but when she flexes her hands, the dirt falls away from her skin in deep crimson flakes.

There are no gods to which she can commit her soul, but she tries, knowing simply that Halling would be disappointed if she failed to observe the rituals.

One says, She is behind this door, I can smell it.

She brings her hands down over the control crystal on her lap, lifting it gently so that she can cradle it to her chest as she rises. The Atlanteans are gone, are gone, are never going home regardless of what she does; even so, she takes care with the crystal, keeping her movements measured and even.

A shadow appears on the other side of the transporter door; two, three. More.

One says, We know you are in there.

She sets the crystal down in one corner, as carefully as she can manage, and backs away.

One says, This door will not remain locked for long.

She pulls out her sidearm, takes aim, and fires. Shards spray up and out, embedding themselves in the wall, in the floor, in her skin.

One says, I smell blood.

The transporter doors slide open, giving way, and the dark space expands in kind - growing ever-outward until she can feel the night breeze, until she can smell the soil underfoot.

The ripples ease. The voices fade. The transporter disappears entirely, and at last, there is only the sound of the tent walls flapping gently, all around her.