'Enclosed spaces' challenge - by lakester
Mar. 10th, 2005 04:58 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
lakester.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
sga_flashficTitle: Endure
Author: Lakester
Rating: PG
Post-Suspicion
Summary: Places don't have to be small to be enclosed.
Major Sheppard has told her that the city is many miles across- that were she to run from one edge to another it would take days. “Even for you, Teyla.”
Lieutenant Ford measures it in ‘football fields’ and Dr Mckay bemoans powering such a large place – that "the ZPM’s won’t last forever, Major. So try to keep your wanderings as short as possible, before you kill us all." Dr Weir just looks at the map and sighs.
She has mapped the area around her quarters. Each night venturing further afield, trying to memorise corridor after corridor.
Still, each night she wakes, suffocating. Every time she forces herself to be calm. She tells herself that she is Teyla Emmagan, she is her father's daughter and she will fight this. She recites half-forgotten prayers to the Ancestors, hears her voice echo in her room.
Despite this, each night she finds herself on a balcony, by a window, outside a door. Anywhere that she can breathe the air of this world. She looks east, thinking of her people, knowing she will not see their land, hear their songs or smell the smoke as Marta teaches Jinto to cook the meat of this world.
She looks at the stars, their light a constant she relies on, though they are not the stars of Athos, or anywhere else she has visited.
The city hums, it is almost sub-audible but the buzz penetrates the soles of her feet. It changes pitch but never silences. She is both alone, and not; the city watches her. She throws a small paper charm into the water and watches it drift away, as she cannot. She is tied here, by her own choices, but tied nonetheless.
She wonders how her people are adapting to a more settled existence. She wonders if Almeia has had her child by now, if Tagon’s broken arm has mended, if the harvest prospects are good, if her people… They are still her people though she leads them no longer and they are always in her thoughts, but Halling leads her people now.
When she can she visits them on the mainland, but she cannot fly the Ancestors’ craft alone, and with the Atlanteans preparations for the Wraith escalating such visits are rare. She has become a guest amongst her people, while in Atlantis she remains an alien amongst aliens. Still, she treasures the mainland trips, the feel of earth under her feet and the sounds of unregimented voices calling out sentences that do not end with doctor or sir.
She watches as the rising sun glints off the city. It is beautiful, although it is a cold, harsh beauty. But this is where she belongs now, where she can do the greatest good for the greatest number. For now, this requires her to live, amongst strangers, enclosed in a metal and glass bubble, but she will endure and dream of blue skies above.
Author: Lakester
Rating: PG
Post-Suspicion
Summary: Places don't have to be small to be enclosed.
Major Sheppard has told her that the city is many miles across- that were she to run from one edge to another it would take days. “Even for you, Teyla.”
Lieutenant Ford measures it in ‘football fields’ and Dr Mckay bemoans powering such a large place – that "the ZPM’s won’t last forever, Major. So try to keep your wanderings as short as possible, before you kill us all." Dr Weir just looks at the map and sighs.
She has mapped the area around her quarters. Each night venturing further afield, trying to memorise corridor after corridor.
Still, each night she wakes, suffocating. Every time she forces herself to be calm. She tells herself that she is Teyla Emmagan, she is her father's daughter and she will fight this. She recites half-forgotten prayers to the Ancestors, hears her voice echo in her room.
Despite this, each night she finds herself on a balcony, by a window, outside a door. Anywhere that she can breathe the air of this world. She looks east, thinking of her people, knowing she will not see their land, hear their songs or smell the smoke as Marta teaches Jinto to cook the meat of this world.
She looks at the stars, their light a constant she relies on, though they are not the stars of Athos, or anywhere else she has visited.
The city hums, it is almost sub-audible but the buzz penetrates the soles of her feet. It changes pitch but never silences. She is both alone, and not; the city watches her. She throws a small paper charm into the water and watches it drift away, as she cannot. She is tied here, by her own choices, but tied nonetheless.
She wonders how her people are adapting to a more settled existence. She wonders if Almeia has had her child by now, if Tagon’s broken arm has mended, if the harvest prospects are good, if her people… They are still her people though she leads them no longer and they are always in her thoughts, but Halling leads her people now.
When she can she visits them on the mainland, but she cannot fly the Ancestors’ craft alone, and with the Atlanteans preparations for the Wraith escalating such visits are rare. She has become a guest amongst her people, while in Atlantis she remains an alien amongst aliens. Still, she treasures the mainland trips, the feel of earth under her feet and the sounds of unregimented voices calling out sentences that do not end with doctor or sir.
She watches as the rising sun glints off the city. It is beautiful, although it is a cold, harsh beauty. But this is where she belongs now, where she can do the greatest good for the greatest number. For now, this requires her to live, amongst strangers, enclosed in a metal and glass bubble, but she will endure and dream of blue skies above.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-10 05:03 pm (UTC)But this helps make up for that. I love how you got into her head, this feels so genuine to me, and very beautiful.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-17 05:05 pm (UTC)Sort of glossed over it, didn't they?
They did? :Hasn't seen all of season one: Damn.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-10 06:16 pm (UTC)This is very beautiful!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-17 05:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-10 07:02 pm (UTC)She was right.
I liked this very much. You've given some wonderful depth to her. A Teyla missing her people and opened spaces and choosing to live among strangers whose culture is very different from hers out of duty is the Teyla I care about and want to see more of. Thank you for writing her.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-17 05:07 pm (UTC)Teyla's exile seems sadder to me because it is self-imposed.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-11 02:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-17 05:08 pm (UTC)Nice to know it made an impression.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-13 03:48 am (UTC)Still, she treasures the mainland trips, the feel of earth under her feet and the sounds of unregimented voices calling out sentences that do not end with doctor or sir.
Is so evocative of the differences between her past life and her present one.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-17 05:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-13 03:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-17 05:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-16 04:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-17 05:14 pm (UTC)