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sga_flashficAuthor: Darkrose (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
darkrosetiger)
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
Characters: SGA-1
Archive:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
sga_flashfic; all others, please ask.
Rating: G
Length: ~935 words
Summary: Sometimes, against all expectations, there is truth in prophecy.
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: None of these people are mine, and I'm not making any money. OMGMGMDUNSUE!
Notes: Written for the "Masks and Masquerades" challenge onsga_flashfic The blind mask-maker is an homage to the character Fate Ravenglass in The Snow Queen cycle by Joan D. Vinge, which will always be one of my top ten favorite SF/Fantasy novels.
"No," I told the young page. "Absolutely out of the question. Conjunction is in less than a tenday, and I haven't even begun the masks for the court."
"Yes, Sem Alsada, but..." I could feel the girl lean in closer to me. "These visitors...there are four of them, and they come from the City of the Ancestors. They could be--"
"I know," I snapped, for indeed, who knew better than I? The prophecy had been made by my many-times-great-grandmother, over a thousand years ago. Every woman in our line was made to learn it word-for-word, and me most of all, for everyone thought I was Alsada come to life again.
I knew better. I bore her name, and learned her craft--and like her, I was blind--but I did not have the Sight that she claimed to. Prophecies and visions were the stuff of stories as far as I was concerned; the real world was the one that I could hear and smell and taste and feel under my fingers. Despite that, the page's words made me shiver, and recall the words that the first Alsada had spoken:
It will not be this cycle, nor the next, but there will come a time when the four moons are in conjunction, as they are every sixth year. In this cycle, there will come four through the Ring. They will be from the city of the Ancestors, and each will carry with them the spirit of one moon. Their coming will be a sign: that the Wraith will soon be no more.
I had always believed that the prophecy was no more than a tale, an attempt to give our people hope after a culling, to look to an impossible future. But four strangers claiming to be from the City of the Ancestors just before Conjunction? I believe in coincidence even less than I do in prophecy.
"I suppose I shall have to go," I told the page. "Help me close up the shop, girl, and then you can take me to court."
*****
"But how can she make masks if she's OW! What? It's a perfectly reasonable--"
"I don't need to see to make the images in my mind, any more than I needed to see to know that your large friend just stepped on your foot to get you to stop talking," I told the one who had been introduced to me as Rodney McKay. I smiled when I said it, though, and indeed, it was hard not to laugh out loud, because it was true: these were the four that the first Alsada had foretold. I had known it even before I'd touched their faces, for as soon as they spoke I could see the moon spirits that they carried with the Sight that I had denied for so long.
I patted McKay's shoulder. He stiffened, then relaxed when he realized I did not mock him. "You're hardly the first to ask that question, young man, so don't think you're anything special for it."
"Rodney always thinks he's special," their leader said, his voice a relaxed, easy drawl that I knew without hearing it could bite if need be. Sheppard was the Air Moon, changing in a heartbeat from a summer breeze to an icy gale that strips flesh from bone. Unlike the others, he was elusive and distant, for who can truly see the air?
"Oh fine; it's Pick On McKay day again." He was the Fire Moon, that marks both creation and destruction. He burned with the need to know, blazing so brightly in my Sight that it was almost painful.
"It's always Pick On McKay day," the Satedan said, his voice a deep rumble of rock grinding and the ground shifting beneath your feet. The Earth Moon was constant and solid--except when it wasn't, and then the ground trembled, all the more frightening for being unexpected.
The woman with the Athosian accent sighed. "We are greatly honored, Sem Alsada. My people have traded with yours in the past, and though I personally have never traveled to this world, I have heard the praise of the masks that your people make for your festivals." Teyla Emmagen was the Water Moon, of course: placid on the surface, but with swift currents beneath, so deep that you would drown before reaching the bottom.
Had it been each of them alone, I might not have been convinced, but they fit together, just as the four moons align. Air stirs the fire and ripples the water; earth shelters the stream bed and is worn away by the wind and rain.
So for this Conjunction Festival, I will have to surpass anything I've done before when I make the masks for the strangers from Atlantis. For Teyla Emmagen, I will use silver cloth and blue-grey fur to show the face of one of the shirranon, the seal-folk that our stories say were human once, before they chose to live forever in the ocean they loved. For Ronon Dex, I will use tawny fur and leather and gold thread to make the mask of one of the great maned cats that hunt the mountains. For Rodney McKay, more fur, red-gold this time, for the clever-fingered elnini, that stalk the deserts when they're not devising ways to get into the henhouse. And for John Sheppard...for him, I will use the white feathers of the iphishen-birds, who always seem to reach for the sky, even when they stand on the earth. My masks will show their true faces: may the Wraith see, and for once, let them know fear.
darkrosetiger)Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
Characters: SGA-1
Archive:
sga_flashfic; all others, please ask.Rating: G
Length: ~935 words
Summary: Sometimes, against all expectations, there is truth in prophecy.
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: None of these people are mine, and I'm not making any money. OMGMGMDUNSUE!
Notes: Written for the "Masks and Masquerades" challenge on
sga_flashfic The blind mask-maker is an homage to the character Fate Ravenglass in The Snow Queen cycle by Joan D. Vinge, which will always be one of my top ten favorite SF/Fantasy novels."No," I told the young page. "Absolutely out of the question. Conjunction is in less than a tenday, and I haven't even begun the masks for the court."
"Yes, Sem Alsada, but..." I could feel the girl lean in closer to me. "These visitors...there are four of them, and they come from the City of the Ancestors. They could be--"
"I know," I snapped, for indeed, who knew better than I? The prophecy had been made by my many-times-great-grandmother, over a thousand years ago. Every woman in our line was made to learn it word-for-word, and me most of all, for everyone thought I was Alsada come to life again.
I knew better. I bore her name, and learned her craft--and like her, I was blind--but I did not have the Sight that she claimed to. Prophecies and visions were the stuff of stories as far as I was concerned; the real world was the one that I could hear and smell and taste and feel under my fingers. Despite that, the page's words made me shiver, and recall the words that the first Alsada had spoken:
It will not be this cycle, nor the next, but there will come a time when the four moons are in conjunction, as they are every sixth year. In this cycle, there will come four through the Ring. They will be from the city of the Ancestors, and each will carry with them the spirit of one moon. Their coming will be a sign: that the Wraith will soon be no more.
I had always believed that the prophecy was no more than a tale, an attempt to give our people hope after a culling, to look to an impossible future. But four strangers claiming to be from the City of the Ancestors just before Conjunction? I believe in coincidence even less than I do in prophecy.
"I suppose I shall have to go," I told the page. "Help me close up the shop, girl, and then you can take me to court."
*****
"But how can she make masks if she's OW! What? It's a perfectly reasonable--"
"I don't need to see to make the images in my mind, any more than I needed to see to know that your large friend just stepped on your foot to get you to stop talking," I told the one who had been introduced to me as Rodney McKay. I smiled when I said it, though, and indeed, it was hard not to laugh out loud, because it was true: these were the four that the first Alsada had foretold. I had known it even before I'd touched their faces, for as soon as they spoke I could see the moon spirits that they carried with the Sight that I had denied for so long.
I patted McKay's shoulder. He stiffened, then relaxed when he realized I did not mock him. "You're hardly the first to ask that question, young man, so don't think you're anything special for it."
"Rodney always thinks he's special," their leader said, his voice a relaxed, easy drawl that I knew without hearing it could bite if need be. Sheppard was the Air Moon, changing in a heartbeat from a summer breeze to an icy gale that strips flesh from bone. Unlike the others, he was elusive and distant, for who can truly see the air?
"Oh fine; it's Pick On McKay day again." He was the Fire Moon, that marks both creation and destruction. He burned with the need to know, blazing so brightly in my Sight that it was almost painful.
"It's always Pick On McKay day," the Satedan said, his voice a deep rumble of rock grinding and the ground shifting beneath your feet. The Earth Moon was constant and solid--except when it wasn't, and then the ground trembled, all the more frightening for being unexpected.
The woman with the Athosian accent sighed. "We are greatly honored, Sem Alsada. My people have traded with yours in the past, and though I personally have never traveled to this world, I have heard the praise of the masks that your people make for your festivals." Teyla Emmagen was the Water Moon, of course: placid on the surface, but with swift currents beneath, so deep that you would drown before reaching the bottom.
Had it been each of them alone, I might not have been convinced, but they fit together, just as the four moons align. Air stirs the fire and ripples the water; earth shelters the stream bed and is worn away by the wind and rain.
So for this Conjunction Festival, I will have to surpass anything I've done before when I make the masks for the strangers from Atlantis. For Teyla Emmagen, I will use silver cloth and blue-grey fur to show the face of one of the shirranon, the seal-folk that our stories say were human once, before they chose to live forever in the ocean they loved. For Ronon Dex, I will use tawny fur and leather and gold thread to make the mask of one of the great maned cats that hunt the mountains. For Rodney McKay, more fur, red-gold this time, for the clever-fingered elnini, that stalk the deserts when they're not devising ways to get into the henhouse. And for John Sheppard...for him, I will use the white feathers of the iphishen-birds, who always seem to reach for the sky, even when they stand on the earth. My masks will show their true faces: may the Wraith see, and for once, let them know fear.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-01 11:00 pm (UTC)I enjoyed this story. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-03 02:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-01 11:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-03 02:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-01 11:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-03 02:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-02 03:15 am (UTC)Thank you for such wonderful insight!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-03 02:21 am (UTC)Thanks for the feedback; I'm glad you enjoyed it!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-02 03:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-03 02:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-02 03:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-03 02:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-02 01:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-03 02:39 am (UTC)She was kind of amused by Rodney. :) As usual, he opens his mouth and words come out.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-02 02:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-03 02:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-02 03:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-05 09:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-02 03:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-05 09:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-02 07:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-05 09:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-04 10:06 am (UTC)"But how can she make masks if she's OW! What? It's a perfectly reasonable--"
Hee! I could really hear Rodney's voice here.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-05 09:36 am (UTC)Glad you enjoyed it!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 07:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-11 06:43 am (UTC)