Promises to Keep by Mad Maudlin

[mad_maudlin]

Title: Promises to Keep
Author: Mad Maudlin
Category: Gen
Word Count: ~ 200
Rating: PG
Spoilers: The Return
Summary: Without the city, what else is left?
Notes: This could eventually be a lead-in to something longer. But, um, it's turning out a lot longer, and I think this stands well enough on its own.

Promises to Keep
by Mad Maudlin

When the order came to leave, she couldn't say she was surprised. It was certainly sudden, and certainly she reeled with the avalanche of things to do, but some part of her had always known that it would end this way. From the very beginning, she'd known they'd leave in sorrow, limping from Atlantis like scolded children, back to a homeworld that could scarcely be called a home. She had just expected to have a chance to say goodbye.

She had no time to mourn, though. She was a leader, and her people were now all she had. She was all they had, once the Stargate shut down. They needed her to convince them that they would survive this, and she needed their faith to sustain her, because without Atlantis she wasn't quite sure who she was, anymore. In the city she had been many things: friend, confidant, leader, peacemaker, warrior, scholar. Outside it? Freed from their endless battle, cut off from their endless project? Who was she—who could she be, and what could she do? The answer: only that which she already was. Only that which had to be done.

She was Helia, daughter of Hippopharalcus, and she would bring her people home.

Comments

[ceitie.livejournal.com]

One of the reasons The Return is such an interesting episode is the idea of the Ancients returning to their city after what seems to them a short time, only to find themselves as the last of their (corporeal) kind, and their city occupied by strangers. Primitive strangers.

Of course, our sympathy tends to go to the characters we love who are getting kicked out of what was their home too, but I think the Ancients really got the bad end of the stick. Especially since they made it home just in time to be killed by Replicators. I love the parallels between Elizabth and Helia here.

[mad_maudlin]

Thanks! Helia really fascinates me--considering the options she had, the fact that she chose to head for Earth even though it meant a one-way trip tens of thousands of years into the future really says something about her.

[merelyn.livejournal.com]

Ooh. Nice.

[leesa_perrie]

Very nicely written - and I like the link to Hippopharalcus, the person the ship (that became the Orion) was named after! Nice touch.

[mad_maudlin]

Thanks! I think that link helps make Helia more of a real person and not just the mean lady that took the city away from the expedition.

[mardahin.livejournal.com]

Very interesting perspective to take (and I say this as someone who has written background fic on Kolya and thinks Chaya Sar had a lot of wasted plot potential). Points for using Hippopharalcus, and now you've got me interested in Helia's background on a larger scale. Ancient culture is something I've avoided dabbling in, but I imagine you could go some fascinating places with it...

All in all, you win for thought-provoking post-of-the-day.

[mad_maudlin]

Thank you! I'm very interested in Helia's background too, and the story of the Tria. I guess I'm a sucker for tragedy. :-)

[mardahin.livejournal.com]

Hey tragedy can be fun and interesting! And hey, in Shakespeare's day, the only difference between a comedy & a tragedy was the end-of-play body count ^_^

[bluefall.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with ceitie on the coolness of the Elizabeth/Helia parallels. It's pretty much the perfect device to get us to see it from both sides - a sympathy bait-and-switch that really makes you think. I like it. :)