sga_flashfic | Deserving of Faith, by the Azure Cascade (Return Challenge)

Title: Deserving of Faith

Author: The Azure Cascade

Spoilers: "Return" the first.

Rating: G

Summary: For the Return challenge. Teyla and her faith.

Deserving of Faith

Teyla had never been very religious. She was not like Halling in that way -- his daily prayers, his reverence for ceremony and tradition were traits she had never shared. As leader of her people, she had stood in the Sun Circles, sung the funeral rites, and blessed the first hunt of each new adult, and she understood the importance of such rituals, but she never burned teleth incense in her own hut (favored by the Ancestors or not, she hated the smell).

Yet (and it was a distinction she would never have made, or even understood, before Atlantis), for all that she was not religious, Teyla had been spiritual. Her faith in the Ancestors had been quiet, and personal, and profound. She had felt their guidance in her daily meditation, found comfort in their gaze, and believed that they were the hope and light that even the Wraith could not erase. She saw their blessing in the spring rain and the laughter of children at play; no world so beautiful could live and breathe without the touch of some benevolent hand, and that knowledge, that faith had sustained her when her father breathed his last, when the hunting was bad, and when slave raiders game through the gate (she does not know when she started thinking of it as "the gate", but no other name for it comes readily to her lips these days).

Even when the Lanteans came, her faith was not shaken. The Wraith rose, but the Wraith had always been and always would be. Nor did ascension bother her, once they had explained it. That the Ancestors had once been human, had made mistakes, even terrible mistakes, even the mistake that was the Wraith, did not disturb her. They were ancestors, after all, not gods, wise but not without error, and she could see little difference between "becoming a creature of energy" and "moving on from life to a higher plane."

No, it was not the "what" of the Ancestors that broke her faith. It was the "who." It was deceitful, manipulative Chaya, and her punishment by the other Ancestors for her decision to protect her charges. It was the village that stole months of John's life, letting him believe he'd been abandoned so that he would serve their selfish ends. It was the riddles and deceptions that brought SG-1 to Atlantis. It was the story told by the Replicators, of a living weapon made, judged wanting, and destroyed without thought.

It has been six weeks, as the Lanteans measure time, since the Ancestors came to Atlantis and drove her friends out, and finally, her people have begun to mutter, some angry or impatient, but most simply confused. Halling reassures them again and again, with firm conviction and unyielding calm, that the Ancestors are only recuperating. That if the people of Pegasus are only patient, the time will come, the Ancestors will rise, and the Wraith will die.

Teyla knows better.

The Ancestors will remain, deep in their shielded city, hidden from the Wraith at the cost of Lantean lives. They will seek no contact. They will not open their gate. They will not walk from world to world to face the orphans of the plague they created. They will not shelter the displaced, heal the maimed, or free those taken as runners or slaves. They have power the Lanteans could only dream of, and a thousand times the share of responsibility for the galaxy's predation by the Wraith, but they will remain in Atlantis, where they alone are safe.

Teyla has never been very religious. And any spirituality she had (and just as much as driving away her friends, this is something for which she will never forgive them), the Ancestors had taken away. All Teyla has now, after her time among the Lanteans, is a tiny seed of stubborn faith; she clings to the belief, as her people once did, that someday soon, the true heirs of Atlantis will come home, and lead her galaxy to victory against the Wraith.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Wow, the show always seems to gloss over the fact that Teyla believed in the Ancients, and I love that you've tackled it! You have a wonderful Teyla voice.

Thank you so much! I've always been fascinated by the implications of all the false gods in the Gateverse, and what the truth must mean to people like Teal'c and Teyla whose lives were built in so many ways around those religions.

The last paragraph sent a shiver up my spine. Love your Teyla POV!

Thank you! I'm glad it worked for you. I worried that it might be a little too subtle, but I just love the concept - that the Lanteans, who screw up but at least try, are in the end more deserving of the city and its responsibility, and of the approbation of Pegasus' natives, than the Ancients themselves.

This is a really well-thought out Teyla piece, and I love the way that her faith isn't changed by scientific explanations for the Ancients, but by her witnessing the selfishness of their actions. Very cool.

Yeah, I figure that for someone like Teyla, being worthy of worship has a lot more to do with how you use your power than simply the fact that you have it. Thanks!

Oh wow. That was awesome, and makes such perfect sense. Halling was always the more devout than Teyla, always clashing with Weir over decisions he saw as sacrelige while Teyla just sort of seemed to go with the flow, never really questioning, just accepting. Your story explains the reasoning behind this perfectly.

Thanks! Teyla's always struck me as the spiritual-not-religious type, for just that reason, which makes a lot of sense. As her people's diplomat and spokesperson, she'd probably be more used to the idea that there's more than one right way to do something, even something like Ancestor worship.

I would say everything *but* the last paragraph is excellent.

You don't make a connection between knowing the Ancestors are humans and finding out that that is indeed the case. You don't explain why that would affect Teyla's spirituality.

It seems to me that the Teyla you describe would be indignant more than anything, that she can see what is right, yet these supposedly technologically great and philosophically great people close their eyes and turn their backs to it. Either they don't measure up to the Ancestors who ascended millennia ago, or the ascended are not "higher" beings.

An aside: In the first few Stargate SG-1 episodes dealing with ascension it wasn't "a higher plane", it was "another plane". Over time all but one of the writers started called it "a higher plane". Sloppy, because now they're stuck with the connotation that the ascended are inherently benevolent.

You don't make a connection between knowing the Ancestors are humans and finding out that that is indeed the case. You don't explain why that would affect Teyla's spirituality.

I'm not really sure what you mean by this. She learns from the Lanteans that the Ancestors were once mortal, corporeal humanoids like herself, but that doesn't affect Teyla's spirituality. What affects Teyla is not that the Ancestors were people, but what kind of people they were (pretty lame ones). Thus, she expects nothing from the Ancients once they actually show up - she's learned by now that they're punkass and not worth trusting. More than indignant, she's disappointed and disdainful. So she puts her faith in the Lanteans instead, waiting for them to come back from Earth.

Thank you for your feedback - I always appreciate critical review, especially when it starts with "excellent" :). But I'm really not sure I understand what you're saying - can you elaborate on what you mean by a "connection between knowing and finding out"?

Lovely story - like someone else said, I like that it was what the Ancients did themselves that made her lose faith and not what she learned about them and their technology during her time in Atlantis. Because she would still have respect for them without feeling religious if they had shouldered *some* of the blame and responsibility regarding the Wraith. But what you've described in the last two paragraphs is exactly how I think she would see them after Return I.

This was so very poignant. I loved see Teyla from this point of view. It makes so much sense that she would have changed after 2 and half years in the 'City of the Ancestors' and seeing the things she's seen.

Deserving of Faith, by the Azure Cascade (Return Challenge)

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