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sga_flashficTitle: List Keeper
Word Count: ~1300
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gothphyle
Pairing: none, but implied McShep
Rating: G
Summary: Soon, Kavanaugh knew, McKay's hubris would stoke the blaze awaiting them all. He just had to be patient.
Author's Notes: Special thanks totherentgirls2 for all her help in turning this into something read-able! This story written (and long overdue!) for snazana, and part of barely_bean's wonderful A Wish For Wings universe.
Read the story here.
Unto to each hand the reward its work merits.
Rounding the corner, Kavanaugh was faced with a sight to which he'd been privy many times. McKay and Sheppard, shoulders bumping as they matched strides in too-close proximity down the hall. A flagrant disregard for rules and regulations, their fraternization carried the promise of reprimands and dishonor which should, by all rights, have been meted out months ago. It was one thing to suspect, to piece together a series of almost-seens and near-misses from snippets of conversation, glances, and the occasional imprudent brush of fingers. It was quite another to view, wrists and palms pressing against shoulders, arms, the small of the back, lips brushing cheek and mouth in barely-concealed doorways and still-bright shadows.
Kavanaugh sneered, mentally adding today's black mark to their names. The reason for the rule didn't matter, nor the justification for the crime. Rules were there for the discipline of all, regardless of their station and importance. Just another thing that Kavanaugh detested about McKay: his cavalier assertion that he could determine when and what laws applied to him.
Unto each Name an accounting of debt.
The List was more than a counting, more than a reckoning of deeds done and undone, of words spoken in turn and those best left un-uttered. A collection of names, Naughty and Nice paving the way for Right and Wrong. It marked the order of the universe in precise, flowing script. To keep The List was to know with certainty that the balance sheet was ordered, to disregard it was to rain chaos and destruction upon humanity.
Unto each Keeper, a list inviolate.
These were The Commandments and Kavanaugh had followed them faithfully. He honored his calling and his duty, recording the deeds and mistakes of the expedition with precision and unwavering loyalty. It was for this purpose he had been placed so far from home, for this reason he lived among the chaotic thoughts and minds of the humans. He had often wondered if a better fate could have been his, had he not been blessed, cursed, with an inquisitive mind. The puzzles and mysteries of his childhood, so bright and fresh when a matter of understanding the workings of the world, of the universe, of time itself, now shackled him eons apart from the snows and hearths for which he longed. But his was not to question his duty, but to remain steadfast in the cause with which he had been entrusted.
He had heard the songs, learned the mournful ballads before his feet had outgrown the soft-soled slippers and woolen caps of infancy. He knew the consequences of Lists left to founder, of those Keepers who had, through negligence or deliberation, subverted their tally to suit their own purposes.
He knew the horrors wrought on the worlds in repayment, and trembled at the thought of becoming another name on the dreaded list of so-shamed Keepers.
Before the first food passed young lips, or heavy eyes closed in slumber outside the crib, all of The Chosen knew of The List, and the immutability of its power to reward and punish. It was the reason they accepted their roles without question; The List assigned each to his or her needs and abilities, and marshaled them all into the silent machinery that kept so many worlds running smoothly even if they never knew the secret architects behind their existence.
Kavanaugh smiled to himself to hear these others speak so excitedly of the Ancients, as if they were the founders of so much that the younglings took for granted as part and parcel of this thing they called "civilization." The Ancients had been children like any other, subject to the governance of The List and driven to the brink of destruction by their own, arrogant attempts to subvert it.
Some infractions were small: denial of The Keepers existence, of their identities, that fractured the truth into a thousand forms on countless worlds.
Other infractions were insurmountable: the dictates of humanity tossed aside in favor of science, spawning terrible weapons and monsters bent on devouring and domination.
Eventually, the rebellion perfused far enough, wide enough, deep enough to infect his own people, lauded for years as the loyal, the favored. The numbers were small, but each eternity found more and more of his brethren slipping way, seduced by false promises and unattainable dreams, leaving their numbers dwindling.
It was a time long before Kavanaugh first drew in the icy breath of home, but he had often heard his father's father speak of the first to leave, of heretical dreams that grew in defiance of The Law. First a Flight Master, he who loved a human woman and slipped free of his service to dwell with her among the stars. For his insolence he was forever enslaved, his night-glowing eyes offering proof of his subjugation and his deceiver bride locking fast the doors of his gilded cage. From his mother's sire came the knowledge of The Weaver, spinning wheel broken on the glaciers as she lit fire to its wood to call her soul-mate to her. She slipped beneath the still waters, skin sloughed away into the cursed fish-form she would never again escape. The Baker who doused his oven fire to set flame to the heavens. The Song-maker who traded her voice for a chance at immortality, never knowing until it was too late that a life lived on the blood of others was no life at all.
Each age brought more losses, leaving Kavanaugh and his fellow Keepers to shiver in dread in the depths of the night. For if even the people turned away from the path, if even a Toymaker would dare to dream of wings and fly away, what unimaginable horror would rip its way through the flawed surface of existence?
Kavanaugh tried to warn them. He set stumbling blocks upon their path, recited their misdeeds as prescribed by ritual: named, marked, and aired in grievance. There was still time, time enough to turn from this folly and avert the next Wraith, or Ori, or Goa'uld, waiting to rip limb from soul and mete terrible justice on those who did not believe.
They heeded him not, casting more doubt upon him, blackening the marks beside their names with every miscalculation and defiance.
Kavanaugh waited, dreading the day of reckoning and yet filled with a wild hope for its coming. Some day, his righteous fervor chanted, they would see their wrong and recant this dire defiance. He would keep The List, and sing the melody of their repentance.
He recorded Sheppard's name, Toymaker cast from grace, and filled three pages with his irreverence and insults. Orders disobeyed, ill-thought alliances made and cast aside, values imposed where only logic should have prevailed. Kavanaugh turned the page once more, a fresh line of ink added to Sheppard's tally, and waited for the accounting.
McKay joined Sheppard, his own columns ink-logged with defiance that bridged beyond the personal and into the sacred realm of universal law. Physics, fate, luck, skill: all were turned on end by his machinations and arrogance. Soon, Kavanaugh knew, McKay's hubris would stoke the blaze awaiting them all. He just had to be patient.
Beckett.
Weir.
Even Zelenka.
Hundreds of names recorded in his List, one book filled and another begun, 'til five set sealed and ready and a sixth filled the honored position on the table by his bed.
He saw inhuman feats of bravery and cowardice, watched as mistakes cost lives and saved lives, and wondered that these humans would dare to reach so far beyond their fragile grasp. The world and people around Kavanaugh changed, respect easing into friendship and then the wild, bittersweet tang of love. He recorded it all, waiting.
Soon, The List would be balanced. Soon he would be proven just. Soon, he would find his own reward for a life lived apart and a service rendered with exemplary devotion.
He just had to wait.
Unto to each hand the reward its work merits.
Unto each Name an accounting of debt.
Unto each a Keeper, a list inviolate.
Unto each List, an eternity.
Word Count: ~1300
Author:
gothphylePairing: none, but implied McShep
Rating: G
Summary: Soon, Kavanaugh knew, McKay's hubris would stoke the blaze awaiting them all. He just had to be patient.
Author's Notes: Special thanks to
therentgirls2 for all her help in turning this into something read-able! This story written (and long overdue!) for snazana, and part of barely_bean's wonderful A Wish For Wings universe.Read the story here.
Unto to each hand the reward its work merits.
Rounding the corner, Kavanaugh was faced with a sight to which he'd been privy many times. McKay and Sheppard, shoulders bumping as they matched strides in too-close proximity down the hall. A flagrant disregard for rules and regulations, their fraternization carried the promise of reprimands and dishonor which should, by all rights, have been meted out months ago. It was one thing to suspect, to piece together a series of almost-seens and near-misses from snippets of conversation, glances, and the occasional imprudent brush of fingers. It was quite another to view, wrists and palms pressing against shoulders, arms, the small of the back, lips brushing cheek and mouth in barely-concealed doorways and still-bright shadows.
Kavanaugh sneered, mentally adding today's black mark to their names. The reason for the rule didn't matter, nor the justification for the crime. Rules were there for the discipline of all, regardless of their station and importance. Just another thing that Kavanaugh detested about McKay: his cavalier assertion that he could determine when and what laws applied to him.
Unto each Name an accounting of debt.
The List was more than a counting, more than a reckoning of deeds done and undone, of words spoken in turn and those best left un-uttered. A collection of names, Naughty and Nice paving the way for Right and Wrong. It marked the order of the universe in precise, flowing script. To keep The List was to know with certainty that the balance sheet was ordered, to disregard it was to rain chaos and destruction upon humanity.
Unto each Keeper, a list inviolate.
These were The Commandments and Kavanaugh had followed them faithfully. He honored his calling and his duty, recording the deeds and mistakes of the expedition with precision and unwavering loyalty. It was for this purpose he had been placed so far from home, for this reason he lived among the chaotic thoughts and minds of the humans. He had often wondered if a better fate could have been his, had he not been blessed, cursed, with an inquisitive mind. The puzzles and mysteries of his childhood, so bright and fresh when a matter of understanding the workings of the world, of the universe, of time itself, now shackled him eons apart from the snows and hearths for which he longed. But his was not to question his duty, but to remain steadfast in the cause with which he had been entrusted.
He had heard the songs, learned the mournful ballads before his feet had outgrown the soft-soled slippers and woolen caps of infancy. He knew the consequences of Lists left to founder, of those Keepers who had, through negligence or deliberation, subverted their tally to suit their own purposes.
He knew the horrors wrought on the worlds in repayment, and trembled at the thought of becoming another name on the dreaded list of so-shamed Keepers.
Before the first food passed young lips, or heavy eyes closed in slumber outside the crib, all of The Chosen knew of The List, and the immutability of its power to reward and punish. It was the reason they accepted their roles without question; The List assigned each to his or her needs and abilities, and marshaled them all into the silent machinery that kept so many worlds running smoothly even if they never knew the secret architects behind their existence.
Kavanaugh smiled to himself to hear these others speak so excitedly of the Ancients, as if they were the founders of so much that the younglings took for granted as part and parcel of this thing they called "civilization." The Ancients had been children like any other, subject to the governance of The List and driven to the brink of destruction by their own, arrogant attempts to subvert it.
Some infractions were small: denial of The Keepers existence, of their identities, that fractured the truth into a thousand forms on countless worlds.
Other infractions were insurmountable: the dictates of humanity tossed aside in favor of science, spawning terrible weapons and monsters bent on devouring and domination.
Eventually, the rebellion perfused far enough, wide enough, deep enough to infect his own people, lauded for years as the loyal, the favored. The numbers were small, but each eternity found more and more of his brethren slipping way, seduced by false promises and unattainable dreams, leaving their numbers dwindling.
It was a time long before Kavanaugh first drew in the icy breath of home, but he had often heard his father's father speak of the first to leave, of heretical dreams that grew in defiance of The Law. First a Flight Master, he who loved a human woman and slipped free of his service to dwell with her among the stars. For his insolence he was forever enslaved, his night-glowing eyes offering proof of his subjugation and his deceiver bride locking fast the doors of his gilded cage. From his mother's sire came the knowledge of The Weaver, spinning wheel broken on the glaciers as she lit fire to its wood to call her soul-mate to her. She slipped beneath the still waters, skin sloughed away into the cursed fish-form she would never again escape. The Baker who doused his oven fire to set flame to the heavens. The Song-maker who traded her voice for a chance at immortality, never knowing until it was too late that a life lived on the blood of others was no life at all.
Each age brought more losses, leaving Kavanaugh and his fellow Keepers to shiver in dread in the depths of the night. For if even the people turned away from the path, if even a Toymaker would dare to dream of wings and fly away, what unimaginable horror would rip its way through the flawed surface of existence?
Kavanaugh tried to warn them. He set stumbling blocks upon their path, recited their misdeeds as prescribed by ritual: named, marked, and aired in grievance. There was still time, time enough to turn from this folly and avert the next Wraith, or Ori, or Goa'uld, waiting to rip limb from soul and mete terrible justice on those who did not believe.
They heeded him not, casting more doubt upon him, blackening the marks beside their names with every miscalculation and defiance.
Kavanaugh waited, dreading the day of reckoning and yet filled with a wild hope for its coming. Some day, his righteous fervor chanted, they would see their wrong and recant this dire defiance. He would keep The List, and sing the melody of their repentance.
He recorded Sheppard's name, Toymaker cast from grace, and filled three pages with his irreverence and insults. Orders disobeyed, ill-thought alliances made and cast aside, values imposed where only logic should have prevailed. Kavanaugh turned the page once more, a fresh line of ink added to Sheppard's tally, and waited for the accounting.
McKay joined Sheppard, his own columns ink-logged with defiance that bridged beyond the personal and into the sacred realm of universal law. Physics, fate, luck, skill: all were turned on end by his machinations and arrogance. Soon, Kavanaugh knew, McKay's hubris would stoke the blaze awaiting them all. He just had to be patient.
Beckett.
Weir.
Even Zelenka.
Hundreds of names recorded in his List, one book filled and another begun, 'til five set sealed and ready and a sixth filled the honored position on the table by his bed.
He saw inhuman feats of bravery and cowardice, watched as mistakes cost lives and saved lives, and wondered that these humans would dare to reach so far beyond their fragile grasp. The world and people around Kavanaugh changed, respect easing into friendship and then the wild, bittersweet tang of love. He recorded it all, waiting.
Soon, The List would be balanced. Soon he would be proven just. Soon, he would find his own reward for a life lived apart and a service rendered with exemplary devotion.
He just had to wait.
Unto to each hand the reward its work merits.
Unto each Name an accounting of debt.
Unto each a Keeper, a list inviolate.
Unto each List, an eternity.
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List Keeper - story
Date: 2008-01-14 03:31 am (UTC)Re: List Keeper - story
Date: 2008-01-15 04:44 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-14 04:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-15 04:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-14 04:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-15 04:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-15 02:57 pm (UTC)I love poor, loyal Kavanagh, doing his damnedest to be a good List Keeper and keep a proper Accounting. Because Very Bad Things happen when List Keepers slack off. And Kavanagh is not going to slack off, no way! He's the kind of older-than-Ancient being who takes his job seriously.
So, the poor dude spends all his time writing up infractions and then John/Rodney save the expedition/planet/Earth/galaxy and that must wipe out all the other stuff. How very frustrating. It might be a while before everybody gets their Just Rewards. Good thing Kavanagh is patient.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-18 03:50 am (UTC)It's totally true; Kavanaugh is the Company Man, just doing his job b/c he knows the consequences if he doesn't, and then having to sit by and watch as they thwart his sense of justice again and again and again...
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-17 04:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-18 03:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-23 06:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-25 04:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-16 05:27 am (UTC)Though in reading comments, I have to say that I really hadn't expected Kavanagh to be a Santa elf! I had been heading someplace else in my mind, but it doesn't matter ... *grins* Great story!