falling down

Teyla runs. She looks over her shoulder, laughing, and keeps running, her friends trying to catch her. The sun is shining bright, breaking through the trees, nowhere as warm as their laughter.

More laughter bubbles from within her as she carries on running, her hair flying about her, unruly and with pieces of grass and leaves.

Then she has nowhere left to run, a lake stretching out in front of her. She turns and looks at her friends, muddy and dirty, running towards her with grins and laughter.

"There's nowhere left to go, Teyla!" one of them shouts on her approach.

Teyla turns and looks at the lake. Her mother will kill her when she arrives home, dirty and wet, but the sun is shining and there's so much laughter today that she feels fearless. She looks back at her friends, laughs and takes a running jump into the lake.

When she goes home that evening, her mother shouts and asks her if she even thought about what could have been in the lake. Teyla is honest and says she didn't. Her father smiles at her oddly, with pride she later realizes, and puts his arms around her, kissing her forehead when he pulls away.

It's a memory she carries with her forever.

The gathering is completely silent, the funeral pyre burning in the middle, the sun going down in the distance and the light of day dimming. Her mother sings a prayer for the departed, her eyes focusing on something in the distance, her hands clasped in front of her.

It's the sweetest sound, without sorrow, and it makes fallen tears be wiped away. Above the sound of the breeze dancing with the flames, her voice soars high, maybe touching places they've never seen.

The congregation commend her on the prayer after the funeral and her mother receives the compliments with small, gentle smiles, tears for the loss of a dear friend never being shed where anyone can see them.

Teyla watches her mother with a strange new awe, confused by how she's never sensed this strength before. Her mother sees her smile, holding out a hand. Teyla takes the hand and her mother pulls her near, touching her forehead to Teyla's.

"My wise daughter," her mother whispers as she smiles down.

Teyla frowns. "I am too young to be wise."

Her mother smiles as though Teyla has just confirmed how right she is.

She's young when her mother dies. Teyla doesn't care about noble silence for once and she cries until she can't anymore.

His name is Eyrin. He is cocky and confident. He thinks he can take on everyone. Teyla's father likes Eyrin, says he will make a good fighter. This makes Eyrin more unbearable than usual.

He likes to taunt Teyla. He likes to tell her not to be so jealous.

Why should she be jealous? Eyrin is only the son her father never had. No, not jealous at all.

It's not like her at all to get angry enough to pick up her father's staffs and turn on Eyrin, but that's exactly what she finds herself doing.

Eyrin frowns and then laughs. "I will not fight you," he says, like it would be an insult to him.

"My father thinks you will make a good fighter. I think he is wrong," Teyla says quietly.

Eyrin looks as insulted as most men when their manhood is questioned. He laughs and shakes his head. Then he picks up his staffs. "I will assume you know how to defend yourself."

"I will assume the same," Teyla says, tilting her head at Eyrin.

She strikes first, because he's idiotic enough to not expect it. He's shocked and stumbles a few times, finding it hard to fight off an unexpected attack. But he recovers enough to defend himself.

Teyla's attack is relentless and to be honest, it has nothing to do with fighting or skill. She's just having a bad day.

They fight for a while and Teyla feels like she can do this forever, all energy and movement, but Eyrin's face is flushed and she can tell he's tiring. Still he manages to block her attack and they have a small standoff situation. Eyrin laughs and it's more like relief than victory.

Teyla just stares at him, pulling back one staff too quick for him to retaliate before she delivers a blow. Within seconds, he falls hard, losing both his weapons.

Teyla stands back and looks down at him, poised, both staffs in one hand. Her father walks in and stands at her side, staring at Eyrin.

He sighs and looks at Teyla. "I will have no students if you keep doing this."

Teyla offers him a smirk and hands him the staffs before walking out.

She waits by the lake. At first Eyrin won't speak to her, his humiliation too great. Then she kisses him. She kisses him and it's their first kiss. Short, clumsy and perhaps a little silly.

Eyrin pulls back and she watches him as he stares. Then he nods. "If I had known all I had to do for one kiss was be beaten mercilessly by you, I would have done it sooner."

Teyla smiles and kisses him again. This time it's longer, and he has his hand in her hair. She likes to think of that as her real first kiss.

She's been by her father's side since they first realized that she could feel the Wraith coming. Her father is the leader of her people. They trust his guidance. But as she gets older, she sees the questions being aimed at her. She sees how suddenly her opinion is needed. How someone wants her to train them to fight. How they ask her about traders or hideouts from the Wraith.

She also doesn't miss the hopeful look in her father's eyes when this happens. It starts to make sense why her father has always told her about everything that he does. She never realized she was being groomed.

Teyla's not sure if she wants this. She's not strong like her mother or brave like her father. She's just the way she is. Not a leader or a fighter.

"No one is born a leader or a fighter," her father tells her. "We are chosen by our destinies."

Teyla shakes her head. "I do not think this is my destiny."

She can tell he's disappointed from his sad smile. But he doesn't say anything. He just nods and leaves.

That night, he's one of the people lost to the Wraith darts.

Her mother used to say that a goodbye should always be on amiable terms because life was uncertain. She always insisted that no one leave home on an argument.

Teyla hadn't argued with her father that night, but it still felt that way as she watched the memorial ceremoney where they burnt an empty pyre in his honor.

Halling is the first to point out that the position of leader is not by inheritance, but by selection. He does it in his quiet way, with his small smile that implies Teyla knows nothing.

"I will lead my people, if they wish it," Teyla had says quietly, realizing only then how much she wants this. Now that she can see how many people don't want her to take her father's place.

Already, Halling seems to be the one taking charge of things, rallying people around him as he says prayers to the Ancestors. Like the Ancestors are listening or care.

She turns her back on Halling and his followers. She spends the evening practicing with her staffs, trying to be faster with every turn, like somehow she'll be able to spin out of existence.

She's on her knees, breathless and sweaty, when Halling comes in. She looks up at him and he has that small
amiable smile again, though she can sense his disappointment.

"You have been chosen," he says, giving a small nod. "You should speak to your people, Teyla Emmagan."

John Sheppard carries a weapon and is a warrior of his people, yet, he is not like the other men. He is not so preoccupied with his own importance that he looks through everyone else. When Teyla speaks, she knows he is listening. His eyes are warm with humor and there is a smile constantly playing on his lips. Teyla cannot help but smile when she speaks to him.

She would have to be blind and made of rocks to not feel the warmth that she does at seeing a man who has no right to be as pleasant to the eyes as he is.

She thinks of her world without the fear of the Wraith hanging over their heads, what it would be like to meet a man like Sheppard. Normal is fear and running. What would an abnormal life be like?

He thinks nothing of picking up the chain she lost in the caves and putting it around her neck. He is close and tender and it feels more intimate than it should. Maybe it's because sometimes she feels lonely. Maybe it's because he's new and from far away, from a place that doesn't know what the Wraith are. Maybe it's because he has the kind of playfulness her people lose long before childhood is over.

It's refreshing and she's glad to have met him.

In the city of the Ancients, when she stands amongst his people, as he guiltily stares out at the ocean, this city as foreign to him as it is to her, she thinks he will make a good friend and she will be glad to have him.

She does not want children. In these uncertain times, it would not be fair on them. She has seen too many become orphaned. She has no need for a husband, a lover or anyone else.

But from nowhere, a need arises in her and it's been a long time. He is there and she goes to him. She is still wearing the clothes from her practice, sweaty and hot, her feet bare.

His door opens and he looks at her standing there, staring straight into him.

He knows why she's there, and she knows he feels it too. "Teyla," he says.

She has to reassure him over and over that she wants this, that she needs it. He's not the one using her. Straddling him, she leans over him, her hair blanketing his face. She closes her eyes and sighs when he kisses her throat, his arms wrapping tight around her waist.

She takes his face in her hands and kisses him slowly, deep. He tastes sweet and strong and she calls it the taste of Earth, pretending that she's there with him now, away from where the Wraith are.

The skin of his palm is softer than she expects as it slides up under skirt and strokes her thigh. His face is still in her hands and she kisses his lips, his jaw, even the corners of his eyes.

"Are you sure?" he whispers.

She looks at him and nods. "It doesn't have to mean anything."

The strangely wounded look in his eyes says that maybe it already means something.

They stare at each other for a long time, both of them broken.

"The Wraith are coming," she whispers. "I do not wish to have any regrets."

She smiles at him and after a moment, he laughs, even though his eyes are unusually bright.

He doesn't ask anymore questions as they fall back, lying next to each other, slowly finding their way through each other's clothes.

She takes him into her, hard and strong, arching beneath her as she rides him in a slow, deliberate manner. He sits up, puts his arms around her, holding her close so she can't tell where he ends and she begins.

There's only one regret now. That she hadn't done this sooner.

She throws her head back, frowning, unable to make a sound as the pleasure coils tight inside her, ready to make her snap.

It's sharp. It cuts right through her and she screams. It's like having daggers thrust into her heart.

The hand draws back from her and she falls to her knees, staring up into Wraith eyes and a gruesome smile, pain throbbing in her chest and the memories fleeting quickly as the present floods back.

The Wraith laughs and looks down at his blood tinted fingers. He looks satisfied and she knows he felt it all, every last thing she was clinging too. Everything.

Teyla feels like screaming because he's taken it from her, leaving corpses of memories.

His hand reaches out to her again and she whimpers against her will.

Shots ring out loud and the Wraith drops as Teyla watches, everything numb with the exception of the fire in her chest.

Teyla looks down at her hands. They're normal, not lined and wrinkled with premature aging. But that doesn't mean anything.

Arms catch her as she starts to tilt sideways.

"You're okay. You'll be fine," the words are promising her quickly as her eyes close.

"No," she says, brokenly, because something inside her is gone, leaving her hollowed out.

It's why the Wraith is smiling even though he's dead.

- the end -