fic: "More Gamblers Than Avarice" - PG-13 [Ronon, Teyla]
Title: More Gamblers Than Avarice
Recipient: ileliberte
Author: Tielan
Characters: Ronon, Teyla
Prompt: Ronon & Teyla, friendship
Category: gen, vignette, missing scenes
Rating: PG-13, no warnings
Notes: Written for ileliberte in the ronon_love thing-a-thon! Ronon was actually much harder to write than I thought - probably because the theme was more introspective than is usual for my writing about him. And it probably didn't help that I restarted this story about four times before I hit on the final iteration. Immense thanks go out to greenconverses, who listened to me whine and whine and whine about my troubles in writing this, and ladyjax, who helped me nut out some character ideas when I was dry.
More Gamblers Than Avarice
He'd started feeling itchy when the wind blew from the north.
The New Athos spring reached its hands out to summer, and the world filled with the soft scent of growing things, of a life that Ronon had turned his back on years before to go into the Satedan forces.
Pounding in the last anchor-peg for the meeting tent, Ronon listened to the talk around him.
"Got rain coming," Collan Masshegan said, holding the tent pole upright. "Smell it in the air."
"Good for the tava," said Arden Innogran with a hacking rasp. He spat into the grass a few feet away from Ronon.
"Heat's good for the tava," another man commented. "Not so good when combined with rain."
"You'll survive," said Arden. "We've survived wet and rainy seasons before."
"But never with the heat like this," countered the other.
The argument - measly and meticulous - went on as Ronon stood and hauled on the strap to tighten the cord between tent pole and anchor-peg. The cord held and Collan let go of the post and stepped back to survey the work.
"Done."
"Done," Ronon agreed.
"Good man," grunted one of the elders with a rough clap to his shoulder. "Good worker. Thinking of staying on with us?"
Ronon shrugged as he bent to collect the tent-setting tools from the grass. "Thinking."
"Well, think hard about it. We can always do with another strong body." Another clap to the shoulder and the man moved away, dragging most of the watchers with him, leaving Ronon to contemplate the tent he'd just helped raise.
It was a privacy tent, set on the outskirts of the Athosian camp; set far back in the scrub and brush to keep listening ears away from what might be said within. Several layers of canvas would muffle the voices, and there was enough space for people to get into an argument.
It was the last of the Athosian tents to go up.
In the five weeks since the Ancestors came and took back Atlantis and the Lantean expedition returned to Earth, Ronon had been living among the Athosians. He had nowhere else to go, and the Athosians were a good people.
And Teyla was there.
Ronon moved around the perimeter of the tent, looking for any tools that might have been accidentally left around the base, then headed off through the camp to put the tools away.
Everywhere around him were the sounds of life and a living society. Children laughed and shouted as they ran along the paths between the tents. Conversations were held by open tent flaps and around fire-hearths and intersections. There was the clank of wooden spoons in metal pots, and the clear bell-like ring of the smith's hammer down by the smithy, footsteps rustling through the grass, and the overlying brush of the wind through the trees that had been left amidst the tents to provide shelter and shade in the bright sun.
New Athos was a beautiful place. Ronon had seen that immediately.
He didn't think he'd ever call it home, though.
The tools were left in the appropriate tent, and he went looking for Teyla. At this time of day, she was usually in the greeting tent, the closest tent to the Ring of the Ancestors, and today wasn't any different.
"We have more hunting than we can manage now the blind is in place," Kanaan was saying as Ronon ducked beneath the entry flap. "Jima and Worrel are setting up fish-traps in the river. With the spring rains, we should get some overflow from the mountain streams."
"And in summer, the upstreamers will swim freely," Teyla murmured with a brief glance and a smile in Ronon's direction before she flipped a small stone from one pile before her to another. "So we are not to be short of meat."
"Grain is a problem," said Halling with a glance and a nod at Ronon. "The moist weather has sprouted much of what we brought from the Lantean mainland. It doesn't keep long. We can grow short-week greens and trade for fruits until the harvests come, but grain is difficult."
It was the kind of talk that had never interested Ronon much, even when he'd been in charge of managing his squadron - men and women, weapons and supplies, everything. He stayed well out of it.
"Is there anyone who would trade with us on credit for the tava?"
"The Serohe have grains to spare," Halling said.
"The Feada might," Kanaan said. "They still owe us for Mahira's weavings and Kamil's nails."
Teyla nodded. "I remember the Feada owe us. We should trade with them. It is time that we re-established ourselves with others."
The two men exchanged looks - glances that set Ronon on edge for the subtle undercurrents that spun between them.
"It is time you re-established yourself among our trading partners," said Kanaan, his voice soft and gentle. "You have been long absent, Teyla."
"For a good purpose," she said lightly. But Ronon saw her posture change, saw her set her shoulders as though she was cornered.
"To no purpose at all," Halling said, his voice sharp. "The Lanteans--"
"Did more against the Wraith than the Ancestors are doing," Ronon interrupted.
He knew where this was going - he'd been in this argument before. Halling might not be one of the 'faithful' - one of those who claimed that the ways of the Ancestors were unfathomable to them and that they would reveal themselves in time - but the habit of hope was difficult to break.
"Ronon."
He would have left it there if Halling had left it there.
"It is different for you," said the older man heavily. "You were born to a different people; our ways are not your habits..."
"Doesn't matter. Teyla was in it to fight back," Ronon said. "There's nothing wrong with that."
Halling's eyes narrowed. "You can say that? You whose people are dead and gone because they fought back?"
Ronon felt the world drop away from him, stripped from his senses like the skin flayed from a kill. Just over a season ago, he'd run among the wrecked and ruined buildings of Sateda, reliving his memories as he turned from hunted into hunter, killing the Wraith sent after him one by one. He'd fought his way through that living nightmare and all the nightmares that had plagued him afterwards.
And in all that, not one person had ever said to his face that if Sateda hadn't tried to fight back against the Wraith, its people would never have been taken.
"Halling!"
"Whatever choice his people made, they lived by it and died by it. As do all our peoples," said Kanaan quietly. "Teyla made her choice for herself, not for our people. As was her right."
"You defend them?"
"He states the truth," Teyla said fiercely. "I made that decision for myself, Halling - and we have argued this before. The answer is still the same, and so is the result."
"An entire civilisation destroyed--"
"If you'd rather cower and hide than--"
"Enough!" Teyla cut the argument off. "Halling, Ronon's people made the choice to fight knowing that they might not win. They thought it worth fighting. And Ronon," her eyes stabbed at him like knives, "we have neither of us been fighting for the last half-season here."
They stared at each other, two who knew the fight, knew the cost, knew the price. And Ronon became sharply aware of the fact that he was a guest here, accepted and welcome among them, but not one of them - not the way Teyla was or could be.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I will visit the Feada myself this afternoon. Kanaan is right - I should re-establish connection with those among whom we trade. Halling, if you would see that we have any tradeable supplies that might interest the Feada in further exchanges; Kanaan, please canvas the older children to assist in carrying the supplies."
The two men went, Halling with swift, grim strides out the tent flap; Kanaan hesitating at the door with a look from Teyla to Ronon and back to Teyla, and a slight, weary smile before he went.
Teyla put her face in her hands and then lowered her head so her fingers slid over her head.
"He began the argument." It felt important to justify himself.
"I know. That does not mean you continue it." She held up a hand as he drew breath to argue. "They are not like your people, Ronon."
"You fight."
"Yes. But I am not my people." Teyla lifted her head from her hands and this time when she set her shoulders, it was a forcible relaxing. "It is not easy, accustoming myself to this again."
"You're doing well."
She made a soft snort of disbelief, and then fell silent. Outside, there was a rush of feet as one of the foraging parties came back with food. They watched the shadows pass by on the outside of the tent.
"Would you like to come with us to Feada?"
It was his turn to snort in disbelief - at the change of topic, at the question itself. "Is there anything else for me to do around here?"
--
"Why'd you need us if you have Ronon to carry for you?" Jinto asked plaintively as they reached the Ring of the Ancestors.
Teyla did not look around at the handful of Athosian youngsters from where she entered in Feada's address. "Because I enjoy adding to your burdens, Jinto."
The young man huffed, old enough to be aware of his responsibilities, young enough to resent them. Ronon hid a smile, even as he felt the smart of Halling's words. The Athosians were a very different people to his, more trusting, more open, with a priority of survival and unwilling to do anything that might jeopardise that. As they had been, so they would be.
Ronon went through the Ring last, after Teyla and the youngsters were gone, the blinding slap of cold on his nose and cheeks, the chilly grip of passage biting into his arms and shoulders.
He stepped out onto a warmer, wetter planet, early morning from the angle and brightness of the sun, and still.
It was the stillness that alerted him - that and Teyla's stance as she turned in a tight circle, as though disoriented.
"The Feada are that way," said one of the girls helpfully. Ronon thought her name might be Shala.
"Yes," said Teyla. Her gaze met Ronon's and without a word, they began tugging at the straps of the back-sacks they'd carried through for trade. "We are leaving our trade goods here at the Ring," she announced. "We will return for them later."
Some of the kids began unharnessing themselves immediately. Others paused, caught by her tones. "What's happened?" Jinto asked, his slim, wiry frame still.
"Unharness yourself," said Ronon when Teyla didn't answer. He knew the signs of his team-mate searching for Wraith.
"But--"
Ronon tilted his head a little in the way his instructors used to do with the newest recruits. Satedan or Athosian, it worked. Jinto began undoing his harness.
"You brought a weapon?" One of the other boys asked, his voice cracking with adolescence and surprise. Teyla had pulled a Lantean handgun out of her coat pocket and was slipping a clip into the body. The Lanteans had left a surprising amount of supplies with the Athosians, whole pallets of equipment vanishing through the power of bureaucracy.
Even General O'Neill had turned a blind eye, to Ronon's surprise.
"Ronon carries his everywhere," said one girl, tossing long brown plaits over her shoulder and eyeing the holstered weapon at his side. It was a weight he'd become accustomed to over the years, so much so that he felt more naked without his weapons than he did without his clothes.
"Yeah, but not one of the Lantean ones," Jinto protested. "Were you expecting trouble?" He demanded as Teyla put her pack away behind a copse of trees. "Why didn't you say?"
"I have learned that it is best to be prepared," was all her explanation as the youngsters slid their packs away. Her eyes met Ronon's and she made the Lantean gesture for 'all clear, take point'.
He took point down the avenue of trees, his weapon out and held low.
"What's happened to the Feada?"
"Nothing, I hope," was Teyla's answer from behind.
"Yet we are leaving the packs behind."
Ronon forged on ahead, letting his circle of awareness stretch out beyond him. He'd caught the sense of something being out of place, too. Nothing so concrete as smoke or dead flesh, but...something.
They moved carefully but not quietly. Quietly wasn't possible with eight adolescents, most of whom hadn't been trained to stealth. But they encountered nothing and no-one along the way.
In itself, that was disturbing.
At the edge of the camp, Ronon paused, and the brown-braided girl moved up beside him and looked at the quiet camp, her face pale. "They've been culled."
He rested a hand on her shoulder, a quick grip. Cullings were always hardest on the young, and if the Satedan kids had been better prepared for such things, well, Sateda was different to Athos.
"Pair up and spread out, looking for survivors," Teyla said.
"What about the Wraith?"
"They are no longer here."
They didn't ask if she was sure. Whatever the adults thought of Teyla's time away from them, whatever the youngsters had been told about her gift, they trusted her judgement. And if they didn't relax, they stopped starting at every rustle of the wind.
"We are here, we should do what good we can."
There wasn't much to do. The camp itself was untouched: tents up, pots out, clothes and tools lying where they'd been dropped. The Wraith didn't want tents or supplies or food - not human food, anyway.
"How long has it been like this?" Jinto asked, a soft, almost wondering question.
"Several days." A loom stood, half-woven, the shuttle lying on the ground, with dust clinging to the warp threads.
"And no-one knew?"
The kid's question went unanswered. Ronon sniffed the wind, and stood, leaving the shuttle where it was.
He paused outside a tent, already knowing what was inside. There was a moment when he reached for an earpiece that he no longer wore - and then realised what he was doing. He turned to Jinto, who'd stopped a few lengths back and was staring at the tent flap and the flies that slipped in and out of it. "Get Teyla."
Jinto nodded and went on lanky legs, his voice cracking a little as he called for Teyla.
Ronon waited until the boy was gone, then flipped open the door of the tent. There was no need for more than a look of confirmation before he dropped the tent flap and moved away to breathe clean air.
"We should move him," she said after taking a look at the body. "He has been lying here several days and his body has decomposed. It is not pretty."
Four of the strongest were sent off to dig the grave, and Teyla instructed the others to go through the camp, looking for others who died in their beds or where they fell. "Ronon, run back to the Ring and bring some people back? We will take what can be used."
"You can manage the dead alone?"
"No. But you are the fastest among us and will bring help soonest."
He nodded and went, leaving Teyla to manage the living and the dead.
--
It was hours later that the Athosian party returned through the Ring. The afternoon sun was warm across their shoulders, but they were all tired and troubled by this latest culling.
Even Ronon felt grim as he followed the last of the group up the stairs and back to Athos.
It went deeper than just the loss of people - good, solid people according to the Athosians. Trading partners and friends, the ties between the Feada and the Athosians went back in the blood - and still did. But it wasn't about blood relationships either.
It was about the Wraith - the Wraith and the Ancestors.
It had been the brown-braided girl who'd asked the question as they left the camp behind them, empty in the summer sun.
Why didn't the Ancestors defend them?
There had been no answer from Teyla, and none from the adults.
Only Jinto had spoken, a bitter sentence on their expectations and hopes - however unvoiced.
Colonel Sheppard would have gone after them.
As he passed out of the Ring, the evening air washed over him, Athos' cooler climate a welcome relief in the first few seconds. They came out facing the sunset, with the sun's last rays blinding them over the ridge as they emerged, and when his vision cleared again, he found that the Athosians were already heading out to the camp, their movements more hurried now that they had the familiarity of home calling them on.
Envy rose in his throat, a clutching, choking grief.
Feada was like Sateda - no more. Athos still stood, a beacon in Teyla's life, in her people's hearts. Their 'home' planet had been destroyed but they had retained what made them a people and clung to it, stubborn as the rock-shells that clung to the sea cliffs on Sateda.
Ronon swallowed back the envy, the grief.
What happened happened. It wasn't always good.
Life's a bitch, said McKay's voice in his head, and sometimes it has puppies.
And at that moment, even that memory stung.
A shadow moved at the edge of the clearing. Teyla tilted her head as he came down the steps towards her and they fell into easy step together.
"I will be travelling out again tomorrow," she said. "To tell our other trading partners of Feada." And so others could come and see if there was anything they could take or use - scavenger's law. Or, as the Lanteans used to say, Finder's Keepers. Different worlds, different perspectives, different attitudes.
"I can come."
"Thank you."
They paced each other, Ronon shortening his strides, Teyla lengthening hers. And for a few minutes there was nothing but the silence and commonality that had first caused him to seek her out in Atlantis.
"It is hard on them," she said after a moment.
"Yeah."
"We were taught, generation after generation, that the Ancestors would someday return and the Wraith would be destroyed." Teyla looked up as a flock of birds wheeled through the trees overhead, calling noisily to each other. "And then the Ancestors returned."
And their first act had been to oust the only people in Pegasus who'd ever successfully repelled the Wraith.
"No news from the city?"
"General O'Neill knows the location of New Athos. He can send word if he wishes."
General O'Neill's concern wasn't with the Pegasus galaxy, but with Atlantis and Earth. Ronon could appreciate that. But it still burned.
He glanced at Teyla's profile beside him, as they strode through the twilight. "How're you doing?"
"They were a good people," she said. "Quiet. Friendly." They walked along a carved-out bluff that ran along a steep slope down to a tangled nest of bushes and were silent until Teyla reached the top of a ridge and stopped to peer ahead at the tail of Athosians walking home.
Ronon paused beside her in the crepuscular light.
"I miss them." She wasn't speaking of the Feada now.
"Yeah."
"They'll be back." He wasn't sure why he said it out loud - she knew it as well as he did.
"Yes. Someday."
It was both promise and reassurance.
But Ronon thought of the empty camp of the Feada, and wasn't sure it was enough.
Still, they stood there, silent, listening to the rustling noises of twilight and the echo of voices back along the trail, then set off after them towards the camp.
--
"Ennui has made more gamblers than avarice,
more drunkards than thirst,
and perhaps as many suicides as despair."
~ Siddharta Gautama ~
Recipient: ileliberte
Author: Tielan
Characters: Ronon, Teyla
Prompt: Ronon & Teyla, friendship
Category: gen, vignette, missing scenes
Rating: PG-13, no warnings
Notes: Written for ileliberte in the ronon_love thing-a-thon! Ronon was actually much harder to write than I thought - probably because the theme was more introspective than is usual for my writing about him. And it probably didn't help that I restarted this story about four times before I hit on the final iteration. Immense thanks go out to greenconverses, who listened to me whine and whine and whine about my troubles in writing this, and ladyjax, who helped me nut out some character ideas when I was dry.
More Gamblers Than Avarice
He'd started feeling itchy when the wind blew from the north.
The New Athos spring reached its hands out to summer, and the world filled with the soft scent of growing things, of a life that Ronon had turned his back on years before to go into the Satedan forces.
Pounding in the last anchor-peg for the meeting tent, Ronon listened to the talk around him.
"Got rain coming," Collan Masshegan said, holding the tent pole upright. "Smell it in the air."
"Good for the tava," said Arden Innogran with a hacking rasp. He spat into the grass a few feet away from Ronon.
"Heat's good for the tava," another man commented. "Not so good when combined with rain."
"You'll survive," said Arden. "We've survived wet and rainy seasons before."
"But never with the heat like this," countered the other.
The argument - measly and meticulous - went on as Ronon stood and hauled on the strap to tighten the cord between tent pole and anchor-peg. The cord held and Collan let go of the post and stepped back to survey the work.
"Done."
"Done," Ronon agreed.
"Good man," grunted one of the elders with a rough clap to his shoulder. "Good worker. Thinking of staying on with us?"
Ronon shrugged as he bent to collect the tent-setting tools from the grass. "Thinking."
"Well, think hard about it. We can always do with another strong body." Another clap to the shoulder and the man moved away, dragging most of the watchers with him, leaving Ronon to contemplate the tent he'd just helped raise.
It was a privacy tent, set on the outskirts of the Athosian camp; set far back in the scrub and brush to keep listening ears away from what might be said within. Several layers of canvas would muffle the voices, and there was enough space for people to get into an argument.
It was the last of the Athosian tents to go up.
In the five weeks since the Ancestors came and took back Atlantis and the Lantean expedition returned to Earth, Ronon had been living among the Athosians. He had nowhere else to go, and the Athosians were a good people.
And Teyla was there.
Ronon moved around the perimeter of the tent, looking for any tools that might have been accidentally left around the base, then headed off through the camp to put the tools away.
Everywhere around him were the sounds of life and a living society. Children laughed and shouted as they ran along the paths between the tents. Conversations were held by open tent flaps and around fire-hearths and intersections. There was the clank of wooden spoons in metal pots, and the clear bell-like ring of the smith's hammer down by the smithy, footsteps rustling through the grass, and the overlying brush of the wind through the trees that had been left amidst the tents to provide shelter and shade in the bright sun.
New Athos was a beautiful place. Ronon had seen that immediately.
He didn't think he'd ever call it home, though.
The tools were left in the appropriate tent, and he went looking for Teyla. At this time of day, she was usually in the greeting tent, the closest tent to the Ring of the Ancestors, and today wasn't any different.
"We have more hunting than we can manage now the blind is in place," Kanaan was saying as Ronon ducked beneath the entry flap. "Jima and Worrel are setting up fish-traps in the river. With the spring rains, we should get some overflow from the mountain streams."
"And in summer, the upstreamers will swim freely," Teyla murmured with a brief glance and a smile in Ronon's direction before she flipped a small stone from one pile before her to another. "So we are not to be short of meat."
"Grain is a problem," said Halling with a glance and a nod at Ronon. "The moist weather has sprouted much of what we brought from the Lantean mainland. It doesn't keep long. We can grow short-week greens and trade for fruits until the harvests come, but grain is difficult."
It was the kind of talk that had never interested Ronon much, even when he'd been in charge of managing his squadron - men and women, weapons and supplies, everything. He stayed well out of it.
"Is there anyone who would trade with us on credit for the tava?"
"The Serohe have grains to spare," Halling said.
"The Feada might," Kanaan said. "They still owe us for Mahira's weavings and Kamil's nails."
Teyla nodded. "I remember the Feada owe us. We should trade with them. It is time that we re-established ourselves with others."
The two men exchanged looks - glances that set Ronon on edge for the subtle undercurrents that spun between them.
"It is time you re-established yourself among our trading partners," said Kanaan, his voice soft and gentle. "You have been long absent, Teyla."
"For a good purpose," she said lightly. But Ronon saw her posture change, saw her set her shoulders as though she was cornered.
"To no purpose at all," Halling said, his voice sharp. "The Lanteans--"
"Did more against the Wraith than the Ancestors are doing," Ronon interrupted.
He knew where this was going - he'd been in this argument before. Halling might not be one of the 'faithful' - one of those who claimed that the ways of the Ancestors were unfathomable to them and that they would reveal themselves in time - but the habit of hope was difficult to break.
"Ronon."
He would have left it there if Halling had left it there.
"It is different for you," said the older man heavily. "You were born to a different people; our ways are not your habits..."
"Doesn't matter. Teyla was in it to fight back," Ronon said. "There's nothing wrong with that."
Halling's eyes narrowed. "You can say that? You whose people are dead and gone because they fought back?"
Ronon felt the world drop away from him, stripped from his senses like the skin flayed from a kill. Just over a season ago, he'd run among the wrecked and ruined buildings of Sateda, reliving his memories as he turned from hunted into hunter, killing the Wraith sent after him one by one. He'd fought his way through that living nightmare and all the nightmares that had plagued him afterwards.
And in all that, not one person had ever said to his face that if Sateda hadn't tried to fight back against the Wraith, its people would never have been taken.
"Halling!"
"Whatever choice his people made, they lived by it and died by it. As do all our peoples," said Kanaan quietly. "Teyla made her choice for herself, not for our people. As was her right."
"You defend them?"
"He states the truth," Teyla said fiercely. "I made that decision for myself, Halling - and we have argued this before. The answer is still the same, and so is the result."
"An entire civilisation destroyed--"
"If you'd rather cower and hide than--"
"Enough!" Teyla cut the argument off. "Halling, Ronon's people made the choice to fight knowing that they might not win. They thought it worth fighting. And Ronon," her eyes stabbed at him like knives, "we have neither of us been fighting for the last half-season here."
They stared at each other, two who knew the fight, knew the cost, knew the price. And Ronon became sharply aware of the fact that he was a guest here, accepted and welcome among them, but not one of them - not the way Teyla was or could be.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I will visit the Feada myself this afternoon. Kanaan is right - I should re-establish connection with those among whom we trade. Halling, if you would see that we have any tradeable supplies that might interest the Feada in further exchanges; Kanaan, please canvas the older children to assist in carrying the supplies."
The two men went, Halling with swift, grim strides out the tent flap; Kanaan hesitating at the door with a look from Teyla to Ronon and back to Teyla, and a slight, weary smile before he went.
Teyla put her face in her hands and then lowered her head so her fingers slid over her head.
"He began the argument." It felt important to justify himself.
"I know. That does not mean you continue it." She held up a hand as he drew breath to argue. "They are not like your people, Ronon."
"You fight."
"Yes. But I am not my people." Teyla lifted her head from her hands and this time when she set her shoulders, it was a forcible relaxing. "It is not easy, accustoming myself to this again."
"You're doing well."
She made a soft snort of disbelief, and then fell silent. Outside, there was a rush of feet as one of the foraging parties came back with food. They watched the shadows pass by on the outside of the tent.
"Would you like to come with us to Feada?"
It was his turn to snort in disbelief - at the change of topic, at the question itself. "Is there anything else for me to do around here?"
--
"Why'd you need us if you have Ronon to carry for you?" Jinto asked plaintively as they reached the Ring of the Ancestors.
Teyla did not look around at the handful of Athosian youngsters from where she entered in Feada's address. "Because I enjoy adding to your burdens, Jinto."
The young man huffed, old enough to be aware of his responsibilities, young enough to resent them. Ronon hid a smile, even as he felt the smart of Halling's words. The Athosians were a very different people to his, more trusting, more open, with a priority of survival and unwilling to do anything that might jeopardise that. As they had been, so they would be.
Ronon went through the Ring last, after Teyla and the youngsters were gone, the blinding slap of cold on his nose and cheeks, the chilly grip of passage biting into his arms and shoulders.
He stepped out onto a warmer, wetter planet, early morning from the angle and brightness of the sun, and still.
It was the stillness that alerted him - that and Teyla's stance as she turned in a tight circle, as though disoriented.
"The Feada are that way," said one of the girls helpfully. Ronon thought her name might be Shala.
"Yes," said Teyla. Her gaze met Ronon's and without a word, they began tugging at the straps of the back-sacks they'd carried through for trade. "We are leaving our trade goods here at the Ring," she announced. "We will return for them later."
Some of the kids began unharnessing themselves immediately. Others paused, caught by her tones. "What's happened?" Jinto asked, his slim, wiry frame still.
"Unharness yourself," said Ronon when Teyla didn't answer. He knew the signs of his team-mate searching for Wraith.
"But--"
Ronon tilted his head a little in the way his instructors used to do with the newest recruits. Satedan or Athosian, it worked. Jinto began undoing his harness.
"You brought a weapon?" One of the other boys asked, his voice cracking with adolescence and surprise. Teyla had pulled a Lantean handgun out of her coat pocket and was slipping a clip into the body. The Lanteans had left a surprising amount of supplies with the Athosians, whole pallets of equipment vanishing through the power of bureaucracy.
Even General O'Neill had turned a blind eye, to Ronon's surprise.
"Ronon carries his everywhere," said one girl, tossing long brown plaits over her shoulder and eyeing the holstered weapon at his side. It was a weight he'd become accustomed to over the years, so much so that he felt more naked without his weapons than he did without his clothes.
"Yeah, but not one of the Lantean ones," Jinto protested. "Were you expecting trouble?" He demanded as Teyla put her pack away behind a copse of trees. "Why didn't you say?"
"I have learned that it is best to be prepared," was all her explanation as the youngsters slid their packs away. Her eyes met Ronon's and she made the Lantean gesture for 'all clear, take point'.
He took point down the avenue of trees, his weapon out and held low.
"What's happened to the Feada?"
"Nothing, I hope," was Teyla's answer from behind.
"Yet we are leaving the packs behind."
Ronon forged on ahead, letting his circle of awareness stretch out beyond him. He'd caught the sense of something being out of place, too. Nothing so concrete as smoke or dead flesh, but...something.
They moved carefully but not quietly. Quietly wasn't possible with eight adolescents, most of whom hadn't been trained to stealth. But they encountered nothing and no-one along the way.
In itself, that was disturbing.
At the edge of the camp, Ronon paused, and the brown-braided girl moved up beside him and looked at the quiet camp, her face pale. "They've been culled."
He rested a hand on her shoulder, a quick grip. Cullings were always hardest on the young, and if the Satedan kids had been better prepared for such things, well, Sateda was different to Athos.
"Pair up and spread out, looking for survivors," Teyla said.
"What about the Wraith?"
"They are no longer here."
They didn't ask if she was sure. Whatever the adults thought of Teyla's time away from them, whatever the youngsters had been told about her gift, they trusted her judgement. And if they didn't relax, they stopped starting at every rustle of the wind.
"We are here, we should do what good we can."
There wasn't much to do. The camp itself was untouched: tents up, pots out, clothes and tools lying where they'd been dropped. The Wraith didn't want tents or supplies or food - not human food, anyway.
"How long has it been like this?" Jinto asked, a soft, almost wondering question.
"Several days." A loom stood, half-woven, the shuttle lying on the ground, with dust clinging to the warp threads.
"And no-one knew?"
The kid's question went unanswered. Ronon sniffed the wind, and stood, leaving the shuttle where it was.
He paused outside a tent, already knowing what was inside. There was a moment when he reached for an earpiece that he no longer wore - and then realised what he was doing. He turned to Jinto, who'd stopped a few lengths back and was staring at the tent flap and the flies that slipped in and out of it. "Get Teyla."
Jinto nodded and went on lanky legs, his voice cracking a little as he called for Teyla.
Ronon waited until the boy was gone, then flipped open the door of the tent. There was no need for more than a look of confirmation before he dropped the tent flap and moved away to breathe clean air.
"We should move him," she said after taking a look at the body. "He has been lying here several days and his body has decomposed. It is not pretty."
Four of the strongest were sent off to dig the grave, and Teyla instructed the others to go through the camp, looking for others who died in their beds or where they fell. "Ronon, run back to the Ring and bring some people back? We will take what can be used."
"You can manage the dead alone?"
"No. But you are the fastest among us and will bring help soonest."
He nodded and went, leaving Teyla to manage the living and the dead.
--
It was hours later that the Athosian party returned through the Ring. The afternoon sun was warm across their shoulders, but they were all tired and troubled by this latest culling.
Even Ronon felt grim as he followed the last of the group up the stairs and back to Athos.
It went deeper than just the loss of people - good, solid people according to the Athosians. Trading partners and friends, the ties between the Feada and the Athosians went back in the blood - and still did. But it wasn't about blood relationships either.
It was about the Wraith - the Wraith and the Ancestors.
It had been the brown-braided girl who'd asked the question as they left the camp behind them, empty in the summer sun.
Why didn't the Ancestors defend them?
There had been no answer from Teyla, and none from the adults.
Only Jinto had spoken, a bitter sentence on their expectations and hopes - however unvoiced.
Colonel Sheppard would have gone after them.
As he passed out of the Ring, the evening air washed over him, Athos' cooler climate a welcome relief in the first few seconds. They came out facing the sunset, with the sun's last rays blinding them over the ridge as they emerged, and when his vision cleared again, he found that the Athosians were already heading out to the camp, their movements more hurried now that they had the familiarity of home calling them on.
Envy rose in his throat, a clutching, choking grief.
Feada was like Sateda - no more. Athos still stood, a beacon in Teyla's life, in her people's hearts. Their 'home' planet had been destroyed but they had retained what made them a people and clung to it, stubborn as the rock-shells that clung to the sea cliffs on Sateda.
Ronon swallowed back the envy, the grief.
What happened happened. It wasn't always good.
Life's a bitch, said McKay's voice in his head, and sometimes it has puppies.
And at that moment, even that memory stung.
A shadow moved at the edge of the clearing. Teyla tilted her head as he came down the steps towards her and they fell into easy step together.
"I will be travelling out again tomorrow," she said. "To tell our other trading partners of Feada." And so others could come and see if there was anything they could take or use - scavenger's law. Or, as the Lanteans used to say, Finder's Keepers. Different worlds, different perspectives, different attitudes.
"I can come."
"Thank you."
They paced each other, Ronon shortening his strides, Teyla lengthening hers. And for a few minutes there was nothing but the silence and commonality that had first caused him to seek her out in Atlantis.
"It is hard on them," she said after a moment.
"Yeah."
"We were taught, generation after generation, that the Ancestors would someday return and the Wraith would be destroyed." Teyla looked up as a flock of birds wheeled through the trees overhead, calling noisily to each other. "And then the Ancestors returned."
And their first act had been to oust the only people in Pegasus who'd ever successfully repelled the Wraith.
"No news from the city?"
"General O'Neill knows the location of New Athos. He can send word if he wishes."
General O'Neill's concern wasn't with the Pegasus galaxy, but with Atlantis and Earth. Ronon could appreciate that. But it still burned.
He glanced at Teyla's profile beside him, as they strode through the twilight. "How're you doing?"
"They were a good people," she said. "Quiet. Friendly." They walked along a carved-out bluff that ran along a steep slope down to a tangled nest of bushes and were silent until Teyla reached the top of a ridge and stopped to peer ahead at the tail of Athosians walking home.
Ronon paused beside her in the crepuscular light.
"I miss them." She wasn't speaking of the Feada now.
"Yeah."
"They'll be back." He wasn't sure why he said it out loud - she knew it as well as he did.
"Yes. Someday."
It was both promise and reassurance.
But Ronon thought of the empty camp of the Feada, and wasn't sure it was enough.
Still, they stood there, silent, listening to the rustling noises of twilight and the echo of voices back along the trail, then set off after them towards the camp.
--
"Ennui has made more gamblers than avarice,
more drunkards than thirst,
and perhaps as many suicides as despair."
~ Siddharta Gautama ~