A Fruit Tree in Winter
Aug. 11th, 2011 09:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stringertheoryTitle: A Fruit Tree in Winter
Rating: PG
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters: Teyla Emmagen
Word Count: 920
Categories: character study
Spoilers/Warnings: Set immediately post "Rising". Spoilers for the same.
Summary: Teyla reflects on the people of Earth.
Notes: "Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Teyla looks around at the walls of the city—the city of the Ancestors—with a mixture of disbelief and wonder.
To discover such a city, to walk its halls and sleep in its rooms and gaze from its balconies at a never-ending sea is a far greater honor than any of her people could ever have hoped for. The Ancestors did many great things in their time in Pegasus, but very few of the works of their hands survived. Intact as it is, Atlantis is a unique remnant, a piece of those who once lived within its walls. It is a piece of her history and standing in its shadows is something beyond her dreams, something beyond belief or expectation.
It is very much like escaping from the Wraith.
Waking to find herself on a Wraith ship had not defeated her. Athosians drew every breath knowing this might be the fate that awaited them at the end of their days. She would remain defiant and unafraid until her very last. She would not give them the satisfaction of seeing her suffer. She was not defeated, but she was resigned—capture by the Wraith meant death. This was an inescapable fact, and she had been mentally preparing herself for an honorable death when Major Sheppard arrived. He had told her with simple honestly in his voice that he would free them, and she had believed. She had looked into his eyes, heard his words, and she had believed in the impossible.
He had saved them, against all odds, against the course of history itself. And he had brought them back with him to Atlantis, to the city of the Ancestors afloat amid a calm ocean. He had saved them from captors no one escaped from and brought them to a city that should not have existed.
Now Teyla stands within the walls of that city, watching her people interact with these strangers, these saviors who have rescued her and seem to accept that they will rescue everyone else in the galaxy as well. From what she knows of them, Teyla is certain they will do so or die trying. She finds she wants to help.
The people of Earth are unlike any people she has met before. There is an air about them that the people of Pegasus do not have. Even here, safe within the walls of Atlantis and reveling in the relief and joy of their escape, there is a clear distinction between the two peoples. A simple glimpse is all it takes for her to identify who is Athosian and who is from Earth. She feels nothing but comfort and familiarity as her eyes drift over her fellow Athosians, faces and names she knows as well as her own slipping through her mind of their own accord. Where her gaze lands on the people from Earth, a tingle dances across the back of her neck, reminiscent of the thrill she once felt as a child, standing in the middle of a field as a lightning storm swept over her. The people from Earth are different. There is something about them that is other.
Her people are like grain—allowed to grow, then reaped, burned, and sown again. There is life in them, but it is brief and has been kept that way for so long that they expect nothing more. To each his time; death comes to all.
The people of Earth are like a tree growing among rocks. The roots go deep and neither cut of blade nor torment of weather can destroy it. Even when lying dormant in the deepest sleep of winter, life flows through it thick and strong.
These people are accustomed to fighting and winning, no matter how long it takes to achieve victory. While her people survive, the people from Earth demand more. And now they will demand it for her people as well, and any others with whom they could find alliance. It is heartening and worrying.
They approach the galaxy with wide-eyed wonder and a fierce, almost arrogant determination. Despite their precarious circumstances, they are awash with feelings of safety and triumph. The people of Earth had arrived in the city of the Ancestors expecting to thrive, even if they had to fight for it, and their initial success has bolstered their sense of power, of possibility. Teyla knows it would be very easy to get swept up in that emotion. But for all they have already achieved, they know little of this galaxy or of the evil they have inadvertently awoken. Their accomplishments are astonishing, the path before them fraught with peril. She is both fearful and excited that they do not appear to understand the danger they are facing.
She scans the faces in the crowd. She catches Major Sheppard's gaze across the room. He smiles, but the smile does not quite reach his eyes, and she thinks that of them all, he is most likely to understand what may come.
There is something in these people that she feels seeping into her own. They do not accept fate. They do not understand defeat. They do not give up. The Athosians had always had determination and strength, the defiance to live in the shadow of death. But they had never before had hope.
The tree appears dead and dull among the rocks, beset by hard cold and shaken by bitter winds. But there among the barren limbs can be spotted a single blossom.
Rating: PG
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters: Teyla Emmagen
Word Count: 920
Categories: character study
Spoilers/Warnings: Set immediately post "Rising". Spoilers for the same.
Summary: Teyla reflects on the people of Earth.
Notes: "Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Teyla looks around at the walls of the city—the city of the Ancestors—with a mixture of disbelief and wonder.
To discover such a city, to walk its halls and sleep in its rooms and gaze from its balconies at a never-ending sea is a far greater honor than any of her people could ever have hoped for. The Ancestors did many great things in their time in Pegasus, but very few of the works of their hands survived. Intact as it is, Atlantis is a unique remnant, a piece of those who once lived within its walls. It is a piece of her history and standing in its shadows is something beyond her dreams, something beyond belief or expectation.
It is very much like escaping from the Wraith.
Waking to find herself on a Wraith ship had not defeated her. Athosians drew every breath knowing this might be the fate that awaited them at the end of their days. She would remain defiant and unafraid until her very last. She would not give them the satisfaction of seeing her suffer. She was not defeated, but she was resigned—capture by the Wraith meant death. This was an inescapable fact, and she had been mentally preparing herself for an honorable death when Major Sheppard arrived. He had told her with simple honestly in his voice that he would free them, and she had believed. She had looked into his eyes, heard his words, and she had believed in the impossible.
He had saved them, against all odds, against the course of history itself. And he had brought them back with him to Atlantis, to the city of the Ancestors afloat amid a calm ocean. He had saved them from captors no one escaped from and brought them to a city that should not have existed.
Now Teyla stands within the walls of that city, watching her people interact with these strangers, these saviors who have rescued her and seem to accept that they will rescue everyone else in the galaxy as well. From what she knows of them, Teyla is certain they will do so or die trying. She finds she wants to help.
The people of Earth are unlike any people she has met before. There is an air about them that the people of Pegasus do not have. Even here, safe within the walls of Atlantis and reveling in the relief and joy of their escape, there is a clear distinction between the two peoples. A simple glimpse is all it takes for her to identify who is Athosian and who is from Earth. She feels nothing but comfort and familiarity as her eyes drift over her fellow Athosians, faces and names she knows as well as her own slipping through her mind of their own accord. Where her gaze lands on the people from Earth, a tingle dances across the back of her neck, reminiscent of the thrill she once felt as a child, standing in the middle of a field as a lightning storm swept over her. The people from Earth are different. There is something about them that is other.
Her people are like grain—allowed to grow, then reaped, burned, and sown again. There is life in them, but it is brief and has been kept that way for so long that they expect nothing more. To each his time; death comes to all.
The people of Earth are like a tree growing among rocks. The roots go deep and neither cut of blade nor torment of weather can destroy it. Even when lying dormant in the deepest sleep of winter, life flows through it thick and strong.
These people are accustomed to fighting and winning, no matter how long it takes to achieve victory. While her people survive, the people from Earth demand more. And now they will demand it for her people as well, and any others with whom they could find alliance. It is heartening and worrying.
They approach the galaxy with wide-eyed wonder and a fierce, almost arrogant determination. Despite their precarious circumstances, they are awash with feelings of safety and triumph. The people of Earth had arrived in the city of the Ancestors expecting to thrive, even if they had to fight for it, and their initial success has bolstered their sense of power, of possibility. Teyla knows it would be very easy to get swept up in that emotion. But for all they have already achieved, they know little of this galaxy or of the evil they have inadvertently awoken. Their accomplishments are astonishing, the path before them fraught with peril. She is both fearful and excited that they do not appear to understand the danger they are facing.
She scans the faces in the crowd. She catches Major Sheppard's gaze across the room. He smiles, but the smile does not quite reach his eyes, and she thinks that of them all, he is most likely to understand what may come.
There is something in these people that she feels seeping into her own. They do not accept fate. They do not understand defeat. They do not give up. The Athosians had always had determination and strength, the defiance to live in the shadow of death. But they had never before had hope.
The tree appears dead and dull among the rocks, beset by hard cold and shaken by bitter winds. But there among the barren limbs can be spotted a single blossom.