Queen of Pride
by Bil!
G – Angst – Elizabeth – Oneshot
Summary: Season 4 spoilers. Celebrating Elizabeth: my reaction to Lifeline. Thus major spoilers for that episode.
Season: 4.
Spoilers: Lifeline.
Disclaimer: Not mine, or Lifeline would have ended differently. Actually, no, it would have ended the same but there'd have been a sequel where it ended differently.
A/N: Uh... Yeah. Hated what they did to Elizabeth, loved how they did it. Seriously, if she had to go then at least she went with a bang, proving just how strong she is. But this was my reaction to watching that episode. It's a bit weird; the style got away from me and the poem parked itself in the middle and, well, this whole thing is not my fault. Poem thing is from Will Shakespeare, a play by Clemence Dane (the words spoken, in fact, by an Elizabeth).
Warning: Excessive use of pronouns ahead.
Queen of Pride
by Bil!
She is lost, but she is not dead. She has faltered, but she is not weak.
And when she sees (for she is a part of them, she sees all, knows all) the Earth ship survive and flee to safety, when she feels the new base code activate... Then, in the deep, secret part of herself that remains who she once was, she celebrates.
They were stronger than she is, they are stronger than she is—
But she has won.
I'll not bow
To the gentle Jesus of the women, I—
But to the man who hung 'twixt earth and heaven
Six mortal hours, and knew the end (as strength
And custom was) three days away, yet ruled
His soul and body so, that when the sponge
Blessed His cracked lips with promise of relief
And quick oblivion, He would not drink:
He turned His head away and would not drink:
Spat out the anodyne and would not drink.
This was a god for kings and queens of pride,
And Him I follow.
They have taken her and they have made her one of their own; they have made her body theirs, her mind theirs, her knowledge theirs, her thoughts theirs.
But she is the woman who, alone, held off a planet full of Replicators. She is the woman who matched wills with a monumental force of incredible power and, for some small period, actually won.
She is Elizabeth Weir, and they have always underestimated her.
Her body is theirs, her thoughts are theirs, she is theirs—And yet...
And yet they failed to realise that their Wraith-attacking command had been re-implemented. They failed to use her knowledge to stop the Earth ship. They failed to predict what the Atlantis people would do next.
They have her, body, soul, and mind – and yet they are missing something. Some part of her eludes them and they are so confident in themselves and their unassailable strength that they cannot even understand that they have yet to find her.
Her every thought, every feeling, every memory has been ground up and dissected into its component parts. Broken down and categorised and documented. As if one can understand a painting by separating out and sorting all of the colours; as if the beauty of a rose can be found in a list of its properties and dimensions.
They have pulled her apart and believe they understand her. They have taken what she is and believe they comprehend who she is. They control her thoughts and believe they control her.
They are wrong.
She slumbers, she sleeps, but, as they will come to see, Elizabeth is not yet dead.
For their own sakes they would have done better to kill her, but for all their might, all their power, they are not wise yet. They believe they have won. The battle yes, perhaps (but Atlantis lives and she does not count this as a loss): the war has only just begun.
They have accepted her into their heart and she will destroy them from the inside. They have reached out and of their own free will they have welcomed in their own doom. But they do not, will not, can not understand this; they are confident in their power, in their strength. They have not yet learned fear.
They don't remember (did they ever care?) that the caterpillar in its cocoon must be completely destroyed before it can be re-formed into a butterfly.
So somewhere deep in the heart of the Replicator homeworld Elizabeth watches, listens, learns. She will understand them, she will become them, she will learn their limitations, their faults, their weaknesses.
And one day, one day when she is so much a part of them that they have forgotten that once she never was...
One day Elizabeth will return.
One day the Replicators will fall.
One day they will lose.
You see, they have always underestimated her.
Fin