Author: Amberfly
Riddle Challenge #41- For the ./group/stargatedrabbles/
Category: General.
Warnings: None.
Feedback: Yes, please.
As a boy, Bra'tac trained in the warrior tradition of the Jaffa, and he knew of no other way. A harsh and demanding life, his enquiring mind had allowed him to study his fellow students, watching them with a quiet determination as they embraced war and terror in the name of the Apophis.
As the dark eyed child watched he also wondered. There had to be more to his people than this blind devotion to the Goa'uld.
In public, his father regaled him with stories of glorious battles and victories fought in the name of his Lord Apophis, but in the quiet of their home, spoke of a place called Kheb. "Freedom for all Jaffa," he whispered, his eyes searching the still night for any signs of betrayal. "There is a place the Jaffa can go when we can no longer carry the primtah. It is a place feared by the Goa'uld so they forbid any to speak its name." Pulling the little boy closer, he lowered his voice to an urgent whisper. "If they are truly all knowing, how is it that fear anything?"
The child couldn't answer, it was a question that only had one answer, and that was to speak heresy. He heard this story whispered all through his childhood, and many decades later, he knew it was the one hope that had kept his father sane. The dream that one day he would be rid of the loathed parasite he had been forced to carry, had been his salvation.
Wise enough not to betray his father, Bra'tac kept silent, and continued to train and grow strong. When he learned his father had fallen on a battle field fighting for a god he despised, the young man grieved but exalted in his freedom. No more would the brave old warrior with the soul of a poet be forced to carry the parasite within.
Bra'tac grew into a man, always believing that a warrior's true strength comes from his heart and his mind, and armed with this knowledge he waged his own private war. To make a difference meant he needed power, and he fought his way to the pinnacle of every Jaffa warrior's life. Bra'tac was granted the honor of leading his Lord's army, and as such, his word among his people was absolute.
As First Prime of Apophis, he knew he'd committed unspeakable crimes, but with every opportunity that arose, he'd tried to undermine the Goa'uld. Watching with revulsion as innocents were dragged away to be infested, shutting his eyes as their villages burned to the ground, Bra'tec bided his time until the time was right. The Jaffa nation would be free, he was never so sure of anything, and when he met the young warrior Teal'c, he knew that time was near.
Studying each other with wary, watchful eyes, the mentor and the student began their journey of freedom.