Chapter 4
Author's Note:
Please note that I don't own any of the Stargate Series and world. Please Review

"Daniel, do you know who this is?" I asked softly.

"I'll tell you the story… after I get some more clothes on."

I waited impatiently, my emotions still controlled most of my actions and reactions which was something I would have to work on. I know that by the age of 30, humans tended to be able to control their emotions and I was being of many thousand years, so it should be easy. Shouldn't it?

I had been told about these feelings but no one had quite explained how they would affect my body and mind. When Orlin had returned he was loathe to mention about his time with the Lieutenant-Colonel, he had said something about wanting to have private memories. With my thoughts of Orlin came back the anger that I had experienced earlier. I knew the reason why I had been angry, he had broken his promise and I could only hope that he had not realised why I had chosen to do all of this.

I had not realised that I had closed my eyes so I was surprised to find Daniel in front of me.

"Ahh," I squeaked, the volume was too loud. "Damn it, Daniel. You scared me," he simply smirked back.

"So about the picture…" I began reminding him.

"Oh, right. So her name is Areto, and she is an Amazonian woman." I held his gaze expectantly, surely there was more to this story than just a name.

"Areto," I breathed the name, rolling it around my mouth, "it sounds familiar. Can you tell me anything else about her?" He shook his head, the fluorescent lights picking up the slight changes in the colour of his hair.

"An Amazonian you said, she was obviously a fighter and hunter. Areto," I repeated the name, it was like what I felt with Daniel's name. I knew it and I knew her face but I just couldn't… Aretan… I remember that name.

I opened my mouth and another voice took its place, a sad, old voice that knew far too much.

"Her mother's name was Aretan, she was one of the warriors, a fighter who declared that she would never bare children." I could see it, see her. "A woman of exceptional beauty, but marred with a streak of cruelty that was as deep as her soul.

She had been born to a cruel man, her mother dying in the birth. Her memories of her father were few, which she was glad for. All she needed to know was that her father held her responsible for her kind mother's unwanted demise.

When she was old enough, she ran away, her village was close to the scary women. And that was where she went, hoping, praying to the gods that they would accept her.

It was an old woman that found the child, alone, hurt and unconcious. The old woman took her to her hut and healed her, as much as she could. She did not tell the others of her discovery, they were too young to understand her reasoning. But she saw something in this sad, lonely child that no one else would be able to, determination. She knew the child could only be a few years old, but she found her way to the woman's people and wandered for days to do so, without realising what she was doing.

The child awoke a day after she was found, when she did she was frightened. Her father had never let anyone even know she was alive so this was the first other person she has seen. What she saw was an old woman who was holding her tiny hand in the beautiful, wizened one.

The woman was watching the small girl's reaction to her surroundings and saw that the child was indeed what she thought.

"Aretan," the woman had called her. The child didn't know what it meant, she couldn't talk. But she knew by everything else that the old woman was doing, that it was not out of hate like her despicable father but out of love that the words were said.

"It means courage and determination in long dead language, not that you would understand it." The woman understood what the child had been through and also understood that she couldn't talk but like the child, this old woman was not one to give up.

It took many moons but eventually the child learnt to talk, and she learnt to fight and hunt, like every other child in the small Amazonian village. The woman and child grew very close, like family and very thing seemed right in the village.

However as stories like this usually went, the peace was disturbed by war. And all the warriors from their village took up the call and served the gods in the only way they could. Including the child, who was now a young woman called Aretan, the name suited was what the village had said.

Aretan fought in the war, alongside the queen of the Amazons, stopping a deathly blow from falling her. After that she became one of the queen's bodyguards and she took great pleasure in that job. At this time most could see that underneath her love for the queen was cruel woman who had a great blood lust and desire to kill all men.

Near the end of the war Aretan was captured by the men they fought against and treated like many women were in those days, as a sex slave. When the fighting was won by the Amazons and they returned home, no one knew what had happened to the queen's favourite bodyguard.

Except for the woman who raised her, who was now almost too frail to do too much. But she did look after Aretan, and when Aretan bore a child to one of countless men who had used her body, she took care of the child and raised her with the help of the village. Aretan wanting nothing to do with this baby, left to go back to her beloved queen.

Aretan never returned to her village, the idea of seeing a thing that she had carried for nine months made her sick, though she did miss the old woman. The baby was named for mother, Areto, and she too was beautiful.

In the village not one saw the same blood lust that effected her mother, in the child. However she fought and hunted like Aretan, sometimes even surpassing her in skills with a bow. And like her mother, when the call for war came, she answered.

By this time, the old woman was close to death and feared she would never see either child that she had raised again. So before the girl left she gave her a necklace, a blue sapphire hung down from the chain, a pattern of leaves etched in metal held the jewel in place. It had been the old woman's mothers and when she had discovered she couldn't have children, she thought that it would just lie somewhere for the rest of time. It meant to Areto, that this woman had thought of her as the daughter that she could not have and Areto was honoured by that.

It was small time into the fighting that Areto was told that the old woman had died, it was this that sent her into a deep depression. She was sent to the back of the army and was told to stay there until she could serve the queen properly, by her own mother no less. But of course neither knew who the other was.

While there, Areto met and befriended a young child, who forced to fight because no one else in her town was able to. The child was almost too young to understand the gravity of their situation, but she did not care. It was this child who brought Areto out her depression, because it meant that she could focus on saving the child's life rather than herself.

When they were forced to fight on the frontlines, Areto was seen far from the child, watching fight, defending her. And in the gaps between the fighting, she taught the child to fight, pouring all her energy into it.

It was the final days of the battle when the gods came to watch, expecting their victory to be swift both sides pressed too hard and suffered with devastating losses. Areto was injured in this, a large enough thing that would keep from field but small enough to pose little risk on her life. She felt weak and knew that without her there the child was as good as dead.

And on the final day of battle, when neither side won because the gods sent down a fire from the heavens, Areto's thoughts became true.

The image of the painting instantly flew into my mind; Areto was holding her only friend to her chest. Little did she know that her birth mother lay only a few feet away, slew by a mighty sword, whose reach was impossible. The queen was just feet beyond her, but Areto only cared about the child in her arms, the one she fought to protect and failed.

Areto was seen carrying the body of her dear friend out of the battle, into the woods, Artemis's domain. And after that she was never seen again, but legend says that at sometimes you hear the haunting chill of the child's laugh and Areto's mournful cry at the loss of her dear friend."

I opened my eyes and shuddered, this was a memory of mine. I knew it, but it did not make any sense. I had watched this war and done nothing for them.

And for this reason alone I deserved to die.

Author's Note 2: Sorry this chapter is so short, but found this to an important story that Tamar would need to dwell on.