Teal'c stepped out of the stone building on Hak'tyl and inhaled deeply. The air on all the worlds of the Free Jaffa Nation always smelled like freedom to him. He was wearing nothing but a loincloth and the night air was already cool on his skin.

A moment later, Ishta stepped out beside him. He glanced at her but tried not to let her see.

He controlled his smile with little effort, the habit of long years. Ishta had spent the last several weeks resenting needing him at all while she recovered from a broken foot and ankle. She seemed to believe that warrior Jaffa women were not supposed to get injured at all and if they did they certainly did not need a man to tend to them.

Teal'c had simply refused to leave her however. She'd spent the first two days muttering and giving him dark looks every time he brought her something or did something for her. Every time she had tried to get around him he'd reminded her that he had a new set of rights and privileges as her husband. Then he would make sure there wasn't anything within her reach that could be used as a weapon and stayed just out of range until she was done snarling.

He had left her side for a few hours to attend the debriefing on Earth to hear Mitchell's report on the missing colony of Jaffa. It had been good to see everyone and even better to find the colony was not really missing at all.

Daniel Jackson had been busy dealing with a visiting delegation. Samantha Carter had seemed distracted and tired and anxious to go home. Vala and Mitchell had been wired and clearly in need of time alone together.

But he had not really wanted any excuse to stay on Earth. Not tonight. As this night came into being on Hak'tyl and all the other Jaffa worlds, they would celebrate the old traditions – the Feast of Dances. It was a tradition they had kept in secret, hidden from the eyes of the false gods who had been their masters – one they would now celebrate in the open.

"How is your ankle?" he asked.

He heard the sharp intake of breath that meant she was grinding down on her temper.

"You will see in the Dance," she answered.

Teal'c gave her a smile that a flash of white in the dark. His eyes swept over her, cast in firelight and wearing little more than an animal skin that left one shoulder bare and stopped at mid-thigh. Bracelets and armbands of leather graced her arms and ankles.

She belongs in a world made of fire, Teal'c thought. She belongs here.

Teal'c had long ago given up on the idea that he had a home. He belonged to too many places, too many worlds. Never more so than now when he was blood kin to all Jaffa and could claim a place almost anywhere in the known galaxy.

The only place he wanted was at this woman's side.

They walked to the edge of the town center and into the woods, onto a trail full people using the full moon as light, many carrying drums and going to the same clearing that was also Teal'c and Ishta's destination.

On the edge of the town was a natural bowl that held the StarGate. Surrounded by grassy slopes was the Dance circle, soft dirt carefully sifted and raked and cast in an ethereal glow by the moon.

As the sky darkened and the torches surrounding the circle began to glow, more and more of the Jaffa began to arrive. Some of the older men and women took places on the earth and began to drum. The women's voices rose in an ancient chant, calling the Jaffa. They filled the slopes, flowing up the sides as Teal'c and Ishta moved to the center of the circle and lit the bonfire.

The first Dance was the Elder's Dance. The drumbeat changed and the oldest among them danced the steps that had been danced since the First Jaffa. The Dance ended with the Elders moving among the assembly and pulling out the Children for the Youth's Dance. If the Elder's Dance was filled with dignity and experience celebrated exuberance and energy. The air was filled with their young voices shouting and chanting.

With the Bonfire burning at his back Teal'c flashed Ishta another wild smile and this time she answered with one her own, rare and cherished and always for him alone.

When the drumbeat changed their young faded out of the firelight back onto the slopes and were escorted away by the Elders. The drums became primal and urgent. This was the Dance of Fire – the dance of power, of union. This was the dance of sex. An erotic dance whose steps were not as formal as the others, but blatant and arousing and promising pleasure.

Men and women, couples and single, moved into the circle and surrounded the bonfire. Ishta turned towards Teal'c and her dark eyes were like hot coals. She backed towards the dancers, willing him to follow her, daring him to embrace what it meant to be male and Jaffa.

Teal'c had never been one to turn down a dare. His heart beat in time with the drums. His blood heated. Savage and strong, the Jaffa had come to Dance.

Round and round they went as the drums continued to call them. Sometimes he lost Ishta in the press of bodies and sometimes she was too tantalizingly close. Skin glistened with the heat of the bonfire and the heat of the dance. Chains of conduct broke and melted as they celebrated their sexuality and freedom, their identity. Social restraints imposed on them by their former masters burned in the fire.

They danced and Teal'c felt his body filling, flooding with fierce, triumphant hunger – a hunger he saw mirrored in Ishta's eyes as the Dance built to a crescendo and began to fade away.

In groups and as couples, the dancers slipped back into the night. Teal'c seized Ishta around her waist and pulled her close, frustrated even by the simple layers of clothing that separated them. Ishta pressed in tightly, running her hands over his back. There was no way she could miss how aroused he was.

She took his hand and led him from the circle and he wondered if they were going to get back to their small stone house or just find a secluded place in the woods.

Apparently she wanted the house and their bed because she didn't let them stop until they were inside with the door closed and she was dragging him across the floor. She tumbled back onto the bed, pulling him down on top of her, moaning and begging.

Teal'c found her mouth and was kissing and biting and licking through her gasps, and he pushed her back against the mattress and thrust, hard, with his hips and his tongue, and Ishta gave way, melting in submission and adoration and desire. Tongue thrusting under and around and over hers, Teal'c reached out with one hand and caught the shoulder of her tunic, pulling it off in haste. She had already done the same with his loincloth.

He took Ishta in one extended push. Her long sweet groan of pleasure at the penetration made him harder and he thrust long and smooth as her hands came up to claw at his back and her voice fought for words to encourage him. He leaned forward to swipe his tongue through the sheen of moisture on her throat and shoulders, tasted salt and the unique sensation that was Ishta and Ishta alone.

"More," she begged, nearly incoherent and Teal'c sped up and held her steady until every thrust was a soul-shaking, heart stopping ram home.

He felt the tension spread through her body like wildfire. When her voice broke into ragged, high-pitched cries he knew she was right on the edge.

He purred her name into her ear, throaty and full of love, an endearment in two syllables.

"Ishta."

She climaxed instantly, an implosion of contractions, her body arching up to his, arms and legs locked around him. She felt Teal'c movements change from making it good for her, from concentrating utterly on her, to the frantic push towards his own release, thrusting into her tight contractions, lifting her to get in deeper, burying his face in her hair.

He climaxed the way he did almost everything – silently and with great intensity.

They melted into a boneless lump. He could feel his heart pounding in time with hers. She was stroking the back of his neck and he could feel the feathery touch of her breath on the base of his throat. But the rest seemed indistinguishable, a contented tangle of arms and legs. A prickle of sensation ran from her skin into his, and back, and shivered away.

"Ishta," he breathed again and it was the softest sound she had ever heard him make.

She smiled up at him, lazy and content. She entwined her arms around his neck again.

"We are Jaffa," she said.

"We are free," Teal'c answered.

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