In retrospect Kanan would probably have preferred the role of playing the "pet Tok'ra" in the court to standing at the center of an army of angry dragons after injuring their leader – especially considering that their leader was apparently Ferrovax, one of the most powerful entities in this or any other galaxy. Even if he was doing so behind the massive Tau'ri warrior and under the auspices of that horrific blade.
As he was wont to do when the blade was in use, Cat Sith was nowhere to be seen but was likely waiting for a proper moment to engage in his favorite hobby – murder.
"Knight!" The man snarled as his flesh knit together, growing him a new hand with pitiful ease. The burns covering his body disappeared in an instant, as though they hadn't ever been, "I will unmake you if you interfere in my family business."
"You are killing a little girl." The dark-skinned man replied. "I think you have already made it my business."
"Yeah, what the Russki said." Interjected Colonel O'Neill. "Fuck off Ferry!"
"You have no power here, Knight." Replied Ferrovax. "I am not a fool like the one who fell to your fellow Knight, I will not be easy prey as to let you strike me uncontested."
"I am here for a reason, Dragon." Replied the Tau'ri as sliver flames flickers over his body, forcing the scions to retreat from where it touched – hissing in pain as it touched them. "A purpose. You stand between me and my goal. If you believe that the forces that guide me will allow your victory, then stay. But I act with purpose – my actions are right. And so far, my luck has not failed me. I wonder, do you believe that you can touch the light that guides me without feeling it's heat."
"I am not some mere beast to be bested and cast aside." Snarled the King of Dragons. "She is mine to do with as I wish."
"She is her own." Replied the man. "And I will die before I let you kill her."
"So be it." Spoke Ferrovax as he advanced upon the Knight, only for the silver flames to cast him aside as they shimmered and coalesced around him. The spectral image of thousands of eyes opened and closed around him, examining every direction at once as a telekinetic burst of light impacted with the Elder Dragon.
The Dragons howled as the eyes widened, the light echoing with an iridescent song of purity as it met their scaly skin. Ferrovax snarled in hatred, flames licking out from his mouth as he spoke a single word. "Metatron."
When the Tau'ri next spoke his voice echoed, reverberation with a force that felt entirely alien to how the man had ever spoke before. "YOU WILL LEAVE."
"She is mine." Disputed the Dragon.
"YOU WILL LEAVE." Repeated the Tau'ri warrior in that same voice of unnatural command.
"Mine!" The dragon snarled, speaking the word as though it were some inviolate word of prayer.
"NO LONGER." Replied the Tau'ri. "LEAVE."
The Dragon snarled and snapped, but in a wave of his hand was gone. He and the scions, disappearing in a puff of smoke and flame as though they had never even been. Kanan only then realized that the little girl was holding his hand as her eyes glassed over into death. He looked into the pitiful child's face, his heart aching for her as he realized that she could be made whole. His hands shook as he pulled out the Goa'uld healing device and willed it to life.
He apologized to the child profusely as he shoved the disemboweled organs back into her chest. She writhed with agony as he did so, but there was no other way. The Tau'ri held her down as he did so, keeping her thrashing form down with their combined weight. She was unnaturally strong for her size, almost able to fling away the Tau'ri even with the aid of the Jaffa warrior, but the dark-skilled Tau'ri warrior glowing with silver light placed a finger upon her head and she was suddenly still.
Kanan shoved the girl's organs back into the child with the aid of Selmak's host's daughter, and activated the hand device. He felt the rush of power as he did so, the addictive feeling of cold wriggling up his spine as he repurposed the energies of life to heal her. It was slow work, agonizing to the patient under these circumstances, but he wasn't going to let a little girl die in agony in front of him if it was preventable. And it was preventable.
The minutes dragged along, his rough-shod surgery using the hand device fighting the inordinate degree of blood loss from being disemboweled. Her natural healing was assisting, but Ferrovax had managed to more or less liquefy the major parts of her body. Lungs, bowels, stomach, and heart – they were all torn to shreds when Kanan and the blonde woman shoved them back into the little girl's chest. She was crying profusely at the sight of the little girl's pain, her hands trembling as she helped in Kanan's desperate gambit to save the child's life.
It was only by virtue of whatever ability the dark-skinned Tau'ri was able to bring by touching the girl's forehead that she wasn't killing herself by thrashing in agony. All of them should have been panicking. This was the sort of situation that put people into the red-zone of stress, especially for a child. But there was a distinct sense of serenity and unity of purpose to the collected people as they acted to save the child.
The goal of saving her subordinated all other feelings they might have had in an outright miraculous state of rational action under the circumstances. Kanan didn't need to tell the Tau'ri and Jaffa to do anything, they just seemed to intuit how to move and restrain the child so that he was able to do his work. They were immediately and flawlessly executing what they needed to do in order to save the child's life.=
An eternity passed, and Kanan deactivated the hand device, finally convinced that he'd healed all that he was able. He sat back on the floor, utterly exhausted, breathing heavily from the exertion of having used the device for that long. The little girl's chest rose and fell steadily in a deep, deep sleep. There would always be a scar down the front of her chest, but she would survive. Colonel O'Neill draped his coat over the girl to conceal her modesty as he picked up the child, cradling her in his arms as Sam placed a soft kiss on the girl's forehead. "Mayborne – I want to take her to medical. Can you and Makepeace handle this?"
"You're leaving me in charge?" The man, apparently Mayborne, queried.
"I want my team with me – too many things have been appearing and disappearing whenever they like." Replied the Colonel. "I know you're not a dragon or a crab creature – and you're damn sure not a Russian."
"That might be the nicest thing you've ever said about me, Jack." Replied the other man.
"Don't get used to it." The Colonel walked away with the sleeping girl cradled in his arms, followed by the other team members of SG-1. They walked through the door and into the hallway.
And then yet another impossible thing happened, in a day of so many impossible things. The Chappa'ai began to dial of its own volition. Seven distinct glyphs in a row dialed themselves into the gate, seven glyphs that Kanan recognized from memory. The Gate was dialing Nekheb, the crown world of Heka's realm. The blue pool of energy burst forth from the gate, falling down into a scintillating pool of vertically hanging circular light.
The Dark-skinned man ceased to glow as he inserted his sword back into its scabbard and started to walk towards the Chappa'ai. The man called Mayborne stood between him and the gate, holding up his fire-arm to the other warrior as he shook his head. "Son, I don't want to have to hurt you, but I can't let you through that gate."
The man smiled in amused surprise. "You have seen the creatures that flee in front of me, and still you chose to be between me and my goal?"
"O'Neill isn't here, so someone had to be the obstreperous one. Its sort of a theme." He cocked his weapon. "And I'm willing to bet that you're a whole lot less bulletproof than he was. That was a neat trick with the light, but if you were able to use it on me, you already would have."
"Perhaps." Agreed the dark-skinned man. "But you will not be using that on me."
"And why would that be?" Mayborne queried derisively as his black-clad soldiers surrounded the man.
"Because of the claw wounds." Replied the man calmly as Mayborne suddenly found himself airborne as a furry horror burst out of the shadows. The man screamed horrifically as he soared through the air, crashing into the wall. The other warriors tried to open fire on the blurring form of Cat Sith, but as quickly as he appeared the Furling Lord disappeared into the shadows, only to burst from them again in a roiling mass of claws and teeth.
He was toying with them. If he'd wanted them dead, they would already be decorating the room with their blood. But for some reason he'd elected not to kill them, going for crippling or humiliating injuries instead as the Knight calmly walked up the walkway and through the Chappa'ai, translocating across the galaxy as the portal disappeared as inexplicably as it had appeared.
Kanan held up his arms defensively as the Furling's final pounce was aimed at him, lamely trying to shield himself as he was caught beneath the Furlings paws and dragged down into the world of shadows in which the Furling Lord stalked his prey. The feline monster purred with amusement as Kanan stopped screaming, sitting up on his hind legs and licking his paw innocently. "You have nothing to fear from me in the immediate, remember? I am here to save you from the one who came to do you harm. We must hurry, Tok'ra, now that the wards and threshold are no more he will come for this place. You must be gone before he arrives. We have avoided the lesser perils."
"What could possibly be greater peril than what I've already faced?" Kannan blanched.
"It is best that you never learn." Replied the Furling. "However, should you elect to gain the relevant education, you are welcome to stay."
"No – I'll go with you." Replied an exhausted Kanan. "Where are we going, exactly?"
"To where you can be kept safe." Replied the Furling. "To your people."
"You know the location of the Tok'ra homeworld?" That was troubling. They'd gone to a great deal of trouble to ensure that the crystalline structure of their construction not only barred access to the lands of Sun and Snow, but they were also theoretically supposed to block beings of spirit from being able to scry their location. "They're warded!"
"Child – think ye not that even the blind can find a wall?" Replied the Furling sarcastically. "Even invisible barriers are found through trial and error, and the little folk are everywhere to make those errors."
Well… that pretty much blew one of the major elements of the Tok'ra's anti-furling protections to Netu and back. Yet another thing to disclose in his debrief – thank the blood the Tok'ra had access to advanced lie-detection technology, or he would not have believed his own recollections of what he'd seen and lived. "How will we get there?"
"I would have thought that was obvious." Replied the Furling as they walked out of the shadow and into a snow-covered forest of pristine wilderness. "We will make the journey through Winter."
"Dare I ask how long the journey will take?" Kanan queried as the shadows parted entirely, stranding the two of them within the lands of Sun and Snow. Well, within the lands of Snow at least, it remained to be seen if they would tread upon the lands of sun.
The furling grinned cruelly. "It shouldn't take longer than Eight months."
Why hadn't he just gone to Nekheb?