Note: A shout out to Camy – hey girl :)
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DAY 21 – CONSTRAINT
Chapter 23 - Conflict
There was nothing left around him.
Just an endless dark landscape of hillocks and dips of dark dunes of ash and burnt cinders. No mountains, no water, no plants or life in any form.
Part of him was aware that wasn't right, that the surface of Ugun didn't look like this, but at the same time he didn't question what he saw. The flashing memories of the tall mountains, once more crested with snowfall, and the rain falling over the bare ground, didn't seem to conflict with what was around him now. Here there were no structures – manmade or natural – just an endless wasteland of dark dunes of dirt devoid of life.
Oneakka shifted where he stood, turning, seeking out the endless fields, border fences and empty farm buildings he'd been searching through before, but they were all gone. Now there was just this empty dead landscape.
And him.
He turned further, completing a full circle, and the cinders caught sharply against his bare feet. Peering down at the pain, he frowned at the ashes against his feet, only to see light flickering oddly off the ground.
He crouched down, gravel-like scratching sounds audible from just his weight shifting on his feet. He scooped up a handful of the earth and it was oddly heavy. It wasn't ash or even soil, but sand. Dark empty granules of sand, the edges sharp against the sensitive places between his fingers as he let the handful drop back to the ground under him. He noticed that the air didn't stir the sand's fall. Even the air was devoid of life.
He ran his gaze across the dark sand under him. Perhaps there was something underneath it? Something hidden, but still living?
He scraped his hands through the sharp sand, scooping it aside, trying to dig down into it. It resisted his actions, the sand sliding back into place, cutting at his skin as it did. But he kept at it, digging faster, desperation growing to find something.
Anything.
But there was still nothing else in the now foot deep hole he was creating. Nothing but his own blood dribbling down off his fingers and palms.
Blood on his hands.
He kept digging. Ignoring the pain, the cuts, and the hard work it took.
He had to find something left.
Panting with the exertion, he set one hand down into the base of the growing hole, the sand now holding back at the sides. Pawing into the forming pool of his own blood at the base of the hole, he kept working.
There had to be something.
The hole went deeper and he knelt down into its growing depth, using both hands again to scoop the sharp sand side.
Deeper he went, blood-soaked sand forming glittering high sides of the well he was forming.
Above him, he heard the flap of wings and a caw, but he ignored the watching eyes on his back. He kept on digging.
Yet he found nothing but endless painful edges as he went deeper.
Until finally, his muscles hurting and his breath panting out of him, he lifted his hands from the task, his palms cut to shreds, and slammed his fists down into the pool of blood. Crying out in raging fury, he screamed out his heart in the narrow confinement of the hole he'd dug down into his dead world.
His rage cut at his throat and he finally ran out of breath, so he sat back on his heels, dropping his head back. His heart hammered in his chest, the urge to scream boiling up again in him as he looked up towards the distant circle of sky and sunlight far above him. And high up there, perched on the edge of the hole, the raven looked down at him.
He watched as the bird's delicate little feet edged sideways along the lip of the hole as she angled her head to peer down at him, a croak of bird-speak indecipherable to him, but he could still hear the judgement in it.
Or, perhaps, a warning.
He pulled his eyes away from the dark watchful eyes and frowned at the tall sides of the hole stretching up above him like a towering chimney.
He heard the sand begin to slide, the rushing sound growing louder as the sides of the hole began to fall in, cascading down over him.
Seeking to bury him too.
Oneakka woke with a start, leaning up and away from the pillows, the sound of the falling sand a suffocating sensation of rushing panic. His wound caught at the sudden movement and he drew in a sharp breath as he blinked furiously around at the room beyond the end of his bed.
His quarters. He was safe.
A sudden noise from behind his right shoulder grated at his nerves though and he twisted his aching neck round in near panic. Wraith? Skerti?
No, he was in his quarters and the noise was...he couldn't see. No one was sat in either of the chairs, no one was in view. The shifting sound played again, now obviously someone's boots against the smooth floor. Someone was in here, out of his view around behind the wide side of his headboard that was also a chest of drawers accessible from the other side. He craned his neck, leaning as much as his wound would allow him, still blinking sleep out of his eyes.
To finally see one side of Seeal across the room, her back to him as she reached up to the long shelves along the side wall.
"What are you doing?" He demanded hotly, his heart still racing.
Raven looked round over her shoulder, leaning more into view. "Ah, you're awake," she said unnecessarily. There was something in her hand. "I'm just cleaning up the dust up here."
She was dusting his shelves?
What time was it? When had she gotten here and why hadn't he woken up?
He felt weirdly disorientated as he looked away from her and round to the left side table beside his bed where his timekeeping piece glowed. The time couldn't be right. He'd slept for over four hours?
He frowned at the display, noticing that it was at a different angle than how he'd left it, and the pile of books next to it had been adjusted into a neater stack. The Ugun ceremonial cup he'd been studying earlier had been moved slightly as well and the jug of nutritional tonic was definitely closer to him rather than where he'd put it on the far side of the table. That simple act was Seeal reminding him to take it. He didn't need her 'reminding' him; he'd drink it when he was good and ready.
"Did you move my things?" He demanded as he wiped at his face, feeling the faint wetness of dribble on one side of his chin. She'd been moving his things right next to him and he hadn't woken up?
"I'm just getting rid of all the dust. It's not good for you to be breathing this all in," Seeal answered. "I didn't move anything."
"These books have been moved," he pointed out her lie, looking back round towards her. She was still just faintly out of view, forcing him to peer round at her again, his neck complaining.
She stepped into view, facing him now with her hands on her hips, the dusting cloth in one hand. "I just dusted them," she said with tone.
He realised that she was dressed all in black; she didn't do that anymore, and it was suddenly just a little too similar to the raven in his dream, peering down at him, judging him. He looked away from her, oddly shaken by the weird coincidence.
"Don't you have Myrtle's to get to?" He asked, guessing that explained the change of usual clothes.
"Wow," Seeal muttered as she turned back towards the shelves. "You sure woke up cheerful."
He glared round at her as she resumed her dusting, more in view now. He glanced along the line of shelves. If she was working her way from the far right corner of the room then she was almost halfway across. How long had she been in here and he hadn't woken up?
It must be the latest medication, making him slow and weak. Maybe the meds were also behind the nightmares, he wondered.
"I'm not leaving for Myrtle's for a couple of hours," she continued.
He looked back round at her, fixing his eyes on her hands, making sure she wasn't moving anything on the shelves. They were in a precise order and they were important things up there. The only person he'd allowed to touch anything up there recently had been Nalla and he'd given her precise instructions on what to bring him and where the returning items should go.
"Don't move anything," he told Seeal's back.
"I'm not," she answered, but he could clearly hear the eye roll in her voice. "I'm just removing the dust." He glared up at her hands as she worked the cloth over the top shelf above her. She did appear to be carefully moving the statically-charged cloth over the line of books, then the shelf surface and then around an Ugun keepsake box.
He frowned away from her, only to spot a large electronic pad lying on the side of his bed by his right knee. It wasn't his, was it? He looked round at the right side table, which had also clearly been tided. A small Ugun mountain-region harvest statue had definitely been moved and the books, again, had been adjusted into a neat stack. His pad was sitting on top of that pile where he'd left it.
"What's this pad?" He demanded of her as he glared back to the new pad lying on the blanket over him. When had the blanket been put over him? It had just been over the foot of the bed when he'd fallen asleep. Had she done that or Halling? And they'd put a pad on his bed and he'd still not woken up?
Clearly his medication was far too strong.
"It's for you," Seeal replied, her voice shifting as she moved further along the shelves. "I loaded it with a gift Sheppard sent through for you when Atlantis dialled in their big vampire research report."
"What gift?" Oneakka asked, frowning at the pad. Why was Sheppard sending him another gift?
"He said it's recordings of an Earth sporting event, said it would help distract you while you're bedbound."
"I'm not bedbound," he objected to that complete exaggeration. "I can leave the bed."
"Fine," she replied over her shoulder at him, "I meant for your recovery."
He narrowed his eyes at what had sounded like faint sarcasm in her voice, but she was looking back to his shelves and he couldn't see her face.
"It's hours of recordings of a competition where all the different peoples of Earth send their best contenders to compete in different sports. He called it the 'Olympics'," she pronounced the word slowly as if she wasn't sure. "Sheppard said it will keep you enthralled."
That did actually sound interesting.
"Fine," he agreed to the gift, but didn't reach for the pad just yet. He frowned round at her again and watched as she sidestepped to her left as she worked, dressed in her raven black outfit. It was all bizarrely similar to the way the raven had edged along the lip of sand in the nightmare.
He looked away from her.
Why did she keep showing up in his dreams anyway? And here, sneaking around, moving things without him knowing about it.
In the dreams she was always watching him, peering at him. Like she always did now, looking at him like he was either going to break apart or 'cause a scene' as she'd said the other day.
"Meiyo said you need to make sure you drink all of that nutritional tonic today," Seeal added.
"Meiyo was here?" He asked her back. He'd slept through that too? Was it Meiyo who had moved the jug closer to him?
"No," Seeal confirmed though. "She asked me to remind you."
So it was her who had moved the jug and its accompanying glass. He'd been right.
And Meiyo was contacting Seeal about his medication now?
"You need to drink all of it today," Seeal repeated.
"I know," he snapped at the nagging. "I've taken it before."
"Alright, Grumpy," Seeal muttered.
He pulled his bedding and the offending blanket further up against his chest as he carefully worked his backside back up against the wedge and pillows. He'd slumped in his sleep and he had to move carefully so as not to pull on his stupid wound in order to get back into a more upright position again. Back against the wedge again, the pillows started tumbling out from behind him. He reached back and shoved them back in behind him; except, suddenly Raven was there, pulling them out and plumping them up.
Why did she always have to do that?! He couldn't even keep control of his own pillows on his own damn bed without her interfering.
"I've got it," he complained at her.
But she ignored him and kept messing with his pillows.
"Stop it!" He lost his temper in an instant. "I didn't ask for a wife!"
She shot back away from him, her mouth dropping open in shock. He'd never seen her look so stunned, reacting more like he'd hit her or something.
Wait, had he just accused her of being his wife?
"You take that back right now," she demanded loudly as if it was a threat, a pillow still in her hand.
Apparently being called his wife was the absolute worst insult. He felt instantly more affronted.
"No," he snapped back.
"You take that back or I'm never talking to you ever again!" She practically shouted at him.
"Fine," he met her bluff. "Don't talk to me ever again. It'll be a relief!"
"Difficult, arrogant male!" She tried to insult him as she threw the pillow at him.
He caught the soft projectile easily and shoved it behind his back, exactly where he wanted, not her. "I don't need you sneaking around me while I sleep," he told her.
"Sneaking?" She echoed. "An entire herd of stamping wild-festers could have stormed through here and you wouldn't have woken up."
"I have no idea what wild-festers are," he countered loudly.
"They're huge big stomping cattle that trample their own kind half the time," she answered.
He glared at that analogy. "I don't stomp on anyone."
"Liar!" She accused him, "And you can be damn well certain that no woman would ever be mad enough to even consider being your wife!" She said with each emphasised word dripping with absolute certainty as she pointed her finger angrily at him.
He felt a hot flush at the unexpectedly effective insult. "I don't ever want a wife so there's no problem there," he countered quickly.
"Good," she shouted back as she threw the dusting cloth to the floor and started stomping towards the door. "Because, trust me, no one wants that job!"
"I thought you weren't ever going to talk to me again?" He demanded.
Was she actually going to leave and never talk to him again?
She stopped and swung round. "You can take care of yourself from now on," she stated, pointing at him again, "Because I'm not helping you anymore."
"Good," he shouted back and crossed his arms over his chest defiantly. "Go away."
She started mouthing something that looked like it was going to be a particularly venomous insult, her fists clutched tightly in the air in front of her.
He waited for what she thought she could throw at him next.
Except, she abruptly closed her eyes and lowered her fists, loudly breathing out as if calming herself. Like she was trying to reach for patience and he was the one being difficult. She was the one invading his space and moving his things without his permission!
She let out another long out breath as she opened her eyes again and opened her fists. "You're hurt, injured, and just being a Cuddly Bear of Moor," she stated like she was reasoning it out to herself rather than talking to him. "You're just striking out at those you trust."
"You think I trust you?" He asked sarcastically, but immediately regretted it.
"Right, that's it!" she snapped instantly back into anger, "I'm definitely never talking to you again."
"Fine!" He shouted back, aware that he had lost control of the situation and had no idea where this was going.
"You can take care of yourself, because I don't care," she stated angrily. "Now drink your tonic and watch your Earth sports!"
She turned and stormed dramatically out, the door barely sliding open in time for her to get through it, outside of which she made a sharp turn in the corridor and disappeared from view, the door sliding shut behind her.
He stared at the closed door, his fast angry breathing the only sound.
Good. He didn't need her around him all the time like she was: into everything, smelling all feminine, hovering over him like he was weak and pathetic.
Even if she thought she was being helpful.
His whisperer.
He cursed into the silence, regretting the trust comment. He hadn't meant that.
But that didn't give her the right to mess with his things and order him around. He glanced back to the shelves, checking nothing had been pushed near an edge. Not that he could do a damn thing about it himself right now. He couldn't do anything without help.
Nothing looked out of place across the room, except the dusting cloth lying alone on the floor.
And the new pad on his bed.
He considered the pad for a moment and grabbed at it, pulling it up onto his lap. He triggered the screen awake with a touch as it recognised his Beacon. A long list of recordings appeared. Seeal was right that there were days' worth of footage to watch. All from a planet in another galaxy.
He started the first recording and a blue sky appeared above a massive and packed arena. Words floated out of the pad's speakers, understandable to him, but there were names and things mentioned in quick succession that he couldn't recognise. Maybe the Earth different peoples had different regional clan names?
The door abruptly opened across from him and he snapped his head up.
Had she come back?
Only it was Massa who stepped through, a sleeping Aki wrapped up in his arm. "Hi," Massa smiled, his voice pitched lower than normal in that way he always did when Aki was asleep. "I hear I need to start my shift with you early today."
She'd gone and gotten Massa to come sit in with him in her place. Damn her. He couldn't get even a few minutes alone without her imposing her will on him.
"Fine," Oneakka reluctantly agreed though. At least Massa wasn't going to fuss over him.
"She's off to Myrtle's early then?" Massa asked as he headed for the chair on Oneakka's right and set Aki' care bag down on the floor. Oneakka watched him out the corner of his eyes, assessing Massa's tone and expression for any sign he knew about the argument. Surely if he did, he'd be quick to want to talk about it; seeing things in an argument that just weren't there.
"Did you drop this?" Massa asked and Oneakka looked round to see him indicating the dusting cloth on the floor.
"Seeal did," Oneakka answered, again assessing Massa's face, but the guy just frowned.
"That's not like her," Massa commented as he reached down and picked up the cloth, Aki still fast asleep in his other arm.
"She just dropped it," Oneakka found himself explaining as he turned his attention back to the paused screen on the pad.
"Just accidentally?" Massa asked, suspicion clear in his voice now.
"I'm watching Earth sports from Sheppard," Oneakka quickly changed the subject.
"Earth sports?" Massa's interest was immediately piqued as he settled Aki on the bed.
Oneakka shifted himself carefully sideways to make space for the sleeping boy. It was pretty rare to see the babe asleep for any long periods lately and, even asleep, the boy's little cheeks were noticeably red due to his pushing through so many teeth. He certainly cried a lot in the night, if the last two nights were any judge, and it had given Oneakka a new respect for his friend to deal with that all the time. Not that he'd admitted that to Massa.
"It any good?" Massa asked of the sports as he adjusted his chair to sit alongside the bed, giving him the best view of the pad and also using the chair to create a barrier so Aki wouldn't roll off the bed.
"I've only just started it," Oneakka replied and tapped the screen to restart the recording from the very beginning.
Massa leaned in with eager interest. "So that's Earth."
Oneakka nodded as he made himself relax back against his pillows, considering that maybe plumping them up a bit might be worthwhile, but not right now.
He wondered if Raven would actually follow through on her weak threat to never visit him or talk to him again. Like he believed she'd be able to actually keep in her opinion about anything. It didn't matter to him anyway.
At least he had Madesh in place to report back on any inappropriate behaviour from Myrtle tonight.
"Oh and Seeal said that I've got to make sure you drink all of your nutrition tonic," Massa added.
Oneakka let out a frustrated sigh as he rolled his eyes up to the ceiling.
"Do you need the bathroom before we watch the sports?" Massa asked, but the question was laced with the man's stupid ongoing amusement about the other day.
"No!" Oneakka informed him firmly.
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She sensed the moment the wormhole began forming high up in orbit above Proculus.
Chaya lifted her corporeal eyes to the bright blue sky above her and focused her senses on the swirling formations of energy. Increasingly the Wraith were sending scouting parties through, full of desperation for new feeding grounds now that their numbers were being threatened into retreat. She could deal with such testing visits swiftly and decisively though, her punishment at least allowing her to be able to shield and protect those under her care.
She felt the wormhole solidify into its stable structure and then the first pulsations from within it that was a ship moving through.
She paused her physical fingers from tending to a sickly leaf of a tall plant within her 'temple' courtyard and waited for the visitors to reveal themselves.
A moment later, she felt the sliding smoothness of her people's technology emerge from the wormhole and, at the craft's helm, his presence was undeniable.
John.
She stepped away from the healed plant leaf and stared up at the sky above, feeling his presence seep into her being even from so far away.
He had returned.
It had been a long time since he had last visited her. Though, the progression of time was sometimes difficult for her to judge. In her ascended form time meant little to her, years and centuries similar in their brevity, being merely a dimension to perceive or not. But when she was in her corporeal form, walking on Proculus to tend to all the living things on the planet under her care, she felt the weight of time's passing.
But that was not all her body could allow her to perceive.
She could feel her very physical reaction to feeling his presence lowering down into Proculus' atmosphere. Adrenaline pumped through her veins, awakening further hormones, all coursing through her, drawing forth soft beautiful memories of her time spent with John. She fixed her physical eyes upon the wisps of cloud casting delicate shade across the lands she served, and she waited for her first sight of his vessel descending down to her.
It had been beyond an age in corporeal form that she had felt these powerful reactions before she had met John. For thousands of solar cycles of Proculus, lengths of time through which she served her people, she had paid her dues as the punishment bestowed upon her by The Others. Her penance for a past action that had altered the destiny of Proculus and those that would have attacked it. It was an act that she still did not regret, though she understood the gravity of what she had done, and so she stood guard over the populace here whose fate she had altered. Under her care she could at least keep them safe and balanced.
John felt the opposite.
He brought turbulence and uncertainty into her being.
A dark spot high in the distance was the ship, descending down and around, down towards where he had previously left the craft when he had visited her. At her request, he had kept away from the rest of Proculus on his previous visits, having no contact other than with an Abbot who may have been assisting her in the prayers to 'Athar'.
Yet, the last time John had visited had to be some time ago. She frowned with her corporeal brow as she sought the understanding of the time that had passed. It had to be over at least one solar cycle, for she had tended to the annual festival at least twice since John's last visit. She had noticed that the lengths between his visits had grown and, eventually, he had not returned.
It was as it should be, of course. His life was short and mortal, while hers was eternal and her punishment unending. Sometimes she had imagined that he might decide to dedicate his life to the pursuit of ascension. She suspected that, as a child of the Lantean ancestry that had escaped to Earth, that The Others would have granted him a place here on Proculus. She had fanaticised of a life in which they could live together here within the walls of the temple. That she could help him develop his mind and that, one day, he too would ascend and join her.
Yet, such a shared experience would never happen and she had always known as much.
He was a man of action, of structured and decisive intervention to protect any and all life. It was exactly what her own past misdeed had been driven by, so she understood and appreciated his life's focus. It seemed that his people, and those working together on the far side of this galaxy, were finally reaching a point of being able to push back the might of the Wraith. To strike out with violent tendencies that her fellow Ascended beings had rejected as a method of stopping the Wraith, but now the descendants of Atlantis were helping forge a new destiny for this galaxy and their own.
John had destiny in his being, and it was a destiny of which she was not a part.
So when he had stopped visiting her, she had been sad but also...relieved.
She examined the sensations inside her being now as she watched the vessel growing increasingly larger in the sky. She had missed him, but had grown used to him being gone. In fact part of her wanted him to remain gone, to ease the pain of his loss and the life she was denied. Of the true depths of her punishment made manifest. But, feeling his presence growing closer, she also felt the delight. The overwhelming urges of instinct and affection crushing through her physical body. She had almost forgotten how powerful such reactions felt in physical form, how overwhelming.
The ancient craft's buzzing engines became audible to her ears and she watched him alter his descent, aiming now for his choice of landing place.
And with that nearness, she felt rushes of indecision within herself. Would it be better for both her and John if she left before he arrived? She could slide the molecules of this physical form apart and become the energy being that was her true form, and allow herself the distance she had gained and some solace from the torture of what she could not have. Of the punishment set upon her shoulders.
Out beyond the thick stone walls of the temple, she could feel the air stirring under the descent of his ship, the air moving anew with his presence on her world.
She could easily leave and he would never know she had been here...
But the chance to see him again... To see his smile and feel the warmth of his company...
She felt the moment his ship touched the grass and then the soil of Proculus. He was so close.
However, she felt a sudden pressing attention upon her.
The Others.
They were focusing intently upon her.
Not just the guardians who kept her to her punishment, but more. If not all of them!
All watching her - focused and intent.
Something was wrong.
She frowned and realised there was a question she had not considered: Why had he returned now?
She turned in the middle of the courtyard, all alone except for the plants around her, and she focused through the stone arched entrance through which John would appear. Out through that opening, through the outer courtyard through to the entrance of the temple and out across the short stretch of dancing grasses to where John was emerging from the ship, she stretched her mind, allowing herself to open up to her greater senses.
She could feel John's determination, but also his caution and nervousness wrapped around him like an anxious blanket.
He wanted something from her.
The Others' attention intensified.
Something new was occurring to John and his people then, something which had driven him to seek her out.
For her knowledge. Not just to see her, to walk at her side in the sunlight again. He wanted something, something that charged his nerves worriedly.
She expanded her being, scattering her atoms to burst into her energetic true form and from which she could connect in more directly with the perception she shared with The Others. Seeking out into the expanse, each of John's steps towards her becoming an age in that swollen place of knowledge and essence, she connected in with her kind fully. Reaching beyond Proculus' bubble that was hers to tend, she stretched out to understand the greater picture.
Instantly she understood and within half of John's next step she was back in the courtyard.
The Skerti had returned.
She felt a tremble of a chill across her warm corporeal skin.
Of course this day would come; the shame of her people's mistakes would not die away so easily. And John was here because he suspected their involvement and was seeking knowledge from her. Knowledge she was forbidden from providing.
His boots stepped from the grass to the flagstones of the temple's entrance.
She could provide him with the answers to all his questions...
No
The Others' communal whisper vibrated into her physical being.
Not your place
She crushed her eyes shut, wishing that she did not have such a conflicted heart.
Destiny had to unfold as it should and she could not interfere with it. Not again.
But she wished she could.
Oh how she wanted to whisper to him the truths that could help him and others.
Not your place
They repeated.
A hundred thousand eyes of her kind all focused upon her, watching, waiting. Waiting to see what she would do. And, no doubt, to act if she tried to find a way to help John.
His bootsteps became audible on the floor beyond the archway.
He would look at her with those handsome eyes, his being begging her to help him. To ease his and others' burdens. To save lives of those already being taken by the Skerti.
"Chaya?" His voice rang against the temple's cool walls, echoing in through the archway and into the courtyard. She could practically feel the vibrations of the air that were his words, cast from his lungs and lips...
She shed her molecules apart, scattering herself into light and lifted up to merge into the air above the courtyard as he stepped through the archway.
"Chaya?" He called as he walked into the courtyard. "It's John."
As if he could doubt that she would not have known he was coming, let alone forget who he was.
"Chaya?" He turned to the right, heading for the steps up to the prayer room. "Are you here?" He started up the steps, taking them two at a time as he hurried up their height.
The anxiousness was so obvious to her as it played around the edges of his mind, nervous to share with her the changes in his life.
She knew them though from her expanded awareness. Knew of the woman with dark eyes and powerful fate. The two of them forming waves of change together. A combined force that would help play a part of the great changes that would one day transform two galaxies and more. A love so powerful that it ran through his veins and hung like a cloud of rosy softness around his heart.
He loved another.
"Chaya, are you here?" John called into the empty prayer room and, upon finding no one, he turned back to look out across the courtyard below.
She remained quiet, unnoticeable to anyone in her current form, but she couldn't help but remain close.
Close to the assistance she desperately wanted to provide him.
The temptation to descend into form again niggled at her being, but, in this form, the rush of the need for passionate connections was at least more manageable. And where she could truly feel the eyes of The Others upon her, helping her to keep true to what was required.
Though, she realised, many had turned their focus away from her now. It spoke of an understanding on their part that she was not going to help John, regardless of her current perceptions of indecision. They knew she would keep the shameful secrets of her people; that she would not interfere in the true course of destiny this time. It was in essence an act of approval by The Others, which was something she had not felt in an eternity of time. Yet, it was little consolation for her in denying John what he wanted.
She watched as he descended the steps back down to the courtyard.
"Chaya, are you here?" He asked the open air. "I need to talk to you."
He turned on the spot, looking up around him and through her without pause.
"I need your help," he appealed. "It's not about the Wraith," he explained as he moved across the yard, peering around one large plant into the small seating area where she liked to sit in the morning sunlight. "Or bringing anyone to Proculus. I need to talk to you about some other things."
His new love and his new enemy.
"Chaya?" He asked into the air, his tone slipping into doubt.
She could not help him.
She could never help him.
Even if she were to try, The Others would stop her. But they already knew there was no need.
He moved to the wooden bench in the sun and sat down. He let out a sigh as he glanced round at the items she had left near the bench. Her tools for adding new soil to the large pots and flowerbeds, and a nearly emptied cup of tea she had been sipping while she had been healing a plant.
She watched him reach out and feel the sides of the cup. She could tell that the resulting slight warmth was no answer for him. Had she just been there or had the sun kept it warm?
He set his elbows on his knees and rubbed his hands over his face, his mind assessing. "I know I haven't been around for awhile," he said into the air. "I'm really sorry I haven't visited. Things have been pretty crazy." He looked down at his hands as he rubbed his palms together. "Maybe you already know why," he considered, "and maybe why I'm here?" He pondered.
He let out a sigh.
"Or maybe you're not even here," he added as he glanced at the plant on his immediate left. "And I'm just talking to the plants." He reached out and touched a deep green leaf.
He let go of the leaf and looked around him. "So maybe I'll just stick around for a bit in case you come back," he considered, but he was almost entirely talking to himself now. She sensed in him the suspicion that her absence was her answer to his unasked questions, but, as was in his nature, he still felt determined to ask and be certain.
She suspected, as he sat back a little on the bench to sit more comfortably, that he would remain here awhile.
But she could not.
She was holding to her promise to The Others to keep to the rules, but she did not entirely trust herself to keep in the truths by remaining close to him. They could not be together and she could not be his informant from within Ascended ranks, providing him knowledge that was not his to know.
Or hers to share.
She drew herself up through the air of Proculus, high up above the temple's courtyard, John becoming a tiny speck of a dot in the landscape. It helped her a little, but she knew she would be vividly aware of him for every second he was on her world.
But, for now, she floated away, spreading her awareness across the land, seeking out those that she could actually actively help.
0000
TBC