Sam had the added problem of the skirt (which she´d come to hate very
quickly). Still, every single one of them except the girl had a very hard
time climbing down the mountain. In Daniel´s case it was because he didn´t
really have much experience in climbing down steep cliffs with nothing to
hold him there except the strength of his own hands, in Teal´c´s case it
was because he found it awkward to carry both an uncomfortable pack and his
staff weapon, in Sam´s case it was the skirt and in O´Neill´s case it was
just the pace the girl kept them at. She didn´t stop and she didn´t wait
for them, the most she ever did was call up to them to hurry up. In any
case, they made it down in one piece and in less than an hour; however,
their problems did not end with the rock climbing.
At the botton they found the other girl, Iablaka. She did not look any friendlier and she seemed upset that they were wearing the clothes of her people. She didn´t really seem to hate anybody in particular, she simply glared at everyone in the same way, even at Kaia.
When all four members of SG-1 were down on the ground again, Kaia turned and spoke to them, "Now we are down. Now you must look like one of our people."
No one on SG-1 understood what she meant, or rather, acted like they didn´t understand.
"Your shoes, the things around your wrists. You must take them off. Once you are with my people you will be able to wear some of them, if it is permitted. For now, you must take them off."
No one was very happy about hearing this, "Hang on just a second.", it was O´Neill, "Now we appreciate all you´re trying to do for us here but we don´t even know who or what you are-"
Iablaka interrupted him, "We are not forcing you to follow us anywhere. If you do no wish to go, you may stay here and die."
"Iablaka! Chami ta! Ni is kal pa tal bala!", Iablaka kept quiet after that. Kaia turned to SG-1, this time she wasn´t smiling, "As wrong as that was.....Iablaka is right. We are the only ones who can help you. The Stardoor belongs to the Sailen now, they will most certainly have tried to destroy it and bury it by now."
"Wait, they´ll actually bury the Stargate?" asked Daniel.
"Yes, they do not know of the secrets of the Stardoor. They cannot have them, we do not share them. Since they cannot use it, they destroy it or they make it so that it does not work anymore."
"Well, why would they do that? I mean you don´t actually expect someone to come through the gate.....do you?"
"It is told in some legends that the masters of our masters will come forth again. In truth we have little hope of this but, we protect and defend the Stardoors nonetheless, even if it is only so that the Sailen do not learn how they work. Some of our people believe it is a useless task but we-"
"Hang on! Maybe I´m a little slow here.....but how do you know they´ll bury the Stargate?" Everyone turned to O´Neill. He shrugged, "What? It´s just a question."
"They have done so before." With that statement all eyes turned back to Kaia. Daniel was the first to speak.
"They´ve done so before? They´ve actually buried other Stargates?"
"Yes. With this one it will be three. If we continue loosing this war, soon, we will not have to worry about guarding any Stardoors at all."
"Wait.....there are more?"
"Yes. There is still one more. There were in the beginning four, one in the very Sail, one to the very Nok, one in Estla and one in Westla." She pointed North, South, East and West, "The Sail Stardoor was destroyed long ago by the Sailen people, the one in the Westla was lost when I was a child and Estla was taken today. Only Nok remains."
Daniel´s mind was racing, "Why would there be four Stargates on a single planet?"
"It was so the masters of our masters would be able to hide us better from their enemies. So they would believe we were all divided in different planets." She smiled and looked at Iablaka, who didn´t seem any happier, "At least that is what legend tells us."
Now all memebers of SG-1 were really confused, but Daniel, as always, somehow seemed to turn his confusion into curiosity and started spitting out questions, "So you weren´t originally from this planet? You were brought here?"
"Yes. By the masters of our masters."
"Okey.....and who are these masters of your masters?"
"We do not know. Few of our own masters remember. We do know they brought us here, they ordered our masters to do so. Even the Sailen, so that we would not perish."
"You mean the Sailen weren´t always your enemies?"
"No, they have always been our enemies, but we cannot survive without them, just as they cannot go on without us." Kaia noticed the looks of the strangers, "The light cannot be light without the dark, the shade cannot exist without the sun-"
"Good cannot exist without evil." Finished Daniel.
"And viceversa." Added Sam. Everyone started at her, this time she was the one who shrugged.
Kaia smiled and nodded before continuing, "We cannot stay here any longer, it is not safe. We are far from where the battle took place but these are still the Border Lands, no one will fight here, but the enemy may still see us all."
"The Border Lands?" asked Daniel. O´Neill answered his question as soon as he was done making it.
"No man´s land.....it´s the border between two enemy territories."
"Yeah I know what it means.....I´m just....."
"Confused?" Daniel threw an annoyed look O´Neill´s way. He ignored it and turned to Kaia, "All right, say we do believe you and we actually go with you. How do we know you can get us back?"
"There is still the fourth! And maybe if you learned to be quiet and listen instead of deny any of this is real, you could get back to your world and we could be rid of you." Iablaka hadn´t meant to actually say that out loud, but sometimes it got too hard for her to keep her mouth shut. Before any of the four humans had any time to react, Kaia had grabbed Iablaka by the collar and had pulled her off the horse. Iablaka couldn´t say she was surprised to hear what her teacher said.
"You go to far child! It seems you know nothing, and the only one who has proven inept is you." She let her up, "You will go ahead of us, without the horse. You go and give warning of our arrival, and if I learn you disrespect our guests again I will have you taken to the nearest human village and you will not come back. You best learn quickly Iablaka, as you are now, you are a shame to the Padeos." Iablaka stared at the ground and mumbled something in their language, then, without looking back at SG-1 she started running away. Just before the path went into the woods a cloud surrounded her. The cloud took the form of a red dragon, and she took off. Kaia didn´t stare at her long. She turned to the others, all anger gone, "Now, you must do as I asked, please. No harm will come to you if the Sailen believe you are one of our own." She took a step back and got on one of the horses, there were three of them, "You may take some time to decide, but not too much."
Daniel, Sam and Teal´c turned to O´Neill. He didn´t like the situation, he didn´t like to be told what to do and he didn´t like to hide. On the other hand, the girl had saved them all, and she seemed genuinly concerned for them. He didn´t know what to say, but he knew he didn´t have to wait long, before thirty seconds had gone by Daniel was already complaining.
"Jack this could be a great opportunity. I mean, imagine the possibilites, we´re talking about four Stargates in one planet. We´re talking about people who actually live with dragons, real life dragons! We can´t just pass this up, I mean, did you notice how they´re not surprised we came through the Stargate, and.....and did you notice how they don´t think we´re Goa´uld or that we´re gods? I mean this is.....amazing.....besides, we´re pretty much stuck here unless they help us-"
"If what they told us is true."
"Well what do you suggest then? We have no idea where we are or where we came from. So we should just what, start walking, hope we bump into the Sailen people and that they take us to the Stargate?"
"No, that´s not what I said.....I just think it´s too soon to be trusting a couple of girls."
Not amazingly, Sam chose this very moment to join the discussion, "Sir with all due respect, they did save us. I mean, I think Daniel is right, they do seem honestly concerned about us and they save our lives."
"Saved us? From what? Did you see who attacked us?"
"No sir, but don´t you think that if they had wanted to kill us, they wouldn´t of gone through all the trouble of getting us here?"
O´Neill knew this was a fight he could not win, but he wasn´t ready to give in yet, "Look I´m not questioning their good intentions either, but I gotta wonder about their abilities to help us. Their just girls."
"They certainly seemed to handle the situation by the Stargate well enough."
O´Neill turned to Teal´c, "Did you have to bring that up?" Teal´c only looked back. O´Neill was finally ready to give in, "Fine, we´ll go."
Kaia brought the other two horse over to them, "Good," she said, "then you will, like I asked, remove the rest of your things and follow me. It is a three day ride to my land, but we will stop tonight on the borders of the Niseos, they will help us gladly." She waited until SG-1 did as they had been told.
It wasn´t easy to move around completely barefoot, and it was a hell of a thing to try to get on top of the horses. Since there were only two, they had to share. After a few minutes, Kaia got off her horse and helped them up theirs. It goes without saying that SG-1 felt very, very much like outsiders. When they were finally on (and wondering how they were to stay on, seeing as how there was no equipment except for a thin cloth and some reigns which didn´t quite seem to reach the mouth of the horse, only the muzzle) they set out. Kaia had insisted that O´Neill had to lead one of the horses, only because he was the leader of the group. She had also insisted that Daniel lead the other, simply because Teal´c would be suspected of many things and it was best if he didn´t seem in charge of anything or anyone in particular. After that, Kaia had put Sam up behind O´Neill, because the horse was slower and could not bear Teal´c and another rider. The Jaffa rode behind Daniel, on a shorter horse but definitely more willing to carry all the extra weight. Kaia led the way, she guided the horse easily and almost didn´t need to use the reigns. Just before they entered the treeline she hung back and waited for O´Neill to catch up to her, a second before she let her horse run wild she said to him, "I am not a girl."
At the botton they found the other girl, Iablaka. She did not look any friendlier and she seemed upset that they were wearing the clothes of her people. She didn´t really seem to hate anybody in particular, she simply glared at everyone in the same way, even at Kaia.
When all four members of SG-1 were down on the ground again, Kaia turned and spoke to them, "Now we are down. Now you must look like one of our people."
No one on SG-1 understood what she meant, or rather, acted like they didn´t understand.
"Your shoes, the things around your wrists. You must take them off. Once you are with my people you will be able to wear some of them, if it is permitted. For now, you must take them off."
No one was very happy about hearing this, "Hang on just a second.", it was O´Neill, "Now we appreciate all you´re trying to do for us here but we don´t even know who or what you are-"
Iablaka interrupted him, "We are not forcing you to follow us anywhere. If you do no wish to go, you may stay here and die."
"Iablaka! Chami ta! Ni is kal pa tal bala!", Iablaka kept quiet after that. Kaia turned to SG-1, this time she wasn´t smiling, "As wrong as that was.....Iablaka is right. We are the only ones who can help you. The Stardoor belongs to the Sailen now, they will most certainly have tried to destroy it and bury it by now."
"Wait, they´ll actually bury the Stargate?" asked Daniel.
"Yes, they do not know of the secrets of the Stardoor. They cannot have them, we do not share them. Since they cannot use it, they destroy it or they make it so that it does not work anymore."
"Well, why would they do that? I mean you don´t actually expect someone to come through the gate.....do you?"
"It is told in some legends that the masters of our masters will come forth again. In truth we have little hope of this but, we protect and defend the Stardoors nonetheless, even if it is only so that the Sailen do not learn how they work. Some of our people believe it is a useless task but we-"
"Hang on! Maybe I´m a little slow here.....but how do you know they´ll bury the Stargate?" Everyone turned to O´Neill. He shrugged, "What? It´s just a question."
"They have done so before." With that statement all eyes turned back to Kaia. Daniel was the first to speak.
"They´ve done so before? They´ve actually buried other Stargates?"
"Yes. With this one it will be three. If we continue loosing this war, soon, we will not have to worry about guarding any Stardoors at all."
"Wait.....there are more?"
"Yes. There is still one more. There were in the beginning four, one in the very Sail, one to the very Nok, one in Estla and one in Westla." She pointed North, South, East and West, "The Sail Stardoor was destroyed long ago by the Sailen people, the one in the Westla was lost when I was a child and Estla was taken today. Only Nok remains."
Daniel´s mind was racing, "Why would there be four Stargates on a single planet?"
"It was so the masters of our masters would be able to hide us better from their enemies. So they would believe we were all divided in different planets." She smiled and looked at Iablaka, who didn´t seem any happier, "At least that is what legend tells us."
Now all memebers of SG-1 were really confused, but Daniel, as always, somehow seemed to turn his confusion into curiosity and started spitting out questions, "So you weren´t originally from this planet? You were brought here?"
"Yes. By the masters of our masters."
"Okey.....and who are these masters of your masters?"
"We do not know. Few of our own masters remember. We do know they brought us here, they ordered our masters to do so. Even the Sailen, so that we would not perish."
"You mean the Sailen weren´t always your enemies?"
"No, they have always been our enemies, but we cannot survive without them, just as they cannot go on without us." Kaia noticed the looks of the strangers, "The light cannot be light without the dark, the shade cannot exist without the sun-"
"Good cannot exist without evil." Finished Daniel.
"And viceversa." Added Sam. Everyone started at her, this time she was the one who shrugged.
Kaia smiled and nodded before continuing, "We cannot stay here any longer, it is not safe. We are far from where the battle took place but these are still the Border Lands, no one will fight here, but the enemy may still see us all."
"The Border Lands?" asked Daniel. O´Neill answered his question as soon as he was done making it.
"No man´s land.....it´s the border between two enemy territories."
"Yeah I know what it means.....I´m just....."
"Confused?" Daniel threw an annoyed look O´Neill´s way. He ignored it and turned to Kaia, "All right, say we do believe you and we actually go with you. How do we know you can get us back?"
"There is still the fourth! And maybe if you learned to be quiet and listen instead of deny any of this is real, you could get back to your world and we could be rid of you." Iablaka hadn´t meant to actually say that out loud, but sometimes it got too hard for her to keep her mouth shut. Before any of the four humans had any time to react, Kaia had grabbed Iablaka by the collar and had pulled her off the horse. Iablaka couldn´t say she was surprised to hear what her teacher said.
"You go to far child! It seems you know nothing, and the only one who has proven inept is you." She let her up, "You will go ahead of us, without the horse. You go and give warning of our arrival, and if I learn you disrespect our guests again I will have you taken to the nearest human village and you will not come back. You best learn quickly Iablaka, as you are now, you are a shame to the Padeos." Iablaka stared at the ground and mumbled something in their language, then, without looking back at SG-1 she started running away. Just before the path went into the woods a cloud surrounded her. The cloud took the form of a red dragon, and she took off. Kaia didn´t stare at her long. She turned to the others, all anger gone, "Now, you must do as I asked, please. No harm will come to you if the Sailen believe you are one of our own." She took a step back and got on one of the horses, there were three of them, "You may take some time to decide, but not too much."
Daniel, Sam and Teal´c turned to O´Neill. He didn´t like the situation, he didn´t like to be told what to do and he didn´t like to hide. On the other hand, the girl had saved them all, and she seemed genuinly concerned for them. He didn´t know what to say, but he knew he didn´t have to wait long, before thirty seconds had gone by Daniel was already complaining.
"Jack this could be a great opportunity. I mean, imagine the possibilites, we´re talking about four Stargates in one planet. We´re talking about people who actually live with dragons, real life dragons! We can´t just pass this up, I mean, did you notice how they´re not surprised we came through the Stargate, and.....and did you notice how they don´t think we´re Goa´uld or that we´re gods? I mean this is.....amazing.....besides, we´re pretty much stuck here unless they help us-"
"If what they told us is true."
"Well what do you suggest then? We have no idea where we are or where we came from. So we should just what, start walking, hope we bump into the Sailen people and that they take us to the Stargate?"
"No, that´s not what I said.....I just think it´s too soon to be trusting a couple of girls."
Not amazingly, Sam chose this very moment to join the discussion, "Sir with all due respect, they did save us. I mean, I think Daniel is right, they do seem honestly concerned about us and they save our lives."
"Saved us? From what? Did you see who attacked us?"
"No sir, but don´t you think that if they had wanted to kill us, they wouldn´t of gone through all the trouble of getting us here?"
O´Neill knew this was a fight he could not win, but he wasn´t ready to give in yet, "Look I´m not questioning their good intentions either, but I gotta wonder about their abilities to help us. Their just girls."
"They certainly seemed to handle the situation by the Stargate well enough."
O´Neill turned to Teal´c, "Did you have to bring that up?" Teal´c only looked back. O´Neill was finally ready to give in, "Fine, we´ll go."
Kaia brought the other two horse over to them, "Good," she said, "then you will, like I asked, remove the rest of your things and follow me. It is a three day ride to my land, but we will stop tonight on the borders of the Niseos, they will help us gladly." She waited until SG-1 did as they had been told.
It wasn´t easy to move around completely barefoot, and it was a hell of a thing to try to get on top of the horses. Since there were only two, they had to share. After a few minutes, Kaia got off her horse and helped them up theirs. It goes without saying that SG-1 felt very, very much like outsiders. When they were finally on (and wondering how they were to stay on, seeing as how there was no equipment except for a thin cloth and some reigns which didn´t quite seem to reach the mouth of the horse, only the muzzle) they set out. Kaia had insisted that O´Neill had to lead one of the horses, only because he was the leader of the group. She had also insisted that Daniel lead the other, simply because Teal´c would be suspected of many things and it was best if he didn´t seem in charge of anything or anyone in particular. After that, Kaia had put Sam up behind O´Neill, because the horse was slower and could not bear Teal´c and another rider. The Jaffa rode behind Daniel, on a shorter horse but definitely more willing to carry all the extra weight. Kaia led the way, she guided the horse easily and almost didn´t need to use the reigns. Just before they entered the treeline she hung back and waited for O´Neill to catch up to her, a second before she let her horse run wild she said to him, "I am not a girl."
