After their encounter with Arulo, Kaia dissapeared. Stari explained to SG-1
that she was with Chilaviek. They found out no more. Ther morning wore on
and Vozem and Stari took it upon themselves to help the strengers. All in
all, they weren´t bad. Even Daniel started improving quickly as soon as he
was able to access the information in his mind. They had been practicing
for only a couple of hours when Kaia came back. She was silent and her mind
was troubled. She looked at Koshka and Alma and nodded, almost
imperceptibly. The two girls stood and walked in the direction she had just
come from. Kaia´s eyes followed them. Daniel could sense her feelings. She
wasn´t just worried, she was terrified. Vozem came near her but she only
smiled at him briefly and left. Daniel had to know.
"What just happened?"
"We will be leaving soon. She had gone to pray to the Great Dragons."
"She seemed worried about something."
"She spoke to Chilaviek. He´s decided tha Koshka and Alma are ready to fight."
"What? But they´re just kids."
"They are Gyffin and Sabaki and, they are ready."
"How do you know that?"
"Both girls know it in their hearts, so does Kaia.", Vozem turned to Daniel, "She would have them stay behind, if she could. It is not up to her. If they win honor in this battle they will be free to return to their people, would you not consider this enough cause to fight? Going home?"
Daniel didn´t answer. Vozem was right. He was fighting to go home. Shortly after that Stari left too, then Vozem. SG-1 was left alone. They were trying to straighten things out in their head. By now, it was pretty obvious that some of the thoughts and feelings going through them had been put there by Kaia, it was simply difficult to distinguish the ones that they´d had before. They were so deep in their own thoughts they didn´t notice the old man, Stari, coming back for them. When they did notice, he simply told them to change.
His clothes had changed. He wore the tight pants and boots, along with a longer shirt which reached down to below the hip. It had a dragon on it. It was red and had enormous wings. His sword hung at his side and the daggers on his back. SG-1 went to change, Daniel looked back before going into the cave. Stari had kneeled down on the grass, his eyes were closed, he was meditating.
Once inside, they noticed Kaia was not there. They decided it was best to leave her alone, for the time being. They didn´t really like the choice they had, but they changed nonetheless and went back outside. The last one to do so was Teal´c. He was walking back outside, slowly when he noticed something: there was a light coming from the chamber under the stairs. He went in, cautiously. He found Kaia sitting on the floor, she had changed and her shirt had an extra line down the sides, it was red. She was just sitting there, staring at the wall.
"Are you allright?"
Kaia seemed surprised. She looked at the Jaffa and smiled weakly, "I am."
"You are worried about the girls."
"I.....in my heart I know they are ready but.....I raised them, Teal´c. I do not want them to get hurt."
"I understand your feelings, but you must trust in these girls to protect themselves now."
"Do you really? Understand, I mean."
"Indeed."
"How?"
"I have a son."
"Really? I did not know." Teal´c was surprised, he had imagined that, just like his teamates, Kaia had looked into his mind. Kaia was quick to explain, "You keep many things secret, Teal´c. I did not wish to intrude."
The Jaffa bowed his head, in gratitude. Kaia took a deep breath.
"So, your son, is he a warrior as well?"
"Yes."
"You must be proud."
"Indeed, I am."
"How do you do it? How do you let him fight? Do you not fear for his life?"
"Indeed, I do but, he is skilled. I must have faith in his abilities to fight and to survive."
"I wish I could have the same faith, Teal´c."
"You do not trust these girls."
"I trust them but, I am more afraid. Training is not fighting, it all changes."
"I agree." Kaia stood and leaned against a wall, crossing her arms, "The first time my son say battle I wanted to stop him. I could not. In the end, he proved to be most skilled and he saved both mine and a friend´s lives, he also helped save the Tau´ri."
"Tau´ri?"
"Humans."
"He must indeed be an honorable warrior, he must have had a good teacher."
"Indeed."
Kaia straightened up and looked down at herself, "They promoted me. I am now in command of all vrigda."
"Congratulations." Teal´c bowed once more. Kaia only laughed.
"I do not know why they did this. Chilaviek said the council approved. I doubt it but....."
"Your people stand on the brink of war with each other. They need someone who will unite them, give them hope, strength."
"I doubt that person is me, Teal´c."
"As you often say, time will tell."
"Fate will tell, Teal´c.....you are right. Thank you, Teal´c."
Teal´c bowed his head once more. Kaia smiled. She took a deep breath and walked out. The sight that met her was impressive: lined up, standing by vrigda, and behind them, the rest of the army, were all the Padeos, Niseos, humans and even the few Gyffin and Sabaki they had managed to find outside their lands. Chilaviek was there, as was Arulo. Kaia took her place next to them. Teal´c joined SG-1, his friends, too, were impressed. Chilaviek spoke, his voice was clear and powerfull.
"The Sailen have taken the Borderland. We come here today to take it back. Never before had these people ventured so far into our own lands, we must show them no mercy will be shown to those who would take us as servants and slaves." O´Neill got a feeling the dragon wasn´t speaking only of the Sailen; Arulo must´ve too, he shifted nervously. Chilaviek continued, "Kaia now will lead the vrigda. She is an honorable warrior, her heart is true and in her head is wisdom beyond her years."
Chilviek turned to Kaia, he took her sword and jamned it into the ground. Kaia bowed in the way of her people. Chilaviek put his hand on her shoulder, "Kaia, do you trust your people?"
"Yes."
"Do you trust them with your life?"
"Yes."
"Do you trust them with the life of the innocents we protect?"
"Yes."
"Do you believe they have honor?"
"Yes."
"Would you die for them?"
"Yes."
"Hope it does not come to that, child." He took his hand away, Kaia straightened up and took the sword from the ground.
"May the Fortunes of Fate, the Wisdom of Knowledge and the Strength of Courage go with you, Child of the Dragons, Steward of the Ancient ones, Leader of Padeos." Chilaviek bowed. Kaia smiled and walked to her vrigda. The rest of the army moved out, without another word.
The Borderlands were less than an hour´s ride away. Kaia went in front, followed closely by her vrigda. The human army marched next to the Chitkina people, but they rarely even looked at each other. They arrived at a clearing, were a great army was already waiting for them. Most of the soldiers were on foot and had weapons that looked somewhat like Teal´c´s staff-weapon. O´Neill had always imagined the actual beginning of the battle would be somewhat more ceremonious: they would trade insults and threats, then they would fall back and get organized and after all that, the –attacking- would actually start. He was very surprised. Kaia simply raised her sword and all the army raced forward. O´Neill felt a little confused but a part of him (the same part that was handling a sword, riding a horse into battle and cutting off Sailen heads) knew that there was no other way: they were there to fight, not to negotiate and not to throw threats in the air.
The Sailen army was much smaller than the Chitkina and human one, however, they still gave a good fight. At first glance, it might seem the Sailen had an advantage because they had fire power, but, they could only fire five shots before having to re-charge their power source, at which point, several Chitkina or human soldiers would fall on them and kill them. The Chitkina never took the enemies weapons, the humans did. It was all going fairly well, death and more death was being spread around and they could all feel the fear of the Sailen people growing. They would be defeated, there was no question about that. Kaia did not know at what moment her vrigda was separated, Vozem was suddenly to the far south of the field, Stari and Alma were east and Sam and Koshka were to the west. She felt fear growing inside of her. She was afraid they would be killed. She suddenly felt a cold blow to her head. It had happened, someone was shot down. She quickly tried to locate everyone, in her head she felt all their prescences, no one was dead, but one of them was hurt, seriously hurt. It was with no relief that she learned it was Koshka. She did not stop to think what she would do, she got off the horse, grabbed O´Neill and Daniel by the arms and started running. The men followed her, blindly, knowing something was wrong but not being able to understand what. They managed to get into the treeline, where she was sure Koshka had gone.
It didn´t take them long to find them. Koshka had run into the treeline and Sam had followed her, trying to bring her back. As soon as they were in the forest, the Sailen had started shooting. Koshka had been hit on the sixth attempt and Sam had managed to drag her under the cover of a large tree. In truth, Sam was panicking, if she´d had a weapon that fired she would of easily been able to covert he girl but, she did not. She had already thrown both daggers, succesfully taking out two Sailen soldiers. It was just when she was about to try to run for help when she felt something. Someone was there. Her head almost hurt because of it, slowly it all became cleared. It was O´Neill, he had someone with him. Two more. She didn´t know who. They were coming straight at her.
She saw them shortly after that. It wasn´t very hard for them to take out the Sailen soldiers: they weren´t expecting anyone to come after these two and they did not have any psychic abilities. There were only about six soldiers holding Sam and Koshka down. Once they were dead, Daniel, Kaia and O´Neill joined them. Koshka was hurt seriously, she´d actually been hit twice. Kaia tried to wake her up but it was no good. The girl was very much unconscious. Sam didn´t know what to say, she had no idea what had come over her. It had been a stupid move, to go after the girl, but she couldn´t help it, as soon as she noticed she´d been running towards the trees she somehow knew what would happen. O´Neill kept looking at her, she kept trying to make this one thought clear in her head so that he would understand. It was hard to tell if he did or not. They were all so wrapped up in their own heads and worrying so much that they didn´t notice the dozens of Sailen soldiers coming their way. By the time Kaia sensed them it was too late, one of them had already thrown a knife.
It is a lucky fact when your enemy is a bad shot. In this case, the Sailen were terrible shots. The knife had been aimed at Kaia´s head but it, in fact, landed on Sam´s shoulder. This was not so lucky. Sam fell to the ground and Kaia threw her own dagger into the trees. Not so much luck for the Sailen people, she was an excelent shot. O´Neill was starting to get desperate, Daniel was starting to panick, Koshka was still out of it and Sam was seeing funky colors from the pain. Kaia was attacked by a solder from behind. She quickly killed him. Another one attacked Daniel, he managed to wound him enough so that he would die eventually. O´Neill managed to kill one and wound another. As the first one fell, O´Neill went to grab his weapon. Kaia stopped him.
"No."
"It´s our only shot!"
"No!"
She kicked the weapon away. O´Neill was beyond pissed. They were surrounded, far away from back up, pinned down and had two casualties. He wasn´t counting on Kaia having one more trick.
The girl looked up, the top of the trees was far away but there were some openings she could make out. She only hoped they were large enough for a dragon to get through.....She grabbed O´Neill by the collar and took a deep breath. Her eyes glowed, a mist came from nowhere. O´Neill suddenly felt a voice speaking to him, although he didn´t understand what it said. His feet left the ground. He was going up. Was he leaving the rest behind? He looked down. Inside the massive claws of a dragon were the rest of the people. The Sailen soldiers were scared, most of them ran away as soon as they saw the dragon, the few that remained tried to shoot it down, without success.
They went over the trees and above the battle. It was almost over. In fact, a great part of the Chitkina army seemed to simply be standing around, with not much to do. A few Salien solders were running away, others were still fighting, those would be dead soon. Kaia led them back to the encampent, were there were already many Healers ready to tend to the wounded. As soon as Koshka and Sam were set down, the dragon dissappeared, leaving both Daniel and O´Neill in an ungracefull heap at the ground. Three girls and a man came over to the immediately. They poured water on Sam´s wound and fed Koshka a plant. Shortly after that, she was sick, but conscious. Sam was carried back into a tent. The knife had made a deep gash that was bleeding heavily. She´d lost consciousness on their way back. O´Neill got up and looked at Kaia.
"Go." She said, quietly. O´Neill ran after Sam. Daniel tried to follow but Kaia stopped him.
"Please, Daniel. Go with Koshka. Make sure she is allright."
"Sam is my friend!"
"Please, Daniel."
"What about you?"
"I need to go back. Find Alma."
"I´ll go."
"You cannot go fast enough! Daniel, please. Alma´s sister if very ill, I need to go find her.....she would never forgive me if I did not."
"What about Sam?"
"Sam will be fine. Jack went with her, do you not trust him?"
"It´s not about that....."
"Please. I only need you to stay with Koshka until I return. It will not be long, I promise."
"What about the rest?"
"They will come when the battle is over."
She said no more. She turned around, the dragon came again and she flew away. Daniel, went to the tent were Koshka was. The girl did not look good. She was half awake and speaking in a language Daniel did not know. He hated this. He wasn´t good at keeping patients company. He sat down on the floor next to the girl, all his thoughts on Sam.
"What just happened?"
"We will be leaving soon. She had gone to pray to the Great Dragons."
"She seemed worried about something."
"She spoke to Chilaviek. He´s decided tha Koshka and Alma are ready to fight."
"What? But they´re just kids."
"They are Gyffin and Sabaki and, they are ready."
"How do you know that?"
"Both girls know it in their hearts, so does Kaia.", Vozem turned to Daniel, "She would have them stay behind, if she could. It is not up to her. If they win honor in this battle they will be free to return to their people, would you not consider this enough cause to fight? Going home?"
Daniel didn´t answer. Vozem was right. He was fighting to go home. Shortly after that Stari left too, then Vozem. SG-1 was left alone. They were trying to straighten things out in their head. By now, it was pretty obvious that some of the thoughts and feelings going through them had been put there by Kaia, it was simply difficult to distinguish the ones that they´d had before. They were so deep in their own thoughts they didn´t notice the old man, Stari, coming back for them. When they did notice, he simply told them to change.
His clothes had changed. He wore the tight pants and boots, along with a longer shirt which reached down to below the hip. It had a dragon on it. It was red and had enormous wings. His sword hung at his side and the daggers on his back. SG-1 went to change, Daniel looked back before going into the cave. Stari had kneeled down on the grass, his eyes were closed, he was meditating.
Once inside, they noticed Kaia was not there. They decided it was best to leave her alone, for the time being. They didn´t really like the choice they had, but they changed nonetheless and went back outside. The last one to do so was Teal´c. He was walking back outside, slowly when he noticed something: there was a light coming from the chamber under the stairs. He went in, cautiously. He found Kaia sitting on the floor, she had changed and her shirt had an extra line down the sides, it was red. She was just sitting there, staring at the wall.
"Are you allright?"
Kaia seemed surprised. She looked at the Jaffa and smiled weakly, "I am."
"You are worried about the girls."
"I.....in my heart I know they are ready but.....I raised them, Teal´c. I do not want them to get hurt."
"I understand your feelings, but you must trust in these girls to protect themselves now."
"Do you really? Understand, I mean."
"Indeed."
"How?"
"I have a son."
"Really? I did not know." Teal´c was surprised, he had imagined that, just like his teamates, Kaia had looked into his mind. Kaia was quick to explain, "You keep many things secret, Teal´c. I did not wish to intrude."
The Jaffa bowed his head, in gratitude. Kaia took a deep breath.
"So, your son, is he a warrior as well?"
"Yes."
"You must be proud."
"Indeed, I am."
"How do you do it? How do you let him fight? Do you not fear for his life?"
"Indeed, I do but, he is skilled. I must have faith in his abilities to fight and to survive."
"I wish I could have the same faith, Teal´c."
"You do not trust these girls."
"I trust them but, I am more afraid. Training is not fighting, it all changes."
"I agree." Kaia stood and leaned against a wall, crossing her arms, "The first time my son say battle I wanted to stop him. I could not. In the end, he proved to be most skilled and he saved both mine and a friend´s lives, he also helped save the Tau´ri."
"Tau´ri?"
"Humans."
"He must indeed be an honorable warrior, he must have had a good teacher."
"Indeed."
Kaia straightened up and looked down at herself, "They promoted me. I am now in command of all vrigda."
"Congratulations." Teal´c bowed once more. Kaia only laughed.
"I do not know why they did this. Chilaviek said the council approved. I doubt it but....."
"Your people stand on the brink of war with each other. They need someone who will unite them, give them hope, strength."
"I doubt that person is me, Teal´c."
"As you often say, time will tell."
"Fate will tell, Teal´c.....you are right. Thank you, Teal´c."
Teal´c bowed his head once more. Kaia smiled. She took a deep breath and walked out. The sight that met her was impressive: lined up, standing by vrigda, and behind them, the rest of the army, were all the Padeos, Niseos, humans and even the few Gyffin and Sabaki they had managed to find outside their lands. Chilaviek was there, as was Arulo. Kaia took her place next to them. Teal´c joined SG-1, his friends, too, were impressed. Chilaviek spoke, his voice was clear and powerfull.
"The Sailen have taken the Borderland. We come here today to take it back. Never before had these people ventured so far into our own lands, we must show them no mercy will be shown to those who would take us as servants and slaves." O´Neill got a feeling the dragon wasn´t speaking only of the Sailen; Arulo must´ve too, he shifted nervously. Chilaviek continued, "Kaia now will lead the vrigda. She is an honorable warrior, her heart is true and in her head is wisdom beyond her years."
Chilviek turned to Kaia, he took her sword and jamned it into the ground. Kaia bowed in the way of her people. Chilaviek put his hand on her shoulder, "Kaia, do you trust your people?"
"Yes."
"Do you trust them with your life?"
"Yes."
"Do you trust them with the life of the innocents we protect?"
"Yes."
"Do you believe they have honor?"
"Yes."
"Would you die for them?"
"Yes."
"Hope it does not come to that, child." He took his hand away, Kaia straightened up and took the sword from the ground.
"May the Fortunes of Fate, the Wisdom of Knowledge and the Strength of Courage go with you, Child of the Dragons, Steward of the Ancient ones, Leader of Padeos." Chilaviek bowed. Kaia smiled and walked to her vrigda. The rest of the army moved out, without another word.
The Borderlands were less than an hour´s ride away. Kaia went in front, followed closely by her vrigda. The human army marched next to the Chitkina people, but they rarely even looked at each other. They arrived at a clearing, were a great army was already waiting for them. Most of the soldiers were on foot and had weapons that looked somewhat like Teal´c´s staff-weapon. O´Neill had always imagined the actual beginning of the battle would be somewhat more ceremonious: they would trade insults and threats, then they would fall back and get organized and after all that, the –attacking- would actually start. He was very surprised. Kaia simply raised her sword and all the army raced forward. O´Neill felt a little confused but a part of him (the same part that was handling a sword, riding a horse into battle and cutting off Sailen heads) knew that there was no other way: they were there to fight, not to negotiate and not to throw threats in the air.
The Sailen army was much smaller than the Chitkina and human one, however, they still gave a good fight. At first glance, it might seem the Sailen had an advantage because they had fire power, but, they could only fire five shots before having to re-charge their power source, at which point, several Chitkina or human soldiers would fall on them and kill them. The Chitkina never took the enemies weapons, the humans did. It was all going fairly well, death and more death was being spread around and they could all feel the fear of the Sailen people growing. They would be defeated, there was no question about that. Kaia did not know at what moment her vrigda was separated, Vozem was suddenly to the far south of the field, Stari and Alma were east and Sam and Koshka were to the west. She felt fear growing inside of her. She was afraid they would be killed. She suddenly felt a cold blow to her head. It had happened, someone was shot down. She quickly tried to locate everyone, in her head she felt all their prescences, no one was dead, but one of them was hurt, seriously hurt. It was with no relief that she learned it was Koshka. She did not stop to think what she would do, she got off the horse, grabbed O´Neill and Daniel by the arms and started running. The men followed her, blindly, knowing something was wrong but not being able to understand what. They managed to get into the treeline, where she was sure Koshka had gone.
It didn´t take them long to find them. Koshka had run into the treeline and Sam had followed her, trying to bring her back. As soon as they were in the forest, the Sailen had started shooting. Koshka had been hit on the sixth attempt and Sam had managed to drag her under the cover of a large tree. In truth, Sam was panicking, if she´d had a weapon that fired she would of easily been able to covert he girl but, she did not. She had already thrown both daggers, succesfully taking out two Sailen soldiers. It was just when she was about to try to run for help when she felt something. Someone was there. Her head almost hurt because of it, slowly it all became cleared. It was O´Neill, he had someone with him. Two more. She didn´t know who. They were coming straight at her.
She saw them shortly after that. It wasn´t very hard for them to take out the Sailen soldiers: they weren´t expecting anyone to come after these two and they did not have any psychic abilities. There were only about six soldiers holding Sam and Koshka down. Once they were dead, Daniel, Kaia and O´Neill joined them. Koshka was hurt seriously, she´d actually been hit twice. Kaia tried to wake her up but it was no good. The girl was very much unconscious. Sam didn´t know what to say, she had no idea what had come over her. It had been a stupid move, to go after the girl, but she couldn´t help it, as soon as she noticed she´d been running towards the trees she somehow knew what would happen. O´Neill kept looking at her, she kept trying to make this one thought clear in her head so that he would understand. It was hard to tell if he did or not. They were all so wrapped up in their own heads and worrying so much that they didn´t notice the dozens of Sailen soldiers coming their way. By the time Kaia sensed them it was too late, one of them had already thrown a knife.
It is a lucky fact when your enemy is a bad shot. In this case, the Sailen were terrible shots. The knife had been aimed at Kaia´s head but it, in fact, landed on Sam´s shoulder. This was not so lucky. Sam fell to the ground and Kaia threw her own dagger into the trees. Not so much luck for the Sailen people, she was an excelent shot. O´Neill was starting to get desperate, Daniel was starting to panick, Koshka was still out of it and Sam was seeing funky colors from the pain. Kaia was attacked by a solder from behind. She quickly killed him. Another one attacked Daniel, he managed to wound him enough so that he would die eventually. O´Neill managed to kill one and wound another. As the first one fell, O´Neill went to grab his weapon. Kaia stopped him.
"No."
"It´s our only shot!"
"No!"
She kicked the weapon away. O´Neill was beyond pissed. They were surrounded, far away from back up, pinned down and had two casualties. He wasn´t counting on Kaia having one more trick.
The girl looked up, the top of the trees was far away but there were some openings she could make out. She only hoped they were large enough for a dragon to get through.....She grabbed O´Neill by the collar and took a deep breath. Her eyes glowed, a mist came from nowhere. O´Neill suddenly felt a voice speaking to him, although he didn´t understand what it said. His feet left the ground. He was going up. Was he leaving the rest behind? He looked down. Inside the massive claws of a dragon were the rest of the people. The Sailen soldiers were scared, most of them ran away as soon as they saw the dragon, the few that remained tried to shoot it down, without success.
They went over the trees and above the battle. It was almost over. In fact, a great part of the Chitkina army seemed to simply be standing around, with not much to do. A few Salien solders were running away, others were still fighting, those would be dead soon. Kaia led them back to the encampent, were there were already many Healers ready to tend to the wounded. As soon as Koshka and Sam were set down, the dragon dissappeared, leaving both Daniel and O´Neill in an ungracefull heap at the ground. Three girls and a man came over to the immediately. They poured water on Sam´s wound and fed Koshka a plant. Shortly after that, she was sick, but conscious. Sam was carried back into a tent. The knife had made a deep gash that was bleeding heavily. She´d lost consciousness on their way back. O´Neill got up and looked at Kaia.
"Go." She said, quietly. O´Neill ran after Sam. Daniel tried to follow but Kaia stopped him.
"Please, Daniel. Go with Koshka. Make sure she is allright."
"Sam is my friend!"
"Please, Daniel."
"What about you?"
"I need to go back. Find Alma."
"I´ll go."
"You cannot go fast enough! Daniel, please. Alma´s sister if very ill, I need to go find her.....she would never forgive me if I did not."
"What about Sam?"
"Sam will be fine. Jack went with her, do you not trust him?"
"It´s not about that....."
"Please. I only need you to stay with Koshka until I return. It will not be long, I promise."
"What about the rest?"
"They will come when the battle is over."
She said no more. She turned around, the dragon came again and she flew away. Daniel, went to the tent were Koshka was. The girl did not look good. She was half awake and speaking in a language Daniel did not know. He hated this. He wasn´t good at keeping patients company. He sat down on the floor next to the girl, all his thoughts on Sam.
