The Wound

Amaria felt herself sink into a bed of soft flowers. Their perfume smell surrounded her, covering her like a blanket. Multi colored butterflies lazily glided around her head. She felt so at peace here. This planet had always been her favorite to come to. Her guardians had never quite understood why she felt compelled to visit at least once a month. They argued with her that it held no significant importance other than lying around and smelling flowers. They felt that she should be doing more productive activities like training or studying. But that was the reason why she always came back. She often grew tired of spending all of her time working and no time relaxing. When she came here she could forget her troubles even if it was for a few hours. And she knew that once her guardians had been just like her. Enjoying the wonders of the worlds they went to and knowing when to relax. But that was before the war. And before Amaria.

The people here still had their innocence with them. They didn't know about wars or battles. However they knew how to play and so did she. When Amaria stepped through the Ring of Water everyone knew that they were in for a day of fun. With water fights, games of hide and seek and a great meal at the end of the day with laughter and music.

For Amaria it was a striking opposite from home. There the people knew how to kill with one hand and she rarely saw laughter. They walked with authority in their step and stood rigidly with no thought of things other than battle strategies. Sadly Amaria also knew that she had been the cause of half of their troubles. If she hadn't been born maybe there would have been no war and everyone's lives would have gone on normally. But no one knew what would have actually happened if that had occurred.

Suddenly, to her right there was a terrifying scream. All the people around her jumped up and looked around with frightened expressions on their faces. Amaria pushed herself up and started running toward the village with the rest her friends following her. As she looked to the sky she felt her heart sink even more. Great black clouds were drifting in the wind. That meant fire.

As she got to the clearing she looked at the town with dismay. Ahead of her she saw the village in flames. Charred, bloody bodies were strewn on the ground. Some of the villagers fell to their knees with tears streaming down their faces while others just stood numbly looking at their destroyed home. Movements to her right made her jerk her head around just in time to see an attractive man striding toward her. She drew back and reached into her robes for her knife. But before she could get a hold of it a sudden force slammed into her back and knocked her to the ground. She twisted around looked up into the most hideous face she had ever seen. She opened her mouth to scream.

Amaria jerked awake from a hand on her shoulder shaking her. Shefound herself looking up into a pair of blue eyes. She felt her heart racing and sweat covering her face. Herbreath was coming out in short gasps. The man standing over her frowned in concern but he quickly gave her a gentle smile of reassurance.

"It's ok. You're safe now. It was just a dream."

As Amaria tried to get her breathing under control she saw more people file into the room. A man with silver hair, a woman with blonde hair and blue eyes just like the man next to her, another man tall and dark skinned and a bit intimidating, and lastly a small woman with reddish hair. She could feel all of their eyes on her as she studied them.

"Hello, my name is Janet. Can you tell me how you are feeling?" asked the small woman.

Amaria didn't answer. She didn't know if it was safe.

The man with the blue eyes looked at her curiously. "Ummm. Your name is Amaria right?"

She looked at him with a quizzical expression.

Seeing that she was confused the man pointed to himself and said, "My name is Daniel Jackson, "he gestured to the rest of the people around them, "these are my friends, Samantha Carter," the blonde woman gave Amaria a small smile and wave, "Jack O'Neill," the silver haired man, "and Teal'c," the dark man. "We were on the same planet you were on," Daniel continued, "we found you. You are at the SGC on the planet Earth. You were pretty badly hurt. You have been unconscious for almost two days. Can you tell us what happened?"

Amaria decided this was as good a time as ever to speak. She cleared her throat and said, "I'm sorry, I don't know what you are saying."

Daniel felt his eyes grow wide. He recognized that language. He wasn't sure what is was exactly but he knew that he had heard it before but he couldn't remember where. Jack turned to him.

"Daniel, what did she just say?"

"I don't know. I think I may have heard it before but I'm not sure." Gesturing with his hands he asked, "Can you tell us what your language is?"

Jack rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I'm sure she got that."

Daniel just ignored him and focused on the girl. "Let's see. It sounded a little like Latin or maybe Greek, no…" He closed his eyes and tried to focus.

Amaria could tell he was having trouble so she tried to help him out. "My name is Amaria. I come from the planet Ashren. I have come to help you."

Sam looked at Daniel with a frown. "I thought that she could speak English. We heard her speak it on the planet. What happened?"

Daniel sighed, "I don't know. Her language is so complex. When she speaks it seems like it is many languages mixed into one. I can't catch on."

Amaria felt her hand start to itch. She looked down and saw that a white cloth was tied around her left hand. She started to pick at it.

"No, don't do that," Janet said while gently putting her hand on Amaria's to stop her from grabbing at it, "it was burned and it has to heal."

But Amaria didn't listen and pulled the bandages off. The room gasped when they saw her hand. It was perfectly normal. No signs of the previously burn.

Janet took Amaria's hand and felt around it looking for the previous wound. "This was a serious burn. It should have left some scar marks at least but it looks perfectly normal."

They all stared at Amaria with amazement. She just stared right back at them as a smile came upon her face. She now knew exactly what she was supposed to do.