CHAPTER TWO
He went down with a yell, an arrow protruding from his right forearm. She nocked another arrow and dropped gracefully from the tree onto the leaf-carpeted forest floor. She straightened slowly and approached him, arrow directed at his head.
"What the hell was that for?" He yelled incomprehensible words at her. She understood the pain and confusion behind the words, even if she didn't understand the meaning.
"Bí i do thost! Bog ar ais!" She crept forward slowly, bow raised, the arrow pointed between his eyes. She gestured with her head toward the nearest tree.
He ceased his movements and tilted his head, listening to her words. "Okay. I know this. Bí i do thost. Gaelic? Gaelach? Tú cainteoir Gaeilgh?"
"Yes, of course I speak Gaelic! What else would I speak?" Her voice was steady as she continued to hold her weapon on him.
"Where am I? What planet is this?" Daniel's curiosity overcame his caution, as he switched to her language.
"Planet? I do not know that word. You are in Aeire. There is no other place." She took one cautious step towards him. "Put that down." She gestured with the raised bow to the P-90 still clipped to Daniel's vest.
He slowly moved his left hand to the clip and unhooked the weapon from his vest, sliding it toward her, beyond his reach.
"Put your back against that tree trunk."
Daniel scooted himself slowly along the ground until his back was against the trunk. She pulled a rope from a pouch that hung from her belt and pulled his arms behind him so they almost met behind the trunk.
Daniel hissed when his injured arm was roughly jerked. She tied his wrists together so that he was unable to move. He closed his eyes and ground his teeth together in an effort to keep from yelling out again.
"What do you have in that pack? Is there anything I can use to bind your arm when I remove the arrow?" She dragged Daniel's pack closer, but not close enough for him to reach.
"There is an emergency first-aid kit that has some medicine and bandages. It's in a metal box."
She dug around in his pack, examining the strange objects, until she found what he had described. She opened it, found the bandages and a tube of anti-bacterial ointment. She held the objects up to him, "Are these what you need?"
He nodded briefly; sweat beading up on his forehead.
She put her bow and arrow down behind her and moved over to Daniel's injured arm. She pulled a short knife from her pouch. His pupils dilated as he realized that she intended to cut the arrow from his arm.
"Um, isn't there an easier way to do that? I mean, can't you just pull it out?"
"The arrowhead is triangular shaped and it would do more damage to pull it out than if I cut it out." She sat back on her heals and chewed her lower lip for a moment. "Do you have any wine or beer? Perhaps if you were to drink something first the pain would be more bearable."
"No alcohol, but there are some painkillers in my kit."
"Painkillers? I do not know this term." Her grey eyes were just inches from his and he noticed her full lips were slightly reddened from chewing on them.
"Um, small white pills. Bring the kit closer and I'll show you."
She leaned over his legs to grab the kit and her long, black braid brushed the black material of his BDUs, spirals of hair escaping from the tightly woven hair. She smelled like the woods that surrounded them.
He showed her the pills and she took two out of the packet. He opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue so that she could place them in his mouth. Her eyes twinkled with amusement briefly as she reached toward him with the white tablets. Their eyes met and a spark flashed between them. She lowered her eyes to the ground, took a deep breath and dropped the pills onto his tongue. Daniel swallowed them dry.
"How long before I can cut?" She backed away from him and avoided his eyes.
"About 10 minutes. You'll know when I start slurring my words and my eyes don't focus well."
She leaned back against a neighboring elm. "My brother has become creative in his quest for the crown. I did not expect he would know how to contact the spirits beyond the cloch ciorcal."
"Cloch ciorcal? Stone circle? We call it a stargate." Daniel brought his eyebrows together as he tried to make sense of her words. "Spirits? I'm not a spirit. You can see that I bleed. I come from a planet called Earth and am an explorer. I became separated from my people and I'm waiting here until they can find me."
"Nothing good has ever come from the cloch ciorcal. Only evil and destruction. Even now there is a man in my home claiming to bring peace and harmony to my people, talking to my brother. That is one of the reasons I have left my home."
"A Prior is here?" Daniel sat up as straight as he could and looked around him carefully.
"Yes, that is what he called himself. I did not trust him. He wished to change the ways of my people without the consent of my father, Roinn Bhinse an Rí."
"King? Your father is the king? That would make you…"
"The Banphionsa." She nodded, "I am the heir to the throne of Aeire, but my younger brother is ambitious and has tried many things to keep me from the throne when our father passes on to the next world."
"Wouldn't your brother, as the oldest male, inherit?"
"No. The oldest child, whether male or female, becomes the next ruler. However, I must be married and have produced a healthy child by my 30th birthday to prove that I am capable. My 29th birthday is only days away, so I have little time."
"I wouldn't think it could be such a problem for a beautiful woman like you to find a willing mate." Daniel was having trouble focusing on her face.
"There are many who believe that they have what I need in a consort, but I have not yet met a man that I could trust with the welfare of my people. All have been greedy and selfish, as is my brother." She cocked her head and looked at him with eyes squinted. "My brother did not send for you to kill me?"
"Wha…? Um, no. I am Daniel Jackson,… a peaceful explorer from… the planet Earth. I've come to learn…" Daniel's head dropped to his chest and a soft snore confirmed that the drugs had taken effect.
She untied him from the tree and dragged him over to his lean-to. Leaving him inside, she went back for the first-aid kit and the materials he had said should be used on his arm. She used her knife to slit his sleeve up just beyond the wound, revealing the arrow imbedded in his right arm. She smeared a little of the ointment on the edge of her knife and around the wound. She moved herself so that she could clamp his arm between her legs, keeping him from moving while she dug into his flesh.
Sending up a quick prayer to the goddess, she took a deep breath and made a small slit on either side of the arrow. Glancing at his face, she saw his brow furrowed in pain, but he made no move to pull away from her. She turned her attention back his arm and grasped the arrow's shaft with both hands. Closing her eyes, she pulled up as hard and as quickly as she could. The arrow came out smoothly, leaving a two-inch wound in his arm. She took another fleeting look at his face and saw that the color had drained from around his lips. She applied the ointment, pulled the skin together and began stitching the two sides together, as she had done many times before for her younger siblings after their mother had died. She placed a bandage over her work and wrapped the long material around it several times to keep it in place.
Satisfied with her work, she replaced the things in his kit. She went back out to bring his pack into the small lean-to. She dug around a bit and found a packet with a long silver piece of material. She shrugged, wondering what it was, and tucked it around him. Going back outside, she gathered twigs to build a fire just out of the opening of the lean-to. She knew the night would become very chilly. She also knew there was a good change he could run a fever that night.
XXXXXXXXXX
Daniel slept restlessly through the night. She kept watch and continued to feed the fire that kept the sharpest of the cold away from the make-shift lean-to. Once, when she placed her hand on his forehead to test for fever, he had called out, "Sha're" very softly. She wondered if Sha're was the woman in the vision she had had.
As she kept watch through the night, she reflected on her vision. She'd always known she had the gift – it was not common among her people, but a few of the women possessed it. She was told that her great-grandmother had been blessed with it. The sight had saved her father's life once when she had warned him not to cross a wooden bridge over a deep ravine. He tossed a rock onto the wooden planks and they had crumbed to dust like a handful of earth, trickling between her fingers to the ground. Several other times it had kept one of her younger siblings from harm, but she had never had a vision of anyone other than her blood relatives.
Sha're must have been very important to this man. She knew the woman had died, but the feelings must still be strong in him for her to pick them up from so far away. She cupped his cheek with her hand again, hoping for another vision to help her know this stranger. She'd never been able to control the visions – they just simply happened. She leaned over and placed both hands on the sides of his face and her forehead against his. She closed her eyes and concentrated on him, trying to pull some hint of his life from him. Nothing.
Frustrated, she pulled away from him and sat back down. It would be morning soon and they would have to leave the area. She knew her brother had men tracking her and it would not be safe to stay much longer than day break.
The man beside her began stirring and murmuring softly. She leaned over and gently tapped his shoulder. "Daniel Jackson. You must wake up now. We must leave soon."
Daniel blinded several times, before keeping his eyes opened. His crystal blue eyes met her steel grey eyes. "Who are you? Where am I?" He tried to pull himself up to his elbows, but the wound in his right arm reared its painful head and he winced sharply.
She placed both hands on his shoulders and pushed him back down. "I am Ashling, heir to the throne of Aeire."
"Ah. Yes. It's coming back. You shot me. Ashling? That means dream or vision, I think. Well, I hope I'm having a dream and that I'll wake up back on Earth in my cozy bed without beautiful alien princesses peering down at me. Although, the beautiful alien princess part is rather nice."
Her lips twitched briefly in amusement. "You must get up. We need to leave soon. The men my brother has sent after me will have tracked me by now and it will no longer be safe here."
Daniel lifted his right arm and examined the bandage. "You did a good job. I think I should change to bandage before we leave." He sat up, slowly, and began to unwind the bandage. She dug into his pack and pulled out the first-aid kit. Moving back to him, she opened the kit and moved his left arm away from his injured right arm. He cocked his head at her, but allowed her to finish removing the old bandage. They both inspected the wound and decided that it showed no sign of infection, so she reapplied ointment and a fresh bandage.
He watched her face as she concentrated on the task. "You look like you've done this before."
She glanced up at him briefly, with a quick grin. "I have six younger brothers and sisters. I have cared for injuries much worse than this many times."
"Ah." He looked around him, groping around with his left arm.
"I have placed your glass circles behind your head. What purpose do they serve? I have never seen such a device before." She finished wrapping the fresh bandage and dug into her pouch. She pulled out a needle and thread and began repairing the damage she had done to the sleeve of his shirt.
"They are called glasses and I use them to help me see clearer. Without them things at a distance are a bit fuzzy."
"Devices like that would be of much use to my people. Are there many such things where you come from?"
"Well, yes. We have mechanical devices to help people hear, to help people move around when they are unable to walk on their own, and many other medical devices to help sick and injured people." He leaned over the back of her head and took in a deep breath. She smelled of autumn - mysterious, rich and colorful. His eyes closed and he swayed just a bit as he allowed his senses to take over.
She had just finished biting off the thread, when she noticed him swaying. Alarmed, she grasped his shoulders and lowered him back down. His eyes flew open at her touch and they both froze. Her heart stopped.
(He was lying on a stone alter, bleeding profusely from a wound in his side. She was tied to a stone pillar, unable to get to him. There was smoke and the cries of frightened children swirling around them. A pale face peered at her from beneath a light grey hood. Cold, dead eyes met hers.)
Bí i do thost! Do not move!
Bog ar ais! Back away!
Tú cainteoir Gaeilgh? You speak Gaelic?
Roinn Bhinse an Rí King
Banphionsa Princess
A/N: These are probably wrong, but the best I could find using an online word/phrase translator. Apologies to any of you who may speak Gaelic. (I wish my Irish Godmother was around now, God rest her soul.)