DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters from 'Stargate: Atlantis'. They're not my property.
Author's note: Thank you to those who nominated 'Bronze' at the Stargate Fan Awards. :)
She managed to sneak into the large oval room and run up to the white stone with a black image of a cat painted on it. Her small hands gripped the smooth edge as she tried to see above it. She was unsuccessful as the table was too high for her. Two large, green eyes – with one floating above the other, from the little girl's view – then appeared. They belonged to an older man with thin black beard and a tame smile. "What are you doing here?" he asked her.
"I want to watch!" the little voice said.
The older man chuckled. "You are still young."
"No, I am not!" the girl objected.
Her father shook his head and then took her hand. "You can observe when you are older," he told her and led her to a woman close to his age. The woman had waist-long brown hair decorated with tiny diamond-like pins which held a silk veil that fell behind her shoulders; her medium-sized body was wrapped in bright, red silk dress with a tame image of a feline and the sun woven into it, close to the edges of the dress which had small green jellyfish woven on it.
The woman smiled warmly down at her daughter and took her with a hand that had a black feline in battle tattooed on it. "Come now," she gently told her daughter and led her back to the leaf-shaped exit where two soldiers stood. The young men had gray and white woolen clothing that covered almost their entire bodies; a sword hung from their waists, which they guarded with a hand that carried a small ring on the middle finger.
She looked back to see the older man sit down on a chair just before the doors opened where men of different appearance entered.
When Elizabeth opened her eyes, she saw a pigeon fly past her window, its silhouette almost surreal in the briefness before the strong rays of the sun. She mumbled, wanting to bury her face in the pillow. A thought of memory then struck her that she had an appointment in a few hours. Elizabeth rolled over on her back and then began to slowly open and close her eyes, to adjust herself for the new morning. Yet another dream. One of many….
It had been four months since Elizabeth returned from Delonia almost empty-handed. The throbbing headache had made her trip back home nearly nightmarish, and she almost missed her second plane – for which she would have had to take another flight that was four hours longer. Once again she slept very little and by the time she arrived in her nice apartment and her nice bed, she simply crashed on it, not bothering with anything else before doing so, except to lock the door.
The stubborn headache persisted and she had to arrange appointments with several doctors with hope that someone could explain to her what was causing it. She was not given any other answer besides the usual "No, you seem fine," response.
For the first two weeks – the amount of time that the headache lasted, and drove her nearly insane – Elizabeth could do very little work and it was frustrating. After the pain finally ceased, she could get to work and document what she had seen… almost. While writing one morning, Elizabeth was sadly reminded of the lack of evidence to endorse what had been discovered, particularly the Juliana incident in the City. The only solid piece of proof she had had been the one, as Elizabeth glanced over at the shelf where many of her books were, of that warrior's helmet; however, that was something she decided to keep for herself for some reason. The lukewarm greeting she received from her colleagues back home wasn't very encouraging either, despite them knowing the usual hostility from the Delonian government where the assistance of foreign archeologists was concerned. Elizabeth's previous reputation had taken a slight bent afterwards. As a result, the information that the Delonian authorities were willing to share after with the team from the Toronto institute was even scarcer than before.
She increased the volume of the small speakers in her bathroom. Music always helped for this boring task of lady business to pass a little quicker for her as she began moving her razor against the shaving-gel-covered leg. The music that came out from the small gray speakers was an odd mix of several native instruments such as a wooden flute and small drums. It had been a CD she had bought in Kroleva shortly before her departure. Occasionally Elizabeth would listen to the recordings of old, folk melodies and songs that she collected from the various countries she had been to, but this one CD occupied her stereos much more frequently. It wasn't something to which she gave a thought, but these sounds were the kind she craved to listen to. Each time she would play the compilation, Elizabeth felt like she was listening to a familiar sound that she had once known and deeply missed. It relaxed her.
Her cell phone rang yet again. And yet again she noticed a number from…Turkey? "Hello," she answered the call.
At first there were some muffed voices as if the person on the other side was speaking to other people in the room. "Oh, hey, Elizabeth!" the male voice then said.
It sounded familiar but she wasn't quite certain. "Yes?"
"It's –" The introduction was briefly interrupted by someone calling the man in broken English: "Dr. Jefferson, was this the script?" Some noises of shuffling pieces of paper followed before the doctor gave confirmation to the question.
"Freddie?" Elizabeth was surprised.
"Yeah, it's me," Freddie Jefferson replied. "Did I call at a bad time?"
"Uh…" Elizabeth stared at the green razor that she held in her hand before glancing down at her half-shaven left leg. "No, no." She decided to continue her work and getting rid of those hairs whilst speaking to her friend. "It's been a while. How are you?"
"Oh, busy, very busy."
"Still in Ephesus?"
"Yeah, uh, look, we discovered something very unusual beneath a new hall."
"What is it?"
"It's…well, it looks like ancient Krolevian."
The razor stopped. "Krolevian? In Ephesus?"
"I was as surprised as you. Quite understandably it's older but…"
"What is it exactly?"
"Well…we found it on this closed entrance. Not sure if it's possibly a tomb… I thought maybe you could have a look at the writings."
"Sure." The lack of attention to her leg, however, resulted in her accidentally cutting her skin. "Ow! Damn it!"
"What happened?"
"Nothing, I just -… Never mind." She quickly attended to her tiny cut.
"I'll send the pictures by e-mail. Hopefully you can make out what they mean…Really unexpected."
"Just by hearing this, I agree." Finally she dried her skin and exited the bathroom. Rushing into the small room where a blue-and-white desk with a laptop had been. Elizabeth sat down, in her underwear, still with a towel in her left hand whilst holding the cell phone with her right.
"Did you get them?" he asked.
"Wait…" Elizabeth logged into her account where a new message was waiting in her inbox. She clicked on it and surely enough, it was an email from Freddie. The ten high-resolution images were downloaded immediately. "Yeah, I did." The first picture that popped onto the screen was of an underground, sealed, stone entrance surrounded by – strangely enough – red rock. There were no painted images except pale white letters around the square entrance. "Wow. I'll give you a call if I have anything."
"Okay, thanks, Elizabeth."
When the connection ended, Elizabeth began to view the digital photographs curiously. As she zoomed in on some, her chin resting on her hand, Elizabeth quickly grabbed a notepad and pen next to the laptop without even having to look with her eyes for them. She had done it too many times.
She then began writing down the letters, whilst her heart's pace increased slightly due to some strange kick of excitement over this. She narrowed her eyes at some of the letters. It had been a dialect similar to the one in which the 'instructions' in that large chamber with traps in the Bronze City were written. The strong sunlight that fell through the window on the right wall illuminated most of the table without touching the laptop. Usually the translation to an ancient Krolevian text would be twice as long as the original because their choice of wording a sentence had a habit of being odd, but this time, it appeared shorter and easier to understand for her. Elizabeth was perplexed by the speed of this when she wrote down her translation of the first sentence. "Travel far away from the net of the past." She was about to begin on the second sentence when Elizabeth accidentally glanced at the clock on her desktop. "Shit." She then looked at her wristwatch and saw the same time. Saving her documents, Elizabeth made a few quick clicks before shutting down her laptop. She placed the notepad between two thick books and then hurried to her bedroom to get dressed. Elizabeth had promised her friend Dr. Edmond to be a guest lecturer during her class this morning.
Elizabeth pressed the button and the slide changed to a picture of a simple bronze box with engravings. "As you can see here…" She pointed to the writings on the lid. "This was a box in which a special scroll… the treaty, we believe, would be placed, before being taken to the other leaders of the tribes to be signed. This one is from the fourth dynasty…as you can tell by the symbol of the sun in a feline jaw – their symbol at the time." She pressed the button again and the picture changed with one of a pillar showing a serpent wrapped around a black feline. "Now this…" Her thought then suddenly ceased. "This pillar –" Elizabeth stared at the image on the scene – one she had seen and explained many times before – without being able to continue her sentence. "Um, this is a…" She then pressed her lips and looked down at her notes, alarmed at the sudden stoppage of thought, especially one repeated countless times before. In the darkened classroom, a cough was heard as all eyes were on this archeologist. Elizabeth looked at her audience of young students, all waiting to hear her explanation, but she had nothing to say. The fifth time this sudden stoppage occurred during her lecture here. Even the professor who watched by the entrance was puzzled by this. Dr. Elizabeth Weir was usually a wonderful lecturer, almost an expert on the largely unknown Ancient Krolevian culture. This was somewhat unusual.
Some hours later, Elizabeth sat down in the chair in the office of her friend and colleague Dr. Laura Edmond. The 45-year-old woman with curly black hair and a youthful face set down her cup of tea. She pressed her glasses up and then chuckled. "Oh, Elizabeth what did you expect from them? They just wait for you to make one little mistake and be all over you like a pack of dogs. They've always been like that."
Elizabeth smirked to this. "Oh trust me, I know."
"Professional jealousy can be nasty. That Thomson still can't get over the fact that you were right about the astrological map being of Krolevian origin and not Roman." Laura watched her friend as she leaned back. "So the bastards will gloat over your little mistake with the Bronze City for a while, so what?"
"It's not what I'm worried about, Laura."
"You mean the funding?"
"Yes."
"They won't go that far."
"Maybe, but –"
"Eh, every once in a while some rain must fall. We'll find others."
Elizabeth smiled slightly. She always enjoyed her friend's optimism.
"And you could always write a book over this. Your PhD and experience could only boost your sales, you know."
Elizabeth chuckled. "You're always bubbling with ideas." She saw her shrug to this and smile. "The fictional story of an adventurous archeologist in the long lost city."
"Who meets a very handsome guide on her way," Laura added with a twinkle in her eye.
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes. "I never mentioned he was handsome."
"With the choice of words you used to describe him? Oh yes you did." Laura saw her friend smile shyly to this.
Elizabeth then noticed today's newspaper on her desk. She took it and saw the headline of yet another peace treaty signed; smiling faces of three men in a joined handshake for the cameras. She began reading it. When Laura called her, Elizabeth only briefly raised her head with her fingers under her chin. "Mmm?"
"What got your attention?"
"Oh…" Elizabeth lifted the page for her friend to see. She then placed it back in her lap. "It won't last more than three years."
"That's certainly a different turn to the more optimistic view you had before."
Elizabeth's gaze remained on the story. "It only prolongs a crisis… it doesn't bring lasting peace," she replied dryly and threw the newspaper back on the desk. Inside, another feeling of dismay began to nest. The books she read, the programs she watched since returning… Nothing had truly changed with this species.
"But at least it gives the people there hope," Laura said.
"For now."
Laura narrowed her eyes slightly, but shrugged it off. "So…what happened to you back there?" she then asked with noticeable seriousness and concern, changing the subject back to the lecture.
"I don't know." Elizabeth shook her head. The lecture ended much sooner than expected, leaving many of the students baffled. Some of the findings she was able to explain with the finest details – something she hadn't truly done before, surprising her greatly – while others, she was simply stripped of any knowledge. She didn't know the cause of it. "It was as if I had forgotten everything on that particular find." Elizabeth inhaled and then held her breath before releasing it slowly. "It's never happened before."
Laura nodded. It wasn't very helpful to her friend when a student asked her about the Bronze City incident and how an expert archeologist like her could be responsible for the collapse of half the city – according to the Delonian authorities. "Maybe you need a break," she suggested.
"I did take one."
"Na-ha. That one trek you did doesn't seem to be enough for you."
Elizabeth leaned forward on the table, covering her face with her hands. "I'm fine, Laura."
"Maybe you just need someone for a while, you know?"
Elizabeth moved her hands away from her face until they formed a small frame for it to lean on them. "If you're suggesting this is the result of me being single –"
Laura laughed. "No, honey, not at all. But, maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to find something more serious."
Elizabeth smirked. "Let's not go over this again." She crossed her arms, giving a clear sign to her friend to not continue the conversation.
"Alright." Laura sighed. "Just saying, Larry and I will be celebrating our 25th anniversary next month.
"And congratulations on that," Elizabeth said.
"Thank you… So, what's your next move?" she asked.
"Got a call from Freddie. Apparently he found something in Ephesus that he wanted me to take a look at."
"Freddie Jefferson?"
"Yes."
"Huh, didn't know the poor boy was still alive," Laura commented to which Elizabeth chuckled. "His theories…" She shook her head.
Elizabeth sighed. "I used to think many of his theories were absurd…."
"Used to?" Laura frowned. "Don't tell me you –"
"No, It's just –"
"Elizabeth Weir – the archeologist who only made concrete theories based on solid evidence."
Elizabeth clasped her hands and said nothing.
"My goodness, what in Heaven's name did you see in there anyway?"
"Um…" Elizabeth played with the white cup. "To be honest, Laura… I'm still not 100 percent sure," she admitted.
It was 7 in the evening when Elizabeth returned home. She made herself a quick cup of coffee and decided to sit down and watch the news, but when she passed the room with her desk, she was reminded of the translations. Hurrying inside, she sat down and started the laptop. Later, she continued her work. As she progressed, her level of excitement increased. Elizabeth grabbed her cell phone and dialed Freddie's number.
"Uh…hello?" he answered with a sleepy voice.
"Sorry to have woken you, Freddie but this…you were right, it is pretty interesting."
"What did you find?"
Elizabeth was silent. "Elizabeth?" she heard him call. "I think I might join you in Selcuk," she then replied.
----
The fresh cool water from the gentle waterfall above her fell on her head, washing away the dirt. She glanced down at her naked body that stood in the clear pool of water up to its waist. Letting out a satisfied sigh she then laughed and ran her hands over her wet hair. The light brown rocks which hugged this small natural pool and thus shielding it somewhat from the curious outside world were smooth and almost radiant beneath the early sun. On some of those higher and flatten rocks to the left lay a large gray feline beneath a shade of trees, lazily watching her master with her head on her paw.
The young woman's hand gently traced an invisible line down her neck and to her chest when she heard a faint sound behind her of a clinking sword and light footsteps on stones. She smiled and closed her eyes. She knew who it was. "Her royal highness is not finished," she said.
"Her royal highness always takes her bath a little too long for her guard's patience," a male voice responded behind her.
She chuckled. Turning slowly around in the clear water she saw a young man with dark hair taking off his armor and then clothing. He then jumped inside the pool and swam over to her. When he was close enough, the young man rose up to meet her eye-to-eye. His hazel eyes bore into hers as he smiled ever so slightly at her. His smooth hands placed themselves on her bare hips and slowly brought his mistress to him. "You are an impatient man," she spoke to him with a husky voice.
He raised an eyebrow as his eyes fell on her lips. "I would not need to be if you would only cease to test me," he dared her.
She only smiled before taking his lips hungrily with her own.
Elizabeth immediately opened her eyes in her darker environment. Blinking a few times, she looked around the seats filled with plane passengers – most of them asleep. She gripped the handle as she adjusted her sitting position and exhaled slowly. The way her dream continued made her blush repeatedly. Even she hadn't been that experimental. Quietly clearing her throat she glanced up and pressed the button above her. Some cheesy romantic comedy played on the small screen far ahead which she didn't care for.
"Yes?" a blonde stewardess with a polite smile leaned forward without disturbing the other passenger on the third seat in Elizabeth's row.
"I would like some mineral water," Elizabeth whispered her request. The stewardess nodded and then disappeared from her view.
Elizabeth leaned back and waited, casually glancing up at the movie screen. When the glass of mineral water was later brought to her, Elizabeth took a sip of the bitter drink and looked over at the night sky through her small window. These dreams appeared almost every night to her. Some she remembered and some she forgot, but they were always from her point of view and each happened in the same or at least around a rich, royal palace.