Stargate SG-0
A/N: This update is only here because of stuff I had already written by Wednesday. Due to various commitments, this is the soonest I could type it up. Definite updates this Sunday and next, no guarantees beyond that.
You have blasphemed the name of the Ori. As punishment, you will spend the rest of your natural lives ten miles from the one whom you love the most. In your heart you will know this, but you will never leave your village. Those who escaped through the Stargate may indeed attempt their mission without interference, for they will surely fail. Solstice is the village you will be exiled to.
You ended that sentence with a preposition...bastard!
O'Neill awoke in his village, Solstice. O'Neill? Where on the flat earth did that come from! Must be another fever dream, he thought. I was sure those had stopped. Javan got out of bed, washed his face, got on with his life, spent in service to the Ori. Alone.
Ten miles away, in a village called Equinox, a woman no longer young, but still with beautiful, long blonde hair woke up crying. Her name was Cherra. She had always sensed that life held more than was to be found within the narrow confines of the village, that there was something more important than spinning, weaving and dyeing, even to a standard that she made the cloth for the village tailor. She had always been a terrible cook, though.
At noon, she went to the village hall, where lunch was served. A new girl, a Gift from the Ori, shouted out "I'm a lousy cook and I couldn't spin, weave or dye if my life depended on it!" Cherra felt truly sorry for this newbie, introduced to all the world – for who else was there but the villagers, and the Ori knew her already -as Genajor. The Ori Gifted new life to the village often, but Genajor was the first she could clearly remember. Cherra had recently had a severe fever, almost died in fact, and it had left her with a badly impaired memory. She decided that she would help Genajor as best she could, ad after lunch they were soon closeted in her hut.
Javan was working hard Fishing to actually catch something wasn't easy, though his innovation of five or six lines all baited in the river had significantly improved village quality of life, as it doubled his intake. Having thus conclusively proved himself the best fisherman in the village as well as the best fighter, he was left to himself. He didn't mind – quite the opposite in fact. The villagers said that Javan's fever had brought him closer to the Ori. It had – he was told – given him ingenious ideas as well as radically altering his personality and affecting his memory. That last, he felt was good rather than bad. He knew that he had suffered some terrible, awful tragedy but he couldn't remember anything specific. Unbeknownst to anyone else – he was the village defender, tough and macho after all – he wept every night for a child named Sam, a boy with short blond hair who was so smart. He felt like the kid was so close – just over the horizon – but knew that he wasn't. Nothing but evil lurked over the horizon. The Others lurked there, jealous of the haven the Ori had created in the midst of Heaven for their chosen people. But Javan had his doubts. He knew that he was doing something vitally important: fulfilling the wishes of the Ori and living his life according to the Book of Origin; but at the same time he knew that this wasn't so. The Ori were only servants of a Great Power who ruled everything, and the servant of a servant was a slave. Javan did not want to be a slave. He felt like – like – like a square peg in a round hole. He'd have to tell the guys that one. It fit some of the Gifts they got so neatly, like that cack-handed lad a few months ago. Clearly an Ori-sent simile. So, life went on. He worked hard all day to try to avoid thinking, he failed, and he cried himself to sleep every night. Maybe this keening grief would fade someday, he consoled himself. Then I won't feel quite so much like Romeo condemned to life in Mantua, convinced his Juliet was dead. One of his wilder dreams, that one. The tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, of the beautiful golden hair... Javan wept, and knew that this grief would never fade. He'd learn to mask it better, maybe even from himself, but it would not cease till Death held him in the sweet embrace of oblivion.
A/N 2: STILL looking for a beta. Anyone? Please? As long as you've seen Nine and Ten so far, I'll accept with alacrity.