Execution and Revelation

Italic in quotation marks indicates Wraith-ese
My hands are still shaking badly, and now they are bleeding, making it even harder to get my clothes on. Leggings, loose shirt and boots are not a problem, but the lacing on my skirt and bodice becomes fouled in my clumsy hands.

Death is too good, too quick for your kind! It is you who have stalled me these years! Can't you see this is how it must be?

21 deaths I remember as though they were my own. 20 siblings, my mother….wait, 20….that can't be right, I had twenty one siblings…who am I missing?...Gilleasbachan!

Damn these laces!!

I go into the crew quarters, hoping Mum has stayed and can help me, but instead I find Dad, leaning against the bunks and looking…inscrutable.

"Need a hand?" he rumbles, standing up and uncrossing his arms.

Suddenly, all my strength leaves me and I find myself sobbing in his arms.

"I'm sorry, Dad, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" I cry over and over, my voice muffled by his shirt, now soaked with my tears.

"Hey, hey," his deep voice vibrates his chest, into me, as soothing now that I am full grown as when I was a child. "Sorry for what?"

"I'm sorry for what that wraith did to you, I'm sorry for not speaking up when I felt the queen, I'm sorry I didn't realize what had happened to Mum, I'm sorry for not stopping her, I'm sorry for not being quick enough, I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough, I'm—"

"Hey hey! Stop!" he cuts me off, taking my chin in his hand and tilting my face upwards to look at him. I stare into his eyes and find…comfort…strength…reassurance. The fawn pools hold no judgement, no hatred. "I wasn't quick enough either. And I've been doing this a lot longer than you have. So stop beating yourself up!"

I chuckle, and hug him tighter until he grunts and starts trying to break my hold.

"You know," he says, slightly breathless, "You're one of the only people whose hugs can actually hurt me."

"Oops, sorry," I give him one last squeeze before stepping back.

He snorts. "Need a hand?"

I look at myself, and remember why I came out here in the first place. I hold up my hands, to see that they are still shaking violently, despite the voices quieting in my mind.

"Um, yes please," I laugh frantically, and climb up to stand on the bench. I may be tall, but I am still short compared to Dad.

His large, calloused hands make quick work of the laces that frustrated my befuddled fingers.

"There," he says when he is finished. He grasps me around the waist and lifts me down to the floor like when I was a little girl. I feel a sudden longing for those days; they were never simple, and always there were these horrible memories in my mind, but never so stark, so insistent. They were there, but not.

Dad wraps me in a crushing hug for a moment and then claps me on the back. "So, what are you gonna do now?"

I straighten my shoulders and look around for something I can use as a shroud. "I'm gonna talk to the queen. And then I'm gonna…" my voice trails off. I know it is the right thing to do, but I cannot help but feel that in taking this life, I am crossing a threshold that I cannot return from. It will irrevocably change something for me, in me.

"Well, probably better you than me, right?"

I nod slowly, and grab a sheet off one of the beds. I think it's Rodney's actually—he insisted on bringing his pima cotton sheets, since who knows what the ancients used? He could be severely allergic!

"What's that for?" Dad raises an eyebrow at my confiscation of the scientist's sheet.

"Shroud. Do you know if Mum brought any incense?"

"Uh, yeah, I think so. Why?" he points confusedly at Mum's small bag.

"She may have murdered my family, but I refuse to be her's," I tell him as I find two sticks of incense and their accompanying bowl. I pause in the doorway. "Dad, do you think you could maybe, come and watch?"

He throws an arm over my shoulders and guides me down the hall. "Sure. Anything for my baby."

"Dad, I'm not a baby anymore! I haven't been a baby in almost a year!"

"See? You didn't give me time to adjust!" he jokes. "But you'll always be my baby."

Dad watches through the bars of the cell—I have told him to set his blaster to stun. I told him its for my safety—the only reason he'd fire is if she's attacking me, and if she's attacking me and he fired a shot on kill at her, it might get me too.

She is lying on the brig's cot when I approach, looking weary, yet defiant when she sees me. All of me begins to tremble again as the terrible memories she projects to me intensify again.

"Have you come to free me, that we may feast?" she snarls, half-heartedly, as she sits up and locks her gaze with mine.

"No." Suddenly, anger and hatred like I have never felt, never thought a person could feel without burning alive, surge through me, and there is nothing I want more than to kill her. To force her to her knees and watch her beg.

You will bow before me, if you want a quick death!

No. (the voice is so calm! So assured) I will never bow to a traitor.

She nods to the sheet and the incense. "Then you have come to kill me?"

I study her face, her composure—I want to…what do I want? I think I want to know if she is at all sorry, at all repentant. I want to know if she can see her own defeat and face it, or if she is blind to it, is clinging to the corpse of her power.

Her head is high, but her shoulders are slumped. Her sneer is proud, but her eyes are dead. She knows. Even if she doesn't admit it to herself, she knows. She is defeated. Her life here is over, and her life after death is uncertain. She has taken too many lives without giving back.

"Yes," I say quietly, sitting down in the chair across from her. "But first I need to know. What did you do with my brother?"

She laughs at me, a cruel laugh. "I killed him of course!"

I stare at her, trying to remain impassive, like Dad. "No, not Gilleasbachan. You did not kill him."

A strange look passes over her face. A look that terrifies me more than her hatred. A lustful look. "Ah, him. Yes, I kept him alive. He was pleasing to us. Disobedient, but so much fun..." she draws out the last word until I want to wring her neck, watch her face bloat and the terror in her eyes...

I stop myself, but return to the reason I came--to end her life properly. "Are you ready for the journey to the Land Beyond the Stars?" I ask her, beginning the death litany.

She spits in my face. "Lies!" she screams at me. "Myths! Fairytales told to children in the darkness!"

I take a deep breath, willing myself to stay calm…

What makes you greater than her? What makes her less?

My hand is shaking with pain, with fury, with sorrow, sorrow so great I feel it will crush me, as I wipe her spit off my face and light the incense on the floor between us.

"The end of this journey draws near, and a new one begins," I chant softly. For a tense moment, I fear that she will not reply, that the burning embers of rebellion in her eyes will forbid her speak, but at last, she chants back, "One day must end for another to begin, first passing through the darkness of night."

"Along this road, nothing may come, but all is seen…" I begin the second stanza but she shouts "No! Get this over with, you whelp!"

I sigh and nod. I cannot force her to confess or repent or ask for forgiveness, especially a forgiveness I'm sure I'm not sure I'm willing to give.

"As day into night, so we into sleep," I intone and, passing my hand over her face, send her into a deep sleep, one from which she will never again awaken. But as I do, I send one last image for her to take on her journey—the sun setting over Atlantis, while the first stars appear in the heavens.

Death comes to all—even the stars will travel that road. Why would you think you can escape?

NO! Please!

ARGH!!!

Damn you bitch! Leave my children alone!

Two hours—bury the dead and then come to the hive.

Or…?

There is no or.

My mother's words echo through my head, mingled with the screams of thousands, countless thousands, and the threats of the soldiers as I quickly drain the deposed queen of her stolen life. It's…intensity burns my flesh—I feel a darkness, a black sludge creeping in, oozing through my defenses as I drain her of life. No matter how I try, it clings to her life like mould to stone—it pools in my stomach like acrid bile…

No! No, please!

Damn you!

AHHH!!!

"Argh!" I scream as at last she is dead and her desiccated corpse falls away from my hand. I recoil from this horror; a new pain fills me and my eyes swim with tears and darkness while the blackness roils in my stomach.

"Mairghread!"

Dad's strong hands catch me as I pitch forward, away from that abomination.

"She's dead," I choke out. "She's dead. She's dead. Dead at last. She's dead. She's dead. She's dead!"

"Mairghread, hey, whoa!" Dad hold me tightly against his chest as I become hysterical in my pain.

"Oh god," I choke as the blackness surges up my throat and I vomit onto the floor, thick contamination from diseased body and soul. Dad holds me as I retch until it is only dry heaves, and I am empty. Completely empty.

Dad picks me up as carries me like he did when I was a baby, holding me close to him—I can smell the wet leather and linen, his smell; it fills me, diluting the void within—and carries me to another set of crew quarters nearby. He sets me down on a bed, and leaves me for a moment. I lie trembling, feeling death press close on me, the vacuum within me trying to suck me into its darkness, make me implode.

"Here," he comes back with a wet rag from I don't know where and washes my face and hands of vomit and blood. Slowly, I start to cry, tears flowing down my face. Dad holds me, gently rubbing my back, and I sob quietly, for the dead souls and the stillborn future.

TBC

Next: Rescue

A/N: I'm so sorry it took so long to update. My muse got jet lagged and then went into shock when she realized there are no mountains here. I hope to update more quickly from now on.