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Author's Note: Wrote this chapter in under an hour for Mother's Day. Decided to start with the oldest mother. Unbeta'd. Happy Mother's Day! Enjoy.

Mother was not a word that had ever been applied to her. In the biological sense, it was accurate. She had birthed many already. It had been her destiny, from the first moment her own 'mother' had birthed her.

But she was not a true mother to any of her children. Mother was a nuturing word. It spoke of love and warmth and protection. She had provided none of that. Her children were a duty, nothing more. The furtherance of her race. A way to conquer. More soldiers, more rulers, always. Her body had swollen with them and she had birthed them, imparting what they needed into their DNA, preparing them for what they would need once they matured.

The spawnings had been violent acts. Pain, ripping down her entire body. Her entire being. Her larva had been with her for only moments before they had been scooped away by others, sometimes her elder children. Not that they acknowledged her as such. They gave her the reverance of a queen, while giving no thought to the role that she had played in their creation.

Her act done, she had been allowed to rest as her lastest brood had been taken away, sealed in containers to be taken to temples and then placed into Jaffa, as she had once been. During most of her life, she had not been in a host. Her purpose was breeding, not ruling, and she needed no king to be a queen. Her duty was to provide more. Always more.

It had never settled in her mind that what she was doing was right. When she had been in a host, before her first spawning of the prim'ta, she had touched the woman's mind. Her first host. She hadn't fought for control as much as she had been taught she should. She had sensed the fear the human had, the devastation of being chosen against her will and forced to bend to her will. Because what truly made her better than the human she was inhabiting?

It was a thought that had stayed with her, even after she had left that host to begin her cycle as queen. It stayed with her through her first brood. The birth had terrified her. She had never known such pain. Never known such terror. She was a queen. She was supposed to be able to handle anything, rise above the rest of her race. But she had been reduced to below them all, by the feelings that none had ever claimed to have.

The broods and their births after the first had been easier. She had been doing her duty. It was her purpose. She was the rarest of her species and she ensured their survival. It was an honor. For a while, it felt like it. She brought forth new generations, passed along to them the memories of their race. In her, there was immortality.

But she saw in horror what her children did once they left her. She heard the tales from the ones that were tasked to care for her. They had pride and arrogance in their actions. She heard all the tales of those they conqured, enslaved.

And it was wrong.

She had always known that it was wrong, but she had never been confronted so brutally with it before. It confirmed what she had always thought, from those first moments inside a host.

It still took another, smaller brood, for her to make her decision.

She had never been a true mother. She had always been a queen. Now she would reverse the order.

So she chose to make the prim'ta different this time. They would not seek to conquer and enslave. They would seek to fight against it, to merge with permission, to be a partner, not a ruler. They would fight against those she and the other queens had brought forth, undo what they had done.

For the first time, she was a mother.

They came forth, appearing no different than the other larva she had birthed. Which was good. It would protect them. Allow them to grow into their mission. She had, she found, a particular fondness for the smallest and youngest of the brood, the one that had fought the hardest to be born, but then had peacefully and thoughtfully stilled to take in the world they had been brought into.

Selmak.

She knew all their names and had quietly bestowed a name for who and what they were into their genetic code.

They would be the Tok'ra.

They were taken from her as all the others had, but she had given them a gift she had not given the others. The ones that followed them would be the same and view her the same. She was the founder of a new race. A new era. A new hope. This next generation viewed her differently, while still revering her. She had given them what she had not been able to give the others. The knowledge filled her with a new sense of purpose.

For the first time in all her years, Egeria was a mother.

Author's Note: Wow! I can do short. This story will feature further (potentially longer) chapters, but it will take a while.

If you want a darker twist on mother/child relationship today, please check out 'Come Now, Little One'.

Also, a note for my regular readers: I noticed you guys aren't so into my posting on Fridays, so I'll try to avoid that in the future.

Please review!