I've very much enjoyed both of these series since they began, including the movies that preceded each of them. I've recently started watching reruns of "BeastMaster," and the premise for this story just came to me one day. I wasn't quite sure how to bring the two together at first, but I am quite satisfied with where the characters led me. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own neither "Stargate SG1" nor "BeastMaster."
Doctor Daniel Jackson was exploring on his own, or at least as much on his own as an ascended being could. He knew that Oma Desala, among others, would be keeping tabs on him. He wasn't planning to do anything that went against their precious rules, so the scrutiny didn't bother him that much. For now, he just wanted to see places and things that he might never have seen had he not ascended.
He came upon a planet that seemed to be very much as Earth might have been many centuries ago, but something about it piqued his curiosity. He could sense what might be an ascended being on this planet, but he couldn't be certain because something was obscuring it. He decided to take corporeal form and explore in a more familiar, human way for a while. But where to start...
There were several structures of various periods in different places on the planet, and the archaeologist in him wanted to visit many of them, but one city in particular stood out to him. It had been abandoned a very long time ago, judging by how completely the forest had reclaimed much of the space, and yet there was something familiar about it. He was certain that the builders of the city had been influenced by the Alterans. Or had they been Alterans themselves? Had the Ancients lived on this planet, or maybe just visited, sometime before they all ascended? He took human form away from the city, so that he could enjoy a leisurely walk in the forest.
It seemed like forever since he had breathed such fresh air, and the peaceful sounds of nature were quite welcome as well. He walked for some time, and had become so distracted enjoying nature that he didn't hear the chase coming up behind him until it was almost on top of him. He jumped quickly off the trail as three tigers ran past him, and then watched as five men with spears chased after them. He had to roll his eyes at himself, because his reflexes had gotten the better of him; neither the tigers nor the men could do him any harm and he knew it.
Suddenly, he heard screams from up ahead around a bend in the trail. It struck him as odd that he couldn't hear any sounds from the tigers. A moment later, one of the men came running back around the bend and ran blindly past him; the man was running for his life in a state of stark terror. Not seeing any sign of whatever the man was running from, or hearing any sounds at all from around the bend, Daniel continued along the trail.
He was not expecting what he saw as he rounded the bend. The skins of the other four men who had been chasing the tigers were hanging from trees along the trail. Seeing that, he understood why the fifth man had run away as he did. But something looked off about the skins. There wasn't any sign of blood, or any visible wounds. It was as though something had sucked everything out of them through their mouths, leaving behind only empty husks.
That's when he saw the girl. Or was she a girl? She appeared to be an adolescent human girl covered in green except for her face, hands, feet, and blonde hair. He thought she might be ascended, but he couldn't be certain for some reason. That's when he noticed her feet; they faced backward. He was about to introduce himself, but she spoke first, and she was angry.
"How dare you hunt my tigers!"
He held up his hands. "No… uh. I am a traveler from far away. I don't know these men. I am not hunting any animals."
"I am Curupira, the protector of the animals in the Midlands. Do not lie to me!"
"I'm not lying," he said, keeping his hands up. "You can see for yourself that I have no weapons."
She walked around him, looking him up and down. "It is true that you have no weapons, and you don't appear to be from the same tribe as the hunters. You may put your hands down."
"Thank you." He motioned toward the hanging skins and asked, "You did this to them?"
"Yes, I did, because they were hunting my animals for sport. I allow hunting for food and skins and such things, so long as the animals are used after they're killed, but I will never allow hunting merely for sport. I'm leaving what's left of these men hanging here as a warning to others."
"I'm sure that's quite effective. I've never been much of a hunter for any reason. May I ask how you did this to these men?"
"I am a demon. I have certain powers."
Was she ascended, or was she… "A demon? I don't think I've ever met a real demon before. Would you be offended if I asked about… um… your feet?"
She looked down at her feet and then at him. "What? Don't you like them?"
"Oh, it's not that. They're actually quite nice, as feet go. I've just never known anyone whose feet were... oriented... that way."
"If anyone tries to use my footprints to either follow me or escape me, they will end up going in the wrong direction. I find this to be quite useful for me," she said with a sly grin.
He nodded and then looked around. "Do you have any plans for me, or may I continue my journey?"
"If you are indeed not hunting my animals, then I have no quarrel with you – yet."
"Thank you," he said, and continued on down the trail, only looking back a couple of times. He reached the city a short time later.
He found some inscriptions that appeared to be in either an older form of the Alteran language that he was familiar with, or maybe just a different dialect, but it was definitely Alteran and he could read it. The first few inscriptions were fairly mundane, but then he found one that mentioned a name he recognized but hadn't seen in connection with the Alterans before: Gwydion. He knew that in Welsh mythology Gwydion was a magician, hero, and trickster. He also knew that Caer Gwydion, or the castle of Gwydion, is another name for the Milky Way in Welsh. He found this intriguing.
Exploring deeper into the city, he found a sealed door. He debated whether to find a way to open it or just walk through it. Not wanting to disturb anything, he chose to walk through the door. The door, or rather a force protecting it, kept him from doing that, however. Just as he was about to force the door, he suddenly had the feeling that he was no longer alone. He turned to find a man standing there. He appeared to be old enough to be Daniel's father, was wearing red robes, and had long, dark hair. He got the same kind of feeling from the man that he had gotten from Curupira. Was he ascended, or something else entirely?
"Why are you trying to enter my sanctuary? For that matter, what are you even doing in this city? No one has been here in a very long time, and with good reason."
"My name is Daniel Jackson. I'm an archaeologist. That is, I study ruins and try to learn about those who built them. I meant no disrespect."
"You aren't strictly human, are you?" the man asked pointedly.
Daniel looked the man in the eye and calmly said, "Neither are you."
The man looked at him for a moment, cocked his, grinned, and said, "That much is true, but you shouldn't know that unless you're...?"
"Ascended. I think that's the word you're trying not to say."
"Yes, that's the word. I haven't heard that word in such a very long time. You are human, not Alteran, so how is it that you've ascended?"
"Well, I did have a little help."
The man gave another odd grin and said, "Wait, don't tell me. Let me guess. Oma Desala had something to do with it."
"That's right. Do you know Oma?"
"I do, and I would've thought she'd have learned her lesson after…," his voice trailed off. "Never mind that. What are you doing here?"
"As I said, I'm an archaeologist, or at least I was before I ascended. I decided to do some exploring, and there was something about this planet that caught my attention. It felt like there might be an ascended being here, but the feeling was obscured, fuzzy."
"I've masked this world as best I can, because I am running a long-term experiment here and hoped it would keep the others from noticing. You see, Oma isn't the only one who sometimes... bends the rules, as it were," he said with a small chuckle. "On this world, I am known simply as the Ancient One. I'm known as a very powerful, perhaps even omnipotent, sometimes whimsical being. Some fear me, some worship me, some think I'm merely a myth, some see me as just a magician."
"A magician? Are you the Gwydion I saw mentioned in some of the inscriptions here?"
"Gwydion," the man said with a faraway look in his eyes. "It has been a very, very long time since I heard that name, and even longer since I actually used it myself. Yes, I am Gwydion."
"What is your experiment?"
"I have gone so far as to integrate my entire being completely with this world and everything in it; neither of us can now survive without the other. I do what I must to maintain the balance of this world. You might even go so far as to say that I have become its Supreme Being."
"If you are this world's Supreme Being, then what are you balancing? Are you saying that there is some kind of devil here as well?"
"Yes, there is. His name is Balcifer. He is sometimes known as the Dark One. He is an ascended Alteran like myself, but he is part of a religious movement known as Origin, although he doesn't call it that here for some reason. He and other ascended beings who follow the path of Origin are known as the Ori. They discovered that when unascended followers worship them, the Ori get stronger. That lead them to giving more and more people the option to either convert to Origin or die. Balcifer, however, lusts after even more power than that. He wants to shift the balance of this world to himself, which would, in turn, add my power to his own. I cannot let that happen. I will not let that happen. I will give up my Ascension before I let that happen."
Daniel found the thought of the Ori and what they did disturbing enough, but he found the thought of one ascended being stealing the power of another to be almost beyond belief. "Are there any other ascended beings here who can help you against Balcifer?"
"I've got an apprentice, after a fashion, but she isn't likely to be of much help. Not only is she quite young, comparatively speaking, of course, but she has been distracted by love in the past. I've taken steps to remove the distraction and blocked her memories of him. She still manages to get emotionally involved at times, instead of just doing what needs to be done."
"Don't you ever get emotionally involved, or is that something we just kind of grow out of the longer we're ascended?"
"Of course I do. Not nearly as much as I used to, and I keep better control of it than I used to, but my emotions are still there. Most of them, anyway. I've managed to make things easier for myself when it comes to my emotions."
"How did you do that?"
"There were some parts of myself that became more and more distracting as time went on. I kept looking for ways to make them less distracting, but nothing seemed to work. Then the answer came to me: I simply remove them if they're too distracting."
"Remove them? How? What happens to them?"
"It's quite simple, actually. I create a physical manifestation of them and give them the illusion of a separate, autonomous existence. Oh, sometimes they may still create problems, but my demons are much easier to deal with this way."
"You said demons? I met someone on the way here who said that she was a demon. She apparently killed four men, and left nothing but their empty skins, because they were hunting tigers. Was she one of yours?"
"Ah, that would be Curupira. She is nothing if not passionate about protecting her precious animals. If you had to meet one of my demons, it was probably best that you met her. Iara might've been smitten with you, which could lead to any number of problems. Ketzwayo or one of the others would have likely only been something of a nuisance."
Daniel sensed that something was very wrong, but not on this planet. He reached out to get a better idea of what it was. Then he knew: it was Jack. His best friend, Jack O'Neill, had just died. He slumped against the wall.
The Ancient One moved to grab his arm. "Are you alright?"
"I… I just felt my best friend die."
"I wasn't prepared when I first felt the death of a loved one, either. You should sit down," he said, suddenly holding a chair behind Daniel.
Daniel dropped heavily into the chair. "Thank you."
Neither of them spoke for some time. The Ancient One remembered feeling what Daniel was feeling right now, and he knew that nothing he could say would make any real difference.
After a while, Daniel felt something different. Still wrong, but different. He stood up quickly and shouted, "Jack!"
"What is it?"
"Jack's alive again, somehow. He shouldn't be, but he is. How can he…? I have to go. Something is very wrong, and I have to try to help Jack."
"We all have to do what we have to do. Good luck to you, my young friend."
"Thank you. Good luck to you as well, Ancient One."
The Ancient One stared at the spot where Daniel had been standing for a moment before he himself vanished.
~~END~~
