Excerpt: Joy to be Claimed

Joy to be Claimed

The Ancients were a lot of things. Ask any ten inhabitants of the Pegasus galaxy, or any of the ten people in the Milky Way who knew anything about them, and you’d likely get ten different descriptions.

The Ancients were intelligent. The Ancients were compassionate. They were hung up on their rules, they were unforgiving, they were almost gods, they were people, they were helpful or useless or brilliant or dumb.

Almost everyone, though…certainly those in the Milky Way…would agree on one thing; the Ancients were not good at obeying their own rules. And the rule they seemed to break more often than any other was their most important; no post-Ascension Ancient was permitted to interfere with those still on the mortal plane.

Chaya, in the Pegasus galaxy, and Oma Desala in the Milky Way both broke this law for love of the people who had once been theirs. Mryddin and the woman known as Morgana broke it for revenge, and she was punished; he escaped only through death. And Daniel Jackson, the only person known to Ascend twice and chose to fall both times, broke it because he could not obey it and still be Daniel Jackson.

Too many others to count, of course, broke that law. In ways big and small, for reasons noble or personal, out of boredom or a sincere desire to help they broke it. Sometimes they were found by the other Ancients, sometimes they went unnoticed. Sometimes their efforts helped, sometimes they hindered.

There was an Ancient, young to his people during the last days of the War. When they left Atlantis, shining city of the Pegasus galaxy, to return to Earth he came with them. Earth, though beautiful in its’ own way, seemed small and pale after the wonders of the city he’d grown up in.

They lived on Earth for many years, some choosing to ascend, some choosing to live out their lives with the humans. When the time came for his choice he ascended, but the planet of his birth had faded in his memory and he choose to remain near the planet he’d grown old on.

He watched as the people who were almost his children grew and learned, as they suffered under the Goa’uld and as they rejoiced in their freedom. He saw, as he never really had when mortal, the joys that could be found in the smallest moment; in a lover’s touch, in a child’s smile, in a single flower or a perfect sunrise.

And he saw evils, too, some from within men and some from without. When the dregs of the universe came seeking conquest he arranged their defeat, careful to use only a fraction of his power. The others of his kind had long since left that planet behind, but he knew better than to think himself unobserved.

Five thousand years after their return from Atlantis (and he’d almost forgotten, now, how the sun reflected off the towers to dazzle the eye) Oma Desala came to him, walking by his side through a city like many others on the planet. The world still bore the scars of their recent fight for freedom, but they were recovering.

“Are you ready yet?” she asked.

“No. Not yet.”

Oma nodded, and left him there.

For the next five thousand years he watched as the people of his world grew, progressing faster and faster. Barely two hundred years after discovering steam power, men were walking on the moon, and for the first time he felt a thrill of fear. Men were wondrous, able to think faster than any other race, able to twist their minds through thoughts no other race could follow, and thoughts of what they could accomplish in peace made him weep for joy.

But he’d watched them grow, he knew what they were, and he feared what they could do in war.

When Oma came to him ten thousand years after their exile (and the sound of the waves on Atlantis’ piers was long gone from his mind, now) he was not walking among them.

“Come home,” she urged him.

“This is my home, Oma. These are my children.”

Oma studied the planet. “They will be their own downfall.”

“They will be the fifth great race.”

“Without interference?” she said sharply.

He didn’t answer, watching the planet turn, and she sighed. “The others will punish you.”

He smiled, then, eyes dancing as he looked up at her. “They’ll have to catch me first.”