Aannd new chapter up, Amunet claims her due...Teal'c is forced to watch and
@Knowledgeispower And
@DocSolarisReich probably plot ways to blow up Chulak again.
Scene apropiarte music in the title.
Amunet
Chulak -Bakhu several hours earlier.
This was irregular Teal’c told himself. It was rare to be invited to a bonding ceremony mostly because bonding ceremonies were a very private affair. Only the personal guard of the Goa’uld in question, that Goa’uld’s mate and the Jaffa that carried their offspring and in extremely rare cases the Lotar’s spouse and children were invited. Teal’c suspected that it was due to the fact that the System Lords were ashamed of their ancestry, of their nature as body thieves and parasites. Ra, Anubis and Hathor the mighty founders of what Teal’c still believed was the greatest civilization the universe had ever known laid down very strict rules about the governance of their kind and their conduct.
Peers almost always had access to resurrection chambers and even without them they were virtually immortal and so could keep their hosts alive for thousands of years unaided. So Teal’c knew once a host was taken it would likely be the last host that peer ever took, as to the system lords themselves. Apophis had used his current body since before the dawn of the Jaffa race (Them being in part descended from both his host and Apophis himself). Hathor it was rumored was the last of the System Lords to still retain the Ori she took during the early hours of the rebellion in the heavens. Amaterasu, Athena, Zeus, Izanami, Osiris, and Horus had all retained their original host. No one could say for certain in regards to Ba’al because only Ra knew anything about Ba’al and Ra carried that knowledge with him beyond.
Teal’c was correct about the shame, but there were other far less emotional reasons as well. Most Goa’uld had long given up taking unwilling hosts, either cloning their most trusted Lotar leaving a child’s body but with no developed mind or personality and taking the brain-dead husk. Others took willing volunteers who were severely ill or merely blindly loyal or sought to advance their families through enormous payouts. There was always an element of risk for a young Goa’uld in taking a host for the first time. Those not Peers could find their own personalities subsumed or merged or devoured by the host, which would either result in the death of both or madness or the emergence of a new personality alien to all. All such acts were often confused for compassion on part of the Goa’uld and perhaps to a degree that was true (In the same sense that it was seen as morally wrong to torture animals on many worlds). But it was mostly born out of that pragmatism, a Goa’uld that was several hundred or a thousand years old could keep its personality intact and its sense of self from being devoured but even then, host taking carried risks and no one wanted a moment of profound and dangerous intimacy to be intruded upon.
Even if it was rare for those things to occur, Teal’c knew they did (He’d encountered several hedonistic Tok’Ra who were the result of a host taking ceremony that resulted in mutual annihilation and the rise of a new “self” made from both souls.). System Lords and Peers though? Each one possessed a measure of psionic power, some greater than others and all were fully capable of tearing the host’s psyche apart if they so choose.
Apophis was right; this was a rare thing indeed to witness but he was wrong to call it an honor. No one could be in the room when Klorel took a new host, the process was so violent and traumatic to both parties that the psychic feedback was known to kill Jaffa unlucky enough to be near the room. Hell, Klorel killed himself taking his last Host and somehow revived himself without a resurrection chamber. Something that if Ra learned about he likely have come personally to kill Klorel over. Amunet was likewise, powerful but where Klorel’s low birth left him with a crippled mind it seemed to give Amunet’s psychic powers a fine focus for she was fully able to communicate through her Jaffa as early as twenty years ago when she was still an infant. She was a greedy, ruthless, conniving bitch of an infant and promised to be even worse as an adult for she shared her future husbands more primal urges.
And so Teal’c stood, a grim sentry at the entrance of the personal chambers of the Serpent lord, flanking the entrance columns wishing he was anywhere else.
Apophis sat in front of him, half naked and Teal’c could see the sleek muscle and coiled steel that had once been buried under enough excess weight that it was said to be able to bury a man alive. He was eating something; it was a fried flying beast of some sort. A delicacy from the realm of Athena who frequently sent crates of the bitter tasting meat to
Waset, the throne world of Apophis’ realm. Across the room laying on a bed was poor Shaun’ac, the temple priestess and master of languages and lore who carried Amunet as a Prim’tah. Like most Jaffa given the honor, her original permanent Prim’tah had been given to a younger Jaffa and a replacement now rested in a jar beside her.
Good, Teal’c thought, she needed it badly.
In exchange for incubating infant Goa’uld the Jaffa gained much but the downside to the bargain was that a mature Goa’uld could not continue to function as the immune system and source of the extraordinarily long life and abilities Jaffa possessed. Peers could continue maintaining a Jaffa once they matured through their incredible powers, but it was an exhausting affair and eventually even that would fail. Shaun’ac who was some forty years older than Teal’c and one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen, had clearly gone well beyond the point where Amunet could sustain her.
She looked gaunt, her cheeks sunken in, her eyes surrounded by black bruises and her body was all bone held together by skin that seemed to hang. Her immune system had likely failed several weeks ago, and the sight reminded Teal’c of the time he spent ten years on police duty at
Helios Among the humans and Serrakin (and several other races and mongrel offshoots), there was a sort of wasting sickness that spread via sexual congress or the exchanging of blood. It had taken hold of the largest cities on
Helios like wildfire and Artemis, chamberlain of Athena’s realm was forced to turn to that monstrous bioterrorist
Linea to find a cure. Teal’c shuddered at the memory and finding no peace when he opened his eyes and witnessed Shuan’ac’s labored breathing. -She taught Drey’ac her letters when she was a child, I remember now.- Teal’c thought with sadness.
Sadness that turned into horror when he heard screams and curses, insults heaved in Imperial standard so devolved it sounded like the pidgin Lotar and lesser Goa’uld on imperial backwaters spoke. Her eyes, beautiful green and blue were filled with a mix of hatred, disgust and outrage. She let loose a flurry of words, but her standard was so bad all Teal’c could make out was “parasite” “Whores” “Thief” and “Dead”.
“Do you not see what I have brought you, my love?” Apophis asked as the Jaffa who carried her in stripped her of her clothes and bound her tightly by hand and foot to two columns on opposite ends of the other entrance. She screamed and spat and pulled against the golden chains which now wrapped about her forearms and wrists and ankles, her dark hair falling wildly about her. Apophis turned to her and spoke in Tau’Ri “Is she not a perfect match.”
“Apophis! Warmonger!
Murderer! Let me loose of my chains and I will kill you as we killed Ra!” She bit back in Tau’Ri which Teal’c understood (Courtesy of Klorel) far better than the gutter spoken standard.
Apophis laughed “As you killed Ra? Hmm do you carry a fission bomb inbetween your legs? I would love to see that.. A fission bomb!” Apophis laughed uproariously “Ahh the look upon his face! Arrogant Emperor scribe that he was! The priest king! Undone by a primitive bomb any Jaffa child in his first year as a pupil could build!” A calloused hand smashed onto the cushion and wood as the Serpent Lord wheezed with laughter, a hundred thousand years of resentment, unresolved arguments and bitterness brimming to the surface. “Ah my love, does she not suit you?”
Shaun’ac stirred, her wheezing raspy and a young attendant hastily moved to ready the sleeping Prim’tah in a jar.
When she rose, she nearly fell over. But without aid righted herself and began to walk again, even though the effort had caused blood to leak from lips whose skin had become so thin the act of grimacing must have broken it. He noticed her midsection was enormous, her liver had given out?!
Ja’mah! That Prim’tah had its work cut out for it.
Despite the fact that she resembled a walking corpse from campfire stories about resurrection chambers malfunctioning Shaun’ac carried herself with an incredible amount of dignity and Teal’c was reminded of the nobility of the Jaffa Spirit and of Anubis and the Empire when it was a beacon of light in the darkness and not, the farce he saw before him. She warmed his heart but rekindled the flames of defiance he felt in his soul.
Shau’re for her part gasped at the woman, a look of sympathy briefly replacing the mask of fury and defiance. Then, when Shaun’ac pulled back her robes and revealed the infected slits at the opening of her pouch, the woman groaned.
…
Monster! Shau’re thought. “what have they done to you?” she whispered in Abydonian, until the slits began to move and the sweet yet foul smell from within wafted through the room and she watched as pus and mucus seeped and she did her best not to vomit.
Something was pushing the slits open from within! Her eyes narrowed, focusing, her mind ignoring the disgusting stench to watch with grim horror as what looked like a beak made of four serrated tusks pushed through, at the base of the hideous beak were gill like apertures and eight glowing pink eyes. Shau’re’s eyes widened with a mix of realization and horror as her memory wandered back to the painted mural and the story of Ra.
Is this what they are?!
Fear gripped her as she suddenly realized why she was brought her and she began to struggle against the chains.
Nanei! Nanei! Nanei!
Nanei! Daniel! Jack! Nanei!
Their names she chanted like a mantra eyes closed in a panic until she felt something brush against her cheek and she realized it was the creature! Eyes opened, then her mouth and she sank down into the creature’s side between a hideous wing like hood and flesh and she heard an inhuman screech of agony and something convulsing in her mouth but as she tried to bite down harder, she felt something tear into her brain and her senses exploded in agony. Something had brushed against her mind, she felt it and gasped and the creature pulled back blue glowing blood trickling from small bites wounds and down her own lips.
That’s it! Run you filthy serpent!
Your kind always does that, accuses us of being snake like..though we are more mammal than reptile in our fashion….Mammal that is the word your husband taught you to refer to beings that can regulate their own body temperature yes?
The voice was oddly detached, cold and eerily sounded like a particularly bored teenaged brat.
You bit me, I love you for that. Strong and pretty and healthy, you will be my mirror…
Oh no, it was in her head…Her head! “Stay out of my mind demon!” She hissed through gritted teeth, the world still an ocean of pain as something began to coil around her psyche, gradually tightening.
Demon? That’s a new one. How provincial. Let’s see what other insults you have.
Shau’re felt something inside of her throat tighten and her jaw began to move, at the same time her mind was filled with an ocean of words and context, sentences and vocalizations. The laughter of her father as he and another city master traded playful barbs over a meal when she was a child. “Dweeb” the first time she’d heard that word and the exasperated yet fatherly look on the face of Colonel O’Neill, stoic, sad and ever so brave. The thick accent of Ferretti as he described Ra to a farm master from a far-off country on Abydos. -Some body snatching, corpse thieving, brain suck’n girly man cosmic freakazoid- insults that she didn’t fully understand but grasping the context laughed loudly. Memories of sarcasm and jabs that would have brought her comfort and familiarity but now filled her with a sense of cold dread because she realized her mouth was moving and words were rasping out against her will!
Her eyes flickered to the Serpent which hung from the woman’s mid-section and she struggled against the intrusion of the foreign mind. Her jaw straining against her own nerves! Her own will! -NO! This is my body! My Body!- muscles in her mouth burned and felt as though they were tearing as she finally managed to stop herself from rasping out the word “fucker”. Agitation not her own flooded her mind and she heard a sigh that wasn’t her own.
Alas, I knew it, you’re too big for us to share. Alright then Shau’re Jackson.
The pain suddenly ceased and there was a cold breeze that passed through her body. It was pleasant at first, but then something pushed where it wasn’t supposed to push and something tore and then like so many grains of sand, she felt a memory, no memories slip through. Or perhaps she was feeling the absence of a memory because there was nothing there, but she knew there had to have been something there.
There had been something there.
She searched frantically, clawing in the dark for something that she knew she lost but hadn’t the slightest idea of what it looked like. What is it?! What, what am I missing, where did it go? Where are you?
Your mother, you had one I took her from you.
Shau’re’s eyes widened. A mother? She never had one, it had only been Kasuf and Skara and her sister..her sister..whose name was..was…
Who was she thinking about?
Panic seized her as she realized she was chasing the name of a sister she only knew she had because she’d been thinking about her name a moment before all traces of her vanished from her mind.
This thing, it was…
Yes…memory..by..memory..piece..by..piece..
Daniel! Daniel! Daniel! Oh Daniel, never forget me! Brave Scribe! I won’t let her do this!
No Shau’re would die before being subjected to
this. She tried to clamp down, to bite through her own tongue but something stopped her, and she realized that her mouth was being held open by the will of another.
I’m too large to go in through your back like some commoner, I’m going to have to swim down your throat and tear through your stomach and insides to get to the spine..Try not to throw up on me on the way down. Shau’re…
Was Shau’re her name? The woman blinked, was that her name? She was so frantic, her heart ached and she was grieving, mourning the loss of something, something important but she didn’t remember what. Only that there was an immense hole surrounded by an ocean of sorrow and fear and love and a desire to see someone again…She felt the loss keenly, but she couldn’t remember a name at all or a face or anything about who she’d lost or what her name was? Skara? No, that was her brother? Friend? Who was
she? What had this thing done! Why was she here?! More and more the hole widened and then the creature in front of her shot forward and plunged into her mouth and down her throat.
She gagged, feeling her throat bulge, air ceased to enter her lungs for a second and then she felt pressure in her stomach and an ocean of pain as she vomited up blood.
The last thing the Abydonian who had been Shau’re experienced was the sensation of something ripping through her insides and coiling around her nervous system.
And a terrible sense of despair that she couldn’t understand.
And a frantic apology, to someone she couldn’t remember.