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hathor_girlChapter 2: The Attack
Martouf POV
I am slowly walking back through the forest. I'm really tired, having been up since before dawn, and not having gone to bed until close to midnight yesterday. That's how it is six days a week.
I don't complain, though. This allows me to study with the teachers in the temple beside the mountains. My parents - or I - can't afford to pay for the full tuition, so I cannot stay there full time, but in return for two hours of work before and after school - as well as all of Morrigan day, which is otherwise for resting - the teachers allow me to follow the classes.
Being allowed to study is rare, and I feel grateful to our local teacher, who insisted and convinced my parents I should learn both the sciences and the history and literature of our world - as much as any human can be allowed to learn. Most here only learn to read and write - and count.
I hate the Goa'uld for keeping us all in poverty! My mother is concerned that my studies opens my eyes to dangerous ideas, but I know they are the truth - and I know better than to speak openly of what I learn.
One day, I tell myself, our world will be free. All will be able to learn - and we will have a better life, where not everyone have to toil from sun up to sun down, half the time to eek out a living from these poor fields, half the time to dig for the naquadah our god requires from us.
A world where you do not have to fear to be taken, when every year the Jaffa come for slaves - and hosts. I know it is heresy. The god - Morrigan - has this right. She is a god, so how can anything she says be wrong?
Still...I dream.
Since I was little, I remember this yearly event, with the Jaffa coming for slaves and hosts. My parents would hide us - me and my sisters and brother. Four years ago they took my older sister. She had just married a few weeks earlier, and they took both her and her husband.
I wonder - were they made hosts or 'just' enslaved?
Sometimes I think there is little difference between living here and working - almost as slaves - and being taken to an actual slave world, and we should stop fearing this fate, and fight Morrigan's Jaffa.
I miss my sister. If I could avenge her, I would. Her and all the others that were taken. All those here that suffer.
But I am neither strong nor brave enough to be a warrior - and how would I find others to fight with me?
No, becoming a scholar hopefully means I can help my people. Maybe I will be able to make better irrigation systems or other ways to increase the yield of our fields. Ways to make the mines safer.
Those are admirable goals, and I know it would probably help my people more than anything else I could do. If I can ever achieve them. Still, I sometimes wish to fight the Jaffa more directly.
With a sigh I push away those dark thoughts and focus on other, more pleasant things.
Such as our neighbors daughter, Seka. She is beautiful. True, she will not consider me as a mate right now, but if I finish my studies successfully, she may - despite my familiy being poor. If I can gain a position that will earn me enough to give her the life she wishes - and deserves.
Though, she is 18 - a year younger than I - and already has many suitors. I will not finish my studies for almost two years. I think she has not taken another because she secretly likes me. That is my hope, at least.
But two years - I cannot hope she will wait that long! Especially not after what my sister Anija told me yesterday.
Katof, the son of the grocer - the richest man in our village - is courting Seka. Anija saw them kiss. Seka has never even agreed to hold my hand. I wonder if it is because she finds my weird eyecolour displeasing? One of my sisters has it as well - as does one of my uncles. Our family - both my mothers and fathers - came from another world, some generations ago, when Morrigan brought more workers here.
Of course, it is more likely to be because Katof is rich and I am poor. Besides, Katof is very popular with the girls - they find him attractive, for some reason. Why can't he just chase one of those? Why does he have to court the woman I am interested in? Who might have agreed to become mine, otherwise?
I feel a strong wave of hatred for Katof!
I'm almost back a the village, when I hear shouting. I silently walk to the edge of the forest and I see my village - and Jaffa! The nearest are only maybe 50 feet away. Just as I turn to run, I step on a dry branch, and it snaps, bringing the attention of a group of Jaffa to me.
I stare at them for a moment, noticing their tattoo - they are not Morrigan's Jaffa. I do not know where they come from, but they're not her's.
I run, as fast as I can, but I have only taken a few steps when I am hit by what feels like nothing I have sensed before. It is like a jolt - like from the machines we have at the temple, that create small arcs of lightning. It is intensely painful, blue light. I lose consciousness.
Martouf POV
I am slowly walking back through the forest. I'm really tired, having been up since before dawn, and not having gone to bed until close to midnight yesterday. That's how it is six days a week.
I don't complain, though. This allows me to study with the teachers in the temple beside the mountains. My parents - or I - can't afford to pay for the full tuition, so I cannot stay there full time, but in return for two hours of work before and after school - as well as all of Morrigan day, which is otherwise for resting - the teachers allow me to follow the classes.
Being allowed to study is rare, and I feel grateful to our local teacher, who insisted and convinced my parents I should learn both the sciences and the history and literature of our world - as much as any human can be allowed to learn. Most here only learn to read and write - and count.
I hate the Goa'uld for keeping us all in poverty! My mother is concerned that my studies opens my eyes to dangerous ideas, but I know they are the truth - and I know better than to speak openly of what I learn.
One day, I tell myself, our world will be free. All will be able to learn - and we will have a better life, where not everyone have to toil from sun up to sun down, half the time to eek out a living from these poor fields, half the time to dig for the naquadah our god requires from us.
A world where you do not have to fear to be taken, when every year the Jaffa come for slaves - and hosts. I know it is heresy. The god - Morrigan - has this right. She is a god, so how can anything she says be wrong?
Still...I dream.
Since I was little, I remember this yearly event, with the Jaffa coming for slaves and hosts. My parents would hide us - me and my sisters and brother. Four years ago they took my older sister. She had just married a few weeks earlier, and they took both her and her husband.
I wonder - were they made hosts or 'just' enslaved?
Sometimes I think there is little difference between living here and working - almost as slaves - and being taken to an actual slave world, and we should stop fearing this fate, and fight Morrigan's Jaffa.
I miss my sister. If I could avenge her, I would. Her and all the others that were taken. All those here that suffer.
But I am neither strong nor brave enough to be a warrior - and how would I find others to fight with me?
No, becoming a scholar hopefully means I can help my people. Maybe I will be able to make better irrigation systems or other ways to increase the yield of our fields. Ways to make the mines safer.
Those are admirable goals, and I know it would probably help my people more than anything else I could do. If I can ever achieve them. Still, I sometimes wish to fight the Jaffa more directly.
With a sigh I push away those dark thoughts and focus on other, more pleasant things.
Such as our neighbors daughter, Seka. She is beautiful. True, she will not consider me as a mate right now, but if I finish my studies successfully, she may - despite my familiy being poor. If I can gain a position that will earn me enough to give her the life she wishes - and deserves.
Though, she is 18 - a year younger than I - and already has many suitors. I will not finish my studies for almost two years. I think she has not taken another because she secretly likes me. That is my hope, at least.
But two years - I cannot hope she will wait that long! Especially not after what my sister Anija told me yesterday.
Katof, the son of the grocer - the richest man in our village - is courting Seka. Anija saw them kiss. Seka has never even agreed to hold my hand. I wonder if it is because she finds my weird eyecolour displeasing? One of my sisters has it as well - as does one of my uncles. Our family - both my mothers and fathers - came from another world, some generations ago, when Morrigan brought more workers here.
Of course, it is more likely to be because Katof is rich and I am poor. Besides, Katof is very popular with the girls - they find him attractive, for some reason. Why can't he just chase one of those? Why does he have to court the woman I am interested in? Who might have agreed to become mine, otherwise?
I feel a strong wave of hatred for Katof!
I'm almost back a the village, when I hear shouting. I silently walk to the edge of the forest and I see my village - and Jaffa! The nearest are only maybe 50 feet away. Just as I turn to run, I step on a dry branch, and it snaps, bringing the attention of a group of Jaffa to me.
I stare at them for a moment, noticing their tattoo - they are not Morrigan's Jaffa. I do not know where they come from, but they're not her's.
I run, as fast as I can, but I have only taken a few steps when I am hit by what feels like nothing I have sensed before. It is like a jolt - like from the machines we have at the temple, that create small arcs of lightning. It is intensely painful, blue light. I lose consciousness.