Title: Rhya - In Her Own Words
Author: Danielle
Rating: G
Disclaimer: All characters from the television series ‘Stargate SG-1’ belong to Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions.I’m only borrowing them for my personal entertainment, and I promise I’ll put them back all nice and proper. I didn’t profit from writing this piece, though if someone wants to pay me huge wads of cash for the copyright, I won’t argue. All original characters and situations belong to me, but you can use them if you really want to - just mail me first. Also mail me first if you want to archive this somewhere else. Thank you kindly.

Author's notes: I wrote this to give everyone a bit more info about Rhya, since I haven't really gone into her past in the fics I've written. I hope this helps out a bit!

Rhya - In Her Own Words

For some really, really strange reason, Daniel seems to be under the impression that my writing down (or typing as the case may be) my life story would be educational. As if. But since I know exactly what he'll do if I don't do as he asks (i.e. He'll give me that 'kicked puppy dog' look he's so adept at and mope for the next month) I thought I'd humour him just this once. But oddly enough, I've kinda found the whole experience therapeutic in a funny sort of way. Go figure!

*****

Well, I guess the best place to start would be just that - at the start. Now most of you would be thinking day one, birth, right? Wrong. Day one for me was actually just a little bit before that… Which means I'm gonna have to explain about the phenomenon (Woo, long word!) my people call 'thought sensing' and which Jack calls 'a monumental pain in the ass.' I tend to agree with Jack's assessment.

Okay, to state the obvious, thought sensing is the reading of what's on a person's mind using paranormal means. Don't ask me how it's done exactly, I haven't a clue. Get back to Doc Fraiser in a month or two - I think she's still working on it after six months. All I know is that you have to be touching the person you want to 'read' in order to do it. And another thing - only women seem to be able to do it! Which is kinda weird, but since I've read a book on genetics (I was bored okay?) I've figured out that the whole caboodle is what's called a 'recessive, sex-linked trait'; whatever the hell that means. Now that I've explained all that, I'll get back to the story. Not that I really started it to begin with.

Since I'd been 'talking' away to my mother for a little while in the womb, the birth process wasn't such a big deal for me. But I could've done without the whole getting squished bit - it still gives me the shivers just thinking about it! After that little picnic of an experience and before age one I did all the things babies usually do, which appears to be pretty universal. Sitting there giggling at walls, pulling hair, puking down people's fronts, sucking on my toes... The whole she-bang. There was only one difference - I didn't have to bawl my eyes out, much, to let my mother know that there was something wrong. Although my grasp of the language was limited to monosyllables and images of concepts, I could communicate enough to not have to bother with the guessing thing that most parents have to deal with. I think all of us were rather grateful for that fact.

My early childhood wasn't particularly out of the ordinary, at least by my world's standards. By age three all children are expected to be able to ride horses like experts, okay? And learning the somewhat handy art of warfare wasn't a very big deal for us, just a fact of life and something to be dealt with. If you didn't learn to fight you were dead before too long. So I learnt everything: Swordsmanship, archery, assassination techniques, hand-to-hand combat... The whole kit. I was quite good too, even if I do say so myself. Actually, I was one of the best. But I had to be - my father was lord of High Preloru (and no, there isn't a Low Preloru, so don't even ask!) and no sign of weakness was tolerated in the ruling family. Even if the title was hereditary and had occasionally been brought into disrepute by Great Grandfather Tiberian, who - incidentally - died wrapped in the leaves of a wild cabbage. I suspect it was the drink that bought about so auspicious an end.

While I was learning the skills to defend my people and myself (and generally go around wreaking havoc), I was also learning the druaightagh - druidic - arts. When I came of age (that's twenty-one to you lot), I was to take over as ard-druaight¹ - an idea I wasn't particularly thrilled about. I have to admit I was a pretty bloodthirsty kid, so the idea of sitting on my rump teaching snotty, little horrors link myself and passing judgement on disputes about pigs wasn't my idea of a good time. But it'd been the role of the firstborn daughter in my family for time memorial, and is no doubt being carried out by my own daughter as I type this, so I didn't have much of a choice. As the saying goes 'You just have to grin and bear it.' Oh woohoo.

What comes next? Oh right. That wonderful experience called 'adolescence'. I'd forgotten. It was the best time of my life, not. Up until about age thirteen, boys had been my friends and that was that. Then my hormones went haywire and so did my thought processes. Argh! I went from being this not-so-demure little girl to this sex-crazed maniac virtually overnight. My parents got quite a shock. It didn't help that my people don't hold anyone's virginity in high esteem. Actually, according to all and sundry, it's a thing to be rid of as soon as is humanly possible. As you can guess, teenage pregnancy was a bit of a problem.

Mind you, I laid off almost all of the man-chasing experience until I was about fifteen summers old. Then Ellyneyr² quite happily tramped into my not-so-ordered life and turned it on its ear. I didn't believe in love at first sight or the will of the Creator until I clapped eyes on him...

Oh Lyn... I still miss him horribly, even though it's been ten years since I last saw his face. When I first met him, he was nothing more than a farm boy, cum soldier wannabe - grubby, proud, ill mannered and hardly living up to the meaning of his name. Not that I was much better, but when you're a princess you can get away with a lot. Even language that'd make a sailor blush with embarrassment. But, I digress yet again (I have a bad habit of that. You should listen when Daniel and I try to have a conversation for more than five minutes... and there I go again!). Lyn was fostered to my family, as was the norm, when he reached the age where home becomes boring, parents become overbearing and his face fills with spots. He once told me he wanted to join my father's army because he wanted to see what life was like elsewhere in the world. All that Lyn ended up seeing was my bed with me firmly entrenched in it! We were married within a season and I was pregnant within two. I guess I never did believe in mucking around.

Off the topic, I can't quite say what made me love Ellyneyr so much, or what it was that caused him love me. I s'pose you could call it 'mutual compatibility' or something equally silly. We did have some things in common, but at the same time there were many differences. One thing though, it was certainly never boring!

Once again, my life became one big ball of happiness. Everything seemed to be all wine and roses. I gave birth to a beautiful, thought-sensing daughter, Ainle³, in high summer. Lyn and I watched proudly as she grew into a toddler, all ringlets and smiles. I think she inherited my mother's even temper rather than my own hot one. A good thing in anyone's books, mine included. Her little brother Kionard⁴ was born in high winter roughly a year after herself, much to everyone's delight. Even though it is never said, people prefer men to be the rulers. I was destined to be only the second female lord in known history, since Lyn was only my husband. Silly rule, I know, but it had been working for a very long time.

Okay, now, onto the black mark of my life's canvas (I must be getting poetic in my old age). When Kionard was only about two (which puts Ainle at around three-and-a-half and me at around eighteen), I was quite happily minding my own business playing with my children near our world's StarGate. I'd never actually seen it used in my lifetime and, as I understand it, neither had a lot of people. Anyway, I was in the middle of playing catch (I was 'it') when the blasted thing was activated from somewhere else. I tell you, the 'whooshing' noise it made just about caused me to have an accident! Grabbing Ainle and Anwyl, I dragged them both in the direction of my family's keep - the first line of defense if anything came through the Gate. Unfortunately, they were a lot faster than I was and my flight was soon halted with the familiar stone walls of my home just visible over the rise. Their leader, Johrar (the spineless), decided I'd make a nice little trophy and I was dragged kicking and screaming back to the Gate, then tossed through like a sack of potatoes. It was a ride that I never, ever forgot. I don't know what he did to my babies, or to anyone else on my world for that matter. When I just about took his head off with my bare hands the moment he got back, he kinda clammed up about it - the bastard. I swear, if looks could've killed he'dve been fried, chopped liver.

One thing I must admit about my ex-'husband' is that he wasn't stupid. He soon discovered my ability and put it to 'good' use as an interrogative tool. I didn't particularly want to do what he said, but I wanted so badly wanted to believe his promise that I'd be allowed to go back home some day that I would've run naked down the main street of the city if that's what he asked (thank the Creator he didn't). But I never did find out anything about my family, nor did I ever get home. For ten years I rotted in that gilded cage of a palace, until the wonderful people of SG-1 walked straight through the StarGate and into the arms of Johrar's guards. But, that's another story entirely... And, to be honest, I don't really have the time right now.

Sorry.

Footnotes:
¹ ard-druaight - means 'Arch-druid' [Manx]
² Ellyneyr - means 'Artist'[Manx]
³ Ainle - means 'Angel' [Manx]
⁴ Kionard - means 'Chief' [Manx]

Any comments or suggestions...?

© Dan 2000