Liliana found the progress her patient had made to be truly remarkable. When they’d found him, he’d been so wounded and weakened that even his raging fever had been quenched for lack of energy to sustain it. When Brianna had first burst into the house frantically screaming about a dead man by the river, she’d followed her down to the bank and tugged her away, her mind racing with for how to explain murder to her children as they buried this stranger. Yet after she’d found a weak pulse she’d screamed to Brianna to fetch Curtis. If a body could survive what this one had, then it housed the spirit of a warrior. And a warrior he was.

Liliana was sitting on the cot beside him, pride brimming in her eyes as she watched him button up his shirt on his own. Such a simple task, but for one whose back was a healing mass of lash marks, no task was simple. Ronon’s fingers fumbled over the last few buttons, flinching for him.

“Here,” she quietly said as she reached over, finishing up the last buttons for him. He let out the faintest sigh as his hands gave way to hers and she offered him an amused, slightly chastising smile. She’d swiftly noticed that when fever didn’t speak the truth for him, her houseguest did whatever he could to hide the pain he was in. This was no end of frustration for the healer in her and she learned to detect the slightest signs of his discomfort. But there’s only so much a body can take – more often than not her mothering side found his warrior code of fortitude to be just damn annoying.

“You know, if you don’t tell me what’s wrong or where you’re hurting, it will only take longer to heal.”

He blinked as his eyes shied away from hers. “I’m fine.”

She arched a brow. “Ronon.”

His gaze returned to hers of its own accord at her matriarchal tone. “I can see right through you, anyway.”

He raised his brows. “Well, if you can see right through me then why do you need me to speak?”

She pulled her hands away from his buttons, having finished. “Because it would make my task a lot easier, that’s why.”

He gave her a half-playful, half cocky look.

“You better wipe that look off your face, young man, or I’ll use that stinging ointment next time.”

Ronon looked away with a shy smirk, realizing she’d just scolded him like one of her children.

Liliana caught her tone of voice, as well, and tried to repress her smile over how well he already fit in. She let her smirk show and patted him on the shoulder as she rose. “Don’t say I don’t love you. Now go help Brianna with those eggs. She’s waiting for you.”

Ronon watched her step back into the kitchen with a warming heart, savoring the security of the moment for a few heartbeats before rising to find Brianna.

She noticed more slaves furtively looking at her as she worked in the fields. The drivers no longer ignored her or gave her half-concealed approving glances. Instead, they watched her longer than the others. Teyla didn’t mind. She pretended that she didn’t notice the change and maintained her mask of stoic determination, quietly living each day, doing what was expected of her. After a few days, however, the drivers seemed to lose interest and returned to their old habits, just as she’d thought they would.

The insects hummed and buzzed. Slaves here or there coughed. The snap, snap of fruit being harvested continued. After the nearest driver had ridden a distance away, Teyla lifted her voice.

“I call out to my sister,

I say ‘Where you gone?’”

Several slaves looked to her. She’d never begun a song before and this variation was unknown to them.

“I call out to my brother,

I say ‘Don’t be long.’”

She continued to work though infused her voice with more power.

“I cry out to my mother,

I say ‘Make me strong.’

I cry out to my father,

I say ‘I sing your song.’”

Several slaves hummed their own melodies along with her tune or cried out brief shouts of encouragement, listening intently to learn the new song from the woman who held her shoulders like a warrior.

“Hands are bleeding’,

But my heart is strong.

Back is broken,

But my faith lives on.

So long as I have my soul,

I’ll never be gone.”

As she started up the chorus again, she couldn’t help but smile at how quickly the other slaves had learned the lyrics as they lifted their many voices to join in.

“I call out to my sister,

I say ‘Where you gone?’

I call out to my brother,

I say ‘Don’t be long.’

I cry out to my mother,

I say ‘Make me strong.’

I cry out to my father,

I say ‘I sing your song.’”

As the chorus faded away, she raised her voice to a near-shout.

“My hands are bleedin’

But my heart is strong.

When we carry each other

Love lives on.

Oh, when we carry each other

Love lives on.”

Ronon cocked his head at all the different colored eggs Brianna was placing in the basket that he held.

“Different colored hens lay different colored eggs, and sometimes they get real mean and don’ want you to take ‘em because they went through all that work laying them.”

Ronon winced, watching a few hens waddle past, scratching and pecking at the sand with chortling noises. He looked from the size of the eggs to the size of their feathered bums. “...I don’t blame them.”

Brianna gave him a questioning glance.

Ronon shrugged as much as his healing shoulders would allow him. “Just seems like it would be painful to spend all day growing this hard thing ¼ as big as you then... shoving it out, only to have it stolen.”

Brianna gave the hens a sympathetic look. “Yeah, I guess so...”

“But they’d just rot if you didn’t collect them.”

“Yeah.” She shouldered a braid over to her back and placed the last of the eggs into the basket. “Plus they forget that they ever even laid one after a few minutes.”

Ronon smirked and Brianna smiled back and looked away, stepping over to open the gate to the coop so that they could exit. She latched it behind them.

“Thanks for all your help.”

Ronon smiled, showing some teeth for a fleeting moment. “All I did was stand there.”

“Well,” Brianna dragged out the word as she took the basket from him. “You were learning so that you can do it on your own someday.”

Ronon laughed a little. “Oh, okay. I get it.”

“What?”

“You just think I’m gonna wind up taking over all your chores.”

Brianna went a little pink. “I never said that.”

“Mmm hmm,” the Satedan teased.

“What’cha doin’?”

Both turned to look at Bo as she trailed over with their dog.

“Stuff,” Brianna quickly replied, tucking some stray wisps behind her ears.

Isabeau noticed Ronon studying the dog. She patted her head. “This is Sniffer.”

Ronon raised his brows. “Sniffer?”

“Bo named her when she was five,” Bri muttered. “Sniffer’s the one who found you on the riverbank.”

“Then she really does have a good sniffer,” Ronon said as he stepped over to the dog. Sniffer sniffed his hand, her tail thumping, then Ronon scratched her head. “What a good dog.”

“She’s the best in the world,” Bo enthused, hugging Sniffer around the neck. Ronon smiled.

Brianna cleared her throat. “C’mon, Ronon, I have to show you where we store the eggs.”

He gave Sniffer a few more pats then followed Brianna who looked annoyed when Bo and Sniffer trailed behind.

“Did you know I could do a cartwheel?” Bo asked him as they crossed the meadow grass to the house. Ronon shook his head no. “Watch!” Bo bounded a yard away and did a cartwheel, laughing and tugging at her shirt as it fell a little.

Ronon smiled. “That was good.”

“I know,” Bo replied as she tucked her shirt back into her breeches. “I’m really good at them. Better than Brianna.”

“Who cares, Bo?”

“I am anyway.”

“Yeah, cuz you always wear pants and it’s easier to do them in pants.”

“You could wear pants, too, you just don’t want to.”

“Be quiet, Bo.”

“You be quiet, Bri.”

“I said it to you first.”

“Is that a roof?”

Both girls looked away from each other and over to Ronon. They furrowed their brows as they followed his gaze to what was indeed the roof of their house.

“Uh... yeah,” Bri answered.

Ronon nodded his head, as if calculating the dark shingles, silently congratulating himself on his awkward means of breaking up their escalating quarrel. “It’s a nice roof.”

He continued walking towards the house. Bo and Bri stared at each other in amused confusion and tried not to laugh before following him.

Binti’s back was pressed against Teyla’s and she could tell by the other woman’s breathing that she wasn’t asleep. “Teyla?”

“Hmmm?”

She rolled over to better look at what she could see of her friend. “Where did you learn that song?”

Teyla sighed, forcing herself more awake. “Um... I just made it up.”

“You did?” Binti sounded somewhat incredulous.

“Mmm hmm.”

It took her a moment. “Yes?”

“My son... who died... he was the child of one of the drivers.”

Teyla opened her eyes. The visible moonlight silvered Binti’s ebony skin. The glint of Binti’s eyes shied away from hers. Teyla grabbed her hand and squeezed it. Binti squeezed back and when she spoke again, she was fighting tears.

“After many times... and they pretend the child is not one of theirs. I do not even know which driver was the father... but they let him starve. One of their children... my son.” She let out a sob.

Teyla hugged Binti’s head to her chest, swallowing hard. Binti wrapped her arms around her as she wept. When her friends’ tears eventually slowed, Teyla spoke through her tightened throat. “The man I lost... his name was Ronon. He was a warrior who has killed many Wraith. To see him die... in a place like this...” she had to pause as she choked up. “...So wasteful... so disgraceful.”

“I’m sorry,” Binti whispered.

“As am I.” Teyla sniffled. “But after he died, you told me to live for the both of us.”

“Yes. It is how I keep my Rarek with me always.”

Teyla nodded and smiled, smoothing Binti’s hair down. “And that is well. I do the same with Ronon... but I cannot do this anymore.”

Binti pulled away to try to look at her, sharply inhaling. There was fear in her voice. “What do you mean?” Her voice quickened with panic as she gripped Teyla’s clothing. “Teyla, I cannot lose you, too —”

“You will not.”

There was a moment of silence before Teyla spoke again. “There are more of us than them – far more.”

“Teyla....”

“Organized, we cannot fail.”

Binti relaxed her grip at the strength in Teyla’s voice.

“If we rise up together, as one, we will take back our freedom.”

“...But they have prods and whips. They have the food and the horses – ”

“Which all amount to nothing against our resolve.”

Binti was quiet.

“We will pass the word, and when the time is right... we will rise.”

Branded Heart

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