A Reason to Live

RMS Queen Mary 2, 14th May 2004

“Are you sure, Sai’yo? You can’t really undo a vow, and here you’re taking it in two versions. We could find another way for you to help me with things.”

“You told me to think carefully about what you asked of me for the night.”

“…Yes?”

“It is morning already.”

“…And?”

“I am ready to swear my loyalty to you, my lord.”

“Sai’yo… what did I tell you about calling me that?”

“But after this, you are going to be my lord in truth, for the remainder of my life.”

“Aren’t you the least bit concerned about exchanging Apophis for me? Especially if – and I mean if – I can’t find something else to sustain you, other than a baby Goa’uld? Don’t you want to spend your life tinkering to your heart’s content and exploring the world and reading a ton of books?”

“Are you going to assign me to work all day on the matters of your holdings?”

“Nope. Just about the Jaffa, most likely, and I thought of a helper or two later on, so you and I can still do things like this, if you want.”

“Are you going to torture or kill me if I make a mistake or displease you in any way?”

“Of course not!”

“Are you going to rest all knowledge and ideas from me, in whatever way you wish?”

“Of course not!”

“Am I free to call you ‘my lord’?”

“Of–. Sai’yo!”

The damned Jaffa smiles teasingly at me, from his seat on his bed.

I grab my pillow and hit him with it on the shoulder.

“A hard object would give more impact,” he points out, still smiling, though no longer teasing.

I hit him again, now on the other shoulder.

“If this is to be my punishment for deliberately displeasing you, you are already far better than Apophis,” he continues, his calm tone never wavering.

I huff and return my pillow back to its place, suddenly losing the desire to hit him. “What a mad, sneaky grandpa,” I grumble, mostly to myself.

His smile turns gentle, just so.

O-O-O-O

“We’re going to reach land in two more days, they said.”

“Yes.”

“We don’t have any more ports to visit, ‘sept for the destination.”

“Yes.”

“We can work on plans about the Jaffa, then, after we’ve explored this ship, without much distraction.”

“Yes.”

“Sigh. You know all this already, don’t you.”

“Yes.”

“That is a retorical question, Sai’yo.”

“Yes.”

And my pillow sees action again, as I hit my first, acknowledged, sworn human – well, Jaffa, which is pretty similar to human – servant with it, now on the chest.

O-O-O-O

Even in such a need as to revive and integrate and relocate – if necessary – the Jaffa in the trunks as soon and well as possible, procrastination is still an art… and still doable.

Back from a second visit to the swimming pool and the cinema, Sai’yo and I are now browsing the souvenir shop on-board, with a plan to visit the café for some snacks afterwards.

“You think Mione’ll like this?” I hold up a light-pink T-shirt with the side profile and the name of the ship printed rather stylishly on the front.

In answer, Sai’yo silently exchanges it with a photo album whose front cover features the same image.

“Ooh! Neat! I want one, too! You want one, Sai’yo?” I beam at him, pressing the album close against my chest.

Again, without a word, he briefly goes away and comes back toting more albums.

“Why four? You want three?” I wonder, after noticing how high the pile is.

“The photographs that you and I took in this journey are too many to put in one album, my lord,” he speaks at last, though tagging the despised title at the end.

Before my scowl is fully formed, though, somebody nearby repeats, “My lord?” She sounds puzzled, but also intrigued.

Sai’yo seems as calm as before, probably having noticed her beforehand, but I whirl round, and my eyes meet those of an elderly, stately woman dressed in simple but elegant-looking – to me, at least – blouse and calf-long skirt.

“Hello,” I blurt out, not knowing what else to do or say. “Could I help you, ma’am?”

She smiles. “A lord, indeed. What a polite gentleman,” she remarks, reaching out a hand, with her eyes twinkling. “Catherine Langford, at your service, my lord.”

I fight not to make a face at her. Shaking her hand warmly, I plead, “I am Harry Black, ma’am. Please just call me either of those two, not… that.”

She sobers up a little. “Newly into the title, Black?” she inquires, apologetically and sympathetically.

I shake my head. “Knew about it just several years ago. Parents died when I was one and my life wasn’t good till some time ago.”

We fall into conversation, just so. I am somewhat aware that Sai’yo has moved away, apparently browsing and selecting items, but I am easily distracted by the said conversation.

Catherine Langford is a very intriguing woman who not only has a decorative academic life but also – more importantly, in fact – a quick wit gentled with wry humour. She has a worldly view on matters far more widespread than what I know, too… which I blame my sheltered, stunted upbringing, when she asks.

We agree to meet at the on-board café this evening to continue our conversation, when Sai’yo returns with a pile of items, none of which is for him, and I become irritated with him all anew.

I wave good-bye at old Ms. Langford distractedly, while lecturing to my ‘second in command’ – but, most importantly, my friend – about this adventure being supposed to be for us, hence also most of the knick-knacks that we gather.

And, now having moved to the door of the shop, old Ms. Langford laughs lightly at us – most likely at my petulant irritation and Sai’yo’s flummoxed and somewhat long-suffering look.

Great.

We might appear like a child chiding his father or uncle and the said father or uncle indulging the brat.

My reputation is hopelessly ruined.

O-O-O-O

Power, courage, endurance and honour are the values that the Jaffa as a people uphold, not necessarily in that order. Living in limited environment and bred specifically to serve self-titled gods as soldiers, servants, breeders and priests, the point of the values is sadly understandable.

And this lecture about Jaffa culture is what I got when I told Sai’yo – in the privacy of our half-purloined room on-board – that I am about to release the rest of the Jaffa from their stasis disks soon.

“Shouldn’t we be talking about environment, first?” I ask, bemused but very much interested.

But for once since I first knew him, Sai’yo gives me a stern eye.

“My lord,” he emphasises the title, “the first view that each of them will see is you, not their surroundings. It was also my experience.”

I slump against the bulkhead right beside my bed. “So, you mean I haven’t looked powerful, brave, enduring or honorable enough?”

“You should look to Teal’c for those values, my lord, not me,” is what he says in return. “I would be a very poor example.”

I frown. “Bullied much?”

He waves a hand a little in a shrug.

I scowl, and shake my head after a thought. “No,” I decide, more bitterly than I intended to sound. “They can accept me as I am, or not at all. I never meant to be anybody’s lord but my own self, anyway. They can spend the rest of their lives in one of the properties, or integrate to the greater community, and I shan’t bother them, as long as they don’t bother me or others.” Trying to meet their expectations of me would just lead to grief to me, I bet, just like defeating Voldemort and trying to be an Auror, and I doubt I can survive more or less intact with more and more grief piled on top of those.

Sai’yo flashes me a sharp glance, before he looks down to his lap, where he has been fitting his photos into the albums that I got him to buy for himself.

“Why are you different from those people, anyway?” I ask before he can say anything, again more defensively than I’d like to sound – he’s managed to rattle me, it seems. “Why don’t you view Apophis as god?”

He gives his collection of photos a small, bitter smile, to that. Bingo.

I feel no pride at all for nailing the problem right on the head, though. Especially when he mutters heatedly, still without looking at me, “My mother was much more powerful than Apophis, but for the love she held for my father. If she never met him, and never grew to care greatly for him, she would never have had to surrender for the sake of his life. Apophis turned her into a Jaffa, and it weakened her greatly, cutting her life short.”

I could have pointed out that he would not have been born, then, if his mother never met and fell in love with his father. But I hold back, because I know very well that certain types of life is not worth living, and the only thing left is empty survival.

Instead, I blurt out, “So you think love is a weakness, then?” which is no less bad, but… more general, and closer to my heart.

My own human mother died for love of me, after all.

I tell him that, along with the assumption that she used a willing blood sacrifice to shield me from the Killing Curse, when he confirms my guess.

“Was she weak, to sacrifice her life so that her child could live, in the only way that she knew?” I finish quietly.

He looks at me, then, with the bitterness and grief that I am sure are mirrored in my own eyes.

“No,” he whispers, reluctantly.

“But we wish they lived, instead of us,” I conclude for the both of us.

And he doesn’t deny the statement.

O-O-O-O

“A bad time to meet?” Catherine greets us kindly as Sai’yo and I move over to her table at the on-board café.

I smile weakly at her. “Just a little discussion that got heavy,” I demur. “You seem even brighter, though, ma’am. Good news?”

“Maybe,” she smiles a little back at me, then nods at the two empty, comfy-looking, velvety, padded rounded armchairs set at a triangle with her position at the low, round glass table. “It depends.”

“On?” I inquire politely, while taking my seat and immediately burrowing deep into it, hugging the chair’s complementary fluffy pillow to my chest.

“On if my hunch is correct,” she smiles meaningfully at Sai’yo, now, who has just taken a seat himself.

He stiffens up.

I lean forward, interested. “What with Sai’yo?” I inquire.

“Sai’yo, is it? Hello. Pleased to meet you.” The old woman leans forward and reaches out a hand to the cornered-looking Jaffa. “Catherine Langford, and I don’t bite.”

He reaches out a hand… and grasps her forearm.

Her whole face lights up, on the not-so-ordinary reaction and greeting, and she… grasps his forearm back.

“A warrior, are you?” she grins, now looking mightily interested. “I read that a few warrior-based communities do that. Met some of them.”

“So, what made you so interested with my friend, aside from that?” I try to save the said friend from further attention, by directing it – however reluctantly – to me.

Ms. Langford returns to her earlier countenance and posture, just so. But, unfortunately, she still doesn’t look away from Sai’yo.

“Oh, something,” she says. Then, without breaking eye contact with him, she fishes out something from beneath her blouse.

A golden pendant with a rather intricate design, hung on a golden necklace with thick chains.

And Sai’yo stiffens up further as the pendant rests in the open against her breastbone.

“Sai’yo?” I reach out a hand and pat his. “You know that symbol?”

“It is Ra’s symbol,” he bites out lowly after a beat. “Tattooed on the brow of his people.”

His people. His Jaffa. – Ra is a Goa’uld, then; most likely the Goa’uld that Hermioned mentioned as being Apophis’ brother and currently foremost rival.

“Oh,” I mumble, perturbed. My hand falls limply from his.

Is Ms. Langford a Goa’uld? Or an agent of the Goa’uld? Or a Jaffa with a necklace instead of a forehead tattoo? She doesn’t behave like any of those, but wouldn’t a spy behave “normally” while in an infiltration mission?

My eyes meet hers, and she looks concerned and surprised, with little of her earlier interest remaining.

“The Ancient Egyptians got tattoos on their foreheads?” she queries, cautious and hesitant.

“The Ancient Egyptians?” Sai’yo parrots, confused. I am equally stumped.

“Ra is the sun god for them. Don’t you know that, if you know the name?” It is her turn to be stumped by us, apparently.

Sai’yo and I look at each other. I am pretty sure that his uh-oh look mirrors mine.

“Oh,” she mutters, sighing. “Long story? Or you signed a non-disclosure agreement?”

“Umm. Both, ma’am,” I reply cautiously, tearing my gaze away from a flummoxed Sai’yo. “If I might ask, ma’am, where did you get that necklace?”

She raises her eyebrows and seems to think about it for a moment.

“A deal?” she finally offers. “I tell you, and you tell me. An NDA is on the table, if you want it.”

I look inquiringly at Sai’yo.

He gives me a shruggy look back.

I slump into my chair and exhale explosively. – Damn. We need the info, but I can’t disclose who Sai’yo is, as it will lead to many, many, many more info, which will jeopardise not only my friends and the Jaffa still in stasis but also the Statute of Secrecy.

“Let us think about it for a while?” I ask the sharp old woman seated with us. “In the meantime, would you mind having dinner with us, ma’am?”

Her satisfied and eager look feels like the sight of a green glow at the end of a wand to me….