To Serve A Queen - Part Seven (The DVD Commentary Version)

[tielan]

TITLE: To Serve A Queen - Part Seven (The DVD Commentary Version)
SUMMARY: If he looked down at the empty courtyard, he could almost see her standing down there, dark-haired, fair-skinned, proud and graceful, and with the vital, vibrant aura of a Queen.
PAIRING: Elizabeth Weir/Ronan Dex
RATING: R
NOTES: It was around this time that I realised that this story was a monster, sucking the life out of me with more ferocity than a leech. I'd set up a scenario...now I had to write it to the bitter end! This chapter doesn't have as many comments in it as the last one did.

BTW, if you have any questions you'd like answered that I haven't answered, let me know and I'll try to include them!

To Serve A Queen - Part Seven

The wind out on the terrace was a little cold against his skin. It was better than his memories.

I will serve with honour or not at all.

Below him, in the courtyard, the Queen and the foremost three males of her court waited for the Gennii party to unload themselves from the coach.

Ronan brushed his hand along the line of his jaw where she'd slapped him.

The rest of the day had passed without incident. Oh, the other males of the First Circle looked askance at him, and the Black Widow watched him with measuring eyes, but he was quiet and well-behaved, and as unlike the troublesome slave of Belka Territory as he'd ever been.

And Elizabeth ignored his presence, as though she could wipe out his existence by pretending he wasn't there.

Ronan didn't blame her. It was one thing for a woman to call a pleasure slave and expect to be serviced. It was another for a Queen to confront a male out of concern for his state of mind and find herself mere inches from being seduced against her will.

He'd reacted to a Queen in old habit; taunting her with what other Queens had been willing to take from him: his skills in bed, a hard cock, and a warm body to ride to pleasure.

Atlantis wasn't Belka Territory and Elizabeth wasn't any of the Queens for whom he'd slaved.

Her response had proven that; hot fury followed by cold. He'd felt the shuddering bite of her words as she stated them, the rejection of her walk away from their confrontation. And he'd picked himself up, brushed himself down, and watched the interrupted meeting continue for a full minute before he went back to the house.

Everything had a price.

[A repeating refrain through the fic and in the books.]

You will never touch me like that again.

Service with honour? Not here in this court; not after a betrayal like that.

Even after one day here, the thought ached in his throat.

His memory cast up the feel of her hand on his chest, the touch of her psychic probe against his inner web, measuring his emotions, the fingertip that had touched him so lightly and yet with such intimacy and tenderness. As if that wasn't enough, his body was only too eager to remember the way she'd initially responded to his shadow caresses - the still, tense hunger that bloomed in every nerve before she slapped him down.

That doesn't have to follow you if you don't want it to.

Instead, he'd brought it with him.

Ronan knew that if not for her actions, he would have followed through to her climax, and to hell with her First Circle standing in the gardens. Not because she owned him, or out of gratitude for his release, not even to prove a point to her - that she would value his skills in bed far more than anything he could bring to her as a warrior. He would have molded her to ecstacy purely for the male pleasure of watching a woman lose her self-possession at his hands - a woman he wanted to please.

A dark-jewelled Queen who lived by the old ways, who respected male strength. A Queen who reached out to a male not of her court for compassion's sake. A witch who tugged at his soul like a hook in his skin.

A Queen who would never take on a male who'd betrayed her trust the way he had.

[Mmm. Angst.]

The chill wind scoured through him in a particularly intense gust. He was glad of the cold, glad of the numbness that it gave his body.

He wondered if it could numb the image he had of offering himself in service and being utterly rejected.

Behind him, the door leading out from the library opened.

"So here's where you're hiding." Ronan didn't turn as Rodney McKay came out onto the terrace and regarded the display down in the courtyard below. "Not a bad view, I suppose. If you don't mind not knowing what they're talking about."

Ronan shrugged. "I don't."

He was a little surprised that the Green-Jewelled Prince was speaking to him at all. Sheppard, Caldwell, and Beckett were all wary of him after his scene with Elizabeth. They might not know exactly what had transpired between the newcomer to the court and their Queen, but they well aware that something had changed.

Only McKay seemed not to notice anything.

"Well, it's not as though anything interesting happens during the greetings," McKay commented, turning around to lean back against the railing. He wagged his finger in the air. [It's that shake of the finger that Rodney gets when he has a brilliant idea in an episode - he points his finger or waggles his hand.] "No, actually, I lie. It can get very interesting when Kolya joins the party - although that's just because of him and Sheppard. They have this not-so-subtle dance thing going between them. It can be entertaining to watch as long as they never get into an actual fight."

"People head for the hills?" Ronan inquired as the males approached the quartet standing in the courtyard: Steward, Master of the Guard, and Escort or Consort - and the fourth side of the Blood triangle - the Queen who ruled them all.

Four floors up, she looked tall compared to the small, red-haired visiting Queen, elegant against the young woman's less certain movements. Even from this distance, she was exquisite, the dark curls of her hair tossing about in the wind.

Rodney peered down at the group. "Something like that."

"So they really don't like each other."

"They really don't. It's partly because they both wear the Sapphire and are Warlord Princes."

"And the rest of it?"

"John lives by Blood Law and the Protocols."

"Kolya doesn't." He made it more of a question than a statement.

Below them, the group made small talk, politely in Elizabeth's case, warily in the case of the males of her court. Ronan studied the group as he waited for the other man's response.

"Elizabeth did a tour of Gennii Territory a few years before she reached her majority," the other man said at last. "We went through four other Territories, saw plenty of other Queens and their courts," a brief, reminiscent smile touched the Prince's face, "got tossed into a few fountains." A moment later he sobered. "She was fine until we reached Gennii Territory."

It was hard to ignore the other man's rising protectiveness towards the woman who held out her hands to the young woman in the courtyard, her palms facing down. The red-haired girl - barely into womanhood - turned her hands palm up and met her, palm-to-palm. The gesture was one of trust; leaving the wrists open to nails.

[If the prequel happens, this gesture is going to be explained better. As greetings, I like what it implies - the way our handshake was originally developed as a sign of trust and good faith - if you were offering someone your right hand (sword hand) it meant you trusted them enough to not leave your hand on your sword or knife hilt. This is more or less the same.]

"What happened?"

"I don't know," McKay said at last. "She wouldn't tell me - and she wouldn't let me tell Sheppard, either."

"And you didn't say--?"

McKay glared at him. "Her judgement is good - usually better than Sheppard. Well, most of the time it is. Anyway, when we got back to Atlantis, she told her mother that she wouldn't go back into Gennii Territory again without having had her Virgin Night - and she didn't."

Which meant she considered the males in Gennii Territory untrustworthy. Reason enough for her court to be wary of the group below.

Reason enough for Ronan to be wary of the group below.

Ronan eyed the Prince beside him. "I'm surprised you're still trading with them."

"She's the Queen," said McKay as though that explained it. And it did in some respects. "And the others don't know just how bad that trip was on her." He looked down at the Queen he served. "She's good at dissembling when she wants to be."

Ronan watched him. McKay caught the glance.

"Look, if I judged that there was any reason to let the others know..."

[The thing that it seems a lot of Rodney-haters forget is that Rodney has his own bravery, courage, and protectiveness. It usually gets lost behind his arrogance and bombast, but what McKay/Weir shipper can forget the way he let Elizabeth huddle under his arm during The Storm, or Shep/McKay fan easily put aside him standing up to the Wraith in The Defiant One? I liked this exchange between Ronon and Rodney - partly because there aren't enough of them on the show (there aren't enough of any of the interactions I like on the show - my chiefest problem being that I like the interactions of the Big Three with anyone but another member of the Big Three. *sigh*) and partly because it shows the two men so very different and yet very much similar in some respects.]

"You'd have said," Ronan finished. "What's the deal with Gennii Territory?"

The wind ruffled McKay's hair. "Did you want the long version or the short?"

"Short." The long could come later.

"Hmm. Well, their strongest Queens died and the male council took over."

It took him a second to realise that was the short version. "That's all?"

"You wanted the short version."

"I take it back. Give me the longer story."

McKay sighed. "The five strongest Queens in Gennii Territory died in the space of four moons. Different reasons; accidents, illnesses - nothing really suspicious."

"And?"

"And the male council took over the Territory. Oh, they have a light-jewelled Queen who's their puppet and has her own court, but the real power lies with the male council and it shows."

"Led by Kolya."

"Well, actually, it's led by Prince Cowan," McKay said.

"Which might qualify as worse," said a new voice. Ronan turned as the young Warlord passed smoothly through the door without bothering to open it. "Kolya's a bastard, but he's direct about it. On the other hand, Cowan's twisted as a corkscrew." The dark youth walked up on the other side of McKay and rested his hands on the railing. His eyes drifted warily over Ronan, but there was no particular judgement in the young man's eyes, just a warrior-trained assessment of the threat Ronan presented.

[I realise that there's some jarring in having both Aiden and Ronon present in the court at the same time, but I like Aiden. And what happens to him later in the story reflects what happens to him in the show.]

McKay scowled at the young man. "And what would you know about the Gennii, Ford? Been into their Territory?"

"Just once," Ford said, defensive at McKay's tone of voice. "Escorting Lady Sora back to the border. Look, I may not know what it's like in the capital, McKay, but I know what the warriors are like when they get away from our court."

"And what exactly would that be?"

Ford shrugged. "Different."

"Oh, well, there's an accurate term of description," muttered McKay. "'Different.' What are you doing out here anyway, Ford? Shouldn't you be downstairs doing that guard thing you do?"

"He is here at my request, which the Master of the Guard approved," came a new voice from behind them. The Black Widow walked out of the library, passing through the leadlight door as though it had been insubstantial air. "I did not realise that this vantage point was already taken, or else I would have left him to his duties with the guardsmen." But her smile at Ford was affectionate as she took up position against the railing.

[I also like the Teyla&Ford dynamic - not as romance, but as friends. I like everyone as friends - yes, even Shep&Teyla. It's a bad habit of mine.]

"You know, we're probably pretty obvious from down there," McKay was saying.

"They were aware of us from the beginning," Ronan retorted. "They're just choosing not to acknowledge us." He'd caught a glance or two from the warriors, although the young Queen hadn't so much as looked around her.

"Isn't that an insult or something?"

"It is a preservation of the niceties," said Teyla as she pulled out her hairband and tilted her head to one side in a wave of reddish-brown hair. "Besides," she noted as she replaited her braid, "they haven't yet concluded their greetings to Elizabeth."

"You were talking about Gennii Territory," prompted Ford.

"I was just updating Prince Dex with history of Gennii Territory. Actually, it's a bit like a counting game: five Queens, four moons, three ambitious men, two Provinces, and one girl who grew up to be the new Queen."

McKay's voice was light, but Ronan could sense the misgivings beneath the light voice.

Which would explain the distrust of Gennii Territory here in Atlantis Territory. Ambition rarely had a limit. And these weren't just ambitious people - they were ambitious people who wouldn't hesitate to harm a Queen to gain the power they desired.

Ronan looked down at the figures in the courtyard and wondered how close Gennii Territory was to becoming another Belka Territory.

He wondered if there was any way to stop it.

"Puppet Queen," Ford was saying to McKay. "And Sora knows it."

Teyla smiled, "Lady Sora is aware that her position is tenuous in the face of the male council. She'll be nineteen before Winsol, and hasn't yet made the Offering. Things are...difficult for her at present."

"And how do you know all that?"

She gave Ford a serene smile. "I have my sources."

"So do you have any particular advice or offering to give Lady Sora at this time?" McKay asked, with a glance at Teyla. "Woven any tangled webs lately?"

Ronan blinked. He'd never seen a man make such an off-handed reference to the Hourglass craft before a Black Widow: not in Belka Territory, not even in Sateda.

She looked from McKay out to the group who was now moving from the courtyard into the house and something in her gaze unfocused. "Snow in midsummer," she said quietly. Wisps of hair tore free of her braid, tangling in the wind, swirling around her face, unnoticed as she stared into empty air. "Snow in midsummer and loss at Winsol... A broken web that starts it all..."

[Teyla's prophecy was supposed to wind through this story and into the sequel, which would actually feature Kolya getting hold of Elizabeth and McKay and trying to use them against Atlantis Territory while Shep, Ronon, and Teyla went in against Kolya. I've always disliked that they didn't use Teyla, Carson and Aiden to better effect during The Storm/The Eye. I know that Shep's the hero, but once in a while I'd like to have someone else (and not Rodney, either) save the day.]

Seconds passed during which the three men exchanged startled looks.

It didn't look like either McKay or Ford had a clue what to do, but Ronan approved of the young Warlord's boldness - he reached out one hand to touch her on the shoulder.

Her eyes fell upon Ford, and she shook her head as though clearing it of cobwebs.

"Teyla," he said gently. "Have you Seen?"

She shivered, as though stepping back from a cold place and looked the young man in the eyes. "I don't know."

"Well, can't you weave a tangled web to confirm your vision?" McKay asked impatiently.

The look she turned on him would have halted another man in his tracks. Ronan tensed, fighting back the urge to rise to the killing edge in response to that deadly glare. Ford froze, his eyes glued to Teyla.

McKay simply looked like a teacher facing a student who was slow to pick up the lesson. If the man had any survival instincts, Ronan decided they were buried deep. Too deep for even the Red to pierce.

Maybe that was the reason why, after a moment, the Widow exhaled softly. "I can," she said. "But it will take time."

"And right now, you don't have the time," Ford said. "Don't worry about it, Teyla. I'm sure Lady Sora has her own Black Widows watching out for her."

"Assuming, you know, they're not all dead or broken," said McKay. He caught the exasperation of the others and protested. "What? You know it's true! Or at least probable."

"We know what you're saying," said Ford, exasperated. "Just don't say that around the Gennii, okay?"

"What do you take me for - an idiot? Ah!" McKay held up one hand as Ford opened his mouth to answer. "Don't even think of answering that!" He huffed. "I'm cold. Is anyone else cold? I'm going in."

Down in the courtyard, the Queens had finished their pleasantries, come to the same conclusion as McKay, and were retiring inside.

A querying glance from Ford and the slightest of nods from the Widow dismissed the young Warlord. He bickered easily with McKay as they went inside, leaving Ronan alone with the Widow.

Ronan watched her, intrigued in spite of his wariness of her caste. She was small of stature, but compact and lean, and there was neither resentment nor challenge in her gaze as she looked him over. "I take it that you have not encountered many Black Widows in the courts of Belka Territory?"

[I also like Teyla&Ronon - once again, as friends. Think Jaenelle and Lucivar. Or maybe Surreal and Lucivar.]

He met her gaze, forcing himself to hold her eyes. "I tried to avoid them." It was a risk, but she didn't seem cruel or standoffish, just intrigued - or perhaps amused.

"I suppose that I also would avoid Black Widows were I not one myself. The Hourglass Craft is dangerous and can be used both to help and to harm." She gave him a very direct look. "I imagine it was more often used to harm than help in Belka territory."

There wasn't anything he could say to deny it.

Ronan chose to change the topic. "You said you saw a broken web. A witch's inner web?"

She hesitated. "I...I cannot tell," she said. "A Seeing is nothing more than shattered fragments that can be pieced together any which way."

Down in the courtyard, the last of the Gennii warriors was climbing the stairs. Ronan saw him glance up at the balcony, eyeing them for a wary second. Then he went inside.

"Lady Sora hasn't had her Virgin Night."

"Not yet."

Ronan hesitated before asking the next question, but years in Belka Territory forced the words from his lips. "Is she likely to be broken?"

Teyla went rigid, but her voice was calm. "It is always possible."

"Then would they?"

A witch's adult strength was entirely dependant on her first sexual experience. She could emerge from that first time with her Craft intact, or broken beyond all hope of skill or ability. It was an easy way to dispose of a young, powerful witch. A witch like Sora of the Gennii.

"What is it to you?"

He let her challenge pass. "I spent seven years in a Territory that thought nothing of breaking a Queen if she was a threat to the Queens in power." His smile was thin and feral. "I'm looking for the reassurance that Gennii Territory is not on its way to becoming Belka."

And something in him coiled in anger and revulsion, taught and trained in the Laws and Protocols of the Blood: to break a Queen simply to retain one's own power...

"Having only visited Belka the once and never having visited Gennii Territory at all, I cannot give you that reassurance," Teyla retorted. "However, you may observe the Gennii for yourself. They will be present at mealtimes for the next few days without fail."

"And Lady Sora?"

She gave him a very direct, very piercing look. "Do you seek service with her?"

He bared his teeth. "I am a Warlord Prince. It is in my nature to protect and serve."

[A quick rundown: in one of the books - The Invisible Ring - a Warlord Prince tells the main character that without a Queen to ground him, he's deadly to himself and to others. While it seems that Warlord Princes don't need to be in direct service to a Queen (for instance, in the Black Jewels trilogy, Saetan, Andulvar and Prothvar don't serve anyone for the thousands of years between Cassandra and Jaenelle - although Saetan notes he's always served Witch), it would seem to be a beneficial relationship from both sides of the fence. A Queen gains a loyal Warlord Prince and a Warlord Prince gains reins to hold him back if he grows too vicious.

Hm. Maybe I should write Ronon in the rut someday.]

Dark eyes looked him over, summed him up. Finally, she nodded acceptance of his words and his territoriality. She understood the essential nature of Warlord Princes, at least - no surprise given that she lived so close to at least two of them.

And Ronan was surprised to feel relief that she accepted him as he was: a dangerous, volatile male who equalled her in caste rank, if not Jewel strength. More than just accepting his nature, she accepted him. There was no fear in her expression as she turned away, no wariness. She wasn't waiting for him to strike.

She trusted him.

Even more surprising to him, Ronan trusted her.

A Black Widow, yes, but one who understood who he was, what he was.

And if the trust of a Black Widow felt like this within him - as though he had wings with which to take to the skies, Ronan could only wonder how the trust of the Queen would feel.

Breath caught in his throat and he swallowed hard. If he looked down at the empty courtyard, he could almost see her standing down there, dark-haired, fair-skinned, proud and graceful, and with the vital, vibrant aura of a Queen.

You will never touch me like that again.

No. He wouldn't be gaining Elizabeth's trust anytime soon.

[Yeah, it always comes back to Liz. ;)]

Maybe, instead, there would be hope for him in this young Queen? From the sound of it, Lady Sora was young, powerful, unbroken, and fragile in that wholeness. Maybe she might welcome a Dark-Jewelled Warlord Prince in her court.

He couldn't serve Elizabeth of Atlantis, but he might be able to be of service to Sora of the Gennii.

Ronan supposed the only way to tell would be to approach her court and her people.

The Black Widow was nearly at the door when he asked the question again. "Would the male council break her to keep their power in their Territory?"

She turned and her dark gaze rested upon him with troubling honesty. "I don't know."

And that was all the answer Ronan had.

--