Fic: The Price of Time

[moonshayde]

Done my ficathon piece! Yay! It's done. I am so happy. You know, I need to really stop joining ficathons ;)

So instead, I wrote a tiny short Teal'c fic for my table. Gah, I don't want to look how many more I have left...


Title: The Price of Time
Author: Moonshayde
Season: Ten
Category: Ficlet
Spoilers: Counterstrike
Pairing/Character: Teal'c
Prompt 010: Years
Summary: Teal'c contemplates the concept of time.
Warnings: none
Word Count: 220
Rating: PG

Author's Notes: For Stargatefic100 Challenge – Teal'c

Disclaimer: Stargate, Stargate SG-1 and all of its characters, titles, names, and back-story are the property of MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, Gekko Productions, SciFi Channel, and Showtime/Viacom. All other characters, the story idea and the story itself are the sole property of the author. This story cannot be printed anywhere without the sole permission of the author. Realize this is for entertainment purposes only; no financial gain or profit has been gained from this fiction. This story is not meant to be an infringement on the rights of the above-mentioned establishments

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Time.

Teal'c had always thought little of the concept. For him, time had never had much meaning. His symbiote had given him long life, vitality, and perfect health. The passage of time seemed inconsequential.

That was how he had lived until he had met the Tau'ri.

Time for the Tau'ri moved quickly. The years he spent with them had shown Teal'c how different life could be through another's eyes. The Tau'ri were an abrupt and spontaneous people. Not all valued their time, but many did.

It was through his friends of the Tau'ri that Teal'c discovered time. He watched them grow and change in ways he had never seen before. Their world showed him the beauty of brevity and the agony of age.

Jaffa knew of death. Jaffa lived it. They understood not only the pain, but also the honor of battle. For Jaffa, the wars of heart and soul could be waged or vanquished over many years with more years to come. Not so for the Tau'ri.

But now, as he thought back to those years that had shaped him, changed him, and made him appreciate the concept of time evermore so, he could also taste its bitter cruelty.

The years were gone. The Jaffa were free. And now there was chaos.

His people would never be as one.

Table is here

Comments

[cyren-2132.livejournal.com]

I liked this. I doubt it was your intention (or maybe it was, I don't know), but now I'm thinking about the long life of a Jaffa versus the relatively short life of a human, and wondering where Teal'c is on the timeline.

[moonshayde.livejournal.com]

Teal'cs age always bugged me. Supposedly, he's not much younger than Bra'tac and that just scream wrong to me. And when you watch Material Instinct, you get this vibe that Bra'tac is nearing the end of his life, but then again he's not all that much older than Teal'c.

So either someonje is lying...

My take on it is that Jaffa live a fairly long time. Bra'tac kept hinting before he took tretonin that he wouldn't be able to carry a symbiote much longer, but we don't know what his concept of time is. I saw there is a difference between the two :)

[aurora-novarum.livejournal.com]

Yeah, yeah, rub it in, why don'tcha? LOL

This was a very nice short piece. Great thoughts about TEal'c.

[moonshayde.livejournal.com]

Yeah but wait until I get it back with all the red ink ;)

Thanks! I felt like I needed me some Teal'c tonight. And I got like over 90 more fics to write for him. Poor Teal'c.

(Which is why they are all short. Heh.)

[pellucid.livejournal.com]

Done my ficathon piece!

Huh. I always thought that was a particularly Canadian phrasing; it's something I'll catch myself saying occasionally by accident (as opposed to "done with whatever it is"), and when I do, I always feel like the natives are rubbing off! ;)

Anyway. This is such a lovely, poignant little piece! It's easy to forget, I think, the kinds of culture adjustment that Teal'c has had to do, and by this point, no doubt, he feels quite displaced from the Jaffa yet not quite at home with the Tau'ri, either. You capture the sense of that displacement so well in such a short space here.

[moonshayde.livejournal.com]

Maybe the "done" vs "done with" is a North vs South thing? I know for me, it's context. Sometimes I say "done" and other times I say "done with." It depends on how I phrase the sentence.

I am a huge fangirl of Teal'c adjusting to Earth culture and concepts. And I also love this limbo area he is in right now. So I find myself constantly exploring it.

Then again, I'm an anthropologist so I guess it makes sense.

[pellucid.livejournal.com]

Maybe it is a US regional thing. I just know I had never heard people dropping the "with" till I moved to Canada, and everyone does it here. (by which I mean "lots of people"--this to clarify in case Meg swings in to offer exceptions! ;)