Teyla looks at her body and knows she is getting old. Her skin is not blemished—remarkably, for all the woods work she does—but her arms are not as strong as they once were, her legs not as fast. Her stomach curves ever so slightly outward, and she takes this as a sign.
"Did I do something wrong? Was it Rodney? I'll kick his ass for you."
She knew he would react like this, which is why she had not said anything. "It is simply time, John. I have an obligation to my people I should fulfill before I am too old."
"For a year? All at once? While there are Wraith out there, coming for us? While the Replicators keep trying to take us out?"
"Yes, for a year all at once. This is not a thing to be done in pieces. As for the Wraith," she shrugged, "they are always with us. And the Replicators have no intention of attacking the mainland, and I suspect they will not destroy the city any time soon." She smiled pleasantly and reached for the door panel. "Please excuse me while I finish packing."
Teyla arrived on the mainland at noon. She was not alone; this was a trading transport, and Tynol and Bandoon had brought back breadgrass from Norn and a clutch of glib chicks from Midurt.
The trip over was long. The two boys, no, men now, since the last Growing Moon, looked at her with flat eyes and spoke to each other with punches and nudges. If she could have, Teyla would have carved a begging stick, but the flight was too turbulent. She contented herself with trying and failing to tell the chicks apart.
Getting off the transport, she looked around to orient herself. She had not been here in a long time with no feast tent or leader ring to direct her way. In the end, she turned back in the ship and said, "Can I help unload?"
Bandoon blinked at her slowly and pursed his lips, but Tynol nodded right away and handed her a bale of grass. "You know where the pantry is?"
"No." She shook her head.
"Follow him." Tynol pointed over his shoulder at Bandoon. "I'll be right behind you."
The transport was unloaded in a short time, and, as she had thought, Mylka's tent was close by it.
"It is not too soon that you have come to me," said the old woman when Teyla went inside.
Teyla said nothing, placed her small bag near the smallest bedroll in the tent and went to kneel at Mylka's feet.
"Hmm. Perhaps it is not too late either." She placed her hand in Teyla's hair, ran her fingers down Teyla's neck, across the shoulder, and over Teyla's breast. "Stand and let me look at you. Turn round in a circle." Mylka's hands ran all over Teyla's body, pinching and squeezing. "Gleena will take to you, I think." She smiled and her dour face was suddenly warm and welcoming. "You will be the first since we came to this world, the first of the Twelve to be born here."
Teyla did not speak until the next Dead Moon. To be come Gleena the Teacher, one had first to listen and to hear. She followed a member of the Council of Twelve each day; fifteen of them had come from Athos, so she ghosted each of them six times. Teyla had been Etu the Hunter when Mylka was becoming Gleena, and she had not like the way the woman tried to disappear as she listened. Teyla listened as if she were part of the conversation, as if at any moment she might speak.
"This area is over-hunted. No one wishes to move from this place, we cannot trade for enough meat, and a trip to the other side of the continent will solve our problems." Tynol stomped his foot, twice, to emphasize his point.
"The Lantians are willing to trade us the meat, in payment for Jinto and the other serving as guards and explorers, as Teyla did," said Bandoon, point at her. "We do not know the animals and plants on the far side of the continent, we do not know the land. I will not go there to hunt, and I am Etu."
Teyla wondered if these boys would stumble on the obvious solution any time soon. She wondered if Tynol would ever learn to persuade, rather than fight for what he wanted. She wondered how she might convince them to do the clever thing, and think it their own idea.
She said nothing and watched the argument drag out in irresolution.
Teyla sat in the cook tent and pounded groundroot into flour. Still, she could not smash out the sound of Felry laughing at Halling's attempts to court her. She finally pounded so hard that Felry turned to look at her, brown eyes narrowed in tight annoyance. "You cannot talk, Teyla, but you do not have to stay, either. My talk harms none and helps to pass the time. Silence your anger or leave."
Teyla got up, and stalked over to the groundroot bin, scraped her mash into it. She washed her mortal and pestle, then went to the salt meat barrels. It was a day early to change the salt for the grelik meat, but if she added MSG, no one would notice. She was about to slip it in when Felry's daughter Noan came to her. The child was Tla the Questioner, so true to form she asked, "Why do you salt the meat with Earth salt? Is it because you lived with the Lantians for so long, and you like the way their food tastes? Did you forget how to salt meat because you've been gone so long?" The girl leaned forward and whispered, "Did you forget how to read the bins? Mama says you've been gone so long you forgot our script, and you'll never be Gleena."
Teyla put the MSG away, put more salt on the meat, and went back to Mylka's tent. She got out her bag and her sticks and her Lantian jacket. She looked at these three objects so long that Mylka came in and discovered her.
Mylka said nothing as she watched Teyla put them away, but after dinner she said, "I had asked Garu the Lover to share his tent with me tonight, but I have a headache. Go and tell him for me." She laughed. "I mean, I will give you a note."
At summer's head, Teyla's silence was lifted. Many of the Lantians came to the village on that day, for it was the feast of Tla and Lota the Thinker.
"Teyla!" Ronon picked her up and swung her around. She smiled into his shoulder and clung tighter.
"Do you know how many I've almost been killed?" Rodney took her directly from Ronon, squeezed fast and hard one time, and put her back on the ground. "Twenty-seven! I counted. And at least five of those instances could have been prevented if we'd had you there instead of Private McFumbles."
She smiled and said only, "You look well, despite all the danger."
Rodney sniffed and drew himself up a little straighter. "The fourth time I almost got killed was because I couldn't do a decent pull up, so Ronon instituted a daily physical torture session."
She looked at Ronon and he rolled his eyes, shook his head. "McAfee likes to cook. He," a nod in Rodney's direction, "was getting slow and fat, so I chased him a little." He laughed.
She laughed in return, but looked past them, in the direction of the landing field.
"He couldn't make it. He—," Ronon started.
"He's mad at you," Rodney cut Ronon off. "You left without explaining why in words small and blunt enough for him to accept, and now he's acting like a pissy bitch."
The next part of Teyla's training to become Gleena was spent as Mylka's shadow. She trailed Mylka as she walked the settlement, listing to everything, and speaking occasionally. She sat in the back as Mylka instructed the children. And she talked everything over with Mylka, at length.
Teyla followed as Mylka drifted in the direction of men shouting.
"We will soon be getting meat from the Lantians as charity instead of payment, if we do not quickly reach an agreement about our payment," said Jinto.
"Depending on the Lantians for anything is dangerous," said Tynol. "We should hunt the far edge of the continent!"
"How is that less depending on the Lantians, you fool? We need their puddlejumpers to get there and back."
"We only need their puddlejumpers as long as we remain in this settlement. If we depend on them to bring us meat, and they stop, we have to fight our way past them to the Ancient ring. How could we prevail? We can move our people to better hunting if we must. We only choose not to do so."
"You want to send our best hunters off to unfamiliar territory, too far to reach on foot, with only the Lantians as a way home! That is insanity. If we get meat from them, the forest grows around us, and when they stop bringing the meat, we can hunt again."
Mylka moved in closer to the fire, so that everyone could see her. There was a sudden scramble to make room for her, but Teyla stood back, hidden in the shadows. "The Lantians told you where they would take you? I am surprised they insisted on the continent's far edge, and no where else," said Mylka. "Jinto, pleasepass your cup. I thirst."
Teyla cleared her eyes and leaned back against Halling.
"I am glad you came to me, old friend."
"This is hard," she said.
"Is it hard because it is hard, because it is lonely, or because it is here?" He stroked a hand down her cheek, then down her arm.
"Because it is here?" She sat up a little straighter.
He pulled the blankets more firmly around the two of them and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "In some ways, you are strange to us, Teyla. You have made yourself so, through working and living with the Lantians."
"I am Athosian."
"You were an Athosian when we were of Athos. But now, this planet is new, and we are a new people. It is more than being culled that makes us stationary. The lands are rich. The trade with the Lantians is different than what we had through the Ancients' Ring, before."
She shrugged, but said, "Nanta and a few other girls are talking about farming, I heard."
"They have done more than talk. They are making arrangements to apprentice off planet."
"The world is changing."
"Our world has changed, and so have you. Is there, would there be shame, if we and you had changed in different ways?"
"Mylka, what you taught the children today, about the moon, what is that? I do not know the stories."
"This planet is not Athos, Teyla. It does not have the kely leaf or the telig bug, so it does no good to warn children from them. There are new stars in this sky they must learn."
"Crap," said Teyla.
Mylka raised her eyes placidly.
"I mean to say, this is a problem."
Teyla went before the Council of Twelve, and explained that she had made a mistake, that she could not embody Gleena the Teacher, and that she was resigning her place with Mylka to go back to the Lantians.
Her notice was accepted without comment and she left the meeting, as she was no longer privy to its mysteries.
The next day, she knocked on Elizabeth's door. "This is not a social visit," she began. She pulled out a chair and sat across from Elizabeth. "My conversion did not catch. My people have changed and there is too much for me to learn, to play the role I set myself."
"You want to cut your leave short, and rejoin Colonel Sheppard's team."
Teyla bowed her head, then looked up. "I wish to join your diplomatic and exploratory mission. I am not at all certain Colonel Sheppard will wish me to work with him again."
Elizabeth smiled and said, "I think you'll be surprised."
It took Teyla most of the day to get her things out of storage and arrange her rooms as before.
She started to sort her clothes into those that could be taken down and those that were hopelessly too big and was pleased that running with the hunters and the children had not shrunk her body that far down. Most of her clothes were salvageable. She had just finished unpacking her weapons when there was a knock at the door.
Rodney and Ronon both came in. Rodney grabbed her first, lifting her nearly a foot off the ground. Ronon took her from him, raised her high enough to kiss her forehead, and put her down again.
"Elizabeth said you were back," said Ronon."
"Are you back for good?" asked Rodney.
"I have no plans to leave," she said. "But I do not know if John will—."
"Don't worry about it," said Rodney.
"He missed you," said Ronon. "He wants you back."
Teyla turned from them a moment, turned back. She smiled brightly and said, "I expect it will take some time to find your new team, McFu—, uh…."
"McAfee," said Ronon.
"McFumbles," said Rodney.
"McAfee, a new position," she finished.
"Nah," said Ronon, and grinned. "Lorne's 2IC is being shipped back to Earth. He's pregnant with some kind of alien baby."
Rodney thumped Ronon in the shoulder. "He's not pregnant! What have I told you about talking to the Marines unsupervised? He's got a parasitic infection that Hermiod believes the Asgard can either remove or contain. They're sending him to a quarantine planet in Earth's galaxy, not back to Earth."
Ronon rolled his eyes. "Which is a long way of saying there's a place for you as soon as you take it."
"Also, come to dinner with us," said Rodney. "He," vicious nod towards Ronon with his head, "just beat me up again, and I need the comfort of mashed root vegetables and butter."
Teyla came to John in his office, at the beginning of the day, before he got too bored with the paperwork to sit at a desk. She knocked at his door.
He looked at her for a long time.
"May I enter?"
"Certainly. Have a seat, even." He remained seated and watched her as she moved.
"I have concluded my sabbatical more quickly than I originally believed possible. I would like to return to my duties in Atlantis."
"I have an open spot on Commander Lorne's team."
"Commander Lorne is a wise man and fine leader. I will be pleased to work with him." She smiled, a very small smile, and blinked once.
"On the other hand, McAfee's assignment to my team was always intended to be temporary. I could have him finish his tour with Lorne, and you could come back to Atlantis Alpha."
"I am at your command, Colonel."
"Well, on the third hand, McAfee once trained as a Cordon Bleu chef. Which means he's a really good cook. You'd be amazed how much less whining Rodney does in the morning with a gourmet breakfast." He looked at her for several seconds, no blinking, deadpan.
"My people do not believe in gods as yours do," she said slowly. "There is no all knowing, all powerful force who may or may not be concerned with the minutiae of our lives. The Twelve Eternals come to us, embodied by our own people for a time. In my youth, I was Etu the Hunter."
He had relaxed a little, shoulders loose and eyes open, not sleepy.
"I trained for a month with Halling, who was also Etu, to understand how the Eternal manifested in me, and then for four years I was in Etu, I ran the woods and brought our people meet and explored." She smiled. "Very much like what you do, but with less diplomacy required. But my point is that Etu is understood quickly, is a fast Eternal, and one who is easy to hear."
"And so you went back to pick up the mantle of Etu?"
She shook her head. "I thought—no, I wanted to be Gleena the Teacher. That is much more difficult to learn, it can take a whole year to hear Gleena properly. But I was not Gleena. I could not find the Teacher's wisdom in me."
John looked at her for a long time, but he really looked, with an open, worried face. Then he looked at his desk and said, "You packed up and went overnight for this."
She smiled, a twisted, unhappy smile and said, "It won't happen again, John. Not like that, not for that reason."
"How do you know that? How can I know that?" He leaned forward across his desk, stared hard at her. "What's to stop one of the other ten from checking in on you one fine spring morning?"
"My people are no longer of Athos, John. And the Twelve of Atlantis? I don't know them."