Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 161

Chapter 161 - Catching Up

Trudging tiredly back through the door into their borrowed room, Eventus couldn’t help but feel distinctly like he’d just gotten a brief window into why Moros had ended up like he had.

Rayla glanced up from her book as he walked in, staring at him with a furrowed brow for several seconds before seeming to come to some decision. “You look tired.”

“In the last three days I've gone from dealing with human politics, to human slash Goa'uld politics, to Jaffa politics, and now Tok'ra politics.” Eventus said as he flopped down onto the open bed before holding his hands up with two fingers an inch apart. “I'm this close to just running off to another galaxy for a couple years and only coming back once everything's been dealt with.”

“Wouldn't that risk nothing actually getting dealt with?” Rayla asked in confusion.

“Yes…” Eventus groaned, well aware that he'd thrown too many butterflies into events by this point to rely on things going anywhere near to how they would have originally. “Which is why I won't.”

He lifted his head up to stare at the Elf on the other bed. “I don't suppose you have a recent desire to step onto the political stage?”

“Nope.” Rayla answered without hesitation. “From everything you and Teyla have said, politics sounds really boring.”

Letting his head fall back, Eventus pouted at the ceiling. “Just for that I'm going to create a bunch more Elves and make you their queen.”

“You better not!” Rayla objected in seeming alarm at the thought. “I'm way too young to be stuck on a throne telling other people what to do!”

“You'd do fine.” Eventus tried to reassure her. “Most of what you need to know for being a queen is already there, we'd just need to get you the right dress and some acting lessons so you can properly put on a wise and regal air.”

A pillow arced over and smacked him in the face.

“That's not what I mean!” He could practically hear the pout in Rayla's voice. “Being a queen is boring! You can't go on any adventures, and you have to listen to other people's problems all day while your daughters plot behind your back to overthrow you!”

“Where did that last thing come from?” Eventus asked in utter bemusement, completely unable to think of anywhere she might have gotten that idea from.

She held up the book she had been reading when he’d come in. “It’s about this group of Elves called the Drow, I found it in the SGC’s library.”

Eventus dragged a hand down his face in sheer exasperation. “Oh for crying out loud…” He pushed himself up into a sitting position. “The Drow are a general parody written by someone with some very specific fetishes, trust me when I say nothing about their political system is at all realistic.”

Sure in theory you could probably force a system like that to not collapse under its own corruption through studious intervention, but that was way too much work for what would functionally be no return.

“Oh… That makes this make a lot more sense.” Rayla nodded to herself in seeming understanding.

“Also,” Eventus went on, since this needed clarification. “You’re a light elf, not a dark elf. And while I will probably make some dark elves someday just for completion's sake. They both won’t be evil, and will have their own leaders to deal with things.”

“Allright.” Rayla said, her brow furrowing in thought for several seconds before she continued. “So, um, what do light elf queen’s do?”

“Whatever they want.” Eventus returned dryly. “I already have to deal with fixing my own people’s system of government, I’m not gonna build one for you too.”

Rayla pouted. “Then why do I have to be a queen?”

“Because I’m four hundred years old and want you to be an Elf queen.” Eventus grinned, fully aware that he was being just a tiny bit petty now. 

“Speaking of responsibilities though.” His look went serious. “How did things go with Yami while I was gone? She didn’t give you trouble or anything?”

Tilting her head, Rayla seemed to consider the question. “She's kind of weird.”

“Weird?” Eventus pressed after a moment when she didn't continue.

“She wanted to touch my ears.” Rayla pouted.

That made Eventus blink, and he had to bite back several joking responses that would be inappropriate for the situation. “Did you let her?”

“Yes…” Rayla confessed in a slightly hesitant tone. “But while she was doing that she started asking me about my hair.”

“Oh.” Eventus exclaimed as a sudden realization hit. “I told her I was going to make her a new body, so she was probably examining you to see just what kind of things our technologies can actually accomplish.”

At least, he really hoped that was it, because the other option was that she had been hitting on Rayla, and that was just too odd to consider.

“I guess that makes sense.” Rayla nodded in agreement before a hesitant look came over her features. “But um… What happens to her current body then?”

“No clue.” Eventus admitted honestly. “If I were to guess, I'd say the humans will run her through whatever their standard procedure is for cases like this and then shuffle her back to her home country.”

Rayla cringed. “I think that might be a bad idea.”

“A bad idea?” Eventus frowned, not having expected the Elf to have an opinion on that of all things. “Did Yami say something that makes you think that?”

“I asked her why Goa’uld pick unwilling hosts.” Rayla explained. “Because it didn’t make a lot of sense given there have to be a lot of people out there they could make deals with. But that’s what Yami said she did, and then she told me about how her host was some lady named Ashia Patvardhan who had been in a really really bad situation.”

“And you’re afraid the humans might send her back to that?” Eventus guessed.

“Yeah.” Rayla nodded.

“‘I’m pretty sure Yami killed the man responsible for that.” Eventus admitted, recalling the conversation the Goa’uld had with Jack on the gateship. “But given what I know about her home country, they might actually blame Ashia for that. So I suppose I can offer her asylum once I finish separating the two.”

He didn’t doubt Doctor Weir would do the same if she could, but the treaties holding the IOA together included several clauses preventing anything even approaching asylum offers to the citizens of member countries.

“If she doesn’t want to accept the offer though, there’s nothing I can really do.”

Not technically true, but holding someone captive for their good wasn’t really a line Eventus wanted to cross.

“I don’t think she’d refuse.” Rayla smiled happily. “After all, she made a deal with Yami to get out of her situation. And you won’t even ask for her body in return.”

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Author’s Notes: A somewhat transitional chapter today, but I wanted one between the Tok’ra agreeing and the start of the Asgard travel arc.