Egeria's Secrets

Chapter 1

AU - The Pangaran's did not force Egeria to breed and someone other than Ra knew where Ra had hidden her. Begins around the middle of Season 1 of SG1.

When Ra tore her from her host and forced her into a stasis jar, Egeria's strength was sorely depleted and her pain nearly unbearable. She had no regrets; she was Tok'ra, she would defy him and his to her last breath.

Stasis, by its very nature, denies any sense of the passage of time so when Egeria returned to consciousness, she had no concept of just how long she had been locked away. Her surroundings contributed to her initial disorientation: she could note sense any symbiote in the ones who tended her, and the tank she had been dumped into was far from ideal.

As the days passed, instead of recovering her strength, she found herself slowly weakening. The water was kept a little too warm for comfort; it's composition was suboptimal. There were trace nutrients missing from her diet. Days became weeks and then months. She was subjected to endless tests, ranging from her recovery from physical injuries to her immunity to a myriad of viruses and bacterial infections in her water, in her food and at times even injected directly into her body. They also experimented with various chemicals, watching and recording her every response.

Through all this time, she sensed not a single other symbiote and the loneliness tormented her.

Eventually, the humans around Egeria had relaxed enough to speak in her hearing and thus, she gradually pieced together that this planet had once worshipped Ra, that he had been gone for a very long time and she herself had been found in a hidden room inside the ruins of Ra's temple. They presumed she was goa'uld of course, and Egeria could not blame them for that. How were they to know otherwise? Yet that changed nothing and in her misery, Egeria contemplated the lure of ending herself and therefore her pain. She did not - could not - give in but she longed fervently for rescue, for a host to love and be loved by.

Beware what you wish for. Many, many cultures voice such a warning and Egeria was irresistibly reminded of them when he came. She had known something was wrong of course, the place in which she was imprisoned had vibrated in the shock waves of explosions, and no one had brought her food or come to record her condition. But when she felt the distant tingle of many symbiotes, dread took root. If her people came with such violence, they must have changed beyond her recognition, and the only other possibility was the goa'uld.

Peeking over the edge of her tank, she saw the terrified scientist lead the Horus guards into the room, and she saw him. Heru'ur approached her tank and looked down at her, his expression filled with contempt - and pleasure. Egeria hissed at him, expressing her opinion in the succinct way their native language required. Heru'ur's hand came down; she twisted sideways but in her now severely weakened state, she could not evade him. She thrashed helplessly as she heard Heru'ur direct his jaffa to find a small tank in which to transport her and when the tank was ready and he thrust her into it, she grabbed an opportunity and sank her fangs into the soft flesh of his arm.

He shook her off casually and as the jaffa secured the tank's lid, he inspected the flesh-wound she had inflicted. "You will pay for that," he remarked with a smirk of anticipation. "Jaffa – kree!" He turned to leave, and the jaffa carried her tank a precise two steps behind him all the way to the chappa'ai. With the sharp - if colourblind - vision of a symbiote she studied what she could see of this planet. They appeared to have been moderately advanced but they had had no chance against goa'uld weaponry and despite her own suffering, she grieved for the many dead.

They stepped through the chappa'ai to a planet that appeared uninhabited. It took several minutes before a temple came into view. Highly rustic and in some disrepair, Egeria gazed at it dully. Confined to a too-small tank, hungry and exhausted, she knew not what she could do. Her tank was carried in but she could see little as the jaffa crowded round and blocked her view. Heru'ur was speaking, he was annoyed. Egeria couldn't make out the words through the muffling effect of the tank. Then they were moving again and she caught a glimpse of three humans, two flat on the floor, hiding their faces and one stoically enduring a beating - a mild one by jaffa standards.

Egeria was carried through into the inner sanctum and again, the jaffa blocked her view. She heard the distinctive sound of the kara-kesh and as soon as it ceased, her tank was opened and Heru'ur yanked her out. He held her before a young, dark haired woman, dressed like the men in the previous room and her blank, dazed expression evidence enough that she was not here by choice. Egeria recoiled; her revulsion at the idea of taking someone unwilling suppressing the survival instincts that screamed her physical need for a host.

"Egeria, blend with her or I will kill her here and now. Each and every host you refuse to blend with, I shall kill." Heru'ur's soft threat was entirely sincere and chillingly indifferent.

It was a wretched, bitter choice and she chose life.

It was Zoe's first encounter with a ribbon device and a hundred disparate thoughts scurried though her mind as she fought both panic and the flood of dizzying pain. The room around her vanished in a haze of red and she hung in a semi-conscious stupor. It was broken by a stab of pain in her throat and the peculiar sensation of something slithering into her. Panic spiked and brought with it a new surge of adrenalin. No, no, NOOO! she screamed silently, nausea biting her gut and the knowledge of her utter helplessness shredding the little whisper of hope she'd retained. Abruptly, the physical sensations cut off and she felt her body move under another control. Black misery choked her for a long moment before a wash of emotion knocked it away. Compassion, sorrow, regrets, desperation, caring; it was all a tangle.

**I am so, so sorry.** Egeria told her new host, anguished at the distress she was causing – and dreading the pain to come. Looking up at Heru'ur, she carefully kept her mask of icy contempt intact as she met his gaze with an arrogant glare of her own.

**What?** Zoe was… discombobulated.

**To take a host against their will is a despicable act, but I had to choose between doing so or seeing Heru'ur kill you.**

**I don't want to die!**

Egeria did not want to die either. She tried to block her host from feeling it as Heru'ur hit her but could not. **I hope we will not.**

Zoe flinched mentally at the sharp pain of the blow washed over her. **What – who are you?** she asked warily.

The answer Egeria needed to give was much more than words could convey so in response, she let down the block between her mind and memories and that of her host.

Egeria did not break. Five days of unrelenting torture before he miscalculated slightly and killed them; they woke in a sarcophagus on a different world, in the heart of one of Heru'ur's strongholds. Again they were tortured, and they endured because they could do nothing else. Yet even in such horror, they had each other. From such an uncertain beginning, Egeria had not thought Zoe would forgive her, but her host had done so.

**Are you wallowing in guilt again?** came the sleepy question as Zoe woke.

**I cannot forget you did not choose this.**

Zoe was silent, thinking in her 'private room' as Egeria termed it. **I did choose to join my people's fight against the goa'uld. No, I did not choose this specific situation but I did choose the risk of unknown possibilities. I wish we were not enduring this but I do not – cannot – regret blending with you.**