fic: "Pegasus Ascendant" by Tielan, G [Second Verse Challenge]
TITLE: Pegasus Ascendant
AUTHOR: Tielan
SUMMARY: What if the Wraith had never existed?
CATEGORY: AU, gen
RATING: G
WORD COUNT: 1,834
NOTES: Some serious reduxing being done here. I've always wanted to write this kind of story, flipping everything on its head. It's been great to actually be challenged to do so!

Pegasus Ascendant: Welcome To The City

It was early morning when her receiver buzzed softly.

"Teyla. The Ring has connected - a new contact - unregistered and unknown."

At Ladon's words, Teyla's eyes opened to stare at the pink blush of the dawn sky over the purple-grey sea. In the dozen years since the rediscovery of the city, a thousand worlds had been referenced in the knowledge left by the Ancestors when they departed, generations upon generations past. A new contact - unregistered and unknown - was a rarity.

"Have they offered greeting?"

"No, but the data indicates they're sending something through."

Teyla did not bother to put on her boots, merely picked them up on her way out. As the doors to the meditation room sealed shut behind her, locking others back into their pools of peace and quiet, she ordered, "Drop the shield, but activate the containment area. I am coming now. Is Kell awake?"

"Ronon, Sora, Tyre, and Idos are on cover."

She frowned a little as she moved swiftly through the corridors. "It is early for them."

"It's early for most of us," said Ladon wryly, then paused as there was murmuring in the background. "Their device has arrived. Mechanical, seems to be controlled by signal. Sora thinks it's a reconnaisance device. Ronon's approaching."

Another person spoke in the background, in Control, reporting. Teyla could just make out the words, "...receiving data...packet-format...the systems are compression-decoding them..."

As Teyla turned into the corridor that would bring her to the Ring hall, the person speaking paused, and then began gabbling something more intricate than she could easily follow.

"What?" Ladon paused and the gabbling grew more agitated. "Teyla, Kanayos thinks this contact isn't from our galaxy - the metadata streams aren't anything we've seen before."

Another galaxy!

A flutter began beneath her breastbone as Teyla broke into a run down the corridor, heedless of the stares she was receiving. "We're getting..." Ladon paused.

The blaring report pulsed through Teyla's receiver, transmitted from other receivers in the Hall of Greeting. "This is General O'Neill of Earth, making contact with Atlantis. Is there someone we can speak to?"

"Patch it..."

"Patched. Go."

Teyla spoke clearly into the receiver fixed to her lapel. "General O'Neill of Earth, this is Teyla Emmagen of Athos, speaker for the City of the Ancestors. We give you greeting."

Through the speaker, she heard the burble of excitement in the far-distant place, a mutter that she could already feel echoed in the city.

"Well, this is...unexpected." His tones were polite, almost friendly, but behind the word, Teyla thought she could hear the undertones of another word: unwelcome. She frowned. In the background, she heard at least one voice prompting him. "Of Athos, you said? So...you're not actually...Ancestors?"

"I am the speaker for the city of the Ancestors," Teyla said, choosing a light yet repressive tone as she came out into the Hall of Greeting, squinting against the sunlight that streamed through the windows of coloured glass. "The Ancestors are no longer among us."

"Yeah, that sounds about par for the course." With this peculiar and somewhat cynical statement, the faint hum of their transmission broke off, although only for a few seconds.

"Uh, hi, Teyla Emmagen, is it? This is...Dr. Daniel Jackson of planet Earth, in what we call the Milky Way galaxy."

Lighter and faster, this man's words tumbled over each other, like a litter of sea-sleeks, new birthed.

"We give you greeting from the City of the Ancestors," Teyla said. Best to stick with the rituals for now.

"Uh, yeah. We give you greetings from the city of...um...Colorado Springs. Look, we've got a bit of a problem now. We've been looking for Atlantis - what you call the city of the Ancestors - for a while, and when we discovered this address, we planned an expedition out to your galaxy. It's been in the works for a while, but we've got only one shot at this because of power considerations - we don't have enough power to contact you twice."

She heard in his voice an eagerness, undisguised, and abruptly realised what his words implied. There was more to this than just a first contact.

"You have people prepared to travel here even now."

"We imagined that the city would be deserted because the Ancients - the Ancestors - have been gone from our galaxy for...well...thousands of years. It never occurred to us that there'd be other people living there by now."

The Ancestors in another galaxy? For thousands of years? Teyla lifted her gaze up to Ladon's and read the astonishment in his expression - and the eagerness. Such thoughts had been only speculation - until now.

Beneath her breastbone, the flutter turned into a pounding. If they had limited power with which to connect the passage between the Rings, then even this was wasting time. "How many people had you prepared to travel here?"

Her directness seemed to startle him because he took a moment to answer. "About eighty. Eighty-two."

Kel arrived on the scene, his tall frame striding out of one of the corridors leading into the Hall of Greeting. He checked at the sight of the device, Teyla saw Ronon move to intercept him.

"We limit the number of people in the city from any one culture," she explained. "No culture is represented by more than sixty people in the city. Is it possible to select only sixty...?"

To the side, presumably out of the vision of the Earthers, Ronon was bringing Kel up to speed. Sora was frowning and her gaze kept drifting up to Ladon; in the corridors off to the side, Teyla could see people hovering, the news spreading through the denizens of the city like summer wildfire across the plains.

In the background, General O'Neill muttered, "Select sixty? God, this is going to be a nightmare..."

"Wait, Jack, I think we can..." Dr. Daniel Jackson paused and when he spoke again, his words came through more clearly to Teyla. "Ms. Emmagen, the expedition has supplies to support themselves - we prepared for the possibility that Atlantis wouldn't be habitable. We'd like to send the full eighty personnel we've got ready here and relocate the excess elsewhere if we need to. Do you have empty planets where they can base themselves?"

"There are uninhabited planets accessible through the Ring, yes."

"Then that'll do." This time, the rougher voice of General O'Neill came through clearly. His briskness suggested a practical mindset - perhaps he was like Kel, a warlord among his people? Teyla wondered briefly then attended to his words. "We've got twenty-two military personnel, forty-four technical and scientific specialists, ten medical and health professionals, five general staff and aides, and one negotiator who's going to have a hell of a time keeping them all in check - total of eighty-two personnel. They're packed and ready to roll. If you can find us a planet then we'll sort ourselves out."

Teyla noticed he did not ask the expected question. There was an assumption in there, that these newcomers from another galaxy would be permitted passage to the city. Her agreement was implied; what would her disagreement bring?

This was nothing she had ever had to deal with before. There was usually a pattern to these events, a process. First the culture had to prove their right to come to the city, knowledge and capability, an ability to learn, an willingness to co-operate, then the cultures already in the city voted, and then and only then would the speaker for the city make the invitation.

Teyla did not need to look up at Ladon where he leaned over the balcony railing. She did not need to seek Ronon's narrow gaze behind her where he updated a hard-eyed Kel. She did not need to know that Sora stood with her lips thinned, or that Tyre was tapping his finger on the butt of his weapon.

She did not need to be told what the reaction of the city council would be upon learning she had granted access to strangers without so much as a 'with your permission.'

And yet...

Another galaxy. Others who had known of the Ancestors, discovered their ways - perhaps even some who were of the lineage of the Ancestors, a rare thing among the peoples of the city.

The decision must be made now - by her or else not at all.

In the end, councils decide nothing, Teyla, said her father's voice in her head. The weightiest choices are made by one pair of shoulders, and so, too, are the burdens of responsibility carried.

"Bring your people through," she said, her voice carrying clear in the stillness of the Hall of Greeting and the silence on the other side of the passage. "But only sixty will be allowed to stay in the city at any one time, the rest must be relocated. You have my word and the word of those who dwell in the city of the Ancestors that we will see them safe."

"Thank you, Ms. Emmagan." General O'Neill's voice softened. "We - the peoples of Earth and the SGC - appreciate this."

As she gave the orders to prepare the Hall of Greeting for their arrivals, Teyla held Kel's hard, narrow gaze, saw Ladon's quirked eyebrow. But if Kel positioned his people around the Hall, at least he did not order their weapons out. And if Ladon seemed more amused than approving, at least he lowered the shield around the containment area.

Ronon took up position just behind her, a watchful presence should the Earthers prove treacherous. "Might have been wiser to wait until they showed their intentions."

"Wiser, perhaps," she agreed without turning her head to look at him, "but not helpful to this friendship."

"Do we know that they're friends?" Ronon asked dryly.

There was a sound like something breaking through a watery surface, and the first of the Earther peoples emerged from the Ring.

After speaking with two men, Earth's first representative was a woman.

Tall and pale, dark-haired and delicate-featured, with clothing that had the look of a uniform about it, and a large pack with a sturdy look about it on her back. Her expression was open and delighted as she paused momentarily at the edge of the Ring and took in the Hall of Greeting, vividly lit by the morning light. Then she moved without hesitation towards Teyla, a smile growing on her lips, even as another man strode in behind her, a cap on his head and a steely expression in his blue eyes.

"Teyla Emmagen of Athos?" The woman spoke easily, with a light authority and the warm open-ness of a peacemaker. "I'm Dr. Elizabeth Weir, head of the Atlantis expedition. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Almost helplessly, her eyes drifted back up to the Hall's architecture - a gesture which was being echoed in many others of her people as they arrived through the Ring. Most of them carried packs, many of them herded large boxes that moved on wheels, but nearly of them paused to look up at the Hall of Greeting.

Teyla bit back a smile, remembering her own first arrival in the Hall of Greeting. She, too, had stared at the wonder of the city like a child taken to see the falling stars of Paraka in the bright season.

And in that rush of sudden commonality, Teyla found the words of welcome that would bring these Earthers in among the many other cultures who had sought, and ultimately found this place.

"Dr. Elizabeth Weir of Earth, you and your people are welcome to the city of the Ancestors."

--

...and then everything changes!