Cassandra sat opposite the stargate, sketching Jacob Carter from memory. As Janet Frasier’s parents were both dead, and she shared a closeness with Sam, Jacob had treated Cassandra as a surrogate grandchild when he was on Earth – Jacob and Selmak had, that is. Selmak was actually the more attentive of the two. Cassandra did not know if the symbiote compensated for Jacob’s shortcomings or if he compensated for the trauma she had suffered at the hands of Nirrti. Either way, she missed the Tok’ra’s ironic comfort even more than she missed that of his host.
“Only two coming,” Cassandra thought, sadly. “After everything Jacob and Selmak have done, there are only two Tok’ra representatives coming to the service.” The young woman hoped that she had met this blended pair before, as she still had difficulty around new people.
“Incoming wormhole,” intoned Walter, “Tok’ra I.D.C.”
Cassandra found a safer distance from the iris, and the members of the Stargate Command staff took their places. With an artist’s eye, she absorbed the form that emerged from the wormhole -- His thin, medium height was cloaked in black velvet with silver satin lining, as if he knew the stars simply waited to blanket the night sky. His close-cropped silver hair framed a fine-boned, yet weathered face – a face that Cassandra did not recognise.
She noted that the host spoke with a silken gravel voice: “Greetings to the Tau'ri in this time of reflection. I am Enkil.”
General George Hammond returned, as a gesture to his old friend: “Greetings from the Tau'ri to you, Enkil, in this time of reflection.”
Enkil continued the ceremony with gentle solemnity: “Are those dearest present to surrender that which was and that which will be again?”
“We attend,” Sam Carter and Cassandra answer in unison, “and our dearest return now to the star-water.” With that, Jacob Carter’s daughter gives Enkil half the ashes; the other half reserved for the public funeral that she will attend with her brother and his family.
Enkil received the remains and spoke the rites:
Star-water, mix with this end to form the beginning.
The pool is dry.
The pool is wet.
The pool is
to those who are dearest.
“Chevron seven, locked. Outgoing wormhole,” intoned Walter.
The hair on the back of Cassandra’s neck reacted first when the symbiote’s voice called to her after the service: “Dearest, may we speak privately?”
“Certainly,” assured Cassandra, stifling her fear of strangers.
She led their guests into the empty infirmary, gaining courage from the memories of her adopted mother. That courage all but bled away, however, when the symbiote introduced himself: “I am Nirrita, former god of death and former consort to the goddess of destruction, whom you knew as Nirrti.”
Cassandra would have fainted, except that she heard Daniel’s voice in her mind: “When you’re scared, ask a question. One of two things will happen – finding the answer will buy you needed time to escape, or finding the answer will prove such a fascinating process, that you’ll forget your fear entirely.”
Heeding Daniel, Cassandra made use of the human mythology lessons he gave her. She remembered the ancient description of Nirrti – male and female aspects; all black; long, golden hair – and asked the first question that came to mind: “I take it Enkil used to be a blonde?”
“Yes,” Nirrita answered, amused. He laughed a laugh that Cassandra had only heard in the horror movies that she and her school friends watched.
“Your cackle is unnerving,” Cassandra replied, honestly.
“Forgive me, dearest,” he soothed. “Very old habit.”
Cassandra felt his hand on her shoulder and was not afraid. Daniel was right. She wanted the answer to her next question: “Do you wish to say the Hankan rites over me, as I said them over my people?”
It was Enkil who answered:
I was a priest and song-maker among my people on a world within Nirrti and Nirrita’s domain. As you guessed, I had beautiful golden hair. Nirrita’s host was aging, and soon, my hair was no longer mine. I, too, presided over the deaths of my people.
My loved ones became discolored, bestial, and canabalistic. They were named rakshasas, or demons, until those who named them became demons themselves. At first, Nirrita summarily executed his mate’s failures without complaint, for it was the only function she allowed him. He had an active mind, however, and craved more.
It was Nirrita who continued:
I was so bored that I began to study the funeral rites. I was so bored that I began to listen to the songs Enkil composed for the dead, himself. Then, the Tok’ra, Selmak, came. I was such a marginal part of my precious queen’s life that she did not even notice that I had been abducted for five days – five whole days!
The Tok’ra did not extract me. They knew that I knew what there was to know. Instead, they denied me a sarcophagus until Enkil and I could spell agony in every alphabet the Goa’uld racial memory had ever retained. We had to talk to each other, just to remain sane.
It was Enkil’s turn to laugh, as he retorted, “He thinks we remained sane.”
“Granted, it is difficult to tell some days,” asserted Nirrita.
Cassandra felt her academic detachment morph into anger: “You weren’t sane, Nirrita, and I can spell agony in an alphabet that I learned from my Tau'ri family....
G-E-N-O-C-I-D-E!”
Nirrita touched Cassandra’s wet cheek, as he spoke, “I seek no absolution, dearest, for there is none. Addicted or sober, I remain an avatar of death.”
Cassandra struggled to master herself, remembering her question, “What do you want with me?”
The symbiote’s answer was straightforward: “I am here to fulfill the last wish that Selmak and Jacob Carter expressed to me -- to acknowledge the end that Nirrti brought you and the beginning that you have made of it.”
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