It was really stupid. We told ourselves that over and over, but it didn't stop us. It just felt so nice! We had loved before, of course, but never like this. We had loved as a mother, and all mothers know that they must one day give up that which they hold dear. This was entirely different.
Of course, he was mortal and we were not. The full impact of this didn't really hit us until the morning we noticed his hair was going gray. We, naturally, were unchanged and he said that the grace of the gods must be on us. And we never told him he was right.
Still, we were deliriously happy and so we remained, right up until the moment when he drew his last breath, said our name and died in our arms.
And then there came the time of mourning. We were immortal and so was our pain. We left the great city we had helped to build and fled into the forest. And there, in the quiet of the trees, we went mad.
Madmen attract ridicule. Madwomen attract the wrong kinds of attention. Mad goddesses, however, really make the headlines, which was exactly what we had spent the last several thousand years avoiding at all costs.
So Seth descended upon us as we raved in the forest. And he set great fires to drive us out. But we escaped him and ran further into the wilderness. And we put aside our grief so that we would survive.
In the wild north, we were alone, and my host was old and tired. We finally found people, but they were strange. They were tall and fair and loud and unlike any other human we had seen. They too had legends of visitors from above, but we knew that it could not be the Goa'uld.
However strange these Northmen were, they welcomed us, and welcome was all we needed.
--------
Everyone had stories about their first time through the 'Gate. Sam remembered losing her lunch on Abydos, and the expression on her father's already pain ridden face when he'd first materialized on the Tok'ra home planet where he'd blended with Selmak. Jack never talked about his first time, but Sam had it on pretty good authority that he was blackmailing both Daniel and Feretti to keep them quiet about it.
Halleigh stood on her own two feet in front of the Stargate with a very odd expression on her face. She did not look like she was about to be sick or collapse. Jack was impressed. Most people's first trips were at least mildly embarrassing.
"We are so far away," she said, quite breathlessly.
"Indeed," Teal'c agreed. "The distance between Earth and this planet is most remarkable."
"It's a little disconcerting."
"You were just broken apart at the subatomic level," Sam pointed out.
"I know," Halleigh said. "But I can feel the distance."
Jack looked at her questioningly, but Teal'c was nodding.
"I understand, Halleigh Madisen. Chulak is far from Earth and I feel it at times."
"This is all very nice," Jack said. "But would someone like to hazard a guess as to where we are?"
"These symbols are Egyptian," Daniel said, running his fingers over one of the two obelisks which flanked the DHD. "It says 'Welcome...travelers...to the home of...Ma'at."
"Mot?" exclaimed Jack, raising his P-90.
"No, not Mot, Ma'at." Daniel emphasized the glottal stop. "That explains the origin chevron. It's not a hockey stick, it's a stylized feather."
"But he's still a Goa'uld?" Sam asked.
"She is the Egyptian manifestation of wisdom and truth," Daniel explained. "She didn't take human form. Remember the feather? From Sha're's funeral?"
"Yes," said Jack, his eyes widening as he understood. "So we've come all this way to talk to a feather?"
"O'Neill!" called Teal'c, and pointed up to a nearby hill top.
A woman stood there. She was dressed in bright colours and her long white hair blew out around her. She was old, very old, but there was a strength in her eyes that made Sam's heart skip a beat.
"So, not so much a feather then."
"What now, sir?"
"She wants to talk to us," Halleigh said.
Jack took a very long look at the young woman, and then exchanged a glance with Sam. She looked back at him in a way that clearly said I don't know. Why are you asking me?
"Alright," Jack decided. "Let's go for a walk."
The woman, though within hearing range, said nothing and made no movement. She did not even react when SG-1 began to move towards her.
"Ma'at?" Daniel queried.
"Yes, Daniel Jackson, I am." The woman spoke in Abydonian.
"You know this woman?" Jack asked incredulously, recognizing Abydonian when he heard it, but only understanding Daniel's name.
"No, Jack O'Neill, he does not," Ma'at replied, this time in perfect English. "But I know of him, and of you."
"You're an Ancient." Daniel did not phrase it as a question.
"I am."
"But the Ancients were killed. They all died in the plague."
"Yes, Samantha Carter, we did. And the drinks are getting cold." Ma'at gestured towards a cabin Daniel was almost positive hadn't been there a few moments ago. "Shall we?"
Jack shouldered his P-90 and gestured grandiosely.
"Yes, yes we shall."
---------
It was not coffee. Not quite. It looked like coffee, it smelled like coffee and, to a degree, it tasted like coffee. But it could not be coffee, because coffee came from Earth, and this was not Earth. Of that much, Halleigh was certain.
Halleigh had been quiet unsettled by the journey through the Stargate, although for apparently all the wrong reasons. Her feelings had compounded as soon as she spotted Ma'at. Human beings, or at least those brought up in the West, are taught to actively disbelieve anything they cannot see and touch. Halleigh found herself knowing things she should not know. She knew exactly how far away from Earth she was. She knew who and what Ma'at was. She knew that what she was drinking was not coffee. And she had absolutely no idea how.
"You were Ascended once, weren't you?" Daniel was asking their hostess as he absently spread something that was not quite raspberry jam on something that was not quite a tea biscuit.
"Yes. Many years ago."
"How did you, uh, descend?" Jack asked.
"Jack, that's not really po-"
"It is all right, Daniel Jackson," Ma'at said, completely unruffled. "It is a tale you must know."
"So you brought us here to talk?"
"No. I will show you."
"How?" asked Sam.
"The Halla carries it with her." Halleigh's head snapped up at Ma'at's unexpected use of her nickname.
"But we've tried that," Sam said. "The memory retrieval technology couldn't - "
"The Tok'ra are wise, Samantha Carter," Ma'at said. "But even as their Goa'uld brethren, they only use the technology. They do not understand it. My race created the devices. I can program it much more accurately they anyone else can."
"You said you're going to show us. Does that mean you'll use the holographic part of the device?" Daniel asked. Ma'at nodded. "Isn't that intrusive?"
"Do not be concerned, Daniel Jackson," Ma'at reassured him. "The memories we see will not invade The Halla's privacy."
Daniel looked at Halleigh, who was completely calm. She nodded to him.
"We have to know, Dr. Jackson. I have to do this."
"Wait just a minute," Jack broke in. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd feel a lot more comfortable if you did some explaining before you hook anybody up to anything."
"As you wish, Jack O'Neill," Ma'at said in that same, unruffled tone.
"My people were dying. Our technology could not save us and the harder we tried to solve our problems with science, the more ill we became. Eventually, a group of us forsook our material existence, and though we were still sickened, we discovered that just before we died, we would cease to be.
"So we became the Ascended, and we stood watch over our people as the last of them succumbed. And our empire fell into ruin, because there was no one left.
"But then a group of aliens who were one kind of body and another kind of spirit moved into the vacuum. Using our technology, they began to take control of their space, conquering and enslaving as they went. They were, of course, the Goa'uld."
"Yes, we've heard of them," Jack said.
"I tried to rally my people against them. The Goa'uld were using our legacy to further their own ends, and I knew that it was wrong. But the Ascended had a strict non-interference policy, even then."
"Yes, we've heard of that too." Jack didn't quite glare at Daniel when he said it.
"I was overruled and told to toe the line, but I could not. I went to a Goa'uld laboratory and stole one single symbiote. I placed it in a sarcophagus - "
"A sarcophagus?" broke in Sam.
"Yes. A properly programmed sarcophagus can do far more than heal," Ma'at explained. "The healing mode is the default setting, if you will."
"At any rate, I programmed the sarcophagus to make a singe genetic alteration."
"You created Egeria," Teal'c concluded.
"I did. And then the Others caught me, and when I woke up, I was here."
"But you kept your memories!" Daniel sounded almost insulted.
"Of course I did, Daniel Jackson," Ma'at said deprecatingly. "I was much more powerful than you. And I had a few tricks up my sleeve."
"Are you immortal?" Jack questioned.
"More or less," Ma'at replied. "And now, it is time for The Halla to remember."
---------
Sam felt an unexpected chill run through her when she saw the holographic display. Despite the many painfully personal encounters with the memory device, the first one, tricked by Hathor's agents into believing that everyone she knew was dead, was the worst.
Halleigh had barely spoken since their arrival. At first, Sam had thought that it was because the girl was nervous, but now she wasn't so sure. There was an aura of absolute certainty around Halleigh and what's more, Sam got the impression that Ma'at was communicating with Halleigh in ways Sam couldn't even begin to imagine.
When Ma'at placed the memory device on Halleigh's temple, the girl did not even flinch. Jack wondered if it had something to do with Ma'at's superior knowledge and half hoped that the next Goa'uld who captured and tortured them would know the same things. Ma'at pressed a series of buttons, and the holographic screen hummed into operation. The old woman looked at Halleigh who nodded and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they were old.
A vat of symbiotes. The dark of a sarcophagus. A terrified young girl. That same girl, but now dressed in Egyptian style, adorned in gold and an expression of inhuman determination on her face. Egeria.
Halleigh shifted slightly in her chair, and the images faded. They were replaced quickly by others.
Another woman was dragged towards a surgical table where a familiar jar stood waiting. She bore the scars of a horrible torture, but still was proud and unspeaking. In the shadows, Egeria watched, her face full of sorrow. In her arms, there was a baby.
Sam realized that the memories were playing without sound, and that her brain seemed to be adding her own commentary. Somehow, she knew that everyone was not hearing exactly what she was not hearing.
And suddenly that baby was a man. Tall and strong and born to lead his people to freedom. And lead he did. One by one, he emptied the temples of all but their statues. Finally, he stood on the plateau at Giza and shouted his defiance as Ra departed to through the Stargate.
The hologram began to fluctuate and Halleigh moaned. Ma'at reached out to remove the device from Halleigh's temple and as soon as she did, the projector exploded. Jack reacted instinctively, shielding his eyes as he tried to get to the two women in the centre of the firestorm, but he couldn't see enough to do anything. He was aware that the other members of SG-1 were trying to do the same thing and gauged by what he was hearing that none of them were successful.
Then, there was a blinding flash, and they found themselves standing by the Stargate, but Ma'at, her house and the obelisks that served as her welcome mat were gone.
"What the hell was that?" Jack demanded.
"I think she was finished. She waited for us, and once we came, she could leave." Daniel said.
"She said she was immortal!"
"She is." Halleigh spoke with an absolute certainty. She did not have a mark on her, nor a hair out of place from the blast. In her hands she held a single perfect feather.