The transport ship Cormorant had carried a cargo of raw wool, bale upon bale of it stacked up in the hold. They had captured it grounded on Nemors, a swift rush and a sudden departure.
"We might as well throw all this out the airlock," Ashes said with disgust. "What's it good for?"
On the other side of the hold examining pallets of whole sheepskins, Wind shrugged. "Might be something. Trade, maybe."
"It's good for quite a lot," Osprey said indignantly, prying open a plastic shipping case by the door. "In case you haven't noticed, our clothes are in tatters." It contained what she had hoped, spun yarn fine drawn, one full dye lot done in near-black.
"There's the crew," Wind said, climbing up on one bale of sheepskins to look behind it. "They won't need theirs anymore."
"I should like some clothes of my own that fit," Osprey said decisively. "Not something you've pillaged from a crewman you killed." The next plastic container was marked differently. She thought those symbols meant that the wool was dyed dark blue.
"I don't see what this gets us," Ashes replied. He came back toward the door, the dim lights shining off his pale hair pulled back in a short tail, still stocky and solid as he always had been.
Osprey looked at him with astonishment. "And you think I can't weave? You, born in the same village?"
"I don't see a loom, do you?" Ashes said. "And building a freestanding loom is a lot of work.”
"Knit, then."
Ashes put his head to the side. "A fine lot of deadly pirates we'll look, kitted out in little knit overalls like Athosian babies!"
"Nothing wrong with knitting," Wind said mildly from behind a bunch of pallets. Only the silver top of his head was visible. "We used to do it on shipboard to pass the time."
"And we can do it on this ship as well," Osprey said firmly. "Everybody can learn to knit. All of you. We'll have a class and everyone can learn together."
"No needles," Ashes said stubbornly.
"I can make those," Wind said. "Metal's hard, but I could do them from wood or bone."
"We've plenty of spare bones just now," Osprey said.
"Do you ever hear yourselves?" Ashes demanded suddenly. He was leaning on the door and his greenish face looked pale. "Do you ever hear what you're saying?"
Osprey looked up at him from a case of moss green yarn, dyed to just the color of late summer leaves. "We can't afford to," she said gently. "Not if we're going to live. It's the same as cattle at home. When the time comes you have to make a neat job of it and not waste anything."
"Kine," Ashes said flatly.
"There are some whole tanned hides back here," Wind called from across the hold. "That's handy."
The lights brightened and then dimmed again, everyone looking up.
"Bellwether playing with the ship's environmental systems," Osprey said.
"You hope," Wind replied.
"Does he actually know how to fly this thing?" Ashes asked.
"He'd better," Wind said darkly.
"He says he does." Osprey straightened up. The next box was gold-yellow. She'd teach them simple stitches first, but there was no reason she couldn't knit patterns. "He says he thinks he's flown ones like this before. Bellwether thinks he was the mate on a cargo ship before he owed gambling debts he couldn't pay."
"He thinks." Ashes shook his head.
"He got us off the ground and into hyperspace while they were shooting at us," Wind said sensibly. "That's something."
Osprey stood up, shaking the dust of the floor off her hands and tattered baggy pants, a revenant indeed, gray and torn and filthy. "Do you realize what this means?" she asked. "Hyperspace, I mean?"
Wind looked at her over the pallets, waiting. "What?"
"We're safe. Truly safe for the first time in…forever!" She turned about, white hair following her, long and untidy like a beldame. "No one can find us in hyperspace! No one can track us or know where we are! No one can come upon us unexpectedly! For days and days and days we'll be really, truly safe!"
Wind's face changed, sharp lines relaxing as he realized it was true. An end to watchfulness, to the constant wariness…. He was always on guard, day upon day, dozing fitfully a few hours here and there.
"We can wash and sleep and sew and rest and no one can attack us! No one can find us. We can stop and think for a change."
"I'm not sure that's a good idea," Ashes said. He put his hand to the doorplate and went out into the corridor, the hold doors sliding shut behind him.
Osprey frowned, looking after him.
Wind climbed back over the pallets. "He's been like that since Fable killed himself."
"I know." Fable refused to feed, and yet could not stop himself when starvation riddled him. And so instead he had taken his own life, wordlessly and without warning. Those who would not feed died one way or another.
She waited as Wind came up to her, his crossed belts holding long knife and stunning truncheon on opposite sides. She looked up into his face, willing him to understand. "But if we are going to live, then we have to live. We have to build some sort of life, not just survive. Not just stay one step ahead until we step wrong. If we're going to live we have to be more than that." She looked at him and saw his face change. "I am not done, Wind. I want beauty and rest and joy and love. I want to live."
Wind nodded slowly. "And because you do, we all will. I'll protect you. I'll protect them all. As long as I can."
"I know you will," she said, and put her feeding hand against his chest as he inclined his head to hers.
Teyla opened her eyes. Alabaster's hand was smooth and oily in hers. It should have been frightening, a Wraith queen's hand, but it wasn't. Not given their shared memories. “Ashes didn't want to feed,” she said.
Alabaster nodded. “And yet he did. And Wind…. I think there is something of my father in him.”
“There is something of John.” The thought escaped her before she could stop it. Yes, that was John. Even in the most desperate straits, he found purpose in protecting others, in being the shepherd always.
“They lived,” Alabaster said. “And in the centuries to come, Osprey bore three daughters and fourteen sons, and they spread across the spaceways in ships made of bone and shell, living in the spaces beyond the heliopause where the Lanteans did not go. And why should they? They controlled the Stargates, and with them they might go anywhere they wished in the blink of an eye. The long routes between stars were for lesser folk, for subject peoples who traded through the great void. And in those places we lived. We sewed our clothes and raised our children and built our weapons and our scanners, made our plays and our rites and joined our bodies in ecstasy.” Her voice quieted. “And there too we killed our enemies and became strong, until at last Death fed on the children of Athos. The prey became the hunter, and we destroyed the Lanteans and their works.”
Teyla bent her head. “That vengeance was achieved long ago,” she said. “Who seeks it now, and why? It is not needful, sister. Queen Death slays for joy, not for food, and they spoil what they cannot take. This is revenge, not necessity.”