Fire and Calm, by Magistrate (PG)

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Show: SG-1

Rec Category: Bra'tac
Characters: Kasuf
Categories: gen, episode related, character study, Kasuf, futurefic
Warnings: none
Author on LJ: magibrain
Author's Website: Magistrate at AO3
Link: Fire and Calm

Why This Must Be Read: This gorgeously splendid character study takes Bra'tac's first journey to Kheb, the ultimate destruction and mass Ascension of Abydos, and seamlessly fuses them together into a beautiful exploration of choice, perspective, age, and progress.

Both Bra'tac and Kasuf are courageous mentors who watched their disciples and children soar to greater heights. Here, Magistrate does justice to both of them.


When he felt rested and his mind felt cleared, he opened his eyes to see an old man tending the fire.

A man he hadn't heard, despite his attention to the sounds of this world.

He reached for his staff weapon, but the man raised his hand. "Be at peace," he said, in the old, high language of Ra.

Bra'tac was not a trusting man. He had lied for too long to too many to trust easily. But he sensed no deception from this old slave – and then thought No, not a slave, for all that he was attired as one, for all that he knelt in the posture of a human and not a Jaffa. There was something strange about him, and even without his symbiote, Bra'tac could feel that he was in the presence of something beyond his ken. "Are you a spirit?" he asked, in the same old language. "Come to beckon me on to Kheb?"

The man chuckled, showing teeth to the fire. "In truth, I am unsure enough of what I am. I suppose I can be a spirit, if it suits you to say so. You are Bra'tac, are you not? Of the Jaffa?"

"I am." Bra'tac brought his wrists back to rest on his knees. "And who are you, if it is allowed me to inquire?"

"In life I was called Kasuf," the man said. "It is rumored that you may make the journey through Kheb one day."

Bra'tac found himself relaxing into his company, for all that his mind was lit with curiosity. "You say 'in life' as though you have already passed beyond."

"So I have." Kasuf brushed off his hands. "In the fires of Abydos, the land where Ra rose and sank beneath the sands."

"Ah," Bra'tac said.

It was all that needed to be said. Abydos was legend.