17Summary: All things have beginnings. A Wraith female is not simply born with a crown on her head, someone older and wiser must teach her as she grows - how to be a queen. This fic is dedicated to my mom.
Disclaimer: Agh, don't you just hate these things? *groan* Okay, here goes. *deep breath* I DO NOT OWN STARGATE, SG-1, SGA, the Wraith, Wraith culture, the Pegasus Galaxy, the Lanteans, Atlantis, or a fleet of Hive ships. Nada es mio, comprende? Great. Now read and enjoy.
A soft hiss to catch my attention, and I turn my head to look at her, my sharp little teeth baring into a broad smile. She beckons to me with her mind, and obediently I toddle up to her where she sits on her throne. I bap my little hands against her knee, reach up my arms with an eager, squeaking hiss, and she smiles as she lifts me onto her lap.
I grasp for the crystal pendant that she wears. I cannot help it, I like crystalline things, they fascinate me, but a gentle snarl from her moves me to halt what I am doing. I look up into her eyes, unsure, but then the smile returns to her face, and I know that all is well. She holds me gently, tenderly, her look and her mind praising me. She likes me best, I know. I haven't any notion why, or even a care to wonder at it, but it's enough for me to know that it is true. I adore her. She's wonderful. Her scent washes over the nerve receptors of the sensory pits on my cheeks, a mixture of something caustic and something sweet on the air - biting, but also soft and inviting. Her eyes hold mine, deep-set and glittering golden-green, reflecting my own wide orbs, slitted pupils set in irises of dark blue. Her long, brunnish-black hair glistens and swirls over her gowned shoulder as she turns her head, and I look to where she looks. Someone approaches.
It is the Commander, I can hear him. I know it is he because he steps with a confidence that none of the others possess. He stops just short of the room, and addresses her with low, growling tones. She beckons to him with an imperious hiss, but her mind is soft to him. He comes right up to us, a smile playing about the edges of his mouth, and he tucks one of my wispy blonde curls behind my ear with one gentle, clawed finger. I look up at him with one of my fingers in my mouth, wide-eyed and curious. His smile broadens and he tilts his head, regarding me, his white, tousled locks brushing across his leather-clad shoulders. He likes me, which is fine, because I like him, too. But we both like her best. He turns to her and speaks softly, a question in his multi-toned voice. She holds me closer and I return the gesture happily, my little arms wrapping around her fair neck. She speaks to him with pride in her symphonic voice, and I know in a few seconds without much effort into their minds that they are talking about me - I respond to this with a rattling bark of a hiss, wide open smile on my little face. They laugh, amused, and she looks back to him with shining eyes and a soft smile on her face, which he returns. After a while he addresses her again, and with a slight bow of his head turns to leave. I reach one arm out after him, the other still curled around the neck of the matriarch, and whine. He stops, looks over his shoulder with a slight, lopsided smile, and then continues his retreat. I whine louder.
She gives a low, drawn-out hiss directed at me, her mind and her voice commanding me to be soothed, and I hush as she strokes one elegant finger down the side of my chubby little cheek. I look up into her face, pale and fairest shade of luminescent green, so lovely. I reach up with one hand to touch her cheek, it connects with a light bap, and she smiles, slitted eyes twinkling. She catches my outstretched hand and brings it to her mouth, nipping it playfully, which causes me to squeak and then giggle. Still smiling, she traces a finger down the center of my tiny palm, along the raised line of cells that will one day open and mature into a feeding slit of my own. She then offers me the hand with her feeding slit in it, which I promptly take and make a razzing sound against. She laughs heartily and grins with amusement, and I smile and give another barking hiss. It makes me happy when she is pleased.
"And it will not be too long, my little pretty one," she tells me, the sound of her harmonic voice filling the room as I make a final, futile grab for her crystal necklace, "when you shall give me all the more reason to be very proud, and very pleased indeed."
A/N - I took my inspiration from the Keeper from "Rising (Part 2)" (SGA season 1, episode 2) for the older queen - only the color of her hair and some of her gowns are different. P.S. I don't own the Keeper but she is the coolest wraith queen EVER!
Just to be clear, this fic is slated to be a three-shot.
Other Note: For those curious as to how I get away with this fic's whole premise, I've known for sometime that hive insects (bees, ants, others) generally have two very different ways of reproducing. One way creates the general worker caste and drones (androgens & males), and there is another specific process for the creation of successive queens - which is how they keep such a thing under control and don't end up having two or more queens to a hive and whathaveyou. Using this general trait of hive creatures is my basis for the defining feature of this fic, but also with a little more of a human element thrown in, since - as you know - Wraith did also originate from humans.