Once upon a time, there were two sisters.

The elder was named Naya; the younger, Sairese. Their mother died when Sairese was but an infant and Naya, being seven seasons older than Sairese, became as a mother to the younger - a mother and so much more.

When Sairese took her first steps, it was Naya’s open arms into which she walked. When she skinned her knee, Naya wiped away her tears and made the hurt better with infinite care and patience.

Together the sisters walked to the crest of the hill every evening to watch the suns set and speak of anything and everything - of their fears, their hopes and dreams, their goals. Naya wished to marry and have a large family; Sairese wanted to be a doctor.

At night they snuggled together for warmth and giggled far too late into the purple starfilled night. Their lives were indelibly intertwined, connected in a bond far beyond that of mere sisterhood.

In blooming season they gathered armfuls of flowers to decorate their simple home and when the snows came they dressed warmly and went out to painstakingly pack and sculpt the snow into beautiful shapes and figures. Naya’s sculptures were better - she had the hands of an artist - but she always insisted Sairese’s creations were the most beautiful she had ever seen.

Naya was very quiet and never defended herself against teasing from the more bold of the village boys, but when they taunted Sairese until she cried, the older sister flew at them, her fury so frightening that neither sister was ever mistreated again.

Naya wished only the best for her sister and dedicated herself to making Sairese’s dreams reality, but there was one thing she could not give the younger girl: beauty.

You see, Naya was very beautiful, and while Sairese was not unpleasant to look upon, her features were plain and common. She could not have known that this would someday prove to be the greatest blessing she could imagine.

I am Sairese, and whoever hears me, heed these words: do not rejoice in beauty, nor flaunt it in your villages. Hide it, spirit it away somewhere safe and distant, for someday they may come to your world also.

I speak of the soul stealers, as they are called by my people, or the Goa’uld, as they call themselves. They prey upon the innocent and unprepared, but most of all, they prey upon the beautiful.

Naya and I were lying in a field of fragrant lavender soshe flowers, looking toward the sky and speaking in soft wistful voices, telling of memories from our past and hopes for our future, when it began.

We were too far from the ancient ring to know that it had spit forth destroyers. Our first knowledge of danger was when we heard explosions and screams from the village.

I had just turned eleven seasons and my fear prevented me from moving. Naya certainly saved my life, for she pulled me to my feet and pushed me toward the woods.

The field was wide and we almost reached the safety of the trees before we were seen. The destroyers fired their powerful weapons at us but we were not injured.

Our lives had always been peaceful and we had never needed to hide before; we had no knowledge of how to avoid our pursuers. It could not have been more than two hours before we were captured and taken back to the smoking ruins of our village.

Those of our people who had survived the attack were assembled, silent and terrified, in the devastated town square. I clung to Naya as I had done when I was very small and frightened of lightning, and my sister faced our captors defiantly, almost daring them to attempt to hurt me.

Then the choosing began.

Some of my people were chosen; more of them were not. As the choosing progressed I began to see a terrible pattern, and from her trembling I knew Naya saw it too: the beautiful were taken, the plain rejected.

Naya was beautiful.

We were pried apart, my terrified screams falling on unheeding ears, my captors clearly so soulless they did not care about our pain. When they dragged Naya away I was still reaching for her, and she for me, our arms outstretched as if they could bridge the gap between us.

When next I saw Naya, she was no longer my sister.

Her outward appearance was the same - burnished copper skin, dark hair shining and rippled with waves - but her bearing was not that of the gentle sister I had always trusted so implicitly. When she spoke, her voice was strange to me, and behind her eyes lay not Naya, but an evil I could hardly comprehend.

They had taken Naya’s soul from her.

She was replaced, I later learned, by the soul of a Goa’uld named Anuket. At first I searched in vain for any signs of the sister I had known, but saw none; I feared she was lost to me, her soul gone forever, until the time came when the destroyers were ordered to kill the plain villagers, the ones who had not been chosen.

For a moment, a second so brief I was almost afraid it had not really happened at all, I saw my sister’s soul surface in those dark eyes. Then Anuket returned, but her will was no longer so strong; she wavered briefly before giving the order to spare only one of the villagers.

Me.

The destroyers seemed confused but did not dare question her orders. I was roughly shoved to the side and I hid my eyes and cried while the rest of the villagers were brutally killed. My father was not among them; he must have fallen in the initial attack.

Surrounded by the destroyers, Anuket and the other chosen - each of whom had been replaced by soul of a Goa’uld - made their way to the ancient ring, where they used their magic to turn the inside to water. They stepped through and were gone, but not before I had seen the symbols that they lit.

I was not alone, as I would soon discover; more than twenty other villagers, eight of them children, had survived the attack and soon came in from the woods, sharing the grief and horror I felt. At times I know we all wished to die, but slowly we lived beyond our pain, buried our dead, and began to rebuild our village.

I did not forget the symbols I had seen. The others told me that retrieving my sister was an impossible task, that her soul had been stolen and was gone forever, but I knew they were mistaken. I had seen my sister’s soul in that instant before Anuket gave the order to spare my life. I knew Naya still existed, and somehow, I had to save her.

For five seasons after my sister was taken I went repeatedly to the ancient circle, staring at it, caught between terror and a longing to try to make it work and follow my sister through the standing water.

And in the darkest hour of night in the fifth season after Naya’s departure, when I was sixteen seasons old, I took a torch to the circle and pressed in the symbols as I had seen Anuket’s companions do.

It had long been forbidden for my people to touch the ancient circle. It was said by the wise old ones that we would immediately be struck down if we attempted to use it, that only the ones with magic could safely travel the pathways of the stars.

I had no magic, but I knew that I must try.

The center of the ring turned to water just as it had done so long ago, and more frightened than I had ever been before in my life but knowing what I was doing was right, I stepped through it.

There was only a moment of disorientation, and then I stumbled from the standing water and found myself on firm ground in a dark forest much like the one I had left. For a despairing moment I thought my quest had gotten me nowhere, but then I saw the lights of a city far ahead through the trees.

By the time I reached the city, the sky was beginning to brighten and the people had awakened, traveling the streets. I saw destroyers, those dressed in metal armor with strange marks upon their foreheads, and more like the chosen after their souls had been removed. These were dressed in elaborate robes, and I did not need to hear their distorted voices to know what they were; I saw the evil in their eyes.

I also saw lowly slaves, humans like me, who catered to every whim of these dark beings, and that sight gave me hope.

I was dressed in rags much like those of the slaves I saw, and pretending to be a slave myself should be a simple matter. I had only to wait until I heard mention of the name Anuket, and then I would be able to find my sister, to save her from imprisonment inside her own body.

I knew Naya as no one else knew her, and this I knew above all else: she was gentle and quiet, but she was also strong, strong with a strength that would not allow her to give up. She had survived. I knew she had.

I gave my name as Rese, and for nearly three seasons I meekly served as slave to a dark being, a Goa’uld, named Jah. I spoke little but listened much, learning of the Goa’uld, of their culture, of their ships and weapons. I heard many names spoken, but Anuket was never among them.

Not until three seasons after I arrived.

When finally I heard the name of the soul who had taken my sister, it was not merely in a passing mention; to my great joy I learned that Anuket’s ship was coming to visit Esna, the city where I had lived these last three seasons.

My chance had come.

It was not a simple thing to smuggle myself aboard Anuket’s wondrous ship; it was heavily guarded but during my seasons as a slave I had learned to make myself almost invisible. I was insignificant, a slave among a great many slaves.

Three days Anuket’s ship stayed in Esna, and three days I spent posing as one of her slaves and carefully hiding myself from her view. If she saw me and recognized me, I would be killed, and I could not risk that. If I were to free my sister’s soul, I must remain alive.

My final chance came not so long after Anuket’s ship had left Esna. The ship had not yet begun to fly at its full speed when it was rocked by an explosion. Anuket had been very much blindsided by one of her greatest foes, who possessed a more powerful and better defended ship than she.

In the confusion, a ragged slave creeping quietly toward Anuket’s quarters was paid no mind.

She was there, still beautiful with the face of my sister but the soul of a being who was so very evil. I could see the expression on her face, worry mixed with a hint of true fear. She knew, as I did, that the ship was in trouble, but right now, none of that mattered.

Here she was after so long, standing right in front of me, Naya’s face with another’s soul keeping her trapped, and I did not know how to help her.

She turned and looked full into my face, and for a split second she stared at me impatiently, seeing just another slave. Then her eyes sharpened and she knew who I was. Our eyes locked for a split second, but I saw no traces of my sister. Surely she had not perished. She had to still be there, somewhere.

“Jaffa!” Anuket shouted, bringing her chief destroyer running, his weapon primed and ready. He pointed it at my back as I stood looking at the face of my sister, who was now certainly lost to me.

I had labored so long, for nothing.

There was no last-minute reprieve as there had been so long ago in a smoking little village surrounded by fields of lavender flowers. Anuket nodded her head and the bolt from the destroyer’s weapon struck me in the back.

I felt to the floor, feeling more numbness than pain, and knew that I was dying.

It seemed only an instant after the destroyer fired upon me that the ceiling caved in. Anuket raised her arms to shield her head but she was struck by falling debris and crushed to the ground to lie beside me. Her eyes glowed briefly, as I had seen the evil ones’ eyes do before, and then the glow died.

And I saw my sister.

Her lips moved soundlessly twice before she was able to speak my name. “Sairese?” She whispered.

“Naya.” My whisper in response was a mixture of joy and pain; joy that I had found her after my seemingly endless quest, and pain that it would end like this. The explosions around us had grown louder and the ship was shuddering, breaking apart. It did not matter.

For the second time, we reached for each other.

This time our hands met and intertwined, our fingers curling around each other, connected, as we were always meant to be. Indestructibly.

Forever.

Once upon a time there were two sisters. One was taken by a Goa’uld, and the other spent many seasons searching for her. Once upon a time there were two sisters, and they died together and had no regrets.