Young Writers Society

The relief that had flooded him disappeared as quickly as it had come. Rowan's people didn't have interstellar travel. How was he supposed to get back to his home?

But how could Rowan have crashed while flying if she thought a ship only belonged in the water. "Where I come from, ships can be used to fly through the sky and stars," he explained. "Do you have anything like that?"

"The....no, we just have rocs."

He had heard stories of rocs before during his time on Earth, but they had been just that - stories. The possibility of them actually existing thrilled him, but he also knew that their lack of technological flight posed a problem if he couldn't find another Stargate.

I'll just have to find one.

He walked over to one of the old wall and looked at it closely in the hopes that it would have something about a Stargate. "So how much do you know about these ruins?" he asked, understanding that they were his best bet to getting back home.

"Nothing. I've never seen nor heard of them. Neither has Shyriik."

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a fairly complete pillar. Though its top had mysteriously disappeared, it was more intact the neighboring ones. Maahes walked over to it and observed the writing etched into it. It didn't look familiar. It wasn't Goa'uld, nor any of the old languages of Earth. Did that mean this place belonged to a completely different race? If it did, what happened to them?

She notices his gaze and comes over, running a finger along the script with a confused frown. "This...this is dwarven."

He looked away from the pillar and over at her instead. "Dwarven?" he repeated, trying to confirm that he had heard her right. Earth, of course, had countless stories with them, but he had never met any civilization that would fit their description.

And if dwarves existed, what did that make Rowan? He had initially guessed that she was a human, but if he was dealing with something outside the realm of what he knew, how could he be sure that she wasn't something different?

"Yes...which would mean either these runes are over a hundred thousand years old, or this is a different race of dwarf, or the dwarves never really died and came here instead...wherever 'here' is. What say you, Shyr?"

The raptor is eyeing the runes with an acute gaze, definitely seeming to analyze them.

"Yes, she agrees that it's definitely dwarven." She brushes her hair behind her ear, revealing its pointed nature.

He took a step back in surprise when he saw what her ear looked like. It was one thing to guess that she wasn't human, but it was another thing to have that guess confirmed. "You're an elf?" he somehow managed to get out. How had he never heard of a planet where dwarves, rocs and elves all lived? During his travels, they had never come up. How could something like remain a secret?

What if I'm not even in the Milky Way galaxy?

"No, I'm a human with pointy ears and a familiar," she answers sarcastically.

"We don't have elves where I'm from," he weakly said, plopping down on the ground and looking up at Rowan. He needed to sit down and figure out what was going on. "Or dwarves. Even rocs are a bit of a stretch, though I'm sure there's some planet out there that has an alien race that resembles them."

She probably didn't believe him. He probably would have trouble believing her if the situation was reversed. It sounded completely preposterous, especially when he didn't even have a Stargate to back up his claims.

I guess the most that I can do is explain what we have. Maybe that would make it a bit more believable.

He crossed his legs and placed his hands on them. "We do have races that are different than humans, though. There's the Goa'uld. They're parasites that take control of the hosts. I've heard that there's also a group of them called the Tok'ra that lives in harmony with their hosts, but I've never met one. We have the Jaffa, who carry the immature symbiotes in their stomachs. There's the Asgard. They're little gray guys. And there's the Tauri, which are just humans from Earth."

And there's me.

"You come from an odd place," she says. "Then again, I do suppose that if our situations were reversed it would be my own home that was odd. I wonder why we're here."

He looked up and over at the column that he was sitting beside. Why had this place been abandoned? Had they fallen under an attack, or had they simply decided to set up their civilization in another location? "I wonder why too," he agreed. After another minute of silence passed, he added, "Maybe we should try checking out the area around the ruins? We might find someone who knows more about this place."

She nods. "Good idea." Rowan glances up at the sun. "Only a few more hours of sunlight, however - we should look for somewhere to make camp."

He got back to his feet and surveyed the area. There was a small clearing in the center of the ruins. It seemed like the best area to set up a camp. He looked over at Rowan. He had forgotten how people would expect him to sleep - he hadn't spent the night on another planet in several months.

He was still keeping up the lie that he was a human. Feigning sleep wasn't something that he wanted to do, but he was almost certain that he was going to.

"That area looks good," he finally said, pointing at the small clearing that he had noticed. They could set up a fire in the center of clearing and lay around it.