Title: Perpetual
Author: kbk
Rating: PG
Summary: Ronon Dex wakes uncomfortably. Pre-Runner.
Notes: For the Shark challenge at lj-comm sga_flashfic.

He's suffocating. That's all he can think when he wakes in the middle of the night, heart pounding, covered in sweat, on the floor where he set his blanket next to the too-comfortable bed. He can't breathe.

It takes a few moments for him to recognise the symptoms of panic - nothing he's experienced in as long as he remembers. This is fear.

"The warriors of Sateda fear not pain, nor death, nor darkness eternal."

He can't move. He's been in motion for so long and he. Can't. Move. He's shaking.

He blanks his mind and waits for the adrenaline to dissipate. His breathing eases, and his heart slows, and he has no idea what caused this. He has faced the Wraith without flinching. He has escaped death time and time again without the subsequent breakdown he has seen in others. And a dream - a mere fleeting vision which he cannot even recall - has left him incapacitated? Surely not.

"A warrior is always aware of his position in space and time."

When he can move, he looks outside, and sees the moon setting. He has slept for six hours. He hasn't slept that long since he was a child. And now an unsuspected superstitious relic in his mind cries that he has doomed this place.

The sky is light long before he reaches the Gateway, and he will not be surprised when - uncounted planets later - he is told of the unusually vicious Wraith attack. For now, though, he simply keeps moving. If he doesn't keep moving, he'll die.