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sga_flashfic-title- The Sun Shines Bright On Every Stone
-author- Sophonisba (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
saphanibaal)
-warnings- AU, AU, AU: a Zophonisbeion tag to a story I wrote some time ago. Gen with inferences. Some oddities with language as artifacts of the translation process. There is some mild crossoveriness, but most of it isn't really very intrusive.
-timeframe- It would sort of be near the middle of third year.
-spoilers- Through second season.
-characters- AR-1, Miko, Eldon, and a few guest appearances.
-disclaimer- SGA, of course, is not mine. Nor is the rest of the Stargate franchise, for that matter. Nor are the various videogames referenced. Mail-Order Wings is by Beatrice Gormley, and I used to have an unholy love for it and for Best Friend Insurance. "Semloh" is out of Eve Titus's Basil and the Pygmy Cats, which book also features some prime examples of "should not be allowed to name anything, ever." And, of course, the other guest stars aren't mine either.
-word count- 4148
-summary- After a life-threatening mission, or a long slog of work, there's not much that's better than going to the beach with your family.
The Sun Shines Bright On Every Stone
Every now and then, Aiden Ford had a strong feeling of dissonance. His job, much as he loved it, was too great for him to have lucked into. He lived on a faster-than-light spaceship whose home base was the Lost City of Atlantis (and what was he but a boy from the L.A. suburbs)? He was leading a team partly composed of aliens and fought space vampires. Jennifer Keller, on whom he'd been desperately crushing on and off since fourth grade, was coming here.
Some of that feeling was with him now, as he and most of his team reported on their long-term undercover-and-reconnaissance mission. The Genii had finally made them, but it looked as if it were going to work out after all.
"Ladon accepted my explanation that we'd simply forgotten to pass the information on in all the confusion," Dr. Weir said, smiling slightly. "He did express some interest in perhaps contributing another member for your team, if you could use one."
"He believed it?" Lieutenant Kenmore said, puzzled.
"He accepted it," Dr. Weir corrected.
"That means he agreed to pretend to believe it," Eldon said. "It's like when you're running a tap and you bump into someone else running one on a different target, so you work out some ground rules so you can get the job done without getting in each other's way. Lots of times, that comes out to not asking questions."
"I wouldn't have thought of comparing statesmanship to confidence games, but... "
"It seems pretty accurate to me," Daniel Jackson said mildly.
"How about Sora whatshername?" Ford offered. "She kind of got the hang of things around here before we sent her back, and I'm sure Teyla would like to see her again."
"Yes, but would Kate?" Chuck the Technical Services Guy murmured.
"I asked," Dr. Weir cut them off. "Apparently now that Sora's served her mandatory term she's been involved in some cultural or diplomatic endeavor, and Ladon doesn't want to call her back from it for anything short of a battle."
"Makes sense," Ford agreed. "It's not as if I really know that many Genii well enough to trust them, and I'm not entirely sure they really want to be associated with Roving Recon anyway; I think we do better as a collection of scaff and raff, and a couple of known former Atlanteans is pushing it as it is."
"We could take Dr. Brown with us," Kenmore suggested hopefully.
"We have no time for botany," Miko Kusanagi told him. "She would be very bored."
"She could learn to do something else?"
"That goes over the line into stalking, sir," Franklin told him. "Humans think that's bad."
Kenmore's pale face fell. "Oh."
"Isn't Dr. Brown seeing someone?" Eldon wondered.
The teammates on either side of him kicked him under the table. "Not here!" Miko hissed.
The command staff politely pretended they hadn't noticed.
"If that's everything, then..." Dr. Weir let her voice trail off.
"Dismissed. Go enjoy your time off," Daniel Jackson said. "Ford, weren't you going to join AR-1 on the mainland today? They've gone out to Semloh Cove already, and left a request not to be called for anything short of an emergency."
"Great day to do it, sir," Ford said, thinking of the sunlight pouring in through the windows.
*
After Franklin and Kenmore had peeled off, Eldon mentioned that he wanted to go see someone on the mainland.
"I will take you," Miko offered. "I am scheduled to bring over the movie for tonight's outdoor cinema."
"How about you go with me?" Ford said. "We shouldn't tie up more puddlejumpers than we have to."
"If I may fly, it's good."
Which made sense; he might have gotten the gene therapy at the end of the first year like all the other Marines from then, but Miko was still better at flying puddlejumpers, even if she did have a severe case of lead foot and steering habits learned on highways full of a metropolis' worth of insane drivers. (Next time he had leave on earth, he thought he'd invite her along just to see her navigate the 405.)
He'd had the sense to wear his swim trunks under his uniform, so he only had to find a towel and fill up some plastic bottles to be good to go.
"So why is this place called Semloh Cove, anyway?" Eldon asked as the puddlejumper rose smoothly to cruising altitude.
"There was this kids' book," Ford tried to explain. "About mice. It's a long story."
This touched off a conversation that made it apparent that the people of Olesia (or at least Eldon's part of it) hadn't gone in much for played-straight animal tales, although they'd had their share of the verbal equivalent of Looney Tunes; attempted to touch on Eldon's favorite children's books, but hit a snag with the revelation that he hadn't had much outside of odd and peculiarly unbelievable tales of the origins of the Wraith; and moved to the equally odd and unbelievable Atlantean explanation, as understood by Ford and misheard by Miko.
"No, see, the thing is, I think they bargained their mortal souls away," Ford tried to explain. "The way L-- someone I used to know explained it to me once, you have a mortal soul and an immortal soul and an astral body and a physical body and a spirit, and if you trade in your mortal soul for a heart of darkness, it kind of tears you down the middle and your spirit and physical body go off one way and maybe acquire another soul or two, and your original immortal soul is still all tangled up in your astral body and if it's strong enough it sucks in whatever junk's lying around -- dust, darkness, blood, alien squids from outer space, whatever -- to make up a new body, so I don't see why Soullost Wraith couldn't have sucked in iratus bugs."
"Your acquaintance must be a great player of Kingdom Hearts," Miko said after a moment of silence.
"Bzuh?"
"Of what?" Eldon said at the same time.
"It's a videogame," Miko tried to explain. "Like the game of Mysterious Paris I have been playing at home, except Kingdom Hearts is not bad and evil and wrong. Except for the spinoffs. Those are almost as annoying."
"So why'd you buy the Pari game?" Ford wondered.
"Because it is a Sakura Taisen game," Miko said reasonably.
"Uh...huh..." Eldon said slowly. "I wonder what Michael would say about this theory of soullessness? It is almost too bad he is not welcome on the mainland -- " he shook his head suddenly. "...I forgot, almost. That's strange."
"Even if Kenmore could have come, he'd probably still rather be trailing around behind Katie Brown like a dorky overgrown puppy," Ford shrugged.
"It's really creepy," Eldon half-agreed. "Do you suppose it's something left behind by the transforming process? Or maybe from before?"
"If it was from before, I'd expect him to be tagging after Teyla. Or maybe Miko -- she was talking to him just before. Too."
"Perhaps it is Dr. Brown's hair," Miko offered. "And I think it is too bad that Pfc. Franklin did not join us."
"Well, Little Miss, it so happens that every now and then Marines need to be with other Marines," Ford said in his best imitation of Ludwig von Drake.
"But you are not with them," Eldon pointed out.
"Yes, but also sometimes the squad commander needs to be with his team," Miko said reasonably.
"I thought we were his team?"
"We are his squad. AR-1 are his team. Moo, kumi wa kumi na no, tai nado nakayoku-shitemo nakama ja..."
"What was that last?" Eldon hissed as Miko trailed off into subvocal murmuring.
"How should I know? That's the language I don't speak."
"Semloh Cove," Miko announced, and brought the puddlejumper down.
The back slid open, and Ford was met with a dripping-wet grinning Lt. Col. Sheppard, having apparently propped his surfboard upright for the express purpose of leaning on it.
"Glad you could make it this early, Ford," Sheppard said. "Hello, Eldon. Good day, Kusanagi; you're still not thinking three-dimensionally."
"I am in your debt," she answered him with a sort of regretful hopefulness.
"Enjoy yourselves at the village," Ford told his squadmates. "I'll catch a ride back with the guys, so you don't need to wait up for me."
"Have fun," Eldon said, moving into the front seat after Ford collected his bag of beach stuff.
"Thank you as always," Miko said. As soon as Ford left the jumper, she thought its back door shut and rose straight into the air, eventually choosing a low cruising altitude and zooming off towards the Athosian encampment.
"I need to work with her on non-planar vectors," Sheppard muttered. He straightened up, face relaxing once more, and picked up his board. "I'm teaching Ronon to surf; want to join in?"
"I lasted through high school without ever learning, sir," Ford told him cheerfully, noting Ronon Dex enthusiastically rubbing wax over a second surfboard. "I'm afraid I can't go against my principles now." He began unzipping, unbuttoning, and unlacing.
"I have some sunblock if you want some," McKay called, rummaging through his own canvas bag as he sat in a folding chair in the exact middle of the shade cast by a leather pavilion or pergola or whatever the piece of leather held up by two poles and the back of a puddlejumper was called. Next to him, Teyla was sitting on a blanket, consulting both a) the English lexicon the Ancient publishing machine had printed on a scroll and b) the English grammar for Latin readers Anthro and Linguistics had come up with somehow with her left hand, a brightly-colored book clearly labeled Mail-Order Wings in her right.
"Nah, I'm fine." Ford folded up his uniform and dropped it and his shoes on McKay's other side. "Some of us were born with natural protection."
"Is it possible to attach wings thus?" Teyla wondered as pages rustled. "One would need a retrovirus to finish transforming them, but..."
"No, it ISN'T," McKay sighed. "Even if Carson invented a growing-wings retrovirus, it wouldn't autoconvert things you glued onto your body."
"It'd be kind of cool if he did, though," Ford said. "Having wings would be fun; you could get up speed and glide around, or maybe even coast down from high places."
And he ran into the ocean, hissing a little as the cool waves (smaller in this sheltered corner than farther down the beach) smacked up against unprepared, tenderer body parts, chased by yells of "No, it WOULDN'T! And don't suggest that to Sheppard!"
"Wouldn't what?" Sheppard was already paddling out beyond the point of the cove.
"NEVER MIND!"
Ford paused for a minute to laugh his ass off before leaning forward into a wave and striking out for the rocks guarding the near side of the cove.
*
After maybe an hour of swimming, floating, random aquatic manuevers, and nearly getting clonked in the head when Dex tried to ride a large wave over the natural breakwater and in to shore, Ford decided it was about time to go in for a drink and maybe some basking.
Also, as it turned out, to get chewed out by McKay for nearly getting clonked in the head by his oversize teammate.
"Pulling you out," McKay shouted, waving his arms so quickly that they seemed to end in indeterminate blurs, "is NOT how I wanted to go about showing you!"
"Showing me?" Ford repeated. He'd been a little surprised when Sheppard had dialed his gate and set up today's beach expedition by radio, but there'd been nothing in his commanding officer's voice to suggest that it had any deeper purpose.
"You don't have to," Dex rumbled.
"You all know," McKay snorted, "so Ford should too." His hands went to the hem of his T-shirt.
His wide, webbed hands.
"Uh," Ford said intelligently, trying to work out whether or not anything else looked particularly fishlike about the physicist. "Did you bump into an Ancient device?"
"Uh. Not exactly. That is, there was one, and I may have implied when we made our report that this was its fault, although I didn't actually say so -- "
"We were most careful not to," Teyla said, marking her place in her book with part of her scroll as McKay pulled his shirt off and began slathering a reasonably normal-looking chest with his own sunscreen. Well, it looked a bit more ripped than it had the last time Ford had feigned snow-blindness from all that pale whiteness, but it had been some time since he'd touched base with them and growing muscle tone was a natural hazard of scientists going offworld, look at Miko, or -- well, Jackson didn't really count as a scientist, not to mention that anyone whose job involved hooshing rocks around probably hadn't had that much extra weight to begin with -- or, oh, Tatopoulos and his team.
"You ran into something else, then?" Ford said carefully as McKay dropped his shorts, wiped the extra sunscreen on his ass and okay-really-not-looking-there, and Teyla equanimitally finished smearing the concoction on his back.
"Well, there was this vicious storm, and -- "
Sheppard began whistling a little tune, tapping a foot and glancing at his wet, unmarked wristband.
"You are such a jerk," McKay grumbled, and stalked into the ocean on feet that, now Ford's attention was drawn to them, appeared to be similarly webbed.
Then he leaned forward and belly-flopped underwater.
Ooh, that had to hurt.
Near where he had gone under, something breached the water, and then floated with its head out. For a moment, Ford blinked; he'd never seen one outside an aquarium before, even if he and his grandparents had made routine trips to see flocks of its cousins.
"Hey, is that a seal?"
Wait a moment... "Where's Dr. McKay? He hasn't come up yet."
"He is right there. It is quite all right."
"Right where?" Teyla could jump higher and hit harder, maybe she could hold her breath longer and didn't realize it --
"Right here." The seal's face turned into that of Rodney McKay before standing up in the waist-deep water.
"Oh. my. God," Ford said, and sat down suddenly on his left boot.
*
"So," he said, after Teyla had handed him one of his bug-juice bottles and Sheppard had exhorted him to breathe, "normal-size seals don't run around and eat people, right? I mean swim around."
His teammate flung his webbed hands at the sky, made an appropriately Rodney McKay gorbling noise, and began ranting "Even in the most inimical Scottish legends, where they say that they go around drowning fishermen -- not that I'd ever drown somebody, unless they were, oh, trying to kill us all or something -- they didn't come up with cannibalism."
"Well, then," Ford shrugged. "As long as you aren't trying to eat us or attack us or take us over or whatnot, we can deal. What was it that made you able to?"
"I always could," McKay grumbled. "I just didn't."
"Even on occasions when he really, really should have, for his own safety if nothing else." Sheppard was glaring, for reasons Ford thought he could guess; he hadn't been in the city when McKay had been trapped at the bottom of the sea, but he'd heard all about it in triplicate when he got back (plus a summary of the high points from Dex).
"Probably smart, on the whole," Ford offered. "Some of the Marines are kind of jumpy."
"Anyway," McKay snorted, "I'll have to get my fingers cut apart again, but I thought I might as well wait, so I could, uh, you know, here, and only have to do it once -- once I can explain to Carson, twice is, uh."
"You're telling me but not Dr. Beckett."
"You're, er, uh..."
"You haven't stopped being on our team just because I gave you one." Sheppard linked his fingers and stretched his arms behind his head.
"What he said."
"But since we now know," Teyla recapped her own water bottle, "you should practice in this shape, should it become necessary to use it."
"Oh. Yes. Practice. Yes. I was sort of maybe thinking..."
"I brought a Frisbee." Ford couldn't see Sheppard's face, but he was absolutely sure what kind of grin it was now wearing.
"Oh, you did not. You so did not. You -- "
Sheppard elaborately held up a light blue plastic Frisbee.
"Oh, hey, is that a circlex?" Dex plucked it out of his team leader's hand, turned it this way and that, gripped it in a splay-handed grip, and twisted into a weird position that Ford was sure he'd seen in a statue somewhere.
"Uh, you're going to drop it on your head that way," Sheppard told him.
"Discobolos aside, you cannot throw a discus like that! Or a Frisbee!" McKay was bouncing up and down before a wave smacked him in the back of the head and he suddenly turned back into a seal.
In an awesome display of unleashed kinetic energy, Dex bowled the Frisbee, sending it rolling on its edge down to meet a wave.
"Uh," Sheppard said. "That's... uh... different..."
Seal-McKay bodysurfed in, bounced a little and turned into McKay on hands and knees, and grabbed the Frisbee before exploding with laughter.
*
McKay had sort of gotten into the spirit of things after that, if "the spirit of things" could be taken to include "changing shape and complaining after nearly every move."
On the other hand, Teyla had politely explained that it was the custom of her people to swim in the nude, if nobody had any objections? Not being insane, nobody did, and she turned out to throw a mean Frisbee, often deliberately timing her throws to take advantage of Ford's or Dex's or McKay's moments of visual distraction.
Sheppard seemed to manage to tune it out, which Ford couldn't figure out; even leaving aside the man-pig continuum, which he was making a conscious effort to do, the bits of motion in peripheral vision should be drawing his focus for a moment or two...
Of course, that was more than made up for by the time Teyla decided to try suddenly pressing McKay's seal form into use as a bellyboard. His expression, even on his (phocine? It was phocine, wasn't it?) face was clearly distinguishable as a mixture of "my life is seriously awesome" and "I want to turn back now and stand up, except she'd kill me, wouldn't she."
They were just thinking of going back in when Dex stiffened, turning toward the beach.
Miko Kusanagi was picking her way down the bluff, by what looked to be a stream bed.
"I am sorry," she called as they and she drew nearer to each other, Teyla walking unselfconsciously up the beach and Sheppard dashing out to bring McKay a towel. "I am sorry! Some people were going to spend the night in the village, and so I left the puddlejumper with them so that they could fly back tomorrow, and we told the control room but I could not reach you but they said to go ahead because they would tell you if you were going to leave, and I am so sorry, and I did not mean to, and... "
"Miko-kun, breathe," McKay snapped, wrapping the beach towel around himself. "You're a scientist. Act like one."
"I... " She looked at her shoes. Looked at the sky. Ford wished suddenly, ashamedly, that she hadn't turned up and he hadn't felt somewhat out-of-place the moment he saw her. Angry at himself, he reached out, but she moved out of the way of his hand, perhaps unconsciously.
"I have heard," Miko said with sudden resolution, "of bakegitsune, and bakedanuki, and bakeneko, and of course also of -- " the word sounded something like uwaya-oorhfu -- "but not of bake-azarashi. Are such changing beings a thing of Canada, or...?"
"Actually, most of the stories are from Scotland." McKay was equally carefully looking at her. He snapped his fingertips suddenly, the sound hollower with more skin to echo against. "Weren't you there when Carson was talking about them?"
"I, er, I do not remember such..."
"I'm sure you were."
"Um, it's a bit, uh... "
"She was telling a story about a sky maiden with a feather gown," Teyla said, "and then Doctor Beckett told about sea maidens with sealskin cloaks, but you do not have an extra skin, and so that is perhaps a confusion with feather gowns. It was before Ronon joined us."
"It was very long ago," Miko agreed, relieved, "because that was in the mess hall, and we did not do that in the mess hall for that long."
"Oh, drat," McKay said. "Maybe I should tell Carson, but if he's heard stories, maybe I shouldn't."
"You need not on my account --!"
"No, it's -- you know, he's my friend, and my doctor, and I suppose it might be important sometime, except really I should probably tell Jeanie first. Huh. I'll think about it... uh, Miko-kun... "
"It is not a thing that needs to be talked about, right? I understand, I do not speak casually... "
"Doctor Kusanagi has never told any of the other secrets she has walked into," Teyla offered.
"You have a talent for doing that," Ford sighed. "Maybe we should have Beckett look into that."
"What other secrets?" Dex wondered.
"They are secret," Miko explained. "It would be wrong if I told them."
"Then how do -- " McKay cut himself off, possibly helped by Sheppard kicking him in the shins.
"I was there for some of them," Ford offered. "She usually does this offplanet."
"I was there for others," Teyla added.
"My family is descended from a power that is a sword," Miko offered. "So when we were told to take a surname for a register, we took this name, because it is a name for the sword."
"You cannot possibly," McKay said blankly, "be descended from a sword."
"Yes, but it is also a power, so we can," Miko explained. "It was when the sword was on its way back to its home, and it begat us so that we can find and see things that most people can't see, except most of us don't notice them even if we can see them, or we don't believe it, or we don't know what it is until we see it in context, like having Wraith blood."
"I don't have time to argue with this," McKay sighed, picking up his clothes and disappearing into the jumper.
"I don't see what the big deal is," Sheppard called after him. "If you can be descended from a seal, she can be descended from a sword. I'm sure the Ancients could have written a genetic code in one or something."
"I've seen swords that do all kinds of things," Ford agreed. "Knocking women up wouldn't be that far removed."
"It is not a thing that needs to be talked about," Miko sighed. "So now that you understand, you need not."
"Doesn't it get weary, living with secrets?" Dex wondered.
"Not that much, no," everyone said, and then looked at each other.
*
By mutual consent, the conversation on the way back was entirely about Teyla's book.
-author- Sophonisba (
saphanibaal)-warnings- AU, AU, AU: a Zophonisbeion tag to a story I wrote some time ago. Gen with inferences. Some oddities with language as artifacts of the translation process. There is some mild crossoveriness, but most of it isn't really very intrusive.
-timeframe- It would sort of be near the middle of third year.
-spoilers- Through second season.
-characters- AR-1, Miko, Eldon, and a few guest appearances.
-disclaimer- SGA, of course, is not mine. Nor is the rest of the Stargate franchise, for that matter. Nor are the various videogames referenced. Mail-Order Wings is by Beatrice Gormley, and I used to have an unholy love for it and for Best Friend Insurance. "Semloh" is out of Eve Titus's Basil and the Pygmy Cats, which book also features some prime examples of "should not be allowed to name anything, ever." And, of course, the other guest stars aren't mine either.
-word count- 4148
-summary- After a life-threatening mission, or a long slog of work, there's not much that's better than going to the beach with your family.
The Sun Shines Bright On Every Stone
Every now and then, Aiden Ford had a strong feeling of dissonance. His job, much as he loved it, was too great for him to have lucked into. He lived on a faster-than-light spaceship whose home base was the Lost City of Atlantis (and what was he but a boy from the L.A. suburbs)? He was leading a team partly composed of aliens and fought space vampires. Jennifer Keller, on whom he'd been desperately crushing on and off since fourth grade, was coming here.
"It might be," his high school class weirdo/commander's Insanely Hot and Blunt Girlfriend had said at Ford's unofficial 2006 high school reunion (which, due to a large number of factors, not excluding the fact that most of the graduating class had signed right up for the Marines and for the better part wound up with the SGC or Atlantis one way or another, had been held in Colorado Springs), "due to the fact that if it weren't for all the divergent timeline inclusions, you were scheduled to be dead or possessed or something about now."
"Wait, WHAT?"
"It's nothing to get excited about; I'd have died too, your best friend from L.A. grade school would have died, most of our mutual acquaintances would have died or been severely injured one way or another..."
"I did die," the Yet Hotter Chick Nobody Could Actually Remember (but who was behaving herself as much as a really fun party guest could be expected to, and therefore not yet worth challenging) had announced.
"Yes, but they brought you back, Faith, that doesn't count. Or, Aiden, it could be general human existential blues; I hear they're endemic to the condition!"
"Man, you guys have lives almost as interesting as mine," Ford had said dryly. "We'll have to rent a hotel for a week just to start with all the catching up once everything gets declassified."
Some of that feeling was with him now, as he and most of his team reported on their long-term undercover-and-reconnaissance mission. The Genii had finally made them, but it looked as if it were going to work out after all.
"Ladon accepted my explanation that we'd simply forgotten to pass the information on in all the confusion," Dr. Weir said, smiling slightly. "He did express some interest in perhaps contributing another member for your team, if you could use one."
"He believed it?" Lieutenant Kenmore said, puzzled.
"He accepted it," Dr. Weir corrected.
"That means he agreed to pretend to believe it," Eldon said. "It's like when you're running a tap and you bump into someone else running one on a different target, so you work out some ground rules so you can get the job done without getting in each other's way. Lots of times, that comes out to not asking questions."
"I wouldn't have thought of comparing statesmanship to confidence games, but... "
"It seems pretty accurate to me," Daniel Jackson said mildly.
"How about Sora whatshername?" Ford offered. "She kind of got the hang of things around here before we sent her back, and I'm sure Teyla would like to see her again."
"Yes, but would Kate?" Chuck the Technical Services Guy murmured.
"I asked," Dr. Weir cut them off. "Apparently now that Sora's served her mandatory term she's been involved in some cultural or diplomatic endeavor, and Ladon doesn't want to call her back from it for anything short of a battle."
"Makes sense," Ford agreed. "It's not as if I really know that many Genii well enough to trust them, and I'm not entirely sure they really want to be associated with Roving Recon anyway; I think we do better as a collection of scaff and raff, and a couple of known former Atlanteans is pushing it as it is."
"We could take Dr. Brown with us," Kenmore suggested hopefully.
"We have no time for botany," Miko Kusanagi told him. "She would be very bored."
"She could learn to do something else?"
"That goes over the line into stalking, sir," Franklin told him. "Humans think that's bad."
Kenmore's pale face fell. "Oh."
"Isn't Dr. Brown seeing someone?" Eldon wondered.
The teammates on either side of him kicked him under the table. "Not here!" Miko hissed.
The command staff politely pretended they hadn't noticed.
"If that's everything, then..." Dr. Weir let her voice trail off.
"Dismissed. Go enjoy your time off," Daniel Jackson said. "Ford, weren't you going to join AR-1 on the mainland today? They've gone out to Semloh Cove already, and left a request not to be called for anything short of an emergency."
"Great day to do it, sir," Ford said, thinking of the sunlight pouring in through the windows.
*
After Franklin and Kenmore had peeled off, Eldon mentioned that he wanted to go see someone on the mainland.
"I will take you," Miko offered. "I am scheduled to bring over the movie for tonight's outdoor cinema."
"How about you go with me?" Ford said. "We shouldn't tie up more puddlejumpers than we have to."
"If I may fly, it's good."
Which made sense; he might have gotten the gene therapy at the end of the first year like all the other Marines from then, but Miko was still better at flying puddlejumpers, even if she did have a severe case of lead foot and steering habits learned on highways full of a metropolis' worth of insane drivers. (Next time he had leave on earth, he thought he'd invite her along just to see her navigate the 405.)
He'd had the sense to wear his swim trunks under his uniform, so he only had to find a towel and fill up some plastic bottles to be good to go.
"So why is this place called Semloh Cove, anyway?" Eldon asked as the puddlejumper rose smoothly to cruising altitude.
"There was this kids' book," Ford tried to explain. "About mice. It's a long story."
This touched off a conversation that made it apparent that the people of Olesia (or at least Eldon's part of it) hadn't gone in much for played-straight animal tales, although they'd had their share of the verbal equivalent of Looney Tunes; attempted to touch on Eldon's favorite children's books, but hit a snag with the revelation that he hadn't had much outside of odd and peculiarly unbelievable tales of the origins of the Wraith; and moved to the equally odd and unbelievable Atlantean explanation, as understood by Ford and misheard by Miko.
"No, see, the thing is, I think they bargained their mortal souls away," Ford tried to explain. "The way L-- someone I used to know explained it to me once, you have a mortal soul and an immortal soul and an astral body and a physical body and a spirit, and if you trade in your mortal soul for a heart of darkness, it kind of tears you down the middle and your spirit and physical body go off one way and maybe acquire another soul or two, and your original immortal soul is still all tangled up in your astral body and if it's strong enough it sucks in whatever junk's lying around -- dust, darkness, blood, alien squids from outer space, whatever -- to make up a new body, so I don't see why Soullost Wraith couldn't have sucked in iratus bugs."
"Your acquaintance must be a great player of Kingdom Hearts," Miko said after a moment of silence.
"Bzuh?"
"Of what?" Eldon said at the same time.
"It's a videogame," Miko tried to explain. "Like the game of Mysterious Paris I have been playing at home, except Kingdom Hearts is not bad and evil and wrong. Except for the spinoffs. Those are almost as annoying."
"So why'd you buy the Pari game?" Ford wondered.
"Because it is a Sakura Taisen game," Miko said reasonably.
"Uh...huh..." Eldon said slowly. "I wonder what Michael would say about this theory of soullessness? It is almost too bad he is not welcome on the mainland -- " he shook his head suddenly. "...I forgot, almost. That's strange."
"Even if Kenmore could have come, he'd probably still rather be trailing around behind Katie Brown like a dorky overgrown puppy," Ford shrugged.
"It's really creepy," Eldon half-agreed. "Do you suppose it's something left behind by the transforming process? Or maybe from before?"
"If it was from before, I'd expect him to be tagging after Teyla. Or maybe Miko -- she was talking to him just before. Too."
"Perhaps it is Dr. Brown's hair," Miko offered. "And I think it is too bad that Pfc. Franklin did not join us."
"Well, Little Miss, it so happens that every now and then Marines need to be with other Marines," Ford said in his best imitation of Ludwig von Drake.
"But you are not with them," Eldon pointed out.
"Yes, but also sometimes the squad commander needs to be with his team," Miko said reasonably.
"I thought we were his team?"
"We are his squad. AR-1 are his team. Moo, kumi wa kumi na no, tai nado nakayoku-shitemo nakama ja..."
"What was that last?" Eldon hissed as Miko trailed off into subvocal murmuring.
"How should I know? That's the language I don't speak."
"Semloh Cove," Miko announced, and brought the puddlejumper down.
The back slid open, and Ford was met with a dripping-wet grinning Lt. Col. Sheppard, having apparently propped his surfboard upright for the express purpose of leaning on it.
"Glad you could make it this early, Ford," Sheppard said. "Hello, Eldon. Good day, Kusanagi; you're still not thinking three-dimensionally."
"I am in your debt," she answered him with a sort of regretful hopefulness.
"Enjoy yourselves at the village," Ford told his squadmates. "I'll catch a ride back with the guys, so you don't need to wait up for me."
"Have fun," Eldon said, moving into the front seat after Ford collected his bag of beach stuff.
"Thank you as always," Miko said. As soon as Ford left the jumper, she thought its back door shut and rose straight into the air, eventually choosing a low cruising altitude and zooming off towards the Athosian encampment.
"I need to work with her on non-planar vectors," Sheppard muttered. He straightened up, face relaxing once more, and picked up his board. "I'm teaching Ronon to surf; want to join in?"
"I lasted through high school without ever learning, sir," Ford told him cheerfully, noting Ronon Dex enthusiastically rubbing wax over a second surfboard. "I'm afraid I can't go against my principles now." He began unzipping, unbuttoning, and unlacing.
"I have some sunblock if you want some," McKay called, rummaging through his own canvas bag as he sat in a folding chair in the exact middle of the shade cast by a leather pavilion or pergola or whatever the piece of leather held up by two poles and the back of a puddlejumper was called. Next to him, Teyla was sitting on a blanket, consulting both a) the English lexicon the Ancient publishing machine had printed on a scroll and b) the English grammar for Latin readers Anthro and Linguistics had come up with somehow with her left hand, a brightly-colored book clearly labeled Mail-Order Wings in her right.
"Nah, I'm fine." Ford folded up his uniform and dropped it and his shoes on McKay's other side. "Some of us were born with natural protection."
"Is it possible to attach wings thus?" Teyla wondered as pages rustled. "One would need a retrovirus to finish transforming them, but..."
"No, it ISN'T," McKay sighed. "Even if Carson invented a growing-wings retrovirus, it wouldn't autoconvert things you glued onto your body."
"It'd be kind of cool if he did, though," Ford said. "Having wings would be fun; you could get up speed and glide around, or maybe even coast down from high places."
And he ran into the ocean, hissing a little as the cool waves (smaller in this sheltered corner than farther down the beach) smacked up against unprepared, tenderer body parts, chased by yells of "No, it WOULDN'T! And don't suggest that to Sheppard!"
"Wouldn't what?" Sheppard was already paddling out beyond the point of the cove.
"NEVER MIND!"
Ford paused for a minute to laugh his ass off before leaning forward into a wave and striking out for the rocks guarding the near side of the cove.
*
After maybe an hour of swimming, floating, random aquatic manuevers, and nearly getting clonked in the head when Dex tried to ride a large wave over the natural breakwater and in to shore, Ford decided it was about time to go in for a drink and maybe some basking.
Also, as it turned out, to get chewed out by McKay for nearly getting clonked in the head by his oversize teammate.
"Pulling you out," McKay shouted, waving his arms so quickly that they seemed to end in indeterminate blurs, "is NOT how I wanted to go about showing you!"
"Showing me?" Ford repeated. He'd been a little surprised when Sheppard had dialed his gate and set up today's beach expedition by radio, but there'd been nothing in his commanding officer's voice to suggest that it had any deeper purpose.
"You don't have to," Dex rumbled.
"You all know," McKay snorted, "so Ford should too." His hands went to the hem of his T-shirt.
His wide, webbed hands.
"Uh," Ford said intelligently, trying to work out whether or not anything else looked particularly fishlike about the physicist. "Did you bump into an Ancient device?"
"Uh. Not exactly. That is, there was one, and I may have implied when we made our report that this was its fault, although I didn't actually say so -- "
"We were most careful not to," Teyla said, marking her place in her book with part of her scroll as McKay pulled his shirt off and began slathering a reasonably normal-looking chest with his own sunscreen. Well, it looked a bit more ripped than it had the last time Ford had feigned snow-blindness from all that pale whiteness, but it had been some time since he'd touched base with them and growing muscle tone was a natural hazard of scientists going offworld, look at Miko, or -- well, Jackson didn't really count as a scientist, not to mention that anyone whose job involved hooshing rocks around probably hadn't had that much extra weight to begin with -- or, oh, Tatopoulos and his team.
"You ran into something else, then?" Ford said carefully as McKay dropped his shorts, wiped the extra sunscreen on his ass and okay-really-not-looking-there, and Teyla equanimitally finished smearing the concoction on his back.
"Well, there was this vicious storm, and -- "
Sheppard began whistling a little tune, tapping a foot and glancing at his wet, unmarked wristband.
"You are such a jerk," McKay grumbled, and stalked into the ocean on feet that, now Ford's attention was drawn to them, appeared to be similarly webbed.
Then he leaned forward and belly-flopped underwater.
Ooh, that had to hurt.
Near where he had gone under, something breached the water, and then floated with its head out. For a moment, Ford blinked; he'd never seen one outside an aquarium before, even if he and his grandparents had made routine trips to see flocks of its cousins.
"Hey, is that a seal?"
Wait a moment... "Where's Dr. McKay? He hasn't come up yet."
"He is right there. It is quite all right."
"Right where?" Teyla could jump higher and hit harder, maybe she could hold her breath longer and didn't realize it --
"Right here." The seal's face turned into that of Rodney McKay before standing up in the waist-deep water.
"Oh. my. God," Ford said, and sat down suddenly on his left boot.
*
"So," he said, after Teyla had handed him one of his bug-juice bottles and Sheppard had exhorted him to breathe, "normal-size seals don't run around and eat people, right? I mean swim around."
His teammate flung his webbed hands at the sky, made an appropriately Rodney McKay gorbling noise, and began ranting "Even in the most inimical Scottish legends, where they say that they go around drowning fishermen -- not that I'd ever drown somebody, unless they were, oh, trying to kill us all or something -- they didn't come up with cannibalism."
"Well, then," Ford shrugged. "As long as you aren't trying to eat us or attack us or take us over or whatnot, we can deal. What was it that made you able to?"
"I always could," McKay grumbled. "I just didn't."
"Even on occasions when he really, really should have, for his own safety if nothing else." Sheppard was glaring, for reasons Ford thought he could guess; he hadn't been in the city when McKay had been trapped at the bottom of the sea, but he'd heard all about it in triplicate when he got back (plus a summary of the high points from Dex).
"Probably smart, on the whole," Ford offered. "Some of the Marines are kind of jumpy."
"Anyway," McKay snorted, "I'll have to get my fingers cut apart again, but I thought I might as well wait, so I could, uh, you know, here, and only have to do it once -- once I can explain to Carson, twice is, uh."
"You're telling me but not Dr. Beckett."
"You're, er, uh..."
"You haven't stopped being on our team just because I gave you one." Sheppard linked his fingers and stretched his arms behind his head.
"What he said."
"But since we now know," Teyla recapped her own water bottle, "you should practice in this shape, should it become necessary to use it."
"Oh. Yes. Practice. Yes. I was sort of maybe thinking..."
"I brought a Frisbee." Ford couldn't see Sheppard's face, but he was absolutely sure what kind of grin it was now wearing.
"Oh, you did not. You so did not. You -- "
Sheppard elaborately held up a light blue plastic Frisbee.
"Oh, hey, is that a circlex?" Dex plucked it out of his team leader's hand, turned it this way and that, gripped it in a splay-handed grip, and twisted into a weird position that Ford was sure he'd seen in a statue somewhere.
"Uh, you're going to drop it on your head that way," Sheppard told him.
"Discobolos aside, you cannot throw a discus like that! Or a Frisbee!" McKay was bouncing up and down before a wave smacked him in the back of the head and he suddenly turned back into a seal.
In an awesome display of unleashed kinetic energy, Dex bowled the Frisbee, sending it rolling on its edge down to meet a wave.
"Uh," Sheppard said. "That's... uh... different..."
Seal-McKay bodysurfed in, bounced a little and turned into McKay on hands and knees, and grabbed the Frisbee before exploding with laughter.
*
McKay had sort of gotten into the spirit of things after that, if "the spirit of things" could be taken to include "changing shape and complaining after nearly every move."
On the other hand, Teyla had politely explained that it was the custom of her people to swim in the nude, if nobody had any objections? Not being insane, nobody did, and she turned out to throw a mean Frisbee, often deliberately timing her throws to take advantage of Ford's or Dex's or McKay's moments of visual distraction.
Sheppard seemed to manage to tune it out, which Ford couldn't figure out; even leaving aside the man-pig continuum, which he was making a conscious effort to do, the bits of motion in peripheral vision should be drawing his focus for a moment or two...
Of course, that was more than made up for by the time Teyla decided to try suddenly pressing McKay's seal form into use as a bellyboard. His expression, even on his (phocine? It was phocine, wasn't it?) face was clearly distinguishable as a mixture of "my life is seriously awesome" and "I want to turn back now and stand up, except she'd kill me, wouldn't she."
They were just thinking of going back in when Dex stiffened, turning toward the beach.
Miko Kusanagi was picking her way down the bluff, by what looked to be a stream bed.
"I am sorry," she called as they and she drew nearer to each other, Teyla walking unselfconsciously up the beach and Sheppard dashing out to bring McKay a towel. "I am sorry! Some people were going to spend the night in the village, and so I left the puddlejumper with them so that they could fly back tomorrow, and we told the control room but I could not reach you but they said to go ahead because they would tell you if you were going to leave, and I am so sorry, and I did not mean to, and... "
"Miko-kun, breathe," McKay snapped, wrapping the beach towel around himself. "You're a scientist. Act like one."
"I... " She looked at her shoes. Looked at the sky. Ford wished suddenly, ashamedly, that she hadn't turned up and he hadn't felt somewhat out-of-place the moment he saw her. Angry at himself, he reached out, but she moved out of the way of his hand, perhaps unconsciously.
"I have heard," Miko said with sudden resolution, "of bakegitsune, and bakedanuki, and bakeneko, and of course also of -- " the word sounded something like uwaya-oorhfu -- "but not of bake-azarashi. Are such changing beings a thing of Canada, or...?"
"Actually, most of the stories are from Scotland." McKay was equally carefully looking at her. He snapped his fingertips suddenly, the sound hollower with more skin to echo against. "Weren't you there when Carson was talking about them?"
"I, er, I do not remember such..."
"I'm sure you were."
"Um, it's a bit, uh... "
"She was telling a story about a sky maiden with a feather gown," Teyla said, "and then Doctor Beckett told about sea maidens with sealskin cloaks, but you do not have an extra skin, and so that is perhaps a confusion with feather gowns. It was before Ronon joined us."
"It was very long ago," Miko agreed, relieved, "because that was in the mess hall, and we did not do that in the mess hall for that long."
"Oh, drat," McKay said. "Maybe I should tell Carson, but if he's heard stories, maybe I shouldn't."
"You need not on my account --!"
"No, it's -- you know, he's my friend, and my doctor, and I suppose it might be important sometime, except really I should probably tell Jeanie first. Huh. I'll think about it... uh, Miko-kun... "
"It is not a thing that needs to be talked about, right? I understand, I do not speak casually... "
"Doctor Kusanagi has never told any of the other secrets she has walked into," Teyla offered.
"You have a talent for doing that," Ford sighed. "Maybe we should have Beckett look into that."
"What other secrets?" Dex wondered.
"They are secret," Miko explained. "It would be wrong if I told them."
"Then how do -- " McKay cut himself off, possibly helped by Sheppard kicking him in the shins.
"I was there for some of them," Ford offered. "She usually does this offplanet."
"I was there for others," Teyla added.
"My family is descended from a power that is a sword," Miko offered. "So when we were told to take a surname for a register, we took this name, because it is a name for the sword."
"You cannot possibly," McKay said blankly, "be descended from a sword."
"Yes, but it is also a power, so we can," Miko explained. "It was when the sword was on its way back to its home, and it begat us so that we can find and see things that most people can't see, except most of us don't notice them even if we can see them, or we don't believe it, or we don't know what it is until we see it in context, like having Wraith blood."
"I don't have time to argue with this," McKay sighed, picking up his clothes and disappearing into the jumper.
"I don't see what the big deal is," Sheppard called after him. "If you can be descended from a seal, she can be descended from a sword. I'm sure the Ancients could have written a genetic code in one or something."
"I've seen swords that do all kinds of things," Ford agreed. "Knocking women up wouldn't be that far removed."
"It is not a thing that needs to be talked about," Miko sighed. "So now that you understand, you need not."
"Doesn't it get weary, living with secrets?" Dex wondered.
"Not that much, no," everyone said, and then looked at each other.
*
By mutual consent, the conversation on the way back was entirely about Teyla's book.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-17 03:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-17 10:28 pm (UTC)"Doesn't it get weary, living with secrets?" Dex wondered.
"Not that much, no," everyone said, and then looked at each other.
*
By mutual consent, the conversation on the way back was entirely about Teyla's book.
I'm torn between wanting to laugh and feeling very sorry for everyone. (But mostly I laugh.)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-18 07:44 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-01 08:22 am (UTC)I am writing more in this universe, but, well... this is what I had done in time for the deadline.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-01 09:04 am (UTC)Thank you!
I like playing with Miko, and working with multiple cultures is always sort of tricky...
//I'm torn between wanting to laugh and feeling very sorry for everyone. (But mostly I laugh.)//
I think Ronon's the only one out of that bunch who isn't hiding at least one Background Secret... and even the book in question is setting something up for Miko's Visit Earthside.
Once again, thank you for your comments!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-01 09:41 am (UTC)Well, I keep finishing more bits (and a lot of it is sort of a muddled mess at the moment, anyway).
//but so far as I can remember, Ford is a Sunnydale kid, right?//
Him and half the first-wave Marines, yes. (Ford, however, is technically an L.A. kid -- his grandparents sent him to live with a relative who lived in a better* neighborhood so that he could go to a good public high school. Hence his presence at the reunion in the flashback.)
*Well, local employment offered all sorts of perquisites and people were moving into very nice and very reasonably-priced residences all the time.
//and I can't think of a single Jossverse character whose name starts with an L.//
This particular L____ is not a creation of Joss Whedon, but from something else I'm having too much fun not to stick in here somewhere; the more setup I do in the background, the better it will fit in once I actually get some of those stories written.
Thank you so much for your comments, by the way!