Note: Sorry about the wait. RL, working on my quest...eh. At least it's here, yeah?
54 – Waking Up To Go Go
It was the most luxurious bed that he had ever slept in. It had been one of the best
sleeps that he'd ever had as well. Even now as his body began to work towards wakefulness he was trying his hardest to pull himself back into his dreams. Though his weapons and clothes hadn't been removed, he had been more than willing to put on the ridiculously comfortable silk pajamas that had been provided for them. Teal'c had said not to squander the generosity of the Empire of Wu after all – in his report he'd use that as his excuse – and so he'd put them on.
One of the best ideas he'd ever had.
Alas, despite his best efforts at remaining asleep, the sun was beaming down on him…and there was a song.
"- and the great metal clouds that ate the sun, they too were remooooved," a small child's voice sang. "For
His clouds were faster – stronger – and smarter too
ooooo. The petulant child who made the clouds was punished for her crimes and His friends were so re
lieeeeeeved!"
Jack's contribution to the odd little ditty was a gargled 'buh' as he blearily opened his eyes. There, he discovered the source of the music in a small little Asian girl with a swishy dress that was slowly prancing her way across his room. Every now and then she'd jump and kick or wave her arms around in a windmill fashion. On a large chair next to the bed that five Colonel Jack O'Neill's would have struggled to fill lay not just his own clothes but a new set entirely of purely civilian nature.
"And when Dakara – Dakara kara kara – got taken taken taken He said," and here the little girl did her best to make her voice far more masculine and deep, "Come unto me and I shall save you but first let us shake
hands," she made it sound gravely important before returning to her previous light and lilting tone, "With the ancestor
found, and the slug's holy
ground, the grey people grew
taaaaaaaaaall, and-,"
All throughout that the sound of feet padding down the corridor got louder and louder. Then something that Jack had assumed was a wall – it had been hard to tell what was and wasn't with the aesthetic they had going on around there – slid open. So apparently it was a door, and opening that door came the sort of beautiful looking woman that would have Daniel sputtering the moment she said hello. Instead of noticing the groggy man in bed her eyes alighted on the girl who had almost immediately quieted when the door opened.
"Mei? Young lady you had better not be disturbing our- oh," the woman's almost musical voice caught as she stared at the lady. "The earthling is awake."
By then, of course, Jack was no longer nearly as groggy.
"Uh…hi," he waved slightly.
"Greetings Colonel, or do you prefer O'Neil?"
"Uh…Jack is fine too, and it's O'Neill with
two L's," he held up two fingers to demonstrate as he groaned his way out of bed.
"You can hear the difference even when it is purely verbal," the woman's expression seemed entirely unamused.
"After a few years…yeah," he nodded as he grabbed his old uniform. Luckily the little girl had gone giggling out of the room the moment her caretaker appeared distracted.
"You do not wish to partake in the clothing we have offered you?"
"Well, see, uh-," he paused as he pointed a finger at her, "I never got your name."
"Quite observant," she nodded before primly folding her hands at her sides.
"…Right…uh, lady," he coughed at the lack of name before continuing, "It's not that I don't appreciate the whole generosity thing, but I'm a soldier. I'm gonna be wearing the clothes I came in on and that's all there is to say about it."
"Mmmph. Whenever a group or being squanders the generosity of the Empire, they are never to receive it again, you realize this yes?"
"Teal'c kind of…alluded to that," Jack admitted as he stood fully and stretched to pop some of the vertebrae.
"It is an effective measure. If you strike the hand that feeds you once," her gaze hardened, "Then you should starve. Yu learned that lesson after the Emperor offered him peace terms."
Jack stared at her for a moment before she clapped her hands.
"Well, you are dressed regardless, the Governor cannot personally eat with us – he wakes up at five in the morning every day to work – but he invites you to partake in a bit of breakfast."
Bit of a cheery little switch, he mused to himself as the potentially servant woman twisted away and back down the corridor. After a single second he began to move on after her. He didn't want to get lost wandering around the palace and it wasn't like he'd been able to see or keep track of most things while they had been swarmed with servants before. Of course intellectually he understood that they had been taking the most precise possible measurements for the clothes that…he wasn't wearing but SG-1 hadn't even been out in the field again for a whole year – some things had to hold to protocol or at least normality.
…besides which, if he wanted hands touching him like that, he was going to endeavor to at least buy the owners of said hands a dinner first.
Eventually a few turns in the corridors later that he kept his eye on and memorized, they arrived near the same place as before only the table had been shifted to be much smaller. Of all the food before there was no sign. On the other hand given what Jack had seen so far he wouldn't have been surprised to learn that it had all gone to some orphanage, veteran's hospital, or the homeless while it was still re-heatable. If the Empire of Wu even
had stuff like that.
On the other hand –
"Daniel, what the hell are you wearing," Jack sighed, his previous train of thought crashing to a halt.
Sitting at the table and almost done putting some kind of egg dish into his mouth, Daniel Jackson had apparently decided the total opposite of Jack. Instead of trying to put on a unified face for Earth the archaeologist had
completely changed his clothing to that of the Empire of Wu. Luxurious silks in that weird not-a-kimono-maybe dress like style covered his entire body while a fancy necklace of some kind had gone up around his neck. Even his feet had the odd kind of slippers that Jack'd seen other Wu citizens wearing as they went about their day.
"Well these are clothes, Jack," Daniel shrugged, gesturing briefly to himself and then at Jack, "You do know that people can wear things
other than military uniforms, right?"
"What about not taking gifts that we don't…I don't know…that
we don't know anything about?!"
"It's
just clothes, Jack," Daniel raised an eyebrow at him, "Are – are you afraid that these people somehow sewed
bombs or something into the clothes?"
"It could have a transmitter," was Jack's rebuttal. "Or something."
"When they have stealthed observers that could just walk back through the Stargate with us?"
"Now there's a thought that could fester," a voice suddenly said from behind him.
Jack whirled and though he didn't blanch he
certainly stared.
"Uh…"
Like Daniel, Carter had apparently elected to go with the clothing provided to her by the Wu people. It was…well, it was beautiful. Some kind of elegant dress with jewelry and looping bits of silk all over it that one would only expect to be worn by the richest sorts of people that nonetheless somehow manage to have a sort of demure and modest look about it.
"Something wrong sir?"
"Ah…no? You uh…"
"Oh, you look really nice Sam," Daniel said cheerfully, causing Jack to wince and turn to glare at him.
"Thank you Daniel," Carter smiled before awkwardly moving around Jack to sit at the table. "I have no idea what this getup is worth but it is
comfy," she hissed the final word out.
"Guys, come on, can't we have a
little bit of Earth solidarity here? I mean-,"
"Colonel O'Neill, you did not take the clothing that was offered," Teal'c said from the doorway.
This time around, Jack didn't jump.
"If I turn around, are you going to be wearing Wu clothing too?"
"I am," Teal'c confirmed as he moved forward to the table. "It was unwise of you to not do so."
"Excuse me for trying not to pull a Daniel Jackson," Jack huffed.
"A what now?"
"He means going native almost immediately Daniel."
"Well that – hey!"
Jack just looked at his team, and at how he was apparently the only one still loyal to that beautiful pale blue blob – dot? Whatever Carl Sagan had said.
"I'm gonna…I'm going to go change," he sighed again.
Or at least he would have, except there was just one problem. Upon winding his way back through the corridors so that he wouldn't look like the red headed stepchild of the team to his room…
"….annnnd the clothes are gone."
Great.
That was just great.
A few minutes later his slightly downcast expression was almost immediately recognized by Teal'c while Daniel and Carter were busy discussing some kind of scientific doodad on the table that gave off light with no visible power source.
"The clothes were no longer present, Colonel O'Neill."
"Yep, that's about right," Jack shook his head slightly as he sat. "You weren't kidding about how fast they do the whole 'revenge against squandering thing'."
The Jaffa shrugged.
"They may have merely taken them elsewhere."
"I kind of doubt it," Jack said as he thought about the woman he had encountered.
"Perhaps."
Jack sighed again as he gingerly began to eat.
"Most aggressive charity I've ever seen."
"Indeed."
