Alright, so O'Neill sees a big bird, Teal'c speculates, Carter befriends the weird kid and Jackson is mulling over Celtic mythology in a big hurry on this episode of Stargate: Through the Looking Glass and into Heaven!
Because
@Spartan303 @UberIguana and
@Harlock seemed to catch how creepy the Nox are...here it kinda goes up to eleven.
Ballard-Jackson theory in play, but also possibly some tourism? Oh and a shoutout to a 90's Bruce Willis vehicle that I guess wasn't popular?
It wasn’t often Jack O’Neill was stupefied into not really paying attention to his surroundings, or even if he was. To losing so much time he couldn’t determine how much time he’d spent walking around any given area. But he genuinely couldn’t tell how long they’d been walking, in what direction (Beyond North of the Gate.), the forest around them grew in size and variety. Trees that looked like redwoods on steroids (And Nefreyu seemed to agree that they likely were kin to the Redwoods of his homeworld though how the boy knew that Jack couldn’t say.) to small fruit plants, flowering groves and those glowing rose-like vines mixing in with trees that were the color of copper, or bronze or silver with almost glass like leaves.
The planet’s sun or suns Jack wasn’t even sure about that anymore, beamed through and he could hear the chirping of animals that were a mix of Earth descended life and alien creatures. A great example of such a weird combination was the tree Octopus that was trumpeting like a trombone only to be tackled by a rust-colored badger like creature some eight feet long, that seemed to run through the trees more like a lizard than a mammal. Above them he saw silver and blue colored birds that looked like they could have been descended from falcons, yet they were oddly more mythical in their looks. Large, crowned and Jack half wondered if they were slightly more intelligent than any bird minus a crow because they flew in patterns that were akin to search patterns. Though, they obviously weren’t searching for SG-1 or the boy’s settlement.
“I get the feeling the farther we go into these woods, the more under his mother’s power we are.” Daniel observed somewhat concerned but there was so much curiosity in his tone. He’d spoken with Nefreyu in a few different languages and the boy either knew them or learned them as he spoke (similar to how rapidly the humans classified as Lotar seemed to learn albeit faster by several orders of magnitude.) Or he was reading Daniel’s mind. It wasn’t until Jackson began speaking ancient Gaelic that the boy seemed to shift into a conversational tone that suggested he wasn’t keeping up but speaking in a language similar to his own. O’Neill was surprised Carter knew Gaelic (Or at least the more modern version) and she was doing her best to keep pace. O’Neill understood some of it, his grandfather was a militant for Irish culture and his father had allegedly traded American guns for Irish whiskey during prohibition (Part of Enoch Johnston and the Kennedy family operations..allegedly. Though Jack always doubted that story. If anything, Silas O’Neill the World War One hero was likely affiliated with Dean O’Bannon out of Chicago.) but it had been years since he’d spoken Gaelic (Minus that one time in the late 90’s when he and a very young Kim Statterfield helped FBI Director Carter Presten and that Commie chick hunt down a legendary assassin any way. Fuck’n Declan still owed him a bottle of bourbon wherever he was.)
Daniel had fallen back to interact with O’Neill and Teal’c, they botch watched Carter who had an arm around the boy and was chattering away with him in Gaelic as if she hadn’t been planning to slit his throat a mere dozen hours before. -What am I gonna do with her- He thought exasperated. “Dollars to donuts his mom’s been screw’n with us since we got out of the gate” O’Neill muttered.
“Indeed.” Teal’c remarked. “My Prim’tah has been unusually active.”
“I thought they were lobotomized minus certain exceptions?” Jackson asked.
“Indeed, however Daniel Jackson. Conceiving them without self-awareness does not strip them of their instincts...”
“Any idea who these guys are?” Daniel asked Teal’c “I mean if they can provoke such a reaction in your Prim’tah then surely they must be known to you?”
“The Galaxy is an immense place Daniel Jackson, even though I served an empire that ruled most of it. And I have been to several and could not tell you all the races that dwelled within each.” Teal’c responded with a raised eyebrow in almost chiding tone and Daniel laughed nervously. “I guess you’re right..The Universe is a big place, even when you have explored it extensively..”
“What about those guys, the ones who were part of that alliance of old guys. The ones you described as fairy like..the Knot or the…Nox there we go!” O’Neill offered enthusiastically, part of him hopeful, part of him ready to bug out the moment it was confirmed.
“I had thought the same O’Neill.” Teal’c responded in a tone that suggested he was trying to suppress how close to crapping his pants the thought brought him. “But I cannot be certain, the Nox are thought by our Lore masters to be eldest of the ancient races. Consider, that the Ori were successor to a half billion-year legacy and if our scholars are correct, it is possible they were the first sapient life in the universe.” Jackson looked up with a sense of awe, wondering if the Nox were the beings the Imperial religion referred to as the misguided Elder Gods who sided with the treacherous Ori or if that was in reference to another sub species kin to the Ori.
“You’re point?” O’Neill quipped as he stepped over a foot tall root that was sticking out of the ground, trying to ignore the fact that several flowers had just turned and eyeballed him in a manner that came too close to awareness for his liking.
“My point, Colonel O’Neill” Teal’c continued in the voice of an old man, patiently dealing with the impertinence of a particularly hyperactive child. “Is that there are several races in the Galaxies that I know of who share their physical characteristics. One of them, the Pangarans was on my list of recommendations for trade.”
“Oh right, the guys who you said reminded you of the books you read on the Napoleonic wars.” O’Neill nodded. Pangara, Teal’c said, was the capitol world of a four-planet spanning nation made up of a people who were “elf like” in appearance and had through gradual conquest of their own world and judicious use of the Stargate to build trade outposts, over the last thousand years created a mini kingdom on the edge of Izanagi’s domain. While they were a vassal of the System Lord, they weren’t fully a part of his domain and thus were willing to do business with almost anyone.
“But how many of these races are psychic or, whatever this is?” Daniel asked. He’d taken off his hat to scratch the back of his head and looking up was the first to see it.
An animal that was likely descended from or related to the Golden Eagles so common to Europe, Asia and North America soared above even the gigantic trees, its cry akin to thunder and given the height of the trees and how far above them it was, it was a testament to its size. “Jesus that’s a big bird.”
“The hunting Eagles of the house of Aether. They have a twenty-five-foot wingspan on average, but I once saw Lord Zeus field birds with a hundred- and ninety-foot wingspan when he was hunting a species of large lizards that inhabit Thyra a planet within the domain of Ra. We should be safe, the bird is not searching for us..Though I suggest we accelerate our pace.”
Carter who’d been listening turned with a look of shock “Teal’c how can a bird that large even fly?”
“Genetic engineering, extensive genetic engineering. The largest of his eagles were bred to carry neutron bombs over troops in suborbital altitudes. It was said their bone structure was also partially, artificial. I believe their intelligence is enhanced as well.”
“Great, giant flying cybirds.” O’Neill groused.
“Hera modified a primitive queen to produce a line of Goa’uld that could bond with animals. My belief is that the Eagles of Zeus are a result of that.” The way Teal’c spoke of it told Carter and Daniel how low an opinion Teal’c had of that.
“Cyborg birds with snakes in their brains..lovely” Jack sighed and once again sorely missed his cigarettes. “I take it you aren’t a fan?”
“When his father rebelled Lord Zeus sided with the Empire, but he was slow in sending military aid. Not enough to imply treachery, but the passive aggression against Ra and the nobility cost Apophis half a million Jaffa…” His jaw set tight as he looked out over the forest, catching Nefreyu’s perceptive eyes.
“He also, refused to take my father and us in when Cronus exiled us. I had a sister who needed a Prim’tah, we could not get one save for the larva of the lowest of breeds. It did not have the strength to repair her ravaged body. Lord Zeus had no reason to do this, save for mislike of my father who I believe exposed a Roshna running scheme the Lucian alliance organized. They were using the House of Aether to, legitimize their ill-gotten earnings.” Teal’c muttered venomously.
“Money laundering in space. Ol’Ra must have been mad as hell.” O’Neill asked with an amused grin.
“He was most displeased.” Teal’c replied in something that resembled smugness.
“We’re quite safe from the hunters.” Nefreyu interrupted gesturing forward with his little arms. “Look! We’ve arrived!” He smiled brightly.
Jack wasn’t sure how, because they’d all stopped walking, or so he thought. But the forest around them had changed, from vast trees to smaller ferns and pines and they sloped down a great ridge of hills where several rivers flowed into a lake.
At the center of the Lake.
“Is that...”
“Yes, Colonel O’Neill.” Nefreyu smiled and reached up to grab the Colonel’s hand. “My home, I think your people called it the Island of Apple trees, I don’t know why.” Nefreyu laughed seemingly innocently. “I’ve never seen an apple in my life, outside of the juice you gave me for lunch!”
It was beautiful, a grove of a bunch of thousand-foot-tall and taller trees that couldn’t have been trees, roughly the size of Manhattan, on an island three times that size. They were all silver and gold and he could see dozens of stairways winding between them and buildings that were seemingly grown out of the trees themselves. None of this was very far from the gate, maybe fifteen or twenty miles…. More than close enough for the solar powered drone to cover the distance, take some pictures and fly back inside of an hour at top speed.
Hell, we should have seen trees that size from the damn Gate.
“Wait, isle of apple trees?!” Daniel blinked. “Jesus, this is
Avalon?!”
Nefreyu nodded. “Grandfather moved it here when he decided mother should take this planet for herself and her colony. Though I suppose great-grandfather is the proper term?”
“I…
he moved it?” Carter muttered. “The same way you teleported Teal’c?
From where?” She could feel her heart pounding as she tried to do the mental calculations on the distance and what it amounts of energy or what sort of control this grandfather would have to have to move an entire Island across space and to deposit it on a planet without disrupting anything. None of it made sense, the psychic powers of the Goa’uld at least had some science behind them but everything that Nefreyu’s people did seemed to make sport of mocking her concept of how the laws that governed the universe work.
Nefreyu smiled sheepishly. “Sam, I like you. You were willing to protect your people at all costs, that’s admirable. But I don’t know you well enough yet to tell you
that!”
Carter ruffled the boy’s hair “So I guess that settles it huh? You're the Nox!"
Nefreyu nodded eagerly. “You didn’t ask, I would have told you
that. It isn’t even our real name any way, just something the forefathers of the Alterans and Ori called us. The Asgard call us elves, mother says your people call us the fair folk. I like that name better than Nox.”
“What does Nox mean in the original language of those ancient peoples?” Daniel asked curiously.
Nefreyu tapped his chin in thought, as if trying to remember a name from something he probably only overhead adults in his tribe talking about. “umm…hmm..umm”
“Translated into your vernacular it means “Those weirdos over there” I can see why my son likes the fair folk label so much…its..fancier and its implications more apt.” a lyrical voice spoke to them though none of them had any idea where it came from until a moment after O’Neill stopped looking around and settled his eyes for a shape that seemed to appear out of nowhere behind Nefreyu.
Behind the boy stood a woman roughly six feet tall, she had long black hair that seemed to absorb the light creating an odd, absence of it around slender shoulders that were hidden behind a black tunic that was fastened almost like a Starfleet Captain from the Wrath of Khan or something. Her skin was a deep shade of blue minus waves of gold here and there and her ears were long and pushed out between her hair. She was beautiful, she looked young but also middle aged and her beauty didnt seem entirely natural to Jack who was laughing to himself. -you're in it now Jack. Freaking fairies- The Colonel's brain was caught between wanting to admire her and wanting to bolt out the there at top speed. The fact that she spoke English as if she’d been speaking it for years and not as if she had lifted it from his mind, also bothered the hell out of him.
-Thor is going to like this one..Hathor too, if she can stop running around the ass end of the universe playing Empress of the softpower- the creature thought eying Colonel O’Neill.
“So, you’re the kid’s mom huh?” O’Neill asked. Daniel sputtered out something in Gaelic, an apology and addressed her as Medb which caused the woman to laugh. “Relax Danny boy, I speak English just fine. And I’m not her, she’s my aunt. I am Leanan
Sith’ie daughter of Morrigan, granddaughter of Oberon and Titania, governess of Avalon and well, ruler of this solar system I guess..oh and Ra knew me as Lya, a certain adventurer by the name of Langford knew me as Kiera and yes Excalibur is an awesome movie, but no we don’t fuck our brothers…Colonel. That’s a bad stereotype and from the wrong setting. I don’t ride Dragons thank you very much!”
Teal’c had fallen to one knee. “Forgive me, Princess, I had not.”
She waved him off. “Oh, for goodness sakes Teal’c, you’re a War Master not a grunt. Anubis never liked Jaffa of your rank kneeling and neither do I.” she beckoned for him to rise then turned to Daniel Jackson giving him a rather sweet smile. “You and I need to have a more private conversation later.” Then that adorable smile turned into a frown. “But I didn’t lure you here for more mushrooms and healing plants, well I did but that wasn’t my chief concern. Prince Horus is hunting near the Gate, and I believe his party will move off in two days. I would ask that you sojourn with me for those two days. We just moved here a few years ago and I’ve been able to keep the peace, I’d rather not have bloodshed sully that record.”
“Uhh..Right” O’Neill responded. There was a playfulness and kindness in her voice that was endearing, and Jack found himself liking it. But he detected something else as well, a sort of manic intensity that hinted at her being far more dangerous than her playful exterior let on. “After you then…”
As the group led off, Daniel’s eyes narrowed, she was too pleasing, too friendly and daughter of the Morrigan?
Didn’t that make her death’s daughter?
We need to be very careful with these people Jack. They’ll either be wonderful allies or the end of us all.