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Leave character and one-word prompt for ficlet. Ficlet will be at least 100 words but prob'ly not over 500.
Check the comments before leaving your prompts. If there are still two 'active' prompts for a character (ie. I haven't yet written the ficlet) then pick someone else.
Will try to be humourous, but am feeling distinctly blah, so cannot guarantee frivolity.
ETA:
Rodney: cheddar, Seattle
Ronon: retrieve, haircut, ballroom dancing
John: high heels
Michael: decades
Elizabeth: headache
Teyla: hickey, peace
Check the comments before leaving your prompts. If there are still two 'active' prompts for a character (ie. I haven't yet written the ficlet) then pick someone else.
Will try to be humourous, but am feeling distinctly blah, so cannot guarantee frivolity.
ETA:
Rodney: cheddar, Seattle
Ronon: retrieve, haircut, ballroom dancing
John: high heels
Michael: decades
Elizabeth: headache
Teyla: hickey, peace
Tags:
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Rodney / cheddar (cheese)
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Ronon - retrieve
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Okay, so who'd ever heard of lemon-flavoured cheese outside of those outlandishly rustic places that tourists went to be bored out of their minds?
And speaking of outlandishly rustic places where people were bored out of their minds...
"Remind me why we had to attend this again?" Rodney complained to Sheppard. "Other than that you and Ronon wanted to ogle the local women?"
Teyla was presently halfway across the square, which was why Rodney felt safe in making his comment about ogling the women. It was an unspoken rule among the men of AR-1 that if Teyla was around, then ogling should be kept to a minimum. And that included ogling of Teyla herself.
"We need a reason other than ogling?" Ronon inquired between finger-licks, both elbows firmly planted on the wooden table.
"Well, it looks better on the mission report than, 'we came, we saw, we ogled'. Elizabeth doesn't approve of those kinds of missions." He glared at the crumbling whitish-yellow hunk of Ronon's plate. "That smells disgusting - can you sit downwind?"
"Tastes pretty good," said Ronon, squishing a wedge of sausage-like thing into the cheese before thrusting it into Rodney's face. "Try some?"
Rodney reared back. "Please. We don't even know what's gone into it - I might be allergic."
"I thought you said cheese was one of the things you don't have to worry about," Sheppard commented, dragging his gaze away from the main square.
"Well, usually, not. But I make it a personal motto to avoid anything that smells like toenail clippings."
Ronon popped the proffered sausage-and-toenail clippings into his mouth and chewed with every evidence of enjoyment. "Still tastes like cheese."
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The one time that Rodney DOESn't eat! *gasp*!
Very nice ;-)
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--
Early on, Teyla had mentioned the Lanteans tended to be dignity-conscious.
At first, Ronon thought it amusing that Teyla - calm, gracious, impertubable - would point this out. It took him a moon's waxing and waning to figure out what she meant.
Dignity wasn't the same as serious.
The Lanteans had their jokes and their jests, their humour and their slapstick. But what they took seriously was their standing - the way they appeared to each other and the rest of the world.
Dignity was a luxury after seven years Running. Maybe once upon a time, Ronon would have been the same as the Lanteans - conscious of his stature and his reputation in the city. He'd learned not to care what others thought about him as far as his behaviour was concerned. Some would see him for what he was, others would dismiss him for the trappings - he'd learned to deal with both.
Probably why he understood Teyla so well, and she, him.
Sprinting back across the green field leading to the Ring of the Ancestors, occasionally turning back to pick off the fastest of his pursuers, Ronon wished for Teyla or Sheppard to back him up. But he'd come here as Dr. Weir's guard for a simple negotiation.
Someday, Sheppard was going to have to redefine the term 'simple negotiation'. Ronon was pretty sure 'simple negotiations' didn't involve shooting at him while he was running across a field with an unconscious woman flung over his shoulder.
Maybe it was just as well there was no-one from Atlantis to see Elizabeth Weir's hands flopping at his rear as he carried her to the Ring. Not that Ronon wouldn't have minded her hands on his butt - she was an attractive woman, and he liked the way she flustered - just that she'd think it was embarrassing.
If they'd been in other circumstances, maybe it would have been.
Since they were running for their life, Ronon didn't think it counted.
He reached the addressing device and punched in the co-ordinates for Atlantis, before fumbling with Weir's pockets for the radio transmitter that would send the code to bring down the shield.
Something whizzed past his ear, close enough to burn his skin. Assessment: locals still unfriendy. Action: radio in and hope for the best.
"Atlantis, this is Dex, I've got Weir, we're coming in hot without a code. Open the shield!"
Another shot seared past his shoulder, and he managed a couple of shots before he whirled - as best he could with a woman's weight on his shoulder - and ran through the blue surface.
Cold. Prickles. Disorientation. And then the Atlantis Gateroom.
"Shield up!" He bellowed as he moved out of the line of fire through the Ancestor's Ring.
Sheppard was calling for a medic, even as the shield went up and the connection to the other planet died.
"What happened?"
Ronon shrugged. "She said something they didn't like."
"Something?"
"I didn't stop to ask."
Something wasn't quite right here. Sheppard, most of the techs, and the SFs were all staring at him. More specifically, staring at his shoulder... Oh.
He hadn't let Elizabeth down. Weapon in hand, woman over shoulder, Ronon probably looked like the barbarian they mostly thought he was.
Ronon thought about offering to shoot the next person who approached him. Then Elizabeth made a grunting noise - very undignified - and he figured he'd better not.
Dignity forbade it.
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Sheppard/high heels
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--
It wasn't until they were driving through Seattle on their way down to California that Rodney brought it up.
With Vancouver behind them (Ronon discovered Atlantic salmon and made significant inroads on the local salmon populace) and Mount St. Helens ahead of them (Teyla's time spent talking with Major Randall Vrsaljko had developed an interest in vulcanology, plus it was picturesque), they were heading down the I5, intending to pass through Oregon (Rodney's description of Oregon could be succinctly summed up in the phrase, "Boring. Next state!") on their way to San Francisco (John had hummed Frank Sinatra for nearly a minute before Teyla asked what he was singing and why did he not sing the words out loud).
"Did anyone else notice that Vancouver looks suspiciously like, oh, half the planets that we've been to in Pegasus?"
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I had an idea for this just a few days ago...
--
"Why couldn't Elizabeth have done this?" John demanded as his balance once again deserted him and his wobbles nearly landed him on his butt. Without Teyla there to steady him, he'd have stumbled into the new-mown hay.
Beneath his arm Teyla's answer bubbled with repressed laughter. "Because on Manavor, women do not wear heels."
"Yeah. That." At this moment, John felt like he could do with a beer.
John had done his stint of cross-dressing at the Academy - a brief, drunken flirtation with a skirt and camisole belonging to one of the female cadets, fishnets and a pair of black stilettos hauled out of some bizarre deep-storage locker that featured in tales of strippers sneaked onto the Academy grounds and leaving various items of clothing behind.
According to Jimmy Addison (Lt. Col. rtd.), he'd never make a good-looking woman.
According to John Sheppard (Lt. Col.), he never wanted to be a woman - good-looking or otherwise.
At least he was allowed to keep his trousers. God knows what he'd have done if he'd had to dress up in a skirt and blouse - or something else like it. The heels were bad enough.
Rodney and Ronon were, thankfully, hovering over the only-half-depleted ZPM which they were attempting to persuade the Manavorians to give up. Hence the heels. Apparently, on Manavor, women did not act as spokesperson for their culture, either. And while Teyla assured him that the Manavorians made an impressive stout ale, spokespeople for their culture didn't get to drink until after the negotiations were done.
Which, really, left John high and dry.
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Really? No, I didn't do it on purpose! Fortuitious coincidence!
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Michael - decades.
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I would like John to explain to Teyla what a hickey is, and it's purpose.
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I love what you've done with these!
~Kim
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"So," she said, holding up one finger to get their attention and their silence. "Let me get this straight."
Behind John and Rodney, Ronon had the 'uh-oh, she's on the case' look. He, at least, didn't believe they could talk their way out of this situation, even if John had the look of a man who was going to bull this through if it killed him, and Rodney was trying to be crafty - trying, because Rodney was about as crafty as a brick. Inventive, yes. Crafty, no.
"The new requisition shipment was sent down by Colonel Caldwell," who she'd also be speaking to after this incident, "including fifteen gallons of what appears to be dishwashing liquid, one gallon of which breaks on the gateroom floor, and rather than cleaning it up, you decide it's time for a wet-t-shirt party and bubble bath?"
"We thought about it for a while," John said, as though that made everything better. "Considered the courses of action."
"And then Dr. Hinden wandered out with a glass of water and slipped and..." Rodney had a smile that was only saved from being smug by the fact that Elizabeth was standing in front of him and glaring. "It would have been a waste!"
And a missed opportunity to check out Jill Hinden, whose proportions were curvaceous, and the subject of some speculation among the men.
The headache intensified, knocking firmly on the inside of her skull. Just for that comment, she wished the detergent had been lemon-scented.
"The gateroom's clean," Ronon offered from behind them.
John brightened. "See? Clean gateroom floor."
She noticed that he'd skipped over the thirty-seven people presently in the Atlantis showers, giggling madly as they cleaned soapsuds off themselves, while fourteen military and scientific personnel got the job of mopping up with industrial-strength facemasks on. Someone had to do the dirty work around here.
Not doorknockers, but tom-toms, pounding steadily and incessantly in her brain.
Elizabeth thought about blaming Teyla for being on New Athos when this escapade had taken place. Except that was manifestly unfair to Teyla, who was, after all, a restraining influence on these retrograde mastodons of masculine idiocy.
Between the smell of the detergent that permeated her office and her irritability after a distinct lack of sleep and some harrowing off-world negotiations, Elizabeth could feel herself losing it.
"All right," she said, exasperated. "Take a facemask and go down there and help clean up."
"But--"
"Rodney. Get a facemask, go down there, and help clean up."
"The Mom has spoken," muttered John, collaring Rodney and dragging him out.
Ronon flashed her an unrepentant grin, and she rolled her eyes at him and strode back to her desk as the door slid shut behind them, cutting off Rodney's complaints, the cleaner's conversation, and the detergent's reek.
Forget the tom-toms, she had timpani players, pounding away in the final bars of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony to a five-part harmonic chorus of 'Joyful, Joyful'.
Elizabeth felt anything but.
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The rush of emotion, hot and cloudy through his mind, as they fought the rival hive. Buzzing voices in his head; the dizzying overlay of the queen's battle of the minds: taunts traded, weaknesses waylaid.
Their kind do not co-operate unless the prize was significant.
The stunner buzzes in his hands, shot after shot of debilitating power, while the skitter of the drones' emotions - they had nothing so advanced as thought - flit through his head.
When they emerge victorious, the winners drain life and living from the losers.
The strong survive.
--
Gritty soil grinds beneath his feet as he hunts his prey. The woods are no place for the flight craft. The woman and man are fleet of foot and their minds are oddly closed to him, but it matters little. They are food, nothing more.
He pauses in the shadow of a tree, frowning. Something does not feel right about this place, this hunt.
Instinct is all the warning he had, as a man somersaults out of the tree nearby and levels a weapon at him. Thick snakes of hair curl around a bronze throat as white teeth bare in challenge and triumph. "Sleep sweet."
The stun blast hurts, and everything fades.
--
He wakes in hell.
Cold air, too dry, the thick tang of salt-salt-salt, the rustle and tap of technology unknown, and the silence in his head - devoid of thought, devoid of consciousness - empty.
Rage stirs in him. Who would dare to touch one of his kind - a warrior, precious of his hive's Queen?
He hisses when they come to him in groups, afraid to confront him singly. But he is helpless here - a prisoner, at their whim and delight.
Pain stabs at his arm - again! again! - as the echoing emptiness resounds in his mind, driving him mad. There is no-one here; nothing left but the aching hollow of abandonment.
Time means nothing, days might have passed - or decades; they are doing things to him and he does not know what they are or what they mean.
One night, he opens his eyes and beholds a woman looking down at him - dressed like and unlike the others. And he feels the faintest brush of a mind where there has been only emptiness.
The hiss rises from this throat, a last, futile defiance. This woman is no queen - too weak, yet strangely strong. And the dark eyes that look down on him with shadowed wariness - enemy to him as he is enemy to her.
He remembers hatred.
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Thanks again
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(he'd never let anyone touch the dreads...would he?)