The Library: or how to get charged for EVERTHING [Open]

[hi_there_aliens]

Choosing two memories wasn't that hard. He made an effort, before the procedure, not to think of Sha're at all, Abydos, his parents or the SGC, and if weren't for the fact that he had time to prepare beforehand, it would've been a lot harder than it looked. Daniel focused on something safe, purely physical or emotional. Something that wasn't too personal or specific about their missions or the Stargate.

Guide said anything would do, so, he was getting... anything.

The first was how it felt just to touch a hundred years old manuscript, mostly the texture and smell. Daniel felt bad about pulling that one. Talk about a cop out. Even if he had to be careful, that was cheap. The archaeologist tried to make it up on the second one. He gave him the memory of how he'd felt on his first time entering a tomb, how the air had felt (cold) , how it had smelled (musty and dank), just how utterly black it had been (very black), the excitement and tension that had run through him, and more importantly the sense that there was something down there just waiting to be uncovered.

It seemed to do the trick, because Guide cheerfully shuffled away with two copied memories. Although not before he tried to sell him tours to the best restaurants.

Daniel found himself inside the library and already short of a chunk of credits. They'd charged admission, then charged him just to use a tiny pad of paper, the kind that would've been free back home, then for the stub of what was their version of a pencil (he wasn't even going to keep it!), and then charged him just to point out where the subject catalogs were. Oh, and then he'd been charged just to use the desk.

He was surprised they didn't try to charge him for the air he breathed. Maybe that was going to show up when he tried to leave.

Despite this, Daniel trundled happily around the shelves, feeling more at home than he had in awhile. Nothing shooting at them, no pressure to find technology for military use, just this. Books, as far as he could see. He'd been on a number of planets already, seen so much, but still, nothing quite beat a good library.

It even had that old yellowed book smell.

Comments

[twilit-midna.livejournal.com]

"Just curious," she said, with a small smile. "I was aware of the existence of other worlds before I came to the ship -- they were connected to mine tenuously, mostly through old stories and occasionally through the appearance of an offworlder or two. But it seems that far more realms existed than I was led to believe... and they were not so far distant from my own."

She motioned back toward the entrance. "We have markets, of course, but on this world, they seem to have eclipsed almost all else. How curious."

[hi_there_aliens]

Oh yeah, she understood very well. Maybe they had a Stargate back where she came from. It could be that they would get one or two strangers through it but perhaps they hadn't figured out how to work it themselves yet. She was more curious than afraid at the realization. Daniel found himself already warming to her. "I know how you feel. You think you're alone and then you find out the universe is a lot more crowded than you you originally thought. But it's exciting at the same time."

He looked back at the entrance and the gauntlet of charges that had come with. He really hoped there wasn't going the a gauntlet on the way back. What happened if there was an exit fee or something. What happened to those who couldn't pay?

The archaeologist mentally crossed his fingers.

"Tell me about it. This is pretty amazing. I'm wondering how they can even sustain this kind of culture." Was it planet-wide? The 'de-briefing' Stacy had given made it seem like it was. "They might have to rely heavily on trade from offworld..." It made you wonder just how fragile this world actually was.

What was he thinking? Daniel held out his hand. "I'm Daniel."

[twilit-midna.livejournal.com]

Her smile took on the slightest shadow of regret. "Yes, there is so much here that I never would have dreamed of seeing back home. Ships that sail the stars. Rooms that take the form of whatever you wish..." She paused, then added, "Motor-bikes."

Midna followed Daniel's glance back to the entrance. Was he anticipating someone's arrival?

"Perhaps the difficulties of navigating the system ease somewhat with familiarity... and a little extra in the way of payment." Where there were rules, there were bound to be those willing to pay to get around them.

She took his hand with both of hers, but didn't shake. "Zelda. Pleased to meet you, Daniel. A scholar of some sort, perhaps?"

[hi_there_aliens]

He didn't miss the hint of regret that crossed her face. She had to be homesick, and he wished there was some way he could honestly reassure there that there was a way back. The problem was that he wasn't so sure himself. Daniel didn't want to lie to her. He was stubborn, bull-headed was a decent word for it, and so was the rest of SG-1. "Giving up" really just wasn't in their vocabulary. There had to be a solution here, giving up not being in there, but he wasn't seeing it yet. It didn't mean they should stop trying though.

"You have your chance to explore all this though. I mean, it's a big opportunity we have here," Daniel pointed out, trying to be optimistic.

A little extra could add up here with how they got nickel and dimed over everything. "Maybe, but I'm not sure how much credits it will take before you've really learned system. I don't think it's a good idea to go broke on this particular planet."

Zelda. Unusual name there. It instantly brought to mind Zelda Fitzgerald, but that had to be a coincidence. Daniel mirrored her motion, bringing his other hand to cover one of hers briefly before releasing the grip. "You too. Yes, actually. Archaeologist and linguist. Are you doing research too?"

He tried to imagine her huddled in some corner or basement of a stuffy library and found he couldn't. Zelda gave off a regal air, cool and polite but probably not going to get her hands dirty in a bunch of musty tomes. It wasn't that common to find amongst scholars. Then again she had come here, but maybe it was just simple curiosity.

[twilit-midna.livejournal.com]

"Yes, it certainly is," she agreed. "A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But I can't help but think that it was not I who was destined to take advantage of it. I'm afraid I'm no hero, Daniel. I have neither blazing sword nor shining steed -- and there are far braver than I."

She smiled apologetically at his question. "I'm afraid I'm just an idle noblewoman who likes old stories. And by extension, old books. When I think of how many hours I wiled away with shelves like these as a child... well. I am glad that even in a world filled with starships, there is still room for the printed word."

"I thought that perhaps I would be able to find a trace of my own world here. That's what they say, you know -- that the heroes of one world become stories in another. If I could come here, then surely..." she trailed off, almost talking to herself now, "Surely a hero of the ages..."

[hi_there_aliens]

'Just' a noblewoman. Daniel couldn't say he heard those two words together often. She was surprisingly modest for an aristocrat. Daniel found he was warming to her. The way she spoke was stiff, archaic, and some of her ideas about heroes and their requirements could have come from straight from Arthurian literature, but she seemed open to new ideas far outside her frame of reference. She obviously had a curiosity and an interest in learning about the world around her, and even better, a wonder about that universe.

"I don't think you need those qualities to get out and explore. I don't know anyone who was born into being a hero. It's every day people who do great things."

Daniel looked around at the books then back at her. She'd come here trying to find a trace back to her home, but he was thinking it was a long shot. If there was some tiny thread here, it wasn't going to be easy to find. He sounded doubtful, but didn't have the heart to tell her what her chances were. "Maybe."

[twilit-midna.livejournal.com]

What a curious idea. Everyday people who do great things? Certainly they could accomplish much, but could they really be called heroes?

"Not born, perhaps, but you cannot be the hero chosen by the gods without being chosen. And that is something to which those like myself cannot lay claim."

Midna noticed his doubtful glance and smiled. "You think I have little chance of finding what I seek."

[hi_there_aliens]

Daniel shook his head. "I think you might find references that could be familiar to you, but they won't spell a way home. It would be like finding a foot print on the beach. It'll show you someone was there but it won't show you the personality that left it." Or how to meet them. Unless that footprint left a nice trail.

That could happen. She wouldn't know until she looked.

He could think of a lot of people he'd consider heroes that didn't claim God or gods' backing. Zelda was speaking as if it were fact, that she just couldn't be heroic because she wasn't born into it. Daniel wondered a part of that was her own doubts talking.

"People can't assume that deities give them the ability to to do what they have to anymore than people can assume that those supposedly born with that uh, Chosing, will do it for them. It's dangerous. It both takes responsibility out of the unChosen's hands and also gives a free ticket to those that are Chosen. You're running a lottery on those Chosen people doing the right thing. It's what you make for yourself. It's your own choices and actions you do or don't take that make you a hero." Daniel's tone was earnest. "You don't have to always do what's expected of you. You're being given a great chance to go out and see the universe."

That was probably his idealism rearing his head. He wasn't back on base, he wasn't in America, he wasn't even on Earth. This way of thinking would have been foreign on a number of the worlds SG-1 visited.

[twilit-midna.livejournal.com]

"A way home?" Is that what Daniel thought she was looking for? "I doubt I'd find it here. I'd settle for a brief mention of an old friend."

There was a difference between being heroic and being a hero, something Daniel didn't seem to understand. And he was being rather condescending. What did he think all of the "unChosen" were doing, sitting around twiddling their thumbs?

She frowned at him. "Thank you for telling me what I can and cannot do. But to be quite frank, I don't think you understand what you're talking about. The gods can and do bestow abilities on those of their choosing -- I have seen it happen. And I'll thank you not to speak about the individual they've chosen as if his actions were determined by nothing more than a roll of the dice."

[hi_there_aliens]

The archaeologist tended to have two effects when he met new people. Either they liked him or they disliked him intensely (or he pissed them off) and if he thought walking into a room full of military who had zero time or patience for some geek was hard, Zelda was making it into a cake walk.

Being heroic and being a hero were the same thing to Daniel at this point. He found the idea that a divine being choosing someone at birth for a great destiny problematic too: it was hard to get behind that idea when you met a few 'gods' in the flesh already. They weren't divine, just megalomaniac tyrants. More technologically advanced, sure, but also flesh and blood. When you found out that the Egyptian gods were actually snakes that had been enslaving the human race for thousands of years, that Thor was more or less an alien than a Viking mythological figure, you started to question your own world views.

Daniel held up his hands, a pretty universal sign for surrendering. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you or talk ill about your friend." he said sincerely.

He shouldn't have let personal beliefs on the matter cloud him so much. Zelda couldn't be expected to have the same values. She probably thought he was just as wrong. Kendra and Gairwyn would've had the same reaction if he'd essentially walked all over Thor right in front of them. Daniel knew better this. "I'm coming from somewhere else, so I don't know your ways. Maybe I don't understand. Could you explain what you've seen?"

[twilit-midna.livejournal.com]

Zelda relaxed a little.

"We are from different worlds, though in some ways they are quite similar. Link was born in the realm of light; I hail from the Twilight Realm. When one of our number invaded his world, he was one of the few able to resist Zant's power. He was granted the garments of the Hero of Time and obtained the Sword of Evil's Bane.

"Even the gods of our world have recognized him. He is brave and kind, and I am ashamed that I ever judged him harshly."