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Happy Happy Fun World: Land of the Pharaohs
Land of the Pharaohs, where it's Ancient Egypt all year round. "Experience the authenticity of Ancient Egypt, in the present!"
How about Anubis, the god of fertility and harvest? Seth, the goddess of love?
Or if someone took what they thought it looked like from storybooks and every incorrect paper ever and jammed them into an unholy theme park. You can ride the sarcophagus down through a river ride (watch out for the fake alligators). watch performers juggle canopic jars, or go through the haunted pyramid (made of fake gold): watch out for traps and mummies! There's also camels, lots of camels. Watch out. They spit.
That's just the tip of the iceberg. It only goes downhill from here.
How about Anubis, the god of fertility and harvest? Seth, the goddess of love?
Or if someone took what they thought it looked like from storybooks and every incorrect paper ever and jammed them into an unholy theme park. You can ride the sarcophagus down through a river ride (watch out for the fake alligators). watch performers juggle canopic jars, or go through the haunted pyramid (made of fake gold): watch out for traps and mummies! There's also camels, lots of camels. Watch out. They spit.
That's just the tip of the iceberg. It only goes downhill from here.
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Vala took a huge unladylike bite of her burger to test the theory, and with a cheek full of burger added "Yep. Not worth the price of the box they served it in." But she'll take a slurp of the shake too, just to be doubly sure.
"Relieved that I'm a free agent, or that I'm married?" She finally asked after swallowing the oversized bite of the 'dreadful' burger which tasted delicious. "Or are you just relieved you're not married to me?" The way she posed that question was all bitter sarcasm and hurt, she knew what the answer was, she hadn't exactly made the best of impressions, but it didn't stop her asking.
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Daniel stared as she took one of the largest bites possible. How did it even fit? For being "garbage", she sure seemed to enjoy it. Daniel helplessly watched the shake start to vanish too. Vala, it seemed, was no more interested in paying than she was listening to him. He was probably going to have to cover her. Why, why, why did he leave the ship for this? He could've been in his lab, working, actually enjoying himself. Peace, quiet, his foot might be in tact, and he wouldn't have been part of a scam. Or let his food cool while he argued with Vala.
He didn't expect her to sound so hurt. "It's not you," Daniel said quickly, then had to wonder why he was rushing to reassure her. So far she'd broken his stuff and now used him as part of her scam. Maybe he did rescue her, maybe he didn't, but it hadn't happened to him yet. He didn't actually owe her anything.
It was easier to tell yourself that, harder to actually go through with it, to compartmentalize people. "Relieved that I didn't get married again," he clarified before she got the wrong idea and went down the free agent road or something.
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"I don't know about you, but there's nothing I enjoy more than taking uninformed chances with alien penal systems. Who knows, it might even be a death sentence. That'll be fun." Vala strode purposefully ahead calling his bluff. She fully expected him to realise she had a point and hold her back... any moment now.
"Well I can empathise with that sentiment," she responded blithely regarding his relief. She didn't really want to get any further into that for more than just selfish reasons regarding Tomin. Vala had no idea if Sha're was dead in Daniel's timeline and she'd rather not go anywhere near that, not now anyway.
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Any moment that's...probably not now. If she thought he was going to balk to save his own skin, she was wrong. Vala cheated them, and it wasn't even out of survival or necessity. He didn't have it in him this time to hustle her bodily back to the stall. It it weren't for the healing ribs, he'd have managed it, easily. Since he was stuck with them, it left him with limited options.
"You know what? Fine." Daniel snapped. He might not have been savvy as she apparently was in cheating people and in hindsight, he should've seen her scam for what it was while it was happening, but he could see what she was doing now. She thought he was bluffing, and she was trying to out bluff him. Daniel wasn't bluffing. Maybe she didn't know him as well as she thought. The archaeologist suddenly let go of her arm. "You go do what you want. I'll explain to them and pay the damn thing."
Daniel stalked off towards the booth. If there was a death sentence for something like this, she could tell Captain Kennedy what happened. Have fun with that, Vala.
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"Daniel!" She shouted. "Daniel, wait," she caught up with him at a jog and landed herself squarely infront of his path. If he could be stubborn, well then so could she... At least that was the plan...
"...I'm sorry, okay," she sighed, making sure she had full eye contact and he'd know she was genuine, because she really was. "I'm sorry about the food, I'm sorry about the Mummy and I'm sorry that I have completely messed up any chance I had of making a better impression on you than I did the first time we met."
Wow, that whole being completely honest thing really was emotionally challenging, she hadn't even meant to say that last part. No wonder she'd always avoided it. Vala clenched her jaw to stop herself getting anymore upset.
"We can't go back though, you must be able to see that. We have no idea of their criminal justice system. And it's only a free burger, it's hardly the crown jewels, Daniel."
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He wanted to believe she was sorry though.
"You made a worse first impression?" It was out of his mouth before he could stop himself. Daniel winced. It wasn't like she'd made the first worst impression. He'd only called her a thief and accidentally stole from her. But she easily made up for that breaking the mummy, Daniel added. It wasn't exactly even, but he'd seen better first impressions all around. Daniel shook his head. "It's in the past." Er, future, in the case of the last one? Although maybe it couldn't happen that way if this was their - his first meeting. He could feel his brain hurting at just touching on the complications of time travel. "There's nothing we can do about it except move on."
Daniel, more gently than before, moved her out of the way with his free hand. He was going to do the right thing. Besides, they probably didn't make it a habit to execute guests. Maybe temporarily detained them. "Like I said. I'm not making you go back. I'll do it."
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She nodded in agreement, yes it was all in the past. Everything. The Mummy, the healing device, the 'Prometheus'. That was way way way in the past. Maybe this being truthful and genuinely apologising thing really did work for the best. With Daniel, anyway. She wasn't convinced it was the best policy in a lot of situations though, including the food.
"Well there's nothing I can do to stop you and I haven't got a Zat to hand," she jested with a wry amused smile. "But here's my share," Vala promptly handed over some of her currency.
That was quite the achievement for Vala, shame he didn't know it.
(handwaving the admission to the clerk)
"Do I even want to know?" Daniel muttered under his breath. He decided after a second that no, no he didn't. For his continued sanity, he didn't. Vala had this look on her face like she'd just been told she had to go get a root canal, but after a moment, dumped the money in his hand. Whatever a Zat was, Daniel was counting himself lucky she didn't have one.
He closed his fingers around it and put it into a pocket. "Thank you."
Although it wasn't necessarily the money he'd been concerned about. Daniel was prepared to pay her share, so the money would have come from somewhere, but he was more concerned with doing the right thing, and setting this right. As far as he saw it, Vala could come along or stay back. He hoped she'd come with. Daniel started toward the booth, glancing over at Vala to see what she'd do.
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Right, so that was all over and Daniel was happy.
"Now where?" She smiled at him cheerfully as if they'd just come off a ride and nothing out of the ordinary had happened at all. "Valley of the Gods? I know the way."
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That only took longer than it should've. Vala didn't help things along by latching onto the end of his sentences or glaring at him. Daniel glared at her back, a silent 'shut up' which she didn't seem to get. This wasn't his fault! He wanted to pay for the food. Like most people did. It was a good thing Daniel had so much practice talking to hostile locals, because he pulled every trick he knew to avoid getting them thrown into a detaining cell for a few hours. In the end, they got off with a slap on the wrist.
Daniel glanced over his shoulder. The slap on the wrist just happened to take the form of a security guard tailing them from a safe distance, a reptilian-armadillo looking alien with four beady purple eyes, all of which were always on them. Daniel got the message. The guard was probably going to do this the entire day, and he didn't care if they knew they were being followed. He was here to stay. This was supposed to be a relaxing shore leave.
He tried to ignore the guard.
"You still want to bother with this place?" Daniel had been hoping she'd call it quits. Even without the near successful scam, Land of the Pharaohs was something he could've done without. Couldn't they have gone somewhere else? This place asked him to turn his brain off to manage. Daniel couldn't do that. The tagin tasted okay. Not the best he'd ever had, but not the worst either. Although he'd only know in a few hours whether it was safe or not, and he ended up food poisoned. With how today was going, that was certainly on the table.
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"What? After you went to all that effort to get us our very own attractive chaperone?" She turned full circle as they walked, giving the guard a cute little wave. "Don't you think leaving would be a bit rude? I'm positive that Scales has never felt so important in his life. Would you deny him his moment of self inflated purpose?"
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Daniel pretended to clean his glasses until he got the urge under control.
"We wouldn't need our friend here if you'd just paid like everyone else," Daniel settled the glasses on the bridge of his nose. They continued through the crowd, passing through another archway, this one depicting Cleopatra as an exceedingly well-endowed, four armed Elizabeth Taylor. If she'd been born a naga. "Now stop baiting him. Can we at least try to enjoy the rest of the day?"
Not that Daniel was so far, aside from the non-Stacy food. They came out into a plaza. The first thing they were confronted with was a sign proudly proclaiming "Welcome...The Valley of the Gods, Mortals", followed by a line of towering statues leading up a cause way to what was a barely passable scale replica of the Great Pyramids.
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"Absolutely! So Valley of the Gods it is then, with copious amounts of enjoy." Although how a tribute to a bunch of power hungry false gods was supposed to be fun, she really wasn't sure. Religion of any description didn't sit well with Vala, for obvious reasons. She raised one cynical eyebrow at the grandiose statues ahead, a faint look of disdain for them on her face.
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Daniel studied the statues. He thought he could see Anubis, but why he was portrayed as having the relics for fertility and the harvest was beyond him. He looked at her, catching the disgust on her face. With the way Vala said the name, you'd almost think she didn't want to continue. Since she did have some experience with the Goa'uld, she knew more than the average person did about them, how they operated. Yeah, 'Gods'.
"You're the one who wanted to come." Even with the Goa'uld taking on some gods, it didn't have to mean they were all Goa'uld. Even if they were, it was possible to study them by taking a step back, try to look at it with an academic eye.
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It was then that Vala spotted Ray. The Sun God, apparently. He was a fat jolly type, and seemed to resemble Santa Claus. She might have never met Ra, but this was definitely nothing like she'd heard. Both eyebrows shot up in amused disbelief, before slowly turning her head sideways towards Daniel with much the same look. "I think they got some details wrong somewhere."
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Daniel drifted up to the statue. It was fat, topped with a grinning hawk-falcon, and looked a lot more like Santa Claus that it ever should. If it wasn't for the giant sun disc (not even placed the right way, Daniel cringed) on his head or the scarab beetle with one too many legs, Daniel would never have guessed who this was supposed to be.
"Is this supposed to be Ra?" he asked incredulously. Daniel looked to the inscription, as if hoping it would prove him wrong. The God of the Moon, Ray, bringer of plague and war. Daniel looked back at the statue, the not-Ra. Even Vala looked like she couldn't believe it. "No kidding. The only thing they got right was the name. Ra was nothing like this!"
Ignoring the fact that they got the basics wrong, Ra wasn't the god for plague and war, that was Resheph, Ra hadn't been anything like what Egyptian mythology and the rest of the academic world thought he was either. He'd been something more. Ra was gone, but Daniel didn't think he'd ever forget the encounter for the rest of his life. Ra wasn't this. He'd been supremely confident, which made sense considering he claimed he was a god, and uncomfortably beautiful, in a way that you couldn't help but watch him. It was in how he carried himself, how it affected his looks. It didn't look quite right; more like watching a cobra weaving towards you than another human being. Daniel suspected it would've looked wrong no matter what body Ra had worn.
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"I think this statue would provide endless entertainment at a System Lords convention though." She could just imagine them all polishing their egos over what a joke he'd been made to look. It was also a ploy to get Daniel to just laugh and move on.
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"Are you kidding, they might have gotten one giggle out before Ra killed them for the insolence." Daniel told her. He strode up to the statue, spine radiating wounded academic pride. "I mean look at this! They have Ra holding a cow uterus-"
At least, he thought it was one, if someone tried shaping it from a bendy straw.
"- which is not only completely incorrect, it's a symbol that belongs to Meskhenet, a goddess of childbirth and fate, along with..." Daniel trailed off, eyebrows furrowed as he caught a glimpse of something. The archaeologist leaned forward. Was- was that a birth brick in Ra's hand too?
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"Travesty." She interjected from behind him, to assure him she was paying attention, then returned her attention to the now full blown imagined Treasure trove in the sky.
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Daniel seemed to forget Vala was there, or if he did remember, she was temporarily relegated to the status of lecture student, which was, in his world, listen until he ran out of breath. Daniel was on a roll.
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Maybe if she wandered ahead, he'd be forced to catch up. She considered grabbing him and physically forcing him along, but that risked him actually engaging her rather than ranting to the ether. She edged along towards the next statue, and went back to her 'happy place'.
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They came to another section of statues and Daniel forgot all about whether she was paying attention or not.
"This is supposed to be Aphophis?" Daniel sounded like he was ready to start again.
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Oh God, not again! Right that was it, she couldn't pretend any more. Vala rolled her eyes behind his back as he approached the Apophis, smacking the park map against her forehead dramatically. "I think we've established that any authenticity is an abstract concept by now, Daniel." Ooh that sounded quite good, she preened a little before continuing.
"Is it really necessary to go through these verbal diatribes each time though? I mean I've been patient, but I think I might die of boredom and/or old age before we reach the end."
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"They're not 'diatribes'," He was trying to educate her and get himself a vent for the frustration at the same time. He liked to think of it as a rant with dual purpose. The way Daniel saw it, and just about everything, was that it couldn't ever hurt to learn something new. The more you know, right?
Unless it was quantum theory or astrophysics. Not that he wasn't willing to give it a shot. He gave it a shot. It just... usually went over his head most of the time, but Sam, for some reason, seemed to get a kick out of it, and who was he to judge here? He liked digging around dead civilizations.
Daniel waved to the sculpture, encompassing everything that was wrong with it in a circle. he was going to pretend he didn't just hear Vala say he was boring her. "You dragged an Egyptologist to the worst example of what someone thought Egypt was supposed to be. What did you think was gonna happen? I can't just turn my brain off."
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Vala had issues taking the blame for things she was fully aware she'd actually done, but she could hardly be held accountable for this.
"They're all wrong! I think you've made that quite clear, and as much as my heart bleeds for your poor offended Egyptologist sensibilities, can we just move on... please." Vala sighed heavily, shoulders dropping in defeat towards the end of that little outburst.
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(and on the way to Indulgence Cove?)