trans_9 | Happy Happy Fun World: Land of the Pharaohs

God he was as stubborn as a mule sometimes, it was so infuriating. For a moment she just stood there wondering what to do. She might have exaggerated with the death sentence thing, but the fact still remained that they knew nothing of the local laws.

"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."

Edited 2011-10-20 22:30 (UTC)

Daniel had to stop suddenly, nearly dropping his own food, in an effort not to bowl her over. He regarded her over his glasses. She seemed sincere. She seemed to actually feel sorry for her actions, but now that he'd seen her actually deliberately cheat someone...

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."

Edited 2011-10-20 22:49 (UTC)

"Well I think you enjoyed it in parts," Vala sort of cringe hooked her bottom lip into an over the top expression, tilting her head and looking to the pink sky as she recalled the kiss. "At least, I like to think you did. No, you definitely did."

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.

You know, that was almost a leer. A ghost of one. Daniel almost lost his train of thought. What?!

"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.

Edited 2011-10-20 23:29 (UTC)

Vala had mostly hung back behind Daniel while he explained. She'd made the appropriate regretful faces and placatory smiles, but mostly just reiterated what Daniel said when she did speak. Which involved repeating the last two words of some of his sentences, although she couldn't help shooting him the odd 'well you didn't have to say it like that' look.

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."

Edited 2011-10-20 23:42 (UTC)

Of course she knew the way. She only got the directions mid-scam.

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.

Vala's initial draw to 'Land of the Pharaohs' had been the potential for acquiring shiny things. Shiny things she could trade back onboard Stacy with, but that thought had been dashed as soon as they'd arrived and she'd realised it was all tacky replicas.

"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?"

The guard glared at Vala with every single eyeball and did his best to look extra menacing. All he needed to do was pound all three fists into the other three palms to complete the image. Vala might be just a little cruel there with the sarcasm, but the thing was, she... might be right about the guard's job picking up. Tailing the two of them was probably the most exciting thing to happen to him all day. Daniel felt a tiny grimace of a smile coming onto his face. He tried to stop it before it came out. Daniel didn't want to smile, because he still wasn't happy with how shore leave was going, with Vala at the moment, but, and the smile threatened to grow, Vala did have a way with words that was pretty...well, pretty special.

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.

"I wasn't baiting him, unless of course he can lip-read, which I highly..." Vala stopped herself from continuing, clamping her lips together hard and very obviously. Enjoying the day was hardly going to happen if she kept arguing with him, even if she was right.

"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.

Yes, Vala, it's better for everyone if you just don't assume anything at the moment. Besides, Daniel didn't think the guard needed to be able to lip sync to get what Vala's insolent wave and smile meant.He knew exactly why he was tailing these two guests. Daniel hated to say it, but they deserved it. Vala did at least. It wasn't like being pinned for something she didn't do. And she was lucky to get the guard detail. The manager and security wanted to keep them both in a cell until shore leave was over or kick them back up to Stacy.

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.

Edited 2011-10-22 02:22 (UTC)

"Okay so I wanted to come, but not for..." Vala shrugged it off, it was only a load of statues representing history. "Stop making sense," she smiled wryly. "I hate it when you do that." She was still smiling though, the comment was much more affectionate than accusatory.

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."

Edited 2011-10-22 11:21 (UTC)

That did get Vala a small, genuine smile. "I can't help it." Most of the time he liked to think he made sense. He didn't always.

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.

Edited 2011-10-22 11:50 (UTC)

"I have no idea." Vala scoffed with a laugh, but she was clearly more amused by the whole fiasco than offended. Which wasn't the reaction she expected Daniel would have. If there were more like this, then Daniel was going to presumably go on and on and probably at a million miles an hour with no pause for breath. If they were to get to the end of the row today then Vala would have to literally drag him from each statue before he wrote a thesis on the inaccuracies.

"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.

This wasn't funny, this was a travesty! It wasn't like Daniel cared if it pissed the System Lords off. This wasn't about them. What he did care about was the mockery it made of an entire culture and his own line of work. And people paid for this! Daniel had just gotten done explaining the purpose of the Jungle Cruise and the intent behind it, and sadly enough, even the Jungle Cruise got more right than this place. But the point was people wanted to see the idea of Egypt without actually having to go to Egypt. This was so far from Egypt and Egyptian culture that it might as well be another planet entirely. Why even bother calling it Land of the Pharaohs? He couldn't see a single thing right. Not one. Zero. How hard was it to get at least one detail right?

"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?

Right, well that worked a treat. Vala stood, arms crossed hanging back as he failed to raise even the tiniest of smiles and went in for the kill instead. As Daniel verbally tore apart every last detail the statue had to offer, and possibly risked a heart attack in the process, Vala simply rolled her eyes and chose to focus her attention on the pink sky instead. It was actually very pretty she considered, and that cloud was almost shaped like a chalice. She imagined it studded with jewels and winking at her as the sunlight caught the jewels' facets.

"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.

"-It is a travesty!" Daniel agreed. He moved down the line, and rather rudely motioned towards another sculpture. "And this- they ripped this from the Discophoros and just jammed a kitten's head on it. I've never seen any Egyptian statue utilize this much contrapposto or show nearly the same attention to musculature, even when you take the Raherka and Meresankh sculpture into consideration. The Egyptians valued stability, permanence, and capturing the essence of a person, not necessarily capturing the illusion of life or a likeness to this extent. While they did experiment with it, it never quite caught on as much as it did with Greek and Roman sculpture, whose values-"

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.

Edited 2011-10-23 09:54 (UTC)

Technically Vala wasn't there. Vala was rolling around in cavern of treasure now, in fact she was back at Avalon and lamenting all the stuff she really should have taken and just ignored Cam's orders. She was only 25% tuned in to Daniel, enough to add "The contrapposto is simply shocking" though. Whatever the hell that meant.

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'.

Daniel faltered and looked at her sharply, because contrapposto, was, if anything, not exactly 'shocking' or riveting, which meant she didn't understand the concept, which he found hard to believe, it obviously spoke for itself, or....Was she even listening to him?

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.

Vala had just shrugged at the pointed look, then given him a sombre nod complete with furrowed brow. It was supposed to come off as engrossed in the subject matter and academic, it probably came off more as mockery.

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."

Daniel's spine couldn't possible go any straighter but it tried anyway.

"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."

"I didn't drag you." Vala's mouth dropped open in disapproval of that statement. "If I recall, you were more than happy to come here. And forgive me for not being able to look into the future Dr Genius Daniel Jackson, but how was I to know it would be about as historically accurate as a.. as a... well a historically inaccurate thing."

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.

"I wanted to get off base," just to get that out of the way here. But he would've been just as happy, if not happier, continuing work on the Taleen dig artifacts. "Not... this." Because getting dragged here, getting his foot stepped on, and nearly getting jailed along with Vala was his idea of fun.

Daniel's face had gone from wounded pride to offended, with a healthy dose of indignant to round it out. If he wanted to hear this kind of sarcasm and patronization, he'd go hang out with SG-3, or better yet, annoy Jack into one of his pissier moods. He folded his arms. Keeping his mouth shut on everything wrong with the statues, much less the park's accuracy, was, in his mind, about as good as accepting it as is.

The archaeologist's jaw worked as he looked at the Apophis statue. It was a visible effort on his part not to say anything about the fact it was carrying a snake entwined in an olive branch, as if he was trying to channel Athena. "Fine. Why don't you lead the way?"

"Gladly," she said with as much bite as his 'fine' had been delivered. "Besides, I think if you continue you're likely to suffer from heart failure and I'm not having that on my conscience. Yes they're all horribly wrong, but you can't change that Daniel," she tried to reason more gently and sympathetically to his frustration.

"Come on, I suggest we pick one of the other places. Maybe Land of the Pharaohs wasn't one of my better plans with hindsight."

Vala whirled around, looking for the quickest way out and that's when she saw a statue she really didn't want to see. It hit her like a slap to the face and momentarily she was paralysed on the spot. Of all the Gods and Goddesses they got wrong, this one was uncannily accurate, at least as far as Qetesh's most recent host was concerned. She swallowed hard and looked away.

"Now." There was a sudden urgency in her voice and she attempted to usher Daniel off in the other direction. By usher it was more a forceful hand applied to the small of his back.

Edited 2011-10-25 02:01 (UTC)

Vala might be right, he couldn't change anything, but keeping his mouth shut about it was almost impossible. He was going to get a heart attack if he didn't vent. Or implode a few blood vessels in his brain. She seemed to read his face like an open book because she shut him down before he could even start again. Taken by surprise, Daniel bit his lip, stopping the Apophis correction before it could come out.

He had to agree with her, this place wasn't a good plan at all. Leaving and looking somewhere else; finally, a good idea. The best one she had all day.

They started to leave when she glanced away, and then went completely still, right before she practically shoved him down the path, as if they had a squad of Jaffa coming down on them.

"What-Vala-!" Daniel didn't particularly care to get manhandled, and he wasn't ready for the hand planted in the small of his back, only a slide away from his ass, as if she was perfectly used to it and it was perfectly natural for her to be this familiar. Her reaction wasn't normal. Was something wrong? If the guard was doing something, like coming after them or getting more guards, he wanted to see it coming. The archaeologist wormed away and turned around. His head craned up.

The statue, and it was undoubtedly Quetesh, judging from the dress and what she carried, looked strangely like Vala. Practically a spitting image. Eyebrows knit, Daniel looked at her then back at the statue. What the hell?

Edited 2011-10-25 06:11 (UTC)

There might as well have been a squad of Jaffa on their back as far as Vala was concerned. Actually no, that would have been preferable. She wouldn't have frozen if that had been the case, her mind would have been working overtime to come up with a plan. This crisis had her floundering much more.

"Just let's get out of..." she started to protest when he stubbornly objected, and then he was looking right at her. Right at the gut wrenchingly accurate statue of Qetesh. The Goa'uld that had controlled her every action for more years than she ever wanted to remember. The Goa'uld that had been memorialised in this sham of a park in her image. The Goa'uld that had slaughtered tens of thousands of Ba'al's Jaffa in her body and the Goa'uld that had made her watch as men and women alike died in crippling agonised torture at her feet.

Vala's eyes glazed over, stiffening her jaw to bite back any tears. She refused to get emotional about it. "What?" she snapped at him caustically, "I'm sure they got that one wrong too, just like all the others."

Happy Happy Fun World: Land of the Pharaohs

no subject

no subject

no subject

(handwaving the admission to the clerk)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(and on the way to Indulgence Cove?)