Work-in-progress amnesty
This is the story I started writing for last summer's Weir/Zelenka Thing-a-thon, the one that wanted to be gen. Trying to fit a romance between Elizabeth and Radek just wouldn't have worked, because the story kept drifting toward Elizabeth fulfilling her duties as leader of Atlantis - an essentially isolating role. I put it aside to write Like Sands through the Hourglass and never got back to it. So,
A Moveable Feast
By Pouncer
The puddlejumper banked toward the landing field before settling down smooth as butter. Elizabeth was always startled at the complete lack of sensation while inside; she missed the swoop in her belly that she'd felt on the helicopter run from McMurdo to the Ancient base in Antarctica, and on countless airplane flights, but then she looked around and remembered that she was living in Atlantis. Loss of swoopiness wasn't a high price to pay for that wonder.
Nor was attending a feast on her ostensible day off, not when it meant cementing relations with the Simla that little bit more. Besides, Elizabeth left Atlantis so rarely that this trip was something of a treat. She just hoped that Lt. Colonel Sheppard and Dr. McKay didn't discover a new way to destroy the universe before she returned.
The Simla's homeworld had been devastated by the Wraith while Sheppard and team were visiting for the first time. Elizabeth had received a frantic call and opened the gate shield to a flood of people clutching precious belongings. Slightly more than a hundred refugees, accustomed to fishing benevolent seas to earn their livelihood. It had been just before Zelenka discovered the long-range sensors and the approaching Wraith fleet, and finding a safe world for the Simla had fallen low, low on the priority list.
They'd gone to the Athosian settlement at first, although everyone knew that it was a temporary measure. And then during the turmoil of the siege, the Simla and the Athosians and a xenobotonist who'd taken it into his head that he wanted to be the Atlantean version of Lewis and Clark had started talking while they hung around the Alpha Site.
Dr. Raleigh and a survivalist Marine Corporal named Jay Forth had spent six weeks tramping around the mainland after the storm, surveying flora and fauna and searching for any Ancient ruins that hadn't shown up on scans taken by puddlejumper. The only thing of note they'd found was an area close to the sea and riddled with estuaries and forests, wildlife and fish, similar enough to their homeworld that the Simla had looked around and smiled when they'd gone to see it for themselves.
And so six months had passed while they settled into their new home.
Elizabeth waited until the jumper was almost deserted, letting the group of carefully selected scientists and soldiers disembark before she rose from the co-pilot's chair - an honor bestowed by Captain Welsh with a nervous smile at the start of the journey - and thanked the Captain for a smooth flight. She walked toward the rear hatch, pausing next to a muttering Dr. Zelenka, who looked like he wanted to tear open the upper panels and start working on shoddy circuits.
"Dr. Zelenka?" Elizabeth made sure her voice was full of cheer. "Shall we go and say hello to our hosts?"
He pushed his glasses further up his nose and cast a dark look toward the front of the jumper. "Do not blame me if we crash on the way back."
Elizabeth's lips quirked as he met her eyes. "I'm sure that won't happen," she soothed. "I know you keep all the jumpers in excellent condition."
She herded Zelenka outside and took a deep breath before going to meet the Simla's leader, a jovial man named Prita, whose pale skin and straight dark hair were typical of his people.
Prita greeted Elizabeth with a wide smile and a flourish of open arms. "Be welcome in our home, Elizabeth Weir," he said, followed by a ritual phrase in degraded Ancient, assuring her of safety.
Elizabeth repeated the Ancient words and looked around the village. "Prita, so much has changed since I was here last." Military issue tents had given way to sturdy timber buildings, and Elizabeth could already spot little touches that made this home. "Won't you show us around?" And here Elizabeth got to gesture at her own party with a grandiose fling of the wrist.
Dr. Grant, an anthropologist who'd been with the SGC for years before coming to Pegasus, had briefed all the feast attendees on the importance of gift-giving in Simla culture. "We gave them a place to live," she had told them. "Protected them from the Wraith; provided supplies to begin their life again. Now they want to return the favor."
Elizabeth kept Radek close to her during the tour, feeling the need for a familiar face. The Simla had chosen a low-technology lifestyle centuries ago, when they were driven from world to world by Wraith cullings until they traveled away from the stargate and found their former home.
Fish dried on wracks, women plaited dampened bark to make baskets, and children ran around heedless, involved in their own games to the exclusion of all else.
+++++++++
The Simla were modeled on tribes from the Pacific Northwest, and their feasting on the potlatch. There was going to be a lengthy digression into basket-making, because I'd been to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival that week, which was all about basket-weaving traditions from the Americas. The request was "Elizabeth's day off" and I was trying to make the point that she never really got a day off - even supposedly pleasurable occasions were for business.
I recycled the Lewis and Clark of Atlantis into Like Sands through the Hourglass, because I loved the idea. Dr. Raleigh approaching Weir and Sheppard with zany enthusiasm, and Corporal Forth being all "I camped in the wild for an entire summer between junior and senior years of high school," and plans to drop supplies from the puddlejumpers. Weir and Sheppard looking at each other like, "why is everybody here insane?"
And rereading this, I think I had my canon dates wrong, because Zelenka didn't discover the approaching Wraith ships until The Brotherhood, and the Simla congress with the Athosians and Raleigh and Forth during The Storm, so their resettlement plans would have happened before, and thusly. Plot confusion, canon confusion, aiiiieeeee.
Speaking of writing things for challenges, is there anyone out there who'd be willing to look at the story I'm attempting to finish for picfor1000? It's Elizabeth/Ronon, and I have almost 500 words. With no clue where the story should go from there.
I have been remarkably bereft of the creative impulse the past couple of weeks.
A Moveable Feast
By Pouncer
The puddlejumper banked toward the landing field before settling down smooth as butter. Elizabeth was always startled at the complete lack of sensation while inside; she missed the swoop in her belly that she'd felt on the helicopter run from McMurdo to the Ancient base in Antarctica, and on countless airplane flights, but then she looked around and remembered that she was living in Atlantis. Loss of swoopiness wasn't a high price to pay for that wonder.
Nor was attending a feast on her ostensible day off, not when it meant cementing relations with the Simla that little bit more. Besides, Elizabeth left Atlantis so rarely that this trip was something of a treat. She just hoped that Lt. Colonel Sheppard and Dr. McKay didn't discover a new way to destroy the universe before she returned.
The Simla's homeworld had been devastated by the Wraith while Sheppard and team were visiting for the first time. Elizabeth had received a frantic call and opened the gate shield to a flood of people clutching precious belongings. Slightly more than a hundred refugees, accustomed to fishing benevolent seas to earn their livelihood. It had been just before Zelenka discovered the long-range sensors and the approaching Wraith fleet, and finding a safe world for the Simla had fallen low, low on the priority list.
They'd gone to the Athosian settlement at first, although everyone knew that it was a temporary measure. And then during the turmoil of the siege, the Simla and the Athosians and a xenobotonist who'd taken it into his head that he wanted to be the Atlantean version of Lewis and Clark had started talking while they hung around the Alpha Site.
Dr. Raleigh and a survivalist Marine Corporal named Jay Forth had spent six weeks tramping around the mainland after the storm, surveying flora and fauna and searching for any Ancient ruins that hadn't shown up on scans taken by puddlejumper. The only thing of note they'd found was an area close to the sea and riddled with estuaries and forests, wildlife and fish, similar enough to their homeworld that the Simla had looked around and smiled when they'd gone to see it for themselves.
And so six months had passed while they settled into their new home.
Elizabeth waited until the jumper was almost deserted, letting the group of carefully selected scientists and soldiers disembark before she rose from the co-pilot's chair - an honor bestowed by Captain Welsh with a nervous smile at the start of the journey - and thanked the Captain for a smooth flight. She walked toward the rear hatch, pausing next to a muttering Dr. Zelenka, who looked like he wanted to tear open the upper panels and start working on shoddy circuits.
"Dr. Zelenka?" Elizabeth made sure her voice was full of cheer. "Shall we go and say hello to our hosts?"
He pushed his glasses further up his nose and cast a dark look toward the front of the jumper. "Do not blame me if we crash on the way back."
Elizabeth's lips quirked as he met her eyes. "I'm sure that won't happen," she soothed. "I know you keep all the jumpers in excellent condition."
She herded Zelenka outside and took a deep breath before going to meet the Simla's leader, a jovial man named Prita, whose pale skin and straight dark hair were typical of his people.
Prita greeted Elizabeth with a wide smile and a flourish of open arms. "Be welcome in our home, Elizabeth Weir," he said, followed by a ritual phrase in degraded Ancient, assuring her of safety.
Elizabeth repeated the Ancient words and looked around the village. "Prita, so much has changed since I was here last." Military issue tents had given way to sturdy timber buildings, and Elizabeth could already spot little touches that made this home. "Won't you show us around?" And here Elizabeth got to gesture at her own party with a grandiose fling of the wrist.
Dr. Grant, an anthropologist who'd been with the SGC for years before coming to Pegasus, had briefed all the feast attendees on the importance of gift-giving in Simla culture. "We gave them a place to live," she had told them. "Protected them from the Wraith; provided supplies to begin their life again. Now they want to return the favor."
Elizabeth kept Radek close to her during the tour, feeling the need for a familiar face. The Simla had chosen a low-technology lifestyle centuries ago, when they were driven from world to world by Wraith cullings until they traveled away from the stargate and found their former home.
Fish dried on wracks, women plaited dampened bark to make baskets, and children ran around heedless, involved in their own games to the exclusion of all else.
+++++++++
The Simla were modeled on tribes from the Pacific Northwest, and their feasting on the potlatch. There was going to be a lengthy digression into basket-making, because I'd been to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival that week, which was all about basket-weaving traditions from the Americas. The request was "Elizabeth's day off" and I was trying to make the point that she never really got a day off - even supposedly pleasurable occasions were for business.
I recycled the Lewis and Clark of Atlantis into Like Sands through the Hourglass, because I loved the idea. Dr. Raleigh approaching Weir and Sheppard with zany enthusiasm, and Corporal Forth being all "I camped in the wild for an entire summer between junior and senior years of high school," and plans to drop supplies from the puddlejumpers. Weir and Sheppard looking at each other like, "why is everybody here insane?"
And rereading this, I think I had my canon dates wrong, because Zelenka didn't discover the approaching Wraith ships until The Brotherhood, and the Simla congress with the Athosians and Raleigh and Forth during The Storm, so their resettlement plans would have happened before, and thusly. Plot confusion, canon confusion, aiiiieeeee.
Speaking of writing things for challenges, is there anyone out there who'd be willing to look at the story I'm attempting to finish for picfor1000? It's Elizabeth/Ronon, and I have almost 500 words. With no clue where the story should go from there.
I have been remarkably bereft of the creative impulse the past couple of weeks.