Title: A Time for Thanks
Rating: PG
Character(s): Jack, Gray, their parents
Summary: The Boeshane settlers celebrate their harvest festival. Written for the schmoop_bingo , for the prompt holiday.
A/N: Written to celebrate my first Thanksgiving. See further A/N after fic.
Disclaimer: If I owned Torchwood, the boys would have had more screentime together, more sex, and Ianto would still be alive.
Gray is being a brat. Again.
"Mum said I should come with you."
"No she didn't."
"Yes, she did," Gray insists and kicks at the sand. The angle of the kick and the breeze that suddenly blows across the coast carries some grains right into Jack's eyes. The irritation caused only serves to anger him further and he pushes his brother away while he scrubs at his streaming eyes with the other hand.
"Go away, bodoh! Look what you did!" Gahaya, does the sand sting. Gray is such achunta.
"I'm sorry!" the younger boy wails. "I'm sorry! But I want to come! Mum said I could."
"Fine!" Jack roars, at the end of his tether and blinking the last few tears from his eyes, turns on his heels and stomps away without looking back to see if Gray is following him or not.
Soon enough, he can hear the slide of sand as Gray runs after him, stumbling slightly on his short legs over the ever shifting ground. "Jack, wait up!"
Jack bites back another insult and with a long suffering sigh, stops and turns around to wait for his brother to catch up.
"You walk so fast," Gray grumbles once they're level.
"You walk so slow," Jack snaps back.
Gray, realising that his older brother is still angry with him, whips out the most effective weapon in his arsenal. Jack rolls his eyes at wide-eyed look of pathetic innocence the younger boy gives him, only because he knows how effective it is. Heaving another sigh, he grabs Gray's hand and pulls him along after him.
They've hidden the snares among the roots of the sarali trees that grow along the coast and if they're lucky, something would have gotten caught in one. Jack hopes it will be a sand rabbit, because as much as he likes seafood, he'd like to have something else forTerama Kadeh.
They reach the first site, only to find someone already there. "Oi!" Jack bellows, and releases Gray's hand to run over and tackle the thief to the ground. The other boy squeals.
"Gavin!"
Gavin is a little shorter than Jack, and his tan darker, contrasting with the almost-white of his hair, but his grin is bright enough to match the sun. "Jack."
"What are you doing? That's our snare."
"Oh, is it?" Gavin's look of surprise isn't very convincing and he knows it, so he follows it up with another disarming grin. "Whoops, silly of me. Mine must be further in. Sorry."
"You suck at lying, you thieving chunta," Jack says and punches him in the shoulder, but the hit is gentle and he's grinning back. "Get lost before I kick your butt." He helps Gavin to his feet and the other boy dusts himself down before giving Jack a wink.
"Happy Terama Kadeh," he says, before kissing Jack swiftly on the cheek. He then skips of the way they came, pausing only to ruffle Gray's hair, kicking up sand in his wake.
"He likes you," Gray says, pouting as he tries to rearrange his tousled curls.
Jack feels his face warm. "Shut up, Gray." He pulls his gaze away from Gavin's back and all irritation at his brother disappears when he finds that Gahaya has indeed been kind today. They have managed to catch a sand rabbit and a quite a large one to boot. No wonder Gavin had been tempted.
Gray sees it too, and with a cry of delight lunges forward, only to be viciously pulled back by the collar of his tunic.
"Bodoh!" yells Jack. "Haven't you learned from last time? I have to disarm the snare first. Gahaya, you can be sokahu nnagata tachunta!"
Gray sits in the sand, looking very small. "I'm sorry," he says in an equally small voice, tears pricking his eyes, not just from his brother's wrath, but also from the painful memory of the last time he'd stuck his hand in an armed electric snare. He thinks that he'll remember that painful sting that had numbed his whole arm for two entire days for the rest of his life.
Jack's face softens at the pathetic figure Gray cuts. He bends over to pat him on the shoulder. "I'm sorry I called you bodoh. Just be more careful next time." He follows up with their mother's favourite piece of advice: "Look before you leap."
"Yes, Jack."
Once the snare has been disarmed, he allows Gray to pick up the sand rabbit and put it in the sack he's carried along. "Do you think Mum might let me have the skin?" he asks Jack as he gives the dead animal a pat on the head.
"I think she'll want to sell it. Maybe if you ask nicely she'll give you some of it."
They find a burrow rat in another snare but the other three are empty. Gray finds the entrance to a new warren and Jack helps him set up one of the empty snares nearby. Then, their bounty in hand, them trudge back home.
oOo
Their mother is so pleased with the catch that she promises Gray a piece of the rabbit skin, then shoos them out to play while she cooks.They head down to the beach, where they strip off their clothes and plunge into the cool, clear water.
Shaniya is already there with her sister and older brother and the children devise a game of catch which involves pushing each other into the water. It soon turns into a water fight and then exhausted, they flop onti the sand, letting the surf curl around their toes. The younger ones, Gray and Keema, seem still full of boundless energy and start digging for sandworms, holding a competition to find the longest one.
Stretched out on the sand with the warm sun shining on his stomach, Jack falls asleep.
oOo
Gray's giggling wakes him up. Jack knows that giggle. It's Gray's I'm-doing-something-I-shouldn't-be-doing-but-I-don't-care-it's-fun giggle. He opens his eyes finds himself blinded by the light of the setting sun. He turns his head to the side and opens them again and finds himself buried up to his neck in the sand."Gray!"
Something slimy wriggles past his cheek and from the corner of his eye, he makes it out to be a sandworm. There sandworms in his hair.
"GRAY!"
He flails and manages to wriggle one hand free, then the other, then starts pushing the sand of his torso. Gray has given him three very generous breasts and adorned them with seashells. Once he's got enough sand off, he manages to push himself to his feet and dashes into the water. It feels icy against him warm skin and the itch of the sand fades as it gets washed away by the current. Jack immerses his head in the water, shaking it to get rid of the worms. When he breaks the surface, Gray is standing on the shore, fully dressed and grinning.
"Come on! It's dinner soon!"
Gray shuffles away as he walks past, but not quickly enough to avoid the sandworm that Jack has pulled out of his hair and dropped onto Gray's own.
"Ew, Jack!" Gray yells and rips the poor creature from his head before flinging it back into the sea.
"Serves you right," says Jack as he puts on his clothes and he emerges from his tunic to find a familiar figure heading down the beach towards them. "Race you to Dad!" he yells and takes off.
oOo
Their father, who staggers back when his older son slams into him, is bowled backwards into the sand when his younger one joins them. "Happy Terama Kadeh!" they yell, loud enough to deafen him, then pull him to his feet and back to their home. Gray as usual, chatters on endlessly while Jack walks along in silence, but the smile he gives his father when he puts an arm around his shoulder says enough.Their mother has once again outdone herself with her cooking and she tired but pleased with herself as they all troop into the small kitchen, following the tantalizing trail of smells. "You're amazing!" their father declares as he dips her in the middle of the kitchen and kisses her while Jack and Gray whoop and cheer in accompaniment.
The food is carried to the dining room; rabbit stew, baked shellfish, roasted vegetables, and the burri millet with dried llang that their mother only cooks on special occasions.
Seated around the table, they join hands, give their thanks to Gahaya, then set upon the fruits of a bountiful harvest.
Fin
A/N: A brief explanation of the language here and my ideas on Boeshane culture. Most of the stuff Jack yells here are insults. Insults always sound better in another language. ;P
Terama Kadeh is the name of their harvest festival. It's based on the Malay word for "thank you" (terima kasih, when literally translated, it means "receive love").
Gahaya would be their deity/earth spirit/Boeshane version of Mother Earth; name derived from Gaia. Their belief would not be so much a religion, but more a tradition; a way to ease the worries of settlers to think that the planet looks out for them.
From the little we saw of the Boeshane peninsula in "Adam", I figured that the settlers/colonists would mostly survive on fishing, being near the sea and all that. They would receive other produce such as vegetables and fruits and stuff from inland. They probably traded a lot too. (For some reason, I see the Boeshane peninsula too be like one of those distant, backwater planets in Firefly. Barely scraping through, relying a lot on help from off-world and other parts of the planet.)