Another Stargate Fairy Tale: Teal'c Inspires a tale by Ebbtide Cheque
Teal'c shuffled sideways through the door to Colonel Samantha Carter's on base lab. Deep under Cheyenne Mountain, the SGC personnel carried on with their unusual lives. However, in the Colonel's lab, everything came to a standstill at the entrance of the large Jaffa man.
"Uh, Teal'c?" Dr. Daniel Jackson, archaeologist and one man wonder, asked inquisitively. "What are you doing?"
Samantha looked up from her laptop where she had been running UAV simulations for the new sensor calibration she had corrected that morning. She saw the dark skinned Jaffa enter her lab with a large box carried in his arms. Muscles bulging under the weight of whatever object or objects the box held.
"Teal'c?" She asked.
The man did not reply at once, instead he cleared a place on her desk with a single sweep of his arm - knocking equipment off onto the concrete floor. He set the box down with a thump.
"Teal'c!" Sam exclaimed angrily, motioning to her broken instruments. "What was that for? I could have helped you if -."
"Please, do not speak, Colonel Carter." Teal'c said curtly.
The man gave no further clue about what he had planned. Instead, he reached forward to remove the box lid.
"Uh, what's going on, Big Guy?" Daniel asked softly, both eyebrow's raised. The blue-eyed man had a bad feeling about whatever was about to happen. He glanced at the door and calculated how quickly he could make an escape if his gut feelings proved to be accurate.
Teal'c shook his head and motioned with an abrupt hand movement for silence. He carefully raised the lid an inch then paused. "I require your assistance, Colonel Carter." The man whispered.
Sam's lips were pressed together in a thin, angry line and she looked pointedly at her ruined machines now decorating her lab floor. The blonde crossed her arms over her chest.
"I apologize, Colonel Carter, but time is of the essence." Teal'c insisted urgently. "I require your assistance." He repeated.
The scientist huffed impatiently and rolled her eyes to the ceiling before relenting. "Alright, Teal'c, what do you need me to do?"
"I need you to ensure that it does not escape." The man said cryptically.
Sam and Daniel exchanged a glance. "What is it that I should stop from escaping?" The woman asked not certain that she really wanted to know the answer.
"The toad."
"A toad?" Sam asked, nonplus.
Teal'c lowered his voice even further. "Yes, I have read in one of your Earth books that when kissed a toad will transform into a princess. I wish to try it."
"Uhem, Teal'c?" Daniel interrupted trying not to smile. "That is just a Fairy Tale . . .it isn't actually real."
The Jaffa raised his chin defiantly. "I see no harm in attempting."
Sam sighed heavily and gave the box a weary glare. "You brought a frog into my lab." She said matter-of-factly. She shook her head. They did not pay her enough to deal with this kind of craziness.
The dark skinned man ignored their skepticism. "I believe that there is some truth in all stories." He told Daniel. "I would like to attempt it."
"Alright, T. Let Daniel get the lid and I'll keep the door covered." Sam suggested.
Teal'c bowed his head in submission and let the archaeologist take the box lid from his hands, and then he reached in and groped around until he found the object in question. He pulled out an enormous, ugly green toad and brought it up to his face. Puckering his lips, the Jaffa gave the animal a peck on the forehead. From her position by the door Sam grimaced and turned her head away. Daniel winced and looked down momentarily.
When they both looked back it was to find a beautiful dark haired woman standing in front of their friend. The woman's hair fell well below her shoulders and shone brilliantly in the artificial light. Her face and features were perfectly chiseled and proportionate. Teal'c was standing before her grinning widely. He bowed his head.
"I am Teal'c." He greeted her with a self-satisfied smirk.
The woman looked him up and down, her dark blue eyes scowering his body. "You don't look very impressive to me." She sneered.
"Excuse me...did you just transform from a frog?" Daniel asked, finally finding his voice.
The woman, wearing a loose flowing green dress that pooled at her feet, flipped her hair over one shoulder. "A toad if you must know. I've been stuck in that form for almost two hundred years." She shivered.
Sam's mouth opened and closed a few times her blue eyes wide. "You're human?"
The woman pointed to herself and said sarcastically. "Umm, yeah!"
"Is there a preferable title we should use?" Teal'c asked. The man seemed taken off guard by the attitude of 'his' princess.
She scowled. "Princess Fiadoriana." She muttered. "Stupid name, isn't it? I tried to get my mother to re-name me...Jasmine or Belle...Heck, I would've even taken Ariel. But nooooooo." She drew out the word sarcastically. "They had to go and call me Fiadoriana. Half of our servants couldn't even pronounce it correctly. You can call me Dora."
Sam blinked. "So, Dora. How did you become a toad in the first place?"
The dark haired woman crossed her arms over her chest and pouted. "My Daddy made a deal with Rumppy. He bought me for a barrel full of spun gold. Then he forced me to work as a slave, cooking and cleaning day and night. I got sick of it and tried to run away...then he had the old neighborhood witch turn me into a toad."
"Wow." Daniel said.
She turned on him angrily. "I wouldn't call it wow! I would call it a disgraceful way for a princess to live. I would call it an endless torment. Do you know how many flies I have had to eat!" By the end she was shrieking.
Sam stepped forward and held her hands up for silence. "Wait a minute, do you mean that you are really a princess and you are the toad that Teal'c just...kissed?" She struggled over the last word.
The woman nodded.
"Are you not then linked to me?" Teal'c demanded.
She shrugged.
"You don't know?" Daniel asked.
"This is the first time I've ever been kissed." She explained. "How am I suppose to know what will happen?"
"We should tell the General about this." Sam said uncertainly. "She might be dangerous."
"She's a toad." Daniel pointed out. "A...really pretty toad."
Sam rolled her eyes again. "Who just turned into a woman." She argued. "We need to summon security."
Teal'c frowned. "I believe that she is my property and that I am in charge of her treatment."
Dora took a step closer to Teal'c, her hand latching onto his arm, and she glared icily at Sam. "I am nobodies property. I own myself."
"Oh, boy." Daniel muttered under his breath.
"Look, Princess." Sam started acidically. "You are a threat to this base and a security risk. Until we learn more about your transformation, you will be held in a secure cell. Teal'c."
SG-1 and General Jack O'Neill sat around the table in the briefing room.
"So...wait - what?" Jack asked with a confused wave of his hand.
Colonel Carter had just finished giving him a report in as much detail as she could given the limited knowledge that they had concerning Dora. The scientist frowned at her CO's customary lack of understanding.
"Jack, she is claiming to be a princess from several hundred years ago. How she could have staid alive that long - as a toad especially - is beyond anything in the natural world. Either there is some alien technology in play here...or, ummm, we might want to look into the magical side of it as well." Daniel paused and licked his lips uncertainly before adding. "You have got to admit that it is a little suspicious. And not all of it can be taken as technological feats."
"What are you saying, Daniel?" Sam asked.
"Tell me that you've noticed it too." The archaeologist pleaded.
"Noticed what?" O'Neill asked in a testy voice.
"All of the Fairy Tales that have been happening. Sam's Prince Charming... your...nose. And now Dora. It's all a bit much to accept as mere coincidence."
"I think he's right, sir." Sam said.
Jack growled and pushed his seat away from the table. "Alright, figure it out, that's an order. Dismissed." He stood and without waiting for a response, walked into his office. He had memos to read...besides, all of this Fairy Tale nonsense was giving him a headache. The office door shut with a definite THUD.
Sam followed him with her eyes through the soundproof window that showed into the other room. "What does he think we are, miracle workers?" She groused.
Daniel smirked. "Well you DID blow up that sun."
Sam groaned at the reminder and stood to her feet. "We should probably get to work then and find out what is causing all of these Fairy Tales to take place."
"What of Dora?" Teal'c asked with concern. "She is my responsibility, is she not? I desire that she be released from custody."
Sam shook her head. "Until we figure out exactly what is going on...I don't think that would be a very good idea."
Dora stared at the full plate in front of her with a blank expression.
"What is it?" She asked.
The guard whom had brought her the food gave it a brief glance before replying with a shrug. "Just some veggie casserole that the commissary made up this morning." The uniformed woman responded. "It should be edible."
Dora wrinkled her nose, flipped her long dark hair over one shoulder and shoved the tray away in a move designed to express her disgust. "I'd rather tongue flies."
The Air Force woman made a shocked sound deep in her throat. "Um, erm, okay, Ma'am. I'm going back to my post. I will be right outside the door if you need anything."
Once the door was securely closed, Dora stood to her feet and began to pace anxiously across the small room. "I need a pond, a clump of dirt and several fresh worms." The woman muttered under her breath with a glare at the gray door.
She had been cooped up in the bare room for hours already and her skin itched for a cool pool of water. Warm, satisfying mud to rest her tired muscles in would not go amiss. The woman glanced over at the bed they had provided with the room and frowned. It did not look the least bit comfortable to her eyes.
With a heavy sigh, the princess continued her pacing.
Samantha Carter leaned against the edge of Daniel's desk and watched the man as he flipped hurriedly through several large books. One of them was so old the archaeologist actually had to blow dust off of the pages themselves.
"Got anything?" Sam asked. She hated not having anything to do and wanted to help in any way that she could. "Can I ... read a book or something?"
Daniel raised his blue eyes from the words and looked over at her questioningly. "Huh?"
"To help you?" She clarified. When he was in a studying mood, Daniel lost track of every thing around him.
The man shrugged his shoulders and handed her one of the books. "I am looking up the relationship between the three Fairy Tales that we have seen manifest so far." He explained. "I need to know if there is any historical link between them or if it is simply a random phenomenon."
Sam nodded. "Alrighty."
General Jack O'Neill growled at an uncooperative paperclip and shoved the file folder marked Top Secret across his desk. This upset a precariously balanced pile of memos and soon the whole thing tumbled to the floor. Jack watched in horror and shut his eyes to block out the mess he had just created. He cleared his throat.
"Walter!"
"Sir." The technician appeared out of nowhere and stooped down to pick up the files. Within seconds they were arranged neatly on the General's desk. "Sir." Walter said again as he left.
Jack sat with his mouth hanging open. It never ceased to amaze him how psychic the little man seemed. He sat back in his comfortable leather General's chair and thought that maybe it had something to do with all the event horizons and strange alien artifacts that Walter had been exposed to over the years. Maybe he IS psychic, Jack mused with a grin.
Just then Colonel Carter knocked on the open door. He motioned her in. "Have you got this whole thing figured out yet, Carter?" He asked with confidence that her reply would be positive in nature.
"We do have a theory, sir, but Daniel is still down in his lab working on it."
"And?"
Sam took a seat. "We think that Fairy Tales are the result of the Goa'uld tampering with Earth's history." She took a deep breath and forged onward. "It is not unlikely that they thought these stories would add to their power, not knowing that once they were gone these stories would turn into little more than children's tales."
"Are you saying that all of our Fairy Tales are true?" Jack asked with a concerned frown. He knew more than a few disturbing tales from his youth. If they were all true then...He shuddered and tried not to think about it too hard.
Sam was already shaking her head. "No, sir."
"But there are at least some that are true?"
"Yes, sir."
Jack rubbed his face with his hands and exhaled loudly. Nothing was ever simple, he thought wearily. Never easy, never upfront. The man groaned.
"Which ones." He asked without looking up.
"Excuse me, sir?"
"Which ones are real."
Sam cleared her throat and shifted uncomfortably. "There is no way to really know that, sir. Daniel and I looked for any kind of common link between these stories, but have found none."
"So, my nose growing three feet was the result of a nasty Goa'uld machine?"
"Possibly." Sam answered cautiously. "Like I said before, this is just a theory. We don't know anything for sure yet...but I think that Dora can help us there."
Jack raised an eyebrow. "The toad?"
"Yes, sir. She can tell us if her transformation was initiated by a Goa'uld or by some other means."
Jack let out a heavy sigh. "Lets go find out, shall we."
Dora stared at the four expectant faces before her. SG-1, along with General O'Neill stood in a semi-circle in front of her, blocking the entrance to the doorway.
The princess crossed her arms over her chest and pouted.
"I don't even know what a Goa'uld IS... how should I know if the old witch was one of them?"
Sam took a step forward. "Did you ever hear her talk in a strange, almost double, voice? Or see her eyes glow?"
Dora started nervously at this description. "Yes, many times." She answered cautiously. "But Rumppy said that it was her magic."
Daniel shook his head. "It wasn't magic. It was the Goa'uld inside of that woman. She must have done this to you."
"Then there is no longer a mystery." Teal'c said. "We must release this woman."
Jack shrugged. "What do you plan on doing with her? There aren't exactly any VIP rooms set up for toads."
"Sir!" Sam chastised. "She is a woman, a human. Not a - a frog!"
"Maybe we should ask her." Daniel suggested with a motion of his hand.
Dora smiled primly when they turned to her. "I want a swamp...with lots of mud...and flies." She finished with a decided nod of her head.
"Swamp? Mud? Flies?" Jack grimaced. He turned to Carter. "You heard the lady."
Dora let out a relieved sigh and sank further into the mud bog on P32-887, the uninhabited swamp planet that the princess had agreed to live on. The woman smiled and relaxed even further. There were no pestering humans, no speeding motorcars, no noisy dogs...and most of all, flies. Lots and lots of juicy, yummy flies.
With a quick flick of her wrist she caught one of the black bugs between her fingertips. She smiled happily.
Daniel looked over at Sam; they were sitting together in the commissary enjoying a late lunch. They had been discussing Dora and the consequences of what they had learned because of the toad...woman.
"You know what this could mean, right? There could still be dozens of Fairy Tales just waiting to happen...who knows what we could run into next!" Daniel exclaimed. "Flying donkeys, beasts in castles, little mermaids, geese. Ugh! Do you know how many Fairy Tales incorporate geese? That can't be a coincidence."
"All true...except for the flying donkey. I think you got that one from Shrek."
Daniel's brow furrowed and he thought for a second before nodding. "I think you're right. Anyway, it could be really fascinating to see how many of them turn out to be real."
Sam grinned. "The future will tell."
They shared a laugh and went back to their eating.
THE END