Thanks again to my readers/reviewers. You really shouldn't encourage this behavior, you know! Yes, I am COMPLETELY Barking Mad! Have fun!
But, if it's fluffy and silly you want, you've come to the right place.
Q's on First—Part 3
"I Don't Know"
Next, was the requisite stroll through a dark, dense forest.
"Lions and Tigers and Q's, Oh my!" Q prompted, no longer getting a reaction from the duo.
A deep-throated guttural growl emanated from the spooky wood. Neelix's hair stood on end. Several bushes rustled, a twig cracked and then a streak of golden fur and sharp teeth erupted from a dense stand of undergrowth and knocked the "Scarecrow" to the ground.
"You! You've done this to me! I vow to make you suffer in ways you cannot imagine!" growled B'Elanna, who was now covered with a mass of thick fur. She snarled viciously revealing an impressive set of jagged teeth. Her canine teeth had doubled from their normal size.
Q was positively in a heaven of unearthly delights, despite being lodged under a crazed animal. "You know, you are beautiful when you're ferocious and leonine!" His comment acted like gasoline on a forest fire. B'Elanna's anger exploded again.
Janeway and Chakotay were just about able to pull the raging Klingon lioness from the horizontal Q, more for her own sake than for his. She writhed like a dozen boa constrictors, all muscle and fury.
"Captain!" she bellowed. "I am going to rip him limb from limb!"
"You'll have to get in line!" she said as she struggled to hold her Engineer's arm.
"B'Elanna, Stop! Stop it!" Chakotay shouted over her roars, his metal arm entwined with hers. She began to settle and then gawked at Janeway and Chakotay. Realization tempered her temper.
"I…Oh, I see," she said as she finally studied what Q had done to her crewmates. Her mood swung from anger to amusement. "Chakotay, look at you!" she scoffed. "You would have scared the Cardassians with that get up! Captain, ah, cute!" she cleared her throat and crossed her arms. "Really kinda cute! Bwah ha!"
Janeway's glare or Chakotay's discomfort did not deter her. It took a resounding, "That's enough, B'Elanna," order from Janeway before she settled down.
"Captain, what's going on? Why are we like this? And, what's he doing here?" she said, aiming her disdain at Q while he swatted again at some pestering crows.
"Come on. I'll explain as we go."
Janeway apprised B'Elanna of the situation. B'Elanna kept her head until Janeway explained who her character was.
"Cowardly?" she shouted. "Q made me COWARDLY?" She gave the Q-Scarecrow a contemptuous glare and began to lunge for his throat again. Chakotay was able to settle her down; he had had the most practice with B'Elanna's roller coaster of emotions. Neelix yipped and backed off. He was frightened that B'Elanna's wrath would spill over to his fragile frame.
"That's not the worst of it, B'Elanna." Janeway told B'Elanna.
"Oh yeah? What could be worse than this?" she shot.
"I haven't had a cup of coffee since breakfast!" Janeway said, plaintively.
B'Elanna moaned. This could not be good.
Neelix had been cowering under some brush, shaking uncontrollably.
"Neelix! Come here!" Janeway commanded.
"Are you sure it's OK Captain? I mean, B'Elanna has really big teeth!"
B'Elanna's eyes widened, but she had her limit of surprises for the day.
"I guess it could be worse," she said, considering that Neelix had it worse than she did.
Janeway played Tour Guide to her three companions—not that Neelix was paying attention. She explained what happens at each landmark. Warnings of flying monkeys and crazed vegetation only served to confuse Chakotay and B'Elanna. Neelix scampered in and out among their legs as they trudged down the road. He took delight at nosing everything he could and commenting on the myriad of culinary possibilities presented in the Marvelous Land of Q.
"This is the orchard of angry apple trees," she told them wryly when they came to the stand of sleeping foliage. "Do not pick the apples!" she insisted. Neelix, enchanted by smells in the undergrowth took a small fallen apple in his tiny teeth before Janeway could stop him. A few of the trees started to stir.
"What, these old, sweet hearts?" Q interjected, prancing into the midst of the orchard. "Why, these nice trees wouldn't mind if I…" Q plucked an apple from a particularly truculent tree.
"Q! No! Stop!" Janeway commanded, but Q ignored her and took a large, messy chomp from the juicy fruit.
"That's just scrummy!" Q exclaimed, feeding the fire he knew he had started.
The apple that Q had plucked hung from a particularly disagreeable old tree with an excellent throwing limb. It ain't easy being tree!
When an apple missile smacked her head, B'Elanna's temper flared again. "Yee-ow!" she whooped, a combination battle cry and roar. In an instant, she ignited a rousing food fight. Neelix dodged a barrage of thrown apples and found a shelter behind a boulder. His apple prize was still locked in his teeth. Janeway got more than a few lobs in against the trees. The flying apples pounded clunking percussion against Chakotay's hollow tin body causing several unsightly dents in his sides. He was able to retaliate with a few uncomfortable hits to the trees.
"Let's get out of here!" Janeway ordered, pulling the crazed Klingon-Lion away from the fray. "Neelix…uh…heel!" It worked.
"Coming Captain!" he told her brightly, as the group ran down the road.
For his part, Scarecrow-Q enjoyed every minute of it. He was euphoric from the hi-jinks he had arranged and was jumping up and down like a ten year old on Christmas morning.
Janeway's reprimand did nothing to deter his mood. In fact, the more consternation he caused the hapless Voyager crew, the more delirious he became.
Q was showing some signs of distress. The crows were not supposed to continue to plague the Scarecrow but they kept cropping up, pulling bits of straw from his clothing. They appeared to be the one thing over which he had no control.
"Captain, my people believe that crows are very powerful," Chakotay related. "I don't know if it means anything, but Q does seem to be the worse for wear against them."
"Noted, Commander," she acknowledged.
After tormenting Q, the murder of crows landed right in the path of Janeway and her companions.
One waddled to the front of the flock and spoke, "Captain Janeway, please come with us."
At that request, Janeway found herself back in her Starfleet uniform. She was standing in the midst a well-appointed English sitting room. Chakotay, B'Elanna, and Neelix were back to normal, but were near the back of the room and appeared to be frozen in stasis.
A heavy-set, elderly woman stood up from her cozy chair and adjusted her black, crocheted shawl. "Welcome Captain! Please sit and join us for tea."
"What have you done to my crew?" Janeway demanded.
"Don't worry. They are perfectly safe and will not be harmed. We're here to help you."
The old woman's companion was an aged man who sipped tea from a porcelain cup. He was dipping teacakes into the brew.
"You are all amongst friends. It seems we have a matter to discuss."
The woman's tone was reassuring. Janeway sensed that this being was not lying. Janeway sat in a chair where the woman had motioned and prepared herself for a First Contact Situation.
"I know you don't indulge in tea so I've prepared some coffee just for you. Please don't mind if I do. Tea is perhaps the finest substance in this or any universe."
"I am Captain Kathr…"
"Oh, my dear, I know who you are, which means I do have you at a disadvantage. I have no name that would describe me, but you can call me Auntie Margaret, if it pleases you."
"Very well," Janeway said. "If you are a friend, then please release my people."
"In short time. My! You are thin! We'll have to put some meat on those bones.
"I've summoned you here for a very particular reason. Now all this talk of tea and coffee has distracted me. Yes, it seems we have a mutual annoyance."
"I'm listening."
"Yes. He calls himself 'Q" and he is, well, shall we say, full of more hot air than anything. I'd say something else, but it wouldn't be polite among ladies," she grinned.
"We have little recourse against an 'omnipotent' being," Janeway told her, "and he has certainly been an 'annoyance' to us. You could call him that."
"Omnipotent?" she chuckled, her body giggling up and down like Santa Claus. "Is that what he told you? Is that what those fools in the Continuum have been putting in their marketing material? Omnipotent! Hardly! Mr. Stringer," she addressed her companion, who seemed to be off in a daydream. "Q told them he's omnipotent!"
The elder Mr. Stringer returned from his reverie and chuckled, nearly spilling his cup and dropping his teacake.
"Q is an idiot!" the little man said with a raspy voice. "An idiot and a fool! It's about time he got his just desserts! I did enjoy tormenting him as, what did you call that beast? A crow?"
"Well, ma'am…"
"Auntie for short…"
"Auntie," she conceded. "He does seem to be very powerful from our stand point."
"Not at all! Just a bunch of silly parlour tricks. But of course, it is a matter of point of view. From where I sit, he's about as omnipotent as a duck billed platypus."
Janeway stopped herself from laughing, eyeing her hapless crew.
"He's no more omnipotent that you are," Auntie went on, handing Janeway a cup of coffee, "No more than you are, if you will forgive me."
"Of course." Janeway said graciously, holding her cup, but not drinking. One simply did not imbibe or ingest anything in First Contact situation.
"Oh, it's perfectly safe, m'dear. I promise you. I wish you no harm and I regret even having to bring you here, but I had an inspiration. I thought we could be of mutual benefit to one another."
"How so, ah, Auntie?" This 'lady', this 'being', charmed Janeway but she still erred on the side of caution.
"Well, I have long thought of just what to do to Q to put him in his place. I've been searching, literally for eons for a way to get his goat!" she chucked again. "Have a scone, my dear. I can't resist my own scones!"
"Now, how would you like to help us, let's say, get even? Mmm?"
Janeway kept a wary eye on her statue-like crewmembers, but Auntie's request was intriguing nevertheless.