Interlude High Heels & High Times
Cassie suggested it, though at the time, I'm not sure she understood just what she was getting involved in. Perhaps an overheard talk about this is how 'we' do things on here, and not 'Toronto', likely her mother had taken her on one excursion or another. It started out innocently enough. Sam needed some cheer, we haven't really gone out en mass before, and a 'Girls Night Out' sounded, in theory, like a great idea.
I had no idea how much trouble it could get on an interstellar level.
Okay, that's melodramatic again. I figure it's been months, and working at the SGC, I deserve a melodramatic statement now and again. Still, despite the flak that's likely to come from what happened, it was worth it. In the end, we got Sam to smile again.
At the time, I didn't think much of Sam not smiling. I can only imagine what she felt being possessed, and if that word doesn't win the award for a melodramatic word, I don't know what will. If I could talk to myself in the past, and I really hope that does not happen--which at the SGC, I'm believe is more a possibility than any TV show plot could conceive. Oh right, if I could, I would found any younger self looking at me with disbelief that mere months I'd go from an everyday world, with an everyday life, and an everyday job, to one where I could rationally use the word, possessed.
Sam just wasn't the same afterwards. Not excited and talking a mile a minute about things that no-one should care if I had a need to know about. I simply didn't understand what she was talking about. I can see why Jack takes those advanced astrophysics classes on the sly. It must be nice to comprehend what Sam might be saying. Anyway, she was like a ghost. Not smiling, listless, even when Cassie visited.
Which brought her to make the suggestion that surprised her mother. Who in turn, surprised me with asking if I and Drey'auc would come along. Five of us, out on the town. I thought at first, it would be a disaster. Particularly when Cassie suggested shopping for clothes first. I mean, I hadn't seen Sam in so much as a skirt before, and Cassie prompts, read nags, us to go to one of the upscale department stores. I can't see where Sam would enjoy that, though Drey'auc was likely to find the experience different.
That was my first mistake. Not knowing that our Captain Samantha Carter knows how to shop. It came out slowly at first. Cassie was intent on putting on a fashion show, Janet acting as fashion police. There were only certain things she was going to be allowed to try on for us. Even in the cause of trying to cheer Sam.
It came out as mother and daughter were arguing about trying out high heels. Janet, and rightly so, was standing by the 'not until 14 at the earliest' rule. Me, it was hard to not throw out a remark that Cassie should never try them. They're a pain, they're impractical. Just give me flats thankyouverymuch. I think I must have said something out loud, since Janet actually had a reply to my argument. She mentioned she sometimes wears them, beyond uniform stuff, to be a little taller sometimes. I had to concede that point. Janet's not a tall woman. I can see wanting to appear taller if I were that short.
What I didn't see was the gleam in Drey'auc's eye. At first I thought she was trying to keep the mother-daughter argument from becoming heated. She might have, and whatever her real goal, that is what happened. However, the interesting side effect was the resurrection of Samantha Carter.
She'd given wane smiles, and we tried not to overwhelm her by being obvious with checking her out. Now the wane smile was giving way to a calculating smile. Sort of like the one I'd catch when she was working on a problem back at base, yet different.
You see, originally I really had thought Drey'auc just wanted to interrupt Janet and Cassie, and was going along with idea of trying on these 'high heels' for one of her Alien-looking-in-and-laughing-at-society shticks I've been catching her out lately. Okay, not catching her at precisely, but we've exchanged an I-know-you-know look before I give up and giggle. However, Drey'auc was serious. She wanted to actually try out high heels.
Janet has an excuse. She's small, bite size one might say. If one hadn't seen her in the mountain during the 'Hag-thor' affair. Anyway, Janet would want to seem taller, but not Drey'auc. She's only an inch or two shorter than Teal'c. The last thing she should want is to appear taller. Yet here she was, asking which shoe to wear, and how to walk in them. A mystery she first looked at me to solve, whereas I had to confess my ignorance. I had tried them on as a teenager, stressing quickly older than Cassie is now, a few base affairs Jack and I had to attend, oh yes, and my wedding day.
That's when I saw Sam come a bit back to life. To say I was stunned was an understatement. I'd seen her in combat boots and sneakers, oh yes, the heels that come with the uniform skirt ensemble she has to wear when official, but you couldn't call those heels...high.
To see her start to direct Drey'auc at this style of shoe than that. Then give her pointers on how to walk -in- high heels. I didn't realize there was a skill to this, though in hindsight I suppose I should have known. In any case, it's what Sam needed. Nothing earth shattering. No save the world thought out equation. Something she knew that was associated with fun.
Soon she was giggling, at one point laughed as Drey'auc was now the center of a fashion show that drew both Janet and Cassie in. Me? I eventually got over my shock and joined in too. Finding Sam witty, if understated, like some of the British sitcoms I like to unwind at watching. I suppose with the way Drey'auc was so open, it was like having the largest Barbie doll ever made. She chose colors, dress styles, and we even found ourselves at a jewelry store, and stopping at the make-up counter. I know Drey'auc was going to have questions about that later on.
I suppose it was the Sam-brought-to-life thing that let her find outfits for me. We were going out to dinner afterwards and I should look like I belonged with them, instead of some backwoods woman on her first visit to the big city. It was good seeing her smile, and discovering she was more a girly girl than she lets on back at base. I know the boys would be stunned to see this side of her. I was.
Dinner was great, we laughed, we drank, not much, Cassie was with us after all. She didn't know enough to know to balk at not being allowed to drink what we had. That will come in time. She'll be an 'average' rebellious teenager in good time. I'm sure we'll corrupt her enough for that.
Which brings me to the interstellar level trouble. What I should have written, was interspecies trouble. One I'll likely hear from Daniel first, and then go up the line. Jack is going to have a hoot. The question is will it be with me, or by himself, never letting me know how funny he thought it was.
Drey'auc was thinking of introducing high heels to Jaffa women. Not as a fashion statement, that's the rub. As she explained it much later, and cleared up a huge mystery for me, it wasn't for looks. Not the kind Tau'ri women go for. It's for looming. See even among the Jaffa, Teal'c knows the art of looming. Its one Drey'auc has tried to master herself, practicing on her sisters. Another revelation, she has sisters.
In high heels she can even look Teal'c in the eye. Most of all, she can loom higher. I think she's 'taking lessons' from Sam just so it appears natural. I asked her about the pain, and she gave me a Jaffa response, 'Pain is to be endured'. I swear, sometimes I think Roddenberry actually knew the Jaffa when he came up with the Klingons. Well, next gen, not the original stuff.
Well, she and Sam are going to get together for looming lessons. I get to tag along. I say that because I'm not really certain I want to. After Jaffa-cise, Drey'auc may decide I need looming lessons and unless Jack likes to see me in them, you are not going to find me in heels.
Drey'auc's Kel no'reem
The Tau'ri are indeed an inventful culture. The advancements made astound me as do some of their cultural peculiarities. Like the 'Girls Night Out', the get together of women for just fun. Dresses, earrings, and make up. I shall have to ask Sara more about this painting of the face soon. I had seen some of the Tau'ri women with painted faces, lips, but this was the first time I participated in this ritual. It had its own amusements, and it allowed me to see another side of Samantha Carter. Beyond the magic, the technology as O'Neill corrects my husband and I about, she makes happen. She knows more of these rituals that baffle my friend Sara. Perhaps she was given to me as a guide because she too is an outsider to her people.
These high heels are an unusual development. Painful to be certain, but pain is to be endured. When it can give advantage on the battlefield. Not the one where of Staff and Zat'nik'tel, but one of the heart and will. My husband has won many of those battles by applying himself to what Sara calls his 'Loom of Doom', one I had used myself with the women of our village and later, city. It helps to be nearly my husband's height, and with these tottering adornments, I could equal or exceed his. Learning to move in them will come in time, and I do not wish to deploy their use until I am skilled enough to make it appear seamless in execution. The fact that if held they can be another kind of weapon also likens them to me.
And they say Tau'ri women walk around unarmed...with delight of a new level of understanding about them, I let my mind drift on, to Kel no'reem.