The landing hurt just as much as Mitchell thought it was going to. Despite the fact that the Light Ones had done a good job building a huge pile of soft hay in the middle of a clearing – not a farmer's field, just a naturally occurring clearing – the jolt from being dropped into the hay after hanging from Kale's talons for over an hour with all the blood rushing to her feet and legs just plain hurt.

She didn't even bother to stifle the curse that was torn out of her when she landed, and there were tears in her eyes when a couple of the Light Ones came over hurriedly to help her out of the hay.

"Are you injured?" One asked as Sheppard came flying in, landing in a heap with a muffled curse of his own.

"Yeah, but I'll live..."

She clung to them, though, as well as she could while she waited for Talon to assess what damage might have been done to her broken leg and injured shoulder.

"Well, that's just not my idea of a fun time..." Sheppard said as he rolled out of the hay and landed on his rear beside her and the two who were supporting her.

"Yeah..."

Mitchell was lowered to the ground beside him, and he looked over at her, concerned by the pale greenish tint to her face and the pain in her expression.

"You okay?"

"I will be." In about a million years.

You jarred everything, but nothing's broken that wasn't before

Well, that's a relief

She'd probably never had the guts to do that if she'd known in advance how much it was going to hurt.

I'm going to deaden all the nerves to your thigh, Hot Shot. You'll need a lot more help walking, but you're not going to be able to get back up if I don't

Please...

She'd let them carry her if he'd just make the pain stop for a while.

Not all the pain, he told her, apologetically. Just the leg

I can live with the shoulder.

I thought you could

She felt her leg suddenly go numb and gave an audible sigh of relief. Sheppard's look turned from worried to curious.

"Talon just deadened the nerves in my leg."

"That's handy."

She smiled.

"Except that I won't be able to walk at all, now."

"We'll figure something out. Better that than you-"

They were interrupted by the arrival of Ford, who came sailing in with a yell of excitement. Obviously, he'd enjoyed this flight much more than the first one – and far more than Mitchell or Sheppard had.

"He's young," Sheppard said when the two exchanged glances at the grin on the Lieutenant's face when he popped up out of the hay and headed over to them.

"Indeed."

She smiled and nodded a greeting to Kale and Aron – who were both walking towards them, now in human form.

"How is your leg, Colonel Mitchell?" Aron asked. "They told us you looked to be in considerable pain..."

Melony nodded.

"It hurt, but I can deal with it. I don't think I'll be able to walk, however."

"We can make a stretcher," Sheppard said, shrugging. "It shouldn't be that hard to rig something together with blankets and trees and some rope."

"I'll go find some poles," Ford said, rubbing his legs to get feeling back in them after the flight – although he'd been doing that during the flight as well, so he wasn't as crippled as Sheppard was.

"We shall accompany you," one of the Light Ones said, assuming wolf form.

"They will make sure there are no Dark Ones around as well a protect Lieutenant Ford from any predators that may be in the area." Kale explained.

Mitchell nodded, and everyone looked up as a shadow fell over them and Teyla came crashing in, rolling smoothly in the hay despite her bulky packs. She rolled out of the stack as the bird that had dropped her continued to fly past, obviously heading for whatever landing area Kale and the others had used.

"It's a lot more fun when you're expecting it," Teyla said, already able to stand on her feet, which made Sheppard and Mitchell both scowl.

"She's young, too," Mitchell said. "She must be..."

John grinned, and they all watched as Rodney came in only a few moments behind Teyla. The bird carrying him apparently saw that Teyla was out of the way, because a few seconds later the Astrophysicist was dropped into the hay, which wasn't looking quite so much like a pile anymore.

"I'm not going to do that again," McKay said, wincing as he rubbed his legs from the middle of the haystack. He didn't even bother to try and move from where he'd landed – and there wasn't any reason for him to since he was the last one down. He looked around. "Where's Ford?"

"He's off finding materials to build a litter," Sheppard explained. "We're going to carry Colonel Mitchell from here – her leg isn't going to hold her."

"Was it really wise to send him into the forest alone? I mean, you never know what-"

"He's not alone." Kale assured Rodney.

A moment later that was proved out when the brush moved and three of the huge wolfish creatures walked into the clearing, accompanied by Ford, who was carrying two long, straight branches – which had actually been the trunks of two young trees.

"How far are we from the farmer's houses?" Sheppard asked Kale and Aron as he heaved himself to his feet to walk over to help Ford.

"Not far," Kale promised. "It is only a short flight from here – or an easy run in our other form. We have never made it in this form, however, so I cannot be completely accurate. No more than an hour."

"We'll have this stretcher together pretty quick," John said, pulling a blanket from his pack. "You guys had better get dressed."

McKay sighed.