Kale eventually found her. He walked into the commissary with Dr. Weir beside him, fresh from a tour of the upper area of Atlantis. The Light One had requested the tour, and Weir – knowing that Colonel Mitchell was right about him being an ally and being treated as such – had agreed to give him one. And she was glad that she had, because it gave her a chance to get to know him a little better, and to find out a bit more about his people. Both by asking him about them, and simply by observing him. She was a killed diplomat, after all, and even though he wasn't Human, she could read body language just as well on him as on an Ambassador from some other country.
His answers were open and honest, and his expression was just as revealing. He and his people had nothing to hide as far as she could tell, and if he was lying about being willing to help Colonel Mitchell, then he was a better liar than Weir was, because she couldn't see anything but sincerity in him. He'd answered all her questions – although she'd avoided anything about their nocturnal interests – and by the time the tour was over she knew probably as much about the Light Ones as Colonel Mitchell herself did. And ale had learned a few things about Weir and her people as well.
"Colonel Mitchell," Kale said by way of greeting as the two of them walked over to her.
Melony looked up, and smiled when she saw that he was there with Weir.
"Hey, just the Light One I was looking for…"
Weir smiled, although Kale didn't quite get the humor.
"I am the only one here."
Mitchell grinned.
"Good point."
"Did you require my assistance?" Kale asked politely, sitting down when Melony gestured for him to, and smiling when Weir sat beside him, curious what Melony had planned for that day.
"I do," she nodded. "I want to work on rigging up that harness today, and I need your help with it."
"I'm not sure how much I can help-"
"I just need you to be in bird form so I can figure out what I need for you to be able to grab – I'm not sure how much the Kevlar vests can handle, so I'd rather have a sturdier way to be carried."
"I wouldn't drop you."
"On purpose," Melony added, agreeing. "But if the vest broke or something, I'd plummet, and that's just not something I want to chance."
Weir smiled. She could agree to that.
"Did you find a parachute?" She asked Mitchell.
"Yeah. You guys brought a ton of them – I'm not sure why, exactly – but I was glad to see them. I'll use the harness and cables from one of them to rig up my carrier thing."
"Do you need any help?"
"Just Kale's. I'm a fair hand at that kind of thing, you know?"
Well, Talon was, really, but Melony had picked up a few things from her symbiote.
"Then I'll leave you two to get to it, and go back to my duties."
"Thank you for the tour Doctor Weir," Kale said, politely, resting his hand lightly on hers for a moment.
Weir smiled, "Any time, Kale. It was a pleasure."
She got up and left, and Kale watched her walk away as Melony turned off her laptop and closed it up. She looked over at him, and saw he was still looking at the door she'd left through.
"She's engaged, you know…"
"What does that mean?" Kale asked, turning his attention to Mitchell.
"It means that she has a male waiting at home for her and will marry him, eventually. Marriage is a formal union between a male and a female," she explained before he could ask.
They got to their feet and headed for the door.
"But the male isn't here?"
Mitchell shook her head.
"No."
"Then she must lack companionship…"
Melony shook her head, grinning, but she didn't disagree. Who was she to say what Weir lacked?
"Besides," Kale said, shrugging his shoulders. "She can have her marriage. I am not interested in anything formal – my people seldom are."
Oh, didn't Melony just know that?
And Sheppard, and McKay, and Teyla… and who knows who else since he's arrived?
Mitchell grinned.
That's none of our business. Making this harness thing is.
With that in mind, she led him to the supply room she'd found the parachutes in, and picked one off the shelf. Then they carried it to a large empty room that they all suspected had been a meeting room of some sort, where Melony tore it apart and started remodifying it, pulling buckles and straps from one part and adding them to another, and occasionally having Kale switch forms so she could compare his talons to the metal parts that would be used specifically for holding her.
It took her the rest of the morning to get it done, but before lunchtime, she was pretty sure she had exactly what she needed to safely be carried around by Kale – or any of the other Light Ones.
The former parachute harness was now fairly similar to a climbing harness – although it not only went around her waist and between her legs; it also went higher up on her chest than normal climbing gear did, criss-crossing her back and front. That way if she tipped for some reason, she wouldn't slip out of the harness and fall. Which would be bad. At each shoulder there was a metal ring – about the size of her head – that Kale could grab (they hoped) with his talons and use to carry her. These were connected to the harness at the shoulder with metal buckles that would be a lot sturdier than a Kevlar vest. Hopefully.
"Well?" She said, finally, modeling the final result, and quite pleased with how it had turned out. "What do you think?"
"Will it work?" Kale asked. He'd never seen such a contraption before – obviously – and was mystified. He understood what he was supposed to do with it, it was just unfamiliar to him.
"One way to find out."
It's lunchtimeI know. I just want to try this out, first. Then we'll go eat.
She hadn't forgotten that she was going to eat with Carson.
Kale put his clothes on – he'd needed them off when he changed into bird form – and he and Melony walked out of the large room, Mitchell still wearing the harness, to see how well it traveled. Chances were she'd want to keep it on if she could, since it would be a pain in the ass to take it off and put it back on again and again.
"We'll head to one of the observation areas," she told Kale as they walked. "It's the best place I can think of to have you grab me." He needed altitude, or she'd just go down by the swimming area.
"That's fine," Kale agreed.
"Where ya going?"
They both turned and saw Sheppard and Ford walking up behind them, both of them looking at the harness Mitchell was wearing.
"Is that the carry harness you were making?" Ford asked before Melony could answer Sheppard's original question.
"Yup. We're going to go test it out. Want to come watch?"
Sheppard smiled.
"Wouldn't miss it for the world."