They didn´t have to walk very far, only a few hundred meters. They were taken into a tent which looked, and was decorated, much like the one they´d just been in, only much much smaller. On the floor there were four thin mattresses. Their gear had been taken out of the rudimentary packs and had been laid out in a corner. There was a small table at the center of the room, it had fresh fruit, water and some other liquid SG-1 couldn´t identify, but they stayed away from it, it smelled very much like something alcoholic. Kaia only stayed with them long enough to explain they would not be disturbed until the sun had set, then she left, looking for Laska. None of the members of SG-1 waited very long to make themselves comfortable, they all basically collapsed on the mattresses. They were comfortable enough to sleep in and so they did.

The next thing any of them knew, it was already dark. Teal´c was in a deep, deep sleep when he suddenly felt himself being shaken. He opened his eyes, it was Kaia. She smiled at him and held out something for him, it was a pair of shoes. Sort-off. Teal´c had learned much about shoes in his time on Earth, these were a strange mix between sandals and actual shoes. He took them, gratefully. By the time he finished putting them on the rest of his teammates were up. They all took the shoes. Teal´c was just waiting for them to be done when he noticed something: at the foot of the mattress someone had left another neatly folded change of clothes and; Kaia had changed too. She was wearing a lot less clothes. He looked over at Sam, he knew she would not enjoy this.

Teal´c was right. Sam noticed right away Kaia´s change of clothes but had decided to ignore it. She accepted the shoes and put them on, they were comfortable, or at least better than going around barefoot. Kaia poured herself a glass of water and sat down. She waited for SG-1 to be up and about before breaking it to them.

"Now that you are up, you must change."

O´Neill tried to look somewhere between indignant and clueless, Daniel found it all very fascinating, Teal´c raised an eyebrow and Sam just.....sighed, very heavily. Kaia pointed to the folded clothes before leaving the tent. She said nothing else, and she didn´t need to, SG-1 had started to understand the importance of earning the trust of these people and of trusting them. They examined the clothes quickly. It wasn´t so bad, they were the same color as the ones they were wearing now, the pants didn´t quite reach the ankles though and the shirt was simply a short- sleeved version of the ones they had on. Sam knew it could not be so simple. She unfolded her clothes, and she found just what she had expected.

Kaia had been wearing no pants this time, only a skirt which reached a little bit higher than her knee and was cut in a diagonal way, so that one side actually did reach down lower than her knee. Her shirt was no longer long-sleeved but actually sleeve-less and hung loosely around her. It had also reached down just to where the skirt clung to her hips. It was of another material which seemed somehow shinnier and less heavy. The dragon was not gone, but it did seem to be painted on in a much more elegant way. Her hair had been let down and she had been wearing the same kind of shoe/sandal that she had just handed them. Sam only stared down at the clothes she was supposed to change into, her mind was wondering two things: why did it always have to be a skirt?; where was she supposed to change? Her musing were interrupted by O´Neill´s voice, which sounded just a little to cheery. "When in Rome, Major....."

She turned and tried to make him combust with her eyes, which didn´t work. He smiled and shrugged before bending down to pick up his own clothes.

It was more than a few minutes before the four strangers came out of the tent. They had changed and looked awkward and self-aware, but no one looked it more than the woman. Kaia wondered about that. She had seen a lot of things in her mind, some things were wonderful others were not so. Kaia was very interested in Sam, she had never before met any woman from so far away. All the legends talked about masters and great lords and evil beings coming and going through the Stardoor, none of them ever mentioned a woman. She stood and signaled for them to come over to her. They did. She signaled for them to sit and they did.

It was all amazing. They had built an enormous fire in the middle of the encampment, with several smaller bonfires all over the place. There were great plates with food on them, curiously nothing that didn´t look like some sort of fruit or vegetable, but there were several things which looked like giant oatmeal cookies, others like very small cakes and some looked just like ordinary loaves of bread. All of the members of SG-1 were a bit nervous about eating anything here, but they couldn´t really hold out for very long: one, they had already eaten things; two, they didn´t have any of their rations; three, they were still starving. It didn´t even take them long before they started drinking the alcoholic beverage they´d been left in their tent. Soon, they were also talking to people. Kaia had been right, they did learn a lot of things.

Among the first things they did learn was that Laska wasn´t called the "Highest Master" simply because he was in command, but because he wasn´t even human. Laska was a Loshati. Simply put, he was a horse, not a normal horse obviously, but his true form was that of a horse. They also learned that the Loshati did not always look like horses, they had once been very much like the unicorns most of SG-1 knew from Earth myths. The story of the Loshati was a sad one:
Once, the forces of Light and of Dark had clashed together and the result was the Universe and everything in it. Now animals came into being and they were all given certain natures and instincts so they might survive in the newly formed world, but there was one creature who had none of that:humans. Humans were created in the very center of the storm the Light and Dark had created and so, these two forces had melted into him. Men were just as good and they were evil and their survival depended greatly upon balance, but they did not realize that, because they still had no knowledge. The result of this was that they were constantly at war with each other, with nature and most animals. Because of this, the Creatures of the Light took pity on mankind and there came forth four great creatures to guide them: Gyffins, Sabaki, Loshati and Dragons. Now, the Loshati didn´t just want to guide men, they wanted to actually teach him, help him. For this to happen, they came to men and made them their students but, just as the Creatures of the Light had pitied men, the Creatures of the Dark had envied and hated them. The Creatures of the Dark send forth no beings, just shadows and nightmares, plague, disease and jealousy; treachery and lies; pride and injustice. These began to take a hold of men´s dreams and soon enough they began suspecting the Loshati (for they were the only creatures they had actually interacted with so far, none of the other three had faced men) and one night they came upon the ten Great Ones who guided them. Seven were killed, two fled further into the world of men, eventually loosing all powers (and that was the beginning of horses, the animals) and the one that survived went back to the Nok, to the World of Light. He could not be healed, but he made the Dragons promise they would still help men, for they were not wholly evil and balance had to be reached. It was many, many years before any of the other Creatures of the Light ventured out into the world of men, but slowly they did. There came more of the Loshati, but being afraid men would try to destroy them again, they took the shape of horses, and it was by giving up the horn of the unicorns and they also gave up the right to ever return to the Nok in life. Dragons came too, but they were driven back by men once more. It was at this moment that the Second Pact took place, and finally all four Creatures of the Light came forth into the world of men, and it was the beginning of Niseos and Padeos and of the war against the Sailen, the World of Dark, and the men from the South.

Daniel´s mind went a mile a second, he could not believe what he was hearing! It was a whole knew mythology to him, he´d never heard anything of the sort back on Earth. He started suspecting that the culture he was seeing now had to have of developed completely off Earth, which meant that if they had been brought through the Stargate (which Kaia had hinted was what had happened, but had also told him he must wait until they were in her land to discuss it) at a fairly primitive stage. There was also no mention of the Goa´uld in the story, nor of any creature like the Goa´uld, which posed the question: if they didn´t know the Goa´uld then they weren´t brought to this planet by them, then who brought them here? Daniel spend every second he could that night talking to Laska, who was more than eager to talk about his people. He learned a great deal: how the Niseos were only the humans who were taken in by the Loshati; how the Niseos did not have one master who cared for them, but they were raised by other Niseos and trained by several Loshati.....it seemed as if his mind couldn´t learn fast enough.

Teal´c spend the evening listening to Daniel. His features didn´t reveal anything, but he did find it all very fascinating. Besides, it never hurt to know about the history of the people you were with.

Sam and O´Neill had a wholly different experience that night. They spend the evening with Kaia, mostly because Iablaka had stormed off shorty after seeing they were present and because Daniel would just tell them all that he had learned later. They found themselves wrapped up in a conversation about keeping time for quite a few hours.

Kaia had taken the liberty of looking at some of the things SG-1 had brought along, particularly their watches. She said she had understood the concept of their time, of how long was a day and how many days were in a year, but she just did not seem to understand the use of keeping track of minutes, not to mention seconds. She had difficulty with the months, too.

"You seem too preocupied with time.....how can you accomplish anything if you do nothing but trouble yourself about how long it will take you?"

"Well, time if very important on Earth, we plan all kinds of activities based on our measurments of it-"

"Yes, but why? It will still take you ten of your mintues to eat your morning meal, wether you count them or not. Counting them seems redundant and unecessary."

"It may seem that way but our entire society is based on time, on how much of it we assign to certain tasks....."

O´Neill had to interrupt the two women as a sudden thought occurred to him.

"Speaking of time.....what time is it?"

Kaia seemed confused, "I do not know.....we do not keep time but as I understand it.....in your hours, it might be close to 18 hours since you arrived."

O´Neill took a second to calculate in his head, it couldn´t be, could it?

Sam looked at her CO and then a Kaia, "Wait, 18 hours? It´s not possible, you said yourself it was after midday when we set out on the horses and the sun couldn´t of set more than a few hours ago....."

"Yes, but as I understand it, you measure your days by the rotation of your planet, one turn on it´s own axis is one day, which you measure in 24 hours, correct?"

"Yes."

"Our planet is different, I thought about this as we rode here, if I am correct, our days have the equivalent of 20 of your hours for the light and 20 for the dark."

"You have 40 hour days?"

"In your hours, yes."

Everything suddenly started coming apart. O´Neill tried to calculate how many Earth-days fit in one day of this planet and Sam kicked herself mentally for not anticipating the difference in time it would take for this planet to complete one rotation. Kaia smiled reassuringly.

"Do not worry. It is a three day journey to my lands, after that it will be no more than two days until you are back on your planet. You can do nothing to speed the passing of the sun or our journey, it would kill you to try. Do not worry."

At that moment something odd happened. Both O´Neill and Sam did stop worrying. In the back of their minds they did feel as if they should be concerned but somehow it didn´t seem as tragic now. They didn´t know if it was something Kaia was doing to them, it was now obvious that she had some sort of telepathic abilities, or the stuff they were drinking. What was it anyway? How much had they had? Not more than one glass. Then why was the whole world suddenly spinning? But they didn´t worry, they didn´t have to, they were among friends. What could possibly go wrong?