Easter Gone Bad
Part 1
"And furthermore Daniel, if I had a choice I'd rather not go." Jack exclaimed as they headed up the ramp. "These people, and I use that term lightly, celebrate colors for cryin' out loud! Last time, I thought my eyes were gonna pop out of my head during Neon-month with the Brittles."
"Jack, enough! We need to make good with the Brtylocs." Daniel emphasized the correct pronunciation of their name. "It's the only way they'll introduce us to their fellow societies, including the one with the naquada mine that they don't know what to do with."
"Yeah, I know, but I swear, if they are still celebrating neon, I'm gonna loose it."
With that said, Jack and his team entered the wormhole. What met them on the other side brought up a whole new set of problems.
"Oh, God, not neon... looks like Easter threw up."
"Ja-aaack," Daniel warned in a low voice leaning over toward him, "be nice."
Nice? How in the heck was he gonna do that? He didn't like this place. He didn't like these people. They were way weird and their customs and rituals were worse. A bunch of wackos that all looked like they oughta be coughing up hair balls. But, when at the briefing table after returning the first time, he'd suggested introducing them to a razor, Daniel's returned glare could've guided ships lost in fog safely back to harbor. 'Wha-aaaat?' He'd asked with a shrug. At which point his livid, loquacious linguist went into a thirty minute lecture about how the Brittle Bigfoot's worshipped hair, or something like that. Anyway, to shave was something close to sacrilegious.
Just weird, and talk about a hygiene problem...
"O'Neill."
"Huh?" Teal'c pulled Jack out of his musings.
"We are ready to move out."
"Right, then go already." Jack ushered his team forward.
Actually, he was all ready to turn around and go back. Apparently, the fuzzy Brtylocs were now into pastels and Spring was in the air, yeah right! Not what he was seeing here. No much, much worse. Everywhere, EVERYWHERE was draped, coated, sewn, and covered with pastel colors. Even the path had been painted bright green, like fake grass. The trees, the flowers, the building, the animals, the Bigfoot people from head to toe- a collage of pastels gone horribly wrong. And then there were all these eyes painted everywhere. It gave him the creeps.
"Think I might have preferred neon after all." He didn't miss the groan from Daniel nor the amusing grin on Carter's face. She actually looked like she was enjoying this! How was the T-man doing?
Jack turned to get his take on his Jaffa teammate, nothing. No emotion whatsoever. "Shoulda guessed that one."
"Of what are you referring to O'Neill?" queried Teal'c.
"Never mind. Okay troop, let's find the head honcho. Daniel what's with all the eyes around here?"
"Not sure, I think it has to do with "watching" the season change to Spring or actually rebirth in their celebration."
"Well, I keep thinking we're being watched."
"I too am experiencing... discomfort with our surroundings," added Teal'c.
Ha, so Teal'c's repulsed by the sights just like me and apparently that groan must mean Daniel's not too chipper about them as well, but Carter ... huh? To each his or rather her own, I guess.
Daniel nudged his shoulder and he turned his attention to the direction Daniel was pointing. Out walked the chieftain dressed in a white toga, really closer to a formless dress, with a giant eyeball sewn on it. Weird.
"Why does he get to wear white when everything else has been doused in repulsive pastels?"
Daniel leaned over toward Jack while giving a nice big, toothy smile to the approaching chieftain as he talked through his teeth. "Jaack, nice, remember?"
"Yeah, yeah... nice. It was just an observation." Jack turned away to get his wits about him among the god-awful scenery, muttering to himself, "nice, must be nice. Work on being nice, Jack." Grabbing a deep breath, he turned around and gave Daniel a winning smile and A-okay sign "Right, got it now, Daniel."
The look he got back didn't bode well for support for his change in attitude. Jack planned to prove him wrong.
That commitment lasted all of five minutes.
Jack could smell the chieftain more than twenty feet away, and if hair was one of the factors for running office then he could understand why this guy was their leader. Besides a gray streak of hair atop his head, he was covered head to toe with dark brown almost black hair. His dark eyebrows extended a good six inches off his face and with the almost black moustache, beard, and excessive facial hair, not to mention all that body hair, you could only just make out two beady eyes on his face.
As the chieftain approached, two female Bigfoots, at least he thought they were females, adorned their leader with a fitting cap with pastel-colored flowers painted on it and sticking out of it. That looked like a night cap to Jack.
Jack looked over the chieftain in the unusual attire. Dress, night cap, gray-streaked hair, heavy dark fur, beady eyes, and let's not forget the giant eyeball ... it was too much.
"Grandma, what a big eye you have."
Daniel huffed, loudly, cast a last-warning glare at Jack, and then stepped in front of him with his hand extended, to which the chieftain returned the shake wholeheartedly. Jack forced himself not to back away when the bad breath from the chieftain hit him full on. Instantly, he felt a strong desire to shower incessantly for an hour or maybe a day to get the stench off.
He had to give big-sized kudos to Daniel for keeping his ground and smiling through it as well.
Part 2
All day long had been... Easter hell, now it was time to eat. Even the food was pastel. Jack had passed on everything and had nearly successfully pulled out a power bar until Daniel caught him and said it would be rude not to eat what was provided... yadda, yadda...
Okay, so he had to eat something. What? The pale blue stick vegetables, the yellow and pink colored meat, maybe the orange salad leaves. Leaves it was.
"No, don't eat that stuff, Jack." Daniel placed his hand over Jack's, politely but firmly.
"But you just told me that I—"
"Not THAT stuff, that's for the chieftain only. Unless you want to partake in the ceremony as well."
Knowing he'd regret it, Jack asked anyway. "What ceremony?"
"Oh ah, apparently, the reason the chieftain is wearing white is so his people can adorn and shower him in color, representative of the signs of rebirth of the season . It's a pretty interesting concept, and they are asking us if we want to help.
"Yeaaaah, no, think I'll pass." Oh yeah, getting the chance to paint a stinky Bigfoot pink - not on the top of his to do list.
"So, when do we meet his relatives far away and hopefully bathed?"
"Day after tomorrow we travel in a caravan. It will be a two-day trip. The caravan-covered trailers, called 'radels' will be in groups of five, so we've been given the honor to travel with the chieftain. Isn't that great? I'll get a chance to ask him about this ritual and the next to come and how they originated and—
"Jack, where are you going?"
"Two whole days in an enclosed space with foul-smelling, hairy, pastel people, I'm calling in an order for more deodorant, nose plugs, and some darker sunglasses from Hammond."
The End
