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dizzy_land‘Behind, through the low, shingled front gates, there is nothing. Not mist, or darkness. Just...nothing.’
And then, suddenly, there is something. A large something that very much resembles a splash of water, save for the fact that it shoots out horizontally instead of splashing upwards. Almost immediately it recedes back into the nothing, leaving behind what looks like a gently shimmering vertical pool.
With a noise not unlike pulling something out of mud the pool disgorges a man onto the street just inside the gate. He is dressed in a green and black uniform that says ‘military’ very clearly, even to those unfamiliar with the United States Army/Airforce circa the late 1990’s, and he carries a very large, heavy-looking black pack and a strange looking crooked gun in a holster on his leg. Despite his garb, however, his appearance does not really say ‘soldier’- perhaps because of the glasses on his nose or the way his hands move in enthusiastic punctuation as he speaks. He was already in mid-sentence when he stepped out of the pool.
“… and of course you can see the implications of that. I mean, it’s not really my area of expertise, I do wish I could have had more time for research, and Jack, I really think that we need to get an expert on Sarmatian culture; we don’t have any one at the base right now with more than a preliminary understanding of the Sarmatians or the Marcomanni prior to the barbarization of the late Roman army…”
Daniel stops suddenly and looks around. Then he turns and looks behind him, seeing only the rippling event horizon, sitting in space without benefit of a ring or any other device to hold it in place. There is a gate behind it, but it is the ordinary, earth kind with hinges, not the Stargate.
Even as he watches the wormhole closes, leaving him staring at nothing. He blinks.
“Jack?” he says quietly, his voice catching a bit in his throat. He clears it and tries again, louder. “Jack? Sam? Teal’c?”
There is no answer. He is alone.
Daniel turns back around, his eyebrows doing an uncertain little dance as he looks at the face created by the flowers and buildings beyond it. He recognizes this place.
“Dorothy,” he says softly, “This is definitely not P3X587.” Unless it is P3X587, and his mind, or something else, is playing tricks on him. He takes off his glasses and rubs them on his shirt, then puts them back on and looks around. Nothing has changed.
The original of the smiling face comes bustling up, wearing huge, yellow shoes and red shorts with two large white buttons. He's beaming. "Ha-hi there! I'm Mickey. Gosh, it's great to meet you!" He holds out one spotless white glove, to be shaken. "Welcome to the Happiest Place on Earth!"
Daniel stares. Mickey Mouse. He is looking at Mickey Mouse, and it’s not some person in a costume either; this is the actual cartoon brought to life (and life-size) right in front of his eyes.
He's mad, you know," comes a voice from a nearby tree. "So am I, of course." It belongs to a large cat, which has seemingly materialized to peer down interestedly at the new arrival, with a wide grin showing rather a lot of sharp teeth.
"That's the Cheshire Cat," explains Mickey cheerfully. "Funny fella, but," he switches to a bad stage whisper, "kinda strange sometimes."
"We're all mad here," the Cat goes on, conversationally. "I'm mad. He's mad. You must be mad, or you wouldn't have come here."
“Oh God.” Daniel isn’t sure if he says it out loud or not. He’s feeling slightly panicky and he makes himself take two deep breaths and swallow carefully.
This isn’t Machello, he tells himself firmly. Those hallucinations had all been at least somewhat situated in his actual surroundings; he’d seen wormholes in his closet and corpses coming through the gate but he hadn’t ever thought himself to be anywhere else then where he actually was. Besides, Machello’s device is gone- it went into Teal’c and they used Sam’s blood to save him.* It’s okay. He isn’t crazy anymore.
He’d never been crazy.
Maybe he’s been captured. Perhaps this is some sort of virtual reality, like the Keeper’s, or an elaborate hoax like the one Hathor had tried to use on his team not long ago. Daniel doesn’t know what to think.
His attention returns to Mickey Mouse just as the cartoon-brought-to-life says something about asking him questions.
Mickey coughs theatrically. "What is your name?"
“Uh…” Jack would tell him not to say anything, maybe, but Daniel doesn’t work like that. “I’m, um… I’m Doctor Daniel Jackson. We… er, I am an explorer.” He wants to add ‘from the planet Earth’ but doesn’t. Given where he currently appears to be standing, it seems too ridiculous.
"What is your quest?" asks the Cat. It's perched, suddenly, on the roof of one of the gate-stiles.
Daniel jumps.
“My quest? Well, to learn. About…” this place, wherever it was, “people. Other cultures, other civilizations. To share knowledge.”
"'What is the average w..?'" Mickey frowns down at the notebook. "You know, I don't really see why that's important." He flips a page. "'If you could be granted three wishes, what would they be?'"
Daniel balks at this one- it’s too much mind game for his taste.
“Look,” he says, “I don’t mean to be rude, but… where am I? I mean, this place looks like Disneyland…” Or is it Disney World? Or one of the other ones? Daniel doesn’t know much about theme parks. “And who are you? Where are my friends- the others who came with me? Are they here somewhere?”
He was the first one to step through the wormhole in the ‘Gateroom, but he knows that doesn’t mean anything. For all he knows this entire thing could be one big virtual reality. Or a dream.
Or a hallucination.
"Or," the Cat says, examining its tail with interest, "if you were a genie and someone you were trying to give three wishes to was trying to trick you into giving him more, what would you say?"
This one catches Daniel’s attention, distracting him from his own questions and his sudden, slightly hysterical impulse to correct the Cheshire Cat’sgrammar.
“Well, you know, the concept of a genie living in a lamp and giving only three wishes is a very limited Western viewpoint of the Islamic jinn. There’s more than one version of the Aladdin story, and the number of wishes granted actually varies. Anyway, the idea of controlling a jinn magically by binding it to an object is accurate but it’s only a very small portion of what the jinn are considered to be.
“The jinn are said to be creatures with free will,” he continues, warming to the subject, “made of smokeless fire by God much in the same way humans were made of the metaphorical clay. In fact, according to the majority of Islamic scholars, clear evidence exists in the Qur'an that the Devil was not an angel as is thought by Christians, but a jinn...”
He pauses, suddenly fancying he sees a slight glassiness in Mickey’s cartoon-bright eyes, and feeling very awkward he drops his head and mumbles, “I’d tell him to be grateful for what he has. I’d give a lot to have my three wishes come true.” He’s not saying what they are, though.
Mickey looks rather nonplused at the next, but reads, "'When the revolution comes, what skills will you be able to barter for food?'"
“Well, I um, I dunno,” Daniel says, equally bewildered. “What revolution? I mean, it would depend… Look, I don’t even know what planet I’m on. If you could just tell me what’s going on here… I swear, I mean you no any harm, like I said, I’m an explorer and…”
The Cat rolls its eyes in a friendly (and rather disconcertingly out-of-sync) way, and asks, "Milk, dark, or white chocolate?"
Daniel’s aware that the look on his face is probably a mix of extreme confusion and utter aggravation. “All three?” he says lamely.
"'Choose the two coolest: robots, pirates, fairies, bears, ninjas, monkeys, vampires, or humans,'" says Mickey, giggling a bit as he goes through the list. "'Explain.'"
“Look, I…” Daniel’s shoulders slump suddenly and he sighs and closes his eyes. “I like fairies,” he answers. “But I tend to think of them in terms of the more ancient idea, you know, the fae of Celtic mythology, before Shakespeare introduced the modern view of pixies as tiny winged people who live in flowers and stuff. And ninjas are pretty fascinating too, if we’re talking the traditional agents of espionage and assassination which served rulers in feudal Japan.” He pauses. “Well, I guess I’d have to say humans in there… I am an archeologists after all, it’s kinda my thing.” He opens his eyes and gives a weak grin. “So humans and ninjas, I guess.”
"Great!" Mickey flips through the blank pages of the notebook at top, cartoon-y speed. "Well, I think that's just about it! Oh, and I'm supposed to ask, 'for your safety: are you carrying anything sharp?'"
“Well, I have some tools,” Daniel says slowly. “For excavating. They’re not weapons or anything. I told you, I’m not here to harm anyone, I just want to learn about your culture, your people….” he pauses. “You know, I feel really, really ridiculous trying to explain all this to a cartoon mouse.”
((*Daniel was accidentally infected with a device designed to kill Goa’uld; since he was not a host at the time the device instead caused him to experience symptoms like those of schizophrenia. He was committed to an institution before he was able to convince his friends that he was not actually crazy.))
((Dr. Daniel Jackson from the TV series “Stargate SG-1”. He’s an archeologist/anthropologist/philologist working as a civilian consultant to the U.S. Airforce on a top-secret government project. The Stargate is a large metal ring, built by an ancient civilization of aliens, which creates a wormhole between the ‘gate on Earth and those settled on other planets, allowing interstellar travel between the two points in a matter of moments. Daniel serves on SG-1, a first contact team, working as a cultural expert and liaison between Earth and the many strange people they meet on the other side of the wormhole.
One type of alien that the team has encountered are the Goa’uld, a parasitic race which lives by taking over the body of a ‘host’ (humans being preferred over other species).
Stargate is currently in its tenth season, but I am taking Daniel from early season three, right after the episode “Legacy”. For more information, see the profile.))
((For those of you from NO, I play Shadow. Also, I’m really sorry this is so long))
And then, suddenly, there is something. A large something that very much resembles a splash of water, save for the fact that it shoots out horizontally instead of splashing upwards. Almost immediately it recedes back into the nothing, leaving behind what looks like a gently shimmering vertical pool.
With a noise not unlike pulling something out of mud the pool disgorges a man onto the street just inside the gate. He is dressed in a green and black uniform that says ‘military’ very clearly, even to those unfamiliar with the United States Army/Airforce circa the late 1990’s, and he carries a very large, heavy-looking black pack and a strange looking crooked gun in a holster on his leg. Despite his garb, however, his appearance does not really say ‘soldier’- perhaps because of the glasses on his nose or the way his hands move in enthusiastic punctuation as he speaks. He was already in mid-sentence when he stepped out of the pool.
“… and of course you can see the implications of that. I mean, it’s not really my area of expertise, I do wish I could have had more time for research, and Jack, I really think that we need to get an expert on Sarmatian culture; we don’t have any one at the base right now with more than a preliminary understanding of the Sarmatians or the Marcomanni prior to the barbarization of the late Roman army…”
Daniel stops suddenly and looks around. Then he turns and looks behind him, seeing only the rippling event horizon, sitting in space without benefit of a ring or any other device to hold it in place. There is a gate behind it, but it is the ordinary, earth kind with hinges, not the Stargate.
Even as he watches the wormhole closes, leaving him staring at nothing. He blinks.
“Jack?” he says quietly, his voice catching a bit in his throat. He clears it and tries again, louder. “Jack? Sam? Teal’c?”
There is no answer. He is alone.
Daniel turns back around, his eyebrows doing an uncertain little dance as he looks at the face created by the flowers and buildings beyond it. He recognizes this place.
“Dorothy,” he says softly, “This is definitely not P3X587.” Unless it is P3X587, and his mind, or something else, is playing tricks on him. He takes off his glasses and rubs them on his shirt, then puts them back on and looks around. Nothing has changed.
The original of the smiling face comes bustling up, wearing huge, yellow shoes and red shorts with two large white buttons. He's beaming. "Ha-hi there! I'm Mickey. Gosh, it's great to meet you!" He holds out one spotless white glove, to be shaken. "Welcome to the Happiest Place on Earth!"
Daniel stares. Mickey Mouse. He is looking at Mickey Mouse, and it’s not some person in a costume either; this is the actual cartoon brought to life (and life-size) right in front of his eyes.
He's mad, you know," comes a voice from a nearby tree. "So am I, of course." It belongs to a large cat, which has seemingly materialized to peer down interestedly at the new arrival, with a wide grin showing rather a lot of sharp teeth.
"That's the Cheshire Cat," explains Mickey cheerfully. "Funny fella, but," he switches to a bad stage whisper, "kinda strange sometimes."
"We're all mad here," the Cat goes on, conversationally. "I'm mad. He's mad. You must be mad, or you wouldn't have come here."
“Oh God.” Daniel isn’t sure if he says it out loud or not. He’s feeling slightly panicky and he makes himself take two deep breaths and swallow carefully.
This isn’t Machello, he tells himself firmly. Those hallucinations had all been at least somewhat situated in his actual surroundings; he’d seen wormholes in his closet and corpses coming through the gate but he hadn’t ever thought himself to be anywhere else then where he actually was. Besides, Machello’s device is gone- it went into Teal’c and they used Sam’s blood to save him.* It’s okay. He isn’t crazy anymore.
He’d never been crazy.
Maybe he’s been captured. Perhaps this is some sort of virtual reality, like the Keeper’s, or an elaborate hoax like the one Hathor had tried to use on his team not long ago. Daniel doesn’t know what to think.
His attention returns to Mickey Mouse just as the cartoon-brought-to-life says something about asking him questions.
Mickey coughs theatrically. "What is your name?"
“Uh…” Jack would tell him not to say anything, maybe, but Daniel doesn’t work like that. “I’m, um… I’m Doctor Daniel Jackson. We… er, I am an explorer.” He wants to add ‘from the planet Earth’ but doesn’t. Given where he currently appears to be standing, it seems too ridiculous.
"What is your quest?" asks the Cat. It's perched, suddenly, on the roof of one of the gate-stiles.
Daniel jumps.
“My quest? Well, to learn. About…” this place, wherever it was, “people. Other cultures, other civilizations. To share knowledge.”
"'What is the average w..?'" Mickey frowns down at the notebook. "You know, I don't really see why that's important." He flips a page. "'If you could be granted three wishes, what would they be?'"
Daniel balks at this one- it’s too much mind game for his taste.
“Look,” he says, “I don’t mean to be rude, but… where am I? I mean, this place looks like Disneyland…” Or is it Disney World? Or one of the other ones? Daniel doesn’t know much about theme parks. “And who are you? Where are my friends- the others who came with me? Are they here somewhere?”
He was the first one to step through the wormhole in the ‘Gateroom, but he knows that doesn’t mean anything. For all he knows this entire thing could be one big virtual reality. Or a dream.
Or a hallucination.
"Or," the Cat says, examining its tail with interest, "if you were a genie and someone you were trying to give three wishes to was trying to trick you into giving him more, what would you say?"
This one catches Daniel’s attention, distracting him from his own questions and his sudden, slightly hysterical impulse to correct the Cheshire Cat’sgrammar.
“Well, you know, the concept of a genie living in a lamp and giving only three wishes is a very limited Western viewpoint of the Islamic jinn. There’s more than one version of the Aladdin story, and the number of wishes granted actually varies. Anyway, the idea of controlling a jinn magically by binding it to an object is accurate but it’s only a very small portion of what the jinn are considered to be.
“The jinn are said to be creatures with free will,” he continues, warming to the subject, “made of smokeless fire by God much in the same way humans were made of the metaphorical clay. In fact, according to the majority of Islamic scholars, clear evidence exists in the Qur'an that the Devil was not an angel as is thought by Christians, but a jinn...”
He pauses, suddenly fancying he sees a slight glassiness in Mickey’s cartoon-bright eyes, and feeling very awkward he drops his head and mumbles, “I’d tell him to be grateful for what he has. I’d give a lot to have my three wishes come true.” He’s not saying what they are, though.
Mickey looks rather nonplused at the next, but reads, "'When the revolution comes, what skills will you be able to barter for food?'"
“Well, I um, I dunno,” Daniel says, equally bewildered. “What revolution? I mean, it would depend… Look, I don’t even know what planet I’m on. If you could just tell me what’s going on here… I swear, I mean you no any harm, like I said, I’m an explorer and…”
The Cat rolls its eyes in a friendly (and rather disconcertingly out-of-sync) way, and asks, "Milk, dark, or white chocolate?"
Daniel’s aware that the look on his face is probably a mix of extreme confusion and utter aggravation. “All three?” he says lamely.
"'Choose the two coolest: robots, pirates, fairies, bears, ninjas, monkeys, vampires, or humans,'" says Mickey, giggling a bit as he goes through the list. "'Explain.'"
“Look, I…” Daniel’s shoulders slump suddenly and he sighs and closes his eyes. “I like fairies,” he answers. “But I tend to think of them in terms of the more ancient idea, you know, the fae of Celtic mythology, before Shakespeare introduced the modern view of pixies as tiny winged people who live in flowers and stuff. And ninjas are pretty fascinating too, if we’re talking the traditional agents of espionage and assassination which served rulers in feudal Japan.” He pauses. “Well, I guess I’d have to say humans in there… I am an archeologists after all, it’s kinda my thing.” He opens his eyes and gives a weak grin. “So humans and ninjas, I guess.”
"Great!" Mickey flips through the blank pages of the notebook at top, cartoon-y speed. "Well, I think that's just about it! Oh, and I'm supposed to ask, 'for your safety: are you carrying anything sharp?'"
“Well, I have some tools,” Daniel says slowly. “For excavating. They’re not weapons or anything. I told you, I’m not here to harm anyone, I just want to learn about your culture, your people….” he pauses. “You know, I feel really, really ridiculous trying to explain all this to a cartoon mouse.”
((*Daniel was accidentally infected with a device designed to kill Goa’uld; since he was not a host at the time the device instead caused him to experience symptoms like those of schizophrenia. He was committed to an institution before he was able to convince his friends that he was not actually crazy.))
((Dr. Daniel Jackson from the TV series “Stargate SG-1”. He’s an archeologist/anthropologist/philologist working as a civilian consultant to the U.S. Airforce on a top-secret government project. The Stargate is a large metal ring, built by an ancient civilization of aliens, which creates a wormhole between the ‘gate on Earth and those settled on other planets, allowing interstellar travel between the two points in a matter of moments. Daniel serves on SG-1, a first contact team, working as a cultural expert and liaison between Earth and the many strange people they meet on the other side of the wormhole.
One type of alien that the team has encountered are the Goa’uld, a parasitic race which lives by taking over the body of a ‘host’ (humans being preferred over other species).
Stargate is currently in its tenth season, but I am taking Daniel from early season three, right after the episode “Legacy”. For more information, see the profile.))
((For those of you from NO, I play Shadow. Also, I’m really sorry this is so long))
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