transition into the future (for not_a_conartist)

[theliar]

[[continued from this log]]

Vala bit back a pontiff smile, because if there was anything a con artist knew, it was not to give away all of her secrets right away. She tried to remember the Earth saying Mitchell had taught her; "Don't show all your cards." Vala would, most decidedly, be keeping her cards away from Neal for a while.

It was funny, in a quaint sort of way, how humans had all these hang ups about time travel and whatnot. Vala learned quickly that the SGC was far from the ordinary, and most humans didn't have half the idea how utterly insignificant they were in the scheme of the universe. It was absolutely endearing.

"Come along," she chirped, turning back to the door. "We should drop by my room and pick up some supplies. After all, we don't know what we're getting into, and the first step to adventure is to always be prepared."

Mostly, Vala wanted to make sure she had everything she needed in the case that there was something shiny, rare and/or valuable that she may need to, er, liberate. "Some water," she chatted idly, "a first aid kit. And, oh, some of those delicious granola bars from the kitchen. Have you tried those? They're really good."

Comments

[bondsjamesbonds.livejournal.com]

There was that word again. Stargate. He was pretty sure she'd tried to explain the concept long ago at the castle but, admittedly, Neal had been far more convinced of her insanity than anything else at the time. Not that he would admit to having half listened, or that that he saw any value in reminiscing about how legitimately sane she was and he'd been the one entirely wrong. None-the-less, he was going to have to get a lexicon going of all the words he'd been hearing since coming to the future.

Before he could implement his plan of further pretending to be an airheaded millionaire and going on a fishing expedition about Stargates without seeming too interested, Neal saw that look on Vala's face. Something in features had shifted from light nerves regarding the ship to a look nothing short of dread. Neal wasn't sure that 'something strange' really matched the expression the brunette had.

"You're a terrible liar, if that fear in your eyes is any indication," he teased her. "Define... travel of that magnitude."

Neal wasn't sure he wanted to know just how far in space and time they'd gone, but avoiding the information wasn't going to change reality.

[queenofthieves.livejournal.com]

Laughing nervously, Vala shrugged and tried to think of a way to explain this to someone who came from a world where intergalactic travel wasn't an everyday occurring.

It was strange to her. She's grown up on ships and traveling through 'gates and everyone at the SGC took it all as easily as she did; after all, they'd been at it long enough. But the rest of the world was different, and it confused her. Sure, it had taken only a few hours of television and conversation with Teal'c to grasp the fact that most people on Earth wouldn't deal with the idea that they weren't alone in the universe very well. They had a hard enough time dealing with their next door neighbors, never mind having to stomach the constant threat of a busy universe that, more often than not, would be more than happy with the annihilation of the entire planet.

But a long time ago, the Goa'uld had gone to Earth and taken a bunch of humans and spread them all over the galaxy. Sure, she wasn't from Earth, but she was still human, and the fact that most of Earth didn't realize the number of distant relatives they had scattered across the stars was confusing to her. Earth was very, very small. But she imagined, to people like Neal Caffrey, it was big enough to make the rest of universe inconsequential.

"We're lightyears away from Earth. Stargate travel is instantaneous because of the method it uses; basically, your molecules are separated so that you can travel through a wormhole to the connecting Stargate. Hyperspace works differently, and while it's fast, it's not that fast. What happens in seconds through a Stargate often takes weeks at hyperspeed. We're not even in the same galaxy as Earth, Neal. However we ended up here, well, I can't explain it." And with that, she shrugs again.