Fic Post: 'Beside me, singing in the wilderness' (PG)
Title: Beside me, singing in the wilderness
Author: Rigel
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Disclaimer: Not mine (alas!) Don't sue!
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 4365
Categories: Daniel, Ska'ara, Gen, Pre-series
Summary: He tastes it from his fingers, sweet and fermented, like summer wine.
Thanks: To my wonderful betas abyssinia4077 and aurora_novarum who went above and beyond the call of duty.
A/N: For the sg1friendathon ficathon. Part of my Abydos series of fic.
Prompt: Daniel, Skaara: on Abydos, moonshine
--
The moons are rising. Badr hangs as if suspended from an unseen thread, fat and luminous, casting light onto the endless sands that stretch in all directions. The rippling dunes shine pale silver before fading to black at the horizon of an unfamiliar sky.
Daniel sits on top of the city wall, legs hanging carelessly over the packed clay that has withstood the buffeting dust storms for generations. It's well past nightfall, but he can feel warmth absorbed from the sun throughout the day seeping up from beneath him. He holds a cup in his hand, swirling the contents slowly. When he squints and tilts his head, he can make out his own shadowed face and the bright pinpricks of stars overhead reflected on the surface of the liquid.
There are lights behind him; lanterns hung in doorways and strung up on twine, and the blazing bonfire in the square that sends sparks shooting upwards to be carried on warm winds before they die. There are people too, dancing and singing; a dizzying blur of new faces, people that slap him on the back and greet him with joy, and somewhere, amid the throng, he has a wife.
Wife; Shau'ri with her dark hair and darting eyes, confident and beautiful. She'd sent him away with a playful push and a whisper that made him blush, and he'd stumbled past the open doorways of the tenements, still catching glimpses of the bright red silk of her veil through the crowd.
The dark brew is bitter, puckering his tongue as he holds it in his mouth, as he thinks things over. How many cups did he have before coming up here - four? Maybe five? Drinking makes him maudlin - he gets gushy and sentimental, spilling his words with no real thought to what he's saying. It's a good thing he's come away on his own, climbing up awkwardly with one hand clutching his drink and reminding himself fuzzily not to stumble too close to the edge.
It's a long way down, but it's hard to get a sense of scale when you can almost reach out and touch the curving crescents high above.
He turns the cup clockwise; it's almost an unconscious echo of the little hand ticking constantly forward on the wristwatch he's still wearing. It's military issue; the numbers glow faintly green and he has a feeling that he could probably deduce all sorts of esoteric measurements from the smaller dials, but it's probably useless now. Standard equipment just doesn't include a twenty-six hour clock.
It's odd to suddenly have this extra time. It seems tacked on like an afterthought, as though the universe has finally paid him back all of those longed for hours. But they're all in the wrong place, in the wrong time really. He doesn't need them now; they feel wasted - lost all over again.
He kicks out his legs, annoyed at the dark turn to his thoughts. This is supposed to be a celebration after all;
"Danyel."
Skaara slips down beside him, all wide smiles and the coltish fluidity of youth lending him grace and balance as he skirts the edge of the precipice. The beads on the ends of his braids click together as they settle around his shoulders. "I have been seeking you. Look, see!" He gestures with a hand, encouraging and beguiling.
Daniel reaches out and strokes the proffered skin bag, feeling the contents slosh as it gives way beneath his fingers.
"A gift for you, from Shahin." Skaara grins, his teeth flashing as he chatters excitedly. "You must try it now. What are you drinking? This--?" His nose wrinkles in distaste as he sniffs the beer. "Faugh!"
He takes the cup and flings the dregs out into the air. Daniel can't hear them, but he imagines the droplets scattering on the ground like the first pattering raindrops of a storm.
"Here now, this is a drink for bringing joy."
The heady liquor sloshes over the rim, and he tastes it from his fingers, sweet and fermented, like summer wine.
**
He's propping up a wall, or at least that's what it feels like. There's a crush of people here, but he doesn't see anyone he recognizes from the department, or even from that one Russian Literature class he sat in on a semester or so back. He knows he looks awkward, dressed in a tweedy jacket that's years out of date and an even louder orange shirt with a collar that's even pointier than the picket fence they passed on the way in. A few people have given him strange looks and he thinks he might have overheard a muttered comment about looking like a professor - he certainly feels a lot older than this crowd. But he's hunched over in a semblance of nonchalance and nursing a flimsy plastic cup that's half-full of lukewarm beer.
Steven somehow convinced him to come, pushing him out of his apartment and ignoring his protests about catching up on fascinating treatises on loan from Oxford and the half-finished translation that he thinks might just be what he's looking for as a research subject.
"Jeez, Jackson. Live a little whydontcha? It's just one night. We're still in the first week!"
Of course, Steven's nowhere to be found now, having disappeared some time ago with an overblown looking blonde who grasped at his arm with lilac-tinged nails, leaving Daniel stranded in a house full of strangers. He's kicking himself for not insisting on driving because now he's stuck trying to cadge a ride back to his apartment or rolling the dice and hoping a taxi would even show up.
He's trying not to scowl, but it's not as if he's attracting anyone as it is. He sips at the beer in his hand, but now it seems to taste flat and bitter and he's not quite drunk enough to just shrug and down it anyway.
Someone jostles his elbow and he apologizes automatically, but they don't seem to hear him as they stumble past, teetering on killer stilettos that leave indents in the carpet. The stereo's blasting away and a few people are dancing, bobbing up and down and gesticulating wildly to the rhythmic base line - disco fever, but he's not catching it. He's standing too close to the speakers, because he can feel the music vibrating through the wall and jittering along his bones.
The kitchen is quieter, the bench tops are littered with empty bottles and party detritus and the sink is full of melting ice and a few unclaimed sodas. He navigates around gingerly, sidling past a ginger cat that sits by its food bowl twitching an irritated tail, and manages to fill a cup from the keg without spilling it all over the floor. The clutter bothers him for some reason, and it's not until he's halfway through throwing all the empties into the trash that he realizes someone's watching him.
"You don't need to do that, you know."
She's leaning against the door, an impassive look on her face. He has a fleeting impression of amusement, before it's quickly masked. She's the type of girl he'd classify as out of his league: tall, thin and beautiful, with a mass of curly hair and piercing eyes that are outlined in startling shades of magenta and electric blue. He's surprised to see that she's holding a glass in her hand. Everyone else has been making do with plastic, or drinking straight from the bottle.
He realizes he's been staring for too long and clears his throat "Daniel, uh, I mean I'm Daniel. Daniel Jackson," he clarifies and cringes inwardly.
"Daniel," she repeats and holds out her hand, looking him over with the same scrutiny he'd afforded her. He blinks in confusion, suddenly recognizing the clipped vowels of her accent as distinctly British in origin.
Her fingers are cold, chilled from the ice in the glass in her hand, but her grip is firm. He holds her hand for just a fraction longer than is polite before covering his gaffe with a hasty offer to get her a fresh drink.
"No, that's alright." She smiles, dimples hinted at in the corners of her mouth. "But perhaps you could join me."
"Sure, I'll ah, I'll just…" He fumbles for his beer and then raises it in a toast. "Cheers."
"Saluté."
Schoolgirl French, but it doesn't seem like an affectation.
She's a good conversationalist, and he finds himself telling her all about his studies and his fascination with languages and dialects and even the long held dream of going back to Egypt and leading a dig. They've made their way out onto the back porch and are sitting on a threadbare loveseat, swinging to and fro as they talk; it's like they already know each other, but he knows he would hardly forget meeting her and shrugs away the feeling. He likes the way that she laughs, full throated and without any tittering artifice.
He's telling her about one of his favorite novels, and how Levin's mowing of the field alongside his peasants with a scythe was an image that intrigued him as a boy, hunched over under the covers of his bed with a torch and sneaking in extra reading time, when a dark head peeks out from behind the screen door.
"Coming?" the young man says. He asks it like a question but it's clear that it isn't one.
She stands up, smoothing down the crinkles in her skirt and places her tumbler on the wooden railing. "I've got to go, sorry."
"But..."
"I'll be seeing you, Daniel Jackson."
It's not until she's gone that he realizes that he never asked her name.
He picks up her glass and raises it to his lips, tasting the redolent scent of pine mingled with the bitter aftertaste of quinine.
**
He can feel the grit accumulating in the corners of his eyes as sand trickles down from the neckline of his robes to cling stubbornly in the creases in his skin. He's a hairsbreadth away from flinging himself from the top of his mastadge and stripping naked so that he can scratch away the irritating sensations. Instead, he rolls his shoulders and flicks the quirt against the flanks of the beast he's named Wahash, goading it into a rolling trot.
Skaara is waiting for him at the crest of the next rise, slouched back as if he were born riding. He raises a hand and waves, the copper at his wrist glinting in the morning sun, and then lets loose a shrill whistle.
Daniel hasn't quite mastered this whistling language. Pitch and tone are key factors, and the subtle nuances are hard to discern. His brother-in-law has learned it since he first accompanied the herds; the young boys use it to communicate with each other over long distances. He thinks it's the signal to hurry, but Skaara seems quite content to wait for him. Just to be sure, he digs his heels in and urges his mastadge forward, wrestling back the twinge of almost-shame that comes over him at being so slow.
Soon, he'll become one with the desert - the augur had promised it. They'd anointed his brow with oil and then scrubbed his whole body clean with sand. He remembered choking down an acrid mixture and then lying on his back on top of a dune as the night turned slowly overhead. They told him he'd been reborn, become a child of Abydos. He's sloughed the skin of Earth, but his heart is still among the stars.
The landscape is changing now, the endless sands giving way to rocky outcrops and stone monoliths eroded by the winds. The pale palette of the desert darkens to richer tones and hints of green appear, nestled in patches dotted along their path. There are even a few gnarled trees, with twisted branches swaying gently as the wind rises.
He knows it's there, but it's still a shock to see the river. Widened, in full flood, the water meanders through a fertile valley and people work the fields in preparation for seeding crops, their legs bare and tanned as they bend down low to the ground.
"Brother." Skaara beckons him forward. "All is ready. The men have worked since dawn." He reaches up a hand, and Daniel clasps it gratefully as he dismounts.
The damp soil is cool on the soles of his feet, and he curls his toes in pleasure. The high pitched whine of a water insect buzzing past his ear is waved away with a practiced hand as he steps into an irrigation canal and wades his way up the group waiting for him.
They're all standing about, hands on hips, with a few chewing on slender stalks of new grass as they murmur to each other, occasionally breaking off to swat at a stinging bite. Kefet is holding a sharpened adze in his hand, swinging it casually in an arc around his body. They've all given him a wide berth, and the ground around him is littered with the decapitated heads of green grain.
Daniel greets them all, bowing his head to each in turn. His excitement has returned and he crouches down, eager to inspect their handiwork. It's slender and long, one end dipping below the surface of the water and the other jutting out over a higher embankment. The grooved metal is burnished to a glossy sheen and he runs his hands over it, thrilled to see such an ancient device given new life.
Archimedes' screw. It will draw water continuously as they turn the handle, moving it to flood fields with far less labor. He can see a woman in the distance, dipping the counterweighted bucket of a shaduf into a canal over and over, pausing between each movement to rub at the small of her back.
He smiles.
"It is good?" Skaara clasps his shoulder and leans down to whisper in his ear. "Will it work?"
He'd spent weeks with the metalworkers, scratching out designs with burnt sticks of charcoal on slabs of stone, gesturing and explaining with his hands. He'd even fashioned a working model from clay and demonstrated its workings- to the delight of the clusters of children that had taken to following him around during the day.
"Yes," he says, standing up and placing his new brother's hands at the handle. "You try it."
There are shouts of joy as the water begins to flow.
He thinks now of windmills and pipes that will carry it uphill - even across the desert to Nagada - and scoops a handful of sweet water to his lips, washing away the dust.
Skaara runs, fleet footed across the fields to bring the good news.
Later, as he bends down to clear scrub and dense bush for the new plot; a sharp and familiar scent rises up to him from the crushed leaves underfoot; piney and resinous, it fills his senses with memories. Kneeling down, he sifts through the cuttings until he finds the source: a spray of berries, round and dark, with spiny leaves attached to the stem like thorns. He passes his palm over the rough bark of the tree from which it fell.
Juniper.
**
"C'mon, Daniel!"
Davey Schofield is running ahead of him, pushing back overhanging branches as they make their way up the overgrown track. They're eleven years old and they've just raided his foster parent's liquor cabinet, carrying off two precious bottles and a glass swizzle stick with a bumble bee on top of it. The lock was surprisingly easy to jiggle open; he hadn't even needed to use the hairpin; stolen from the nightstand and carefully bent into shape, just like the drawing in the book he'd borrowed from the library.
He's breathing hard, and his heart is pounding as if it's about to burst clear out of his chest, and he can feel his sweaty fingers slipping around the neck of the bottle he's clutching. He's terrified he might let it drop and smash all over the sharp rocks that are littered all about.
"Wait up!" he manages to gasp out and halts, bending over to suck deep breaths into his lungs.
"It's not that far. We're nearly there." Davey says scuffing at the ground with the toe of his worn sandshoes, sounding impatient and excited at the same time.
"It's the grasses," Daniel protests. "I get allergies."
Davey looks doubtful, but he does wait for him, taking the opportunity to read the label of his own bottle.
"Pusschicken," he reads, sounding it out slowly.
"Puschkin," Daniel corrects him, pleased to finally know something useful.
"Sounds Russian," Davey says, suspiciously. "This some kind of Commie drink?"
"Nah." Daniel shakes his head. "German."
"How do you know?"
"The writing's in German on the side."
"You know German?"
Daniel flushes and looks away. "Umm… I took a few classes." He tries not to wince, anticipating some kind of jeering comment about being a sissy.
"Oh. Okay." Davey brushes it off with a shrug and Daniel lets out the breath that he hadn't realized he was holding. "Let's get going then."
There's a clearing in the middle of the woods that they found last summer. It's hard to find if you don't know exactly where you're going, but by now Daniel has memorized the landmarks. You have to go left at the big rock and through the hollow that has violets in the early spring; then past the tree that was struck by lightning, ducking under the charred remains that crunch underfoot, and finally, cut through the stand of maples, making sure to touch the one carved with a heart and the initials for luck.
They're not the first to find this place; there's an old moldering couch that someone dragged all the way up the hill and left to the elements and there's the built up litter from years of illicit meetings; old cans and bottles half-buried in the soil and even a chipped china plate with a pattern of roses and daisies in a wreath.
Davey claims the blue cushion and the side that doesn't have the spring poking through the worn away cloth. Daniel gives way with good grace because he reckons Davey's earned it - it was his idea to do this after all. They'll just have to make sure to take the bottles back and fill them up with water. No-one will ever notice, because it's not like his foster parents ever drink - the whole cabinet had a thin layer of dust inside and he'd had to be careful to move the glasses back to the exact right spots so that it didn't show.
"You go first," he says magnanimously.
He watches as Davey unscrews the cap and sniffs cautiously at the contents.
"Well?"
"Smells like my Pa's paint stripper and he always said that stuff'd make you go blind."
They collapse into giggles and Davey makes the odd hooting laughter that means he's really tickled pink.
"Go on then," Daniel says. "It can't be any worse, surely?"
Davey tips the bottle back and takes a good swig, swallowing hastily. A heartbeat moment passes; then he flushes bright red and starts coughing, his freckles standing out like pale speckles of paint flecked on his skin. "S'good," he wheezes, leaning back against the couch and thumping at his chest.
"Lemme try."
"You got your own, buddy." He jerks his hand away protectively.
Daniel pokes his tongue out, but he inspects his own bottle meticulously.
"Plymouth Gin," he reads. "Mine's different. Yours is vodka."
"So?"
"Nuthin'"
He sniffs it before drinking as well. It's not unpleasant - almost like being in a pine forest after it's rained. He raises the bottle to his lips and floods his mouth with alcohol. It burns a trail straight down to his toes and feels like a kick in the chest. He sputters, suddenly alarmed that he'll choke to death here on a tattered couch in the middle of the forest, but it passes almost immediately.
They're both leaning back and gasping; flailing about weakly, like silver trout caught on a fishing line.
"Jesus," Davey moans, then he wipes the back of hand across his streaming nose.
"It's godawful, this stuff," Daniel agrees. "Worse than that cough syrup I had to take last winter and that was like tasting death." He grimaces and they both try and outdo each other with making silly faces.
"Let's do it again."
The first time Daniel gets well and truly drunk, he lies flat on his back and watches the flocks of geese pass overhead on their way south as he breaths in the earthy scents around him; almost tasting the leaves slowly decaying into fragile skeletons and the rich loamy soil beneath his fingers. Later, he'll retch pitifully for hours, resting his head on cool bathroom tiles, but for now, the world spins around and he feels like he's flying.
**
The principles of distilling are relatively easy. It's fashioning the equipment that's the problem. The alembic they've managed to fashion is crude; it's really two flasks connected by a copper tube and suspended over carefully banked coals, but they can see grain alcohol slowly dripping out, refined and pure, from where they're crouched, behind a makeshift bunker of sandbags.
Skaara reaches forward carefully, prodding the coals with a poker they've had elongated just for this purpose. A small flame curls upward and they hold their breath until it dies away.
"It was close, Danyel," Skaara says, smiling despite the danger. "But we are still here."
"This whole hut is going to go sky high," Daniel retorts, and when Skaara frowns in confusion, he clarifies: "Go kaboom."
"Kaboom, yes. Like Ra. Fire across the sky." Skaara points upward.
"Well, hopefully not that spectacularly. I did promise your sister I would bring you back in one piece." Daniel shakes his head and pushes his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose as he rocks back onto his heels.
Kasuf has insisted that they take their crazy experiments as far away from the general populace as possible. He'd muttered darkly about foolish youth and made dire predictions about the manner of their eventual deaths, but he had turned a blind eye the night they accidentally set fire to one of the pottery storehouses.
Yaquob had stormed through the main thoroughfare the next day, shaking the evidence of his damaged wares in the face of anyone who crossed his path, shouting about careless fiends who had no care for a man's hard work. Daniel had quietly left several bags of grain and a pot of Shau'ri's best braised kofte at the threshold of his house later that night, and, over a few pipes of hashish, they'd done a deal for a split of the first successful batch.
They'd moved the distillery to the back of the mastadge pens after a pointed suggestion from Kasu; so now the pungent scent of dung and musk is tinged with alcoholic fumes. Daniel likes the slightly sweetened air, but he nurses a suspicion that after a while they're probably slightly tipsy from inhaling the vapor, so any profound conclusions he reaches while brewing are probably flawed.
At the end of each night, Skaara likes to draw off a small amount of the liquor and take it into the middle of the deserted market square. It's become something of a ritual, with Daniel solemnly holding the bowl out and Skaara approaching it and igniting the liquid with the Zippo lighter O'Neill had gifted him with. It always lights with a whoomp and a belch of acrid smoke and Skaara capers around him with gleeful abandon. Skaara guards this rite jealously, no matter who drops by to see them out of curiosity.
In the time it has taken the second moon, Mahnaz to turn through its phases, they have produced four earthenware jars filled to the brim. Shau'ri has scattered juniper berries and set the peel of a citrus-like fruit into them to infuse. In two days time, they'll be able to drink from them at the planned wedding celebration of their kinsman Shahin. He's challenged them, by stating unequivocally that his mead will be the superior choice for the discerning patron. Skaara's eyes have been lit with the gleam of competition and he's dancing on edge at the thought of having the chance to show up a braggart.
As the last of the alcohol transfers across the still, Daniel pulls it from the brazier using his tongs and pours into the fifth and last jar.
"Danyel," Skaara says, a question lingering in his voice.
"Mmm?" he replies, distracted by his task.
"Can we perhaps try some this night?"
They exchange glances and Skaara darts to the door to make sure that no-one is near.
"The coast is clear," he says in English, proud that he has remembered.
Daniel scoops out a small amount into two cups, flicking away the floating berries and hands one solemnly to Skaara. They make their way to the center of the market square and sit, cross-legged, basking in the moment. Skaara dips a surreptitious finger into his cup and sucks a droplet from it when he thinks Daniel isn't looking.
"A toast," Daniel says. "We have to make a toast."
"To us!"
"To Abydos!"
Daniel downs his cup and his eyes widen. "Well, that'll strip the enamel right off your teeth," he says and taps them with a finger to make sure they're still there. His mouth feels numb, and the night air cold and fresh as he breathes it in.
Skaara has toppled backwards and is gasping quietly to himself. "Danyel," he says weakly. "This is the best thing I have ever had."
Daniel sets his cup in his lap and smiles. His lips are stinging and the whole world has gone muted and fuzzy at the edges. He leans back on his hands and looks up at the sky, watching the stars wink at him from between the moons.
His mouth opens wide in a grin. "Moonshine," he whispers.
Author: Rigel
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Disclaimer: Not mine (alas!) Don't sue!
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 4365
Categories: Daniel, Ska'ara, Gen, Pre-series
Summary: He tastes it from his fingers, sweet and fermented, like summer wine.
Thanks: To my wonderful betas abyssinia4077 and aurora_novarum who went above and beyond the call of duty.
A/N: For the sg1friendathon ficathon. Part of my Abydos series of fic.
Prompt: Daniel, Skaara: on Abydos, moonshine
--
The moons are rising. Badr hangs as if suspended from an unseen thread, fat and luminous, casting light onto the endless sands that stretch in all directions. The rippling dunes shine pale silver before fading to black at the horizon of an unfamiliar sky.
Daniel sits on top of the city wall, legs hanging carelessly over the packed clay that has withstood the buffeting dust storms for generations. It's well past nightfall, but he can feel warmth absorbed from the sun throughout the day seeping up from beneath him. He holds a cup in his hand, swirling the contents slowly. When he squints and tilts his head, he can make out his own shadowed face and the bright pinpricks of stars overhead reflected on the surface of the liquid.
There are lights behind him; lanterns hung in doorways and strung up on twine, and the blazing bonfire in the square that sends sparks shooting upwards to be carried on warm winds before they die. There are people too, dancing and singing; a dizzying blur of new faces, people that slap him on the back and greet him with joy, and somewhere, amid the throng, he has a wife.
Wife; Shau'ri with her dark hair and darting eyes, confident and beautiful. She'd sent him away with a playful push and a whisper that made him blush, and he'd stumbled past the open doorways of the tenements, still catching glimpses of the bright red silk of her veil through the crowd.
The dark brew is bitter, puckering his tongue as he holds it in his mouth, as he thinks things over. How many cups did he have before coming up here - four? Maybe five? Drinking makes him maudlin - he gets gushy and sentimental, spilling his words with no real thought to what he's saying. It's a good thing he's come away on his own, climbing up awkwardly with one hand clutching his drink and reminding himself fuzzily not to stumble too close to the edge.
It's a long way down, but it's hard to get a sense of scale when you can almost reach out and touch the curving crescents high above.
He turns the cup clockwise; it's almost an unconscious echo of the little hand ticking constantly forward on the wristwatch he's still wearing. It's military issue; the numbers glow faintly green and he has a feeling that he could probably deduce all sorts of esoteric measurements from the smaller dials, but it's probably useless now. Standard equipment just doesn't include a twenty-six hour clock.
It's odd to suddenly have this extra time. It seems tacked on like an afterthought, as though the universe has finally paid him back all of those longed for hours. But they're all in the wrong place, in the wrong time really. He doesn't need them now; they feel wasted - lost all over again.
He kicks out his legs, annoyed at the dark turn to his thoughts. This is supposed to be a celebration after all;
"Danyel."
Skaara slips down beside him, all wide smiles and the coltish fluidity of youth lending him grace and balance as he skirts the edge of the precipice. The beads on the ends of his braids click together as they settle around his shoulders. "I have been seeking you. Look, see!" He gestures with a hand, encouraging and beguiling.
Daniel reaches out and strokes the proffered skin bag, feeling the contents slosh as it gives way beneath his fingers.
"A gift for you, from Shahin." Skaara grins, his teeth flashing as he chatters excitedly. "You must try it now. What are you drinking? This--?" His nose wrinkles in distaste as he sniffs the beer. "Faugh!"
He takes the cup and flings the dregs out into the air. Daniel can't hear them, but he imagines the droplets scattering on the ground like the first pattering raindrops of a storm.
"Here now, this is a drink for bringing joy."
The heady liquor sloshes over the rim, and he tastes it from his fingers, sweet and fermented, like summer wine.
**
He's propping up a wall, or at least that's what it feels like. There's a crush of people here, but he doesn't see anyone he recognizes from the department, or even from that one Russian Literature class he sat in on a semester or so back. He knows he looks awkward, dressed in a tweedy jacket that's years out of date and an even louder orange shirt with a collar that's even pointier than the picket fence they passed on the way in. A few people have given him strange looks and he thinks he might have overheard a muttered comment about looking like a professor - he certainly feels a lot older than this crowd. But he's hunched over in a semblance of nonchalance and nursing a flimsy plastic cup that's half-full of lukewarm beer.
Steven somehow convinced him to come, pushing him out of his apartment and ignoring his protests about catching up on fascinating treatises on loan from Oxford and the half-finished translation that he thinks might just be what he's looking for as a research subject.
"Jeez, Jackson. Live a little whydontcha? It's just one night. We're still in the first week!"
Of course, Steven's nowhere to be found now, having disappeared some time ago with an overblown looking blonde who grasped at his arm with lilac-tinged nails, leaving Daniel stranded in a house full of strangers. He's kicking himself for not insisting on driving because now he's stuck trying to cadge a ride back to his apartment or rolling the dice and hoping a taxi would even show up.
He's trying not to scowl, but it's not as if he's attracting anyone as it is. He sips at the beer in his hand, but now it seems to taste flat and bitter and he's not quite drunk enough to just shrug and down it anyway.
Someone jostles his elbow and he apologizes automatically, but they don't seem to hear him as they stumble past, teetering on killer stilettos that leave indents in the carpet. The stereo's blasting away and a few people are dancing, bobbing up and down and gesticulating wildly to the rhythmic base line - disco fever, but he's not catching it. He's standing too close to the speakers, because he can feel the music vibrating through the wall and jittering along his bones.
The kitchen is quieter, the bench tops are littered with empty bottles and party detritus and the sink is full of melting ice and a few unclaimed sodas. He navigates around gingerly, sidling past a ginger cat that sits by its food bowl twitching an irritated tail, and manages to fill a cup from the keg without spilling it all over the floor. The clutter bothers him for some reason, and it's not until he's halfway through throwing all the empties into the trash that he realizes someone's watching him.
"You don't need to do that, you know."
She's leaning against the door, an impassive look on her face. He has a fleeting impression of amusement, before it's quickly masked. She's the type of girl he'd classify as out of his league: tall, thin and beautiful, with a mass of curly hair and piercing eyes that are outlined in startling shades of magenta and electric blue. He's surprised to see that she's holding a glass in her hand. Everyone else has been making do with plastic, or drinking straight from the bottle.
He realizes he's been staring for too long and clears his throat "Daniel, uh, I mean I'm Daniel. Daniel Jackson," he clarifies and cringes inwardly.
"Daniel," she repeats and holds out her hand, looking him over with the same scrutiny he'd afforded her. He blinks in confusion, suddenly recognizing the clipped vowels of her accent as distinctly British in origin.
Her fingers are cold, chilled from the ice in the glass in her hand, but her grip is firm. He holds her hand for just a fraction longer than is polite before covering his gaffe with a hasty offer to get her a fresh drink.
"No, that's alright." She smiles, dimples hinted at in the corners of her mouth. "But perhaps you could join me."
"Sure, I'll ah, I'll just…" He fumbles for his beer and then raises it in a toast. "Cheers."
"Saluté."
Schoolgirl French, but it doesn't seem like an affectation.
She's a good conversationalist, and he finds himself telling her all about his studies and his fascination with languages and dialects and even the long held dream of going back to Egypt and leading a dig. They've made their way out onto the back porch and are sitting on a threadbare loveseat, swinging to and fro as they talk; it's like they already know each other, but he knows he would hardly forget meeting her and shrugs away the feeling. He likes the way that she laughs, full throated and without any tittering artifice.
He's telling her about one of his favorite novels, and how Levin's mowing of the field alongside his peasants with a scythe was an image that intrigued him as a boy, hunched over under the covers of his bed with a torch and sneaking in extra reading time, when a dark head peeks out from behind the screen door.
"Coming?" the young man says. He asks it like a question but it's clear that it isn't one.
She stands up, smoothing down the crinkles in her skirt and places her tumbler on the wooden railing. "I've got to go, sorry."
"But..."
"I'll be seeing you, Daniel Jackson."
It's not until she's gone that he realizes that he never asked her name.
He picks up her glass and raises it to his lips, tasting the redolent scent of pine mingled with the bitter aftertaste of quinine.
**
He can feel the grit accumulating in the corners of his eyes as sand trickles down from the neckline of his robes to cling stubbornly in the creases in his skin. He's a hairsbreadth away from flinging himself from the top of his mastadge and stripping naked so that he can scratch away the irritating sensations. Instead, he rolls his shoulders and flicks the quirt against the flanks of the beast he's named Wahash, goading it into a rolling trot.
Skaara is waiting for him at the crest of the next rise, slouched back as if he were born riding. He raises a hand and waves, the copper at his wrist glinting in the morning sun, and then lets loose a shrill whistle.
Daniel hasn't quite mastered this whistling language. Pitch and tone are key factors, and the subtle nuances are hard to discern. His brother-in-law has learned it since he first accompanied the herds; the young boys use it to communicate with each other over long distances. He thinks it's the signal to hurry, but Skaara seems quite content to wait for him. Just to be sure, he digs his heels in and urges his mastadge forward, wrestling back the twinge of almost-shame that comes over him at being so slow.
Soon, he'll become one with the desert - the augur had promised it. They'd anointed his brow with oil and then scrubbed his whole body clean with sand. He remembered choking down an acrid mixture and then lying on his back on top of a dune as the night turned slowly overhead. They told him he'd been reborn, become a child of Abydos. He's sloughed the skin of Earth, but his heart is still among the stars.
The landscape is changing now, the endless sands giving way to rocky outcrops and stone monoliths eroded by the winds. The pale palette of the desert darkens to richer tones and hints of green appear, nestled in patches dotted along their path. There are even a few gnarled trees, with twisted branches swaying gently as the wind rises.
He knows it's there, but it's still a shock to see the river. Widened, in full flood, the water meanders through a fertile valley and people work the fields in preparation for seeding crops, their legs bare and tanned as they bend down low to the ground.
"Brother." Skaara beckons him forward. "All is ready. The men have worked since dawn." He reaches up a hand, and Daniel clasps it gratefully as he dismounts.
The damp soil is cool on the soles of his feet, and he curls his toes in pleasure. The high pitched whine of a water insect buzzing past his ear is waved away with a practiced hand as he steps into an irrigation canal and wades his way up the group waiting for him.
They're all standing about, hands on hips, with a few chewing on slender stalks of new grass as they murmur to each other, occasionally breaking off to swat at a stinging bite. Kefet is holding a sharpened adze in his hand, swinging it casually in an arc around his body. They've all given him a wide berth, and the ground around him is littered with the decapitated heads of green grain.
Daniel greets them all, bowing his head to each in turn. His excitement has returned and he crouches down, eager to inspect their handiwork. It's slender and long, one end dipping below the surface of the water and the other jutting out over a higher embankment. The grooved metal is burnished to a glossy sheen and he runs his hands over it, thrilled to see such an ancient device given new life.
Archimedes' screw. It will draw water continuously as they turn the handle, moving it to flood fields with far less labor. He can see a woman in the distance, dipping the counterweighted bucket of a shaduf into a canal over and over, pausing between each movement to rub at the small of her back.
He smiles.
"It is good?" Skaara clasps his shoulder and leans down to whisper in his ear. "Will it work?"
He'd spent weeks with the metalworkers, scratching out designs with burnt sticks of charcoal on slabs of stone, gesturing and explaining with his hands. He'd even fashioned a working model from clay and demonstrated its workings- to the delight of the clusters of children that had taken to following him around during the day.
"Yes," he says, standing up and placing his new brother's hands at the handle. "You try it."
There are shouts of joy as the water begins to flow.
He thinks now of windmills and pipes that will carry it uphill - even across the desert to Nagada - and scoops a handful of sweet water to his lips, washing away the dust.
Skaara runs, fleet footed across the fields to bring the good news.
Later, as he bends down to clear scrub and dense bush for the new plot; a sharp and familiar scent rises up to him from the crushed leaves underfoot; piney and resinous, it fills his senses with memories. Kneeling down, he sifts through the cuttings until he finds the source: a spray of berries, round and dark, with spiny leaves attached to the stem like thorns. He passes his palm over the rough bark of the tree from which it fell.
Juniper.
**
"C'mon, Daniel!"
Davey Schofield is running ahead of him, pushing back overhanging branches as they make their way up the overgrown track. They're eleven years old and they've just raided his foster parent's liquor cabinet, carrying off two precious bottles and a glass swizzle stick with a bumble bee on top of it. The lock was surprisingly easy to jiggle open; he hadn't even needed to use the hairpin; stolen from the nightstand and carefully bent into shape, just like the drawing in the book he'd borrowed from the library.
He's breathing hard, and his heart is pounding as if it's about to burst clear out of his chest, and he can feel his sweaty fingers slipping around the neck of the bottle he's clutching. He's terrified he might let it drop and smash all over the sharp rocks that are littered all about.
"Wait up!" he manages to gasp out and halts, bending over to suck deep breaths into his lungs.
"It's not that far. We're nearly there." Davey says scuffing at the ground with the toe of his worn sandshoes, sounding impatient and excited at the same time.
"It's the grasses," Daniel protests. "I get allergies."
Davey looks doubtful, but he does wait for him, taking the opportunity to read the label of his own bottle.
"Pusschicken," he reads, sounding it out slowly.
"Puschkin," Daniel corrects him, pleased to finally know something useful.
"Sounds Russian," Davey says, suspiciously. "This some kind of Commie drink?"
"Nah." Daniel shakes his head. "German."
"How do you know?"
"The writing's in German on the side."
"You know German?"
Daniel flushes and looks away. "Umm… I took a few classes." He tries not to wince, anticipating some kind of jeering comment about being a sissy.
"Oh. Okay." Davey brushes it off with a shrug and Daniel lets out the breath that he hadn't realized he was holding. "Let's get going then."
There's a clearing in the middle of the woods that they found last summer. It's hard to find if you don't know exactly where you're going, but by now Daniel has memorized the landmarks. You have to go left at the big rock and through the hollow that has violets in the early spring; then past the tree that was struck by lightning, ducking under the charred remains that crunch underfoot, and finally, cut through the stand of maples, making sure to touch the one carved with a heart and the initials for luck.
They're not the first to find this place; there's an old moldering couch that someone dragged all the way up the hill and left to the elements and there's the built up litter from years of illicit meetings; old cans and bottles half-buried in the soil and even a chipped china plate with a pattern of roses and daisies in a wreath.
Davey claims the blue cushion and the side that doesn't have the spring poking through the worn away cloth. Daniel gives way with good grace because he reckons Davey's earned it - it was his idea to do this after all. They'll just have to make sure to take the bottles back and fill them up with water. No-one will ever notice, because it's not like his foster parents ever drink - the whole cabinet had a thin layer of dust inside and he'd had to be careful to move the glasses back to the exact right spots so that it didn't show.
"You go first," he says magnanimously.
He watches as Davey unscrews the cap and sniffs cautiously at the contents.
"Well?"
"Smells like my Pa's paint stripper and he always said that stuff'd make you go blind."
They collapse into giggles and Davey makes the odd hooting laughter that means he's really tickled pink.
"Go on then," Daniel says. "It can't be any worse, surely?"
Davey tips the bottle back and takes a good swig, swallowing hastily. A heartbeat moment passes; then he flushes bright red and starts coughing, his freckles standing out like pale speckles of paint flecked on his skin. "S'good," he wheezes, leaning back against the couch and thumping at his chest.
"Lemme try."
"You got your own, buddy." He jerks his hand away protectively.
Daniel pokes his tongue out, but he inspects his own bottle meticulously.
"Plymouth Gin," he reads. "Mine's different. Yours is vodka."
"So?"
"Nuthin'"
He sniffs it before drinking as well. It's not unpleasant - almost like being in a pine forest after it's rained. He raises the bottle to his lips and floods his mouth with alcohol. It burns a trail straight down to his toes and feels like a kick in the chest. He sputters, suddenly alarmed that he'll choke to death here on a tattered couch in the middle of the forest, but it passes almost immediately.
They're both leaning back and gasping; flailing about weakly, like silver trout caught on a fishing line.
"Jesus," Davey moans, then he wipes the back of hand across his streaming nose.
"It's godawful, this stuff," Daniel agrees. "Worse than that cough syrup I had to take last winter and that was like tasting death." He grimaces and they both try and outdo each other with making silly faces.
"Let's do it again."
The first time Daniel gets well and truly drunk, he lies flat on his back and watches the flocks of geese pass overhead on their way south as he breaths in the earthy scents around him; almost tasting the leaves slowly decaying into fragile skeletons and the rich loamy soil beneath his fingers. Later, he'll retch pitifully for hours, resting his head on cool bathroom tiles, but for now, the world spins around and he feels like he's flying.
**
The principles of distilling are relatively easy. It's fashioning the equipment that's the problem. The alembic they've managed to fashion is crude; it's really two flasks connected by a copper tube and suspended over carefully banked coals, but they can see grain alcohol slowly dripping out, refined and pure, from where they're crouched, behind a makeshift bunker of sandbags.
Skaara reaches forward carefully, prodding the coals with a poker they've had elongated just for this purpose. A small flame curls upward and they hold their breath until it dies away.
"It was close, Danyel," Skaara says, smiling despite the danger. "But we are still here."
"This whole hut is going to go sky high," Daniel retorts, and when Skaara frowns in confusion, he clarifies: "Go kaboom."
"Kaboom, yes. Like Ra. Fire across the sky." Skaara points upward.
"Well, hopefully not that spectacularly. I did promise your sister I would bring you back in one piece." Daniel shakes his head and pushes his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose as he rocks back onto his heels.
Kasuf has insisted that they take their crazy experiments as far away from the general populace as possible. He'd muttered darkly about foolish youth and made dire predictions about the manner of their eventual deaths, but he had turned a blind eye the night they accidentally set fire to one of the pottery storehouses.
Yaquob had stormed through the main thoroughfare the next day, shaking the evidence of his damaged wares in the face of anyone who crossed his path, shouting about careless fiends who had no care for a man's hard work. Daniel had quietly left several bags of grain and a pot of Shau'ri's best braised kofte at the threshold of his house later that night, and, over a few pipes of hashish, they'd done a deal for a split of the first successful batch.
They'd moved the distillery to the back of the mastadge pens after a pointed suggestion from Kasu; so now the pungent scent of dung and musk is tinged with alcoholic fumes. Daniel likes the slightly sweetened air, but he nurses a suspicion that after a while they're probably slightly tipsy from inhaling the vapor, so any profound conclusions he reaches while brewing are probably flawed.
At the end of each night, Skaara likes to draw off a small amount of the liquor and take it into the middle of the deserted market square. It's become something of a ritual, with Daniel solemnly holding the bowl out and Skaara approaching it and igniting the liquid with the Zippo lighter O'Neill had gifted him with. It always lights with a whoomp and a belch of acrid smoke and Skaara capers around him with gleeful abandon. Skaara guards this rite jealously, no matter who drops by to see them out of curiosity.
In the time it has taken the second moon, Mahnaz to turn through its phases, they have produced four earthenware jars filled to the brim. Shau'ri has scattered juniper berries and set the peel of a citrus-like fruit into them to infuse. In two days time, they'll be able to drink from them at the planned wedding celebration of their kinsman Shahin. He's challenged them, by stating unequivocally that his mead will be the superior choice for the discerning patron. Skaara's eyes have been lit with the gleam of competition and he's dancing on edge at the thought of having the chance to show up a braggart.
As the last of the alcohol transfers across the still, Daniel pulls it from the brazier using his tongs and pours into the fifth and last jar.
"Danyel," Skaara says, a question lingering in his voice.
"Mmm?" he replies, distracted by his task.
"Can we perhaps try some this night?"
They exchange glances and Skaara darts to the door to make sure that no-one is near.
"The coast is clear," he says in English, proud that he has remembered.
Daniel scoops out a small amount into two cups, flicking away the floating berries and hands one solemnly to Skaara. They make their way to the center of the market square and sit, cross-legged, basking in the moment. Skaara dips a surreptitious finger into his cup and sucks a droplet from it when he thinks Daniel isn't looking.
"A toast," Daniel says. "We have to make a toast."
"To us!"
"To Abydos!"
Daniel downs his cup and his eyes widen. "Well, that'll strip the enamel right off your teeth," he says and taps them with a finger to make sure they're still there. His mouth feels numb, and the night air cold and fresh as he breathes it in.
Skaara has toppled backwards and is gasping quietly to himself. "Danyel," he says weakly. "This is the best thing I have ever had."
Daniel sets his cup in his lap and smiles. His lips are stinging and the whole world has gone muted and fuzzy at the edges. He leans back on his hands and looks up at the sky, watching the stars wink at him from between the moons.
His mouth opens wide in a grin. "Moonshine," he whispers.