Of the Sand 4
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Chapter Four: Playing Games
The sun was setting when they were finished with their meal of energy bars and water. Jack rounded up the members of his party together and they bundled up in extra robes before they left the room once more.
This time they set out towards the cliffs that were the city’s walls, where they had seen the hawk fly from. Teal’c and Daniel took the lead, more used to navigating in the desert. Luckily for them, they could see faint lights from the city. Normally, it probably would have blended in to its surroundings, as it was more of a glow than any one source of light, but SG1 was used to picking out the subtle differences like that. They weren’t used to the total darkness, so the glow stood out to them.
It took them all night to cross the desert, stopping and resting along the way. The sky was just lightening when they reached the massive walls surrounding the city. Most of the lights had shut off hours before and no one seemed to be around to see them sneaking through the large doors.
“I’m surprised that worked, Cam whispered as they made their way down the street.
“You’d think that there would be at least one person guarding the door,” Jack agreed.
“Might just be a wall to keep the sound out in case of sandstorms,” Daniel sleepily said. Even though he was tired, Daniel was still eagerly looking around the village.
“I suppose,” Jack said, sounding doubtful. “Let’s go find a place to hide out until everyone wakes it. We look a bit odd, especially since we look like kids.”
They found an alley out of the way and took turns sleeping and watching for a couple of hours each. It wasn’t a great amount of sleep, but they had done with worse before. Of course, back then they were all physically adults, but this time they had the energy of a young body to carry them through.
It was early afternoon when they finally emerged, but there was still enough of a crowd from the lunch rush that no one noticed them as they made one lap around the market place together. The party split up after that, each carrying a small purse of what seemed to be the accepted form of money. Teal’c and Cam went down one end of the market place to shop, while Jack and Daniel went down the other end.
Jack handled the buying, seeing as how he looked as though he could simply be a kid out shopping for his mother. Daniel looked a little too young to be shopping for anything but toys on his own. He helped out as best that he could, but there wasn’t really much for him to do, as most of it came down to haggling.
He was fascinated by all of the cultural things that some vendors were selling, but there wasn’t much to see when they got further down into the food vendors. Daniel started casting around for something else to occupy his attention. He ended up people watching, which was how he picked out the redheaded boy first.
He looked to be the same age that Daniel currently looked like, which was why his actions were surprising. There was a field off to the side of the market, where kids of all ages played. The redheaded boy was just standing at the very edge of the play area, partially hidden from the kids. He was watching the kids playing with a blank look on his face, and, surprisingly, the kids were totally ignoring him. Pr, maybe they just didn’t notice the redhead, as they were focused on their game. Daniel wondered why the redhead wasn’t trying to join in.
“Daniel?” Jack asked, noticing that the archaeologist was staring off into space. He followed Daniel’s line of sight and saw the redheaded boy. Jack frowned and grabbed Daniel’s hand, dragging the small boy over to where the redheaded child was standing. By the time he made it over, the frown was covered up with a friendly smile and Daniel had lost the odd look over Jack’s actions - more for Jack’s grabbing his hand than for going over to the child. SG1 was used to Jack’s softness for children, but Jack figured that it looked more like he and Daniel were brothers if they held hands when moving oddly.
“You know, I bet if you ask, they’ll let you play,” Jack said to the redheaded boy.
“No, they won’t,” the redhead calmly replied. He turned to look at the two boys. “Who are you?”
“I’m Jack and this is Danny,” Jack replied. “Why won’t they let you play?”
“They are afraid that I will kill them,” the redhead answered.
“Kill them? Why would they think that a kid like you could kill them?” Jack asked, staring at the boy in shock.
“Because I could kill them.” The boy’s eyes lit up with an unholy glee. “Crush them so that my sand could drink their blood.”
“You could not kill then, or threaten to crush them in sand and they might just let you play,” Jack suggested.
“I have tried that,” the redhead calmed down and looked faintly sad. “They are too afraid of me. I am a monster.”
“No, you’re not,” Jack exclaimed. This brought the trio to the children’s notice and the group scattered while shrieking.
“See?” the redheaded boy observed. His face showed no reaction to the mass runaway.
“That’s not right,” Jack said, scanning the crowd for the adults’ reactions. Thankfully, the adults didn’t seem to really be paying attention to the play area.
“We’ll play with you,” Daniel offered before he really thought about it. Once he did, he just shrugged at the look that Jack gave him. They looked like children, they might as well act like it for the redhead, who actually was a child. “They left the ball.”
“You want to play with me? You’re not afraid of me?” The redheaded boy looked confused at the concept.
“Come on, it’ll be fun.” Jack let go of Daniel’s hand, allowing Daniel to run to get the ball. Jack then held his hand out to the redheaded boy.
The redhead hesitated before taking Jack’s hand and following him onto the field. There, they started up an easy game of kicking the ball around to one another. The redhead seemed to be completely new to the game, but he was able to kick the ball better than Daniel could.
They played for half an hour before Teal’c and Cam found them. “Why didn’t anyone tell me we were playing ball?” Cam demanded as he dropped his backs off with Jack’s and ran to join in on the game.
Jack gave his place up to the boy and walked over to talk to Teal’c. “How did everything go?”
“We procured everything on the list, O’Neill,” Teal’c answered. He eyed the redhead. “Who are you playing with?”
“Just some kid. There’s something going on here, though, the kids all seemed to be afraid of him,” Jack answered, keeping his voice low.
“There is something different about this world,” Teal’c agreed. “I have seen many odd things, O’Neill. What I would assume to be the military in this world move from place to place on the roof. I have even seen one standing on a wall.”
“That is strange,” Jack said, reflexively glancing up to check if there were any people on the nearby rooftops. “Anyway, there were a couple of things down that way that we didn’t get to buy, so do you want the kids or shopping duty?” Jack asked.
“I shall watch over Daniel Jackson, Colonel Mitchell, and the boy,” Teal’c decided.
“Right, I’ll be back, then,” Jack said before leaving.
He wandered down the street, keeping an eye on the various shops as he headed towards the shop that he had wanted. He saw a weapons store and made a note to have Teal’c check it out on a later date. Teal’c and George looked like the oldest of the group, hopefully old enough to buy some actual weapons. But, in the meantime, Jack wanted to get something to tide them over.
Not having Daniel meant that he could walk right up to the almost sleazy looking knife stand. This wasn’t the first knife stand that he had passed, but this was the first store that looked as though they would actually have decent blades that they’d be willing to sell to Jack. The seller was busy with another costumer, which meant that Jack had the freedom to check the knives out. He was just testing the balance on a promising knife when the sharp tip of another was pressed into the back of his neck.
“You aren’t buying that to use on my brother, are you?” the owner of the knife asked.
“What?” Jack blurted out.
“You aren’t planning on killing Gaara?” the girl asked, stilling pressing the knife into his neck.
“Who?” Jack asked, even though he had a pretty good guess as to whom she was talking about. They had really only talked to one person in this world, after all, but still, why would they want to kill him?
“The redheaded kid that you conned into letting his guard down,” the girl snarled out. “His name is Gaara.”
“We kind of forgot that part of the conversation,” Jack commented. “But we’re just playing ball with him.”
“No one plays ball with Gaara. They’re all afraid of him,” the girl said.
“We’re not afraid of him and we just happened to think that a kid should play ball at least once in his life,” Jack said. “Now, can you stop poking me with your knife? We’re not going to kill him.”
“You’re just playing with him?” The knife disappeared and Jack turned around to find a blonde girl staring at him in shock. “Don’t you know what he could do to you?”
“He said something about killing us with sand, but that still doesn’t scare us. I’ve seen Danny playing with worse.” Like the Unas, Jack thought to himself.
“And you aren’t going to kill him?” the blond asked.
“We don’t kill kids,” Jack answered.
“Then what are you buying the knife for?” the girl asked, still looking at his suspiciously.
“My brother was playing around with my last knife and he lost it.” Jack pulled a face. “I’m here to replace it.”
“Are you in the Academy?” the girl asked as she put her knife away.
“The Academy?” Jack asked. “We’re new to town, you see.”
“That explains why you’re not afraid of Gaara,” the girl said to herself. “We have a ninja academy here in Suna.”
“Ninja academy?” Jack asked, blinking in shock and wondered if the girl really meant freaky assassin ninja.
“Teaching people the shinobi arts,” the girl replied. “Suna accepts people six to twelve, so you should be able to get your parents to sign you and your brother up.”
“You teach kids how to be ninja?” Jack asked.
“Your village didn’t have any contact with ninjas at all?” the girl looked a bit surprised at that. “Though, maybe you’ve just never seen a genin team before.”
“Right,” Jack said, hipping not to draw any more attention to himself.
“If you’re going to be a ninja, you can’t get a knife like that,” the girl said, motioning to the forgotten blade in Jack’s hand. “Civilian blades are useless for practicing. Come with me.” The girl took the knife from Jack and put it back on the counter before dragging Jack to the weapon shop that he had passes before.
“But I never said that I was signing up,” Jack spluttered.
“We’re going to need to get you some blunt kunai to practice with along with some sharpened ones to use,” the girl rambled on without listening to him. “Are you thinking about using any other kind of weapon? I myself am learning to use the fan.”
“I’m not sure if we have the money for all of that,” Jack protested.
“Don’t worry about money, I have credit at this store,” the girl waved off his protests and motioned to the store owner. “The basic academy package. Now, let’s check out the toys.”
Jack tried to protest some more, but he ended up being dragged around to see the senbon and other weapons. Jack picked out a simple katana and the girl made him get a kusarigama, a chain and sickle. Jack agreed to it, figuring that Teal’c could learn how to use it, if no one else could.
The girl waved off any attempts Jack made at payment for the weapons, simply nodding at the shopkeeper and taking the weapons pouch. “It’s for Gaara, my way of repaying you for actually playing with him, even if I think you are crazy,” she insisted as she gave him the weapons pouch.
“The kid’s not too bad, if you give him a try,” jack said.
“If you say so.” The girl paused outside of the weapons store. “I’ll let you go from here. Gaara can stay out as late as he wants, but we’re having dinner in about an hour, so see if you can send him home then.”
“Will do.” Jack nodded, pleased that she was making an effort. “I’m Jack.”
“Temari,” the girl introduced herself before leaving.
Jack headed back over to the small playground to see Cam and Daniel trying to teach Gaara how to throw the ball.
“O’Neill,” Teal’c nodded when Jack approached him. “Did you have any trouble procuring what you needed?”
“Ran into the kid’s sister and ended up getting extra supplies,” Jack answered as he handed Teal’c the katana.
“The sun will be setting shortly,” Teal’c observed, calmly accepting the weapon.
“The kid has dinner in about an hour,” Jack replied before settling down to watch the kids play.
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Chapter 5
Chapter Four: Playing Games
The sun was setting when they were finished with their meal of energy bars and water. Jack rounded up the members of his party together and they bundled up in extra robes before they left the room once more.
This time they set out towards the cliffs that were the city’s walls, where they had seen the hawk fly from. Teal’c and Daniel took the lead, more used to navigating in the desert. Luckily for them, they could see faint lights from the city. Normally, it probably would have blended in to its surroundings, as it was more of a glow than any one source of light, but SG1 was used to picking out the subtle differences like that. They weren’t used to the total darkness, so the glow stood out to them.
It took them all night to cross the desert, stopping and resting along the way. The sky was just lightening when they reached the massive walls surrounding the city. Most of the lights had shut off hours before and no one seemed to be around to see them sneaking through the large doors.
“I’m surprised that worked, Cam whispered as they made their way down the street.
“You’d think that there would be at least one person guarding the door,” Jack agreed.
“Might just be a wall to keep the sound out in case of sandstorms,” Daniel sleepily said. Even though he was tired, Daniel was still eagerly looking around the village.
“I suppose,” Jack said, sounding doubtful. “Let’s go find a place to hide out until everyone wakes it. We look a bit odd, especially since we look like kids.”
They found an alley out of the way and took turns sleeping and watching for a couple of hours each. It wasn’t a great amount of sleep, but they had done with worse before. Of course, back then they were all physically adults, but this time they had the energy of a young body to carry them through.
It was early afternoon when they finally emerged, but there was still enough of a crowd from the lunch rush that no one noticed them as they made one lap around the market place together. The party split up after that, each carrying a small purse of what seemed to be the accepted form of money. Teal’c and Cam went down one end of the market place to shop, while Jack and Daniel went down the other end.
Jack handled the buying, seeing as how he looked as though he could simply be a kid out shopping for his mother. Daniel looked a little too young to be shopping for anything but toys on his own. He helped out as best that he could, but there wasn’t really much for him to do, as most of it came down to haggling.
He was fascinated by all of the cultural things that some vendors were selling, but there wasn’t much to see when they got further down into the food vendors. Daniel started casting around for something else to occupy his attention. He ended up people watching, which was how he picked out the redheaded boy first.
He looked to be the same age that Daniel currently looked like, which was why his actions were surprising. There was a field off to the side of the market, where kids of all ages played. The redheaded boy was just standing at the very edge of the play area, partially hidden from the kids. He was watching the kids playing with a blank look on his face, and, surprisingly, the kids were totally ignoring him. Pr, maybe they just didn’t notice the redhead, as they were focused on their game. Daniel wondered why the redhead wasn’t trying to join in.
“Daniel?” Jack asked, noticing that the archaeologist was staring off into space. He followed Daniel’s line of sight and saw the redheaded boy. Jack frowned and grabbed Daniel’s hand, dragging the small boy over to where the redheaded child was standing. By the time he made it over, the frown was covered up with a friendly smile and Daniel had lost the odd look over Jack’s actions - more for Jack’s grabbing his hand than for going over to the child. SG1 was used to Jack’s softness for children, but Jack figured that it looked more like he and Daniel were brothers if they held hands when moving oddly.
“You know, I bet if you ask, they’ll let you play,” Jack said to the redheaded boy.
“No, they won’t,” the redhead calmly replied. He turned to look at the two boys. “Who are you?”
“I’m Jack and this is Danny,” Jack replied. “Why won’t they let you play?”
“They are afraid that I will kill them,” the redhead answered.
“Kill them? Why would they think that a kid like you could kill them?” Jack asked, staring at the boy in shock.
“Because I could kill them.” The boy’s eyes lit up with an unholy glee. “Crush them so that my sand could drink their blood.”
“You could not kill then, or threaten to crush them in sand and they might just let you play,” Jack suggested.
“I have tried that,” the redhead calmed down and looked faintly sad. “They are too afraid of me. I am a monster.”
“No, you’re not,” Jack exclaimed. This brought the trio to the children’s notice and the group scattered while shrieking.
“See?” the redheaded boy observed. His face showed no reaction to the mass runaway.
“That’s not right,” Jack said, scanning the crowd for the adults’ reactions. Thankfully, the adults didn’t seem to really be paying attention to the play area.
“We’ll play with you,” Daniel offered before he really thought about it. Once he did, he just shrugged at the look that Jack gave him. They looked like children, they might as well act like it for the redhead, who actually was a child. “They left the ball.”
“You want to play with me? You’re not afraid of me?” The redheaded boy looked confused at the concept.
“Come on, it’ll be fun.” Jack let go of Daniel’s hand, allowing Daniel to run to get the ball. Jack then held his hand out to the redheaded boy.
The redhead hesitated before taking Jack’s hand and following him onto the field. There, they started up an easy game of kicking the ball around to one another. The redhead seemed to be completely new to the game, but he was able to kick the ball better than Daniel could.
They played for half an hour before Teal’c and Cam found them. “Why didn’t anyone tell me we were playing ball?” Cam demanded as he dropped his backs off with Jack’s and ran to join in on the game.
Jack gave his place up to the boy and walked over to talk to Teal’c. “How did everything go?”
“We procured everything on the list, O’Neill,” Teal’c answered. He eyed the redhead. “Who are you playing with?”
“Just some kid. There’s something going on here, though, the kids all seemed to be afraid of him,” Jack answered, keeping his voice low.
“There is something different about this world,” Teal’c agreed. “I have seen many odd things, O’Neill. What I would assume to be the military in this world move from place to place on the roof. I have even seen one standing on a wall.”
“That is strange,” Jack said, reflexively glancing up to check if there were any people on the nearby rooftops. “Anyway, there were a couple of things down that way that we didn’t get to buy, so do you want the kids or shopping duty?” Jack asked.
“I shall watch over Daniel Jackson, Colonel Mitchell, and the boy,” Teal’c decided.
“Right, I’ll be back, then,” Jack said before leaving.
He wandered down the street, keeping an eye on the various shops as he headed towards the shop that he had wanted. He saw a weapons store and made a note to have Teal’c check it out on a later date. Teal’c and George looked like the oldest of the group, hopefully old enough to buy some actual weapons. But, in the meantime, Jack wanted to get something to tide them over.
Not having Daniel meant that he could walk right up to the almost sleazy looking knife stand. This wasn’t the first knife stand that he had passed, but this was the first store that looked as though they would actually have decent blades that they’d be willing to sell to Jack. The seller was busy with another costumer, which meant that Jack had the freedom to check the knives out. He was just testing the balance on a promising knife when the sharp tip of another was pressed into the back of his neck.
“You aren’t buying that to use on my brother, are you?” the owner of the knife asked.
“What?” Jack blurted out.
“You aren’t planning on killing Gaara?” the girl asked, stilling pressing the knife into his neck.
“Who?” Jack asked, even though he had a pretty good guess as to whom she was talking about. They had really only talked to one person in this world, after all, but still, why would they want to kill him?
“The redheaded kid that you conned into letting his guard down,” the girl snarled out. “His name is Gaara.”
“We kind of forgot that part of the conversation,” Jack commented. “But we’re just playing ball with him.”
“No one plays ball with Gaara. They’re all afraid of him,” the girl said.
“We’re not afraid of him and we just happened to think that a kid should play ball at least once in his life,” Jack said. “Now, can you stop poking me with your knife? We’re not going to kill him.”
“You’re just playing with him?” The knife disappeared and Jack turned around to find a blonde girl staring at him in shock. “Don’t you know what he could do to you?”
“He said something about killing us with sand, but that still doesn’t scare us. I’ve seen Danny playing with worse.” Like the Unas, Jack thought to himself.
“And you aren’t going to kill him?” the blond asked.
“We don’t kill kids,” Jack answered.
“Then what are you buying the knife for?” the girl asked, still looking at his suspiciously.
“My brother was playing around with my last knife and he lost it.” Jack pulled a face. “I’m here to replace it.”
“Are you in the Academy?” the girl asked as she put her knife away.
“The Academy?” Jack asked. “We’re new to town, you see.”
“That explains why you’re not afraid of Gaara,” the girl said to herself. “We have a ninja academy here in Suna.”
“Ninja academy?” Jack asked, blinking in shock and wondered if the girl really meant freaky assassin ninja.
“Teaching people the shinobi arts,” the girl replied. “Suna accepts people six to twelve, so you should be able to get your parents to sign you and your brother up.”
“You teach kids how to be ninja?” Jack asked.
“Your village didn’t have any contact with ninjas at all?” the girl looked a bit surprised at that. “Though, maybe you’ve just never seen a genin team before.”
“Right,” Jack said, hipping not to draw any more attention to himself.
“If you’re going to be a ninja, you can’t get a knife like that,” the girl said, motioning to the forgotten blade in Jack’s hand. “Civilian blades are useless for practicing. Come with me.” The girl took the knife from Jack and put it back on the counter before dragging Jack to the weapon shop that he had passes before.
“But I never said that I was signing up,” Jack spluttered.
“We’re going to need to get you some blunt kunai to practice with along with some sharpened ones to use,” the girl rambled on without listening to him. “Are you thinking about using any other kind of weapon? I myself am learning to use the fan.”
“I’m not sure if we have the money for all of that,” Jack protested.
“Don’t worry about money, I have credit at this store,” the girl waved off his protests and motioned to the store owner. “The basic academy package. Now, let’s check out the toys.”
Jack tried to protest some more, but he ended up being dragged around to see the senbon and other weapons. Jack picked out a simple katana and the girl made him get a kusarigama, a chain and sickle. Jack agreed to it, figuring that Teal’c could learn how to use it, if no one else could.
The girl waved off any attempts Jack made at payment for the weapons, simply nodding at the shopkeeper and taking the weapons pouch. “It’s for Gaara, my way of repaying you for actually playing with him, even if I think you are crazy,” she insisted as she gave him the weapons pouch.
“The kid’s not too bad, if you give him a try,” jack said.
“If you say so.” The girl paused outside of the weapons store. “I’ll let you go from here. Gaara can stay out as late as he wants, but we’re having dinner in about an hour, so see if you can send him home then.”
“Will do.” Jack nodded, pleased that she was making an effort. “I’m Jack.”
“Temari,” the girl introduced herself before leaving.
Jack headed back over to the small playground to see Cam and Daniel trying to teach Gaara how to throw the ball.
“O’Neill,” Teal’c nodded when Jack approached him. “Did you have any trouble procuring what you needed?”
“Ran into the kid’s sister and ended up getting extra supplies,” Jack answered as he handed Teal’c the katana.
“The sun will be setting shortly,” Teal’c observed, calmly accepting the weapon.
“The kid has dinner in about an hour,” Jack replied before settling down to watch the kids play.
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Chapter 5