annerb

Here's my contribution to the Gen Day Alphabet Soup thingy.

S is for Sparkly

Like most things, the barrettes are about distraction, about disarming, because how much threat can a woman stuck in her childhood really be? She sees the way people look at her, one quick sweep up her body, ending at pigtails and glitter, the way the humans on Earth can’t take that seriously.

She wonders if this inability to see children as capable or sneaky or remotely threatening is some heightened genetic impulse bred in their isolation—the tic that keeps them from eating their demanding young like many, many other species would. Do.

The Tau’ri cherish their children, protect them and lavish attention on them, put them on a pedestal she suspects will do them no good when they finally get shoved out of the nest. But it’s not their inevitable fall from grace that matters to her. They’re on their own, just like she’s always been, and it’s the best way to be really. They will see that someday. What really matters as she wanders into offices and pokes through lockers and peruses wallets is that the photos of their young seem a constant among the Tau’ri.

She studies them carefully, building a collection of common characteristics in her mind, because she suspects this may be their greatest weak spot and knows she can use that, the disquiet raised by the juxtaposition of leather-bound cleavage and little girl rosy cheeks—drawing them closer and repulsing them in the same beat. They don’t look closer because they are scared what that might mean about them and their proclivities if they do. The Tau’ri can be so predictable in their morality.

She can use that.

She likes the way their gazes bounce off her, absorbing nothing but the surface she presents them. It’s safe. Protection.

It’s not a pedestal or lavished attention or affection, she knows. But that’s okay, because in her experience greater height is a detriment, extra trouble she doesn’t need when the inevitable shove to the ground comes.

She’s cushioned by their indifference.

Exactly the way she wants it.

She steps into the gate room, one eye on SG-1’s reaction. She tells herself her greatest fear is their lack of offspring blunting the effect of her look. They each glance in her direction and just as quickly away and she tells herself that’s relief she feels pitching in her stomach.

As she approaches, Cam tugs at her pigtail, fingers gentle and face amused. “Okay, Dorothy, you ready to go?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Daniel says, glancing at her again. “It’s possible she could find a more ridiculous outfit to wear.”

Vala dutifully pouts, sticking her tongue out at him.

Daniel rolls his eyes and Cam pushes him towards the wormhole. “Come on, children, we’ve got places to be.”

Teal’c falls into step next to her on the ramp as they follow. Right in front of the event horizon, he pauses, turning to look at her.

“Your hair is luminescent,” he comments.

She laughs, flicking her hair back over her shoulder. “Do you like it?”

“Do you not fear giving away your position?”

She glances sharply at him, feeling a little jolt in her stomach. His expression is mild, but his gaze is not.

She tilts her head to the side, widening her eyes, instinct telling her to go for helpless rather than seductive in this situation. Childlike. “I don’t know what you mean.”

The corner of Teal’c’s mouth lifts. “It is simply an observation, Vala Mal Doran.” With that, he steps into the wormhole, disappearing from sight.

She fights a moment of disorientation—something sharp and dangerous that she tells herself isn’t anything like vertigo.

Checking her barrettes one last time, she steps into the event horizon.