Word
Count: 500
Rating:
PG.
Category:
Humour.
Story Status:
Complete
Summary: In
response to a 15 mins
challenge on the Jumper Bay yahoo group that had to include the line:
‘The animal looked cute and harmless’. Pure fluff!
Beta:
Thank you to Jayne Perry for the beta-reading.
Animal Magic?
By Leesa Perrie
The bright light faded, revealing the room inside the Ancient facility
to look the same as had before.
Except for one big difference.
As their eyes cleared, John, Teyla and Ronon found themselves looking
at the place where, only seconds earlier, Rodney had stood.
He wasn’t there.
The animal looked cute and harmless as it sat looking back at them from
where McKay had been standing, emitting a sound somewhere between a
meep and a chirrup. A mirrup perhaps, Sheppard thought, still
stunned by what had just occurred and slightly mesmerised by the
creature’s forlorn expression in its big doe eyes.
“Oh,” Teyla exclaimed. “Where
is Rodney?”
“I think…I mean…do you
think…” John couldn’t bring himself to
finish his thought. It seemed too silly, too impossible.
“That him?” Ronon asked.
They exchanged bewildered looks.
“Why would the Ancestors build such a device?”
Teyla wondered.
“Don’t know. Why would they build half of
what they did?” John replied vehemently, thinking of all the
machines that had almost killed them; had killed some of them.
The creature mirruped again, before baring extremely pointed teeth at
them.
“Um, hey, McKay, no need to get violent there,
buddy,” Sheppard said, trying to sound breezy and totally
unconcerned by the look of mayhem entering the formerly benign looking
animal’s eyes.
There was another bright flash of light, and when their retinas had
adjusted yet again, to their collective relief, they saw the creature
had been replaced with McKay.
“Thank goodness,” Sheppard murmured, and then a
little louder. “You okay, Rodney?”
“What? Am I okay? This stupid damned Ancient piece
of crap just transported me to another room. A room, I might
add, that was full of creatures that weren’t the slightest
bit as cute and friendly as they looked. Thank goodness I was
able to rectify the bug in the system before they bit me!”
Rodney looked both flustered and angry. “I think
they were surprised to find someone amongst them, which was extremely
fortunate as it took them a few minutes to decide to turn
nasty. Even so, it was close. Do you realise that
one of them was this far,” he pinched the thumb and finger of
his right hand together, leaving a millimetre between them,
“from chomping on my leg?”
It dawned on the three of them that the creature hadn’t, in
fact, been a transformed McKay. Trading slightly embarrassed
looks, a silent communication took place, vowing never to tell Rodney
about their wild assumption. They would never live it down.
“Well, at least you’re okay,” John said
with a grin. “So, what say we head back
home?”
“What? Are you mad? Who knows what might
be here…I haven’t even started to investigate the
database…”
“Wouldn’t want someone to get accidentally
transported again, now would we?” Sheppard cajoled.
“Oh for goodness sake, that won’t happen again. I
already said I fixed the bug in the system! It’s
perfectly safe….”
There was a flash of bright light and McKay disappeared…
…mirrup…mirrup…mirrup…
“Oh crap!”
The End