The(questionable) burdens of leadership of a troll Emperor by Noodlehammer

Chapter 21

After Jacob Carter had been briefed and brought to Erius, SG-1 had ended up spending the night. Sam had wanted to stay close to her father out of concern for his health, but had been assured that there was no need to worry. Despite the advanced stage of his lymphoma there was no danger of him dying, though he would be spending a day or so confined to a bed.

Since the palace apparently had a small inbuilt medical clinic where Jacob was being treated, Sam had allowed herself to be convinced that there was no need to hover right next to him.

Naruto had been strangely absent during the whole thing, either fed up with playing tour guide or some other reason entirely. It was hard to say.

The morning after, they had all trickled into a comfortable common room that was apparently made specifically for guests and had an attached kitchen of sorts with a fully stocked pantry and fridge. The first thing to happen was Teal'c issuing a formal apology to Sha're for his part in her abduction and being forgiven, after which they had proceeded to the breakfast.

Some of the food was distinctly unrecognizable to them, but Sha're was able to identify it for them since she'd been eating it for quite a while. That had eventually led to the surprising revelation of the Celestial Empire's vegan tendencies, which in turn sparked a conversation about their similarity to the Tollan in this regard.

Though the Tollan had gone vegan more as a consequence of driving most of their animal population extinct rather than choice, but that was semantics.

Jack didn't really participate in this except for the the occasional snarky comment, but he was glad to see that Carter wasn't looking so withdrawn anymore. Jack had also learned that Sha're had already asked Naruto if he could save Skaara the same way that he had saved her, which was something to be happy about at least.

That discussion had happened some time ago now though and things were starting to get a bit dull. They'd already exchanged stories of what each had seen on their respective tours and Carter had helped Jack find a game of Pong that he had rather petulantly insisted on playing. Now they were just listening to Sha're and Daniel talk about her time as a guest of the Celestial Empire and Jack was starting to get restless.

They hadn't been restricted from wandering the palace a bit and the colonel was debating the merits of asking Teal'c or Carter to accompany him while he went snooping. In spite of his liking for Naruto's laid back personality and the generous offer of treatment for Carter's dad, Jack was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. It just wasn't in him to take good things happening at face value, especially not when meeting a friendly technologically advanced nation. He was almost positive that there was a serious downside to all this even if they were clearly more civilized than the Goa'uld.

That was about the time that Xanna imperiously swept into the room, all ten tails waving behind her.

There had been so discussion on that too and all had unanimously agreed that those tails were simply impossible. Neither Carter nor Daniel were biologists, but they knew enough to know that evolution would have never allowed for such a thing. Even Jack had enough scientific inclinations to realize that it made no sense that out of two people of the same species, one would have tails and the other would not. All this was compounded by Sha're's contribution that the horned woman did not always have the tails and sometimes appeared without them.

"Good morning." She greeted as she made way for an almost throne-like armchair and settled into it, resting on her own tails as if they were cushions.

Their return greetings trailed off into shocked silence as a glass flew into her hand from the kitchen, followed by a stream of red liquid flowing into it that they recognized as a fruit juice of some sort.