Well the trip here was really cool though a little disorienting and slightly chilly at the end for some reason! Thankfully it's a lot warmer here and so she doesn't need to put on a sweater though she didn't take any clothing with her... but she didn't need to, did she! She picked that power that lets her change her clothes however she wants! Are her clothes even right for the people who live here though? Still she might as well change into something more practical if she can. How does this work? Jenna concentrates. In a moment she's wearing thick black boots (comfy!), khaki shorts down to her knees, and a pale blue t-shirt, and one of those tan adventurer hats, chin strap and all, perfect for adventure! Does she look good? She can't tell, there's no mirror here, and the water pool thing on the magical portal isn't really properly reflective enough. Maybe the hat is too silly? She concentrates for a moment, and puts it back wherever it came from. She can change her clothes with magic. 

She can change her clothes with magic! She can change her clothes with magic!!!! She has magic now!!!!!! Jenna giggles joyfully, bouncing up and down and spinning in circles, her arms out wide as she delights in her new powers. She's magic now! Magic!!! Magic!!!!!! She's never ever been so happy in her life, not even that time her friends gave her that surprise party and... okay maybe the cake and balloons and surprise party when she was having such an awful birthday (pop quizzes and bad grades on birthdays should be against the rules) was better. Barely. Maybe. She still can't believe Kelly and Chrissy managed to put all that together without her finding out. But besides that, this is the happiest she's ever been in her life. 

Okay maybe possibly she should stop bouncing and spinning and making herself very slightly dizzy and take a look at the magic portal over there. She looks. That's definitely a magic portal, with magic runes on it and everything. She picked the language one, right? Maybe she can figure out what it says. She skips (she's still really happy okay) back over to it and takes a closer look at the symbols to see if she can magically determine what any of them mean. 

Maybe these aren't runes. Omniglot doesn't seem to be working. Upon closer inspection they might be constellations? Not any constellations she's familiar with though.

Not long after that, maybe ten or fifteen seconds, the watery portal inside the ring disappears and the lights on the ring go out. The dots or constellations are still there, just much dimmer, there are also more of them between the ones that were brightly lit before instead of the previous blankness. In each constellation, one of the dots is distinctly larger than the ones around it for some reason.

Oh wow, there's a lot of them. Which ones were lit up before? Jenna can't remember, and they really do look like constellations, not runes, now that she's gotten a closer look. She's not sure what that means at all, and is suddenly worried that she should have copied them down or something so she'll know what runes or constellations or whatever they are she needs to get back home. Well, it's a bit too late now, and that probably won't be her only way home, will there? No, it can't be, there'll be some other magical way for her to find home. She just has to go on an adventure and save the world from an evil villain or dark force or something first. It'll be okay. It will.

Taking a deep breath to steady herself (she's on an adventure it'll be fine the notebook said so), Jenna looks around some more. There's the pedestal nearby, maybe she should check that out? Or maybe... she should check in with the notebook first? Too see if it has any insight on things. Just in case. 

Jenna takes another deep breath, takes out her notebook, sitting on the ground near the portal, and remembers that she's happy and on an adventure (magic!!!) and takes out the one pen (she should have thought to bring more! At least this one is new) and writes. 

I made it! I'm here, and I came through this weird tunnel which let me out at this magic portal! And changed my clothes with magic and everything and it's real, and I'm here! 

A weird tunnel? That's neat! Different worlds can have very different arrival methods and I'm not sure I've heard of any weird tunnels before! You sound excited. I'm glad you're having fun with your new powers!

It's pretty exciting! There's this large ring, big enough to fit a car through, and when I showed up it had symbols on it lit up and the ring looked like a pool of water but glowy, that's what I came out of. But then it turned off when I was looking at it, and I'm not sure what symbols (they might be constellations, they look like stars) were lit up anymore. I didn't need to memorize them or anything to get back home, right? I don't want to have accidentally lost my way home already. There will be some other way to figure things out and also maybe the symbols don't have anything to do with where I came from and I'm just worried over nothing? Right? 

Don't worry! You'll definitely be able to find your way home again. It doesn't say it explicitly in the description, but the Secret Identity drawback makes sure of that—it wouldn't be much of a drawback if it never came up, after all! And even without that, it's really really really unlikely for someone to never find their way home even if they look, and it usually means they're getting something that's really important to them by not going home.

Okay, phew. Jenna was apparently a lot more worried about than than she thought she'd be! She didn't have any reason to be worried though! She just needs to go on her adventure first probably. She can look for home later and also will probably end up back there anyways. 

Thanks! I feel better now, I guess I was a little worried. I'm gonna take another look around, see what I can see then. There's no one here yet, but someone will probably show up sometime! Can't save people without someone to save! 

She closes the notebook, takes a deep breath (she's on an adventure it's ok to be nervous but also she's gonna have fun) and stands back up and heads over to look at the weird pedestal. 

It's mostly cylindrical but the top is slanted and flares out a little. It also has a rim or ring around most but not all of it's slanted top. On the face it has two concentric rings of symbols that look like the ones on the big ring around a large blue button.

The symbols really do look similar! She wonders what they mean. But okay, she should probably try things, right? There were lights on the pedestal before, right? And these symbols are on things that look kinda like buttons... and if the symbols look the same... what happens if she tries to press one of them? 

It lights up.

Thought so! And does the corresponding symbol on the magic portal light up too? She turns to look and if it is lit up will try very hard to compare. 

The magic portal does not react.

Oh huh. Maybe if she presses the really big blue button then? 

The big blue button briefly lights up and then both it and the symbol she previously pressed go dark.

Well that didn't work. Maybe she picked the wrong button? She tries again, this time with a different symbol. 

The same events repeat.

Hmmm. Okay, what happens if she tries to press two different buttons then, one after the other. Do they both light up on the pedestal or does or switch or do something else? 

They both light up. If she presses the blue button they go back out again.

Okay, maybe the big blue button is a reset button? No it's way too big to be a reset button it has to be the enter button and maybe she's entering the wrong code and it's rejecting her input. Maybe she isn't picking enough symbols either, she can't remember exactly how many were lit up when she came through but it was more than two. More than four probably. And less than... she's not sure. What happens if she presses four buttons and then presses the giant blue enter button. What about five? Six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve? (It probably wasn't twelve many that's too many.)

The same thing keeps happening until she tries to press a seventh symbol. When she does that all the symbols turn off.

Huh. Maybe the center button is the button to reset and whatever combination is 6 or 7 symbols long or something. Still seems really weird for a giant blue button but maybe that's just how it works. She tries a few more 7 button combinations at random to see if anything else happens. 

This does not have any new results.

Yeah that's more or less what she expected when the first one didn't work. Alright, that means that either there are people living here who can help out (though there aren't any nearby that she can see but maybe they're somewhere else) or maybe there's an ancient crumbling abandoned  temple with strange symbols on its walls that will give her the combination she's looking for once she's evaded the traps and defeated undead skeleton guardians and solved the riddle at the heart of the temple that shows she's worthy of the ancient knowledge. Probably there are just people around who can help. "Hello? Is anyone around?" she calls out. She looks around for a path of some kind, or any sign of people responding to her call. 

As if the universe was waiting for her to finish, this is exactly when she hears very loud bangs in the distance. It might be gunfire? It doesn't sound quite like it does on TV but it's similar.

Is that bullet sounds? It's probably not bullets on a magical place although guns were invented a long time ago like hundreds of years ago so maybe you can have magic and also guns at the same time though they didn't have bullets they had like muskets and things which used shot. It's still probably not guns though, though if it is she should probably figure out what's going on and help out whoever is in trouble if someone is. And if not it's not gunfire (it's probably not gunfire) then it's probably some kind of thing involving people. So she heads towards the loud bang sounds that aren't bullets or any kind of gunfire, carefully. Cautiously. Just in case she might surprise someone and that someone might shoot at her. With the gun that they probably don't have. (Which direction were the probably-non-gun-bangs from anyways? The trees? Elsewhere?) 

The loud noises are coming from approximately the left relative to being at the pedestal facing the portal. As with most directions that leads into the trees.

Well, (carefully) into the trees she goes! 

She'll need to go a good distance but eventually if she keeps in a fairly straight line she will encounter a corpse. Of something that isn't quite human. 

And a man slowly sitting up next to it.

Well that's people, all right. A regular human and... an elf? A demon? What is that? What can she see without getting too close yet and what can she see about the person sitting up also for that matter? (He looks... really strong. And attractive. She should probably be looking at the much more interesting elf or demon body lying next to him but he has muscles. Among other things.) 

The weird corpse seems to be bleeding from the torso and also from one of its arms. It is, fittingly for a corpse, not moving at all. It's skin is a pale bluish greenish color. It's not clear if that's normal or if it's because of its injuries. It's blood is the normal red of a human. There are strange slits on it's face to either side of its nose and it's fingers look like they have some sort of weird claw things attached. As for clothing, it looks like it's wearing something a bit like the armor made out of leather and some sort of skirt, dress, or tunic around its legs. There's a holster for some sort of weapon that is currently empty.

The guy on the other hand is slowly getting to his feet. He also has a holster this one seems to have something shaped like a gun but not quite like any gun she can recognize. He also has a sword mounted across his back. The rest of his clothes look like they're made of well worn dark leather with a collection of cords adding ruffles and details mostly around his shoulders. He has sturdy modern looking boots on his feet.

So much for it not being a gun. It's not anything she's seen on tv before though that's hardly surprising if she's not anywhere that tv has been invented. Probably. Almost certainly. 

That's not a human, though, though it doesn't look like any magical creature she's ever seen, though of course there's no reason why it should. It doesn't look like an elf though it could be a demon she doesn't know what's going on here. Technically she doesn't know if the weird dead person is good or evil or anything like that the (really strong and muscular) guy with the sword and the gun thing could be the bad guy. (Though would it be so bad if he was? She could convince him to be good and also maybe possibly to no she shouldn't think about that at all.) She should probably, um, assess the situation more first. Blushing, Jenna creeps closer. 

He whirls around to face her. His gun is in his hand and pointing at her. He stares at her intently.

Eeep! She quickly throws her hands in the air. "Don't shoot!" she says, trying to look as non-threatening as possible. (Does he even speak English? What if he shoots her by accident because he can't understand her?) 

"You're human." He says in a deep gruff voice as if this is an answer.

Jenna nods several times, hands still high in the air. "Yep. Yes. Uh-huh. I'm human! Very human. Human all my life! Always human, that's me. And um, so are you?" (Okay she's being nervous and not friendly or suave she should be doing better than this she should be able to control her emotions even with a gun pointed at her all right? She's gonna be an actress and she's talking to an attractive and strong rogue person human with a really great voice wow and she can't stop babbling she should stop babbling.)  

He lowers his gun. "You should leave. This wraith is dead but more will be coming."

Okay, she's a lot less nervous when he's not pointing a gun at her. Also, the bad guys are apparently wraith, whatever that means. (If he's telling her to leave because more are coming they probably are the bad guys, right?) Maybe she should ask about wraith? "Is that a wraith?" she asks, pointing. "I can help?" No wait that wasn't right at all. "I can help." she says with more certainty. 

He adopts an expression of deep skepticism. "I doubt that."

Okay, that's fair from his perspective probably she looks like she's never been in a fight in her life (she hasn't not unless you count with Kelly when they were five but she doesn't even remember that one and she was five at the time.) But that doesn't matter anymore she has magic.

Jenna puts her hands on her hips and glares at him, trying to use her newfound fighting powers (what even were they again) to size him up and figure out how to at least put up a show against those... muscles and body and everything. She blushes a little almost but catches herself. "I'm better in a fight than I look," she says. 

"Even if you are," and it's clear he thinks this is a low bar, "helping me is a bad idea. The wraith are hunting me."

(Dang he's attractive. And self assured. And strong and has a great voice and come on she's supposed to be getting him to help not mooning after him like a lovesick puppy she needs to get ahold of herself and stop staring!) "Even if it's a bad idea," Jenna manages, "I want to help. I can help. Though, um, I might be missing some things, I'm not from around here. What's, um," no she can say things more sensibly than that come on "can you tell me more about the wraith?" 

He blinks slowly. "You don't know what the wraith are." He's clearly baffled. "You should go home, safety is a rare gift, especially with the Wraith awakening early for their culling."

Culling? Culling doesn't sound good. She's more and more certain these wraith are the bad guys. "I don't think I can get back home yet," she tells him. "I'm from far away from here. I should help you stop, the, um, culling? And then I can figure out how to get back home. I think." 

He looks very sad for a moment. "Even the ancestors with all their technology fell before them."

Yup okay she's found the adventure. "Well, that's no reason not to try again," she tells him. "And maybe they left behind a bunch of their technology somewhere? I might be able to use it, I'm pretty good with technology." She can use a cell phone or a computer that's not the same as being able to build one or even fix one "or at least I'm probably better than most of the people here, I think."

"You don't know who the ancestors are either. Where did you come from?"

"Somewhere else. Somewhere very far away." How much detail should she give away? She'll stick with being mysterious for now.

"It would have to be." He pauses for a moment. "If you are right and you have a chance to stop the culling you need to leave me. The Wraith can track me wherever I go."

They can track him? "I can't just leave you to fight them on your own," she tells him. (Also he's really strong and attractive and she doesn't want to. Even if maybe she should. Does she get more than one potential true love? She's pretty sure she does but can't remember for sure and now is not the best time to check.) "How are they tracking you?" 

"I was taken during an attack on my world. They operated on me and implanted a tracking device of some kind into my back. They've hunted me ever since. I've hunted them back. It's the only way to survive. I tried removing it before, doctors have tried removing it for me too. Nothing has worked."

"I don't think I can help with that," she admits, "but I bet if I help you fight them off we'll find more people to join up with us and one of them should be able to help you." That's how it normally works, right? A group of disparate heroes, joining together to fight off the forces of darkness and save the world? Or wait, he said world, didn't he. Does he mean planet or does he mean... she wants to ask but doesn't want to give away too much just yet even though she really really really wants to ask. (Maybe she can think of a clever way to do so?) 

"Life isn't a storybook."

Normally, yes, but in this case... "Give me the benefit of of the doubt," she says. "I can help you, even if I don't look it, and if you stick with me things will get better." That's how it's supposed to work, right? For her, anyways. 

"Alright, you'll need to find your own food. We'll go through the ring tomorrow." Dusk has crept up on them while they were talking. Ronon starts walking looking at the ground and the plants around them.

Food she has! "I brought some food with me," she says, sliding her backpack off of her shoulder. "I could share some of mine with you if you share some of yours with me?" She should probably try to make the stuff she bought from the vending machine last longer, once it's gone she's probably not going to eat chocolate for a while, let alone have another snickers. (And plus she's reasonably certain that her food is going to blow him away, and that should help. Maybe also she should try to save it to show other people she's special too, now that she thinks about it. Well, she did buy a lot.) 

"Okay, I still need to find food first. I have some jerky but I save that for when I can't forage." He doesn't stop walking.

She slides her backpack back onto her back. "Okay, I'll come with you and help, then," she says. Though she's not going to be much help is she. She has no idea what she's doing. Maybe she can try and learn by watching? She did choose that power that lets her learn skills from her companions, right? Does he count as a companion now? He probably counts as a companion now, and if he doesn't well him and his gruff voice and his muscles are going to be her companion, so there. As long as she can figure out how to get the tracking thing out of him, which admittedly some of what she said was based on what she believes from the notebook and what if it isn't true? Well, too late now. 

He grabs leaves from specific plants and certain kinds of mushrooms from the ground. Occasionally he stops and digs up the root of a plant with a knife he had stashed somewhere on his body. He seems to rotate between a few different knives. She starts to pick up the pattern of which plants to take and which ones to leave pretty quickly.

He notices and corrects her the couple times she's making a mistake.

She's surprised when she starts to notice the pattern, and starts helping out tentatively at first, but with more and more confidence as he doesn't say anything... until he does. And then she's more cautious for a while. She doesn't want to pick the poison plants! Well, she supposes she can eat the poison plants just fine, but she doesn't want to poison her companion whose... name she doesn't even know? "What's your name, by the way?" she asks. "I'm Jenna, by the way. Jenna Sawyer. What's your name?" 

"Ronon Dex. You learn quickly."

"I do, don't I!" She grins, delighting for a moment in the fact that she is and it's the magic doing it and she has magic but then she remembers that that makes no sense to him and turns her face back into a slightly less delighted face so he's not confused by it. "I can learn a lot, if you'll teach me," she tells him, "and I'll learn quickly." 

"After we stop for the night, I'll see about teaching you how to fight."

"I'd like that!" How does that even interact with her battle powers? Will what he teaches her help her be better in general? Will the battle powers (awful) get in the way of her learning to fight? Well, she supposes she'll find out. She points at a mushroom that she's pretty sure is safe. "That one's good to eat, right?" 

"Yes." After not too much longer they arrive at a cave. Ronon doesn't seem surprised. "We'll stop here for the night. If you haven't fought much before it might be better to fight before eating. Some people throw up at first. Otherwise, we can eat and fight later."

She doesn't want to throw up the last of her snickers and doritos, that would be an awful, awful waste. "Let's fight first, and eat after, then." Though possibly she's immune to throwing up? Why is she going to throw up? Well, better to be safe than sorry. 

"You probably want to take of your bag and put it off to the side."

"Right. Yes. Thank you." 

She slides the bag off of her back and puts it down near the edge of the cave wall, then turns back and tries to activate her battle senses, however they work. Maybe if she attacks him like... she doesn't words for it, but there's something she might be able to do and might be able to get a hit in? His defenses are not entirely down right now, even though he probably thinks she's not very dangerous (understandable) so he's still on his guard, but... less so than he would be if she attacked him right now? She's not sure how to make sense of what she's sensing. 

He waits until she's back in the middle of the clearing and then he attacks. He doesn't pull any knives out and he's not trying to hurt her just gauge her skill but it might not be obvious to her that this is the case.

What the-- 

Jenna was already sensing on him so she caught it just in time to block his attacks but she didn't actually expect it to happen but why is he attacking her full force? She leans into whatever magical senses she has to try and keep him from hurting her while trying to figure out why he's doing this, being defensive rather than offensive (for the moment) because she doesn't want to hurt him. 

It's only after a few seconds of blocking his attacks that she realizes he's not attacking her to kill, but to spar, to test her, and she relaxes a little. She blocks another attack and then goes for what seems to be a weakness in his defense (though her senses are confused by it), matching his relative strength (sparring, not trying to hurt him) with her own attacks. 

He smiles at that. She scores a small hit. He takes it up another notch going a bit less easy on her. He stops being quite so straightforward and adds in some feints.

Oh excellent!! Feints she can deal with... probably? She can't read his mind, even with her battle senses and intuition and whatever else is going on here, he gets in some tricks and she takes some hits (and they hurt! Not too bad but they hurt!) until she stops going for the feints and starts thinking about how to attack and where and if he's actually open. And having done feints she tries some feints of her own. Maybe if she moves here like this it'll trick him into doing this and then she'll get another hit in on him? 

That works. He clearly takes it as a signal to step up again. He's not holding back by much at this point. There's a few more exchanges and she even lands another small hit but in doing so she opens herself up and he exploits that opening to mess up her stance and knock her on her back. He manages the fall so she doesn't land badly and then he's kneeling above her his eyes boreing into hers. "Good spar."

Oh. Oh hello. That's... gosh, looking up at him, him all strong and muscular, both of them all sweaty from having worked out together... she wants to kiss him. It would be a terrible idea to kiss him but she wants to anyways. "It really was," she says, still staring up at him, eyes maybe possibly slightly dreamy. (She should maybe possibly kinda stop being so dreamy? But look at him. Look at him. Dang he's attractive. She wants to kiss him. She should stop staring at him.) She shakes the look out of her eyes. "It really was. Should we go again. Should you teach me more? How does this work?" Oh no she's staring again stop it. 

He notices the change and flinches back a little. He wasn't expecting that response.

He doesn't say anything for a few seconds and then he's speaking a bit more slowly than usual. "We can do that."

He backs off and lets her get back up.

Oh. Well dratmuffins. Okay, apparently she really should have stopped staring. Hopefully he isn't scared away forever? (He's probably not scared away forever. Right?) She shakes off the staring and the eyes and brushes herself off and stands back up. "Okay, should we go again? Or should you show me stuff. Or possibly going again will show me stuff? Whatever you think works best, please." She's breathing a little hard but not too hard and honestly feels pretty good and is probably ready to go again. (She really hopes he's not too scared away.) 

In lieu of an answer he comes at her. He doesn't seem big on warning people before attacking. He's starting at the level just before his final push.

Jenna has barely enough time to block his first attack (she should really be ready for him instead of dwelling on her own silly things for goodness sake!) and then she pulls away to get some distance to get herself properly positioned. And then she comes at him properly, looking for weaknesses in his defense (or whatever she's seeing) and going for them. She tries a few feints, seeing if she can trick him at all. (She doesn't know a lot of techniques yet but she's learning as she goes and she's going to learn more!) 

She is improving so fast he's doubting his earlier read that she hadn't fought seriously before. 

His defense does have weaknesses he focuses very heavily on offense and if she's attentive she can absolutely notice him overextending a little here and there. They can go on like this for over a minute before he decides to end things again.

And then he brushes aside her block with brute strength and suddenly he has a knife pulled from his gauntlet and it's at her throat. "Yield." He demands in a level voice.

"I yield, I yield," she says, putting her hands up immediately. That knife is right there and kinda scary at the moment all it would take is a little push and she would start bleeding and she'd make a mess of her shirt and maybe she could just clean with dressing room or whatever it's called but she doesn't want to get blood on the shirt right now and also she doesn't want a stab wound in the neck either. 

He pulls back his knife and it disappears into his gauntlet again. He looks at her curiously. "Have you fought before?"

She's going to take a moment to center herself first (and not think about how attractive he was, in retrospect, holding the knife on her. It was scary but it also maybe possibly a little bit might have been hot? But no, he's asking her questions) and try and figure out how to answer this question. She probably shouldn't lie to her friends but also it's probably not a very good idea to reveal that she came here from another world (universe? He said world already) with a bunch of magic powers so she can help out whatever problems they're having and have an adventure and save their world, or at least not put it in so many words. Also, she's starting to have a suspicion that this world doesn't have lots of magic, or at least not like magic she suspected, even with the magic portal that brought her here. He mentioned technology, not magic. Maybe it would be better to be careful until she knows how everything works. "I have... an ability that helps me fight," she admits, "and one that helps me pick things up really quickly. I haven't really fought before." 

He just stares at her.

Well, maybe that was a bad idea but what else could she have said? Calling it magic would have made it worse but also she really never has fought before. "I'm sorry," she says, "I know maybe it's hard to believe but it's true, I swear it. I don't know how to prove it exactly, but it's true." 

He clearly isn't sure what to make of this. After a few seconds he decides to change the topic. "Let me show you how to prepare what we gathered." He produces a few small items to help with food prep from his person.

Well, that didn't go very well. Still, at least he's not mad at her, she thinks? It's hard to tell for sure. It would have been a bad idea to take the one where she can know what anyone is thinking of her but she really wants it right about now. It would be bad and self-centered and evil, but she wants it. "I would like that!" she says, and follows behind him to see where he's going and what he's doing. 

He demonstrates how to prepare each of the items they collected, mostly just with actions but adding in a few words here and there when he seems it important.

He nibbles at a few bits as he finishes preparing them.

She watches carefully, and helps where it makes sense to, and delights in the knowledge forming in her mind about what he's doing and how to go about doing it. (Learning new skills super fast is awesome!) 

When he starts tasting some things as he finishes she reaches for a bit of what he's eating to see if she can have some too (looking at him to make sure). 

She helped with gathering and preparation it's only fair. He gives her a chance to do each of the steps involved for anything they have enough of for two batches and then settles down to eat once preparations are complete.

She settles down next to him as well, and pulls over her bag and pulls out a bag of doritos and a snickers bar to supplement the meal. "Do you want some of these also?" she asks. She opens the doritos, but it's probably best to save the snickers for the end. Even if she wants to eat it now. Dessert is for after dinner, not before. (Though actually don't her new abilities make food not matter quite so much? Is she taking food from him when she doesn't need to? Well, it's probably fine for now, and she wants to enjoy the work that she put in.) 

"What are they?" They certainly smell fragrant.

The food they prepared is probably a bit plain compared to what she's used to but it's earthy and filling.

Earthy and filling is good! She'd prefer more seasoning but that's okay, they probably don't have a lot of seasoning here (and boy that's going to take some getting used to isn't it). "It's, um..." she's suddenly not sure how to describe it. "It's a snack food, um, it's um... I don't know what kinds of thing you have here. Do you have like, chips? Or corn? You probably have bread, right?" Also what even are chips? She's not even sure. "They're um, like, crispy bread chip things that are very well seasoned." She pulls one out and offers it to him. "Here, try it." 

"Sounds interesting." He'll wait for her to angle the bag towards him and then grab one and carefully nibble on it. He smiles and eats it after that. He seems to be savoring it as compared to the quick way he's been tucking into the other food. When he finishes he says "Thank you."

"If you like that you'll like the snickers," she says, "but that should probably wait until we're done with the rest. It's um, dessert, basically. Feel free to have more doritos, though!" She angles the bag so both of them can take it easily, and takes another bite of mushroom. 

"Can you get more? If not, we should make them last." He still takes another chip.

"I can't actually get more for a while," she admits. "They'll get stale now that the bag is open, though, so we might as well eat them now before they get stale, I have more bags of these and some other kinds of snacks in my bag as well. Well, unless we find a way to seal the bag back up with a clothespin or something, then it won't get stale as fast, but I don't know if there are any clothespins here or anything like clothespins, we basically need to close it off so air mostly doesn't get in or out. I'm not really sure why they get stale though that way but they do." Okay, she should maybe stop talking quite so much and calm down a little bit, he doesn't need to know all the details or every thought that pops into her head. Especially not the thoughts about his muscles and-- no, last time he didn't react well, she needs to stop that. 

He produces a hair tie from somewhere within his locks. "Will this work?"

She stares at it for a moment. "It might," she says, after considering. "We may need to eat some more chips first so it doesn't slide off, though." She takes another and eats it though she should probably not eat too many of them if they're going to stop eating this bag soon since she too should probably savor them like he is. So they can last a long time. Because when they're gone... she shakes off the feeling. No, she's on an adventure with magic and the notebook promised that she'd make it home eventually. There's no need for her to be homesick over doritos of all things. 

He'll indulge in a third chip himself then stop. This is a taste of her home and that's a precious thing if she won't or can't go back for a while.

Jenna eats the rest of her food for a while, and then has her taste of her last chip (if he can stop at three then so can she). She eats it very slowly and carefully, having other bites of food around it, trying not to think about how she's using up a limited resource that she's probably not going to taste again once her bags are gone for years. (Or maybe even decades. She was thinking of being a magical princess and ruling for 99 years before, though that seems a lot less likely now, with whatever's happening here. Maybe she'll figure out how to stop the evil wraith quickly and be able to go home early? Probably not, probably she'll need to go on a quest and find the technology of the ancestors and use it to save the... world? Universe? She's not really sure and then she'll be able to go home again. And who knows how long that could take. "Okay, let's see if I can get this closed," she says. It's still about 2/3 full, it might be possible but it'll be a bit difficult. "Hand me the hair tie, please," she says. 

He hands it over.

And Jenna tries sealing it with it. It takes a couple of tries but eventually she manages to get it on there without it it sliding back off and keeping the bag more or less closed. "There," she says, ever-so-slightly triumphantly. "And now we can have more of this later." She looks at where the snickers is sitting on the rock they're eating off of. "We should probably save that for later too, shouldn't we," she says, a mournful note in her voice. 

"It's your home that it's a taste of."

"That's... true." Jenna says. She wants to open the wrapper and stuff the whole thing in her face, she wants to eat all of them, she wants to taste exactly what it tastes like and then eat all of it and share it with Ronon and have him enjoy it and have them both enjoy the memory of her home where she's... not going to be able to go for a long, long, long time. 

Jenna puts the closed doritos bag and the unopened snickers back into her bag. "We can have them later," she says. "We can... we can share it later. I know I'm going to go back eventually, but... I don't know when. And it's probably going to be a while." A long, long time. Why did she do this? It's for adventure and for finding a cute boy (like this one) and kissing him and saving the world and and and so many things but all of a sudden she just wants to go home and she can't. It'll be fine, she's on an adventure, but it's still sadder and scarier than she expected.   

He will gently pat her on the shoulder... what he thinks of as gently so it's a bit strong for what she's used to but he adjusts down when he notices. "You haven't been away from home for long."

She's jostled and surprised the first time, but when he does it lighter afterwards she takes it as the clearly affectionate gesture she meant as. (Would he like a hug? She's not sure if he'd like a hug just yet even though his hugs would probably be very good and strong and she should stop thinking about this right now even though it's probably better than thinking about all the other awful things she's thinking about.) "I haven't," she admits. "You're the first person I saw after leaving. Though I'm sure we'll run into others," she adds, with a hopeful note in her voice. 

"Probably," he agrees. He doesn't expect more people to join this little group. He's conflicted about whether he even wants her to stay with him. But running into other people definitely happens.

Jenna, on the other hand, is reasonably certain that they're going to have people join their adventuring party or whatever they're going to be called. (She should probably not come up with a team name certainly not when there are only two of them so far but also it would be awesome if they had a team name wouldn't it but now is not the best time to be thinking about that or doing that.) She eats more of her food. "I guess we sleep after this?" she says. It was morning when she left, and it's only been a couple of hours, and good night's sleep before she left seemed like a good idea at the time but now she feels a little foolish. Well, it might give some time for her to write down what happened in the notebook. While it's dark out. Shoot. Maybe the notebook can make her ink glow in the dark? She should ask before it gets too dark to read. 

He nods. "Sleep when you can. It's not always easy to find time for it."

It's already pretty dark but there's moonlight so it's not pitch black.

Well, hopefully the light is good enough for her to at least start writing in it. "I might take a few minutes to write in my journal before we go to sleep," she tells him. "But I'll join you shortly." 

"Suit yourself." He lies down on the ground and appears to be trying to get to sleep.

Hopefully they find some kind of like, blankets or something soon, though maybe that's a bit too much to ask for. She's never slept on the ground before, and isn't looking forward to it. But that's what she signed up for, more or less. 

Jenna tilts the notebook to catch the moonlight as best as possible. 

I've had an eventful few hours, and I met a friend! I want to tell you about it but it's kinda hard to see in this light. Is there any way you could like, make the text written in you glow, or something? If not I might try and get some sleep and catch you up later. 

How's this?

Oh she hadn't thought of that!

Oh, that works! I can work with this! 

She totally can! The notebook is so great and helpful. 

I'm guessing you want me to go through what's happened to me so far, right? How do I count days here actually I have no idea what date it is in this world, or universe maybe, I'm not sure how things work yet. I guess I can just put "Day 1" at the top of the page and put dates in later maybe? 

That works! ♡

Then that's what she does! 

Day 1

Dear Notebook,

Today is my first day in this new world! I told you I was ready to receive the spirit's power and then I was in a blue tunnel thing and I came out through this strange magic portal that was basically a large ring standing on the ground on a platform and what looked like a rippling pool of water with runes glowing on the edges of it. And then pool of water disappeared and the runes stopped glowing and the water disappeared. The runes look kinda like constellations when I took a closer look, and there was a pedestal with some buttons on it that seemed to correspond to the runes or constellations on the magic portal ring but I couldn't get it to work at all, I pressed various buttons and the big button in the middle but the ring didn't seem to work at all. And then there was a noise which I guess was probably gunshots, which I went to investigate and I found Ronon next to a dead wraith. Oh, he explained that later, but wraith are apparently the bad guys here, they have cullings of people which I actually never asked about and probably should, and also they put a tracker in Ronon and they're hunting him using the tracker which is very not nice. The dead wraith had green skin and a weird looking face and some kind of claw things and didn't look very nice. Ronon pointed his gun at me at first which was scary but probably pretty sensible if he just was fighting a wraith but I convinced him I'm not dangerous and we became friends. I think. He didn't think I was good at fighting but after we gathered some food which I picked up how to do really fast from watching him (the skill learning power is really awesome!) we did some sparring and it turns out the combat senses and instincts and stuff also work really well though he's still better at fighting at I am or at least he knows more things than I do. But I learned things from him! I learned how to fake doing one thing and then do another thing which was really awesome! He was also really surprised that I'd never heard of the wraith or the ancestors or anything at all, but I told him I was from really far away. Though he did mention his world at some point, so I think people might be able to travel between different planets. Plus he mentioned technology that the ancients had and that it couldn't defeat the wraith, so maybe this world has some magic like the magic portal that I came through but I think it might also have lots of technology too, though I think most people here don't have a lot of it. It doesn't look like people here have technology, anyways, though Ronon does have that weird gun so maybe I'm wrong about that. 

She's wandered a bit off topic here, hasn't she, thinking about things instead of just telling the notebook what really happened. But maybe it's okay for her to be using this to go through her thoughts and her day and try to figure out what everything means. And go over the stuff she's missed. 

Maybe I'm wrong about how good everyone is with technology, then. I suppose I'll find out later. Regardless we probably need to find someone to get the tracker out of Ronan, since otherwise the wraith will be able to keep finding him, which is probably dangerous for us even though I am really good at fighting now at least when fighting Ronan who is really, really good at fighting. Or at least as far as I can tell. 

Should she say something about how attractive Ronan is? She feels somewhat embarrassed about how she feels about Ronon is already but he is really big and attractive and has muscles and has a really hot deep voice and... okay fine. Blushing, she writes

Also, Ronon is really muscular and big and he has a really deep voice and is really attractive. Or at least I think he's attractive. He has really good muscles though, his arms are like so big and strong and when he beat me and pushed me down the first time

Jenna has to pause and turn pink at the memory of that. Goodness that was really really a lot. She turns pinker. 

it was a lot. I didn't expect to like that kind of thing but I liked it a lot. He doesn't talk much but when he does he's really self-assured and I like him. 

That might be more than enough writing about Ronon now. Where was she? Oh right. 

So we prepared the food that we gathered after we sparred and then I shared some doritos with him and he seemed to like them and also pointed out that this is a taste of my home and we should savor it and he's right and so we sealed the bag back up with one of his hair ties after we had a few chips each and even though I really really wanted to share the snickers with him because once I use all of them up they're gone until I get home and it might be years or even longer until I go back. 

She is not going to cry about this, why is she crying about this. She wanted to go on an adventure and save a bunch of people and even though it's going to be so long before she sees her new friends or her parents or her siblings ever again years or decades or even longer she's still going to see them again the notebook promised and also it's just silly snack food why is she starting to cry about this. She wipes her tears away and steels herself. She's stronger than this. She's here on an adventure. With magic. And a really hot muscular guy who she might maybe want to kiss but now is not the best time for that but maybe later. She's doing what she wants. She wipes her tears away (glad that the notebook can't see her cry and also that Ronon is probably asleep and can't see either) and goes back to writing.  

And anyways it's night here now which makes me feel a little silly about getting a good night's sleep beforehand so he's getting some sleep and I'm writing in you before I try and get some sleep myself, though I might not do a very good job of sleeping. And that's everything that happened, I think. Is there anything you want to ask about? Anything you think I might have missed? 

Oh, wow, you're having such adventures already!

Ronon sounds nice. I'm glad you're getting along with him! I hope you find a way to help him with his problems. (And I also hope he ends up liking you back, but that seems less important, even though it sounds like you would have a good time if he did! This stuff about being hunted by people with claws is just very worrying.)

It's hard to be away from home, isn't it? I hope you find your way back soon. But if it turns out that you have to help a lot of people and solve a lot of problems first, then I bet you will be brave and strong and kind and make lots of friends along the way! ♡

She is not going to cry she is not going to cry she is not. 

I really hope so! I plan to be. I'm going to be. I've already made one friend, I just need to make more. And then I'm going to stop the wraith from culling people and hunting people with their help and then figure out how to get home so I can go back and forth whenever I want and see my friends and family and learn to be an actress and everything.

You will! I believe in you. ♡

Despite herself, Jenna blushes. 

Well, thanks for the vote of confidence! I think that's everything, though. I guess I might as well try to get a bit of sleep now, though I can talk about other things if you want. I guess this is what jet lag is? I've never had to deal with jet lag before. Maybe it's a better idea to stay up talking to you? Or should I try getting some sleep and try to acclimate that way? 

I think if you're going to be here where now is time to sleep, it's probably a good idea to try to sleep now if you can. But my advice about sleeping might not be very good, because I am a notebook.

That makes sense! I think I'll try sleeping then. Thanks for talking to me, though, this was really good and helpful. Even though we just met, you're a friendly voice to talk to. Or write to, whichever. 

I'm glad I can help! Sleep well! ♡

Thanks!

And with that, she'll try and get to sleep.

Depending on how quickly she falls asleep she will get at least some. She's woken up when it's still dark by Ronon nudging her arm. "Shhh, I think I heard something you need to be awake. Stay quiet."

Jenna was managing to doze or something along those lines. She hasn't been woken up like that before so it's a bit of a shock and also she's not in her bed so she's confused and worried for a moment but then she remembers. It wasn't a dream. She doesn't shout or anything but it's a close thing. "What's going on," she whispers, as quiet as she can. 

"I'm not sure. I heard something rustling though and maybe the sound of voices. There's no animals on this planet so they must have come through the ring. It's probably not wraith but we should be careful."

If it's not wraith, it could be new companions? Still, she doesn't know anything about how anything works here, and she'll defer to his expertise for the moment. (Though if she can, it might be a good idea to encourage him to make friends. But better to be careful for the moment.) 

"Do you want to hide here or come with me as I go look?"

On the one hand, she can handle herself in a fight, and she doesn't want to lose her friend (and potential kissing friend stop it Jenna) as soon as she's made him, having him die while she stays in the safety of the cave and then she mourns his loss for the rest of her life. On the other hand, it's much safer here, and there are people here with guns, and people with green skin and claws that could tear her to pieces or do whatever creepy thing that... no, she shouldn't be letting that get in her way. She's on an adventure and has magical powers. She opens her mouth to say that she should come with him and... oh wait. "If you're going to be sneaking," she whispers, "I'm probably not very good at that yet, though I'm sure I'll pick it up quickly. But if that's a problem I should stay here." Even though she really really doesn't want to. (Except for all the ways in which she really really does. But besides that.) 

He visibly considers this. "We should stick together. Watch where you put your feet and take each step carefully and slowly. If you can avoid stepping on leaves and twigs."

She nods silently in agreement. There's not a lot of light at the moment, but there is moonlight, and hopefully she'll learn fast. 

"You should bring your bag, I don't know if it will be safe to come back."

She hadn't thought of that. (This is what friends are for! Imagine leaving all of her tastes of home this behind or even worse imagine leaving the notebook behind. Thank goodness he knows to warn her.) "Right," she whispers. She goes and puts it on her back. "Thanks. Lead the way." 

He walks much more slowly this time since stealth is a priority. He whispers a few comments about places she should avoid that aren't covered by his initial summary.

Eventually, they come up towards some people moving much more loudly through the forest. He signals for her to crouch down.

There's a woman who's slightly taller than her.

And a man a bit shorter than Ronon. They're both carrying guns that look a bit more like the ones she's seen on TV. They have flashlights mounted to their guns and are shining them around as they slowly move through the forest.

It's hard to see in the dark, but are those Earth weapons? Like, machine guns from Earth? They couldn't be, Earth is somewhere else. They do look like the same sort of black plastic thing that she's seen in movies and tv shows though her mom doesn't like it when she watches that sort of thing so she's only mostly managed it when she's not home or with friends, but these don't look the same as any guns she's seen before on tv. They seem to have similar technology to earth, though. Maybe the technology here is on par with her own? She hadn't expected that. 

Regardless, she stays as quiet as she can (she's picked up some things about being stealthy already but she's clearly not as good as Ronon yet and if there's people moving around with flashlights it's probably best to be really really quiet and still) and follows Ronon's lead. 

Ronon gestures to move back a little and does so himself while drawing his gun.

The strangers play their flashlights around and one of the beams is about to be pointed right at them.

Jenna wants to tell him to put his weapon down, these people are definitely armed but they might not be dangerous (okay they're probably dangerous they look well trained but hostile, that's the thing, they might not be hostile) but she doesn't trust herself to make a noise to tell him not to.

And then when the light gets close to them, Jenna, not wanting to be seen, ducks instinctually, trying to stay out of their sight. 

Unfortunately, in doing so, she takes a step back, and steps on what is clearly an exceptionally loud twig. 

They start to react but Ronon is faster. His gun fires with a pulse of bright red something with a sizzly noise and then another right after and both of the strangers are on the ground unmoving.

Oh no no no no no no no. "Did you you just kill them?" she asks, worried. "They might not have hurt us, I didn't meant to make a noise, they didn't have to die, they didn't, I'm sorry," no no no no no no, she can't have made people die, by accident, why did she think this was a good idea, oh no...

"They're just unconscious. Calm down, there could be more of them."

Oh. Oh. They're just stunned. They were just knocked unconscious with his sci-fi gun (she needs to think harder about how how good technology is here because she was clearly wrong about it before) and not killed. Though now of course if there are more of them like he said they could see their unconscious friends and think that they're dead and then try to kill Jenna and Ronon and then more bad things will happen and she doesn't want any of that. But she also doesn't want their friends to be alerted to them so she does her best to calm down like he said she should do (they could have been dead!!!) and wait and see what happens. Ronon is the expert here. The scary, slightly trigger-happy (though it just knocked them out so it's okay) expert. 

He waits for her to calm down and then he walks over to the fallen strangers. He picks up one of their guns, briefly examines it and then does a few things with it and pulls two things out of it. Then he repeats it with the other one. He slings the guns by their shoulder straps over his shoulder and then he picks up both strangers the man over his shoulder and the woman in his arms and gestures with his head before starting to walk back in the direction of the cave.

What... what is he doing? (Also wow he's strong. Really strong. Incredibly strong. Okay, staring at muscles later, caring about what he's doing now.) "What are you doing?" she hisses, as he starts walking off, trying to be quiet but also confused and concerned. There's no reason to pick these people up and take them with them... right? 

"Taking them back to the cave. We can ask how many more of them are around when they wake up."

"They're going to be really upset when they wake up though. And if they have friends they might be mad too. Shouldn't we... I don't know..." she trails off. What even should they do. Apologize? What if they really are dangerous and are also mad about being knocked out and then attack her and Ronon. And they can't just leave them there either they wake up and also be mad. Maybe this is the best plan, to take them back and wake them up gently and find out what they know? No, it can't be, but she's not sure but there must be something better than watching him carry two entire people (stop that Jenna!) back to the cave and then wake them up there, right? 

He just keeps walking unless she has something specific to propose.

Jenna... doesn't have a specific good suggestion here and so will follow along behind, feeling like there's something she should be doing here, to fix this or make this work properly or something somehow, but she can't think of anything. Maybe these really are enemies and they're going to have to kill them (she's never killed anyone and is she going to have to kill people she doesn't want to kill anyone what has she gotten herself into) or maybe they'll be friends and they'll all laugh about this later or maybe they could have been friends but will be horribly offended and have to an honor duel with Ronon to the death and he'll probably kill them but maybe she can make him stop at the last second and okay that's really not going to happen is it. She follows along behind him silently, unsure what to do now. 

And eventually they reach the cave again. Ronon pulls their vests off and produces rope from somewhere to tie the two strangers up. "It'll be a while before they wakeup."

"We don't need to tie them up, do we?" Jenna says, half-heartedly, as he begins to do so. There should be something she can do here, right? Why can't she think of it? 

"Safer to do it than need to watch them at all times. I didn't search them thoroughly either."

Does he mean that they need to do that now or that he let them keep most of their stuff as a sign of good faith or apology or... "Should we... do that, then?" Jenna asks, confused. 

"We could, they might not take kindly to that though. Some people are pretty sensitive about that."

Oh so it is a sign of good faith. Even though he's tying them up. "Maybe let's not search them yet. We... don't know that they meant us any harm, right? Weapons or no?" Also maybe she should be watching him tie people up so she can learn that skill too, she doesn't really want to need it but it looks like she very well might, in this place. 

"Alright." He notices she's watching and explains some details of what he's doing. Then he produces some spare rope and shows her how to tie and untie a few types of knots.

And then Jenna will pick up what she can! Which is quite a bit, and she honestly really enjoys the fact that she's learning all of this so fast but the fact that she's doing so about something like tying people up and not about something fun like magic if magic even exists in this world or say ancestor technology whatever that is makes it somewhat less fun. That and the fact that there's two tied up people here that they're just... going to wait until they wake up, she supposes. 

"Impressive," is his comment when the lesson comes to a close. "Can you watch them? I want to get more food. I'll stay close."

She's a little bit (okay, more than a little, a lot more than a little) worried about them waking up and then being mad at her or breaking free and then attacking her (though she should be able to fight them, right?) or something going wrong, somehow, but she wants to be useful and they do seem to be (from what she knows about tying people up now which is a lot more than it was a few minutes ago) pretty reasonably well tied up. She thinks. "I can watch them," she tells him. 

"Yell if you need me," he says and then departs.

"I will," she says after him, and then sits down on a rock to watch the two tied up... people? prisoners? what even should she call them? while she waits for them to wake up. Is this really what she's doing? This isn't at all what she expected from an adventure but apparently it's what's happening and she's not sure she likes it but it makes sense now that she thinks about it that this sort of thing has to happen doesn't it. She doesn't want it to be happening, though. Hopefully they wake up soon? Or alternately hopefully Ronon comes back soon so she doesn't have to keep watching them. She's not sure which of the two she prefers. 

It's about forty minutes before the man stirs.

He blinks his eyes a bit and says "Ford?" in a questioning tone.

(Oh thank goodness, she'd actually started pacing from nervousness and running her thoughts over and over and over in her mind.) Ford? Is that a name? It's probably a name. "Not Ford, sorry," she says. "Jenna." Well she might as be cordial, right? "And you are?" 

"Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard."

So from some sort of military then? That could be good... or bad. "Nice to, um, meet you," she says. "Sorry about the, um, circumstances." She should maybe find out if they're bad guys or not? "What were you guys doing here?" 

"Thanks." He pauses for a moment, "We're looking for our friend."

Who is... "Ford? The name you said before? I don't think we've seen a Ford." Well, unless Ronon is lying about his name but Jenna is pretty sure he wasn't (though how can she be really sure yet she did only just meet him) or unless... "you don't mean the wraith, do you?" she adds, looking at him suspiciously. 

"Ford is the name of the friend we're looking for. He's human like me."

The woman is awake at this point and turns to look over her shoulder at Jenna but doesn't interrupt.

"Oh. The only other human I've seen is, um, my friend. Ronon. He shot you both and knocked you out I think because he was worried you might shoot me first." She's had a lot of time to think about this over and over again trying to think through what happened and if it could have gone differently. (Other than not messing up and stepping on the really overly loud twig, she's not sure that there is. And it was reasonable of him with a stun weapon to shoot first before they started shooting at her.) "I guess maybe Ronon has seen him? We could ask when he gets back, I only just got here." 

"I can see how he would be worried about that. Most people don't like having guns pointed at them."

"It was pretty worrying! I mean, earlier, when your guns and flashlights and stuff were pointed at me. And I guess before that also. I haven't had any guns pointed at me before today!" she giggles slightly hysterically (okay she can calm down now please). "It's a bit new I guess. You, um, you're just looking for your friend and not here to hurt or hunt us or anything like that? Ronon, um... has a problem with the wraith doing that with him, apparently." Possibly she should be better at not telling the maybe-possibly-probably-not-enemy-but-she-can't-be-sure all her secrets but she doesn't seem to be able to stop talking. 

"Hunting him? Why?"

"I don't know why they're doing it. He says he has a tracker in his back that the wraith put there and he can't get it out and that's why they keep hunting him." Yup, just gonna keep giving away secrets, isn't she... it's probably fine right and also "do you think you can help with that, actually? You seem, um, like you have some military technology, I don't know if that extends to medical technology or anything though." 

"A runner... I have heard stories but I have never met one in person."

"What's a runner?"

"The stories are as she said, the wraith release certain individuals with tracking devices and hunt them. Anyone attempting to help them is killed if the wraith learn of it."

Well that sounds straightforwardly bad. Yikes! "Is there any way you can help him? He's, um, very tough," now is an extra bad time to be thinking about his muscles Jenna! "And he killed one of them earlier, I saw the dead body, but, um, I bet he probably doesn't want to keep running." 

"We have a pretty good doctor. I'd want some kind of reassurance about his safety though. And also to be untied."

"I think I might need to wait for Ronon to come back to untie you. I... don't know if I can take you if you don't mean well" probably not "but probably not, but he probably can. And I'm really new to this, and I don't think he is. Sorry. But if you do mean well" they seem to? "then I might be able to convince him of that. But maybe convince me first? Who are you? What kind of, um, military are you working for?" That's a sensible thing to ask, right? Right. 

"The good kind; we're fighting against the wraith. We've had some setbacks recently but we've hurt them a lot in the process."

"Well, that's good." He could be saying anything though he could be lying to her or hiding things. But also would he talk about setbacks if he was lying? He'd be making himself out to be much better. "What kind of setbacks, exactly?" 

"They destroyed the ancestor city we were working out of. We lost people."

Oh. "That's... I'm sorry about that." Also there goes an opportunity for her to... no, she shouldn't be thinking like that. People died, she shouldn't be imagining her walking through some ancient ancestor city full of incredible technology and figuring out how to use it because she's good at that somehow or something (she thought she'd be much smarter than everyone around but clearly she isn't so there goes that idea though she is learning everything very very fast) but instead being sad that a bunch of people died recently. "That's awful, I'm sorry." She doesn't really have a good way to help them, does she, even though she wants to. 

"Thank you. I appreciate that. Do you know when your friend is getting back?"

"I... don't. Hopefully soon? He went out for more food he said. There's no animals on this planet" and she still needs to figure out how this world or universe works but one step at a time "but there's plants and we went foraging last time so he's probably doing the same." She is babbling again. She's in an unfamiliar situation and doesn't know what she's doing or what's going on but she's babbling and probably should stop. And also find out intel (that's the word right?) about these two. "Can you, um, tell me more about where you are now? Or what kinds of things you do to fight the wraith?" And also maybe she can find out exactly what Ronon meant by a 'culling' which is very concerning sounding but she doesn't know what it means. 

"We've rescued some people from hive ships and helped evacuate people from planets under attack by the wraith." By the time of his voice she gets the impression he expects her to be impressed or surprised by his claim about the hive ships. "We also search for more ancestor technology we could use to bring the fight to the wraith. Our new base is a lot more spartan than where we were but just about anything would be and we still have good food and we're reasonably well hidden from the wraith."

Okay, so, ships mean spaceships, she's pretty sure. She can tell that she's supposed to be impressed (though she's not really sure what's involved in rescuing people from hive ships or what that means) but her knowledge is still a bit lacking to say for sure if this is really good or not. John seems to think it's pretty good at least. But searching for ancient technology and power to help fight the bad guys... "That sounds like you're doing good things!" she says. "I might want to help y'all. If you can get the tracking thing out of Ronon he might want to help out too, though I don't know for sure. But I bet we can join forces!" Is she coming off a little too eager she might be coming off a little too eager. 

"Thank you. I hope so too."

She pauses for a while. This would be a perfect time for Ronon to come back so he can talk to these people and she can help them come to an understanding and everyone can join forces but Ronon is away doing food gathering and isn't here. "I guess tell me more, if you can? Or no, wait!" there's someone else to talk to, she should talk to them too! "Hi sorry I didn't say hi before I got a bit distracted and this is all a bit weird to me and I'm sorry about it but hello. What's your name? I'm Jenna, nice to meet you." 

"I am Teyla Emmagan. You said you arrived here recently, where were you before that?"

"I, um," well what does she even say she can say what she said to Ronon she supposes (what even did she say) "I'm not really from around here. I'm from... a lot further away than here." Even though it seems like people here have spaceships or something or at least the bad guys do she's still probably from further away she's from another universe. "I came here to help though. I can learn things really fast, if you're willing to teach me." Assuming he's going to be one of her companions, which well maybe that's not true (that was the restriction right? She's not entirely sure) but it might be true. It's probably going to be true. 

"Do you mean you're from another galaxy?" Sheppard can't help but ask.

Oh no what does she say "...not... exactly?" she says. "I might as well be." Can people here travel between galaxies? If they have starships they probably can, though she remembers from science class that galaxies are supposed to be really far away. "Or even further away than that." Is she being too mysterious? She's probably being too mysterious. Oh well. What can she tell them, that a magic notebook gave her magic powers and now she's here on an adventure which so far seems to be shaping up to defeat the evil wraiths and stop them from doing cullings? She should probably not come out and say that. 

"That is very far away indeed. Did you know about the wraith before coming?"

"I... did not." Ronon knows, she might as well admit it. "I knew wherever I was going there was supposed to be something bad going on there, and I'm supposed to help out." 

"It is very brave of you to go to help people without knowing what the dangers will be. What have you been told of the wraith?"

It is brave of her isn't it. (Brave because she's not entirely sure if she can manage this, it feels like she's bitten off way more than she can chew but she'll figure this out and save people and get home. She thinks.) "Um, not all that much to be honest. That they have cullings, I guess. And that they put trackers into people and then hunt them. Both of which are very bad." Though she's still not sure what a culling is. 

"The wraith have been a scourge on this galaxy since the time of the ancestors. In that time, the ancestors and the wraith fought a terrible war that ultimately ended in the ancestor's defeat. They departed this galaxy to escape them, leaving the rest of us behind. Since that time the wraith have operated on a cycle. For a time, sometimes even hundreds of years they sleep allowing our population to grow. Then they awaken and cull what they see as the human herd taking many of us as food and dwindling our population until they must once again sleep to allow our population to recover."

"They eat people!?" Wait that was supposed to be to herself oh well. "They eat people?" That one was on purpose. "That's terrible and awful! And not okay." And puts evacuations and saving people from hive ships in a new light. "Do they like eat them raw like I don't know a tiger or a wolf or..." wait they probably don't know what those are. Or do they? "Or some predator animal would with its prey" side note thinking about humans as prey: ew, terrible, awful, no, bad, yuck, no "or do they like, cook them? Also, they eat people? That's really bad." She was totally right they're evil (was she even worried) and "they need to be stopped." 

"The wraith feed on our life force, rapidly aging us and ultimately leaving little more than a husk of the person that used to be."

"Hold on a sec, you said tiger. Do you mean the big cat with orange fur and black stripes?"

Oh so they do have those here. (Though wait why is he reacting like that) "Yeah, of course, why?" (nope, too late to do anything about it now.) 

"When you said you were from rather further away, did you mean you're from another reality? Specifically from a version of Earth?"

"I, um..." okay, she hadn't expected that. "Um. Are you um. Are you from Earth? Is there an earth here?" She pauses for several long moments. Maybe her taste of home isn't so far away? (She's not going to cry about this. She is not. How is she being emotional about something that she wasn't even missing until very recently and has barely had any time to miss and also she still has.) "Do you, um, have doritos there?" 

"There is. It's in another galaxy. That's where I'm from. And yes, we do have Doritos. They weren't exactly a priority on the packing list though so we don't have any here."

"Oh, that makes sense." They don't have any, they probably don't have any snickers either. (Though she shouldn't be so sad about it, they might bring some with them another time. Though maybe it's not that important to bring but... the possibility exists. She can hold on to that.) "I was just, um, verifying something." New topic new topic. "How did you get here, then, from so far away?" 

"Through the stargate. You might have seen it, big circular ring thing with constellations on it. We can't make that trip anymore though so now we use ships instead which takes a lot longer."

"Oh they are constellations! I wasn't sure, I thought they might be like runic symbols or something. I couldn't figure out how to make it work." It might not be a good idea to mention magic here she's already giving a lot away though maybe that isn't really a problem but they'll probably think she's crazy if she mentions magic. This place doesn't seem to have any magic besides the stargates that she's seen which was not what she was looking for she wanted to learn magic and also the stargates might be really weird technology somehow, at this rate. Also she should probably say more instead of staring off into space. "Oh, and yeah, I came through the stargate to get here too." 

"That checks out, Stargates do weird stuff sometimes. Do you know how to get back? It sounded like you came here intentionally."

She shakes her head. "They said I'd be able to find my way back eventually, but I think I'm supposed to help people and solve problems here first though, so you don't have to worry about me getting home." She might be a little worried about it still but the notebook promised so it's probably going to be okay. She's pretty sure. 

"Alright, we'll probably have some people check out the Stargate here anyway because Stargates doing weird things tend to make people a little nervous. We'll let you know if we find anything important assuming we keep in touch."

It's at this point that Ronon returns. "Good. You're awake." He turns to Jenna. "They haven't given you any trouble?"

"Nope! We've just been talking is all. Oh! They think they have a doctor that can get the tracker thing out of your back, if you'll let them. And I don't think they're going to hurt us or anything they were just looking for their friend apparently but I haven't seen anyone here but you and um, the dead wraith. You haven't seen their friend have you? We can probably let them go, I think, but I didn't want to do that without you in case something went wrong or something." That should cover everything important right? Well besides the fact that they're from another version of the place she came from and she doesn't know what to make of that or what it means but that's a problem for another time. 

"Guy dressed like them was there when the wraith stunned me. Pretty sure he killed it. He looked sun touched."

Oh so he does know where their friend is! Okay maybe everything here will work out okay. Though... "Sun touched?" she asks. That sounds concerning. 

"The sun on this planet is bad for you if you're out in it too long. S' part of why I want to leave."

"Oh." What kind of bad for her? Probably not a good idea for them to be here too long then. "I can see why you'd want to leave, then. Maybe we could go with them, once they get your tracker out?" Probably not a good idea to take a wraith tracking device to somewhere with a lot of people trying to fight them. "They apparently fight the wraith too, it might be a good idea to team up together." 

"You'd do that for me? Just cause we're both against the wraith?"

"I wouldn't say no to you helping us if you're willing. You're a damn fast shot with whatever you used and you obviously could have killed us if you wanted to. We've had some bad experiences lately but I still think anyone against the wraith is a friend until proven otherwise."

"So I'd be helping you kill wraith? That could work."

"Killing wraith isn't all we do, there's a good amount of diplomacy involved, usually less of me being tied up but otherwise a bit like this."

"Alright, how are we doing this then? I'd like to stay with at least one of you so I know you're not just gonna ambush us and we should go to another world at some point but I can be flexible on everything else."

"I think I'd be most comfortable if we all went back to my people together then. I don't like leaving people behind. That's why we're putting in so much effort to find our friend."

"Okay, I'm keeping the guns for now."

"I can work with that."

Ronon puts their guns around his shoulder and pulls his but keeps it pointed at the ground. "Jenna you can untie them."

When Jenna goes to do so it transpires that they have already untied themselves and were just pretending to be securely tied up.

"They're, um, already untied, somehow." she says, dismayed that she hadn't caught it when it was happening. 

"I guess that's a point in favor of them being trustworthy."

"Thank you for understanding. Your friend already shared your name as Ronon but she did not pass on ours. I am Teyla Emmagan and my teammate is Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard."

"Lieutenant Colonel?"

"It's my military rank."

"Before I was taken by the wraith I was Specialist Ronon Dex. That was a long time ago."

"From before the... culling?" Jenna guesses. "You were in a military too?" (Specialist isn't a rank she's ever heard of before but it certainly could be one especially after John said his so it makes sense for Ronan to say his after.) She's still not sure exactly what cullings are exactly but from Teyla's descriptions earlier (also, wait she was distracted by tigers did Teyla say drain their lifeforce what does that mean does this world have magic after all?) it sounds like the planet was being harvested. For food. Where the food was the people living there. Which is actually just... there are no words. It's awful and terrible and needs to be stopped.

"Not all the wraith sleep between cullings."

"Oh." She had been assuming it was a culling but if in fact it wasn't and was before the cullings when his planet was attacked, apparently... Jenna puts some things together. "How... long have you been running, exactly?" 

"Years, I think. Hard to keep track of time when you keep moving between planets."

Oh. "That's... a long time to be running from evil lifeforce eating" and how does that work again "bad guys. I'm sorry, that's just... that's just awful. I really hope they can get the tracker thing out of you." 

"Our doctor is really good." He picks up his vest slowly and puts it back on. "I'm going to contact our people now." He pauses a few moments to take out his radio. "This is Sheppard. Teyla and I are safe and in the company of probable friendlies we're on our way back to the gate. Be advised that friendlies say more wraith may be inbound."

"Roger that Colonel. This is Lorne. It's good to hear from you. McKay is currently missing. He and I were ambushed and I was stunned.  What's your ETA?"

"How far are we from the gate?"

"About 10 minutes less if we're fast."

"ETA One Zero mikes."

"Acknowledged, Lorne out."

"It's that way." He points.

He visibly considers this then accepts it. "I'll take point then."

Teyla positions herself to walk beside Jenna.

And Ronon takes up the rear on his guard for shenanigans.

And Jenna will... walk in the middle, she supposes! That probably makes sense, they're standing to protect her and while she is good in a fight (she sparred yesterday! It was weirdly fun!) she doesn't really look like she's good in a fight and also she's probably not as good as her new friends yet. 

Also, now they're out in the light and she can get a proper look at John's face... wow, okay, she hadn't expected to find him cute, but she very much does. He's not big and muscular like Ronan is but he's still enjoyable to look at for other reasons. She apparently has choices now for who she can fall in love with and maybe possibly kiss or touch or marry and she was not expecting choices! She probably shouldn't string the both of them along like a harlot (she did pick the thing where they'd be attracted to her too right?) but she doesn't have to make her choice just yet does she? She can get to know the both of them more first. (Possibly slightly a little bit intimately first...) 

Though she should do that later, not now! Now she's supposed to be walking with her new friends to their friends and getting a tracker out of Ronon and worrying about the fact that McKay (whoever that is) is missing and looking for Ford and maybe she should be on alert rather than thinking about boys. Okay. Looking around, trying to be perceptive, while they walk. (She didn't get any improved senses, did she? Not that she can remember. Oh well.)

There's a sound almost but not quite like the sound Ronon's gun makes and Jenna hears Ronon whirl around and gasp a little. She also hears the guns he had on his shoulder clatter to the ground. Ronon is already rushing towards the attacker by the time she's fully turned around.

It's someone in the same clothes as John and Teyla. The skin around one of their eyes is weirdly swollen and they've obviously been sweating a lot. He continues shooting at the charging Ronon but Ronon mostly manages to take the hits on his already dangling right arm.

What the... fudge, fudge, fudgeitty fudgesicles! Jenna isn't sure who this is or what he's doing here but he's attacking her friend and her friend is disabled and in trouble with being already disabled and she can feel her battle senses going off and whoever this is is tough and Ronon is gonna need help. Without even taking a moment to slide her backpack off (she doesn't have the time) Jenna, following her instincts, sprints around the left hand side of Ronon to stay out of the line of fire (a concept that she can barely put words to but seems self evident at the moment) and then rockets towards the attacker, trying to split his attention between her and Ronon. 

Behind her Sheppard grabs his radio and yells "This is Sheppard. Eyes on Ford. Engaging!" even as he scrambles to grab one of the dropped guns.

Teyla being closer already has her hands on one. "Aiden please we just want to help."

Ronon snarls as he finally gets in range and tries to tackle the stranger, Ford, to the ground. It's partially successful. The gun Ford was holding goes flying and Ford stumbles a bit but it leaves Ronon in not the best position for a follow-up. Ford starts to go for another gun.

Jenna is a bit focused on other things at the moment but she still hears the words said as potential tactical information (not her normal way of looking at things, but comes naturally to her in the moment) and she determines that a) this is Ford (first name Aiden) which part of her had already suspected in the back of her mind, b) something is wrong with him, possibly mentally (which Ronan had already implied), and c) her new allies (allies? teammates, companions, friends) would prefer him alive, so she should disarm and disable only (not that she's going to kill anyone anyways!)

With the larger-scale tactical updates out of the way, the current situation is potentially dangerous for her al- for Ronon, given that he's still partly disabled and Ford is going for another weapon, and her al- new friends are unlikely to shoot into a melee with Ronon and someone they're trying to recover, and so they're unlikely to be be able to assist in the next few seconds. And so the best option available is... Jenna sprints the remaining distance to Ford in a moment, reacting before her thought completes, and tries to pull the gun away from him before he can use it on Ronan. 

Ford has failed to really learn the lesson from working with Teyla that small women are threats so he is entirely caught of guard by this event. He struggles to retain control of the gun briefly but quickly gives up in favor of attacking her with his hands. He's somehow stronger than Ronon but he's less careful and less aware of what's going on.

He's definitely stronger. Jenna tosses the gun aside (it's not an effective weapon in close combat) and though she doesn't have much difficulty blocking his attacks, her blocks are ineffective against his strength, and she can hardly find the time to get an attack through. His technique seems to be lacking, however, so the few moments she can manage to attack she uses her newfound knowledge of feints to get in an attack on his shoulder, and then his stomach. In both cases, however, her hits seem to have little effect. (What happened to make him like this?!) She can hold her own for the moment (barely, and her arms are starting to hurt), without assistance she's likely to lose this fight. But hopefully she's keeping the combatant (Aiden) sufficiently well distracted...

Ronon gets his feet under him and joins in to help, with one arm pretty thoroughly out of commission he's nowhere near his best but it's enough to take a good amount of the pressure off of Jenna.

Meanwhile Sheppard has grabbed the wraith blaster from where it fell and switched to holding that as a safer option where friendly fire is such a high risk.

With the pressure off Jenna can get more hits in, but they're still not effective against such a tough opponent, so perhaps she needs to improve her tactics. 

Oh, of course. 

Jenna feints downwards, appearing to grab a leg, but twists at the last second and slams a pair of fingers into the side of the enemy's (Aiden's!) neck where a pressure point is. And then when that staggers him only a little, she slams a foot down onto his instep, and strikes his solar plexus with the flat of her palm. 

He lets out a bit of a huffy breath and stumbles a bit more.

That's enough of an opening for Ronon to take advantage of and Ford finally hits the ground. The fight still isn't over though. Ronon struggles to keep Ford on his back even as he regains a little use of his arm and Ford tries to reverse positions.

Jenna is unlikely to be able to overpower the, to overpower Ford at the moment, given that she's just not as strong as he is. But if she wants to help she... should be able to take an arm away from him. Jenna scrambles to her knees next to Ford and pulls an arm away from him, trapping it between her legs and squeezing it between them. Her arms are ready to help overpower out if he tries to it free. They might need some additional assistance to fully incapacitate or disable the- to stop Ford. 

With Jenna's help Ronon is able to get a pretty firm grip. Ford is struggling but not able to get anywhere.

At which point, Sheppard is able to get a clean shot on Ford and hits him with the stunner several times in the head finally making him go limp.

And with the threat removed--

Jenna shakes her head as her combat senses fade away. They got him. They got... did she really do all that?? "I didn't hurt him too much," she blurts, "is he going to be okay? Also, what happened to him? I hit him in places that should have..." a picture forms in her mind of Aiden curled up on the ground in pain and she shudders. "Should have hurt him a lot more than they did," she concludes. "I'm sorry if I hurt him too much."

She was thinking very differently only a little while ago and now everything is the way it's supposed to be and she's having trouble thinking about how what she was thinking was so natural and yet completely alien. Maybe she shouldn't be in so many fights? (But she's so good at it!) If she needs to fight, though... she will. But maybe she can do other things instead on this adventure. Where they fight bad guys. 

"He got an overdose of some sort of drug the wraith inject to prolong the feeding process. We're not sure about all the details but it seems to enhance people's strength, endurance, all the classics. If it was just that we might try to use it but it also messes with your head. We're hoping we can help him detox."

"Oh." She ready needs to learn more about how this life force feeding thing works. (She's not looking forward to it, but she does want to know because she still has questions here.) "I... hope he gets better then. With the detoxing and all." 

"I hope so too." He kneels down and gets some restraints out of his vest and binds Ford's arms and legs together. He braces himself and then slings Ford over his shoulder. "Let's get to the gate."

Ronon nods. "I felt it. When I was taken a Wraith started to feed on me, still not sure why they stopped and made me a runner instead but I felt that surge at the beginning."

"Teyla radio an update please."

She nods and squeezes her radio. "This is Teyla we have secured Ford and are on our way back."

"This is Lorne, that's the best news I've heard all day. McKay just made it back too. Somehow he managed to get away from Ford."

"Acknowledged, Teyla out."

"Well, everything seems to be working out."

"Wraith'll still be coming you should call your doctor."

"That's a good point."

"Major Lorne, this is Teyla can you dial the gate and patch us through to Doctor Weir please?"

"Roger that I'll get right on it."

And after the gate is dialed and some initial back and forth:

"Sheppard! It's good to hear from you. What's your status, is everything all right?" 

Teyla hold out the radio so Sheppard can talk without needing extra hands.

"We got Ford there were some complications along the way though. We've got two friendlies with us but one of them has a wraith tracker implanted in them. We'll send Ford through as soon as we can but we need Carson here to get the tracking device out of our new friend."

"A wraith tracking device? What are they tracking him for? Is there any danger of encountering more wraith in the meantime, I don't want to risk Carson in a firefight with the wraith if I don't have to." 

"They're hunting him, I don't think the wraith have been kind enough to explain why. He says it's a matter of when not if they'll show up again. He helped us grab Ford though so I'd like to return the favor if we can."

"Understood, I think I'd like us to return that favor too, I'll let him know we need him in a moment. Are there wraith forces in orbit right now, or are they only likely to come through the gate?" 

"They come through the ring."

"Our friend says they come through the gate. We haven't seen any evidence of more Wraith being on planet currently so I think if we dial out before the surgery starts and keep the wormhole open until we get everyone off-world we should be safe."

"That sounds like a good idea. I'll let Carson know he's needed and send him through with whatever he needs shortly. Make sure you come back the moment the surgery is done and the tracker is removed." 

"We haven't figured out if our friends are coming back with us yet so we might dial a waypoint but we'll be through the gate as soon as the tracker's out."

"Good call. I hope to see you all safe and sound soon. Weir out." 

"So, what do you think? We're trying to keep our base a secret so if you do come back with us we'd prefer you stick around until we know you a little better. If you're not comfortable with that as I said we can send you to another uninhabitabited world and part ways. We can even give you an address for somewhere we visit regularly if you want to find us again."

Ronon looks to Jenna. "I wanna visit Sateda; doesn't have to be right away though."

Sateda? Oh is that "is that, um, where you came from?" she asks, trying to be considerate of good memories and awful feelings and things that he probably has about wraith capturing and eating people in the streets or something. Jenna shudders a little as the image springs into her own mind she still has no idea what the whole life force feeding thing looks like (do they just open their mouths wide like a snake and then the soul comes out of the poor victim's mouth and then the wraith eats it no someone said something about a drug that's what happened to Aiden so maybe they're running around and injecting people with syringes while people scream and panic and maybe she should stop thinking about this now) but it's probably not pretty. 

"Yeah, haven't been back or met anyone who knew what happened after I got taken."

"Why not go back?" Jenna asks, slightly confused. "At the very least there might be people who care about you and want to know that you're okay, right, even if you don't want to put your friends in danger, right?"

"Wasn't safe before, not with the tracker. After it's gone I want to but it doesn't have to be right away."

"We can check on things for you if you come back with us. Checking yourself also works though."

Well that helps decide things some. That and the fact that they probably can charge her cell phone! And have wifi!! And probably have earth food even though they don't have doritos or snickers they might have apples or steak or apple pie or fried chicken or ice cream sundaes or... 

Okay but none of those things are actually important (even though they might be nice) but meeting all of the people that she's going to be working with to help save the, well, galaxy (gosh) is important, and it might give her a good place to learn to start figuring out how to solve this problem. Going into this she thought there was going to be one bad guy like Voldemort or the White Witch or whoever the guy was from Lord of the Rings and not, like, a whole bunch of people that ate other people! It's a pretty daunting task but she has a lot of magic now and she can at least help.

"I think we should go back with them," she says. "Even if we have to wait there a while they can check on Sateda for you and they might have some ancestor technology I can look at and we can help them fight the wraith together rather than apart. And we're better together." That's what every book on the subject she's ever read has told her. That's why the power of friendship always wins. 

"Works for me."

At this point they have finally made it back to the clearing with the portal, what Ronon calls the Ring and Sheppard called the Gate. There's a big cylindrical something that wasn't there before in the clearing.

Several soldiers come jogging up "Sir!" and take Ford off of Sheppard's hands. The portal is lit up and the soldiers carry Ford through it.

"That ancestor tech?" Ronon asks.

"It is. It comes in handy especially with space gates."

"I think the Travellers mentioned those. I haven't ever been through one myself."

"Travellers? Space gates?" Is asking questions impolite? Probably not and also she's already asked them so it's far too late now. And also what is that round thing? It wasn't here before. It has a window on the front (or it could be the back or the sides but it looks like it could be the front) so it could be, "And is that a spaceship?" she asks, wonder in her eyes and voice. 

"The Travellers have some of the best tech of anyone in the galaxy. They avoid the wraith by mostly avoiding planets with rings. I got my gun from them early on. Haven't run into them since though."

"Sounds like people we might want to meet. I guess you probably don't know how to get in touch though. Space gates are Stargates like that one except they're in orbit around the planet instead of on its surface. The Jumper here is a spaceship so it can get to them. It doesn't have a hyperdrive though so you can't really use it to get between systems. Even going between planets in one system takes a long time."

It might not have a hyperdrive, but spaceships are still spaceships, right? Even if it does take a long time to travel between planets or something. "So then these Stargates are how most people travel between planets and systems and stuff?" she asks, turning to look at it again. "But you have others with hyperdrive shipping things back and forth between here and Earth, you said, right?" Spaceships are still spaceships but ones with hyperdrive still seem cooler. "Also, how do you make the gate thing work? I tried it out when I got here but I couldn't figure out how to make it do anything other than light up the symbols on that thing there." She points. 

"Yep, that's right. For the Stargate, you dial the six symbols of the address for where you're going and then press the big button. Dialing randomly usually doesn't work."

"Oh, I thought it might be something like that. I just didn't know the right combination! And the big button in the middle is the enter button." Okay she needs to stop being quite so silly now! "So these link to other gates elsewhere, right? Cool!" So there's just a whole bunch of magic (or not so magic?) portals all over the place on different planets and stuff and that's how people get around! That's so cool!! 

"There's Stargates in at least three galaxies and there's probably more. There's a lot we still don't know about them, gates have 9 chevrons and the most we've ever gotten to light up is 8."

Three galaxies! "What's a chevron?" she asks, but has a sudden intuition. (Is that how her language skills are supposed to work?) "Is it, like... those triangular things?" She points. 

"Yep, that's right. We haven't had much presence in the third galaxy but we know it has gates because one of our allies has a bigger presence there."

"Allies?" More aliens, probably? Though everyone here is human (as far as she can tell) (except the wraith of course), so maybe they're human too. She hopes they're aliens through. 

"The Asgard, they're an old ally of the ancestors who are still around."

Asgard? Where has she heard that before... oh right! "Isn't that like, the Norse gods thing? Like with Thor, from the Avengers?" Her mother will never ever know she's seen that movie because Jenna will never ever tell her and Rachel was sworn to secrecy. Those movies were fun though. 

"The Avengers?" a man comes out of the back of the Jumper. "Sheppard, how did you find a comic book fan on a random planet?"

"She's from an alternate reality like that weird mirror thing in the old mission reports, except she came through the Stargate somehow."

"Through the Stargate... oh, that does sound possible that would require ... no it couldn't work quite like that but maybe? I'll have to think on that some more. She isn't having any symptoms of Entrophic Cascade Failure right? You would have mentioned that."

Ronon looks surprised and thoughtful but doesn't speak up just yet.

"I'm pretty sure I'm not suffering from, um Entrophic Cascade Failure, whatever that is." Though it does sound concerning, whatever it is. She's not suffering from it, right? "And I don't read comic books, I just saw the movies like everyone else. Well, some of them." She hasn't seen any lately, ever since Rachel's parents started being harder on her and stuff and keeping a closer eye on her even when she was hanging out with her friends. Rachel still wouldn't really talk about why but hopefully she's still okay. She should check on her when she gets home if she remembers, she hasn't talked to her in years now. 

"You would know if you were. It's pretty dramatic. You get episodes where you kinda blur into the surroundings a little, it's also supposed to be really painful. I guess that means we don't have a you in our reality or else something about coming through a Stargate is different from coming through the quantum mirror. What's this about Avengers movies though? We don't have those here. What are they like? When did they come out? Who played Iron Man?"

Oh good. Jenna is glad she doesn't have a reality-traveling disease or syndrome or whatever it should be called, because it doesn't sound very fun. "I don't have that at all, and I'm glad about that," she says. "And it's, what's his name, Robert Downey Jr., I think? Iron Man was the first one, people really liked it, it's why they ended up making the whole MCU which has like 20 movies and some tv shows and stuff by now. Maybe more than that? It's really popular. You don't have the MCU in this universe?" That answers the question of whether or not the spirit sent her to another universe or not. John had said it was probably that she was from another universe and she believed him but wasn't entirely sure but now she is sure. She's in another universe!! 

"Well of course the genius is the most popular character. Robert Downey Junior. I can see that. 20 movies though... that must have started coming out in like the 90s or earlier how did they manage without modern visual effects?"

Meanwhile the Stargate which previously deactivated suddenly starts to light up the constellations rotate rapidly along the rim and people burst into motion most of the soldiers go for cover or point their guns towards the gate meanwhile Sheppard dashes into the jumper which then disappears.

The gate fully activated and a massive plume of water or something like the results of a giant canonball swooshes into the air before receding backwards into the smooth pool she's seen before.

There's a pause of a second before a voice sounds through the radio. "All clear, it's friendly." The jumper reappears and people lower their guns.

A man walks out of the gate with a large backpack and a substantial case in his hand. "Oy, I'm told I'm here for a house call?"

"You the doctor who's supposed to get the tracker out of me?"

"Aye, that's be me. Where is the blighter?"

"In my back near my neck."

"Well, that's just bloody wonderful. C'mon; let's go in the jumper, closest thing to a sterile environment we're going to get around here."

Jenna pauses to try and think through how to explain the answer (also, the 90s? Really? That was so long ago) but before she manages to get very far she's distracted by the reaction of everyone to the stargate activating (should she be worried? Should she be doing something? Also where did the jumper go did it just teleport no it couldn't have that's not what the sci-fi she's seen has led her to believe maybe it has a cloaking device and also is the wraith about to attack?) but then when they say it's all clear she starts to talk to well she's not sure what his name is at the moment and she should probably ask. "No, they've been doing like 2 or 3 a year, and the 90s was forever ago, I think the first one..." 

She trails off when she hears the voice of the person that just came through the gate, and turns to get a closer look. He's... cute. He's cute and his voice is... dang, okay, she picked Ronon or is going to pick Ronan probably or maybe John did the notebook or spirit or whatever decide she needs a lot of options because she shouldn't have a lot of options that's not really fair but also he's really cute and also his voice and his accent are great and she shouldn't think about kissing his face that's a bad idea but maybe what she should do is um follow them. Into the jumper. So she can keep an eye on Ronon. For that reason and no other reason. (Also possibly Ronon is going to have to take off his shirt and yup okay decided she shouldn't be deciding things because shirtless muscles but it's too late she's already started walking in that direction and maybe she should say something to the person she was just talking to so she's not impolite whoops!) "Um, sorry, I should, um, go check on Ronon and make sure he's okay, I think," she says, walking towards them.  

"What do you mean the 90s were forever ago it's only 2005. Don't just walk away." He follows after her.

Jenna pauses mid-step (and then puts her foot down once she realizes she's acting foolish). "It's not 2005," she says, "it's 2019! Is... is it not 2019 here?" Did she time travel into the past in addition to going to another universe? Is she even in another universe, and there's just a 4 year old Jenna being extremely cute and embarrassing (she's seen the pictures, her dad will not stop showing people the pictures, one day she will escape so her dad can stop showing people the picture where she wrapped herself in Christmas lights and tinsel and put a star on her headband with superglue and told everyone she was a Christmas tree or that other one where... she should be thinking about other things here) and that's why there aren't any marvel movies yet? Though she would have known about it if people went to other planets and had starships so maybe it's fine. "Are... are people not going to have chargers for my cellphone?" And why is she thinking about that when there's more important things going on here like time travel and things and also there are boys and the boys probably aren't important (is she sure about that though) but maybe she should be keeping an eye on Ronon and things. Yes, she's going to follow because it will help Ronon, and for no other reason.