5th Contract [Personal quarters; Halloween; locked to Jonas]

[magicsprice]

Gold had been in Ten Forward when the changes had abruptly happened, after his conversation with Picard, he'd ended up with plenty to think about and had retired back to his room.

It'd been quite some years since he'd been in the ensemble he currently wore, but while he found himself incapable of removing it entirely he was able to at least thankfully shed the scarf that had been draped over his shoulders. It currently lay discarded over the back of one of the chairs.

When Jonas eventually returned, he'd find the older man seated at the spinning wheel, silently operating it as he mulled things over. The result of the spinning littering the floor beside the wheel in a small gleaming pile of gold, despite the fact that what Gold held in his hands, and was feeding to the wheel, was obviously nothing but normal run of the mill sheep wool.

Comments

[a_quick_study]

Jonas had been out, reading in the arboretum when his clothes had suddenly changed. Curious, of course, about what had just happened, he'd gone to the lounge to find that his clothes weren't all that had changed. Everyone was dressed oddly, but more than that, the meals that people were usually enjoying at around this time of day all seemed to be candy.

Nobody seemed particularly pleased about it, and after speaking to a few people, Jonas had learned that the replicators all seemed to be producing candy. So, of course, he'd tried some, in lots of different types, and then he'd filled a plate up with some other things to take back to his room.

He's carrying it when the door opens, and he sets it down when he enters the room, pausing, in surprise, to look at his roommate.

Gold, too, is wearing odd clothes. He, too, seems to have rather more leather on than is entirely usual; if this is some sort of costume, as some of the others he's seen seem to be, it's one Jonas doesn't recognize. But the really strange thing is the final proof of what he's suspected for a while.

That Gold's spinning isn't producing thread or yarn. He blinks.

"Is that, uh, gold?"

[magicsprice]

Gold's motions paused at Jonas' question, allowing the wheel to come to a halt. He'd been expecting the man to eventually notice that little detail. He hadn't exactly been hiding it from the other man after all. "Yes."

Jonas will have to excuse him while he eyeballs that new outfit he's sporting, including that spiffy fedora. "Nice ensemble, you appear to have lucked out in Q's little dress up game." At least Jonas's outfit is close to normal clothes, unlike a few other unfortunate people he's seen, himself included.

[a_quick_study]

He's noticed the gold; with his eye for detail, he could hardly not, but there's a difference between gold-ish and, well, gold, and Jonas has no reference point for anyone ever being able to spin a metal on a spinning wheel. Not that he's an expert on textiles, but it doesn't seem logical. In any way.

He's genuinely curious, more so about that than the outfit, in truth, because he's always aware that there are more things he doesn't know about Earth and its customs than there are things he does know, and when it comes to clothing, he's seen a wide variety on the alien worlds he's visited.

"I, uh, don't know what it's supposed to be, but at least it's comfortable."

That much is true, and he's seen clothes not unlike what he's wearing on Earth, so at least he doesn't stand out too much.

He takes a couple of steps closer, eying the pile of gold.

"How can you spin gold?"

[magicsprice]

"Magic." The answer was partial quip, partial sincere answer in its shortest form. "Rather easy to do really."

He pulled part of the thread up from where it hung down to the ground and stretched it out, his other hand picked up a pair of heavy scissors laying beside his stool. He cut a length of thread from the piece he held out and tossed it toward Jonas for the man to catch if he wanted to. Let him investigate the gold first hand.

It remained to be seen however if his roommate took him seriously or he thought that Gold might be pulling his leg.

[a_quick_study]

"Magic?"

It sounds more like an easy throwaway line, a joke of the sort that members of his team still sometimes catch him out with, than something serious, but as an answer, it's not something Jonas is predisposed to believe. He's seen too much of where that sort of thing leads, and he's spent too much time with people who've lived their lives in thrall to the Goa'uld, believing that their superior technology was the magic of gods, to have any belief in magic.

When Gold throws the thin strand to him, Jonas leans forward to catch it, holding it up to study its gleam. He's very familiar with the look and feel of gold from his work with Goa'uld artifacts, and it certainly is, if not gold, then a very, very good imitation.

Neither of which should be possible just using a spinning wheel.

"What do you mean by 'magic'?" he asks, carefully, because he doesn't want to offend, but he's also not about to be taken in.

[magicsprice]

"Exactly what I said, dearie. Magic. Witchcraft. Perhaps it's a weak, feeble and neglected thing where you come from? In my world it's strong, hearty and enables me to do things like spin straw into gold, or wool.. either one works really."

He wondered idly if dropping mention of turning straw into gold might ring some bells for the man, then again, it's entirely possible he's never read any fairy tales, or perhaps he'd never read Rumpelstiltskin. Well, he'd think about how to explain magic more thoroughly if that last hint failed to clear the matter up.

[a_quick_study]

"There's magic in myths and stories, and historically people were accused of being witches and killed, but that's about it."

His expression, usually so cheerful, though now puzzled, darkens slightly.

"Except for creatures using advanced technology to pretend to be gods. That's the only magic I have any experience of."

He's hoping his roommate isn't about to try that trick on him, but there's nothing in Gold's tone that suggests it.

Jonas considers the thin thread of gold pressed between his fingers, his brow furrowing, because something in that sounds familiar. He's not from Earth, but he's read many Earth stories, because their mythology is so often informed by remnants of the truth of alien contact with Earth.

"I ... read a story about spinning straw into gold," he says, slowly. "You mean like that?"

[magicsprice]

"Yes, exactly like that. Though to be honest, they only got the story half right." Gold considered the plate Jonas had set down, there's not much on it he cares for to be honest, but the coated apples do catch his interest and at least it's partially a fruit underneath the confection.

Unlike Snow's family, he doesn't condemn the fruit completely just because Regina seems to favor working with it. He stood up from his wheel and moved to retrieve one of the apples from the plate. "Advance technology pretending to be magic hm? How does one tell the difference?"

[a_quick_study]

"Half right? You mean you know the true story?"

That gets his interest. Almost everything he does trying to interpret Goa'uld history is based on the ideas that Doctor Jackson had of taking ancient Earth mythology and marrying it to the names, places, and stories they encounter. He's memorized the notes the doctor took, made some of his own attempts at that sort of interpretation.

It's a similar approach to that he took on Alemar III.

Jonas notes the glance and waves a hand towards the plate, even as his roommate gets up to help himself, making Jonas beam.

He only has to consider the question for a moment.

"Because technology has a grounding in the laws of physics."

[magicsprice]

Gold took a bite from the apple, eating as he tried to make sense of the last sentence, unfortunately he doesn't get far because his cursed memories don't give him much explanation on just what physics is beyond the fact it exists. Thus Jonas is given something of a bemused look as he heads to sit down on the couch with his apple.

"I lived the story, I should hope I know the truth of it." He quipped in reply to the question. "As for technology, I must confess I am woefully...lacking in knowledge of how it works. I have a limited experience with it you might say. Perhaps you could explain what you mean by laws of physics?"

[a_quick_study]

"You mean that story is based on you?"

Jonas' words are curious rather than disbelieving, though there's a wariness shadowing the corners of his eyes because figures walk out of myths and legends into the lives of the SGC on a regular basis, and a lot of them aren't exactly nice people. Jonas has only read that story once, but his memory of it is excellent (like everything else), and there's not a lot about the story in question to make it sound like Rumpelstiltskin (or whoever he was based on) is someone you'd want for a roommate.

Jonas, though, tends to see the best in people unless he's been given a reason to do otherwise, and his roommate has done little so far to warrant much in the way of suspicion.

"I mean things scientists have worked out about how the world works from experiments and observations. Things about how energy and gravity work." He gestures towards the replicator. "Those are an example, but, say, the replicators here, which build things by rearranging things on a molecular level to build something from its component molecules."

There are, of course, many far more complicated concepts, ones that Major Carter works with every day, and ones that must power much of the advanced technology here. Aspects of quantum physics that make traveling faster than light or using the Stargate science, not magic.

[magicsprice]

"Yes. On a part of my life anyway."

A part that he usually didn't much care to discuss given the nature of it and how painfully it had ended for him, though he had ended up the winner in the long run one could possibly say.

As for the explanation given, he had been following it partly until that one strange word had been said, where upon he was promptly at a loss of what to make of what he was trying to say about the replicators.

"What do you mean they build things via rearranging things?" Excuse him as he side-eyes the mostly eaten candy apple in his hand.