The Feather is Mightier

Disclaimers: Firstly, this is a Xena/Voyager/VJB crossover spoof so if that ain't your thing... *shrug*   It helps if you’ve watched the Xena episode "The Quill is Mightier", and if you haven’t, then get thee to a video store!  ...or wherever you can buy Xena episodes these days.  *s*

This story involves romance, love and all that good stuff between women, so if love is illegal where you live you'd better find someplace better to live before reading this.

Xena and Voyager don’t belong to me, and I’m not making a cent out of this.  However, people are always free (and encouraged) to send me their appreciation in the form chocolate, Xena DVDs and/or sharp, shiny, pointy objects (preferably not pointed at my head).

Feedback: is welcome at [email protected]

Rating: PG-13 mostly

Oh yeah.  All characters (including the fish) are fictional and any resemblances to real people are purely intentional.  *grin*

****  

Part 1

Q smiled.  Yes, her plan would work.  She had been watching Voyager for the past two months and was pleased as she saw the friendship between Seven and B’Elanna grow.  But now she was bored.  Things were coming along nicely – too nicely, and much too slowly.  So she had devised a nice little plan.  Smiling slowly, she sat back, propped her feet up and prepared to watch the fun unfold.

****

“Hey Seven,” B’Elanna called as she caught up with Seven.  “Take a look at this.”

“What is it?”

“It’s called a ‘scroll’... humans used it on earth in the past, thousands of years ago.  I’m starting to like these better than PADDs”

Seven raised an eyebrow, waiting for her friend to elaborate.

“I love starting a new scroll... the feel of it in your hands... the look, so clean, so perfectly empty.  Listen – the way it crinkles the first time you open it.  That smell... it’s just a special untouched scent.  Try it, Seven.”

The borg sniffed at it daintily.  “It smells like musty old leather to me.”

Seven noticed that B’Elanna looked rather cross after her latest statement and hurried on. “What is its purpose?”

“Oh.  Well... it can be used to record data...”  B’Elanna produced a quill from somewhere.  “With these.”

“That is a feather.”

“No, it’s called a quill.”

“It is a feather, B’elanna.  Why do you have a feather?”

“Quill.”

“Feather.”

“Quill.”

“Feather.”

“Quill!”

Seven simply looked at B’Elanna with an expression that said “I am Borg.  I have assimilated countless feathered species.  I should know a feather when I see one.”

B’Elanna glared back.  “Damnit Seven, it’s not just any feather.  You can write with it... look...”  The half-Klingon proceeded to carefully write a word on it.

/Seven/

“That’s your name,” B’Elanna said proudly, “The Doctor has been giving me writing lessons.”

“I see.”  Seven looked less than impressed. 

“What, you don’t like it?”  A tinge of annoyance coloured B’Elanna’s voice.

“I...”   She tried to mollify B’Elanna. 

“Well?”

Seven shifted uncomfortably in a decidedly unborg-like manner.  “It uh... just seems a little inefficient to me.”

One look of B’Elanna’s face told Seven that she had said the wrong thing.  Enraged Klingons... even enraged half-Klingons were never a good thing.

“Inefficient?  /Inefficient??!/”

Seven opened her mouth to apologize but at that exact moment...

“Janeway to Seven.”

Seven looked extremely relieved at the interruption.  “The Captain needs me... we will continue this conversation at a later time.”  And with that, she fled the wrath of a very pissed off B’Elanna.

****

B’Elanna stormed into her quarters and tossed the scroll onto her bed.  Fuming she paced around the room. 

That damn borg... nothing was good enough for her, was it?  Inefficient this, inefficient that.  No, nothing was good enough.  ‘It’s a feather.  Ooooh, the Captain needs me now, I have to go run to my precious Captain.’  Damn borg.  B’Elanna sighed and sat down on her bed.  She liked Seven but by Kahless did she get on her nerves sometimes. 

‘Well, no matter,’ B’Elanna thought, ‘I don’t need her anyway.’  The engineer retrieved her discarded scroll and looked at it.  Seven.  Why had she gone and written that?  A nice fresh scroll, spoiled now, with a single word.  All she could do, apart from discarding the scroll completely, was work the name into whatever she was going to write, somehow.  B’Elanna was calmer now, although still somewhat peeved at her friend, and she decided to focus her energy and frustration into something productive.  With that thought in mind, and a wicked grin on her lips, she picked up her pen and began to write...

/Seven had gone fishing.  A lone warrior, B’Elanna, awoke with a jerk as five borg drones beamed onto the bridge.  Twirling her trusty battleth, she delivered kicks with such fury.../

As B’Elanna wrote, she began to feel sleepy.  Yawning, she carefully placed the scroll and pen aside and climbed into bed. 

Unbeknownst to her, Q was watching, and laughing delightedly.

****

B’Elanna awoke with a jerk.

“Tom?  What the hell are you doing in my bed?  We broke up three months ago!”

Tom continued snoring.  Looking around, the chief engineer noticed that she was in her bed, which happened to be situated in a very empty bridge.  At that moment, five borg drones beamed aboard Voyager and began to advance upon our hero and the unsuspecting jerk.  B’Elanna sprung up, and snatched up her trusty battleth which for some reason was at hand.  She twirled it about expertly.  “Tooomm,” she called, “We have company.”

No response.

Shrugging, B’Elanna turned to face the drones.  She executed a perfect backflip, elbowed one in the optical implant, and delivered kicks with such fury that the five borg drones were driven back.

“She is too much for us.”  One of Five said, alarmed.  “Persistance is futile – we must retreat.”  The drones disappeared at once, in flashes of green light.

B’Elanna suddenly felt a little strange and swooned on her feet.  What had happened?  Her state of daze was broken when she heard an unflattering snort behind her and she turned around to find that the helmsman had awoken.

“Tom?”

“Ugh.  Huh?”

“Did you see that?  Backflips!  Wait... I don’t do backflips.”  B’Elanna looked around.  “Where is everyone?”  A pause.  “Who were those--?  Why are you--?  Wait a minute.” 

Tom just blinked at her, looking confused as she retrieved her scroll and looked at what she had written.

“/Seven had gone-- the lone warrior, B’Elanna-- five borg drones—she started twirling her trusty battleth, delivering kicks of-- such fury... I wrote this.”

“Whoa whoa... waitwaitwait, are you saying that anything you write in there comes true?  Excuse me while I laugh.”  Tom laughed.

“Hold this for a sec would ya, Tom?”  The half-Klingon handed her Battleth to him and once again picked up her quill.  As she wrote in the scroll, Tom began to act strangely.  First he tripped himself with the Battleth he was holding.  Upon getting up, he began to bash himself over the head with it, uttering an “ow!” with each hit.  B’Elanna decided to take pity on the poor guy and finished the sentence that she was writing.  But she couldn’t resist adding one more thing in.  Next to her, Tom suddenly turned green and spotty.    

“Hey, why did I just hit myself with your Battleth?” he asked, incredibly disturbed with what had just happened to him.

“Because I wrote you did.”  B’Elanna said simply.  She grinned widely showing her teeth.  “I can write anything, and it comes true... I could write us back to the alpha quadrant.”

At that moment, Tom realized something.  “How’d I end up in your bed anyway?  What did you write to bring me here?”  His face brightened all of a sudden.  “Did you write something like... B’Elanna appeared with... a guy with the heart of a lion, best helmsman in all four quadrants of the galaxy... that sort of thing.”  Tom took the scroll and began to read from it.  “Seven had gone fishing.  B’Elanna awoke with a jerk.  B’Elanna awoke with a jerk – now that’s a funny phrase.”  He quickly scanned the rest of it, concluding “Nope, I can’t find anything.  I must have come here on my own.”

B’Elanna was smirking, which confused Tom even more.  “So uh... what do we do now?” he asked.

“We go and find the Captain.”

 

Continued in part 2

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