Fic: The Pegasus Incident (2/4)

[melyanna]

Previously on "The Pegasus Incident":

Part the First

Elizabeth did not like the woods. Once, when she was very small, her parents sent her off in the woods by herself to visit Grandma and she was very nearly eaten. Obviously this was before people realized what a colossally bad idea it was to allow a six-year-old that kind of freedom, even if Elizabeth was peculiarly responsible for a child of that age. All through her days of wandering alone to find a pegasus, Elizabeth had worried about running into another wolf. Some things, after all, were hard to forget.

Running into Prince John hadn't even been on her list of concerns. He was rumored to be a bit spoiled and a bit needy, so Elizabeth figured he would only hinder whatever progress the pegasus wanted them to make. He seemed awfully protective of that pegasus, even though the pegasus probably didn't need his help. Elizabeth genuinely didn't understand why the horse was with him.

Eventually he started walking beside her instead of behind her, which made Elizabeth feel a lot less like she was on display. Not that she'd mind, probably, if he walked in front of her for a while. Whatever his personality flaws, at least he was pretty to look at.

After a few minutes of walking side by side, she glanced over to see what he was doing. His palm was full of little red berries, which he was about to pop into his mouth. Elizabeth's eyes widened, and without warning she smacked his hand, spilling all the berries on the ground.

"Hey!" he sputtered. "I'm hungry!"

Elizabeth got into her satchel and pulled out a bag of granola. "Eat this. It won't kill you," she told him with a glare, and she walked away from him.

"Wait, those berries were going to kill me?" John asked, jogging slightly to catch up with her.

"Didn't your mother teach you anything about poisonous plants?"

Before the prince could answer, the pegasus snorted as though in amusement.

"No," said the prince, obviously trying to ignore their equine commentator. "My mother taught me other things, like how to deal with witches with no concept of personal space."

At that Elizabeth looked at him and realized they were almost touching as they walked. Simultaneously they scooted a couple feet away from each other.

"So I take it you're out here looking for your brother-in-law," Elizabeth said, trying to make conversation.

"What gave me away?" he asked.

"Just tell me Princess Kate wasn't beside herself when he disappeared," she replied. "Although I wouldn't blame her. Her husband's cute and they didn't get to... consummate."

The prince tripped over nothing. "Thank you. I really wanted that mental image forced on me."

"Believe me, I wasn't forcing that on you. I don't know you well enough yet to do that kind of projection. Whatever you saw you came up with on your own."

He stumbled forward again, but this time it was because the pegasus had head-butted him. Elizabeth smiled. Despite the fact that the pegasus had more or less coerced her into this, she was growing to like her. "There's one thing I don't get about this," she said. "Why are we walking when there's a flying horse around?"

"Won't let me ride," John replied. "I wonder if all pegasuses are like this. Also, what the plural of pegasus is."

"Well, it's not like anyone's ever seen two together. They're supposed to be viciously territorial."

"If it hadn't been for that one deciding I was her new best friend, I would have thought they didn't exist." He seemed to think for a minute. "But if they're so territorial, how do they reproduce?"

"You know, there are things I prefer not to think about," Elizabeth pointed out.

"Hey, you were the first one to bring up sex."

They walked all day. When the sun was down, the pegasus stopped, so they did too. Elizabeth wasn't sure how their sleeping arrangements were going to work. Aside from spoiled and needy, Prince John was also rumored to be something of a... well, a Don Juan. (The fact that his name was actually John was coincidental.) Elizabeth had no intention of being seduced by the man, however handsome, as she was just there to collect a pegasus hair so she could be on her way back to the city.

She was still wondering how far away from him she was going to sleep when he looked up at her curiously. "What?" she asked. "Do I have something on my face?"

He shook his head. "I just realized something. You never told me your name."

"That might have been by design. You never really introduced yourself either."

"I told you who I am. I just assumed you knew my name."

"Oh, you know what they say about assumption," Elizabeth replied casually, settling down near a tree.

He looked genuinely confused by that. She realized at that moment that he probably wasn't very street-savvy. "Never mind."

The prince sighed and leaned against his own tree trunk. "I'm John."

She looked at him and smiled despite herself. "Elizabeth."

"So, Elizabeth," he said, and she tried to ignore the fact that her name sounded nice when he said it, "why become a witch?"

"Why does it annoy you?" she asked instead. When he frowned, she added, "You don't like witches. I can tell."

"My brother-in-law was kidnapped by a witch," he replied. "I think that's reason enough not to trust you."

Elizabeth held back a sigh. It was the same thing she had heard a hundred times or more, and not just since she became a witch. She'd been dealing with this sort of attitude all her life. There was part of her life, something that far predated her becoming a witch, that she just concealed now. Not that the anti-witch sentiment hadn't gotten old long ago, however.

"Everyone's had a bad experience with a witch or a wizard or a fairy or a talking goat or a magic harp," she pointed out. "That doesn't mean all of them are bad."

"What about ogres?"

"Those are all bad."

"Well," he said, smiling even though he was yawning, "I'm going to hit the metaphorical hay."

"Don't let the bedbugs bite," she told him.

"Very funny."

He tossed around for a few minutes, but soon he was snoozing peacefully. Then Elizabeth quietly reached into her satchel for her mirror. With a whispered incantation, the surface shimmered and the ceiling of Teyla's kitchen appeared. A few moments later, Teyla herself showed up. "You're late," she said.

"There's been a development," Elizabeth replied. "I ran into Prince John out here."

"Really?" Teyla asked. "What happened?"

"He has a pegasus. Before you or Rodney get too excited by this, the pegasus won't let me have a hair yet. It seems like she wants me to help the prince."

"What's the prince doing?" Rodney asked, coming into view. He was eating something, probably bread.

"Trying to rescue Princess Kate's husband," Elizabeth replied. "Look, Rodney, as long as your condition isn't worsening, I'm going to stick around with the prince. He probably needs as much help as he can get."

"That's fine," he replied. "I'm enjoying my little vacation here. It's cozy."

Meanwhile, Teyla was looking at Elizabeth darkly. "Try to wrap this up quickly, all right?"

Elizabeth laughed softly. "I'll try."

With that she touched a spot on the mirror's frame, and the image faded back to her own face. With another incantation, a ghostly shade appeared in the mirror. "Can you give me any insight into how this nonsense ends?" she asked.

"Not in a way you would expect," the mirror replied.

Annoyed, Elizabeth put it back in her satchel and tried to get some sleep.

The next day, she woke with a crick in her neck and an aching back, neither of which surprised her very much. The prince, for all his bravado, didn't seem much better off. When he woke, in fact, she was standing over him with her hands on her hips and the pegasus just behind her. He groaned and said, "Well, let's go."

To Elizabeth's surprise, he did have a plan, or something resembling a plan in loose parameters. At the very least, he had a vague idea of where Ronon Dex had met the Wraith witch who had kidnapped him (vague, because the information was shared during Ronon's bachelor party and there had been quite a bit of alcohol involved).

"So your friend you're helping," the prince said after about an hour of awkward silence. "Who is it?"

Elizabeth hesitated. Not sharing information about herself had long been a way to stay out of trouble. "It's two friends, actually," she replied. "The woman who works next door to me and our lawyer."

He looked impressed. "A lawyer with friends. I didn't know that existed in nature."

She rolled her eyes. "Rodney's a nice man. No social skills whatsoever, but he knows a little about everything, and a lot about the law. Not a bad thing to have in a lawyer."

"I suppose." After a moment, the prince prompted, "And the woman?"

"I have a shop in the fourth circle, Prince," Elizabeth replied. She answered more readily than she might have, for in that moment she realized that there was a little cardinal flying from tree to tree along their path, and she was fairly certain that she had seen it before. "The woman next door is in need of Rodney's help because someone is suing her."

"The fourth circle?" The prince frowned. "But that's outside the city walls."

"Maybe some of us like living dangerously," she teased.

This time he rolled his eyes. But then he was distracted by something. "I know what that is," he said, looking far into the distance. "Come on; I know where we are."

He picked up his pace and Elizabeth followed. Only after a moment of thinking did she ask, "Wait, you didn't know where we were before?"

In response, he shot her a grin that was probably pretty successful in getting girls to go along with crazy schemes.

Elizabeth followed, albeit reluctantly, into a small clearing. In the center of it stood a very strange tree which, upon closer inspection, was not a tree at all. The trunk was green and seemed to be made of many vines, twined together into something solid and enormous. It also grew far above the clouds.

"Come on," the prince repeated, taking to the trunk with sure footing.

Shaking her head, Elizabeth followed him up. If she didn't, he was probably going to get himself killed.

What they found at the top of the trunk seemed to defy the laws of nature and the laws of magic. The ground was made of clouds, yet plants grew there. Whole buildings were supported somehow. It was like nothing Elizabeth had ever seen, and it wasn't like she'd never seen the tops of clouds before.

Prince John, though, walked like he knew what he was doing and where he was going. Elizabeth followed him carefully, as the ground looked like whipped cream and she didn't quite trust it. It was also very cold up here, but the prince seemed not to notice.

"This is... the henhouse, yes," said the prince, walking up to one of the smaller buildings. "Come in, Elizabeth, see what we find here!"

He ducked inside before Elizabeth could protest. Remembering that she'd come up here to make sure he didn't get himself killed, she went after him.

"You realize I'm only with you to make sure you don't wind up dead, right?" she asked. "And to make sure you find your brother-in-law?"

"Well, if you have time for a little fun and profit on the side, take a look around," he replied.

"There's hens." Elizabeth looked around as he asked. It was dark, but she could tell what was going on in the building. "Lots of hens. You don't know much about birds, do you?"

The prince made a face as he reached into a nest. Then he threw the brown egg at her and Elizabeth squealed, trying to catch it gingerly. It was far too heavy to be a regular egg, though, and when she looked down at the object in her hands, she gasped.

"Hens that lay golden eggs," the prince said smugly. "There's some sweet stuff up here."

But as Elizabeth examined the egg, there came a voice booming like thunder. "Fee fie foe fum!"

Elizabeth paled. "Is that what I think that is?" she whispered.

"No way," said the prince, though not to her, precisely. "There is no way he survived that fall."

Her eyes went wide as she realized the implication of that. But before she could say anything, the earth - cloud - whatever - shook violently over and over and he dove for Elizabeth, knocking her under a nearby shelf as the roof was peeled off the building.

For a moment she couldn't breathe. She was in immense pain as her body contorted unnaturally. Fortunately the prince seemed not to notice, and soon there was something to take her mind off of it.

"Fee fie foe fum!"

Really, though, Elizabeth would have preferred the pain to the giant now standing over them.

The hens were clucking and running around madly, and soon Prince John was pulling Elizabeth up and running too. "Wait a minute, the beanstalk heist?" Elizabeth yelled as they ran out into the sunlight. "That was you?"

"I was fourteen!" he repeated. "Just run, okay? I don't want to die today either!"

They dashed across the clouds as fast as they could. It was worse than running through sand. Both of them tripped several times while the giant bore down on them, but at last they found themselves at the top of the beanstalk.

Getting down was more a matter of falling than anything else. Elizabeth was hardly conscious of what her feet were doing on the long trip to the ground. The vine trembled and swayed all the worse when the giant began his descent. "Highness," she called nervously.

"We've got to jump," the prince started to say, but then suddenly there was a huge rush of air across Elizabeth's face. She looked as fast as she could and saw that the pegasus had deigned to rescue them.

Being a rather annoying beast, the pegasus stopped first for the prince. "Hey!" she yelled. "Haven't you ever heard of ladies first?"

"Do you want help or not?" he demanded. "Come on, Peggy, let's rescue the witch."

The pegasus, though, was trying her best to veer away. Elizabeth met the creature's eyes for a moment and almost gasped as she realized why the pegasus didn't want to save her too.

But in the next moment, the giant was upon her. She lost her footing and fell. She hit the ground and everything went black.

The pegasus sped toward the ground and it was all John could do to stay on. He was not at all used to wings being involved. But they had to get to Elizabeth and then get out of the giant's grasp. Once they were too far away for him to reach, he'd probably leave them alone.

They hit the ground and John hopped off. For one brief second, he paused in horror. Elizabeth was face down in the dirt, which left her wings completely exposed.

Wings. She had wings.

There was no time to think. He grabbed her under her arms and hauled her up. The pegasus was kind enough to kneel down to help out with the maneuver, and John got on again himself. This time as they sped away from the giant, it was even more difficult to hold on, given that he had to hold Elizabeth on too. They landed before too long, though, and the pegasus carried them into a thickly wooded area through which a brook was running. Elizabeth was going to need it.

She was moaning now, and John tried to be gentle as he pulled her from the horse's back. The wings, beautiful, diaphanous, and sparkling, seemed far too delicate to support flight. They were in his way, too, although he couldn't say he objected to the completely backless shirt she was wearing to accommodate them. He wondered if she was often cold.

She roused only a few moments later, and when her eyes fixed on him, she gasped. "You didn't tell me you were a fairy," he accused.

"Yes, because fairies get treated so well everywhere they go," she replied, although her words were slightly less crisp than usual.

John shook his head. "Has to be a bad life to pick being a witch as your cover."

"It's not just a cover. I went to university like every other witch in Atlantis," Elizabeth said, while he settled them down at the bank of the brook. She was covered in dirt and he needed to see where she needed medical attention. "There's certain magic I can do because I'm a trained witch, and certain magic I can do because I'm a born fairy."

He nodded, digging through his bag to find something to clean her face with. It didn't surprise him that she found something in her satchel first. "Here, use this."

Without a word, John dipped the cloth into the water and then started washing her face. She twitched a few times as he brushed against sore spots. At least her beauty hadn't been a deception, he thought inanely. If anything, she was more beautiful now, even bruised and shaken. Her skin almost glowed. She was biting her lip, and that made him want to brush his thumb there, to lean in and -

John shook himself of that thought. He'd gotten almost all the dirt off her skin. "So why hide being a fairy?" he asked, looking elsewhere.

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes. "You know most of the fairies sided with the Goa'uld wizards back in the war," she said. "It was self-preservation, but some things aren't easily forgiven."

He frowned at that. He knew that part of the history, of course, but the war she spoke of was at least three centuries ago. Could it still be so bad?

She was looking away from him, and a few locks of her hair had fallen across her graceful neck. Without thinking much, John reached out to brush them away. Elizabeth startled and looked at him. John opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out and he really needed to get his fingers away from her skin.

"I need you to look at my wings," she said quietly. "You tackled me pretty hard back there."

John nodded, and Elizabeth shifted around. First he had to stop staring at her pale skin, though, and that took a moment. She was far more beautiful than was good for him.

The wings, though, were sufficient to hold his interest. They were large and purplish, and they were trembling a little during his examination. "How long has it been since anyone saw these?" he asked gently. She seemed nervous about this.

"Years," she admitted. "Is everything all right?"

He was no expert on fairy wings, but everything seemed to be in working order. "As far as I can tell," he replied. Then his curiosity got the better of him. "How does the illusion work? I assume it's an illusion."

Elizabeth nodded. "When I wake up, I make myself look human," she explained. "It's the first magic my parents taught me."

Self-preservation, he thought idly. It seemed that fairies excelled at that.

"So are they just not there?" he asked, remembering that she had been sitting against a tree the previous night and that couldn't have been comfortable.

"Yes and no," she replied. "It's hard to explain." After a pause, she changed the subject. "Look, I should thank you. You saved my life."

"I don't think it counts when I'm the reason your life was in danger in the first place," he pointed out.

"Well, that's true."

She said it with a little bit of a smile, which first made John feel better and then made him extremely nervous.

"Hey," he said, trying to regain some control of the conversation, "did you save the golden egg? I'd like to have it back now."

Elizabeth gaped, and then she dug into her satchel and threw the egg at his face for good measure.

Part the Third