Malcolm Reynolds, former farm boy from Shadow, veteran of the Battle of Serenity and currently captain of the starship Serenity found himself in the war room of the Palace that stands in the center of Central City. The room was bigger than Serenity's entire cargo hold and was decorated with embroidered tapestries of battles gone by. The rooms focal point was a large table the size of a small pond made of polished mahogany, a holographic display of the O.Z. flickered to life.
He found himself standing by Queen Lurline and Prince Consort Ahamo. Sometimes Mal wondered what the universe had against him; or if his creator was starting to take their estrangement somewhat personal. It never failed but he and his were dragged into some thrillin heroics.
After the sky opened up and spat out the reaver ship and once Raw had regained consciousness Az and DG had called for a Royal Council.
"Shen di yu!" Reynolds yelped with the small dog had morphed into a medium sized man.
Jayne muttered something about it 'just not being natural.' He slouched lower into his seat and tried not to draw attention to himself. Queen Lurline made him nervous. There were few things that made him nervous. Reavers, the doc when physical day came round, the doc's sister in one of her moods, Zoë in a temper, Mal threatening him with spacing…come to think of it a lot of things made him a mite nervous. The problem was just that Jayne didn't think he'd be able to lie to or pretend to those steady lavender eyes. And that frightened him.
Mal was just glad the merc had the sense to not say something rude in front of a woman who could order 'off with his head' and be more than reasonably sure that she would be obeyed.
Tutor rolled his eyes and took a seat beside Ambrose.
DG smiled at the reactions of Serenity's crew to the shapeshifter. "Magic, guys. Remember?"
Kaylee nodded absently clearly recalling that she'd scratched Toto's little doggie belly and hoped that she didn't offend the not-a-dog.
"There are reports of Viewers all over the kingdom either going catatonic or having fits," Ahamo sighed rubbing his eyes.
"They come and they kill and they like it," River muttered. "No table manners either."
Az turned startled eyes towards the girl.
Meeting River Tam had been…disquieting. Especially, since she had stared at Azkadelia before curtsying demurely and asking in a horribly sugary tone "Are you a good witch or a bad witch? It was disconcerting how those eyes had seemed to look so deep into her.
She had heard from Raw a little of what had happened to make her so very…off. Few things could make the gentle viewer angry but this had done it. Az had been very angry herself and wondered anew if it were possible to curse someone in another reality.
"What's so bad about these reavers?" Glitch wondered. The details had been a little fuzzy. All that they had really gotten across from the panic of the Serenity's crew and Raw's incoherent sobbing was that they were bad. It would help to know how bad in order to form an actual plan.
"If they take this castle, they'll rape us to death, eat our flesh, and sew our skins into their clothing. And if we're very, very lucky, they'll do it in that order," Zoë said with a voice as cold as the reaches of space.
Ambrose blanched. That was really bad.
"Well, we don't have to worry about them invading the palace," Tutor rumbled. "They crashed somewhere in Quadling country."
"Oh dear Ozma," Lurline murmured as her husband took her hand. She gave Mal a look, "Captain Reynolds, what exactly are these reavers?"
"They were people once," Mal said bitterly. "But our government got it in their heads they could make people…better.
The Queen pursed her lips together and narrowed her lavender eyes, "And how did they plan on making people…better?" Her voice was calm and almost pleasant; however, there was something of the singing of the sword in the air around the edges.
"It was a gaseous compound called the Pax," Simon said. "It was initially designed to decrease a person's more aggressive impulses. And it worked all to well. 30 million people just stopped. They just sat down and died." The doctor rubbed his eyes. The secret that had so tormented River…if only he could convince himself it was the only one rattling around in his sister's head.
"The rest," continued Mal. "The rest went crazy and 'came nightmares walking."
DG swallowed convulsively and caught her sister's equally horrified expression.
Ahamo looked at the tutor, "Where exactly in Quadling country did the reaver ship crash land?"
Toto rubbed his eyes and sighed. He hated being the barer of bad news, "Spider Valley."
DG summed it up eloquently with, "Aw crap."
For once her parents and sister didn't chide her for language unbecoming a princess. They agreed this was bad.
"Ambassador Raw," the queen said.
The viewer's head had snapped up at the mention of Spider Valley. Throughout the meeting he had been silent. He'd never felt anything like the reavers. He never wanted to feel anything like the reavers ever again. "Yes, Majesty."
"I understand you have a means to communicate with your people over great distances?" Lurline asked.
Raw nodded, "Talk through the trees."
"Tell your people to get out. To evacuate and to spread the message to any that will listen." The queen commanded.
Raw nodded and exited with all haste.
"Your reavers will be the least of our worries if they wake up the spiders," Cain noted to Mal with a distinctively unhappy expression.
Simon looked at the grim looking O.Z.er's with a sinking feeling. "Why's it called Spider Valley?"
"Because of all the giant spiders," Ahamo supplied.
"For the last few hundred years we've been lucky they went into hibernation…but, your crazy zombies might be the thing to wake them up," Ambrose said helpfully.
"Giant spiders?" Inara's voice seemed to have gone pale.
Jayne just plain went pale.
There were few things that Inara Serra and Jayne Cobb had in common. Two of these things were that one) they were both air breathing mammals and two) they were both terrified of spiders.
"The spawn of Ungoliant who crawled through the cracks between the worlds, Shelob's eldest daughter is queen and mother and devourer and the reavers will wake her up," River intoned solemnly. "She serves none but herself, drinking the blood of Viewers and Men, bloated and grown fat with endless brooding over her feasts, weaving webs of shadow; for all living things are her food, and her vomit darkness."
Well that was all manner of creepifing, Mal thought holding back a not so manly shiver.
"That sounds disturbingly familiar," Simon murmured. Some book that he'd read when he was a small boy…something about a ring.
"What about the Clockwork Army?" DG asked thoughtfully.
Az gave her a flat look, "No!"
DG shrugged, "You told me that some of the Witch's Longcoats found the caves where they were stored and if the O.Z. is going to be taken over by reavers and giant spiders then I think that a robot army sounds like a hellava good idea!"
Azkadelia sighed heavily, "Yes. The entrance was found…"
Glitch raised a quizzical eyebrow, "If the witch knew where the Clockwork Army was hidden why didn't she use them to take out the Rebellion?"
Az shrugged, "Only a member of the house of Gale with untainted magic can command the army." Her sudden smile lit up the room, "Besides, the old bad was terrified of spiders."
"Really," chorused DG and Ambrose in surprise.
The elder princess nodded enthusiastically. "Completely terrified. Once a daddy long legs got loose in her bedroom and she got on top of the dresser cowering until Zero killed it. I hope wherever the witch is now is just full to the brim with spiders."
The dreamy way Azkadelia said that brought goosebumps on to Mal's skin. But, he couldn't say as he blamed her, possession had to be a mighty unpleasant experience. Also, he wondered if the brim full with spiders' hell was next door to that special hell for people who talked at the movies.
DG sighed, "I know that nobodies really on board with letting go to Spider Valley."
A muffled, "Ya think?" came from Cain. Who during the entire debate hadn't deigned to take a chair but had found a pillar to lean against.
"It's too dangerous," Lurline said firmly.
DG raised an inquisitive brow, "And I've never known danger?"
Ahamo lips turned upward in a reluctant smile. His younger daughter was going to get her way…yet again.
Ambrose just rolled his eyes in resignation.
Cain forced down a groan. He knew that tone of voice. It was the voice that he'd followed through the fields of the Pap-pay, the voice that had ordered (and; however, much the princess might choose to deny it…it had been a royal command) Raw to peer into Glitch's half a brain; it was the voice that she had sent her three friends into battle with.
DG was going. Even if she had to claw her way through stone.
"Look," DG's voice was weary. "I'm not really good at this princess stuff. I don't get all the rules and protocol and all that etiquette crap. What I do get is what it means to be from the House of Gale. It means that we're…I'm responsible for all the people of the O.Z. They're my people, my responsibility and I can't just sit on my satin covered ass while they're being eaten!"
A silence descended over the room like a stray fog bank.
"Well, I got ta say princess," Mal smiled at DG, "You're my kind of crazy."
DG smiled coquettishly back at the captain, "Why thank you kind sir."
"Don't. Encourage. Her." Bit out Wyatt Cain in annoyance.
Lurline's lavender eyes softened. At DG's age just being told 'no' would hardly have dissuaded her and her daughter wasn't any different.
"Very well," The queen conceded.
"Really?" DG wondered.
Queen Lurline nodded reluctantly, "I'm not sure if at this moment I'm angrier at your rushing headfirst into danger yet again or more proud of your courage." She gave Zoë a sly glance, "Commander Washburne?"
"Your majesty?" to Zoë's credit she didn't stumble over the unfamiliar title.
"Remember, that there comes a point when you can't help your child…you can only hope," Lurline said softly to the expectant mother.
Zoë nodded briskly, "Sometime hope's all there is."
Raw returned and looked from grim face to grim face, "What Raw miss?"
"You're drooling," said Glitch playfully.
Cain turned his startled glaze from DG and glared at the royal advisor. "Shut up, convict," he said without any real heat.
DG was dressed in boots, dark brown pants, a short tailored leather jacket and a cream shirt a normal outfit for the princess. That wasn't what had caused Wyatt Cain's famed composer to take one look at her and pass out.
DG was armed.
A weapons belt made of leather and gold hung over her curvy hips, a golden belt buckle with the royal sigil glittered in the middle. On her right hip a gun was holstered and on her left hip a saber was sheathed.
Cain knew that knives were most like nestled in her boots and the small of her back. He'd never seen the princess look so very…dangerous.
Then she turned around and the Tin Man groaned. Wyatt was beginning to think that DG was right and there was some kind of evil seamstress guild plot on it was not against her. It was against him. It had to be. Why else would glittering butterflies stitched in gold and bronze thread be embroidered onto the back pockets of a plain pair of brown paints?
Decorations that served no purpose but to draw attention the princess's pert little bottom. He wondered if the seamstresses got some sick pleasure out of tormenting him this way…and if that ape- man- gone- wrong –thing didn't stop eyeing DG's bottom blood would be spilt.
--
Jayne abruptly wrenched his eyes away when he felt the chill from the lawman's icy glare. It wasn't even like he was serious or nothin…he was just appreciating. As fine a filly as either of the princesses were their mother was just too scary.
--
For her part, DG was scared out of her mind. She wasn't exactly feeling all that sanguine about the situation. Sanguine means hopeful. Plus, point of interest: it also means bloody. Despite her cheerful bravado, DG was really quite terrified. Cannibals and giant spiders was not her idea of a good time hence the arsenal.
---
"No, no, no and furthermore no," Mal said with exaggerated patience to his glaring 2IC. "I will not have the ghost of your husband coming to haunt me. He might feed me to a herd of ghost dinosaurs if I let his pregnant wife face reavers and darkness vomitin spiders."
Zoë glowered at the captain.
For his part the captain reminded himself that she wouldn't strike her superior officer and that he really wasn't afraid of her…it was just that pregnancy had made her a tad…irritable.
"Do I have to sedate you...again," Simon asked her in passing.
Zoë turned her glare from the captain to the doctor. He was using his patented you are a small child and I know best voice. She hated it when Simon used that voice on her.
Reynolds wondered if he could slip the doctor a raise without him noticing. It wouldn't do for Simon to think he was grateful or anything.
---
Az fumed silently at her sister.
"Don't worry so much," DG said patting Azkadelia on the shoulder.
Az glared, "How am I not supposed to worry, you're going to face crazy zombies from space and giant spiders?"
"Okay, so you have cause to worry," DG conceded.
"Also, you're terrified." Az stated flatly.
It was DG's turn to glower, "How many time have I told you to stay out of my head?"
Azkadelia blinked at her and then she smiled widely in a way that made DG worry. "That's it!" And then she hugged DG tightly. When she pulled away although her eyes twinkled her serious face was back. "What's Rule One?"
DG sighed, "Don't die." Cain had once threatened to have it tattooed to the back of her hand so she wouldn't forget it.
"You'd better not," Princess Azkadelia ordered.
"From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring," came River's voice from behind them.
The sisters turned as one and stared at River who had sidled up as quiet as a cat.
"That sounds so familiar," murmured DG.
---
"We're gonna go save a magic kingdom from dire peril. What does that make us?" Wondered Malcolm Reynolds.
"Big damn heroes," replied Simon who wondered how in the hell he was elected the Zoë stand in.
"That it does," Mal said with an edged smile.
Shen di yu -- Holy hell
Ungoliant and Shelob are from Arda as written by the incomparable J.R.R. Tolkien.
All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring; renewed shall be blade that was broken, the crownless again shall be king.—Bilbo Baggins
Rule One is from Buffy.