A/N: It really shook me when Ricardo Montalbán died on January 14, and I'm still having a hard time believing he's gone. I don't think he ever received the accolades and tributes he deserved, either in life or in death. It's left to his family, friends and fans, I think, to provide that tribute. This story is part of mine. Thank you, Señor Montalbán, for all the years of entertainment you provided for several generations, and thank you especially for portraying Mr. Roarke for seven years. For those of us who first learned of you through watching Fantasy Island, the show holds a special place in our hearts, for through the role of Mr. Roarke, we discovered all your other work and had the pleasure of hoping to catch your performances in subsequent projects. You will be sorely missed, Señor.

§ § § -- November 19, 2005

For some time now Leslie had been sitting at the tea table, looking lost in her own thoughts. Since it was a quiet Saturday evening, Roarke let her drift for a while, but he was never unaware of her mood. But when she eventually stared vacantly at him, he was forced to call her on it. "Leslie, have you been in your own mind at all this evening?"

She blinked and came back to the moment with a visible jolt. "Why do you ask?"

"As if you didn't know," Roarke said humorously. "You've been sitting there for at least the last half hour, if not longer, staring at nothing. Is there something on your mind, or are you merely woolgathering?"

Leslie shrugged, looking just a little bit sheepish, and shifted her position on the loveseat. "Oh, well…for some reason I started thinking about how long this house has stood here, and then about how long you've been running this island as a resort, and then how long you've been on the island, period…I guess I'm in just the right mood for a history lesson or something. And no, it's got nothing to do with that third-grade teacher's Magic Treehouse fantasy." She grinned at Roarke's chuckle. "We probably won't need to get those books for the triplets—we can just give them firsthand looks at their history lessons when they're in school. If you agree, of course."

"Hmm," Roarke said, pretending to muse. "That, my dear daughter, remains to be seen. You know I don't like to overuse my time-travel abilities, and you also know there's far more preparation required for such fantasies than meets the layman's eye. So, since you are well aware of all that, what's the point of your little narrative?"

"I'm just wondering about the ultimate origins of this island and its nature," Leslie said slowly. "I guess I have a few specific questions, and when Christian gets here he might have some more, but these are mine anyway. I mean…to start with, was this island formed by the same forces as all the others in the group, and around the South Pacific in general? Or is it someone's…well, creation?"

Roarke considered her question for a long moment, still both amused and bemused. He was frankly astonished that Leslie hadn't thought to ask such questions many years before. Too curious to resist asking, he put the query to her. "Why are you coming up with all this just at this time? It seems odd that you never plied me with these questions when you were still a teenager."

"I think because I was so overawed by you through most of my teenage years," Leslie said, clearly thinking carefully about her answer, "and then it somehow just slipped my mind. I don't really know otherwise. Sometimes they do occur to me, but it's always at a bad time—I'm lying awake in the middle of the night, or I'm on my way to some errand on the other side of the island, or something like that—and by the time it's a good time, I've forgotten again. Now they've finally come to mind at an opportune moment, and I figured I'd better ask or else endure another eon of wondering about them."

Roarke laughed. "Ah, I see. Well, perhaps I can answer at least some of those questions for you, if you're inclined toward asking Mariki if she would mind providing a little refreshment. I suspect we'll be here for some time."

Christian came in a few minutes after Leslie had put in her request and sank onto the loveseat beside his wife, looking a little drained. "I hope the triplets are asleep," he said after kissing Leslie. "It's been one of those days that make me want to retire from the office altogether and just be the chairman of the board and nothing else."

"Then I've got good news, my love," Leslie said, grinning at him. "They've been asleep for a good hour or so already, and Mariki's coming in with something to drink while Father and I talk about the mysterious, shadowy beginnings of Fantasy Island."

"Oh, now that sounds like something to relax to," said Christian, brightening with anticipation. "I've always had this question that I was a bit afraid to ask. I'd like to know how you became the highest authority here. After all, this is a South Seas island, and I'm sure there were indigenous inhabitants here before you arrived. And obviously you're not native Polynesian. You must have arrived here at some comparatively recent date and somehow set yourself up as king, or whatever the local equivalent was."

Roarke laughed, rising from the desk and taking a more comfortable chair on the other side of the tea table from Christian and Leslie. "The proper term may not have been 'king', or the Polynesian cognate thereof," he said, "but you are onto something, Christian. However, I think the tale of this island's history as I know it might flow better if we take it chronologically. Leslie had several questions to start with, and perhaps the first one that should be addressed is whether this island came into physical existence at the same time as the others in the group hereabouts."

"Why wouldn't it have?" Christian asked Leslie curiously.

"Because of the strange properties of the soil and plants here," she explained. "There's a species somewhere on the island that can temporarily restore sight to the blind, and another one that produces a natural sweetener that affects strong emotions. Are you familiar at all with Shakespeare?"

"Of course," Christian said, pretending affrontery. "Just another subject among the very many that I had to absorb during my Royal Comportment tutoring. We had overviews of the world's greatest and most renowned writers."

"Okay, then you'll recognize the flower 'love-in-idleness', from A Midsummer Night's Dream. That actually grows here, though I have yet to see a specimen myself. And of course, there's the dread amakarna. Not that it doesn't grow elsewhere, but still—and don't forget that little rose you named after me." Christian grinned at that, and she grinned back and went on, "There are all kinds of peculiar flora on this island, and a few allegedly mythical fauna too. If those things can exist here when they don't anywhere else on earth, I have to wonder, by logical progression, if the island itself is of some origin other than terrestrial."

Roarke, having been watching their byplay, smiled. "I must tell you directly, before I begin, that I was asked not to reveal the identities of those who originally approached me about the business I am in. However, I see no reason not to enlighten you about whatever else you may be wondering. As to the island, originally it was indeed formed by the same forces that formed all the other islands in the vicinity. In the beginning, I understand it was quite an ordinary little island, with nothing in particular to distinguish it from those that surrounded it, except perhaps its size. It's the largest for several hundred miles, and is a little more than fifty miles from west to east, a bit less than twelve north to south. Yet it was in such a remote and otherwise uninteresting section of the ocean that it remained overlooked for a great many years, except by the various Polynesian tribes who came and went over the centuries, most on their way to other places. New Zealand Maoris settled here for some time on their way to their ultimate destination. Not all of them departed when the time came to move on, and the natives here now are their descendants."

"Then what made it the way it is now?" Leslie asked.

"The proper pronoun would be 'who', and the answer to that would be those who consulted me about my business. They were aware I would need to be fully and extensively equipped to conduct such an operation, and handled the entire provisioning themselves."

"Were you here before these…entities approached you?" Christian asked.

"As a matter of fact, yes. Initially, after my upbringing in what is now southeastern Mexico, I began to wander the earth as a young man, especially once my parents died. I've seen and done much, far more than most people can quite imagine, I daresay. But through all the years of wandering, I never felt that I had a true home, that I belonged anywhere.

"Eventually my travels took me to Australia, populated then only by its indigenous peoples, whom I found to be very friendly and accommodating. Perhaps due to their Dreamtime—a ritual thought to be shrouded in local mythology and magic—they seemed to understand my powers and abilities better than had anyone else I'd encountered till then. Even so, they knew that I would never truly find peace among the superstitious peoples of the world, and they advised me to seek out a place of my own. One elderly man even told me he had heard a story, told for generations in his family, about an isolated island in a group of tiny reefs and atolls and small islets that might suit me perfectly." Roarke smiled, looking reminiscent; Christian and Leslie stared at him in fascination. "I participated in a Dreamtime ritual with him. I must say, it was and remains one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had, and I've had many.

"I saw what the elder saw: a vision of this very island. I also received instructions on what to do to get here. With the help of that elder and others in the tribe, I built a boat, provisioned myself carefully, and set off. It wasn't at all easy. There were times when I found myself obligated to prevail upon the mercy of the denizens of the ocean."

Christian looked confused, but Leslie grinned. "Don't tell me, that's how you first met Nyah. It has to be."

Roarke laughed. "Very good, Leslie! So it was. Nyah and I, despite the peculiarities of our relationship that you'll surely remember being witness to in your teens, have always been good friends, even though she's quite mercurial. She was intelligent enough to comprehend that I was equipped with powers and resources of my own that she couldn't match, and gracious enough to acknowledge it. Otherwise there's a very good chance that I would never have reached these shores."

"If you don't mind my asking," Christian said, "when was that?"

Roarke paused a moment, studying him, then half-smiled and said dryly, "I doubt you would believe me." Leslie laughed at Christian's guilty shrug, and her father leaned forward and added with just a touch of wicked glee, "However, I will tell you that I've been here for some three hundred years."

Christian blinked slowly, just once, then lost focus, apparently counting back. "Then in that case," he said after a moment, "you'd have arrived here in the early 1800s, perhaps at the time my multiple-great grandfather, King Johan V, was having Premier University built."

"You have an excellent grasp of history, Christian," Roarke said with a pleased smile. "That is indeed when I arrived on this island. Unfortunately, there was nothing close to the level of civilization I would have found on Lilla Jordsö, or in many other parts of the world. It was nearly all jungle at the time, except for a few pockets of natives who either made their living from fishing or a little pearl diving, or farmed the fertile land around the dormant Mount Tutumoa near the western end of the island. What you know now as the resort, on this end of the island, and the Enclave—indeed, everything from approximately the point of the mountain on east was unchecked jungle.

"The fishing village you know now existed at the time of my arrival; it's the oldest settlement on the island. The farming areas have largely disappeared, with the exception of the pineapple plantation. At one time sugar and such tropical fruits as mango and bananas were grown here; one unusually enterprising young man even had a small orange grove. Its remnants can still be seen around the old opera house." Leslie nodded; Christian looked blank, and Roarke clarified, "The venue where the reception was held after your forced wedding to Marina LiSciola."

"Oh, yes, of course," Christian said and met Leslie's rueful look. "I tried to persuade you to see my point of view under one of those old trees."

"And I was still too raw with pain to really listen," she said with a sigh. "I'm sorry, my love, I really am. I wish I'd listened to my common sense." Christian kissed her cheek, and she smiled a little. "I remember standing there waiting for you and thinking I could still catch a whiff of oranges in the air, and wondering if some colonist had planted those trees."

"And now you know the truth," Roarke said, smiling. "Although, as I soon discovered, you weren't as far off the mark as you believe. I was not, after all, the first white European to set foot upon these shores. That honor belonged to someone else altogether."

Christian raised a brow. "Well, that's quite the revelation. Who beat you to it?"

"Ah, now there's a tale. Leslie, I'm sure you'll well remember a certain very rich man who decided that his fantasy was to own my island."

She winced. "Oh my God, yes." She turned to Christian. "That was the year Julie was working for Father to earn the money to open her house as a B&B. It was a really weird weekend actually, with all sorts of highs and lows. It was one of the most emotionally exhausting fantasies I'd ever weathered."