A/N: I don't own Glee nor the characters within. This is a DD based off of a prompt from an anon named Spencer which was originally supposed to be a Daydream one-shot. But I found myself really enjoying writing this fic, and I ended up not wanting to buttonhole it as a one-shot, so, what the hell, I'm posting it as its own story. But, please, don't expect quick updates. Please.

Oh, and I also don't own Disney's Atlantis: the Lost Empire, of which this is based off of (quite shamelessly). Also, please excuse the writing style. It's a bit... Different. XD

It's crazy how Rachel Berry is standing in front of the entrance to what could be nothing but the lost city of Atlantis. What she'd been working for for years, ever since her grandfather disappeared all those years ago, leaving her very big shoes (and helmet) to fill. But here she is, clutching the journal her grandfather had found and left for her, studying what couldn't be anything but (she'd already been over this, but it wouldn't hurt to mentally gush some more, she figured) the entrance to the lost city of Atlantis.

Even better, the Antlantean language carved into the rock said as much.

And people said she was crazy for learning an imaginary language. How imaginary is it now, Jacob Ben-Israel! she yells silently up into the air, knowing it wouldn't really get to the little weasel but she can pretend, can't she?

Because she is standing in front of the entrance to the lost city of Atlantis, which means that nothing else matters.

"Well?" a deep voice rumbles, and Rachel looks over at the older man, Mr. Karofsky (who she really doesn't trust an iota, but he got her there, so), standing back and to the right of her. He's gripping his holstered gun as if it's a habit, and once again Rachel wishes he doesn't have it. Who needs a gun in an (what they had thought would be) abandoned city of ruins? "Are you just going to stand there and grow moss? Let's get on with this."

"Right," Santana Lopez chimes in, Mr. Karofsky's right hand man (rather, woman), looking all sexy and mysterious as she glares along with her employer at Rachel, making Rachel feel all small and foolish, once again, "We do need to do this before we die. So?"

So, indeed. Letting out a breath of air, Rachel shakes her head and goes back to the book in her hands. She's already memorized it ten times over, but it never hurts to just make sure one more time, right? Or at least that's what her fathers used to tell her, and she likes to think they were right about at least that. (They weren't right about Atlantis, and though Rachel didn't want to give them as hot a mental nyah-nyah as she had Jacob, she still let herself feel some dirty satisfaction; they were her dads, after all, and she never liked to think too ill of them.)

But right before she is ready to look up and start doing some more amazing hands-on maneuvering around the Atlantean technology that seems completely improbable for being over 8,000 years old, Noah Puckerman, their resident T.N.T-florist guy shifts impatiently. "You have thirty seconds before I step in," he warns her, idly fiddling with a homemade stick of dynamite Rachel had seen him making just that morning, but that's not okay, and Rachel says so, stepping in front of him and closer towards the stone blockade well, blocking their way.

"Oh my god, Berry," Santana exclaims, rolling her eyes like Rachel's seen more times than she'd like to count (unless each instance gains her a nickel or dime, because then she'll gladly count) on this journey, "Just – "

But she gets cut off (okay, everything gets cut off) when bodies suddenly hurtle down from above them, a familiar body shrouded in feathers and (still) terrifying mask that had made Rachel incredibly fearful earlier that morning (night, really) when her encounter with the actual fire-flies had left her wounded and these people came to her aid leading the pack. "No," the figure says to Rachel's knowledge of Antlantean spoken word and shakes its head, Rachel allowing herself to feel smug that she, at least, knows that this person is female (otherwise Noah and the other males on this expedition would probably start acting incredibly annoying; though maybe Santana Lopez would, too, now that Rachel thinks about it…), "No, this is not the way to enter. You are too many. You would not fit at once."

Pushing Mr. Karofsky behind her, Rachel glares at him when she sees that his hand is, once again, on the butt of his gun, and raises her hand. "Perhaps," she slowly sounds out, tongue stumbling a little over the foreign words that she's never really had the chance to speak out loud with any hope of being actually understood, so she'd, well, unfortunately slacked a little, "If you remove your masks… Us…" She motions at the group, pushing Santana back as well when she notices her sneaking forward, "Would be more… Willing to listen?"

The girl pauses, cocking her head. Reaching up, she removes her mask, her feathered cloak falling away as well, and Rachel is struck once again at how beautiful she is. "They cannot understand?" she asks and tucks her mask under her arm, her two male companions taking their masks off as well, but really, Rachel isn't watching them because her eyes are sweeping up and down this girl's body, taking in the exotic glowing blue tattoos on her cheek and arms, the so-blonde-almost-white-hair cascading down her shoulders, as well as her also-glowing blue eyes.

"No," Rachel finds herself answering on impulse, mouth so dry at the girl's beauty (because looking at someone under the light of glowing blue crystal and fireflies in the middle of the night isn't anything like seeing that same person under the… sunlight? that Rachel just now realizes really shouldn't be underneath the ocean, say what).

"¿No?" the girl straightens, "¿Hablas español?"

Santana starts, rattling off something Rachel probably wouldn't have been able to understand even if she did speak Spanish, and she tries not to show any jealousy.

Then, taking Santana's lead, Tina Cohen-Chang, their mechanic, suddenly starts speaking French, and one of the men answers her in what sounds like French back, and then someone starts speaking German and Italian and so many other languages Rachel would not have expected their small group (what was left of them) to be able to speak, until Mr. Karofsky, obviously unable to take anymore non-American prattling, steps forward, booming, "Ya'll speak English?"

The girl, who is looking around at the group, every once in a while smiling at Rachel while Rachel is getting the nerve up to talk to her because, hello, she speaks Antlantean here, looks at him. "Oh? Yes. Yes, we speak English." Her words heavily accented but still understandable, the girl then turns, does what Rachel was getting ready to do not even five minutes before, and, with a grinding of moving rock, opens the stone blockade revealing water and lush plants and what looks like a sprawling ancient city and so much more Rachel can't take it all in in one glance; "Welcome," the girl smiles, looking smug and excited, blue eyes meeting Rachel's warmly as she sweeps her hand over the view, "To the city of Atlantis."

"I can't believe this," Rachel babbles, gasping out, barely able to keep up with Bree-tah-nii (as she'd finally found out the girl's name after meeting her father and being told they'd be killed if they stayed, which Rachel was happily ignoring because this was Atlantis and Mr. Karofsky had gotten them a night to do as they pleased, so maybe he was good for something after all) as the white-blonde scales the natural rock spire she was leading Rachel up, "I mean, all of this? Under the ocean?"

"I imagine it's amazing," Bree-tah-nii nods and offers Rachel her hand over the last rise, "But it's all I've known for the past 8,800 years. You have birds, yes? Ducks?"

Closing her fingers around Bree-tah-nii's, Rachel blushes at the strength she can feel in the girl's body as she hauls her up, but she manages to keep her voice steady as she wipes off the knees of her happily scandalous khaki pants, "Yes, we have ducks in America. Many kinds. So I imagine you're a vegetarian society – wait, what? P-past 8,800 years?"

Bree-tah-nii nods and retakes Rachel's hand. "Come on," she laughs, "We still have a ways to go."

"No, but, 8,800 years?"

"I'm telling you," the girl giggles, fingers long and strong and no, Rachel isn't staring at them wrapped around her own, "All your questions will be answered. But I need – want, want to show you something."

"But – "

"Ray-chel," Bree-tah-nii pauses, arms coming up to catch Rachel as she barrels into her, strong and soft and she smells good and Rachel barely manages to remind herself that no, it isn't proper to just stay close and smell her new friend, "Please? For me? You know what we lost ages ago. You can fill in blanks I've forgotten."

Staring into brilliant blue eyes that match the color of the crystal that hangs around Bree-tah-nii's neck, Rachel blinks and licks her lips. "Right," she whispers, automatically smiling as the white-blonde's face erupts in a giant smile, the taller girl seemingly unphased with how close Rachel is against her body, and Rachel's eyes wander to her tattoo, wondering if that had hurt to get, "Sure. We have time? We have time."

Bree-tah-nii's fingers stroke Rachel's arms, and her smile is telling Rachel something she kinda-sorta-maybe hopes isn't something she's making up in her own brain from wishful thinking (as, once again, she reminds herself, even as the daughter of two gay men, she shouldn't be too hopeful she'd meet a like-minded female, and especially not one that comes from an ancient civilization!), but now she's just depressing herself so she self consciously straightens her tank top even as Bree-tah-nii still holds her arms and is still smiling at her and is so beautiful and is from Atlantis and somehow thinks Rachel's interesting and has the cutest freckles on her face and wait, why would she have freckles under the ocean? What is that strange sunlight?

Bree-tah-nii quirks her eyebrow, which makes her tattoo move, and it's so cute Rachel has to hold back a giggle because hello? that would be embarrassing. "Ray-chel," the girl continues smiling, and Rachel has to blink because, darnit, she has been staring, "It's just ten minutes ahead."

"What?" Rachel asks and smiles, about to push up on her tiptoes and do something incredibly stupid, so she steps back instead, nodding. "Sure, sure," she blushes, playing with the strap of her bookbag that had somehow, magically, survived everything that had happened to get her where she now was, "Let's go."

Bree-tah-nii giggles, and it's so beautiful Rachel tells herself to step back again before she does something stupid again, so she does before the something stupid happens.

A second later, the white-blonde takes her hand again, and Rachel, again, somehow trusting this girl she's just met, follows along.