AN: Welcome to my fourth MacGyver fairytale retelling! This is a retelling of The Frog Prince, and also draws some elements from the Disney movie The Princess and the Frog. The title is from the song Never Knew I Needed from that film.
This is by far the longest of the four fairytale retellings I've done – I think it's actually as long as all three previous ones combined. So this is going to be a very long ride! At the moment, I think I'll post twice a week, approximately every three days.
THE WITCH OF THORNS' TOWER
SOMEWHERE IN THE WILDERNESS
The dark-haired, dark-eyed, tall, elegant and beautiful woman clad in a burgundy dress locked eyes with Mac, then Jack, then Bozer. Her eyes were cool, her expression inscrutable.
Then, she spoke.
'I will help you, but there will be a price, one that the three of you will have to pay.'
The Knight, the Engineer and Bozer all exchanged a glance, before Jack spoke.
'Only the three of us? Not the rest of the Kingdom or our whole family lines or whatever, but…' He gestured to the three of them. '…just us three?'
It was always very, very important to be really specific with witches and wizards, in Jack's opinion. Magical practitioners were tricky people, he thought, and he was a superstitious man at heart.
He thought it was especially important to be very, very precise with The Witch of Thorns, since she was a legendary, mythical figure, whom no-one had been completely sure was real.
He, a senior Knight of the Kingdom of Phoenix, and Mac, a young but accomplished member of the Order of Engineers, a group of clever and creative people who were stationed in major settlements or travelled the Kingdom, helping people by solving problems, big or small, in often-unconventional ways, had been tasked by the Kingdom's Spymaster, a woman almost as short as she was terrifying, to find The Witch of Thorns, using little more than rumours and myths, to enlist her help to defeat the evil wizard Murdoc, who was waging a shadow war (literally and figuratively) on the Kingdom.
(How Bozer, Mac's best friend from childhood, had wound up joining them on the quest was a really long story, but he and his trusty frying pan had proven their worth time and time again.)
The Witch nodded, and spoke solemnly, in a way that crackled a little with magic, and felt like a binding oath.
'I swear on my magic and my soul, that only the three of you, Jack Dalton, Angus MacGyver and Wilt Bozer, will pay a price for my assistance against the wizard Murdoc and his forces of darkness.' She held out her hand, which had a faint glow to it, to Mac, locking eyes with him. 'Will you accept these terms?'
The blonde glanced at his companions, who both nodded resolutely, even Jack.
They had no choice.
Murdoc had tormented their Kingdom for years.
He'd brought darkness over the land. Famine and disease had struck. Storms, especially those in the north, Mac thought with a pang, were far worse than they'd ever been as long as record-keeping had existed. Petty conflicts escalated more and more easily, too, be they neighbours over noise or farmers over a single sheep that'd wriggled through a hole in the dividing fence. They'd nearly gone to war with the Southern Kingdom several years ago, and only last-minute negotiations had averted it.
And Murdoc was winning this war. The darkness had grown, and spread. Even those who didn't have any magic, like Mac, Jack and Bozer, could feel that darkness in the air now.
And they had on good intelligence that Murdoc was amassing an army of foul, evil, dark creatures to openly wage war on the Kingdom.
They had to stop him.
Without The Witch of Thorns' help, the Kingdom stood no chance.
Mac nodded, and reached out and shook the Witch's hand.
He might have been imagining it, but he swore something sad flashed across her eyes for a moment.
MURDOC'S LAIR
SOMEWHERE ELSE IN THE WILDERNESS
With great effort, Mac staggered to his feet after being thrown into a stone wall, picking up his telescoping, collapsible quarterstaff and re-extending it as he did so, ignoring the pain that emanated from just about everywhere in his body.
In front of him, the Witch, focused and calm and cool and collected as always, tossed balls and bolts of magic at Murdoc, who deflected them, tossing his own magic right back at her, laughing, despite the fact that he was bleeding from a gash on his arm and had several bruises on his face, a sluggishly-bleeding cut above his eyebrow and a ring of bruises around his throat, where Mac had pinned him to the wall with his quarterstaff merely a minute ago.
'…Oh, it's been so, so, long, Patricia…'
The Witch of Thorns shifted her hands and her stance slightly in response, not breaking her focus, and sent a particularly powerful blast of magic at him, which connected, throwing him back at least ten feet.
Murdoc got up with a snarl, losing that disturbing mockery of good humour he'd had, darkness and anger and fury overtaking his eyes. He, too, sent out a powerful burst of magic.
As some kind of side-effect of all that magic, everything in the lair began to fly and swirl around the room, forcing Mac to stop in his attempt to reach the warring magicians to help the Witch.
Instead, he dropped to a crouch to check on Bozer, who was stirring weakly, his frying pan just out of reach, and Jack, who was grimacing in pain, but hadn't dropped his broadsword. Mac quickly checked over his friend's left arm and shoulder, which were at unnatural angles; it appeared Jack's shoulder was dislocated, and he might also have a fracture in his arm.
Still, Mac remained aware of the fight, his mind, as busy and active and clever as ever, searching for an opening.
It arrived, when a heavy crystal ball went flying towards him, and he raised his quarterstaff and swung as hard as he could, sending the ball towards Murdoc.
The effort sent Mac staggering, made every muscle in his body scream in protest, but it was successful.
The crystal ball struck the sorcerer firmly in the chest, sending him flying, giving The Witch of Thorns an advantage to press.
She took it, gathering her magic, a look of great effort finally cracking that cool, composed mask on her face, and with a cry, sent a huge, golden ball of magic at the dark sorcerer.
It struck him, and there was a blinding light, forcing Mac, Jack and the now-conscious Bozer to look away…
When the light faded, The Witch of Thorns was still standing, breathing hard, like that had taken a lot out of her, while Murdoc was simply gone.
His clothes were in a pile on the floor, right where he had been standing. The pile was smoking slightly.
Jack and Bozer stared with wide-eyes, the Knight glancing at the Witch in awe and a touch of fear.
Mac, meanwhile, limped over to the window and stuck his head out.
The air was different, too.
Gone was that oppressive sense of darkness that'd filled it of late.
The air was fresh and clean and clear and light, like it'd been when Mac was a child.
He turned back to the others.
'He's gone.'
He looked at the Witch, a question in his eyes, and she nodded, her eyes as solemn as they had been when she made that vow, though he swore there was satisfaction in there too.
'For good.'
Mac, Jack and Bozer exchanged a glance full of relief, and Jack gave a whoop, while Bozer reached out unsteadily to bump his fist to the Knight's, on his uninjured side. Mac smiled, taking a deep breath, feeling like a heavy, heavy weight had lifted off his shoulders, walking back over and reaching out to bump his own fist against Bozer's, then Jack's.
The Witch gave a tiny heartfelt smile at the sight, then waved her hands, and a calming wave of magic passed over them.
Bozer's headache disappeared. Jack's shoulder and arm righted themselves into their proper positions. The ache centred in Mac's back faded to nothing.
Every little ache and pain and niggle of theirs healed.
Then, the Witch lowered her hands again, her eyes very serious, and, they all swore, sad and sorry.
'There is a price to be paid.' She paused. 'I'm sorry. I really am.'
She sounded like she really, really meant it, cold and cool as she was.
She raised her hands again, and then everything went black.
A THIRD LOCATION IN THE WILDERNESS
When Mac woke up, he was lying on soft grass in a clearing in the woods, with a pond of clear water in the middle and a couple of weeping willows.
He got to his feet, a little unsteadily, his head still foggy, and furrowed his brow in confusion.
The ground was closer than it should be.
He raised his head and looked around the clearing, searching for Jack and Bozer, but there was no sign of them.
There was, however, a black Labrador and an unusually-large brown Pit Bull Terrier, both fast asleep under the trees.
Mac's brain began to tick into overdrive.
If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable must be the truth…
He ran over to the pool of water, noting that movement felt different, and that he was definitely not crazy; he was much closer to the ground that he should be.
Mac stared at his reflection in the water.
A lean, atypically long-legged and particularly light-coloured Golden Retriever stared back at him.
Not able to contain his overwhelming sense of panic, which was very unusual for him, he cried out.
It came out as a bark.
Several minutes later, Mac was reading a note that had been tacked onto one of the willow trees, two feet off the ground, while Jack (the Pit Bull Terrier) and Bozer (the Labrador) freaked out in the background, feeding off one another.
'I told you we shouldn't trust her; she's a witch, and magical, and mixing with magic is a big no-no, as Granny Dalton always said! If you'd have listened to Good Ol' Jack, we wouldn't be in this mess, brother!'
'We're gonna get fleas, aren't we, bro?'
Bozer trailed off into something muttered under his breath that sounded like, I'm too handsome for fleas!
Mac rolled his eyes.
(It registered in his mind, interestingly, that they were yipping and barking and whining and growling, but he heard them just as clearly and in the same voices they'd had when they were human.)
(Magic was weird. It continued to defy all attempts by him – and other Engineers and the Kingdom's non-magical scientists – to understand.)
He understood their panic and horror.
Any human would react that way if they were suddenly changed into a dog. He himself had no desire to be stuck in this form for the rest of his life, even if they'd apparently retained their human personalities and mental capacities.
(His lack of opposable thumbs would drive him insane.)
'A, we could never have defeated Murdoc without her, Jack. You know that. B, the price could have been much, much worse.' He gestured to the note. 'And C, she left this note.' He moved aside a little so Jack and Bozer could read it. It read, in an elegant cursive hand, Go east, to The Cage Witch's home. She will help you lift the curse, I swear on my magic and my soul. A drawing of a rose with many thorns was used in place of a signature. There was the same magical heaviness around the note as that vow she'd made before Mac had taken her hand. His expression grew wry (or as wry as a dog could look, anyway, though Jack and Bozer could read it easily). 'As for fleas…we'll worry about that when we have to.'
He set out east, knowing Jack and Bozer would follow, and rolled his eyes again in a very long-suffering way when Jack started jabbering away as usual.
'We sure we can trust this Cage Witch? I know, there's that whole magical vow thing, but, you know, witch and all, got sent to her by the same witch who cursed us, even if, you know, she really saved the Kingdom…we gonna talk about her not-so-warm-and-fuzzy name? What if she wants to lock us up in a cage?'
They walked all day, and it was nightfall by the time they reached a large clearing that held a wooden cottage, with a sense of magic permeating through the air.
The first thought through Mac's head was that wood was a very poor choice of building material in the wilderness, where bad weather was common and the damage it could cause was exacerbated by the lack of shelter provided by other buildings, the presence of large, nearby trees and the difficulty of access to building materials for repairs, aside from wood, and one couldn't build a house entirely out of wood.
The second thought was that obviously that wasn't a problem, since The Cage Witch was a witch. Her cottage seemed very sturdy.
As soon as they stepped into the clearing, Mac heard a woman's voice in his head.
'Welcome.' From the way that they stopped in their tracks and the looks on their faces, Jack and Bozer had heard it too. It was…disconcerting. There was a snort, and then the voice continued. 'No, Jack, I am not going to lock you in a cage. That isn't where my name comes from.'
Jack looked almost-comically terrified.
'You can read my mind?' He turned to Mac. 'I told you, brother-'
The cottage door opened, and out stepped a woman in a loose cream shirt and tan trousers, long blonde hair pulled back into a messy bun. She was young in an ageless kind of way, had blue eyes that seemed to see into your very soul and was almost-ethereally beautiful.
She gave a little smile that was nearly a smirk, with something a little teasing in her eyes, and spoke the normal way.
'I can read anyone's mind.' That was said with nothing but confidence, like it were a fact. 'Come in.'
Mac, Jack and Bozer exchanged a glance, a silent conversation passing between them, before trotting over to her cottage door.
The Cage Witch gave them dinner, and when both they and she had finished eating, spoke seriously, with that same magical weight to her words as The Witch of Thorns' vow.
'I can't break the curse for you.' She paused. 'But I can guide you to those who can.' She waved a hand, and blankets, folded into thirds, appeared on the floor of her cottage's main room, in front of the fireplace. 'Sleep. In the morning, you'll know who can help you.'
And with those cryptic words, she walked over to a door that presumably led to her bedroom, the door opening as she approached and closing automatically behind her.
Mac, Jack and Bozer exchanged another glance (this had been a very, very strange, very, very long and very, very tiring and confusing day), before they shrugged and settled in on the blankets for the night.
AN: And so it begins! Hope you guys enjoyed that start!
Teaser for next chapter: 'If you ever let anything happen to her, I will end you, Jack Wyatt Dalton.'