A/N: Originally written for the Cake or Death challenge at the sgaflashfic community on Livejournal. I also used the prompt "Furlings" from my sg15fics table. The fic probably has an important underlying message if you read into it. I think the purple elephant might even represent compassion. I have no idea.

Warning - some m/m kissing at the end and disclaimer - I don't own a lot of things. Reviews are very welcome, although flamers will be toasted over an open fire and fed to the purple elephant. That's probably symbolic of my compassionate acceptance of people who enjoy sending anonymous reviews that say LOL U SUCK. I have no idea.

"We are the Furlings!"

Radek Zelenka stared in horror as three oversized Ewoks advanced towards them with hands outstretched in greeting. Behind him, two botanists and a zoologist cowered, presumably using him as a human shield.

"Dr Jackson?" he said hesitantly, trying to hide his apprehension.

The man to his left crossed his arms and tilted his head in curiosity. "Yeah," he replied slowly, "My bad." At Radek's raised eyebrows, he shrugged and mumbled something about always imagining them like that.

A Pidgey called out from a nearby tree and Radek put on his poker face. There was no way he was going to admit that Miko Kusanagi had forced him to watch the entire first season of Pokemon.

Since it looked like no-one else was going to acknowledge their furry hosts, Daniel took a hesitant step forward and found his hand encased in a firm paw. "Uh… hi. We're looking for… uh, something."

"We are unsure of exactly… what it is that we seek," Radek added helpfully.

Thankfully, the Furlings seemed to know what they were talking about. "You partook of the cake ritual," said what Daniel assumed was the leader. One of the botanists muttered what sounded to Radek like should've chosen death.

"Your path is yours alone; we cannot accompany you," a second Furling told them.

"We figured as much," Daniel sighed and turned towards the others. "OK guys, just try not to think too hard." As soon as the words left his mouth, a purple elephant appeared with a pop and nuzzled his hair affectionately. Out of the corner of his eye, Radek saw the Zoologist (a small, mousy woman) cringe guiltily.

"Well done," Daniel said sarcastically. "You know what, let's just get it all out of our system. "Mummies, vampires, dinosaurs, those weird dancing mushrooms from Fantasia… come on, if you don't let it out now we'll never get anywhere in this freak show."

They all concentrated, letting their thoughts spill out onto the mostly blank landscape that surrounded them. Before their very eyes, the world around them filled with colour as if it was being painted in by some unseen artist. This was followed by a multitude of plants and animals, real and imagined. A gingerbread man ran through Radek's legs, closely followed by a Dodo that was, for some reason, singing the Spiderman theme tune. Bread-and-butterflies danced around his head and a werewolf howled in the banana grove in the west.

"Everyone done?" Daniel (who was now wearing a hat that said "Wizzard") asked. Looking down at the yellow brick road at his feet, he allowed himself a brief smile of amusement before he started to lead the way to… whatever it was they were supposed to find to escape this reality.

"Wait!" The lead Furling held something out to Daniel. He seemed to have guessed that the archaeologist was their… well, if not leader then spokesperson. He definitely had the most experience in offworld missions, even if this was his first in the Pegasus galaxy.

As he reached out to take the offered item, Daniel realised that it was a sword of some kind. In fact, it looked kinda familiar…

"When the blade turns blue, you will know that what you seek is near," the Furling leader explained. Rolling his eyes, Daniel stomped off down the yellow brick road, closely followed by the purple elephant. He had to jump to one side to avoid the momeraths, but aside from that the path was pretty clear.

-----xxXxx-----

They had only been travelling for half an hour when they met their first obstacle. It was two metres tall and half a metre wide and was rattling its reeds menacingly.

"Uh… is that what I think it is?"

Daniel and Radek both turned to the speaker, which turned out to be Dr Parrish. Throughout their journey, he'd been darting about happily from one exciting species of fauna to the next.

"You thought up a Triffid?!" Radek half-shouted. He felt a little bad when Parrish flinched and looked down at his feet, but still. Of all the stupidly dangerous things he could have brought into this place…

"Dr Zelenka!"

The next thing Radek knew, he was hitting the ground with a thump and all the air was knocked out of his lungs. Daniel was half-lying on top of him, looking up with mild panic on his face. The Triffid's deadly stinger snapped against the ground and disappeared back into its mass of leaves.

Before the giant plant could adjust its aim, Daniel had brought up his P-90 and fired off a round straight into the main body of the Triffid. Radek covered his head with his arms as he was bombarded with a shower of leaves and fleshy pulp.

When he looked up again, the engineer was met with silence. Parrish and the other botanist were sadly regarding the Triffid's remains, the zoologist was busy throwing up to one side of the yellow brick road and Daniel was offering him a hand up. He took this gratefully, brushed off the bits of dead plant that covered his torso and patted the trunk of the purple elephant as it handed him his glasses.

"Do prdele!" Radek huffed, advancing toward Parrish and sticking a finger in the botanist's face. "From now on, your mind is completely clear of dangerous thoughts. You will imagine cute, fluffy little bunnies, frolicking in the meadow. Is this understood?"

Swallowing hard, Parrish nodded his understanding.

Pretty soon, Radek got tired of the bunnies and imagined a widespread outbreak of myxomatosis to kill them off.

-----xxXxx-----

By the time it got dark, the meadows and jungles had turned into a long stretch of ice and snow. Daniel and Radek (by now the only ones trusted to think creatively) imagined up a couple of igloos and retreated into the largest one, leaving the smaller one for the other three scientists and the elephant.

"What a day," Radek groaned as he climbed into the giant hot tub in the centre of the igloo. "I thought the ninjas would be our downfall."

"Quick thinking there with the pirates, by the way," Daniel complemented as he slid into the water on the other side of the tub. The interior of the igloo was hung with drapes and oil lamps burned on every surface. "How did you know the ninjas and the pirates would fight each other, instead of joining forces to destroy us?"

Taking off his glasses and placing them on a small marble table that had just appeared, Radek rubbed his eyes tiredly. "Everyone knows that pirates and ninjas are mortal enemies," he explained.

"Of course." Was Daniel Jackson smiling at him? "What about the Tribble landslide, though? It looked like we were gonna drown in cuteness for a minute there."

"That was a close one," Radek agreed.

"Hm." Daniel appeared to be thinking for a moment. "Dr Zelenka?"

"Call me Radek."

"Right. I've been thinking."

"Not of Tyrannosaurus Rex, I hope."

Daniel shook his head before continuing. "I've started to wonder whether there actually is an end to this… quest. For lack of a better word."

Radek frowned. "What do you mean?"

Biting his lip, Daniel wondered how best to phrase this. "Well, we were given a choice. Cake or Death."

"And we chose cake," Radek nodded. "What is your point?"

"Well, we were told that eating the cake was the first step on the journey to what our hearts most desire, right?"

"Yes, I remember."

"And this is the Pegasus galaxy." Daniel looked at him expectantly. When Radek continued to give him a blank look, he elaborated, "Home of the Ancients."

Radek thought he was starting to understand what Daniel was getting at. "And what the Ancients desired most was Enlightenment. Ascension."

"Exactly." The grin on Daniel's face reminded Radek of the look Rodney sometimes got when he'd figured out a new piece of Ancient Tech. Those who worked in his lab referred to it as his 'eureka face'. "They obviously had a reason for making us take this 'journey', as they put it. Why else would they offer death as the only other alternative?"

"So you think they are some kind of holy order, forcing rather than helping people to Ascension?" Daniel's enthusiasm was contagious; Radek found himself becoming caught up in it.

"Colonel Sheppard's team has come across this kind of thing before. The time dilation field Sheppard became trapped inside, designed to give people a safe haven in which to find Enlightenment. The device triggered by Dr McKay that artificially increased his rate of evolution, preparing him for Ascension." Daniel paused for breath before continuing, "This galaxy is littered with short cuts to Ascension. Maybe the cake we ate contained a drug that… I don't know, increased our brain functions in a way that allowed us to share this hallucination, in which our thoughts shape the world around us? And the end result is…"

"The end result is a higher level of understanding, allowing us to shed our physical forms and Ascend to a higher plane of existence." Radek finished.

"Been there, done that," Daniel added wryly.

"Twice, I have been told."

"I didn't know I was so famous. Anyway, the point is, we need to find a way out of here without Ascending. We don't have time to waste on finding Enlightenment. Our bodies are probably wasting away out there without sustenance."

Radek nodded his agreement. He had no desire to end his physical experience of life just yet. There was far too much technology cluttering Atlantis to explore and learn from before he was ready to leave this plane of existence. "But how are we to do that?"

Shrugging, Daniel slid further down into the bubbles. Across the room, lying on top of his pile of discarded clothes, the sword given to him by the Furlings (which he adamantly refused to call Sting) glowed faintly blue.

-----xxXxx-----

"OK… now what?"

Blinking wearily at the archaeologist, Radek merely shrugged and stared across the swamp into the distance. The yellow brick road ended at the edge of the murky waters, there was no obvious path through the swamp and they didn't want to risk swimming across if they could help it. Radek was starting to realise that the obstacles in the way to their Enlightenment, or whatever it was they sought, were becoming harder and more dangerous to overcome.

He sensed movement to his left and, turning his head, saw Daniel pick up a stick and throw it into the swamp. It lay on the surface for a few seconds, then started to sink, but before it could disappear into the muddy water it was snapped up in a wide, watery mouth. A giant brown frog rose out of the swamp and regarded them with beady red eyes.

"I am the guardian of the swamp," it announced.

"Kurva drat, it cannot ever be simple," Radek muttered. Not for the first time, he wished Rodney had gone on this mission in his place. The astrophysicist had been eager to accompany Dr Jackson on his first mission in the Pegasus galaxy, but they had drawn straws and Radek had won. It was supposed to be a safe, peaceful science mission to study the wildlife of P3X-882, with someone who knew about Ancient technology thrown in just in case they found any. Daniel was there because he had weapons training and he wanted to explore the caves that had been found a couple of miles from the Stargate. There were markings on the walls that he thought could be useful to his understanding of the Ancients. If only they had never been found; it was venturing into the caves that got them into this mess.

A nudge from the zoologist brought Radek back to his senses and he realised that Daniel had been bargaining with the frog for their safe passage across the swamp. It seemed that the frog had taken a particular liking to the purple elephant that was still following them.

"What would you do with it if we gave it to you?" Daniel asked.

The frog croaked with what seemed to be laughter and licked its lips with a fat, slimy tongue. "I do not see how that is any of your business," it replied.

Rubbing a hand across his face, Daniel turned to Radek. "What do you think?" he asked.

Radek frowned. "I know that the elephant is merely an illusion, but I do not like the idea of leaving it with this… creature."

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Daniel sighed, shaking his head slowly. "We must be crazy."

He turned back to the frog and addressed it. "We cannot agree to your terms. Perhaps there is something else we could offer you-"

"Nothing else will suffice," the frog croaked impatiently. "The purple elephant is my price. Give it to me and pass safely across the swamp. Refuse and you shall certainly die, for no man has ever-"

"Yeah yeah, we get the idea." Daniel was already knee deep in the swampy water. Pushing past the frog, he turned his head and motioned to Radek to follow.

Ignoring the feeling that he was doing something very foolish, Radek took his first steps into the swamp. The frog disappeared into the water with an angry expression as the five of them began to cross the swamp.

-----xxXxx-----

The swamp got deeper and deeper until they were all in it up to their necks. This made the going very slow, as they had to practically swim through the sluggish water, but they were halfway across and so far nothing terrible had happened. One of the botanists (the female, not Dr Parrish) and the zoologist were muttering mutinously to each other, probably disagreeing with Radek and Daniel's decision to keep the purple elephant (which was plodding along happily with its trunk held up above water).

"You don't suppose that was a test back there, do you?" Daniel wondered aloud.

"A test of what?" Radek replied. "Compassion? I suppose it is poss-"

He was unable to finish his sentence due to the rumbling from below. The entire swamp shook as the noise grew louder and louder, reaching deafening proportions. Radek saw one of the botanists lose her footing and go under, disappearing beneath the water without more than a ripple and a few bubbles. He started to make his way towards her, but was pulled back by the purple elephant and gathered up in its strong trunk. Twisting in its grip, he saw Daniel clinging onto the elephant's back for dear life and, presumably seeing what he wanted, the elephant swung him through the air and deposited him alongside the archaeologist.

From their precarious perch, they could see the giant spaceship rising out of the swamp, Star Wars style. It could have been taken from any of their minds, but it was too late to assign blame now. Radek saw a hand in the water below him and grabbed onto it, pulling as hard as he could. With Daniel's help, he pulled a panicking Parrish out of the swamp just as the elephant started to stampede towards stable ground.

"Wh-what-" Dr Parrish coughed up swamp water and groaned, closing his eyes and clinging to the elephant. He looked like he was wishing that it would all go away – unfortunately that was the one thought that wouldn't come true in this place. Once things were imagined into existence, they tended to stay that way until they were defeated or destroyed by something else that had been hastily wished up.

The yellow brick road began again at the other end of the swamp, curling into the distance like a brightly coloured snake. "Let's get out of here," Daniel suggested. Following his command, the elephant took them away from the swamp, following the yellow brick road to their Enlightenment.

-----xxXxx-----

Hours later, the road ended abruptly. Frowning in puzzlement, Daniel slipped off the elephant and inspected the bare ground.

"Looks like it's been swept," he announced quietly. Ever since the swamp, the three of them had sat in silence, each immersed deep within their own thoughts. None of them had any idea whether death in this reality meant death in real life, but they each secretly believed that they would never see the botanist and the zoologist again.

Dropping down beside the archaeologist, Radek knelt beside him and saw that Daniel was correct. He had a pretty good idea what had happened to the road, but he had decided not to voice it. It was likely that their combined despair had created something that had swept the path away. As their thoughts and feelings shaped this world, the success of their quest must depend on the strength of their resolve. Therefore, if they believed that the outcome was hopeless, this reality would respond to that belief and they would never achieve their goal.

Their surroundings had become noticeably different since they had emerged from the swamp; instead of the vibrant and imaginative colours, sounds and creatures, they had ventured into a dark, creepy realm where hardly any life was to be found. In some ways this was a good thing – they hadn't been attacked by any crazy ninjas or vicious beasts for hours, but Radek also believed that they needed the imagination that had conjured such dangers in order to complete their quest.

"Might as well stop here for the night," Daniel was saying. "It's not like the road was taking us anywhere. We were just following it for the sake of it, right?"

"Ano, you are correct," Radek agreed softly. They quickly imagined up a three-man tent; none of them wanted to be alone tonight. Inside was nothing more extravagant than three sleeping bags. The elephant curled up between Radek and Daniel.

Parrish's snores soon filled the tent, but Radek was not so quick to find rest. As he tossed and turned, sleeping bag too uncomfortable and restrictive, he heard Daniel do the same. Sitting up, he unzipped the sleeping bag and leaned back against the thick canvas wall of the tent.

"I know you are awake also," he said quietly. After a few moments, he heard the rustling of Daniel sitting up and pushing away his own sleeping bag.

"If I'd known what choosing the cake would entail, I would probably have-"

"Do not speak of such things," Radek told him sharply, guessing the rest of what Daniel was going to say. "We are alive, that is all that matters. I know that somehow, we will find a way out of this."

Absently stroking the purple elephant's broad back, Daniel made a non-committal noise. Reaching across the elephant, Radek took his hand and squeezed comfortingly.

"Do not give up hope," he began, meaning to say more, but a blue glow from near Daniel distracted him. "Look," he said, pointing to the sword.

Daniel picked it up, gazing at the blade in astonishment. "But – but this means…"

"That which we seek is near. Yes."

"But where…?" They both scrambled out of the tent, waking Parrish, who followed wearily. The three of them started to search their surroundings, not knowing what it was they sought.

"Wait!" Daniel's shout stopped Radek from his search of a straggly plant with very few leaves.

"Have you found it?" The Czech rushed to Daniel's side, noticing that he didn't seem to have anything in his hands.

Shaking his head, Daniel grabbed Radek by the shoulders. "Remember our conversation about Ascension?"

"Yes, yes, we discussed the possibility that the goal of this quest is to find Enlightenment and Ascend like the Ancients did," Radek said impatiently. "But we are no closer to Ascension than we were before we started this quest."

At the very edge of his vision, colour started returning to their surroundings. It started with deep oranges and yellows in the sunrise and spread to the trees, which started to bloom with pink blossom.

"Not Ascension, no, but 'that which we seek' could just as easily be metaphorical as physical," Daniel explained. "What if we're not supposed to find some key or… or ZPM or whatever, but realise something about ourselves that only this quest could reveal?"

As Daniel spoke, the song of a solitary bird started up in a nearby tree. It was answered with a similar call and soon the trees were filled with dozens of individual tunes, twittering and chirping their messages throughout the forest.

"It started to glow as we spoke in the tent," Radek realised. Daniel's hands still gripped his arms, infusing life into him the same way that life was returning to the forest.

"So that must mean we were close to discovering something!" Daniel exclaimed. "What were you thinking about just before you noticed the sword?"

Radek tried to think back to a moment ago, in the intimate darkness of the tent. As if in encouragement, the trees of the forest opened their eyes and watched him silently. A delighted Parrish flitted from tree to tree, examining the faces that had appeared in the soft bark.

"I…" Radek frowned as he realised what he had felt as he had reached out and taken Daniel's hand. Something nuzzled the back of his head and he realised that it was the elephant.

"What? What was it?" Everything went silent as if the entire forest was waiting for his answer.

Radek was knocked to the ground as an earthquake shook the forest and a giant emerged, towering above the trees. A lopsided grin appeared on its ugly face as it ripped a tree out of the ground and swallowed it whole. The tree's scream pierced the air and was soon joined by the voices of a thousand others – a whole forest of trees screaming in terror.

The elephant scooped up a trembling Parrish and ran off back in the direction of the swamp. Roaring like a lion, the giant advanced towards Radek and Daniel, licking its lips hungrily.

"Fee fi fo fum!" it giggled, reaching out towards them with a warty hand.

"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me," Daniel groaned, kneeling beside Radek and shaking him. "Come on Radek, you have to remember!"

Radek placed one hand on either side of Daniel's anxious face and pressed their lips together as they were lifted to the giant's mouth. It wasn't the most romantic of kisses, but given the circumstances it was the best he could do.

The look of dawning comprehension of Daniel's face when he pulled back was delicious. "You… oh."

"Yes."

The forest was fading away, sound already gone by now and images becoming broken and distorted. Colour was the last thing to disappear before Radek fell into unconsciousness, a faint smile on his face.

-----xxXxx-----

The first thing that Radek Zelenka saw when he awoke was the face of the zoologist who had been sucked into the swamp. She turned away when he opened his eyes, calling out something to someone he couldn't see.

The next few hours were a blur of examinations and questions and the occasional answer to a question of his own. Little by little, Radek pieced together what had happened after he had solved the quest.

It seemed that the two women had woken up shortly after they had drowned in the virtual reality. Daniel, Parrish and himself had remained in suspended animation while their minds continued to exist in the virtual reality, and they had woken up almost a day later. This state of suspension allowed their bodies to remain healthy while their minds completed the quest. However, the longer they remained in the virtual reality created by their minds, the more fatigued their bodies became, so when Radek and Daniel solved the quest and woke up along with Parrish, they immediately fell into a coma. The female botanist and the zoologist were allowed to contact Atlantis as soon as the men came out of the virtual reality, and Lorne's team had come to carry Parrish, Daniel and Radek back home.

"They let us have a sample of that cake before we left," Daniel told him. The archaeologist had awoken from his coma a few hours before Radek had, so he had already heard all of this and was sitting by Radek's bedside, explaining the parts that Carson and Rodney had left out. "It contains a substance similar to hallucinogens found on Earth, but the molecular structure is much more complex than anything the botanists have seen before. The chemists think it's man-made."

"Or Ancient-made," Radek suggested.

"Yes. It looks like we were at least partially right about that."

"Are the natives going to allow us to go back there?" Radek asked, adding hastily: "Not us personally, of course. I would not like to go through that again."

"Hm," Daniel smiled a little. "The outcome wasn't actually that bad."

Realising that he was talking about the kiss they had shared, Radek blushed a little. "When you asked me what I had been thinking in the tent, I realised that I had wanted to kiss you. It seemed that I had nothing to lose, so…"

Daniel lifted a hand to cup Radek's cheek. "So 'what our hearts most desired' was…"

"Love."

"Very cliché."

"Shut up. Is your turn to kiss me."

Somewhere in the corner of Radek's mind, a purple elephant munched happily on some grass as rainbows chased each other across the sky and the birds sung showtunes to their hearts content.