Disclaimer: The characters from "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World" are owned by Telescene, NewLine Television, The Over the Hill Gang, Coote/Hayes, etc. No profit is being made from this story. No infringement upon copyrighted material is intended.
Setting: Season one, after Tribute, before Absolute Power
Spoilers: Paradise Found, Tribute
Description: A birthday fic. What might have happened in Paradise Found if Roxton ignored the music.
Thanks: To Debbie and Christine for heeding the emergency plea for beta readers. Their excellent suggestions were responsible for major improvements to the story. Both of them put other projects on hold in order to make sure this birthday fic was done in time.
Author's notes:
This story is based on a conversation where Ariadne mentioned a dream she would
have liked Roxton to have. This is the closest I could come to the story she
wanted. Happy Birthday, Ariadne.
About the title – The title is taken from an English translation of Beethoven's Ode to Joy. This was a line in the Ninth symphony. Elysium refers to a place of ideal happiness. It's taken from Elysian Fields of Greek mythology. Three guesses as to who would be the daughter of Elysium for Roxton.
Daughter of Elysium
by rann
There's nowhere quite so dark as the jungle on a moonless night. The stars were brilliant and innumerable. Warm air wafted over the darkened treehouse balcony.
Lord John Roxton sat in the shadows gazing out at the sky visible through the jungle canopy. It had been several days now since they left the Tintas on their own. The first battle won in a war that could prove timeless. It wasn't the first time Lord Roxton had helped a primitive people stand up for their rights against powerful invaders. It wasn't the first time he turned the tables for the underdog and made the oppressors pay. Yet each time he prayed it would be the last.
At least this time his tricks, his plots, his decoys weren't the vicious mantraps he had used in the past. He justified not using them by telling himself the Tintas would be too squeamish. They had only just steeled themselves to facing down the Hikari. Sharpened stakes, falling weights and pits would have horrified them into retreating back into their cowed existence, fodder for the Hikari tyrants.
One part of his mind and his soul told him he did the right thing, but the other part wondered if the ongoing war the Tintas would wage was worth it. And his internal conflict wouldn't let him rest. Leaning back he sipped Amontillado watching the stars. A soft step caught his attention.
Marguerite tossed her robe carelessly over her shoulders, as she slipped out towards the balcony. Her mind still troubled by the run-in with Dieter. One would think a plateau lost to civilization, thousands of miles away from events of the past, would be safe. She considered her past as she gazed out, seeing not the jungle, just the events of these past years before she gambled on Challenger's expedition. Even now she couldn't see what she could have done differently. Not that she was satisfied with what she had to do, but other options hadn't been available.
Challenger had discussed the Tintas with Marguerite, Summerlee and Malone. Marguerite regretted not being able to meet Kayla. It would have been interesting to see someone else who had to make the hard decisions - These lives in exchange for peace. The dark haired woman wondered how the Tintas' leader had coped. Had she ever been afflicted with doubt?
"Couldn't sleep?" The inquiry from the shadows had Marguerite spinning around, eyes straining to pick out the form belonging to the familiar voice.
"It's fairly late for you to be loitering about." A good attack can sometimes distract your opponent from his questions.
"Nightcap." He held up the glass containing the pale sherry. "Enjoying the view, which has just improved immensely." His suggestive voice rippled over her. Eyes accustomed to the darkness looked her over. The robe hadn't been closed; she was obviously not expecting anyone to be there. In the faint starlight it was a grey backdrop to the white of her nightdress. The nightdress was a surprise in that it wasn't overtly sexual. Of course to Roxton, whatever she wore caught his attention, but the simplicity of the gown, the embroidered bodice, was not the typical garment of a femme fatale. For some reason, however, this less exotic garment appealed to him. At least when it clung to the form it currently adorned.
Her chin lifted, but her eyes were defeated by the shadows as she again tried to pick out his form, ready to meet the challenge she knew she'd find in his face. She took a step forward to the candle extinguished earlier that night. Striking a match, the soft glow added an unexpected intimacy to the encounter. The pool of light encompassed both of them, isolating them from the encroaching blackness of the night.
The light revealed Roxton's casual appearance. Feet bare, braces hanging down, shirt untucked and unbuttoned, as if he rose from his bed and assumed the bare minimum for decency's sake. Roxton's eyes flickered questioningly from the candle to her. Marguerite smiled seductively. "Just improving the view." She let her gaze linger on him. His lips twisted in appreciation. She wouldn't back down from his innuendos and then she'd turn the tables on him.
He stood easily, closing the distance between them. "You still haven't told me what's keeping you up? Guilty conscience?" He thought of what Malone had told him about their encounter with the German pilot. Roxton wanted to keep the upper hand.
"Hardly." Marguerite faced outwards to the jungle, dismissing the notion. Her eyes narrowed as she glanced back at him. "You?"
"Maybe." Roxton leaned against the balcony railing next to her, scrutinizing the vista, patches of darkness against shadow, reflective of his mood.
Sensitive to the change in his mood, Marguerite remained silent a moment. Choosing her words carefully, she commented, "You didn't talk them into fighting. From what Veronica said they were on the verge of rebelling against the Hikari as it was. If you hadn't been there, it would have been wholesale slaughter. An innocent tribe with no more notion of defense than…." Her voice trailed off, she didn't want to complete her thought. "No more notion of defense than a young girl on the streets of a Belgium village." It would reveal too much about her. But at least she had offered him some comfort. She stepped away from the balcony.
Roxton turned to study her, more at ease than he had been these past few days. She stood for a moment in the pool of candlelight, the warm jungle breeze causing a slight fluttering of her white nightgown, her hair highlighted by the soft light, her face gentle, no hint of the earlier mocking. A memory tugged at his mind. She moved to the candle and extinguished it.
"Good night, John." Her voice drifted back from the treehouse interior.
Roxton shut his eyes. Every time they grew close, she drew back. He sighed and picked up the abandoned glass of Amontillado. Returning to his chair, he let the memory tugging at the back of his mind take hold. Marguerite in white, her expression tender, candlelight illuminating the scene
His eyes closed
It had been in the Paradise village. He was searching for Malone and inadvertently found Marguerite in the candlelit tent, clothed in her white camisole and a white wrap around her waist, her face tranquil, as he had seldom seen it. He enjoyed the teasing, challenging side of Marguerite. Someone who could go head-to-head with him and hold her own. It sparked his hunter's instinct, intrigued him. But when caught with the unexpected gentleness, he felt like he'd taken a hit to the solar plexus. Sometime during their internment on this damned plateau she'd slipped in under his guard. The tough, sharp-witted Marguerite he admired was also the gentle Marguerite in whom he could lose himself.
Finally sleep overtook him.
"Please, don't make me be who I was. Just let me be who I am." Soft hands on his chest and shoulders accompanied the plea. The back of his mind screamed duty, but earth could have opened up at that time and he wouldn't have stirred as long as those hands touched him. Her hands drew him to the bed; he scarcely dared draw a breath, unwilling to disrupt the moment. "Please, John, just for tonight."
He sat on the bed facing her, desperately wanting her, her hands stroking his face, her kisses melting his resistance but the god of responsibility nagged at him. "Malone -"
"…Can take care of himself."
The softness in her eyes, such a stark contrast to the challenge so often seen, was his real undoing. Suddenly he was moving closer to take her mouth, no longer willing to simply be seduced, he wanted her to know the strength of his desire. His fingers were on her face, smoothing back her luxurious curls. Her hands began to thread themselves into his hair. The delicate notes of a harp tugged at him. He ignored it. Then his hands were slipping down her shoulders to stroke her back encourage her to move closer.
Music tried to edge its way to his consciousness, but the blood pounding in his ears drowned it out. His arms closed around her drawing her against his chest. Her hands slipped his vest off a shoulder. Reluctantly he let one arm slip away from her to allow the vest fall, but he rewarded himself as he coaxed open her lips and his tongue explored the inside of her mouth.
His now freed hand nimbly made quick work of the camisole's buttons, and then teased at the cloth covering her shoulder. He tore his mouth away from her lips to taste the skin now bared as his hands stroked soft skin that shivered under his attentions. Her eager hands worked on the buttons of his shirt. At the touch of her hands on his now exposed chest, he groaned his pleasure against the soft skin at her neck. Again music hovered at the edge of his awareness. He nipped at the sensitive juncture between her neck and shoulder eliciting a soft moan. That moan filled his senses chasing away the distracting notes from a distant harp.
He lowered them both to the bed; her lips sought his to renew their duel of the tongues, hands feverish in their exploration. Once again the music outside the tent swelled, but he pulled the slender body close in his embrace and drove away the intruding descant. Marguerite's arms encouraged him as he began to move over her.
Her voice was soft, insistent, and more musical to his ears than any instrument on earth. "John." His mouth covered hers again. "John." He heard her voice once more.
"All right, my dear." Roxton's words were muffled against her skin as he traced a path with lips and tongue to her neck below the ear. The plunked notes of the Ninth Symphony once more trespassed upon on his senses. He gently bit her earlobe. He heard her gasp. The notes retreated. Her hands urged him on. Still he paused. There was one thing that couldn't be suppressed. "Are you sure, Marguerite? It can't just be the wine." His control was slipping rapidly, but he had to know that this was what she really wanted. He couldn't bear it if she were to regret it later. He drew on hitherto unknown reserves of self-control and held himself still for her answer.
"Roxton, wake-up."
The hunter forced his eyes open. "Damn." The word was intense, soft, nearly inaudible to the reporter who stood over him. "What do you want, Malone?" Roxton let his eyelids fall shut again.
"I was just getting a drink of water and I heard something fall out here." Malone regarded him curiously, always anxious to fill in the backgrounds of his companions for his journals.
Roxton glanced down and saw the glass that held the dregs of the Amontillado lying on floor by his feet, apparently dropped as he drifted off.
"Are you all right, Roxton?" The reporter had noticed the unusually introspective attitude of the hunter the past couple of days.
"I'm fine." Roxton had known for years not to confide in a reporter anything he didn't want blabbed to the world. And having seen how badly Malone treated Marguerite in his journals, he had no reason to change his habits.
Roxton stood. "Good night, Malone." Maybe with a bit of luck he could dream again tonight.
finis
Episode summaries:
Paradise Found
Searching for a clue to the whereabouts of Veronica's parents, the explorers
find a valley with a fruit that keeps people young. Ned goes missing, Roxton
searches for him. In a tent he finds Marguerite who tries to seduce him. The
sound of the Ode to Joy being played on a harp reminds him of his obligation
and he leaves her with a promise of later.
Tribute
Roxton, Challenger, & Veronica save a young woman, Tarya of the Tintas,
from samurai-like warriors called the Hikari. Kayla is Tarya's mother and the
leader of the Tintas. In the meantime, Marguerite, Summerlee, & Malone deal
with a German pilot, Dieter, still holding a grudge about the war, who has crashed
on the plateau.
Lyrics for Beethoven's
Ode to Joy
Joy, beautiful spark of the gods,
Daughter of Elysium,
We enter fire imbibed,
Heavenly, thy sanctuary.
Thy magic reunites those
Whom stern custom has parted;
All men will become brothers
Under thy gentle wing.
May he who has had the fortune
To gain a true friend
And he who has won a noble wife
Join in our jubilation!
Yes, even if he calls but one soul
His own in all the world.
But he who has failed in this
Must steal away alone and in tears.
All the world's creatures
Draw joy from nature's breast;
Both the good and the evil
Follow her rose-strewn path.
She gave us kisses and wine
And a friend loyal unto death;
She gave lust for life to the lowliest,
And the Cherub stands before God.
Joyously, as his suns speed
Through Heaven's glorious order,
Hasten, Brothers, on your way,
Exulting as a knight in victory.
CHORUS
Joy, beautiful spark of the gods,
Daughter of Elysium,
We enter fire imbibed,
Heavenly, thy sanctuary.
Be embraced, Millions!
This kiss for all the world!
Brothers!, above the starry canopy
A loving father must dwell.
Can you sense the Creator, world?
Seek him above the starry canopy.
Above the stars He must dwell.
These lyrics may be found at:
http://mx.geocities.com/sergio_bolanos/himnoen.htm