DISCLAIMER: Like y´all don´t know I don´t own any this!!
NOTES: Thanks for the kind feedback! Sorry it took me a while to update this……!
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I also deeply alologize for any mistakes, grammar or spelling that slip by me! As I mentioned before I am not a native speaker, merely someone who studies English history and literature! I do my best, but …alas …I´m not perfect! So bear with me, please!
CONUNDRUM
„ Thought you didn´t believe in ghosts, Sir!" Zoë said, looking at her captain with one raised eyebrow.
Mal shrugged. "I don´t. But then again ….I didn´t believe in vampires either."
"Ghosts or not, I sure as hell don´t like this place. There´s a reason why this place is shunned even by alliance ships." Jayne growled.
" Sure looks gloomy." Wash added. They all stood behind his pilot chair, staring out into the blackness, at the asteroid field that occupied the space that had once held a whole star system.
The mercenary scratched his head.
"How come I never heard of this weapon?"
"Because it didn´t quite work the way our friendly alliance had planned…." Mal answered grimly.
"Looks like a gorram´ piece of work to me!" Jayne returned, gesturing towards the debris.
Zoë gave him an annoyed look, rolling her eyes.
" This isn´t quite the outcome the alliance had in mind when they tested the weapon, Jayne."
"Worked well enough in theory, but the damn thing blew up right under their noses. Took two alliance cruisers and the whole uninhabited system with it when it went awry."
Mal explained with a grim smile.
"I very much doubt that anybody lives here, captain."
Mal exchanged a glance with his pilot.
" I sure as hell wouldn´t like to call this home, but then again …we got paid. If they don´t find what they came here for, it ain´t our problem now. You got the coordinates the green guy gave ya´ …..try to manoeuvre us around the debris as far as you can without ruining our paint job. We´ll take the shuttle the rest of the way."
"But aren´t you scared?" Kaylee aked, pulling her jacket tighter around her shoulders as she watched Alive lacing up her brown boots. The leather was worn out, but still in good condition.
" I mean …´bout that witch thing. Doesn´t that worry you a little, going out there to look for her."
The slayer pushed her auburn curls over one shoulder, her long fingers working quickly to braid the mass of hair neatly together before she tied it with a black cord.
"A little ..maybe." she answered quietly. Then she shrugged, pulling her coat over her shoulders.
" After a while you just get used to it I guess." She couldn´t help but smile at the other girl. She had come to like Kaylee even if they didn´t know each other very well. The mechanic had something about her …something …that reminded Alice of good, healthy things like blooming apple trees and sun.
" In fact a lot of them are all talk, you know…..and every beastie has a bigger reputation than the last one, claims to be more evil than everyone else. They´re all soooooo very bad and so evil ….them with all their oh- so fiendish plans." Alice said mockingly.
Kayle furrowed her brow, unable to stop a giggle.
" You serious?"
" It´s true! Sometimes I think they´re all into being evil for the speechmaking and the banter. Come to think of it ….kinda like Angel and Spike!"
"I can´t let you come with us Captain!" Angel said with a sigh, crossing his arms in front of his chest. Malcolm Reynolds leaned against the shuttle door, giving Jayne a nod. The mercenary crossed his arms too, mimicking the vampire´s stance and position with a steely gaze.
"Oh I think, you´ll want me to come along, paid me for it in fact!"
"Frankly, it´s none of your business, mate!" Spike cut in, looking up to Jayne.
"Since you´ll be taking my shuttle it kinda is my business, folks. We´ll get you where you want to go. The darn rock is nicely positioned in the middle of all that gorram´ debris. My pilot says it´s probably the biggest piece that´s left of that moon, even has a little atmosphere left from the looks of it."
"I can´t let you come with us, this is not your world. It is ours and you don´t want to be dragged into this. Believe me." Angel told him sternly.
Now ain´t that shiny?" Mal returned, arching one brow ironically.
"Little late for that, my friend. Got us wrapped up in this nice and neat. Now if you think I´ll let you take my shuttle you´re dead wrong. Cause I want it back in one piece and I really don´t think any of you can pilot that thing."
"He can come." Alice said, her gaze wandering from one man to the other as she turned around the corner.
"Aw…C´mon love…"
"Alice!" Angel hissed warningly. The girl rolled her eyes at him.
"He´s right, Angel……none of us can fly that thing!"
The air was stale. There was no other word for it. It felt thick and heavy, as though they were standing in a crypt that had been sealed for a very long time. Mal didn´t like where they were standing: In front of the entrance of a giant cave. The inside was completely dark, the only thing visible was a torch, burning in the sand next to the entrance.
Jayne´s face took on an even grimmer expression. One didn´t need to be a genius to see that the mercenary didn´t like all this one bit.
"You might want to wait at the shuttle." Angel told the two men who had accompanied them, but Jayne shot him a withering look. The mercenary´s lip curled upwards in an expression that came close to a disgusted snarl.
"Do we look like gorram´ cowards to you?"
Spike shrugged, picking up the torch from where it stuck in the sand.
"Suit yourself, mate."
The cave was wide and lead into another cavern, which led them deeper and deeper into the darkness of the mountain until the only audible sounds were the echoes of their steps and water dripping from the roof of the cavern.
"Don´t think anything would choose to live here." Mal opined.
Alice, who was walking next to him, looked up, smiling slightly.
"You´d be surprised, Captain Reynolds …I´ve seen a lot weirder things in my life."
Mal didn´t doubt her for a second. And yet he couldn´t help but think that maybe she shouldn´t have seen all those terrible things. She was so young, so much like Kaylee.
"Seen things like this, ya ´mean?"
Jayne asked, turning around to glare at her.
There were more torches, but the overall lighting was dim none the less. Alice exchanged a quick look with Angel, before she carefully touched Mal´s arm.
"You two stay here…please?"
She bridged the distance between herself and her two vampire companions in a split second.
"Whatcha´ make of that?" Jayne whispered at Mal as they stared at three very big wildcats, lounging around on the sandy floor of the cavern, staring at them with blazing, amber eyes.
"I think for once, we´d do as she asks and let them handle this." Mal whispered back.
Two of the cats were sand coloured with big black dots, their lithe bodies relaxed but they still seemed ready to jump at them at a whim. The third one was all black and a little sturdier than the other two. The panther sat up and hissed at them.
Alice stared at the three cats, more fascinated than terrified.
"I´ve never seen real ones before.Only in books or on pictures on the cortex. These are real." She said breathlessly.
"Yes …aren´t they beautiful?" The question came from the everywhere around them, like an echo.
" Shae…" Angel yelled back. "We have come to see the enchantress of Emmen Roth."
"I have been waiting for you." She said from somewhere in the deeper parts of the cavern. Mal was not sure what kind of voice he had expected from someone who was said to be a witch queen. But the voice that reached his ears now, echoing of the high walls of the cave was a husky one. The sound of it was raw enough to hurt his ears. It sounded broken and forced as though the one who used it had just learned how to speak.
"Much longer than we anticipated in fact….." The woman that stepped into the flickering light of the torches was tall, not tall enough to look Jayne straight in the eye, but taller than both vampires. She walked towards them in a slow, even pace, her head high and her back straight.
Shae, the shadow-queen, had a tall, willowy figure. Her long hair fell straight to her hips like a silky, brown cape,the face it framed was pretty and ageless. She could have passed for an old 18 years but just as well for a young 30, Mal wasn´t sure what would have made him more comfortable. Her long dress was a few shades darker than her hair, velvet with a high collar and wide sleeves that almost touched the floor.
"We?" Angel asked carefully, trying to keep an eye on her cats while she came towards them.
"There were three of us once. Time grew long, too long it seems." She sighed, looking at them all for a moment, one after the other.
"Now I speak and the only voice I hear is my own. I miss Meyalleleth´s languorous hum and Kaliopee´s enchanting lilt. There were three of us, now I am alone."
"Your sisters…" Angel whispered.
"Three daughter´s my mother brought into this world. We spoke truths and whispered secrets and yet the world never knew us by our name. We had so many."
Alice took a step forward.
"A friend said you might help me …us with something."
The witch- queen laughed at that. It was a bitter sound, almost palpable.
"You only think they change….people, but no matter where you set your foot; Delphi, Rome, Gaul, Brittany ….here…..some things never change. You still come …seeking wisdom."
"We travelled far." Alice said flatly. Shae returned her stare, her face betraying nothing.
"I know you did. I know why you came. "
She looked at the two vampires that stood framing the slayer and folded her hands I front of her dress.
"There is a spirit ……a slayer of old. I can feel her grasp on you like fog rising from the depths around you. She is angry with your two men."
"So you can do something about all this mess or areyou just gonna stand there and talk?" Spike asked her angrily.
Shae lifted one hand, the simple movement shoved Spike off his feet.
"I will tolerate only so much disrespect, vampire!" She said austerely, ignoring the furious glare he gave her as he stood up.
"Is there something you can do to help us, please." Alice asked quietly.
"Like what?"
"Can you summon her, something like that…so she can say what she wants from me?"
"I cannot give her a voice, no."
"What she and - I think we all- really want to know is……. Can you bring her back?" Angel asked, his voice very low. Both Spike and Alice looked at him in shock.
"She died a very long time ago." Shae clarified her eyes boring into him.
"Yes, we know."
" Don´t think I like that idea……" Jayne hissed at Mal.
"I think I know what you mean." Serenity´s captain returned, chewing his bottom lip.
"Is that why you came?"
"Yes."
"No!"." Alice gasped
Shae turned her back on them walking back into the darkness she had emerged from only moments ago. With a speed and agility too fast for Mal to follow, Angel jumped after her, grabbing her wrist to forcefully fling her around to face him.
"Can you?" he hissed at her.
The shadow queen stared back into his eyes which had turned to a bright yellow as the vampire´s game face had emerged in the heat of his anger.
" No .." she finally said in her soft, velvety voice. "There is no way to change that. You don´t conquer death. You don´t fight time."
"What is it that you do then?" Angel ground out, increasing the pressure to her delicate wrist. She returned his intent gaze for a moment with her dark eyes. She gave the vampire an ominous smile, wringing her wrist from his grasp without the slightest effort.
"You cheat." The witch-queen answered as though it was the most obvious thing in the universe.
Angel let her step away from him, his features returning to normal. Alice still looked at him in pure shock, while Spike furrowed his brow, remembering something.
"You said you have been waiting for us."
"The reason the two of you are here…" she continued moving away from Angel towards Spike, "…. with the slayer asking me – of all people- for help is time. Things went wrong and the more time passed the worse things have become."
"Don´t think I follow you there, love." Spike uttered, keeping his eyes on her wearily. Shae just shrugged, moving on to circle Alice.
"I did not think you would."
"What do you mean …..things went wrong?" The slayer demanded to know, turning her head with Shae´s movements as the witch scrutinized her with glittering eyes. After a moment her gaze returned to Angel, searching his face as though she was contemplating different options.
"You ….." she finally whispered, turning back to Alice.
"You shouldn´t be here."
"We came a very far way to find answers. I´m not leaving until…."
"I did not say you should not have come here." The witch-queen interrupted her before she walked away from that into the darker part of the cavern.
The big cats followed her without a sound, their tailss twitching nervously.
"I said you should not be here. Things went wrong and now you are, but that doesn´t change the facts."
"I don´t understand."
The witch-queen stopped, turned around to look at the slayer once more as she petted one of the jaguars. "People make mistakes. They are prone to,.it is human. But sometimes these mistakes are like waves in a silent pond, too big to be ignored. Free will is a tricky thing, no matter what the powers intend and sometimes these …human errors reshape the grand design. Sometimes the shift is too ….severe to be corrected in time. In cases such as these the events cannot be altered and things go wrong."
Jayne frowned, leaning over to Mal.
"And I thought the doctor´s sister talked in ruttin´ riddles. But the girl makes this broad look downright sane. She sure could give River a run for her money!"
It was hard to tell if the witch had heard the mercenary´s whispered comment, but she smiled.
"Think of the fates. Once people believed that they spun your whole life like yarn ……weaving all lives together into an intricate design, a gobelin made of millions of destinies. One thread could hardly ruin the whole design, but several knotted to each other might spoil the outcome."
"Is that what happened?" Alice asked carefully.
" Yes….."
"And I am part of this….mess up?"
"Not really."
"For god´s sake woman……will you just stop hinting?" Spike exploded.
The witch looked at him for a moment with a blank and yet impatient expression, without stopping to pet the wild cats the purred at her feet.
"The reason you are not part of this …mess up, as you call it is quite obvious, Slayer. If things had not gone wrong and marred the grand design……..you would not exist."