Warning:
The following contains brief descriptions of death. If that bothers you in anyway, please skip the first, second, and fifth longer paragraphs.
Her curly golden blonde hair covered her deathly pale face like a veil as she hung from the tree. He was too late. He couldn't save her.
"How could you, Jeremiah? How could you?"
White gown. Gold jewelry. Perfect makeup. Auburn hair surrounding her face like some kind of morbid halo.
"Am I just another woman to you?"
Royal blue cloak blowing back in the wind she was creating. Long titan hair whipped around her. Magic glowed hands stretched out towards him in a menacing gesture. Bright blue eyes glowing in the moonlight.
"I regret nothing."
A retreating back. Fiery red hair cascading down as she walked away, hand over her slightly bulging stomach, still in men's clothes.
"If you had fought like a man you need not to have been hang'd like a dog."
Strawberry blonde hair perfectly pulled back into the beret as always. A wedding ring that wasn't his glinted on her finger. Though both had bullet holes riddling their bodies, her blue eyes held no tears.
"It's death for Bonnie and Clyde."
Eric gasped as he awoke. His eyes opened to see nothing but golden hair. Pulling Taylor closer so that her back was against his chest, the dark haired man tried to get his breathing back under control.
After seeing her ancient lookalike dead, he was grateful that his girlfriend had stayed with him the night before.
He'd recognized Tara from the vision he'd had a few days prior. With the second woman, he was in some sort of ancient tomb, and her dress and makeup had screamed Cleopatra. The third was something out of a fairytale, yet the name "Morgan" came to mind. As for the fourth, they were in an old jail. Though he didn't see her face, he knew her name. Anne. The fifth woman was clearly Bonnie Parker. If his memory of seeing photos of the infamous crime duo that infatuated Depression Era America wasn't enough proof, her words were.
Eric sighed softly and kissed Taylor's shoulder.
The pilot turned around in his arms and nuzzled closer.
"What time is it?" she asked in a Scottish accent.
"Is that a Scottish accent?" Eric questioned.
"It's getting better," she groaned, accent Irish this time.
"Uh, babe, that was Irish."
"What is she normally?" British.
"'She'? You're you."
"Ugh," she oddly sounded Southern. Then, finally, in her normal voice, "me." Taylor moved closer to him, fast asleep once again.
"That was weird," Eric mumbled.
~*~
The first thing Taylor noticed was that she couldn't move. The panic quickly gave way to comfort as she remembered that she'd stayed with Eric the night before. She couldn't move because his arms were tightly wrapped around her waist.
The blonde smiled softly at the face of her sleeping boyfriend. He looked so peaceful.
The serene look was replaced by one of annoyance when his alarm went off.
With a giggle, Taylor pressed her lips to his when he turned back to her. "Good morning."
"Morning," Eric groaned.
"Didn't sleep well?" she asked. He was usually more enthusiastic when it came to her.
"Not really," he sighed.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"You said some weird things at 2am."
"Like what?" Taylor was confused, seeing as she didn't usually talk in her sleep. If she did, Max would've definitely used it as leverage on her, and this wasn't the first time she'd spent the night with Eric.
"You started talking in weird accents. And you asked, 'what's she normally?' talking about yourself."
"That is weird."
"You don't remember?"
She shook her head. "No. I don't. The last thing I remember is you pulling the blanket up. After that, I passed out."
With everything happening with Kite and the Org attacks, Taylor was both mentally and physically exhausted. She hadn't seen Eric in a few days, and they were both free, so she'd come over. One thing led to another, and she'd ended up spending the night. In his bed. With him. Again.
Eric groaned once again when his phone rang. After grabbing it off the nightstand, he settled back down and put it on speaker. "Myers."
"Hi, Eric," Wes greeted. "I know it's your day off, but there's a bit of a situation here."
"What kind of situation?"
"We got a letter. No name. Nothing. And it's in a language no one here can read. German, maybe?"
"What makes you think I can help?"
"Eric, we both know Taylor's there. I seem to remember that she speaks German."
"I took it in high school," the woman in question corrected. "I'm not too sure how much help I'd be."
"Hi, Taylor. Just please come in," Wes begged.
"Fine," Eric growled. "But you owe me."
"I know. See you soon."
The Quantum ranger sighed and looked at his girlfriend. "I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"Wes making you go to HQ."
She shrugged and got up, searching for her discarded clothes.
"Do you want to go back to the Animarium to get some clean clothes?"
"I have some in the car," she turned around to see her boyfriend standing on the other side of the bed, staring at her.
"You were planning this," he accused.
"Not planning. Preparation," Taylor shrugged again. "You can't seem to keep your hands off me."
Placing his hands on her hips, he countered, "I could say the same thing about you."
The blonde pulled him into a heated kiss.
When they finally parted for air, Eric gave her his signature smirk. "Looks like I was right."
"About what?"
"You. You are wild and passionate."
"I'll show you wild and passionate," she tackled him back onto the bed.
~*~
Needless to say, it took another two hours before the couple finally entered SGA.
"What took you so long?" Wes asked when they walked into his office. "Wait. I don't want to know."
"Where's the letter?" Eric crossed his arms.
The red Time Force ranger pushed a piece of paper across the desk as Eric and Taylor sat down.
Is þes middangeard
missenlicum
wisum gewlitegad
wrættum gefrætwad
siþum sellic
ic seah searo hweorfan
grindan wið greote
giellende faran
næfde sellicu wiht
syne ne folme
exle ne earmas
sceal on anum fet
searoceap swifan
swiþe feran
faran ofer feldas
hæfde fella ribba
muð wæs on middan
moncynne nyt
fere foddurwelan
folcscipe dreogeð
wist in wigeð werum gieldeð
gaful geara gehwam
þæs þe guman brucað
rice heane
rece gif þu cunne
wis worda gleaw
hwæt sio wiht sie
"This isn't German," Taylor pointed out. "It's old English.
"Beautifully made
in many ways
is this our world,
cunningly adorned.
Marvelous is its motion,
I saw this device
grind against the gravel,
crying out as it went.
This marvelous thing
had no sight nor feeling,
neither shoulders nor arms.
One foot only
had this curious device
to journey along on,
to move over the fields.
It had many ribs,
its mouth was midway.
Useful to mortals,
it bears abundance
of food to the people,
brings them plenty
and pays to men
annual tribute
which all enjoy,
the high and the lowly.
Explain if you can,
who are wise in words,
what this thing may be.
"It's a riddle."
"How could you read that?" Wes asked, amazed.
Taylor merely shrugged. Truthfully, she didn't have a clue.
"Are we supposed to figure out the answer?"
"Ship."
"What?"
"It's talking about a ship," the young woman rolled her eyes. "Can we leave, now?"
"Is there a name anywhere?" Wes ignored her question.
Picking up the paper, she held it up to the light and looked at it. "You got a lighter?"
Eric pulled one out of his pocket and handed it to her.
After taking it from him, Taylor lit it and held it up to the bottom of the sheet, careful to not light the entire thing on fire.
"'Tenebrosorum Unus,'" she read, handing the lighter back to her boyfriend. "Dark One. It's Latin."
"That's it?" Wes nearly screamed. "A riddle about a ship signed 'Dark One' in a different language?"
"It could be a joke," Eric suggested.
"Not many people know Old English or Latin anymore," Taylor shook her head.
"Yet you do," Wes pointed out.
"I honestly have no clue how I was able to read that. I don't know how I even knew what languages they're in."
"Really? Then how do you know it's right?"
"I just do."
"You just do?"
"I'm leaving," she stood up. "It's almost noon, and I need to get back to the Animarium. Bye."
Eric followed his girlfriend out of the office, taking her hand as they walked down the hallway. He knew she was frustrated. He was, too. He could also understand what it said.
A/N:
It will be explained later what happened to Tara. I will say right now that it wasn't suicide, however. She was killed; she didn't kill herself.
The half asleep accent change comes from a Reddit post I saw where a girl said that her boyfriend did that once. I thought it worked well here.
Also, the riddle is one from the Exter Book, which I highly suggest you read a bit about if you don't know what it is. It's pretty cool. (Or maybe I'm just a history buff. That could also be it.)