Aladdin: A Frakked-Up Fairy Tale (I)
Title: Aladdin (1/2)
Author: innibis
Rating: R
Word Count: 10,215
Pairing: Kara/Lee
Genre: Completely AU
Disclaimer: I am not Scheherazade. Nor am I a Disney. Heck, I’m not even RDM or any of his cohorts. I do not lay claim to BSG in any way, shape or form; especially the finale.
A/N: For my always fabulous beta in a bottle, workerbee73 with my sincere thanks.
Also for elzed who gave me the idea in the first place (over a year ago, but I got here eventually).
Aladdin
Shadows of two shrouded figures stretched across the endless desert. "Here it is, Felix," Tom Zarek spoke into the stillness of the moonlit night. He threw his hood back to reveal hard-set eyes, "the entrance to the Cave of Wonders."
Felix Gaeta pushed his cloak off his shoulders and onto the ground. "I'm ready, Advisor Zarek."
"I know you are," Zarek said and began the incantation it had taken him years to find, years of combing the darkest of the dark secrets in desperate search for a weapon that could bring about a new world order. The twisting consonants and sibilant vowels carried, the only sound on the chilled night air. He stopped as precisely as he had begun and the silence rang around them.
A grumbling in the sand began, faint enough to be imagination, but it grew louder, shook harder, and the men stumbled back as the ground started swirling underneath them. A whirlpool made of sand. From the depths of the earth, a lion's head emerged, impossibly huge and roaring before it settled and quieted, mouth open.
Gaeta removed the six-inch blade from his boot and limped forward to the lion's maw. "Touch nothing but the lamp," Zarek called out, and Gaeta nodded, continuing slowly but steadily toward the mouth of the cave.
The moment Felix stepped from sand to rock, the lion roared, making him stumble back. "Who disturbs my slumber?" A voice growled rough and low from within the cave’s lit depths, nearly deafening Gaeta in his proximity.
Zarek stepped forward, voice steady and clear. "Cave of Wonders, we have sought long and hard for you. What would make my servant worthy to enter?"
"Know this, sorcerer. Only one may enter here. One who's worth lies far within, the Harbinger of Death." The lion roared a final time before sinking back into the desert floor. The sand shifted until all evidence of the Cave of Wonders had been erased from existence, leaving only Gaeta and Zarek standing in the cold desert air.
Gaeta stared at Zarek as he made his way back towards him, but the Advisor's face remained impassive. He knew better then to venture the question and bided his time. Finally, Zarek pulled up his hood and turned toward the city.
* * *
There was no one left in the market place as Ahmed hurriedly closed his booth down for the night. He wasn’t usually out this late, but he had been speaking to friends and then had encountered a few late customers in search of fresh fruit. He was well overdue for dinner and his wife was going to kill him.
The eerie silence in the normally bustling center was suddenly punctuated by the sound of footsteps approaching. Ahmed reached under his robe for his knife, but stopped. A tall, blonde woman emerged from the shadows, her stride easy and swinging and gaze predatory. She walked right up to him, a vision in red. One side of her mouth curled up in amusement at his stupefaction and she leaned forward to breathe in his ear, "Are you alive?" she teased, lips brushing his cheek deliberately as she pulled back to stare into his eyes.
She was breathtaking and Ahmed was beguiled as she leaned in and captured his lips with her own. He found himself kissing the woman in red. Time passed but did not register until she disengaged lazily and walked away.
Ahmed watched her disappear, frozen in place with his hand on his lips. He slowly shook himself into awareness and turned to finish packing for the night, catching the faint echo of feminine laughter in the air.
* * *
"I couldn’t have done it better myself," Kara Thrace grinned, teeth sinking into an apricot as they walked home, part of the bounty from the loot she had snatched while the merchant had been making out with Caprica Six.
"No kidding," Caprica said as she strutted next to her partner in crime. "Seductions aren't exactly your thing. More like a fist to the nose and a knife to the gut."
"Gets the job done," Kara said cheerfully, enjoying the cool juices from the fruit rolling down her chin.
"Such subtlety," Caprica said, holding out a hand to grab the date Kara handed to her.
"Kicked your ass," Kara said.
"You most certainly did not," Caprica protested.
"Did too," Kara grinned and threw the apricot pit over her shoulder before reaching into her bag for more fruit, "and I can do it again."
"You punched me when the police were holding my hands behind my back," Caprica said indignantly.
"And you went down like a drunken harem girl," Kara countered. It was an old fight, one they had been having for years, since the first day they met as teenagers on opposite sides of a street brawl. Caprica sighed her disdain as they approached the entrance of the abandoned, decrepit building they had been squatting in for the past three months.
They climbed their way up the rickety stairs to the top floor, the sack of fruit over Kara's shoulder. She placed it in the corner that got the least amount of sun during the day before walking over to the enormous hole in the wall that Caprica insisted on calling a window and slid the ragged curtain to the side. There, gleaming in the moonlight, was the palace where Sultan Adama and his two sons lived.
"Must be the life," she said as Caprica joined her.
"Everyone has problems," Caprica said, leaning out to catch the breeze.
"Yeah, well going days without eating isn't one of theirs is it?" Kara shot back.
"No," Caprica said thoughtfully as she began getting ready for bed. "But having no expectations thrust on you isn't always a bad thing."
"Isn’t exactly a good thing either," Kara said, still staring at the flickering lights of the palace from her hole in the wall. "We had no expectations. Look how far that's gotten us." Caprica didn’t say anything, but Kara hadn’t wanted her to.
* * *
Lee Adama's jaw clenched as he felt a strong, square hand catch his arm and yank him around. "You will not walk away from me," Sultan William Adama growled into his face.
"My apologies, Your Grace," Lee said, sketching a bow to his father as insincerely as possible. "I thought that this conversation was over."
"It is," the sultan said, letting go of Lee's arm and stalking back to sit rigidly on his throne. "The law of the land states that a prince will be married to a princess by his thirtieth birthday. You are a prince. You are thirty in a month. End of discussion. I did not, however," Adama said, his voice rising as he saw his son start towards the door again, "dismiss you. As you were, Prince Leland!" he barked out, face stony.
Lee threw his shoulders back and lifted his chin, but he remained standing obediently before his sultan. "Dad," he began, "you have dictated my entire life. I have never left the walls of this palace, I have learned everything you have asked me too, performed every feat you set for me, I have been a good son." Lee waited, but his father remained silent, not even tacit agreement in his expression. Lee ignored the old dull twinge of disappointment with practiced ease and continued. "I ask you one thing, the only thing I will ever ask of you and that is to not force me into marriage to fit some arbitrary timeline."
"Well I would never accuse you of being perfect," Adama said with a half smile on his face. A peace offering like only the Sultan would offer, and Lee closed his eyes briefly wondering why it was always so hard between them.
"Understood, sir," Lee said quietly. "Is that your final word?"
Adama looked at his son closely. "It isn’t meant to punish you, Lee," he said. "This has been the law for a thousand years, written by the prophet, Pythia, inspired by the gods."
"You don’t believe in the gods, Dad," Lee replied.
"No," Adama said, standing up and walking to his son. He put his hand on his shoulder and spoke with conviction, "but our people do. Life is hard beyond the walls. They need something to believe in beyond this existence. We follow Pythia because it gives them hope for something better."
"There are more effective ways to give hope than me getting married," Lee pleaded softly. “Ways that could help them right now, in this world.”
"I know you believe that, son." Adama said and clapped him once more on the shoulder before heading back to his throne. "And when you are on the throne, you can implement whatever changes you see fit. Until that day, I am the sultan and you are the prince," he paused and looked at Lee sympathetically, "and you need to get married in a month. Dismissed."
Lee bowed and walked quickly out of the throne room, feeling his brother fall into step behind him, not saying a word, but staying close until they reached the gardens of the palace.
"Please don’t do this, Lee," Zak said, handing over a bag as Lee unceremoniously stripped off his rich attire and pulled the homespun garments out of the bag and put them on. "You aren’t just leaving dad and the palace, you’re leaving me too."
"Come with me, Zak," Lee said, grasping his brother's forearms. "Think of the freedom, the things we could do."
"Stop it!" Zak snapped. "You two put me between you and treat me like a rope in your little game of tug of war. Dad's a pain in the ass and I don’t agree with forcing us to get married, but I also don’t agree with just running." He grabbed Lee by the shoulders when he started turning away. "You taught me about duty and honor and family, about not shirking responsibility, no matter how hard it is to face it. You taught me that, as much as Dad ever did. So what are you doing?"
Lee stared into his brother's eyes. "It's not enough." Zak let go of Lee and stepped back, looking so disappointed in him that Lee's heart dropped out of his chest. "I'll be back," he found himself promising.
"Oh yeah?" Zak asked coldly, turning his back to his brother. "Last I heard you couldn't wait to get away."
"Zak, that was just talk, just blowing off steam," Lee said dropping the bag and moving to stand in front of him. "And I was never trying to get away from you. You know I wouldn't abandon everything. I just need some space and some time. I need to get out of here." It was a lie of sorts, Lee didn’t really want to come back, but the pull of obligation was too strong in him, his father's call to service too deeply embedded, his brother too important.
"When are you coming back?" Zak demanded, an echo of the child whose father had been constantly gone on war campaigns.
Lee sighed, rubbing his eyes. "Give me a week. I'll be back a week from today."
"That's it?" Zak asked, surprised.
"Yeah," Lee said dully, "That's it. I have princesses to interview and I have to do some more research - see if there's something to get me out of this marriage business."
Zak smiled and offered what he could. "I'll poke around, ask Advisor Zarek to tell me about all the eligible princesses and start the weeding out process, keeping the best ones saved for my own consideration of course."
"Of course," Lee said dryly. "I notice you didn’t volunteer to look through Pythia."
"I'll leave the joy of hunting for loopholes to you and check out the women instead. I'm your brother, Lee, no sacrifice is too great."
Lee laughed. "Sure you won’t come with me?"
"I'm sure. Someone needs to keep Dad calm," Zak said. "He is going to be frakking pissed."
"Yeah, I know," Lee said and reached out to pull his brother into a warm embrace. "I'll miss you."
"Me too," Zak said gruffly, patting Lee's back before stepping away. "Be careful out there, Lee," he said, walking with him to the lowest part of the garden wall. He gave Lee a boost to the top of the wall. "See you soon."
"Bye Zak," Lee called back before dropping to the ground on the other side. He took a deep breath of night air. It smelled the same as the air behind the palace walls, but it felt entirely different. Not bothering to contain his grin, Lee walked steadily away from the sultan.
* * *
"I call upon the sands of time. Reveal to me the one who can enter the cave," the Sultan's advisor intoned in the dankness of the palace's lower levels.
Felix watched as the saffron colored sand in Zarek's hourglass spun into the shape of a young woman who appeared to be scaling the side of a building. "Is that her, Advisor?" he asked, running the edge of his thumb idly over the blade of his knife. “Is she the one who can help us to overthrow the tyrant Adama?”
"Our little Harbinger of Death," Zarek mused.
"How do I find her?" Gaeta asked.
"This one doesn’t look like she's too far underground," Zarek said, watching the woman swing up onto the roof and throw her bright blonde head back in laughter. "Do your job," he said. "Be patient. Ask questions. That's how you'll find her. The lamp's been hidden for hundreds of years. Our revolution can wait a little longer."
Felix bowed and left the room.
* * *
Kara was drinking deeply from the communal well's bucket when Caprica sidled up beside her and said, "Fresh meat."
Kara handed the bucket to the next person in line and pushed a hand through her sweaty hair. "It’s half time," she said, gesturing to the makeshift Pyramid court where the players of the pick-up game were milling around.
"And you can’t look and perspire at the same time?" Caprica asked. "Over by Azza's."
Kara sighed but turned, looked toward the local tavern and froze. There he was. Absolutely no question in her mind that the man standing there, looking overwhelmed, was the person Caprica was referring to. "He's not your type," she said immediately, sensing the consideration in Caprica's appraisal and weighing it against the deep tug of want in her own gut.
"He is everyone's type," Caprica said. "Go back to your game, Kara," She straightened up to her full height and shook back her hair. "I've got better things to play with."
Kara's hand shot out on its own accord, grasping Caprica's arm before she could walk away. They both looked down in surprise, but Kara recovered quickly and looked challengingly into her friend's eyes. "Why don’t you sit this one out?" she suggested softly, a warning edge in her voice.
Caprica looked at her appraisingly, her lips turning up into a smile that Kara ignored. “By your command,” she said mockingly. They turned to consider the strange man as he walked slowly through the square, head on a swivel, eyes wide. "Where on earth did he come from?" Caprica asked, amused as he stooped to talk to a filthy urchin.
"Oh frak, what is he doing?" Kara asked, alarmed as he reached to the cart next to him and grabbed a handful of dates to hand to the child. The merchant lunged forward and grabbed him, calling for the police when it became apparent that the man didn’t have any money. "Caprica-"
"On it," she replied and sprinted toward the pyramid courts as Kara hurried toward the rapidly raising voices.
"-a child!" the man was yelling. "I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking and I understand that you have to make a living, and if you let me go, I will come back with payment." Kara winced. If that wasn't the lamest attempt to escape prosecution she didn’t know what was.
She walked up behind the man and spoke quietly and quickly in his ear as the merchant continued to yell for the police, not looking at his prisoner. "In about thirty seconds, an enormous fight is going to break out. Follow me when it does." He ducked his head in a covert nod. She shifted her weight to the balls of her feet, praying that the pretty boy in distress could at least run.
Right on cue, pandemonium broke loose in the square, looking like a pyramid brawl gone awry. Kara watched tensely as Caprica shoved an innocent by-stander into the merchant and Kara wrapped her hand around her rescuee's free wrist and tugged to keep him upright as the merchant crashed to the ground. "Go, go, go!" she shouted, letting go and sprinting into the crowd, trusting that he was behind her.
She twisted through the square, throwing the occasional look behind her as she started turning down random alleyways and running up others. He was still behind her, as were a couple of rather determined policemen. "Frak," she panted and turned abruptly into a building and pounded up the stairs. He stayed right behind her, breathing heavily as they pushed past startled residents in the building, up eight flights until they burst into an occupied apartment.
Kara ran to the window, ignoring the startled cries of the family in the kitchen and saw the clothesline stretched across to the next building. "Up for it?" She turned and found herself mere inches away from the man she was trying to save from himself and, despite its determination to pound out of her chest from exertion, she felt her heart do a slow, liquid flip in response to his proximity. His eyes were steady on hers, and she found herself drowning for a moment before she shook herself free.
"Yeah," he said breathlessly and then more firmly, "Yes."
"Out the window then," she said. He nodded and swung out the window after tugging on the line to see if it would hold. He hung onto the rope and began moving quickly hand over hand toward the window across the alley. Kara waited until he got there before waving to the family watching in disbelief and proceeding to cross the alley herself. She didn't need his help, but she let him take her hand and pull her into the window anyway, looking over her shoulder as the police burst into the apartment they had just been standing in.
They ran past the startled couple whose window they had just climbed into, down the stairs and out into the alley where police officers were emerging from the door of the first building. “C’mon,” Kara said and sprinted down the alley, back the way they had come. She turned into a dense crowd trying to get away from the fight in the square and slowed to a fast walk, weaving through people and carts and the occasional goat.
She glanced over her shoulder, shooting a quick grin at Lee, who was still doggedly tailing her, before searching behind him for police.
“Look out,” Lee said suddenly, tugging on the back of her shirt and pulling her against his chest. Her eyes snapped front as they stopped abruptly at a busy intersection, a caravan of camels passing before them.
She leaned back into him for a heartbeat, catching her breath before straightening up. “This way,” she said, and turned into the flow of the caravan, edging along the buildings to keep as far away from hooves as possible. They made their careful way down the street, turning at the next block.
Kara watched Lee sag against the building into a squat, breathing hard and smiling wide. “You are beyond insane,” he laughed, wiping sweat off his forehead with his arm.
She leaned on the wall next to him. “So, where can I drop you?” she asked, looking down at him. “I’m pretty sure we shook ‘em, but I don’t want you to get lost or stumble into any cops.”
He shrugged. “Anywhere,” he said. “I have nowhere I need to be right now.”
Kara let her breathing and her heart slow down, let her face cool. It wasn’t everyday the gods were good enough to drop someone interesting into her life and she had never been one to over think her inclinations. “Let’s go,” she said, pushing off the wall and reaching a hand to pull Lee to his feet.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“My place,” she said, not quite catching his eyes as she started down the road,
He followed her up and down the maze of streets until she was completely sure they weren't being followed and brought him to her and Caprica's current residence. "It isn't much," she said awkwardly, self-consciously, as they stood in the middle of the shabby room, "but the view's great." She pulled aside the curtain so he could see the palace and watched his eyes go blank. "Um, didn’t catch your name," she said.
He turned his attention away from the palace and entirely back to her. "Lee," he said, "and thank you for rescuing me." A self-deprecating smile crossed his features and Kara found herself unaccountably charmed.
"My pleasure, Lee," she said. "I'm Kara." She held out her hand, and he took it in more of a grasp then a shake before letting her go. “So, where are you from?”
They were interrupted when Caprica burst through the door, Athena and Helo nearly tumbling over her when she stopped short. Kara rolled her eyes as her friend slid into full on slink mode, marred a bit by the black eye and the sack slung over her shoulder. She glanced at Lee whose eye brows were raised in the usual combination of surprise and admiration Caprica inspired. “You just can’t help it, can you?” she asked her roommate dryly. “Lee, this is Caprica, Helo and Athena,” she said. “They helped stage the fight so I could get you out of there."
“Uh, hi,” Lee said, wrenching his gaze from Caprica’s unabashedly sexual lean against the wall to nod at Athena and Helo. “Thank you,” he added.
“No problem, man,” Helo said easily, moving past Caprica to shake Lee’s hand. “We’ve all been there.”
Athena nodded her agreement and Caprica straightened up into a more normal posture, dropping the bag and shooting a grin at Kara to let her know that the display had been entirely for her benefit. “Card game tonight at Azza’s” she said. “We all managed to take advantage of that fight, so we have booze and baklava.”
“And fresh meat,” Athena added with a grin at Lee before motioning to the two lamb haunches Helo pulled out of his own bag. “You two in?”
Kara looked at Lee, who shrugged his acceptance. “We’re in,” Kara said.
* * *
“C’mon, Lee,” Kara prodded him with her toes.
He swung his legs absently, bumping his heels off the side of the wall, sitting with his feet dangling out the side of Kara and Caprica’s apartment. The city spread out beneath him - stretching toward the lights of his home, the palace white and shiny smooth, rising above the poverty and the want, placating the people by sacrificing princes to marriage on the alter of Pythia, providing opium to the masses. A surprisingly sharp toe dug into his ribs again.
“You wouldn’t believe me anyway,” he said, looking over in the dark to where she leaned against the wall, wind off the desert ruffling the blonde of her hair. He saw the gleam of her teeth, the hint of her smile.
“Sure I would,” she said, stretching out a little further so that her feet rested in his lap. He curled his fingers around the strangely delicate bones of her ankles, slim and fragile looking on such a strong, competent body. “You can’t lie for shit, as you proved tonight when your bluff failed spectacularly,” she said and passed him the bottle of ambrosia she had won at the card game. “Where are you from? Sure as frak isn’t from around here.”
Lee took a deep pull of the bottle, enjoying the buzz, the company, the softness of the skin he held in his hands and the generosity of being allowed to share in it all. “Not so far, actually” he answered, tracing the veins along her foot, “but a different world all the same.” He passed the alcohol back to her.
“And you’re going back at the end of the week,” she stated, accepting the bottle, but just holding it for the time being, rolling the neck between her palms.
“Yeah,” Lee sighed, letting his body slump until he was lying on his back, looking straight up at the ceiling. “That’s all I get. One small taste of something else before it gets locked down and locked in and there’s no escape.”
“Gods, Lee,” Kara’s voice floated over him from the shadow and he tightened his hold on her feet to remind himself that she was real. “You’re so dramatic about it. If it’s so awful, just don’t go back.”
“Not an option.”
The feet shifted out from under his hands, out of his lap. “There’s always an option.”
“Sure,” Lee agreed, “but of the options, the choice to go back is the only one I can make and not let anyone down. Not my brother or my father or. . . everyone.”
A warm body suddenly sprawled next to him, Kara staring at the ceiling in parallel. “What the hell are you going back to?”
“Family business,” he said. “Arranged marriage.”
She was silent, but he could hear her breathing, something solid in the dark; something not polished and shiny, but infinitely warm and real, and brilliant in its own right. “No happy ending for Lee then?” she asked, sounding mostly rhetorical.
“Not necessarily unhappy, just not. . .” he trailed off.
“Just not what you want.”
“Right,” he agreed, courage heightened, tongue loosened by booze and the finiteness of their time together, and the wonder of talking to someone who seemed to care and wasn’t Zak. “No card games at the local bar, no brawls in the streets, no beautiful blonde rescuers or passing out with my feet hanging out a hole in a wall. All there is is right now. And then it’s over. So I’ll take what I can get and be glad that I had the chance.”
“So why don’t we?” she asked, and he looked over to see that she was facing him too, heads turned toward each other as they lay on their backs.
“Why don’t we . . . what?” He asked, distracted by the soft mouth whispering temptations.
“Take what we can get.” She rolled onto her side and propped up on an elbow, leaning over him. “Stay here the week. Let me show you around.” She rubbed her thumb thoughtfully over his bottom lip. “Be with me for a week.”
“Why? You don’t know me,” Lee said weakly, pulled into her against all sense of reason.
“Because I want you to, and I know enough,” she said, with the hint of a smile. “You could tell me the rest, you know. I promise I won’t think you’re crazy.”
“You will,” Lee said. “You really will, but I’ll stay with you, if you’ll have me, and I’ll tell you who I am the day I leave.”
Kara’s hand tangled into his hair and her mouth pressed hot and hard against his, “Oh, I’ll probably have you more than once.” He pulled her down on top of him, tasting the ambrosia on her kiss, the glimmer of the palace hidden from sight by her hair.
* * *
Kara blinked awake in the morning sun, her head on Lee’s chest as it had been the past six mornings. She tightened her hold around his waist slightly before releasing, her body feeling heavier at the knowledge that this was their final morning together.
She couldn’t regret the time, seeing the routine things through Lee’s oddly naive eyes; having the colors and textures of her life play in the almost greedy expressions on his face. He drank it all in-her, the city, the food, the life.
He played a surprisingly mean game of pyramid, lost astonishingly often at cards, made Caprica laugh and kissed with a dirty, desperate sort of sweetness. It was only a week, but it had been enough for Kara to fall, and fall hard, for a man with a mysterious past and future. She had to laugh, even with the ache in her heart, at the cliché of it all. What a frakking wild ride-an unexpected gift, something cool and refreshing in her dusty life.
Lee had stirred at her laughter, mumbling a little before kissing her hair. She tilted her head up, rolling slightly so she could rest her chin on his chest. “Time’s up, Lee,” she said. “You owe me a story.”
He smiled at her sadly, tracing the line of her cheekbone lightly with his fingers. “Fine. My full name is Prince Leland Adama and I jumped over the wall of the palace to experience what has turned out to be the best week of my life. But now I have to go home. I have to marry someone I don’t love because Pythia demands it and wait for my father to die to fulfill my purpose in life.”
Kara blinked. He wasn’t lying. She knew when the bastard was lying, and he wasn’t lying. “You’re frakking out of your mind,” she exclaimed loudly, sitting up, and then winced, looking to the opposite corner of the room where Caprica slept behind her gauzy curtain.
Lee smiled almost smugly. “Told you,” he said. “There was no way you were ever going to believe me.” He kissed her firmly and then stood, arching his back. He pulled the curtain aside and stood, naked, looking out toward the castle. She admired the clean lines of his back even as she worried about his sanity.
“I don’t-” she paused. “I have no idea what to say.”
He walked back over to her, leaning down to kiss her again, hand wrapped around the back of her neck. “There’s nothing to say,” he assured her.
She stood up and looped her arms around his waist, pressing careful kisses along the line of his collarbone before resting her forehead against his shoulder. “Well, wherever you’re going, the palace … the nut house, I’ll miss you.”
He nuzzled into her ear with a laugh, “I’ll miss you too.” He pulled back, getting room enough to look at her intently. “Thank you,” he said simply.
“Yeah, yeah, I expect you to return the favor when I decide to take my next vacation in the palace,” she stepped away and started searching for a shirt.
“Hey, anytime,” he grinned. “I’d take you with me today, except that I’m in serious trouble with the old man and I doubt he’d be very welcoming.”
Kara almost choked. “I can’t believe you called Sultan William the old man,” she said.
He shrugged expansively, fastening his pants, “Well he is. Old. Also a Man.”
“You do nothing to convince me of your sanity,” she said, quickly braiding her hair in deference to the heat already rising. “So, let me buy you breakfast, and then we’ll send you on your way.”
Lee was suddenly in front of her again, in her space again, filling her senses in that completely overwhelming yet completely comfortable way of his. “If I had one wish,” he said, very seriously, taking her face between his palms gently, “I’d take you back with me.”
“I’m sure your future wife would love that,” she said with a shaky smile, pulse fluttering.
He shook his head, brushing off her attempt at humor, a stubborn, solemn look on his face. “I’d marry you, Kara. If you’d have me.”
She allowed herself one moment-one moment to imagine that Lee really was the prince, and that the sacred scrolls of Pythia didn’t specify that he must marry a princess and that he wasn’t some delusional man with a charming smile and that she wasn’t the worst kind of fool. “I’ve already had you, Lee,” she said, bumping her nose against his, and then figured, what the hell? “I’d say yes again. If . . . ” She trailed off, not knowing what else to say.
“Yeah,” he stepped back. “If you believed me. If my father listened to me. If. ”
Kara offered him her hand and tugged when he took it. “Let’s go, Prince Leland,” she said lightly, but not entirely mockingly. “You have a kingdom to run and I have merchants to swindle.”
“So, busy day all around then,” he said, and let her lead him out of the room.
* * *
Felix Gaeta stared as the woman he’d been searching for over the past week sauntered past the fountain in the square he had been resting by, holding a grape leaf in one hand and the missing Prince in the other; the one person in the city who they needed to bring about the rise of the people arm in arm with the next generation of oppressive royalty.
He rubbed absently at his leg while considering his next course of action, the throbbing pain his truest and most constant companion since the day that a royal cousin had gotten paranoid on a military campaign and shot Felix’s knee with a crossbow at point blank range. Zarek had managed to save his limb. The advisor who existed on the edge of the court circles had always made him uncomfortable, but when no apology had been made by the royal family, no visitors had come to him as he lay in agony, nothing to distract him but the seductive whispers of revenge, of the end of class rule and worship by accident of birth, of the people rising. Zarek sustained him on a steady diet of potions and revolution and, in the end, Felix had walked again. Every step an agony and a surety, the constant reminder of the carelessness of those who would rule them.
He pushed off of the wall he had been leaning on, this was going to be easier then he had imagined. He turned to the palace guards accompanying him, Skulls and Racetrack, Zarek sympathizers, who had come with him and motioned with his head. “Arrest her. And bring the prince along. Do it gently.”
The guards walked purposely into the square, people moving quickly out of the way, Felix limping behind them. They approached the pair from behind, Skulls moving suddenly and getting a two armed grip around the Harbinger’s body while Racetrack lowered her crossbow. “What is the meaning of this?” the Prince shouted, every bit the Adama in spite of the peasant clothes.
“You are under arrest,” Felix’s voice rose over Adama’s outrage, “for the abduction of Prince Leland Adama.” The police in the square within hearing distance came toward them at a run as the woman struggled in Skulls’ grip. “Your highness, you are addled and confused,” he spoke calmly to the irate prince, “we will take you home.” Racetrack got a firm grip on Adama’s arm. “You,” he motioned to the nearest policeman, “Go to the palace and inform Advisor Zarek that the prince has been found in the company of a woman of interest.” The man ran toward the palace.
“Get your hands off of me,” the prince was demanding, jerking away from the guards’ grip, but Felix took the prince’s other arm as the police handcuffed the woman’s hands behind her. He knew that Adama wouldn’t shake him off roughly. This prince had guilt in his eyes whenever he saw Felix limping through the throne room or across the palace grounds. “Gaeta, I am perfectly safe and Kara did not kidnap me.”
“Yes your highness,” Felix said smoothly, “but you must see how it looks from our side. Let’s all go back to the palace and figure it out there.”
Adama stared hard at Felix, measuring him Felix noted with some amusement, before he reluctantly nodded. “Alright,” he said finally. “I understand why you might think that. Kara,” he called over to the still struggling woman, the true prize. “We’ll go back and get this straightened out at the palace. It’ll be fine.”
Felix watched with interest as Kara stilled with visible effort and looked into the prince’s eyes. “So you aren’t crazy,” she stated.
“I promise that I am not crazy and can straighten this out at home.” Adama said earnestly.
“Always wanted to see the inside of the palace anyway,” she said with a hint of a smile, even as her body remained straining on the edge of action.
“Well now’s your chance. I’ll have Zak give you the tour while dad chews me out.”
“Oh sure,” she said, “and then we’ll meet you for tea in the dining hall after.”
Adama smiled, warm and genuine at the clearly lower class woman, surprising Felix into loosening his grip. “After you,” he bowed his head in Kara’s direction and she and her escort turned toward the palace.
* * *
The doors of the palace were flung wide open as they approached, and Advisor Zarek strode out. “Your highness,” he said. “We were all so worried.”
They entered the coolness of the marble hall and Lee hurried to Kara’s side, pressing a hand between her shoulder blades in reassurance. “Advisor Zarek,” he acknowledged. “I am sorry to have worried you. Didn’t Zak tell you that I had left on my own accord?” He silently held out his hand and Skulls dropped the key to Kara’s shackles into his palm.
“Prince Leland, you must step away from that woman,” Zarek said urgently. “She stinks of dark magic.”
Lee sighed as he freed Kara from the cuffs, drawing the tips of his fingers over her reddened wrists. Zarek was on the sultan’s council as a representative of the south eastern most population of the city, a district that constantly rumbled with unrest and superstition. The district that Lee worried about the most when trade routes were occasionally cut off by sandstorms or bandits, leaving the city hungry. The district that Lee and his father fought most often about. The sultan believed that the people could be placated into obedience with virtually powerless representatives, speeches on holidays, successful war campaigns and following the letter, if not the spirit, of Pythia, preferring to focus ability and attention on the things he understood, like the military. Lee … Lee didn’t believe what his father believed and made an effort to listen to members of the council, or to at least be courteous to the representatives of the people.
“I appreciate your concern, Advisor,” he said, “I assure you that I left, and was coming back, of my own volition and that Kara Thrace is no more of a dark sorceress than I am.”
“I would win at cards a lot more often if I were,” Kara said, stepping toward Zarek. “Advisor, I didn’t kidnap him. I didn’t even believe that Lee-his highness-was actually a highness until about half an hour ago. I just thought he was crazy.”
“Reassuring,” Zarek said dryly, “but I will have to insist on you staying with me while the prince speaks to his father.
Lee tensed. “Kara is staying with me.”
“Prince Leland, do you really want to bring your-companion in front of the sultan right now? He is not in the best of moods.” Lee winced. He could only imagine how furious his father was with him right now and he didn’t need any witnesses to the carnage.
“You’re probably right,” he said reluctantly and took Kara’s hands in his. “Stay with Zarek, I’ll be back soon,” he smiled ruefully. “Dad’s probably mad enough to explode, so it shouldn’t take too long for him to eviscerate me.” Her eyes widened at that and Lee wondered briefly what sort of stories the people who didn’t live in the palace heard about them. “Not literally,” he added hastily. With a blushing defiance, he brushed his lips against Kara’s. “I’ll be right back.”
“Good luck,” she said, tentatively.
He nodded and turned to Zarek, “Advisor-”
“I’ll see to her, your highness.”
“Thank you,” Lee said and, shooting a final smile at Kara, he strode off bravely to get yelled at by his dad.
* * *
“So…” Kara said, and stopped. She wasn’t sure what to say, her mind still reeling in shock that the man who had been sharing her bed for the past week was the heir to the throne. She was startled to feel hard hands close on her shoulders, keeping her still.
“Kara Thrace,” Advisor Zarek said, moving closer, “so you are the key.”
“The key to what?” Kara demanded, squirming against the tight hold of the guard behind her. “Let go.”
“I don’t think so,” Zarek said pleasantly. He pulled a handful of what looked like sand from his pocket and blew it into Kara’s face. She choked on the fine granules, struggling to breathe for one suspended moment before she felt the world close in around her.
* * *
Zak was waiting for him when Lee finally managed to escape his father’s disgusted wrath. “Hey, kid,” he said wearily, resting his head on his brother’s sturdy shoulder for a moment when Zak pulled him into a fierce hug.
“So how was it?” Zak stepped back, his light words belied by the concern and relief in his eyes, but Lee played along.
“Same old, same old,” Lee said, unable to stop the large smile of satisfaction, “Chased by police, learned how to steal nectarines from market stalls, slept in a decrepit building with an enormous hole in the side of the wall with two beautiful women, played cards and pyramid and got drunk. . . the usual.”
“Back up to the two women,” Zak demanded.
“I only slept with, slept with one, but the other one was there too,” Lee grinned, but then back peddled, slight guilt swamping him. “It was more than that though, Kara’s amazing, she took me in, showed me the city, kept me from being arrested.”
Zak rolled his eyes, “Far be it for me to even think that you would have sex just for fun, Lee. Gods forbid.”
“Well, it was a lot of fun too,” Lee said. “She’s here though, Kara’s here. Do you want to meet her?”
“Meet the person who managed to get you to lighten up and have fun? Lead on,” Zak said. “Too bad she’s not a princess.”
“Yeah, too bad,” Lee said wistfully. Zak shot him a sharp look but thankfully just launched into an account of the palace gossip instead, lingering on, and no doubt exaggerating, the more salacious parts as they walked toward the entry hall which was. . . empty except for the watch.
Lee frowned and called for closest guard. “Racetrack, where did Advisor Zarek and Mr. Gaeta take Kara-the blonde woman who came in with us?”
“No need to worry about that one anymore, your highness, the Advisor took care of it.”
“Took care of what?” Lee asked tightly.
“She won’t be bothering you again, Prince Leland.”
A knot of dread was forming in his stomach and Lee found himself unable to speak through it.
“Racetrack, please go find Advisor Zarek and bring him here at once,” Zak said, watching her leave before focusing on his brother. “What’s going on?”
Lee shook his head, “Gaeta was convinced that Kara had kidnapped me when I first saw them in the market. He had her arrested and we decided to figure everything out here. Zarek said he’d take care of everything.” He looked at Zak in alarm. Zarek had been known to act where he felt was appropriate without permission from the sultan before, a trait that had not always led to good outcomes. “You don’t think-”
“Prince Zachary, Prince Leland, you wished to see me?” Advisor Zarek stepped into the hall.
“Where is Kara?” Lee demanded.
“Kara? The black witch who kidnapped and ensnared you? “Zarek asked “I told you that I would handle it, your highness, and I did.”
Zak put a restraining hand on Lee’s arm. “How exactly did you handle it, Advisor?” He asked.
“I had her throat slit, of course,” Zarek said in a puzzled tone as Lee felt his knees go weak and his vision grey out.
“You slit her throat?” Zak demanded, grip tightening to a bruising pressure on his brother. “You murdered a woman under our protection?”
“Your highness, it is written in Pythia that thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. As a member of the royal family, upholders of the sacred scrolls, surely you understand the importance of acting immediately and in accordance with the law in such cases.”
“She was not a witch,” Lee gritted out between his teeth, shaking off Zak. “I told you that. I told you-” he advanced toward Zarek, watching as the man stepped back from him.
“Lee, stop!” the Sultan’s voice rang out and Lee stopped-years of following that commanding tone ingrained even deeper than his present rage.
“Sir, Advisor Zarek executed an innocent woman who was under my protection,” he said, a feeing of hopeless impotence washing over him. She was already gone. The blindingly bright light of Kara Thrace had been extinguished, and nothing would change that.
“A witch, your majesty,” Zarek proclaimed with his usual self-assurance, “A witch who confused your son and took him away from us.”
“Advisor Zarek, my son is more than stubborn enough to be responsible for his own actions,” the sultan said, anger in his eyes. “We have spoken before about your tendency toward preemptive action, but you have completely overstepped your bounds this time. How are dare you execute one of my people without my consent?”
The shouting match rolled over him. Lee didn’t have to listen to know the outcome. Politics. The royal family’s lives were dependent upon a house of cards built on religion and cursory nods toward citizen representation. To maintain the illusion, the sultan would have to maintain the advisor. Kara’s death would go unpunished and unremarked in his father’s court, but for the hole in his own heart and the sympathy in Zak’s eyes.
* * *
Kara awoke in a rush, gasping sharply as she sat straight up. It was a dark room, the single lit candle barely adequate to see by. She wasn’t alone.
“Lee?” she called out tentatively.
“Harbinger,” a man answered. She saw a dark shape moving toward her and tensed for a fight. “We mean you no harm, Kara Thrace.” Another candle was lit, closer to the narrow bed she was sitting on.
“Then why did you bring me here? Where’s Lee?”
“The prince is unaware of your whereabouts.” The door to the room opened, spilling in more light from the hallway. Advisor Zarek walked in. “He thinks you’re dead.”
“Now where would he get an idea like that?” Kara asked, scanning her surroundings, noting the heavy looking candlesticks that could be used as weapons, straining to hear movement out in the hall.
“I told him that I had you killed,” Zarek shrugged. “Our prince is now mourning you, not planning a rescue. We won’t be disturbed.” He smiled at the other man in the room, the one who had arrested her in the market square. “Felix, would you please light some more candles in here? The Harbinger needs to be fully awake and aware.”
“Harbinger?” Kara asked. She was surprised to find that she was not in the least bit addled by the dust that Zarek and blown in her face earlier.
“You are the Harbinger of Death, Kara Thrace,” Zarek said.
“Well that’s. . .” Kara trailed off. She didn’t know what that was, but she was pretty sure she didn’t like it. “Couldn’t you have come up with a better name?”
“It was not my place to name you, merely to find you,” Zarek said. “Mr. Gaeta here did a credible job bringing you to me.”
“He brought the prince,” Kara corrected, “I was just along for the ride.”
“Do you really think I cared if the prince was in the palace?” Gaeta asked, venom in his tone. “He just happened to be helpful for the first time in his royal existence.”
“Enough, Felix,” Zarek said and then turned back to Kara. “You are the only person worthy of entering the Cave of Wonders.”
“The cave’s a myth,” Kara said. “People have combed the desert for it for centuries.”
“And I found it,” Zarek said with pride. “I am a seeker, Harbinger. I found the secret of the cave, I found the cave, I found you, and now you will bring me the lamp that resides in the cave. You have a special destiny, Kara Thrace.”
“Kara Thrace and Her Special Destiny,” she muttered. “Sounds like the name of an Assyrian folk band. What’s in it for me?” she asked bluntly.
“I won’t kill you where you stand,” Zarek said.
“So say I get this lamp. I give it to you, and then what?”
“Then nothing,” Zarek said. “Then Felix brings you back to the city and everyone moves on with their lives.”
Kara didn’t want to help Zarek. She didn’t want to crawl into a mythological cave to fetch a lamp. She really didn’t want to be called the Harbinger of Death, but it seemed that she was backed against a corner and this was the way out. Maybe when she got out she could get a message to Lee to let him know that she was okay.
“Alright,” Kara said. “You’ve got a deal. One lamp for my freedom.”
“Excellent,” Zarek said, and Gaeta’s eyes lit up as a grin stretched across his features.
* * *
Kara suspected that she might be on an acid trip. She had unknowingly fallen for a prince, been drugged by an advisor to the sultan and his gimp lackey, and then an enormous lion cave had roared its way out of the sand and she had walked into its open jaws to fetch a lamp after promising not to touch any of the treasure inside because she was the Harbinger of Death. Or something like that. The torch in her hand guttered as she leaned ever so slightly over the edge of the stone stairs curving down from the mouth of the Cave of Wonders. Too dark and too deep to see the bottom. She took a steadying breath and continued downward, studiously ignoring the blackness pressing in more closely as she wound farther down and away from the entrance to the cave into the stillness below.
After minutes of blind descent, she came to the bottom of the stairs, her feet slipping slightly in cool, loose sand as she stepped from the stone. A faint pink glow began to emanate from all around her, steady as sunrise, spreading rosy fingers up pale cave walls, racing up to the vaulted ceiling, illuminated the space, catching on trees made of silver and emeralds, skittering across haphazard piles of gold and rubies and pearls. It was a beautiful place. A dead place. Not a sound but the harshness of her breath, not a movement but the shiver down her spine.
And at the far end of that room, barely discernable from where she stood, at the end of a meandering path of plain sand lined by gem stone trees, rose a platform. “Right,” she said to herself, to cut the stillness and give her courage.
Kara picked her way carefully along the path of sand, mindful of Zarek’s warnings. He could, possibly, be full of shit about touching nothing in that cave but the lamp on pain of death, but she wasn’t so greedy as to test that theory. The gleam off the sharply carved surfaces of the sapphire plums hanging from the trees were a temptation she could withstand without trouble.
When she got to the platform, she found that it was bigger than it had looked from afar. It was made of gold, with twelve steps to climb to the top, upon which rested a truly ugly lamp, the brass made harsher by the soft gleam of precious stones and metals around it. Kara hesitated at the bottom, reluctant to leave the relative safety of the sand - Zarek had specifically instructed her not to touch any treasure. It wasn’t like she could pick up the platform and tuck it in her pocket to be sold in the city square, but it was still gold.
Sudden movement at the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she whirled, heart in her throat to find a slightly tattered Persian rug floating hurriedly toward her. It came to a stop right in front of her face, tassels quivering.
“Uh, hi?” she asked. Flying carpet. Sure. Why not? The day had met its quota of weird shit hours ago, so this hardly seemed to register.
The carpet rolled itself up and spun before straightening out and coming to rest at her feet.
“I’m not supposed to touch anything,” she told it.
It lifted a corner tassel and shook it at her rather insolently, then flopped deliberately down on top of her sandaled foot.
“Frak!” Kara yelled and jumped back. Nothing happened. The carpet floated up into the air and circled around her, stopping to nudge at the back of her knees.
“Guess you’re my ride?” she asked tentatively. It hit behind her knees more forcefully. “Alright, I got it.” She sat gingerly back as the carpet rose to meet her. It felt as solid as sitting on the floor, so she scooted back until she was fully on top, shifting to get her knees under her. The carpet’s front, right tassel reached back and patted her thigh and then they were moving through the air. Kara scooted toward the front of the carpet, laughing at the sheer wonder of it and, when they were close, grabbed the lamp in one careless swipe, the heel of her hand brushing against the gold of the alter.
“No,” She heard the lion roar again, this time from the inside, “Oh, no, no, no.” She waited for the carpet to fall out from underneath her, but it flattened out and shot toward the spiraling stairs. Kara got low and gripped the lamp and the frayed edges as they began a steep climb, wondering briefly why the carpet was helping her, but too grateful that it was to care too much about the whys.
The lion’s jaws were closing-she could just make out the figures of Zarek and Gaeta before the mouth slammed shut and the dark closed in definitively.
Kara felt the dejection run through the carpet’s length as it slowed to a stop and began drifting slowly back down to the floor of the cave, rocking gently from side to side. “We’re not dead yet,” she said to it soothingly, stroking a hand along its worn surface. “I’ve gotten myself out of worse.”
Kara wasn’t entirely sure that she had, actually, gotten herself out of worse, but there was no reason to panic yet, and admitting her fear would only scare the carpet.
They settled on the ground, the lights coming back on as soon as they did. They looked dimmer than before. “But at least we’re not in the dark,” she said to the carpet as she stood up and stepped off of it to explore the cavern, trying to find another exit.
It felt like hours later when she made it back to her spot by the stairs, she had searched along the walls of the cave as best she could, studiously avoiding touching anything but the sand and the carpet that followed after her. The fear had been growing as she ran out of places to search. To die in a cave of dehydration and hunger, far away from Caprica, who was probably worried by now, and Lee who thought she was dead. She would never see them again. They would never know where she was, and her bones would sit here until the next fool stumbled in, in search of the ugly lamp.
She picked the thing up from where she had left it, turning it over in her hands, rubbing at the dirt. She figured that if she couldn’t find her way out in a couple of days, she’s just pick up one of the gemstones and see what happened. It had to be better than just sitting there. The lamp grew suddenly warm between her palms and she watched, startled, as mist began to pour out of it.
The insidious blue smoke rose, curling suggestively around Kara's hips and slinking between her thighs slyly before whirling into a small cyclone and abruptly vanishing, leaving the figure of a slight man wearing silk and an oily smile.
"Well, hello," the man's exotic and evocative accent spun like silk into the air. "I am the great and powerful genie of the lamp. How may I service you, Master?"
"You have got to be frakking kidding me," Kara said, staring at yet another impossibility in front of her.
"I assure you, darling, I am not." The genie stepped toward her. "I assume you know the rules, but I'm contractually obligated to go over them with new masters. You don’t seem to be going anywhere any time soon, so I'll just begin, shall I?"
"Hold on," Kara said, wrapping her confusion around her like armor and squared her shoulders. "I'm supposed to believe that you're a genie and I'm your master." She shook her head. It was really too much.
The genie let out a long, condescending sigh but otherwise ignored her, "As the genie of the lamp, I will grant you three wishes. Anything your heart desires. My only restrictions are that I will not grant more than three, I cannot make anyone fall in love, and I cannot raise the dead." He rolled his eyes at Kara’s prolonged and defiant silence. "Honestly, you might as well wish to be freed from the cave. If I'm merely a hallucination then you'll still die a gruesome death and no one will ever have to know about your humiliating descent into madness."
"If you're real then that wastes a wish," Kara countered.
"If you want to be trapped in a cave for the rest of your life, by all means," the genie made a mocking little bow. "It doesn’t bother me one way or the other." He looked over his shoulder to see the frayed flying carpet and crooked a finger at it. It unrolled and hovered a few feet off the ground in front of the genie who promptly climbed on and sat, cross legged and straight backed, looking unconcernedly at Kara.
She looked around once more, checking for other avenues of escape or possible witnesses. "Fine. Genie, I wish to be freed from this cave."
"That's it?" the genie said with disbelief. "Well you didn't hold out for very long." Kara opened her mouth to protest but the magic carpet was already whirling around her, the genie hauling her on. "Hang on," he advised, and the carpet shot up nearly vertical toward the roof of the cave. The genie waved his hand lazily and the rock became transparent and the carpet shot out of the darkness of the cave and into the less oppressive darkness of a starlit night.
* * *
Zak hauled himself out of the window and onto the roof and settled next to Lee in the dark, close enough for their shoulders to bump. Lee handed him the half empty bottle of ambrosia and he took a swallow before passing it back.
He waited.
“I think I could have gotten Dad to let me marry Kara,” Lee said, voice slurred.
“Lee,” Zak said on a sigh.
“No, no, really,” he insisted earnestly. “The princess stipulation wasn’t added until three centuries after the original text-it was an addendum, not actually Pythia.”
“Lee-”
“Dad’s not completely unreasonable, he would want me to be happy. He would let me if he could just see-”
“Lee,” Zak said firmly, despite his throat closing up. He groped blindly for Lee’s hand, not able to look at his brother’s miserable profile. “I’m sorry.”
“Right,” Lee said on a shaky breath, handing Zak the bottle. “It doesn’t matter.”
Zak hurled the bottle off the side of the roof and wrapped his arm around Lee’s shoulders, pulling him hard against his side. “It matters,” he said softly.
“She’s dead,” Lee’s head dropped like a stone onto Zak’s shoulder.
“I-” Zak wasn’t sure what to say or do but. . . He rested his cheek into Lee’s hair. “It matters,” he repeated.
Part II
Author: innibis
Rating: R
Word Count: 10,215
Pairing: Kara/Lee
Genre: Completely AU
Disclaimer: I am not Scheherazade. Nor am I a Disney. Heck, I’m not even RDM or any of his cohorts. I do not lay claim to BSG in any way, shape or form; especially the finale.
A/N: For my always fabulous beta in a bottle, workerbee73 with my sincere thanks.
Also for elzed who gave me the idea in the first place (over a year ago, but I got here eventually).
Aladdin
Shadows of two shrouded figures stretched across the endless desert. "Here it is, Felix," Tom Zarek spoke into the stillness of the moonlit night. He threw his hood back to reveal hard-set eyes, "the entrance to the Cave of Wonders."
Felix Gaeta pushed his cloak off his shoulders and onto the ground. "I'm ready, Advisor Zarek."
"I know you are," Zarek said and began the incantation it had taken him years to find, years of combing the darkest of the dark secrets in desperate search for a weapon that could bring about a new world order. The twisting consonants and sibilant vowels carried, the only sound on the chilled night air. He stopped as precisely as he had begun and the silence rang around them.
A grumbling in the sand began, faint enough to be imagination, but it grew louder, shook harder, and the men stumbled back as the ground started swirling underneath them. A whirlpool made of sand. From the depths of the earth, a lion's head emerged, impossibly huge and roaring before it settled and quieted, mouth open.
Gaeta removed the six-inch blade from his boot and limped forward to the lion's maw. "Touch nothing but the lamp," Zarek called out, and Gaeta nodded, continuing slowly but steadily toward the mouth of the cave.
The moment Felix stepped from sand to rock, the lion roared, making him stumble back. "Who disturbs my slumber?" A voice growled rough and low from within the cave’s lit depths, nearly deafening Gaeta in his proximity.
Zarek stepped forward, voice steady and clear. "Cave of Wonders, we have sought long and hard for you. What would make my servant worthy to enter?"
"Know this, sorcerer. Only one may enter here. One who's worth lies far within, the Harbinger of Death." The lion roared a final time before sinking back into the desert floor. The sand shifted until all evidence of the Cave of Wonders had been erased from existence, leaving only Gaeta and Zarek standing in the cold desert air.
Gaeta stared at Zarek as he made his way back towards him, but the Advisor's face remained impassive. He knew better then to venture the question and bided his time. Finally, Zarek pulled up his hood and turned toward the city.
* * *
There was no one left in the market place as Ahmed hurriedly closed his booth down for the night. He wasn’t usually out this late, but he had been speaking to friends and then had encountered a few late customers in search of fresh fruit. He was well overdue for dinner and his wife was going to kill him.
The eerie silence in the normally bustling center was suddenly punctuated by the sound of footsteps approaching. Ahmed reached under his robe for his knife, but stopped. A tall, blonde woman emerged from the shadows, her stride easy and swinging and gaze predatory. She walked right up to him, a vision in red. One side of her mouth curled up in amusement at his stupefaction and she leaned forward to breathe in his ear, "Are you alive?" she teased, lips brushing his cheek deliberately as she pulled back to stare into his eyes.
She was breathtaking and Ahmed was beguiled as she leaned in and captured his lips with her own. He found himself kissing the woman in red. Time passed but did not register until she disengaged lazily and walked away.
Ahmed watched her disappear, frozen in place with his hand on his lips. He slowly shook himself into awareness and turned to finish packing for the night, catching the faint echo of feminine laughter in the air.
* * *
"I couldn’t have done it better myself," Kara Thrace grinned, teeth sinking into an apricot as they walked home, part of the bounty from the loot she had snatched while the merchant had been making out with Caprica Six.
"No kidding," Caprica said as she strutted next to her partner in crime. "Seductions aren't exactly your thing. More like a fist to the nose and a knife to the gut."
"Gets the job done," Kara said cheerfully, enjoying the cool juices from the fruit rolling down her chin.
"Such subtlety," Caprica said, holding out a hand to grab the date Kara handed to her.
"Kicked your ass," Kara said.
"You most certainly did not," Caprica protested.
"Did too," Kara grinned and threw the apricot pit over her shoulder before reaching into her bag for more fruit, "and I can do it again."
"You punched me when the police were holding my hands behind my back," Caprica said indignantly.
"And you went down like a drunken harem girl," Kara countered. It was an old fight, one they had been having for years, since the first day they met as teenagers on opposite sides of a street brawl. Caprica sighed her disdain as they approached the entrance of the abandoned, decrepit building they had been squatting in for the past three months.
They climbed their way up the rickety stairs to the top floor, the sack of fruit over Kara's shoulder. She placed it in the corner that got the least amount of sun during the day before walking over to the enormous hole in the wall that Caprica insisted on calling a window and slid the ragged curtain to the side. There, gleaming in the moonlight, was the palace where Sultan Adama and his two sons lived.
"Must be the life," she said as Caprica joined her.
"Everyone has problems," Caprica said, leaning out to catch the breeze.
"Yeah, well going days without eating isn't one of theirs is it?" Kara shot back.
"No," Caprica said thoughtfully as she began getting ready for bed. "But having no expectations thrust on you isn't always a bad thing."
"Isn’t exactly a good thing either," Kara said, still staring at the flickering lights of the palace from her hole in the wall. "We had no expectations. Look how far that's gotten us." Caprica didn’t say anything, but Kara hadn’t wanted her to.
* * *
Lee Adama's jaw clenched as he felt a strong, square hand catch his arm and yank him around. "You will not walk away from me," Sultan William Adama growled into his face.
"My apologies, Your Grace," Lee said, sketching a bow to his father as insincerely as possible. "I thought that this conversation was over."
"It is," the sultan said, letting go of Lee's arm and stalking back to sit rigidly on his throne. "The law of the land states that a prince will be married to a princess by his thirtieth birthday. You are a prince. You are thirty in a month. End of discussion. I did not, however," Adama said, his voice rising as he saw his son start towards the door again, "dismiss you. As you were, Prince Leland!" he barked out, face stony.
Lee threw his shoulders back and lifted his chin, but he remained standing obediently before his sultan. "Dad," he began, "you have dictated my entire life. I have never left the walls of this palace, I have learned everything you have asked me too, performed every feat you set for me, I have been a good son." Lee waited, but his father remained silent, not even tacit agreement in his expression. Lee ignored the old dull twinge of disappointment with practiced ease and continued. "I ask you one thing, the only thing I will ever ask of you and that is to not force me into marriage to fit some arbitrary timeline."
"Well I would never accuse you of being perfect," Adama said with a half smile on his face. A peace offering like only the Sultan would offer, and Lee closed his eyes briefly wondering why it was always so hard between them.
"Understood, sir," Lee said quietly. "Is that your final word?"
Adama looked at his son closely. "It isn’t meant to punish you, Lee," he said. "This has been the law for a thousand years, written by the prophet, Pythia, inspired by the gods."
"You don’t believe in the gods, Dad," Lee replied.
"No," Adama said, standing up and walking to his son. He put his hand on his shoulder and spoke with conviction, "but our people do. Life is hard beyond the walls. They need something to believe in beyond this existence. We follow Pythia because it gives them hope for something better."
"There are more effective ways to give hope than me getting married," Lee pleaded softly. “Ways that could help them right now, in this world.”
"I know you believe that, son." Adama said and clapped him once more on the shoulder before heading back to his throne. "And when you are on the throne, you can implement whatever changes you see fit. Until that day, I am the sultan and you are the prince," he paused and looked at Lee sympathetically, "and you need to get married in a month. Dismissed."
Lee bowed and walked quickly out of the throne room, feeling his brother fall into step behind him, not saying a word, but staying close until they reached the gardens of the palace.
"Please don’t do this, Lee," Zak said, handing over a bag as Lee unceremoniously stripped off his rich attire and pulled the homespun garments out of the bag and put them on. "You aren’t just leaving dad and the palace, you’re leaving me too."
"Come with me, Zak," Lee said, grasping his brother's forearms. "Think of the freedom, the things we could do."
"Stop it!" Zak snapped. "You two put me between you and treat me like a rope in your little game of tug of war. Dad's a pain in the ass and I don’t agree with forcing us to get married, but I also don’t agree with just running." He grabbed Lee by the shoulders when he started turning away. "You taught me about duty and honor and family, about not shirking responsibility, no matter how hard it is to face it. You taught me that, as much as Dad ever did. So what are you doing?"
Lee stared into his brother's eyes. "It's not enough." Zak let go of Lee and stepped back, looking so disappointed in him that Lee's heart dropped out of his chest. "I'll be back," he found himself promising.
"Oh yeah?" Zak asked coldly, turning his back to his brother. "Last I heard you couldn't wait to get away."
"Zak, that was just talk, just blowing off steam," Lee said dropping the bag and moving to stand in front of him. "And I was never trying to get away from you. You know I wouldn't abandon everything. I just need some space and some time. I need to get out of here." It was a lie of sorts, Lee didn’t really want to come back, but the pull of obligation was too strong in him, his father's call to service too deeply embedded, his brother too important.
"When are you coming back?" Zak demanded, an echo of the child whose father had been constantly gone on war campaigns.
Lee sighed, rubbing his eyes. "Give me a week. I'll be back a week from today."
"That's it?" Zak asked, surprised.
"Yeah," Lee said dully, "That's it. I have princesses to interview and I have to do some more research - see if there's something to get me out of this marriage business."
Zak smiled and offered what he could. "I'll poke around, ask Advisor Zarek to tell me about all the eligible princesses and start the weeding out process, keeping the best ones saved for my own consideration of course."
"Of course," Lee said dryly. "I notice you didn’t volunteer to look through Pythia."
"I'll leave the joy of hunting for loopholes to you and check out the women instead. I'm your brother, Lee, no sacrifice is too great."
Lee laughed. "Sure you won’t come with me?"
"I'm sure. Someone needs to keep Dad calm," Zak said. "He is going to be frakking pissed."
"Yeah, I know," Lee said and reached out to pull his brother into a warm embrace. "I'll miss you."
"Me too," Zak said gruffly, patting Lee's back before stepping away. "Be careful out there, Lee," he said, walking with him to the lowest part of the garden wall. He gave Lee a boost to the top of the wall. "See you soon."
"Bye Zak," Lee called back before dropping to the ground on the other side. He took a deep breath of night air. It smelled the same as the air behind the palace walls, but it felt entirely different. Not bothering to contain his grin, Lee walked steadily away from the sultan.
* * *
"I call upon the sands of time. Reveal to me the one who can enter the cave," the Sultan's advisor intoned in the dankness of the palace's lower levels.
Felix watched as the saffron colored sand in Zarek's hourglass spun into the shape of a young woman who appeared to be scaling the side of a building. "Is that her, Advisor?" he asked, running the edge of his thumb idly over the blade of his knife. “Is she the one who can help us to overthrow the tyrant Adama?”
"Our little Harbinger of Death," Zarek mused.
"How do I find her?" Gaeta asked.
"This one doesn’t look like she's too far underground," Zarek said, watching the woman swing up onto the roof and throw her bright blonde head back in laughter. "Do your job," he said. "Be patient. Ask questions. That's how you'll find her. The lamp's been hidden for hundreds of years. Our revolution can wait a little longer."
Felix bowed and left the room.
* * *
Kara was drinking deeply from the communal well's bucket when Caprica sidled up beside her and said, "Fresh meat."
Kara handed the bucket to the next person in line and pushed a hand through her sweaty hair. "It’s half time," she said, gesturing to the makeshift Pyramid court where the players of the pick-up game were milling around.
"And you can’t look and perspire at the same time?" Caprica asked. "Over by Azza's."
Kara sighed but turned, looked toward the local tavern and froze. There he was. Absolutely no question in her mind that the man standing there, looking overwhelmed, was the person Caprica was referring to. "He's not your type," she said immediately, sensing the consideration in Caprica's appraisal and weighing it against the deep tug of want in her own gut.
"He is everyone's type," Caprica said. "Go back to your game, Kara," She straightened up to her full height and shook back her hair. "I've got better things to play with."
Kara's hand shot out on its own accord, grasping Caprica's arm before she could walk away. They both looked down in surprise, but Kara recovered quickly and looked challengingly into her friend's eyes. "Why don’t you sit this one out?" she suggested softly, a warning edge in her voice.
Caprica looked at her appraisingly, her lips turning up into a smile that Kara ignored. “By your command,” she said mockingly. They turned to consider the strange man as he walked slowly through the square, head on a swivel, eyes wide. "Where on earth did he come from?" Caprica asked, amused as he stooped to talk to a filthy urchin.
"Oh frak, what is he doing?" Kara asked, alarmed as he reached to the cart next to him and grabbed a handful of dates to hand to the child. The merchant lunged forward and grabbed him, calling for the police when it became apparent that the man didn’t have any money. "Caprica-"
"On it," she replied and sprinted toward the pyramid courts as Kara hurried toward the rapidly raising voices.
"-a child!" the man was yelling. "I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking and I understand that you have to make a living, and if you let me go, I will come back with payment." Kara winced. If that wasn't the lamest attempt to escape prosecution she didn’t know what was.
She walked up behind the man and spoke quietly and quickly in his ear as the merchant continued to yell for the police, not looking at his prisoner. "In about thirty seconds, an enormous fight is going to break out. Follow me when it does." He ducked his head in a covert nod. She shifted her weight to the balls of her feet, praying that the pretty boy in distress could at least run.
Right on cue, pandemonium broke loose in the square, looking like a pyramid brawl gone awry. Kara watched tensely as Caprica shoved an innocent by-stander into the merchant and Kara wrapped her hand around her rescuee's free wrist and tugged to keep him upright as the merchant crashed to the ground. "Go, go, go!" she shouted, letting go and sprinting into the crowd, trusting that he was behind her.
She twisted through the square, throwing the occasional look behind her as she started turning down random alleyways and running up others. He was still behind her, as were a couple of rather determined policemen. "Frak," she panted and turned abruptly into a building and pounded up the stairs. He stayed right behind her, breathing heavily as they pushed past startled residents in the building, up eight flights until they burst into an occupied apartment.
Kara ran to the window, ignoring the startled cries of the family in the kitchen and saw the clothesline stretched across to the next building. "Up for it?" She turned and found herself mere inches away from the man she was trying to save from himself and, despite its determination to pound out of her chest from exertion, she felt her heart do a slow, liquid flip in response to his proximity. His eyes were steady on hers, and she found herself drowning for a moment before she shook herself free.
"Yeah," he said breathlessly and then more firmly, "Yes."
"Out the window then," she said. He nodded and swung out the window after tugging on the line to see if it would hold. He hung onto the rope and began moving quickly hand over hand toward the window across the alley. Kara waited until he got there before waving to the family watching in disbelief and proceeding to cross the alley herself. She didn't need his help, but she let him take her hand and pull her into the window anyway, looking over her shoulder as the police burst into the apartment they had just been standing in.
They ran past the startled couple whose window they had just climbed into, down the stairs and out into the alley where police officers were emerging from the door of the first building. “C’mon,” Kara said and sprinted down the alley, back the way they had come. She turned into a dense crowd trying to get away from the fight in the square and slowed to a fast walk, weaving through people and carts and the occasional goat.
She glanced over her shoulder, shooting a quick grin at Lee, who was still doggedly tailing her, before searching behind him for police.
“Look out,” Lee said suddenly, tugging on the back of her shirt and pulling her against his chest. Her eyes snapped front as they stopped abruptly at a busy intersection, a caravan of camels passing before them.
She leaned back into him for a heartbeat, catching her breath before straightening up. “This way,” she said, and turned into the flow of the caravan, edging along the buildings to keep as far away from hooves as possible. They made their careful way down the street, turning at the next block.
Kara watched Lee sag against the building into a squat, breathing hard and smiling wide. “You are beyond insane,” he laughed, wiping sweat off his forehead with his arm.
She leaned on the wall next to him. “So, where can I drop you?” she asked, looking down at him. “I’m pretty sure we shook ‘em, but I don’t want you to get lost or stumble into any cops.”
He shrugged. “Anywhere,” he said. “I have nowhere I need to be right now.”
Kara let her breathing and her heart slow down, let her face cool. It wasn’t everyday the gods were good enough to drop someone interesting into her life and she had never been one to over think her inclinations. “Let’s go,” she said, pushing off the wall and reaching a hand to pull Lee to his feet.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“My place,” she said, not quite catching his eyes as she started down the road,
He followed her up and down the maze of streets until she was completely sure they weren't being followed and brought him to her and Caprica's current residence. "It isn't much," she said awkwardly, self-consciously, as they stood in the middle of the shabby room, "but the view's great." She pulled aside the curtain so he could see the palace and watched his eyes go blank. "Um, didn’t catch your name," she said.
He turned his attention away from the palace and entirely back to her. "Lee," he said, "and thank you for rescuing me." A self-deprecating smile crossed his features and Kara found herself unaccountably charmed.
"My pleasure, Lee," she said. "I'm Kara." She held out her hand, and he took it in more of a grasp then a shake before letting her go. “So, where are you from?”
They were interrupted when Caprica burst through the door, Athena and Helo nearly tumbling over her when she stopped short. Kara rolled her eyes as her friend slid into full on slink mode, marred a bit by the black eye and the sack slung over her shoulder. She glanced at Lee whose eye brows were raised in the usual combination of surprise and admiration Caprica inspired. “You just can’t help it, can you?” she asked her roommate dryly. “Lee, this is Caprica, Helo and Athena,” she said. “They helped stage the fight so I could get you out of there."
“Uh, hi,” Lee said, wrenching his gaze from Caprica’s unabashedly sexual lean against the wall to nod at Athena and Helo. “Thank you,” he added.
“No problem, man,” Helo said easily, moving past Caprica to shake Lee’s hand. “We’ve all been there.”
Athena nodded her agreement and Caprica straightened up into a more normal posture, dropping the bag and shooting a grin at Kara to let her know that the display had been entirely for her benefit. “Card game tonight at Azza’s” she said. “We all managed to take advantage of that fight, so we have booze and baklava.”
“And fresh meat,” Athena added with a grin at Lee before motioning to the two lamb haunches Helo pulled out of his own bag. “You two in?”
Kara looked at Lee, who shrugged his acceptance. “We’re in,” Kara said.
* * *
“C’mon, Lee,” Kara prodded him with her toes.
He swung his legs absently, bumping his heels off the side of the wall, sitting with his feet dangling out the side of Kara and Caprica’s apartment. The city spread out beneath him - stretching toward the lights of his home, the palace white and shiny smooth, rising above the poverty and the want, placating the people by sacrificing princes to marriage on the alter of Pythia, providing opium to the masses. A surprisingly sharp toe dug into his ribs again.
“You wouldn’t believe me anyway,” he said, looking over in the dark to where she leaned against the wall, wind off the desert ruffling the blonde of her hair. He saw the gleam of her teeth, the hint of her smile.
“Sure I would,” she said, stretching out a little further so that her feet rested in his lap. He curled his fingers around the strangely delicate bones of her ankles, slim and fragile looking on such a strong, competent body. “You can’t lie for shit, as you proved tonight when your bluff failed spectacularly,” she said and passed him the bottle of ambrosia she had won at the card game. “Where are you from? Sure as frak isn’t from around here.”
Lee took a deep pull of the bottle, enjoying the buzz, the company, the softness of the skin he held in his hands and the generosity of being allowed to share in it all. “Not so far, actually” he answered, tracing the veins along her foot, “but a different world all the same.” He passed the alcohol back to her.
“And you’re going back at the end of the week,” she stated, accepting the bottle, but just holding it for the time being, rolling the neck between her palms.
“Yeah,” Lee sighed, letting his body slump until he was lying on his back, looking straight up at the ceiling. “That’s all I get. One small taste of something else before it gets locked down and locked in and there’s no escape.”
“Gods, Lee,” Kara’s voice floated over him from the shadow and he tightened his hold on her feet to remind himself that she was real. “You’re so dramatic about it. If it’s so awful, just don’t go back.”
“Not an option.”
The feet shifted out from under his hands, out of his lap. “There’s always an option.”
“Sure,” Lee agreed, “but of the options, the choice to go back is the only one I can make and not let anyone down. Not my brother or my father or. . . everyone.”
A warm body suddenly sprawled next to him, Kara staring at the ceiling in parallel. “What the hell are you going back to?”
“Family business,” he said. “Arranged marriage.”
She was silent, but he could hear her breathing, something solid in the dark; something not polished and shiny, but infinitely warm and real, and brilliant in its own right. “No happy ending for Lee then?” she asked, sounding mostly rhetorical.
“Not necessarily unhappy, just not. . .” he trailed off.
“Just not what you want.”
“Right,” he agreed, courage heightened, tongue loosened by booze and the finiteness of their time together, and the wonder of talking to someone who seemed to care and wasn’t Zak. “No card games at the local bar, no brawls in the streets, no beautiful blonde rescuers or passing out with my feet hanging out a hole in a wall. All there is is right now. And then it’s over. So I’ll take what I can get and be glad that I had the chance.”
“So why don’t we?” she asked, and he looked over to see that she was facing him too, heads turned toward each other as they lay on their backs.
“Why don’t we . . . what?” He asked, distracted by the soft mouth whispering temptations.
“Take what we can get.” She rolled onto her side and propped up on an elbow, leaning over him. “Stay here the week. Let me show you around.” She rubbed her thumb thoughtfully over his bottom lip. “Be with me for a week.”
“Why? You don’t know me,” Lee said weakly, pulled into her against all sense of reason.
“Because I want you to, and I know enough,” she said, with the hint of a smile. “You could tell me the rest, you know. I promise I won’t think you’re crazy.”
“You will,” Lee said. “You really will, but I’ll stay with you, if you’ll have me, and I’ll tell you who I am the day I leave.”
Kara’s hand tangled into his hair and her mouth pressed hot and hard against his, “Oh, I’ll probably have you more than once.” He pulled her down on top of him, tasting the ambrosia on her kiss, the glimmer of the palace hidden from sight by her hair.
* * *
Kara blinked awake in the morning sun, her head on Lee’s chest as it had been the past six mornings. She tightened her hold around his waist slightly before releasing, her body feeling heavier at the knowledge that this was their final morning together.
She couldn’t regret the time, seeing the routine things through Lee’s oddly naive eyes; having the colors and textures of her life play in the almost greedy expressions on his face. He drank it all in-her, the city, the food, the life.
He played a surprisingly mean game of pyramid, lost astonishingly often at cards, made Caprica laugh and kissed with a dirty, desperate sort of sweetness. It was only a week, but it had been enough for Kara to fall, and fall hard, for a man with a mysterious past and future. She had to laugh, even with the ache in her heart, at the cliché of it all. What a frakking wild ride-an unexpected gift, something cool and refreshing in her dusty life.
Lee had stirred at her laughter, mumbling a little before kissing her hair. She tilted her head up, rolling slightly so she could rest her chin on his chest. “Time’s up, Lee,” she said. “You owe me a story.”
He smiled at her sadly, tracing the line of her cheekbone lightly with his fingers. “Fine. My full name is Prince Leland Adama and I jumped over the wall of the palace to experience what has turned out to be the best week of my life. But now I have to go home. I have to marry someone I don’t love because Pythia demands it and wait for my father to die to fulfill my purpose in life.”
Kara blinked. He wasn’t lying. She knew when the bastard was lying, and he wasn’t lying. “You’re frakking out of your mind,” she exclaimed loudly, sitting up, and then winced, looking to the opposite corner of the room where Caprica slept behind her gauzy curtain.
Lee smiled almost smugly. “Told you,” he said. “There was no way you were ever going to believe me.” He kissed her firmly and then stood, arching his back. He pulled the curtain aside and stood, naked, looking out toward the castle. She admired the clean lines of his back even as she worried about his sanity.
“I don’t-” she paused. “I have no idea what to say.”
He walked back over to her, leaning down to kiss her again, hand wrapped around the back of her neck. “There’s nothing to say,” he assured her.
She stood up and looped her arms around his waist, pressing careful kisses along the line of his collarbone before resting her forehead against his shoulder. “Well, wherever you’re going, the palace … the nut house, I’ll miss you.”
He nuzzled into her ear with a laugh, “I’ll miss you too.” He pulled back, getting room enough to look at her intently. “Thank you,” he said simply.
“Yeah, yeah, I expect you to return the favor when I decide to take my next vacation in the palace,” she stepped away and started searching for a shirt.
“Hey, anytime,” he grinned. “I’d take you with me today, except that I’m in serious trouble with the old man and I doubt he’d be very welcoming.”
Kara almost choked. “I can’t believe you called Sultan William the old man,” she said.
He shrugged expansively, fastening his pants, “Well he is. Old. Also a Man.”
“You do nothing to convince me of your sanity,” she said, quickly braiding her hair in deference to the heat already rising. “So, let me buy you breakfast, and then we’ll send you on your way.”
Lee was suddenly in front of her again, in her space again, filling her senses in that completely overwhelming yet completely comfortable way of his. “If I had one wish,” he said, very seriously, taking her face between his palms gently, “I’d take you back with me.”
“I’m sure your future wife would love that,” she said with a shaky smile, pulse fluttering.
He shook his head, brushing off her attempt at humor, a stubborn, solemn look on his face. “I’d marry you, Kara. If you’d have me.”
She allowed herself one moment-one moment to imagine that Lee really was the prince, and that the sacred scrolls of Pythia didn’t specify that he must marry a princess and that he wasn’t some delusional man with a charming smile and that she wasn’t the worst kind of fool. “I’ve already had you, Lee,” she said, bumping her nose against his, and then figured, what the hell? “I’d say yes again. If . . . ” She trailed off, not knowing what else to say.
“Yeah,” he stepped back. “If you believed me. If my father listened to me. If. ”
Kara offered him her hand and tugged when he took it. “Let’s go, Prince Leland,” she said lightly, but not entirely mockingly. “You have a kingdom to run and I have merchants to swindle.”
“So, busy day all around then,” he said, and let her lead him out of the room.
* * *
Felix Gaeta stared as the woman he’d been searching for over the past week sauntered past the fountain in the square he had been resting by, holding a grape leaf in one hand and the missing Prince in the other; the one person in the city who they needed to bring about the rise of the people arm in arm with the next generation of oppressive royalty.
He rubbed absently at his leg while considering his next course of action, the throbbing pain his truest and most constant companion since the day that a royal cousin had gotten paranoid on a military campaign and shot Felix’s knee with a crossbow at point blank range. Zarek had managed to save his limb. The advisor who existed on the edge of the court circles had always made him uncomfortable, but when no apology had been made by the royal family, no visitors had come to him as he lay in agony, nothing to distract him but the seductive whispers of revenge, of the end of class rule and worship by accident of birth, of the people rising. Zarek sustained him on a steady diet of potions and revolution and, in the end, Felix had walked again. Every step an agony and a surety, the constant reminder of the carelessness of those who would rule them.
He pushed off of the wall he had been leaning on, this was going to be easier then he had imagined. He turned to the palace guards accompanying him, Skulls and Racetrack, Zarek sympathizers, who had come with him and motioned with his head. “Arrest her. And bring the prince along. Do it gently.”
The guards walked purposely into the square, people moving quickly out of the way, Felix limping behind them. They approached the pair from behind, Skulls moving suddenly and getting a two armed grip around the Harbinger’s body while Racetrack lowered her crossbow. “What is the meaning of this?” the Prince shouted, every bit the Adama in spite of the peasant clothes.
“You are under arrest,” Felix’s voice rose over Adama’s outrage, “for the abduction of Prince Leland Adama.” The police in the square within hearing distance came toward them at a run as the woman struggled in Skulls’ grip. “Your highness, you are addled and confused,” he spoke calmly to the irate prince, “we will take you home.” Racetrack got a firm grip on Adama’s arm. “You,” he motioned to the nearest policeman, “Go to the palace and inform Advisor Zarek that the prince has been found in the company of a woman of interest.” The man ran toward the palace.
“Get your hands off of me,” the prince was demanding, jerking away from the guards’ grip, but Felix took the prince’s other arm as the police handcuffed the woman’s hands behind her. He knew that Adama wouldn’t shake him off roughly. This prince had guilt in his eyes whenever he saw Felix limping through the throne room or across the palace grounds. “Gaeta, I am perfectly safe and Kara did not kidnap me.”
“Yes your highness,” Felix said smoothly, “but you must see how it looks from our side. Let’s all go back to the palace and figure it out there.”
Adama stared hard at Felix, measuring him Felix noted with some amusement, before he reluctantly nodded. “Alright,” he said finally. “I understand why you might think that. Kara,” he called over to the still struggling woman, the true prize. “We’ll go back and get this straightened out at the palace. It’ll be fine.”
Felix watched with interest as Kara stilled with visible effort and looked into the prince’s eyes. “So you aren’t crazy,” she stated.
“I promise that I am not crazy and can straighten this out at home.” Adama said earnestly.
“Always wanted to see the inside of the palace anyway,” she said with a hint of a smile, even as her body remained straining on the edge of action.
“Well now’s your chance. I’ll have Zak give you the tour while dad chews me out.”
“Oh sure,” she said, “and then we’ll meet you for tea in the dining hall after.”
Adama smiled, warm and genuine at the clearly lower class woman, surprising Felix into loosening his grip. “After you,” he bowed his head in Kara’s direction and she and her escort turned toward the palace.
* * *
The doors of the palace were flung wide open as they approached, and Advisor Zarek strode out. “Your highness,” he said. “We were all so worried.”
They entered the coolness of the marble hall and Lee hurried to Kara’s side, pressing a hand between her shoulder blades in reassurance. “Advisor Zarek,” he acknowledged. “I am sorry to have worried you. Didn’t Zak tell you that I had left on my own accord?” He silently held out his hand and Skulls dropped the key to Kara’s shackles into his palm.
“Prince Leland, you must step away from that woman,” Zarek said urgently. “She stinks of dark magic.”
Lee sighed as he freed Kara from the cuffs, drawing the tips of his fingers over her reddened wrists. Zarek was on the sultan’s council as a representative of the south eastern most population of the city, a district that constantly rumbled with unrest and superstition. The district that Lee worried about the most when trade routes were occasionally cut off by sandstorms or bandits, leaving the city hungry. The district that Lee and his father fought most often about. The sultan believed that the people could be placated into obedience with virtually powerless representatives, speeches on holidays, successful war campaigns and following the letter, if not the spirit, of Pythia, preferring to focus ability and attention on the things he understood, like the military. Lee … Lee didn’t believe what his father believed and made an effort to listen to members of the council, or to at least be courteous to the representatives of the people.
“I appreciate your concern, Advisor,” he said, “I assure you that I left, and was coming back, of my own volition and that Kara Thrace is no more of a dark sorceress than I am.”
“I would win at cards a lot more often if I were,” Kara said, stepping toward Zarek. “Advisor, I didn’t kidnap him. I didn’t even believe that Lee-his highness-was actually a highness until about half an hour ago. I just thought he was crazy.”
“Reassuring,” Zarek said dryly, “but I will have to insist on you staying with me while the prince speaks to his father.
Lee tensed. “Kara is staying with me.”
“Prince Leland, do you really want to bring your-companion in front of the sultan right now? He is not in the best of moods.” Lee winced. He could only imagine how furious his father was with him right now and he didn’t need any witnesses to the carnage.
“You’re probably right,” he said reluctantly and took Kara’s hands in his. “Stay with Zarek, I’ll be back soon,” he smiled ruefully. “Dad’s probably mad enough to explode, so it shouldn’t take too long for him to eviscerate me.” Her eyes widened at that and Lee wondered briefly what sort of stories the people who didn’t live in the palace heard about them. “Not literally,” he added hastily. With a blushing defiance, he brushed his lips against Kara’s. “I’ll be right back.”
“Good luck,” she said, tentatively.
He nodded and turned to Zarek, “Advisor-”
“I’ll see to her, your highness.”
“Thank you,” Lee said and, shooting a final smile at Kara, he strode off bravely to get yelled at by his dad.
* * *
“So…” Kara said, and stopped. She wasn’t sure what to say, her mind still reeling in shock that the man who had been sharing her bed for the past week was the heir to the throne. She was startled to feel hard hands close on her shoulders, keeping her still.
“Kara Thrace,” Advisor Zarek said, moving closer, “so you are the key.”
“The key to what?” Kara demanded, squirming against the tight hold of the guard behind her. “Let go.”
“I don’t think so,” Zarek said pleasantly. He pulled a handful of what looked like sand from his pocket and blew it into Kara’s face. She choked on the fine granules, struggling to breathe for one suspended moment before she felt the world close in around her.
* * *
Zak was waiting for him when Lee finally managed to escape his father’s disgusted wrath. “Hey, kid,” he said wearily, resting his head on his brother’s sturdy shoulder for a moment when Zak pulled him into a fierce hug.
“So how was it?” Zak stepped back, his light words belied by the concern and relief in his eyes, but Lee played along.
“Same old, same old,” Lee said, unable to stop the large smile of satisfaction, “Chased by police, learned how to steal nectarines from market stalls, slept in a decrepit building with an enormous hole in the side of the wall with two beautiful women, played cards and pyramid and got drunk. . . the usual.”
“Back up to the two women,” Zak demanded.
“I only slept with, slept with one, but the other one was there too,” Lee grinned, but then back peddled, slight guilt swamping him. “It was more than that though, Kara’s amazing, she took me in, showed me the city, kept me from being arrested.”
Zak rolled his eyes, “Far be it for me to even think that you would have sex just for fun, Lee. Gods forbid.”
“Well, it was a lot of fun too,” Lee said. “She’s here though, Kara’s here. Do you want to meet her?”
“Meet the person who managed to get you to lighten up and have fun? Lead on,” Zak said. “Too bad she’s not a princess.”
“Yeah, too bad,” Lee said wistfully. Zak shot him a sharp look but thankfully just launched into an account of the palace gossip instead, lingering on, and no doubt exaggerating, the more salacious parts as they walked toward the entry hall which was. . . empty except for the watch.
Lee frowned and called for closest guard. “Racetrack, where did Advisor Zarek and Mr. Gaeta take Kara-the blonde woman who came in with us?”
“No need to worry about that one anymore, your highness, the Advisor took care of it.”
“Took care of what?” Lee asked tightly.
“She won’t be bothering you again, Prince Leland.”
A knot of dread was forming in his stomach and Lee found himself unable to speak through it.
“Racetrack, please go find Advisor Zarek and bring him here at once,” Zak said, watching her leave before focusing on his brother. “What’s going on?”
Lee shook his head, “Gaeta was convinced that Kara had kidnapped me when I first saw them in the market. He had her arrested and we decided to figure everything out here. Zarek said he’d take care of everything.” He looked at Zak in alarm. Zarek had been known to act where he felt was appropriate without permission from the sultan before, a trait that had not always led to good outcomes. “You don’t think-”
“Prince Zachary, Prince Leland, you wished to see me?” Advisor Zarek stepped into the hall.
“Where is Kara?” Lee demanded.
“Kara? The black witch who kidnapped and ensnared you? “Zarek asked “I told you that I would handle it, your highness, and I did.”
Zak put a restraining hand on Lee’s arm. “How exactly did you handle it, Advisor?” He asked.
“I had her throat slit, of course,” Zarek said in a puzzled tone as Lee felt his knees go weak and his vision grey out.
“You slit her throat?” Zak demanded, grip tightening to a bruising pressure on his brother. “You murdered a woman under our protection?”
“Your highness, it is written in Pythia that thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. As a member of the royal family, upholders of the sacred scrolls, surely you understand the importance of acting immediately and in accordance with the law in such cases.”
“She was not a witch,” Lee gritted out between his teeth, shaking off Zak. “I told you that. I told you-” he advanced toward Zarek, watching as the man stepped back from him.
“Lee, stop!” the Sultan’s voice rang out and Lee stopped-years of following that commanding tone ingrained even deeper than his present rage.
“Sir, Advisor Zarek executed an innocent woman who was under my protection,” he said, a feeing of hopeless impotence washing over him. She was already gone. The blindingly bright light of Kara Thrace had been extinguished, and nothing would change that.
“A witch, your majesty,” Zarek proclaimed with his usual self-assurance, “A witch who confused your son and took him away from us.”
“Advisor Zarek, my son is more than stubborn enough to be responsible for his own actions,” the sultan said, anger in his eyes. “We have spoken before about your tendency toward preemptive action, but you have completely overstepped your bounds this time. How are dare you execute one of my people without my consent?”
The shouting match rolled over him. Lee didn’t have to listen to know the outcome. Politics. The royal family’s lives were dependent upon a house of cards built on religion and cursory nods toward citizen representation. To maintain the illusion, the sultan would have to maintain the advisor. Kara’s death would go unpunished and unremarked in his father’s court, but for the hole in his own heart and the sympathy in Zak’s eyes.
* * *
Kara awoke in a rush, gasping sharply as she sat straight up. It was a dark room, the single lit candle barely adequate to see by. She wasn’t alone.
“Lee?” she called out tentatively.
“Harbinger,” a man answered. She saw a dark shape moving toward her and tensed for a fight. “We mean you no harm, Kara Thrace.” Another candle was lit, closer to the narrow bed she was sitting on.
“Then why did you bring me here? Where’s Lee?”
“The prince is unaware of your whereabouts.” The door to the room opened, spilling in more light from the hallway. Advisor Zarek walked in. “He thinks you’re dead.”
“Now where would he get an idea like that?” Kara asked, scanning her surroundings, noting the heavy looking candlesticks that could be used as weapons, straining to hear movement out in the hall.
“I told him that I had you killed,” Zarek shrugged. “Our prince is now mourning you, not planning a rescue. We won’t be disturbed.” He smiled at the other man in the room, the one who had arrested her in the market square. “Felix, would you please light some more candles in here? The Harbinger needs to be fully awake and aware.”
“Harbinger?” Kara asked. She was surprised to find that she was not in the least bit addled by the dust that Zarek and blown in her face earlier.
“You are the Harbinger of Death, Kara Thrace,” Zarek said.
“Well that’s. . .” Kara trailed off. She didn’t know what that was, but she was pretty sure she didn’t like it. “Couldn’t you have come up with a better name?”
“It was not my place to name you, merely to find you,” Zarek said. “Mr. Gaeta here did a credible job bringing you to me.”
“He brought the prince,” Kara corrected, “I was just along for the ride.”
“Do you really think I cared if the prince was in the palace?” Gaeta asked, venom in his tone. “He just happened to be helpful for the first time in his royal existence.”
“Enough, Felix,” Zarek said and then turned back to Kara. “You are the only person worthy of entering the Cave of Wonders.”
“The cave’s a myth,” Kara said. “People have combed the desert for it for centuries.”
“And I found it,” Zarek said with pride. “I am a seeker, Harbinger. I found the secret of the cave, I found the cave, I found you, and now you will bring me the lamp that resides in the cave. You have a special destiny, Kara Thrace.”
“Kara Thrace and Her Special Destiny,” she muttered. “Sounds like the name of an Assyrian folk band. What’s in it for me?” she asked bluntly.
“I won’t kill you where you stand,” Zarek said.
“So say I get this lamp. I give it to you, and then what?”
“Then nothing,” Zarek said. “Then Felix brings you back to the city and everyone moves on with their lives.”
Kara didn’t want to help Zarek. She didn’t want to crawl into a mythological cave to fetch a lamp. She really didn’t want to be called the Harbinger of Death, but it seemed that she was backed against a corner and this was the way out. Maybe when she got out she could get a message to Lee to let him know that she was okay.
“Alright,” Kara said. “You’ve got a deal. One lamp for my freedom.”
“Excellent,” Zarek said, and Gaeta’s eyes lit up as a grin stretched across his features.
* * *
Kara suspected that she might be on an acid trip. She had unknowingly fallen for a prince, been drugged by an advisor to the sultan and his gimp lackey, and then an enormous lion cave had roared its way out of the sand and she had walked into its open jaws to fetch a lamp after promising not to touch any of the treasure inside because she was the Harbinger of Death. Or something like that. The torch in her hand guttered as she leaned ever so slightly over the edge of the stone stairs curving down from the mouth of the Cave of Wonders. Too dark and too deep to see the bottom. She took a steadying breath and continued downward, studiously ignoring the blackness pressing in more closely as she wound farther down and away from the entrance to the cave into the stillness below.
After minutes of blind descent, she came to the bottom of the stairs, her feet slipping slightly in cool, loose sand as she stepped from the stone. A faint pink glow began to emanate from all around her, steady as sunrise, spreading rosy fingers up pale cave walls, racing up to the vaulted ceiling, illuminated the space, catching on trees made of silver and emeralds, skittering across haphazard piles of gold and rubies and pearls. It was a beautiful place. A dead place. Not a sound but the harshness of her breath, not a movement but the shiver down her spine.
And at the far end of that room, barely discernable from where she stood, at the end of a meandering path of plain sand lined by gem stone trees, rose a platform. “Right,” she said to herself, to cut the stillness and give her courage.
Kara picked her way carefully along the path of sand, mindful of Zarek’s warnings. He could, possibly, be full of shit about touching nothing in that cave but the lamp on pain of death, but she wasn’t so greedy as to test that theory. The gleam off the sharply carved surfaces of the sapphire plums hanging from the trees were a temptation she could withstand without trouble.
When she got to the platform, she found that it was bigger than it had looked from afar. It was made of gold, with twelve steps to climb to the top, upon which rested a truly ugly lamp, the brass made harsher by the soft gleam of precious stones and metals around it. Kara hesitated at the bottom, reluctant to leave the relative safety of the sand - Zarek had specifically instructed her not to touch any treasure. It wasn’t like she could pick up the platform and tuck it in her pocket to be sold in the city square, but it was still gold.
Sudden movement at the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she whirled, heart in her throat to find a slightly tattered Persian rug floating hurriedly toward her. It came to a stop right in front of her face, tassels quivering.
“Uh, hi?” she asked. Flying carpet. Sure. Why not? The day had met its quota of weird shit hours ago, so this hardly seemed to register.
The carpet rolled itself up and spun before straightening out and coming to rest at her feet.
“I’m not supposed to touch anything,” she told it.
It lifted a corner tassel and shook it at her rather insolently, then flopped deliberately down on top of her sandaled foot.
“Frak!” Kara yelled and jumped back. Nothing happened. The carpet floated up into the air and circled around her, stopping to nudge at the back of her knees.
“Guess you’re my ride?” she asked tentatively. It hit behind her knees more forcefully. “Alright, I got it.” She sat gingerly back as the carpet rose to meet her. It felt as solid as sitting on the floor, so she scooted back until she was fully on top, shifting to get her knees under her. The carpet’s front, right tassel reached back and patted her thigh and then they were moving through the air. Kara scooted toward the front of the carpet, laughing at the sheer wonder of it and, when they were close, grabbed the lamp in one careless swipe, the heel of her hand brushing against the gold of the alter.
“No,” She heard the lion roar again, this time from the inside, “Oh, no, no, no.” She waited for the carpet to fall out from underneath her, but it flattened out and shot toward the spiraling stairs. Kara got low and gripped the lamp and the frayed edges as they began a steep climb, wondering briefly why the carpet was helping her, but too grateful that it was to care too much about the whys.
The lion’s jaws were closing-she could just make out the figures of Zarek and Gaeta before the mouth slammed shut and the dark closed in definitively.
Kara felt the dejection run through the carpet’s length as it slowed to a stop and began drifting slowly back down to the floor of the cave, rocking gently from side to side. “We’re not dead yet,” she said to it soothingly, stroking a hand along its worn surface. “I’ve gotten myself out of worse.”
Kara wasn’t entirely sure that she had, actually, gotten herself out of worse, but there was no reason to panic yet, and admitting her fear would only scare the carpet.
They settled on the ground, the lights coming back on as soon as they did. They looked dimmer than before. “But at least we’re not in the dark,” she said to the carpet as she stood up and stepped off of it to explore the cavern, trying to find another exit.
It felt like hours later when she made it back to her spot by the stairs, she had searched along the walls of the cave as best she could, studiously avoiding touching anything but the sand and the carpet that followed after her. The fear had been growing as she ran out of places to search. To die in a cave of dehydration and hunger, far away from Caprica, who was probably worried by now, and Lee who thought she was dead. She would never see them again. They would never know where she was, and her bones would sit here until the next fool stumbled in, in search of the ugly lamp.
She picked the thing up from where she had left it, turning it over in her hands, rubbing at the dirt. She figured that if she couldn’t find her way out in a couple of days, she’s just pick up one of the gemstones and see what happened. It had to be better than just sitting there. The lamp grew suddenly warm between her palms and she watched, startled, as mist began to pour out of it.
The insidious blue smoke rose, curling suggestively around Kara's hips and slinking between her thighs slyly before whirling into a small cyclone and abruptly vanishing, leaving the figure of a slight man wearing silk and an oily smile.
"Well, hello," the man's exotic and evocative accent spun like silk into the air. "I am the great and powerful genie of the lamp. How may I service you, Master?"
"You have got to be frakking kidding me," Kara said, staring at yet another impossibility in front of her.
"I assure you, darling, I am not." The genie stepped toward her. "I assume you know the rules, but I'm contractually obligated to go over them with new masters. You don’t seem to be going anywhere any time soon, so I'll just begin, shall I?"
"Hold on," Kara said, wrapping her confusion around her like armor and squared her shoulders. "I'm supposed to believe that you're a genie and I'm your master." She shook her head. It was really too much.
The genie let out a long, condescending sigh but otherwise ignored her, "As the genie of the lamp, I will grant you three wishes. Anything your heart desires. My only restrictions are that I will not grant more than three, I cannot make anyone fall in love, and I cannot raise the dead." He rolled his eyes at Kara’s prolonged and defiant silence. "Honestly, you might as well wish to be freed from the cave. If I'm merely a hallucination then you'll still die a gruesome death and no one will ever have to know about your humiliating descent into madness."
"If you're real then that wastes a wish," Kara countered.
"If you want to be trapped in a cave for the rest of your life, by all means," the genie made a mocking little bow. "It doesn’t bother me one way or the other." He looked over his shoulder to see the frayed flying carpet and crooked a finger at it. It unrolled and hovered a few feet off the ground in front of the genie who promptly climbed on and sat, cross legged and straight backed, looking unconcernedly at Kara.
She looked around once more, checking for other avenues of escape or possible witnesses. "Fine. Genie, I wish to be freed from this cave."
"That's it?" the genie said with disbelief. "Well you didn't hold out for very long." Kara opened her mouth to protest but the magic carpet was already whirling around her, the genie hauling her on. "Hang on," he advised, and the carpet shot up nearly vertical toward the roof of the cave. The genie waved his hand lazily and the rock became transparent and the carpet shot out of the darkness of the cave and into the less oppressive darkness of a starlit night.
* * *
Zak hauled himself out of the window and onto the roof and settled next to Lee in the dark, close enough for their shoulders to bump. Lee handed him the half empty bottle of ambrosia and he took a swallow before passing it back.
He waited.
“I think I could have gotten Dad to let me marry Kara,” Lee said, voice slurred.
“Lee,” Zak said on a sigh.
“No, no, really,” he insisted earnestly. “The princess stipulation wasn’t added until three centuries after the original text-it was an addendum, not actually Pythia.”
“Lee-”
“Dad’s not completely unreasonable, he would want me to be happy. He would let me if he could just see-”
“Lee,” Zak said firmly, despite his throat closing up. He groped blindly for Lee’s hand, not able to look at his brother’s miserable profile. “I’m sorry.”
“Right,” Lee said on a shaky breath, handing Zak the bottle. “It doesn’t matter.”
Zak hurled the bottle off the side of the roof and wrapped his arm around Lee’s shoulders, pulling him hard against his side. “It matters,” he said softly.
“She’s dead,” Lee’s head dropped like a stone onto Zak’s shoulder.
“I-” Zak wasn’t sure what to say or do but. . . He rested his cheek into Lee’s hair. “It matters,” he repeated.
Part II