From 33 Apocalypse Ave to... Elsewhere, Tuesday Noon

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

They were finally going to do this shit.

Margo had found a bank. She'd cased the bank, like a pro. She'd checked and made damn sure there weren't any anti-Magician traps she had to worry about. (There were advantages to being locked out of her own universe. She was taking advantage of them.)

Now?

Now she and Irene just needed to work out a game plan.

She'd made cocktails, she'd ordered in take out, she'd spread the map across the table. There was nothing to do but lounge on her sofa with a martini in hand, waiting for her partner in crime to show up.

Fuck yeah.

[[ for irene, and a mad slowplay escapade based on The Magicians season 3 episode 3, 'The Losses of Magic'. TW for sexual assault references. ]]

Comments

[begmetwice]

And here was Irene, knocking lightly on the door and -- much as when she had turned up at Margo's in times past -- a bag of goodies over a shoulder.

Different goodies, this time around. Magic was incredible, of course, but she wanted to at least attempt to pull her weight, and thus her slightly-larger-than-normal handbag had everything she'd been able to pull together as far as safecracking, forensic maps, and cool masks. (Let's be real: some of this was just for "bank robbing accessory" fun. You didn't get an opportunity like this every day!)

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

Margo slid out of her chair and stole the other martini off the coffee table, then strode to the door, hips swaying with barely-repressed excitement.

She opened it.

"Hi," she said, and held out the glass.

[begmetwice]

"What a welcome," Irene commented, taking the glass with a smile and a lift of her eyebrows. What was summer -- and heist-planning -- for, if not the most perfect time for a little day-drinking? "Hello, darling. Haven't got too far ahead without me, have you?"

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"Eh, not far enough to make a difference," Margo said. (Not with her tolerance, anyway.) "Come in, make yourself at home. Drink."

... she was getting out of the way after that emphatic exclamation, yes.

[begmetwice]

Irene took a demonstrative sip as she sidled past, harkening pleasantly back to days of university parties and shotglasses being thrust into her hands upon arrival.

This was, like, that same vibe's classy older sister.

But also with robbery!

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"So I managed to get a map to the place, don't ask me how," Margo said, sipping her drink as she strode towards the dinner table.

[begmetwice]

"And here I brought my best estimates of one," Irene noted in admiration, shaking her head. "Do we have to contend with a vault?"

She sort of wanted to. It might be too easy without a vault!

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"Yeah, there's a vault," Margo said.

There was the table. There was the map. She reached out to jab it, and...

...stumbled through empty air, and right into a very familiar throne.

The shift was abrupt. One minute, the table had been there. The next? A vast throne room, with four empty seats, light streaming in through artful drapes and around pretty columns.

"What the fuck?"

[begmetwice]

And Irene stumbled right after her, still holding her martini glass and looking much more confused and out of sorts than she ever liked to be.

"Where the fuck -- " she started and didn't finish, eyes skating over the seats and the columns as her mind raced with attempts to reconcile her surroundings.

And even, already, her brain was providing an answer for where they were even if she wasn't consciously accepting it yet.

Four seats for two kings, two queens, yeah?

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"I see Your Highness has decided to grace us with her grace once again," said a chipper and extremely patronizing voice behind them. Condescending, even, and yet somehow toadying? "Fortuitous timing!"

"Fuck," Margo hissed, and she twisted around with metaphorical fire spitting from her eye. "Tick Pickwick!"

[begmetwice]

"Is it really gracing you if she didn't have a choice?" Irene commented, making an effort to keep her voice almost bored in spite of the panic she was tamping down. "More like a royal kidnapping, yeah?"

Just to throw that conversational grenade out there from the jump. No one liked a royal kidnapping!

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"You say 'kidnapping', we say 'unexpected teleportation'," Tick said brightly. "It's all a matter of perspective." He bowed. "I see your Highness has delighted us with another Child of Earth. Welcome!"

Tick Pickwick did not have any register above or below 'cheerful condescension', no.

"Jesus fucking shit, Tick, give me a sec," Margo said, through clenched teeth. "Where's the High King?"

Tick raised a finger. "About that..."

"Your Highness!" another minion yelped - Margo didn't have the wherewithal to remember his name. "I'm so glad to see you! We've just received a report from the Muntjac--"

Too much information, too fast. Margo's hand shot up, and he abruptly stopped talking. "Give me. A sec. Or I'm going to rip all of your heads off, okay?"

"Of course, your Highness," Tick chirped. "A... 'sec'... it is." Why was he grinning? Right. Tick.

[begmetwice]

"She will tell you when the sec is up," Irene noted, crossing over to stand beside Margo now that she had her own bearings a bit better -- her hunch had, of course, been right, but it had also been a bit of a quick mystery.

She tossed back the remainder of her drink with very little fanfare, before turning her attention to Tick and his associate. "Irene Adler, born of Earth indeed. A pleasure to make your acquaintance."

A lie, and an obvious one at that, but she was at least warming to being curious about her surroundings rather than frightened.

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"Yes, a pleasure." Tick and his henchminion - fuck, what was his name? - bowed in a sort of professional, this-is-just-what-you're-supposed-to-do-sense. "I am Tick Pickwick, her Majesty's faithful servant."

Every single time. Every single time, Margo wanted to kick him.

But okay. They were back in Fillory. Regroup. She made a regrouping sort of gesture with her hand, and straightened her shoulders. "Okay, sec's over, what's going on?"

Flunky #2 nodded gravely. "In your absence, High King Eliot set sail on the Muntjac to pursue a quest," he said. "We just received a report from the seagulls that the Muntjac has been captured by pirates. Two days' sail from After Island."

"Son of a twat," Margo swore.

She was going to need another sec.

[begmetwice]

"Eliot," Irene breathed softly, her good humor fairly evaporated. (As much as she liked pirates in theory, she suspected that active, practicing pirates were much less fun than the ones she'd met.)

"Do you lot have some...wine, or something?" Irene suggested, slanting a look at Margo and that clear and obvious need for further -- perhaps infinite -- secs, in light of this new information. "Maybe a snack for the Queen, while she thinks a tick? Where are these seagulls?"

Of all the fucking weird things she'd said over the years....

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"Ah, yes, libations," Tick chirped, raising a finger. "Wine?"

Margo held out her hand. A goblet was summarily shoved into it. "Good thinking," she muttered to Irene.

"The seagulls have already flown," flunky said gravely.

[begmetwice]

"Don't forget the Queen's friend," Irene noted, making a little 'keep 'em coming' gesture to the flunky. "Do we have...other birds we can send?"

Surely there was someone more useful than seagulls, even. Where was a giant flying eagle the whole fandom could bitch about for years to come when you needed one?

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"The avian delegations tend to frown upon violence," Tick said. Condescendingly. "Something about it ruffling their feathers."

Another goblet found its way to Irene's hand.

Margo took a sip of her wine (ugh, Fillorian wine, Eliot still hadn't gotten that right), then rubbed her forehead. "Okay, so no sending birds," she said. "What's the fastest ship in our Navy?"

"The Morgan Downs, ma'am, could reach the Muntjac in a week," Tick spoke. "Without magical assistance, that's the best we can muster."

[begmetwice]

Irene shot a glance over to Margo, lifting her eyebrows.

And what about with magical assistance -- but she didn't want to suggest that, given it wasn't her own magical boost she'd be offering up, you know?

"Where I'm from, ruffled feathers are a happy consequence of serving the Crown," she grumbled lightly into her goblet.

(As though Irene had ever ruffled a hair on her pretty head in service of the Crown, please.)

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

An idea came to Margo. It was a terrible, horrific idea. It was not the kind of idea she wanted to have to have, three minutes after being summarily Fillory-napped alongside a woman she actually managed to tolerate on a regulary basis.

"No, it's not the best we can muster," she said, her jaw setting. She looked to Irene. "Stay here if you want," she said. "This is going to get-- ruffly."

And she did not have a lot of people in her life she could tolerate.

[begmetwice]

"Please. With them?" Irene retorted, jerking her head towards Tick & Co. (Yes offense, guys.) "I'm tougher than I look. Lead the way."

It wasn't like she was going to get back to Fandom without whatever Margo had planned, anyway. (And she was summarily ignoring the fact that Margo had been trying to get back here for years, and it might be just as difficult to get back to Fandom. One crisis at a time.)

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"Oh, they're coming along, too," Margo said tersely. She spared Tick and-- Gillen? Was that his name? Gillen, yes-- a single withering look. "Follow me, dickholes."

And stormed out of the throne room, into the hallway beyond.

Gillen stared straight ahead. "Did she just... call us... 'dickholes'?"

Tick just turned and followed her.

[begmetwice]

"It's a compliment." Considering how much worse it could have been, really, Irene did sort of see the restraint as complimentary!

She followed after, heels clicking on the floor as she trailed along and took in every detail she could, just in case it would later prove important.

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

Margo led them through a series of ornate hallways, all beautifully hewn stone and intricately patterned windows, candles in every sill to light those parts of the castle that still sat in shadow.

And then, abruptly, she came to a stop in front of a seemingly empty room. Her posture shifted, nerves and some small amount of fear settling in her gestures. She was silent for a moment.

Then: "Mushroom screw-ups are on these chuckleheads," she said, as if responding to someone, and gestured at her two minions. Meanwhile, I have a real problem. The High King was hijacked by pirates and I can't help him. But you can."

[begmetwice]

Irene, for her part, was looking around the room for the source of whatever Margo was talking to. If they'd been at home -- Fandom, London, Earth in general, take your pick -- she would have expected hidden cameras, or bugs.

Here, she wouldn't particularly be surprised if it was literal bugs. Maybe Margo could communicate with the ants here, something like that.

But she wouldn't have shifted like that for ants. Irene saw it.

And now she was just sorry her switchblade and her gun were both back in Fandom.