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. ]]

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[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.

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

At least some of the fear seemed to bleed out of Margo, making space for indignance. (Even if those who cared to pay attention could still hear a tremble.) "You wanna run this kingdom behind the scenes, fine," she said, waving her arms. "But what happens when every jackoff out there gets the idea that Fillory is easy pickings with magic gone 'cause we can't even defend our High King? Or nevermind that, what if I just disappear on you again, and Eliot never comes back? Huh? You think you can't get mushroom fields planted now, see what happens then."

Another silence.

Something like hope crept into Margo's expression. "When do we leave?"

Tick cleared his throat.

She looked at him, irritated. "...And these three need to come with."

There was... a sound. Like someone snapping their fingers. Before them, the Fairy Queen revealed herself-- a deeply white woman with blonde hair, white lashes and pale skin, and deep black eyes that seemed to have no whites at all. In her hands, she held an ornate chain, at the end of which sat a little cage-- holding an eye that looked suspiciously like the one in Margo's head.

As Tick and Gillen immediately dropped to their knees (to Margo's disgust), the narrative took a moment to elaborate: the Fairy Queen was also presently lounging in a full bathtub.

[begmetwice]

"What in the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe....?" Irene murmured, darting a sideways glance at Tick and Gillen on their knees and, you know, not following suit.

She did, however, incline her head and dip one knee in the slightest, most perfunctory curtsy she could muster.

"That's a neat trick."

And given what she knew about Margo, and her eyes, she had a fairly good idea of who this was -- or at least, her affiliation.

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"Irene Adler," the Fairy Queen mused with idle amusement, her long fingers sliding out of the tub to play with the chain on her wrist. "You're shorter than I expected."

Margo's face did a thing where it didn't know whether to smile or not.

[begmetwice]

"I tend to have that effect," Irene replied crisply, the faintest surprise registering in her eyebrows and her eyebrows alone. "It's the posture."

How the fuck did this previously-invisible woman know who she was? Did she have exceptionally good hearing, and had caught it when she'd introduced herself to the other two a moment ago?

"You've got me at a disadvantage, though." Namely in the, 'and who the fuck are you?' department.

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"And I'd like to keep you there," the Fairy Queen said, twisting the globe around in her fingers. "But you know who I am."

What the fuck was going on here? Margo needed to regroup. She needed to-- shit.

"I understand introductions are a big deal, but we need to move," she said, "And I need to change into something more appropriate."

As opposed to her cute but very Earth blouse and skirt.

[begmetwice]

"Flats would be welcome, if you've got any around in my size," Irene noted, glancing to Margo but keeping her eyes trained on the Fairy Queen save for that half-second.

Or, really, on that little cage.

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"If you have to," the Fairy Queen said, her eyes taking in Irene one more time. "If I were you, I wouldn't put my trust in that one." She twisted the cage one more time. "There's only so much you can buy with cat ears."

What?

Margo stared. "Your h--"

"Go on," the Fairy Queen said. "Before I change my mind."

Right. Shit. Margo turned and grabbed Irene by the arm, pulling her away.

[begmetwice]

...cat ears.

Fair point, Fairy Queen, but also -- that was awfully specific, wasn't it?

So very, very specific.

"Margo, babes," she ventured, once they'd put a bit of distance between themselves and Fairy Queen and her creepy eyes and her creepier-still eye she was just holding, "hang on a sec. She knew my name."

And about the kitty-cat ears. That had been two years ago.

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"Shhhhh," Margo hissed. "The walls literally have ears."

Five seconds later, she yanked Irene into her chambers, and slammed the door shut rather firmly behind them.

[begmetwice]

And if the walls had ears, then that meant Irene needed to voice her suspicion in a way that simply wouldn't translate here.

"So that's her, huh?" Seemed obvious, but she also needed a moment to think, and she could think and make an obvious assumption and slip out of her heels all at the same time. "How's she helping?"

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"She's going to fly us to that ship by pegasus," Margo said, stalking towards her mirror.

Without much ado, she yanked off her blouse. There wasn't anything Irene hadn't seen before, anyway.

"And then I'll-- fuck, I'll wing it."

[begmetwice]

"If you've got a pair of royal trousers I could borrow, I wouldn't hate it," Irene noted, looking around the room in subdued interest as she started pulling hairpins out and instead working her hair into a loose, more-functional braid. "Do you trust this pegasus thing?"

Both the animal itself, in theory, and the plan.

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"I don't trust the Fairy Queen any further than I can throw her without magic," Margo said. She unclipped her bra. "But she usually sticks to her word, and it's the best I've got."

Beat.

"Pants are in the big wardrobe behind you."

[begmetwice]

"So, about that," Irene commented, her tone deliberately so, so casual as she started undoing her own zippers and went over to find a pair of pants that would fit well enough. "I'm a bit reminded -- you know when you put your browser into incognito mode, and it does that little song and dance about how it doesn't work against your ISP but at least your mum or husband or whomever won't know about all the furry porn you've been looking at if they come across your history?"

She was going somewhere with this, promise. It was just a matter of -- throwing out enough confusing verbiage to muddy the waters.

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

Margo kicked off her heels and had her skirt halfway down her legs before she registered what Irene was saying.

"Uh, sure," she said. "That's why the nerds are always talking up those VPN things. What?"

[begmetwice]

"Which are still fallible, for the record," Irene noted, slipping out of her skirt and selecting a pair of pants. "Even a VPN can't protect you from malware, yeah? I sort of wonder if your McAfee antivirus isn't a bit out of date."

She didn't dare tap her eye, or anything so obvious as that, but she was willing Margo to follow along. At least -- follow along that she was clearly talking about this for a reason.

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

Margo grabbed a blue lacy thing from her wardrobe, and then half-turned towards Irene, clearly about to ask her what the hell was wrong with her all of a sudden, and...

Okay, wait. It was Irene. And Irene-- was probably going somewhere with that.

"You think my-- system picked up a Trojan or a worm or something?"

[begmetwice]

"Mmm-hmm. Maybe remotely cloning your hard drive, but -- I wonder if your webcam hasn't been compromised, to be more specific," Irene said slowly, nodding as she shoved her own blouse -- it would do fine, she didn't need to look like a queen -- into the waist of her trousers. (Untucked shirttails were a bridge too far, of course.)

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"My webcam," Margo echoed.

Her hand shot up to her empty eye socket.

"Shit. You think my webcam has gotten Agent Jones'ed?"

... Look, even Irene had to have seen that movie, right?