#this took longer than it should've but ch 4 is like almost half done so

[squiddybeifong]

Trek to Themyscira, Ch. 3

On Ao3 here!

--

Lounging about in the kitchen, Victor let out a sigh as he reread his updated notes. Their entourage had come within less than an hour’s travel of Themyscira, but the fog was thick enough to make their captain hesitant. No use in shipwrecking before any exploring could occur, anyway.

Raven shifted against his side as she reached for one of her graphs, a sound escaping her as she hastily scribbled something in her notebook’s margins. Victor leaned back as she corrected a line that would have affected his calculations and downed the rest of his tea. Rubbing at his temples, he stood and barely bit back a smile as the bird nearly toppled at his not-so-sudden movement. Victor grabbed their cups and strolled to the kettle, glad that the sea’s rocking didn’t turn his stomach as it had a month ago. He lifted the kettle from the heat and was refilling his and Raven’s cups when Zatanna came into the room.

The engineer didn’t say anything as the two quietly spoke for a moment, his eyes flicking from the steaming liquid to the way Zatanna scribbled something in his sister’s margins. Victor’s brows jumped as Raven smiled at the older woman; surprised, his mindlessly kept up his tea preparation and nearly added three lumps of sugar instead of his usual two.

Zatanna flipped her hair over her shoulder as she stood again, patting Raven’s shoulder once and nodding at him before she left the room, obviously searching for Constantine.

Victor called out to her back, “He’s bothering the captain about our methods for transporting any live specimens. They should be on the deck, portside unless he’s been thrown overboard by now.”

The anthropologist let out a snicker as she stepped over the door’s step, “Much appreciated!”

Raven’s smile faltered and she let out a sigh as she rubbed at her temples, her face grateful as Victor set her cup down in front of her. “Thanks,” The zoologist didn’t hesitate to take a quick gulp of the tongue-burning liquid, unfazed by her long-time companion’s incredulous head shake.

Deciding to comment on her tea dependence later, Victor murmured, “You two have been getting along well.”

Gray eyes flicked to him and a lazy, curious smile came upon his features, “In fact, neither John nor myself have heard a single argument since around the time our seasickness ended.”

Raven chuckled, hiding the sound with another sip. Closing her eyes as the much-needed warmth slipped through her, she admitted, “We’ve come to an agreement of sorts.”

“In the name of science?”

Had her eyes been open they would’ve rolled at the cheeky grin he inevitably sported, “In the name of ensuring another expedition, Vic.”

“Hmm,” The engineer ignored the gray gaze that settled on him. Victor rubbed at his jaw, taking in the stoicism that concealed her face. Enough to throw off most (if not all) of the rest of the world, but he knew her far better than that.

“Promise me something?”

Raven raised a brow and he shrugged, “You and Zatanna are obviously hiding some idea that’s dangerous and probably incredibly impulsive.” He held up a finger and gave her a soft smile before she could argue, “In the name of science or not.”

“But just,” Victor shook his head, “Just let me know before anything has a chance to really go wrong, alright?”

The girl set her tea down, her lips settling into a soft frown at the worry in his voice, “Victor…”

His pointed look made her falter. The inventor shook his head, a quiet laugh escaping him, “I know you don’t believe in half-attempted preliminary searches, but don’t go rushing into things.”

“It usually works for us.”

“Yeah, but you’ve brought Zatanna into this,” Victor immediately countered. He rested an elbow on the table, his smile spreading into a grin at the memory, “We don’t need her almost getting mauled by a bear for her first mission.”

“Well we should be able to handle any animals for this,” Raven held up her tea again, her face bright and her shoulders less tense as he clinked his mug against hers. “I promise.”

As if solely to counteract her words a booming, haunting howl cut through the air, slicing the monotonous slap of the waves on the boat’s hull.

Raven let out a gasp at the sound, her neck snapping to gaze out the open door. Victor immediately stood and jogged onto the deck, the salty air clinging to his skin as he tried to squint through the fog. The zoologist didn’t pay any mind to his quiet conversation with the few sailors that came to the same railing as he did; no, her heart was in her throat.

She didn’t know the species, but she knew that only a primate could make such a sound. Raven closed her eyes and bit back a squeal, wondering if Zatanna was aware of what a call like that truly meant. Her hypothesis was right!

Standing shakily, half due to her nerves and half due to re-adjusting to the ship’s slow tilts, Raven took out her handkerchief and dabbed at her forehead. She wiped at her glasses once before putting the cloth away, her lips silently mouthing their discovery over and over again, “An ape…”

--

“Alright,” The captain spoke, his voice booming and clear as he stood on the deck. It rang over the fog like a bell and the crew paused their work to pay attention. His eyes flicked to Raven then Zatanna as he addressed the whole group, “I already informed my first mate on our sister ship of our course of action.”

Constantine and Victor exchanged a look as the man continued, “She’ll give us a lifeboat with all ten of her guards and ten sailors. We’ll take our ten guards and three sailors, with myself and our scholars.” He tilted his chin towards the navigator, calling out, “How long to the island?”

“No more than a twenty minute row, Captain!”

Nodding confidently, his gaze settled on the four, “Pack your essentials and we’ll drop ship in fifteen, aye?”

Raven was the first to shoot off from the group, her boots practically skipping against the wood as she bounded to her quarters. Victor chuckled as he rushed after her, patting his pockets and mentally preparing a checklist. The older couple paused and Zatanna sighed, “Get it over with now.”

Constantine raised a brow, “You have a plan with Raven?”

The anthropologist ran a tongue over her teeth, “If we play this right, our expedition may last longer than the three months Mr. Wayne attributed us.”

John furrowed his brows and stared at her for a long moment. Zatanna rolled her eyes and started for her quarters and he followed. A curious hum escaped him, “Is it something that I would do? Because if so I need to advise you against it.”

Zatanna shook her head, a teasing tilt to her lips as she glanced at him over her shoulder, “Less drunken rationalization, more rebellious spontaneity.” Snickering as he decided to go along with the insanity that the afternoon was sure to bring, Constantine trailed behind her, wondering if he’d have time to roll a cigar before they left.

However, in not even a half hour’s time he and Victor were sitting with the women between them, the four wide-eyed as the lifeboats unsteadily maneuvered over the island’s surf. The water was cold as it splashed onto their laps, but it was remarkably clear. So clear, in fact, that the captain had no problem directing the ships away from the rocks that lurked below.  

The fog seemed to lift slightly as they washed up on Themyscira’s shores. At the sight of land Raven almost stood, her move halted by Victor’s arm across her midsection and one of the soldier’s palms raising. He grasped his rifle and crouched at the boat’s stern, listening as carefully as he could. When nothing alive, yet alone dangerous, seemed closeby he motioned for the other guards to follow his lead.

Just a few steps onto the beach and another roar sounded, same as the first. Everyone turned their heads and the captain let out a relieved laugh; the animal must’ve been on one of the other islands. “Check that everything’s clear, men. Then we’ll get these folks exploring!”

--

Raven and Constantine were in a frenzy as they traversed Themyscira’s grounds. The Amazons kept their island’s secrets for a reason; all the vines and flowers, all the beetles and spiders, all the ants and weeds were familiar yet undeniably distinct from the rest of the Mediterranean. A bird flapped its wings and took off, inky feathers glossy despite the sunless-sky; Raven let out an elated laugh at the sight, her amusement mingling with John’s gasp at a plant whose mechanics assured that it must have been closely related to the Venus fly-trap.

Victor and Zatanna were less excited than their companions, their faces solemn at the sheer ruggedness of the terrain before them. Themyscira must have been as tall as it was wide; even at the engineer’s incredible height, he had to crane his neck back to even try to glimpse at the top of the incline.

“Miss Zatara…” He murmured.

“I know.” Putting her hands on her hips, the anthropologist looked around the best she could. From what was known through records, the Amazons lived in a valley in the very center of the island. But at the moment fog was still clinging to the very tops of the trees and their carracks’ outlines were barely visible on the open ocean. The ground, full of life as it was, was terribly rocky; the carved steps had eroded to the point of being more a slide than a footpath, the vines and the mud were too soft to hold any weight, and the trek would take far too much time.

Not to mention the difficulty of going down to find the valley itself…

She pinched between her eyes, an annoyed huff leaving her, “This will be at least a month to navigate, and that’s without proper safety precautions. And another month more to set up any sites and create a path to bring specimens back to the boats.”

Sapphire eyes flicked to Constantine as he let out a “Marvelous!” She raised a brow at the fruit-laden flower he had found, so alien to most of what grew in Gotham, before turning back to Victor. He didn’t notice as he strolled up to where the incline began, lifting his foot and testing the rocks’ stability.

Zatanna’s lips quirked into a frown when he couldn’t even put half a step’s worth of weight, “We don’t have the time that we need, Mr. Sto-- Victor.”

He ran a tongue over his teeth as he watched Zatanna glance at Raven, the words escaping him quickly, “Then perhaps you should start your plan?”

When shocked sapphire eyes snapped to him Victor shrugged, “Raven hasn’t told me what you two have agreed to do, but it might be worth exploring.” His gaze flicked from where the fog reached the steep hill and went back to the anthropologist, “I’m not sure if a full report from Constantine and half of one from Rae will be enough.”

A low hum escaped the woman and she turned, meeting the captain’s eye across the beach. Zatanna motioned him to walk over and asked, “How close can we get to the rest of the islands on the archipelago?”

She glanced at Victor, “We could do a rough scouting, see if we can see anything from the carracks.”

Victor shook his head, looking completely unsurprised and letting Raven’s name slip out of him. The man stroked his beard, his chest rumbling in thought. After a moment he shrugged, “The fog appears to be clearing up the closer we are to the islands. We could do a quick check, although it’d take at least three, maybe four days off our time here.”

“Then can we split up? Have most of the sailors stay here and pack the specimens I know John wants to bring back--” She paused as the Englishman clicked his tongue in agreement without even looking up from the weeds he crouched over, “--and the rest go on to check.”

“Just a preliminary thing,” Raven piped up. She wiped the mud from her hands as she saddled up among the tiny group, her face lit up with excitement, “That roar obviously didn’t come from this island. Perhaps if we can see some evidence of it…”

The captain nodded, “I’ll prepare my men.”

--

Zatanna sighed as she looked out towards the fading sight of the third of the islands, grumbling with anticipation. Raven had taken to fiddling with the spyglass that Victor carried, trying to peek out past her glasses as they took the impossibly long way around.

Two days ago the captain’s voice had been remorseful as he explained the reef was far too shrouded to get to their preferred island first; no, instead they would be going around all of the archipelago, reaching Themyscira’s closest neighbor last. Nothing of much to note for the other islands, but now they were not even an hour’s travel from that second island; Zatanna rocked on her heels, Raven’s musings still reverberating in her head.

Who knew what they would find?

Constantine lazily walked up next to her, resting his forearms on the railing. He nudged her shoulder with his own, ashing his cigar into the ocean, “Excited?”

Chuckling, she tossed some hair over her shoulder, “The fog’s lifting and Raven is sure that the Amazons have been to the island before. We should be able to see something, especially with what the notes say of the topography.”

The blond’s brows furrowed, “New notes?”

“Apparently, Themyscira is the only one with massive inclines. The rest are mainly populated with hills and trees. Their boulders should rarely be larger than a carriage,” Zatanna grinned as his face lit up with recognition of where her mind was.

He blew out a puff of smoke, the cloud mingling with the salty fog, “You think we’ll see chopped down trees?”

Zatanna shrugged one shoulder, “At the very least ones that have been carved in some sort of way. Their weapons and twine have to had come from somewhere.” The anthropologist nudged his shoulder like he did hers, teasingly batting her lashes up at him, “That’s where you come in, John.”

His mouth opened to retort but one of the sailors cut him off, “LAND!!!”

There was a brief half-second of silence then the sudden flurry of motion from the sailors, directed by the man’s cry of “HALF A NAUTICAL MILE, STARBOARD!!!” Their surprised, eager gazes met and they rushed to where Raven was practically atop Victor’s back, desperately trying to peek out past the rapidly thinning fog.

“I can’t see anything!” Raven bemoaned. She huffed and handed Victor his spyglass back, leaning over the railing and squinting behind her glasses. A dark hand came to grab at her shoulder before she could accidentally topple over the edge, “The fog is lifting pretty steady.”

Victor rubbed at his jaw, adjusting the spyglass as he muttered, “This should be working despite any murkiness.”

He leaned back to give the other scholars more room as he started walking along the railing, trying to spot anything on the island. The clouds were clearing and after a few frustrating minutes the engineer let out a gasp as the island’s shore came into view.

Victor blinked, took the spyglass away from his eye, rubbed his face, blinked again and brought the glass to his face once more. His lips trembled and he shouted Raven’s name, urging her to come to where he stood, “Dear Copernicus in Heaven…”

He ignored the sound of Constantine skidding up and pressing against his shoulder. The carrack passed the fog’s edge and beside him the other three went silent, mouths falling agape at the structure that they saw. They couldn’t see the doorframe, the nails and steps that the spyglass allowed Victor to see so clearly, but all knew that they had found it.

Its rotting had started years, if not decades before. There was a corner that was blackened with fire, and as soon as they could get closer none would be surprised to see over a year’s worth of cobwebs. Dark brown and enforced with what must have been now-rotted away leaves, the cabin was more of a hut that anything. Armed with two windows and a door, some Amazon had once lived there.

Her eyes wide, Raven drummed her nails on the railing. She roughly swallowed the air in her throat, too astounded to bother pulling her glasses away as her flushed face made them start to fog up.

Pale fingers ran through her inky hair, uncaring as some pins fell to the floor and rattled on the wood. Overwhelmed at how much they would get to discover, stunned that her idea was just proven true, giddy at how much Mr. Wayne would back her and her future expeditions once he got news, Raven pushed her glasses higher up her nose. Her lips spread, her smile as wide as her heart was full and she whispered, “We may need to change our plan.”

#tarzan au #raven #victor stone #zatanna zatara #john constantine #my writing #guess what i totally jinxed myself with ch 2's tags #this took longer than it should've but ch 4 is like almost half done so #more spoilers yes?? #bc either donna or diana is getting introduced in the next ch 👀👀👀 #i can't wait