fredbassett | Fic, The Lion and the Unicorn, Cutter, Ryan & Others, 15

Art Prompt - castle - smaller image - 600 x 300 with title 1

Title : The Lion and the Unicorn
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 15
Characters : Cutter, Ryan, Connor, Abby, Stephen, OCs
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Summary : When an anomaly glows a rather strange colour, Ryan starts to think that things might not be entirely normal.
A/N: 1) Written for the

primeval_denial art challenge for artwork by

fififolle. A smaller copy of the art has been used as the header for this fic but the full size version is HERE. Please take time to take a proper look and comment there on the art. 2) Thanks to

lsellersfic for all her hard work running this challenge,

lukadreaming for the beta and last, but certainly not least,

fififolle for such a fabulous piece of art to work from!

“Keep it up!” Ryan yelled. “It’s going in the right direction, so let’s make sure it stays that way!”

The machairodus stalked towards the anomaly, long tail swishing from side to side, lashing its flanks. The creature had an enormous head with a pair of powerful jaws set with two strong canine teeth. Overall, it wasn’t as big as some of the sabre-toothed cats Ryan had seen, but it was still impressive, and very deadly. Very deadly indeed.

The prehistoric lion had made short work of a few unfortunate sheep but seemed wary of Ryan’s men and a couple of warning shots fired over its head had started it moving back towards the anomaly. On Abby’s advice, the soldiers had each grabbed a long-handled fire broom from a rack by the field-gate and had started using them to bash down the bracken accompanying each movement with parade-ground shouts, all of which appeared to be having the desired effect

“Good work!” Cutter called, rolling the r in an approving manner.

The professor’s insistence on resolving as many incursions as possible without using either lethal force or resorting to tranquillisers often taxed their ingenuity to the limit, but when it came to yelling loudly not even a pack of teenage girls at a concert could beat a bunch of soldiers.

“Oh shit!” Connor’s exclamation came from somewhere behind him. Ryan turned around, wondering what mishap had befallen their technical genius now. Connor pointed at the anomaly. “It’s fading!”

Ryan’s verbal reaction was not nearly as restrained. The anomaly blinked once and then was gone, leaving nothing but an unobstructed view of a bracken-covered hillside. His men hesitated, their yells coming to an abrupt halt as they realised that there was nowhere for the big cat to go.

Before Cutter had the chance to issue any instructions, the anomaly burst into life again and a relieved cheer went up from the soldiers. The machairodus gave an uncertain growl, stared over its shoulder for a moment, fixed Ryan with a pair of large, golden eyes and then bolted for the anomaly.

“Make sure it doesn’t come back through!” Ryan instructed. “Until it closes, I want a perimeter round that bloody thing!”

His men scrambled to do as he’d ordered.

Cutter looked around and smiled. “Good work, everyone.”

Out of the whole team, the only one who didn’t look happy was Connor. He was standing to one side, staring at the anomaly with an expression of total confusion on his face. “It’s the wrong colour,” he said in response to Ryan’s questioning look.

Ryan looked again at the anomaly and he could now see what Connor was talking about. The fractured ball of light spun lazily on its own axis, but now, instead of radiating the pale light of a new moon, the broken fragments of time were tinged with a rosy glow, as though it was reflecting the warm embers of a fire, but there was no fire anywhere around.

“Connor’s right, I think we might have a problem.” Cutter stepped up to the anomaly, his face wearing a quizzical expression that was all too frequently the harbinger of trouble in Ryan’s life. “We need to take a look on the other side.”

“The cat’s gone, Professor, isn’t that what matters?” But even as he spoke the words, Ryan knew the answer he would get and his face must have given that away.

Cutter grinned. “I knew you’d start seeing things my way eventually, man.” He turned to Stephen, who was leaning on his fire-broom, a resigned expression on his face. “Make sure that there isn’t another big cat around here. It might have been hunting with a mate. Abby, back him up. Connor, keep an eye on the anomaly. Record any changes.”

Ryan waved to two of his men and they stepped up to his side without hesitation, even though neither of them had ever been through an anomaly before. “We go first, Professor, you know the drill.”

Cutter waved his hand impatiently. “Aye, I know the drill. But don’t keep me waiting too long…”

Ryan drew in a deep breath as he stepped up to the broken light. The coruscating shards played across the skin of his hands and face, bringing their familiar chill, as though a goose had just walked over his grave, as his grandmother used to say. His feet crunched on gravel and the air he tentatively drew into his lungs was fresh. Ryan stared out across the shores of a wide lake to where another anomaly hung in the air at least 15 feet above the water. He turned around slowly, on guard for any immediate threat, but he saw nothing of concern.

Ryan stared across the grey water of the lake and watched a flag flutter on the breeze at the end of a causeway bridge joining a small island with the mainland. The island’s rocky shore rose to meet the tall towers and turrets of a castle that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a film set. In fact Ryan was pretty bloody certain he had seen the castle before.

But it wasn’t the sight of the castle that had caused a shiver to run down his spine.

“Get Cutter,” Ryan ordered.

* * * * *

The professor lowered the binoculars and handed them back to Ryan. His expression was strictly neutral, but Ryan knew perfectly well his impassivity was no more than skin deep.

“It’s a unicorn, isn’t it?” Ryan demanded.

“It appears to be a horse with a horn sticking out of its forehead,” Cutter acknowledged.

“If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck…” Ryan said. “So it’s a fair bet that we aren’t in Kansas any more.”

“To all intents and purposes, we’re in the western highlands of Scotland.” Cutter waved a hand at the expanse of grey-green water. “To be precise, we’re standing on the shores of Lock Duich, and that…” another wave of his hand, “…is the Eilean Donan castle.”

“They didn’t have unicorns in Scotland the last time I was there, Professor.”

Ryan closed his eyes for a moment, hoping that when he opened them again he’d find that he was really back home in bed after a night spent getting pissed with the lads. But as usual, he just wasn’t that lucky. The unicorn had started to trot along the shoreline, its graceful head turned in their direction. Ryan was certain it was staring at them as much as they were staring at it. Resisting the urge to take a leaf out of Lester’s book and give vent to a martyred sigh, he turned his attention to slightly more pressing matters, namely the whereabouts of the machairodus.

The trail of paw prints was easy to follow in the mud of the foreshore. The cat had made its way inland, towards a tangle of bushes and low shrubs. As far as Ryan could see, there was no livestock in sight, nor were there any bystanders, and the lorry that had just driven past on the other side of the loch didn’t seem to have notice anything amiss, so hopefully they wouldn’t have to deal with any outside interference.

“Follow it and find it,” he told Hazleton and Roberts. “Don’t engage it, just tell me where it is.” He glanced sideways at Cutter. “What’s the plan, Professor? This obviously isn’t the anomaly the cat came through in the first place, so what the hell are we going to do with it?

“I have absolutely no idea.” Cutter sounded remarkably cheerful for a man who had just ended up in a world inhabited by unicorns. “Let’s find it first and then improvise.”

“Nothing new there,” Ryan said under his breath, earning him an amused look from Cutter and a resigned look from his men. In a louder voice, he added, “Only use lethal force if there’s absolutely no other choice.”

They were all carrying tranquiliser pistols as part of their standard kit now and Abby had issued everyone on the team with darts carrying an appropriately large dosage for their furry friend. Ryan would have preferred the rifle Stephen was carrying, but the pistols were better than nothing.

The two men nodded and set off after the tracks. It didn’t take someone with Stephen’s skills to follow something as heavy as the machairodus on that soft ground, and all the field team now had basic tracking skills. As they moved off, Ryan lifted the binoculars to his eyes again. A wall beside the road on the other side of the loch prevented him checking the number plates on any of the vehicles, but from what he could see, none of them would have seemed out of place in his own world. On impulse, he pulled out his phone, intending to call up the number for the technician who would be monitoring the anomaly detection device in the ARC just to see if they had ended up back in their own world along with a unicorn from another anomaly, but the lack of a signal put paid to that idea.

Cutter shrugged. “It’s the highlands of Scotland, what do you expect?”

They both stared across the water, watching as the unicorn broke into a canter along the foreshore before leaping gracefully over the wall between it and the road and continuing at the same pace along a built-up causeway linking the two sides of the loch.

Ryan knew it was coming their way, and as they watched the creature approach, he racked his memory for anything he knew about unicorns. It only took a few seconds for him to draw a total blank, although he did vaguely remember something about unicorns being captured by virgins, but as even Connor probably didn’t come into that category any more, he consigned that bit of information to a mental dustbin. All the pictures he’d seen of unicorns had them as being white, whereas the one that was rapidly approaching them was very definitely a dark chestnut, so it didn’t look like either popular culture or folklore was going to be much use to him.

As it came closer, Ryan could see that the creature’s horn gleamed like burnished steel and looked wickedly sharp, but despite that, on an impulse he would have found it hard to explain, he left his assault rile slung over his back.

The unicorn was sure-footed amongst the rocks of the shoreline, picking its way towards them at a slightly slower pace now. As it came closer, Ryan realised with something of a shock that in spite of its graceful movements, the creature’s muzzle and cheeks showed a considerable amount of grey amidst the dark brown of its coat and that contrary to his first impression, the animal was nowhere near as sleek and glossy as it had first appeared. In fact, the unicorn looked old and rather tired. The dark eyes that stared at him held a keen intelligence, but Ryan was by no means at ease in its company, all too aware of the fact that he could be skewered on its horn before he would have a chance of bringing his rifle into play.

“Would it be too much of a cliché if I was to say that you don’t look like you come from around here?” Ryan heard the words in his head rather than with his ears, and from the startled look on Cutter’s face, he wasn’t the only one who had just heard the unicorn speak. “I’m sorry, have I startled you?” the creature asked.

The tone was solicitous, but Ryan had worked with Lester long enough to look below the surface of most forms of communication, even ones that seemed to defy natural law, and he suspected they were being made fun of gently. Gently, but unmistakeably. He did his best to stand at ease and empty his mind of any conscious thought. He’d adopted that pose with various COs in the past to good effect. The creature could talk, so it was up to Cutter to decide how to play this encounter. Ryan was just the hired muscle.

If a unicorn could be said to look amused, that one did. It stared at him and Ryan could swear that it was raising an eyebrow at him, even though it didn’t have an eyebrow to raise.

“You’ve certainly surprised us,” Cutter said, clearing his throat and clearly wondering if he needed to launch into some sort of ‘take me to your leader speech’. “My name is Professor Nick Cutter, this is Captain Ryan. Two of his men are currently looking for a rather dangerous animal. It came through there…” He waved a hand at the anomaly that was still glittering brightly on the shore of the loch.

“From the abnormality?” Concern had now replaced amusement. “Oh dear, has something troublesome come through?”

“That’s one way of putting it.” Ryan felt Cutter was doing an admirable job of sounding like conversations with talking – and possibly telepathic – unicorns were, if not an everyday occurrence, at least relatively commonplace. “You’ve seen these sort of things before?”

“Not personally,” the unicorn clarified. “But I know their history. The one that appeared in Loch Ness produced something that did wonders for their tourist trade. I think the Laird has always rather hoped that we could have something similar here. Sadly, the only one to have appeared in these parts was several hundred years ago. Apparently it produced a flock of somewhat quarrelsome chickens that laid the most disgusting-tasting eggs. Lady Mackenzie of Kintail is said to have presented them to the wife of Uilleam, Earl of Ross. Rumour had it that the two women had never got on. But I’m sorry, I’m forgetting my manners.” The voice took on an apologetic tone. “My name is Re’em, that’s with an apostrophe, you understand. My mother was something of a biblical scholar.”

The situation was getting more bizarre by the minute, but on the plus side, the unicorn – Re’em, with an apostrophe – was unfailingly polite and didn’t seem to pose a threat. The jury was still out on whether it could read minds or not.

“We’ll do our best to get the creature back where it belongs,” Cutter told it. “Is there anyone around here likely to be in danger?”

“What sort of creature are you talking about?” Re’em asked, the unicorn’s attention sharpening noticeably at the use of the word danger.

“Something half as big again as a lion. It’s fast, it’s powerful and it has jaws that could crush a man to death with no problem at all.” Cutter’s rolled r betrayed his heritage, whereas the unicorn appeared to speak like an old-style BBC announcer.

“A lion?” Re’em’s eyes narrowed and his long, plumed tail started to swish from side to side. “There have been no lions in this land for many years. If the Laird was here he would hunt it with hounds.”

“Then it’s a good job he’s not here. You’ll not hunt this beastie with hounds... at least not if you want your hounds to live.” Cutter’s accent was noticeably broadening. “Captain Ryan’s men are experienced in dealing with creatures from the… abnormalities. Hopefully we’ll deal with this before your Laird returns. The lion needs to be returned to his own land. Trust me, it’s not wise to kill it.”

A shout from one of his men drew Ryan’s attention. Swinging the rifle off his shoulder and into his arms, he set off at a run.

“It’s put up a deer, boss!” yelled Hazleton. “They’re heading north and there are houses up there.”

Ryan could see a large deer running as fast as it could over the short grass at the edge of the loch with the machairodus in pursuit. From what he could see of their relative speeds, the deer was likely to escape the predator, but that would still leave the huge cat far too close for comfort to a small cluster of houses at the top of the narrow strip of land the anomaly had appeared on.

“Professor, we can’t afford to let it get away!” Ryan had the machairodus in his sights. He wasn’t confident of a clean kill at that distance, but he could probably at least slow it down.

“Do let me be of assistance,” Re’em said.

Before Ryan or Cutter could respond, the unicorn had leaped away in pursuit of the big cat. Despite its evident age, the creature was still faster than any horse that Ryan had ever seen. Hooves thundered on the ground, reminding him of the time he’d watched a flat race from just behind the rails. Re’em’s long legs and powerful stride quickly closed the gap between it and the machairodus.

Ryan glanced at Cutter and received an eloquent shrug in return. “I suspect it knows what it’s doing,” Cutter said. “But if you can get near enough to tranquillise the cat, do it. We can’t afford to hang around here for too long, that anomaly could close at any minute.”

Ryan nodded. That simplified matters. At least he’d been granted some freedom of action. He set off in pursuit of their new acquaintance, with Cutter following along behind.

As the unicorn drew close to both hunter and hunted, the deer swerved to one side, changing course more quickly than its heavily-built pursuer could achieve. The unicorn turned in front of the sabre-toothed cat, executing a move that wouldn’t have shamed a kid on a BMX bike and then came to an abrupt halt, scattering clods of earth torn up by its steel-grey hooves. Without hesitation, the machairodus slashed out with wickedly sharp claws. Re’em reared up and struck at the big cat. One flailing hoof hit the machairodus on the shoulder and resulted in an angry roar. The deer was forgotten now.

The fight quickly turned bloody. The machairodus succeeded in gouging four long furrows down the unicorn’s flank and in return, another strike from a flashing hoof left the sabre-tooth limping off one front leg.

As he ran, Ryan realised that Re’em was concentrating on using his hooves against his opponent rather than bringing his deadly horn into play and he wondered if the creature had taken Cutter’s words to heart about returning the big cat to its own world, but if so, the unicorn was taking a serious risk. The machairodus was a formidable fighter and from what Ryan could see it had scored some early blows but Re’em was clearly starting to get its measure.

The unicorn leaped to one side, narrowly avoiding what would almost certainly have been a fatal slash straight to the throat, and pranced a few metres away from the big cat, moving back towards where Ryan and his men were rapidly closing the distance to the two fighters. Re’em threw back his head, the sunlight glinting off his horn, and whinnied a defiant challenge.

“Re’em, we can stop it if we can get close enough!” Ryan yelled.

“I was hoping you would have a plan,” the unicorn acknowledged, leaving Ryan to wonder just how much strain it would need to be under to disturb the creature’s constant politeness.

The machairodusroared its response to the unicorn’s challenge, crouching down before launching itself through the air at its prey. Ryan cursed under his breath. He was just too far away to bring the tranquilliser pistol into play just yet. He watched as Re’em went to his knees in the face of the big cat’s attack, head lowered so that the point of his horn almost touched the short grass. For a sickening moment, Ryan thought the unicorn had reached the end of its endurance but then Re’em surged to his feet, powerful neck muscles rippling with the effort, and using his horn as a lever managed to toss the machairodus to one side.

The sabre-toothed cat landed heavily on the stony ground. Before it had a chance to struggle to its feet, Hazelton and Roberts got within range of their tranquilliser pistols. Hazleton, the better marksman of the two, took the shot. The orange-fletched needle embedded itself in the cat’s tough hide, but as the creature clambered up, shaking itself, the dart dropped to the ground.

Hazleton swore. At his side, Roberts swung his pistol up, sighted carefully and fired. Ryan was in range now as well and he readied his own weapon for use. The machairodus growled and snapped at the barb in its flesh. Ryan took a split-second decision that the risk of an overdose was more acceptable than the risk of the damage the cat was capable of doing if left to its own devices. He fired and his dart struck the back of its neck.

“Keep away from it!” Ryan ordered.

The two soldiers backed away, holstering their dart guns and readying conventional weapons, knowing that if the tranquilliser failed their only recourse now would be to bullets.

The cat staggered a few paces, stopped, looked around, shaking its head from side to side and then gathered itself to spring again.

“No heroics, Re’em!” Cutter ordered. “The darts should put it to sleep!”

The unicorn inclined its head in acknowledgment and took several paces backwards.

The machairodus leaped with all the grace of a sack of potatoes and landed at its opponent’s feet. When it became clear that it wasn’t going to get up again, Re’em bent his head to the big cat’s body and rested the tip of his horn to the bloody furrow that his horn had gouged in the creature’s shoulder with a strike of a hoof.

At the same moment, a loud cheer went up from some distance away, and Ryan realised belatedly that the confrontation had attracted the attention of several drivers who had stopped their vehicles on the causeway road and had no doubt been busily taking pictures or filming their activities on mobile phones, if such things existed in this world.

Re’em turned to the onlookers and shook his chestnut mane, seemingly oblivious to the various injuries he’d sustained from the machairodus’ claws and sharp teeth.

The unicorn’s entire bearing radiated pride.

* * * * *

With the help of a length of broken fishing net found by Roberts in an old boat shed, they were able to haul the sleeping machairodus back to the anomaly. Cutter knelt down to give the animal a final check before taking it through and a look of surprise crossed his face. He beckoned Ryan to his side and pointed at the sabre-toothed cat. They’d dragged it along on its uninjured side, but Ryan had to check twice to be sure before he realised that the jagged cut in the flesh of the cat’s shoulder now looked like an injury that was at least a week old.

They both looked up at Re’em. “Did you do that?” Cutter asked.

“It seemed unreasonable to let such a worthy opponent suffer,” the unicorn replied.

“So some of the old tales are true,” said Cutter. “A unicorn’s horn can heal the sick.”

“Of course, but I wouldn’t suggest trying out the effects of a virgin on one of my kind.” Re’em’s dark eyes twinkled with obvious amusement. “Not all legends are true, although maybe after today, at least one slur on my kind can be expunged.”

Cutter laughed. “My auld gran used to quote that rhyme. She used to say it was a slur on the proud history of the Scots by the perfidious English.”

Ryan had no idea what they were talking about, but that was often the case where Cutter was concerned.

“The lion and the unicorn were fighting for the crown
The lion beat the unicorn all around the town.
Some gave them white bread, and some gave them brown;
Some gave them plum cake and drummed them out of town.”

A soft neigh of laughter from Re’em greeted Cutter’s words. “My grand-dam used to feed me plum cake whenever I lost a fight with my brothers. It seems that our worlds are maybe not so different after all, my friends, if even our history is the same.”

Cutter smiled wistfully. “I wish we had time to learn more about this place. I’d like to know what sort of world it is.”

“Apparently it is a world where dreams can come true,” Re’em said quietly. “Who would have thought it? When I was a colt I dreamed of becoming a warrior, but it was not to be. Instead I was a tutor to the Laird’s children.”

“You looked like a warrior from where I was standing,” Ryan said.

“Thank you,” Re’em said gravely. “It is good to have a story of my own to tell now.”

* * * * *

“Unicorns?” Abby said incredulously, as she bent over the still-sleeping machairodus to examine its wounds.

“In the interests of strict accuracy, we only saw one unicorn,” Cutter corrected.

“Although the inference was that there were more of them,” Ryan added.

Stephen’s eyebrows shot up. “You’ve been spending too much time with him, mate.” Before Ryan could swat him away, Stephen had reached up and rested the backs of his fingers on Ryan’s forehead. “You don’t feel like you’re running a temperature, but are you really sure you want to turn in a report that mentions unicorns? Lester’s looking for any excuse to have Cutter sectioned.”

“Cutter!” It’s fading!” A shout from Connor interrupted the joking and as Ryan looked around, the anomaly disappeared.

“That was close,” Cutter said, staring at empty moorland again for the second time in an hour. He stared down at the big cat sprawled on the heather. “Now what are we going to do with this wee laddie?”

Sudden light burst around them in the gathering dark of a long day.

“It’s back!” Connor sounded amazed. “But it’s a normal colour again.”

Cutter looked at Ryan. “Third time lucky?”

Ryan grinned. “Maybe this time it’s your wish that’s come true?”

They each grabbed an edge of the net and started to haul the machairodus back to what they were both certain would turn out to be its own world.

Stephen was right. It was going to be interesting after-action report.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

nietie.livejournal.com

What a fantastic encounter. Re'em is a creature they will certainly never forget.

Gorgeous combination of art, rhyme and fic.

From:

Fic, The Lion and the Unicorn, Cutter, Ryan & Others, 15

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