FIC: Indiana Jones and the Trail of Light (Indy/Marion, PG)

[tellitslant]

Yay Yuletide reveal! :D

So yes, I wrote Indiana Jones. Are you all shocked? *g*

The request I got was fairly broad - I'd offered 'any' in the fandom and my recipient asked for pre- or post-movies Indy and Marion, with or without Mutt, or possibly some stuff with Henry Jones Sr. So I had an amazing, epic pre-movie idea, and then I realized it was shaping up to be the size of the tie-in novels, and so I wrote this instead.

I had a hell of a time shuffling this in with all the tie-in canon: that's what happens when you get me in a fandom I've been absorbing for most of my natural life. But I think it fits more or less plausibly with the sorta-canon and pretty well with the actual canon, so hey!

I had no idea whether I'd be able to write an Indy story, and I did huge amounts of research (well, huge for me) and then chucked half of it, but I'm fairly pleased with how it turned out. I still want to write the other 20,000 or so words of my initial idea, though. *g*

Title: Indiana Jones and the Trail of Light
Author: tellitslant
Recipient: d_generate_girl
Fandom: Indiana Jones
Disclaimer: I suppose this belongs to Lucas and Spielberg - in thanks for not totally destroying my childhood with Crystal Skull? ;)
Word Count: 2882
Pairing: light Indy/Marion
Rating: PG
Notes: written for yuletide 2008.



Indy stepped off the train and grimaced, tugging the brim of his fedora down to shade his eyes. The white expanse of the desert stretched out in front of him, sun glaring mercilessly off the sand. The sun had been just as bright when he'd left Cairo, but then he'd only had the promise of a hangover: now it was coming on full force.

Sighing, he tugged his rucksack up onto his shoulder, feeling the reassuring gurgle of the bottles Sallah had tucked in there the night before, "to keep the desert as warm at night as during the day," he'd said. It had probably been a mistake to ask Sallah to meet his train yesterday in Cairo - a beam of light stabbed at his eyes and he winced; oh, it had definitely been a mistake - but after having spent the last month chasing Abner Ravenwood halfway around the globe, Indy reckoned he'd been due a night off.

Speaking of Abner... Indy raised his hat enough to peer up and down the platform, but only saw the usual Egyptian bustle of tourists, dragomen, and beggars. No Abner, parting the crowd with his lengthy geographer's stride a yard at a time. Frustrated, Indy double-checked the telegram crumpled in his pocket. WILL MEET TRAIN 22 JUL STOP GREAT FIND STOP ARW END. No, Abner knew he was coming all right. Probably he'd just gotten caught up in his work, was still bent over the latest potsherd or scrap of parchment he'd unearthed. Probably.

"Damn," Indy swore under his breath. If a night of carousing in Cairo's dives with Sallah meant he'd missed Abner again, was about to find one more of those infuriatingly tantalizing telegrams that had led him from Shanghai to Kathmandu to Jaipur and onwards to Cairo and finally here to Dahshur. He'd been following them like a trail of breadcrumbs, lured onwards by Abner's enthusiasm, but even he was getting a little travel-weary.

He paused for a moment, gathering himself to walk over to the telegraph office and find out what was waiting for him, when his gaze stopped on a Western girl making her way across the platform. Her dark hair was flying loose, her face blazed with excitement, and among the crowd of fluttering galabeyahs, her dust-stained trousers clung to her legs almost indecently. Indy tried not to stare, but he guessed he was doing a pretty bad job of it. Even the way she walked, striding along like - well, like a man, like... wait a minute. Indy frowned. She walked just like...

The girl stopped right in front of him, a wide smile brightening her face even further. "Indiana Jones?" she asked, reaching out to shake his hand. Her eyes flitted up and down, taking his measure. "You look just like my father described you. He sent me to meet you. I'm Marion Ravenwood."

Indy swallowed thickly and looked past the brilliant smile into equally dazzling brown eyes. He grasped her hand firmly and wasn't surprised to find her grip just as strong. "Hello, Marion," he replied.

***

Indy threw his bag down on the cot in his tent and shook his head, still startled. He'd known Abner had a daughter, of course, but he hadn't been expecting to find her here! And he really hadn't been expecting to find that she shared her father's passion for archaeology: she'd peppered him with questions all the way from the station to their dig site, questions displaying a depth of knowledge Indy would have been pleased to find in final year students, even though she couldn't be more than eighteen at the most.

She was nothing like his students, really, Indy mused, stripping off his dirty shirt and rummaging for a clean one. Most of them, the only digging they'd ever done was through the card catalogue. They wrote about Schliemann and Petrie with enthusiasm (sometimes), but they'd never know what it was like to taste the air of a dead city on their tongue. Marion, though, she'd obviously caught the field excavation bug that drove Abner around the world and drove any institute he affiliated with mad. She knew more than Indy had ever been able to teach the dunces in his lecture halls.

Not that there weren't some things he'd like to teach her.

Whoa! Indy splashed some water on his face as if to cleanse himself of any impure thoughts - which of course he wasn't having - and groped for a towel. One met his outstretched hand with some force and he blinked open his eyes to see Marion standing in front of him as if summoned by his thoughts. Her gaze took in his bare chest and then flicked back up to his face.

"Come on, Doctor Jones," she said saucily, her mouth almost quirking into a smile over his title. "Abner's waiting for you."

She left before Indy could reply and he shrugged into his shirt roughly, grabbing his whip as he stalked out after her. With a broad like that on the site, he thought sourly, jamming his fedora down onto his head, something told him he was gonna need it.

***

"Jones!" Abner greeted him with a hearty bear hug and a slap on the back, then stepped away to take him in. Indy had to resist the urge to straighten up and puff out his chest; he always had tried to impress Abner, and he treasured the easy approval the older man gave him. "Finally caught up with us, did you?"

"You finally stayed in one place long enough," Indy laughed back. "Abner, those telegrams, I can hardly believe... you really think you've found it?"

"Oh yes," Abner said simply. "I've chased it across half the known world, Indiana, but now... now the Staff of Ra is finally within my grasp." He paused, letting the statement hang in the air, and then grinned. "And in Egypt! The first place I suspected, the last place I expected. We started out in the Himalayas, for God's sake."

"I know," Indy groused. He still had the chilblains he'd earned trekking his way from Kathmandu into the mountains, only to find the first of Abner's cryptic and excitable messages waiting for him at a monastery, of all places. From there it had been a whirlwind trip, Indy always a few days to a week behind the older man. It had tired him out, but Abner looked as spry as ever, the wrinkles lining his face more from sun exposure than age.

"It's been a hell of a ride just following you," Indy said admiringly. "But how did you get from the Himalayas to the middle of the desert, and what makes you so sure you've got the right place now?"

"Have some faith, Jones," Abner chided, waving him towards the workbench where Marion was carefully chipping sand away from the face of an ushabti. "After all, that's what this kind of journey is about."

Marion heard them coming and looked up, grinning. "Literally," she added, chiming in on the end of her father's sentence. "We've been following a pilgrimage route."

Indy sat down carefully and eyed her in confusion. "Your pilgrims went from Eqypt to the Himalayas?" he asked sharply, trying to work dates out in his head. Even allowing for the uncertainty surrounding the disposal of the Ark of the Covenant... the timeline just didn't add up.

Marion's eyes flashed at the challenge to her theory. "Not from Egypt," she replied. "To Egypt."

Seeing Indy still wasn't following, Abner tactfully intervened. "We thought we were following the staff itself, Indiana - that it had been taken to Kathmandu, possibly Shambala - but Marion suggested, and I came to believe, that we were following its legend. We retraced the path that acolytes followed, those drawn here by the legend of the Ark - and before that, the lure of Aten."

"Aten?" Indy instinctively looked southward towards what was left of the heretic pharaoh Akhenaton's temples. "But we're miles from Amarna." Then he caught up with the rest of what Abner had been saying. "Wait. Are you saying you followed a trail that led pilgrims to the Ark of the Covenant... which was the same one they used to come embrace Atonism? That's ridiculous."

Marion frowned in anger, but it was Abner who replied. "Not as far-fetched as it might seem, Jones. The iconography supports our thesis: think of what remains of Aten's sun disc imagery. The rays of light from it... the rays of light that issue from the staff of Ra, from the ark itself... even the symbolism, Aten trying to overcome the power of Amun-Re only to be overthrown himself when Akhenaten died. It all fits." Abner shrugged.

Indy shook his head slowly. "Some mythical pigrimage route that no one's even heard of before?" he asked skeptically. "That spread across half a continent by word of mouth - twice? It's a lot to swallow."

"Well, it brought us here, Jones," Marion snapped, dropping his title deliberately. "So you'd better believe it. Besides, you know as well as I do that the natives have been digging around here practically since the first tombs were built. It's no surprise that there are information trails and trade routes heading anywhere that people wanted them to go."

Indy held up his hands in surrender. "Whoa, whoa, okay, you are right," he said soothingly, distractedly admiring the light of challenge in her eyes. "Okay. Accepting that you're right and the trail to the Staff of Ra leads here. What now?"

Abner brightened. "Ah, now that is the fun part," he said, reaching out with one long finger to touch the ushabti Marion had been working on. "This spells it out quite clearly." He nudged it and it rolled across the table to Indy, who caught it and held it up to inspect it.

At first glance it appeared to be a fairly standard funerary figurine, one of many that would have been entombed with a mummy to serve the dead in the afterlife. Its face wasn't terribly clear, Indy thought, but that could be due to age or to lack of skill on the part of the carver, or maybe it was all the particular deceased could afford. The inscription looked nice and clear, though, he thought - probably part of the Book of the Dead as was usual...

Indy glanced at the text carved into the bottom of the ushabti casually, then did a double-take. Instead of the typical quote from the Book of the Dead, the ushabti carried a quote from one of the coffin texts. He translated it in his mind: As for any person who knows this spell, he will be like Re in the eastern sky, like Osiris in the netherworld. Not an entirely unlikely phrase to be found on grave goods, but it was extremely rare to find them without the Book of the Dead inscription. Once he'd noticed that discrepancy, he took a closer look at the figurine, and found problems leaping out at him.

Finally he looked back at Abner. "It's not authentic, I can see that much," Indy said slowly. "But I'm sure it's not a modern forgery either. And I don't see how this led you here. The text talks about Ra, yes, but nothing to do with the Staff or the Ark."

"Wrong again, Jones," Marion said, but teasingly, and her fingers as she took the ushabti from him were gentle. Grabbing a nearby ink bottle, she uncorked it and began to rub the ink across the surface of the figurine, ignoring that she was coating her fingers with black as well. Once it was gleaming with wet ink, she rolled it along a sheet of blank paper and held the result out to Indy.

He took it gingerly, amazed at what he was seeing. The text around the bottom of the ushabti had been entirely clear, but turning it sideways had revealed something amazing. Indy was holding a map of the night sky so realistic he could pick out constellations. At the top was a circle surrounded by radiating lines - Aten's sun disc - and at the bottom was sketched the unmistakable outline of the Bent Pyramid, its shadow reaching out below the stars.

Indy lowered the paper, shocked momentarily speechless.

Marion just smiled.

***

Indy leaned comfortably against the side of the Bent Pyramid and watched the moon rise, cradling a bottle of Sallah's liquor between his legs. The stone of the pyramid retained the day's warmth, plus he just liked touching them, being in contact with such a solid piece of the past.

He tipped the bottle up and swallowed, marveling at the day's revelations. After he'd gotten over the shock of seeing a map encoded on the ushabti, Abner and Marion had explained the reasoning behind their mad dash from Nepal: they'd analyzed the constellations and discovered that their precise setup would only be accurate from the Bent Pyramid at 3am that very night. At that moment, Marion had said, smiling proudly, the tip of the shadow cast by the pyramid would pinpoint something. The location of the Staff, a further clue, something. And they would be back on the hunt.

Indy rolled the bottle between his hands, thinking. That Marion certainly was a piece of work. No formal training, but smart as a whip, and with an instinct that rivaled Abner's. Not classically beautiful, maybe, but arresting, and, more than that, engaging. Yeah, she was something, all right.

"Hey."

At the unexpected whisper, Indy nearly dropped his bottle. Looking up, he revised his list of Marion's talents to include 'extremely sneaky.'

"Hey," he said, and she slid down the pyramid wall to sit next to him at the base.

"Didn't think I'd let you have all the fun, did you?" she grinned, grabbing the bottle from him and tossing back a hefty swallow without even wincing.

"Always glad of some company," he said dryly, reappropriating the bottle. Marion smiled at him with real pleasure, though, an he regretted his snideness.

They sat in silence for a while, until Marion broke it as if she was carrying on a conversation they were already having. "I'm going to prove that pilgrimage route existed, you know."

"Oh?" Indy replied, trying to keep his tone casual and not provoke a fight. "And how are you going to do that?"

"Once we're done here, I think I'll go back to Nepal. Maybe Abner will come with me, maybe he'll be following the rest of the trail. I'll go alone if I have to. I just think..." She faltered.

"Yes?" Indy prompted, not having to feign interest.

"I think the people who came here to follow another god, to change their entire lives, are fascinating," she blurted out. "I want to know more about them, understand them. What made them give up everything they had? How did they know what to believe, especially from so far away? And why did they want to change everything?" She stopped, blushing. "I'm just curious," she added defensively.

"Hey." Indy reached out and tipped up her chin so he could meet her eyes. "I think that's a great idea. If you find the answers to your questions in Nepal, let me know. I'll come and see them, okay?"

She nodded silently. Without breaking eye contact, she tilted her head so that Indy's fingers rubbed against the curve of her cheekbone. They sat wordlessly, caught in the moment. Indy felt like the entire night was holding its breath. Waiting.

And then the moonlight glinted off his wristwatch.

"Dammit," he swore, jumping up. "It's almost three! We're gonna miss it!" He grabbed Marion's hand and hauled her up, and the two of them raced together out along the lines of shadow that stretched from the pyramid towards the desert.

They reached the tip panting, and Indy checked his watch. "Okay. It should be three a.m.... now!" As he marked the time, Marion moved to stand exactly at the pyramid's shadow-apex. She scraped a large, deep X into the sand to mark it, then stepped back to stand with Indy.

They both watched as the shadow moved slowly away, until Marion's X stood alone.

"Tomorrow we dig," Indy said, and it felt totally natural to slide an arm around Marion's shoulder and pull her close.

"Tomorrow," she echoed, looking up at him.

Who knew what they would find tomorrow, Indy thought. Or the next day, or the next. The Staff itself, maybe, or maybe an explanation of the divine light that had drawn so many to it over the centuries.

Just then, though, the moon was no longer part of an arcane symbolism designed to reveal archaeological treasures. It glinted off Marion's hair, and Indy swore silently. He shouldn't be doing this - shouldn't be letting Marion do this - but he was drawn to her as surely as any pilgrim had ever been drawn to their light.

As he bent his head to kiss her, he couldn't help but think that he'd found a treasure of his own in the moonlight.

He only hoped he wouldn't lose it as quickly as some of the discoveries he'd made over the years.