Cyclamen - Game Over
Louisa sat, now alone, waves of grief washing over her as Jonathon left, slamming the door to the café as he walked away for the last time. Her hands curled around her warm coffee mug, as she replayed their last conversation over and over again in her mind.
It was over: She had won.
She closed her eyes, rubbing them with her hands, suddenly exhausted. She saw his face behind her eyelids, no matter how hard she tried to shake it.
He did this, every time he left, every time she said something wrong, every time he did something so unforgivable that she said he had to go: he took her heart with him.
And every time he came back, she felt healed. The feeling was mutual, she had seen his heart break and freeze over, in tandem with hers, as they said horribly brief goodbye.
It was a vicious circle, the pattern in which they had lived their lives. He lied, she cheated, and somehow she always believed that all the pain was worth it for the brief weeks or months they would have in the middle, where they’d be recklessly, wonderfully happy.
But no more. The circle was broken. She herself had broken it, with no more than a few choice words, a diamond ring, and a bright smile. It had been an understanding, an unspoken agreement between them that in the end, when all was said and done, they would end up together. At some point they would stop playing the games of the young, and settle into the stability of middle age and beyond. Together.
She’d broken that deal, and she’d given up her seat on their roundabout. She was sick of waiting for him to calm down, and tired of crying in the middle of the night. She’d endured it for years, thrived off it for as long as she could remember, her sanity kept going by the hope that one day it would resolve itself. But now she’d finally grown up. She’d taken the initiative, she’d ended it, futilely believing that maybe, when he was gone, the pain would leave with him.
She looked down at her hands where they still encircled the mug. The only warmth in the world that still seemed to touch her was the warm coffee in its striped cup, cradled between her ice cold hands. A white-gold, diamond ring glinted on her forefinger, as icy and frozen as the rest of her. For a moment, she hated the beautiful stone, as it sparkled on her finger. Because of this small, precious thing, she had lost something which now seemed infinitely more valuable.
She took a deep breath, and straightened her spine. Louisa Carmichael was never one to bow down and cry. She rubbed the few, final tears from her eyes. She had done it. Finally, she had had her victory over the boy who had taunted and tainted her life since she was fifteen. He was gone, and she had made sure that he could never come back. This was it, this was the way that she had planned for it to go.
“I am young,” she whispered to herself “I am free, I am engaged to a wonderful man. And everything is going to be perfect.”
So why did it feel like everything had just fallen apart?
Saturday 26 December 2009
Azalea (Touching a Ghost)
Opal sat alone, stirring her now stone-cold coffee, lost in thought. The café moved in a whirl of colour and sound, people going about their lives in fast-forward, while she moved in slow motion. Sealed off in her bubble of silence, of peace, she saw a face before her that was so very, very different than those of the others in the room. It was a beautiful face, scarred and lined from a million betrayals, but somehow more glorious for the fact that it had made it through all of them. This was a face that had seen the rain, and now shone in sunlight. It was a face she knew in her dreams, a face that looked at hers in equal parts adoration and intense, heartbroken longing.
Her features mimicked his, sadness and love aging her face long beyond her youthful years. His ghost-hand reached out its elegant, musical fingers and her small hand followed, until their fingertips met in the middle. A tear rolled down her cheek, as the beautiful image shattered before her eyes, her fingers still extended, reaching out to thin air.
Her features mimicked his, sadness and love aging her face long beyond her youthful years. His ghost-hand reached out its elegant, musical fingers and her small hand followed, until their fingertips met in the middle. A tear rolled down her cheek, as the beautiful image shattered before her eyes, her fingers still extended, reaching out to thin air.
Yellow Tulip (Please Look Twice)
Yellow Tulip (Please Look Twice)
Sally sat in Rosie’s Café, staring out of the window.
Her tea was cold, but if she noticed, she didn’t care.
Beep.
Her mobile buzzed: One new text.
Hey, do you have the final draft ready? I need it ASAP.
Cheers,
Aaron
And for a single, fatal moment, her mind drifted.
She saw him every day, in some form or another. As he walked past, her eyes were trained to his, and he was the only one in the crowd who mattered, no matter who else was there.
She knew him, so well, she had listened to every word he had ever said to her, every look was burned indelibly into her mind.
She needed him to see her. She did all she could think of: she stood in front of a crowd and risked everything for him to notice her.
She changed her hair, her clothes, her manners. She did everything she could to be the girl he wanted. But she still seemed as noticeable to him as wallpaper.
No-one could see, to look at her. Her face was blank, her eyes open to the world around her. No one could see that her senses were attentive to nothing but his every move, while her mind tried to rationalize this new presence in her consciousness.
She wanted him to see it too, but couldn’t say a word. A world was stretched between them, a world of his ignorance or indifference to her thoughts and her feelings.
She’s spent years just waiting for him to notice. A hundred times she thought that he had finally realized, and a hundred times she was proven wrong.
She knew that it would never go away. It was a shallow depth, a longing for the man in her head, not the man beside her. The perfect being who would see her for who she was, and give up everything to be with her.
And she knew it was stupid, and crazy, and self-destructive.
So she convinced herself to lock him out. Her heart and mind left, they dreamt about other faces as his sat, in profile, half a metre away.
She did this a thousand times. Every time, every lousy time, he found the key back in, without realizing he’d done it.
And he’d never look at her twice.
Her fingers skimmed over the keys of her phone, the words flowing as she wrote back:
I’m at Rosie’s Cafe. Meet me?
Sally
Her hand hovered over the ‘send key’. She sighed, and added one last line to her message:
xxx
Sally sat in Rosie’s Café, staring out of the window.
Her tea was cold, but if she noticed, she didn’t care.
Beep.
Her mobile buzzed: One new text.
Hey, do you have the final draft ready? I need it ASAP.
Cheers,
Aaron
And for a single, fatal moment, her mind drifted.
She saw him every day, in some form or another. As he walked past, her eyes were trained to his, and he was the only one in the crowd who mattered, no matter who else was there.
She knew him, so well, she had listened to every word he had ever said to her, every look was burned indelibly into her mind.
She needed him to see her. She did all she could think of: she stood in front of a crowd and risked everything for him to notice her.
She changed her hair, her clothes, her manners. She did everything she could to be the girl he wanted. But she still seemed as noticeable to him as wallpaper.
No-one could see, to look at her. Her face was blank, her eyes open to the world around her. No one could see that her senses were attentive to nothing but his every move, while her mind tried to rationalize this new presence in her consciousness.
She wanted him to see it too, but couldn’t say a word. A world was stretched between them, a world of his ignorance or indifference to her thoughts and her feelings.
She’s spent years just waiting for him to notice. A hundred times she thought that he had finally realized, and a hundred times she was proven wrong.
She knew that it would never go away. It was a shallow depth, a longing for the man in her head, not the man beside her. The perfect being who would see her for who she was, and give up everything to be with her.
And she knew it was stupid, and crazy, and self-destructive.
So she convinced herself to lock him out. Her heart and mind left, they dreamt about other faces as his sat, in profile, half a metre away.
She did this a thousand times. Every time, every lousy time, he found the key back in, without realizing he’d done it.
And he’d never look at her twice.
Her fingers skimmed over the keys of her phone, the words flowing as she wrote back:
I’m at Rosie’s Cafe. Meet me?
Sally
Her hand hovered over the ‘send key’. She sighed, and added one last line to her message:
xxx
Red Carnation
A/N all mistakes are mine and mine alone, as this is unBETA'd (my usual BETA is currently busy with one of our friend's new romance novel, and this is only little anyway)
Red Carnation
“Look at me.” Jack’s eyes narrowed, his tone harsh, but Molly continued to stare at her hands. His clear blue eyes bore into her forehead, willing her to meet his challenging gaze.
“No.” She couldn’t, she just couldn’t. Her eyes stayed on her napkin, as she wound it between her red-tipped fingers. Jack leaned back in his chair, feigning relaxation, pretending to be completely at ease with the situation.
“Man, who’d have thought? Molly Reynolds, shying away from a fight?”
“I’m not ‘shying’ alright? And it’s Molly Lawrence now.”
“You’re actually scared, aren’t you? Since when do you care about making a scene?” He was deliberately baiting her; the sound of her married name was upsetting him more than he would like to admit. When she finally looked up at him, the old familiar fire flashing in her eyes, it was almost like old times.
But then, sadly, she remembered herself, and her face resumed its expression of forced politeness. She had changed so much from the Molly he still had in his mind. She had cut her hair for one thing. Gone was the uncontrolled flow of dark hair down her back, so free and untamed. It now bounced, perfectly styled and highlighted, at her shoulders. Coupled with her white blouse and smart black skirt, she had the look and air of an important, businesswoman, tough, cold and strangely dead inside.
“Since I grew up.”
“Really? Huh, the girl I knew swore she’d never get old. Then again, the girl I knew would never be so cold to an old friend.”
“But that’s just it! You’re not an old friend, you’re an old nightmare!” The words hurt, though he would never admit it. They had been so close…was that really how she remembered him? As an unwanted memory?
“C’mon Mol, I know you’ve missed me…I’ve missed you…” The fight had drained out of him, he was nearly pleading. He reached out to touch her hand, and for just the tiniest moment, her hand flexed under his. Then she realized what she was doing, and she recoiled.
“Get off me! Fine, I missed you. God, if Aaron knew I was here…”
“Oh yeah, how is the Brit boy?” At once Jack’s warm tone turned to ice. He had only met Molly’s husband once, on their wedding day, but still the sound of Aaron Lawrence’s name set his blood boiling.
“You don’t need to sound so bitter.” His upset over the reminder of her husband had hurt her, just a bit, an echo of the bond they had once shared.
“I’m not bitter, no, not at all.” His tone was sarcastic “No, that guy only took you so far away from home that I had to take a nine hour plane journey just to see you.”
“Stop it. You didn’t have to come.”
“Oh, but I did. How could I have missed this? Molly Reynolds, all grown up? A million bucks couldn’t have stopped me.”
She was flattered, and she hated herself for it. His honest Southern-boy charm had gotten to her, again.
“So, what is it this time, then? Money? Did your last pay cheque bounce?” she sneered at him, hoping to wipe that tender, dangerous look from his face.
“No.” it was a murmur, but she heard it. He slumped back, defeated, his head bowed. Finally, he looked up again, meeting her now steady gaze.
“Are you in some kind of trouble, Jack?” she sounded concerned now, and for a moment he considered lying, just to have some more of that attention lavished on him. But he banished that thought almost instantly - she was right, she was an adult now. If she wanted truth, she’d get truth.
“No, I can take care of myself, keep out of trouble.”
She let out a short bark of laughter, “Really? My, I’m not the only one who’s changed. Since when do you keep out of trouble?”
He smiled, laughing with her. “Well, ain’t that the truth. Alright, I’m not in any trouble right now, that any better?” he straightened, serious now, all laughter gone from his face. She still knew him well enough that she wasn’t fazed by the sudden shift.
“Then what are you doing here?”
“Are you happy, Mol?” he asked, suddenly, not answering her question.
“I- of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?” she sounded confused by his question, she laughed, “You make it sound as if I shouldn’t be!”
He said nothing for a moment, just staring into her eyes. Finally: “The girl I knew couldn’t be happy here.”
Her eyes turned hard, all the sadness and fragility frozen into icy anger, “Well, maybe you didn’t know her that well, then.”
“Oh I think I do,” He smiled, that gorgeous, annoyingly cocky smile. “Better than most anyone else.”
“Really. So what would she do now?” she leaned back in her chair, her arms folded, an eyebrow raised.
“Right now, she would smile, like she was trying to keep it together,” he leaned in further, like he was telling her a secret, “But then she would waver, and I’d see that really, inside, she was falling apart.”
“Oh, really.” Her eyebrows raised, “Poor girl.”
“Oh I don’t think so. ‘Cause then she’d look at me, and tell me I was all that she needed. Like she always did.”
A million images flashed before her eyes, of the hundred times she’d done just that. The day when it was raining, and they’d huddled in the van, watching the raindrops on the windows and trying to stay warm. Many months later, when they’d sat in a swanky hotel room, and she was homesick. The countless times her mum had called, begging her to come home.
The memory of the genuine feeling behind the words, the complete youthful certainty of their truth was all too real. They pierced her heart like icy knives, breaking it where she had glued it back together.
“Come back, don’t let this ruin you.” He whispered, and she realised that, at some point, she had leaned in closer, so their foreheads were almost touching.
His words broke the spell, bringing her jolting back to reality. She wasn’t twenty, on the road, drunk on the notion of freedom and travel. She was a sensible, mature woman, in a grey café in England, watching as the man who was once her whole world tried to convince her to run away.
And she couldn’t take it.
She jumped back, grabbing her handbag and blinking tears from her eyes. “I’m not ruined, Jack, I’m just an adult. We live in the real world, whether you like it or not, and this is who I am.” She rose to her feet, and swayed slightly, trying to maintain her composure and stay upright at the same time. “I was stupid to come here. I… made a mistake. And it’s time to rectify it.”
“What do you mean?” He had that timeless expression; the lost puppy eyes that would have once turned her heart to mush.
“You were…you were the sun, when we were young. I wish we still were. But us meeting again - this - this was a mistake.” Then the apology in her voice died, replaced by stony command, “So leave, Jack. When I walk out of here, don’t follow me. Don’t try to convince me that this is right when you know it’s not.”
And with that, she left, her neat hair bobbing at her shoulders, her steps firm and determined.
And for once, Jack did as he was told.
Red Carnation
“Look at me.” Jack’s eyes narrowed, his tone harsh, but Molly continued to stare at her hands. His clear blue eyes bore into her forehead, willing her to meet his challenging gaze.
“No.” She couldn’t, she just couldn’t. Her eyes stayed on her napkin, as she wound it between her red-tipped fingers. Jack leaned back in his chair, feigning relaxation, pretending to be completely at ease with the situation.
“Man, who’d have thought? Molly Reynolds, shying away from a fight?”
“I’m not ‘shying’ alright? And it’s Molly Lawrence now.”
“You’re actually scared, aren’t you? Since when do you care about making a scene?” He was deliberately baiting her; the sound of her married name was upsetting him more than he would like to admit. When she finally looked up at him, the old familiar fire flashing in her eyes, it was almost like old times.
But then, sadly, she remembered herself, and her face resumed its expression of forced politeness. She had changed so much from the Molly he still had in his mind. She had cut her hair for one thing. Gone was the uncontrolled flow of dark hair down her back, so free and untamed. It now bounced, perfectly styled and highlighted, at her shoulders. Coupled with her white blouse and smart black skirt, she had the look and air of an important, businesswoman, tough, cold and strangely dead inside.
“Since I grew up.”
“Really? Huh, the girl I knew swore she’d never get old. Then again, the girl I knew would never be so cold to an old friend.”
“But that’s just it! You’re not an old friend, you’re an old nightmare!” The words hurt, though he would never admit it. They had been so close…was that really how she remembered him? As an unwanted memory?
“C’mon Mol, I know you’ve missed me…I’ve missed you…” The fight had drained out of him, he was nearly pleading. He reached out to touch her hand, and for just the tiniest moment, her hand flexed under his. Then she realized what she was doing, and she recoiled.
“Get off me! Fine, I missed you. God, if Aaron knew I was here…”
“Oh yeah, how is the Brit boy?” At once Jack’s warm tone turned to ice. He had only met Molly’s husband once, on their wedding day, but still the sound of Aaron Lawrence’s name set his blood boiling.
“You don’t need to sound so bitter.” His upset over the reminder of her husband had hurt her, just a bit, an echo of the bond they had once shared.
“I’m not bitter, no, not at all.” His tone was sarcastic “No, that guy only took you so far away from home that I had to take a nine hour plane journey just to see you.”
“Stop it. You didn’t have to come.”
“Oh, but I did. How could I have missed this? Molly Reynolds, all grown up? A million bucks couldn’t have stopped me.”
She was flattered, and she hated herself for it. His honest Southern-boy charm had gotten to her, again.
“So, what is it this time, then? Money? Did your last pay cheque bounce?” she sneered at him, hoping to wipe that tender, dangerous look from his face.
“No.” it was a murmur, but she heard it. He slumped back, defeated, his head bowed. Finally, he looked up again, meeting her now steady gaze.
“Are you in some kind of trouble, Jack?” she sounded concerned now, and for a moment he considered lying, just to have some more of that attention lavished on him. But he banished that thought almost instantly - she was right, she was an adult now. If she wanted truth, she’d get truth.
“No, I can take care of myself, keep out of trouble.”
She let out a short bark of laughter, “Really? My, I’m not the only one who’s changed. Since when do you keep out of trouble?”
He smiled, laughing with her. “Well, ain’t that the truth. Alright, I’m not in any trouble right now, that any better?” he straightened, serious now, all laughter gone from his face. She still knew him well enough that she wasn’t fazed by the sudden shift.
“Then what are you doing here?”
“Are you happy, Mol?” he asked, suddenly, not answering her question.
“I- of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?” she sounded confused by his question, she laughed, “You make it sound as if I shouldn’t be!”
He said nothing for a moment, just staring into her eyes. Finally: “The girl I knew couldn’t be happy here.”
Her eyes turned hard, all the sadness and fragility frozen into icy anger, “Well, maybe you didn’t know her that well, then.”
“Oh I think I do,” He smiled, that gorgeous, annoyingly cocky smile. “Better than most anyone else.”
“Really. So what would she do now?” she leaned back in her chair, her arms folded, an eyebrow raised.
“Right now, she would smile, like she was trying to keep it together,” he leaned in further, like he was telling her a secret, “But then she would waver, and I’d see that really, inside, she was falling apart.”
“Oh, really.” Her eyebrows raised, “Poor girl.”
“Oh I don’t think so. ‘Cause then she’d look at me, and tell me I was all that she needed. Like she always did.”
A million images flashed before her eyes, of the hundred times she’d done just that. The day when it was raining, and they’d huddled in the van, watching the raindrops on the windows and trying to stay warm. Many months later, when they’d sat in a swanky hotel room, and she was homesick. The countless times her mum had called, begging her to come home.
The memory of the genuine feeling behind the words, the complete youthful certainty of their truth was all too real. They pierced her heart like icy knives, breaking it where she had glued it back together.
“Come back, don’t let this ruin you.” He whispered, and she realised that, at some point, she had leaned in closer, so their foreheads were almost touching.
His words broke the spell, bringing her jolting back to reality. She wasn’t twenty, on the road, drunk on the notion of freedom and travel. She was a sensible, mature woman, in a grey café in England, watching as the man who was once her whole world tried to convince her to run away.
And she couldn’t take it.
She jumped back, grabbing her handbag and blinking tears from her eyes. “I’m not ruined, Jack, I’m just an adult. We live in the real world, whether you like it or not, and this is who I am.” She rose to her feet, and swayed slightly, trying to maintain her composure and stay upright at the same time. “I was stupid to come here. I… made a mistake. And it’s time to rectify it.”
“What do you mean?” He had that timeless expression; the lost puppy eyes that would have once turned her heart to mush.
“You were…you were the sun, when we were young. I wish we still were. But us meeting again - this - this was a mistake.” Then the apology in her voice died, replaced by stony command, “So leave, Jack. When I walk out of here, don’t follow me. Don’t try to convince me that this is right when you know it’s not.”
And with that, she left, her neat hair bobbing at her shoulders, her steps firm and determined.
And for once, Jack did as he was told.
Friday 24 July 2009
Junk Food Heaven
Fic: Junk Food Heaven
Author: zotlot
Rating: U
BETA: Wikkid.X
Characters/Pairings: Ten.5/Rose
Spoilers: If you've seen Journey's End, you're good
Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize... however, I do own the cereals... mwahaha!
Summary: The Human Doctor (now John Tyler) and Rose are living a 'normal' life as UNIT operatives in Chicago. What happens when he gets curious about his food?
A/N: Hi! I'm back again! Um, okay, this story's a one-shot based on 'Junk Food Heaven', a piece from Bill Bryson's 'Notes from a Big Country'. Just a bit of back story: Rose and 10.5 got married in the parallel universe, and he took her name, becoming John Tyler.
Just to solve any ambiguity there :D, alright, well, as always, read and review!
BETA'd by the amazing Wikkid.X :D
***
Rose Tyler was a woman of many talents. She could build dimensional cannons that would cross universes, absorb the entire time vortex and channel it to do her bidding, and even face down Jackie Tyler when she was in a mood.
Yes, John Tyler (né The Doctor) knew perfectly well what a wonder his wife was. However, there was one talent that he had noticed that she was exceptionally deficient in: food shopping. He had taken her all over the Universe (in a different body, but with the same amazing mind), shown her alien bazaars and malls the size of small moons, helped her to sample some of the finest and most diverse cuisine in the universe, but now that they were submerged in as alien a culture as the Doctor had ever encountered, full time, living in a house with doors and carpets and everything, she still insisted upon eating English health food. She had lived off of it when she was a Torchwood field operative, when she kept to a strict health plan, and she had yet to break the habit. She ran for miles every morning (as did he, it was one of their routine ‘things’ that made this human life so amazing), and when she got back she insisted upon tucking into oat cakes and celery, even though there was plenty of far tastier food to be sampled.
In fact, since their relocation to this Chicago not-quite-suburb, the Doctor had to admit that he had sampled very little of twenty-first-century American culture at all. In fact, besides the whole surrounded-by-American-accents thing, the move had been nearly seamless. As Rose had hoped, really, when they moved to the new UNIT base in Illinois from Torchwood in London. Rose had wanted to “get away” from her hometown, really from her home country all together. If they couldn’t travel in time and space, she’d said, and then at least they could move to a place where there would be enough difference to keep them busy.
And enough freedom from the spectre of him that lurked on every London street corner. He hadn’t realized, until he was stuck there, how much he had marked London as his own, in both his and Rose’s eyes.
Yes, they had needed the move. But now that they were fending for themselves, away from Jackie’s eagle eyes, he found more and more that his own ‘human’ tastes were developing. And he had developed, on this steady rabbit-food diet, an extreme distaste for health food.
So, with this in mind, he approached his wife one morning with a rather unusual request.
Rose stood in the kitchen, her hands on her hips, regarding her husband. “You want to go shopping with me?” her voice was incredulous.
“Yep! Never been to an American supermarket before.”
“So, why would you want to all of a sudden?”
“Well… I want to investigate the food aisles. I think you miss a lot of the food this country has to offer, Rose.”
Roses eyebrows went even higher, “You’re serious? You actually want to do the food shop?”
“Why not?”
“Isn’t it a bit… domestic?”
The Doctor laughed and put his hands tenderly on Rose’s slender shoulders, “Rose, I’m human now, remember? One heart, able to live in a house with curtains and carpets, able to handle a supermarket.”
“I suppose…” Then a comment he had made earlier sank in, “Wait, what did you mean about missing what the supermarket has to offer?”
“Well, I see all these ads and stuff on TV, and you know that rabbit health stuff tastes like Juhuian-gan cardboard…”
“You want to go and buy junk food?” Rose giggled, “What about keeping your girlish figure?”
The Doctor ran an unconscious hand down his skinny waistline. “It can’t be that bad. I mean, we spent ages before looking for a decent chippy. How different can American food really be?” He looked down into her eyes, the pout on his face that he knew that she couldn’t resist.
Rose was a little taken aback by the Doctor’s determination. She looked up again at the man she had married, taking once again the enthusiasm, the boundless energy that filled his whole body. This him was different. The former him had been more… compressed. Like he had been holding an immense power inside, working to contain it the whole time. This Doctor was more relaxed, the energy was still there, but the fires had cooled in his eyes.
He didn’t scare her anymore. And now, standing before her, a childish pout on his face, all puppy-dog eyes and pleading, she was reminded more of Tony when he wanted sweets than the fearsome Oncoming Storm.
Rose sighed. “Alright, if you have to; I was going later today anyway.”
***
They arrived at the Wal Mart at two o’clock that afternoon. It was a massive hypermarket, bigger than anything you could have achieved planning permission for back in London. The Doctor eyed it with an unimpressed raised eyebrow as he and Rose walked to the front doors.
However, any disappointment faded as soon as they were inside. The room was a paradise of brightly coloured packaging, advertising, and American consumerism. He was accosted by the smells of roasting chicken and frying meats on spits and deli counters. People shouted to each other, chatted quietly, argued and made up all around him; the sounds of hundreds of American citizens going about their everyday lives. Their energy seemed to reverberate in the air.
The Doctor grinned, rubbing his hands together with glee. The familiar endorphin rush of exploration and discovery filled his brain, and he headed off into the nearest varicoloured aisle with a bright grin on his face.
***
Rose tried as hard as she possibly could to keep an eye on her rather over-enthused companion, but really she didn’t stand a chance. He had once called her “jeopardy friendly” and had told her repeatedly not to run off. She had learnt early on that that was a rule only for human companions, not Time Lords, or those with Time Lord brains. As she had made her way to the vegetable aisles and small section of the supermarket dedicated to healthy food and organic, she spotted a flash of skinny, pinstriped arse headed in the direction of the cereal aisles.
She shrugged. He could take care of himself, and she had the credit cards.
***
The Doctor was sure that the cereal aisle alone could have occupied him for the rest of the afternoon. His superior mind counted at least one hundred and fifty different brands of breakfast meal; every possible foodstuff that could be puffed, coated in sugar and then covered in milk was there on those shelves. He bounced on the soles of his black converse-clad feet as he perused the shelves, knowing for sure that Rose could never have truly explored this store. If she had seen this aisle, then there would be no need for the muesli she insisted upon eating.
Hs eyes finally came to rest upon a red and white striped box with a large picture of a mad rabbit on the front. From what he could tell, the cereal consisted of chocolate-chip cookies that you simply doused in milk and ate out of the bowl. It claimed, also, to be “part of a balanced diet” which, coupled with the knowledge that Rose really did love chocolate, would help him to convince her of the brilliance of this invention.
Similar logic indicated his absolute duty in grabbing a box of “Honey Clusters” - endorsed by a rather manic-looking bear - “Sugar Puff Magic Squares” - which claimed by the design of the box to be something to do with chess - and the fearsomely brightly advertised “Chocolate-Honey-Sugar-Crunch” which seemed to contain every kind of sugar and E-Number ever discovered by twenty-first century man.
He ended up with an armload of huge cereal boxes, as he regretfully left the aisle. He walked briskly along the centre aisle, finally spotting Rose’s blonde head over the top of a vegetable crisper. He rushed over to her and deposited his spoils in her large trolley.
She took the in violently bright pile with a sceptical raised eyebrow. “What’s all this, then?”
“Breakfast.” The Doctor explained, before rushing back off into the store. He stopped as he saw her eyeing the pile less than enthusiastically. “And don’t even think about going back and changing it for muesli!” he warned before scooting off in a random direction and leaving his wife to wonder how he had read her mind.
The world that the Doctor had now immersed himself in was one of few mysteries. Every food around him seemed specifically designed to accommodate as many chemicals as possible in order to make you simultaneously waddle under your own weight and crave more of the stuff that got you there in the first place. Still, he inspected the aisles with wide eyes, taking one of anything that caught his eye and depositing it in his newly-found basket.
One such food was a large pot of violently pink goo called “Fluff” which appeared to be marshmallow sandwich filling. He grabbed a massive tub of it, and relished the idea that, should it turn out to be inedible, he could at least use it in repairs, as it shared much the same chemical content as super-glue.
Finally, he reached the heart of the store, “Aisle Seven”, which appeared to be purely made up of “food for the terminally obese”. Not a slim-fast brand was in sight, as he walked up and down the aisle, taking in its wonders, his groaning basket swinging in his hand. He found an entire section devoted entirely to a sugar-coated substance called “toaster pastry”. In all his travels, he had never encountered such an item, but, as it appeared to be covered in sugar, he added an armload to his basket.
By this point, Rose had finished her shopping, loaded up their Jeep, and come back in to find her husband. When she saw his basket, she immediately fetched a trolley, knowing instinctively from years of experience that that basket was perilously close to destruction. She followed the Doctor through the store, commenting on his purchases with an ever increasing scepticism. She watched microwave burgers, toaster strudel, choco-toffee-spreads, all manner of junk food disappear into that trolley, until, finally, in the frozen-foods aisle, she snapped.
“No.”
“What? What’s wrong with a breakfast pizza?”
“What did you just say? It’s like ‘what’s wrong with blue?’. Just. No.”
“But Rose, c’mon, it looks so tasty! It’s pizza! You like pizza!”
“You are not bringing home something called breakfast pizza. I will let you have” - she reached into the trolley for some samples - “Chocolate-Honey-Sugar-Crunch and Toaster Pastries and.’ She lifted out a packet she hadn’t noticed before. “What’s this?”
The Doctor looked over her shoulder. “Microwave pancakes.”
“Microwave pancakes,” Rose repeated, but with less enthusiasm.
“Isn’t science wonderful?” The Doctor said, with a bright grin.
Rose Tyler crossed her arms and gave him a look that was all Jackie “You’re going to eat it all,” she said. “Every bit of everything that you don’t put back on the shelves now. You do understand that?”
“Of course.” The Doctor said, all sincerity.
***
The look on her face at that moment stayed there for the next three or four weeks. It was a wicked, smug, ‘I told you so’ look that returned every mealtime, every time he complained of feeling bloated or a stitch while they ran.
The pancakes and some of the cereals were alright, and, although it proved to be almost completely inedible, the Fluff was, as he had hoped, very useful in repairs to UNIT’s alien tech, which had been entrusted to him as the local expert.
However, the biggest mistake was most definitely the breakfast pizzas. They were damp and chewy, and seemed to have very little flavour for the amount of salt they contained. Out of desperation, one day when Rose was out he even tried one with the neon-pink Fluff, but all that resulted was a sticky, disgusting mess that was in the bin before Rose could come home and do something about it.
What unnerved him most, however, about that particular combination was the fact that he could have sworn that it had glared at him from the bin. He slammed it closed with a triumphant “HA!” and, when one of its brethren was found behind the fridge a month later, he insisted upon categorizing it as medical waste and sterilizing the fridge after.
Finally, two months after the Wal Mart raid, the Doctor ate his last artery-clogging, tooth-rotting spoonful of Chocolate-Honey-Sugar-Crunch cereal.
His belly was bloated, his mind was addled, and he was sure that, should he ever touch a “French fry” again, he would explode.
He stood up, and, without a hint of shame, grabbed a stick of celery and an oatcake from the cupboard. He ignored Rose, who had sneaked in and insisted upon watching his last jaunt into he land of American Food, and loftily refused to acknowledge her smirk, sweeping past her without a backwards glance.
That was the first and last time the Doctor ever visited the Wal Mart.
Author: zotlot
Rating: U
BETA: Wikkid.X
Characters/Pairings: Ten.5/Rose
Spoilers: If you've seen Journey's End, you're good
Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize... however, I do own the cereals... mwahaha!
Summary: The Human Doctor (now John Tyler) and Rose are living a 'normal' life as UNIT operatives in Chicago. What happens when he gets curious about his food?
A/N: Hi! I'm back again! Um, okay, this story's a one-shot based on 'Junk Food Heaven', a piece from Bill Bryson's 'Notes from a Big Country'. Just a bit of back story: Rose and 10.5 got married in the parallel universe, and he took her name, becoming John Tyler.
Just to solve any ambiguity there :D, alright, well, as always, read and review!
BETA'd by the amazing Wikkid.X :D
***
Rose Tyler was a woman of many talents. She could build dimensional cannons that would cross universes, absorb the entire time vortex and channel it to do her bidding, and even face down Jackie Tyler when she was in a mood.
Yes, John Tyler (né The Doctor) knew perfectly well what a wonder his wife was. However, there was one talent that he had noticed that she was exceptionally deficient in: food shopping. He had taken her all over the Universe (in a different body, but with the same amazing mind), shown her alien bazaars and malls the size of small moons, helped her to sample some of the finest and most diverse cuisine in the universe, but now that they were submerged in as alien a culture as the Doctor had ever encountered, full time, living in a house with doors and carpets and everything, she still insisted upon eating English health food. She had lived off of it when she was a Torchwood field operative, when she kept to a strict health plan, and she had yet to break the habit. She ran for miles every morning (as did he, it was one of their routine ‘things’ that made this human life so amazing), and when she got back she insisted upon tucking into oat cakes and celery, even though there was plenty of far tastier food to be sampled.
In fact, since their relocation to this Chicago not-quite-suburb, the Doctor had to admit that he had sampled very little of twenty-first-century American culture at all. In fact, besides the whole surrounded-by-American-accents thing, the move had been nearly seamless. As Rose had hoped, really, when they moved to the new UNIT base in Illinois from Torchwood in London. Rose had wanted to “get away” from her hometown, really from her home country all together. If they couldn’t travel in time and space, she’d said, and then at least they could move to a place where there would be enough difference to keep them busy.
And enough freedom from the spectre of him that lurked on every London street corner. He hadn’t realized, until he was stuck there, how much he had marked London as his own, in both his and Rose’s eyes.
Yes, they had needed the move. But now that they were fending for themselves, away from Jackie’s eagle eyes, he found more and more that his own ‘human’ tastes were developing. And he had developed, on this steady rabbit-food diet, an extreme distaste for health food.
So, with this in mind, he approached his wife one morning with a rather unusual request.
Rose stood in the kitchen, her hands on her hips, regarding her husband. “You want to go shopping with me?” her voice was incredulous.
“Yep! Never been to an American supermarket before.”
“So, why would you want to all of a sudden?”
“Well… I want to investigate the food aisles. I think you miss a lot of the food this country has to offer, Rose.”
Roses eyebrows went even higher, “You’re serious? You actually want to do the food shop?”
“Why not?”
“Isn’t it a bit… domestic?”
The Doctor laughed and put his hands tenderly on Rose’s slender shoulders, “Rose, I’m human now, remember? One heart, able to live in a house with curtains and carpets, able to handle a supermarket.”
“I suppose…” Then a comment he had made earlier sank in, “Wait, what did you mean about missing what the supermarket has to offer?”
“Well, I see all these ads and stuff on TV, and you know that rabbit health stuff tastes like Juhuian-gan cardboard…”
“You want to go and buy junk food?” Rose giggled, “What about keeping your girlish figure?”
The Doctor ran an unconscious hand down his skinny waistline. “It can’t be that bad. I mean, we spent ages before looking for a decent chippy. How different can American food really be?” He looked down into her eyes, the pout on his face that he knew that she couldn’t resist.
Rose was a little taken aback by the Doctor’s determination. She looked up again at the man she had married, taking once again the enthusiasm, the boundless energy that filled his whole body. This him was different. The former him had been more… compressed. Like he had been holding an immense power inside, working to contain it the whole time. This Doctor was more relaxed, the energy was still there, but the fires had cooled in his eyes.
He didn’t scare her anymore. And now, standing before her, a childish pout on his face, all puppy-dog eyes and pleading, she was reminded more of Tony when he wanted sweets than the fearsome Oncoming Storm.
Rose sighed. “Alright, if you have to; I was going later today anyway.”
***
They arrived at the Wal Mart at two o’clock that afternoon. It was a massive hypermarket, bigger than anything you could have achieved planning permission for back in London. The Doctor eyed it with an unimpressed raised eyebrow as he and Rose walked to the front doors.
However, any disappointment faded as soon as they were inside. The room was a paradise of brightly coloured packaging, advertising, and American consumerism. He was accosted by the smells of roasting chicken and frying meats on spits and deli counters. People shouted to each other, chatted quietly, argued and made up all around him; the sounds of hundreds of American citizens going about their everyday lives. Their energy seemed to reverberate in the air.
The Doctor grinned, rubbing his hands together with glee. The familiar endorphin rush of exploration and discovery filled his brain, and he headed off into the nearest varicoloured aisle with a bright grin on his face.
***
Rose tried as hard as she possibly could to keep an eye on her rather over-enthused companion, but really she didn’t stand a chance. He had once called her “jeopardy friendly” and had told her repeatedly not to run off. She had learnt early on that that was a rule only for human companions, not Time Lords, or those with Time Lord brains. As she had made her way to the vegetable aisles and small section of the supermarket dedicated to healthy food and organic, she spotted a flash of skinny, pinstriped arse headed in the direction of the cereal aisles.
She shrugged. He could take care of himself, and she had the credit cards.
***
The Doctor was sure that the cereal aisle alone could have occupied him for the rest of the afternoon. His superior mind counted at least one hundred and fifty different brands of breakfast meal; every possible foodstuff that could be puffed, coated in sugar and then covered in milk was there on those shelves. He bounced on the soles of his black converse-clad feet as he perused the shelves, knowing for sure that Rose could never have truly explored this store. If she had seen this aisle, then there would be no need for the muesli she insisted upon eating.
Hs eyes finally came to rest upon a red and white striped box with a large picture of a mad rabbit on the front. From what he could tell, the cereal consisted of chocolate-chip cookies that you simply doused in milk and ate out of the bowl. It claimed, also, to be “part of a balanced diet” which, coupled with the knowledge that Rose really did love chocolate, would help him to convince her of the brilliance of this invention.
Similar logic indicated his absolute duty in grabbing a box of “Honey Clusters” - endorsed by a rather manic-looking bear - “Sugar Puff Magic Squares” - which claimed by the design of the box to be something to do with chess - and the fearsomely brightly advertised “Chocolate-Honey-Sugar-Crunch” which seemed to contain every kind of sugar and E-Number ever discovered by twenty-first century man.
He ended up with an armload of huge cereal boxes, as he regretfully left the aisle. He walked briskly along the centre aisle, finally spotting Rose’s blonde head over the top of a vegetable crisper. He rushed over to her and deposited his spoils in her large trolley.
She took the in violently bright pile with a sceptical raised eyebrow. “What’s all this, then?”
“Breakfast.” The Doctor explained, before rushing back off into the store. He stopped as he saw her eyeing the pile less than enthusiastically. “And don’t even think about going back and changing it for muesli!” he warned before scooting off in a random direction and leaving his wife to wonder how he had read her mind.
The world that the Doctor had now immersed himself in was one of few mysteries. Every food around him seemed specifically designed to accommodate as many chemicals as possible in order to make you simultaneously waddle under your own weight and crave more of the stuff that got you there in the first place. Still, he inspected the aisles with wide eyes, taking one of anything that caught his eye and depositing it in his newly-found basket.
One such food was a large pot of violently pink goo called “Fluff” which appeared to be marshmallow sandwich filling. He grabbed a massive tub of it, and relished the idea that, should it turn out to be inedible, he could at least use it in repairs, as it shared much the same chemical content as super-glue.
Finally, he reached the heart of the store, “Aisle Seven”, which appeared to be purely made up of “food for the terminally obese”. Not a slim-fast brand was in sight, as he walked up and down the aisle, taking in its wonders, his groaning basket swinging in his hand. He found an entire section devoted entirely to a sugar-coated substance called “toaster pastry”. In all his travels, he had never encountered such an item, but, as it appeared to be covered in sugar, he added an armload to his basket.
By this point, Rose had finished her shopping, loaded up their Jeep, and come back in to find her husband. When she saw his basket, she immediately fetched a trolley, knowing instinctively from years of experience that that basket was perilously close to destruction. She followed the Doctor through the store, commenting on his purchases with an ever increasing scepticism. She watched microwave burgers, toaster strudel, choco-toffee-spreads, all manner of junk food disappear into that trolley, until, finally, in the frozen-foods aisle, she snapped.
“No.”
“What? What’s wrong with a breakfast pizza?”
“What did you just say? It’s like ‘what’s wrong with blue?’. Just. No.”
“But Rose, c’mon, it looks so tasty! It’s pizza! You like pizza!”
“You are not bringing home something called breakfast pizza. I will let you have” - she reached into the trolley for some samples - “Chocolate-Honey-Sugar-Crunch and Toaster Pastries and.’ She lifted out a packet she hadn’t noticed before. “What’s this?”
The Doctor looked over her shoulder. “Microwave pancakes.”
“Microwave pancakes,” Rose repeated, but with less enthusiasm.
“Isn’t science wonderful?” The Doctor said, with a bright grin.
Rose Tyler crossed her arms and gave him a look that was all Jackie “You’re going to eat it all,” she said. “Every bit of everything that you don’t put back on the shelves now. You do understand that?”
“Of course.” The Doctor said, all sincerity.
***
The look on her face at that moment stayed there for the next three or four weeks. It was a wicked, smug, ‘I told you so’ look that returned every mealtime, every time he complained of feeling bloated or a stitch while they ran.
The pancakes and some of the cereals were alright, and, although it proved to be almost completely inedible, the Fluff was, as he had hoped, very useful in repairs to UNIT’s alien tech, which had been entrusted to him as the local expert.
However, the biggest mistake was most definitely the breakfast pizzas. They were damp and chewy, and seemed to have very little flavour for the amount of salt they contained. Out of desperation, one day when Rose was out he even tried one with the neon-pink Fluff, but all that resulted was a sticky, disgusting mess that was in the bin before Rose could come home and do something about it.
What unnerved him most, however, about that particular combination was the fact that he could have sworn that it had glared at him from the bin. He slammed it closed with a triumphant “HA!” and, when one of its brethren was found behind the fridge a month later, he insisted upon categorizing it as medical waste and sterilizing the fridge after.
Finally, two months after the Wal Mart raid, the Doctor ate his last artery-clogging, tooth-rotting spoonful of Chocolate-Honey-Sugar-Crunch cereal.
His belly was bloated, his mind was addled, and he was sure that, should he ever touch a “French fry” again, he would explode.
He stood up, and, without a hint of shame, grabbed a stick of celery and an oatcake from the cupboard. He ignored Rose, who had sneaked in and insisted upon watching his last jaunt into he land of American Food, and loftily refused to acknowledge her smirk, sweeping past her without a backwards glance.
That was the first and last time the Doctor ever visited the Wal Mart.
Sunday 12 July 2009
The Stowaway
Title: The Stowaway
Age Rating: U
Realm: Uncreated
BETA: Wikkid.x, who is awesome, by the way.
Summary: Based on the song 'The Stowaway' from the Doctor Who Series 3 Soundtrack. It's kinda long, so I apologize, most things on here are probably going to be shorter.
When summer ends on the Lilai coast, the sunsets are amazing. The setting sun sets the sky and the water on fire, and the clouds are turned the same pink as the flowers for which the island was named. It is both a blessing and a tragedy that many never see this sight; at that time the harvest has just begun, and communities have better things to do than to admire the beautiful scenery. It is a time of peace, when the chaos of normal life can be put on hold and nature can take centre-stage. If it became an event, a social occasion, I believe that the aura of wonder and serenity would be lost forever.
It was this sight, this amazing beauty, which drew me to the North, so late in the year. It was the first time in years that I had sailed north of the Dark Forests, so I planned to be there for a while. I dropped anchor on the first of September, and planned to stay through the autumn, just off the coast of the island, before sailing south again for the winter.
I arrived in the capital, coming onto land for the first time in weeks, and stopped to take it all in. The castle, ancient and sandstone, shines on the hill, on the inland side of the town, where the great Kings and Queens of The Uncreated Realm have ruled for eons. Of course, after my day of sightseeing and buying supplies from the famous markets and shopping halls, I found my way to a tavern. I reckon it’s something in the blood of all sailors that somehow, we always end up in taverns and bars. And you can’t fight nature, can you?
Most of the men in there were really rather surprised to see a southern woman drinking in the bar. It’s understandable, I suppose, southerners are rare this far North, although, Tarwyn being the capital, they aren’t as rare here as they are in the East. My appearance probably shocked them as much as anything. Southern women often wear long linen scarves around their heads, as there is a lot of sand from the desert in the south, and they keep our eyes and hair safe. Years at sea, however, had prompted me to abandon the long, linen dresses I had grown up with, as well as the traditional scarves. I wore my hair short around my shoulders, in defiance of the traditions that forbade a woman to cut her hair, cotton trousers, black boots and a white shirt. Generally male clothing but fitted enough that I looked feminine. I was always terrified of forgetting my gender at sea, with no conventions to follow.
Of course, as I explained to my friend Chalia when we had met up earlier that day, (because I don’t come inland very often, I wanted to get all my business sorted in one go) I really started wearing more flattering clothing after an incident in the midwinter. I first met Chalia a few years back, when I moored on Lilai for the first time. She told me about the sunsets, and since then, she has become my only real, close friend. We see each other whenever we can, and she fills me in on her life up at the palace (she’s Lady-in-waiting to Lady Sunshine, the Queen Mother no less), while I tell her about my travels. We had got together that afternoon in a café off one of the market streets, which is one reason why I had found my way to the tavern. Chalia was my best friend, but she was far too genteel for me to be knocking back ale around her. I needed a stronger drink than tea.
We talked of many things, that late winter afternoon. Chalia was expecting her second child with her husband Ganyar, a stable hand up at the palace. She says that if it’s a girl she'll name it after me, although Dorindah is an odd name for a Northern woman. She told me about the new Queen’s Other Side friends, and how the world was to change dramatically. She showed off the new, light-blue trousers that one of the Queen's friends had designed for the maids and ladies to wear under their dresses, which apparently made work far easier. I told her about the stowaway.
************************************************************************
It was midwinter, I had moved from the Lilai coast about three weeks ago, and was sailing my way down to the capital. I had stopped for the night near the Light Woods, as the weather was almost always fine there, just as you were almost guaranteed storms if you stopped near the Dark Forests. The night was as clear as it had ever been, albeit somewhat chilled. I was checking up on the supply status; for some reason my stocks of drinking water and vegetables were depleting rapidly. I dearly hoped it wasn’t rats; rodents are so hard to get rid of on board a ship, and although most sailors generally ignored them, there was something I found menacing about their yellowed teeth and rough, matted fur.
I entered the room quietly, intending to ensure that I had enough food to last me a few wore weeks. I walked further and further into the storeroom, and realized how long it had been since I had properly gone through my inventory. Most of this stuff was rope and wood and spare barrels; the ship had been stocked enough to serve a crew of at least thirty adults when I first started my travels. As I got further and further inside, holding the lantern higher in the darkness, I tripped on a loose plank and I fell, only just catching myself on a barrel of ale. I looked up and saw a cleared area in one of the back corners. I picked up the lantern -which in my fall, I had dropped- and shifted over to investigate.
The sight that met my eyes surprised me. In the corner, lay the remains of what looked like a meal, with rats and mice chewing on the crumbs and gnawing on the small amounts of gristle from the meat. Their cold, beady eyes stared back at me accusingly, before they scattered to the corners of the dark room. I observed the few objects that were there, found a few books, a lantern, obviously only recently extinguished, a rather expensive-looking velvet bag and some man's clothing. Burlap sacks had been rolled into a pitiful approximation of a bed, and, reaching down, I felt that they were still warm. Realization hit like a lightning bolt.
I was not alone on my ship. I had a stowaway.
The thought intrigued me more than anything. I should have been angry or scared, but instead I was just amused at the fact that he had gone so long undetected. These feelings made me worry slightly about my sanity, but this was nothing new. I picked up the bag from the floor. It contained some rather expensive-looking jewelery, some strange gold coins, a small compass and some unfamiliar maps. A traveller, it seemed.
Finally, I shook the bag even harder, and a small, leather-bound book fell out. I recognized it; it was an old copy of 'Taisteali's Compendium'. I was, still am, hardly a veracious reader, but even I know that that book could be found in any library or educated household. It was all that most people knew of the world beyond the Realm borders. Part travel guide, part fairy-tale. So I flicked through it, looking for some clue of who had snuck aboard, and found that there were notes and annotations scribbled in the margins and around the sides of the pages. I pocketed the book, and promised myself I'd read it later: Now, I had a job to do.
My final search concluded that there were no blades or heavy items, or really anything that could be classed as a weapon within the bag, which set my mind further at ease. Unless he had a weapon on his person, my stowaway wasn’t looking for a fight. I stood, and left the room to investigate further.
I didn’t have to search for him for very long. I was walking down the corridor beside the main common room, and there he was, walking towards me, comically trying to make no noise. He tried to run when he saw me, into the common room. Unfortunately for him, the common room has only one door… and I was blocking it.
“You shouldn’t be here, you know.” I said, mildly, leaning against the door frame. His startled expression almost made me laugh, but I clamped down on that urge. He was a rather tall man, taller than me at any rate, with brown hair and dark eyes. His clothing was simple, a loose white shirt and dark trousers, with heavy black boots poking out of the ends. I should have been searching for places where a knife could be concealed, but instead I was looking at his face. He was really rather handsome, I decided, especially with the expression of innocent bewilderment and confusion he wore at the moment. He saw the amusement on my face, and his expression became more guarded and wary.
“What are you going to do?” He sounded suspicious, stepping back a bit from my poorly concealed smile.
“Well, tell you what, seeing as how I’ve already found your belongings, and you don’t seem to have any weapons on you, I’ll give you a chance.”
He smiled at that, his stance relaxed slightly and his response, when it came, seemed slightly mocking, but pleased all the same. “That’s very generous of you, more than most captains would give me. What’s in it for you?”
“Well, tell me why you’re here. What made you stowaway on my ship, when you have more than enough gold in that bag of yours to buy a boat of your own? Why would a man risk stowing away on a ship when the crew could have killed him on the spot?”
“It’s complicated.”
“My position isn’t. I ought to have thrown you overboard by now, still could, for that matter. So, answer my question, why are you here?”
He didn’t answer at first. Instead, he looked about the room. It was a large, domed space, the largest room on the ship, and easily the most formal. I loved this room. The ceiling was painted with scenes of pirates and sea-monsters, mermaids and dolphins. Sometimes, I dragged my bedclothes in here just to stare up at those paintings all night. There was a bar over at one side, further evidence that this ship was meant for a large crew, but I’d cleared the chairs to the side, leaving a large empty space in the centre. He finished his assessment of our surroundings quickly and then turned back to me. He smiled, held out his hand, and said one thing I was most definitely not expecting:
“Let’s dance.”
“What?” Now I was confused and not a little suspicious.
“As you said earlier, I have no weapons amongst my possessions, and nowhere to hide them on my person. If I intended to hurt you, I would have done it already, so where’s the harm in one dance?”
“There’s no music.” I was in shock now, so the most obvious objection came to my lips. He laughed slightly and took my hand in his, placing my other on his shoulder, and his own at my hip. He swept us around the room a few times, without saying a word, allowing me to process what was happening. He looked down, straight into my eyes, and I found my heartbeat accelerating. Finally he slowed, simply moving us in a small circle in the centre of the room, swaying to a silent beat, and began his tale.
“I’m on my way home, which is still a long way from here, on the East side of the country. I have money, as you saw, but it is from a land on the other side of the ocean, so useless here. That’s why I have to borrow, or steal, to get home” His eyes lit up with determination, and he stared into a space for a moment, before his attention returned to me. “I will find a way to get back. I promised Acacia that I would return by her twentieth birthday, and that’s what I’ll do.”
“Who's Acacia?”
“She is my bride, the most beautiful girl in the whole world. She’s waiting for me, back home.” He sighed, and closed his eyes, “I miss her, so much. I can still see her beautiful face, her golden, sunlit hair, the way her green eyes sparkled when she laughed, how she felt I my arms…” he trailed off with a sigh, and while his eyes were closed, I felt a small tear of jealousy and sympathy trail down my cheek. The distracted, peaceful look on his face gave me the belief that he wasn’t really dancing with me at all, in this darkened room, the ocean placid outside. No, he was in a town in the country, with a beautiful blonde smiling up at him, blossoms on the trees.
He straightened, after a moment, and smiled down at me. “I’ve roamed all over this land and the next, and now it’s time for me to go home.” He let go of me, and stepped back. “That is my tale, my fair captain, now, are you going to feed me to the local marine life?” His eyes held a teasing gleam, as I pretended to consider the matter.
“Hmmmm, a story and a dance, in exchange for food and safe passage to the mainland…hmmmm,” I put on a thoughtful expression and tapped my chin with my finger. “Well,” I said after a few seconds, “I do have a few bedrooms to spare, and someone needs to help me navigate the estuary to the Natinah River up to the capital… So, okay, you have a deal.”
“Really?!” His grin could have lit up all of Tarwyn, my heart felt like it would burst. I felt myself answering his grin with one of my own, and I can’t say how long we stood there, just smiling and smiling, before, finally, I yawned and said “Right, I’m hauling up the anchor at first light, so I’d better show you to your room.” I turned and walked from the room, down the corridor, to the room two -large- rooms down from mine.
Well, I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea, did I?
***
With two people to help with the sailing and navigation, my ship reached the estuary within two weeks; as opposed to the month it would have taken me alone. We got to know each other very well over those weeks, and by the time we sailed into the river harbour in the capital, I was beginning to dread our final parting. It made my old life seem so much lonelier, to see it compared to this life of companionship and conversation, it made my heart ache to think about it. But the day drew closer and closer, until, finally, it dawned, bright and clear, and we could see the castle at Tarwyn silhouetted against the sunrise.
“Well,” I sighed, “There it is; the capital.”
“Uh huh,” he replied, leaning his arms against the railings on the deck, “There it is, in all its glory.”
“Well, what are we waiting for? Do you want to crash into the docks? Come on!” I hurried hum to the rigging, while I brushed away the few tears that had come to my eyes.
We parted on the wharf. He’d done the capital on his way west, at the start of his journey, and was anxious to get home. We hugged, for a long time, and when we separated, he held on to my arms and looked me full in the face, mahogany brown boring into my blue. He smiled his heartbreaking smile, and said, “Thank you.”
I was so afraid that he was going to leave at that, so I said “For what?”
“For the food, for the nice comfy bed, for the company, for not using me as shark-bait.” He kept smiling, and then his expression turned serious. “Can you promise me something, Dorindah? Just one little thing?”
“Of course.”
He sighed, “Don’t carry on alone. I understand the need for solitude and travel, I’ve done enough of it myself, but I don’t think you understand how lonely, how soul-destroying the dark times can be without someone beside you. So, find someone. If anything, it’ll mean you have an extra set of hands!” He tried for a joke, but I knew he was deadly serious. “Okay? By the next time we meet, and we will meet again, I want you to have found yourself a permanent shipmate. Okay?
And although I knew that I would never be able to keep it, and that, in all likelihood, we would never see each other again, I agreed.
And then we hugged, one last time, before he walked off the pier, without looking back.
I watched him leave, tears in my eyes, and I reached into my pocket for a tissue. Instead, I found a small, black book. His book, his scribbled-in copy of Taisteali's Compendium.
So now, I sit here in this tavern, months later, drinking to forget unarguably the best two weeks of my life. Every laugh, every smile, every time he got something wrong and we almost crashed, every memory of an evening spent dancing on the deck or in the common room, it all burned, the feeling of loneliness and dread for the coming lifetime of solitude almost too much to bear. But hey, that’s what ale’s for, right?
But I wonder how his journey ended. As I sail on, travelling my lonesome sea, his face still haunts my dreams, in amongst the usual dreams of sea monsters and my old home, those eyes are still there, in the background, watching and smiling. He’s still a stranger, sometimes it’s hard to believe he was even here. He left no trace, nothing; I might as well have dreamed it all. Except for the book. His book, that I will keep until I we meet again... if we meet again.
But even though I may constuct elabroate ideas of where he ended up, in my heart I am certain of the truth. He’s home, under the blossoms, lying in the grass with his love beside him, and all is right in his world.
Age Rating: U
Realm: Uncreated
BETA: Wikkid.x, who is awesome, by the way.
Summary: Based on the song 'The Stowaway' from the Doctor Who Series 3 Soundtrack. It's kinda long, so I apologize, most things on here are probably going to be shorter.
When summer ends on the Lilai coast, the sunsets are amazing. The setting sun sets the sky and the water on fire, and the clouds are turned the same pink as the flowers for which the island was named. It is both a blessing and a tragedy that many never see this sight; at that time the harvest has just begun, and communities have better things to do than to admire the beautiful scenery. It is a time of peace, when the chaos of normal life can be put on hold and nature can take centre-stage. If it became an event, a social occasion, I believe that the aura of wonder and serenity would be lost forever.
It was this sight, this amazing beauty, which drew me to the North, so late in the year. It was the first time in years that I had sailed north of the Dark Forests, so I planned to be there for a while. I dropped anchor on the first of September, and planned to stay through the autumn, just off the coast of the island, before sailing south again for the winter.
I arrived in the capital, coming onto land for the first time in weeks, and stopped to take it all in. The castle, ancient and sandstone, shines on the hill, on the inland side of the town, where the great Kings and Queens of The Uncreated Realm have ruled for eons. Of course, after my day of sightseeing and buying supplies from the famous markets and shopping halls, I found my way to a tavern. I reckon it’s something in the blood of all sailors that somehow, we always end up in taverns and bars. And you can’t fight nature, can you?
Most of the men in there were really rather surprised to see a southern woman drinking in the bar. It’s understandable, I suppose, southerners are rare this far North, although, Tarwyn being the capital, they aren’t as rare here as they are in the East. My appearance probably shocked them as much as anything. Southern women often wear long linen scarves around their heads, as there is a lot of sand from the desert in the south, and they keep our eyes and hair safe. Years at sea, however, had prompted me to abandon the long, linen dresses I had grown up with, as well as the traditional scarves. I wore my hair short around my shoulders, in defiance of the traditions that forbade a woman to cut her hair, cotton trousers, black boots and a white shirt. Generally male clothing but fitted enough that I looked feminine. I was always terrified of forgetting my gender at sea, with no conventions to follow.
Of course, as I explained to my friend Chalia when we had met up earlier that day, (because I don’t come inland very often, I wanted to get all my business sorted in one go) I really started wearing more flattering clothing after an incident in the midwinter. I first met Chalia a few years back, when I moored on Lilai for the first time. She told me about the sunsets, and since then, she has become my only real, close friend. We see each other whenever we can, and she fills me in on her life up at the palace (she’s Lady-in-waiting to Lady Sunshine, the Queen Mother no less), while I tell her about my travels. We had got together that afternoon in a café off one of the market streets, which is one reason why I had found my way to the tavern. Chalia was my best friend, but she was far too genteel for me to be knocking back ale around her. I needed a stronger drink than tea.
We talked of many things, that late winter afternoon. Chalia was expecting her second child with her husband Ganyar, a stable hand up at the palace. She says that if it’s a girl she'll name it after me, although Dorindah is an odd name for a Northern woman. She told me about the new Queen’s Other Side friends, and how the world was to change dramatically. She showed off the new, light-blue trousers that one of the Queen's friends had designed for the maids and ladies to wear under their dresses, which apparently made work far easier. I told her about the stowaway.
************************************************************************
It was midwinter, I had moved from the Lilai coast about three weeks ago, and was sailing my way down to the capital. I had stopped for the night near the Light Woods, as the weather was almost always fine there, just as you were almost guaranteed storms if you stopped near the Dark Forests. The night was as clear as it had ever been, albeit somewhat chilled. I was checking up on the supply status; for some reason my stocks of drinking water and vegetables were depleting rapidly. I dearly hoped it wasn’t rats; rodents are so hard to get rid of on board a ship, and although most sailors generally ignored them, there was something I found menacing about their yellowed teeth and rough, matted fur.
I entered the room quietly, intending to ensure that I had enough food to last me a few wore weeks. I walked further and further into the storeroom, and realized how long it had been since I had properly gone through my inventory. Most of this stuff was rope and wood and spare barrels; the ship had been stocked enough to serve a crew of at least thirty adults when I first started my travels. As I got further and further inside, holding the lantern higher in the darkness, I tripped on a loose plank and I fell, only just catching myself on a barrel of ale. I looked up and saw a cleared area in one of the back corners. I picked up the lantern -which in my fall, I had dropped- and shifted over to investigate.
The sight that met my eyes surprised me. In the corner, lay the remains of what looked like a meal, with rats and mice chewing on the crumbs and gnawing on the small amounts of gristle from the meat. Their cold, beady eyes stared back at me accusingly, before they scattered to the corners of the dark room. I observed the few objects that were there, found a few books, a lantern, obviously only recently extinguished, a rather expensive-looking velvet bag and some man's clothing. Burlap sacks had been rolled into a pitiful approximation of a bed, and, reaching down, I felt that they were still warm. Realization hit like a lightning bolt.
I was not alone on my ship. I had a stowaway.
The thought intrigued me more than anything. I should have been angry or scared, but instead I was just amused at the fact that he had gone so long undetected. These feelings made me worry slightly about my sanity, but this was nothing new. I picked up the bag from the floor. It contained some rather expensive-looking jewelery, some strange gold coins, a small compass and some unfamiliar maps. A traveller, it seemed.
Finally, I shook the bag even harder, and a small, leather-bound book fell out. I recognized it; it was an old copy of 'Taisteali's Compendium'. I was, still am, hardly a veracious reader, but even I know that that book could be found in any library or educated household. It was all that most people knew of the world beyond the Realm borders. Part travel guide, part fairy-tale. So I flicked through it, looking for some clue of who had snuck aboard, and found that there were notes and annotations scribbled in the margins and around the sides of the pages. I pocketed the book, and promised myself I'd read it later: Now, I had a job to do.
My final search concluded that there were no blades or heavy items, or really anything that could be classed as a weapon within the bag, which set my mind further at ease. Unless he had a weapon on his person, my stowaway wasn’t looking for a fight. I stood, and left the room to investigate further.
I didn’t have to search for him for very long. I was walking down the corridor beside the main common room, and there he was, walking towards me, comically trying to make no noise. He tried to run when he saw me, into the common room. Unfortunately for him, the common room has only one door… and I was blocking it.
“You shouldn’t be here, you know.” I said, mildly, leaning against the door frame. His startled expression almost made me laugh, but I clamped down on that urge. He was a rather tall man, taller than me at any rate, with brown hair and dark eyes. His clothing was simple, a loose white shirt and dark trousers, with heavy black boots poking out of the ends. I should have been searching for places where a knife could be concealed, but instead I was looking at his face. He was really rather handsome, I decided, especially with the expression of innocent bewilderment and confusion he wore at the moment. He saw the amusement on my face, and his expression became more guarded and wary.
“What are you going to do?” He sounded suspicious, stepping back a bit from my poorly concealed smile.
“Well, tell you what, seeing as how I’ve already found your belongings, and you don’t seem to have any weapons on you, I’ll give you a chance.”
He smiled at that, his stance relaxed slightly and his response, when it came, seemed slightly mocking, but pleased all the same. “That’s very generous of you, more than most captains would give me. What’s in it for you?”
“Well, tell me why you’re here. What made you stowaway on my ship, when you have more than enough gold in that bag of yours to buy a boat of your own? Why would a man risk stowing away on a ship when the crew could have killed him on the spot?”
“It’s complicated.”
“My position isn’t. I ought to have thrown you overboard by now, still could, for that matter. So, answer my question, why are you here?”
He didn’t answer at first. Instead, he looked about the room. It was a large, domed space, the largest room on the ship, and easily the most formal. I loved this room. The ceiling was painted with scenes of pirates and sea-monsters, mermaids and dolphins. Sometimes, I dragged my bedclothes in here just to stare up at those paintings all night. There was a bar over at one side, further evidence that this ship was meant for a large crew, but I’d cleared the chairs to the side, leaving a large empty space in the centre. He finished his assessment of our surroundings quickly and then turned back to me. He smiled, held out his hand, and said one thing I was most definitely not expecting:
“Let’s dance.”
“What?” Now I was confused and not a little suspicious.
“As you said earlier, I have no weapons amongst my possessions, and nowhere to hide them on my person. If I intended to hurt you, I would have done it already, so where’s the harm in one dance?”
“There’s no music.” I was in shock now, so the most obvious objection came to my lips. He laughed slightly and took my hand in his, placing my other on his shoulder, and his own at my hip. He swept us around the room a few times, without saying a word, allowing me to process what was happening. He looked down, straight into my eyes, and I found my heartbeat accelerating. Finally he slowed, simply moving us in a small circle in the centre of the room, swaying to a silent beat, and began his tale.
“I’m on my way home, which is still a long way from here, on the East side of the country. I have money, as you saw, but it is from a land on the other side of the ocean, so useless here. That’s why I have to borrow, or steal, to get home” His eyes lit up with determination, and he stared into a space for a moment, before his attention returned to me. “I will find a way to get back. I promised Acacia that I would return by her twentieth birthday, and that’s what I’ll do.”
“Who's Acacia?”
“She is my bride, the most beautiful girl in the whole world. She’s waiting for me, back home.” He sighed, and closed his eyes, “I miss her, so much. I can still see her beautiful face, her golden, sunlit hair, the way her green eyes sparkled when she laughed, how she felt I my arms…” he trailed off with a sigh, and while his eyes were closed, I felt a small tear of jealousy and sympathy trail down my cheek. The distracted, peaceful look on his face gave me the belief that he wasn’t really dancing with me at all, in this darkened room, the ocean placid outside. No, he was in a town in the country, with a beautiful blonde smiling up at him, blossoms on the trees.
He straightened, after a moment, and smiled down at me. “I’ve roamed all over this land and the next, and now it’s time for me to go home.” He let go of me, and stepped back. “That is my tale, my fair captain, now, are you going to feed me to the local marine life?” His eyes held a teasing gleam, as I pretended to consider the matter.
“Hmmmm, a story and a dance, in exchange for food and safe passage to the mainland…hmmmm,” I put on a thoughtful expression and tapped my chin with my finger. “Well,” I said after a few seconds, “I do have a few bedrooms to spare, and someone needs to help me navigate the estuary to the Natinah River up to the capital… So, okay, you have a deal.”
“Really?!” His grin could have lit up all of Tarwyn, my heart felt like it would burst. I felt myself answering his grin with one of my own, and I can’t say how long we stood there, just smiling and smiling, before, finally, I yawned and said “Right, I’m hauling up the anchor at first light, so I’d better show you to your room.” I turned and walked from the room, down the corridor, to the room two -large- rooms down from mine.
Well, I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea, did I?
***
With two people to help with the sailing and navigation, my ship reached the estuary within two weeks; as opposed to the month it would have taken me alone. We got to know each other very well over those weeks, and by the time we sailed into the river harbour in the capital, I was beginning to dread our final parting. It made my old life seem so much lonelier, to see it compared to this life of companionship and conversation, it made my heart ache to think about it. But the day drew closer and closer, until, finally, it dawned, bright and clear, and we could see the castle at Tarwyn silhouetted against the sunrise.
“Well,” I sighed, “There it is; the capital.”
“Uh huh,” he replied, leaning his arms against the railings on the deck, “There it is, in all its glory.”
“Well, what are we waiting for? Do you want to crash into the docks? Come on!” I hurried hum to the rigging, while I brushed away the few tears that had come to my eyes.
We parted on the wharf. He’d done the capital on his way west, at the start of his journey, and was anxious to get home. We hugged, for a long time, and when we separated, he held on to my arms and looked me full in the face, mahogany brown boring into my blue. He smiled his heartbreaking smile, and said, “Thank you.”
I was so afraid that he was going to leave at that, so I said “For what?”
“For the food, for the nice comfy bed, for the company, for not using me as shark-bait.” He kept smiling, and then his expression turned serious. “Can you promise me something, Dorindah? Just one little thing?”
“Of course.”
He sighed, “Don’t carry on alone. I understand the need for solitude and travel, I’ve done enough of it myself, but I don’t think you understand how lonely, how soul-destroying the dark times can be without someone beside you. So, find someone. If anything, it’ll mean you have an extra set of hands!” He tried for a joke, but I knew he was deadly serious. “Okay? By the next time we meet, and we will meet again, I want you to have found yourself a permanent shipmate. Okay?
And although I knew that I would never be able to keep it, and that, in all likelihood, we would never see each other again, I agreed.
And then we hugged, one last time, before he walked off the pier, without looking back.
I watched him leave, tears in my eyes, and I reached into my pocket for a tissue. Instead, I found a small, black book. His book, his scribbled-in copy of Taisteali's Compendium.
So now, I sit here in this tavern, months later, drinking to forget unarguably the best two weeks of my life. Every laugh, every smile, every time he got something wrong and we almost crashed, every memory of an evening spent dancing on the deck or in the common room, it all burned, the feeling of loneliness and dread for the coming lifetime of solitude almost too much to bear. But hey, that’s what ale’s for, right?
But I wonder how his journey ended. As I sail on, travelling my lonesome sea, his face still haunts my dreams, in amongst the usual dreams of sea monsters and my old home, those eyes are still there, in the background, watching and smiling. He’s still a stranger, sometimes it’s hard to believe he was even here. He left no trace, nothing; I might as well have dreamed it all. Except for the book. His book, that I will keep until I we meet again... if we meet again.
But even though I may constuct elabroate ideas of where he ended up, in my heart I am certain of the truth. He’s home, under the blossoms, lying in the grass with his love beside him, and all is right in his world.
Saturday 11 July 2009
And thus...
My migration is complete. I'll upload over the next few days the stuffs from by 'bravejournal' blog with the same name, this one's just... easier.
There, that's all the introductions over with. Happy reading!
Oh, and unless specifically explained otherwise, all content here contained is... ah... copyrighted. Got it?
There, that's all the introductions over with. Happy reading!
Oh, and unless specifically explained otherwise, all content here contained is... ah... copyrighted. Got it?
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