Yowzah Oneshot Collection (2)

143(G)

The Cursed Wedding Band of King Malchu the Destroyer

                      queer_cheer

River Song currently had three problems.

The first of which was really rather pressing; she was falling — from a pretty daunting height, too. She had nothing to break her fall but a spent evacuation pod with a rapidly heating exterior that was bound to become interior sooner rather than later.

The second problem — tangentially related — was that she wasn’t the only thing falling; behind her came about a dozen or so imperialist fighters from Xeron Minor, their small ships armed with shields and weaponry aplenty, all aimed at her. She hadn’t meant to incite rebellion among the native Xerites against the imperialists from the neighbouring Xeron Major, and she certainly hadn’t meant to get caught up in the midst of it all. She’d only been on an archaeological dig, minding her own business, when danger came knocking.

And that brought her to problem three. On her dig, she’d found a ring. It was a pretty old ring, but that isn’t why she took it. No, no, she took it because it was exactly what she’d come for. Everyone seemed to think it was cursed or something, and the lore surrounding it could fill volumes upon volumes and never come close to competition. On top of it all, she was determined to prove there was no such thing as curses — just bad people with patience and a plan.

Except, she’d run into a very slight snag.

The ring was most definitely cursed.

Maybe that should’ve been problem one; she was fairly certain it was the cause of her bad luck, after all. Not that she believed in luck. But she hadn’t believed in curses when she woke up that morning, either. Life was just full of surprises, wasn’t it?

A sudden sinking feeling in her stomach brought her promptly back to the real problem one. She was still falling, and her gravity locks were starting to fail. Oxygen would be next. Usually she was fond of saying it wasn’t the fall that killed you, but the landing, but if things kept on like this, she’d be dead long before crashing through the atmosphere of some poor and unsuspecting planet.

These new-wave escape pods had a computer as a windshield, which was great for navigation until something short-circuits and you’re left flying blind, without even the comfort of the stars for navigation. River’s screen had long since gone dark, and, disoriented, she found herself struck by a moment’s worth of panic at the thought of dying in such a tight and sad little space. At the very least, she would’ve wanted to see the sky. Oh, how she loved the stars! Loved them too fondly to be fearful of the night, as the old poet Sarah Williams had written once, very long ago. River had known her personally. She’d been a quiet and humble girl, much unlike River, but nonetheless, they’d gotten on rather well.

But now was hardly the time to reminisce about old friends. Or maybe it was the perfect time. Regardless, the stars felt far away, and as she fell, she felt the distance between her and the hopeful glow of the cosmos expand — and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.

She had a sonic torch of her own invention, but somehow, it had gotten snapped clean in two. She had a vortex manipulator, but the spacecrafts on her trail were emitting high-frequency signals that jammed it right up. Just her luck.

(Thank you, cursed ring. It wasn’t even that pretty. Not pretty enough to be worth all the trouble it caused. A handful of men had said the same thing about River, once upon a time, and so she immediately felt a pang of guilt at saying it about the ring. She knew what that could do to one’s ego, to one’s silly old hearts.)

Focus, she thought. Focus. Don’t give up. This isn’t the end! It can’t end like this. How dull! If I’m going to die, I’m going to die looking at the stars. Not suffocating in a smelly old escape pod!