clashildr one shots

For The Glory Of The British Empire

     Miss Clara Oswald sweeping along the halls of a Victorian manor house in full corset and skirts was enough to make Ashildr weak at the knees. She almost floated; nothing but a ghost, almost impossible, all air and grace. When asked for the definition of beauty, this was the image that must surely enter the mind of every sentient being in the universe. Brown eyes melting in the soft sunlight that flitted gently through the windows, soft edges blurring into definition around the shadows, and a moral longevity that shone onto a face so perfect it had started wars. Ashildr had decided long ago that her final breath would be drawn in protection of this such anomaly.
     Clara continued down the corridor until she threw herself into Ashildr's arms and laughed brazenly. The pair smiled at each other for a moment before Clara broke the silence.
     "Shall we have a look around?"
     Victorian Edinburgh loomed. The engine of the British empire, the driving force behind the monstrosities of colonialism, all right there to be prodded and enjoyed by the eye of the voracious time traveller. To miss it would be a crime. Ashildr smiled, took Clara's hand, and dragged her laughing out into the streets.

     Throughout the day, everything was swell. Edinburgh turned out to be just as impressive as promised, even if not quite what they were wanting (Ashildr had been aiming for London).
     "Why didn't we land in London?" Ashildr asked at around midday, eying a bowler hat in a shop window.
     Clara hung off her arm, head on her shoulder. "Well, there's a version of me kicking around Victorian London."
     "I'm sorry, is this a story I should have heard?"
     "Oh, threw myself into the time winds, got blown apart into a million shadows to follow the Doctor across his entire time stream and stop him from being murdered. Basically just your average Tuesday."
     Ashildr snorted and pulled away from the window. She shook her head at herself, almost smiling, before heading off again and pulling Clara along with her.
     And then, of course, the sun set, and the city began to draw to a slumber; shops began to close, the people disparced, and the cobbles glinted in the perpetual damp of Scotland. In a disapointingly normal fashion, policemen armed with trugdens and overconfidence started to patrol, shooing the homeless and the poor away.
     "What are they doing?" Clara whispered as she watched an officer approach a street urchin.
     Ashildr scratched her head. "Where there's industry, there's filth. They're not wanted. Curfew's at nine."
     The police officer picked up a street urchin by the filthy shirt, holding him up at shoulder height and glaring. Before Ashildr could suggest they do something, Clara was already legging it up to the poor child. Ashildr, a second behind, took a moment to process and then started towards them herself.
     The police officer held his trudgen underneath the small boy's chin. The small boy held his gaze at the officer's eyes.
Clara was obviously trying to sweet talk to officer, but he was having none of it. Ashildr hurried up to them, cleared her throat, and addressed the brute directly.
     "He's a chimney sweep of our household, sir," she said quickly. "We shall give him board for tonight."
     The officer took in Ashildr quickly before placing the urchin down. "Keep him off the streets." He placed his trudgen back in his belt before wandering back off down the darkened alley, whistling hymns to himself as he went.
    "Thanks, miss," the urchin said, dusting off his shirt. His spindly arms were covered in scars. The clothes he wore were battered and made mostly of tears; the true colour of his shirt was hidden under layers of filth, his trousers too small and shoes too big. His tiny, bony face was hidden under the mud that coated his skin, and his teeth, yellowed and jutted, forced him into a slight lisp. He turned to face Clara. "If you don't mind my saying, miss, you don't half talk funny."
     Clara shrugged. "I'm a woman out of my time."
     The urchin glanced at Ashildr, almost for translation. She shook her head at him and ruffled his hair a little. "Do you have a home to get to?"
     "Of sorts. Yous gonna come with me? There's room for yous." He looked at Ashildr for confirmation. She shrugged and he erupted into a toothy grin, dusted himself off again, and disappeared off down a side road.
     The women behind barely kept up with him as he weaved in and out through the ever-tighter streets. He skittered across the cobbles in his clown shoes with surprising skill; he'd probably been doing this for the whole of his slimy life.
      Eventually, he took them to a door hidden in a wall nobody cared about, and pushed it open.
      "This is where we live. Where we go after curfew," he said.
      Behind the door was darkness. In the flittering candlelight, Ashildr could just make out the general shape of the room: the walls arched over in a semi-circle, meeting the rough floor at either side. The smell wafting off of the hundred or so homeless people huddled on the floor was almost overwhelming.
      "It ain't much,"the urchin said, "but it's a place to sleep away from danger."
       Clara immediately headed to the centre of the room where all the children sat together. She crouched down next to them.
     "The funny lady. Is she your missus?" the urchin asked, nodding at Clara. He dragged a filthy sleeve under his nose.
     "Excuse me?"
     "Don't worry, miss, we get all sorts down 'ere. Ain't nobody gonna care if she is." He pointed at a thin man leaning against one of the sloping brick walls. "Old Peter o'er there, he fancies men. We don't understand, but that don't mean we give 'im to the magistrate. We ain't got nothing down here, see, miss, not even the sun. We start turnin' on one another, we're as good as dead."
     Ashildr glanced at the urchin again, careful, before feeling her gaze drift back to Clara. "Yeah," she sighed. "Yeah, she's my missus. How could you tell?"
     The urchin broke into a fit of coughing. He was bent over double, handkerchief over his nose and mouth. When he stopped, he looked at it briefly, and then folded it over to cover up the blood. He apologised. "Doctor who came 'round said I got ter- ta-"
     "Tuberculosis?"
     "Aye, that's it. But it's the way you look at her, miss. The way you look at that funny lady when you think she can't see you. It's like you're scared she'll dissolve when you look away."
     Ashildr looked again at the urchin and was suddenly filled with an overwhelming pity; he was hardly a child, eight years old at most, yet carried himself and his responsibility as an adult. He had to. In these streets of grime, he lived in the filth he was seen to be: his disease was no horror story, no cautionary tale, simply the next to be added to the pile of bodies in the corner nobody of stock grieved for. He was unimportant, dying, wise beyond his years and aged from trauma, and, yet, every single person in these cesspits knew his name, and they would all grieve. He ran this city. This city ran Britian. Britian ran the world. He was the most important boy in human history, as every one of his friends was, but they would never know. Here, in the dark, half drowning in his own blood, this small child was to die for the glory of the British empire. Their names would be on no plaque; in fact, their names might never be known.
     Ashildr blanched.
     "You alright, miss?"
     From across the dingy basement, Clara erupted in laughter. The sound alerted Ashildr immediately, and her head snapped around. Ashildr's mood disintegrated. If there was anything that could pull her from her darkest reverie, it was that beautiful sound. "You should go over to her, kid. She's teaching the others how to read."

   "Not sure what they thought of us being, well, an us in there." Clara unlocked the door of the diner as Ashildr stood a few paces back, hands in pockets. "Probably think we're sinners, or something."
    "Clara, if loving you is a sin, I rejoice in heracy. Eternity in hell is worth the briefest of moments with you. Besides, history's a lot gayer than they want you to think. Trust me, I lived through it."
     "Sappho was a bit before your time, wasn't she?"
     "We have a time machine. Nothing is before our time."