Small Universe
By Laura Schiller
Based on: Doctor Who/Seven Kingdoms Trilogy
Copyright: BBC/Kristin Cashore
Clara could never explain the sudden presentiment which had urged her to pay a visit to Roen's fortress that day. She had seen her stepmother as recently as a few weeks ago; even Fire and Brigan, who were happy to ride with her, teased her about the impracticality of the idea. Two weeks on the road, however, when they came across a single traveller running from a swarm of raptor monsters, she was glad of it. Someone had to save that madman from himself.
One look at Brigan riding next to her, and she saw that her stepbrother had the same idea. He signalled to their contingent of soldiers to fire, and the birds began to drop like stones out of the sky, even as others wheeled towards them, shrieking like fingernails on glass. Fire drew her own bow, frowning with fierce concentration, and joined the shooting. Clara felt a stab of sympathy; this scene must have reminded her friend of all her own battles with fellow monsters. This mad stranger, for all the commonness of his spiky brown hair, seemed to make the raptors just as hungry for his blood as they were for Fire's.
He was the oddest-looking person Clara had ever seen, including Fire: tall and lanky, pale as a Pikkian, with red shoes and a long brown coat cut in a completely foreign style. His weapon – if weapon it was – was a metal rod with a green light at one end. Whenever the monsters came into his range, their wingbeats slowed, becoming drowsy, until some of them eventually dropped: a strategy which, if humane, appeared to be highly impractical. He ran with all the grace and coordination of a newborn puppy, reminding Clara of her son Aran, playing tag with Hanna and Liv. How in the world had he thought he could survive this road alone?
One moment later, a large blue box materialized in the middle of the road, whirring and grinding like a worn-out mill. The stranger ran right into it, slammed the door, and vanished alone with the box.
Well. That explained at least one thing. If he was a sorcerer, especially one gifted enough to escape like that, he might not feel the need for an armed guard.
She hardly knew why it mattered so much - she had never seen the man in her life - but the strange tugging sensation in the pit of her stomach said otherwise. Widly, irrationally, she hoped she would see him again.
Run, you clever boy, she thought, and remember …