Prompt: Myth
Word Count:
Genre: /
Accompainment: /
Note: Pre!Last Christmas
The skinny man in the purple tweed jacket dances across the mass of levers and buttons, his hair bouncing ever so groggily on his sweat-damp forehead, his hands never meeting the slightest hesitance in maneuvering the huge ship across the perils of the universe. As he moves around the room the impossible girl stares at the gigantic, shining column that dominates the control table, as if holding a silent conversation with the immortal old cat the Doctor has managed to domesticate: the TARDIS purrs, slightly, as the Time Lord caresses her levers, but its eyes – do sentient spaceships even have eyes? – seem to be fixed on the girl seated at the top of the stairs, little and petite, but led by the warmest of hearts and the quickest of brains.
They hadn't started of well, the two of them: the TARDIS and Clara, Clara and the TARDIS. Even their names didn't seem to match. One was sweet, brief, like the feeling of the sea whispering in the cavity of a shell; the other, meanwhile, was epithet of a billion wars, like the view of a thousand suns burning and then shading into darkness, like the last breath of an old man exhaling his spirit on a shiny layer of dust. The TARDIS hated her and Clara, furthermore, did the same. «She's impossible!», the machine would seem to buzz into the Doctor's ear; «it's a damn pile of metal and you're treating it as if it was your mother», the girl would groan, the ship getting on her nerves more and more as time went on.
But then... then. What had happened wasn't clear. Not to Clara, at least. The problem wasn't that Clara hadn't understood- the fact was that she was way too modest to be able to fully admit it. One thing was being bossy and sassy on a daily basis; the other was coming to realize that, after she'd jumped into the Doctor's time line, the TARDIS had pretty much started to treat her like a goddess, grateful for her impossibly brave enterprise, never seeming to cease to silently thank her. And so the past of the two of them was forgotten- never more a fight, nor an insult, nor any form of dispute incurred between them.
Until it happened.
«The Elysian Fields!». November 23rd, Earth, 2013. For Clara, at least, that was the date. A series of dangerous maneuvers; the squirming of the TARDIS as it entered into the ever-moving Time Vortex.
The Doctor pushed the last button to make the TARDIS land and then squirmed to Clara's side, grabbing her by the hand and leading her to the doors. «Graceful name, marvelous planet, incredibly goodhearted inhabitants». He smiled, fixing his bow tie. «Rather disappointing food. But, well... guess one can't have everything in their life». The flash of a smirk traveled across his clean-shaven face and danced on his lips as they tensed in a quirky smile, his smile, the one Clara had gotten accustomed to see at the very start of each of their adventures together.
And then the Doctor opened the doors.
Have you ever had the good-fortune of standing on the overhangs of Cape Sounion? It is a little, ancestral group of ruins located near one of the most beautiful promontories of Greece, just above the Aegean Sea; a colossal, atavic symbol of religion and ethics, surrounded by wilderness. When spring comes and the wind starts singing through the remains of the ancient temples, you stand there, listening to its song, looking at poppies and wondering how many people must have crossed the millennial street you have been standing on; then the sun gently lowers his rays unto the obscurity of the sea and all at once, there! all your thoughts are drained from your mind. Every ounce of your attention is drawn to the surface of the shining sea, caressed by the sun's poems, lulled to sleep by the wind's narrations.
Everything in the world seems to cease; that is, until the sun again disappears just under the unmoving horizon, the sea, and darkness covers everything you'd been enchanted by.
The vision Clara had had hadn't been, by any means, different; she had remembered seeing the tiny site in 101 Places To See and now, standing in front of the Elysian Fields, she couldn't do much apart from finding resemblances. What the TARDIS had landed inside was a gigantic, ethereal expanse of flowers, light, thousands of constellations shining unto acres and acres of dew-strained strings of grass and colorful petals; the sound of waves hitting the solid ground could be heard in the distance and the wind, the choruses, the unending songs of fallen cities and honored heroes continued and continued to tickle her ears, take her by her hand, push her to go forward into that beautiful night of shimmering gold. Gold, yes – for it was colorful, but everything seemed to shine in the same gradation of color. Clara blinked, feeling tears pinch the sides of her eyes.
«Heh». Suddenly, the Doctor's voice woke her up from her thoughts; for the first time in a very long time his tone was perfectly calibrated, his voice feeble just as it had been up there, in his grave in Trenzalore. Clara trembled as the Doctor's thumb trailed across her cheek: she hadn't noticed the tears in her eyes had managed to escape. The pearls of salty water dried on the Time Lord's skin. «I probably should have warned you – this place is a little more complex then I'd make it sound».
Clara smiled and, tentatively, moved a step forward, starting to walk just as she saw the Doctor was doing the same. Every inch, every centimeter of the Fields was astonishing, perfectly calibrated; and when she stepped on the grass it didn't curve, nor take the form of her feet as she pressed her weight on it. She tried to pick a flower but, just as she removed it from the ground, another one, just as perfect and meticulous, had taken its place. Clara placed the flower on her hear.
«So», she said, clapping her hands together. «Care to give a tour?».
«Ha, the Greeks!». An hour, twenty minutes and thirty-three minutes later the Doctor was sitting on the crook between two robust branches of an olive tree, swinging his legs back and forth and gesticulating something to Clara. «Funny people, they are! Their main god liked to go around disguised as a swan, gave birth to his daughter from his head and was famous for having castrated his father, but let a woman compose a poem and suddenly it's a disaster». He rolled his eyes, as if it was possible, for the above-mentioned Clara, sitting just under the tree and way too busy within tying his shoelaces, to see his expression. Not that she easily could, due to her height, usually; but this was another story. «At a certain point the Greeks decide that there must be a place for them to go, alternatively to hell or Ades, hence they sort out the Elysian Fields: a magical, heavenly place where all the valorous, goodhearted people could live happily ever after».
«I don't get it». Clara lets go of his shoelaces – either he hasn't noticed, or is very good at pretending so – and leans her back onto the tree. «How do you get from "imaginary heaven: limited entrance for Greeks only" to "hey, there is an absurdly beautiful planet and I'm sitting in there and I'm almost completely sure this isn't imaginary"?».
«That's the p-o-i-n-t!», the Doctor spells out, almost screaming, and Clara is almost sure she heard a flower give a start. «It wasn't imaginary. It was true». He stops and waits and looks at Clara from between his legs, but she just shifts her eyes to one side to the other of the Fields as if waiting for a divine reply. The Doctor sighs.
«Before, when I was explaining– I said sort out, and you immediately thought I meant "invented"».
«I didn't– ».
«Shush. Your mind doesn't lie-».
«Wha– You read my mind?».
«Anyway», the Doctor rolled his eyes, jokingly, «what I really meant was that they re-elaborated it. An ancient, atavic legend that had been spoken for centuries; the whispers of old cantors, myths bequeathed from generation to generation. Myths that, just by instance, described exactly the planet on which we're standing».
Clara blinked, scenes of old, gray theaters and choruses passing before her eyes, mixing with the view she'd under her eyes. She was sure it had to make sense; although her mind was as messy as it'd never had been. «Something still doesn't fit, though», she whispered, trying to give a sense to her thoughts. «Ancient Greek were just that– ancient. There's no way they could have known of an absurdly, immensely distant planet. Or could they?».
«Ha-ha!». The Doctor clapped, his hair bouncing on his head, his feet hitting the trunk of the olive tree. «Bingo. Thesis: the Greeks knew about the Elysian Fields, not-the-city-but-the-planet. Question: how? Reply», he stopped, scratching the back of his head, «well... we'll work on that». He tilted his head, watching Clara under him. «You in, Oswald?».
«Mission accepted».
«Geronimo». And the Doctor jumped from the tree, just beside Clara; he didn't notice his tied strings until he fell into the grass, gaining a ringing chuckle from his partner in crime.