"Typus Seven!" The Doctor announced as he opened the door and threw his arm out dramatically. I giggled at his antics and peered out into the street.
"So why not Typus One through Six?" I asked as I stepped out and the Doctor shut the door behind us.
"Typus One, Two, Four, and Five are uninhabitable. Typus Three is habitable, but is in the middle of an Ice Age and I don't want you getting hypothermia." He tapped the tip of my nose which I crinkled up at because it tickled slightly while smiling at him and held up six fingers.
"That accounts for everything, but Typus Six," I stated.
"I'm not exactly welcome," he said, and I laughed.
"Of course. I don't know what I was expecting really." I laughed harder as the Doctor placed a hand over his chest in mock hurt. He grinned widely at me in response.
"When are we relative to Earth time?" I asked while rocking back and forth on the balls of my feet and looking at the buildings.
"Right before the Great Fire of London," he said and gave me a little glance. "Which I had nothing to do with."
"That's not true! Your sonic screwdriver broke when you were dealing with the Teriliptils." He froze and looked at me with a faint look of horror dawning in his eyes.
"How did you know that?" I bit my lip and looked down at the street.
"The TARDIS told me," I admitted softly not looking up until I heard him rapping his knuckles against the TARDIS.
"How am I supposed to be mysterious if you keep telling her all my stories, Old Girl?" He asked teasingly before narrowing his eyes at me. "What else has she told you?"
"I'll never tell," I said loftily before my face split in a huge grin. He laughed before he gave me a bow suitable for 1600's Earth and held out his elbow.
"Just around the corner from here is arguably the best hot chocolate in the universe, may I have the honour of escorting you?" I laughed before I curtsied and looped my elbow with his.
"You may good sir."
As we walked, he told me about the humanoid population who were slightly time sensitive because there was a very small rift in time and space that ran along the planet like an equator. He told me about the way that the monarchy worked and how their version of science incorporated a hint of magic.
"I love it when you take me places like this," I said as I snuggled closer to the Doctor as a light mist started to fall over the city. He chuckled and pushed some of my curls away from my face.
"I'm glad," he said softly as he dropped my arm from his elbow as we came outside the café in question. I grabbed him just as he was about to step away from me.
"Do you think we could get the hot chocolate to go so that we can keep walking?" I asked and he nodded.
"Of course, we can." He dropped a kiss to my forehead. "Wait here."
The instant the Doctor ducked into the café the street filled with people so I shuffled backwards a few steps to be out of the way and to get a good vantage point for people watching. I'd been expecting the populace to be wearing clothes that looked like they came from the relative Earth period, but instead they were wearing outfits more like a Greek Chiton. I mused briefly on the dichotomy between the outfits and the European style buildings before I was cut off by someone bumping into me.
"By the Tear," the man murmured, looking like he'd just seen a ghost. I opened my mouth to apologize, but was cut off by the man whistling sharply. At the noise half the people placed their carts so that the road was blocked. The man grabbed me and three more men approached me with their hands outstretched.
"Doctor!" I screamed and lashed out towards the closest man. I screamed again as they lifted me off the ground and I kicked out with my foot, feeling a vicious satisfaction at the wet crunching sound, before the other men caught my legs as well. They started carrying me down the street as the people started scrambling off the streets.
"Emma!" I saw the Doctor come skidding out of the café and whip his head around over the crowd.
"Doctor!" He spun in my direction and I could see the panic brewing in his expression just as I was carried around the corner and dropped down a very large drain.
"Let go of me!" I ordered to the new people who were holding me as darkness fell over us as someone slid a cover over the drain.
"Quiet." A woman bit out and I frowned towards her voice.
"I damn well will not be quiet when I have just been abducted! Now Let Go of Me!" I lashed out again with all my limbs and the men holding me lowered me down slowly. My eyes were starting to adjust to the darkness so I could pinpoint the people I was glaring at a little more accurately.
"We just saved your life," the man standing next to the woman muttered darkly.
"From hot Chocolate?!" I shrieked as I tossed my hands up in the air. If they had expected me to be a meek, cowering little thing then they were very mistaken because I wasn't sure that I had ever been so angry in my entire life.
"If a blonde woman is seen then she will go missing and never be seen again. Especially in this city," the woman explained. I crossed my arms and arched an eyebrow up at the cluster of people.
"And you thought kidnapping me was the solution to that?" I clarified and a few of them shuffled awkwardly.
"You look remarkably like the Queen," the man who had whistled said.
"And!?" I demanded as I threw my hands up in the air again.
"The Queen went missing ten years ago." I stared at them for a few moments.
"You cannot seriously think that I'm the Queen."
"Of course not," the woman said as if I was an idiot and what little hold I still had on my temper snapped like a cord.
"Then why the bloody hell am I standing in a sewer system after I was snatched off the street simply because I had the utter gall to walk down the road!?" I sucked in an angry breath and held up a hand when someone opened their mouth. "Have you just been grabbing all the blonde girls off the street for ten years on the off chance that they are actually the Queen under the pretense of saving their lives? And dare I ask what happened to them when they weren't physically close enough to this bloody monarch?"
"She's got fire in her," one of the men stated and another one chuckled.
"She broke Dom's nose."
"And I bloody well will not apologize for that either," I added tartly. A bout of laughter broke out and the woman stepped forwards.
"I'm Liv. I would be very pleased to tell you everything as soon as we're no longer standing in a sewer system." I studied her for a moment before I sighed. I knew that the Doctor was probably panicking right now, which would undoubtedly not end well, but I also knew that I had no way to contact him. I also had no idea if he had even seen me get dropped down into the sewer or if he had just whipped around the corner to an empty street.
"I want to know everything so you might as well start now." Liv arched an eyebrow up at me in surprise. I shrugged. "In for a penny."
"It all started ten years ago when the Queen fell ill which was only a few weeks before she went missing."
"How exactly does an ill queen go missing?" I asked.
"When royalty fall ill they are put into a coma so that the illness passes extremely quickly and so that if greater measures are required they can be enacted immediately," one of the men who'd caught me explained. He must have noticed me squinting at him curiously because he lifted his hand and waved his fingers at me. "I'm Jon."
"So, someone literally stole the Queen," I clarified. Jon and Liv nodded in synch.
"The King fell apart, and quite frankly hasn't bothered to put himself together," Liv said.
"He's been pretty useless actually," Jon added as he leaned in from Liv's other side. Liv swatted him across his upper arm.
"His advisor, Raq, has basically been ruling since then, and it hasn't been great."
"Abysmal," Jon interjected. Another older man stepped forward to get between Liv and Jon.
"Jon, I think if you make another comment Liv will strangle you." He gave me a wink and I bit on my lip so that I wouldn't giggle. Now that I'd gotten past the anger regarding my kidnapping they seemed like good people.
"I'm Dav."
"Emma," I said after I realized that I hadn't introduced myself to them yet. Then again, some of them might have heard the Doctor screaming my name, but manners still mattered.
"Either way, after Raq took over he started using the King's Guard to 'search for the Queen' by asking blonde females into the palace to make sure that they weren't the Queen. None of them came back so we started gathering." Liv waved her hand widely at the company of people.
"You started a resistance because blonde females were going missing because someone stole the Queen." Jon made a face at my statement.
"It sounds weird when you say it like that." Dav chuckled at Jon's protests.
"Taxes also increased and a multitude of unrealistic new laws were put into place. Liv is trying not to bore you with the socioeconomic issues." Dav grinned widely at me when I blinked at him. "I teach."
"What do I have to do with this?" I asked. Liv and John made a sympathetic face.
"That has to do with the fact that you look so much like the Queen," Dav said. I arched a brow up before I gestured for them to go on. I was interested, more or less involved, and had a pretty good idea that getting more involved was a sure-fire way to find the Doctor.
"You don't have to," Jon said instantly.
"Just tell me. Please?" I asked dryly. Liv sucked in a breath.
"Since you look so alarmingly like the Queen, we were all thinking that you could impersonate her to distract the King and Raq," Liv explained with a sour look on her face, as if she hated the plan.
"Impersonate the Queen?" I asked and Jon nodded with a similar sour face. I looked at Dav. "To distract the King and his advisor?"
"That's about the size of it," Dav said. I pinched the bridge of my nose and considered all the information I'd been given.
"Am I distracting the King and his advisor while you and the rest of your group storm the castle?"
"By the Tear no! We need a distraction to smuggle the Queen into the medical centre in the palace," Dav said.
"You found the Queen?" I asked incredulously and Liv nodded as she pushed open a door to the side. I blinked at the enclosed hospital bed that rested in the middle of the room surrounded by assorted medical equipment.
"We found her here about four years after she went missing. We would have revived her, but we can't unless we have the equipment in the palace. So, we've been waiting for an opportunity," Liv said. I walked over to the side of bed and peered in at the Queen. I blinked in shock as I took in my physical doppelganger, except for the fact that her hair had more of a copper tinge than mine.
"Holy shit. She does look like me."