ficbits, Doctor Who and FFXII x SW:TPM
Two thingamabobs, both written last year, and for one reason or another I didn't get around to posting them.
#1. FFXII x TPM, the original crossover menace. Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Ivalice, totally gen.
*
Transports
*
The hostler who ran the livery had a face like that of an Ewok. She hovered directly at eye level and refused to haggle.
"600 gil, kupo. If you don't like it, find another stable, kupo!"
There was no other stable, no better mode of overland transport to the interior. Republic credits had no more cachet here than they did elsewhere on the tatty fringes of the Outer Rim. Qui-Gon thought regretfully of mind tricks that ought not be used merely for the sake of convenience, not when one was setting an example to the young apprentice at one's elbow. The hostler folded her tiny furry arms and continued to hover. Qui-Gon reached for the purse of gil at his belt.
His apprentice observed the exchange with an expression that might've passed for attentive sobriety. As the hostler retreated to fetch their mounts, Obi-Wan looked across the bridge toward the heart of the Garif settlement.
"The War-Chief did mention that Moogles drive a hard bargain, Master."
"Did he," Qui-Gon said.
"I've been thinking, Master--surely not all of these nonhuman sentient races can be indigenous. Two or three, perhaps, but not as many as we've encountered. The odds of coevolution on such a scale..."
"You suspect past colonization?"
"You favor some other hypothesis?"
Qui-Gon settled his hands into the sleeves of his robe, manifesting a neutrality so perfect it was bound to annoy. "I'm as new to this world as you are, Padawan," he said. "We're here to learn what we can."
Soon the hostler returned with two riding beasts. Both were avian, tall and yellow and too heavy to be anything but flightless, with vestigal wings and mercenary eyes. Qui-Gon took hold of the reins of one and clucked to it as he led it forward, extending convival traces of Force into the upper reaches of its consciousness. Its gaze on him turned soulful. It stretched its neck forward to nibble at his hair and uttered a beatific wark.
Obi-Wan took the reins of the second avian, which was tossing its head and prancing nervously from foot to foot. Qui-Gon withheld a smile. He could feel the uncertain stirrings of Force as Obi-Wan attempted to soothe the beast as he himself had done.
"Easy," muttered Obi-Wan. "Calm down."
The second avian did calm down. It slumped, shook its caudal feathers, and shat on Obi-Wan's boot.
Finding a stirrup, Qui-Gon swung himself into the saddle and looked down blithely at his apprentice.
"You overdid it," he said.
* * *
#2. Doctor Who, Ten/Rose dorktardery. Makes reference to obscure online canon. Rated G.
*
Waterloo
*
Rose folds her arms. "My turn to decide. 'S what you said."
The Doctor flaps his hands over the console with increasing desperation. "Yes, but--why bother with the film when you could see the stage production? Better yet, the world premiere? Prince Edward Theatre, April 6, 1999. Twenty-five years to the day after Eurovision at the Dome in Brighton, 1974, isn't that commemorative? We'll just pop down before the curtain goes up--"
"And you'll just, what. Dump me? Like at Wembley?"
"I came back!" he protests, nettled.
Rose narrows her eyes. It's her deducting look, which under most circumstances is delightful. Less so when he's the one being deducted. The Doctor does his best not to twitch.
"Hold on," she says, "why d'you know all those--dates and places? April 6, 1999. 1974."
A frisson sweeps the length of his spine. He sidles around the console. "Well--you know me, Time Lord, Lord of Time, great big brain full of timey stuff and wimey stuff, encyclopaedic memory of historical dates."
"You've already been," she says, with sudden and awful perspicacity.
His mouth flops open.
"You have." She's closing on him, surer and surer. "You were there in '74, and in '99--bet you've already gone and seen the film a hundred times--"
"Only three," he mutters. One had been the 2038 remake, not half as good. Didn't hold a candle to Meryl Streep.
"Sorry, didn't catch that--three hundred?" She keels toward him, all white teeth and triumphant glee. "Is that why you wouldn't come with me to the concert? Couldn't risk running into yourself? All this time, letting me think you hate ABBA when you love it--"
Her hip against the console bumps a switch. The TARDIS decides to treat this as a happy accident. The lights in the control room spasm, then scintillate. Music begins to blare.
AND HOW COULD I EVER REFUSE? I FEEL LIKE I WIN WHEN I LOOOOOOOOSE
Cheeky, both of them. He works his jaw, but his feet are already swiveling, can't help it--Pavlovian response to the handclaps. He seizes Rose by the hand. She laughs in wild ascending spirals as he swings her across the floor, and when he lets go she flings her arms above her head and shimmies. He jitterbugs, elbows flailing. She kicks her heels. He wails on an air saxophone. She whoops.
He thinks, not for the first time, that the music of the spheres has got nothing on Benny and Björn.
* * *
#1. FFXII x TPM, the original crossover menace. Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Ivalice, totally gen.
*
Transports
*
The hostler who ran the livery had a face like that of an Ewok. She hovered directly at eye level and refused to haggle.
"600 gil, kupo. If you don't like it, find another stable, kupo!"
There was no other stable, no better mode of overland transport to the interior. Republic credits had no more cachet here than they did elsewhere on the tatty fringes of the Outer Rim. Qui-Gon thought regretfully of mind tricks that ought not be used merely for the sake of convenience, not when one was setting an example to the young apprentice at one's elbow. The hostler folded her tiny furry arms and continued to hover. Qui-Gon reached for the purse of gil at his belt.
His apprentice observed the exchange with an expression that might've passed for attentive sobriety. As the hostler retreated to fetch their mounts, Obi-Wan looked across the bridge toward the heart of the Garif settlement.
"The War-Chief did mention that Moogles drive a hard bargain, Master."
"Did he," Qui-Gon said.
"I've been thinking, Master--surely not all of these nonhuman sentient races can be indigenous. Two or three, perhaps, but not as many as we've encountered. The odds of coevolution on such a scale..."
"You suspect past colonization?"
"You favor some other hypothesis?"
Qui-Gon settled his hands into the sleeves of his robe, manifesting a neutrality so perfect it was bound to annoy. "I'm as new to this world as you are, Padawan," he said. "We're here to learn what we can."
Soon the hostler returned with two riding beasts. Both were avian, tall and yellow and too heavy to be anything but flightless, with vestigal wings and mercenary eyes. Qui-Gon took hold of the reins of one and clucked to it as he led it forward, extending convival traces of Force into the upper reaches of its consciousness. Its gaze on him turned soulful. It stretched its neck forward to nibble at his hair and uttered a beatific wark.
Obi-Wan took the reins of the second avian, which was tossing its head and prancing nervously from foot to foot. Qui-Gon withheld a smile. He could feel the uncertain stirrings of Force as Obi-Wan attempted to soothe the beast as he himself had done.
"Easy," muttered Obi-Wan. "Calm down."
The second avian did calm down. It slumped, shook its caudal feathers, and shat on Obi-Wan's boot.
Finding a stirrup, Qui-Gon swung himself into the saddle and looked down blithely at his apprentice.
"You overdid it," he said.
* * *
#2. Doctor Who, Ten/Rose dorktardery. Makes reference to obscure online canon. Rated G.
*
Waterloo
*
Rose folds her arms. "My turn to decide. 'S what you said."
The Doctor flaps his hands over the console with increasing desperation. "Yes, but--why bother with the film when you could see the stage production? Better yet, the world premiere? Prince Edward Theatre, April 6, 1999. Twenty-five years to the day after Eurovision at the Dome in Brighton, 1974, isn't that commemorative? We'll just pop down before the curtain goes up--"
"And you'll just, what. Dump me? Like at Wembley?"
"I came back!" he protests, nettled.
Rose narrows her eyes. It's her deducting look, which under most circumstances is delightful. Less so when he's the one being deducted. The Doctor does his best not to twitch.
"Hold on," she says, "why d'you know all those--dates and places? April 6, 1999. 1974."
A frisson sweeps the length of his spine. He sidles around the console. "Well--you know me, Time Lord, Lord of Time, great big brain full of timey stuff and wimey stuff, encyclopaedic memory of historical dates."
"You've already been," she says, with sudden and awful perspicacity.
His mouth flops open.
"You have." She's closing on him, surer and surer. "You were there in '74, and in '99--bet you've already gone and seen the film a hundred times--"
"Only three," he mutters. One had been the 2038 remake, not half as good. Didn't hold a candle to Meryl Streep.
"Sorry, didn't catch that--three hundred?" She keels toward him, all white teeth and triumphant glee. "Is that why you wouldn't come with me to the concert? Couldn't risk running into yourself? All this time, letting me think you hate ABBA when you love it--"
Her hip against the console bumps a switch. The TARDIS decides to treat this as a happy accident. The lights in the control room spasm, then scintillate. Music begins to blare.
AND HOW COULD I EVER REFUSE? I FEEL LIKE I WIN WHEN I LOOOOOOOOSE
Cheeky, both of them. He works his jaw, but his feet are already swiveling, can't help it--Pavlovian response to the handclaps. He seizes Rose by the hand. She laughs in wild ascending spirals as he swings her across the floor, and when he lets go she flings her arms above her head and shimmies. He jitterbugs, elbows flailing. She kicks her heels. He wails on an air saxophone. She whoops.
He thinks, not for the first time, that the music of the spheres has got nothing on Benny and Björn.
* * *