(no subject)
I got a random Doctor Who fic idea that I just had to get out, and so...here it is.
Character/Fandom: Ambiguous (you'll see why) // Doctor Who
Word Count: 954
Summary: A letter finds its recipient.
The Letter
There was once a letter written in a moment's pique. Each pen stroke was filled with wrath and utter contempt in that moment, but by the time it got to the signature, that emotion had gone, left only with a cold and unexpected emptiness on the writer's part. From the crumpled state it found itself in, the writer hadn't been too keen to realise such a feeling had lingered and consequently left that letter in the bin for all of an hour.
And then it was uncrumpled, smoothed out, and placed in nice envelope that matched the stationery the letter had been written on in the first place. From there, it was delivered to a special safety deposit box where it would stay for more than a century. The writer knew the letter wouldn't reach its recipient for some time--if it did at all--but oddly didn't mind this fact one bit. What was said had been said in some fashion and thusly, it was out of the writer's mind.
The safety deposit box was broken into one hundred and thirty-two years later where it was catalogued and filed away in the annals of the UNIT archive. While it waited, the ageing process was brought to a halt with advanced archival preservation techniques of the time. Humanity later fled Earth and established countless colonies across the stars. With it, eventually, went the UNIT archives when Earth became too tumultuous to properly, and safely, catalogue everything the organisation had gathered.
Those who found the letter and knew where and when it came from had little to no idea why the letter had been written. There was no time or destination listed for the recipient. Just a name. The message inside had, of course, been seen eons ago, and a copy of the contents had been attached with the letter itself since it was retrieved from the safety deposit box.
Yet still, the message made no sense--at least, anyway, it made no sense to the curious archivists who puzzled over it century after century. Finding the recipient had become something of a mythical task for the archivists who wished to see it delivered and, most importantly, wished to ask why. Why did the letter say what it did?
No amount of searching yielded any results for millennia. The archive passed hands several times through the ages; the name changed over and over, but the intent remained the same.
If only they knew how many times they came close to finding the letter's recipient...
However, enthusiasm for finding the mysterious recipient waned until only half-hearted attempts were made every decade or so. The task became a punishment for wayward workers, and in which case, the search was made with slightly more frequency. The fact remained, though, that by that point, no one wanted to search the entire known universe for one single person. It was a lost cause. Some even felt the name was fabricated by the writer as some kind of joke to get back at UNIT in small and very petty way.
But one day...she was found. The discovery had been a stroke of luck, honestly. Her name had been in the news for curing disease of some kind, but the archivist who heard it forgot the name of the disease in an instant. That disease's name didn't matter; her name did. This particular archivist had been felt plagued by her name and the task set before him since his first day of work.
After much fanfare and celebration, the letter was immediately transported to her location with the utmost care. The archivist knew the precautions made were extensive and over-the-top, but he wasn't taking any chances, not when this mystery originated in a time when humans lived solely on Earth--and the writer had long since disappeared, lost in time.
The recipient, known as Nyssa, accepted the letter though she seemed very confused and, perhaps, even hesitant to see what was within it. Who could possibly know that a person with her name would exist all those years ago? The archivist couldn't help wondering why she would not not ask that exact question. Was she...? The archivist wondered if she had been one of the few who had travelled with the legendary scientific advisor known only as "The Doctor", but knowing that just made the whole thing far more complicated and confusing.
Not to Nyssa, though. Her expression changed several times in a span of seconds as she read, and when she was done, she simply handed the letter back. Now, the archivist was rendered confused and looked between her passive, yet otherwise unreadable expression and the words in the letter.
"But...why?" he managed to ask.
She smiled a small, panged smile and replied, "I don't know. I don't think I'll ever know, but somehow...we must be. There was only one person who could possibly feel this way, and...I can only feel sorry for him." Her smile faded then, her eyes flicking down to look at the letter in his hands. "And for an old, dear friend, as well."
After that, she thanked him for sharing the letter and told him to keep it. It was a part of the archive for this long, so why change that? The archivist couldn't help feeling slightly disappointed despite accomplishing this ancient task. Some questions had been answered, and her short answer alone created decades--if not more--worth of research and work to fill the gaps. And perhaps he would be back on a day that weren't filled with celebrations of her own
Still, those words in that simple letter would always stay with him and, no doubt, with Nyssa as well...
We're even now.
--M
Character/Fandom: Ambiguous (you'll see why) // Doctor Who
Word Count: 954
Summary: A letter finds its recipient.
The Letter
There was once a letter written in a moment's pique. Each pen stroke was filled with wrath and utter contempt in that moment, but by the time it got to the signature, that emotion had gone, left only with a cold and unexpected emptiness on the writer's part. From the crumpled state it found itself in, the writer hadn't been too keen to realise such a feeling had lingered and consequently left that letter in the bin for all of an hour.
And then it was uncrumpled, smoothed out, and placed in nice envelope that matched the stationery the letter had been written on in the first place. From there, it was delivered to a special safety deposit box where it would stay for more than a century. The writer knew the letter wouldn't reach its recipient for some time--if it did at all--but oddly didn't mind this fact one bit. What was said had been said in some fashion and thusly, it was out of the writer's mind.
The safety deposit box was broken into one hundred and thirty-two years later where it was catalogued and filed away in the annals of the UNIT archive. While it waited, the ageing process was brought to a halt with advanced archival preservation techniques of the time. Humanity later fled Earth and established countless colonies across the stars. With it, eventually, went the UNIT archives when Earth became too tumultuous to properly, and safely, catalogue everything the organisation had gathered.
Those who found the letter and knew where and when it came from had little to no idea why the letter had been written. There was no time or destination listed for the recipient. Just a name. The message inside had, of course, been seen eons ago, and a copy of the contents had been attached with the letter itself since it was retrieved from the safety deposit box.
Yet still, the message made no sense--at least, anyway, it made no sense to the curious archivists who puzzled over it century after century. Finding the recipient had become something of a mythical task for the archivists who wished to see it delivered and, most importantly, wished to ask why. Why did the letter say what it did?
No amount of searching yielded any results for millennia. The archive passed hands several times through the ages; the name changed over and over, but the intent remained the same.
If only they knew how many times they came close to finding the letter's recipient...
However, enthusiasm for finding the mysterious recipient waned until only half-hearted attempts were made every decade or so. The task became a punishment for wayward workers, and in which case, the search was made with slightly more frequency. The fact remained, though, that by that point, no one wanted to search the entire known universe for one single person. It was a lost cause. Some even felt the name was fabricated by the writer as some kind of joke to get back at UNIT in small and very petty way.
But one day...she was found. The discovery had been a stroke of luck, honestly. Her name had been in the news for curing disease of some kind, but the archivist who heard it forgot the name of the disease in an instant. That disease's name didn't matter; her name did. This particular archivist had been felt plagued by her name and the task set before him since his first day of work.
After much fanfare and celebration, the letter was immediately transported to her location with the utmost care. The archivist knew the precautions made were extensive and over-the-top, but he wasn't taking any chances, not when this mystery originated in a time when humans lived solely on Earth--and the writer had long since disappeared, lost in time.
The recipient, known as Nyssa, accepted the letter though she seemed very confused and, perhaps, even hesitant to see what was within it. Who could possibly know that a person with her name would exist all those years ago? The archivist couldn't help wondering why she would not not ask that exact question. Was she...? The archivist wondered if she had been one of the few who had travelled with the legendary scientific advisor known only as "The Doctor", but knowing that just made the whole thing far more complicated and confusing.
Not to Nyssa, though. Her expression changed several times in a span of seconds as she read, and when she was done, she simply handed the letter back. Now, the archivist was rendered confused and looked between her passive, yet otherwise unreadable expression and the words in the letter.
"But...why?" he managed to ask.
She smiled a small, panged smile and replied, "I don't know. I don't think I'll ever know, but somehow...we must be. There was only one person who could possibly feel this way, and...I can only feel sorry for him." Her smile faded then, her eyes flicking down to look at the letter in his hands. "And for an old, dear friend, as well."
After that, she thanked him for sharing the letter and told him to keep it. It was a part of the archive for this long, so why change that? The archivist couldn't help feeling slightly disappointed despite accomplishing this ancient task. Some questions had been answered, and her short answer alone created decades--if not more--worth of research and work to fill the gaps. And perhaps he would be back on a day that weren't filled with celebrations of her own
Still, those words in that simple letter would always stay with him and, no doubt, with Nyssa as well...
We're even now.
--M