Ficlet: William And The Space Animal
Okay, this is a strange one - a pre-Torchwood Nosy-Verse ficlet about Nosy’s first human encounter on earth.
Title: William And The Space Animal
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Nosy, OMC William
Rating: G
Word Count: 480
Summary: Nosy briefly finds a playmate while it’s wandering lost in the countryside, soon after arriving on earth and weeks before it meets Torchwood.
Spoilers: None
Warnings: No Torchwood in this one. This is the closest I’ve ever come to writing original fiction, so this one won’t be getting cross-posted anywhere simply because it’s not strictly speaking a Torchwood fic so it doesn’t belong on any of the Torchwood communities. I will put it up on ff.net and AO3 though, because it’s part of the Nosy-Verse.
Written For: radondoran over on comment_fic for their prompt ‘William And The Space Animal’
Disclaimer: In this case, I DO own the characters, though I don’t own the story the title originally belonged to, which is a book in the Just William series by Ricmal Crompton.
William sat down on the grass and looked at the thing. The thing looked right back at him. He wasn’t worried though, it didn’t look scary; mostly it just looked fluffy and green.
It had to be an animal, because animals were furry, but it didn’t look like any of the animals in his picture books, so William decided that it must be an animal from outer space. He wondered if space animals could talk like people did.
“Hello, I’m William. Can you talk?” he asked the space animal.
The space animal just blinked its big, round, green eyes and went “Hummmmm.”
“Oh. Well, that’s okay. We could still play if you want. I have a ball.” William bounced his ball. It didn’t bounce too well on grass. “Wanna play fetch? I throw the ball then you chase it and bring it back to me.” His auntie’s dog did that. William didn’t have a dog. He’d asked his parents and they’d said maybe he could have one when he was older. He was four now, so maybe he’d be old enough next year.
He threw the ball, and the space animal chased it. It was funny to watch because the animal didn’t have any legs. It looked like a snake with a dog’s head. It didn’t have any ears either and William wondered how it could hear.
It was surprisingly fast, even without legs, and it must have understood William because soon it was back with the ball in its mouth. It dropped the ball at his feet and looked expectantly at William, wagging its… well, its whole body really. William laughed and threw the ball again.
He was having a lot of fun. He hadn’t thought he would because his parents were busy putting up the tent and arguing a lot about how to do things. There weren’t any other kids around, except his sister, and she didn’t count because she was twelve and said she had better things to do than play with a little kid. She was supposed to be watching William to make sure he stayed out of trouble, but she was probably talking to her friends on her phone. William didn’t care; he’d found himself a new friend, one that liked playing with him. They played ball, and tag, and explored among the trees, and when William got tired he lay down for a bit and used his new friend as a pillow. It was very soft and warm.
He was woken up by shouting. It sounded like his parents were angry with his sister.
“You were supposed to be watching him!” his dad yelled.
William stood up and brushed the dirt off his clothes, but when he turned to speak to his friend, it had gone. Sighing, he made his way back to the campsite, wondering if he’d ever see the space animal again.
The End