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wytchcroftThe burly, tussled haired, youth charged down the slope of the hill with the last of the afternoon’s golden sun receding behind him. He was at full pelt, kilt flying, a sharp dirk clenched in one broad raised fist and a guttural war-cry on his tongue. “Craeg-an”-
The lad stopped abruptly. Och, and what’s the point? he thought. No English here, not even any stray sheep to put the wind up, just him, in the drear, alone. Craeg-an-tuire. “Might as well be Brigadoon!” he said out loud. He blinked and shook his head, now where had that come from? He didn’t even know what it meant, Brigadoon. But he had to surely?
“I don’t know...” he said slowly, features thoughtful. Ever since that Sassenach’s musket had caught him a good one on the head he’d not been feeling himself at all.
Now, laddie, we’ll have none of that nonsense, he told himself sharply. I know perfectly well who I am; I’m Jamie McCrimmon, of the clan McLaren. The clan piper no less.
Aye, that was true enough. And perhaps that would settle him down, a good bit of piping as the day reached its end. Aye...
He thrust his dirk into his belt and rummaged into the bag slung across his back. His hand found the musical instrument inside and pulled it out.
Wait, what? Someone must be playing tricks on me, he thought with a flash of anger, to cover the confusion building in him again. That was no bagpipe in his hand; it was a recorder, a kiddie’s flute.
“Yes I’m sorry about that,” said an urbane voice abruptly from nowhere, “I’m rather afraid it’s mine.”
Deft fingers plucked the instrument from Jamie’s fingers causing him to whirl about ridiculously as he attempted to snatch it back. Seizing the moment (as well as the recorder) the stranger let loose a flurry of notes for Jamie to whirl along with.
Somewhat breathless, the lad came to a stop at last, face to mischievous face with the stranger. “Now look here you”-
“Hello Jamie.”
The stranger was a short rumpled figure of a man in a well worn selection of clothes and with a bohemian air. He was smiling broadly and peering up at McCrimmon with a pair of large soulful eyes that crinkled into impish laugh lines.
Jamie regarded the fellow with deep suspicion. And yet... there was something – something that nagged at him. “I don’t know you,” he said, trying to sound forceful. “I don’t know you.” But that nagging sensation was still there and the man’s smile seemed so genuine.
“I don’t know you – do I know you?”
The stranger looked suddenly aghast, his hands flew up to his face as if reassuring himself it was still there. He gave a sigh. His shoulders having climbed to comical heights relaxed visibly.
“Well that’s a relief, for a moment I thought they’d gone and done it.”
“Done what?”
“Changed me.”
“Changed –“
“Yes, Jamie, changed. That’s what they want to do you see, the Time Lords. My...” he sought for the word, “chieftains. D’you see? And that wouldn’t be fair at all would it? I mean, I’m not a vain chap – or... well, p'raps I am... hmm... Anyway Jamie, I’m quite happy how I am thank you very much and I don’t appreciate the idea of somebody just rearranging me willy-nilly. No/one would recognise me.”
“Well, I don’t recognise you!”
“Yes you do, you just don’t remember me – that’s different and we can do something about it too. Let’s see where did I, oh yes here we are.”
Out of a voluminous pocket in one leg of his battered and baggy trousers the man produced a bangle of some sort and waved it significantly. “That’s showing ‘em, eh Jamie? Can’t get round me so easily! Rules were meant to be – well, best not broadcast the news too loudly perhaps.” He scowled off into the distance. “The hills have... ears,” he muttered darkly – and not a little nonsensically.
“Man, you’re off your head!” Jamie exploded, his patience snapping. “You’re addled man! Your wits are flown, I tell you.” He looked fiercely but not unkindly down at the figure before him. “You need a doctor.”
To Jamie’s surprise the little man beamed a brilliant smile and grasped his hand enthusiastically. “But Jamie, I AM the Doctor!” A curious hopeful light shone from the dark lanterns of the man’s eyes. “Remember?”
Jamie had stopped the moment the Doctor took his hand. The nagging feeling... with the firm contact of the warm hand on his it surged up in him like a song looking for escape from a Gaelic singer’s throat. Like the rebel yell he could not finish uttering but moments before. “I... I...” he knuckled his eyes as if convinced he was dreaming. “The Doctor..?”
It was if he were testing the name on a tongue gone out of practice.
“But that’s right Jamie!” enthused the Doctor. “You must remember. Doesn’t all this,” he gestured a flailing arm at the darkened hillside, “seem wrong; Stale, flat and unprofitable, as the bard says? Where’s the adventure, eh Jamie McCrimmon? The excitement out among the stars through time and space. Where’s the Tardis?”
Jamie was following the wave of the arm and heard himself saying slowly “Adventure, aye... and I have been feeling... something’s not quite right.”
“Exactly. Because it isn’t – it isn’t right at all. The Time Lords, Jamie, they stole your memory. You’ve been brainwashed!”
Now there was a dawning light in the boy’s eyes to match the stranger’s. “Under a spell d’you mean?”
“Of a sort Jamie. Tell me, don’t you find all this – unreal?“
“Aye,” the lad said with certainty now, “that I do – Doctor. I don’t fit here, somehow it’s not... well, it just isn’t me.”
“But of course it isn’t! C’mon m’boy – let’s get out of here and sort you out.” That smile again. And the bangle clutched in both their hands. The Doctor was looking at Jamie as if waiting on something.
“Well, what to do I have to do?” asked the boy.
“Just click your heels together and say; “There’s no place like home!” And the Doctor burst into laughter.
“There’s no place like...” Jamie, knowing he was being gently kidded nonetheless repeated the words and the last came out in wonder as he gazed at the bright white sudden surroundings. Far from the vague misty hillside, this was a large white walled room, new and strange and dazzling but for all that somehow... “...home?”
He gazed with wide eyes at the Doctor who was busying himself in the centre of the room with some sort of engine, seemed like, making the thing come to life with a rising falling motion like a piston. The very walls were humming. The Doctor was chatting away, half to himself. “Time rings Jamie, not very subtle – but they get the job done,” a dry chuckle. “Just not the job THEY wanted, heh. Not this time!”
Jamie, feeling more himself, more awake, more energised – was still, understandably, bewildered.
“They?” he asked, “These chieftains of yours?”
“Well yes Jamie. You see they thought they could bamboozle me into doing what they wanted; missions indeed, as if I were some sort of agent. Pfff! But that was the price for a little extra freedom on the leash. But I out smarted ‘em again. I always do!” And the Doctor stuck out his chest proudly, which, in his battered over-sized clothes and given his plucky but diminutive stature looked a little comical.
Jamie, with his head still clearing said. “So these bosses of yours, you don’t get on I take it. You said they wanted to change you?”
“That’s right Jamie.” The Doctor gave a philosophical sigh as he rubbed his face in the way Jamie had seen him do before. “I had to try and fight that at least – even though, between you and me, I do KNOW that change is a constant. Yes, yes, everything changes.” He squinted up at his companion, “Even you, Jamie.”
Jamie felt his own hands moving to his face, mimicking the Doctor’s gestures. “Me? I changed?”
The Doctor was laughing again now, “Yes. Jamie.” He nimbly avoided detailing his own role in those events. His laughter stopped suddenly and his smile dropped like a box lid. “I didn’t like it.”
“Best stay as we are, eh?”
“Exactly Jamie and welcome home!” That word again. It was beginning to sound right.
“D’you see,” The Doctor had contented himself that the motor was running as it should, leaning back against its housing and in a ruminative turn, “they wanted to kill me in a way; make me their pet and meanwhile take away my face, my freedom – and my friends Jamie, you. Take you away and put you somewhere, somewhere you’d left a long time ago. Well, I couldn’t stand – for that.”
“Well, I tell you what I could stand for; some food. Have you nothing to eat in this white palace of yours?” Jamie was smiling openly at the Doctor now. “I’m fair famished, I could eat a horse!” He reached out and gently touched the no longer stranger on the shoulder.
Coming back to himself, the Doctor chuckled in mock admonishment. “Well I don’t think even the Tardis has horses onboard – and I’m not sure I‘d approve of you eating them! All the same, I’m sure we can rustle something up. Come on let me show you around – again. Everything is just how you left it.”
And smiling the two companions in time and space went out from the console room.
Barely had the internal doors closed when there was a flash, a bang and thick dark smoke began to pour from the central column of the time rota. An alarm began to sound insistently.
The doors flew again at the noise and two faces peered back through.
One darkened and frowning, the other younger and laughing out loud.
“A constant you say? Well looks like some things never change!”
He sounded glad about that, very glad indeed.
..............................................
happy birthday!!!!! - please excuse any proofing/typo errrors, i'll clean them when i spot them!
The lad stopped abruptly. Och, and what’s the point? he thought. No English here, not even any stray sheep to put the wind up, just him, in the drear, alone. Craeg-an-tuire. “Might as well be Brigadoon!” he said out loud. He blinked and shook his head, now where had that come from? He didn’t even know what it meant, Brigadoon. But he had to surely?
“I don’t know...” he said slowly, features thoughtful. Ever since that Sassenach’s musket had caught him a good one on the head he’d not been feeling himself at all.
Now, laddie, we’ll have none of that nonsense, he told himself sharply. I know perfectly well who I am; I’m Jamie McCrimmon, of the clan McLaren. The clan piper no less.
Aye, that was true enough. And perhaps that would settle him down, a good bit of piping as the day reached its end. Aye...
He thrust his dirk into his belt and rummaged into the bag slung across his back. His hand found the musical instrument inside and pulled it out.
Wait, what? Someone must be playing tricks on me, he thought with a flash of anger, to cover the confusion building in him again. That was no bagpipe in his hand; it was a recorder, a kiddie’s flute.
“Yes I’m sorry about that,” said an urbane voice abruptly from nowhere, “I’m rather afraid it’s mine.”
Deft fingers plucked the instrument from Jamie’s fingers causing him to whirl about ridiculously as he attempted to snatch it back. Seizing the moment (as well as the recorder) the stranger let loose a flurry of notes for Jamie to whirl along with.
Somewhat breathless, the lad came to a stop at last, face to mischievous face with the stranger. “Now look here you”-
“Hello Jamie.”
The stranger was a short rumpled figure of a man in a well worn selection of clothes and with a bohemian air. He was smiling broadly and peering up at McCrimmon with a pair of large soulful eyes that crinkled into impish laugh lines.
Jamie regarded the fellow with deep suspicion. And yet... there was something – something that nagged at him. “I don’t know you,” he said, trying to sound forceful. “I don’t know you.” But that nagging sensation was still there and the man’s smile seemed so genuine.
“I don’t know you – do I know you?”
The stranger looked suddenly aghast, his hands flew up to his face as if reassuring himself it was still there. He gave a sigh. His shoulders having climbed to comical heights relaxed visibly.
“Well that’s a relief, for a moment I thought they’d gone and done it.”
“Done what?”
“Changed me.”
“Changed –“
“Yes, Jamie, changed. That’s what they want to do you see, the Time Lords. My...” he sought for the word, “chieftains. D’you see? And that wouldn’t be fair at all would it? I mean, I’m not a vain chap – or... well, p'raps I am... hmm... Anyway Jamie, I’m quite happy how I am thank you very much and I don’t appreciate the idea of somebody just rearranging me willy-nilly. No/one would recognise me.”
“Well, I don’t recognise you!”
“Yes you do, you just don’t remember me – that’s different and we can do something about it too. Let’s see where did I, oh yes here we are.”
Out of a voluminous pocket in one leg of his battered and baggy trousers the man produced a bangle of some sort and waved it significantly. “That’s showing ‘em, eh Jamie? Can’t get round me so easily! Rules were meant to be – well, best not broadcast the news too loudly perhaps.” He scowled off into the distance. “The hills have... ears,” he muttered darkly – and not a little nonsensically.
“Man, you’re off your head!” Jamie exploded, his patience snapping. “You’re addled man! Your wits are flown, I tell you.” He looked fiercely but not unkindly down at the figure before him. “You need a doctor.”
To Jamie’s surprise the little man beamed a brilliant smile and grasped his hand enthusiastically. “But Jamie, I AM the Doctor!” A curious hopeful light shone from the dark lanterns of the man’s eyes. “Remember?”
Jamie had stopped the moment the Doctor took his hand. The nagging feeling... with the firm contact of the warm hand on his it surged up in him like a song looking for escape from a Gaelic singer’s throat. Like the rebel yell he could not finish uttering but moments before. “I... I...” he knuckled his eyes as if convinced he was dreaming. “The Doctor..?”
It was if he were testing the name on a tongue gone out of practice.
“But that’s right Jamie!” enthused the Doctor. “You must remember. Doesn’t all this,” he gestured a flailing arm at the darkened hillside, “seem wrong; Stale, flat and unprofitable, as the bard says? Where’s the adventure, eh Jamie McCrimmon? The excitement out among the stars through time and space. Where’s the Tardis?”
Jamie was following the wave of the arm and heard himself saying slowly “Adventure, aye... and I have been feeling... something’s not quite right.”
“Exactly. Because it isn’t – it isn’t right at all. The Time Lords, Jamie, they stole your memory. You’ve been brainwashed!”
Now there was a dawning light in the boy’s eyes to match the stranger’s. “Under a spell d’you mean?”
“Of a sort Jamie. Tell me, don’t you find all this – unreal?“
“Aye,” the lad said with certainty now, “that I do – Doctor. I don’t fit here, somehow it’s not... well, it just isn’t me.”
“But of course it isn’t! C’mon m’boy – let’s get out of here and sort you out.” That smile again. And the bangle clutched in both their hands. The Doctor was looking at Jamie as if waiting on something.
“Well, what to do I have to do?” asked the boy.
“Just click your heels together and say; “There’s no place like home!” And the Doctor burst into laughter.
“There’s no place like...” Jamie, knowing he was being gently kidded nonetheless repeated the words and the last came out in wonder as he gazed at the bright white sudden surroundings. Far from the vague misty hillside, this was a large white walled room, new and strange and dazzling but for all that somehow... “...home?”
He gazed with wide eyes at the Doctor who was busying himself in the centre of the room with some sort of engine, seemed like, making the thing come to life with a rising falling motion like a piston. The very walls were humming. The Doctor was chatting away, half to himself. “Time rings Jamie, not very subtle – but they get the job done,” a dry chuckle. “Just not the job THEY wanted, heh. Not this time!”
Jamie, feeling more himself, more awake, more energised – was still, understandably, bewildered.
“They?” he asked, “These chieftains of yours?”
“Well yes Jamie. You see they thought they could bamboozle me into doing what they wanted; missions indeed, as if I were some sort of agent. Pfff! But that was the price for a little extra freedom on the leash. But I out smarted ‘em again. I always do!” And the Doctor stuck out his chest proudly, which, in his battered over-sized clothes and given his plucky but diminutive stature looked a little comical.
Jamie, with his head still clearing said. “So these bosses of yours, you don’t get on I take it. You said they wanted to change you?”
“That’s right Jamie.” The Doctor gave a philosophical sigh as he rubbed his face in the way Jamie had seen him do before. “I had to try and fight that at least – even though, between you and me, I do KNOW that change is a constant. Yes, yes, everything changes.” He squinted up at his companion, “Even you, Jamie.”
Jamie felt his own hands moving to his face, mimicking the Doctor’s gestures. “Me? I changed?”
The Doctor was laughing again now, “Yes. Jamie.” He nimbly avoided detailing his own role in those events. His laughter stopped suddenly and his smile dropped like a box lid. “I didn’t like it.”
“Best stay as we are, eh?”
“Exactly Jamie and welcome home!” That word again. It was beginning to sound right.
“D’you see,” The Doctor had contented himself that the motor was running as it should, leaning back against its housing and in a ruminative turn, “they wanted to kill me in a way; make me their pet and meanwhile take away my face, my freedom – and my friends Jamie, you. Take you away and put you somewhere, somewhere you’d left a long time ago. Well, I couldn’t stand – for that.”
“Well, I tell you what I could stand for; some food. Have you nothing to eat in this white palace of yours?” Jamie was smiling openly at the Doctor now. “I’m fair famished, I could eat a horse!” He reached out and gently touched the no longer stranger on the shoulder.
Coming back to himself, the Doctor chuckled in mock admonishment. “Well I don’t think even the Tardis has horses onboard – and I’m not sure I‘d approve of you eating them! All the same, I’m sure we can rustle something up. Come on let me show you around – again. Everything is just how you left it.”
And smiling the two companions in time and space went out from the console room.
Barely had the internal doors closed when there was a flash, a bang and thick dark smoke began to pour from the central column of the time rota. An alarm began to sound insistently.
The doors flew again at the noise and two faces peered back through.
One darkened and frowning, the other younger and laughing out loud.
“A constant you say? Well looks like some things never change!”
He sounded glad about that, very glad indeed.
..............................................
happy birthday!!!!! - please excuse any proofing/typo errrors, i'll clean them when i spot them!
no subject
Date: 2012-10-17 08:44 pm (UTC)I meant to comment before now but its been a bit of a week of housematey stress and worry. However, more positively and far more excitingly, I had another distraction in the form of a meeting about a Halloween special someone I know is doing on local internet radio! :-)
no subject
Date: 2012-10-19 07:51 am (UTC)are you allowed to spill the beans on the Halloween special? Will you be involved? Don't forget to pack a silver bullet and some holy water just in case...
sorry to hear about the housematey stress and yeah, again, happy birthday :)))
no subject
Date: 2012-10-24 11:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-24 12:03 pm (UTC)i hope it all goes fabbishly :-D