Chapter Text
She was cold. And falling. Still falling, after all the thousands of thoughts in a tiny amount of seconds had processed themselves in her brain and determined roughly where she was, and what she was hurtling towards, the calculations couldn’t change the fact that she was still cold and still falling and that it was also very dark. Which meant that all those thoughts and calculations could be grossly misinformed and she could really be hurtling towards anything, like the slippery roof of a temple, a muddy battlefield, or even an ocean.
No, not an ocean. If she squinted, the area beneath her was solid and still. The only thing moving was her, towards it, at what was now terminal velocity. It might be a battlefield, or it might be a dark and unlit temple. Or something else entirely, like a dormant volcano, or a terrace house. But her perhaps-still-misinformed-but okay-enough calculations, plus sticking her tongue out, told her that she was on Earth, Northern Hemisphere, Britain, North-ish. So if she survived this crash landing, then there might be some kind humans to help out. Well, maybe. From experience, humans generally didn’t like it if you crash landed in front of them and made a mess, especially if it was in their front room. That had happened before.
All she could really be certain of was that it was probably going to hurt. A lot. Though, she wasn’t sure if it would exact the sharp, fiery pain that she felt in every cell of her body even now, renewing and regenerating themselves. But soon she would find out, because she was coming very close to impact now. Luckily, that meant she could now figure out that she was hurtling towards some train tracks, but she didn’t have enough time to panic about how much that was going to hurt before she hit them with a cry, rolling along the metal, and coming to a halt.
Her eyes were closed. She’d instinctively closed them, as well as cradling her head in her arms. Adrenaline and regenerative energy coursed through her veins and arteries and her two hearts, beating and beating as her chest expanded and deflated to suck in deep, oxygenated breaths from the cool night air. She gradually came to the realisation that she was on her side, with one steel rail digging into her thigh, the other just below her armpit, but not through. She wasn’t wounded – her clothes had helped with that. Talking of her clothes, these didn’t feel like hers. She couldn’t be sure who’s, but they certainly weren’t hers. They also smelt like smoke. Engine smoke.
Something about a fire and an explosion scattered across her cortex, but suddenly her brain was more occupied with the steel rails again, because they had begun to vibrate.
She lowered her arms and pressed her ear closer to the track. Yes, the vibrations were getting more frequent the longer she listened, a humming rhythm that seemed to sync itself with her heartbeats for a few brief moments, before they got faster.
She rolled onto her front, her body still aching all over with jabs of pain in between. She took a long, deep breath, still not enjoying the feeling of the steel digging into her but trying to ignore it, before tilting her head to the side to see if there was actually something coming.
And there was. Around the corner above a grassy mound, a large column of steam shot puffs into the air, leaving a long cloudy trail behind as it curved round. Its front lights were bright and blinding, straight into her eyes, which briefly reminded her of the second moon of Sornax where the sunrise was so bright that its inhabitants had to wear shades and have blackout curtains. It took her one second, maybe two at a push, to snap back to reality though, especially when a loud, shrill whistle hit her ears, spurring her into action to push herself up.
Standing on the tracks now, dizzy but working with it, she realised she was staring head-on at a steam train. A steam train going quite fast, towards her. In the bright light, she couldn’t place it in the running timeline in her brain of Earthly British train models, but she could surmise around the mid-19th century, given the steam. She didn’t have a lot of time to figure out whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, because it let out another shrill whistle, making her cover her ears and finally gain the instinct to move her legs, running to dive onto the grassy bank just in time for the train to go whizzing past her.
She tumbled down through the shrubbery until she hit a thickness of heather, ending up on her back, heaving and tired. She raised her head, watching the train disappear around another wide curve towards a tunnel. She blinked, squinting at the very back carriage. She couldn’t be sure if it was just a shadow as her head really started to grow faint, but a figure seemed to be watching her from the open door as it sailed away. She blinked again, though, and the train had gone, and the mysterious figure along with it.
She rested her head back into the soft heather. Different parts of her body hurt in different ways, ache, sharp pain, dull pain, pulsing twangs of pain. At least her second landing had been somewhat softer. She could feel herself repairing, the fizzing remnants of regenerative energy building up what was lost. The sky above her was full of twinkling stars, and she thought about the fire and the explosion in her beautiful blue box, and where out there in that vast sky it had got to as her chest rose and fell, rose and fell.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yaz had always liked gazing, especially out of windows. Out of the window of her employer’s coach, out of the window of her small bedroom, or now, out of the window of the first class carriage. The sun had set a while ago below the countryside horizon, and now the first of the stars were starting to make their appearance. The moon Yaz couldn’t see, not right now, but she knew it was there, behind the deep blue remains of the day. That twilight colour Yaz found fascinating too – it made her long for what was beyond it, beyond the horizon, beyond night and day, beyond even the realms of the planet itself, though she wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was the curve of the Earth that seemed so clear at this time, so vast and open, that Yaz could imagine so much more.
“You’ve neglected your reading, Miss Khan.”
Yaz drew her eyes away from the view and back towards her hands, where her long-since abandoned book sat in her lap, her fingers still between the pages. She smiled thinly, and turned beside her, towards where her eighteen-year-old charge, Miss Emily Bradford, had made the observation.
“I was just admiring the view,” she replied. She was, really, supposed to be reading. This new job needed skills like sewing, and the book in her hands was meant to be giving her them. But whenever she picked it up, she almost immediately had to work on stifling a yawn. Funnily enough, that wasn’t a skill mentioned in the book. Yaz thought it should be. She could sketch well enough, and speak some French, but she wasn’t very good at hiding her boredom.
“It is only the countryside,” Miss Bradford said with a shrug. “We see it each time we travel to and from my father’s country estate, so I don’t see why you’re so charmed by it.”
This time, it was a sigh that Yaz refrained from. “It’s charming to me, Miss Bradford.”
“I would rather be charmed by a tall and handsome fellow than nature.”
“Maybe that’s where we differ, then.”
And the conversation ended there. Yaz returned her gaze to the country and began to wonder about her own father. He was taking in Yaz’s grandpa’s footsteps and studying maturely at a university in the next city, and Yaz had missed him. After the Bradford family visited church tomorrow morning, Yaz had the day off, since Miss Bradford had plans to prepare for a dinner and a dance at her grandparents’ manor – where they were staying – and didn’t require supervision outside the house.
So, she’d planned to visit her own family. Dad was coming home then, and they could gather around the fire and laugh together about all their tales of being away. They were all proud of Yaz, getting this job and all, and they didn’t mind much that she hadn’t found a husband like her sister had – some factory clerk. Yaz was earning her own keep instead, though even that form of independence was getting old, and she’d only started a month ago. But, it was independence all the same, and especially for someone like her, surrounded by frowning strangers and unspoken disapproval, stability was something to be treasured.
The only thing Yaz didn’t like about gazing out of train windows was that her own reflection stared back at her when she went through a tunnel. Regardless of class, each passenger was forced to reflect on themselves through their own eyes. It unnerved Yaz, seeing herself in such a blurred and pretty dismal way, like a distorted mirror, so she usually looked away, not wanting to dwell on herself and her deeper thoughts for any longer than she had to.
In this instance, she glanced instead at Miss Bradford beside her, who had her head down and in her own book, likely something fantastical, something that Yaz would want to escape into. Yaz didn’t linger long, mostly just looking at the book, but something caught her eye on her charge’s bonnet. As Yaz looked further the reflection made it hard to determine, but it appeared that there was something on top of it. No, not even that. There was no bonnet at all. Just something round, dull green in colour, and squirming about. It seemed to be attached, moulded almost, over the girl’s head, but she didn’t seem fazed at all. Yaz’s eyes widened and she couldn’t help but look at it in a kind of curious terror, her mouth falling open.
Suddenly snapping to her senses, she turned towards Miss Bradford, half-crying out in surprise, before trailing off, mouth still open. It was a bonnet. There was nothing else there, situated on Miss Bradford’s head, other than a bonnet. Miss Bradford then looked at her, and furrowed her eyebrows.
“Miss Khan, you look startled. What’s wrong?”
Yaz gulped. “No, sorry. I…it’s nothing.”
“Have I got something on my face? In my hair?”
Yaz blinked, and shook her head, returning to the window, where they’d left the tunnel, and the deep blue was becoming darker, pretty much black, which made her nervous now.
“No, Miss Bradford. It’s nothing.”
Miss Bradford returned to her reading, and Yaz to her view. She had her back to the engine, and could see the retreating track. She focused on that, trying not to think about what she thought she just saw. It was like something out of a nightmare, though not an intense, screaming nightmare. Something chilling, something that sent dread shivering down her spine. Yaz shut her eyes, hoping she wouldn’t see it in her dreams tonight.
She snapped them open almost immediately though as the train let out a long, shrill whistle that pierced through Yaz’s ears.
“What on Earth is he whistling like that for?” Miss Bradford complained, wincing too. “Is he trying to scare an animal away?”
“Maybe,” Yaz muttered, peering outside more closely now, craning her neck to see both ways.
The train whistled again and the two women winced with it. Yaz ignored Miss Bradford’s further complaints and looked around to see if she could figure out why the driver was sending alarms. As she looked out towards the back of the train, she spied something rolling down the bank into the heather. No, not something. Someone.
Yaz rose, followed by the faint protests of Miss Bradford, who ended up trailing behind her as she made her way swiftly to the back of the train. It wasn’t far – they were in the very rear carriage – and Yaz opened the door to look out, the cold wind hitting her face. Yes, there was a figure, laid down now, amongst the shrubbery, their path of near death imprinted into the foliage leading to their body. Yaz could only watch as the train sailed away towards the amber city glow, but she kept her eyes on the figure for as long as she could before they curved around the corner, and in her mind she vowed she’d make enquiries.
“...Miss Khan!” Yaz suddenly turned around, meeting Miss Bradford’s folded arms and grumpy face. “I’m cold,” she huffed.
“Right, of course.”
Yaz shut the door. A couple of other passengers had left their compartments to see why on Earth the back end of the carriage had been opened, but Yaz ignored their stares as she and Miss Bradford made their way back. Miss Bradford was staring at her too, but only spoke once they’d sat down.
“What’s wrong?” she insisted. “First you cry out, next you open the rear door of the train as if you’re ready to jump. I…should I mention this to my father?”
“No!” Yaz cried in panic, then quietened down. “I’m fine, Miss Bradford. I just needed some air, that’s all."
Miss Bradford looked as though she was about to speak, but then stopped, and returned to her book once more. Yaz, this time, stared straight ahead as they headed into another tunnel, not daring to test her imagination in the reflections of the window again tonight. There was a simple but warm bed awaiting her at the Senior Mr Bradford’s manor, and so she decided to focus her attention on that instead.