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littledoglaughedTitle: A Pocketful of Mumbles
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rustydog
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: alien, Ianto, Jack, Gwen, Tosh
Rating/warnings: PG; spoiler for a non-plot detail from Children of Earth, if you squint
Words: 900
Notes: Unbeta'd. Written for Day Ten of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
consci_fan_mo. I've taken slight liberties with the Millennium Centre venues, but hopefully they'll forgive me. Lyric prompt by donutsweeper:
I am just a poor boy
Though my story's seldom told
I have squandered my resistance
For a pocket full of mumbles such are promises
All lies and jests
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest
~ "The Boxer" by Simon and Garfunkel
It wasn't enough that he'd fled his planet and crashed here, that the agrarian workers near his ship had set their attack animals on him, or that the children shouted and threw chunks of the planet's crust, injuring his subdermal midskeleton. It wasn't enough that nothing was accomplished here without the exchange of some sort of visible or invisible currency he didn't have, that none of the vehicles he met would admit a visitor like him and he'd had to walk for nearly a day to a population center. It wasn't enough that miserably cold precipitation was always falling from the sky or that it had soaked through his clothing and ruined the image box he carried of his children.
It wasn't even enough that an aggressive humanoid animal had attacked him at night or that then two humans appeared, shoving him aside and doing much violence to the creature before subduing it and dragging it away. All that wasn't enough, and now the humans were dragging him away, too.
So he sat in a cold enclosure in this dark, frightening place, next to the howling humanoid, for what felt like a day, not that he could tell so far underground. Eventually two of the humans came to look at him, but while the male who seemed to be in charge argued with a spirited female, throwing out words like "hidden threat" against "refugee," the visitor just reached into his pocket for the thousandth time and stroked the tiny, spherical stone he was keeping there. He was glad he'd remembered to take it from the wreckage of his ship. He wanted to survive in this place, but if he couldn't, it was comforting to know that he could end his own suffering. The energy pulse wouldn't destroy much of the city, but enough... and from what he'd seen of this planet so far, he might be doing the incidental victims a favor.
*
The female seemed to have won the argument; she came into his enclosure and spoke kindly to him before leading him out and up into a much larger room with more advanced technology than he'd seen elsewhere on the planet. "He looks enough like us," said another female (No, you look like me, he thought), "it's just his clothes that are a little... different. Ianto, maybe you could...?"
The male she was addressing nodded and soon was escorting him back to the surface, where they entered a vehicle. It was as warm and dry inside as he had hoped the day before, when the vehicles would do nothing but splash showers of precipitation on him from the road. They navigated into the busy center of the city, where they visited retail establishments and he was urged to put on uncomfortable garments. Finally, transactions were made with the invisible currency.
But when they had navigated back through the busy streets and stopped the vehicle, the male called Ianto did not return to their starting point, the underground bunker. He led them toward a very large, reflective building instead. "Don't tell Jack," he said, "but I've got a personal errand, and I can't leave you alone. Don't worry, I think you'll like it."
They joined a crowd of humans filing into the building, which made him nervous, but none of them seemed to even be looking at him. They entered a cavernous room with row upon row of seats, found places near the back, and settled down. Ianto showed him how to fold his coat across his lap.
"There's an adult group performing first, then my niece's school chorus, then we can sneak out," Ianto said.
The visitor didn't know what any of that meant, but it was warm here, and no one was trying to hurt him. Still, out of habit he soothed himself by feeling the round stone in his pocket. He'd managed to transfer it from his old clothes without being seen. He was surprised that none of the equipment in the bunker had detected it, but he wouldn't question his fortune. On a planet like this, it was important to have his escape option.
Finally, something began to happen on the platform at the front of the room. Adult humans, male and female wearing black, walked in from hidden areas at the side of the platform and arranged themselves in rows in the middle. The crowd of humans around him hushed and the room suddenly seemed huge, with all that empty space waiting. The humans in their rows on the platform were still, waiting for a signal.
The anticipation was horrible. He closed his hand around the stone, ready for whatever was coming. He saw the females open their mouths in unison.
And a sound came out. It was thirty individual sounds, but they blended as one complex voice, pure as starlight, supple as reeds, weaving through the air like the birds that used to hunt near his childhood home. Then the males opened their mouths, and the collective voice deepened, rich as soil.
It was incredible. That this sound, this miracle could be produced by the same world he had crashed in two days ago... he couldn't have imagined.
He gave an involuntary moan, and Ianto looked over at him. "You're crying," he observed very quietly, and nodded. "Humans do that too."
The visitor looked back at Ianto, who smiled and said, "Welcome to Earth."
Author:
rustydogFandom: Torchwood
Characters: alien, Ianto, Jack, Gwen, Tosh
Rating/warnings: PG; spoiler for a non-plot detail from Children of Earth, if you squint
Words: 900
Notes: Unbeta'd. Written for Day Ten of
consci_fan_mo. I've taken slight liberties with the Millennium Centre venues, but hopefully they'll forgive me. Lyric prompt by donutsweeper: Though my story's seldom told
I have squandered my resistance
For a pocket full of mumbles such are promises
All lies and jests
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest
~ "The Boxer" by Simon and Garfunkel
It wasn't enough that he'd fled his planet and crashed here, that the agrarian workers near his ship had set their attack animals on him, or that the children shouted and threw chunks of the planet's crust, injuring his subdermal midskeleton. It wasn't enough that nothing was accomplished here without the exchange of some sort of visible or invisible currency he didn't have, that none of the vehicles he met would admit a visitor like him and he'd had to walk for nearly a day to a population center. It wasn't enough that miserably cold precipitation was always falling from the sky or that it had soaked through his clothing and ruined the image box he carried of his children.
It wasn't even enough that an aggressive humanoid animal had attacked him at night or that then two humans appeared, shoving him aside and doing much violence to the creature before subduing it and dragging it away. All that wasn't enough, and now the humans were dragging him away, too.
So he sat in a cold enclosure in this dark, frightening place, next to the howling humanoid, for what felt like a day, not that he could tell so far underground. Eventually two of the humans came to look at him, but while the male who seemed to be in charge argued with a spirited female, throwing out words like "hidden threat" against "refugee," the visitor just reached into his pocket for the thousandth time and stroked the tiny, spherical stone he was keeping there. He was glad he'd remembered to take it from the wreckage of his ship. He wanted to survive in this place, but if he couldn't, it was comforting to know that he could end his own suffering. The energy pulse wouldn't destroy much of the city, but enough... and from what he'd seen of this planet so far, he might be doing the incidental victims a favor.
*
The female seemed to have won the argument; she came into his enclosure and spoke kindly to him before leading him out and up into a much larger room with more advanced technology than he'd seen elsewhere on the planet. "He looks enough like us," said another female (No, you look like me, he thought), "it's just his clothes that are a little... different. Ianto, maybe you could...?"
The male she was addressing nodded and soon was escorting him back to the surface, where they entered a vehicle. It was as warm and dry inside as he had hoped the day before, when the vehicles would do nothing but splash showers of precipitation on him from the road. They navigated into the busy center of the city, where they visited retail establishments and he was urged to put on uncomfortable garments. Finally, transactions were made with the invisible currency.
But when they had navigated back through the busy streets and stopped the vehicle, the male called Ianto did not return to their starting point, the underground bunker. He led them toward a very large, reflective building instead. "Don't tell Jack," he said, "but I've got a personal errand, and I can't leave you alone. Don't worry, I think you'll like it."
They joined a crowd of humans filing into the building, which made him nervous, but none of them seemed to even be looking at him. They entered a cavernous room with row upon row of seats, found places near the back, and settled down. Ianto showed him how to fold his coat across his lap.
"There's an adult group performing first, then my niece's school chorus, then we can sneak out," Ianto said.
The visitor didn't know what any of that meant, but it was warm here, and no one was trying to hurt him. Still, out of habit he soothed himself by feeling the round stone in his pocket. He'd managed to transfer it from his old clothes without being seen. He was surprised that none of the equipment in the bunker had detected it, but he wouldn't question his fortune. On a planet like this, it was important to have his escape option.
Finally, something began to happen on the platform at the front of the room. Adult humans, male and female wearing black, walked in from hidden areas at the side of the platform and arranged themselves in rows in the middle. The crowd of humans around him hushed and the room suddenly seemed huge, with all that empty space waiting. The humans in their rows on the platform were still, waiting for a signal.
The anticipation was horrible. He closed his hand around the stone, ready for whatever was coming. He saw the females open their mouths in unison.
And a sound came out. It was thirty individual sounds, but they blended as one complex voice, pure as starlight, supple as reeds, weaving through the air like the birds that used to hunt near his childhood home. Then the males opened their mouths, and the collective voice deepened, rich as soil.
It was incredible. That this sound, this miracle could be produced by the same world he had crashed in two days ago... he couldn't have imagined.
He gave an involuntary moan, and Ianto looked over at him. "You're crying," he observed very quietly, and nodded. "Humans do that too."
The visitor looked back at Ianto, who smiled and said, "Welcome to Earth."
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-12-10 03:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-10 04:19 pm (UTC)Thank you!
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Date: 2009-12-10 07:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-10 11:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-10 05:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-10 10:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-10 11:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-11 01:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-10 11:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-11 01:30 pm (UTC)Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it! :)
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Date: 2009-12-22 03:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-23 05:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-11 07:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-11 08:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-11 10:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-23 05:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-12 03:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-13 12:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-12 04:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-13 12:23 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-12-20 07:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-21 12:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-22 03:12 pm (UTC)children
I read *chicken* so it took me a couple of moments to readjust...
I do like the idea that music (especially when Wales is involved) has the power to do that.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-23 05:21 am (UTC)I do like the idea that music (especially when Wales is involved) has the power to do that.
It does for me. Not for everyone, but I assume I'm not alone.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-09 06:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-05 03:13 pm (UTC)