One moment she had been standing next to the Doctor, and the next she was in the middle of a forest, surrounded by huge trees. She looked down at her vortex manipulator, brow furrowing as she punched at the buttons on her wrist. Nothing happened. She remained standing bewilderedly next to a huge tree, her shoes sinking slightly into the carpet of moss.
Apparently her vortex manipulator had malfunctioned, shooting her off to a random moment in space and time. She released a sigh of frustration and planted one hand on her hip, staring down at the vortex manipulator with a disapproving expression. Usually, that sort of pose made people do what she wanted, combined with her quick wit and charmingly sweet smile. However, the vortex manipulator remained stubbornly powerless.
With a dejected sigh, Oswin Oswald leaned against the tree next to her, crossing her arms as she took in her surroundings. It was a very open forest, with huge trees, so tall that Oswin couldn't see their tops as she peered upward into the forest canopy. The overcast sky left the forest swimming in a whitewashed haze, but the colors of the forest seemed brighter than they should have been - deep green leaves and fuzzy moss in an almost neon green hue, with the dark mahogany brown that colored most of the tree bark. The forest seemed off somehow - it seemed forebidding and mysterious. She felt like something moved in the corner of her vision, but when she turned toward it, whipping out her trusty whisk as a self-defense mechanism, there was nothing there but the ancient trees, continuing on in succession as far as her eyes could see. She could have sworn that there were shifty forms flitting among the trees, like so many alien shadows bent on scaring her.
She turned back around, then around again, facing a random direction, and began walking. No, wait - she turned around again, raising one eyebrow as she spun on one foot. Then she continued walking, still in a random direction, but a different random direction than the one she had been about to go in a few moments ago. She was the kind of girl who liked to really think about which random direction she was going to walk in.
Maybe if the vortex manipulator malfunctioned again, it would take her somewhere else. She looked down at the device and randomly pressed the time coordinates button. The device emitted a tiny beep with each press. She entered the coordinates she had been trying to reach before and poked the vortex button, hoping for that familiar itchy stretching feeling and the sudden wind of the time vortex blowing back her hair. But nothing happened, and the air of the forest around her remained perfectly still and eerily silent.
Sitting down at the base of the tree, she pulled the manipulator out of the leather strap on her wrist and searched her utility belt for a little while before finding the mini-sized screwdriver in a pocket with a paperclip and a folded soufflé recipe. She flipped over the manipulator and unscrewed the tiny screws that kept the polished metal cover over the device's inner workings. When all of the screws were out, she stored them safely in a very tiny pocket in her utility belt and pressed on the cover with her thumbs. It slid off, and she blinked in surprise and squinted at the device's innards. They were perfectly fine. She poked at the wires. They were all connected correctly, and there were no sparks or smoke rising from the organs.
Oswin frowned and put the thing back together, then popped it into the leather case on her wrist. It was of no use to her until she could figure out how to fix it. She was usually good at fixing things, but this time the solution eluded her, considering that the insides of the device were perfectly fine. She returned all her tools to her utility belt and then pulled out her whisk, slapping it gently against her palm. She would have liked to sit somewhere and bake a nice soufflé.
"Oswin!" called an urgent voice behind her.
No comments:
Post a Comment