clashildr one shots

You're Going To Get Us Both Arrested

   As Albert Einstein once famously said, "I know not with what weapons World War Three will be fought, but World War Four will be fought with sticks and stones." And he was right.
  Swords came very much back into popularity after everyone thoroughly mulched each other in the wars of 6,000,000,000 and thereabouts; the proverbial wisdom of a post-apocalyptic universe agreed that personal protection was necessary in amongst nuclear wastelands, but should not hold the ability to destroy a continent.
   It was for these reasons that Ashildr could get away with carrying her newly discovered Ulfbert around with her in the far future: it was commonplace. Ashildr had little memory of the interstellar wars that had stricken the zones she later traversed with Clara, however; she had limited storage in her memory - Clara's soft frame melting into a field of gentle grass was a far preferable image to planets launching nukes at each other.
  In the same vein, the far past also excused the carrying of personal stabby-things, although it often highlighted wealth more than anything. Before the propane forge, swords such as the Ulfbert were, for lack of a better term, a bitch to make - carrying a damascus blade in times when damascus was made by sticking a clay pot full of iron under a bunch of coals was a statement of power. 'Look at me,' it said. 'I'm rich and have a bloody good blacksmith.'
   The biggest problem was in the eons between the far past and the far future. Ashildr had seen too much death by this time to ever take joy in a machine designed to kill multitudes of people very swiftly - swords were contained; efficient, but localised; guns and bombs, however, were indiscriminate. Messy. Old wars killed dozens. New ones killed millions. So, even through the deadzone, she continued to carry the sword - things did try to kill her and the missus alarmingly often.
  Clara tried to find the humour in it. She really did. However, there are only so many cells you can see before they get dull.
   "You should've given the nice armed police officer your sword."
   Ashildr pressed her lips together, letting her hand flop against her stomach as she laid on the flat surface masquerading as a bed. The blank roof of the holding cell sneered at her idle mind.
  Clara sat below her, near Ashildr's feet, leaning her back against the solid brick of the bed. She had one arm flopped over her knee. Her head was in the other. "I'm telling you," she continued, "that next time we're going out, you're leaving that bloody Ulfbert at home."
  Ashildr stayed quiet. She turned her head around to look at Clara. "They didn't have to tackle me, though. I have bruised ribs."
  Clara chuckled.
  "Oi! I'm in genuine pain!"
  "It was quite funny. You went down like a sack of spuds."
   "You're such a twat." Ashildr batted Clara around the head playfully. They laughed together for a moment, before Ashildr winced as the pain enveloped her again.
   Clara turned around, still smiling but obviously concerned. "Let me have a look," she said.
  She shuffled closer to Ashildr's torso. "You alright if I lift your shirt a bit?"
  Ashildr nodded but looked away. It doesn't matter if you've been married for centuries, making eye contact with the woman palpating you is always a tad awkward.
  Clara inched the hem of Ashildr's shirt up to reveal the purple bruises blemishing across her ribs. As Clara brushed her fingers across them, Ashildr winced. Her fingers were cold.
  "Could you, like, rub your hands together a bit? They're freezing."
  "No. Cold hands are your punishment for getting me thrown in yet another prison." She continued to inspect Ashildr's blunt force trauma, apologising when she grunted in pain. "Yeah, that's gonna smart, but you should be alright. Trust your little piece of Mire." Clara kissed Ashildr's forehead as she pulled her shirt back down. When she returned to sitting at the foot of the bed, she passed one arm back around behind her, resting it on the edge of the bed - Ashildr wrapped her fingers around Clara's palm.
   They sat in silence for a minute, simply staring into the quiet of the concrete box. Their breathing echoed off the blank, blank walls, coming back to them in clumps of stale exasperation; occasionally, if they were lucky, it wouldn't come back to them at all, instead floating up and out through the window set close to the ceiling.
    "Be glad we're not in America," Ashildr offered. "They'd say we're Antifa and lock us up as terrorists."
    Clara laughed once, cynical. "Death by the blade of the dispossessed is very anti-fascist."
    "We're not dispossessed, not as such. More... I dunno, what are we?" Ashildr stretched out her legs. These ribs were gonna be fun for six to eight weeks.
    "Who cares what we are or aren't?" Clara's teacher voice seemed to turn on and off involuntarily these days. Currently, it was on. "Isn't it more about the pure poetisism of the news report?"
     "Poetisism or propaganda?"
     Teacher voice switched off again. "Same thing."
      Ashildr let her gaze drift to the window. She examined it for a moment before jamming her elbows beneath her and sitting up with a wheeze. "We could get out through there. The diner's barely five minutes' walk from here."
     "Doubt it. Plus, you're in no state for a sprint."
     "Nah, don't worry about it." Ashildr caught herself off guard with how blasé she was to her injury. Must be healing already. "Good stock, me."
      Clara stood and faced the wall and it's window, watching as Ashildr struggled to her feet (refusing help). "What about the sword?"
      "Come back for it tonight." Ashildr placed her hands on the window and peered out to see if they would have a soft landing. Bushes. Good enough. "This is a holding cell for a holding cell." She placed her hands on the bars and gave them a shake - there was a surprising amount of give. "They were gonna shuttle bus us to another facility overnight because this one is-" with a good jolt, the bars came right out from the wall in Ashildr's hands- "-really quite shit. They're going to shut it overnight - we'll be able to sneak back in and recover my beautiful sidearm and be done." She twisted the bars sideways to bring them in through the window. They made an alarmingly audible thump upon impact with the bed.
     Clara stepped up onto the bed. "I'll go first. That way I can catch you before you go chronically messing up those ribs of yours. Deal?"
     "Deal."
     Clara placed both hands on the windowsill, and stuck her head right out of it. Then, with practised ease, turned back so that she faced away from the window, stuck her arms up, wriggled out, and let fall. She landed in the bushes below.
      Ashildr took a breath before following. She took very much the same approach, if somewhat slower. Her ribs weren't happy with her when she reached up. Right above the window were grooves in the rock that you could stick your fingers right in - it was like this prison wanted to be broken out of. Getting her legs out proved to be more difficult as it required quite the serious wiggle; for someone with multiple bruised ribs, this was less than ideal, but neither was prison. Eventually, though, Ashildr had it positioned so that her legs fell straight below her. From here, it was simple - just drop.
     Which she did.
     Ow.
     Clara's catching was less than accurate, but what can you do?
   "You alright?" she asked.
   Ashildr nodded. "Run," she said.