(no subject)

[quigonejinn]

Jack the Ripper: eaten.

Charles Augustus Milverton: eaten.

James Moriarty: eaten with mustard and a dry white Swiss wine.

Years later, you are old, wrapped in blankets and sitting by a fire in a room with the electric lamps turned low. Who could have imagined a thing like that when you were a girl? Lightning, caught in little wires and made to light homes. Your lady is sitting across from you in the armchair, and on the ottoman between the two of you, her driving scarf and goggles are lying together. She does not really need the goggles, you are given to understand, as there is a membrane that she pulls down over her eyes that does the trick, but they help hide her in this world where things are becoming more and more lit. It is becoming harder to hide in shadows.

She finishes reading, and you are too tired to say anything, so she comes and sits down next to you and puts her hand on yours. Her people live longer than mammals, live slower than them, too, and to your eyes, she looks the same as she always has.

"Did you like the story?"

"He changed certain things," you say, sleepily. "He made it many years later."

She laughs. "Do you think he should have told it the way that it happened?"

"I wouldn't have changed anything," you say. "It was the story of us."

And it was: the infamous Austrian nobleman, the young woman, betrayed, but not before having been shown the book of the man's crimes, the accounts of all the women he had raped, the children he had strangled, the wives he had raped and strangled. There was no outside, illustrious client, but instead of bringing a vial of vitriol, you opened the door to a stranger who had found you sobbing in your cheap room, trying to work up the strength to kill yourself. Take me to him, she said, and you did. You stood guard by the door with one of the Baron's Japanese knives while she did her work -- in fact, the man had been a connoisseur of Eastern arts other than Chinese pottery. In fact, you opened the study door before her signal.

You found her kneeling by the floor, with the hood thrown back and blood on her chin. Her head whipped around, and her tongue flickered out of her mouth.

The Baron was on the floor, still alive, but very weak. He made a noise, a begging sort of sound. Perhaps he recognized you, perhaps he called you by the name he forced you to have. You looked at him briefly, then back into her face.

"Aren't you afraid of me?" she said finally, hissing a little, as the feeding was upon her. His best sword was in her hand, and she was, perhaps, carving him up in pieces, for convenience in eating.

"Teach me to use them," you said to her. "Take me with you."

"Do you mean that?"

"I'm done with men," you replied, fiercely.

Sixty years later: you say to her, "Will you eat me when I'm dead?" By now, it's joke, an old one, only funny because of the time that the two of you have shared.

Strange to think that you have lived for so many years now.

"Only if you would like me to," she says, and both of you smile. She lifts her hand from your arm to your hair, then begins to stroke it: it took her a long time to become used to it, and even longer to appreciate it. Another joke between the two of you is that she came to appreciate your hair just in time to see it go white and begin to thin.

Under the touch of her hand, you drift off to sleep. She stays with you until you are fully asleep, then tucks the blankets around you, puts the radio on in case you should wake, and drives out to travel, with the Centurion and little Melody Pond, all grown, back in time to kill a twenty-eight year old Gefreiter named Adolf Hitler.







SO YEAH BASICALLY I WANT TO RE-IMAGINE EVERY GODDAMN LAST HOLMES STORY WITH MADAME VASTRA AND JENNY.

Charles Augustus Milverton, and the story of Kitty Jenny and Madame Vashta is The Illustrious Client". The other easy one, to me, is that Madame Vashta is, in fact, Irene Adler. But Adelbert Gruner's taste for Ming pottery, plus Vashta and Jenny busting out with the Japanese blades put TIC over the top.

gabby_silang is the one who came up with the idea of eating Moriarty with flavorings. She suggested leeks and lemons; I thought that a nod to the Swiss pantries that Jenny could have raided for the picnic would be more appropriate.

Comments

[amanuensis1]

*cheers* What a terrific response!