[Fic] Encaenia
Jun. 19th, 2008 09:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
white_hartWe were commenting yesterday that there's something TARDIS-like about Oxford college gardens; they always seem to be far bigger than you would expect. Which made me wonder about garden parties on Gallifrey, although in the end this ficlet turned out to be rather closer to home.
250 words, gen. The Doctor is reminiscing; Donna is more interested in the strawberries. Doctor Who belongs to the BBC; Encaenia belongs to the University of Oxford.
***
‘Garden parties. A garden, a party – wonderful things in their own right, of course, but even better when you put them together! And do you know, Donna, humans are one of only a handful of species in the entire universe ever to have made that connection? Now that’s civilisation for you. Although really, if you want true sophistication you should go to a garden party on the water planet of Aquantis. The coral gardens are quite something. Still, this really is rather pleasant.’ The Doctor paused and looked across the lawn, crowded with academics in brightly coloured gowns. He’d even managed to coax the TARDIS into divulging a set of Academy graduation robes for him; if the truth were told he was rather miffed that compared to some here – that chap over there was wearing what looked like a pale blue fringed lampshade, for instance – despite the gold sigils they really did look a little drab.
Why had he never been to Oxford before? All that business in Cambridge with Romana had put him off ancient Earth universities, he supposed.
‘We had garden parties on my planet, too. Of course, there the gardens really were bigger on the inside than the outside. You could spend days just looking for the tea tent. And the grass was a different colour. And the sky.’
‘Yeah,’ said Donna. ‘Sounds lovely. But I bet you didn’t have strawberries, did you?’
She was right, of course. And they were very good strawberries.
250 words, gen. The Doctor is reminiscing; Donna is more interested in the strawberries. Doctor Who belongs to the BBC; Encaenia belongs to the University of Oxford.
***
‘Garden parties. A garden, a party – wonderful things in their own right, of course, but even better when you put them together! And do you know, Donna, humans are one of only a handful of species in the entire universe ever to have made that connection? Now that’s civilisation for you. Although really, if you want true sophistication you should go to a garden party on the water planet of Aquantis. The coral gardens are quite something. Still, this really is rather pleasant.’ The Doctor paused and looked across the lawn, crowded with academics in brightly coloured gowns. He’d even managed to coax the TARDIS into divulging a set of Academy graduation robes for him; if the truth were told he was rather miffed that compared to some here – that chap over there was wearing what looked like a pale blue fringed lampshade, for instance – despite the gold sigils they really did look a little drab.
Why had he never been to Oxford before? All that business in Cambridge with Romana had put him off ancient Earth universities, he supposed.
‘We had garden parties on my planet, too. Of course, there the gardens really were bigger on the inside than the outside. You could spend days just looking for the tea tent. And the grass was a different colour. And the sky.’
‘Yeah,’ said Donna. ‘Sounds lovely. But I bet you didn’t have strawberries, did you?’
She was right, of course. And they were very good strawberries.
