Scheherazade Job, tag: Donna

She was out on a limb, and up to her neck in it-this time a bit more literally than most. The massive rusty orange limb of an oak-like tree didn’t even bother to tremble as River lay prone, panting lightly, in her woody bower. Of course the tree that hid her was exponentially bigger than anything seen on Earth-one human (ish) woman wouldn’t cause much of a stir.

Well, not for the tree, anyhow.

Lovely planet, Scyllia. Old and respected and wealthy. A troop of guards all decked out in vivid scarlet swarmed past beneath her. She would have to return sometime when she isn’t a wanted woman. Of course, the odds of that happening before she met her end was somewhere between slim and nil, but that was hardly a real worry.

No more pirate ships or tramp freighters, though. She was as tired of empty stomachs and menial labor as she was of prison bars and storm clouds, but her contacts had insisted. Her arrival in Yantis had to be subtle and quiet.

They were clearly unfamiliar with her standard operating procedure. Not that she hadn’t tried, of course, but the woman was apparently a walking, talking magnet for everything the polar opposite of subtle and quiet.

As the a huge, orange sun sank under the horizon , the woman was safely camouflaged in the shadowy foliage by a thick skinsuit of darker than black blue-green leather. One by one, soft globes of light flared to life all around her, revealing the real city of Yantis. Not the commercial center she had fled hours earlier, but great ornate bridges, platforms, and buildings of glossy silver wood, twisting and arching their way through the trees like a living thing.

Lovely people, Scyllians. More or less humanoid, with a lithe, slender build and wings in every shade of earth. They were renowned for their skill with feathers-and the artists were talented, too. They were more or less friendly and hospitable, so long as guests stuck to appointed public areas.

Which River had most assuredly not done, of course. That just took the fun out of everything.

She hadn’t managed to move more than three branches when she found herself surrounded by wickedly sharp, hooked staves. Atl-ats. Just as good at delicate manipulation of branches as breaking skin and bone, and each one wielded by a Syllian dressed all in white, their pinions bleached to match. The delicate feathers on cheek and brow, wrist and ankle were clipped short and striped with crimson; Imperial Guards.

“River Song, you’re under arrest for attempted regicide.”

[OOC: If our new River is interested in continuing this, give a holler, and I'll write up a reply. Otherwise, I might recommend moving this to the Archives. <3 ]