FIC: Tea on Mount Ida

[silverr]

Title: Tea on Mount Ida
Author:silverr
Rating: T
Pairing(s)/Character(s): Madame Vastra/Jenny, Sebastian Melmoth/Jack Harkness, Eleven
Warnings: None really. a few pinches of spicy talk and innuendo
Spoilers: One tiny oblique reference in the story to an event outside the episode (you'd have to be spoiled to get it, I think).
Summary: Silurians live for centuries, humans not nearly so long. Vastra knows she'll lose Jenny someday, and it's a loss she's  already bracing herself against.

Author's Note: Though I've been a DW fan for a long time, this is my first story for the fandom. Written as a pinch hit for the rarewomen  2012 challenge.

Fake cut to Ao3

Comments

[evilawyer]

This is quite lovely. I very much enjoyed how you juxtapose the Doctor's and Vasta's acceptance of aging and old age against Jenny's genetically-human viewpoint that youth (and therefore reproductive capacity as pointed out in her reference to menopause being coupled with senility). I'm fascinated by the/whether there is a provable link between sexual selection/drive to reproduce and Western cultures obsession with youth/discomfort around if not abhorrence of the elderly. It was wonderful seeing two non-humans say "Getting old? BFD!" Thanks for including it in there.

[silverr]

Thank you! ~ I don't know about the provable link, but certainly the double standard is riding shotgun on the idea - older men (who can of course still father children well past the age that women can gestate them) are far more often seen as sexy and virile into their sixties and beyond, while randy older women more often than not seem to be viewed more negatively.

You're not the first person who's told me that they like the Doctor's comment about the mirror. :)

ETA: Although now that you've pointed it out, I'm chewing my nails and thinking I ought to remove the reference to menopause, because I certainly didn't intend to send the message you got. (Thirty-nine would be perimenopause anyhow. ~ Not to mention that I didn't want jenny to come across like a shallow flibbertigibbet.)

[evilawyer]

the double standard is riding shotgun on the idea - older men (who can of course still father children well past the age that women can gestate them) are far more often seen as sexy and virile into their sixties and beyond, while randy older women more often than not seem to be viewed more negatively.

Definitely.

Also, I wouldn't worry about the menopause reference at all. Honestly, my noticing it so front and center is a by-product of my interests, and I thought it was very cogent and, in it's way, poignant. I don't think anyone would take offense or think Jenny's being shallow. She is aging, after all, and coming to terms with it. Not easy even in her time, I'd imagine.

[silverr]

Ah okay. I was worried that she'd become too much of a self-insert (I'm 55, so it makes me laugh when fen wail and gnash about turning 25 or 30 and talk about being "old" :p - I suspect that a bit of that snuck into the story. Although I also suspect that most are caterwauling just for effect.)

[evilawyer]

She comes off just fine.

Although I also suspect that most are caterwauling just for effect.

To give them credit, "a quarter of a century" does sound old. Until you double it, anyway. Then it's babyhood. :-D