The Twins in the Wood (short story)

 was the fourth short story in Time Lord Fairy Tales.

Publisher's summary
The emperor of Levithia has been murdered, leaving his two children as heirs to the throne. With treason and traitors around every corner, the children are soon force to flee into space. What will become of them when they crash-land on a strange planet, full of its own surprises?

Plot
The Emperor of Levithia is dying from a fever. His brother, Lord Grath, and his 2 teenage children, Asher and Ella, are also with him. The Emperor's advisor, Rigel visits occasionally while ensuring that the empire doesn't descend into chaos. Once the Emperor is finally dead, Lord Grath pulls a sheet over his face and orders Rigel to gather the council so that they know about the death of the Emperor and can appoint a regent.

Grath informs the children that they are the rulers now and that the new regent will guide them. He then tells the Emperor's physician to examine the Emperor's body to find out if the Emperor's death was simply misfortune instead of something more sinister. Later, the Council convenes to confirm that Ella and Asher will both rule together with their uncle, Lord Grath, being appointed as the regent of Levithia, thus giving him the power to rile for at least the next 2 years.

Unfortunately, when it is revealed that the Emperor died from poisoning, Grath makes his children look like they were the ones who poisoned him because they were unwilling to wait for their chance to rule. Only Rigel speaks up in the children's defense, but Grath quickly denounces him and makes him look like the ringleader. Rigel is sentenced to execution, but he manages to escape. The twins, however, are found guilty of their father's murder and are also sentenced to death.

The twins are both placed into an obliteration module that is launched into space. Luckily, instead of exploding, the module just continues drifting through space before descending onto the surface of another planet. Asher and Ella climb out of the module to find themselves in a wood. Confused and frightened, Asher and Ella decide to go and look for some food and shelter.

After a while of searching, the twins are unable to find any signs of civilization on the planet, forcing them to sleep on the ground. They use some ferns to soften the forest's hard floor and some larger branches to shelter themselves. That night, as the twins are asleep, some creatures show up and cover the children with more leaves to keep them warm.

Next morning, Ella wakes up to find the creatures staring at her and wakes her brother. Asher realizes that the dog-like creatures don't mean them any harm as one of them goes over to look at the twins before licking Ella's face. As Asher and Ella find themselves petting the dog-like creatures, they are soon lead into an area where large yellow fruits grow out of the trees in the red grass.

The animals continue looking after the children and help them remove the obliteration module's chairs to make more space so that it can become a new cottage for them.

One day, a man with a hood shows up to wish the twins a happy birthday. He explains that he has come a long way to see the twins and bring them presents. When Ella asks the man how he is here on the planet, he answers that there are people on the planet, but they are a long way away from them and that Arcadia is a month's walk away, and in the opposite direction, the Capitol is sitting beneath a protective dome. The man himself is from neither place and he has a ship. He tells the twins that he will take them away from the planet, but it won't be today. The twins' uncle, the new Emperor of Levithia still believes that they are dead.

As the man leaves, Ella asks him if they will meet him again, to which the man says they will, but not for a while. Many months later, the man doesn't return, leaving the twins in the care of the dog-like creatures while also helping any of them who are sick or injured.

One year later, the man does return with more gifts for the twins and this time accepts their invitation to enter their cottage, but he declines any offers of food. Ella asks the man why she and her brother can't see his face, to which the man answers that they will see his face soon, but not today before he leaves again.

One year later, the man returns with no gifts. Instead, he removes his hood to reveal that he is in fact Rigel. Rigel explains that he did not kill the Emperor, but he knows who did kill him. He reveals that he spoke to the physician who met him in secret to tell him that the poison was a rare concoction and that a few months ago, he found the identity of the man who provided the poison: Lord Grath.

Rigel tells the children that the Council has pardoned them both as they know that they didn't kill their father. The physician was able to prove when the poison was administered. The Emperor was away from the palace and his children were nowhere near him at the time. They believed that the children were dead after the obliteration module was supposed to explode, but it didn't explode because it was sabotaged. Rigel managed to reprogram the onboard computer to crash-land on the planet rather than explode.

Ella admits that she and her brother have been happy on the planet, but they would rather be at home, so Rigel decides to take them home. Rigel has a statement from the man who sold the poison to Lord Grath that will prove that the Emperor was murdered by his own brother. Lord Grath is a cruel ruler and the council will welcome any excuse to depose him. The reason they haven't done it yet is because there is no one to take his place. When the twins return, the council will depose Lord Grath and arrest him.

Rigel is happy to advise the twins during their reign, and he tells the twins to immediately assume their roles as the new rules of Levithia and that their fist act will be to order the Captain of the Palace Guard to arrest Lord Grath before he can rally some support. The other thing they need to do is give Rigel an imperial pardon.

The twins, now the rulers of the Levithian Empire, collect their belongings from the dog-like creatures they befriended and say goodbye to them before returning to Levithia in Rigel's ship.

Characters

 * Asher
 * Ella
 * Rigel
 * Grath

Worldbuilding

 * The Levithian Empire rules the Seven Systems. Both Gallifrey and Levithia are located within the Seven Systems.
 * The woods where Ella and Asher find a home are located between Arcadia and the Capitol.
 * Birds live on Gallifrey.
 * Animals resembling large dogs with black-and-white striped fur which make mewing noises are found on Gallifrey.
 * Gallifrey has trees which bear large, yellow, edible fruit.
 * Rigel knows that the natives of Gallifrey will not interfere with the affairs of other worlds.

Continuity

 * Gallifrey is located in the Seven Systems. (TV: The Sound of Drums)
 * Gallifrey has two suns and an orange sky. (TV: ''Gridlock)