Author Note: Originally written for the prompt "If she floats she's a witch" on comment_fic at livejournal.

Kind of Magic

The Doctor wants to close his eyes with the childish hope that when he opens them again everything will be different, but closing his eyes whenever River Song is around, even just to blink, is never a good idea. Blink and you'll miss her.

"Look, we're really very sorry," he tries, but the Arachnidie guarding him merely tightens the ropes of web restraining him.

"Actually, we're really not," says River.

The three Arachnidies surrounding her almost block her from the Doctor's view, so he supposes that she can't see the look that he's giving her right now. It's better than thinking that she's just ignoring it.

"And I didn't use magic," she continues. "Don't be ridiculous. We're just a lot smarter than you are."

"River!"

"I'm not telling them anything but the truth, sweetie."

It's irritating when she knows more than him and comes calling with 'spoilers' on her lips, but some days Young River is even worse. Like days when they're arrested for witchcraft by an indigenous species who happen to resemble giant spiders and come complete with acidic webbing that they use to restrain their captives.

His jacket will never be the same again and when he finally manages to retrieve his sonic screwdriver from his pocket he suspects that it's going to have acid-etched stripes.

(Alright, admittedly it's only a mild acid, but he likes this jacket.)

"The Ocean of The Righteous will prove it," the one in charge proclaims to the crowd of Arachnidies behind them. "If she's a witch magic was used. If she floats she's a witch!"

"Well that's a sort of logic I suppose," says River.

The Doctor looks at the webbing wrapped so thoroughly around her that she's practically cocooned and at the steep cliff in front of them with a raging sea below.

"Sorry, floats?"

"What about swimming?" River asks curiously.

The Doctor closes his eyes, even though he knows that it's a bad idea, and groans. He can't help it.

When he opens them again River is gone.

The Arachnidies move closer to the edge of the cliff and the Doctor moves with them. The water is too wild to be able to see if there's a splash or not, but he does see a reassuring flash of familiar blue about halfway down. He sighs and wonders which one of them is going to have to remember to have moved the TARDIS.

"You don't seem concerned," one of his guards says.

"Of course I'm concerned," he replies. "You really shouldn't arrest or kill people just because they're different and there's no such thing as magic. At least not that I'm aware of and if there is then we weren't using it."

"But the witch. You believe she will float and live?"

"Oh, well," says the Doctor, gaging the drop to the TARDIS and steeling himself to jump. "She's rather her own kind of magic."