Prompt 146.2 for oncoming_storms
Prompt 146.2:
Soft sheets, a vaguely warm bed, the scent of freshly brewed tea while classical music played in the background. It was quite pleasant to wake up to, and the Doctor stirred languidly. Yes, it could be far worse. He smiled to himself in his tired state, unwilling to open his eyes and allow the light of the world in quite yet. So rarely did he need sleep, and so good it felt when he encountered it.
He yawned, reached up to rub the slumber-induced numbness from his face. Only not quite numb, there was a fading lump on his forehead that gave him a start.
...Huh... Where do you suppose that come from?
Slowly trickling to life, he sat up straight and tugged his sheets up over his plaid clad legs. And there, at the foot of his bed with her arms crossed, looking him over with a look of... was that concern? What was going on? "The Rani!" he blurted, scuttling out of bed in the extravagant room. Everything in soft tones and stark design familiar to Gallifrey, and that led the the Doctor to take a better look at the robes that the Rani was wearing.
He stood by the bed where he'd been laying uncertainly, fumbling for the right question to ask first. He settled on, "Where's my hat?"
"We left it in your console room. Rest easy, we have that Type 40 TARDIS of yours, too." She smiled warmly. She smiled warmly. He couldn't take much more of this or he'd start having synchronize heart palpitations. Her warm smile was met with a now nervous one.
"Oh, ah... thank you. Now, if you don't mind, where's that at?"
"I'll take you to it, Doctor. But please, hear me out so you'll know why you were brought here."
"That's nice, you brought me here, then?"
"Yes."
"Why didn't you ask?"
"We didn't know until we crossed over for certain if things would work out. If you would be the one."
"I usually am the one but there certainly occasions I would quite like to avoid it." His displeased rambling was interrupted by the doors at the far end of the room being swung open, a figure in the attire of a Chancellory Guard.
"Lady President!"
Those two words, spoken by the guard as he entered and earnestly made his way to the Rani's side, nearly made the Doctor's blood run cold. He wanted to run at that moment, very much so, because whatever he was going to hear was going to convince him to stay and do something ridiculous and he didn't want to get tied up in all of whatever this nonesense was. It felt wrong. Time felt all wrong. Every last bit of it and the thing that kept jumping to the forefront was escape before he learned what terrible arrangement of circumstances would lead to the Rani becoming President of the Council. He started edging away from the bed, a slow exaggerated creep that would have been laughable and right out of a 1930's earth cartoon if he'd had an audience that was easily amused.
Which he didn't.
In the middle of her discussion, the Rani turned from the guard and moved to follow the Doctor. "Where are you going?"
"...To use the loo!"
"This is important, Doctor. We need you!"
"And I have needs as well! I prefer the one aboard my TARDIS. I tend to stall up in foreign facilities. Where is she?"
And she... she pouted. And she looked sad, Rassilon help him the Rani looked sad, and her fierce looking face was so unnaturally sagely and ill-fitting and he couldn't sense a trickle of evil coming off of her. It almost made the fact he was trying to slip out so very wrong. Really, it might be better just to stay for a bit. Just to figure out how long he would be trapped in this particular universe.
He huffed unhappily, returned to the bed, and sat down with a very intent look. "Now, why I am here?"
His former schoolmate, so unlike the way he knew her, sat alongside him on the bed and shooed the guard from the room. "It was during his first incarnation that he tried to take over the high council of Time Lords... He was my colleague, my classmate at the Academy. He called himself 'the Valeyard'."
"Oh dear!" The Doctor grasped his chest, as if trying to stall his twin hearts from giving out on him. "I shouldn't have sat down, should I?"
"Oh, do be serious!" she begged, tone almost reaching that level of demanding that he was so familiar with. But then she took his hand. She took it in a significant way, her fingers gentle and warm around his, her typically icy eyes so concerned, so doting. As if she'd been searching for him so long, and had just now managed to find him. It was worrying, and he couldn't think of a suitable retort. He just stared back, own blue eyes large and confused.
She continued, turning a little more toward him. "He controlled Gallifrey for so long. His granddaughter and his protege, Susan and Romana, acting as his two primary oppressors. They were always at his back. Always ready to do his bidding. Assassination attempt after attempted only ended in his regeneration, while the Herald searched the universe for a way to bring his reign over Gallifrey to an end."
"The Herald?"
"Yes. He found you. He sensed you, the Doctor, the embodiment of all the suppressed good in the Valeyard's personality that he cast aside before his final regeneration. Your fates were tied, and he had to lock you away-"
"I don't like this story." Again the Doctor rubbed the knot on his head, less than it was before but somehow he seemed to have a worse ache.
"But you won! You overthrew him. We reclaimed Gallifrey, and you earned your freedom to travel the stars and make friends and touch the lives of the universe. You won. Until the Valeyard caught up with you. You showed him mercy, you'd let him live, and later he found you. But we learned of the other universe, and there you still existed."
"I still don't like this story..." He managed to dislodge his hand, stood up and started to pace around the room. On the floor, a seal of Rassilon. Sideways. Something was very odd here, odd indeed. No wonder time wasn't flowing as it ought! He was in a completely different universe. And the harder he thought, the more vague memories trickled into his head. Standing at his console, doing some calculations. Psychic pressure behind him. He had started to turn, but thats when the knock came. It was so hard that he hadn't remembered anything beyond the floor, after that. And shoes, white tidy shoes with white slacks. What sounded to be a softly spoken apology.
"You didn't ruin my hat, did you? And wheres this Herald?"
"I can go and get him if you like. He's waiting outside. You're one of his closest friends..."
The Doctor blurted a surreal laugh. "Good to know. We can have tea and discuss the news."
The Rani seemed to oblige him, cast him another fond look (he wished she would stop doing that!), and stood and left the room. Outside she spoke with someone, and the Doctor bobbed from one foot to the other impatiently as he waited to meet the Herald. Who did enter, after a moment or two.
He, too, was familiar. Striking silver hair, scruffy goatee, and instead of a dark suit he was dressed in pristine white. He'd always known him as the Master, though whatever had happened here, whatever strange set of circumstances that occurred, he had become something better. There wasn't even the slightest hint of maliciousness on his countenance. Quite a bit of confusion, though, as the Doctor climbed up onto a table as if trying to avoid a rodent threatening to crawl up his leg.
"Doctor?!"
"You stay over there, I'll stay over here. I want my hat and a cup of tea, and then we'll talk business."
"I knew it was you," he said so fondly. Oh, so fondly, eyes twinkling and the Doctor wanted to take a hose to the man and run him off for just being so very wrong. He approached the edge of that table. "You don't look like the Doctor as I knew him. He was taller, had a fondness for leather jackets."
"Lea- ...What?" The Doctor's eyes nearly crossed in confusion. Wait... Had... He had seen some artwork based on his appearances in the future, but never made physical encounters but the once when he was still wearing beige and celery. Was he going through his regenerations backwards? Then how old was this Master? He couldn't be very, because he'd been near the end of his first set when he'd looked like this. Or... What was the use in trying to guess anymore.
When they were children, the Doctor and the Master had been playing by a creek, and a bully that regularly antagonized them had come across them. Maybe that's where it felt wrong. Yes, if he reached back, if he perused the echoes and ripples of time, that's where it would have started. Either it was the Master- no, the Herald, who cracked open the boy's head to save his friend. Or the Doctor- the Valeyard -who did, but accepted unto himself the burden of Death's Champion. Was Koschei Time's Champion here? Was he a mere extra, the forgotten discarded affection of a corrupt personality? While he had a sick admiration for the Master's intelligence, at the same time he had always considered himself superior. In this case was the Valeyard the one with the greater skill? After all, he'd managed to do away with his better half.
The Doctor didn't climb down from the table, and in fact took a step back as the Herald approached. "...Just tell me what it is that you want me to do."
He didn't know if he would be able to do much at all.
Character: The Seventh Doctor
Fandom: Doctor Who
Words: 1691
Soft sheets, a vaguely warm bed, the scent of freshly brewed tea while classical music played in the background. It was quite pleasant to wake up to, and the Doctor stirred languidly. Yes, it could be far worse. He smiled to himself in his tired state, unwilling to open his eyes and allow the light of the world in quite yet. So rarely did he need sleep, and so good it felt when he encountered it.
He yawned, reached up to rub the slumber-induced numbness from his face. Only not quite numb, there was a fading lump on his forehead that gave him a start.
...Huh... Where do you suppose that come from?
Slowly trickling to life, he sat up straight and tugged his sheets up over his plaid clad legs. And there, at the foot of his bed with her arms crossed, looking him over with a look of... was that concern? What was going on? "The Rani!" he blurted, scuttling out of bed in the extravagant room. Everything in soft tones and stark design familiar to Gallifrey, and that led the the Doctor to take a better look at the robes that the Rani was wearing.
He stood by the bed where he'd been laying uncertainly, fumbling for the right question to ask first. He settled on, "Where's my hat?"
"We left it in your console room. Rest easy, we have that Type 40 TARDIS of yours, too." She smiled warmly. She smiled warmly. He couldn't take much more of this or he'd start having synchronize heart palpitations. Her warm smile was met with a now nervous one.
"Oh, ah... thank you. Now, if you don't mind, where's that at?"
"I'll take you to it, Doctor. But please, hear me out so you'll know why you were brought here."
"That's nice, you brought me here, then?"
"Yes."
"Why didn't you ask?"
"We didn't know until we crossed over for certain if things would work out. If you would be the one."
"I usually am the one but there certainly occasions I would quite like to avoid it." His displeased rambling was interrupted by the doors at the far end of the room being swung open, a figure in the attire of a Chancellory Guard.
"Lady President!"
Those two words, spoken by the guard as he entered and earnestly made his way to the Rani's side, nearly made the Doctor's blood run cold. He wanted to run at that moment, very much so, because whatever he was going to hear was going to convince him to stay and do something ridiculous and he didn't want to get tied up in all of whatever this nonesense was. It felt wrong. Time felt all wrong. Every last bit of it and the thing that kept jumping to the forefront was escape before he learned what terrible arrangement of circumstances would lead to the Rani becoming President of the Council. He started edging away from the bed, a slow exaggerated creep that would have been laughable and right out of a 1930's earth cartoon if he'd had an audience that was easily amused.
Which he didn't.
In the middle of her discussion, the Rani turned from the guard and moved to follow the Doctor. "Where are you going?"
"...To use the loo!"
"This is important, Doctor. We need you!"
"And I have needs as well! I prefer the one aboard my TARDIS. I tend to stall up in foreign facilities. Where is she?"
And she... she pouted. And she looked sad, Rassilon help him the Rani looked sad, and her fierce looking face was so unnaturally sagely and ill-fitting and he couldn't sense a trickle of evil coming off of her. It almost made the fact he was trying to slip out so very wrong. Really, it might be better just to stay for a bit. Just to figure out how long he would be trapped in this particular universe.
He huffed unhappily, returned to the bed, and sat down with a very intent look. "Now, why I am here?"
His former schoolmate, so unlike the way he knew her, sat alongside him on the bed and shooed the guard from the room. "It was during his first incarnation that he tried to take over the high council of Time Lords... He was my colleague, my classmate at the Academy. He called himself 'the Valeyard'."
"Oh dear!" The Doctor grasped his chest, as if trying to stall his twin hearts from giving out on him. "I shouldn't have sat down, should I?"
"Oh, do be serious!" she begged, tone almost reaching that level of demanding that he was so familiar with. But then she took his hand. She took it in a significant way, her fingers gentle and warm around his, her typically icy eyes so concerned, so doting. As if she'd been searching for him so long, and had just now managed to find him. It was worrying, and he couldn't think of a suitable retort. He just stared back, own blue eyes large and confused.
She continued, turning a little more toward him. "He controlled Gallifrey for so long. His granddaughter and his protege, Susan and Romana, acting as his two primary oppressors. They were always at his back. Always ready to do his bidding. Assassination attempt after attempted only ended in his regeneration, while the Herald searched the universe for a way to bring his reign over Gallifrey to an end."
"The Herald?"
"Yes. He found you. He sensed you, the Doctor, the embodiment of all the suppressed good in the Valeyard's personality that he cast aside before his final regeneration. Your fates were tied, and he had to lock you away-"
"I don't like this story." Again the Doctor rubbed the knot on his head, less than it was before but somehow he seemed to have a worse ache.
"But you won! You overthrew him. We reclaimed Gallifrey, and you earned your freedom to travel the stars and make friends and touch the lives of the universe. You won. Until the Valeyard caught up with you. You showed him mercy, you'd let him live, and later he found you. But we learned of the other universe, and there you still existed."
"I still don't like this story..." He managed to dislodge his hand, stood up and started to pace around the room. On the floor, a seal of Rassilon. Sideways. Something was very odd here, odd indeed. No wonder time wasn't flowing as it ought! He was in a completely different universe. And the harder he thought, the more vague memories trickled into his head. Standing at his console, doing some calculations. Psychic pressure behind him. He had started to turn, but thats when the knock came. It was so hard that he hadn't remembered anything beyond the floor, after that. And shoes, white tidy shoes with white slacks. What sounded to be a softly spoken apology.
"You didn't ruin my hat, did you? And wheres this Herald?"
"I can go and get him if you like. He's waiting outside. You're one of his closest friends..."
The Doctor blurted a surreal laugh. "Good to know. We can have tea and discuss the news."
The Rani seemed to oblige him, cast him another fond look (he wished she would stop doing that!), and stood and left the room. Outside she spoke with someone, and the Doctor bobbed from one foot to the other impatiently as he waited to meet the Herald. Who did enter, after a moment or two.
He, too, was familiar. Striking silver hair, scruffy goatee, and instead of a dark suit he was dressed in pristine white. He'd always known him as the Master, though whatever had happened here, whatever strange set of circumstances that occurred, he had become something better. There wasn't even the slightest hint of maliciousness on his countenance. Quite a bit of confusion, though, as the Doctor climbed up onto a table as if trying to avoid a rodent threatening to crawl up his leg.
"Doctor?!"
"You stay over there, I'll stay over here. I want my hat and a cup of tea, and then we'll talk business."
"I knew it was you," he said so fondly. Oh, so fondly, eyes twinkling and the Doctor wanted to take a hose to the man and run him off for just being so very wrong. He approached the edge of that table. "You don't look like the Doctor as I knew him. He was taller, had a fondness for leather jackets."
"Lea- ...What?" The Doctor's eyes nearly crossed in confusion. Wait... Had... He had seen some artwork based on his appearances in the future, but never made physical encounters but the once when he was still wearing beige and celery. Was he going through his regenerations backwards? Then how old was this Master? He couldn't be very, because he'd been near the end of his first set when he'd looked like this. Or... What was the use in trying to guess anymore.
When they were children, the Doctor and the Master had been playing by a creek, and a bully that regularly antagonized them had come across them. Maybe that's where it felt wrong. Yes, if he reached back, if he perused the echoes and ripples of time, that's where it would have started. Either it was the Master- no, the Herald, who cracked open the boy's head to save his friend. Or the Doctor- the Valeyard -who did, but accepted unto himself the burden of Death's Champion. Was Koschei Time's Champion here? Was he a mere extra, the forgotten discarded affection of a corrupt personality? While he had a sick admiration for the Master's intelligence, at the same time he had always considered himself superior. In this case was the Valeyard the one with the greater skill? After all, he'd managed to do away with his better half.
The Doctor didn't climb down from the table, and in fact took a step back as the Herald approached. "...Just tell me what it is that you want me to do."
He didn't know if he would be able to do much at all.
Character: The Seventh Doctor
Fandom: Doctor Who
Words: 1691