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Lapidary	By : Savaialian Category: 1 through F > Doctor Who Views: 1563 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Doctor Who fandom, nor to I make money from writing about it. I use their creations with due respect.

Chapter List
- 1-Lapidary
- 2-TWO
- 3-THREE
- 4-FOUR
- 5-FIVE
- 6-SIX
- 7-SEVEN
- 8-EIGHT
- 9-NINE
- 10-TEN
- 11-ELEVEN
- 12-TWELVE
- 13-THIRTEEN
- 14-FOURTEEN
- 15-FIFTEEN
- 16-SIXTEEN
- 17-SEVENTEEN
- 18-EIGHTEEN
- 19-NINETEEN
- 20-TWENTY
- 21-TWENTY-ONE
- 22-TWENTY-TWO
- 23-TWENTY-THREE
- 24-TWENTY-FOUR
- 25-EPILOGUE
- 12
- 13
- 14
The next time I woke up, the gel ice was gone and I had both arms around the Master. This explained why I’d been sleeping so peacefully. Also, my face was against his neck, and I’d thrown a leg over him, probably to keep him exactly where I wanted. I’d feel ashamed for it all if I could muster the strength. Instead I felt content and rather free in my neediness. He apparently didn’t have any real issue with my enforced cuddling, or he’d have pushed me away.
I felt a hand stroking down my head, slow and careful and meant to soothe. I would have groaned if I’d had the ability. This was wonderful. I hadn’t had my hair petted in centuries, and he had an expert touch. Over and over he went from my crown to the base of my neck, never varying his pressure or speed. It lulled me completely.
If I’d known I could rule you like this, I might have tried it earlier, he said. As it is, I might find it difficult to not get my way by resorting to it.
And I might not struggle at all, I answered, the truth coming out of me in this unguarded moment.
A victory for me at last? He curled his fingers around the back of my neck and held me immobile. It was needless, but it reminded me of just who I was dealing with, here. The Master wasn’t one to surrender control, ever. Indeed, he agreed, his grip neither slackening nor tightening. I’m not one to surrender. However, I’m very inclined to bestow mercy upon those who recognize superior might and don’t struggle.
So, it had come to this at last? I couldn’t think so, not even with what he said. His core hadn’t altered, but he’d wrapped a lot of complicated layers around it, layers that seemed comprised of a renewed code, of a willingness to solve things without murder.
Your faith in me is very, very difficult to live up to, he confessed. But, you’re right to think I’m changing, that I’ve already changed. I had to do it for myself, however, Doctor, not you.
It isn’t that I want you to be like me, so don’t think that, I replied. But, there’s a lot of beauty in you, and capacity for some version of benevolence. I’ve seen a lot of it lately.
Benevolence has a lot of causes and definitions, he countered, and he resumed stroking my hair and head.
I half-dozed under that relentless petting, still drugged, still weak, still more than a little lost. It seemed incredible that I would be lying here with him. Even more, that I would be lying here with him and he wouldn’t be turning a screw to me. Really, he should be angry I got myself captured, that I’d maneuvered him into a political stickiness from nothing more than inattention.
“You’re a Time Lord, and worth more than the populace,” the Master said softly. “You allowed yourself to be hurt because you feel you deserve it. The guilt you carry over Gallifrey’s destruction is making you into even more of a masochist than you were previously. That’s what makes it easy for you to hand yourself over to me. You look at what I’ve done to you in the past and believe I’ll hurt you. You think you need to be hurt.”
Oh, God, he was right.
“And, this is where my real victory over you comes, Doctor. I have no intention of hurting you.” He tightened his grip on me to prevent an escape, clumsy as I’d have proven in the attempt. “I could do it with skill and finesse to satisfy even your sense of self-recrimination, but I won’t. You don’t need punished at all. You need exactly what I need.”
And what’s that? I asked, feeling curious inside of absolute despondency.
“The company of the last Time Lord,” he answered.
**
I must have slept the night through, for when I awakened it was close to midmorning. The birds were winding down from a full symphony that I hadn’t heard from the beginning. The poisonous, sweet vine that grew ever-steadily up the palace wall radiated its intoxicating scent. The Master’s copal lingered, so I knew he hadn’t gone out. I stretched and found I didn’t have nearly the same amount of pain as the previous morning. My belly growled and I placed a hand over it.
I rolled onto my side to see the Master at his desk, drawing characters upon a long scroll with a super fine brush. His eyes flicked up to mine. “Good morning, Doctor,” he greeted, and there was a quality to his voice that seemed new. Not bad, but new. “Breakfast is on its way; I anticipated your return to consciousness at about this time.”
“How?” I asked, and winced at the pain and the quality of my words.
“Better give your voice another day,” he advised, continuing to write. “As to the ‘how’, you hardly ever sleep longer than five hours at a time. Even, apparently, when badly injured.”
“I’ve slept the night through here a couple of times,” I protested, using my voice anyway. At the increase of pain, I quit being stubborn. Well, I have, I told him mentally. I looked down at myself and discovered I hadn’t a scrap on except for a sarong sort of garment. What happened to my clothes?
“They needed cleaned and pressed. They ought to return to you by the end of breakfast.” The Master scattered sand upon his scroll to dry the ink, and weighted it down with a few stones for that purpose. “You have time for a bath or shower. I suggest you do one or the other, as your dramatic eye paint is mostly all over the sheets and smeared down your face.”
How embarrassing. I went into his bathroom and made short work of removing dried sweat from my body. With relish I cleaned my teeth and shaved my face. I still didn’t appear to be regrowing hair on the rest of my body, which distressed me.
The Master watched me reenter. He’d accepted my breakfast and was pouring tea. “Feel better?” He started applying my eye paint to me while I sat to eat.
I do. What did you mean by five hours? I know I’ve slept longer than that here.
“You sleepwalk.” The Master carefully finished my left eye and went on to the right.
You’re kidding!
“I never joke about sleepwalking. It’s a dangerous pastime and more than a bit nerve wracking for the one following you.”
I groaned a little and made myself eat some toast. Sorry. I thought I’d quit doing that.
“It wouldn’t be so bad, but you’re apparently attracted to the lake,” the Master said, spooning flathberry jam onto what was left of my toast. Smooth as anything, he went back to painting my face. “One night you picked a bunch of blueberries before wading out to feed the rainbow koi. They ate most of your clothing. I had to sneak you back into the palace.” He grinned a little. “Actually, that was fun. Sort of like slipping one’s inebriated prom date past the parents.”
I winced and ate the delicious jam on toast and then moved onto the mushroom omelet. Fasten an arm or leg to the bed and I ought to stay put, I advised. That’s a security risk, my somnambulism.
“You lost your TARDIS key in the lake last night,” he said calmly. “I have men out diving for it right now.” He snitched a crumble of my omelet and added, “Do you really want me to tie you to my bed?”
I realized two things. The bed was still his even though we both slept in it, probably because he was a territorial bastard. And, he was uncomfortable with restraining me because he thought he might like it too much. I felt my lips pulling back for a helpless smile. Might be best, I told him. As for the key, you can stop having people dive for it.
“Oh?” The Master eyed me intensely. “Have a spare on your person?”
For my answer I reached out a newly healed hand and snapped my fingers. The TARDIS opened for me.
The Master stared at the TARDIS a moment before rounding on me. “I’d love to do that with my own TARDIS,” he confessed. “Assuming I can ever get it back from that mechanical megalomaniac. Show me how you arranged that.”
Like you noted, I’ve lived in my TARDIS for centuries. She just does what I want because she loves me and I love her.
“But, that’s direct communication,” the Master argued. “A TARDIS isn’t capable of that.”
Who told you that? Our people? I leveled an eyebrow at him. Do you think those stuffy, closed-minded egoists considered for one moment that a TARDIS was capable of independent thoughts and desires? For that matter, did anyone ever adequately explain the dynamics of how a TARDIS is grown and made into the machines we use?
Again the Master stared at me. He looked back at my TARDIS. Finally, he gave a small chuckle and shook his head. “Leave it to you,” he said. “You make good points, Doctor; I never considered any of it that way.”
It isn’t your fault, I told him. We were never intended to spend so much time in a TARDIS. I’m probably the only Time Lord who’s ever logged so much relative time and maintenance in one, and I took an antique to start with. I stroked my TARDIS’ exterior lovingly, enjoying the pulse of goodwill she returned immediately. She’s a beautiful old girl, I praised. So much class. So much willfulness. She hardly ever took me where I wanted to go, but she always took me where I needed to be. I love her.
“It shows,” the Master replied, his face a study in solemnity. “For that matter, it shows through her, too.” He sat back down at his desk and took a glance at the archaic water clock in the corner. “Take an hour’s rest,” he bade. “I’m drawing up a few documents regarding internal law. After, you and I will pay a visit to the tower, and we’ll have a good, private rest overnight. Tomorrow morning we’ll come back I’ll tend to your captors.”
I stretched out on the bed, looking at the ceiling. There’s nothing I can say or do to keep you from killing them, I said. Is there?
“No,” he answered flatly. “Even if I cared absolutely nothing for you, Doctor, I’d execute these Suri rebels for violating a Time Lord. They aren’t fit to wash your feet.” He took up his scroll, blew the dried sand off, and rolled it up for securing with a leather thong. “I’d eliminate them for the offense of harming any Time Lord, no matter how much I personally hated him; but, because it was you, the bleeding-wound Savior of the Universe, the man who would show mercy and goodness to the most vile of beings, the dissidents will die. And, you will not stand in my way.” He pinned me with his eyes, and I felt all the power and fury of a natural force. “If you defy me on this, Doctor, then our alliance is over, and I will take every measure to confine you in such a way that you cannot pit your will against mine ever again.”
I fell into those eyes of pine and honeyed pitch, tumbling over and over within myself. It hurt me, oh, it cost me, but I levered up and went to his desk, standing a mere three feet from his electrified form. “As long as you understand I take no life for granted, then I can adapt to your primitive sense of law,” I told him, watching his gaze go molten with consideration. “As long as you recognize I’m not a natural killer, a man who can take life without consequence, then I can make the allowance that you are a predatory, ruthless animal of natural justice.”
The Master considered me with every due thought that a man would make regarding his own soul. The air between us became heavy, leaden with the power of honest impartiality. He wasn’t brushing me off, wasn’t disregarding what I said. He’d heard and weighed every word.
“They would have tortured anyone I took for a mate,” he said to me, his voice and eyes harmonizing. “They would have brutalized anyone that I took for enjoyment in any fashion; their deaths will mean peace, on some level, to everyone I rule, even you. So, you will sit back and let me enact the ruthless, animal justice that I am so good at enforcing, Doctor.”
I went back to his bed (his bed), and tried to get comfortable. I wasn’t easy in knowing that men would die because of me, and he knew it. Yet, I understood that he had to make a show of force in order to maintain control here, and that undermining him wasn’t wise, prudent, or useful. I went back to looking at the ceiling, seeing in the aged cracks and yellowing plaster that I was a simple thing that couldn’t abide or abet death. Death, which was the natural order of things as much as life, was my enemy. It made me sad and worse than pathetic that I couldn’t reconcile it.
**
The Master had the entire populous of the palace and the inner city gather in the center of all activity, the marketplace. He had a gallows erected there overnight, while I tortured myself with the reality of death. And now, he and I stood as all of the dissidents were herded toward their fate like cattle to slaughter. Hanging was new to this culture; no one had ever seen people deliberately strangled. I knew this from reading all the law books, and from Sigglis visiting me just before we left the palace.
The Master parted from me and walked slowly, deliberately to the place of moral and mortal justice. He had three men cloaked in black awaiting his orders, their eyeless hoods so grim to me and probably to everyone else. He did an abrupt, graceful about-face to address the throng of Seldatians that had gathered for the execution. Holding his arms wide, he waited for silence. He didn’t have to wait more than three seconds.
“Citizens of Seldatia,” he said, his voice like a drug, carrying to every corner of the crowd effortlessly. “Four days ago my consort was taken from me by rebels that thought our women should never be educated or treated with the common respect of all life here on Seldatia.” He lowered his arms and cast his gaze out upon the crowd, waiting for anyone to speak. No one did.
“I ask you, is instruction denied because of gender?” The Master walked along the gallows platform, his hands behind his back and his head bowed. “Is the truly learned man so threatened by a female with thoughts and opinions that he must subjugate her with force, violence, and treason?” He did a little spin to once again look out upon the crowd. “Is education, the keystone of Seldatia, only for one half of our populace?”
The Master waited while the people murmured, stayed calm and motionless as his questions rippled through the multitude of people.
“To deny education to one half is to deny it to all,” an unknown man shouted. “If we are all dedicated to learning, can we not be taught from the ones who carry and rear our young?”
A cry of approval lifted up, carried by so many that the gathered people became one voice. I felt a little swell of appreciation and approval. These people had only given up their chauvinistic attitudes toward education a short time ago, but they were already fully on board for the change that the Master had wrought.
“Yes, exactly,” the Master said, his approval wafting out over the mob like hot sugar. “Yet, these men took my mate,” he stressed, pointing to the ones awaiting judgment, “with the idea that they could hold him and make me enforce ignorance, misogyny, bias and bigotry.”
“Let the Earth take them!” Someone shouted. Their cries were taken up by others quickly, until the entire gathering was indignant.
The Master held up a hand, silencing everyone. “Yes, I agree,” he assured, once again looking out upon the horde. “Yet, my mate, whose name is The Doctor, is full of the benevolence I cherish in each and every one of you. He would not see a single one of his tormentors killed even though he has yet to regain his voice, and his spirit is diminished by the torment they put him through in the name of outdated beliefs.”
The throng began murmuring excitedly, posing the mindset and motivation of each and every person awaiting judgment.
“They keep us in the dark,” a man shouted.

“They want us to remain ignorant,” someone else said.
“Mercy is for those who show mercy!”

The Master waited patiently while the people debated amongst themselves, his very being projecting a willingness to take the decree of all those assembled. He came back to me and took me by the arm after a long ten minutes, pushing me forward so that everyone could get a good look at my injuries.
“My consort,” he announced. “He cannot speak to you on behalf of those who hurt him, but he would. He cherishes all life. It is what makes him who he is, what he wishes us all to be.” The Master threaded his fingers with mine and pulled me closer until we were smack against each other, side to side. “He is kind and generous, and I measure my ability to rule by his compassion.”
Again the people began hot and heavy discussion between themselves, and again the Master merely awaited a response, his face like stone.
“If the rebels can be rehabilitated,” someone shouted, “then, let them!”
“We don’t want death merely for the sake of death!”
The Master, giving every appearance of listening seriously, nodded. “The ones who would learn, need a place,” he informed. “I cannot keep them in the palace, because my consort is precious, and because I don’t believe in sincerity until it is proven.”
Once again the gathered people talked quickly. They were an animated bunch, and determined to see justice, but not especially for justice to mean death, and it gave me hope. A man came forth and lifted his arm so that the Master would see him. “Put the dissidents to hard labor,” he declared. “But, my emperor, your people believe Suri should die.”
I held my breath.
The Master nodded. “Very well. Let it not be said that Seldatian people are bloodthirsty.” He motioned to the prisoners. “Take off their blindfolds so that they may see their leader’s fate.”
“I would do it all again,” Suri shouted as he was made to climb the gallows stairs.
“Wait,” the Master called out to his hooded executioners. “Where is Raenna? Where is the woman who was mistreated?”
“I am here, My Lord Emperor,” Raenna said, coming from the group we’d traveled with from the palace.
“Come up here, Raenna,” the Master said.
The young woman, who still showed the effects of her ill use, came to stand before the Master, fear in her eyes. The Master put his hand on her shoulder, turning her so that the people could see her. “Tell your people what they did to you.”
Raenna made a fist. “They raped me,” she said. “Over and over and over, they raped me. They beat me. When I would grow gravid with their seeds, they would beat me to kill the baby. I have lost four children.” Her voice, naturally low, carried over the populace effortlessly, because no one spoke or moved. The shock in the eyes of the mob told me that the Master would have his blood. “The physician, Matreus, says that I might never have children now,” she added, and a sob left her lips. “Because of them, I might never give a husband a son. They have tried to make me worthless.” She straightened, and though I couldn’t see her face, I knew she was crying. “But Matreus has taken me for an apprentice. I may help others who have been harmed.”
The Master guided Raenna back to Matreus, who put her in his arms with kindness I’d expect from a grieving father. “Is hard labor enough?” He asked the people simply.
A cry for death rose up from the throng. It carried from every set of lips assembled. The Master put his hands behind his back and nodded to his executioners. “The people have spoken,” he said.
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Lapidary