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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
- 13
- 14
- 15
Watching the hanging of these people made me quite, quite sick. I had to watch, too, so that I wouldn’t undermine the Master’s campaign for justice. Still, every time the lever was pulled and a body jerked or a neck snapped, I felt bile in my throat. Raenna, though, she watched every man die with the same expression; relief. I understood why, too. To her, every death meant no more rape. I couldn’t fault her for her feelings. I had time to put myself in her place, and I miserably concluded that there wasn’t anything else for these men but death.
“It’ll never get any easier for you,” the Master said quietly in Gallifreyan. “But, thank you for allowing my justice.”
I understand it, but I can’t enjoy it, I told him.
He put his hand out and took mine, and I shivered at the feel of his strong, warm palm and fingers. You don’t have to enjoy it, he answered. Even I am not particularly enjoying this. There’s nothing rewarding in this for my so-called predatory soul, Doctor. He gave me a slight squeeze, and it gave me a bracing feeling. What would have satisfied me is if I’d personally slit their throats the moment I found you. It took all my willpower to stop myself. It took even more to house them underneath us in the dungeons when I was tending to your injuries. He took a foil wrapped ball from his pocket and peeled it without letting go of me. It proved to be the narcotic medicine. He held it up and I allowed him to put it under my tongue.
Your people are watching, I said. Indeed, they were observing the hanging with grim determination, but also the Master and me.
They don’t envy my position, but they do envy me for my consort, the Master told me, warm amusement in his mental tone. I suppose you’ve figured out a person of your coloring and stature is considered ideal here?
It was brought to my attention, I admitted. I had to close my eyes briefly against the sight of a man who didn’t immediately die. When I opened them again, he was still jerking.
Hm, the Master mused. A neck any Time Lord would have coveted, he commented about the condemned. Still, my subjects expect justice, not torture. He took the rifle from a guard, brought it up and shot the man dead. Casually, he handed the weapon back.
It’s so easy for you, I said. Why?
I’m Death’s Agent, Doctor, and I have been since we were children, he answered, taking my hand again. You are Time’s champion, and I am Death’s. Time is a killer, of course. And, we are known to kill Time ourselves.
Philosophy during public execution was a bit much for me.
Only two more to go, Doctor, and we can leave, the Master promised. You’ve done very well. I do understand what sort of creature you are, and I do know this is very hard for you to endure. Again he squeezed my hand. I’m not without sympathy. Granted, I could never reach your level of pathos, but I do have a grain or two of comprehension for your suffering.
But, you have hurt me in the past, I argued.
You always hurt the ones you love. That’s what your precious humans say. Actually, they have quite a few good sayings. They aren’t without interest. The Master, sensing my shock at what he said, gave a small mental chuckle and caressed the inside of my palm with one finger. Just a stroke, but one that sent all my nerve endings jangling. Don’t pretend, he admonished. You love me, don’t you? It’s what stayed your hand from completely obliterating me time and time again while I was acting like a proper Time Lord tool.
There’s a lot of different sorts of love, just like benevolence, I answered as we turned from the proceedings and made our way down the dais. If you love me, be prepared to give a few definitions, Master.
Oh really, he replied with an audible scoffing sound. If I love you, is it really any of your business?
I would think so!
That’s because you’re a nosy-parker, he parried. You couldn’t mind your own business if forced. Still holding my hand, he made me enter the covered cart and gave orders to our driver to return to the palace.
**
I managed to get my mental walls up by evening, and as I sat on the Master’s balcony, feeling all my internal hurts going into final repair, I contemplated what it means to love someone.
Pain.
Joy.
Belonging.
Fear of loss.
Purpose.
The Master sat on the balcony rail with one foot up and the other dangling down. It was more than precarious, but I knew better than to point it out. He held his saucer and cup like the elegant thing he was, watching the sunset and me by turns. I still wasn’t used to getting this much eye contact from him.
“You’re worrying about nothing,” he said. “And no, I can’t hear your head anymore, but its plain you’re thinking about the nature of love.”
I sighed and tended to my own tea. He always saw too much without ever seeing anything at all. It didn’t frighten me that I loved him, only that he might love me back, in any respect. I’d had years to contemplate basic compatibility, the attraction of two people so alike and so different that they can’t help running into each other. We were magnets, flipping to change our facing polarity upon whimsy. I couldn’t imagine him capable of loving me and trying to kill me at the same time. It was sick.
“Rarely did I resort to trying to actually end your life,” the Master said, jolting my head up.
I checked my shield and found it intact. The Master was simply able to read my face well enough to know what I was thinking. Since my personality quirks and tells changed with every body, that was impressive. But then, he was impressive.
“Now you’re getting depressed because you think we’re in two different sorts of love, and upset I can still see what you’re thinking.” He set his saucer down and laced his fingers around the knee he had propping up for balance. “Look, Doctor; I’m not the only one who can read a face. You’re very good at it yourself. Besides, it’s always you in there, in those different bodies.”
The Master slid off the banister gracefully, coming over to stand before me. He sank onto his haunches before me, a curious and fond sort of smile on his lips as he met my eyes. “It’s like going from oranges to holy relics,” he said. “You used to be an orange. Now, you’re a holy relic.”
I so totally didn’t know what he meant. In fact, I was so lost I just sat there with my mind whirling. What love had to do with oranges and holy relics, I didn’t know. But… But, one can love oranges and devour them. The love of a holy relic means a museum or private collection, careful handling and private viewing.
Ah.
“There, that wasn’t hard, was it?” He asked.
Quite suddenly, I felt afraid of him. I hadn’t felt this afraid of him in centuries.
The Master pulled in a long, slow breath. “Oh, you have to tell me what you just thought about,” he said, extending his finger in an invitation for me to touch. He wanted to hear my head. “Your eyes haven’t looked at me like that since you were blond.”
I obliged him and touched our fingers together. I won’t be cataloged and stuffed into a display, I told him.
Don’t be ridiculous, he said back, his eyes sparkling with amusement. You and I are our own museum.
I started to lose my patience. Always the cat and mouse with him. What, then? I asked shortly.
He gave me a look that suggested I wasn’t thinking properly. Suddenly, his eyebrows lifted. It isn’t dangerous, I promise. Consider it awhile. He took his finger away from mine slowly. “I’m finishing my tea and going to bed. Tomorrow we have a little trip ahead of us. I promised Matreus I’d send some people to collect Black Lotus flowers, but I’m considering going myself, without a contingent, I might add. The more people that travel with me to the wilder areas, the more notice is taken, and I don’t want us noticed. It’s private land, but you know how squatters are.” He drained his cup and walked past me into the bedroom. “Good night, Doctor,” he bade, letting me know he didn’t expect I would join him soon.
I sat there long enough to see the stars come out, then went after him. As always, when he slept he looked positively angelic.
**
“I hate these things,” the Master said after the fifth time we narrowly avoided smacking ourselves upon low hanging branches. Our steed wasn’t very steerable, though I could tell the Master had the skill down as far as anyone could take it. “Take me to Earth and I’ll get some horses. These things can go back to the wild.”
I had my arms around him, so communication was easy. Adding horse theft to your list of crimes, I chided.
“I don’t have to steal them. It’s just more fun to steal.” The Master maneuvered our slippery mount around a large stone. “Thank Rassilon we only have another mile to go.”
We’re in some very deep wilds, I commented. I was having a little trouble with the forest. It was stupid of me to associate the forest with what had happened to me, but I had a lot of blurry, vague memories dealing with this sort of light and a lot of pain. The canopy overhead I simply could not bring myself to look at.
In just a few moments I could peer past the Master’s shoulder, and I knew the place just ahead had to be our destination. A small clearing of silvery grey and gunmetal gray grass had patterns of pumpkin orange flowers, small, deep purple ones, and tiny little white ones. Beyond that was about a ten foot waterfall and its stream wove around the clearing, making a circle of it before dropping off into some unknown cavern. Hundreds of multicolored, fluttering insects went from blossom to blossom. In the middle of the graceful grasses and flowers was a stone altar with a slight depression in the top center. The glade had a rustic little fence almost all the way around it, but not even high enough to keep anything but a Dachshund out.
The Master halted our steed and held her so I could slide off. He tethered the animal underneath a large tree within easy reach of the water and in high, munchable grass. “This is their first known worship site to the elements,” he said. “It’s the only place the Black Lotus grows, supposedly. Try to step lightly.” He took off his sandals and tucked them in the pack he’d brought, then removed the bag from our mount.
I took my shoes off, too, and we walked for the only break in the woven stick circle. “The old emperor and the one before him refused to come here,” the Master said, sliding a short wooden rod from his bag. It had characters carved on it, but I saw one in our own language, the one for his title. The wood had been highly polished and caught the diffused light well. “There’s some sort of superstition about being the last name on the fence.”
Every single stick in this fence had an emperor’s name on it. We realized that at the same time, though it should have been obvious. After a moment of staring at each other, the Master and I squatted to look at the base of the primitive structure. “They’re decaying very slowly,” he observed at the same time I saw splintery, powder shards of wood at ground level and apparently a little below.
This has been completed once before, I replied, pointing. But a long, long time ago. I picked up a splinter and licked it. Seven centuries, eight?
Grimacing, the Master touched the tip of his tongue to a small piece of ancient wood, too. “Seven and a half,” he concluded. “That’s a very slow rate of decay for wood, isn’t it?” He stood and had a look around. “Water, Air, Earth, and Wood. We might be meant to build a fire in that altar. That only leaves Spirit. Maybe that’s what we have to offer.”
You intend to actually worship? I asked, surprised.
“I have a love for ceremony, as you well know.” The Master pushed his stick into the weave of the fence, completing it behind us. “Besides, in learning what my people respect, I become a better ruler.”
You’re so cunning, I remarked, following him toward the stream. So, build a fire already.
“Not until the sun moves behind the trees,” he said, putting down the pack at the edge of the stream. “Feel free to wander about in here. I’m going to relax awhile.”
I took his advice, enjoying the opportunity to be outside on an interesting world with an interesting companion. I walked the stream’s edge, staring down into very deep, crystalline water. I stuck my finger in it. Cold, but not too cold for me. I cast a glance in the Master’s direction just in time to see him get absolutely naked.
Really, perfect in miniature wasn’t a good description of him. He was lean and of squared off, strong shoulders. He had a flat little stomach and narrow waist. I watched his muscles flexing as he got on a rock that bordered the stream to stretch out on his stomach. He was tan and beautiful, and I felt a little twinge of something go through me.
I shucked my clothes, dropped everything in a pile, and dove into the water before I could talk myself out of it. I didn’t have the voice to shriek when I surfaced, but my mental one made the Master’s head twist in my direction very swiftly. I could see his grin from way over here. He relaxed back down and I made serious play out of the water.
Nearly an hour passed by while I frolicked. Eventually I swam over to tread water by the Master’s rock. The sun beat down on him, and he looked asleep. Likening you to a reptile seems apt at this point, I said. He’d flipped over on his back while I swam around, and his arm hung down on this side. Better than sunning yourself on a human?
I gave his arm a small yank, and he woke up startled, rolling right off his rock and into the water practically on top of me.
The explosion of water, the Master, and myself sent waves everywhere. I suddenly found myself encased in arms and legs, the Master holding onto me in a death grip. His eyes wild, he stared at me in unmistakable terror.
He was hydrophobic, and I’d inadvertently submitted him to his phobia.
Carefully, I put my hands on his waist, but I didn’t attempt to pull free, just stood there and waited for him to get his bearings and calm down. We were right at the shoreline; all he had to do was move an arm out, grab onto the embankment, and haul himself free. He could have done that when he fell in, but he’d gone for me instead. I was somehow safer than solid ground. The compliment of that resonated in me. You’re fine, I told him. It’s okay. Something about this seemed terribly familiar, but I couldn’t think of a time in our past that we’d had a swim together.
The Master’s breathing began to gain some steadiness. He loosened his arms to pull away just enough to look me face to face. “If your eyes were blue,” he said mysteriously.
My eyes haven’t been true blue in centuries, I said.
The Master gave a harsh little laugh and went back to clutching at me. “Get me back on Terra Firma,” he ordered.
Will Firma Seldatia do? I waded with him the two steps to the embankment and hoisted him up on it to sit with his legs dangling over. He seemed mostly all right now, even with his feet and ankles in the water. I didn’t mean to roll you into the water, sorry.
“No big deal,” he replied, but it was obviously quite the opposite.
You don’t react like this in your bathtub, and it’s nearly chest high in the middle.
Again the Master laughed, just as harsh this second time. “Your lack of ceremony and attention to gods is so convenient,” he said. He got up and started getting dressed, his movements jerky and agitated. “Forget it. My fear of water is nothing.”
I swam back down to my own pile of clothes, got out and made short work of dressing. Even though I’d been quick, he’d been quicker. When I reached him he was sitting on his rock again and staring balefully at the stream. You know I can’t just forget it. It doesn’t make any sense that you’d react so badly to a small stream when your tub is equally able to drown you. Also, you weren’t a bit nervous when I rowed you across that big lake. And, you’ve apparently at least waded into that same lake to retrieve my sleepwalking self, so what’s going on with you?
He turned his head up to glare at me. “I said to forget it,” he stressed, showing me his teeth.
It’s just the two of us out here, Master. You don’t have to be the emperor right now. I want to help you. I sat on the ground beside his rock and looked up at him. Hydrophobia is pretty common across the universe, you know. A lot of people fear drowning.
The Master put his head in his hands a moment before lurching to his feet like a newly animated marionette. “You can’t help me. I forbid it.” He took a box from the pack he’d brought, and a knife. “If you want to do something, aid me in collecting the Black Lotus for Matreus.” He pointed to the rocky area around the waterfall, and I saw huge, black and silver blossoms growing in crevices there. He gave me the knife, then. “Pry them up from the ground and let them fall into the collections box. Don’t actually touch the flowers or you’ll contaminate them.”
Hurt that he wouldn’t allow me to do more for his problem, I nevertheless obeyed. In an hour we had the box full. The Master and I went back to the very center of the glade, and he wordlessly reached into my inside jacket pocket, retrieving my screwdriver. He put a fuel pellet on the pillar altar and used the sonic to light it, then handed back my property.
We hadn’t taken two steps away before we witnessed a phenomenon. All around us, columns of elemental force lifted up from the ground. The earth became a spire of rock, and water rushed from the stream to form a rippling, moving cylinder. The fire soared upward to form a column, and air collected like a whirlwind to do the same. We stood in the middle of them all, silent and amazed. In seconds the tall pillars of elemental powers sank back to nothing, and we stared at each other in the dawning quiet.
“Well,” the Master said. “That was interesting.”
**
- 13
- 14
- 15
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Lapidary