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Lapidary	By : Savaialian Category: 1 through F > Doctor Who Views: 1562 -:- 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
- 1
- 2
I’m so glad to see him, so glad he’s alive, but he hasn’t even looked at me once since his men dragged me in here. He’s writing something on thick, vellum-like paper, using the beautiful calligraphy of this culture he’s taken control of with the ease of a native. It probably took him less than a few hours to learn it. Like me, he’s good with languages.
We’re more alike than we are different. That reality has made me lie awake many times.
I wonder why he’s complying with the low tech of this planet. Maybe he’s enjoying the softer light of these candles and oil lamps; he’s very much the sort. Fire is raw, elemental power. Like him. The orange and yellow, flickering light makes his face look so young, and his skin glow golden.
Point of fact, the Master looked healthy. He’d overcome his unstable state, apparently. I was thankful for that. Not only did I want him in good health, I preferred it if he didn’t eat sentient beings. Humans were just another animal to eat, and I understood his reasoning despite loving human beings, but I couldn’t condone it. If he hadn’t been starving I didn’t think I could have forgiven him for it. Still, as Kahlil Gibran posed, even Good will eat in dark caves when hungry and drink stagnant water when thirsty. I forgot the original phrasing.
I looked away from the Master, focusing instead on the décor, the furnishings. This room screamed of his influence. Rich, dark wood paneling with burgundy trim, tasteful stained glass windows, books, scrolls, hanging charts. Thick carpeting in light tan… it looked ultra soft and I could bet it was. The smell of copal permeated anything the slightest bit porous. His scent. The moment I stepped off the TARDIS I’d smelled him.
The Master dragged his brush through the pool of ink in the middle of the sumi-type dried ink block, his arm extending gracefully close to the candles on his desk. The transparently fine shirt he wore went see-through at the sleeve, showing me his elongated, attractive musculature. I bemoaned that I could never compete with his perpetual beauty. He was always handsome, with a few notable exceptions.
But, that was the Master all over, wasn’t it? The danger of him. I’d contemplated that evil is generally seductive, mainly when thinking of him. He was a compelling creature from top to bottom, lapidary and polished. He gleamed like the only piece of silver in a pile of coal. One couldn’t not notice him, ever. He radiated his superiority. Even his voice commanded full attention. He could caress the ears of a multitude while doing heinous things, rarely encountering resistance.
Most people are so eager for beauty and charisma, and so very quick to ally with it.
My legs had gone to sleep standing here, but I wouldn’t ask to sit even though these chains were incredibly heavy. He’d only mock me, or knock me down. In the past, his threat of violence had never meant his bare hands. Not even his gloved hands, actually. I didn’t know why he’d opted for slapping me when I was at his mercy in the Naismith Mansion, only that he hadn’t hit me as hard as he probably wanted. For him, it had been light enough to be a love tap. A warning. I’m not playing around, here, Doctor.
A knock came at his door. The Master set his work aside, rose with enviable grace, and answered. He accepted a heavy gold tray laden with covered platters and spouted pots of delicate porcelain. Spinning, he shut the door with his foot and put the tray on the desk right in front of me. I started in surprise as he simply unchained me and dragged a chair over.
He meant for me to eat.
Hesitantly, I poked around to find a thick steak and a large serving of what looked to be wild rice pilaf. Feeling awkward, I sat down and slowly cut into the meat. Not looking over at me, the Master said lowly, “It isn’t poisoned, Doctor. You’re going to need your strength, so eat.”
Thinking he meant to make sport of me later if he wanted my strength built up, I obeyed him. Everything tasted wonderful. The meat was perfectly cooked, but it wasn’t beef. I didn’t recognize it. The rice pilaf contained spices also unfamiliar and complimentary. I discovered something very like chocolate rum torte for dessert, and ate that with rather less caution than the first part of dinner. Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I saw the Master’s lips twitch as if amused.
When I explored the spouted, porcelain servers, I discovered a wonderful black and green blend of tea. It smelled of chrysanthemum, slightly. There were two cups on saucers, so I served him, too, careful to not disturb whatever occupied him so much. Because he’d taken his tea with one sugar cube when we were children, I added one to his cup and stuck a spoon in. I then attended my own.
“When did you learn patient silence?” The Master asked, accepting my tea offering. His slim, strong fingers manipulated a spoon twice in the piping hot brew before threading into the delicate cup handle. He finally lifted his gaze to mine, and I shivered at the predatory intelligence captured in bottled-sherry colored eyes. “Are you ill?” He prompted.
“No,” I managed to say.
“No?” He repeated softly. “What did change your basic, frenetic verbosity into stoicism, then?”
“Dunno. I didn’t feel… subdued until recently.” I glanced meaningfully at the pile of chains littering his floor.
The Master groaned at my joke, but he smiled, too, and it was a good kind of smile, like pleasure taken in something familiar. He set his cup down to roll up his work, now that it had dried, and tucked the scroll between several others so it wouldn’t unwind. “You feel… subdued because of high ion bombardment,” he informed. “This building causes it, actually.”
“Medicating?” I caught on fairly fast. “It’s working. You look well.”
“Thank you.” The Master finished his tea and lit a clove cigarette. He took two long drags before blowing a smoke ring over my hand. “I rarely give warning shots, Doctor, but I sometimes make an exception for you, so let me inform that I can hear every little thought going on in that chaotic head of yours.”
“Oh.” Normally, I’d feel a bit embarrassed for that, but he and I were attuned to each other in ways few Time Lords accomplished with one another. Also, my pleasure at seeing him doubtless made me an open book. I closed off my mind quickly. “Sorry about that,” I apologized.
“No need to apologize.” The Master stubbed out his fragrant cigarette, positively mashing it to atoms in the previously pristine, crystal ashtray. “Feel like a stroll to aid the digestion?”
Well, here it came, my destruction or my humiliation, whichever pleased him better at the moment. I got up and again felt surprise, for he didn’t make a move to secure me in any way, nor did he point a weapon at me. He did take a rapier from the wall, but strapped it to himself and left it in the scabbard. “Do you want one?” He asked, pointing to the sword’s twin.
“Is it dangerous for me to not have one?” I asked.
The Master favored me with a charismatic grin. “No,” he answered. “But, this is a feudal planet, Doctor, and I’m a fairly new emperor. I expect to be tried and tested for awhile until people see I’m no one to fall foul of.”
I hadn’t held a sword since fighting the Sycorax, and in general wasn’t enamored of any weapon. Still, I might be able to prevent him from killing someone if I carried a sword, too. “Where are you taking me?” I asked as I reached for the rapier. This might be a ploy. He might want me armed so that I’d make better entertainment when he kicked me stark naked into a pit of befanged beasties.
“I thought I’d show you around a little, be your tour guide,” he said, opening the door. “This place isn’t without interest, even to a cosmos-politan traveler like you.”
“Okay.” I’d go with it. I’d never learn what he was up to otherwise.
The Master led me into the hallway and down to the inner court, where I’d been captured. “My guards caught you because your presence triggered reactions in the potted plants,” he explained, pointing to some aggressive looking vegetation beside the doors. “You were fortunate the plants sensed you were like me; I hacked down their kin for trying to take a bite out of me.”
I looked at the open, yawning maw of fibrous teeth beside me and nodded. He led me out the double doors, and we instantly gained an entourage of half a dozen guards. They flanked us and remained silent. The Master turned around to walk backward while he addressed them. “Twenty feet,” he commanded, and they fell back to that distance immediately. “I dislike having people behind me,” he complained to me aside, in a voice of disclosure. “Still, if I have them in front of us, they’ll spoil the view.”
“Might be safer,” I pointed out.
The Master shrugged in a careless way. “I don’t anticipate having to deal with ordinary citizens, or even malcontents. At present I only have to contend with the odd assassin, and they don’t usually strike during the day. It’s against their beliefs. Death should not fall in the daylight.”
“That’s… interesting,” I said. And, it was. “Any Vashta Nerada here?”
“They’re everywhere, as you well know,” the Master said. “Isn’t this pretty grass, Doctor?”
I looked at the rolling landscape for the first time. Even on the way here I’d been so focused upon finding him that I hadn’t paid attention to the vista. Sloppy of me. But, he had a point; the grass was pretty, a sort of silvery grey and light refractive. “It is,” I agreed. I stopped to feel it. It was very soft and fine, and reminded me of rabbit fur. “You don’t need a blanket when you picnic.”
The Master grinned again. “Food, food, food, but never anything nutritious,” he said, meaning me. “Your perfect picnic is six different candies, three types of sugary drinks, and maybe those greasy, newspaper-wrapped chips you like so much.”
He projected his opinion with fondness, which made my heart swell with hope. I didn’t feel like smothering that hope for self-protection anymore, and I dreaded the next few seconds because of that. But, the Master didn’t add anything horrible, or biting, which left me to wonder if I would survive the ax falling on me later. “Candy would be nice,” I said. “Do you have any?”
The Master began patting his pockets. He pulled out a small paper bag and handed it over without preamble. “Trans-Galactic Supply Company,” he explained as I looked at Jelly Babies. “I’m their number one shareholder, by the way.”
I pondered his business dealings as I munched multicolored, gelatinous sugar treats. The Master usually had a lot of irons in a lot of fires. He was very capable of doing honest business, and did more often than not. “How did you get here?” I asked.
“I had a TARDIS parked on Ghoen,” he said, which gave me a small shock. “I stole a vortex manipulator and aimed it there.” He eyed me askance and smiled a little bit. “A Type 74.”
“Fancy,” I drawled. “Soooo… emperor?”
“I don’t serve,” the Master told me with cool precision. “I wanted this planet. It isn’t any more complicated than that.”
“Well, where is the old emperor buried?” I asked.
“He isn’t dead. He descended peacefully.” The Master led me to the perimeter of a vast, still lake the color of blue slate. There was a long dock, and a smallish craft moored at the end. “He’d lost control long before I came along, and seemed rather grateful for a dignified overthrowing rather than falling victim to poison or assassins.” He stopped us at the boat and had a long look at it. “You can either do the rowing, or we’ll take a man with us,” he informed.
Thinking to minimize the Master’s threat level to innocent people, I opted for taking up the oars. “I’ll row,” I told him.
“Excellent. You’re as polite as a guest as you are as a host, Doctor.”
We got in, and I got situated. “Which direction?”
“Toward the tall, white tower in the distance,” he said, lounging back. He looked toward the guards next. “Back to the senate,” he said, and they dispersed.
“This seems rather inconvenient, having to row to work,” I said, obediently taking us in a westerly direction.
“Walking is seen as common,” he explained. “They have horse-like creatures here, but I don’t like them. Most animals don’t take to me well.”
“They know a predator on sight,” I murmured, but he heard me. A delighted smile plastered onto his face.
We were silent until reaching about halfway across, doing a lot of looking at each other. The Master told me to stop rowing. When I did, he took a bag of light green pellets from under his seat. “You’ll like these,” he said, tossing out three handfuls in rapid succession. “Rainbow koi from their Jurassic period. The old emperor had the only ones left on the planet, and I set them to breeding.”
I peered over to see exactly what he said I would; rainbow colored carp. They were huge and graceful and caught the evening light very well. I tossed out a jelly baby, and it promptly got snatched. The fish was so big he made a sizable splash when submerging again. “They are pretty,” I admitted. “Despite being glorified goldfish, they have meat eating teeth, however.”
“They do eat meat, but they don’t swarm and attack like piranha,” he said. “You could swim among them if you wanted, because they also don’t appear to like meat shaped like us.”
“Funny,” I muttered. “The plants were hateful but the meat-eating fish aren’t.”
“Nearly every animal on this planet is an herbivore,” the Master replied. “The plants have learned aggression as a matter of course.” He threw out a few more handfuls of food before gesturing me to continue on.
“This is exercise,” I halfway complained as we neared the shore.
“Quit your whinging,” he shot back. “You chose to row so I couldn’t kill a guard. I know how you operate.”
“Were you planning to?” I asked suspiciously.
“Of course not. My guards are useful and valuable.” The Master slid a smile my way that could fuel a small sun. “As are you, Doctor.”
“You can’t keep me,” I warned in the lightest tone possible.
“I have no intention of restraining you in any way,” he countered smoothly. “I only left the chains on you so long because you happen to look good in them.”
I didn’t know what to think or say about that, so I kept quiet and finished getting us to the tower.
**
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Lapidary