Disclaimer:It's a sad fact that I don't own Doctor Who. The BBC does. I, however, own all original characters and creatures mentioned in this story, and would be crushed if they were stolen from me.
Carmine could have gone anywhere. She could have seen the fall of Arcturus as it was sucked into the ravening maw of the black hole at the center of the Mutter Spiral. She could have gone back to see the time when dinosaurs still raged through prehistoric forests. She could have bungee-jumped into the thousand-mile wide storms in the great blue spot on the Andromedan planet Althea. Instead she was going to the opera.
"It's about as dangerous as a dinosaur," said the Doctor as they threaded through rows upon rows of red velvet seats of the enormous theater. "Opera music."
"You don't need to be so pessimistic!" said Carmine. She found their seat numbers and flagged the Doctor over. "It's the opera! It's a powerful and stirring sort of music. Besides, look how posh it all is. It's more posh than posh."
She waved her gloved hand in the air, indicating the soaring, gilded ceiling of the operahouse, the crowds of people all in thousands of pounds' worth of silk and jewels, the silvery glint of the instruments in the orchestra pit far, far below. She plopped down into her seat with a rustle of many petticoats.
"And if anyone I know sees me here, I'll be even posher," said Carmine. She patted the arm of the seat next to her. "Come on, sit down."
The Doctor sat. "I once died to the soundtrack of opera music," he said.
"Oh, come off it," said Carmine. She reached up to her hair, making sure her elaborate pinned-up hairstyle was still in place. "How's the hair?"
"Lovely," said the Doctor. He produced an enormous brocaded program and started leafing through it. "Now, who are we seeing again?"
"Stella Amoretti, doing The Phoenix," said Carmine, rolling the name on her tongue like a delicious chocolate. "She's the very best. I cannot believe she's here in London. My mum has all her CD's, she's such a fan, it's pathetic!"
She laughed, a smile spreading across her face. "You act like you're all like, I can't wait to be out of here, but look at you. You even changed. I didn't think you could."
"I change all the time!" protested the Doctor, picking at his snazzy tux. "What, did you think my clothes were glued to my skin or something?"
"Sort of, yeah," said Carmine. She frowned and leaned over. "But…did you wear the same bowtie?"
"I like my bowtie," said the Doctor, adjusting the offending tie. "Bowties are cool."
"That is such a fashion faux-pas," said Carmine. "No, wait, let me rephrase. You are a walking fashion faux-pas."
"That's the glory of music!" said the Doctor suddenly, waving his hands through the air. "Look at all these people, cramming themselves into this building. They're all here for the same purpose. Music brings us all together. You humans are decently clever for coming up with it, I will give you credit for that."
"Shhh!" said Carmine as the lights started to dim. "It's starting!"
The orchestra was tuning, the sounds of the violins and horns and flutes echoing through the room, the sudden rustle as dozens of pages of music were all turned at once. Slowly, as the hall grew pitch-black, the lights shining onto the stage grew brighter and warmer, illuminating the stage. Even from her distance, Carmine could see the scenery and backdrop of the stage as clearly as if she were right in front. The painted flames of the backdrop seemed to glow, almost as if there were real fires burning onstage.
There was the thunder of applause as Stella Amoretti herself walked onstage, resplendent in a fantastic costume of gold and red. Carmine joined in, heart thumping almost as fast as when she was running from aliens.
Amoretti opened her mouth as the applause faded, and with a swoop of the violins, she started to sing.
Her powerful voice soared across the auditorium, loud and as clear as the sky on a winter morning. It was almost a physical force, inciting a response in Carmine, the first vibrating note almost bringing tears to her eyes. She'd seen worlds so beautiful it hurt to look at them, but still this one voice was affecting her almost more than anything else.
She closed her eyes, focusing on the music. It was flawless, save for one instrument that in Carmine's opinion should have not been there at all. It was making a very annoying hum, like some kind of machinery, or a particularly loud vibrating mobile phone.
Carmine suddenly noticed that the audience had fallen oddly quiet. She opened her eyes, frowning. The auditorium had indeed fallen silent. The audience was completely motionless, the rows of silhouetted people as still as a roomful of statues.
"Doctor!" hissed Carmine.
"They're frozen," said the Doctor, who had turned to examine the couple to his left. They were staring at the stage, hands by their sides. The Doctor dug the Sonic Screwdriver from his pocket and gave them a quick buzz, the green light reflecting off their glazed eyes.
They didn't even blink. The strange humming deepened, vibrating through the auditorium.
"What's wrong with them?" asked Carmine. "They look…transfixed."
"They are- their attention is totally fixed on the stage," said the Doctor, hopping over the back of the row of seats in front of theirs and examining the frozen opera-goers there.
"And I suppose they're not just really, really into the music?" asked Carmine, following him.
"No," said the Doctor. "Wait. Or maybe…in a way…they are."
Carmine and the Doctor both turned slowly towards the stage, where Stella Amoretti was standing, hands on her expansive hips, smiling smugly up at the audience.
"I think your Stella Amoretti is less of a singing nightingale…" said the Doctor, "…And more of a hunting hawk."
He set off down the center aisle, running at full tilt towards the stage. Hiking up the voluminous black mesh froth of her dress, Carmine ran after him.
"Trust something like this to happen when we go to the Opera!" she yelled as they dashed past the orchestra, the violinists' bows frozen in midair, and pianists' hands poised over the keys.
Stella Amoretti noticed them coming only at the last minute, and as she ran tripped over the magnificently glittering train of her costume. Lunging forwards, the Doctor grabbed the outstretched scarlet feathers of Amoretti's enormous phoenix wings, stopping the fleeing singer in her tracks.
"Let me go! Let me go, you brute!" she said in a plummy voice. She struggled, waving her bracelet-clad arms in the air. Carmine, climbing onstage, nabbed her and held on tight.
"Cut the act, Amoretti," said the Doctor, "If that's even your name. Which I highly doubt."
"I don't know what you're talking about, you…young…hooligan! Whippersnapper! Ragamuffin!" said Amoretti, narrowing her eyes. They were outlined in glittery golden eyeliner, so this action was quite dramatic. "Let me go!"
"You're draining the psychic energy of the inhabitants of a level 5 planet- without their permission," said the Doctor. "That's illegal."
"Oh, fine," said Amoretti, giving a large, dramatic sigh. She glared at Carmine, still hanging onto her wrists. "You've uncovered my little scheme. What are you two, then? Time Agents?"
"We're more freelance," said Carmine. "But don't worry- we're very professional."
"Oh, take off that shoddy human disguise," said the Doctor disdainfully. "It's getting annoying."
"Whatever you say, honeypops," said Amoretti. With a quick twist, she tore free of the Doctor and Carmine's grasp, changing shape as she went. Her skin melted and reformed, twisting like hot wax, and in a fraction of a second she had transformed into…
Carmine sniggered. "She's a cat?"
"Don't laugh, cutiedarling," said the fat black cat now sitting onstage. "I am a Rachuna."
"She's a shape-shifter," said the Doctor. "Normally she's a big pile of viscous goo; I can see why she likes this shape."
"I'm not a she, honeypops," said the cat. "I prefer 'it'. I hate conforming to gender expectations. "
"Whatever," said Carmine. "You're still a cat."
"I prefer this form," said the Rachuna, licking a paw. "It's very comfortable."
"And cuddly-wuddly!" said Carmine, reaching out to pat the kitty.
"Touch me not!" hissed the Rachuna, the fur on its tail puffing up.
"Back to the thing about the audience being frozen, again!" said the Doctor. "What's that humming sound? I think I know…!"
He walked over to the grand piano and, brandishing the Screwdriver, buzzed it. The image of the piano shivered and pixilated and finally vanished with a blip, exposing a small egg-shaped spaceship. Protruding from both sides of the ship were large panels, sort of like glowing green solar panels. It was these that were making the humming, which had grown in intensity once the piano hologram had been removed.
"Oh, very clever, Rachuna!" said the Doctor, striding over and examining the panels. "You are a bad kitty! What do these look like, Carmine?"
"Like…solar panels, sort of?" guessed Carmine.
"They're psychic energy panels," said the Doctor, tapping one. "The singing-opera-bit was just to get the audience's interest. Once they're all looking towards the stage, this kicks in…" he nudged the ship with a toe, "-and it forms a psychic link, channeling psychic energy down that link and into the energy cells of the ship."
"So it's like filling the ship up with petrol, only the petrol is brainpower?" said Carmine. "Talk about alternative energy!"
"You're not too shoddy with that brain yourself, honeypops," said the Rachuna, twitching the furry tip of its tail as it slunk over and rubbed against the Doctor's ankles. "I hate going to such extremes just to fuel my ship, honeypops, but I crashed some time ago and sadly, all my reserve power cells were smashed to bits. I've had to establish a human pseudonym, Stella Amoretti, just to get a chance to finally go home."
"Only it's not that simple, is it?" asked the Doctor, pacing in a slow circle around the fat black cat. "You run that machine long enough and you'll render the entire audience completely brain-dead! Humans have fragile little brains- sorry, Carmine," he said in response to Carmine's glare. "The forced psychic link will drain all their psychic energy, leaving them a bunch of vegetables."
He pointed out to the audience, to the masses of silently staring people. "You don't want to do that."
"I know I want to leave this silly little planet!" hissed the Rachuna. "Obsessed with petrol and fluttery bits of paper you call 'money' and sparkly elements you rip up from the ground! You mono-forms, you're nothing but big clumps of carbon and water. You can't see the real universe! You all deserve to finally become the vegetables you really are!"
Her voice reached a painful screech, and she began to shudder and change. The Doctor and Carmine stood back as the Rachuna grew until she towered over their heads, a twisting translucent mass of sticky squirming jelly.
"Next time," said Carmine to the Doctor, "Let's just go watch Arcturus dying, OK?"
The Rachuna's sticky jelly started to grow opaque, forming into great plates of bony armour and thick masses of red muscle. Hard black skin grew over the muscle as the Rachuna finished transforming.
A gigantic animal stood onstage. Eight feet at the shoulder, the beast looked like a cross between a rhinoceros and a stag beetle, with shiny black armour plates covering the bulging muscles and tree-trunk legs of the creature. It jerked its fearsomely gigantic head in the air, all four eyes rolling, and bellowed a warning at the Doctor and Carmine.
"Great," said the Doctor. "An Ondroxles Pachyderm."
He shrugged. "Not the strangest thing ever seen in an opera-house."
The Rachuna stepped forwards, the boards of the stage groaning under its great weight. It pawed the stage with a colossal front hoof and snorted a blast of hot air.
"It's going to charge!" said Carmine.
"RUN!" said the Doctor.
They turned and ran for backstage, ducking behind the curtain just as the Rachuna charged. It thundered across the stage with a great bellow, blasting through the painted backdrop with a great crash. Canvas and wood scraps rained onto Carmine and the Doctor as the Rachuna wheeled to face them, rearing and pawing the air as it prepared to crush them.
"Forward!" yelled Carmine, pulling the Doctor along as they ducked between the beast's back legs before it went back down on all fours. They ran underneath the scaffolding holding up the backdrop as the Rachuna twisted and melted, changing this time into an extraterrestrial snake, twenty feet long and as thick as a telephone pole. It was covered in thousands of barbed thorns, and its eyes glittered as it slithered into the scaffolding.
"I hate shape-shifters," said Carmine.
"Don't be prejudiced!" said the Doctor as the snake gave a long, rattling hiss. "There are plenty of lovely, wonderful shape-shifters. The Baseel, the N'daram, the cloud people of Betelgeuse…"
They turned a corner, and the Rachuna barreled after them, coiling in a spiny heap just in front of them. It hissed, flicking its forked black tongue, and changed again. This time it was a huge feathered beast, snapping its tooth-lined beak at them, and then it changed into a great hairy insect, stinger poised to stab, and then it changed again, flicking in between shapes blindingly fast, just a twisting ball of claws and teeth and skittery legs.
Halfway in between shapes it suddenly lunged, its unformed head splitting open to expose a maw packed full of teeth. Carmine dodged one way, the Doctor dodged the other way, and the Rachuna ran into one of the scaffolding's supporting beams behind them. The beam wobbled and snapped, and the entire backdrop slowly started to tip over.
Carmine and the Doctor barely missed being crushed. The backdrop crashed to the floor, raising a great cloud of dust and dried paint. The Rachuna writhed, trapped under the great pile of what was once a magnificent backdrop, its gooey form splatting everywhere. The Doctor approached the shapeshifter and knelt down.
"Why don't you stop before one of us actually gets hurt?" asked the Doctor.
The Rachuna seemed to heave a sigh, and shrank until it was once again the fat black cat. Tail drooping low, it extracted itself from the backdrop and sat at the Doctor's feet.
"You're good, I must admit," said the Rachuna. "What're you two called?"
"I'm the Doctor, and this is Carmine," said the Doctor.
The Rachuna gasped, widening its slitted green eyes. "You shouldn't be talking to me about turning one paltry theater of humans into vegetables, Time-Lord!"
"Yeah, well, I am, so don't get prissy about it," said the Doctor, scooping the fat cat up and carrying it to the front stage. He dropped it onto the egg-shaped ship. "Turn off the psychic panels."
The Rachuna's eyes flicked to Carmine, who was standing behind the Doctor, covered in dust. She nodded her head. "You'd better do it, Meow Mix."
With another deep sigh, the Rachuna powered down the panels. The humming stopped as the panels dimmed and retracted back into the egg-shaped ship.
The entire audience suddenly slumped over in their seats. "They're fine," said the Rachuna, rolling its eyes. "They'll have a weensy bit of a headache, but they'll remember nothing."
"Great! Now leave," said the Doctor.
The Rachuna sniffled. "But I don't want to," it said, hanging its furry black head.
"What?" said Carmine. "A moment ago you said you hated this planet!"
"Words spoken in anger, cutiedarling," said the Rachuna. "I like singing. I like having CD's, and being in silly operas, and riding in primitive internal-combustion vehicles. At home, the other Rachuna…basically ignore me, but here…I'm loved. That counts for a lot, even if you are a bunch of hairless apes."
The fat black cat suddenly burst out in tears. Carmine wasn't quite sure what to do, so she reached out and stroked the Rachuna's soft little ears.
"Can't I just stay?" said the cat in a choked voice, looking up at the Doctor who was standing there frowning. "Please?"
"You've been a very bad cat," said the Doctor.
"I know. I won't be. I'll be perfectly happy just staying here!" said the Rachuna.
"You've committed an offence punishable by life imprisonment in Stormcage," said the Doctor.
"Oh, please don't make me go there, I've seen the photos, they have to eat protein cubes instead of truffles and caviar!" pleaded the Rachuna, whiskers trembling. "I won't cause any trouble, oh please oh please oh pleeeeeeaaaaase!"
"Let her go," said Carmine softly. "Let her be Stella Amoretti."
The Doctor sighed. Then, "Ok. But don't make me regret this decision!" he said to the Rachuna.
The Rachuna stepped back out to the middle of the stage and changed shape for one last time. The scarlet feathers came back, the sparkling red and gold phoenix costume melted into being. Stella Amoretti stood on the stage, ready for all the world to love her.
"If there's any way I can thank you, you adorable pookies," said Stella.
"There's…one thing," said Carmine. She reached in her beaded black shoulder-bag and found a pen and a scrap of paper. "Can I have your autograph?"
Carmine and the Doctor had already climbed back up to their seats by the time they noticed.
"Doctor," said Carmine, pointing. "The…backdrop. It's sort of fallen over."
"Oh, well," said the Doctor, sitting down and propping his legs up on the back of the seat in front of him. "At least we put the hologram back on the ship."
The audience was waking up, eyes opening and blinking blearily, a general rustle and low babble of surprised conversation erupting over the operahouse. The instruments in the orchestra pit gave one loud squawk as the bows and fingers descended, and then the musicians realized that something was wrong.
But Stella Amoretti, looking like a being of fire as she glittered and burned onstage, silenced them all by opening her mouth and letting forth a single note, soaring and flawless and pure, as clear as a ray of sunlight.
"Do you think she'll behave?" asked Carmine, nudging the Doctor.
"I think so," said the Doctor. "We'll keep tabs. If the tabloids report something funny, we'll have to pay her a visit."
"She has a beautiful voice," said Carmine, settling back to watch the rest of the opera. "Thanks for letting her go."
"You convinced me," said the Doctor, as another wave of glorious song floated up to their heights.
"She knew who you were," said Carmine. "What was with that?"
"A lot of people know who I am," said the Doctor. "Every time we move on, there's someone who knows who I am."
"Then let's keep moving on," said Carmine, smiling through the darkness.