A/N: This is not actually s'posed to take place in any particular time, it's just Jack, Rose, and the Doctor travelling together. Technically, I guess it could be late Season 2. It's not supposed to be chronological or anything. And, yes, "travellers" is spelled right. If you're British.
Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who, aliens, Faces of Boe, or blonde travellers. Ooh, that reminds me. I should start a Face-of-Boe collection!
"What are they?" Rose whispers to the Doctor as their place of imprisonment, a sort of upright pole with several protruding, horizontal poles, three of which have handcuffed space travellers dangling from the ends, rolls steadily toward the aliens at the end of the spaceship's catwalk.
"Fascinating things, these," the Doctor grunts, trying to swing back and forth and garner enough momentum to swing right off his pole. "They take the essence of your soul, right, and while your body melts, they turn your essence into a, an herb, or spice, which they use as fuel."
"Okay, that's really interesting, and all, but I just wanted to know what they were called," Rose hisses back, fruitlessly attempting to wiggle free from her own cuffs.
"Oh." The Doctor stops swinging long enough to whisper "Brer Rabbit attack," into Jack's intrepid ear before answering his blonde companion. "They're the Powerful Three."
"Catchy," Rose muses. "Bit full of 'emselves, though, aren't they?"
"Bit," he allows, as Jack pleads not to be soul-spiced first, insisting that the others be sacrificed in his stead.
"WE. DO NOT. REWARD. COWARDICE," comes the stern but somehow breathy reply as the creatures draw nearer to pluck a winking, cockily immortal Jack from his place of hostage and dump him unceremoniously into the seemingly-iron-but-probably-some-sort-of-space-metal cauldron. Rose looks to the Doctor to see if she should spare a thought or worry, but he shakes his head.
"Nah, he'll be alright. He's our ticket out, actually. We've gotta become spices first, then when the Powerful Three go off for a siesta, Jack'll de-spice-ify himself and come to put us right again. In theory. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out, though," he continues, gazing at the immense screen above them to see what spice Jack is distilled into. "Ah, garlic, of course! Great at first, but a bit foul if you get too close for too long, haha! Ah, I'm next. Allons-y!"
This last bit is shouted as he, too, is plucked from his perch on the enormous spice-rack-n-prison to be spice-ified. But even Rose has to laugh as she hears the Doctor's last pre-spicification shout.
"Ah, no! Come off it! When I said ginger, I didn't mean-!"
