Hello. So I'm moving some things around for simplicity and accessibility.
From now on, the entirety of my Doctor Who story can be found in "Anarchists, Architects, and Archaeologists" which itself is built into the husk of "Doctor Who and the Earthly Child".
Found here: .net/s/7104193/1/bDoctor_b_bWho_b_and_the_bEarthly_b_bChild_b
So if you only have story alerts for this story, switch them to the new/old story.
Sorry.
But, to make it up to everyone: Updates! New Ones!
Soon!
Possibly tonight!
I'll keep this up for a few days and then delete Esurient Host properly instead of just having this stub.
-Peace-
But also: Here is the most recent Interlude, which stands on its own and doesn't give anything away. Just so this isn't exclusively an A/N which I think could get me banned.
-Interlude 3: Restocking-
"But Professor," Ace called somewhere behind the Doctor, her attitude cutting through the sounds of a bustling bazaar, "I don't even like tea."
This stopped the Doctor in his tracks. He leaned on his umbrella and spun to face his reluctant companion, perfectly executing a move he had taught to Charlie Chaplin only a week earlier; relative time.
"That," the Doctor began sternly, "is the most R-r-r-ridiculous thing I have ever heard you say, Ace." The Doctor rolled his R's with a relish that cut through his momentary annoyance. "You might as well say you don't like food," he pointed out, "or air."
"And what more," the Doctor perked up and closed the distance between himself and Ace, sweeping her along the busy thoroughfare, a cacophony of shouting, haggling, and spicy smells, "it's a beautiful day in Baghdad. A little hot, but pleasantly so. There's a reason we never wind up in the amazon."
Ace looked around appreciatively as she was pulled along in synch with the Doctor's quick pace. "I suppose it's a bit of alright," she nodded, "I thought it would be dirtier."
"Ah, yes," said the Doctor, "you come from very far away indeed. In more than a few senses."
The Doctor stopped and stood for a moment outside a particularly beautiful mosque, appreciating the golden dome and the intricate calligraphy that interwove the mosaic of tiles adorning its sides. Arabic was the only language the Doctor didn't let the TARDIS auto-translate for him. It ruined a fascinating aesthetic of words which wove in and out of complex patterns, enhancing their beauty and meaning. Language as art was something the Doctor could appreciate, certainly.
He smiled to himself as Ace grew bored over to the side and began studying an argument which was breaking out between a man sitting with what appeared to be a golden abacus and a woman who kept her hair in a long black braid. Over her face she wore a flimsy, transparent veil. She was shouting something, but it was too far away to make out her words, just the general impression of someone whose day had been ruined.
"What's that?" Ace asked, perking up.
"Oh," the Doctor harrumphed dismissively, "he was telling her fortune and I don't think she was particularly happy with the results. The device is a kind of brass computer. Utter nonsense, of course, but it's an admirable piece of -"
"Fortune telling," Ace said, cutting the Doctor out. "Isn't that stuff illegal in a theocracy, Professor?"
"It would be frowned upon by any Muslim of the time, surely," the Doctor answered, "but I don't believe that's an issue at the moment. The woman is Christian. The man's a Sufi Mystic."
"Ah," Ace started, and then, confused, "then why is she wearing-"
"That veil?" the Doctor finished for her. "I expect it's for the same reason you insist on wearing that tasteless jacket," the Doctor punctuated this by pointing his umbrella at the ridiculous monstrosity of black leather and "Sex Pistols" pins. Completely out of place in the time period, region, and era.
"To annoy you?" Ace smiled like she was oh-so-clever.
"Fashion," the Doctor corrected, "her own idea of it. Muslim dress won't go out of style with Christians living in the East for centuries. And why should it? If she had been born in the West, she would had died quite horribly, I'm afraid," the Doctor squinted at the woman across the street harder and with great interest.
"Yes," he reaffirmed, as if reading her possible lives like a human might read a manuscript, "burnt alive by church officials. Inter-sect warfare is nasty business on any planet. Much better off here," he smiled, brightening, "she's going to have twins!"
Ace rolled her eyes at this display at weirdness and began to wipe sweat from her brow.
"Well I don't think you're one to talk about fashion sense, Professor," Ace grumbled. "Anyhow, I got this jacket signed by Disaster Area. Don't you remember?"
"White is good for the heat, my dear, my hat and umbrella are perfect for shade" the Doctor retorted with mock severity. He smiled and lifted his hat off his head, revealing a shock of graying black hair and a brow which wasn't sweaty at all. It helped that Time Lords were naturally a few degrees cooler than humans.
"Come now, Ace. This the Arab Empire in the twelfth century, a culture at it's height! There hasn't been a more tolerant or vibrant civilization since Rome fell and there won't be another for a good number of centuries!" The Doctor smiled and pulled Ace back into the crowd, "let's get good and lost, shall we?"
–
Ace trudged along, once again lagging behind the Professor, just a white safari jacket in the distance. She both loved and hated this part. The sights and smells of the busy marketplace washed over her. The fashion, the colors, the sounds, the real-ness of it all. The sense it would inevitably give way to something terrifying.
History was a whole different concept when you ran with the Professor, Ace thought to herself. In books and school, everything had to be compressed or generalized, a hundred years into a handful of names and a paragraph. The past needed to be compartmentalized, a tool to be used, to fit inside one's head, but never to be lived. It was one of the marvels of traveling with the Professor that you could lose site of amidst the aliens and the paradoxes and the demigods. Ace smiled, ruefully and decided to relish the moment and not care that this was all a glorified trip down to the corner shop.
1158 was a whole year here. Full of little dramas and loves and tears and happenings and successes and ruins. Three sun-browned men walked, laughing, out of a building which, by the steam which followed them out the door, must have been a Bathhouse. A camel got loose a few dozen yards away, knocking down a stall, the owner shouting flinchingly specific profanities. Off to the side, away from prying eyes, two young lovers shared a private moment in one another's embrace. Ace looked away.
She looked ahead and noticed the Professor had stopped in front of a ramshackle building over which hung a sign that said something in a Arabic squiggles. That was weird, wasn't the TARDIS supposed to translate everything automatically? She jogged over to the Professor, cursing her own stubbornness as the heat beat down upon her and became trapped in the mass of black leather that was her signature jacket.
"Where is this?" Ace asked.
"Ah," the Professor said, as if just realizing Ace was there, "Ace. How good of you to join us." He spread his arm magnanimously over towards a small, balding, brown man with a pointy beard whom Ace had failed to notice. "This is Ibn Jubayr, a very dear friend of mine and, before you ask, not that Ibn Jubayr. Though he's quite nice as well." Ace shook the man's hand and wondered who that Ibn Jubayr was. The man had an easy smile, as if meeting new people was a genuine thrill. Ace decided she liked Jubayr.
"Jubayr is the best tea merchant west of the Great Wall of China," the Professor bragged.
"Your friend flatters me," Jubayr said in perfect english, a handy side effect of the TARDIS, "but I'm afraid I do him a disservice. I cannot remember ever meeting you, my dear -" he looked at the Professor embarrassed. The Professor looked sheepish, as if he had committed a faux pas.
"Smith," the Professor said, "Johan Smith."
"Ah," the merchant's face lit up, "are you related to John Smith? Tall Frank? Long scarf?"
"I'm afraid so," the Professor said, and then whispered loudly into the Jubayr's ear, "bit of a loud, arrogant showboat, my brother." Jubayr looked shocked, as if the Professor had insulted someone to whom he owed his life. The Professor, seeing this, sighed and relented, "but he's family so I put up with him regardless."
"I know what it's like for others in the family to hog all the height," Jubayr said, magnanimously, and laughed.
Jubayr opened the door to the shack and showed them into his tea shop. It was dark and a bit run down, but comfortable in a way which Ace couldn't fully explain. And bigger inside than the little shack had looked on the outside. But that, Ace rationalized, was impossible. Probably.
"Come, sit, make yourselves at home," Jubayr went on, leading them around the common room. "The Waning Crescent Tea Shop has been in my family for centuries. Why, Abu Nuwas wrote "Poems of Wine and Revelry" just over there at that table." Jubayr swept his arm over towards a small table in the corner of the shop which Ace had not initially noticed.
At it sat a slim, black man who was drinking a steaming cut of tea and reading what appeared to be a novel. But that was impossible as well. Looking closer, Ace realized it was David Copperfield. It was! The stranger's deep green coat was pulled up at the collar and thoroughly anachronistic. He looked up, met Ace's gaze, and smiled warmly. Ace got the strange sensation that this was someone she knew. No. That was impossible.
"He's lying," the Professor whispered to Ace, breaking her train of thought. "Abu Nuwas kept company far wilder than the Waning Crescent has ever housed. Well, aside from me. It's funny how figures get reinterpreted over time." The Professor looked over to the man in the green coat, smiled, and tipped his hat. The man returned the look and nodded. Then, the Doctor turned away and took Ace's arm, drawing her towards a table near the window where Jubayr was waiting for them.
"Professor," Ace whispered urgently, "is that – I don't know why but it seemed like –"
"Yes," the Professor, "I'm usually better about this sort of thing, but I do so love the Waning Crescent."
"Is that bad?" Ace felt like this should have been important.
"Oh," the Professor waved it away, "this is nothing, it's not as if -"
His words were cut short as he walked into a tall, thin man who Ace could have sworn hadn't been standing there a moment before.
The man went, "wah" and fell over. Ace looked down at his sprawled figure. He wore a pink shirt, professor's jacket, and sported a red bow-tie.
Bullocks, Ace thought to herself.
"Doctor," said a small girl, a mess of red hair and freckles in a grimy brown dress who had definitely not been there a second before, "where are we?" In her hands, she held an aluminum - her own, Ace realized, startled - bat, wearily.
"Yeah," said a third man, "this doesn't look like the TARDIS." Ace looked over to see a short, balding man wearing a well pressed black suit. His left hand hovered over his chest, indicating to Ace that he was most likely holding a piece. She might have to do something about –
"Yes, Doctor," said a cold voice, dripping with derision, "where have you gotten us this time?" The voice was different but the tone was unmistakable. A cold, creeping fear came over Ace as she turned to face the Master, sitting cross-legged on the floor. Jet black hair made pale skin look paler and cold, blue eyes all the colder.
"Ah," said the thin man in the bow-tie, picking himself off the floor and looking at Ace and the Professor.
"Ah," replied the Professor.
"This could be trouble," they said at once.
The thin man smiled, sheepishly.
The Professor didn't.