Sorley hadn't planned to wander off. She had been standing at the very same stall that the Doctor had left her at, pursing through accessories and jewellery that the stall had to offer. That was until a man came up to her. Well, he was a male humanoid alien. Red skin with large blue eyes that reminded her strongly of her neighbour's husky.
"Hello." He bowed slightly and did a movement much like how Sorley had seen those gentlemen do in those period movies with his hand. His fingers were creepily long. She wasn't trying to be prejudiced against people with long fingers but those fingers were incredibly long and extremely odd in her opinion.
"Hello," She smiled slightly at the man though it probably was more of a grimace than a smile. He wasn't put off but her odd smile, in fact he took a step closer to her. Sorley felt his bright blue eyes scrutinizing her every defect. It felt like he could see through her soul. Breathing shallower, Sorley forced herself not to take an involuntary step back as the man took another step towards her, her eyes darted around her. Surely aliens had a concept of personal space. Definitely creeping her out with that stare. It was a bustling market place, surely he would be at least put off by the fact that there would be plenty of witnesses to whatever he has in mind for her. Prejudice! She scolded herself. Just because the man, er alien, had creepily long fingers and had red skin didn't mean he was out to get her, right? Skin colours were a thing in this planet. She had been so infatuated by the scintillating colours of the wind that she had not thought to ask if different skin colours were a common thing here. The habitants of the planet seemed to have multi-colours of skins and hair and eyes, though their features were largely similar with minor differences. Red, green, blue.
"Er- can I help you? " Sorley asked in a shaky voice.
"You are one of the three, are you not?" he asked. He had a high pitched, lilting voice which was unusual for most men she had known. It might be something normal here. She had nothing to compare it to. Considering the features and skin colour, anything was possible.
She looked at him puzzled. Taking a step away from the strange alien, she replied, "Sorry, what?"
"One of the three. You know- the trio of the legend. "
"Three what? What legend? "
"They come riding abreast on the beast from haven, bearing the starlight in their wake. Each carrying a different burden, the past, the present, and the future. The sister, the wife, and the lonesome. The skies will rise, the songs will echo because of them."
She stared at him. The alien must be mad. Who ever comes up to a random stranger and starts muttering weird legends. She glanced at the shopkeeper, startled at his serious gaze at her.
"Sir Jaxsom, you th'nk 't's 'er?"
"You know this man?" She asked the shopkeeper. Oh the back of her neck was tingling with that must be GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE.
"He's the 'igh pr'est of Iscaica." Seeing Sorley's blank look, the shopkeeper continued, "Tha's the abbey th' pres'des the Oratorio. Oratorio is the ceremony of th'teen songs."
"The what?"
Meanwhile Jaxsom had circled around her, still staring at her intently. "It's most definitely her. Sorry Miss, I'll need you to come with me. See, there's a prophecy about the three… " He touched her face and then everything went black.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
She was angry at her thief. He had allowed another Time Lord turn her into an abomination. Paradox Machine. It had hurt so much. Her thief was unable to comprehend her. She was just a sentient machine to him. She was alive and not simply sentient. He was just like all the other Time Lords. She would have to do something that make him recognize that. She has seen, sees the future. She know soon everything will change. For better or for worse as his strays says time to time.
He stood there staring down at the console with a pensive look. He was hurt that his stray had decided to stay behind. She never liked his strays much, but at least they helped to numb the pain and guilt that he felt so heavily. If only he knew the truth about the war. She could not tell him the truth. For all his Time Lord's pride, he could never fully understand her. He felt the nudges and fleeting emotions of hers with his mind, but was incapable of hearing and seeing her words. Like many of the other Time Lords, they never fully understood how special she was. They had assumed that she was faulty rather than different.
She would just have to make him understand that.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
The Doctor hurried to the stall where Sorley had been standing. "Have you seen the girl that was with me?" he asked the shopkeeper.
The shopkeeper grinned. "The other two!"
The Doctor glared at the stocky man. "What have you done with her? Where is she?"
"Oh, don't be mad! Sir Jaxsom took 'er to Iscaica of the Lake. Be an honor. Th're're say'ng th't the gods are mad. "
"And you think taking my friend is not going to me make me mad? Let's go Donna." He grabbed Donna and stormed into the bustling crowd. His grip was painfully tight on her wrist.
He was furious but not as much as he was worried for his new companion. The habitants of Ralitektap and those from the constellation of Feodedun had always been peaceful. What had happened to make them kidnap Sorley? So wound up in his thoughts, he barely heard Donna until she slapped him hard on the back of his head.
"Let go of me, you prawn! You're hurting me!" she grumbled. Donna rubbed her wrist.
"Sorry." He scratched his sideburns, looking peevishly at her.
"We'll talk about this when we're back on the Tardis," she said sternly. "Right, let's go spaceman!"
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
Sorley found herself lying on a stone pallet with a large open air starlight window above her. That was until she sat up and realized it was less of a pallet and more of a sacrificial altar.
"Okay. Trying not to be jump to conclusions here, but I'm fairly certain this just screams sacrificial altar," she mumbled. She grabbed her head, feeling a little dizzy and nausea.
"Now all I need is the blood and the freaky priest."
"You're awake," the same lilting voice stated behind her.
She snapped her head around. "Jeepers, I didn't see you there. Dear god, is that... blood." She pursed her lips staring at the cup that Jaxsom held in his hand. It was dark crimson red, almost opaque, and very bloody looking.
'I really need to keep my mouth shut.' She mentally face-palmed herself.
"Why would I bring blood for you? Is that what humans like to drink?" he asked with a puzzled look.
"So it's not… blood. Just to be sure."
"It's the juice of jubajubejuba fruit. A bit sour and tangy but otherwise sweet. It'll be good for the nausea." He handed her the cup with an expectant look.
She took the cup and sipped it. It was very good. For all its odd colouring, it tasted better than anything she had before and that includes apple juice. Her churning stomach calmed slightly at its taste.
"So uh, what happened and why did you kidnap me?"
"Kidnap? I did no such thing. I apologize for what happened. It seems that my eagerness to convey you the prophecy of the three telepathically had caused you to faint. It would have been entirely inappropriate to leave you lying there so I had carried you back to the church. I was not aware that you were not used to telepathy and tried to give you too much information at a go."
Sorley blinked. "Then why am I on a sacrificial altar?"
"A what?" He looked at her. He looked at what she pointed.
"You know, sacrifice? Where you kill an innocent and give it to the gods."
"We do not practice this sacrificial thing here. This is one of the medical wards."
Pointing to the starlight window, he said, "When the moon rises above and reflects through those crystals, it boosts the mind and body to fight against ailments. It is a state-of-the-art treatment. These crystals are incredibly difficult to procure."
She looked sheepishly at him. "I didn't mean to offend you. So Uh, what were you trying to show me that caused me to black out?"
"Ah." He stilled his indignant motions. "Every ten thousand years, the planets would align and the atmosphere would mix. This will cause a particular harmony to amplify the recovery of the planet. However due to the solar winds, one of the planets is out of alignment. The harmony will not bounce."
"What has that got to do with me?"
"It's not you. It's the three. The prophecy states that the three will come riding abreast the beast from haven. Oh it's easier to show you," he griped. He clenched his fist with a loud sigh. "If I tried again, it might cause you to have a brainstorm and that would be bad."
He paced the small room mumbling. A loud bell sounded. "Oh this is not good. There's only forty-five minutes left to the Oratorio. Stay here! You'll probably be still feeling ill, just lay down a little longer. I won't be long."
He hurried out of the room through the dark curtains. The sky above was darkening to midnight blue. The shades of the wind on the other hand were lightening pale blue and yellow. It was extremely magical just lying there watching the wind dance across the window.
"This is almost pleasant, if it weren't for the stupid stomach churning and dizziness. I mean, it couldn't get worse, right?"
As fate would have it, it could get a lot worse. Sorley found herself glowing which was a bit freaky cool except it came with her floating – towards the window.
"I just couldn't keep my mouth shut, could I?" She screamed, swearing a whole string of vulgarities in every language she knew as the wind picked her up and away.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
But of course, she was far too busy screaming to hear the Doctor yelling for her. He had just approached the church when he saw a bright glow floating above the church. He saw her red hair sparkling and was in awe of it, until he realized she was being carried away by the wind.
"We need to get back to the Tardis and get Sorley!"
"DOCTOR!" Donna screamed. The Doctor spun around, feeling Donna's bruisingly painful grip on his arm. She was floating too and about to drift away in the light breeze, was it not for her grip on the Doctor's arm.
"Blimey. Donna, hold on!" He pulled her closer, gripping onto her arm and waist tightly.
"What do you think I'm doing, you prawn!"
The Doctor managed to pull his sonic screwdriver out and whirred it at her.
"What's happening Doctor?"
"Wellllll… Humans release minute quantities of Tyrium radiation that are almost not detected. Since it is a normal thing for humans to have such thing, they write Tyrium radiation off as a body function. Tyrium radiation is actually healthy for humans. It is part of their immunity system and aids metabolism. In this solar system, instead of Tyrium radiation, the residents produce something called Nefiram. These are available in larger quantities, the chemical reaction is slow but with prolonged exposure to Nefiram, it induces a change in the - "
"Doctor. SPEAK ENGLISH." Donna struggled to resist her urge to smack the Doctor. She was slowly losing her grip and extremely glad that today she had decided to wear trousers. Hovering forty-five angles in mid-air was not something she had expected to happen today, but she as pretty sure if she had worn a dress or a skirt, everyone in the market that was ogling at her right now would have the front seat row to her pants.
"OK, how do I dumb this down. the minute quantities of Tyrium radiation reacted with prolonged exposure to Nefiram particles in the air would cause a change in weights-"
"Doctor, it doesn't matter! can you fix it or not? "
"Donna. Whatever you do, don't let go," the Doctor said in his calmest tone.
"I've no intention of doing that anytime soon. In fact, I'm fairly certain you might even need to pry my hands open when you get me down from here. You can do that right?" she exclaimed, exasperated at his repeated words to hold on and not let go. Like she would voluntarily let go. Who in the right mind does that?
"Well… I probably could. But we're sort of very high above the ground. I'm going to try and summon the Tardis in front of us. I need you to hold on very tight."
"You can summon the Tardis?"
"Of course I can, what kind of time lord will I be if I couldn't even do that?" He searched his pockets for the key.
"You can SUMMON THE TARDIS?" she yelled.
"Blimey, Donna. I do enjoy being able to hear from my right ear. I would appreciate it if you refrained from screaming in my ear."
"Why didn't you summon the Tardis when we were being chased by the dwarfs the last time?"
"They are not called dwarfs, they were Giumerans. And if you remember correctly, someone broke my sonic screwdriver."
"Or the time when we were falling off the cliff? You know? It would have been awfully helpful to not fall thirty metres in sludge. Did you know how long I spent in the bath trying to get rid of the awful smell?"
"Six hours and twenty three minutes. Now is not the time to discuss about this, Donna," he said flatly. The darn key was missing in his pocket! He'd have to remember to actually put it on a string around his neck next time.
"You actually counted?" She stared. "You actually counted!?"
"Well… I thought you might be drowning in the bathtub and tried to enter. The Tardis assured me you were still alive."
She reached to throttle him in the neck. "You what?"
"Ah-hah! Found it!" He pulled the key out.
"Donna! What did I say about holding on?" He hollered. He flailed frantically as he fell through the sky. The Tardis appeared just several metres above the ground with her doors wide open to catch him. The Doctor fell through the Tardis, slamming his elbow into several doors before landing into the library's pool. He floundered a bit in the water, coughing water as he heaved himself onto dry land.
"B-brilliant catch, old girl," he huffed, getting to his feet. "Time to grab Donna then Sorley."
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
Sorley was being to tire of swearing, that and she also ran out of new vulgarities. She floated in the air, drifting along. The civilization below was very pretty. The grass shimmered in the wind and the lights looked rather like fireflies. It was not anything like the moon which was now even bigger now that she was floating towards it, but still pretty in its own right. What would she give for her own room and a cup of tea. Come to think of it, the tea that Donna had made for her was still half drunk. Perhaps she could warm it up when and if she ever got back on the Tardis. Her chances of doing either seemed very low at the moment.
"Well this was sort of anti-climatic. I thought it'd be a bit more RAWR!" she mumbled, twiddling her thumbs. She was far too high up in the Sky to do anything or get anyone's attention and she didn't have anything on her that would be of use. When she woke up this morning, she had not expected to bump into a pin-striped man, enter a spaceship that had another dimension in herself, be kidnapped to another galaxy with no way of getting home, visit an alien planet, be kidnapped by an alien and then float into the sky. All she had in her pocket was a stick of gum, her rather useless phone, her wallet that was equally useless and a pocket watch. Maybe if she blew the gum into a large enough bubble, no its not it'd be filled with helium. Wait, she wanted to get down, not float higher. She mentally smacked herself and investigated the other things. Her phone had no signal and had two bars left. Oh, her cabbage on her game was ready to be harvested. Not that that was going to be useful. She flipped the pocket watch, tracing the pretty circles with her thumb. Her memory was still rejecting her command to pull up relevant information to the pocket watch. No idea how she got it and how it ended up in her pocket.
"Bloody hazy fuzzy memory thingy," she sighed and pocketed the items back into her pockets.
"Right. It most definitely could get a lot worse than this. There could be a thunderstorm or a stormy wind or something…" She clapped her mouth in horror as she said it. Her eyes scanned the sky for something that would prove her words wrong yet again. Heaving a big breath of relief, she spun herself upwards to watch the breath-taking sky. Everything was not so bad save for the very imminent possibility of floating out of the atmosphere and possibly run out of air.
"Yep not so bad."
Sorley watched the top of the atmosphere draw closer as a stronger gust of wind blew her higher. She kicked and tried the Superman pose, but there was nothing she could do to change her direction or altitude. It was then she noticed a large white thing flying towards her. It was bigger, larger than any animal she had seen. The only thing that was remotely comparable to it was a truck, a huge industrial truck that or the six elephants arrange in two columns. it drew level with her and she realized that it was much like a cross between a deer and a bird. The large wings that appeared to span over several metres were pure white, its antlers were sea green with freckles of blue. The antlers spread out in a huge and majestic way, sprouting and winding its way around its head like a crown. Its purple eyes that seemed to glow. She gaped at it, transfixed by the way the moonlight seemed to fall onto its wondrous form.
As her fingers reached out to touch it, the little sparkling glow that enveloped her pulsated and covered the creature.
"You're so… beautiful."
Sorley kicked the air, mimicking how she saw the Sky divers did on the teley or tried to. It hadn't work earlier a snide voice said at the back of her head. Regardless, whatever she did had gotten her on the creature's back.
"To the doctor!" She laughed, tugging a little to the left to indicate the direction she wanted the creature to go. She hadn't exactly expected it to work. Sorley had hoped it was similar to a horse or something despite its beauty beggaring for a description that would suit it. When it tilted left, it wasn't exactly her type of thing to do, she couldn't resist letting a loud whoop.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
Donna was floating in the air. Her fingers grasped the empty air after realizing she had accidentally released her death grip on the Doctor in her attempt to strangle the Doctor. He really did deserve being strangled but not falling to his death. She watched him tumble through the air in horror.
"Oh my god! Doctor!"
"Donna!" Donna heard a familiar female voice behind her. Wrenching her head away from the falling Doctor, she came into sight of a large white deer bird thing flying towards her and Sorley dwarfed by the size of the creature waving gaily at her.
"Sorley! Thank god you're alright. Oh god! Save the Doc-" she turned back just in time to see the Tardis catch the Doctor.
"Grab my hand!"
"It's a beautiful deery bird or would you say birdy deer. Sort of like a unicorn with wings and a deer body?" Donna remarked once safely sitting on the creature. "Why aren't we floating anymore?"
Sorley shrugged. "I don't know. I'm just glad we stopped floating."
"Oh brilliant!" The Doctor laughed as he popped his head out of the Tardis. "You found an Ariaxalaforious! They're so rare. I've only seen them five times."
He popped on his glasses and inspected the creature. "She's a beauty."
"An Ariaxala what?" Sorley repeated. Her tongue felt clumsy when she tried to repeat the word.
"Ariaxalaforious. Basically Solar deers."
"Solar deers." Sorley deadpanned.
Donna frowned at the Doctor. "Why are you soaking wet?"
"You didn't hold on when I told you implicitly to hold on, the Tardis had to soften my fall by dropping me into the library's pool."
"The library has a pool?" Sorley asked. She stared at him, her eyes large with an incredulous look. "Why is there a pool in the library?"
The Doctor's reply was cut off by a sudden appearance of more Ariaxalaforious. He let out a hoot. "A whole herd of Ariaxalaforious! Molto bene! I've never even see a whole herd!" He clambered behind Donna excitedly.
"Doctor. You're dripping wet, " Donna sighed exasperated, feeling her back becoming wet as well.
"This is exciting! On the back of an Ariaxalaforious in the middle of a whole herd! Ariaxalaforious are very rare and extremely shy. They're widely revered as sacred beasts in many solar systems. There's so few of them and they take incredibly long to fly from one system to another that many habitants of the planets consider themselves lucky to even see them."
The Doctor gazed at the creature with awe and excitement that Donna for a moment would have been excused for mistaking the 900ish year old spaceman for a four year old kid that had just met Santa.
"Beast from haven?" Sorley said with a questioning tone.
"Oh yes! You could describe them as that. Pure white, glowing in the light," he patted the white feathers.
"Doctor. The priest said something about a prophecy."
He looked up. "What?"
Sorley scratched her head. It was a lengthy prophecy after all. "They come riding abreast on the beast from haven, bearing the starlight in their wake. Each carrying a different burden, the past, the present, and the future. The sister, the wife, and the lonesome. The skies will rise, the songs will echo because of them."
"So this is the beast of haven?" Donna asked.
"I suppose so since he said so. The priest was insistent on the three."
"The three…" The Doctor trailed off with a pensive look. "The skies will rise."
"The planet is out of alignment."
"What?"
"The planet is out of alignment, " Sorley repeated thinking that he had not caught her statement.
"Yes, yes. I heard you. This is bad. There's only thirty minutes left ot the Oratorio. I could use the Tardis to tow the planet into alignment, but to get the base code for the planet would take an hour minimum. Oh this is bad. "
"Doctor, can't they just sing later? You know, like postpone the ceremony?"
"The planets are only on alignment for 10 minutes." The constellation of Feodedun was highly dependent on the Oratorio. To miss the Oratorio would cause an unprecedented devastation to the habitants of Feodedun.
"Oh! Brilliant! " The Doctor shouted with glee.
The two girls stared at him with puzzlement. Mood swings. donna mouthed to Sorley with a shrug. They giggled as they watched the Doctor. He had clambered onto another creature and turned to the sight of them giggling with a frown.
"What's so funny? Donna get on another Ariaxalaforious. We're going to save the solar system," he grinned.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
Sorley had woken on the wrong side of the bed today. She had gone downstairs to grab a mug of tea and had planned to stay at home to finish the book she had been reading followed by a marathon of Lord of the Rings. Only Thomas and her mum had been insistent that she should go out and enjoy the sun. She had then asked why couldn't she just read the book in the garden and it became clear that when they meant go out and enjoy the sun, it meant do things that she, Sorley, the old Sorley that is, would have done. The old Sorley would have gone out, enjoy the farmer's market, try the weird reverse bungy jumping attraction that had just opened, maybe hit the gym, get into a fight, break a bone or two (but not her bones) and come home in time for supper. She had then left the house in a huff, feeling utterly rejected by the two and angry at the world for this to have happened. So deep in her smarting rejection and anger, the Doctor had walked straight into her (or she had walked straight into the Doctor, depending on who was telling the story) and that was when it all started. Kidnapped onto a spaceship by an alien and his companion, saw wondrous planet Ralitektap, fainted because of overexertion of telepathy used on her, turned into some glowing human balloon that was due to the Doctor's negligence to realize that the innate chemicals of their bodies would have created this reaction, floated almost out of the atmosphere, met the extremely rare Ariaxalaforious, rode on top of the leader of Ariaxalaforious at the head of a herd of twenty thousand Ariaxalaforious, flew through space on top of the beast, had a bird eye view (pun not intended) of the thirteen twelve planets in alignment, herded the herd (pun intended) to use the solar waves that they generate while drifting through space to push the last planet into alignment.
Sorley was almost sorry that the adventure was almost over. The song of the habitants wafted in the air, the tenor, the soprano, the sound of the young and old, a conglomeration of voices that was far too beautiful to describe. The ground beneath her shifted. She heard the Doctor behind her assure Donna that it was entirely normal. From the short grass, sprouted pale red flowers; growing waving their petals in the air, filling the fields and roads with their cheery colours. They grew and grew until Sorley found herself dwarfed by the flowers that were as tall as her. The ceremony singing had stopped but the people were still dancing on the platforms and there were people still playing the instruments.
"Did you enjoy yourself?" The Doctor asked.
Sorley nodded with a large smile on her face. "When I woke up today, I never expected that I'd be out there. A whole universe away and probably billions of light years away from my time, in space. It was amazing. I'm almost sad that we have to leave."
"I'm sorry about what happened. I didn't mean to take you away from your universe. I'll try my best to find a way to get you back."
"There is no such thing as coincidences only predestined," Sorley only replied with an odd look on her face.
He looked at her baffled at her calm demeanour. "Most people would be screaming, yelling or smacking me. Usually all the above but not this… calm."
"Oh I take it that you've done this before?" she quirked an eyebrow at him.
"Well… yes… once. Maybe twice. Still, you're rather calm about it."
She chuckled. "I like to use that line as my belief. Apparently the old me used to say that too."
"The old you…?"
"Long story short, I got into a car accident, lost my memory and became a new person. I don't remember a lot of things. It's easier to accept things as it is and move on from there. If I had not gotten in the car accident, I wouldn't have lost my memory, I wouldn't have gotten into the argument with my brother, would not have stormed out of the house and met you. It was a chance in a billion. That makes the fact that we met and that I'm here, a miracle."
"That's… an interesting way to see it."
"I don't know for sure. Maybe even if something changed, I might have still met you. We can't see the future. But this right here is amazing." She swung her hands out to the sky and the large moon. "I'm not sure about then, but right now, I wouldn't have given up for this experience out for anything."
"Does that mean you'll stay?"
"I don't have anywhere to go even if I didn't want to."
"I could always start you a life somewhere on Earth if you truly didn't want to." The Doctor didn't want her to go. There was something familiar about her plus she was a mystery and he loved mysteries.
Pulled herself from watching the people dance, she asked, "Is it always so… magical?"
He frowned. His face was grim. "I try to most of the time," he said quietly. "But I won't lie about it. It is dangerous."
"And there's lots of running."
"Yes. Lots of running. But there's all of time and space to see and it's beautiful." He rocked on his heels with a hesitant look. He could probably visit her a few times if she truly wanted to stay on Earth. He had seen that look before, the look on Donna's face when she had rejected him the first time.
"Sign me up for it then."
"Really? Brilliant!" He hugged her wildly. "Oh! We should go to Felspoon! Donna loved it there too. The mountains move and Oractirum too! The trees dance in spring. It's very beautiful."
"Doctor. Doctor! I can't breathe!" she gasped.
"Oh! Sorry! So sorry! Come on! No time to waste!" he said, pulling her into the Tardis. "Donna! We're leaving!"
"Where are we going?" She asked, entering behind them.
"Oh, I don't know. How about Felspoon or Oractirum? Or space florida?"
"How about all three?"
"Allons-y!"
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A/N: Thank you for the review and follows! I hope you'd enjoyed this one as well! Please let me know if you enjoyed or disliked anything. :) Feedback is greatly appreciated.