Her back no longer hunches when she genuflects, and he thinks that it must be because someone in his household has finally taught her to do it properly. Either that or she has finally gotten over her particularly foreign dislike of bending her will to that of her superiors. Like as not, it is a bit of both. He smiles to think of her frail northern frame adapting to the sweet desert climate of his homeland, and bids her rise.
She pushes herself up, palms pressed flat against the smooth tile beneath her, and levels her head to face him without disturbing the exacting placement of her veil. Ah yes, his dove has learned, and if she cannot prevent the jewel like beads of sweat from making a coronet of her brow, she makes no movement to swipe them away. The sweet and spicy scent of her fragrance floats about the chamber, blown about by the slave boys, busy as always at their fanning. Her lips have been touched with carmine, adding just enough color to darken them from their normal dusky pink hue to the color of ripening plums. He wonders, absently, if the women sharing her captivity have offered her these luxuries of their own volition, or whether she has traded for them. The thought of her bartering with the other women like a common bazaar peddler darkens his brow. What would she even have to trade? Extra food, perhaps? Certainly, she does not need the suppers prepared for her when each night she shares in his own feast.
Seeing his stormy look, she lowers her eyes, and asks with great tentativeness, "My Lord, have I offended thee?"
He breathes slowly and takes in her fine appearance. She is dressed in green tonight, the dull green of the harbor waters on a cloudy day. Her hands rest against her thighs, palms cupped upwards like a lotus. It is the position of a servant at ease, and he wonders who has taught her that as well; perhaps the same individuals who have helped her to improve her Arabic over these long months. The accent and intonation are still atrocious, but she rarely misses a tense nowadays, and finds the need to retreat into her own language less and less every day.
He half smiles, to put her at her ease. "No my dove, you have not," he assures her. However, he cannot help but again think of her interacting with the other women. He imagines them squabbling like hens, screeching their laughter and clucking their sympathy from where they perched upon silken pillows. Ducking their heads with alacrity to catch the most recent whispers of palace rumor. Surely, too, they must peck at one another and fight for what little favors life in the bridal chamber may provide. It is no place for a little half-tame dove, that is certain, and his brow creases again with the thought. Perhaps he should move her into her own apartments.
"Then what troubles you, my Lord?" she asks, startling him from his reverie. She should not presume, of course, to know his mind, but then he supposes that in this instance she is correct. No doubt his countenance has betrayed his emotions. He has been dwelling on unpleasant thoughts and images when he should be reveling in the myriad beauties of his dove's foreign world. Still he cannot quite retrieve his hunger, and he wonders if she has eaten this eve.
"My dove, are you hungry?" he asks, pointedly changing the subject and unwinding his legs from their seated position. She shakes her head in denial, and he is unaccountably pleased to see it. "Then might we repair to the courtyard and take the night air."
"Of course, my Lord," she states with confidence, though he knows he has surprised her with his request, and she raises herself after him to stand, head bowed, in a tone of deference beside him. Smiling softly he leads the way.
The guards at the main entrance raise their pikes from their crossed positions blocking the doorway as he and his dove pass the threshold. Without batting an eyelash, the soldiers fall into step behind his dove as the group makes its way over the lush carpeted floor towards the palace gardens. This hall is particularly well decorated, as it is often used in entertainment of dignitaries. One cannot go ten steps without passing some new and beautiful work of art, or a well polished spoil of war. Shields gleam between vibrant tapestries and tall vases filled with fresh flowers. It is summer, and flowers are plentiful in the lands touched by the great rivers. Outside the borders of the flood all is sand and desolation. Here within the walls of the palace, flowers bloom in abundant profusion the whole year round. What he is taking his dove to see now is one of the hidden secrets of his castle; the inner courtyard closed to all but those of his house, and tended by hereditary gardeners who passed their craft down from father to son in generations of his family's service.
He walks beneath an arch flanked on both sides with Doric columns and painted along its curve in a checkered pattern of blood red alternating with the fine yellow sandstone beneath. Beyond is the night garden, and a freedom of sorts. A fresh breeze skims swiftly over the high walls and hurries past, to skip into the corridor behind him. His dove gasps, and he knows it is not all form the sudden chill. He cannot help but turn, turn to see the look of unadulterated awe spread across her features. He wonders when it last was she tasted open air and feels a twinge of sadness to think that he has inadvertently kept such joy from her. He will not make that mistake again. Turning, he begins to make a circuit of the winding garden path and his dove follows on silent feet.
"Now," he says, breathing deeply in the scent of jasmine and angel's trumpet, "You were speaking before of the Djinn and the Captain on the fifth metal moon."
"Of course," she says, nodding. She thinks a moment, obviously trying to remember exactly where in her tale she had left off. It was, he notes, a crucial moment. The Djinn had only just determined that the enemy they had been focused upon was not that which he had originally thought, but rather was his ancient foe the Daleks.
He has been forced to adopt her word for that strange race. It appears to have no direct translation and its harsh, foreign rasp grates upon his ear in a manner that seems strangely appropriate to the species. He had asked her to describe them, at first, but was baffled by her garbled explanation. They could not step up, but they could fly. They had not hands, but used weapons of great destruction. Beyond the terror inducing squawk of their voices and their single blue eye that glowed with a lust to kill like some bloodthirsty Cyclops out of legend, he had been unable to drag out any more discernable details. He had asked her to draw one and provided her with parchment and charcoal. She had made a valiant attempt, but her drawing came out looking like nothing more than the lighthouses that stood sentinel over the rocky shores of the great sea. ""M sorry," she had said, shaking her head at the poor likeness she created. And then, quietly, "The Doctor would have done it better."
He burned the parchment and assigned a drawing instructor to attend upon her during her daylight hours.
"The Djinn," she says, breaking him from his reverie, "Said that he had a plan, and though Rose did not believe him, she trusted him entirely. Trusted him with her life. And so when the Djinn told her to enter the Box, she did. Without question." She raises her head proudly, and the moonlight glints in the tiny jewels draped across her forehead and dripping like blood from her ears. "But once she was inside, the doors closed behind her. She tried to open them, but they were locked. She pounded on the door, yelling for the Djinn. Begging him to tell her what was going on. And that's when she heard it…his voice. She turned around and the Djinn was there. Only, it wasn't him, but his image. And it was talking to her. 'Rose,' it said," and here she switches to her native language and affects a deep voice and a strange accent, "'This is Emergency Program One.'"
She pauses, and he allows her the time to compose herself and return to her former mode of speaking. "The Djinn told Rose that the program would only activate if he was dead or about to die. He told her there was no way she could save him and that she had to save herself. He said that the Box would take her home, back to her own time and that she should just leave it somewhere to…to rot." She looks away, pretends to be interested in the designs painted on a planted urn. "Rose, couldn't do that," she asserts, and no, of course she couldn't. The Box had been her home and, from what his dove had told him, seemed almost to have been a friend to the erstwhile heroine. Rose would had to have a heart of stone to do as the Djinn asked of her, and he knew his dove's heart too well to think such ill of her. "Then the Djinn told Rose to have a fantastic life and he disappeared. Rose didn't know what to do. She didn't know how to drive the Box. She tried everything she could think of, but nothing worked, and before she knew it she was standing outside of her home and her mother and Mickey were hugging her."
She stops, comes to a halt in the middle of the walkway and bites at her lower lip. She releases it, leaving an indentation that is slightly lighter in color than the rosy-hued surrounding flesh. "I…" she stutters, still uncomfortable including herself as a participant in her stories. "I don't know what happened then, to the Djinn or the Captain. It must have been horrible for them, trapped on the fifth moon, but…" She shakes her head as her voice trails away.
"Then tell what you do know," he insists.
She looks at him, eyes wide and innocent in the starlight. "Rose couldn't have a fantastic life. Not without knowing what happened to her friends. Not with knowing the Djinn was still out there somewhere…some when, I mean…fighting for survival…fighting for the future of…well…everyone." It has been some time since she has had this great a difficulty speaking, and he knows it is not from a lack of knowledge or understanding. She is no orator, no master of fine words, and she does not know how to frame this situation properly. "She convinced her mother and Mickey to help her open the bowels of the Box, and she looked inside as Blon the Smelly Green Lizard Monster had done. She looked at the heart of the Box and saw….she saw…"
As if taken by a sudden notion of escape, she steps quickly away from the path and towards the marble centerpiece of the garden. He thinks to call out to her, but decides instead to follow in her footsteps. Stopping short of the fountain, she turns her face to the heavens. She spins in place, taking in the entire star-specked dome. Her arms flare out at her sides as if pulled by the silken twirl of her verdant robes. He stands back, giving her this moment; giving her the room to enjoy the night sky. Eventually, she returns her gaze to earth.
"What?" he whispers, feeling as though he is intruding on something special, almost…sacred. "What did Rose see?"
"Everything," she says seriously, and before he can ask for a clarification, she continues. "The beginning and the end. All the little bits in between. She saw the words "Bad Wolf", left for herself across time and space as a message. She saw herself leave the message, scattering it across the universe for her own benefit. She saw the Bad Wolf, and the Bad Wolf saw her, and in that moment," she sighs inwardly, "They became one."
She lowers herself to sit on the edge of the fountain. Looking over one shoulder, she glances down at her own reflection. Behind it, grey clouds encircle the bright globe of the moon. "I…Rose couldn't remember much of the time that followed. She only knew that the Djinn needed help, and that the Bad Wolf had the power to help and…" Her hands raise themselves palms upwards, as if she had no control over the course of her tale or Rose or this mysterious, powerful, all-knowing Bad Wolf. "She helped," she explains, "The Bad Wolf helped and there was singing. Such a beautiful song." A circle of ripples appears suddenly in the flat surface of the pool, spreading and multiplying until the moon and the clouds and his dove's reflection waver into oblivion. He never saw the single tear which had so marred the watery image. "The song of the universe," she whispers.
There is no sound for some time afterwards. Even the night creatures seem to halt their buzzing speech in honor of the dove's song and its memory. Eventually, he holds out a hand to her. Surprised by his action, she does not even think of the breached proprieties when she reaches up to take it. He pulls her gently to her feet and leads her back to the path. There, the sound of hissing torches lining the palace walls brings them out of the past and back to reality.
"When Rose came to, the Djinn was acting strangely." He gives her a meaningful look. "Stranger than normal, I mean," she laughs. "He looked like he was in pain, like he was hurt. And he was talking quickly about…well, about a lot of things…things that didn't make sense." She shakes her head, though whether in amusement or dismay, he cannot tell. "He said that he wanted to take Rose to Barcelona – the planet not the city-" she clarifies needlessly. He has never heard of either place. "Where they have dogs with no noses, apparently. And he said he was going to have to change, but then he wouldn't tell her what he meant by that."
She rubs her hands up her arms until they meet the cuffs of her short sleeves. She slows to a stop and he wonders if she will take off into the garden again. She is examining the soft green fabric of her slippers. He stares at the proffered top of her head. Beneath the filmy veil, he can see the dark part separating the gold of her hair. "He said…he said that she was fantastic." One toe scuffs against the flagstone. "And so was he," she whispers.
Her face lifts to his, and a deep sigh fills her voice. "And then the Djinn exploded in a flash of red fireworks."
He blinks. "What?!" Her flippant attitude towards the Djinn's apparent destruction is completely at odds with everything else he knows about her. "The Djinn…he…was killed?"
"Yes," she says simply, "And no. Not exactly. He died, but…there's this trick he has, you see, when he's about to die. Wish he'd told me about that earlier, mind, but that's not the point. Point is that when Rose could see again, after all the light he…the Djinn was still standing there, but…he was…someone else."
"Someone…else?" he asks again, thoroughly confused.
"He didn't look like the Djinn anymore. He was skinnier." Her brows pinch together in thought, and she slips back into her own language in her confusion. "And he had hair. And brown eyes and new teeth. Plus he was suddenly an incurable chatterbox." She smiled at that. "He was someone totally different, in looks, voice and manner. Everything. But he was still the Doc- the Djinn," she corrects herself. "He was still the Djinn, though it would take a while for Rose to figure that part out."
He has a thousand questions, but he holds them back. She sees them anyways, ghosting in his eyes, and she does not continue. She stands there in the torchlight, rubbing the goose bumps from her forearms and waiting for him to arrange his thoughts.
The change of face is of little note. The djinni, it is well known, are masters of disguise. They could appear as a great monarch, or a beautiful woman, or even a lowly ass should the fancy take them. But to die and come back, that truly was an accomplishment! In the stories, djinni never died, but were tricked into submission or into self-imposed exile. Had he not decided beforehand from his dove's stories that Rose's Djinn – no, he corrects himself mentally, her Djinn - was of a most uncommon sort, this would convince him fully.
How scared she must have been, his little dove, how confused. He sees it now in the seemingly brave tilt of her chin, in the way she holds her tears inside her like a proper lady of court. He knows what it is to see people change; to have ones you thought you knew so well turn to strangers before your eyes. It is true that all who live wear a mask before friends and foe alike, but it is only the former who are ever deceived into thinking they know the true person beneath. He abhors such deception, despises treachery above all things, and it is one of the reasons he finds his dove so enthralling. Whatever she has told him, whatever fantasies she has woven with words like fine tapestry, he has always believed that she tells the truth. There is no veil which shades her true features. She has no use for one, and he finds her fresh faced honesty entrancing.
He continues down the path, folding his arms behind him in contemplation. She pads along, a half step behind him. "What you speak of," he notes softly in highborn Arabic, "Is not entirely unknown here." Her eyes widen at his words and her step falters momentarily, so that she must take a quick stuttering skip to keep abreast of him on the path. "Certainly," he goes on, "The followers of the dying god speak often of his resurrection and transformation and believe such stories to be true. Then, too, the Great Lion was said by his followers to have died at the hands of traitors, only to rise again."
"The…the Great Lion?" she asks, and he senses in her a hesitancy he has not seen now for many months. It is an unexpected emotion. He is reminded somewhat fondly of when she first came to his chambers, trembling and afraid, with not even the ability to ask, in his own tongue, after his intentions. In the pale light from the gibbous moon trickling through the crooked branches of the olive trees, her hair is silver, trending to white. Her face is ghostly pale, but the barest bloom of pink colors her cheeks. She is of a more healthy pallor now, her skin having taken on the color of cream in coffee and no longer peeling from the ravages of his harsh southern sun. Her strides match his own and she walks with a high held head and a confident manner. She has grown, he sees, since their first tentative audience, and he finds himself unaccountably touched at seeing how she has thrived in his palace. No longer the frail orchid blossom wilting on his chamber floor, she has come into her own. She certainly is worthy of the moniker of her heroine. The delicate rose. The hearty rose. The beautiful rose.
He thinks for a moment, that he would like to see her decked in such flowers. To see her ivory limbs and flaxen hair, draped naked and languorous over a bower strewn with petals. Her pink lips pressed reverently to a half opened bud, her marble fingers wrapped around its prickly stem.
Oh, how he would like to have those silken fingers wrapped around other things.
But no, now was not the time for such thoughts. Now was the time for stories and strolls in the cool evening air; for the soft splashing music of the fountain and the whistle of night breezes through the trees. Heat and fire and passion had their place, but not in the courtyard; though certainly none would reprimand him for violating its peaceful sanctity. Too, she has asked him a question, and he feels compelled to reply.
"The Great Lion was sovereign over lands far away from here, so far that we barely hear tell of them. But back before the coming of the Emperor there were many travelers between the worlds, and the old stories are still told." He sees her tip her head at this latest revelation, sees her face draw itself into the considering look which means that she is trying to piece information together. He knows her so well, his dove. So well already. He would know her better soon. Eventually. Know her in all her bountiful glory. As soon as her story was done. "He ruled a world populated by beasts to whom was granted the power of speech; and yes, some humans too, who were reckoned the kings and queens of his lands."
She has turned towards him, listening, and he is amused at this, the reversal of their roles. He has become the storyteller and she the rapt attendee. She is silent, and he hears the soft scuffing noises of their slippers against the flagstones. "They say an evil witch-woman stabbed him through the heart, but that his soul was pure, and so he lived again and crushed the witch into the earth with his giant paws."
The little dove's eyes widened, liquid and dark in the faint light from the firmament. "I…I think, my Lord, that I know this story," she says, with something like awe coloring her voice and he stops abruptly at her revelation.
"My dove," he asks, "Did you perhaps pass through the lands of the Lion on your trek? We have thought them lost, these many centuries past, yet I have heard tell it was once a wondrous place."
"No," she shakes her head. Her brow is creased again with the effort of her thought, and the effect is not appealing. He shall mention it to his harem matron, it seems someone must still teach the poor creature how to school her features to pleasantness. Women, he muses, are not naturally given to deep thought. His dove is an unfortunate exception and it has left its ravages in the barely discernable wrinkles on her silken face. He cannot have her wandering the palace grounds thus, looking like nothing more than one of his scholars working at some complex theorem. "At least, I don't think so. No, I mean that I read it. A long time ago, in the land from which I originally came." The unsightly creases flatten out, and the familiar, dreamy look returns to her features. With her attention so obviously elsewhere, she slips unconsciously into her speech of origin again. "It's a children's book, right? About these kids who find this wardrobe that, like, takes them to another world. And there's a lion and a witch…just like you said."
She turns away, slightly, letting her glance flow like a wisp of night air around the fragrant reaches of the patio. "I don't really remember much else, but. . ." her head whips suddenly towards him, "You're saying it's real? All of it?"
'What is real?' he thinks to ask her, truly curious about the philosophical beliefs of a woman who claims to have traveled amongst the stars; to have broken the bonds of time itself. "What is a wardrobe?" he asks instead.
She blinks. "It's a…it's like a closet, yeah?" She seems uncomfortable at her explanation; as if she thinks he'll doubt her. As if even now, after all the stories, after all the nights spent in his presence, she still thinks she fails his trust. He does not comment. Portals to other worlds may take on many shapes, a closet is no more strange than any other he has heard of, and considerably less so than some.
"Perhaps it is the same place," he muses, "For if you, child, can find your way to my domain, then why could not others from your world stumble upon the realm of the Great Lion?"
"So it is real," she breathes, her excitement evident in the tense carriage of her shoulders. They have not talked like this often, he generally being content to listen to her tales, but seeing her face now, seeing the life suffusing her features with the moonlight, he wonders why they have not done so. She is lovely in her fascination, a blind man would see it, and he resolves to converse with her like this more in the future.
"Yes, my dove," he cannot help but smile down at her, "As real as you or I."
