Next chapter's on the 26th of September.
There's something nice about following the Mistress into the holographic forest for Florence. It reminds her of when she used to adventure with her, when it was just them and everything in existence and every time in existence.
It's easy enough even now for her to pick her ways around the roots, bushes and occasional small hole, as if there could be some kind of small animal living in a place like this.
(Though Florence supposed she'd seen stranger and more impossible things given that this level was meant specifically to replicate farm land and grew crops- it wasn't much of a stretch to think they'd had the whole ecosystem replicated.)
She wonders briefly whether it's down to some kind of muscle memory, related to the similar evasion of lego that has to be done whenever her girls decided that it was the day's activity (for five minutes), or some kind of physical thing now, something to do with the way the Mistress has reconstructed her, strengthened her so many times.
Regardless it is easy despite the rather fast and irritated pace the Time Lady is setting. It's enough that she can hear the Master's drawl as clear as day as he looks at Missy, sneers.
"So what's your deal with whatever she is?" He asks, jerking a thumb at Florence, only a handful of meters behind them, as if his meaning wouldn't be clear enough without it, "Why are you being so buddy-buddy with her? Isn't she annoying, all the whining and complaining and needing to eat?" The Master taunts.
Florence can't help but roll her eyes and send a pinprick of ire to Missy who reciprocates it without any physical reaction.
The Mistress rolls her eyes, slowing her stride a little as she crosses her arms, parasol swinging from one hand.
"Well you should know. You chose a companion too- or have you forgotten?" she taunts, chin coming upwards as she side eyes him, "oh. Wait. She tried to kill you so you murdered her. Rassilon I was so pathetic. I'm clearly doing a lot better in that my companion is still alive." The Mistress sing-songs, blowing a raspberry at her past self who scoffs, nose wrinkling.
"She was a snivelling idiot. She didn't deserve to be my companion- not a thought in that blonde little head of hers even before I got her." The Master retorts, also crossing his arms, clearly not realising that in doing so he'd mirrored his older self's position and gait.
"Somebody's forgetting that they were blonde." Missy comments, swinging her umbrella with extra panache to punctuate the words.
"And I looked hot?" The Time Lord says, incredulous that it would be brought up, "And besides that's no the point- humans are useless little backstabbers who should be disposed of whenever convenient. Just find a nice big hole and-" He is cut off as Missy yawns theatrically.
"Tried that one. She survived." She says inspecting her nails.
"You threw your own pet down-" The Master is cut off once again as the Mistress rolls her eyes.
"No, you idiot- the Doctor's. Do keep up." She says, striding on, completely enrapt in her verbal slap-fight with her past self.
Florence sighs and opens up the scanner in her hands and sets to the job they'd actually been sent out here to do.
The machine sends out a stream of static and the companion closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, hearing the squabbling even over the horrible racket of the device she is holding.
She hopes that she can pick up on something soon rather than try and supervise two Time Lords and find an escape route for a whole house of children who would otherwise face certain death.
With the headphones over her ears the sound of the Time Lords fighting is almost indistinguishable.
There have been a few promising groans which have picked out from the rest of the noise being piped directly into her head but each so far has turned up nothing- a rusted trolley, a tin car, what seems to be a column with no purpose, most likely a design flaw easily overlooked in a ship of the scale of this one.
There's a chill in the air and a touch of fog which makes Florence's breath mist as she squints at the screen again.
She almost misses the tell-tale hiss-creak of joints and turns at the last second, face-to-face with a cyberman, not one of those old ones draped in their surgery gowns or a rubber suit, but a gleaming, segmented body of steel, or whatever metal they'd managed to find lying about.
Florence drops the scanner with a short, shocked scream, the fall yanking the headphones from her head even as she manages to duck beneath the attempted grasp of death or at least capture.
She notices light behind it, a lift, locks that into her mind as she hears the Time Lords running, Missy shouting her name and Rassilon- that brings back memories.
Florence feels the old calm settle over her as she grabs at one of the metal legs, the left one, and uses all of her strength to push it out beneath the creature.
It falls with a crash, toppling over, crushing her hip and leg a little as she drags herself out from under it, ignoring the pain of 'this could maybe be bad' and getting almost to her feet, enough that she can throw herself at the nearest broken tree limb as it tries to get up, pushing itself odd of the ground onto all fours, unharmed.
The companion smashes the log over it's head and the blow puts something out of line and its head sticks, looking down, but it starts to get up still, metal body able to withstand forces a flesh body never could.
She can feel the trickle of fear creeping down her spine, thoughts of the kids and Aaron and Missy- why isn't she here yet?- and she grabs the arms twists them back as much as she can, straining herself against the groaning of the metal and the garbled noises the creature makes.
The guns go off, too close to her head but not close enough, and she can't help but laugh, ignoring pain completely at this point as she twists the elbows, dodges another couple of shots, feeling the heat even as they pass, and then the hands, twisted in a way which would be sickening if she thought of anything but survival, what she has to do. One pressed up at the back of the head unit, another directly between the shoulder blades, at its heart if it still has one.
The shots fire again.
The cyberman sticks but does not move further.
Florence stands properly, legs in a spread stance, wary but certain of her success.
She wipes a fleck of mud from her face and rubs her hand on a clean patch of her clothes to get rid of it from her hand.
The Mistress and the Master are not far away, the Master's arm in front of Missy. Florence grins at them and points to the lift, laughing.
Then the pain hits and she crumples, left hand going to her ankle and right hand to the left hip as she hisses, breathing hard.
"Shit." She forces out from between her gritted teeth, "shit! Fuck!"
The Time Lady runs to her now, pushing the Master's arm out of the way as she kneels in the dirt, uncaring of her clothes as she bends over her companion, forcing her to sit on the ground and immediately grasping her ankle in as gentle a grip as she can, turning it to look for injuries.
Florence lets out a litany of curses, closing her eyes tightly while she lets her Mistress examine her.
The Master just watches, hand dropped to his side and head tilted. He smiles a little, shoving his hands in his pockets as he walks over to them leisurely, eyes fixed on Florence.
"Interesting." He murmurs under his breath.
As he passes the cyberman he gives it a kick just to hear the thud.
The Master grins.
Missy carefully puts Florence's foot down and begins feeling up her leg to her hip, grimacing at the pained noises her companion makes as soon as she gets within a handspan of her hip. She sighs, taking her hands away and shakes her head apologetically.
"I'm afraid I can't check it over out here. We'll have to get back to the house first." The Time Lady says.
Florence lets out a ragged breath, head flopping back a bit as she support herself mostly with her hands, body as limp as it can be while she stays upright.
"At least we've got a lift." She says, jerking her head in the direction of the white void.
"At least we've got a lift." Missy echoes as the Master locks it to their level and tucks his laser pen back inside his pocket.
"Right- you girls ready to go?" The Time Lord asks, as if they were making some kind of ridiculous fuss.
"Oh, shut up." Florence spits at him, managing to lurch to her feet with sheer willpower and a boost from pushing off of the Mistress' shoulders. Her face blanches and she closes her eyes briefly, wavering in the moment before the Time Lady can dart up and grab her, loop her arm around her neck so that she can take some of Florence's weight.
It amazes her even now how light Florence is.
"Well you're the ones taking your time." The Master says, already walking off, holding his hands in the air as if Florence was being completely unreasonable and slipping them back into his pockets as he goes, whistling a very annoying tune as loud as he can.
"Can you walk?" Missy asks, voice soft and eyes softer as she meets her companion's gaze.
"Yes." Florence says determinedly, glaring after the Time Lord who is quickly disappearing through the trees.
She takes a step and her eyes widen with pain which she swallows down.
"No." Missy sighs, rolling her eyes with affection at her companion as she thinks for the briefest moment, considering the various stresses each hold could put on her companion's body.
The Time Lady picks Florence up and hoists her onto her shoulder, ignoring the yelp of pain though it makes her feel instantly guilty.
"This is the best position until I know what is happening with your hip." She explains.
Florence nods, wincing.
"It's fine." She lies, knowing that there's no comfortable way to get her back or even just evade the pain.
The companion lets herself relax as much as possible over the Time Lady's shoulder, trusting the strength of the grip on her waist.