The Doctor relaxed in front of the fire, taking in the smell of roasting venison and the sounds of the sleepy forest. The setting sun had cast a ruddy light over the forest and the animals of the forest were calling their good nights to each other. Or at least that's what he pretended they were doing.
Andy had led him from the small hillock back down into the forest, although he could honestly say he couldn't quite remember the direction she had taken. But soon they had arrived at a smallish clearing, with an obvious fire ring near the middle of it. Andy explained that the fire didn't really feel painful to the earth, but she was still wary of it, and kept it as far away from the trees as she could. She described the fire as an almost ticklish sensation, like being tickled by a candle. The Doctor had listened with interest but had been much more interested in her shelter, which she had allegedly built herself. It wasn't quite an accurate statement. The trees had surely already been growing there; she had just…manipulated them.
A row of about six silver birches stood inside the circle of the clearing. They had more intertwining branches than any other silver birch and their bark was the healthiest he'd ever seen. However, it was very doubtful that they had grown straight and then curved gracefully half way up the tree, straightening for a metre to around an almost ninety degree angle, and then continued growing at what appeared to be a forty five degree angle. The shelter looked like half a tent had been set up and then left open to the elements. He had asked, after the shock had worn off, how she kept the rain off. Andy had replied that the shelter was usually deep enough to protect her, but otherwise she hung branches from weeping willows over the front of it, if there was especially bad weather.
The Doctor had lain down inside, and found it very cosy, even if the ground was a little uncomfortable.
"There's a dip in it," he explained, pointing it out. She had giggled and said that of course there was, and lay down in it. A little of his fear returned, as the Doctor saw that the earth itself had formed a dip which perfectly fitted Andy's body into it, but he smothered it before it could show. After all, it wasn't dangerous, if anything it was her version of a memory foam mattress. But still…it niggled at him.
Before he could return to considering her impossibility, Andy told him the meat was ready. Taking a plate that had been moulded from a knot in an oak tree, again with only the power of her mind, Andy served him roast venison with several different herb flavourings and some wild mushrooms she'd collected by a small pond nearby. There were few utensils, but the Doctor had eaten far worse meals, so he wasn't about to complain. Instead the pair of them relaxed into comfortable silence as they chewed the tender juicy meat.
When they'd finished Andy asked him to tell her a story, one of his adventures. He smiled and decided to tell her about the time he'd been thrown into a palace prison for breaking the King's crown. This was on the planet Natibo, where the people were tall, thin and green, they lived for hundreds of years at a time and their metals were apparently as delicate as spun glass. By the end of the story they were both howling with laughter,
"So you just…threw the kumquat at him and he ran…ran away screaming that the orange bouncing ball was going to transport him to a different dimension…hahaha!" Andy nearly collapsed off of the log she had been sitting on, she was laughing so hard.
"One thing about the Natiboans, they are incredibly gullible, at least about things outside of their world. They don't even have a space port. As far as I know they've never left their home planet." the Doctor wiped tears of mirth away from his eyes as he remembered sending the tall green guard, who had been holding a very sharp spear, running with only a little orange fruit.
"You must have been like some kind of god to them, with your magical disappearing box." Andy said, still giggling slightly.
"Apparently not magical enough to avoid beheading. Not magical enough to be excused for breaking the King's crown."
"Did you have to touch it though?" Andy said with a smile. The Doctor smiled knowingly back, enjoying the happiness he had brought to the sullen girl's face,
"It was made of the purest metals they could find, shaped by their most competent sculptor and had lots of sparkly jewels on it. I dare you to walk past it without wanting to touch it." Andy giggled again. The Doctor found he liked the sound. She was much too old for her age, mentally if not physically, she should be laughing more. Andy took a deep breath and then looked up at the sky.
"It's dark." she stated. The Doctor looked up too. The stars were shining and a red moon was just peeping over the tops of the trees.
"So it is," he said, wondering if she was propositioning him.
"You want to see my last trick?" she asked. He was confused for a second, still thinking she was coming on to him, then remembered what she had said earlier,
"Oh, um…yes, go on then." She smiled at his apparent nervousness.
"It's alright, really. Nothing bad will happen to you."
"Oh good, that's always nice to know," he said sarcastically. She stuck out her tongue at him and then walked to the shelter, lying down on her back in her body dip. She glanced back up at him, to where he was watching with a kind of wary fascination,
"Here I go," she said.
She let out a deep breath, and the effect was instantaneous. Her body relaxed completely, as the ground beneath her lit up in that slightly eerie luminescent light from before. Her eyes had fallen shut and she appeared to be completely asleep. Almost too asleep.
"Andy?" the Doctor crouched by her side, whipping out his sonic screwdriver and taking a reading of her body. What he saw made him freeze in disbelief.
"No…" he breathed, "It's not…"
The sonic screwdriver was telling him that her vital organs were stable and in perfect health, her brain activity was normal, although much larger than the average person, but her body was in a comatose state. She had, somehow, put herself into a coma, without any trauma or subconscious reaction at all. She was simply...sleeping. But the thing that bothered him were the strange heat signals he was picking up on her arms, legs, neck, just about every area of her body. He reached down and gingerly lifted one of her arms to get a better look.
Only to discover that he could only lift it a mere two centimetres off the ground. But he could also feel something on the under-skin of her arm. Careful not to hurt her, he gently turned her arm…and nearly dropped it in shock.
Feelers…no, vines…no, tentacles…no, strands, strands of the earth itself were attached to Andy's skin. Looking closer he saw that they appeared to be embedded in her pores, and that they were pulsing ever so slightly. He replaced the arm, and then turned towards her head as a slightly sickening thought occurred to him. He gently turned her head, pulled back her hair and…yes, there was a large one attached to the base of her skull.
The full force of what he was seeing made him drop her hair in astonishment. Connected, her word for her affinity with the earth. But this, this was something completely new. Well, maybe not completely, remembering back to his ninth regeneration, the Game Station, that poor girl strung up with miles of cabling attached to her, being fed information. But this wasn't machinery, this was organic. The most organic connection between a person and the earth he had ever seen. And it chilled him to the bones.
He turned away and went to stoke the fire, trying to get away from the eerie light that still surrounded Andy's very still comatose form. And so he missed her eyes opening, and the now black irises watching his back, hungrily.
A/N Hey, hope you enjoyed this. Please let me know if Andy's powers are still believable at all and if they aren't...well I won't go changing this one, because I actually really like it. Anyway, please review and let me know what you think.