-Chapter 1-
It was good to be king, the Master thought, and reclined into his gold-gilded throne.
Gold was not a naturally occurring element on Alfalfa-Matraxis, much to the Master's initial dismay and later frustration. A planet with no gold? No, that simply wouldn't do. Whoever heard of a silver throne? A platinum throne? A bronze throne? Check again, the Master had told his gaggle of two-headed advisers. And they had come back, two months later, having scoured even the most remote mountain village for word of this "gold." Yes, they had said. We checked several times. No gold.
The problem with putting heads on pikes on Alfalfa-Matraxis was that you needed roughly twice the usual number of pikes per political enemy or incompetent. It was a large part of the Master's eventual decision to start snuffing out inconvenient individuals as infants. Also boredom. But those had been early days. The Master had lived and learned. And acquired a wholly new and more agreeable set of advisors.
And indeed, as with any pre-galactic travel-level planet that had been around throughout the history of the universe, the isolation of Alfalfa-Matraxis wasn't an absolute statement. An assortment of trinkets here, a crashed alien ship there. A small number of barrows, far beyond ancient, housed mosaics which chronicled the glories of interstellar empires which had long since declined, had yet to rise, or had once existed but now never had.
History had never been a straight line, even during the golden reign of Gallifrey and since... well, it certainly made for interesting reports. Some of it. The parts that weren't exceedingly tedious. Relics and oddities from the future, from the never-was. The Master would need to get used to that. It was the universe in which he was living. At least for the present.
The Master supposed he was an oddity himself in that sense.
But no gold. Not for three years into the Master's reign. And then, finally, four years of state-funded archaeological expeditions later, the Master had had the brilliant idea of paying a visit to the less fashionable southern pole of Alfalfa-Matraxis, the one with the capricious magnetic tendencies. Those tendencies would have made the southern pole an especially tempting black market port to some civilization in some neighboring star system at some point over the last five billion years. The hunch had paid off. The expedition was a gold mine. Well, a paltry one.
The expedition had yielded exactly 42 ounces of pure gold.
It was something, the Master had shrugged, somewhat put off by his meager success but determined to make the best of things. Gilding had made that gold go a long, long way. Ultra-laminate prevented flaking on the almost micron-thin layer of gold which coated the Master's otherwise iron chair. The laminate gave the chair a stretchy, sticky sheen which made it look plastic-painted-gold. It also made sitting on the thing quite uncomfortable. But, the Master had convinced himself, sometimes it just came down standards and damn comfort for not synching up accordingly
The worst part, the Master reflected, was the thorough ignorance on the part of the inhabitants of Alfalfa-Matraxis concerning the importance and status of gold.
They feared him, of course. How could they not? He was the Master, overlord of Alfalfa Matraxis. Or was it emperor? He really should check. Scourge of the galaxies. Archenemy to several very important people. A name which made Daleks feel quite uncomfortable and make up excuses about why they had other places to be. To fear the Master was only natural. He was kind of rather frightening.
But while the Master's secret police were swamped with the rumors and hushed voices that wisped about the underside of things, the stories told tales of the dreaded Half-King and his high, yellow chair. It just didn't have the ring to it that the Master had envisioned when creating the "The Half-King Needs Gold" branch of government twenty years back.
The Master looked up at the high back of his throne. Rassilon, had it always been so gaudy? More ostentatious than imposing. Not even comfy.
He sighed and picked up his glass of Alfalfa-Matraxian wine. The finest on the whole planet. The liquid in the Master's glass glowed ultraviolet, indicating that it had reached the peak of its vintage. He wasn't so bad a fellow. He had brought wine to Alfalfa-Matraxis. The first ever.
The secrets of the great vineyards of Gallifrey hadn't died along with the rest of Time Lord culture. It was a small victory, but those might well have been the only victories that awaited the Master for the remainder of his never-ending life. Gallifrey falls.
"Oh well," the Master said to himself "you can't have everything". With this he took a deep sip from the glass.
As if on cue, the Master's eyes widened and his face puckered. He spat out the mouthful. The Master looked back at the glass, wondering if he had accidentally poured in a bottle of battery acid by mistake and, when the wine proved indeed to be wine, he threw it down onto the cold iron floors of his throne room.
The glass shattered. Shrilly, the Master found, but not satisfyingly.
The best wine in all of Alfalfa-Matraxis, the Master thought, scornfully. The worst part was that it was true. What a disgusting planet. The Master wished he was elsewhere. Anywhere.
In a thoroughly rotten mood, the Master shifted in his uncomfortable throne, alone in his empty, darkened throne room. The minister who oversaw the "Get the Half-King Trashed" wing of government was going to get kicked down some stairs when he was eight. That was certain. The thought brought minimal catharsis as somewhere on Alfalfa-Matraxis, a fairly important government official faded into oblivion.
The Master closed his eyes and waited for something. Death, perhaps.
She didn't come.
–
"This is very important," The Doctor said to Canton, his hands cradling Canton's head firmly. Behind him, the time and universe expanded, warped, and rushed past. The Doctor's eyes looked into Canton's eyes. They were bright and serious. "You need to -"
Canton woke.
His head was screaming. His head had been screaming every morning for some number of days.
"It would probably be smart to stay asleep through that last bit," Canton said to himself. But he never did.
Four days of cold, fog, cryptic dreams, and off-putting looks from aliens had done very little for Canton's mood. But the sleep helped. Minimally.
Canton didn't speak two-headed alien, so all he could do was sit in his bed, try to keep down whatever dreck it was that the aliens were feeding him, and try not to let on just how intense the withdrawal he was suffering felt. A whole new planet and no alcohol, Canton mused. Languishing may indeed have had some good bits to it around the edges. He hoped that this would end soon.
The room where Canton had woken four days ago was clean and white. Like a hospital. His bed was small, but so was Canton. On each side of it were white, loosely woven curtains. They didn't keep out the sunlight, when the sun decided to cut through the fog, or the images of aliens rushing about, whispering to each other, and taking trays to other beds.
The curtains parted.
"Ah," said an old alien, white haired with matching beards running down his twin chins. The eyes of his right face looked at Canton. His second set of eyes avoided Canton's own. Stubbornly. Canton got the feeling that he was being impolite and just focused on the right face. The face didn't let on if Canton had offended it. It was about this time that Canton realized he had been spoken to. The first time since he had woken up wherever he was.
"You speak English," Canton said, nowhere near as astonished as he would have been a year ago by his present circumstances. Now, this was merely a happy turn of events.
"I don't know what language it is you speak, half-man," the old alien said, looking thoughtful. "This is the language of the Half-King. It is a strong language. A true language, they say. Not many on this planet can learn it." Canton accepted this instantly, but the old alien seemed to want to explain further.
"It speaks in," the old alien looked around as if he was looking for the right word, possibly one which was floating around him. He could have said 'Platonic Ideals', but that term did not exist on Gallifrey or Alfalfa-Matraxis. "Bigness," the old alien settled on a word. Finally.
"But then how can you understand me?" Canton asked, sitting up straighter in his bed.
"I think you are asking how I can understand you," the old alien said. "Alas, I cannot. Gibberish. You speak a small language while I have spent two decades conquering a large one." He looked sympathetic, if a little smug.
"But they have called me to this place of healing to explain to you where you are and reassure you that it is all for a greater purpose," the man beamed. Canton didn't. He didn't like where this was going. Why did Canton seem to bump into religious types wherever he found himself?
"Half-Man," the old alien went on, standing up and spreading his arms, "how would you like to kill an emperor?"
Canton smiled weakly and knew nothing he said would matter.
–
And somewhere on Alfalfa-Matraxis, far away from anywhere that might rightly be called civilized, a madman ran about. Erratically. As madmen are prone to do.
A two-week beard made him look a prophet in the deep, azure jungles of Alfalfa-Matraxis. Talking to himself, screaming at bits and pieces of alien machinery, and, when remembering that she was there, calming down and sitting next to a frightened little girl. Herself without a home.
But the madman was rebuilding the love of his life, so one might find it in their hearts to forgive him his outbursts and wish him well.