My tardi(s)ness is inexcusable, and I apologize. I've had things written out for a while but couldn't bring myself to publish them. I fount myself tangled in my own plot for a while, and it took quite a few cups of coffee to unravel. Here goes.
Thanks for not forgetting me... :)
Hours earlier, during the pursuit of the Vilroushka- The Doctor has offered the obvious, irritating advice of "Run!", and Clara continues to do just that. She sees his jacket glinting across the night, and hope blossoms within her core. The timelord races, an idea still forming in the back of his mind.
A wide grin still stretched across his pale, lined face, the Doctor raced towards the adjacent blackness. An intimidating jungle sped to meet him, as if sensing the urgency…well, the thrill. Exhilarating…the adventure of it all never ceases to amaze me, even after all this time…He allowed a slight nod of appreciation for his regeneration ability, imperceptible to the night as a puff of his frigid breath escaped into the lavender haze. A new light shed on any situation allows for even the slightest wonders to be unveiled, realized, and remembered. Casting a glance over his shoulder, he witnessed Clara still running for her life. The Vilroushka was gaining in great strides.
Hearts thrumming in his ears, the Doctor's field of vision shrank dramatically as he approached the jungle threshold. The amethyst night's majesty against the face of an iridescent, green jungle was quite a sight to see. It was vast. A dreamlike vast of such ultimate envelopment one longed and feared to enter; the chaos of the wild drew one in by one's very soul and yet its bedraggled appearance admonished entry. The purest, foulest jungle—a raging sea of pensive land.
Gray eyes dilated, the timelord slowed to a stop in awe…even countless seasons paled in comparison to the awesome struggle before him. He stood within feet of the wall of the beast, carefully separated from the industrial meadow. A flicker of familiarity sparked in the back of his mind, a smile escaping around shallow huffs of breath. Into the Heart of Darkness it is…memories of flitting his thumb over the soft edge of the novella's pages warmed his chilled person in a minute wave. Conrad, you tormented man…I think a visit wouldn't be amiss…Straightening up, the Doctor brushed back his coat ends and took an eager step into the heart of this foreign darkness.
And was smacked squarely in the face by a thick, well-aimed branch.
A long-legged figure stepped over the Doctor's unconscious form, and stooped down close to his body amid the cover of the ever-restless jungle shadows. A pigmy owl-frog crooned close by, its reverberations drowning easily with the other cackles, hoots, mewls, and shuffles of the night. Crafty hands reached into the Doctor's blood-red coat, extracting the sonic screw driver soundlessly. The same hands looped themselves around the Doctor's boney frame and hauled him deeper into the black jungle. The timelord's silver head drooped lazily to his chest, a black-eye to form where the blow was most powerful; this was the only evidence of a commotion, for the ancient man had come to an otherwise peaceful halt in running through time.
The trail of discarded canopy debris would be nearly imperceptible, night or day.
The Doctor vanished from the part in the trees that was his entrance, and seemed swallowed by the mastery of the alien jungle.
The shadow, however, was busy at work. After it completed its mission of dragging the 2000 year-old through the thick jungle to some predetermined point, the sonic screwdriver had been clicked to a specific setting and placed carefully in the Doctor's coat pocket, just even with his left heart. Bits of metal, random technology (including an electric toothbrush), and anything magnetic were extracted from his crimson coat folds as well. The result of minutes of fiddling, an activation switch for the whirring sonic screwdriver was constructed.
Retreating to the wild darkness, the shadow lay in wait.