Hours earlier, back in the jungle. The Doctor lay in the alien wilderness, at the will of the shadow-man. Clara is still running.
The Doctor lay under the shadowed canopy, having been dragged to a small pit lined with moist soil and rotting understory debris. The bordering trees had been snapped and trampled, miniature tooth and claw assaults visible on their honed bark. Veritable scratching posts, the lot of them.
And still the timelord lay, unmoving and tranquil. Breathing in…out…in…out, the humid, scented understory air. Scented with the sweet, pungent airs of the rotting leaves, trampled mushrooms, something that smelled like a moose…The Doctor sniffed and adjusted his head on his warm, soft, cat-scented pillow. Cat-scented? And…moving.
His eyes snapped open with the snore of some incredible beast, his face whiter than normal with alarm…his sonic was whirring, interrupting the natural lullabies of the forest. As his head rose with the gigantic sigh of this beast, he carefully, gently sat up and cautiously surveyed the area. Alarm melted into shear relief and a satisfied grin as the Doctor realized he was lying atop one of the 6 bear-sized, roly-poly Vilroushka kits. They all slept in this cozy little pit, cuddling each other and rolling over with adorable puppy whines that revealed fearsome little kit-fangs and displayed gaping maws. He stood soundlessly, observing the purple tint of the night upon their white, speckled hides. A cool breeze unsettled the air around him, sending a refreshing rustle—a sigh—through the drowsy stillness. As it would happen, he had been standing down-wind.
The nearest kit sniffed in its sleep, a pink triangle nose twitching. Its lips parted slightly as it opened all four of its tiny, beetle-black eyes sleepily. It stared at the Doctor, who, by now, had been attempting to climb out of the pit but was failing miserably due to the sheer slickness of the wet, rotting leaves and thick mud. Sniffing again, it mewled curiously at him. The Doctor froze and faced the babe in defeat. Lumbering towards him with the awkwardness Clara had described as "too good" with a wide smile, it stumbled over its sibling with an audible wail. The Doctor smiled wryly and watched the alien bear-panthers stir. He stood amused as the wail awaked another two Vilroushkas, one flicking its tail in another's sleeping face, the other stretching and flipping another over…the nest was soon a furry mess of bumbling activity. "Living Dominos, you lot are," he tutted fondly, and, gazing at their young coats, he added, "…fuzzy, noisy, bear-shaped Dominos." The Doctor rolled his eyes. Let the mewling commence.
A particularly plump kit made its way to the Doctor and sniffed him up and down, pawing at him until he obliged it with a friendly pat. It rolled over on his foot, which, in yanking it free, sent him sprawling into the 6th kit, who awoke with an irritated yelp. The kits soon forgot him, tackling each other and destroying more of the trees bordering the nest. Finally able to grip a recently-split tree, the Doctor hauled himself out of the nest. Sighing at the 6 reasons Clara and him came to Riaco 4, the Doctor extracted his still whirring sonic screwdriver.
A few blinks of the screen told him it had been recording the whines, mewls, and barks of the Vilroushkas. Switching it off with toothy grin set upon his face, he moved to pocket it. An odd contraption met his touch. Pulling it from his dimensionally transcendental pockets, he found a small object consisting of miscellaneous bits from his pockets- a dust-bunny of metal and wire scraps. It was an activation device linked to his sonic screwdriver. Confidence soothing the returning urgency of the situation, the Doctor picked through the jungle vegetation, hoping the path he cut lead him towards the edge of the darkness.
Hours later. The Doctor stands alone, locked outside his own TARDIS in a dissipating fog. The stranger had entered his TARDIS, was alone with Clara…he did not trust him. Not entirely. Confused, he shivers minutely, cursing the man internally for taking his coat.
The Doctor heaves a sigh and looks to the darkened amethyst heavens, a clear night lit only by faraway stars. And, of course, his TARDIS. He was exhausted. There was no patience left in him. Stepping morosely out of the sickening pool of his best friend's blood, he set to examining the activation device. It seemed to have been scavenged from the contents of his coat pockets earlier. Running a thumb along his Frankenstein sonic toothbrush, he peered into the vast jungle creeping up from the gloomy horizon. What was he supposed to do? What was his role in this?
All at once, something snapped. His eyebrows shot up as connections formed, his spidery hands brought to his head in understanding and joy; a short whoop escaped from chapped lips. The adventurer's smile stole onto his face, a lopsided grin which could have been perceived as a sneer. He knew what was going on. Finally.
Determination pulsing through his binary vascular system, he ran. Ran straight into the path of the space-tree. At full pelt, he jumped into it; a series of books climbed out of the reaches of his mind…he recalled certain plucky young individuals running into the brick columns between Platforms 9 and 10.
At the vertex of his leap, the tree enveloped him, a breathtaking ring of golden energy pulsing through the trunk of the tree. The silver Doctor's lopsided smirk growing in enthusiasm, he clung to his toothbrush.
Well, isn't that wizard.
His vision betrayed him, and a new dimension of sense, undetectable by humans, enveloped his person. Beyond feeling the turn of the planet and the gravitational pull of its suns, beyond the timeless, nameless nothingness described feebly as "time," lay the contentment and utter tranquility of existence itself. The inevitable, yet impossibly random coincidence of Life. Beyond the controversies of ontology. It was strong within this time-tree, and the Doctor basked in it. Had the sensation been less than it was, he would heaved a sigh of tremulous emotion, a minute smile felt on the corners of his thin lips. Alas, it was simply too great. The dimension of sense transcending words themselves, only to be experienced—never granted their full majesty unless experience was the medium of communication. And how utterly grand it was.
The Doctor felt himself pulled away from this powerful sense, a vacuum spilling him out of a second tree and into a darkened, restless forest. Stumbling blindly into the blackness, his eyes adjust enough for him to evade a thick tree and steady himself wearily. Physically shaking the ecstasy from his brain, he listened to the forest breathe. Amid the calming rustles and crackles carried by unseen, unfelt breezes, he detected sighs and whines. Surpassing these with his superior hearing abilities, the Doctor focused in on the hurried thumping of a long-legged idiot currently crashing through the silver meadow just beyond the jungle. Eyes snapping open, he felt his sense of hearing withdraw sharply like an elastic band, slapping him mildly before he assumed his journey.
Rubbing his own tender eye, he regretted the repercussions but knew it had to be done. It had already been done, anyway.
Slipping through the uneven growths of the understory, the coat-less Doctor strode to meet the long-legged idiot with a well-aimed branch to the face.
After clambering out of the Vilroushka kit's nest, the Doctor stumbles blindly through the jungle, relying solely on his sense of direction. Panting, he slides to an abrupt halt before a tree towering blacker and deeper than any he'd seen…the heart of this darkness.
Eyebrows furrowed in exertion, his sparkling eyes betrayed his disappointment. Rarely could he ever feel this sense so strongly. It's alluring intensity eased his thoughts, smoothing the ripples and complexities into a still pool of reflection. An atrocious roar jarred his thoughts, his acute hearing zoning in on a faint cry. Clara. So far away. He spun around, sprinting pell-mell in the direction of the skirmish, in the direction of the edge of the enthralling darkness.
Lurching his thoughts away from fabricating a horror that was Clara's predicament, the Doctor reached the edge of the jungle. Squinting across the glimmering meadow, he spotted the peppered beast raising a hefty paw to bat her away from the TARDIS. Knowing the futility of calling out, the Doctor bit hard on his lip and bent down to work quickly, to position the screwdriver-now-microphone to lure the Vilroushka back to her nest. Fumbling to untangle a wire, he stole another look. His 5 foot 1 friend flew across the enclosure, tumbling into the base of the twin of the time-tree he had only just encountered. She'll be fine. She's a tough one.
Wrapping one end of the sonic in the wire, he wound the rest tightly around a young tree, adjusting the angle accordingly. His head snapped upwards at the multi-octave growl reverberating across the meadow. Clara lay motionless. The beast was advancing. Legs carrying him faster than this body had ever run before, he flashed back into the darkness, back through the path he forged, back to the time-tree portal. The adrenaline and fear coursing through his pressured veins tunneled his vision as well as his other senses. And so he ran, heedless of the sly, boney hand which slipped the activation device out of his coat pocket. Entering the time-tree, the Doctor was lost to the jungle.