"Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. This is really bad. Really so bad." I chant to myself, pacing in the threshold of the T.A.R.D.I.S.
It's been at least five minutes since Jenny disappeared down that hole in the water.
Leading to God knows where, down in that abyss, the middle of the ocean, that impossible ocean, darkness and cold and monstrous creatures and-
"Shit. Shit. This is really bad," I chant once more under my breath before one more glance at the vastness of the water before me, "Shit!"
They could need me. How many times has the Doctor saved my life in the nick of time? How many times have I saved him moments before certain… well… regeneration, but that's beside the point…
I need to do this.
I pause in my pacing, my hands gripping the blue doorframe so tightly, the skin stretched over bone. The T.A.R.D.I.S is singing to me for the first time before all of this insanity happened. For the very first time since I've felt like a stranger in this world, she is humming in the back of my consciousness. A steady, sure beat that has the slightest calming effect on my screeching mind.
My pounding hearts begin to come to their senses, slowing just enough to allow me to think through the incessant thrumming in my ears. The song is so soothing.
If this weren't such a stressful situation, I might cry! How I missed her!
"Okay, Evy. This is all in your head. Literally. It's not real. This fear isn't yours. This isn't you." I say firmly, squeezing my eyes shut as I take a step out of the T.A.R.D.I.S.
It helps to not see my impending doom. A little.
A whimper escapes me, panic rising from within my chest.
Another step out onto the water.
I open my eyes, forcing myself to look at what's terrifying me, look at the fact that there is nothing to fear. Nothing at all.
Yeah, nope.
A jolt of panic rips its way through my head, my vision flashing with white terror like lightning, and I scramble back into the T.A.R.D.I.S.
A string of expletives explode from my mouth, and I kick the metal railing, barely feeling the pain through my fury. The T.A.R.D.I.S lets out a disapproving string of dissonant notes in my mind.
"Yeah, well, do you think you could help me out a little more than humming some zen tunes, here? This is a crisis! I'm being hijacked by another me! The last two Time Lords in this universe could be, I don't know, drowning, being tortured, probably something horrible knowing our damn luck!" I shout, throwing my hands in the air and turning to make my way up to the console.
Maybe if I can just…
Suddenly, I'm being pelted with fabric and metal and- OW.
"OKAY, alright! I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" I yell, ducking and raising my hands above my head to protect me against the orange deluge from above. As quickly as it started, the temper tantrum ends.
My hand grasps at the familiar fabric surrounding me, bringing one up to inspect it. It's a bunch of those orange suits we would always wear on planets that were uninhabitable. Zero oxygen, low oxygen, toxic compounds floating about in the air… This suit filters it all, allows us to breathe.
But this is… solid water, or whatever it is that's swallowed up my friends.
I'm not exactly an expert, but I don't think it can be filtered?
"Do you really think this will help me?" I mutter, and the cloister bell urges me on, telling me clearly to hurry. I glance towards the open doors, and even with just holding this protective suit of oxygen, a layer of safety between me and whatever lives beneath that solid layer of still water, the anxiety ebbs slightly.
It's not to help me breathe, not this time.
It's like a safety blanket. It's to help me get over this ridiculous, very inconvenient phobia from hell.
"Oh, you clever girl. You know me so well even when you hate me."
I grin, tearing it apart to put it back together with me in it, and when I engage the oxygen, practically running towards the open doors, I no longer feel crippled. Not with this crutch to help me through it.
I hesitate for just a moment at the threshold, cringing at the now slightly tinted sight of the ocean before launching myself out onto the solid water and bounding over to the hole down which Jenny disappeared. The edges are smooth, as if they'd been carved meticulously…
This was no accident.
I don't understand what this stuff is. It's not cold, like ice should be. In fact, it's even slightly warm to the touch, even through the suit…
It's not slippery like ice. It doesn't melt…
I gaze through the clear, solid water, seeing the whirling movement of liquid beneath the surface. My fingers tap firmly on the smooth glass-like material, and my confusion heightens to see that ripples form below the solid layer, as if I've touched the liquid itself.
This planet either has its own laws of physics, or this is something entirely new that even the Doctor might not-
The Doctor.
Jenny. Calix!
It's been at least ten minutes. Plenty of time for something terrible to happen…
I take a deep breath, plopping down and scooting to the edge of the hole that Jenny disappeared down. I stay sitting with my legs dangling down for a moment before allowing myself to slide down under the slab of solid water. I keep my grip on the edge, though, wishing I didn't have to let go.
I can hear the sloshing of the liquid layer all around me, even through the helmet. Yet, I'm not getting wet with ocean water as I half expected once I'd gone down a bit.
It's as if the solid layer extended itself, or something, to make a tunnel.
I bite my lip so hard, I taste the iron in my blood, and with a final deep breath, I let go of the edge.
Immediately, I'm picking up speed, the glass-like solid water practically frictionless, somehow. I cross my arms over my chest, like I'm on a water slide in a theme park, and I try to force myself to believe that.
I'm not diving towards my death at the bottom of an endless ocean, an ocean that happens to have swallowed my only friends in this universe, and might defy the laws of physics!
No, I'm at Sea World! I'm on a water slide, yeah, that's exactly what's happening!
Yet, I can't ignore that my eyes only register the light fading into darkness, and the not-memory of being dragged under the waves, of my lungs screaming for life, surges up to rear its ugly head.
A scream rips through my teeth.
Suddenly I'm flying, the solid slide of water gone beneath me, and my hands flail about for something to grab in the darkness.
And then, pressure around my midriff, eliciting a huff of surprise from me, and I've stopped.
I can't speak for several moments, my brain just trying to register what's going on.
"Are you edible?" A guttural, croaking voice says in the dark.
My body tenses, and my hands move to whatever has got my waist in its grip. It feels cool, and hard but pliable, like muscle.
"No," I finally manage to say, my voice a bit more tremulous than I'd hoped, "Nope, I am not edible. I wouldn't eat me. You shouldn't either, you'd probably get sick, I've got tons of bacteria, all over me, inside me, you'd- Well, you'd probably just barf. Maybe even die! Better not to try it."
I try to pry the strong grip off of me with my fingers, but it just tightens. It becomes a bit difficult to breath.
"Barf? There is no such word as barf. What is barf?" The voice says.
"Barf," I gasp when the grip tightens even further, crushing my abdomen, "Like vomit. When your lunch comes up. Barf!"
"I do not understand. You are making up the barf to extend your life. Are you sure you're not edible? If you're not edible, you're probably just here to attack the Vitarnia, and we can't allow that." The deep voice growls, and even through the helmet, I swear I hear the air shake with its voice.
What is this thing? Vitarnia, what is it going on about… If I could just see it, I might be able to deal with it better.
"Well, I might be able to tell you more accurately about my edibility, you know… For sure. But I'd need to see you, to assess your anatomy, to… Uh… Determine whether your body would be able to handle my… toxins." I say, and the grip around me loosens ever so slightly. I draw in breath gratefully, suddenly aware of all the muscles in my abdomen that I need to thank for helping me to breathe.
"You cannot see me?" It croaks, as if surprised.
"Well… No, it's pitch black down here."
"I do not have that problem, but I know of one who does." It says, and I get the feeling that we're moving now, gliding through the darkness. I don't dare take the helmet off, no way… Even if it might help me to see and hear, I don't care.
The only way this helmet is coming off is if it's pried from my cold, dead-
Okay, let's not think like that, Evy, yeah?
Silence reigns for quite a while. I can hear gurgling coming from all around me, from every possible point, a sort of squishy groaning. Sort of like the noise my stomach makes when I've deprived it of food for a while.
It's quite unsettling…
"So…" I say, tapping the muscular grip that holds me with one of my hands, "If you can see in this darkness, you might have seen my friends. They look exactly like me, sort of… I mean, two are male, but-"
"Male? Another word that you have made up." The voice says in exasperation.
"Male, like… Gender. You know, male, female, he, she, his, hers."
"I understand none of that gibberish." It retorts, seeming fed up.
No gender, no gender pronouns in the native language… It doesn't understand the concept of vomiting… What is this thing, and what manner of creature is it taking me to see?
"Okay… That's alright, everyone's different, right? But… My friends, have you seen them?" I say, and it makes an amused sound, hiccupping hoarsely.
"I did see one like you. It wasn't nearly as talkative as you after it landed in the stomach. I figure the others probably took it, thinking it was going to harm the Vitarnia."
Stomach?! The others?!
Okay, one thing at a time...
"Wait, whoa, was it Jenny? Did she have red hair? Was she hurt?" I say, my already wide eyes practically bugging from worry.
"It looked like you. It did not speak." It says simply, and I let out a breath of frustration.
Did she hit her head or something? And stomach? Why call it the stomach? If it's a stomach, like a real stomach, there would be acid… Wouldn't there? We went down the same hole, but I never actually touched the floor, she could be really hurt…
"Please, I need to find my friends. Can you take me to where you saw the other one, the one that looked like me?"
"We were just there. The stomach." It says.
"Right, but where was she taken? I need to find her, you don't understand, she might need my help!"
"Help. Heeeelp." It says, like a child learning a new word, "Help. Barf. Male. All these strange words. I hope you are edible, I wonder what such an exotic morsel might taste like."
Seriously, 'help' isn't in the vocabulary for these things? Could the T.A.R.D.I.S have chosen a worse place to land?
What kind of species doesn't understand the concept of helping someone?
"Ah, here is one!" The voice says, and I sense that we've slowed a little, "These do not communicate, and they cannot see as I can."
I hear a sharp smack, and suddenly an iridescent blue glow ignites before me.
It's dim at first, but gets brighter as the moments pass, and I can finally see. The glowing thing seems to be bioluminescent, like the glowing blue algae of Earth. It's quite beautiful, this creature I've been taken to. Tendrils of glowing, blue, skin-like appendages swirl out from the round core. It does not seem to have any eyes, or ears, or hands, or anything. Kind of like a plant.
But then it moves, crawling away from us on the crystal floor like an amoeba, its body taking a new shape with every effort.
"Quickly, tell me if you are edible!"
I glance down to my abdomen to see what's holding me up in the air. It's a milky white appendage in a shape I've never seen before. Sort of how a pine branch spreads out into spindles every inch or so, only they seem to be…
Well, they're like tentacles.
Of course they're tentacles.
I swallow thickly, in an effort to keep from showing this creature what 'barf' looks like, and move my eyes up the strange arm.
I freeze, my entire body becoming a tense knot of fight or flight instinct, trying desperately to recall my intergalactic manners.
I've seen strange creatures before, even frightening ones. Giant claws and fangs and huge eyes and body parts in wrong places and faces that I'd only ever imagined I'd see in my nightmares.
But this…
It's unlike anything I've seen before. It's as if it's in the process of evolving or something. Nothing seems right about it.
It has a single glazed eyeball, up on the top of its bulbous head, that looks as if an eyelid has accidentally formed over it, but only half way. The cranium is so large it's stretching the skin, making it translucent. I can see some feathery, black veins winding across the small brain lodged within.
Its mouth juts out from its globular head as an out-of-place conglomeration of sharp angles. It looks like a child's drawing, the way its mouth doesn't seem to go with the rest of it. Inside are little quills instead of teeth, like a blue whale's, and I let out a gasp of relief that turns into hysterical laughter.
It's really not that funny, I know, but I think the adrenaline has gotten to me. I truly can't stop laughing, despite the fact that this gigantic monstrous creature still wants to eat me.
Yep. This is what does it. This is what cracks me. After a decade of space travel, I've finally lost it. Off to the loony bin with me, I guess.
"Well?" It croaks through its little mouth bristles, and with the dimming light of that blue bioluminescence, I take another look at it, bursting out into a fresh fit of laughter.
I imagine it trying to gum me to death with its toothbrush mouth. It makes me feel invincible.
"You couldn't eat me if you tried! Your mouth, it'd be like a baby trying to eat a steak! You've just- I mean look at you! You're not so scary, are you?" I say in between laughs, and the creature tilts its head.
"If you aren't edible, then you must be here to harm the Vitarnia," It says, slowly crushing me in its grip until my relieved laughter turns to regretful wheezing, "I cannot eat you, but you must be eliminated."
"Wait-" I manage to squeak before all the air is spent. My lungs can't expand to say anything else.
You know... In, hindsight, I shouldn't have laughed, probably.
"YAH! MUSH! ONWARD!"
Suddenly, in a blaze of blue light that crashes into the leg tentacles of this horrid creature, the death grip around me loosens and I'm falling for what seems like forever. The milky whale-mouth thing isn't exactly short, and by that I mean that it is at least twelve feet tall. I squeeze my eyes shut, bracing for impact on the hard crystal ground.
But I land with a grunt, rather nicely actually, and when I open my eyes, I realize that the Doctor has caught me. His arm curls around my waist firmly, the other under my legs.
Stronger than you look, with your tweed and your little bowtie…
He presses his forehead to my helmet and grins in the bright blue light of whatever bioluminescent critter we seem to be riding.
"In other words…" He says, his voice husky, giving me a wink, "Geronimo."
My body, thrumming with adrenaline and joy at seeing his face, reacts wildly to this, and I suddenly want to kiss that grin off his face.
Forgetting my oath to not remove my helmet, I actually want to rip it off in order to accomplish this.
Can you maybe try to not, I don't know, turn me on in the midst of probable death?
His grin widens, and I know he probably caught a wisp of that string of thoughts. He dips his arms to allow me to sit in front of him on…
What is this thing?
I settle myself on a wide, bony spine, leaning slightly over to get a good look at the thing. Its bottom half looks very serpentine, except for the tiny little arms jutting out of its front. Much like the milky toothbrush-mouth monster, its face looks like it was drawn by someone with no perception of what living things should probably look like.
Its mouth is on the right side of its narrow face, so narrow it's almost paper thin, with dull teeth like a horse's, and its large eyes are on the left side, like a flounder's. The bioluminescence comes from two long antler-like appendages on its forehead, one on each side of its head.
I feel like we've accidentally been dropped into a Salvador Dali painting… All of these creatures are so different from one another, so different from anything we've ever seen…
I turn around a little, glancing over my shoulder to look for the milky whale-mouth, but I don't see any sign of him in the dark.
"Doctor," I say, "We need to find Jenny, I think she's been hurt!"
"Oh, yes, she has. Seems she landed in the stomach." He says back matter of factly.
"Wait, you've seen her? Where is she? Was it an actual stomach, did she get burnt by the acid, is she-"
"Evy, love, she'll be okay. I know she will." He replies, taking out the sonic, pointing it at the left side of the creature, and pressing the button. With a grumble, our trusty steed turns to the right ever so slightly, down a narrow alcove that opens up into a large cavern. The blue light only reaches out so far before dying in the darkness.
"How do you know that?" I snap, slightly annoyed.
I know they're fighting, but really, he shouldn't have let his wounded daughter go walking around this place, whatever it is. I mean, honestly-
"Because Calix is with her…" He says, and the soft tone of his voice makes me turn around to look at him, an eyebrow raised, "We talked some things over, we've come to an understanding, Calix and I."
I narrow my eyes, wondering what Calix could've possibly said to sway the stubborn alien.
"And you trust him now? What happened to the whole overbearing dad act?"
"He's… good for her. I should've seen it. After all, I've lived it, haven't I?" He says, then pauses to look up into the darkness above us, "Do you have any idea how to stop this thing?"
"Do I-… No. I don't know how to spontaneously command an untrained beastie from freakin' Pan's Labyrinth, surprisingly!" I exclaim, and he snakes his hand around to take hold of mine. The feel of his skin through the orange fabric of the suit is comforting.
"Thought so. Useless, you are." He says, and I hear the grin in his voice as I tense my body to get ready to bail, "One, two… three!"
We slide down the leathery side of the beast, landing a bit roughly on the very solid ground. It continues in its mad dash away from us, taking its light with it.
Once again, darkness.
I grip his hand tighter.
"Doctor, what is the Vitarnia?" I whisper, feeling as if the darkness has strangled the volume from my voice.
"Vitarnia. Never heard of it, why?" He says, and I hear him rummaging around in his pockets for something.
Of course, the one thing you don't know about, yeah?
"The thing that captured me, it kept mentioning a Vitarnia. Saying they couldn't allow me to harm it, that I was either edible, or I was going to harm the Vitarnia… It just seemed a little important."
He lets out a hum of acknowledgement.
"And did you know they don't vomit. Or use gender pronouns. Or know what the word 'help' means… They'd be very interesting if they weren't so confusing and horrifying." I continue.
I hear the Doctor pause in his rummaging about, and I begin to wonder if maybe he has a flashlight in those pockets of his.
"Evy, do you ever wonder what it would be like to be a bacterium?" He says, and I make a face.
Is that really relevant here?
"I mean… Yeah," I say, thinking of the book the T.A.R.D.I.S let me find, "I was just reading a book this morning that made me wonder something like that. Why?"
"Because I believe it might feel pretty much exactly like this." He says, finally ceasing in his rummaging about. He tosses up a light orb, one we've seen on a few planets before. He must have pocketed one at some point.
How did that fit in his pocket? Bigger on the inside?
Who am I kidding, of course it's bigger on the inside.
It blinks, hanging above us, and illuminates the cavernous room we find ourselves in. Dimly, I see movement on the walls, though they're far away.
It can't be the walls themselves moving… Can it?
I make a disconcerted noise in the back of my throat, inching closer to the Doctor.
The Doctor points the sonic out, and buzzes it in a circle around us. Wherever the signal goes, bioluminescence flickers to life on the walls.
It wasn't the wall moving. It was those creatures, all over the walls, huddled around specific areas as if they're… feeding.
"What are they?" I whisper.
"The natural flora of the body of the Vitarnia. I think. Could be wrong." He says, obviously not thinking that, and I do a double-take, staring at him dumbly.
"You mean we're inside something right now. Like… We're standing in the body of an actual living thing, a gigantic living thing? That's impossible, it would have to be-"
"The size of an ocean."
I blink slowly, reaching out with my mind to his, attempting to banish some of the confusion.
So the solid water… That was some kind of… skin? Or…
"Yes. We fell through pores in its skin, we're intruders here, we're bacteria… Viruses, actually. To them, at least. The creatures here live in this Vitarnia, feeding off of foreign organisms and waste products, just like your human bacteria do inside of you… Working together to keep their host alive and well."
He smiles as if the thought is simply too wonderful, then screws his mouth up, frowning.
"Although, I have to admit, this Vitarnia thing has a dumb digestive system. From the skin to the stomach? Bit tactless, really… And Calix and I landed in what I now know to be the rectum. Strange place to bond."
I laugh despite myself, despite the fact that we're lost within some gargantuan creature, being hunted. He gives me that squinty-eyed smile I'm beginning to become rather fond of.
"Well, I'm sure you'll laugh about it one day," I say, hooking my arm in his, and give him a soft smile, "I'm really proud of you. I never would have thought you'd trust Calix, let alone trust him to keep Jenny safe here."
I raise a brow, watching his reaction to this statement.
"Yeah… Well he's not completely terrible. Besides, I had someone else kind of important to me that I needed to find," He says, tapping my helmet with his knuckles, "I knew you'd find a way to follow me, no matter how scared you were. My Evy, so incredibly brave."
I smirk, blushing a little.
"Oh don't flatter yourself. I only came down here to save Calix. I mean, you said yourself, he's so great and handsome and-"
"Not funny. And I said he's not completely terrible, you're making a huge leap to 'so great'!" He interrupts and I burst out laughing, "And handsome… Hmph. I don't see it."
Great so now that we've fixed the family relationships, we can focus on surviving!
We really need to get our priorities straight.
"Doctor," I say, tearing my eyes away from the ceiling, where I could've sworn I saw a blue flash scurrying across it, "I've been thinking... There's something that doesn't make sense about your theory about the Vitarnia."
We've been wandering around the… bowels (still getting used to that idea) for at least half an hour, looking for a way up, back to the supposed epidermal layer. The skin.
"Oh, and what's that?" He says, tossing me the orb to bend down and take a look at a strange fixture jutting out from the floor beneath us, bumpy and covered in… goop.
He trails a finger up the stalagmite of clear, hard crystal-like organic material, gathering a glob of the transparent goo.
And then he pops it into his mouth.
My stomach turns.
"Oh my God, you're going to make me sick! I hate when you do that kind of crap!" I say, smacking his shoulder. He grins at me, taking my free hand and I can feel the affection spilling out of his mind into mine as we continue on our way.
Wherever we're going…
"Oh, I know," He says, pausing to glace over at me in the now dimmer glow of the orb, "You were saying about me being wrong? I'm very curious, that doesn't happen often you know."
"Right, well… If this Vitarnia thing is alive, but its skin is some kind of organic crystalized molecule, how does it move? Doesn't it need to move? Don't its insides need to move in order to function? How are these bioluminescent bacteria so aware and sentient?" I say, and the Doctor smirks as if what I've said is amusing and adorable, "It doesn't make sense to me!"
His smirk widens into a smile.
"So very human of you, to project your humanity onto other creatures, creatures who could never even comprehend such a state as being human. Not to belittle their existence, no, that wouldn't be true, to say a human is more important simply for their humanity. Yet, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so they say." He says, giving me a look that, combined with the sudden husky tone of his voice, sends shivers up my spine.
The velveteen voice of this new Doctor…
It'll be the death of me.
"I…" My mouth becomes still, caught off guard as once again our minds dance about one another, flirting with the idea of giving themselves over to the other. I find that I desperately want to in this moment, to feel that familiar weight, the coolness of him, the taste of his infinity.
Why did I decide I shouldn't trust him again?
Why is it so hard for me to get over this?
Rather than struggle with that damned paradox yet again, as I will have to the rest of my life, I shake myself out of his tentative mind's embrace and focus.
"That's all very lovely, but I don't think you really answered any of my questions, Mr. Doctor. Are you afraid you actually are wrong?" I tease, and he gives no indication of the latest of my many rejections of him, rolling his eyes.
"You wish," He says, narrowing his eyes, "I am amazed that even after all these years, you still can't help but compare all life to life on Earth. Not everyone has to be a squishy skin-bag of water, you know. As for the bacteria, how do you know bacteria on Earth don't think just like these do? How would you know?" He says, leaving that hanging in the air for pondering.
And ponder I do.
Does that mean that when I use hand sanitizer, I'm murdering thousands of sentient little creatures?
I mean, these Vitarnia bacteria aren't exactly friend material, but I wouldn't want to actually kill them… And does that mean that in my digestive tract right now, all over my skin, they're living and talking to one another and…
Well… I'm sufficiently disturbed.
The Doctor must see the look on my face, because he chuckles and squeezes my hand gently.
"Joking! I met some Earth bacteria once before, they're not at all like these guys. Technically, by definition, these are not bacteria at all. But for all intents and purposes, living symbiotically with this Vitarnia creature, some harmful some not… I'd say they're bacteria, in this context."
I raise a brow.
"You… met Earth bacteria?"
"Yeah, I tamed an amoeba… Let's just say these particular ones were a little bigger and fatter than they should've been." He says, and I wonder for the millionth time in my life what kind of things he's seen that I don't know about.
We walk hand in hand, in silence, for a while, the creatures seeming to be wary of the light of the orb clutched to my chest. They flutter about on the edges of shadows, around every corner. I hear their angered grumblings, words expressing irritation, and again I'm amazed at their level of intelligence.
Amazed and frightened.
Are we ever going to get back to the T.A.R.D.I.S?
Did the kids make it back okay?
My eyes widen as I process that last thought.
The kids.
Well, that's going to have to stop right this very second. No way am I turning into some kind of over-eager stepmom.
Besides Jenny is like… 20 years older than I am. I think. And Calix, he's probably only a few years younger than I am…
Suddenly I'm seeing stars, and falling forward towards the hard ground. Pain erupts on the back of my head, and I hear an almost feral yell, and the scuffle of feet.
"Evy! Hey, stay back, I am warning you, I've got… a… very diversely talented screwdriver!" I hear the Doctor shout, and when I lift my throbbing head, the air on my face feels cooler, more moist.
I lift my cloth-encased hand up to my face, to find that my helmet has shattered on the crystal ground. The bridge of my nose stings, as well as under my eye. I must've been cut by a few shards of broken glass from the impact.
I shake my head to clear my vision, and when I get to my knees, I can see the orb laying on the ground several feet away from us, glowing ever so dimmer. I'm distracted by the beauty of it, reflecting and refracting off the surface, then the liquid layer of the Vitarnia's body skin.
The Doctor's legs stand firmly in front of me, and beyond him…
It's a person. Not human, but a person nonetheless. They've got sallow, yellowish skin, riddled with gray scars, two eyes just like ours, and a wide, thin-lipped mouth. I originally thought one of the bacteria was perched on their back, but now I see that… It's just a cloak, made of the skin of one of the bacteria. It glows with faded bioluminescence, remnants from when it was alive.
"You have a ship." It says, the voice smoky and distinctly female. She brandishes the weapon in her hands, a long rod with what looks like a hunk of the crystal skin of the Vitarnia secured on the end.
"You know, clubbing someone probably isn't the best way to-" The Doctor starts to retort, but she lunges forward, quick as a Cobra, and whacks him over the head.
"Be still, slave. You have a ship." She growls, and the Doctor nods quickly, hunched a bit in pain, rubbing his head. Anger courses through me and I yank the useless helmet off of me, fear forgotten, getting to my knees with my eyes intently upon the woman.
"Yes! That's the problem though! We can't get to it, so if you could stop with the stick and the hitting and the whacking, that'd be marvelous!" He says, rubbing the top of his head still, and she watches him intently as he turns to help me up. His eyes fall upon the warm trickle of blood I can feel inching its way down my cheek, his face blank. He grasps my hand and pulls me to my feet, and once I'm up, he squints at me, leaning close so that I can feel the tips of his hair brush my forehead.
"I am not talking to you, boy," she says as if insulted, "You know where your ship is on the surface."
Boy? If only she knew just how much of a boy he certainly is not. It's only a thousand years too late to be calling him that, give or take...
He ignores her, his fingertips suddenly on my face, pulling the skin around my eyes taut to make them as wide as possible. He scrutinizes my pupils, and I realize he's checking for a concussion.
Apparently satisfied, he lets out a breath, stepping away from me to turn to our unexpected visitor.
"Well, yeah the general area…" The Doctor says.
"Males are useful for nothing, I will speak only to you." She says, lowering her weapon and nodding to me, and I frown, my eyes shifting from the stranger to the Doctor.
"That is just… blatantly sexist. I really resent that." The Doctor protests, and she moves to wield her weapon again, presumably to give him another goose-egg, but I move in front of him.
She looks confused, narrowing her eyes to glare at the Doctor behind me.
"Look, you're stuck here, too. Aren't you?" I say quickly, my hands in front of me in surrender, and she nods, "You must know it better than we do. How long have you been here?
"I have lost count of the days." She replies, lifting her chin slightly, "My mate and I crashed here, our ship was devoured by the Vitarnia."
Oh… The Vitarnia eats ships too? Perfect.
Though… Their ship probably wasn't half as smart as the T.A.R.D.I.S…
"Is he still… here?" I ask, trying to be delicate, and she looks entirely disgusted, her whole face screwing up.
"You insult me. Males are not fit to be mated to." She says, and I shrug, wishing she'd put that damn stick down. The Doctor scoffs quietly.
We've encountered cultures like this before in our travels... Cultures that are so incredibly imbalanced and unjust, it's difficult to stomach. Even more imbalanced than Earth's collective culture.
Great. Our only hope for survival might rest in the hands of a raging, sexist, slave-holder with a stick.
"Okay, sorry, I didn't mean to imply- Um… So is she still here?" I say, shifting my weight uncomfortably under her scrutiny, wondering how her species reproduces…
I mean, I suppose they could be involved with the women and just… Use the men. That's quite horrible, really. Atrocious, actually… The social implications of that are, well, not good.
They sound worse than slaves.
"No." She says finally, no emotion crossing her face at all.
"I'm sorry." I say, but she just glares at us, finally lowering her weapon, "Look, if you know the way out of here, and you help us escape, we will take you wherever you need to go."
"Oh, will we?" The Doctor grumbles, but the woman apparently has learned that I don't keep my 'slave' under a tight-leash, and ignores him.
"That will be satisfactory. Thank you, milady." She says, dipping her head to me, stiffly respectful.
"You're ah... You're welcome... Milady." I say, nodding to her.
I practically can feel the Doctor rolling his eyes his behind me.
I can't say I disagree with him at this point...