Chapter 9
The Deserter And The Kraken.
Drannor currently had his head on a book, on a desk in the Tardis library. The Doctor had been teaching Drannor for the past week, whilst Rose was with her mum. He had picked up Earth's general history easily but the Doctor insisted on going more in-depth on the subject and the subject of Earth's technological advances.
The Doctor walked into the library "I didn't know you could read through absorption." He quipped and Drannor slowly sat up.
"Surely I don't need to know how a hydron collider works and why it's inefficient compared to other methods. I bet even Rose doesn't know this stuff." Drannor whined now. "Can't we just have a break? We haven't had one for three days. The only time my brain has been off is when I'm eating and sleeping."
"I told you, you can have a break once you've finished reading that book." The Doctor sat down next to him, a grin on his face, he was enjoying teaching someone things, especially when that someone was Drannor who could absorb information like a sponge.
Drannor glared at the Doctor and closed the book before stubbornly crossing his arms. "Nope, no more. I'm going on strike."
"Come on, you've only got 200 pages left." He tried to encourage Drannor to continue reading.
"Nope. Not happening. My brain is about to melt onto the floor." Drannor whined and let his head flop back over the back of the chair, his long hair touching the floor of the Tardis.
The Doctor crossed his legs with a smug smile on his lips, he'd noticed how interested Drannor had been when learning about ships, pirates, and the stories of sea monsters. "Tell you what, finish reading and I'll take you to a pirate ship."
Drannor immediately lifted his head to look at The Doctor. "Really?!"
"Of course, all you have to do is finish reading." The Doctor chuckled as Drannor immediately opened the book back up and started reading, with much more enthusiasm.
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Drannor was bouncing excitedly in the console room as The Doctor started to steer the Tardis. "Right there are some rules for traveling with me, do as I say and don't wander off...For some reason, everyone struggles with the don't wonder off one." He spoke as he landed the Tardis and turned his back to the door briefly.
As soon as he turned his back Drannor had left. The Doctor turned back around. "Drannor?...He's wandered off, of course, he has. Can't anyone just bloody listen." He muttered to himself as he made his way to the Tardis door and stepped out.
Drannor was standing in what appeared to be a curved room made out of metal, "You said a pirate ship, this doesn't look anything like one." He pouted with his arms crossed.
The Doctor rubbed the back of his head. "Must have gone wrong somewhere, let's have a look about, anyway didn't I tell you not to wander off?"
The elf tilted his head at The Doctor. "When did you say that?"
"Before you wandered off." He sighed, he should have known that Drannor wasn't listening, they never do when it comes to wandering off. The Doctor walked over to Drannor and took his hand. "Don't wander off again."
The other man nodded and smiled apologetically at the Doctor, He followed the Doctor through a doorway and down a metal hall. Everything was silent apart from the sound of creaking metal and the banging of their footsteps. Electric lights flickered above them. "I don't know what you think but something seems off." The Doctor spoke softly as he looked around.
Finally coming to another doorway the Doctor stepped through with Drannor, Drannor paused just as he stepped through the doorway. The room was breathtaking, It had a domed glass ceiling, and through the dome, the ocean could be seen, there were so many different types of fish.
Drannor let go of The Doctor's hand and pressed his face and hands to the glass. "How is this possible, it's amazing! Doctor look! Dolphins! They look so much more graceful in real life than they do in the books." The elf was thrilled and kept moving to look at the ocean from every angle he could.
The Doctor smiled as he watched Drannor and looked around himself. He was hopeful this would distract Drannor enough, that the elf wouldn't mention his driving mistake to Rose. Plus it was only a slight mistake, yes they were a couple of thousand years in the future, and they weren't on a pirate ship but it was still the sea. "Better than pirates?" He asked the elf, Who immediately replied. "Way better, who made this?!"
Drannor practically bounced over to The Doctor and grabbed his hands, a large grin on his face and pure happiness in his eyes as he quickly racked off every question he could think of. "Why did they make it?! How did they make the glass?! Where is all the air coming from?!"
"Slow down." The Doctor laughed and smiled himself as he looked into Drannor's gleeful eyes. He felt something then, something odd, like wanted to see Drannor smiling all of the time for him. He wanted to be the one to make him smile and make the elf's beautiful violet eyes shine. But he quickly closed that part of himself off, it would only end in heartbreak and he was being foolish.
The Doctor knew that Drannor was still healing from his time with the military and Hadir. It would not be right to even think of pursuing Drannor when he was still in a delicate state. So he pulled his eyes away from the elves and started to tell Drannor about the structure around them and who built it.
"It's amazing to think humans built this all on their own, my Mother used to say how humans were like parasites and animals, they live off the elf's work and are too dumb to invent anything themselves. It's nice to see something, so easily proving her wrong. I think she'd die if she saw all the amazing things humans have done and without any help." Drannor linked his arm with The Doctor's.
"Your Mother doesn't like other species?" The Doctor looked over at Drannor rather surprised, he'd always assumed that Drannor's mother would have been much like her son. Excited to learn about others and open-minded.
"No, she hates them. Yet will happily have them die keeping her safe or working as slaves. We never had slaves, too poor thankfully but she always used to go on about how many slaves she would have if she had the riches. How she'd show them off and breed them into superior stock." Drannor spat out the words like they were poison, he couldn't hide the contempt he held for his mother.
The Doctor gently rubbed his thumbs over Drannor's hands, he had an urge to quell Drannor's anger and to comfort him. "I'm sorry." He spoke softly not knowing what to say, what do you say to someone whose parent was an unpleasant woman, to put it mildly?
Drannor forced a smile. "I'm not, she gave me the perfect example of who I don't want to be. I tried for so long to please her and even now I feel guilty because I haven't spoken to her in such a long time. Yet then I remind myself why I don't speak to her, how hateful she is of others, and how she neglected me for so long."
Tears filled his eyes and he sniffled slightly. "For so long I thought that cruelty and hate were all that there was in the world, that's why I am so thankful to you Doctor, You've shown me that there are amazing things in the universe. Not all of it is dark."
Drannor leaned up and gave The Doctor a tight hug, The Doctor hugged him back and rubbed the elf's back slowly. "We'll you've got me and Rose now, and a whole universe to explore."
The elf pulled back from the hug slightly and looked into The Doctor's eyes. He wanted to kiss this marvelous man and show him how thankful he really was. Drannor glanced at The Doctor's lips and he noticed The Doctor doing the same to his lips. They both began to lean in, and the world seemed to halt around them, their lips were so close to touching but suddenly a loud alarm sounded.
The Doctor and Drannor both shot back from each other like they'd been burnt. Both of them had a light blush on their cheeks but that soon faded as they focused now on what was happening around them.
Drannor could see that down the corridor they came from the metal started buckling and groaning, as water started to burst from the walls. "I guess it's not meant to do that?"
"Nope, Run!" The Doctor grabbed Drannors hand as they started to run through another doorway and down a corridor. They could hear doors coming down and sealing off behind them as well as the sound of rushing water.
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Once the alarms had stopped Drannor and The Doctor had gone down multiple staircases and burst into a room. The room was filled with equipment and six people at computers, wearing blue jumpsuit uniforms.
They froze on the spot as all the eyes of the workers landed on them.
"Hello, I'm the Doctor and this is Drannor." The Doctor smiled and waved as Drannor gave a small wave as well and a nervous smile. Drannor had a feeling with the way that he and The Doctor were being looked at, that this would not go smoothly.
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The Doctor and Drannor had been taken to a deeper part of the underwater structure, filled with pipes and wires, they were tied up back to back.
The crew of this place was apparently convinced that he and The Doctor were eco-terrorists and they were part of some organization that was using some unknown technology to collapse their base.
Drannor had fought back until he had gotten tasered, knocking the elf out cold. The Doctor was now just waiting for his companion to wake up so that they could get out of this mess.
A groan left the elf as he opened his eyes and looked around, feeling restrained he immediately pulled at the restraints trying to judge how tight they were. "Doctor?" his voice croaked slightly, his throat feeling dry and scratchy.
"Good Morning sunshine, nice sleep?" The Doctor spoke from behind him sarcastically.
Drannor huffed softly. "No, it was bloody painful."
"Serves you right, I did tell you just to let them take us, but no. The big scary soldier has to fight back. And now we're stuck here. well done." The Doctor's voice was sharp and cutting.
"Look I'm sorry okay? No need to be an arse about it. Can't your magic buzzy stick get us out of here anyway?" Drannor snapped back at The Doctor, his head was pounding and he was in no mood for an arsey Doctor right now.
The timeloard leaned his head back against Drannor's. "No, they confiscated it, and it's not a buzzy stick. It's a sonic screwdriver."
"Well, we can't just sit here. Have we been tied to anything else, or just each other?" Drannor tried looking behind himself but his hair kept getting in the way.
"Nope, I'm tied to an idiot and no one else." The Doctor replied now staring up at the ceiling.
"Take's one to know one Doctor," Drannor muttered then stretched his legs. "I'm assuming that as my legs are untied, so are yours?"
"Yeah...Oh, you're clever!" The Doctor suddenly perked up catching on with what Drannor was planning. His irritation with the elf had quickly faded now. "Brilliant all we have to do is work together, stand up at the same time, and then we can look around to find something to break the rope. Right on the count of three! One, Two, three!"
The Doctor and Drannor tried standing up at the same time and they succeeded. "That went a lot smoother than I thought it would, Now which way first Doctor?" Drannor asked with a sigh of relief, sitting on a metal floor was not a pastime that he'd like to do again, forced or otherwise.
"Okay, we'll go left first, start shuffling." The Doctor spoke and started shuffling to his left but Drannor started moving to his own left. Causing the two to lose balance and crash to the floor, both The Doctor and Drannor groaned in pain as the back of their heads smashed together, as they landed. Drannor was now on top of The Doctor facing the ceiling and The Doctor had his cheek pressed against the metal floor.
"I said to go left!" A muffled shout left The Doctor and Drannor replied. "I did go left! You should have said the other left!" He groaned in frustration and then spotted across the room a very rusty, rough, and thin-looking pipe. "I've got an idea, Doctor look to your right. See that pipe? I think if we can roll over to it, then we can rub the ropes against it."
The Doctor turned his head to the right and saw the pipe that Drannor was talking about. "Alright, that just might work." The Doctor immediately started to roll, forcing Drannor onto the bottom.
Drannor yelped. "Gods! Hey, a little warning you're heavier than you look!" He said his face now pressed to the metal floor.
"Do you want to get out of this place now, or what?" The Doctor spoke and listened to Drannor's hum, telling The Doctor that the elf had heard him. "Right stop complaining then and roll!"
It took The Doctor and Drannor around 10 minutes to get to the pole, then another 5 to get into the right position to rub the rope against it.
After another 20 minutes, the rope finally gave in. Drannor immediately got to his feet and stretched before dusting the dirt from his clothes. He then held out a hand to The Doctor and helped him up. "Not my ideal version of rolling about on the floor with a man for 35 minutes." He teased and chuckled as The Doctor blushed slightly.
"Oi behave, none of that... Good to know that humans aren't the only species out there that make everything about sex." The Doctor pointed a finger at Drannor who merely chuckled, enjoying The Doctor's reaction.
The Doctor turned and looked over the pipes and wires in the room. "The place is probably collapsing in on itself because of how out of date and shoddily built it is."
"I prefer my theory that there's a Kracken, they've pissed it off and he's trying to evict them," Drannor spoke and went to look out of a small port hole, he could hardly see anything due to how deep they were in the ocean now, but a light in the distance caught his eye as it grew closer.
"I've already told you the Kraken isn't real, that's why I said no when you asked to see one." He walked over to Drannor now and held his hand. "Come on, let's go. Probably going to have to swim back to the Tardis somehow."
The Doctor went to pull Drannor away from the porthole but Drannor stayed glued to where he was standing. "What is it?"
"D-Doctor, look," Drannor whispered and slowly moved back from the port hole.
The Doctor looked through it and his eyes went wide. "You're beautiful."
Lighting up the inky blackness of the sea was a giant squid-like creature, it glowed brightly in the dark, with all sorts of different patterns constantly shifting on its skin, along with so many different colors. "I think you may have been right Drannor."
Suddenly a large sucker covered the porthole and the room they were in started to creak as the walls started to bend inwards. Water started to pour into the room and The Doctor and Drannor started running as an alarm started blaring.
They once again had to run past doors that were closing tightly behind them. "Let's get back up to the control room." The Doctor shouted over the racket.
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Once they were in the control room they were surprised to see all 6 of the crew rushing about, gathering items, they were clearly planning to abandon the base.
One of the crew stopped pausing to look at Drannor and The Doctor, he was a blonde-haired man in his twenties and the same one that had tasered Drannor earlier. "Bloody hell you made it out, we thought for sure once the alarm had started you'd be dead down there."
The Doctor held Drannor's hand and pulled him slightly behind him. The last thing he needed was Drannor throwing punches before he had all his questions answered. "Thanks for leaving us to die, and the fact that you're all rushing to leave tells me that you all know more than what you're letting on. And you knew that me and Drannor weren't the ones that started tearing apart this base."
Drannor glared heatedly at the blonde man from over The Doctor's shoulder. He was still rather pissed off about being tasered but decided to let The Doctor handle the interactions. He tore his eyes away from the man and started watching the other crew members and equipment, it was then that he noticed one of the crew members, a young woman pulling out 5 large jars from a box, each one had a much smaller version of the large creature that was wrecking the underwater base.
Drannor tore his hand away from The Doctor's and then marched over to the crew member handling the jars, he snatched one from their hands to get a closer look, the creature inside was dead and had been dissected, it was the same for all 5 of the creatures.
Drannor took the remanding jars off the woman and put them back into the box, he started walking away from her and towards The Doctor, as she protested. "You can't just take them, they aren't yours!" Drannor snapped back then his voice cold and harsh. "They're not yours either."
Drannor looked into The Doctor's eyes as he handed him the box. "They took her children." Drannor up until now kept a stern expression but now his eyes started to water as he spoke. "They cut them up and put them into little jars."
The Doctor's eyes filled with sorrow as he pulled one of the jars from the box and briefly studied it before gently placing it back inside. He returned the box to Drannor who held it closely to his chest. "Why?" The Doctor simply asked. At this point, the whole crew had stopped packing and was watching them.
"It's a new species we'd never seen before, so we built downwards to where that thing is living. Planning to study it, but then we saw smaller specimens so we captured them, they're the only ones small enough to take with us and study." The blond man spoke with barely any emotion, he just saw these creatures as a science project.
"And let me guess, shortly after you took the little ones, the big one started to tear apart your ship? A Mother, looking for it's missing children. Did you not think that she would notice her children gone? Octopuses and squids are some of the most intelligent creatures on this planet!" The Doctor was shouting now, anger made his voice waver.
The scientist tried to defend himself. "How were we to know the beast would miss its offspring?! What were we meant to do?! Just give them back?!"
Drannor had, had enough. He put the box gently down on a nearby table, then grabbed hold of the collar of the man's jumpsuit. "Yes! And don't even think of electrocuting me again, The Doctor may not be one for violence but I am!."
Drannor was panting looking into the man's eyes. "You're lucky that The Doctor is not like you or me because I wouldn't help you. I'd lock everything down and let the mother find you. I'd leave you to be ripped apart and I wouldn't even blink."
The man was cowering now in Drannor's grasp. "But he's not like that, you're going to get out of here now, leave all of your research, and never come back, whilst The Doctor cleans up your mess the best he can." The elf glanced down into the man's pocket and saw the sonic screwdriver. "I'll be taking that too since this is another thing that doesn't belong to you." He plucked the sonic screwdriver out of the man's pocket and moved back handing it to The Doctor.
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The Doctor and Drannor had stayed in the control room, to make sure the crew left and to ensure that all the research was left behind. Luckily there was another corridor from the control room to the Tardis that hadn't been crushed or flooded. Drannor kept a tight hold on the box with the baby creatures inside.
"We have to give them back to her. properly." Drannor had stated when The Doctor asked why he didn't leave the boxes in the control room so the mother could find them herself.
The Doctor nodded and they stayed in silence as he steered the Tardis down into the depths of the ocean. Once he landed the Tardis he finally broke the silence. "You can go out, the Tardis will create an air pocket for you...You do know even if you present her children to her she might lash out.
Drannor nodded. "I know it's possible, but I know you'll be with me ready to save the day." He teased The Doctor, a sad smile on his lips.
When Drannor stepped out of the Tardis he came face to face with the Large squid-like creature. Its head stayed under the water and its large eyes looked like galaxies. Drannor could sense the despair but also the kindness coming from the creature. The rest of its body was partly in the air pocket the Tardis had made.
Drannor knelt on the wet sand and with shaking hands he opened the box and unscrewed each jar before gently placing the five babies next to one of their mother's large tentacles.
"I'm so so sorry," Drannor whispered as one of the mother's tentacles wrapped around her children's bodies and gently pulled them towards her. A loud and devastatingly yet beautiful howl swept through the ocean and air pocket, it sounded like a sad whale song.
The elf couldn't hold his emotions back any longer and he started to weep. He could feel the depth of emotion the creature felt for her dead children.
The Doctor stood by the Tardis door a grim expression on his face as he watched the scene before him. He could feel his own eyes watering as he was taken back to Gallifrey in his mind and the screams of the mothers as they held their dead children. The Doctor was so stuck in the past that he didn't notice the creature lift up a large tentacle and bring it towards Drannor.
Drannor gasped loudly as the tip of the warm and wet, slimy tentacle slid over his cheeks, seemingly wiping away his tears.
"Drannor! Get back!" The Doctor yelled when he noticed, he was worried it would pick the elf up and drag him from the air pocket.
"I'm okay Doctor, she won't hurt me-" Drannor was cut off as another tentacle wrapped around his waist and dragged him through the air pocket.
The Doctor immediately ran over to the edge of the air pocket. "Drannor?! Drannor?!" He called frantically trying to spot the elf in the dark ocean.
Suddenly Drannor was shoved back into the air pocket coughing and soaked to the skin. He sat on the floor his hair covering his face and clinging to him. "I'm okay."
Drannor coughed some more as The Doctor ran over and knelt in front of him, he pushed Drannor's hair out of his face and looked him over before hugging him tightly. "I thought you were lunch for a moment there."
The elf chuckled softly. "So did I, She wanted to show me her nest with her other children that haven't hatched yet. I know this sounds stupid but I got the feeling that she was trying to comfort me. Like I couldn't hear her but I knew what she wanted."
The Doctor shook his head. "It's not stupid, some creatures can have weak telepathic links that some of us can pick up on." He helped Drannor stand and led him back into the Tardis. "I'll get you a towel." He quickly jogged off from the console room.
Drannor stood in the console room shivering and dripping onto the floor. Today was terrible and so wonderful all at the same time. There was death and destruction but he also witnessed new life forming and hope.
The sound the creature made when he gave her, her children back would probably haunt him but he'd also try and remember the thousands of eggs with little babies sleeping inside of them.
He was pulled from his thoughts when The Doctor wrapped a thick towel around his shoulders. The Doctor held Drannor's arms. "Are you alright?"
Drannor gave a soft, sad smile. "I will be, are you alright?" He asked. He could see sadness hidden within the Doctor's eyes even as he gave a cheery smile.
"Who me? I'm always alright, always ready to keep moving on." The Doctor spoke smiling but quickly turned away from Drannor, going to the console. "I'll get us back to the Powell estate, It's probably a good idea for you to take a bath."
"Alright, I'll see you soon," Drannor said as he made his way out of the console room, he looked back briefly to see the Doctor resting his arms on the console, his head and shoulders dipping down, like the weight of the world was just placed on them.
The elf frowned softly to himself but decided it was best to leave The Doctor on his own for a little while, he didn't seem the type that liked to be comforted.
AN: Thank You for reading!
