How to describe nothing?
You could ask a blind person and they might tell you how it's like to see nothing, not even images in their mind. But even they see flashes of light and hear the sounds around them, feel the texture of whatever they touch.
How to describe nothing?
You don't feel. You don't sense. You don't think. There is no time. There is… nothing. And maybe even that isn't really there.
You only exist.
I was aware of existing.
Although I could impossibly tell if this awareness was there from the very beginning or if it only emerged after the first change.
Suddenly there was something. It still obscured everything. But it was different than before.
How to describe darkness?
When you don't know colours and you don't know light. And still, I knew it was darkness that suddenly surrounded me. Had it always been there? Nothing and darkness. A colour without colour.
Black.
But not nothing.
And in it I drifted. Floated. Existed.
What else can you do?
It took a while. A long while, until I realised the existence of time. The word made itself present and with it came meaning. Seconds trickled into my awareness, although I couldn't quite grasp what they meant.
Meaning. That was another word. Another concept that made no sense in a place like this.
But two words and some darkness were enough to get a process rolling. A bullet of something ricocheting from walls of other things.
I gasped and remembered that I could breathe. I opened my eyes and remembered that I could see.
There still was only darkness. But within it there were other concepts. Darker shades of swirling smoke. Movement.
Hours might have passed, maybe years, centuries even. I couldn't tell. There was nothing to measure time against and so its existence itself was the only reminder that it passed at all. I watched the smoke, fascinated, curious. It built up to a mass and then fell apart to only tendrils.
Another maybe-century passed before the blackness decided on another form. I watched, as I always did, how the swirls shaped themselves to… wings. They were enormous and I remembered the concept of leathery as they spread. It was a wonderful sight. Frightening, yes, but not in a bad way.
Surprised, I noticed I remembered what fear was. It wasn't present with me, but it lingered. And the wings moved.
Slow, slow, slow they rose and when the leather of smoke had reached its highest point there was…
Light.
Nothing in all of existence, I decided, could be as beautiful as light. Shining dots of what my mind called purple broke through the darkness. They were so bright, yet tiny and swallowed by the surrounding gloom. A head was there too, socket to the lights and moving in my direction.
Movement. I could… walk. I had feet! How can you forget about feet? They carried me closer to the billowing creature, tall as the whole of space. Its head lowered to mine, eyes glinting gently. I stretched out both… hands. And I remembered touch as my fingers moved over cool and dark scales.
The creature nudged me with its nose and a warm wet tongue darted out to lick over my face. It made me laugh and retreat. Not far and not for long. It nudged me again and turned its head as if to signal me to follow. And I would have done it if the creature had not revealed itself to be even greater. It lowered its enormous body, however, so I could climb onto the back.
Something brushed my mind. A warm feeling. A sense of 'take care'.
So I gripped tightly at the soft stripe of fur that grew along the back, right in time before the wings flapped and carried us high, high, so high above the darkness, without ever leaving it.
Where are you taking me?
Another brush against my mind. Images of wonders I could not fathom here. And there were also faces. People I once knew. There was a place. A place I… belonged?
But I belonged here. In the darkness. It was all I had ever known, wasn't it? It had always been there with me, guarding, protecting. A cocoon from whatever existed outside of it.
Yes, there were things that did not belong in here. Now I remembered that too. And while we rode through the night I also remembered a story from many years ago, of a boy who had done a similar journey, but his dragon had been white and they had had another goal. Not too dissimilar to mine. The goal was to escape the nothingness.
A story has to have a beginning, after all. Before it can form from nothing, there has to be something first. A thought, an idea.
A spark.
It appeared at the edge of the darkness, faint and tiny, but there was a reassuring nudge against my mind. We would get there. Eventually. We had to. Because from that light came also a voice. One I thought I should know. It was calling my name and I remembered that I had one.
The voice was begging me closer to the light and my dragon flew fast.
"You'll come with me, right?" I asked and my new found voice sounded too loud in the silence.
The creature emanated a soft hum, a low, barely audible frequency that felt like a confirmation.
"Okay. Then let's go."
I gripped the soft stripe of fur tighter and we raced towards the bright light, plunging into it until all dark had vanished. All nothingness formed to somethings, and one final memory emerged.
Of how to open my heart and breathe.
.
"She can't be," murmured the Master as he sank down against a tree. "I checked. I checked everything. I tried to feed her some life force, I tried every medical and psychic trick I know of. Doctor… she can't be."
"Mhm. I know what you mean. And I don't say she is. It's just… it's odd. Dead people feel differently."
So it was only a stupid hunch. For a second the Master had thought the other man had actually found a sign of life.
"Let's just leave." He was so tired.
The tiny dragon flapped over and sat on the Master's knee, glaring up at him. Normally the thing avoided him like the pest, had even bitten him once.
"Fuck off, you nuisance. I can't do anything."
"Master."
"Oh, don't start. I know I stole the egg. It doesn't mean I have to like the creature inside."
"No, not that. Did you notice the high concentration of void particles around Lucy?"
"No? You look ridiculous by the way."
The Doctor wore old 3D glasses. The sort humans had used for their first attempts in cinemas. With differently coloured glasses. Well, plastic things to be precise. But yes, he knew that Lumin had had a cluster of void inside her mind. They had never found out why or what it did, though.
"She's time locked. Maybe it just never disappeared? I don't want to be here, Doctor. Let her sleep. Tell Donna some nonsense story. Tell her I was an arse and she will believe it. What are you doing?"
The Doctor had knelt down next to the body and now unbuttoned her shirt. Only the first few, luckily, or the Master would have seriously considered hurting him, no matter the consequences. He scrambled to his feet, making the dragon fly away with an indignant squeak. It followed.
"It's nice of you to want to preserve Lucy, but did you actually look when you tried reviving her?"
As soon as the Master came close he saw what the Doctor was talking about. There, on the skin right above the heart, sat a thin black circle. It wasn't a tattoo. He'd known of it. And on top of that, the colour was moving. The line changed slowly in thickness and shape, fading inwards like sand trickling inside a hole.
"Are those…?"
"Void particles, yes."
"Get out of the way, Doctor."
He nodded and scurried to the side, allowing the Master to kneel down next to him. How could he have missed that? Had he really not looked? Opening the shirt certainly hadn't been necessary for any revival attempt, so yeah, it was possible.
The Master swallowed the forming lump in his throat and tossed a glance at the Doctor. Once… only this once he had allowed hope to cloud his mind and it had gotten him closer to the man he… He looked away, tossing the unfinished thought aside. Not important, not now, maybe never.
Hope.
Once more. The black circle moved. A snake biting its own tail. Smoke made of nothing itself. No one understood much of the void. It was a mystery to even the Time Lords and so there were no reliable sources as to what its particles might cause.
The Master carefully placed his hand above the circle and then dared to touch it.
Nothing.
Not even a tingle. It was just there, continuously moving under his fingers.
Potential.
Hope.
Oh what a treacherous thing. It would betray him just like everything else in his life had. And again his eyes wandered to the Doctor and he wondered if any of this could be more than temporary. He should leave it how it was. Everything. His eyes moved back to Lumin's face and he knew he wanted to see her bright smile again, wanted to hear her curious questions and feel her warmth contrasting himself.
The Master gently pressed his hand above her heart, sending out his mind into… the void? There was nothing to connect to.
Please come back to me.
A jolt went through the ground as if he had commanded it. The Master gasped and snapped his eyes open.
"What the…"
"Wasn't me! The Time Lock dissolved! And Kira is gone. He…" The Doctor scratched his neck and took off the stupid glasses. "He poofed away. Tiny black cloud and gone. Keep your hand where it is. And your mind too."
The Master looked down at the moving black. Had it taken on a slight purple shine or did he imagine it? His hearts beat faster. Could it really be? Could she really…?
Wherever you are, come back, little light. Come back. I need you.
He kept sending the message out, not knowing if it ever went anywhere. It had to. What else could the change mean?
A hand landed on his shoulder. The Doctor nodded reassuringly. A single leaf fell from the tree and landed next to the moving circle.
Her arm twitched.
Impossible.
The Master exhaled and reached further with his mind, letting it fumble around in the space, searching for any little signal or sign until he finally, finally, found it.
Gotcha!
His hearts vibrated.
If you hear me, follow my voice. You're hiding. You don't need to. I'm here. I'm waiting.
"Whatever you do, it's working!" The Doctor sounded so happy.
The Master felt the connection click into place. His mind was locked with another one and he could have cried from the warm embrace that greeted him. It still wasn't right and too faint and not even properly conscious, but it was there and it was moving, growing, waking.
Lumin's eyes moved and breath filled her lungs again. The Master pulled her into his arms and kept the contact alive, one hand always on skin, his mind always sending a signal. He felt the struggle, but also her slow return from wherever her mind had hid.
"I'm here, little light," he murmured and pressed a kiss to her forehead. When he retreated, Lumin's lids flew open and slowly, oh so slowly, he could watch her consciousness return to them.
Lumin groaned, pinching her eyes shut again for a moment. Her mouth tried to form words.
"You did it, Master! You brought her back!" The Doctor jumped up and did whatever.
The Master didn't care. He was completely fixated on the woman in his arms that slowly woke up more and more until her gaze found his face. He slipped from her mind then, not wanting to accidentally cause any pain. If she noticed he couldn't tell.
"You scared me there, little one. Welcome back."
"Uhm… Thanks?" Her voice was hoarse.
Something was wrong. The Master felt it the moment she spoke, the moment she looked at him with such confusion.
"Lets fetch you a coffee and you should be fine again." Shouldn't that do the trick? Bring back the smile?
"Sounds lovely," Lumin muttered and wound herself out of his arms, glaring at him, then the Doctor, then back at the Master.
"But, who are you?"
.
A/N: Whooops!
This would have been too easy, wouldn't it?
Also, yes, we'll switch back to first person POV from now on, but I might return to the Master again here and there. I just love writing him UwU