hh_mirror | So what do bookworms eat? [Fifth Doctor and OPEN!]

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So what do bookworms eat? [Fifth Doctor and OPEN!]

Days, maybe, but as far as the Doctor was concerned, it could have been hours for all the attention he paid his immediate surroundings. His first goal, of course, had been to get outside as quickly as possible; the faintly Escheresque quality of the castle's interiors were disconcerting at best, and reminiscent of muddled times alongside. The grounds and surrounding lands, though still unfamiliar, were far more welcoming to his senses.

Even if the populace wasn't.

Nothing like pursuit by an impressive assortment of intriguing creatures to get the hearts in shape and the mind sorted out, apparently. Perhaps he'd go back and make peace with them later.

Having escaped barely unscathed and with a distressing handful of tearing and stains on his coat, the Doctor decided that perhaps exploring the castle itself would be a good idea after all. After being sidetracked frequently by a number of talking paintings (some indignant, of course, upon having their basis of existence challenged and their frames prodded in search of transmission devices) and strange visions (also indignant upon being told to return to their proper energy planes, because, of course, ghosts don't exist), he'd managed to acquire a room of his own somehow, where his coat rested until he could learn to mend it himself, and his hat kept it company. He then got himself more or less directed to the library, where he spent what most humans would consider an embarrassing amount of time simply getting lost among the rows. He didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed to find no direct references to his presence or influence in the immediately available historical documents, though this Merlin fellow sounded somewhat familiar. Better to pursue that concept later on, though.

With better footing after that, despite how few familiar subjects he could find amidst the archives, the Doctor set to work educating himself about his surroundings. It wouldn't be fair, would it, to condemn the place for the intentions of a few denizens, and wouldn't it be his luck to land here in some other time zone by courtesy of the TARDIS? Earth itself had been a prison for a time, after all, and he loved it no less than he had before his sentence.

And so it was that now, some several days after his release, the Doctor could be found at a massive reading table, surrounded by codices of theory, numerology, defence, herbal maintenance and utility, potions and the like, nearly hidden behind the stacks with his nose buried in Hogwarts, A History. He'd decided several times over to stop and seek out a cup of tea, but he could never tear himself away from a good story.

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It was less efficient than a comprehensive database, but the Master genuinely liked the library, even when he wasn't finding people to try to suborn. He spent rather a lot of time there; this magic was proving both fascinating and useful.

One was rarely entirely alone in the library, of course. The huge stack of books actually caught his attention first; someone was studying. Best to keep an eye on the ambitious ones. Wandering closer, he almost laughed aloud when he recognized just who had commandeered all those volumes.

"I might be able to make a few recommendations," he said, not bothering with an actual greeting. "Of course, I'm more into the practical texts." He grinned as if their last encounter had been a pleasant and leisurely chat rather than a tense stand-off.

He'd been close to the final section, spectacles beginning to slip down his nose, when the voice broke his concentration. Disconcerted, he looked up and blinked, peeking over the stack obstructing the source of the voice, but slumped again with an irritated sigh.

He'd been perfectly happy with avoiding the Master, and in truth, had somewhat childishly hoped the man had disappeared for good. Whichever way the Doctor would manage to escape in, he could almost be sure the Master would be there to thwart him, or possibly worse, ask to go with him. He wasn't in any sort of mood to plan for either, nor was he keen to release his current state of mind for the sake of another argument.

"Then perhaps you better had go and look for one to occupy you," he suggested blandly, turning his eyes back to the word he'd kept a finger on so he wouldn't lose his place.

"We're still on this, are we?" The Master scowled, leaning forward. The urge for some truly crude violence gripped him. No-one could actually die here, why not put it to the test? It would be so wonderfully cathartic to just slit the Doctor's throat like a common thug, brutal, primitive, and messy.

But that would probably make him even more pissy, and he was still trying for something more satisfying than open hostility. He forced down the anger for now, kept his tone light and bantering.

"Can you really not tell when I'm trying to be nice, or do you not care? I mean, think of it. Together at school again. Doesn't it make you even a little nostalgic? Of course, hardly any classes, no tests, probably suit you better than the Academy." He grinned, trying to maintain a semblance of amiability.

"Not in the slightest." He could be lying, but who could tell? "We're neither of us schoolboys, nor have we been for a very long time."

But the spell was broken. He rummaged in his pocket with a huff, extracting a bit of paper from his pocket to use as a bookmark. Off came the spectacles, and up went the carefully neutral expression. It was beginning to occur to him that this incarnation was significantly less stable than he'd ever known him to be.

He'd wondered, for the brief moments he'd allowed himself to remember their previous encounter--any of their past, really--how incompetently the Master must have been reconstructed, if that were the case to begin with. Who he himself would have needed to trace and hold to trial in his own Alliance hall... but those thoughts made him nauseous.

"I well and truly can't tell," he pointed out as carefully as he could, avoiding the topic of memories that far away. "If I'm to remember that you're not the man I saw last, then you must remember that the man I saw last, and who you were before him, is all I know, the fiasco in the Death Zone notwithstanding. Nostalgia does very little for the blood in one's eyes." He frowned a moment, brows furrowing, before squaring his jaw again. "When I asked you to show me a difference, I meant no jest, nor insult. I simply asked."

"I do hope you don't think I was trying to claim I was redeemed, or anything so maudlin. But I am at a bit of a crossroads. And I don't know what you expect met to show you." He smiled thinly and without humor. "I wouldn't recommend a peek at my memories. And I've got a good idea of how much credibility my word has with you."

"I wouldn't dream of it. You're likely beyond redemption," came the dry response. He gave a pensive look upward, however, hands steepling over the book he'd now abandoned. Every memory stung; the lives this man had very nearly taken, those he'd succeeded in taking, the one he forced to dim on its own (the ache in the pit of the Doctor's chest hadn't left him since Kamelion's final plea), the worlds he'd felled... but somehow, he persevered, despite--or better, suspiciously devoid of--the Doctor's best efforts.

"You're trying awfully hard," he observed thoughtfully. "You've got very little to say, it seems, aside from telling me that you're trying to behave and becoming angry about it. What are you at, then, coming and talking to me when you've got a whole library, if not a whole estate or even planet, to wander in? What are you trying to tell me?" His tone was genuinely curious, though otherwise neutral.

"It's not a mater of not having much to say, it's a matter of what you'd be willing to hear. Causality, and all that." He smiled, but it was thin and bitter. "You can be exceptionally frustrating, you know." Of course, he'd told Rory how frustrating it had been before, not knowing if the Doctor had any interest in him in his own right, if it was all a matter of being the last of their kind. Wasn't there a saying about being careful what you asked for?

"We've been so many things to each other. Childhood friends, deadly enemies, with so very much in between. You know I'll never just leave you be. What would be the fun in that?" He fidgeted restlessly in his seat. This was a speech more suited to pacing and sweeping arm gestures, but he didn't want to waste effort on set dressing. "It would be a bit extreme to say need, but there's a level of connection I'm not willing to give up. A sort of context no one else can provide."

The Master smiled again, and he'd regained enough composure for it to at least look genial. "It's the interaction that matters the most, I think," he mused. "The chance to watch you think. But setting the parameters, well, you tend to insist on that. I don't have to be your enemy. Here and now, at least, I don't have to be your enemy. But I will be, if that's the only role you'll allow. If that's all your imagination will permit."

Because he couldn't resist at least a bit of a challenge. And, really, would the Doctor be able to function without one?

And he listened, honestly taken aback more than once, though his face never showed it and his mental barriers were drawn too tightly shut to give it away. Truth or untruth, he'd never heard the Master ramble in quite that manner. Soliloquies, yes, about everything he meant to accomplish, to conquer, to lay waste to, his intentions darkening over the centuries, but nothing quite so... introspective.

And the Doctor certainly hadn't heard anything that personal from him since they were boys, not without a mocking tone. Which, disconcertingly enough, was conspicuously absent now. He couldn't help but wonder, again, what had happened to this man.

"Connection," he repeated, considering, and picking words from the turmoil laid out before him. "And context. One wonders if you aren't finally learning to differentiate the context between friendship and torment, not that it's my place to judge."

He paused, as if weighing his options. If he'd been here in his relative future, and apparently didn't remember having been here as himself--nor, on the other hand, did he remember having been here before, as the Master had pointed out that he had--then there must be some sort of temporal protection mechanism at work here, or perhaps this place wasn't even relevant to their Universe. What he learned here, he'd forget as soon as he returned to his own timeline.

For a moment, almost as a reflex, his eyes went to the books at his side and to the shelves beyond, somewhat sadly. Even if he had yet to find one telling him anything more than rubbish about the manipulation of Time, he valued everything he learned still... and it would all be gone. But this was simply a castle, vying with the whole of the cosmos for his want of wisdom and, consequently, adventure.

With a vague smile, and that maddeningly half-attentive expression that earned his poorest grades in the olden days, he turned his attention back to the man before him.

"Tell me, then. Tell me everything you don't wish to hold back. There's no help for an infected wound, after all, before it can be drained."

Infuriating. Infuriating. How could the Doctor make even cooperating so maddening? It was one thing to taunt and tease about future knowledge, to drop small tidbits and gloat at the mental image of the Doctor being informed, with casual bluntness, about the Time War, but having an invitation... where was the satisfaction in that?

And there was the other matter. Being one of the last of your kind could sway a person's perceptions, after all.

"The absent-minded professor expression doesn't work without grey hairs to back it up," he snapped. "I'm not sure what I should tell you. Speaking purely out of self-interest, you understand. I'm not sure how you'll react. It's not like you can't be dangerous in your own right."

And it would be easier, it would be so much easier, hurled as invective bit by bit, snide revelations in heated arguments. So much easier to only be thinking about what would be the cruelest way to word things.

"Of course, you weren't especially gentle yourself. Your future self. You told me over the telephone."

There it was, there was enough anger to get the ball rolling, and the Doctor was bound to give him something to work with.

"Hardly the best way to find out that your homeworld's been destroyed. I'm still not convinced you weren't bragging just a little."

He opened his mouth, ready to point out that he'd only really asked for what would willingly be imparted, when the statement stopped him short. His jaw hung for a moment, forgotten, before he snatched it up again, and forced his mind to reprocess what had just happened.

Destroyed. 'When your homeworld's been destroyed.' No wonder, then. This broken man... it's no wonder.

His face darkened for a moment, but strangely, his expression didn't fall to shock, surprise, or even mourning. Instead, he bore grim resignation. Disappointment. Some measure of emotional triage, perhaps.

"Given what they've done and called for thus far, the fall of Gallifrey is inevitable," he mused. His voice didn't shake, but something deeply ugly emerged in his tone even as he concealed the rest of his feelings quite well, reminiscent of an order to execution. "I doubt I'd have boasted, however."

A pause.

"...You're a free man, then. There are now no further indictments against you, at least none from our own council. But you've got no more chances. Can you regenerate, or did they botch that as well before they were destroyed?"

"What a cool customer you were this time around," the Master mused. "I'd almost forgotten." He hadn't forgotten how murderously angry it made him. It wasn't just his younger self who found that relentless self-control endlessly provocative. "Asking after my health and legal status. You sound so professional."

It was galling, but in a deeply familiar way. It was a sorely needed familiarity. "I haven't even told you the important part yet. Well, the part that's important to me. I imagine you'll take it with the same stoic resolve." And this was so much harder. Being angry didn't help him open up about the more personal aspect of things. "Someone tampered with my head, so very long ago. Not you. Can you imagine? The worst thing in my life, and it wasn't your doing."

"Purely from personal interest, you understand," the Doctor pointed out dryly, but he didn't interject again.

His composure wavered briefly, however, at the mention of tampering. The irrationally possessive flare it provoked caught him by surprise, but was only evidenced by the faint scowl twitching over his features before his calm returned.

"What's been done to you, and by whom?"

"Now you sound a bit like a social worker. Although I suppose that's not a bad way to describe you." He willed his hands to be still, to fight off the tic of tapping out the memory of a rhythm. "I'm not going to bother with extraneous details. Well. Easy to say that, when there's just so much fodder for digression. There may be digression."

Sitting was just too confining, and the Master rose, pacing back and forth behind the chair he'd vacated. "As far as I know, it was just a signal. A beacon. Slipped into my head in childhood just so there'd be something to home in on, centuries later."

There was that part. He clenched and relaxed his fists repeatedly, glaring darkly at the floor as if it had wronged him personally. He spoke quickly, as if forcing it out before he could reconsider. "It was the Time Lords, of course it was, who else would it be? Although it's quite amusing in a way when you know the specifics. Couldn't have just anyone as President during the Last Great Time War. They had to bring back the best." He looked up at the Doctor again, and flashed him a savage grin. "Rassilon didn't like you shutting down his party."

There. You have your pieces, put it together. I'm sick of explaining this part.

Would you rather I dismissed you instead? balanced on the tip of his tongue, but he chose to swallow it. The Master seemed responsive in a manner the Doctor hadn't seen the likes of in centuries, and to derail him would be... well... like breaking a spell, ironically.

"Rassilon doesn't tend to like much to begin with, if you'll remember. I'm sure he was quite vexed to be resurrected for the sake another war." That was followed by a wry half-smile of his own, before he went impassive again. He leaned over the table, going so far as to prop his arms on either side of his current book and rise to stand over it.

"Which Time Lords, Master? The Council? The Agency? I don't remember finding anything more out of place in your mind than there was in mine, when we..." It was the first time in the conversation that the Doctor's pause was uncomfortable, but he shook his head and moved on. "Give me names if you've got them. If they've sabotaged their end of my deal, I'll have them strung up." He was giving such effort to keep himself a mask that he failed to notice his own threat, or the slip of words.

He raised an eyebrow at the threat. It was enough to make it worth trying to keep the conversation going a little longer, if he could get a few more tastes of that.

"No one left to string up, Doctor, remember? Not Lord President Rassilon or his doomed, cowed Council. Not anyone. So unless you're planning some stunning temporal acrobatics that would have enough of a risk/benefit ratio to give me pause, there's simply no revenge to be had. Do you think I'd be wasting my time navel-gazing if there was?"

"Not in your time zone, at any rate." He let the implication settle before shaking his head with a different realisation and turning to the stack at his elbow, scowling at the topmost tome. "But of course it wouldn't matter. The moment I leave, I'll forget. I suspect any notations I make will be destroyed or unmade somehow as well. I despise having my memories manipulated." He fairly spat the last phrase before tempering himself with a slow, steady breath.

"Why are you here, then?" he wondered aloud, though absently, as if he didn't expect an answer. "If all is as lost as you seem to think, then why are you telling me anything at all? We've long ago quit each other's confidence, and simple familiarity was never such a necessity for you. There has to be a way."

"What are you on about?" The Master watched him with growing curiosity. "I'm not pining away over a missed chance at vengeance. Is that how you think of me? I may be obsessive, but not indiscriminately so." Interesting, to see the Doctor so focused on the thought of revenge.

"Self-interest, Doctor. You should know by now that I'm very keen on that. My mind's been through a lot, you see, and I've been spending so much time on damage control. There's nothing in my brain anymore that isn't me, but it was such a long time. I need a reference point, Doctor. Someone who knows me at least a little. To help me with perspective."

"Who said a word about vengeance?" The Doctor sounded genuinely affronted, the seething of moments before tucked instantly under his arm. "There's a vast difference between vengeance and due punishment, I'll remind you. Sabotage, for example, should never be taken as inconsequential... even amongst us.

"Which brings us to the next step: being sabotaged, what reference are you seeking from me? I know who you were; is that what you're attempting to regain?" Though he was becoming highly irritated with this incarnation's roundabout and seemingly pointless chatter, he did his level best not to show it. After all, he was accustomed to at least a demand over hostages by now; he couldn't count the years since they'd spoken civilly.

"When you talk like that, I can see it," he remarked. "I can see the fault lines you're going to crack along. Or some of them. You're always in the right, as long as you're defining the terms, is that it?" Of course, this was hardly a new tendency, but applying it to technically unnecessary (technically impossible, even) violence seemed to be stretching it. Had he managed to miss such a wonderful dark spell in the Doctor's life?

It did soothe some of the bitterness currently rising in him. Indifference, even outright rejection, would be a lot easier to deal with without the Doctor being emo as well.

"We used to know each other. We've almost always had some sort of link." The Master grinned sardonically at that. "Even if it wasn't always amicable. I'm not interested in being who I was, I'm trying to examine myself with a bit more perspective, and conversations with you will jog loose all sorts of memories. It could save so much tiresome self-hypnosis." He looked away. "I don't think there's any lingering organic damage, but I know better than to let you run around in my head unchecked to see."

I walk into the library for something to do even though I've read everything on the shelf that I can read and a certain demon has said that anything I can't read is likely to be a lie, though he has yet to give me any inkling on how to read. I suppose, since I have nothing much else better to do, I can take the time to find out why he thinks so. It might be an interesting challenge to figure out the language without knowing for sure if my basis is correct.

I pull one of the books off the shelf and, in the course of finding a place to work, see someone utterly engrossed in a book, that ridiculous history book. "You should read the counter points, too," I say blandly, falling into a chair and crossing my leg to rest the book on.

The Doctor glances up from his poring, a finger automatically going to the last word he's read before receiving company so suddenly. Of course his eyes go first to seek the title of the book his new table-mate is holding, and the inability to read the language on the cover immediately perplexes him... until he realises with a pang that the TARDIS is no longer there to assist in translation. He wasn't aware there was a language of Earth he doesn't yet know. He'll have to remedy that.

With a blink, he wraps that train of thought neatly away for later, instead focusing on the words that startled him in the first place.

"I, ah... well, if they're listed, or in a readily accessible archive, I'll be happy to. Have you got any notion of where I might find a countering article?"

Sorry, my left mouse button died and so I'm replying from my lappie, which doesn't have all my tabs and such and I'm a space cadet at times...

I shrug and open the book. Starting with a completely unfamiliar language, I decide to try for letters, first, rapidly making a count of which characters are used and how frequently. A 'Rosetta Stone' would help, but all I have to work with is Kusu's wards and those only use a very limited number of symbols. I also want to try and do this without that damn old fox knowing, too.

"The centaurs in the forest keep an oral tradition. The house elves don't say much." I look at him a moment. "The centaurs aren't fond of the students here."

_{(( No worries! I almost never get my notifs and I've been sickish the last several days, so I am not impatient at all xD ))}

"They're not fond of very much in the way of whatever looks human, are they?" he replies with a grimace, involuntarily shifting on his seat. Despite the trance state he'd undergone to heal from that encounter, his side still smarts from the glancing arrow, and he's fairly certain he'd do well not to attribute the lack of fatal wounds to any sort of bad marksmanship.

Not that he blames them--most hybrid species in the more popular galaxies, or even seemingly hybrid, tend to prefer solitude, especially when sharing a world with humans.

"You'd suggest spoken lore, then? Have you got any idea of what might be considered tokens of respect amongst these races?"

Edited 2011-03-24 09:10 (UTC)

If the Doctor looked up he'd see a small dog jumping up a lot.

Almost...almost...almost...almost... Finally he managed to knock a book down to the ground. Got it! Wishbone said in triumph as he dragged the book over to the table so he could read it. He liked reading about the wizards triumphing over evil!

He didn't notice the jumping, unfortunately, but the clop of the book hitting the floor spooked him from his reading. He looked up and around, blinking, and upon seeing nobody, returned to his page, though more cautious and now with half his attention on his surroundings.

The scraping noise of the book being dragged brought him up again, and with a puzzled frown, he stood and looked more thoroughly. Strangely, the sight of a dog pulling a book toward his table wasn't nearly as shocking as it ought to have been, or would be, at least, to a human. Actually, his first thought was regretting the fact that he'd never quite remembered to properly fix K9's tractor beam. The thought brought a faint smile to him, despite the content.

"D'you need help with that?" he asked automatically, forgetting for a moment that this wasn't K9, or any of the sentient canine races he'd met in his lives.

Mmmm, maybe, it would be easier and I can start reading sooner, Wishbone said, wagging his tail.

"Certainly. Where would you like it set?" he enquired, moving around the table to retrieve the book from the floor, though not straightening all the way yet. "And have you considered seeing about some sort of carting or wagon system? Being that you can speak, that is. I had a friend who made great use of a small gravitational beam, for the short time it worked."

Oh, I don't mind getting it myself. And I can't really take any more books back to my room. I have so many there already I barely have room for my bed! It's just that there's so much to read!

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So what do bookworms eat? [Fifth Doctor and OPEN!]

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