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x_losfic***
The call beeped through to the Master’s desk. The signal’s Presidential prerogative over the computer system meant the call screen appeared automatically, super-imposed over the Master’s current work, and the Doctor appeared.
“Am I not even to be given the option of declining your conversation?” The Master folded his hands on the desk and rocked back in his chair. “I might have been doing anything.”
“Well presumably not anything," the Doctor frowned. He was at his own office, after all. "Did that really just display without you getting to decide whether you wanted to take the call?”
“Of course not, my dear Doctor,” the Master rolled his eyes. “I lied—simply to keep in practice. I see no reason to lose my edge.”
“The difficult thing is, you just might have done. One second—Rodan?” the Doctor called to someone off screen. “I don’t suppose you know how this works—oh, you do. Of course you do. Well, after this, could you—thank you, Rodan.” He turned back to the Master. “It’s well into the afternoon, and it occurs to me that I don’t actually know how to get back into your apartments.”
“Did you acquire a secretary already?” the Master asked in amusement.
“Well, a chief of staff turned up, yes. I’ve also found a perfectly reliable chief of security here, an old friend. He used to be on the Palace Guard, but apparently had to resign under Borusa. And I have a personal bodyguard—she’s quite eager to discuss the security arrangements of the compound with you.”
“You know Doctor,” the Master leaned back in his chair, “I wonder if you might actually turn out to be good at this.”
“Don’t joke like that,” the Doctor winced.
The Master chuckled. “Call me when you’ve reached my apartments, and use a secure channel. I’ll take you through the protocols, now that you’re suitably coherent. I may be back late—I expect to be occupied training my new assistant for some hours.”
Surielovnetchka had apparently languished all the years of his young life under the delusion that an archive database could be sloppily organized according to the whim of the moment. The Master planned to correct this assumption immediately, and with zeal. He knew his filing had been called complicated past decency, with its sub-protocols, color codes and alphabetizations, but he clung doggedly to the belief that if one simply learned it and steadfastly adhered to it, his system would make everything so much simpler.
If the Doctor had had any suspicion of this, he would have felt achingly sorry for young Suri. Instead he got off an untroubled “Thank you, Master.”
“Mm,” the Master purred, “you’re welcome.” He really did enjoy that. The glide of the word in the Doctor’s mouth, and the gratitude in his tone. He especially enjoyed the prospect of hearing the Doctor speak his name in more intimate tones when he came home, and of doing the one thing that could make this tedious house-arrest bearable. He cut the connection, smirking to himself.
***
After the Doctor finished following the Master’s complicated instructions for opening the gate (complete with occasional goading comments about how smoothly things went when the Doctor chose to be obedient like this), Leela started in again.
“But you did not say you were betrothed,” she insisted. “And you might have told me!”
“Leela,” he sighed, “I didn’t know anything about it.”
“Well,” Leela stood up behind him and peered curiously around the small docking bay the shuttle was gliding into, “Andred has told me of your customs. In my tribe men initiate boys into the warrior caste in this manner, but Andred says among your people such unions do not necessarily end when boys reach adulthood—that they may be between men of any age. So I do not find you strange.”
“Ah,” the Doctor said, uncomfortably, “yes. Thank you, Leela.”
“I have done nothing you must thank me for.” Leela gave him a puzzled look and turned to the door. “Is it safe to open this now, or has your bondmate more traps?”
“Excepting the door codes themselves, I think that should be all we have to deal with.” The Doctor stood as Leela pushed open the door and walked out.
“He has laid a great many snares.” There was a note of approval in Leela’s voice. “He seems cunning.”
“No one would deny him that.” The Doctor raised an eyebrow as his fingers flitted over the first door’s code: not a memorized number, but a changing equation to solve, encoded with the cipher the Master had just given him. He managed it and walked cheerfully up the stairs to the living quarters proper, past the lower labs and storage rooms—probably either organized pristinely or utterly empty, the Doctor guessed, in accordance with the rather severe taste of the last Master who’d lived in the apartments.
“Did you know this Master, before your marriage?” Leela looked around her, taking in lay of the rooms. “You have never spoken of him.”
The Doctor laughed, slightly. “I knew him very well. We were implacable enemies—or he was mine, at least. He even managed to kill me once.”
Something kindled in Leela’s imagination, awakening hitherto unsuspected sensibility. “It is just like Romeo and Juliet!”
The Doctor gave her a very worried look, operating the final door code panel that would give them entrance into the private rooms at the heart of the house. “How so?”
“Doctor!” Leela gave him a shocked look. “How can you not know it? It is a very old story!”
“Humor me, Leela.”
“Very well, then I shall tell it to you. Two warriors, both alike in dignity—Romeo and Juliet, by name—have been fighting for some years over various points of honor. They are both members of the tribe Infairveronawherewelayourscene,”
The Doctor had stepped through the door, but stopped walking “Wait just a moment—”
“Doctor,” Leela glared severely, “it is rude to interrupt a storyteller.”
“Apologies, Leela,” he conceded.
Leela nodded acceptance and continued. “Their Chief thinks such a disagreement between warriors of the same tribe, especially the bravest and most skilled among his people, is unbecoming. He demands they share blood, and thus settle the dispute. They find, in the enforced peace, that they have a great respect for each other’s bravery and strength, and marry.
“But the Chief’s son would claim the bold Juliet for himself, though he is weak and unwarlike, unmatched to a warrior such as Juliet, whose only peer in battle is her Romeo. The Chief’s son enlists the help of the meddlesome Priest, who tricks Romeo into drinking mead laced with foul drugs. He stumbled back to his hut to wake Juliet and to ask her to aid him. I was Juliet in a pagent once—‘O happy dagger! This is thy sheath!’” Leela pronounced the line with a blood-thirsty vehemence the Doctor had never heard in any staging.
“As a warrior, she cannot kill herself—that is clear enough, it would demean her honor. And so, at Juliet’s bidding, Romeo stabs her in the heart before the strength of his hand falters. They thus foil the plans of their enemies, dying together and achieving a warrior’s rest.” Leela gave the Doctor a wise nod. “It is a very romantic tale.”
“Leela,” the Doctor began, paused, and then walked over to the wall in the living room. He punched a few buttons to bring up a projector screen, lying flat against the wall’s surface, and then tapped a few more to access the planet’s cultural information archives. “Come and sit down, would you? We’re going to watch a more original version of the story.”
A voice began to roll in prologue as the Doctor and Leela settled on the two low sofas.
“See,” Leela pronounced after a minute with a note of triumph, “I told you they were of Infairveronawherewelayourscene. Why did you scoff earlier—?”
***
The Master had expected to find the Doctor alone. He had been looking forward to just that. He was therefore surprised, and far from pleased, to walk in on an argument between his husband and a young, attractive, leggy, and barely-clothed human woman about English literature.
“My version was better,” the young woman insisted stubbornly. “Juliet was not the plaything of elders, and Romeo was not an idiot boy, unmanned by a comely appearance, capable only of stupid words. This was accident after foolish accident! Where was the glory in this tale? There was no triumph in their deaths!”
“That’s really not the point of Romeo and Juliet,” the Doctor argued, looking over at the Master, as if for support. Judiciously, he decided not to take this opportunity to mock the Master’s heavy dark red academic robes: that was not the way to curry said allegiance.
The Master glanced idly at the screen. “The Zeffereli?” he asked, voice dry.
“The Luhrman would only be confusing for someone unclear on whether the Nurse is actually a wizened old battle-priestess who taught young Juliet how to wield a deadly slingshot. Master, this is Leela, my new personal bodyguard.” Both she and the Doctor stood for the introduction.
The Master gave him a hard look. “No, this isn’t. I said you needed adequate security, not an opportunity to indulge your fetish for useless primitive human girls.” If, in addition to his security concerns, he didn’t want the Doctor in the constant company of anyone young, attractive and scantily clad, he wouldn’t lower himself by admitting it.
Leela did not gape at him, but her fingers feathered across a dagger hilt at her waist. “If you were not the Doctor’s bondmate, I would already have killed you for such lies, Time Lord. ”
“You would have tried,” the Master corrected, more impressed by her than he had been a moment ago.
The Doctor stepped forward between them. He spoke with a brisk, sarcastic cheer that made his annoyance with the Master obvious.
“Leela is as capable as she is well-suited to the task. Her tribe lives in severe isolation, and her senses are more attuned than an ordinary human’s, sharper than even those of most Gallifreyans. She’s saved my life on several occasions, and I trust her implicitly. When we came to Gallifrey together to prevent a Sontaran invasion she remained behind to marry Andred, formerly of the Palace Guard, who, as I mentioned, I’ve just made my chief of Palace Security.
“I thought I’d take her around the building so she could get to know the place. I also wanted to introduce the two of you. Admittedly I failed to anticipate you baselessly insulting her to get a dig in at my expense. My mistake.”
To his own embarrassment, the Master had to admit that the Doctor had chosen someone competent (and moreover, married). The Doctor had only done what was practical in immediately presenting her to him. In fact he’d even intimated he might be bringing her with him when they spoke over the com—the Master had simply been too absorbed in more pleasant thoughts to notice.
The Master’s irritation over not immediately having the Doctor at his disposal had made him rash. His creeping jealousy over that endless barrage of idiot human girls—all of them young and lovely, all of them commanding the Doctor’s time and attention in a way that was just unseemly—that jealousy had made him embarrassingly, unnecessarily vicious.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t apologize.
“She should have a uniform,” the Master muttered.
“I am not wearing clothes I cannot move in.” Leela tilted her chin up with a touch of cold defiance. “The men of the palace guard look as if they will trip over those stupid capes they wear. I cannot protect the Doctor in robes such as yours. And besides,” she shrugged, looking to the Doctor, “what is wrong with my clothing? Time Lords are so evolved they feel ashamed to show any of the skin they are born in. That does not mean I must also pretend to be.”
“And fine clothes they are, too. Not a thing out of order,” the Doctor assured her before turning back to the Master. “She and her husband will need some rooms in the building.”
“There’s a spare bedroom next to our suite,” The Master said, grudgingly. “That’s close enough.”
The Doctor arched an eyebrow at the Master’s admission, but didn’t take the opportunity to say something derisive about the probability of the Master ever having houseguests.
For his part, the Master’s expression was very closed. He’d acquired his current apartments in the death throes of his friendship with Theta. He’d only bothered setting up a second bedroom on the thin, frail chance that Theta might want to stay over after some late visit, as they had frequently done as younger men. But soon after the purchase of these apartments that had drifted from an unlikely prospect to an absolutely impossible one. No one had ever slept in that appealing, hopeless bed.
“Some of the storage space might be given over to their use as well,” he added, reconciling himself to the prospect of strangers in his home.
“Fine.” The Doctor looked a bit mollified by the Master’s willingness to go along with his plan. “I suppose they can see about fitting up the rooms tomorrow. Everything sorted, then?”
“I still take issue with her acting as your bodyguard, Doctor,” the Master pointed out, in a calmer tone than the one he’d used earlier to completely dismiss the notion. “She has a human mind, which renders her supremely vulnerable to interference, hypnosis, and mental control of all kinds. You can’t be certain that no one’s tampered with her already, anticipating that you would seek out your former companion.”
“Yes, I know.” The Doctor smiled. “I thought you might have a look. After all, you could check more thoroughly than I might.”
Leela grabbed the Doctor’s arm and hissed low at him, lightly flushed with embarrassment. “Would that not be wrong?”
The Doctor, blushing a bit himself, gathered that the only mental contact Leela had known had been what might have occurred between her and her husband during their intimacy. Like someone who had never known any physical touch but that of a lover, she consigned the whole gamut of psychic contact to the purview of fidelity.
He reassured her as best he could. “If a Time Lord’s mind were injured, a doctor would enter and investigate it. So might a teacher or a parent. Psychic touch comes in many forms. It’s not necessarily an invasive act. The Master just wants to make sure no one’s done anything to you without your permission. He’s very skilled with minds; he’ll be so subtle you’ll hardly notice him.”
Leela still looked dubious. The Doctor pulled out a chair from the long dining table, and she sat down at it. The Doctor, leaning over her, looked up at the Master. His hair was falling forward a bit on either side of his face. He was entrusting one of his precious friends to the Master, whose talent he’d just praised.
The Master carefully pulled off the right hand glove, not letting himself seem, too surprised or too pleased. Calm and measured, he touched the primitive girl’s temple. With an excess of style, he seeped in to her strange, brusque mind, as imperceptibly as fog, as mild and unobtrusive as water.
Methodically, he searched everywhere he himself would have hidden a command trigger: a buried memory, any sleeping object in the forest of dangling stings that comprised Leela’s thoughts. He looked for the telltale clues—for the bruised inklings bent like trampled grass where someone had passed. She was remarkably clean, innocent of any mental touch but what he assumed must be her husband’s.
Out of curiosity—though it was above and beyond what he’d said he’d do, and the Doctor would certainly object—he riffled through her impressions of his husband. He found nothing particularly objectionable. There were only the normal pleasures and frustrations of a friendship, coupled with an uncommonly deep respect and a fierce loyalty. She would die for him and think it a good death, would rest peacefully knowing she’d saved a man who would save worlds. How perfectly useful this Leela was.
He flowed out or her. Leela opened her eyes thinking she had just closed them. In fact the first sun had set while the Master carded through her.
“Good,” he grunted, “But we’ll need something more permanent, Doctor. A thorough search is pointless if the instant she’s outside the compound anyone could implant a suggestion and ruin all my handiwork.”
“I know,” the Doctor agreed, handing them both warm mugs of something he probably thought was restorative. The Master’s suspicions were confirmed, and he rolled his eyes even while he drank the milky tea.
“You trained your Miss Grant to resist hypnosis, didn’t you?”
The Doctor absently tried to shove his hands into his pockets, only to discover, to his irritation, that the presidential robes were decidedly lacking in these. He would have liked to have rocked back on his heals a bit as well, but he knew he’d only trip on the voluminous train. So with only a glum expression, he admitted to having taught Jo a few useful tricks as far as creating a screening mental white noise.
“You did more than that,” the Master countered, tone suddenly irritated. “You constructed a block inside her mind.”
“And if I did?” the Doctor asked pleasantly. He knew it had been a small, feeble block. It had been the best he could do, given how thoroughly the Time Lords had damaged his own mind. It had been just enough of an impediment that the Master couldn’t have overcome it without permanently damaging the girl. He’d guessed his gentlemanly adversary would stop short of ripping open Jo’s mind like a man cracking open crab legs to suck out the meat. The Doctor had gambled well.
“Then you’ll need to do it again, and to make it as complete as you can this time.” With some tact the Master skated over the Doctor’s shaky work in Jo Grant’s mind. The very frailty of it had shown him the extent of the Doctor’s damage. He likewise skirted discussion of his own unwillingness to ruin the girl to get what he wanted.
The Doctor frowned heavily. Even building a very limited block in Jo to abet her distraction techniques had caused her some pain. Leela would have to endure far worse in an effort to make her mind truly impermeable to influence. Psychic structures imposed by an external source were always unnatural installations.
“She could study meditation and construct her own, given a little time,” the Doctor offered.
The Master scoffed and turned to Leela.
“Do you meditate at all Leela? Have you undertaken any form of mental training?” Having been in her mind, he didn’t really need to ask, but he wanted to clarify the absurdity of the suggestion to the Doctor.
Leela looked up from her tea and shook her head. “If I had trained to be the tribe’s witchwoman—but no, I have never done these things.”
“It would take her years to come up with something creditable,” the Master concluded. “You’ve already applied the principle to human physiology.” He gestured to Leela in her chair, who was blowing on the liquid in her cup to cool it. “Once more, with feeling.”
“This will hurt, Leela.” The Doctor drew out the chair next to her and sat down. “Possibly more than you’re prepared for.”
Leela put her cup back on the table. “Is this necessary?”
The Doctor nodded. “I think so.”
“Then I am not afraid.”
The Doctor nodded again. He took her mug and held it for an instant to warm his cold hands, then put it down on the table with a breath that was nearly a sigh. He brought his fingertips to the same place the Master had touched. The connections were still buzzing slightly from activity here. That eased his entry, which he knew full well wasn’t as graceful as the Master’s if he went in cold. He found a likely ground for the barrier, and tugged at the surrounding space to make sure everything was as firm here as it looked. He heard a little gasp from Leela. The mind he was touching flickered an angry salmon color with her discomfort. He winced at having caused her pain.
His touch was surer and hooked deeper, now that he attempted this with a mind that was fully whole. The thread he worked with was more substantial. Quicker. More damaging. Placing the first suture made her mind go trembling red. He could hear her straining to breathe calmly. He rushed the process as much as he could do without sacrificing the quality of the barrier. He came out like a drowning man rushing up towards the surface of the water, gasping. He hated this sort of telepathic work. Leela was shaking.
“I’m dying,” she moaned so quietly the Doctor doubted she knew she’d said it aloud. Interiority was often flimsy and permeable after telepathic contact. Things you’d meant to say were only given voice in your mind. Thoughts slipped across the tongue disordered, without permission.
“No, no, we're finished,” the Doctor breathlessly reassured her. “Remember when that Rutan ship exploded, and you thought you’d gone blind?”
“My eyes turned blue,” she said slowly. “But still I could see.”
“You were fine,” the Doctor said, gently, “and you’re going to be fine.” Shakily he stood, grabbed the Master’s cold tea from where it sat on the table next to Leela’s mug and drained the last of it. He encouraged Leela to do the same with the remnants of her cup, and pulled the shaky woman to her feet.
“There now,” he squeezed her arm lightly. “Brave heart, Leela. Let’s show you to that bedroom so you can lie down, shall we?”
“Third door on the left,” the Master offered. The Doctor nodded, and guided the unsteady Leela out.
The Master put the used mugs down on a part of the kitchen counter where the auto-clean would get them. The Doctor swung back through the door.
“I spoke to the CIA today,” the Master said with a sarcastic casualness. He walked back into the dining room and leant against the wall.
“Did you?” The Doctor rested against the table where the chairs had been pushed aside, parallel to the Master, with scant feet between them. “And how were our dear friends there?”
“In possession of our TARDISes,” the Master said wryly. “As I suspected. And unwilling to return them until they’ve put boots on the time rotors. ‘Just a precaution.’” The Master mocked the prissy official tones that were seemingly as regulation among CIA desk staff as their black and white uniforms.
“Presumably they will be returned to us, then.” The Doctor frowned and curled his fingers around the lip of the table. “That’s some comfort, at least.”
“No doubt they’re installing equipment that will make it easier for them to pull us out of the timestream, should we try and slip away,” the Master sneered. “And bugging the TARDISes so thoroughly that we won’t find all the spyware for decades.”
“They are good at what they do,” the Doctor conceded. “We’ll have to keep the TARDISes out of the living quarters—at least until we’re sure they’ve nothing nasty in them that might infect your systems here.”
The CIA was rumored to have invented viruses that caused computers to turn in on themselves, to devote resources to building spying devices according to the instructions carried in the viral DNA, and then to hide them from their own security sweeps, like little malignant tumors. The Doctor knew that where a rumor concerning the CIA had cropped up, it was usually tardy, and more pleasant than the actual truth. A TARDIS was too sophisticated, too self-aware to be so tampered with, but she could be used as a vessel for something insidious that would slide under the Master’s security and lodge in some minor system.
“My TARDIS, at least, can be relied upon to try and tell me exactly what’s been done to her.” The Doctor smiled grimly. “She’s not very fond of strangers interfering with her.”
“Nor is mine,” the Master agreed.
In such a neat room there was something debauched about the lines of those scattered chairs, framing the Doctor like decorating dishabille. The Master stared openly at the red crush of the Doctor’s scarlet presidential robes, his eyes moving from where they trailed across the floor to the edge of the collar where they ever-so-lightly touched the Doctor’s skin when he breathed out. Where they framed his jittery Adam’s apple.
The Doctor could feel the pressure of his eyes and swallowed, but said nothing. He colored slightly, but stared back at the Master as if he weren’t aware he was being closely inspected.
“Your Leela will probably sleep some hours,” the Master commented, drumming his fingers on that uneven, maddeningly sentimental wallpaper.
“I imagine she will.” The Doctor, with his fingers still curled around the table’s rim, did his best to look composed. “She’s normally an extraordinarily light sleeper—a useful trait, in a bodyguard. But her mind needs to heal. The poor girl looks as tired as I felt yesterday.”
The Master’s mouth quirked. “And how are you feeling today, Doctor?”
A shaft of light came through the long windows, and the Master reached out to stroke where it lay across the Doctor’s neck, to touch the skin he’d been observing so closely a moment ago.
“Better,” the Doctor turned his head to watch the Master’s fingers. “In fact I’m quite well.”
The Master tilted his head up, and the Doctor dipped to meet the Master’s mouth. He laid a hand on the Master’s shoulder, his fingers fisting in the loose fabric of the robe. He shut his eyes and slid his tongue cautiously over the Master’s. Mental connection fizzed lightly where they touched. The residual energy from their recent efforts bubbled like carbonation, champagne lingering in their mouths.
“Thank you,” the Doctor broke off, opening his eyes to look at the Master, “for being gentle with her mind. I could feel how neat and light your work was.”
“Childishly simple if one is sufficiently skilled, Doctor,” the Master dismissed the compliment. “And I’d rather not discuss your pets at the moment.” He resumed the kiss. With the pressure of his torso, he bent the Doctor over the table. He forced the line of the Doctor’s back to arch like a bow. The hand not clutching the Master’s shoulder flailed and entwined with the Master’s. Their tangled hands smacked to the table to provide support as the Master simultaneously pressed the Doctor forward, into him, with a hand at the small of his back. The kiss was so akin to a consumption that the Doctor’s cheeks were flushed from lack of oxygen. He sucked in breath when the Master let him.
“Are you trying to kill me?” the Doctor narrowed his eyes, amused. “Seriously, that was a better effort than your last several attempts—”
“You think you’re so clever,” the Master muttered through his teeth.
“I am so clever,” the Doctor reminded him with a smile.
“You realize we haven’t even christened these apartments yet,” the Master mused, mock-sorrowful. His tone was teasing, but his eyes were hooded, and he was obviously hard against the Doctor’s thigh. He ran a palm over the Doctor’s cloth-covered erection, then gave it a firm grip. “What poor bridegrooms we are.”
“Scandalous,” the Doctor managed. “Still, we can correct that oversight—”
“My dear Doctor,” the Master dragged him up and close by the collar of his robe, “I’ve thought of nothing else all day.”
He pulled the Doctor, half-stumbling, down the hall, through the open, heavy doors, and onto the bed that had been waiting for this. In which he’d laid awake, wanting just this, for centuries. To the Master, the sound of the bedsprings creaking lightly under the sudden pressure was a metal sigh of victory.
The call beeped through to the Master’s desk. The signal’s Presidential prerogative over the computer system meant the call screen appeared automatically, super-imposed over the Master’s current work, and the Doctor appeared.
“Am I not even to be given the option of declining your conversation?” The Master folded his hands on the desk and rocked back in his chair. “I might have been doing anything.”
“Well presumably not anything," the Doctor frowned. He was at his own office, after all. "Did that really just display without you getting to decide whether you wanted to take the call?”
“Of course not, my dear Doctor,” the Master rolled his eyes. “I lied—simply to keep in practice. I see no reason to lose my edge.”
“The difficult thing is, you just might have done. One second—Rodan?” the Doctor called to someone off screen. “I don’t suppose you know how this works—oh, you do. Of course you do. Well, after this, could you—thank you, Rodan.” He turned back to the Master. “It’s well into the afternoon, and it occurs to me that I don’t actually know how to get back into your apartments.”
“Did you acquire a secretary already?” the Master asked in amusement.
“Well, a chief of staff turned up, yes. I’ve also found a perfectly reliable chief of security here, an old friend. He used to be on the Palace Guard, but apparently had to resign under Borusa. And I have a personal bodyguard—she’s quite eager to discuss the security arrangements of the compound with you.”
“You know Doctor,” the Master leaned back in his chair, “I wonder if you might actually turn out to be good at this.”
“Don’t joke like that,” the Doctor winced.
The Master chuckled. “Call me when you’ve reached my apartments, and use a secure channel. I’ll take you through the protocols, now that you’re suitably coherent. I may be back late—I expect to be occupied training my new assistant for some hours.”
Surielovnetchka had apparently languished all the years of his young life under the delusion that an archive database could be sloppily organized according to the whim of the moment. The Master planned to correct this assumption immediately, and with zeal. He knew his filing had been called complicated past decency, with its sub-protocols, color codes and alphabetizations, but he clung doggedly to the belief that if one simply learned it and steadfastly adhered to it, his system would make everything so much simpler.
If the Doctor had had any suspicion of this, he would have felt achingly sorry for young Suri. Instead he got off an untroubled “Thank you, Master.”
“Mm,” the Master purred, “you’re welcome.” He really did enjoy that. The glide of the word in the Doctor’s mouth, and the gratitude in his tone. He especially enjoyed the prospect of hearing the Doctor speak his name in more intimate tones when he came home, and of doing the one thing that could make this tedious house-arrest bearable. He cut the connection, smirking to himself.
***
After the Doctor finished following the Master’s complicated instructions for opening the gate (complete with occasional goading comments about how smoothly things went when the Doctor chose to be obedient like this), Leela started in again.
“But you did not say you were betrothed,” she insisted. “And you might have told me!”
“Leela,” he sighed, “I didn’t know anything about it.”
“Well,” Leela stood up behind him and peered curiously around the small docking bay the shuttle was gliding into, “Andred has told me of your customs. In my tribe men initiate boys into the warrior caste in this manner, but Andred says among your people such unions do not necessarily end when boys reach adulthood—that they may be between men of any age. So I do not find you strange.”
“Ah,” the Doctor said, uncomfortably, “yes. Thank you, Leela.”
“I have done nothing you must thank me for.” Leela gave him a puzzled look and turned to the door. “Is it safe to open this now, or has your bondmate more traps?”
“Excepting the door codes themselves, I think that should be all we have to deal with.” The Doctor stood as Leela pushed open the door and walked out.
“He has laid a great many snares.” There was a note of approval in Leela’s voice. “He seems cunning.”
“No one would deny him that.” The Doctor raised an eyebrow as his fingers flitted over the first door’s code: not a memorized number, but a changing equation to solve, encoded with the cipher the Master had just given him. He managed it and walked cheerfully up the stairs to the living quarters proper, past the lower labs and storage rooms—probably either organized pristinely or utterly empty, the Doctor guessed, in accordance with the rather severe taste of the last Master who’d lived in the apartments.
“Did you know this Master, before your marriage?” Leela looked around her, taking in lay of the rooms. “You have never spoken of him.”
The Doctor laughed, slightly. “I knew him very well. We were implacable enemies—or he was mine, at least. He even managed to kill me once.”
Something kindled in Leela’s imagination, awakening hitherto unsuspected sensibility. “It is just like Romeo and Juliet!”
The Doctor gave her a very worried look, operating the final door code panel that would give them entrance into the private rooms at the heart of the house. “How so?”
“Doctor!” Leela gave him a shocked look. “How can you not know it? It is a very old story!”
“Humor me, Leela.”
“Very well, then I shall tell it to you. Two warriors, both alike in dignity—Romeo and Juliet, by name—have been fighting for some years over various points of honor. They are both members of the tribe Infairveronawherewelayourscene,”
The Doctor had stepped through the door, but stopped walking “Wait just a moment—”
“Doctor,” Leela glared severely, “it is rude to interrupt a storyteller.”
“Apologies, Leela,” he conceded.
Leela nodded acceptance and continued. “Their Chief thinks such a disagreement between warriors of the same tribe, especially the bravest and most skilled among his people, is unbecoming. He demands they share blood, and thus settle the dispute. They find, in the enforced peace, that they have a great respect for each other’s bravery and strength, and marry.
“But the Chief’s son would claim the bold Juliet for himself, though he is weak and unwarlike, unmatched to a warrior such as Juliet, whose only peer in battle is her Romeo. The Chief’s son enlists the help of the meddlesome Priest, who tricks Romeo into drinking mead laced with foul drugs. He stumbled back to his hut to wake Juliet and to ask her to aid him. I was Juliet in a pagent once—‘O happy dagger! This is thy sheath!’” Leela pronounced the line with a blood-thirsty vehemence the Doctor had never heard in any staging.
“As a warrior, she cannot kill herself—that is clear enough, it would demean her honor. And so, at Juliet’s bidding, Romeo stabs her in the heart before the strength of his hand falters. They thus foil the plans of their enemies, dying together and achieving a warrior’s rest.” Leela gave the Doctor a wise nod. “It is a very romantic tale.”
“Leela,” the Doctor began, paused, and then walked over to the wall in the living room. He punched a few buttons to bring up a projector screen, lying flat against the wall’s surface, and then tapped a few more to access the planet’s cultural information archives. “Come and sit down, would you? We’re going to watch a more original version of the story.”
A voice began to roll in prologue as the Doctor and Leela settled on the two low sofas.
“See,” Leela pronounced after a minute with a note of triumph, “I told you they were of Infairveronawherewelayourscene. Why did you scoff earlier—?”
***
The Master had expected to find the Doctor alone. He had been looking forward to just that. He was therefore surprised, and far from pleased, to walk in on an argument between his husband and a young, attractive, leggy, and barely-clothed human woman about English literature.
“My version was better,” the young woman insisted stubbornly. “Juliet was not the plaything of elders, and Romeo was not an idiot boy, unmanned by a comely appearance, capable only of stupid words. This was accident after foolish accident! Where was the glory in this tale? There was no triumph in their deaths!”
“That’s really not the point of Romeo and Juliet,” the Doctor argued, looking over at the Master, as if for support. Judiciously, he decided not to take this opportunity to mock the Master’s heavy dark red academic robes: that was not the way to curry said allegiance.
The Master glanced idly at the screen. “The Zeffereli?” he asked, voice dry.
“The Luhrman would only be confusing for someone unclear on whether the Nurse is actually a wizened old battle-priestess who taught young Juliet how to wield a deadly slingshot. Master, this is Leela, my new personal bodyguard.” Both she and the Doctor stood for the introduction.
The Master gave him a hard look. “No, this isn’t. I said you needed adequate security, not an opportunity to indulge your fetish for useless primitive human girls.” If, in addition to his security concerns, he didn’t want the Doctor in the constant company of anyone young, attractive and scantily clad, he wouldn’t lower himself by admitting it.
Leela did not gape at him, but her fingers feathered across a dagger hilt at her waist. “If you were not the Doctor’s bondmate, I would already have killed you for such lies, Time Lord. ”
“You would have tried,” the Master corrected, more impressed by her than he had been a moment ago.
The Doctor stepped forward between them. He spoke with a brisk, sarcastic cheer that made his annoyance with the Master obvious.
“Leela is as capable as she is well-suited to the task. Her tribe lives in severe isolation, and her senses are more attuned than an ordinary human’s, sharper than even those of most Gallifreyans. She’s saved my life on several occasions, and I trust her implicitly. When we came to Gallifrey together to prevent a Sontaran invasion she remained behind to marry Andred, formerly of the Palace Guard, who, as I mentioned, I’ve just made my chief of Palace Security.
“I thought I’d take her around the building so she could get to know the place. I also wanted to introduce the two of you. Admittedly I failed to anticipate you baselessly insulting her to get a dig in at my expense. My mistake.”
To his own embarrassment, the Master had to admit that the Doctor had chosen someone competent (and moreover, married). The Doctor had only done what was practical in immediately presenting her to him. In fact he’d even intimated he might be bringing her with him when they spoke over the com—the Master had simply been too absorbed in more pleasant thoughts to notice.
The Master’s irritation over not immediately having the Doctor at his disposal had made him rash. His creeping jealousy over that endless barrage of idiot human girls—all of them young and lovely, all of them commanding the Doctor’s time and attention in a way that was just unseemly—that jealousy had made him embarrassingly, unnecessarily vicious.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t apologize.
“She should have a uniform,” the Master muttered.
“I am not wearing clothes I cannot move in.” Leela tilted her chin up with a touch of cold defiance. “The men of the palace guard look as if they will trip over those stupid capes they wear. I cannot protect the Doctor in robes such as yours. And besides,” she shrugged, looking to the Doctor, “what is wrong with my clothing? Time Lords are so evolved they feel ashamed to show any of the skin they are born in. That does not mean I must also pretend to be.”
“And fine clothes they are, too. Not a thing out of order,” the Doctor assured her before turning back to the Master. “She and her husband will need some rooms in the building.”
“There’s a spare bedroom next to our suite,” The Master said, grudgingly. “That’s close enough.”
The Doctor arched an eyebrow at the Master’s admission, but didn’t take the opportunity to say something derisive about the probability of the Master ever having houseguests.
For his part, the Master’s expression was very closed. He’d acquired his current apartments in the death throes of his friendship with Theta. He’d only bothered setting up a second bedroom on the thin, frail chance that Theta might want to stay over after some late visit, as they had frequently done as younger men. But soon after the purchase of these apartments that had drifted from an unlikely prospect to an absolutely impossible one. No one had ever slept in that appealing, hopeless bed.
“Some of the storage space might be given over to their use as well,” he added, reconciling himself to the prospect of strangers in his home.
“Fine.” The Doctor looked a bit mollified by the Master’s willingness to go along with his plan. “I suppose they can see about fitting up the rooms tomorrow. Everything sorted, then?”
“I still take issue with her acting as your bodyguard, Doctor,” the Master pointed out, in a calmer tone than the one he’d used earlier to completely dismiss the notion. “She has a human mind, which renders her supremely vulnerable to interference, hypnosis, and mental control of all kinds. You can’t be certain that no one’s tampered with her already, anticipating that you would seek out your former companion.”
“Yes, I know.” The Doctor smiled. “I thought you might have a look. After all, you could check more thoroughly than I might.”
Leela grabbed the Doctor’s arm and hissed low at him, lightly flushed with embarrassment. “Would that not be wrong?”
The Doctor, blushing a bit himself, gathered that the only mental contact Leela had known had been what might have occurred between her and her husband during their intimacy. Like someone who had never known any physical touch but that of a lover, she consigned the whole gamut of psychic contact to the purview of fidelity.
He reassured her as best he could. “If a Time Lord’s mind were injured, a doctor would enter and investigate it. So might a teacher or a parent. Psychic touch comes in many forms. It’s not necessarily an invasive act. The Master just wants to make sure no one’s done anything to you without your permission. He’s very skilled with minds; he’ll be so subtle you’ll hardly notice him.”
Leela still looked dubious. The Doctor pulled out a chair from the long dining table, and she sat down at it. The Doctor, leaning over her, looked up at the Master. His hair was falling forward a bit on either side of his face. He was entrusting one of his precious friends to the Master, whose talent he’d just praised.
The Master carefully pulled off the right hand glove, not letting himself seem, too surprised or too pleased. Calm and measured, he touched the primitive girl’s temple. With an excess of style, he seeped in to her strange, brusque mind, as imperceptibly as fog, as mild and unobtrusive as water.
Methodically, he searched everywhere he himself would have hidden a command trigger: a buried memory, any sleeping object in the forest of dangling stings that comprised Leela’s thoughts. He looked for the telltale clues—for the bruised inklings bent like trampled grass where someone had passed. She was remarkably clean, innocent of any mental touch but what he assumed must be her husband’s.
Out of curiosity—though it was above and beyond what he’d said he’d do, and the Doctor would certainly object—he riffled through her impressions of his husband. He found nothing particularly objectionable. There were only the normal pleasures and frustrations of a friendship, coupled with an uncommonly deep respect and a fierce loyalty. She would die for him and think it a good death, would rest peacefully knowing she’d saved a man who would save worlds. How perfectly useful this Leela was.
He flowed out or her. Leela opened her eyes thinking she had just closed them. In fact the first sun had set while the Master carded through her.
“Good,” he grunted, “But we’ll need something more permanent, Doctor. A thorough search is pointless if the instant she’s outside the compound anyone could implant a suggestion and ruin all my handiwork.”
“I know,” the Doctor agreed, handing them both warm mugs of something he probably thought was restorative. The Master’s suspicions were confirmed, and he rolled his eyes even while he drank the milky tea.
“You trained your Miss Grant to resist hypnosis, didn’t you?”
The Doctor absently tried to shove his hands into his pockets, only to discover, to his irritation, that the presidential robes were decidedly lacking in these. He would have liked to have rocked back on his heals a bit as well, but he knew he’d only trip on the voluminous train. So with only a glum expression, he admitted to having taught Jo a few useful tricks as far as creating a screening mental white noise.
“You did more than that,” the Master countered, tone suddenly irritated. “You constructed a block inside her mind.”
“And if I did?” the Doctor asked pleasantly. He knew it had been a small, feeble block. It had been the best he could do, given how thoroughly the Time Lords had damaged his own mind. It had been just enough of an impediment that the Master couldn’t have overcome it without permanently damaging the girl. He’d guessed his gentlemanly adversary would stop short of ripping open Jo’s mind like a man cracking open crab legs to suck out the meat. The Doctor had gambled well.
“Then you’ll need to do it again, and to make it as complete as you can this time.” With some tact the Master skated over the Doctor’s shaky work in Jo Grant’s mind. The very frailty of it had shown him the extent of the Doctor’s damage. He likewise skirted discussion of his own unwillingness to ruin the girl to get what he wanted.
The Doctor frowned heavily. Even building a very limited block in Jo to abet her distraction techniques had caused her some pain. Leela would have to endure far worse in an effort to make her mind truly impermeable to influence. Psychic structures imposed by an external source were always unnatural installations.
“She could study meditation and construct her own, given a little time,” the Doctor offered.
The Master scoffed and turned to Leela.
“Do you meditate at all Leela? Have you undertaken any form of mental training?” Having been in her mind, he didn’t really need to ask, but he wanted to clarify the absurdity of the suggestion to the Doctor.
Leela looked up from her tea and shook her head. “If I had trained to be the tribe’s witchwoman—but no, I have never done these things.”
“It would take her years to come up with something creditable,” the Master concluded. “You’ve already applied the principle to human physiology.” He gestured to Leela in her chair, who was blowing on the liquid in her cup to cool it. “Once more, with feeling.”
“This will hurt, Leela.” The Doctor drew out the chair next to her and sat down. “Possibly more than you’re prepared for.”
Leela put her cup back on the table. “Is this necessary?”
The Doctor nodded. “I think so.”
“Then I am not afraid.”
The Doctor nodded again. He took her mug and held it for an instant to warm his cold hands, then put it down on the table with a breath that was nearly a sigh. He brought his fingertips to the same place the Master had touched. The connections were still buzzing slightly from activity here. That eased his entry, which he knew full well wasn’t as graceful as the Master’s if he went in cold. He found a likely ground for the barrier, and tugged at the surrounding space to make sure everything was as firm here as it looked. He heard a little gasp from Leela. The mind he was touching flickered an angry salmon color with her discomfort. He winced at having caused her pain.
His touch was surer and hooked deeper, now that he attempted this with a mind that was fully whole. The thread he worked with was more substantial. Quicker. More damaging. Placing the first suture made her mind go trembling red. He could hear her straining to breathe calmly. He rushed the process as much as he could do without sacrificing the quality of the barrier. He came out like a drowning man rushing up towards the surface of the water, gasping. He hated this sort of telepathic work. Leela was shaking.
“I’m dying,” she moaned so quietly the Doctor doubted she knew she’d said it aloud. Interiority was often flimsy and permeable after telepathic contact. Things you’d meant to say were only given voice in your mind. Thoughts slipped across the tongue disordered, without permission.
“No, no, we're finished,” the Doctor breathlessly reassured her. “Remember when that Rutan ship exploded, and you thought you’d gone blind?”
“My eyes turned blue,” she said slowly. “But still I could see.”
“You were fine,” the Doctor said, gently, “and you’re going to be fine.” Shakily he stood, grabbed the Master’s cold tea from where it sat on the table next to Leela’s mug and drained the last of it. He encouraged Leela to do the same with the remnants of her cup, and pulled the shaky woman to her feet.
“There now,” he squeezed her arm lightly. “Brave heart, Leela. Let’s show you to that bedroom so you can lie down, shall we?”
“Third door on the left,” the Master offered. The Doctor nodded, and guided the unsteady Leela out.
The Master put the used mugs down on a part of the kitchen counter where the auto-clean would get them. The Doctor swung back through the door.
“I spoke to the CIA today,” the Master said with a sarcastic casualness. He walked back into the dining room and leant against the wall.
“Did you?” The Doctor rested against the table where the chairs had been pushed aside, parallel to the Master, with scant feet between them. “And how were our dear friends there?”
“In possession of our TARDISes,” the Master said wryly. “As I suspected. And unwilling to return them until they’ve put boots on the time rotors. ‘Just a precaution.’” The Master mocked the prissy official tones that were seemingly as regulation among CIA desk staff as their black and white uniforms.
“Presumably they will be returned to us, then.” The Doctor frowned and curled his fingers around the lip of the table. “That’s some comfort, at least.”
“No doubt they’re installing equipment that will make it easier for them to pull us out of the timestream, should we try and slip away,” the Master sneered. “And bugging the TARDISes so thoroughly that we won’t find all the spyware for decades.”
“They are good at what they do,” the Doctor conceded. “We’ll have to keep the TARDISes out of the living quarters—at least until we’re sure they’ve nothing nasty in them that might infect your systems here.”
The CIA was rumored to have invented viruses that caused computers to turn in on themselves, to devote resources to building spying devices according to the instructions carried in the viral DNA, and then to hide them from their own security sweeps, like little malignant tumors. The Doctor knew that where a rumor concerning the CIA had cropped up, it was usually tardy, and more pleasant than the actual truth. A TARDIS was too sophisticated, too self-aware to be so tampered with, but she could be used as a vessel for something insidious that would slide under the Master’s security and lodge in some minor system.
“My TARDIS, at least, can be relied upon to try and tell me exactly what’s been done to her.” The Doctor smiled grimly. “She’s not very fond of strangers interfering with her.”
“Nor is mine,” the Master agreed.
In such a neat room there was something debauched about the lines of those scattered chairs, framing the Doctor like decorating dishabille. The Master stared openly at the red crush of the Doctor’s scarlet presidential robes, his eyes moving from where they trailed across the floor to the edge of the collar where they ever-so-lightly touched the Doctor’s skin when he breathed out. Where they framed his jittery Adam’s apple.
The Doctor could feel the pressure of his eyes and swallowed, but said nothing. He colored slightly, but stared back at the Master as if he weren’t aware he was being closely inspected.
“Your Leela will probably sleep some hours,” the Master commented, drumming his fingers on that uneven, maddeningly sentimental wallpaper.
“I imagine she will.” The Doctor, with his fingers still curled around the table’s rim, did his best to look composed. “She’s normally an extraordinarily light sleeper—a useful trait, in a bodyguard. But her mind needs to heal. The poor girl looks as tired as I felt yesterday.”
The Master’s mouth quirked. “And how are you feeling today, Doctor?”
A shaft of light came through the long windows, and the Master reached out to stroke where it lay across the Doctor’s neck, to touch the skin he’d been observing so closely a moment ago.
“Better,” the Doctor turned his head to watch the Master’s fingers. “In fact I’m quite well.”
The Master tilted his head up, and the Doctor dipped to meet the Master’s mouth. He laid a hand on the Master’s shoulder, his fingers fisting in the loose fabric of the robe. He shut his eyes and slid his tongue cautiously over the Master’s. Mental connection fizzed lightly where they touched. The residual energy from their recent efforts bubbled like carbonation, champagne lingering in their mouths.
“Thank you,” the Doctor broke off, opening his eyes to look at the Master, “for being gentle with her mind. I could feel how neat and light your work was.”
“Childishly simple if one is sufficiently skilled, Doctor,” the Master dismissed the compliment. “And I’d rather not discuss your pets at the moment.” He resumed the kiss. With the pressure of his torso, he bent the Doctor over the table. He forced the line of the Doctor’s back to arch like a bow. The hand not clutching the Master’s shoulder flailed and entwined with the Master’s. Their tangled hands smacked to the table to provide support as the Master simultaneously pressed the Doctor forward, into him, with a hand at the small of his back. The kiss was so akin to a consumption that the Doctor’s cheeks were flushed from lack of oxygen. He sucked in breath when the Master let him.
“Are you trying to kill me?” the Doctor narrowed his eyes, amused. “Seriously, that was a better effort than your last several attempts—”
“You think you’re so clever,” the Master muttered through his teeth.
“I am so clever,” the Doctor reminded him with a smile.
“You realize we haven’t even christened these apartments yet,” the Master mused, mock-sorrowful. His tone was teasing, but his eyes were hooded, and he was obviously hard against the Doctor’s thigh. He ran a palm over the Doctor’s cloth-covered erection, then gave it a firm grip. “What poor bridegrooms we are.”
“Scandalous,” the Doctor managed. “Still, we can correct that oversight—”
“My dear Doctor,” the Master dragged him up and close by the collar of his robe, “I’ve thought of nothing else all day.”
He pulled the Doctor, half-stumbling, down the hall, through the open, heavy doors, and onto the bed that had been waiting for this. In which he’d laid awake, wanting just this, for centuries. To the Master, the sound of the bedsprings creaking lightly under the sudden pressure was a metal sigh of victory.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-06-01 02:59 pm (UTC)I lied—simply to keep in practice. I see no reason to loose my edge.”
You and Lose not speaking this year?
He would have liked to have rocked back on his heals a bit as well,
Heh, heh. 'Bout time the Doctor got around to doing the right thing.
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Date: 2010-06-01 03:51 pm (UTC)It's his default standing position!
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Date: 2010-06-01 03:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-01 03:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-01 04:07 pm (UTC)Oh right and as I can't bring myself to finish Five's run because I don't want to suffer the indignity of the state it would put me in. This is my cannon now.
icon from Caves :p
Date: 2010-06-01 04:49 pm (UTC)It really IS a good ep, if a deeply sad one, to be fair to it. And very *about* what's just happened in Planet of Fire.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:Re: icon from Caves :p
From:Re: icon from Caves :p
From:Re: icon from Caves :p
From:Re: icon from Caves :p
From:Re: icon from Caves :p
From:Re: icon from Caves :p
From:no subject
Date: 2010-06-01 06:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2010-06-01 04:49 pm (UTC)Zefferelli <3
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Date: 2010-06-01 04:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-01 08:49 pm (UTC)Leela's version of Romeo and Juliet is awesome. Also, yay for Leela!
It was very funny, and I loved that they both deliberately chose not to insult each other to keep the peace a bit better. This was so much fun to read!
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Date: 2010-06-02 10:30 am (UTC)MARRIAGE IS HARD LIKE THAT. You have to manage your banter for Peace.
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Date: 2010-06-02 01:16 am (UTC)(Though not that kind of straight. Obviously.)
“It’s outmoded, Doctor. I can certainly do better.” The Master spared a look of disdain for the heavy navy draperies. He seemed disgusted, as if he wished to eradicate all the earlier things he’d done and been. Briskly the Master swept down a corridor to the right of these main rooms, and through another wooden door, revealing his private suite: a bedroom, and a study.
“It’s lovely,” the Doctor held firm, trailing after him. “I wish you’d leave it.”
I enjoyed this exchange in particular. It says so much about all the past issues that they're steadfastly failing to confront
because they are emotional imbeciles.no subject
Date: 2010-06-02 04:04 pm (UTC)Emotional substitution! I love it as a lit technique. Any moment now Five will pull a full-on Daisy Buchannen They're Such Beautiful Shirts!!
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Date: 2010-06-02 01:56 am (UTC)Cannot stop staring at your icon, for serious.
Date: 2010-06-02 10:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-02 05:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-02 10:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-02 05:48 am (UTC)I love the Master's co-worker trying to pretend he's not scared shitless by him. In fact, in general I love seeing how Time Lords other than the Doctor deal with him. I adore the already emerging Lingering Issues. And Leela's thoughts on homosexuality...oh God. I'm having sexual sociology flashbacks and trying to blot out the mental images.
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Date: 2010-06-02 10:29 am (UTC)Boss, even! Technically. For the moment. The Master doesn't deal well with the middle management career track.
So relieved to hear the Lingering Issues are developing for you! Yes!! Was worried there.
I kind of want a shirt with Leela making a 'meh' face with 'Leela does not think you strange.'
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Date: 2010-06-02 07:31 am (UTC)Entertaining! Thanks for continuing the story.
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Date: 2010-06-02 10:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-02 01:55 pm (UTC)I'm particularly loving the snippet of Rodan in this story. And also worried for Suri. Although maybe the Master will turn out to be an awesome advisor! He seems the type to get attached to a couple of the kooky students.
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Date: 2010-06-02 04:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-03 12:44 pm (UTC)In conclusion, the fact that this fic exists is like dancing in my soul, and the fact that there will be MORE is just too lovely a thought for words.
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Date: 2010-06-04 03:15 pm (UTC)Oh of course there needs to be more! MUCH more! When you enter fandom, you know, they give you a stick of celery and charge to you come up with something original to do with it...
Rodan I found charming in her all-of-one-serial, but Leela I just love, esp. in the Gallifrey audio series. There, she contends well with all the purportedly intellectually superior Time Lords because she uses metaphor as a poetic/thinking device to skip chains of logic and rationalizations and arrive at fuller truths--which is how metaphor functions in poetry, and a really interesting direction, linguistically, to take her character without just making her unusual dialogue a stilted rehash of a Noble Savage trope. I love having a character who thinks the yo yo is part of the magic of the TARDIS. I love a variation in culture of origin resulting in differences of woldview like that. I love that Leela is /never/ allowed to be just stupid, she just comes from a different place than say, Romana.
And as I've told people, I WOULD TOTALLY SEE HER SHAKESPEARE PRODUCTIONS.
Awh, thanks!!
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Date: 2010-06-03 02:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-04 03:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-04 06:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-04 03:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-11 11:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-21 01:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-22 10:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-22 11:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-12 03:50 am (UTC)I want this to be canon so hard.
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Date: 2011-10-18 09:09 am (UTC)