04 - Getting to know you

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[The chaos of the lost languages behind them, it is time to know this place better. There are too many people, possibilities for something like uncertainty. People with their own words are far more likely to be themselves with them, in whatever form that might take. Reinette needs to watch. To see and to know.

It is time she took full stock of this place people called the Astral Plane.

A settee arrives with her, on which Reinette reclines. On a small table nearby there are two glasses, and a fine bottle of bordeaux.

This might take some time.]

Comments

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

In other words you allowed him to illicit a petty display of emotion?

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

I thought he was broken.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Broken in a way that wine would fix other than actual consumption?

It must have powers here I am unaware of.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

Oh, indeed. The Plane adds many mystical attributes to things without any prior. It's astounding.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

May I inquire as to just why you believed he was broken?

And, if you felt about him as you claim, why you would have felt that was an issue?

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

You know, if this was a game of Questions, I think I'd be losing. Hardly fair that you keep pressing, my lady.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

I was not under the impression I ever suggested that I play fair? But your point is taken.

[there is a wave of her hand]

Ask whatever question you wish. Anything.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

How can you stand to wear those dresses? They must suffocate. I know uncomfortable clothing - Time Lord robes are awful - but really now.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Now you sound like the Doctor.

He was never very pleased with my choice of dress either. There was a very serious lecture about my internal organs, as I recall. The immediate answer is I have now worn them longer in my life than not, and we are accustomed to one another. It is just another weapon in my required arsenal.

But since I promised to be honest, I will finish the answer. I also treasure the moment of release in the evening as well. The three or four hours each night I might be without them. Sometimes I question of it is the anticipation of then, or the actual feeling of the stays being released that is truly appealing. But it is the later.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

Thank you. You are quite well-armed, though. You could even be dangerous. Maybe I should be the one wary of you.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[his reply visibly pleases her]

How could I possibly be a danger to you?

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

I'd bring up diseases, but one of the benefits of being a Time Lord is that it's a non-issue.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

her gaze narrows in visible measures -- she hears this sort of thing far too often]

I sincerely hope I misunderstood your suggestion.

[her health a sensitive subject regardless, look what he has struck!]

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

Ooh, it looks like I have made a hit. If I remember correctly... Yes, that does make sense.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

eyebrow lifts as she makes a show of examining her person, deliberately misinterpreting the statement]

I felt no blow.

And if you remember correctly?

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

You're history, remember, Madame de Pompadour?

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

At the moment I am not.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

At this moment, you are. You are a child, scared by monsters, and you are a lady, dancing with the King; you are in your mother's womb, and you are yet unconceived; you are freshly in the ground, and your bones have been burned away by the destruction of the Earth. All grains of time are present. All grains of time are.

[as he speaks, he holds his hand out, as if he he can feel these grains, and touch the spaces between them.]

Always.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

How can you know what scared me as a child? How can you know what scares me at all?

[she sets her wine glass down, placing her hand firmly over his own and block whatever would fill them]

Your grains of sand. [sharply] Pages in the Doctor's book, pressed together so that he might read whatever suited him at a whim, as opposed to the order I am required to live it. I am more than sand, more than a page. I am more substantial than that, even if I am small to your measure.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

[smiles, his expression still distant, locked in with those sands]

I hope you're not afraid of being unimportant, my lady.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[watches him, grey eyes dark]

I have seen within the Doctor's mind. I do not lack for understanding.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

[distant]

You will. You always will. They always do.

[the spell snaps, and he grins at her] Not that that should stop you trying, of course. Really, though, the Doctor's mind? Trust me on this one: it's not the consciousness you want if you're trying to get proper lessons. Absolute mess, that man's head.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

[she wants to ask what he meant, yet she senses he will not answer]

The opportunity presented itself, and I took advantage of it. How could I not? He was unaware I was even there.

But I never felt my education was lacking.

[savagestime.livejournal.com]

You had nothing to compare it to, now did you?

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall only one Timelord presenting himself through my fireplace.